ABSTRACT Conventional plastic packaging, though dominant in food and flexible applications, poses serious environmental concerns due to its persistence and limited recyclability. To address this challenge, this study develops bio‐based coated paper composites as sustainable alternatives. Paper, while biodegradable, lacks adequate barrier properties. To overcome these limitations, in this study, multilayer coatings are fabricated using thermoplastic starch/polyvinyl alcohol (TPS/PVOH) as a base layer and either amorphous polyhydroxyalkanoate (aPHA) or poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate‐co‐3‐hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) as the top coating, applied via solvent casting on two grades of paper substrates, a 60 GSM printing paper and a 55 GSM thin paper relevant to food packaging application. Mechanical and barrier performances are evaluated through tensile testing, water absorption and water vapour permeability (WVP) measurements. The results show that aPHA coatings exhibit higher tensile strength, whereas PHBV demonstrates greater elongation at break, indicating suitability for rigid and flexible applications, respectively. Both coatings reduce surface hydrophobicity compared to uncoated paper, while the starch base layer enhances film uniformity. Overall, the study demonstrates the potential of bio‐based multilayer paper composites as promising candidates for sustainable and functional packaging solutions.

The rising global incidence of Candida parapsilosis infections is increasingly complicated by antifungal resistance, resulting in frequent therapeutic failure. This study investigated the potential of the natural compound catechin to enhance the efficacy of fluconazole through synergistic interaction. We evaluated the susceptibility of C. parapsilosis clinical isolates and a reference strain to combinations of catechin and fluconazole using standardized microbiological assays and molecular techniques. In vivo efficacy was assessed using the Galleria mellonella infection model. Mechanistic studies included the measurement of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and plasma membrane permeability. Catechin alone caused growth retardation in all strains. However, the combination of catechin and fluconazole resulted in complete growth inhibition of the reference strain and significant growth reduction in azole-resistant clinical isolates. While the combination slightly increased intracellular ROS production, no significant changes in plasma membrane permeability or membrane potential were observed. Notably, catechin induced the expression of the resistance-associated genes CpTAC1 and CpCDR1B in resistant isolates. In vivo experiments demonstrated that catechin significantly reduced mortality in G. mellonella larvae infected with C. parapsilosis. These findings suggest that catechin is a promising candidate for developing synergistic antifungal therapies against resistant Candida species.

Measurement of permeability and radius for asymmetric cylinders with double coils using a simplified analytical model of eddy current testing

Independent experimental measurements of diffusion, sorption, and permeability support the solution-diffusion model of membrane transport

For the study, we used four kerosene-based ferrofluid samples containing magnetite nanoparticles stabilized with oleic acid. Starting from the initial sample (A0), the other three samples were obtained by dilution with kerosene. The complex magnetic permeability measurements were performed in the microwave region (0.5–6) GHz, for different H values of the polarizing magnetic field, between (0–115) kA/m. These measurements revealed the ferromagnetic resonance phenomenon for each sample, allowing the determination of the anisotropy field (HA) and the effective anisotropy constant (Keff) of nanoparticles, depending on the volume fraction of particles (φ). At the same time, the measurements allowed the determination of the specific magnetic loss power (pm), effective heating rate (HReff), intrinsic loss power (ILP), and specific absorption rate (SAR) as functions of the frequency (f) and magnetic field (H), of all investigated samples, using newly proposed equations for their calculation. For the first time, this study evaluates the maximum limit of the applied polarizing magnetic field (Hmax ≈ 80 kA/m) and the minimum limit volume fraction of nanoparticles (φmin ≈ 3.5%) at which microwave heating of the ferrofluid remains efficient. At the same time, the results obtained show that the temperature increase of the ferrofluid samples, upon interaction with a microwave field, can be controlled by varying both H and φ, pointing to possible applications in magnetic hyperthermia.

