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As the population grows and gets older, the need for health care increases, both withinprimary care but also within home care. Being able to carry out smaller examinations to obtain the vital values without a trip to the hospital or that healthcare professionals travel to each patient gives great value to both partners. The care situation in Sweden in 2020 is an understaffed and periodically heavily strained. With the help of digitalisation and the advancement of technology, healthcare can be streamlined and at not least, improved. One of the companies working on a vision of a better healthcare situation is Detectivio. Detectivio was founded by Stefan Malmgren, a physician who saw a clear need for streamlining care when working at the emergency room. Together with researcher Taha Kahn, they have developed a product that can scan a face and in ten seconds get five vital values such as bloodpressure, respiratory rate, heart rate, body temperature and oxygen level in the blood. However, the product is not complete or ready to meet the market and this is where we, as a project group, step in to formulate, develop and complete the products functional aspects into a product ready to be placed on the market. The purpose of the project is to outline possible target groups, their needs and requirementsfor the product. Creating a prototype to test the user experience. The effect of this project will be to offer comfort and safety in the form of high-quality healthcare through time-efficientmeans. The primary target groups were categorized as "technical person", "tool" and "medical reason". The technician wants a product for his or her own use, the group “tools” is meant those who want a product for preventative purposes or as a supplement to existing healthcare products. Finally, we have those in need of medical treatment or supervision. It may be someone who is conically ill and sees a great need to be able to measure their vital values in the home. The result is a fully automated product that enables safe and secure healthcare in the home. The product is activated with the help of sensors that sense movement. Through clear visual means such as a display and lights, the product communicates with the user. All functions are controlled by an Arduino whose code is written by the project team. Since the product does not require user contact, it can contribute to reduced infection risk. The product is a rectangular box of 250 x 176 x 160 mm made in PLA and plexiglass with holes for two cameras, two distance readers, a display and power cable output. The product weighs just over 4 kilos which makes it easy to move. With a simple and unobtrusive design, this product can become part of the everyday interior of the smart home of the future.

Konceptidén D4Active, ett helhetssystem för diabetesvård, grundades som ett examensarbete höstterminen 2018 av två utvecklingsingenjörsstudenter. Konceptets stora potential ledde till att Andrea Stare och Anna Fransson övertog utvecklingen. Under projektets senaste utvecklingsår har projektet gått från ett koncept till ett fungerande trådlöst prototypsystem som kan demonstrera de viktigaste funktionerna för diabetesbehandling. D4Active tillhandahåller en paketlösning bestående av endast tre nödvändiga delar för diabetesvård; en central kommunikationsenhet i form av en interaktiv applikation, en delningsbar insulinpump och en sensor som kan mäta aktuella insulinnivåer. Applikationen följer samtliga medicintekniska standarder för medicinsk utrustning och kan demonstrera de mest grundläggande funktionerna för diabetesvård. Projektgruppen har utvecklat en insulinpump med förlängd livscykel genom en delning som behåller de komponenter som slängs i onödan. Systemet riktar sig till personer som drabbats av diabetes typ 1, en kronisk sjukdom som betyder att kroppen inte kan tillverka naturligt insulin som stabiliserar kroppens glukosnivåer. För höga eller låga insulinvärden kan ha förödande konsekvenser för den drabbade. Systemet är det första trådlösa helhetsystemet för diabetesbehandling som tillgodoser användarnas önskemål och behov av förenklad hantering av sjukdomen. Genom grundliga marknadsundersökningar och intervjuer har projektgruppen tagit fram lösningar för hur systemet kan förbättra hanteringen av diabetes med användaren i fokus. Projektet har utvecklats för att minska antalet enheter för diabetiker att bära med sig, vilket ökar rörligheten och möjligheten till ett mer aktivt vardagsliv. Systemet förväntas stärka diabetesvården och främja hälsa och aktiv livsstil för diabetiker. På så vis kan D4Active pressa de världsledande företagen och bevisa att det går att skapa bättre och mer hållbara produkter för både användaren och miljön. / The D4Active concept, a complete diabetes care system, was founded by two former innovation engineering students. Autumn 2019 Andrea Stare and Anna Fransson took over the D4Active development and during the last year of development, the system has gone from a concept to a functioning wireless prototype system that can demonstrate the most important functions of diabetes care. D4Active provides a package solution consisting of only three essential units for diabetes care; a central communication device in the form of an interactive application, a divisible insulin pump and a sensor that can measure current insulin levels in the body. D4Actives application follows the strict medical regulations for health care products. The target group consist of people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Living with diabetes means that the body cannot naturally produce insulin that keeps the body's glucose levels stable. Through market research and interviews with focus groups, consisting of diabetics, relatives of diabetics who are not often indispensable to the affected and diabetic nurses, the system is developed with the user in focus. We aim to promote good health by enabling a more active lifestyle for diabetics; with our application they can gather the necessary care units and data in one system. In short, the system reduces the number of care units for diabetics to carry with them, which increases mobility and the possibility of a more active everyday life. In addition, we have focused on developing and strengthening the units' lifecycle and durability by retaining the components that are unnecessarily discarded, when in fact they could be used more.

