Prostheses available today are either passive or active. Active prostheses canapply external energy to the joints, while passive cannot. A well functionalprosthesis that is adapted to the wearer can improve the locomotion and alsodecrease the metabolic cost. Existing active prostheses are mainly controlledby information from the prosthesis itself in order to detect the phases in thegait. Due to lack of information from the contralateral leg, asymmetry in thegait can be present.Therefor, this study aims to investigate if it is feasible to use kinematic informationfrom a individual’s sound leg in order to prescribe the motion ofan aid. Three healthy test subjects were used to collect kinematic and EMGdata in a motion capture lab. Two different movements were performed: "Startand stop" and "Start, stop and squat". The data obtained was processed and togetherwith some created criteria a script could calculate knee and ankle anglesfor both reference and mirrored leg. The results conclude that it is feasible tomirror position information from one leg to the other. Further research is recommendedto gain more knowledge about from different trials together withreal aids. / Dagens tillgängliga proteser är antingen passiva eller aktiva. Aktiva proteser,till skillnad från passiva, kan applicera extern energi till dess leder. En väl fungerandeprotes kan anpassa sig till bäraren, vilket förbättrar rörelseförmågansamt reducerar den metaboliska konsumtionen. De aktiva proteser som finnstillgängliga kontrolleras främst av information som utvinns från själva protesenför att bestämma aktuell fas i gångcykeln. På grund av bristande informationfrån det motsatta benet kan en asymmetrisk gång uppstå.Därför är målet med denna studie att undersöka om det är möjligt att användainformation om kinematik från en individs friska ben för att bestämmarörelsen av ett hjälpmedel. Tre friska försökspersoner deltog i studien, deraskinematik- och EMG-data samlades in i ett rörelselabb. Två rörelser genomfördes:”start och stopp” samt ”start, stop och squat”. Erhållen data blev processadoch tillsammans med utformade kriterier kunde ett skript beräkna knä- ochvristvinklar för både referens och speglat ben. Resultatet konstaterar att det ärmöjligt att använda information från det friska benet för att bestämma rörelsenav det andra. Fortsatta studier rekommenderas för att erhålla mer kunskap frånfler försök tillsammans med riktiga hjälpmedel.

Radiotherapy is one of the most used methods for treating cancer and the most common way to execute such treatments is to irradiate tumors with high energy photons. This can damage healthy tissue along the irradiation line. By using hadron therapy and instead irradiate the tumor with charged particles (protons or Carbon 12 ions), the energy can be concentrated to a more specific place in the body. However, the method is not well studied and the tools available for simulating hadron therapy can be hard to use. When simulating hadron therapy and other nuclear interactions a large amount of calculations need to be executed. Monte Carlo methods is a numerical method to solve equations based on repeated number sampling and is used in the simulation program Geant4. Hadron therapy was simulated with Geant4 and the data was analyzed with the data analysis framework ROOT. New macros and analysis scripts were created with the intention to help new Geant4 users. The aim to make Geant4 easier to use was partially met. The implementation of code for the low energy region of Carbon 12 projectiles was unsuccessful.

The analysis of glandular morphology within histopathology images is a crucial step in determining the stage of cancer. Manual annotation is a very laborious task. It is time consuming and suffers from the subjectivity of the specialists that label the glands. One of the aims of computational pathology is developing tools to automate gland segmentation. Such an algorithm would improve the efficiency of cancer diag- nosis. This is a complex task as there is a large variability in glandular morphologies and staining techniques. So far, specialised models have given promising results focusing on only one organ. This work investigated the idea of a cross domain ap- proximation. Unlike parenchymae the stroma tissue that lies between the glands is similar throughout all organs in the body. Creating a model able to precisely seg- ment the stroma would pave the way for a cross organ model. It would be able to segment the tissue and therefore give access to gland morphologies of different organs. To address this issue, we investigated different new and former architec- tures such as the MILD-net which is the currently best performing algorithm of the GlaS challenge. New architectures were created based on the promising U shaped network as well as Xception and the ResNet for feature extraction. These networks were trained on colon histopathology images focusing on glands and on the stroma. The comparision of the different results showed that this initial cross domain ap- proximation goes into the right direction and incites for further developments.

