Cardiovascular diseases are the largest mortality factor globally, and early diagnosis is essential for a proper medical response. Cardiac computed tomography can be used to acquire images for their diagnosis, but without radiation dose reduction the radiation emitted to the patient becomes a significant risk factor. By reducing the dose, the image quality is often compromised, and determining a diagnosis becomes difficult. This project proposes image quality enhancement with deep learning. A cycle-consistent generative adversarial neural network was fed low- and high-quality images with the purpose to learn to translate between them. By using a cycle-consistency cost it was possible to train the network without paired data. With this method, a low-quality image acquired from a computed tomography scan with dose reduction could be enhanced in post processing. The results were mixed but showed an increase of ventricular contrast and artifact mitigation. The technique comes with several problems that are yet to be solved, such as structure alterations, but it shows promise for continued development.

<p>Datum: 2008-06-03</p><p>Ämne: Magisteruppsats i företagsekonomi, 15 hp</p><p>Författare: Magdalena Ekman, Emma Ronvall</p><p>Handledare: Carl G. Thunman</p><p>Titel: En utvärdering av kundtidningen Medley – läsarnas uppfattning om innehåll & layout</p><p>Problem: Medtronic AB önskar öka kännedomen om företagets produkter hos svenska läkare, sjuksköterskor, medicintekniker och andra</p><p>opinionsbildare. Ett sätt att uppnå det på är genom kundtidningen</p><p>Medley som skickas direktadresserad till personal på sjukhus och</p><p>kliniker i Sverige. Det är viktigt att kundtidningen har ett innehåll och en layout som tilltalar läsarkretsen.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva hur kundtidningen Medleys innehåll och layout uppfattas av läsarna samt vilka arbetsområden läsarna är verksamma inom. Vidare utvärderas om Medley är lyckad business-to-businessreklam som skapar kännedom om företaget Medtronics produkter.</p><p>Metod: Sekundärdata samlades in och en observationsstudie genomfördes där fem exemplar av Medley granskades. En matris framställdes som listade viktiga variabler som skulle komma att utvärderas. Utifrån matrisen formades en webbenkät innehållande tretton frågor som sedan skickades till 2020 yrkesverksamma personer inom sjukvården.</p><p>Slutsats: Läsarundersökningen resulterade i att 179 respondenter medverkade,där det var 72 läkare och 95 sjuksköterskor som medverkade. Läsarna vill helst läsa nyheter om medicinteknik, forskningsresultat,specialistområden och vetenskapliga artiklar. Respondenterna hade generellt positiva åsikter gällande Medleys layout, där teckensnittet fick högst betyg. Det var 107 respondenter som ansåg att deras kännedom hade ökat efter att de hade läst Medley, vilket representerar 59 % av samtliga respondenter. Sex av tio kriterier i Copy Chasers stämde överens med Medley, därav är kundtidningen Medley lyckad business-to-business-reklam som skapar kännedom om Medtronics produkter.</p> / <p>Date: 2008-06-03</p><p>Subject: Master Thesis in Business Administration, 15 hp</p><p>Authors: Magdalena Ekman, Emma Ronvall</p><p>Tutor: Carl G. Thunman</p><p>Title: An evaluation of the Customer Magazine Medley – the readers’ opinions about content & layout</p><p>Problem: Medtronic AB wishes to increase the knowledge about the company’s products among doctors, nurses, medical technicians and other opinion formers. A way of achieving that is through the customer magazine Medley, which is sent to personnel at hospitals and clinics in Sweden. It is important that the content and the layout of the customer magazine appeal the readers.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose is to describe how the content and layout of the customer magazine Medley is perceived by the readers and also in which work area they are employed. Furthermore Medley will be evaluated whether it is successful business-to-business advertising that creates knowledge about the products of the company Medtronic.</p><p>Method: Subsequently secondary data were gathered and an observational study was carried out, where five copies of Medley were reviewed. A matrix with important variables was made, where the variables that were going to be evaluated were listed. On the basis of the matrix the web questionnaire containing thirteen questions was designed and sent to 2020 persons working within medical care.</p><p>Conclusions: The research resulted in that 179 respondents took part, where 72 doctors and 95 nurses participated. The readers prefer to read about medical technology news, research results, specialist areas and articles of science. The respondents generally had positive opinions about Medley´s layout, where the font got the highest mark. There were 107 respondents that considered that their knowledge had increased since they have read in Medley, which represents 59 % of all respondents. Six out of ten criteria from The Copy Chasers agree with Medley; thereby Medley is successful business-to-business advertising that creates knowledge about Medtronic’s products.</p>