Shear Wave Elastography (SWE) is an ultrasound based technique which is able to measure tissue stiffness through the speed of induced shear waves. Tissue stiffness is often related to pathological conditions and detecting mechanical changes can help the recognition of potential diseases. The clinical use of SWE is limited to isotropic tissue due to the difficulty in assessing a theoretical model for more complex tissue and this project therefore aimed to evaluate the possibility of obtaining a full mechanical characterization of a transversely isotropic (TI) phantom with dual-probe SWE. A TI hydrogel phantom was developed and mechanical tests were performed to verify its anisotropy and determine the elastic moduli in both the perpendicular and longitudinal directions. Shear moduli were estimated using conventional and dual-probe SWE comparing the results to theoretical pure-transverse (PT) and quasi-transverse (QT) wave propagation modes. Both mechanical and SWE tests showed that the phantoms were transversely isotropic ET/EL=0.81. Moreover, multiple wave propagation modes calculated with dual-probe SWE showed a good agreement with the theoretical curves and indicated the possibility of measuring all the elasticity constants needed to fully characterize an incompressible, TI tissue with dual-probe SWE.

At the School of Technology and Health (STH) on KTH, a micro- CT is beeing build. The micro-CT-system need to be aligned in order to function correctly. The purpose of this bachelor thesis was to create an application that, from the micro-CT images, could calculate all the necessary parameters to make the alignment pos- sible. During the projekt, LabView-code for aligning a micro-CT system has been modified to being compatible with the micro-CT at the School of Technology and Health (STH) on KTH. The code has also partly been translated into the open-source and platform independent programming language Java. Due to delays in building the micro-CT at STH, neither the LabView- or Javacode could be validated with it. However, successful attempts have been made with images from another micro-CT and on simulated images of a phantom in a micro-CT.

Work in demanding postures is a known risk factor for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), specifically work with elevated arms may cause neck/shoulder disorders. Such a disorder is a tragedy for the individual, and costly for society. Technical measurements are more precise in estimating the work exposure, than observation and self-reports, and there is a need for uncomplicated methods for risk assessments. The aim of this project was to develop and validate an iOS application for measuring arm elevation angle. Such an application was developed, based on the built-in accelerometer and gyroscope of the iPhone/iPod Touch. The application was designed to be self-exploratory. Directly after a measurement, 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles of angular distribution and median angular velocity, and percentage of time above 30°, 60°, and 90° are presented. The focused user group, ergonomists, was consulted during the user interface design phase. Complete angular datasets may be exported via email as text files for further analyses. The application was validated by comparison to the output of an optical motion capture system for four subjects. The two methods correlated above 0.99, with absolute error below 4.8° in arm flexion and abduction positions. During arm swing movements, the average root-mean-square differences (RMSDs) were 3.7°, 4.6° and 6.5° for slow (0.1 Hz), medium (0.4 Hz) and fast (0.8 Hz) arm swings, respectively. For simulated painting, the mean RMSDs was 5.5°. Since the accuracy was similar to other tested field research methods, this convenient and “low-cost” application should be useful for ergonomists, for risk assessments or educational use. The plan is to publish this iOS application on Apple Store (Apple Inc.) for free. New user feedback may further improve the user interface.