Abstract Gas separation processes are often used on both laboratory and industrial scale. Asymmetric polymeric membranes are the main material used for these processes. The performance of membranes used in this process is mainly evaluated based on their transport properties: permeation and selectivity. Polyetherimide asymmetric membranes surface was directly modified by polydopamine coating, to evaluate the gas and water vapour permeation performance improvement. Measurements of interaction and surface energies of the modified membranes showed attenuation of the hydrophobic polyetherimide characteristic (from 78° to 55° water contact angle). The results of the gas permeation and water vapour transport measurements pointed to an increase in the permeability of the modified membranes, ranging from 2.19–4.86 GPU for pristine membranes to 21.07–28.3 GPU. However, gas selectivity did not show significant improvement, except for CO 2 /O 2 . It was possible to conclude, through this study, that the bioinspired surface modification with polydopamine coating, in addition to being a simple procedure, was efficient in terms of modifying the physical and chemical properties of the membranes to improve the hydrophilicity and gas and vapour permeability.

Auxetic textiles, characterized by a negative Poisson’s ratio, offer considerable promise for innovative applications across multiple fields. In our earlier work, Miura-ori-inspired auxetic fabrics with three different initial dihedral fold angles—30°, 45°, and 60°—were successfully fabricated via jacquard weaving. Their fundamental auxetic behaviors were evaluated, showing deformation characteristics consistent with those in their geometric models. This study further investigates the mechanical properties of Miura-ori-based auxetic woven fabrics. Tensile testing, air permeability measurement, compression performance assessment, and repeated-loading cyclic rope-stretching tests were performed on the three fabric variants. The results show that the fabrics exhibit excellent air permeability, which increases with the proportion of the folded areas; the highest air permeability was observed at Miura-30°. Moreover, Miura-60° exhibited superior compression resistance. The fabrics also demonstrated outstanding structural stability under cyclic tensile loading, exhibiting optimal elastic recovery at the 30° configuration. Collectively, these findings provide a solid theoretical basis for future applications of Miura-ori auxetic woven fabrics.

Abstract Tritium permeation into and through materials poses a critical challenge for the development of nuclear fusion reactors. Minimizing tritium permeation is essential for the safe and efficient use of available fuel supplies. In this work, we present the design, construction, and validation of custom atomic layer deposition (ALD) and deuterium permeation measurement systems aimed at developing thin-film hydrogen permeation barriers. Using the ALD system, we deposited conformal Al 2 O 3 films on copper foil substrates and characterized their growth behavior, morphology, and composition. ALD growth rates of ∼1.1 Å/cycle were achieved for temperatures between 100 ∘ C and 210 ∘ C. Permeation measurements on bare and alumina coated copper foils revealed a significant reduction in deuterium flux with the addition of a ∼10 nm Al 2 O 3 layer. While bare copper followed diffusion-limited transport consistent with Sievert’s law, the alumina-coated samples exhibited surface-limited, pore-mediated transport with linear pressure dependence. Arrhenius analysis showed distinct differences in activation energy for the two transport regimes, and permeation reduction factors exceeding an order of magnitude were observed. These results demonstrate the potential of ALD-grown Al 2 O 3 films as effective hydrogen isotope barriers and provide a foundation for future studies on film optimization and integration into fusion-relevant components.

The pore complexity and heterogeneity in porous media display obvious fractal characteristics, which can be characterized by the fractal dimension for the pore tortuosity (DT) and the fractal dimension for the pore size (Df). Correspondingly, a three-dimensional (3D) fractal permeability model for porous media is proposed based on the DT and Df. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by the classical theoretical relation of the permeability versus porosity, the measured permeability, and the previous study. The sensitivity analysis of model parameters (Df, DT, λmin and λmax) based on elasticity coefficient indicates that the proposed model is much more sensitive to Df and DT than λmin and λmax, and more sensitive to Df than DT. The proposed model is much more sensitive to λmin than λmax. Furthermore, the proposed model is compared with the modified Kozeny–Carman equation. The root mean square error (RMSE) analysis shows that the RMSE of the proposed model and the modified Kozeny–Carman equation in predicting permeability are 8.9857 × 10−4 and 0.5082, exhibiting high prediction accuracy of the proposed model. The proposed fractal permeability model achieves a more accurate characterization of the fluid transport by more comprehensively describing the complexity and tortuosity of pore structure, which can also provide the prospective theoretical significance and method reference for predicting the permeability of 3D porous media.

