In the collaborative effort towards standardisation of out-of-plane permeability measurement, an international benchmarking exercise was carried out whereby 19 participants worldwide were instructed to measure the out-of-plane permeability following a number of strict guidelines, informed by the outcomes of the first international benchmarking exercise completed in 2021. This paper presents the results of the exercise and an assessment of the reproducibility of the data and the suitability of the proposed test method. The data returned were subjected to a number of statistical analysis methods, which showed that adherence to the test guidelines resulted in a high likelihood of a participant not being an outlier and therefore providing evidence that the test method proposed in this paper is a suitable way forward for a standardised test method.@en

The development of soft electronic devices capable of autonomous self-healing (SH) holds immense potential across various endeavours, promising to revolutionize product durability, reliability, and maintenance practices. Despite some progress has been made, underwater stable SH continues to be an active area of research. Herein, SH polymer PDMS-MDI0.4-TFB0.6 (SHP) with excellent mechanical property was composited with MXene to investigate the piezoelectric nature under various circumstance. By leveraging MXene into SHP not only improves the material properties of mechanical stress but also permittivity of the elastomer. Thus, MXene incorporated SHP (mSHP) induce high polarized charges under mechanical pressure. The fabrication of mSHP piezoelectric nanogenerator (mSHP-PENG) device via spray coating AgNWs on the surface forms ohmic contact, which facilitate high sensitivity and flexibility. Nevertheless, the generated piezoelectricity (30 V, 4.2 μA: 3 Hz) upon mechanical pressure gives maximum power density of 128 μW/m2 indicating that our device can act as a reliable power source for portable electronic gadgets. In addition, SHP with amphiphilic functional groups sustain the original shape even after immerse into water for so long. Taking this into account, our device undergoes effective deformation even at low pressures, thus render to fabricate touch sensitive piezo-switches for both atmospheric and aquatics environments.@en

Herein, the effect of the Ru:Ni bimetallic composition in dual-function materials (DFMs) for the integrated CO2 capture and methanation process (ICCU-Methanation) is systematically evaluated and combined with a thorough material characterization, as well as a mechanistic (in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared fourier-transform spectroscopy (in-situ DRIFTS)) and computational (computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling) investigation, in order to improve the performance of Ni-based DFMs. The bimetallic DFMs are comprised of a main Ni active metallic phase (20 wt%) and are modified with low Ru loadings in the 0.1–1 wt% range (to keep the material cost low), supported on Na2O/Al2O3. It is shown that the addition of even a very low Ru loading (0.1–0.2 wt%) can drastically improve the material reducibility, exposing a significantly higher amount of surface-active metallic sites, with Ru being highly dispersed over the support and the Ni phase, while also forming some small Ru particles. This manifests in a significant enhancement in the CH4 yield and the CH4 production kinetics during ICCU-Methanation (which mainly proceeds via formate intermediates), with 0.2 wt% Ru addition leading to the best results. This bimetallic DFM also shows high stability and a relatively good performance under an oxidizing CO2 capture atmosphere. The formation rate of CH4 during hydrogenation is then further validated via CFD modelling and the developed model is subsequently applied in the prediction of the effect of other parameters, including the inlet H2 concentration, inlet flow rate, dual-function material weight, and reactor internal diameter.@en

This paper presents a framework for the derivation of a noise budget and the subsequent utilization in the optimization of the control design, using the laser frequency stabilization loop in the Virgo interferometer, which is a complex nested feedback system, as an experimental case study. First, the system dynamics and noise sources are modeled and experimentally verified to produce the noise budget, after which an optimization problem using the H2 norm is formulated and tailored to the specific design requirements for the detector. The structure of the synthesized controller is then used to produce an improved control design. Experimental verification of the developed controller on the Virgo interferometer shows roughly a factor 3 reduction in root-mean-square error, illustrating the effectiveness of the presented method.@en

In this article Reference 10 was incorrect as ‘van der Zwanenburg LC, Koldenhof JJ, Suijkerbuijk KPM, Schellekens MPJ (2024) What patients with advanced cancer experience as helpful in navigating their life with a long-term response: a qualitative study. Support Care Cancer 32(4):222’ and should have been ‘Zwanenburg LC, van der Lee ML, Koldenhof JJ, Suijkerbuijk KPM, Schellekens MPJ (2024) What patients with advanced cancer experience as helpful in navigating their life with a long-term response: a qualitative study. Support Care Cancer. 32(4):222. PMID: 38470541.’@en

Background
To improve lifestyle guidance within cardiac rehabilitation (CR), a comprehensive understanding of the motivation and lifestyle-supporting needs of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) is required.

