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- Akande, T., et al.
(författare)
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Conclusions and a Look Ahead.
- 2005
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Ingår i: The African Food Crisis: Lessons from the Asian Green Revolution. - 0851999980 ; , s. 253-260
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Bornefalk Hermansson, Anna, 1971-
(författare)
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Resampling Evaluation of Signal Detection and Classification : With Special Reference to Breast Cancer, Computer-Aided Detection and the Free-Response Approach
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The first part of this thesis is concerned with trend modelling of breast cancer mortality rates. By using an age-period-cohort model, the relative contributions of period and cohort effects are evaluated once the unquestionable existence of the age effect is controlled for. The result of such a modelling gives indications in the search for explanatory factors. While this type of modelling is usually performed with 5-year period intervals, the use of 1-year period data, as in Paper I, may be more appropriate.The main theme of the thesis is the evaluation of the ability to detect signals in x-ray images of breasts. Early detection is the most important tool to achieve a reduction in breast cancer mortality rates, and computer-aided detection systems can be an aid for the radiologist in the diagnosing process.The evaluation of computer-aided detection systems includes the estimation of distributions. One way of obtaining estimates of distributions when no assumptions are at hand is kernel density estimation, or the adaptive version thereof that smoothes to a greater extent in the tails of the distribution, thereby reducing spurious effects caused by outliers. The technique is described in the context of econometrics in Paper II and then applied together with the bootstrap in the breast cancer research area in Papers III-V.Here, estimates of the sampling distributions of different parameters are used in a new model for free-response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curve analysis. Compared to earlier work in the field, this model benefits from the advantage of not assuming independence of detections in the images, and in particular, from the incorporation of the sampling distribution of the system's operating point.Confidence intervals obtained from the proposed model with different approaches with respect to the estimation of the distributions and the confidence interval extraction methods are compared in terms of coverage and length of the intervals by simulations of lifelike data.
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| 4. |
- Christensen, Kjeld, 1957-
(författare)
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Platelet Activation and Inhibition in Connection with Vascular Stents
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis describes the Chandler loop, which makes it possible to conduct studies in vitro of molecular and cellular interactions between whole blood and stents. It was possible to monitor activation and inhibition of the cascades systems, leukocytes and platelets by combining different platelet inhibitors and heparin coating of stents. The clinical study was performed on patients with ACS undergoing PCI and stent implantation. In this study platelet activation markers P-selectin, and αIIb/β3 as well as inflammatory markers were followed from baseline during the first 48 hours post-PCI. The same parameters were evaluated in healthy controls for comparison at baseline. In vitro: The activation of blood in the Chandler loops were more pronounced for unmodified stent grafts than for partially heparin coated stent grafts. Heparin coated stent grafts dreated the same activation as the loops alone. This indicated that the Chandler loop system was a feasible tool for evaluation of blood compability of stents. Heparin coating of stents significantly reduced TAT, CD11b and platelet activation. The combination of a heparin coated stent and abciximab reduced TAT and contact activation, as compared to abciximab or heparin coating alone. Heparin coating of stents in combination with AR-C69931MX resulted in a significant reduction in TAT and preservation of the platelet count but had no effect on contact activation. Clinical study: Abciximab resulted in an almost total inhibition of fibrinogen binding to platelets and persisted throughout the observation period. Clopidogrel effectscould be observed at four hours but was more pronounced at 24 hours. P-selectin expression did not differ over time between groups, indicating that platelet activation with α-granule secretion was not affected by abciximab treatment. The hs-CRP, C3a and sC5b-9 levels increased 24 to 48 hours after PCI in patients with ACS. FXIIa-C1inh was reduced in ACS patients receiving abciximab as compared to controls. The elevated bFGF levels at baseline returned to the levels observed in controls four hours after PCI and stent implantation, whereas an increase in VEGF was observed 24 hours post-PCI.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Djurfeldt, Göran, et al.
(författare)
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African Food Crisis - The Relevance of Asean Experiences.
