Ørsted (Denmark)

Liposomes are valuable in drug and vaccine delivery. However, due to limited stability in the gastric environment, there is a need to optimize liposomes for oral delivery. This study demonstrates the potential of pectin-coated cationic liposomes for mucosal delivery. Low methoxylated (LM), low methoxylated amidated (LMA), or high methoxylated (HM) pectins were coated onto cationic adjuvant formulation (CAF04) liposomes. The resulting liposomes were characterized to determine their in vitro stability in a simulated intestinal medium, interactions with mucins, and diffusivity across artificial mucus. Subsequently, liposome retention after in situ intestinal perfusion in rats and liposome uptake after incubation with macrophage-like cells were determined. In vitro stability tests in simulated intestinal fluid revealed that the pectin coating protected the liposomes against premature degradation. Mucin interaction studies showed that LM and LMA-pectin coatings created a protective buffer, avoiding excessive complexation with mucin. Diffusivity of the liposomes across artificial mucus revealed that the diffusivity of particles across mucus was influenced by both steric obstructions and interactive barriers. In situ intestinal perfusion demonstrated that pectin-coated liposomes were retained in the intestine, and cellular uptake studies confirmed that the pectin coating did not inhibit the uptake of the liposomes by macrophages. Overall, pectins demonstrated potential as excipients for mucosal delivery systems. In the context of oral liposome-based vaccine formulations, they can mitigate undesirable interactions such as complexation with bile salts and mucins, while preserving the cellular uptake efficiency of the particles.

Multimaterial Microrobots The cover shows multimaterial microrobots comprising a hard polymer backbone, which enables transportation using optical trapping, and 4D printed sensing elements made of a pH-responsive hydrogel. The sensing elements swell and shrink depending on the local environment, allowing us to estimate local pH from size measurements of the sensing elements. More details can be found in the Research Article by Ada-Ioana Bunea and co-workers (10.1002/admt.202501075).

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Non-destructive inspection (NDI) is useful in the industrial sector to ensure that manufacturing follows defined specifications, reducing the quantity of waste and thereby the cost of production. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), a well-known diagnostic technique in medical and biological research, is increasingly being used for industrial NDI. In the mid-infrared (MIR) wavelength range, OCT can be used to characterise parts and defects not possible by other industry-ready scanners, and enables better penetration than conventional near-infrared OCT. In this article, we demonstrate NDI of wind turbine blade (WTB) coatings using an MIR OCT scanner employing light around 4 <em>&micro;</em>m from a supercontinuum laser source. We inspected the top two layers of the coating (topcoat and primer) in two different samples. The first is to determine the maximum penetration depth, and the second one is to imitate defect identification. The results of our study confirm that MIR OCT scanners are promising for coating inspection and quality control in the production of WTBs, with performance parameters not achievable by other technologies.

Advances in fine-scale movement modeling of soaring birds can aid efforts to understand and resolve the impacts of anthropogenic activities on such birds. Soaring birds often rely on underlying terrain and low-altitude updrafts to govern their flights

Background: User involvement in mental healthcare has become a central focus, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between users and mental healthcare professionals (MHCPs) in treatment decision-making. Despite its growing significance, there remains limited exploration of MHCPs’ perspectives on user involvement, particularly regarding its integration and impact on treatment outcomes. Aim: This study investigates mental healthcare professionals’ views on user involvement, focusing on its role in treatment outcomes and identifying barriers to fully integrating user preferences into care. Method: A qualitative study was conducted with 21 MHCPs from a mental health center in Region Zealand, Denmark. Data were collected through focus group interviews and analyzed using inductive content analysis. Findings: Three key themes emerged: (1) Empowering Users Through Choice and Flexibility, emphasizing user autonomy and adaptable care practices; (2) The Dynamic Role of User Involvement, highlighting the importance of continuous dialogue and structured opportunities for feedback; and (3) Challenges and Strategies in Mental Healthcare, focusing on adapting care to fluctuating conditions and improving user-centered communication. Conclusion: Overcoming systemic barriers such as time constraints, limited communication training, and hierarchical structures is essential for enhancing user involvement in mental healthcare. The findings emphasize the importance of fostering empowerment through choice, communication, and flexibility to improve mental health outcomes.