Objectives
This study's purpose is to evaluate patients’ lifestyle and their motivation, self-efficacy and social support for change when starting CR.

Methods
1782 CVD patients (69 % male, mean age 62 years) from 7 Dutch outpatient CR centers participated between 2020 and 2022. Modifiable risk factors were assessed with a survey and interviews by healthcare professionals during CR intake.

Results
Most patients exhibited an elevated risk in 3–4 domains. Elevated risks were most prominent in domains of (1) waist circumference and BMI (2) physical exercise (3) healthy foods intake and (4) sleep duration. Most patients chose to focus on increasing physical exercise, but about 20 % also wanted to focus on a healthy diet and/or decrease stress levels. Generally, motivation, self-efficacy and social support to reach new lifestyle goals were high. However, patients with an unfavorable risk profile had lower motivation and self-efficacy to work on lifestyle changes, while patients with lower social support had a higher chance to quit the program prematurely.

Conclusions
Our results underscore the need to begin CR with a comprehensive lifestyle assessment and highlight the importance of offering lifestyle interventions tailored to patients’ specific modifiable risk factors and lifestyle-supporting needs, targeting multiple lifestyle domains. Expanding the current scope of CR programs to address diverse patient needs and strengthening support may enhance motivation and adherence and lead to significant long-term benefits for cardiovascular health.@en

Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems are a class of distributed power-generation systems that are suitable for the efficient conversion of low-to-medium temperature thermal energy to useful power. These versatile systems have significant potential to contribute in diverse ways to future clean and sustainable energy systems through, e.g., deployment for waste-heat recovery in industrial facilities, but also the utilisation of renewable-heat sources, thereby improving energy access and living standards, while reducing primary energy consumption and the associated emissions. The energetic and economic performance, but also environmental sustainability of ORC systems, all depend strongly on the working fluid employed, and therefore a significant effort has been made in recent years to select, but also to design novel working fluids for ORC systems. In this context, computer-aided molecular design (CAMD) techniques have emerged as highly promising approaches with which to explore the key role of working fluids, and present an opportunity, by focusing on the design of new eco-friendly fluids with low environmental footprints, to identify alternatives to traditional refrigerants with improved characteristics. In this review article, an overview of working-fluid and system optimisation methodologies that can be used for the design and operation of next-generation ORC systems is provided. With reference to wide-ranging applications from waste-heat recovery in industrial and automotive applications, to biomass, geothermal and solar-energy conversion and/or storage, this review represents a comprehensive, forward-looking exposition of the application of CAMD to the design of ORC technology.

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Dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) MRI is commonly part of brain tumor imaging. For quantitative analysis, measurement of the arterial input function and tissue concentration time curve is required. Usually, a linear relationship between the MR signal changes and contrast agent concentration ([Gd]) is assumed, even though this is a known simplification. The aim of this study was to develop a realistic 3D simulation model as an efficient method to assess the relationship between ΔR2(*) and [Gd] both in whole blood and brain tissue. We modified an open-source 3D simulation model to study different red blood cell configurations for assessing whole-blood ΔR2(*) versus [Gd]. The results were validated against previously obtained 2D data and in vitro data. Furthermore, hematocrit levels (30%–50%) and field strengths (1.5–3.0–7.0 T) were varied. Subsequently, realistic tumor vascular networks were derived from intraoperative high framerate Doppler ultrasound data to study the influence of vascular structure and orientation with respect to the main magnetic field (1.5–3.0–7.0 T) for the calculation of ΔR2(*) versus [Gd] in brain tissue. For whole blood, good agreement of the 3D model was found with in vitro and 2D simulation data when red blood cells were aligned with the blood flow. For brain tissue, minor differences were found between the vascular networks. The effect of vessel direction with respect to B0 was apparent in case of clear directionality of the main vessels. The dependency on field strength agreed with previous reports. In conclusion, we have shown that the relationship between ΔR2(*) and [Gd] is affected by the organization of red blood cells and orientation of blood vessels with respect to the main magnetic field, as well as the field strength. These findings are important for further optimization of the realistic 3D model that could eventually be used to improve the estimation of hemodynamic parameters from DSC-MRI.@en

Introduction
The field of forensic DNA analysis has undergone rapid advancements in recent decades. The integration of massively parallel sequencing (MPS) has notably expanded the forensic toolkit, moving beyond identity matching to predicting phenotypic traits and biogeographical ancestry. This shift is of particular significance in cases where conventional DNA profiling fails to identify a single suspect. Supplementing forensic analyses with estimated biological age may be valuable but involves a complex and time-consuming DNA methylation analysis. This study explores and validates the performance of a comprehensive forensic third-generation sequencing assay utilizing Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) in an adaptive and direct sequencing approach. We incorporated the most widely used forensic markers, i.e., STRs, SNPs, InDels, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), and two methylation-based clock classifiers, thereby combining forensic genetic and epigenetic analysis in one single workflow.