Cervical spine injuries are a serious threat, as they may damage the central nervous system. In the elderly, cervical fractures due to falls are very frequent. The overall weakening of the bony and ligamentous spine decreases the resistance to fractures. Fractures of the dens of the second cervical vertebra (C2) are the most frequent individual fractures in the upper spine. Osteoporosis and impaired conditions play the main role in increasing the fracture risk. Several mechanisms may induce dens fractures: hyper-extension, lateral bending, shear, torsion, but the mechanisms of fractures have not been fully understood. Osteoporosis reduces overall bone strength. Cortical bone thinning occurs in the vertebræ, and there is a general loss of bone mass. Trabecular micro-architecture of bones loses integration, leading an increasing porosity. Mechanical properties worsen, and failure occurs more easily. In this study the role of osteoporosis on the genesis of dens fractures was investigated. An existing finite element (FE) model of the human spine was employed to simulate the effect of parameters associated with osteoporosis on the loading conditions of the dens. A baseline case was first simulated. Then, cortical thickness, cortical and trabecular bulk modulus and shear modulus were decreased in steps. Three impact scenarios were simulated: a lateral fall, a backward fall, and a forward fall. Effects of osteoporotic variations on the ligamentous spine deformations were studied. A mesh convergence analysis was performed to assess the influence of mesh size on the stresses in vertebra C2. The effect of reduced cortical and trabecular bulk moduli alone on stress distribution was not that apparent. In the dens, a reduced cortical thickness, in lateral and backward fall, caused higher maximum stresses than in the baseline. Conversely, in forward fall, reduced cortical thickness caused lower stresses than in the baseline. The effect of reducing trabecular bulk and shear moduli altogether was to decrease the stresses in dens trabecular bone. In lateral and backward fall, by reducing cortical bulk and shear moduli altogether, stresses in dens cortex decreased; whereas, in forward fall, stress decreased in dens neck cortex, and increased in dens apex and waist. It is concluded that cortical thinning, and reduced bulk and shear moduli of bone compartments considerably alter the stress distribution in C2, as well as the ligamentous spine response. The extent of such variations depends also on the impact scenarios. Finally, stresses in the model were found to be sensitive to the mesh size currently used in the human spine FE model. / Halsryggsskador är ett allvarligt problem, eftersom de kan orsaka skador på det centrala nervsystemet. Bland äldre är halskotfrakturer på grund av fall väldigt frekventa. Med åldern kommer en generell försvagning av benen och förändringar av ligamenten som leder till minskad motståndskraft mot frakturer. Densfrakturer av andra halskotan (C2) är den mest frekventa individuella frakturen av övre ryggraden. Osteoporos och annan nedsättning spelar en stor roll i den ökade frakturrisken. Flera mekanismer kan orsaka densfrakturer: hyper-extension, lateral böjning, skjuvning, vridning, men fortfarande saknas en full förståelse för frakturmekanismen. Osteoporos reducerar benstyrkan. Förtunning av det kortikala benet uppkommer i koterna, och en generell minskning av benmassan. Mikroarkitekturen av det trabekulära benet förändras och leder till en ökad porositet. Mekaniska egenskaper försämras, och frakturrisken ökar. I denna studie har inverkan av osteoporos i densfrakturer undersökts. En existerande finit element modell av den mänskliga ryggraden har använts för att studera effekten på dens av olika parameter associerade med osteoporos. En referenssimulering gjordes först som skulle representera en normal halsrygg. Därefter reducerades den kortikala tjockleken, kortikala och trabekulära bulk- och skjuvmodulen stegvis. Resultatet jämfördes sedan med referenssimuleringen. Tre olika situationer simulerades: lateralt fall, fall bakåt och fall framåt. En konvergensanalys gjordes också för att undersöka inverkan av mesh-storleken på spänningarna i C2. Effekten av en reduktion av bulkmodulen av kortikala och trabekulära benet enbart var inte så uppenbar. En reduktion av den kortikala tjockleken i fall lateralt eller bakåt skapade högre spänningar jämfört med referenssimuleringarna. Däremot, i fall framåt skapade samma parameter förändring en minskning av spänningarna. Effekten av att reducera både bulk- och skjuvmodulen för det trabekulära benet sänkte spänningarna i det trabekulära benet. I fall lateralt och bakåt, en reduktion av både bulk- och skjuvmodulen av det kortikala benet gav en sänkning av spänningar i det kortikala benet. Fall framåt minskade spänningarna i det kortikala benet för halsen av dens men ökade spänningarna för apex och midjan. Studien visade att den kortikala förtunningen och reducerad bulk- och skjuvmodul av benet förändrade spänningsfördelningen i C2. Storleken av förändringen berodde också på olyckssituation. Till sist, spänningarna visade sig vara känslig mot mesh-storleken i FE modellen som användes i studien.

