Filetype
Early vision is the process occurring before any semantic interpretation of an image takes place. Motion estimation, object segmentation and detection are all parts of early vision, but recognition is not. Some models in early vision are easy to perform inference with---they are tractable. Others describe the reality well---they have high fidelity. This thesis improves the tractability-fidelity tr
Background: Arsenic is mono- (MMA) and dimethylated (DMA) in humans and the methylation pattern demonstrates large inter-individual differences. The fraction of urinary MMA is a marker for susceptibility to arsenic-related diseases. Objectives: The impact of polymorphisms in five methyltransferase genes on arsenic metabolism was evaluated in two populations, one in South America, one in southeast
Mouse apolipoprotein M (m-apoM) displays a 79% sequence identity to human apolipoprotein M (h-apoM). Both proteins are apolipoproteins associated with high-density lipoproteins, with similar anticipated biological functions. The structure of h-apoM has recently been determined by X-ray crystallography, which revealed that h-apoM displays, as expected, a lipocalin-like fold characterized by an eigh
Background. Umbilical artery Doppler velocimetry is a routine method for fetal surveillance in high-risk pregnancy. Uterine artery Doppler seems to give comparable information, but it can be difficult to interpret as there are two arteries, which might show notching and/or increased pulsatility index (PI) as signs of increased vascular impedance. Combining the information on vascular resistance on
Energy consumption is today an important design issue for all kinds of digital systems, and essential for the battery operated ones. An important fraction of this energy is dissipated on the processors running the application software. To reduce this energy consumption, one may, for instance, lower the processor clock frequency and supply voltage. This, however, might lead to a performance degrada
This questionnaire survey was initiated to acquire information for prepration of a series of field studies. The paper deals with questions that were related to the thermal responses of the feet and footwear performance. The questionnaire was sent to a harbour, a telecommunication company and a customs office. At the harbour most of the workers used footwear with warm lining during winter. Half of
Popular Abstract in Swedish Det övergripande syftet med denna avhandling är att fokusera på barndepressioner i Jordanien, och specifikt vad gäller förekomst, symptom och orsaker. En jordansk översättning av Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) har använts och resultatet visar att av 534 barn i åldrarna 11-12 år lider 33 av svår depression. I intervjuer med både lärare och de identifierade depressThe purpose of this thesis is to scrutinise the situation of children with depression in Jordan. The Jordanian translation of the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) is used in this study. The original sample on which the study tools were applied consisted of 534 children. The data was analysed according to the SPSS programme. The results of the study show that the Jordanian translation of the C
Background. Fast and accurate work-up is crucial to ensure the best possible treatment and prognosis for patients with head and neck cancer. The presence or absence of neck lymph node metastases is important for the prognosis and the choice of treatment. Clinical lymph node (N)-staging is done by palpation and diagnostic imaging of the neck. We investigated the current practice of the initial radi
Context: The risk of many conditions, including prostate cancer, breast cancer, and osteoporosis, is associated with serum levels of sex steroids. Objective: The aim of the study was to identify genetic variations in sex steroid-related genes that are associated with serum levels of estradiol (E2) and/or testosterone in men. Design: Genotyping of 604 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 50 sex stero
Background: Serum creatinine-based estimates of GFR may be inaccurate in the elderly and there is need for improvement. Serum Cystatin C, not being influenced by muscle volume, may be more accurate. Material and methods: GFR was measured with plasma clearance of iohexol in 50 elderly persons aged >70 years. Blood tests were drawn for analysis of creatinine, albumin and urea. Cystatin C was analyse
Context: Test driven development (TDD) has been extensively researched and compared to traditional approaches (test last development, TLD). Existing literature reviews show varying results for TDD. Objective: This study investigates how the conclusions of existing literature reviews change when taking two study quality dimension into account, namely rigor and relevance. Method: In this study a sys
Background: Evidence from twin and molecular genetic studies is accumulating that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) shares substantial etiological factors with other disorders. This is mirrored in clinical practice where ASD without coexisting disorders is rare. The present study aims to examine the range of coexisting disorders in ASD in a genetically informative cohort. Methods: Parents of all Swed
Excessive interdialytic weight gain (IWG) and ultrafiltration rates (UFR) above 10 mL/h/kg body weight imply higher morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of high fluid consumers, describe UFR patterns, and describe patient characteristics associated with IWG and UFR. The Swedish Dialysis DataBase and The Swedish Renal Registry of Active Treatment of Uremia were used
Background: It is well established that Libya is lagging behind its peers in biomedical research. The aim of this study is to analyse all the original biomedical publications affiliated with Libya from 1973 to 2007. Methods: PubMed and the Science Citation Index Expanded were searched for 'original research' biomedical studies affiliated with Libya. The generated data were hand searched and 329 'o
The impacts of climate change are likely to exacerbate many problems that coastal areas already face. In this study, we used multinomial logistic regression to examine human perception of climate change based on a cross-sectional survey of 1253 individuals in coastal regions of Tanzania. This was complemented with time series analysis of 50-year meteorological data. The results indicate that self-
Objective. While the prevalence of radiographic thumb carpometacarpal (CMC1) osteoarthritis (OA) is well-described, little is known about clinically symptomatic disease presenting to physicians for care. We sought to determine the prevalence of doctor-diagnosed CMC1 OA. Methods. Using health care data from Skane in southern Sweden (population 1.24 million), we identified all adults ages >= 20 year
The splice variant INS-IGF2 entails the preproinsulin signal peptide, the insulin B-chain, eight amino acids of the C-peptide and 138 unique amino acids from an ORF in the IGF2 gene. The aim was to determine whether levels of specific INS-IGF2 autoantibodies (INS-IGF2A) were related to age at diagnosis, islet autoantibodies, HLA-DQ, or both, in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients and controls
Estrogen exerts vasculoprotective effects in different experimental settings through inhibition of vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation, stimulation of nitric oxide production and attenuation of inflammation. Although these estrogen-evoked beneficial effects have been attributed to estrogen receptor α (ERα), also ERβ and the novel ER GPR30/GPER1 probably play significant roles in vascular est
Replacement therapy with factor VIII (FVIII) concentrates has become the mainstay of treatment for hemophilia, but about 30% of patients with a severe disease develop neutralizing antibodies against FVIII, which can lead to treatment resistance and an increased risk of bleeding. Immune tolerance induction (ITI) overcomes the immune response to FVIII concentrates in the majority of patients. Severa