To address the challenges of strong heterogeneity and poor crude oil mobility in tight conglomerate reservoirs of the Mahu Oilfield, this study systematically evaluated the effects of different surfactants on wettability alteration, spontaneous imbibition, and relative permeability through high-temperature/high-pressure spontaneous imbibition experiments, online Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) monitoring, and relative permeability measurements. Core samples from the Jinlong and Madong areas (porosity: 5.98–17.55%; permeability: 0.005–0.148 mD) were characterized alongside X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) data (clay mineral content: 22–35.7%) to compare the performance of anionic, cationic, nonionic, and biosurfactants. The results indicated that the nonionic surfactant AEO-2 (Fatty Alcohol Polyoxyethylene Ether) (0.2% concentration) at 80 °C exhibited optimal performance, achieving the following results: 1. a reduction in wettability contact angles by 80–90° (transitioning from oil-wet to water-wet); 2. a decrease in interfacial tension to 0.64 mN/m; 3. an imbibition recovery rate of 40.14%—5 to 10 percentage points higher than conventional fracturing fluids. NMR data revealed that nanopores (<50 nm) contributed 75.36% of the total recovery, serving as the primary channels for oil mobilization. Relative permeability tests confirmed that AEO-2 reduced residual oil saturation by 6.21–6.38%, significantly improving fluid flow in highly heterogeneous reservoirs. Mechanistic analysis highlighted that the synergy between wettability reversal and interfacial tension reduction was the key driver of recovery enhancement. This study provides a theoretical foundation and practical solutions for the efficient development of tight conglomerate reservoirs.

Lake Naivasha has a farming system that is well expanded in the riparian zone. Bordering the lake are some of the biggest flower farms in the world, making it the most important area for cut flowers in Kenya. Agricultural products, especially the ones produced for export have to match a high-quality standard. To achieve these quality standards, it is necessary to have a good program of weed control and pest management. The use of pesticides is one of the most used tools to achieve it. Increasing use of pesticides threatens the quality of surface and ground waters by contamination. Various approaches have been used or proposed for assessing groundwater vulnerability occurring in the vadose zone and groundwater regime, to models that weight critical factors affecting vulnerability through either statistical methods or expert judgment. Soil permeability measures how fast water can move downward through a particular soil. Water moves quickly through soils with high permeability, losing dissolved chemicals with the percolating water. Therefore, the soil's permeability should be considered when applying pesticides. This study used the permeability of soils in the study area to calculate the value of aquifer vulnerability from pesticides used along the shores of Lake Naivasha, Kenya. Soil samples were collected from 19 field sites around Lake Naivasha, and their permeabilities determined, using empirical methods based on grain size distribution. The results showed that all the 19 sites where soils were collected for permeability determination had medium permeability (90 to 841 µms<sup>-1</sup>) and thus only one zone of low vulnerability was identified throughout the aquifer around Lake Naivasha. The results therefore, resulted in an aquifer vulnerability of 6.78% being determined along the shores of Lake Naivasha, considering pesticide transport to groundwater determined from soil permeability alone. It was concluded that this aquifer vulnerability arising from pesticide mobility was low and groundwater in the area therefore, not at risk of pesticide contamination based on soil permeability alone. Further studies to determine a combined aquifer vulnerably index taking into consideration other contributors is recommended in order to make a decision on the safety of groundwater for domestic use in the study area.

