Scientific Community Research Articles

Undergraduate students’ arising ideas during the implementation of a teaching-learning sequence on size-dependent properties in the nanoscale

ABSTRACT Background Nanotechnology is a field of science with increasing importance in the scientific community, hence there is an arising need for future scientists who will be able to compose a future ‘nano-workforce’. Therefore, the integration of this field in university curricula is of great importance. Even though the educational significance of nanotechnology is well-established, there is little precedent in the science education literature for teaching learning sequences for university education, based on a robust theoretical framework. Purpose This study aims at addressing this challenge by investigating undergraduate students’ ideas during a teaching learning sequence about the size-dependent optical properties of nanomaterials. Sample The study was conducted with eight undergraduate students from the Departments of Chemistry and Physics. Design and methods This investigation implemented a teaching experiment design. Results The analysis yielded a series of ideas, as well as the factors that potentially trigger them. While students appear to initially perceive optical properties as size-independent, through activities and inputs by the researcher this view changes to partially size-dependent, and finally to fully size-dependent. Conclusions The findings of this study could prove to be a valuable foundation for designing future teaching and learning sequences in tertiary education.

الأبعاد المفاهيمية لمشاهد الصراع وتمثلاته في الفن السومري

The current research dealt with (the conceptual dimensions of conflict scenes and their representations in Sumerian art), through studying the religious, political, environmental, ideological and social dimensions from which the conflict scene emerged, which was represented in the aesthetic structure of cylindrical seals, obelisks, stone tablets and statues, during the Sumerian era. Therefore, the researcher sought in the first chapter to clarify the problem of the research, its importance and the need for it, in addition to the aim of the research, which was represented by the following: "Identifying the conceptual dimensions of conflict scenes and their representations in Sumerian art." Then the researchers concluded the aforementioned chapter by defining the terms that are directly related to the title of the research and its objectives. As for the second chapter, it included a presentation of the theoretical framework and previous studies, and it consisted of two sections. The first section established the conflict conceptually. The second section dealt with the conflict: an approach in ancient Sumerian art. The third chapter was devoted to monitoring the research community and the tool that included collecting information, so samples were adopted from it in an intentional manner, and they amounted to (3) sculptural works that covered the limits of the research by adopting the descriptive analytical method for the purpose of analyzing them according to the axes of the analysis tool that the researcher adopted. As for the fourth chapter, it included the results of the research, which included: 1. The scenes of the conflict were evident in the ability of the Sumerian artist to adopt the realistic style in embodying human bodies with political dimensions that escalated their desired essential connotations, and religious thought is one of the most important pressing dominants in the structure of Sumerian art, and this is what appeared in all samples. 2. The Sumerian embodied and prominent art expressed the artistic feelings formed in the thought of the Sumerian artist through the diversity of topics, which carry religious and political dimensions that represent the social structure of the Sumerians. Then the conclusions that emerged from it the possibility of achieving the research objectives through the tool designed by the researcher, including: • Sumerian art in its various forms embodied religious thought and political dimension, by referring them to pictorial systems with aesthetic value full of symbolism directed towards the absolute and invisible powers. • The intellectual contemplations of the Sumerian sculptor contributed to the diversity of conflict scenes at the level of (sculptural or bas-relief), and the technical and directing treatments varied, as an attempt to depict and represent these intellectual contemplations and refer them to a symbolic meaning that has a tangible material existence. I also made an effort to mention a number of recommendations and suggestions followed by sources and appendices.

Community scientists provide knowledge and public education and help enforce environmental regulations in social-ecological systems

Community scientists provide essential support for understanding social-ecological systems. Here we analyze how community scientists work alongside institutions to study, manage, and protect these systems. Through interviews conducted in 2023 and 2024 in a coastal community in California, USA, we developed a conceptual framework showing how community scientists contribute to three main social-ecological processes: generating new knowledge, providing education to the community, and supporting enforcement of conservation regulations. Our analysis reveals that community scientists serve as boundary spanners, stepping in to help when government agencies and other institutions lack sufficient staff or resources. While community scientists effectively support environmental research and management by serving as additional observers in the field, their dynamic role raises important questions about relying on volunteers to fill institutional capacity gaps. These findings offer practical insights for improving how researchers and government agencies can work with community scientists to address environmental challenges in social-ecological systems.