Datum: 2008-06-03 Ämne: Magisteruppsats i företagsekonomi, 15 hp Författare: Magdalena Ekman, Emma Ronvall Handledare: Carl G. Thunman Titel: En utvärdering av kundtidningen Medley – läsarnas uppfattning om innehåll &amp; layout Problem: Medtronic AB önskar öka kännedomen om företagets produkter hos svenska läkare, sjuksköterskor, medicintekniker och andra opinionsbildare. Ett sätt att uppnå det på är genom kundtidningen Medley som skickas direktadresserad till personal på sjukhus och kliniker i Sverige. Det är viktigt att kundtidningen har ett innehåll och en layout som tilltalar läsarkretsen. Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva hur kundtidningen Medleys innehåll och layout uppfattas av läsarna samt vilka arbetsområden läsarna är verksamma inom. Vidare utvärderas om Medley är lyckad business-to-businessreklam som skapar kännedom om företaget Medtronics produkter. Metod: Sekundärdata samlades in och en observationsstudie genomfördes där fem exemplar av Medley granskades. En matris framställdes som listade viktiga variabler som skulle komma att utvärderas. Utifrån matrisen formades en webbenkät innehållande tretton frågor som sedan skickades till 2020 yrkesverksamma personer inom sjukvården. Slutsats: Läsarundersökningen resulterade i att 179 respondenter medverkade,där det var 72 läkare och 95 sjuksköterskor som medverkade. Läsarna vill helst läsa nyheter om medicinteknik, forskningsresultat,specialistområden och vetenskapliga artiklar. Respondenterna hade generellt positiva åsikter gällande Medleys layout, där teckensnittet fick högst betyg. Det var 107 respondenter som ansåg att deras kännedom hade ökat efter att de hade läst Medley, vilket representerar 59 % av samtliga respondenter. Sex av tio kriterier i Copy Chasers stämde överens med Medley, därav är kundtidningen Medley lyckad business-to-business-reklam som skapar kännedom om Medtronics produkter. / Date: 2008-06-03 Subject: Master Thesis in Business Administration, 15 hp Authors: Magdalena Ekman, Emma Ronvall Tutor: Carl G. Thunman Title: An evaluation of the Customer Magazine Medley – the readers’ opinions about content &amp; layout Problem: Medtronic AB wishes to increase the knowledge about the company’s products among doctors, nurses, medical technicians and other opinion formers. A way of achieving that is through the customer magazine Medley, which is sent to personnel at hospitals and clinics in Sweden. It is important that the content and the layout of the customer magazine appeal the readers. Purpose: The purpose is to describe how the content and layout of the customer magazine Medley is perceived by the readers and also in which work area they are employed. Furthermore Medley will be evaluated whether it is successful business-to-business advertising that creates knowledge about the products of the company Medtronic. Method: Subsequently secondary data were gathered and an observational study was carried out, where five copies of Medley were reviewed. A matrix with important variables was made, where the variables that were going to be evaluated were listed. On the basis of the matrix the web questionnaire containing thirteen questions was designed and sent to 2020 persons working within medical care. Conclusions: The research resulted in that 179 respondents took part, where 72 doctors and 95 nurses participated. The readers prefer to read about medical technology news, research results, specialist areas and articles of science. The respondents generally had positive opinions about Medley´s layout, where the font got the highest mark. There were 107 respondents that considered that their knowledge had increased since they have read in Medley, which represents 59 % of all respondents. Six out of ten criteria from The Copy Chasers agree with Medley; thereby Medley is successful business-to-business advertising that creates knowledge about Medtronic’s products.

Background: Health economic evaluations are becoming an increasingly important means of analysing which care alternative resource utilisation is the most cost effective. It is a new topic in the medical device industry that causes much uncertainty and unstructured use of the actors involved. Study questions: Why is it difficult to develop, implement and disseminate this standardized health economic evaluation models in medical technology? Is there a possibility to standardize health economic evaluations within the medical device industry? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the standardization issues for health economic evaluations within the medical device industry. Method: A qualitative approach was used in the form of interviews with five actors that are active or have a connection to the medical device industry. The data collection consists of journals, reports, Internet searches and literature among other things. Conclusion: It is possible to standardize, but with certain restrictions such as the county council's budget, influence of industry-specific factors, lack of knowledge and the important interaction between actors.