Abstract. Atmospheric stability controls the evolution of wind turbine wakes and thus the yield and performance of wind parks. For estimations of wind park power output and for improving analyses of wind park wakes, crucial parameters were found to be profiles of atmospheric temperature and stability metrics. Atmospheric temperature profiles are available from numerical weather prediction (NWP) models or are measured in situ by balloon-borne sensors but can also be estimated from the ground using radiometric observations. This paper reviews the stability metrics useful for monitoring wind park performances and provides a quantitative assessment of the value of NWP model data for estimating these metrics. This paper also extends previous work, quantifying the performances of microwave radiometer (MWR) observations to estimate stability metrics from surface-based observations in three climatological conditions (marine, continental, and polar) and with different instrument types, situated either on land or in the ocean. Two NWP systems (DOWA and NEWA) have been evaluated against temperature profiles measured by offshore met masts in the 30–100 m layer from the surface. The systematic differences are ∼ 0.3–0.5 K, with no clear dependence on the stability class. Conversely, both models show larger random differences in stable compared to unstable conditions. Root-mean-square (rms) differences were within 1 K for DOWA (Dutch Offshore Wind Atlas), while they exceeded 2 K for NEWA (New European Wind Atlas) in very stable conditions. For temperature gradients in the 50–100 m vertical layer, the mean absolute error (MAE) was ∼ 3.4–4.2 K km−1, with 5.8–8.4 K km−1 rms and 0.7–0.8 correlation. From the six datasets of MWR and radiosonde observations considered here, temperature profiles mostly agree within ∼ 0.5 K near the surface, increasing to ∼ 1.5 K at 2 km. Substantial differences are found between MWR performances in retrieving temperature and potential temperature gradients (50–300 m) onshore and offshore. Onshore, potential temperature gradients agree with 2.1–3.4 K km−1 MAE and 0.7–0.9 correlation. Offshore, both MAE (0.9–1.9 K km−1) and correlation (0.3–0.4) are relatively lower, although performances tend to improve using elevation scanning retrievals. Considering all the datasets, the reported MAE values range from 0.9–3.4 K km−1 while rms values range from 1.2–5.1 K km−1. Thus, the uncertainty of MWR for temperature and potential temperature gradients in the 50–300 m vertical layer is ∼ 0.5–4.3 K km−1. The relatively lower performances offshore may be attributed to the training of the inversion method, which may under-represent the peculiar offshore conditions, and the ship movements, which can impact low-elevation observations. These considerations suggest that appropriate dedicated training and elevation scanning with ship movement compensation may be required for the MWR to better catch potential temperature gradients typical of offshore conditions.

The increasing integration of inverter-based resources (IBRs), such as Distributed Generation Units (DGUs), in shore-power cyber-physical DC shipboard microgrids (SMGs) enhances maritime energy autonomy and operational flexibility but also introduces critical vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. In particular, bounded and unbounded false data injection attacks (FDIAs) and man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks targeting measurement units and communication links within shore-ship inverters and DGU converters can destabilize voltage regulation, disrupt power-sharing coordination, and compromise system integrity. To address these challenges, a novel distributed, resilient control strategy is proposed in this paper for the operation of DC SMGs in dynamic maritime environments. The approach integrates decentralized voltage regulation with adaptive load-sharing mechanisms and embedded compensation terms to autonomously detect and mitigate malicious input perturbations in IBRs. The controller dynamically suppresses corrupted feedback signals and ensures resilient coordination among DGUs without relying on centralized supervision or prior knowledge of attack models. The proposed method guarantees uniformly ultimately bounded convergence for global voltage regulation and proportional load sharing objectives, even under unbounded attack settings. A Lyapunov-based stability analysis is also performed to formally establish these guarantees, ensuring robust performance against a wide range of adversarial scenarios. Test results of a practical shore-power DC SMG are presented to validate and demonstrate the performance of proposed method in terms of voltage stability, power-sharing accuracy, and cyber-resilience compared with those obtained from standard control schemes against multiple and combined attacks. The results have indicated that the proposed method can be a practical and adaptive solution for secure, stable, and resilient operation of IBRS-based shore-power DC SMGs under advanced threats.

Offshore wind is now viewed as a mainstream generation source that can be scaled and deployed globally. Most of the recent offshore wind farms being designed and developed are comparable to large power plants (∼1,000+ MW). The design, construction, and operation of these large wind farms is an engineering marvel, as much so as the electric grid itself. The size of the offshore wind turbine generator doubles almost every eight years with some as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Along with an increase in size, the energy captured from the wind and the power rating of these turbines has also dramatically increased. In addition to size scaling, the turbines are now being installed in deeper waters. Most offshore wind farms operating today are built in shallow waters (<45 m water depth), with the wind turbine foundation fixed to the ocean floor (fixed-bottom foundation). At locations where the ocean is deeper, however, fixed-bottom foundations aren’t feasible and floating foundations are required. The design, development, and construction of offshore wind and its future outlook will be discussed in the sections below.

Over the last decade, multiple studies have shown that hearing-impaired listeners’ speech-in-noise reception ability, measured with audibility compensation, is closely associated with performance in spectro-temporal modulation (STM) detection tests. STM tests thus have the potential to provide highly relevant beyond-the-audiogram information in the clinic, but the available STM tests have not been optimized for clinical use in terms of test duration, required equipment, and procedural standardization. The present study introduces a quick-and-simple clinically viable STM test, named the Audible Contrast Threshold (ACT™) test. First, an experimenter-controlled STM measurement paradigm was developed, in which the patient is presented bilaterally with a continuous audibility-corrected noise via headphones and asked to press a pushbutton whenever they hear an STM target sound in the noise. The patient's threshold is established using a Hughson-Westlake tracking procedure with a three-out-of-five criterion and then refined by post-processing the collected data using a logistic function. Different stimulation paradigms were tested in 28 hearing-impaired participants and compared to data previously measured in the same participants with an established STM test paradigm. The best stimulation paradigm showed excellent test-retest reliability and good agreement with the established laboratory version. Second, the best stimulation paradigm with 1-second noise “waves” (windowed noise) was chosen, further optimized with respect to step size and logistic-function fitting, and tested in a population of 25 young normal-hearing participants using various types of transducers to obtain normative data. Based on these normative data, the “normalized Contrast Level” (in dB nCL) scale was defined, where 0 ± 4 dB nCL corresponds to normal performance and elevated dB nCL values indicate the degree of audible contrast loss. Overall, the results of the present study suggest that the ACT test may be considered a reliable, quick-and-simple (and thus clinically viable) test of STM sensitivity. The ACT can be measured directly after the audiogram using the same set up, adding only a few minutes to the process.