Being young and resilient in times of AI, disasters, and crises

Disasters, crises, and resilience are interconnected with a general comprehension of “normality” or everyday routine disrupted by sudden and adverse events. However, some inconsistencies in the above interpretation induce an epistemological and existential crisis. First, the everyday life of some disadvantaged groups can be described as catastrophic and miserable whether the general community recognizes it or not. Nevertheless, some of the usually resilient groups could become future icons of the new risk, particularly AI hazards. Second, disasters are, by definition, sudden events with identified timeframes, while crises can be long-lasting with the tendency to become omnipresent. Third, when compared with earlier assertions, particular groups may undergo a long-lasting and gradual crisis that diminishes their capacity to anticipate future events, a critical aspect of resilience, and influences the social structure. An exemplary case is the unregulated widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) by students to complete tasks, which diminishes critical thinking and reduces significant cognitive engagement. Such actions are possible with the cultural complicity of various stakeholders. Ultimately, the dystopian vision of a mindless and non-resilient young populace within an already susceptible context of an aging society—particularly with the increasing prevalence of dementia—reveals novel vulnerabilities, signalling the onset of an impending disaster. The suggestion made in this paper is for the research and teaching community to play a more active role in mitigating, if not preventing, potential unintended yet not-so-unforeseeable consequences.

Evaluating defence projects – success may be a multidimensional measure. A case study of a logistics support vessel

ABSTRACT Armed forces worldwide face major investment needs, but past mistake risk being repeated unless they can learn from completed projects. Using a case example, this paper illustrates the valuable lessons that can be learned from defence projects based on ex-post evaluation. The Norwegian Navy’s logistics support vessel, HNoMS Maud, was delivered from its South Korean shipyard in 2018 after a turbulent construction period. We present an ex-post evaluation of the project based on an evaluation framework that aims to assess operational, tactical, and strategic project success. Although the problems from the construction phase seem to have been overcome, and the vessel fits well with NATO needs, its national relevance in a small navy with limited ocean-going capabilities can be questioned. Several lessons can be drawn from ex-post evaluations of projects. We thus encourage defence research communities and armed forces to strengthen their evaluation efforts to improve future planning and delivery of projects.

A Voyage Intersecting Nano, Heat, and Energy: Professor Gang Chen's Scientific Contributions

Abstract Professor Gang Chen turns 60 this year. He has made seminal contributions to nanoscale heat transfer and energy sciences in his career spanning over three decades. He has achieved both fundamental progresses and technological advancements with a profound impact on the scientific community and society at large. He is also a prolific educator, having mentored over 100 graduate students and postdocs, many of whom now occupy research and teaching positions in top institutions around the world. With this Special Issue in the Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, we celebrate Professor Gang Chen's multi-faceted contribution to science and the scientific community by compiling research papers reporting recent progress by former members of his group, including one by Professor Chen himself. This Editorial briefly reviews Professor Gang Chen's scientific contributions in five main areas: (1) Nondiffusive phonon transport; (2) Nanostructured thermoelectrics; (3) Nanoscale thermal radiation; (4) Thermal transport in polymers; (5) Solar-photovoltaic-thermal energy engineering. By no means do we attempt to cover the entire scope of research documented in Gang's more than 400 journal publications. Instead, we discuss his representative works and summarize their scientific significance within a broader context, including a survey of the impact of these original results on defining new frontiers in each area.

Structure-Guided Engineering of a Versatile Urethanase Improves Its Polyurethane Depolymerization Activity.

Polyurethane (PUR), the fifth most prevalent synthetic polymer, substantially contributes to the global plastic waste problem. Biotechnology-based recycling methods have recently emerged as innovative solutions to plastic waste disposal and sparked interest among scientific communities and industrial stakeholders in discovering and designing highly active plastic-degrading enzymes. Here, the ligand-free crystal structure of UMG-SP2, a metagenome-derived urethanase with depolymerization activities, at 2.59 Å resolution, as well as its (co-)structures bound to a suicide hydrolase inhibitor and a short-chain carbamate substrate at 2.16 and 2.40 Å resolutions, respectively, is reported. Structural analysis and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the flexible loop L3 consisting of residues 219-226 is crucial for regulating the hydrolytic activity of UMG-SP2. The semi-rational redesign of UMG-SP2 reveals superior variants, A141G and Q399A, exhibiting over 30.7- and 7.4-fold increased activities on polyester-PUR and a methylene diamine derivative of PUR, respectively, compared to the wild-type enzyme. These findings advance the understanding of the structure-function relationship of PUR-hydrolyzing enzymes, which hold great promise for developing effective industrial PUR recycling processes and mitigating the environmental footprint of plastic waste.