Methods and results
In our investigation, DNA from six anonymous individuals was sequenced using the ONT standard adaptive direct sequencing approach, reaching a mean percentage of on-target reads ranging from 6.6 % to 7.7 % per sample. ONT data was compared to standard MPS data and Illumina EPIC DNA methylation profiles. Basecalling employed recommended ONT software packages. TREAT was used for ONT-based analysis of autosomal and Y-chromosome STRs, achieving 90–92 % correct calls depending on allelic read depth thresholds. InDel analyses for two lower-quality samples proved challenging due to inadequate read depth, while the remaining four samples significantly contributed to the observed percentage markers (60.9 %) and correct calls (97.8 %). SNP analysis achieved a 98 % call rate, with only two mismatches and two missed alleles. ONT-generated DNA methylation data demonstrated Pearson’s correlation coefficients with EPIC data ranging from 0.67 to 0.97 for Horvath’s clock. Additional age-associated markers exhibited Pearson’s correlation coefficients with chronological age between 0.14 (ELOVL2) and 0.96 (FHL2) at read depths of <30 and <20, respectively. Despite excluding mtDNA from our targeted sequencing approach, adaptive proof-reading fragments covered the complete mtDNA with an average read depth of 21–72, showing 100 % concordance with reference data.

Discussion
Our exploratory study using ONT adaptive sequencing for conventional forensic and age associated DNA methylation markers showed high sequencing accuracy for a significant number of markers, showcasing ONT as a promising (epi)genetic forensic method. Future studies must address three critical aspects: determining clear quantity and quality measures and detection thresholds for accuracy, optimizing input DNA quantity for forensic casework expectations, and addressing ethical considerations associated with phenotype and ancestry analysis to prevent ethnic biases.@en

In this study, the deposition, annealing process, and oxidation properties of HfNbTaTiZr high-entropy alloy thin films were thoroughly investigated. The films, approximately 250 nm thick, were deposited on MgO substrates by DC magnetron sputtering using a single target. The preparation temperature was identified as a key factor influencing the resulting structure. Amorphous films formed at room temperature, whereas nanocrystalline films, characterized by multiple intermetallic phases, were obtained either by deposition at elevated temperatures (600 °C – 750 °C) or through in situ annealing of amorphous films (600 °C – 700 °C). Positron annihilation spectroscopy revealed that nanocrystalline films predominantly contain vacancy-like misfit defects, with concentration decreasing as the preparation temperature increases. Additionally, amorphous films exhibited a high concentration of large vacancy clusters. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed greater oxygen absorption in amorphous films due to their defective structure, with preferential oxidation of Zr and Hf. Further annealing of naturally oxidized films in a vacuum at temperatures up to 1400 °C led to films' recrystallization and eventually the formation of complex oxides, including ZrO2, HfO2, and various Mg-containing oxides, indicating a reaction with the MgO substrate. This work demonstrates the ability to fine-tune the microstructure and defect characteristics of high-entropy alloy films and highlights their direct correlation with oxidation properties.@en

An implementation strategy for high-power, high resolution, fully digital transmitters (DTX) is proposed. It is based on a high-speed CMOS controller featuring a high-density flip-chip interconnect to an LDMOS power MMIC containing large arrays of custom low-VT LDMOS gate segments configured in RF-power switch banks. Using a two-level thermometer approach and a novel symmetric control scheme for the activation of the gate segments, a high-resolution 11-bit DTX switch bank is realized. It can provide peak RF powers >10 W at 45/40% peak drain/system efficiency at 3.525 GHz.@en

The main objectives of bioprocesses are to reliably deliver drugs in a relatively short time frame with high quality within a tight regulatory framework. Bioprocesses are highly complex, the level of automation is moderate, and there is constant pressure to improve efficiency and costs. In addition, climate change and resource scarcity mandate a reduction in the environmental footprint of bioprocesses and production facilities. In the biopharmaceutical industry, two extreme production scenarios are applied: a fully disposable factory with the characteristics of full flexibility and speed, or a fixed large-scale plant with high capacity. Forward-looking solutions and ideas will be discussed how to combine new processes and environmental friendliness for the benefit of the patient, security of supply and profitability. The concept will be extended to large scale production of proteins for food and non-pharma applications, e.g., in material science and a roadmap towards a future plant will be laid out.