Specific rehabilitation is a key period for a lower-limb amputee patient. While learning how to walk with a prosthesis, the patient needs to avoid any gait compensations that may lead to future comorbidities. To reach a gait pattern close to the one of a healthy person, objective data may be of great help to complement the experience of the clinician team. By using 6 IMUs located on the feet, shanks and thighs accompanied by 3 accelerometers on the pelvis, sternum and head, data could be recorded during walking exercises of 7 rehabilitation sessions of a patient. To compute the absolute symmetry index of the stance phase duration and the stride duration all over the instrumented sessions, the gait events defining the transitions between gait phases were determined thanks to several algorithms. By first comparing the error obtained in the calculation of the stance phase duration with all tested algorithms as compared to the data from pressure insoles considered as a reference system, the algorithm developed by Trojaniello and collaborators [1] was found to be the most adapted to this situation. Using this algorithm on the data from all sessions highlighted the possibility to detect changes in the symmetry of stance phase duration and stride duration, that are relative to the gait quality. This means that IMUs seem to be able to monitor the progress of a patient during his rehabilitation. Hence, IMUs have proven themselves to be a system of great interest in the analysis of the gait pattern of a lower-limb amputee patient in rehabilitation, by allowing for an embedded measurement of much more parameters than the pressure insoles, whose calibration constituted a real limitation.

The most common way to measure postural stability is to examine the displacement of the center of pressure (CoP). But some scientists claim that the center of mass (CoM) is what really indicates the sway of the whole body, since the body is a multi-joint system. Many previous studies of human balance have targeted groups with diffrent kinds of balance impairments. In a recent study C. Lidbeck investigated factors influencing standing in children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy (BSCP). The conclusion of that study was that the crouched position, that is common with this kind of disability, was not found to be related to strength and not entirely related to the degree of their motor disorders. In this thesis a number methods were chosen to assess the postural stability of children with BSCP, using both the CoP and the CoM. The hypothesis was that the different methods would show different aspects of the children's balance impairment. Also, the influence of visual stimuli on the crouching position was examined. The long term aim is that the results may contribute to a deeper understanding of the balance disturbances that often accompany this group of children. 16 children with BSCP (GMFCS level I-III) and 20 typically developing (TD) children were included in the study. Data was collected, before the start of this project, using two force plates and an eight-camera 3D motion analysis system with passive markers. The children performed three different standing tasks during 30 seconds each; quiet standing, blindfolded and an attention-task. Five methods were chosen (based on previous literature) and implemented in Matlab to examine the postural stability of the two groups during the three tasks. Result shows that all methods used can clearly distinguish between the balance in the BSCP group and the TD group. When comparing the quiet standing task with the blindfolded task in the BSCP group, there were some significant results from the statistical evaluation (P$<$0.05). The result from several of the methods indicated that the children of this group have better postural stability when blindfolded, which is not in agreement with previous literature. In contrast, one method using the total mean velocity indicated that the postural stability decreased. During the attention-task, the methods disagreed with each other, implying a change in balance strategy in the BSCP group that was different from the TD group. Four methods are suggested for future studies, two using the CoP and two using the CoM. These four methods highlighted different aspects of the data and in combination they may provide a bigger picture of the postural stability of children with BSCP. Even though there were no significant difference in the vertical displacement of the CoM between the BSCP and the TD group, the CoM was slightly elevated during the attention-task in the BSCP group. In the TD group the CoM was lowered during the same task. This indicates that the children with BSCP in this study straighten up a bit when they can focus on something outside of their own body.

Emergency departments in Sweden are usually struggling with long waiting times, delays and bottlenecks in the system. The National Board of Health and Welfare and the County Council of Västra Götaland have established to decrease the average time a patient stays in an emergency department as important priority as well as the waiting time to be seen by a nurse and by a physician. Healthcare systems are usually characterized by its complexity because of the variability and stochastic nature of the different processes involved in the flow of patients, staff and resources. In order to increase the use of the existing resources and to reduce the waiting times of patients, a system improvement methodology involving discrete-event simulation and process analysis has been used. In this project a computer-based simulation tool was applied at the emergency department of the hospital Kärnsjukhuset in Skövde, which belongs to Skaraborgs Sjukhus and is one of the largest emergency departments in the region of Västra Götaland. A three-dimensional model was created to help visualize and understand the problems, as well as to identify improvements by the different stakeholders involved. Continually, the simulation model was modified to test possible improved scenarios with the aim to increase the service level of the system.  The design, implementation and analysis of these scenarios have provided decision makers of the emergency department with the necessary information to implement or reject the ideas of the different improved scenarios. Some of these scenarios had a significant impact with small changes so they were implemented in the real system; some others had non-significant impact in the results so they were not implemented. The main result of this project has been to identify which system changes will lead to a reduction of the different waiting times of patients. In addition, the simulation and experiments of future solutions show a more efficient use of the existing resources. This design of a better configuration of the system gives Kärnsjukhuset the possibility to increase the service level of the system and to meet some of the requirements established by the County Council. This project shows that the use of simulation tools provides enormous benefits for healthcare system analysis and improvement; new ideas and scenarios can be designed without disturbing the normal activities of the hospital, saving considerable time, money and resources.