High expression level of ERBB2 and efficacy of trastuzumab deruxtecan in desmoplastic small round cell tumour: a monocentric case series report.

Desmoplastic small round cell tumours (DSRCTs) represent an ultra-rare subtype of soft tissue sarcoma characterized by a recurrent EWSR1::WT1 oncogenic translocation. Considered as an extremely aggressive cancer, the prognosis remains poor with a median overall survival not exceeding 24-36 months and a 5-year survival <10%. We analysed ERBB2/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression levels in aseries of 13 DSRCT patients, using whole-exome RNA sequencing on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples from a local biopathological database. In addition, a retrospective case series describes the clinical outcome of three successive DSRCT patients treated with trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd). The gene expression analysis demonstrated a consistent high RNA expression level of ERBB2 in DSRCT, with elevated levels [>5 log2(transcripts per million+ 1)] across all samples of the cohort and the expression level was the highest compared with all other sarcoma subtypes. In addition to these results, T-DXd showed a marked activity in all three DSRCT patients who presented with metastatic disease refractory to previous standard chemotherapy. So far, the treatment has been overall well tolerated and is currently pursued in the three patients (duration of response >3months for all three), which warrants additional investigation. This case series presents a major information, suggesting that HER2 is a therapeutic target in DSRCT and T-DXd might represent a novel therapeutic option. Those results require to be rapidly shared with the scientific community and confirmed in a prospective clinical trial in this context of very poor prognosis disease and urgent unmet need.

Rectal neuroendocrine tumors: Can we predict their behavior?

Rectal neuroendocrine tumors (r-NETs) are the second most common type of neuroendocrine tumor in the gastrointestinal tract, with an increase in incidence in the last decades. They are low-grade tumors and, given their low risk of metastasis, current guidelines recommend endoscopic resection for small lesions. The GATIS predicting score, proposed by Zeng et al , represents an innovative model designed to predict individualized survival outcomes for patients with r-NETs, analyzing the relationship between clinicopathological features and patient prognoses. The authors identified tumor grade, T stage, tumor size, age, and prognostic nutritional index as key prognostic factors, demonstrating that the GATIS Score provides a more accurate prognosis assessment compared to the World Health Organization classification or the tumor-node-metastasis staging system. Nevertheless, further larger prospective studies are necessary, and the scientific community's efforts in this context should be directed toward developing international multicentric prospective studies, with the ultimate aim of accurately defining and understanding the behavior of these conditions.

Retrospective analysis of antimicrobial resistance associated with bovine respiratory disease.

The administration and utility of antibiotics to control and treat bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in beef cattle feedlots is a growing concern. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among BRD-associated bacterial pathogens has been the subject of cultivation-dependent and cultivation-independent surveillance. Bacterial genome sequencing and metagenomic approaches facilitate the characterization of AMR in the beef industry; however, the current collection of cattle-associated AMR research programs lack connections to each other. A more integrated view of how antimicrobial use (AMU) is related to resistance at a gene level is needed. We sought to establish a catalog of commonly observed AMR genes (ARGs) in opportunistic bacterial pathogens that contribute to BRD using publicly available data sets that were generated by the scientific community with and without AMU in mind. The presence of these clinically relevant ARGs appeared to differ by geography. Greater sampling in North America facilitated the generation of a list of ARGs often encoded by Mannheimia haemolytica and Pasteurella multocida. Detection of clinically relevant ARGs in shotgun metagenomes of cattle-associated and accessible feedlot samples such as water, soil, and feces was possible but limited by relative sequence read abundance. An exception was the tylosin esterase-encoding gene estT, which is among the most frequently observed ARGs in M. haemolytica and feedlot-related metagenomic data sets. Finally, by re-evaluating studies on the impact of AMU on AMR in beef production systems, we show that conventional practices, including in-feed antibiotic use, increase the relative abundance of ARGs in animal-derived samples.IMPORTANCEThis retrospective analysis delivers a list of ARGs found in opportunistic pathogens that contribute to BRD. The high incidence of BRD in North America is linked to the origin and implementation of metaphylaxis to mitigate detrimental animal losses at feedlots. Notably, ARGs commonly observed in these pathogens isolated in North America were not conserved across the globe, underscoring the relationship between regional AMU and AMR. A positive relationship was also observed between the relative abundance of ARGs in cattle-associated metagenomes with greater exposure to antibiotics. Overall, this analysis should help to guide future surveillance efforts and experimental designs to more directly evaluate the impacts of feedlot practices on AMR.