The understanding of how white blood cells react when coming into contact with various surfaces is of major importance for a wide range of biomaterials and biosensor applications. In this study it is investigated if it is possible to determine how neutrophils react to a certain type of sensor chip called cell clinic being developed. This study investigates the cell surface coverage on the sensor chip and how it correlates to the signal response of the sensor at hand. Neutrophils, as other white blood cells, are cells that quickly adhere to surfaces and during the adhesion process they activate at different levels depending on i.e. type of surface or surface functionalization, this activation can be visualized by the change in morphology. While measuring the change of capacitance with the cell clinic sensor during cell adhesion, the cell surface coverage is of main importance. The main focus of this diploma work has been to develop an image analysis script capable of conducting automated analysis on a large body of images estimating the surface coverage. Input data for this modeling is taken from fluorescent microscopy images. The experiments conducted during this project have indicated that white blood cells adhered to the sensor surface shows signs of being activated also without external activation. This clearly shows that knowledge of how neutrophils react to surface modifications is of great importance as well as the awareness that any surface may trigger a response from the immune system i.e. neutrophil activation, so also in the cell clinic. It is a fact that it might be difficult to evaluate the effect of a foreign substance on the neutrophils while a significant amount is activated from being in contact with the surface. Regarding different surfaces the white blood cells does not display any preference of adhering to any specific surface. The surfaces used in this project was silicon oxide wafers, silicon oxide wafers with a nitride surface functionalization and the intended sensor chip; however the addition of PMA clearly shows an effect on how many cells that adheres to the surface as well as the average area of each cell.

Malignant gliomas grow infiltrative in the brain and can therefore not be completely removed by neurosurgical means. However, for an optimized oncological treatment it has proven useful to resect as much as possible of tumor. The identification of the tumor in the marginal zone is difficult but crucial. Studies have shown that visualization of the specific enhancement of 5-aminolevulinic acid(5-ALA) in the tumor can help to maximize the resection. The Department of Biomedical Engineering, Linköping University, has developed an optical hand-held probe (HHP) to identify tumor tissue with a high sensitivity by means of fluorescence spectroscopy. The technical design and the optical properties of the probe were gradually developed in a standard neurosurgical setting during resection of malignant gliomas. The device could easily be implemented in the operating room, meeting all requirements in terms of sterile handling and without interference of any kind with other equipment. The integration of the device in a navigation system and its use in combination with a blue light surgical microscope were simple. Measurements in 27 operations during resection of malignant gliomas were compared to results from biopsies from the same tumor locations. The equipment was tested as a stand-alone device (n = 180), integrated in a navigation system or in combination with the blue light microscope (n = 190). A ratiocal culated from the measurements enabled objective and comparable values for different tissue types, in correspondence with the findings from the histopathological examinations and in accordance with the navigation system as well as with the surgical microscope.The marginal zone was explored and tumor fluorescence could be identified beyond the fluorescence as seen through the microscope. A higher sensitivity of the HHP was confirmed; the specificity was lower. The combined use of the HHP with a navigation system and with asurgical microscope was beneficial. / Maligna hjärntumörer växer infiltrerande i hjärnan och kan därförinte helt avlägsnas genom kirurgiska operationer. För en optimerad behandling har det emellertid visat sig vara av värde att avlägsna såmycket som möjligt av tumörvävnaden. Identifiering av tumören i gränszonen är mycket svårt, men avgörande. Studier har visat att visualisering av den specifika laddningen av 5-aminolevulinsyra (5-ALA) i tumören kan bidra till att maximera resektionen. Institutionen för Medicinsk Teknik (IMT) på Linköpings universitet,har utvecklat en liten handhållen optisk prob (HHP) för att identifiera tumörvävnad med hög känslighet med hjälp avfluorescens-spektroskopi. Den tekniska konstruktionen och de optiska egenskaperna hos proben utvecklades stegvis genom testning i flera neurokirurgiska operationer för resektion av maligna gliom. Utrustningen uppfyllde alla krav när det gällde steril hantering i operationssalen och kunde användas utan störningar av något slag med annan operationsutrustning. Integreringen i ett navigerings-system och användningen i kombination med ett kirurgiskt mikroskop för fluorescens-styrd kirurgi var oproblematiska. Mätningar under 27 operationer vid resektion av maligna gliom jämfördes med resultat från biopsier från samma tumörtagningsställen. Utrustningen testades såväl som en fristående enhet (n = 180) och som integrerad i ett navigationssystem eller i kombination med mikroskopet (n =190). En särskild kvot beräknad ur mätningarna möjliggjorde objektiva och jämförbara värden för olika vävnader, i överensstämmelse med resultaten från de vävnadspatologiska undersökningarna och i överensstämmelse med navigationssystemet såväl som med det kirurgiska mikroskopet. Tumörernas gränszon undersöktes och tumörfluorescens kunde identifieras bortom fluorescensen som mikroskopet visade. En högre känslighet hos HHP bekräftades; specificiteten var lägre. Den kombinerade användningen av HHP med ett navigationssystem och med ett kirurgiskt mikroskop visade sig vara fördelaktig.

Denna studie har genomförts på Atlantis som ligger i Mölndal och tillverkar dentala distanser. Alla produkterna är kundanpassade och har höga krav på kvalitet, därför inspekteras kvalitet på produkterna efter tillverkningen. Denna undersöknings kärna är en fallstudie och data har samlats in genom deltagande observation och litteraturstudier. Arbetet leder till utveckling av en metod som har tidseliminering och arbetssättsförbättring i fokus samt att produkterna ska bibehålla kvaliteten. Projektet resulterar i eliminering av ett kvalitetsinspektionsmoment för Ankylos modeller samt föreslå ett standardiserat arbetssätt som har den kortaste ledtiden. Slutligen kommer några rekommendationer till förbättrade mätinstrument och processer.