No description available.

No description available.

At least 2.6 billion people all over the world suffer from nearsightedness, among whom 312 million are under 19 years old. Just like other vision problems, uncorrected nearsightedness brings inconvenience to many human daily activities including walking. However, the influence of nearsightedness on gait patterns and gaze behaviours remains barely discovered. This project aimed to study the influence of nearsightedness on human visuomotor coordination in different environmental settings. An integrated system combining motion capture and eye-tracking was implemented for measuring gait and gaze simultaneously. Twelve participants were recruited to perform a protocol consisting of walking tasks in various visual and environmental conditions. Nine of the participants were eligible for data analysis. Gaze time distribution and gait cycle parameters were compared between participant groups (five with normal vision, four nearsighted), and among different walking tasks. Results revealed that comparing with the control group, the nearsighted participants made shorter and slower steps, as well as spent more time looking at the walking path. The walking path also affected the gait and gaze behaviours, with shorter step length and longer step time observed when the participants were walking uphill, while increased gaze attention was paid downhill. The practicality of combining gait analysis with eye-tracking was proved in this project, laying a foundation for future studies of visuomotor coordination.

The meal is fundamental in terms of nutrition but also from a social perspective. To be able to eat independently is described as important for the meal experience.   The development of a robotic eating aid called Bestic and the evolvement of a list of usability criteria for such an aid are described in this thesis. The work has been ongoing for 16 years. Bestic has been developed through user centred design, an iterative process with reoccurring evaluations and development. The design principle “it is not supposed just to work, but to be worth using” has guided the work. The feedback provided by the users throughout this process has had a great impact on the strategic choices of which features to prioritize during further development and what to keep as it is and has contributed to the list of usability requirements for robotic eating aids.   The context in which the robotic eating aid is used is of importance for the usability requirements. To further understand the environment that the robotic eating aid is used in, studies about the meal situation for older people in both Scandinavian/Swedish and Japanese contexts were conducted. The secondary users (care professionals or next of kin) were also taken into consideration when deriving the usability requirements and while performing the evaluations of the robotic eating aid. The most important research outcome from this work is a list of usability requirements for robotic eating aids. The requirements are divided into functional requirements and social requirements. The functional requirements for robotic eating aids include: ·      how well they work to eat with ·      how they are controlled ·      safety aspects ·      portability ·      possibility to adapt to different users.   The social requirements for robotic eating aids include: ·      how to fit into the meal situation ·      not to disturb the conversation ·      the needs from secondary users. / Måltiden är fundamental för de allra flesta, för att få i sig näring men även som en social aktivitet. Att kunna äta självständigt beskrivs som viktigt för upplevelsen av måltiden. I denna avhandling beskrivs utvecklingen av ett robotiserat äthjälpmedel som heter Bestic och hur en lista med användbarhetskriterier för robotiserade äthjälpmedel har växt fram. Arbetet har pågått i 16 år. Bestic är utvecklad genom användarcentrerad design, en iterativ process med återkommande utvärderingar och utvecklingssteg. Designprincipen ”den skall inte bara gå att använda, utan vara värd att använda” har lett arbetet. Återkopplingen från användarna genom hela processen har haft stor inverkan på strategiska val för vilka funktioner som skall prioriteras för fortsatt utveckling och vad som skall behållas som det är. Återkopplingen har även utgjort ett underlag till listan med användbarhetskriterier för robotiserade äthjälpmedel. Miljön som äthjälpmedel används i påverkar också användbarhetskriterierna. För att förstå denna miljö genomfördes studier om måltidssituationen för äldre personer i både en skandinavisk/svensk och japansk kontext. Även sekundära användare (vårdpersonal eller anhöriga) togs i beaktan vid framtagandet av användbarhetskriterierna. Det viktigaste forskningsbidraget från detta arbete är en lista av användbarhetskriterier för robotiserade äthjälpmedel. Kriterierna är uppdelade på funktionella och sociala kriterier.  De funktionella användbarhetskriterierna för robotiserade äthjälpmedel inkluderar: ·      hur bra de fungerar att äta med ·      hur de styrs ·      säkerhetsaspekter ·      bärbarhet ·      möjlighet att anpassa till olika användare.   De sociala användbarhetskriterierna för robotiserade äthjälpmedel inkluderar: ·      hur den passar in i måltidssituationen ·      att inte störa konversationen ·      behoven från de sekundära användarna.