Geometric description of a gliding grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma) for computer-aided design

Albatrosses are increasingly drawing attention from the scientific community due to their remarkable flight capabilities. Recent studies suggest that grey-headed albatrosses (GHA) may be the fastest and most energy-efficient of the albatross species, yet no attempts have been made to replicate their wing design. A key factor in aircraft design is the airfoil, which remains uncharacterized for the GHA. Other critical aspects, such as wing twist and dihedral/anhedral, also remain unquantified for any albatross species. This study aimed to fill this gap in the current knowledge by extracting detailed morphological data from a GHA wing to recreate digitally. A well-preserved dried GHA wing was scanned in the presence of airflow in a wind tunnel, at conditions that represent a GHA in gliding flight. Wing cross-sections were extracted and smoothed to produce a series of airfoils along the wing span. The 3D properties such as wing dihedral/anhedral, sweep and twist were also extracted and used to build a CAD model of the wing. Variations in airfoil shape were observed along the wing span, with thicker, more cambered airfoils near the wing base. The model wing's camber was slightly higher, particularly in the arm section, but overall matched flight photographs. The body, tail, and bill were modelled based on available photographs and known dimensions from literature and merged with the wing to form the final bill-body-wing-tail model. This model is based on real GHA morphology under aerodynamic pressure, in gliding flight. Although geometric changes due to scanner interference remain a limitation of this method, the extracted geometric data still provide valuable insights into wing performance under varying conditions. The geometry can also be fully parameterized for complex simulations, aiding studies of GHA aerodynamics and engineering design, such as in aircraft or wind turbines at similar Reynolds numbers.

Reusability of Bayesian Networks case studies: a survey

Bayesian Networks (BNs) are probabilistic graphical models used to represent variables and their conditional dependencies, making them highly valuable in a wide range of fields, such as radiology, agriculture, neuroscience, construction management, medicine, and engineering systems, among many others. Despite their widespread application, the reusability of BNs presented in papers that describe their application to real-world tasks has not been thoroughly examined. In this paper, we perform a structured survey on the reusability of BNs using the PRISMA methodology, analyzing 147 papers from various domains. Our results indicate that only 18% of the papers provide sufficient information to enable the reusability of the described BNs. This creates significant challenges for other researchers attempting to reuse these models, especially since many BNs are developed using expert knowledge elicitation. Additionally, direct requests to authors for reusable BNs yielded positive results in only 12% of cases. These findings underscore the importance of improving reusability and reproducibility practices within the BN research community, a need that is equally relevant across the broader field of Artificial Intelligence.

Deviations in evapotranspiration measurements between enclosed- and open-path eddy covariance systems

The evapotranspiration (ET) measured by a closed-path eddy covariance system (CPEC), even with tube attenuation correction considering relative humidity (RH), frequently underestimated the ET measured by an open-path eddy covariance system (OPEC). An enclosed-path eddy covariance system (EPEC), which combines the advantages of both CPEC and OPEC, shows superior performance in many aspects, but doubts remain regarding its ET measurement accuracy. In this technical note, the comparative data between EPEC and OPEC were collected from various ecosystems and gas analyzers in the Korea Flux Network (KoFlux) and analyzed. Despite careful application of time lag compensation and frequency response correction using EddyPro, a widely used open-source data processing software in the flux science community, significant underestimation (6–8%) of ET measured by EPEC compared to OPEC remained consistently in all the three intercomparison experiments. Such deviations in ET measurements must be considered when synthesizing ET data measured by various EC systems.

Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Artemisia and Salvia Genera in Cancer, Diabetes, and Cardiovascular Diseases: A Short Review of Clinical Evidence

Metabolic syndrome, a cluster of metabolic disorders comprising dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, elevated blood pressure, and abdominal obesity, is a silent epidemic that may lead to outcomes such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Due to the increase in the prevalence of these pathologies, the search for better treatments and more efficient drugs is imperative. Species of Artemisia and Salvia genera are excellent examples of noteworthy sources of bioactive products with health applications, their therapeutic properties being well known both in popular medicine and in the scientific community. There are reports of plant extracts or compounds from species belonging to either of these genera, which were able to combat cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular pathologies. For instance, dihydroartemisinin (analog of artemisin extracted from Artemisia annua L.) can reduce tumor markers p53 and Ki-67 expression levels, leading to a reduction in tumor proliferation. Salvia officinalis L. has antihyperglycemic and lipid profile-improving effects since it decreases total cholesterol, glycosylated hemoglobin, fasting glucose, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels while increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Clinical trials using mixtures (dried powdered plants or extracts) of known medicinal plants are recurrent in published works, in contrast with the scarce clinical trial studies with isolated compounds. Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. was by far the most targeted plant in the clinical trials analyzed here. Regarding clinical trials concerning Artemisia, there are more studies aiming to see its effect on diabetes, but the studies about cancer are more advanced. This review aims to give a critical summary of the most interesting and promising results from clinical trials. The abundance of studies with limited statistically significant clinical evidence hinders progress in clinical therapy. This situation demands far greater rigor from the scientific community, researchers, regulatory agencies, editors, and reviewers in conducting and publishing clinical studies.

Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Pastoral Areas

The warming climate and increasing extreme weather events are transforming ecological backgrounds, which is bringing new challenges to herders’ livelihood in grassland areas. To understand the practical ecological risks and the current resilience situations of herders’ behaviors and government correspondence measures, we built a conceptual framework of community resilience in pastoral areas, selected different kinds of steppes along the ecological gradient (desert steppe, typical steppe and meadow steppe) and took household surveys to recognize the difference in ecological risks and enhancing strategies in different grassland types. The results show that: (1) Herders in desert steppe, with the lowest precipitation and the worst grassland condition, turn out to have more experience in perceiving droughts and mitigating loss from disaster, but received the most attention from government assistance (28.0%) to getting through drought; (2) Typical steppe, with traditionally better pastural husbandry environment, suffered most broadly through droughts (85.7%) and have worst household livestock loss (26.7%) through snow storms; (3) Meadow steppe has the highest catastrophic snow storm ratio (65.0%) and affected ratio (95.0%), but the least assistance from the government (22.22%). The results revealed that originally high ecological vulnerability gradually encouraged herder’s livelihood adaptive capability. However, the government assistance and attention are more inclined to the local original ecological vulnerability. In addition, the increasing extreme climate events are bringing new challenges to adaptive knowledge systems of indigenous herders under good ecological condition. There is a clear need to combine the efforts of local pastoralists, policymakers and scientific community together to construct a more resilient socio-ecological pastoral systems under the global climate change. This research provides an in-depth understanding of community resilience in pastoral areas along the ecological gradient while facing the slow-onset climate change impacts. Practical recommendations on climate risk management and adaptation in pastoral areas are discussed.

MEEhubs2024: A hub-based conference on microbial ecology and evolution fostering sustainability.

Scientific conferences are essential to academic exchange. However, related air travel contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, while expensive registration and travel costs limit the participation of early-career researchers and those from low-income countries. Virtual conferences offer promising solutions for reducing emissions and enhancing accessibility and inclusivity but often limit networking and personal interaction. Hybrid multi-hub conferences, which combine virtually connected in-person venues with individual virtual participation, combine the benefits of both conference formats. Thus, we present and discuss MEEhubs2024, a multi-hub conference on microbial ecology and evolution held in January 2024. During this three-day conference, attendees participated virtually or at one of six hubs in Europe and North America. We analyzed the participants' and organizers' feedback to create a template and provide insights into the scientific community's adoption of this new conference format, which was positively evaluated by most participants. Because technical, logistical and structural challenges remain, including limited opportunities to interact and network across hubs and participation modes, we provide recommendations for improvement like hiring technical hosts and offering virtual-only social activities. Finally, we used the participants' feedback to reflect on conference expectations, highlighting research gaps and the need for organizers to define and communicate goals when organizing conferences.