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Purpose: The value of integrating clinical variables, radiomics, and tumor-derived cell-free DNA (cfDNA) for the prediction of survival and response to chemoradiation of patients with resectable esophageal adenocarcinoma is not yet known. Our aim was to investigate if radiomics and cfDNA metrics combined with clinical variables can improve personalized predictions. Methods and Materials: A cohort of 111 patients with resectable esophageal adenocarcinoma from 2 centers treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy was used for exploratory retrospective analyses. Models combining the clinical variables of the SOURCE survival model with radiomic features and cfDNA were built using elastic net regression and internally validated using 5-fold cross-validation. Model performance for overall survival (OS) and time to progression (TTP) were evaluated with the C-index and the area under the curve for pathologic complete response. Results: The best-performing baseline models for OS and TTP were based on the combination of SOURCE-cfDNA that reached a C-index of 0.55 and 0.59 compared with 0.44 to 0.45 with SOURCE alone. The addition of restaging positron emission tomography radiomics to SOURCE was the most promising addition for predicting OS (C-index: 0.65) and TTP (C-index: 0.60). Baseline risk stratification was achieved for OS and TTP by combining SOURCE with radiomics or cfDNA, log-rank P < .01. The best-performing combination model for the prediction of pathologic complete response reached an area under the curve of 0.61 compared with 0.47 with SOURCE variables alone. Conclusions: The addition of radiomics and cfDNA can improve the performance of an established survival model. External validity needs to be further assessed in future studies together with the optimization of radiomic pipelines.

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Intraparticle entanglement of individual particles such as neutrons could enable another class of scattering probes that are sensitive to entanglement in quantum systems and materials. In this work, we present experimental results demonstrating quantum contextuality as a result of entanglement between the spin and energy modes (i.e., degrees of freedom) of single neutrons in a beam using a pair of resonant radio-frequency neutron spin flippers in the modulated intensity with zero effort configuration. We verified the mode entanglement by measuring a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt contextuality witness 𝑆 defined in the spin and energy subsystems, observing a clear breach of the classical bound of |𝑆|≤2, obtaining 𝑆=2.40±0.02. These entangled beams could enable alternative approaches for directly probing dynamics and entanglement in quantum materials whose low-energy excitation scales match those of the incident entangled neutron.@en

Network-on-Chip (NoC) is a scalable on-chip communication architecture for the NN accelerator, but with the increase in the number of nodes, the communication delay becomes higher. Applications such as machine learning have a certain resilience to noisy/erroneous transmitted data. Therefore, approximate communication becomes a promising solution to improving performance by reducing traffic loads under the constraint of the acceptable maximum accuracy loss of neural networks. It is a key issue to balance the result quality and the communication delay for approximate NoC systems. The traditional approximate NoC only considers the node-to-node approximation-based dynamic traffic regulation. However, the dynamically changing traffic patterns across different nodes, different times, and different applications lead to a huge search space, which makes it hard to explore an optimal global approximation solution. In this paper, we propose a quality model for different neural networks, which presents the relationship between the quality loss and the data approximate rate. Then, a hierarchical approximate scheme optimized with reinforcement learning (HAS-RL) is proposed and we reduce the complexity of the HAS-RL by reducing the state space and action space, which will reduce the resource overhead as well. After that, we embed a global approximate controller in the NoC system, in which we deploy a policy network trained with the offline reinforcement learning algorithm to adjust the data approximate rates of each node at run time. Compared with the state-of-the-art method, the proposed scheme reduces the average network delay by $13.5\%$ while their accuracies are similar. The proposed HAS-RL only causes an additional area overhead of $1.24\%$ and power consumption of $0.77\%$ compared with the traditional router design.@en

In this Perspective, Journal of Cell Science invited researchers working on cell and tissue polarity to share their thoughts on unique, emerging or open questions relating to their field. The goal of this article is to feature 'voices' from scientists around the world and at various career stages, to bring attention to innovative and thought-provoking topics of interest to the cell biology community. These voices discuss intriguing questions that consider polarity across scales, evolution, development and disease. What can yeast and protists tell us about the evolution of cell and tissue polarity in animals? How are cell fate and development influenced by emerging dynamics in cell polarity? What can we learn from atypical and extreme polarity systems? How can we arrive at a more unified biophysical understanding of polarity? Taken together, these pieces demonstrate the broad relevance of the fascinating phenomenon of cell polarization to diverse fundamental biological questions.

