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Aquaculture is an industry that has developed rapidly over the past decades. Despite several hazards in the operations, emergency preparedness is not at the same level as in the rest of the maritime industry. This paper highlights some possibilities to increase the aquaculture industry’s coastal emergency preparedness. This paper is the result of the innovation project “Coastal Emergency Preparedness” funded by the Norwegian Research Council and industry partners. The aquaculture industry must establish its own emergency preparedness. In this paper, the innovation of a fleet of emergency preparedness vessels along the coastline, which could fill the gaps in emergency preparedness, is presented. The vessels would be of varied sizes, with different equipment and response times, and could assist the aquaculture industry during local incidents or large‐scale ones, such as algae blooms or winter storms, that affect many sites at the same time. Each production zone would need its own dedicated fleet due to biosecurity regulations. The emergency preparedness vessel fleet would be led by an on‐scene commander. The fleet would deal with oil spills and tasks such as emergency towing, firefighting, rescue of people, recapturing of fish, silage making, algae detection, and diving missions. With such a vessel fleet, small and large aquaculture companies could increase their emergency preparedness with a common strategy and shared resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Randomized controlled trials (RCT) generalizability may be limited due to strict patient selection. Objective: In a real‐world heart failure (HF) population, we assessed eligibility for sacubitril/valsartan based on PARADIGM‐HF (sacubitril/valsartan effective)/PARAGON‐HF [sacubitril/valsartan effective in mildly reduced ejection fraction (EF)]. Methods: Outpatients from the Swedish HF Registry (SwedeHF) were analysed. In SwedeHF, EF is recorded as <30, 30–39, 40–49 and ≥50%. In PARAGON‐HF, sacubitril/valsartan was effective with EF ≤ 57% (i.e. median). We defined reduced EF/PARADIGM‐HF as EF < 40%, mildly reduced EF/PARAGON‐HF ≤ median as EF 40–49%, and normal EF/PARAGON‐HF > median as EF ≥ 50%. We assessed 2 scenarios: (i) criteria likely to influence treatment decisions (pragmatic scenario); (ii) all criteria (literal scenario). Results: Of 37 790 outpatients, 57% had EF < 40%, 24% EF 40–49% and 19% EF ≥ 50%. In the pragmatic scenario, 63% were eligible in EF < 50% (67% for EF < 40% and 52% for 40–49%) and 52% in EF ≥ 40% (52% for EF ≥ 50%). For the literal scenario, 32% were eligible in EF < 50% (38% of EF < 40%, 20% of EF 40–49%) and 22% in EF ≥ 40% (25% for EF ≥ 50%). Eligible vs. noneligible patients had more severe HF, more comorbidities and overall worse outcomes. Conclusion: In a real‐world HF outpatient cohort, 81% of patients had EF < 50%, with 63% eligible for sacubitril/valsartan based on pragmatic criteria and 32% eligible based on literal trial criteria. Similar eligibility was observed for EF 40–49% and ≥50%, suggesting that our estimates for EF < 50% may be reproduced whether or not a higher cut‐off for EF is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical models are investigated and suggested for the calculation of the elastic stiffness of polymer nanocomposites. Particular emphasis is placed on the effect on the elastic stiffness from agglomerates and the particle interphase properties. The multiphase Mori-Tanaka model and an interphase model are considered as two relevant models. These models only include and require the designation of a few system independent parameters with a clear physical meaning. Extensions of the models are also presented. The model calculations are compared to results from other models, as well as experimental data for different nanocomposites. For nanocomposites with spherical particles and with fiber-like particles, the suggested models are found to be the most flexible ones and are applicable to estimate the stiffness increase of nanocomposites for both low and high particle volume fractions. The suggested theoretical models can hence be considered as a general multiscale “model toolbox” for analysis of various nanocomposites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical models of cardiac electro-mechanics typically consist of three tightly coupled parts: systems of ordinary differential equations describing electro-chemical reactions and cross-bridge dynamics in the muscle cells, a system of partial differential equations modelling the propagation of the electrical activation through the tissue and a nonlinear elasticity problem describing the mechanical deformations of the heart muscle. The complexity of the mathematical model motivates numerical methods based on operator splitting, but simple explicit splitting schemes have been shown to give severe stability problems for realistic models of cardiac electro-mechanical coupling. The stability may be improved by adopting semi-implicit schemes, but these give rise to challenges in updating and linearising the active tension. In this paper we present an operator splitting framework for strongly coupled electro-mechanical simulations and discuss alternative strategies for updating and linearising the active stress component. Numerical experiments demonstrate considerable performance increases from an update method based on a generalised Rush–Larsen scheme and a consistent linearisation of active stress based on the first elasticity tensor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of adding nanosized alumina fillers of both fibre-like and spherical shapes to an epoxy polymer has been investigated. The alumina was dispersed in the epoxy hardener using two different sonication techniques. A high degree of dispersion was difficult to obtain and agglomerates were observed in the nanocomposites. Nevertheless, particle size analysis showed an effect of the sonication technique, resulting in a higher degree of dispersion. Mechanical testing and dynamic mechanical analysis revealed that the stiffness of the epoxy polymer could be significantly improved using only small amounts of alumina, even when a significant part of the filler was in an agglomerated state. Also, the experimental results from tensile testing agreed well with mathematical models at low filler concentrations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]