ABSTRACT Transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) is a well‐established method for evaluating tight junction integrity, providing real‐time, non‐invasive monitoring of barrier function. However, conventional TEER assays are largely restricted to 2D monolayer cultures and fail to capture the physiological complexity of 3D vascular structures. Here, we present a microfluidic platform that integrates gold‐patterned electrodes on a glass substrate with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)‐based chip to enable simultaneous measurement of TEER and vascular permeability. Within this system, human endothelial cells undergo angiogenic self‐assembly to form perfusable, lumenized microvessels that are maintained under standard culture conditions. Real‐time impedance analysis using a precision LCR (Inductance, Capacitance, and Resistance) meter allows high‐resolution monitoring of barrier resistance, while parallel quantification of FITC‐dextran flux provides complementary permeability data. Impedance values obtained at optimized frequencies strongly correlate with paracellular tracer leakage, validating TEER as a robust functional readout in 3D vascular models. By coupling electrical and molecular assays in a physiologically relevant platform, our approach offers a scalable tool for real‐time evaluation of endothelial function with broad applications in drug screening, disease modeling, and vascular biology research.

A LabVIEW-based automated system has been developed to generate uniform and precise DC magnetic fields ranging from 0.1–2000 G. The system interfaces a multilayer water-cooled solenoid with a programmable power supply controlled by a PC with LabVIEW software. The field distribution inside the solenoid was studied using the finite element method of magnetics (FEMM) software analysis, resulting in close agreement with experimental values (less than 4.5%). The magnetic field non-uniformity along the axis of the solenoid was observed to be less than 1% for 6 cm. The magnetic field generated by the setup was validated theoretically and experimentally using three magnetometers. The percentage error in measurement with each magnetometer (i.e. fluxgate, search coil, and hall sensor) was reported as 0.37%, 1.75%, and 1.83%, respectively. Moreover, the system was successfully tested for calibration and relative permeability measurement applications.

Effective removal of filter cakes is essential for restoring formation permeability and productivity, especially in open-hole completions. While hydrochloric acid (HCl) is commonly used to dissolve filter cakes, it may also introduce secondary formation damage, particularly through iron precipitation and pore plugging during fluid–rock interaction, in addition to the primary damage already caused by mud filtrate invasion and internal filter cake deposition during drilling. This study investigates the relative contributions of primary and secondary damage mechanisms associated with the removal of hematite-water-based filter cake in carbonate reservoirs using 10 wt% HCl under two operational strategies: squeeze and flowback. Core flooding experiments were conducted on Indiana limestone samples under downhole-representative conditions, and formation damage was evaluated through permeability, resistivity, CT imaging, and mechanical property measurements. Results indicated that primary damage alone caused up to 75% permeability reduction, while secondary damage developed during the removal stage, especially in the squeeze treatment where deeper acid invasion promoted iron precipitation in previously undisturbed zones, reducing far-zone permeability and increasing stiffness. In contrast, the flowback scenario improved permeability in the near-wellbore region and minimized secondary damage in the deeper zones, thereby preserving mechanical and petrophysical integrity. Resistivity decreased after both primary and secondary stages due to the intrusion of conductive hematite-rich filtrate and acid-induced by-products. Mechanical analysis confirmed that the squeeze scenario resulted in near-wellbore weakening and far-zone stiffening due to localized dissolution and precipitate deposition. This study is distinct in explicitly differentiating primary from secondary damage, demonstrating their relative impacts, and showing how operational strategy governs which mechanism dominates. Its focus on hematite-weighted filter cakes, direct comparison of squeeze and flowback strategies, and integration of mechanical property analysis alongside petrophysical evaluation provides a unique contribution toward understanding and mitigating formation damage in carbonate reservoirs.