- 2005
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Ingår i: The African Food Crisis - Lessons from the Asean Green revolution.. - Wallingford : CABI Publishing. - 0851999980 - 9780851999982 ; , s. -265
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Why can Asia now feed its rapidly growing population, but Africa continues to experience famine? This book is the outcome of a three-year project coordinated by a group of Swedish researchers with collaborating scholars from Africa and Asia. It provides a comparative study between Asian agricultural development during the Green Revolution in food production and the current problematic agricultural situation in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on case studies of eight African and eight Asian countries (focusing on the early part of the Green Revolution), this book presents a causal and explanatory model of Asian green revolutions. It discusses why such progress has been made in Asia, but has not yet occurred in Africa. It also examines the implications of the case studies for future development in Africa.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Ekström, Joakim, 1982-
(författare)
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Contributions to the Theory of Measures of Association for Ordinal Variables
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis, we consider measures of association for ordinal variables from a theoretical perspective. In particular, we study the phi-coefficient, the tetrachoric correlation coefficient and the polychoric correlation coefficient. We also introduce a new measure of association for ordinal variables, the empirical polychoric correlation coefficient, which has better theoretical properties than the polychoric correlation coefficient, including greatly enhanced robustness. In the first article, entitled ``On the relation between the phi-coefficient and the tetrachoric correlation coefficient'', we show that under given marginal probabilities there exists a continuous bijection between the two measures of association. Furthermore, we show that the bijection has a fixed point at zero for all marginal probabilities. Consequently, the choice of which of these measures of association to use is for all practical purposes a matter of preference only. In the second article, entitled ``A generalized definition of the tetrachoric correlation coefficient'', we generalize the tetrachoric correlation coefficient so that a large class of parametric families of bivariate distributions can be assumed as underlying distributions. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the generalized tetrachoric correlation coefficient to be well defined for a given parametric family of bivariate distributions. With examples, we illustrate the effects on the polychoric correlation coefficient of different distributional assumptions. In the third article, entitled ``A generalized definition of the polychoric correlation coefficient'', we generalize the polychoric correlation coefficient to a large class of parametric families of bivariate distributions, and show that the generalized and the conventional polychoric correlation coefficients agree on the family of bivariate normal distributions. With examples, we illustrate the effects of different distributional assumptions on the polychoric correlation coefficient. In combination with goodness-of-fit p-values, the association analysis can be enriched with a consideration of possible tail dependence. In the fourth article, we propose a new measure of association for ordinal variables, named the empirical polychoric correlation coefficient. The empirical polychoric correlation coefficient relaxes the fundamental assumption of the polychoric correlation coefficient so that an underlying joint distribution is only assumed to exist, not to be of a particular parametric family. We also provide an asymptotical result, by which the empirical polychoric correlation coefficient converges almost surely to the true polychoric correlation under very general conditions. Thus, the proposed empirical polychoric correlation coefficient has better theoretical properties than the polychoric correlation coefficient.
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| 9. |
- Faxälv, Lars, 1977-
(författare)
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Imaging methods for haemostasis research
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Blood is a vital part of the human physiology; a transport system that brings nutrients and oxygen to sustain living cells and simultaneously facilitates the removal of carbon dioxide and other waste products from the body. To assure the continuity of these functions, it is of uttermost importance to keep the flowing blood inside the vascular system at any cost. The principal components of the haemostatic system are the blood platelets and the plasma coagulation system, both working in concert to create a blood stopping haemostatic plug when a vessel is ruptured. In modern health care, methods for treatment and diagnostics often implicate the contact between blood and artificial materials (biomaterials). Biomaterial surfaces may activate platelets and the coagulation cascade by exposing a surface that during blood contact shares certain characteristics with surfaces found at the site of vascular injury. Therefore it is of great importance that the mechanisms behind the interactions between foreign surfaces and blood are studied in order to minimize, and if possible, prevent unnecessary reactions that may lead to thrombosis.This thesis describes two important methods to study blood – surface interactions in terms of surface induced plasma coagulation and platelet adhesion/aggregation. The method ‘Imaging of coagulation’, a coagulation assay based on time-lapse image capture of the coagulation process was developed during the course of this work. The use of images enables the method to answer questions regarding where coagulation was initiated and how fast coagulation propagates. Such questions are highly relevant in the study of blood-biomaterial interactions but also in general haemostasis research. In vivo, platelet adhesion and aggregation are events that always proceed under flow conditions. Therefore we also developed a cone-and-plate flow model to study these mechanisms under similar conditions in vitro. The cone-and-plate setup was found to be a flexible platform and was used for both blood compatibility testing of potential biomaterials as well as for general haemostasis research.With the above mentioned methods we tested the haemocompatibility of glycerol monooleate (GMO), a proposed substance for use in biomaterial applications. It was found that GMO did not activate coagulation to any great extent either in plasma or in whole blood.Surface induced coagulation and platelet adhesion was also studied on PEG-containing hydrogels and compared with hydrogels constructed from three different non-PEG-containing monomers. It was concluded that all the grafted hydrogels, in particular those produced from the monomers 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and/or PEG- methacrylate (PEGMA), demonstrated good haemocompatibility.Supported phospholipid bilayers were used to investigate the relationship between surface charge and procoagulant activity. The coagulation process was studied in a straightforward manner using the imaging of coagulation setup. We concluded that the content of negatively charged 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-[phospho-L-serine] (POPS) in the bilayer must exceed ~ 6% for the bilayer to exert procoagulant activity.The physiological role of factor XII in human haemostasis and thrombosis was investigated in the imaging of coagulation setup and the cone and plate setup by the use of surfaces with thrombogenic coatings. We found that tissue factor initiated coagulation could be greatly accelerated by the presence of contact activating agents in a platelet dependent manner.In conclusion, the method ‘Imaging of coagulation’ and platelet adhesion/aggregation in the cone-and-plate flow model are both versatile methods with many possible applications. The combination of the two methods provides a solid foundation for biomaterial and haemostasis research.
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| 10. |
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