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For the European Commission, the EDITO consortium is creating the European Digital Twin Ocean, a platform that integrates coastal and oceanic modelling tools with ocean observation databases and computing infrastructure. Building on EMODnet and CMEMS, EDITO Model Lab will contribute by making the next generation of ocean models more accessible. This work demonstrates one of the capabilities of the Digital Twin Ocean, focussing on human exploitation impacts on carbon fluxes. More specifically this what-if scenario is about the impact of upscaling the cultivation of shellfish in the North Sea on the carbon cycle. Upscaling the cultivation of shellfish is part of the envisioned “blue economy” and a promising option for multi-use of offshore wind parks. As shellfish are respiring organisms, they are a carbon source. At the same time shells are a carbon storage as they are built through biocalcification, a process that turns dissolved carbon and calcium into calcium carbonate. The research aims to quantify the effects of upscaling shellfish cultivation in the North Sea on the carbon cycle. This is done by implementing a biocalcification module (Stechele & Lavaud, manuscript submitted for publication in 2024), in the Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) module integrated in Delft3D-FM’s water quality process library (Troost et al., 2010; Deltares, 2023). Our work includes assumptions about how harvesting accounts for calcium carbonate leaving the sea and is therefore sequestrated.@en

Introduction
Schistosomiasis is a significant public health concern, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conventional microscopy is the standard diagnostic method in resource-limited settings, but with limitations, such as the need for expert microscopists. An automated digital microscope with artificial intelligence (Schistoscope), offers a potential solution. This field study aimed to validate the diagnostic performance of the Schistoscope for detecting and quantifying Schistosoma haematobium eggs in urine compared to conventional microscopy and to a composite reference standard (CRS) consisting of real-time PCR and the up-converting particle (UCP) lateral flow (LF) test for the detection of schistosome circulating anodic antigen (CAA).

Methods
Based on a non-inferiority concept, the Schistoscope was evaluated in two parts: study A, consisting of 339 freshly collected urine samples and study B, consisting of 798 fresh urine samples that were also banked as slides for analysis with the Schistoscope. In both studies, the Schistoscope, conventional microscopy, real-time PCR and UCP-LF CAA were performed and samples with all the diagnostic test results were included in the analysis. All diagnostic procedures were performed in a laboratory located in a rural area of Gabon, endemic for S. haematobium.

Results
In study A and B, the Schistoscope demonstrated a sensitivity of 83.1% and 96.3% compared to conventional microscopy, and 62.9% and 78.0% compared to the CRS. The sensitivity of conventional microscopy in study A and B compared to the CRS was 61.9% and 75.2%, respectively, comparable to the Schistoscope. The specificity of the Schistoscope in study A (78.8%) was significantly lower than that of conventional microscopy (96.4%) based on the CRS but comparable in study B (90.9% and 98.0%, respectively).

Conclusion
Overall, the performance of the Schistoscope was non-inferior to conventional microscopy with a comparable sensitivity, although the specificity varied. The Schistoscope shows promising diagnostic accuracy, particularly for samples with moderate to higher infection intensities as well as for banked sample slides, highlighting the potential for retrospective analysis in resource-limited settings.@en

We report measurements characterizing the performance of a kinetic inductance detector array designed for a wavelength of 25 microns and very low optical background level suitable for applications such as a far-infrared instrument on a cryogenically cooled space telescope. In a pulse-counting mode of operation at low optical flux, the detectors can resolve individual 25-micron photons. In an integrating mode, the detectors remain photon noise limited over more than 6 orders of magnitude in absorbed power from 70 zW to 200 fW, with a limiting noise equivalent power of 4.6×10-20 W Hz-1 at 1 Hz. In addition, the detectors are highly stable with flat power spectra under optical load down to 1 mHz. Operational parameters of the detector are determined including the efficiency of conversion of the incident optical power into quasiparticles in the aluminum absorbing element and the quasiparticle self-recombination constant.

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Urbanizing river deltas are highly susceptible to sea level rise and extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. Water-related disasters are already happening more often due to climate change, rapid urbanization, unsustainable land use and aging infrastructure threatening a large fraction of human and natural environments in these low lying and sinking areas around the globe. As stress levels of climate change are accelerating, societal and physical transformations are essential for adapting our deltas to climate change. In the Netherlands, imagination and evidence by design in the form of a long-term spatial vision, played a pivotal role in the past century to set, share and accomplish a new direction to overcome flood disasters by altering the coastlines and riverbeds of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. The unprecedented rainfall in July 2021 and the storm in December 2021 which hit Western Europe revealed the effectiveness of this new direction. We therefore plea for a prominent role of design in climate science and delta management to imagine, analyse and communicate future perspectives for climate adaptation in urbanizing deltas.@en