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- af Bjerkén, Sara, et al.
(författare)
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Reliability and validity of visual analysis of [18F]FE-PE2I PET/CT in early Parkinsonian disease
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nuclear medicine communications. - : Wolters Kluwer. - 0143-3636 .- 1473-5628. ; 44:5, s. 397-406
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: [18F]FE-PE2I (FE-PE2I) is a new radiotracer for dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging with PET. The aim of this study was to evaluate the visual interpretation of FE-PE2I images for the diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinsonian syndrome (IPS). The inter-rater variability, sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy for visual interpretation of striatal FE-PE2I compared to [123I]FP-CIT (FP-CIT) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was evaluated.Methods: Thirty patients with newly onset parkinsonism and 32 healthy controls with both an FE-PE2I and FP-CIT were included in the study. Four patients had normal DAT imaging, of which three did not fulfil the IPS criteria at the clinical reassessment after 2 years. Six raters evaluated the DAT images blinded to the clinical diagnosis, interpreting the image as being ‘normal’ or ‘pathological’, and assessed the degree of DAT-reduction in the caudate and putamen. The inter-rater agreement was assessed with intra-class correlation and Cronbach’s α. For calculation of sensitivity and specificity, DAT images were defined as correctly classified if categorized as normal or pathological by ≥4/6 raters.Results: The overall agreement in visual evaluation of the FE-PE2I- and FP-CIT images was high for the IPS patients (α = 0.960 and 0.898, respectively), but lower in healthy controls (FE-PE2I: α = 0.693, FP-CIT: α = 0.657). Visual interpretation gave high sensitivity (both 0.96) but lower specificity (FE-PE2I: 0.86, FP-CIT: 0.63) with an accuracy of 90% for FE-PE2I and 77% for FP-CIT.Conclusion: Visual evaluation of FE-PE2I PET imaging demonstrates high reliability and diagnostic accuracy for IPS.
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| 2. |
- Flygare, Sara, 1976-
(författare)
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The Cooperative Challenge : Farmer Cooperation and the Politics of Agricultural Modernisation in 21st Century Uganda
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main purpose of this dissertation is to study whether the official rhetoric on the role that cooperatives could play in the quest for agricultural modernisation in Uganda have any resemblance with how farmers view the benefits and problem with cooperation. This question was motivated by the political initiative in the early 21st century to revive the cooperative movement in Uganda, a movement burdened with a history of political intervention and difficulties to adapt to a de-regulated agricultural market system. In the thesis, the move to revive the cooperative movement is linked to another more encompassing political initiative, that of the modernisation and commercialisation of small-scale agriculture. The book consists of two empirical studies, where interviews and text analysis have been important research methods. By first analysing the rhetoric emanating from political institutions and donor agencies, the conclusion is drawn that cooperatives are seen primarily as an institutional device which, it is hoped, will fill spaces that have been abandoned by the state and not filled with private sector initiatives.A focused case study of a dairy cooperative and a number of its members in Uganda shows that farmers’ expectations of the cooperative to some extent converge with those revealed in the first study: for example they expected the cooperative to provide a stable outlet for their production of milk. The interviews and quantitative analysis indicate that farmers’ preferences for both fast cash and a stable income can create incentives for members to free-ride on the collective efforts of their fellow members. This can be cumbersome in a competitive marketing situation where other buyers compete with the cooperative for the members’ produce. The cooperative can find it difficult to secure a necessary level of member commitment if members do not share a common code of conduct.
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