Quantum size effects and tailoring the electron energy levels in semiconductors: comparison study on AlxGa1-xAs and GaxIn1-xAs quantum wires

The engineering of the architecture of the quantum wires has shown a real challenge in the scientific community owing to their fascinating and auspicious application potential in the field of optoelectronics. The modulation of the morphology and structure of the quantum wires may give rise to the modulation of the energy levels and band offset positions to enhance the charge carriers transfer through any electronic device and improve the overall performance for the future application in the field of spintronics and photonics. Here, we proposed, for the first time, a novel rectangular architecture based AlxGa1-xAs and GaxIn1-xAs quantum wires to engineer the electron energy spectrum according to a wide range of applications in electronics and optical devices. The electron energy levels in rectangular AlxGa1-xAs and GaxIn1-xAs quantum wires with infinite potential barrier were calculated at different x values and different cross-section areas to explore the role of dopant and compared with the cylindrical shape. The calculations of the electron confinement energy in the first and second energy levels indicate that the energy value in cylindrical quantum wire is less than its value in rectangular one while for E3 the energy value in cylindrical quantum wire is larger than its value in rectangular one for all values of x. The confinement energy was found to be inversely proportional to the ratio of the doped material. The electron energy dispersion in AlxGa1-xAs and GaxIn1-xAs quantum wires of 100 nm2 cross-section area, x = 0.4 for E1, E2 and E3 with the wave vector value has been investigated. The calculations of the first and second energy levels indicated that the energy value in cylindrical quantum wire is less than its value in rectangular one for E1 and E2 while for E3 the energy value in cylindrical quantum wire is larger than its value in rectangular with a distinct value for each wave vector value for all x values. These unique features of the proposed novel architecture may open a new avenue for the future applications in photonics, spintronics and waveguides.

DeepCERES: A deep learning method for cerebellar lobule segmentation using ultra-high resolution multimodal MRI.

This paper introduces a novel multimodal and high-resolution human brain cerebellum lobule segmentation method. Unlike current tools that operate at standard resolution (1 mm3) or using mono-modal data, the proposed method improves cerebellum lobule segmentation through the use of a multimodal and ultra-high resolution (0.125 mm3) training dataset. To develop the method, first, a database of semi-automatically labelled cerebellum lobules was created to train the proposed method with ultra-high resolution T1 and T2 MR images. Then, an ensemble of deep networks has been designed and developed, allowing the proposed method to excel in the complex cerebellum lobule segmentation task, improving precision while being memory efficient. Notably, our approach deviates from the traditional U-Net model by exploring alternative architectures. We have also integrated deep learning with classical machine learning methods incorporating a priori knowledge from multi-atlas segmentation which improved precision and robustness. Finally, a new online pipeline, named DeepCERES, has been developed to make available the proposed method to the scientific community requiring as input only a single T1 MR image at standard resolution.

IFSSH Scientific Committee on Congenital Hand Conditions.

The Oberg, Manske and Tonkin (OMT) Classification of Congenital Hand and Upper Limb Anomalies was adopted as the official IFSSH classification in 2014 with recommendations for 3-yearly reviews and updates. This report examined the evidence and feedback from the scientific community to see whether changes to the 2020 OMT should be made. The Committee concluded that no current changes are required, but highlighted a number of areas where further research and discussions are needed. These areas include the conditions of symbrachydactyly vs transverse arrest, the ongoing challenge with classifying syndactyly, and the nomenclature of arthrogrypotic conditions. The OMT Classification continues to enjoy high inter- and intra-rater reliability, thus establishing its central place as a robust classification system in various registries around the world.

Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead in the Translation of Implantable Microscale Sensors and Actuators.

Microscale sensors and actuators have been widely explored by the scientific community to augment the functionality of conventional medical implants. However, despite the many innovative concepts proposed, a negligible fraction has successfully made the leap from concept to clinical translation. This shortfall is primarily due to the considerable disparity between academic research prototypes and market-ready products. As such, it is critically important to examine the lessons learned in successful commercialization efforts to inform early-stage translational research efforts. Here, we review the regulatory prerequisites for market approval and provide a comprehensive analysis of commercially available microimplants from a device design perspective. Our objective is to illuminate both the technological advances underlying successfully commercialized devices and the key takeaways from the commercialization process, thereby facilitating a smoother pathway from academic research to clinical impact.