This document addresses the development and implementation of a routine for analyzing resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) data in rodents. Even though resting-state connectivity is studied in humans already for several years with diverse applications in mental disorders or degenerative brain diseases, the interest for this modality is much more recent and less common in rodents. The goal of this project is to set an ensemble of tools in order to be able for the experimental MR team of KERIC to analyze rs-fMRI in rodents in a well defined and easy way. During this project several critical choices have been done, one of them is to use the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) in order to process the data rather than a seed-based approach. Also it was decided to use medetomidine as anesthesia rather than isoflurane for the experiments. The routine developed during this project was applied for a project studying the effects of running on an animal model of depression. The routine is composed of several steps, the preprocessing of the data mainly realized with SPM8, the processing using GIFT and the postprocessing which is some statistic tests on the results from GIFT in order to reveal differences between groups using the 2nd level analysis from SPM8 and the testing the correlations between components using the FNC toolbox. / Detta dokument behandlar utvecklingen och implementeringen av en rutin för att analysera bilder från resting-state funktionell Magnetisk Resonenstomografi i gnagare. Även om resting-state connectivity studerats i människor i några år, med olika applikationer i psykiska störningar och neurodegenerativa sjukdomar, är intresset för detta område är betydligt nyare bland experimentell förskare som arbetar med gnagare. Målet av denna projekt är att inställa en procedur så att KERICs experimentell MR team kan lätt analysera resting-state funktionnell MRT data. Under denna projekt har olika viktiga val gjorts, en av dem är att använda Independent Component Analysis procedur för att analysera data framför en seed-baserad teknik. En andra var att använda för anestesi medetomidin och inte isofluran för experiment. Rutinen som var utvecklad under denna projekt blev användad på data från en projekt som studerar effekter av löpning på depression hos råttorna. Rutinen är delad i några delar, den första är att förbehandla data främst med SPM8, den andra är att använda GIFT för att behandla data och den sista är att testa statistiskt resultat från ICA med SPM8 och att testa korrelation mellan komponenter med FNC.

Vår uppdragsgivare Filip Asp, på Cochleaimplantat-sektionen vid Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset i Huddinge, utvecklar en ny psykoakustisk mätmetod som är ett ljudlokalisationstest (LLT) för små barn. För att jämföra den med dagens psykoakustiska mätmetoder för små barn har en litteraturstudie och intervjuer gjorts. I samband med detta undersöktes även barns hörselutveckling då det finns en nära relation till mätmetodernas utformning. Efter att ha identifierat de psykoakustiska mätmetoder som i nuläget finns tillgängliga jämfördes dessa med LLT och vi anser att LLT kommer vara till nytta vid diagnostik, habilitering och forskning.   I nuläget styrs LLT:s applikationer av MATLAB tillsammans med insticksprogrammet Playrec. Om mätmetoden skulle göras om ville uppdragsgivaren veta vilket programmeringsspråk som var till störst nytta för metoden.  Användbara programmeringsspråk identifierades och utvärderades för utveckling av psykoakustiska mätmetoder. Efter litteraturstudier och intervjuer identifierades lämpliga programmeringsspråk: SuperCollider, MATLAB med Playrec samt de visuella språken Max och Pure Data. Ett program togs fram i Max för att testa visuell programmering. Efter vidare undersökningar ansågs Max vara det lämpligaste programmeringsspråket för vidare bruk.

As a bus developer, Scania focus to construct a safe vehicle for the passengers, i.e. high strength of the bus structure and good comfort, which is also profitable for the operator, i.e. high passenger capacity and low fuel consumption. The trade-off when developing a bus body structure is to get both high stiffness and low weight. The bus body including exterior panels plays together with the chassis an important role for the stiffness of the bus. By gathering knowledge about how various exterior panels affects the stiffness of the bus body, the design of the panels can be optimized with respect to high stiffness and low weight. Also from a calculation point of view is it of interest to know how important different panels are for the stiffness of the bus body, in order to make conscious simplifications in the calculation model. The aim with this master thesis was to investigate how the stiffening plate, side windows and roof sheet influence the strength of the bus body. How the thickness of the side windows affects the stiffness of the bus body is also investigated. The investigations were made as a relative comparison between a complete bus and comparison models.   The results showed that exterior panels participate in distributing load. By distributing the load, the load uptake gets more efficient since a bigger part of the bus structure is used to take up the load. The side windows affect the stiffness for all tested load cases, with increased importance for the load case where a gravity field is applied in the longitudinal direction, for the torsion load case and when a load is applied to the power train in vertical direction. The roof sheet has a high impact on the stiffness in the torsion load case, but has negligible influence on the stiffness of the bus body for the other tested load cases. The stiffening plate has little influence on the stiffness of the bus body in general and is negligible for all tested load cases except for when a lateral load is applied as either a gravity field or locally to the power train.   Thinner side windows are shown to have a positive influence on the stiffness of the bus body.