Digital rock physics (DRP) technology offers a faster and cost-effective approach to obtain simulated relative permeability curves that can provide reservoir engineers with additional petrophysical inputs for their simulations. Recent works of Regaieg et al. (2023a, 2025) have demonstrated the impact of using large pore network simulations coupled with fast and practical, pore-scale wettability characterization for enhancing the predictive power of DRP simulations to compute relative permeability curves. Although fast, this wettability experiment is still the bottleneck of the DRP simulations workflow, as it takes around 3 to 4 months, whereas the imaging and numerical simulations take around 2 weeks. Therefore, understanding the variability of wettability across a reservoir is crucial to assess how often the wettability anchoring experiment is needed to estimate relative permeability across the reservoir. In this work, we have applied the same DRP workflow on two reservoir sandstones (representing two different lithotypes of rocks) from the same well in an operational context. Pore-scale wettability characterization (such as the fraction of oil/water-wet pores, correlation of wettability to pore size, etc.) and anchoring information (e.g., estimation of remaining oil saturation, capillary end effect, measurement of permeabilities at endpoints) obtained from both samples revealed two distinct models of mixed-wet (MW) type of wettability: mixed-wet small (MWS) and mixed-wet large (MWL). Using the relevant range of parameters for each wettability type, we performed experimental design studies to run thousands of flow simulations on very large pore network models (PNM) for both samples. Results show the subsequent impact on flow simulation results and reinforce the importance of fast wettability characterization for DRP simulations, especially when the assumption of similar wettability cannot be justified across the well or reservoir due to a lack of prior knowledge or experience.

Characterizing solute transport across cell layers: Artifact correction and parameter extraction from a simplified three-compartment model.

Employing histopathology to enhance the BCOP test: The emerging role of stromal thickness as a quantitative endpoint.

Immune-related changes impact clinical outcomes in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, these changes have yet to translate into robust blood biomarkers of AD, in part due to high inter-individual variation, small effect sizes, and the indirect relationship between peripheral blood and central nervous system changes. In this prospective cohort study of 55 subjects, 19 healthy controls (11 female and 8 male), 19 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) stage of AD (13 female and 6 male), 8 AD dementia (4 female and 4 male) and 9 frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTD) (7 female and 2 male) individuals, we used mass cytometry to identify a sex-specific immune cell signature in AD peripheral blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance (DCE-MRI) imaging was used to assess regional blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability in subjects. Five patients contributed blood and CSF samples after one-year longitudinal follow-up. Peripheral blood immune cell responsiveness is more robust than the CSF immune cell signature and peaks earlier in the peripheral blood in the MCI stage among females and later in males at the AD dementia stage. To demonstrate clinical utility of this immune cell signature to identify the MCI stage of AD, we show its effect size exceeded that of Amyloid β42/40, phospho-tau181, plasma phospho-tau217, and cytokine signatures both in the plasma and CSF and was significantly elevated relative to FTD. The immune cell activation signature also correlated with MRI measures of hippocampal BBB permeability and cognitive outcomes. The immune cell changes identified here were distinct among cellular phenotypes in peripheral blood and CSF in their responsiveness to AD pathological changes and show promise for novel biomarkers and future immune related therapeutics in AD.

Abstract X-ray microcomputed tomography is increasingly employed for the non-destructive investigation of cementitious materials, enabling both quantitative and qualitative three-dimensional analyses. This study investigates the effect of sample size on the evaluation of porosity, permeability, and thermal conductivity in diatomite-limestone paste using X-ray Microcomputed Tomography. Two samples with identical composition but different dimensions were analyzed: a prismatic sample (0.6 cm×0.6 cm×1 cm) for particle-scale analysis at a voxel resolution of 0.8 µm, and a cylindrical sample (1 cm in diameter ×5 cm in height) for macroporosity assessment at a resolution of 10 µm. The cylindrical sample exhibited a porosity of 2.6% and a thermal conductivity of 2.42 W/m·K, whereas the prismatic sample showed 20.8% porosity and a thermal conductivity of 1.6 W/m·K. Permeability was assessed only in the prismatic sample due to its higher resolution, yielding a relatively high value (1.4×10 −2 μm 2 ), attributed to solid-phase growth and the formation of a granular microstructure. The findings highlight the influence of sample resolution on pore connectivity visualization and the accuracy of permeability and thermal conductivity measurements.

On the limitations of spot permeability measurements to quantify bulk permeability of bioturbated reservoirs: Insights from digital rock physics modeling