In the classic Hill model for muscle contraction, the split between the muscle and tendon is arbitrary and the problem lacks a unique solution. Instead of reformulating the problem to a differential-algebraic equation and solving for a set of initial conditions, a constant tendon length is commonly assumed in musculoskeletal simulation tools. This assumption has not been thoroughly tested and introduces errors of unknown magnitude to the simulations. In this thesis, the contractile element of the Hill model is modelled as a friction clutch in parallel to a viscous damper. This provides an evolution law for the muscle length by which the muscle speed is numerically calculated taking into account a non-zero tendon speed. A simple biceps curl is simulated with the friction clutch model and compared to corresponding commercial musculoskeletal simulations. Overall, the results are similar, in particular for the muscle lengths which are almost identical in every simulation (0.00-0.42% difference). The difference in tendon speed is 0.00-3.26%, with upwards tendencies. In general, the error percentage of the tendon speed appears to decrease by the same amount that the contraction speed is reduced. Conclusively, it can be said that the introduced friction clutch model delivers comparative outcomes to a commercial musculoskeletal simulation software, while not assuming a constant tendon length. However, while presenting a relatively simple solution, an increased computation time is to be expected due to the need of a differential equation solver. Further investigation regarding implementation and computing times in more complex simulations may provide an alternative approach to conventional musculoskeletal simulations.

Bakgrund: Hjärtsvikt är en av Sveriges vanligaste folksjukdomar och orsakar ett stort lidande hos drabbade personer. Egenvården vid hjärtsvikt är av stor vikt för att främja hälsa och välmående där individen själv utför dessa åtgärder. Brist i egenvården då individen saknar motivation eller har en otillräcklig sjukdomsinsikt kan leda till en försämring av tillståndet. eHälsa kan vara en möjlighet att underlätta egenvården. eHälsa kan också förbättra kommunikationen mellan individ och vårdgivare. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturöversikten var att beskriva hur personer med hjärtsjukdom upplever eHälsa som stöd för egenvård. Metod: En allmän litteraturöversikt enligt Friberg (2017). Litteraturöversikten baserades på nio vetenskapliga artiklar med kvalitativ ansats. Analysen utfördes med Fribergs (2017) analysmetod. Resultat: Resultatet visade att personerna med hjärtsvikt upplevde eHälsa som ett stöd i egenvården. Resultatet visade även att det fanns vissa tekniska hinder vid användandet av eHälsa. Resultatet baserades på tre teman upplevelse av att vara delaktighet i sin egen vård, upplevelse av tekniken och upplevelse av vårdrelationen med följande subtemankunskap/medvetenhet, motivation, autonomi, hanteringen av tekniken, teknikrädsla och kommunikation till och från vårdgivare. Slutsats: Det framkom i studien att eHälsa är ett stort stöd i individernas egenvård även vid en begränsad kunskap om tekniken. eHälsa bidrog till en ökad motivation och en förbättrad kunskap för individerna för bibehålla en god hälsa. De brister som resultatet visade berodde på tekniska problem och det är därför viktigt att anpassa eHälsan utifrån varje individs behov.

Driver sleepiness contributes to a large amount of all road traffic crashes. Developing an objective measurement of driver sleepiness in order to prevent eventual traffic accidents is desirable. The aim of this master thesis was to investigate if deep learning can be used to provide a driver sleepiness classification from brain activity signals obtained by electroencephalography (EEG). The intention was to study the classification performance when using different representations of the input data and to examine how various deep neural network architectures and class weighting during training affect the classification.  The data was collected from 12 experiments, where 269 participants (1187 driving sessions) were driving either on real roads or in a moving-base driving simulator, while electrophysiological data was recorded. Several deep neural network architectures were developed, depending on the representation of the input data.  Regardless of which data representation that was used as input to the network, the datawas divided into three datasets: Training 60%, validation 20% and test 20%. The data from each participant, with associated driving sessions, were randomly assigned to the different datasets according to the given percentage, which resulted in a subject-independent sleepiness detection. The output was in the form of continuous regression further rounded to the closest integer and divided into five classes according to Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS = 1-5, 6, 7, 8, 9). The best performance was obtained with a convolutional neural network (CNN) combined with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture, with time series data as input. This gave an accuracy of 41.44%, a mean absolute error of 0.94 and a macro F1-score of 0.37. Overall, the models with time series data showed better classification results compared to those with time-frequency data. Class weighting, giving all classes inverse proportional weight to their appearance, compensated slightly for class imbalance, but all networks had in general difficulties with generalizing to new data.