| 1. |
- Hellberg, Sandra, 1986-
(författare)
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Effects of Pregnancy and Hormones on T cell Immune Regulation in Multiple Sclerosis
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) is characterized by a dysregulated immune system leading to chronic inflammation in the central nervous system. Despite increasing number of treatments, many patients continue to deteriorate. A better understanding of the underlying disease mechanisms involved in driving disease is a pre-requisite for finding new biomarkers and new treatment targets. The improvement of MS during pregnancy, comparable to the beneficial effects of the most effective treatment, suggests that the transient and physiological immune tolerance established during pregnancy could serve as a model for successful immune regulation. Most likely the immune-endocrine alterations that take place during pregnancy to accommodate the presence of the semi-allogenic fetus contribute to the observed disease improvement.The aim of this thesis was to characterize the dysregulated immune system in MS and define potential factors and mechanisms established during pregnancy that could be involved in the pregnancy-induced effects in MS, focusing on CD4+ T cells as one of the main drivers in immunity and in the MS pathogenesis. Using a network-based modular approach based on gene expression profiling, we could show that CD4+ T cells from patients with MS displayed an altered dynamic gene response to activation, in line with a dysregulated immune system in MS. The resulting gene module disclosed cell activation and chemotaxis as central components in the deviating response, results that form a basis for further studies on its modulation during pregnancy. Moreover, a combination of secreted proteins (OPN+CXCL1-3+CXCL10-CCL2), identified from the module, could be used to separate patients and controls, predict disease activity after 2 years and discriminate between high and low responders to treatment, highlighting their potential use as biomarkers for predicting disease activity and response to treatment.The pregnancy hormone progesterone (P4), a potential factor involved in the pregnancy-induced amelioration of MS, was found to significantly dampen CD4+ T cell activation. Further detailed transcriptomic profiling revealed that P4 almost exclusively down-regulated immune-related pathways in activated T cells, several related to or downstream of T cell activation such as JAKSTAT signaling, T cell receptor signaling and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. In particular, P4 significantly affected genes of relevance to diseases known to be modulated during pregnancy, where genes associated to MS were most significantly affected, supporting a role for P4 in the pregnancy-induced immunomodulation. By using another approach, the role of thymus in T cell regulation during pregnancy was assessed. Two established measures of thymic output, CD31 expression and TREC content, were used and showed that thymic output of T cells is maintained during human pregnancy, or even possibly increased in terms of regulatory T cells.This thesis further supports a pivotal role for CD4+ T cells and T cell activation in the MS pathogenesis and adds to the knowledge of how they could be involved in driving disease. We identified a novel strategy for capturing central aspects of the deviating response to T cell activation that could be translated into potentially clinically relevant biomarkers. Further, P4 is emerging as a promising candidate for the pregnancy-induced immunomodulation that could be of importance as a future treatment option. Lastly, maintained thymic output of T cells during human pregnancy challenges the rodent-based dogma of an inactive thymus during pregnancy. Thymic dysfunction has been reported not only in MS but also in rheumatoid arthritis, another inflammatory disease that improves during pregnancy, which highlights a potential role for thymus in immune regulation that could be involved in the pregnancy-induced amelioration.
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| 2. |
- Jonsson, Linda, 1963-
(författare)
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Mellan tradition och förnyelse : Utmaningar i religionsläraruppdraget
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The current assignment of religious studies teachers is grounded on a confession-free foundation, expressed through the values of Swedish society. However, the subject still carries traces of a confessional tradition. Up until recently, Christianity played a major role in both teaching and teacher assignments. This study focuses on the complexity that emerges when it comes to the assignment of religious studies teachers in Swedish schools. In order to shed light on two traditions of importance – a confessional Christian tradition and an objective religious tradition, an analytical contextualisation is constructed within the time span 1842–1994. Such a long-term perspective is seen as a necessary historical contextualisation for the empirical study, which contains an analysis of the contemporary religious studies teacher assignment, here called the uncertain period (1994-2011). The study is to be regarded as an analysis of a school subject related challenge from a general didactical approach. In order to study the religious studies teacher assignment, religion as a school subject will be a key component in this study. The use of the subject – in the sense of its status, role and function – is clarified, and has implications for the teacher assignment as such. The historical context has its starting point in a literature study of policy documents and texts, and shall be regarded as the study’s secondary literature. The empirical material of the study comes from a journal entitled Religion & Livsfrågor (Religion and Life Issues) from the time span of 1994–2011. The material is analysed and attention drawn to different voices on the religious studies teacher assignment. The challenges that the teacher assignment is facing are summarised in three concluding challenges: Between tradition and renewal, Limitless assignment in limited time, and Pupil-related questions or “when-it-pops-up”-pedagogy. An account is given of the contributions made by two educational philosophers, John Dewey and Wolfgang Klafki, in the latter part of the study. These contributions serve as basis for analyses of the challenges in the uncertain period of contemporary religious studies teacher assignment. Their writings on theory and practice, tradition and renewal, as well as teacher engagement, add a valuable perspective to the analyses in order to understand the challenges the teacher assignment faces. In conclusion, the analyses of the voices on the religious studies teacher assignment and its challenges are summarised and related to their historical context characterised both by a confessional and an objective tradition. The thesis provides a more detailed image on the complexity of the religious studies teacher assignment, through a contextualization of the contemporary assignment in curriculum historical perspective.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Tangnäs, Johanna
(författare)
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Utveckling, konkurrens och möjliga framtider : En studie om görandet av hållbarhet i regional utvecklingspolitik
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Regional development policy has been devoted to tackling global competition for decades. This governmental rationality puts growth objectives at the heart of development and Swedish regions have channelled their efforts into building attractiveness and supporting market differentiation. This competitive orientation has been accompanied by a collaborative approach, rather than by political debate over competing ideological positions. Since the early 2020s, a new direction for regional development has begun to evolve as the Swedish government is changing its regional policy from regional growth to sustainable regional development. By using Carol Bacchi’s critical policy approach (WPR), this thesis explores how sustainability is represented in recent regional development policy and whether these problem representations create room for other conceptualisations of development or open up space for what Chantal Mouffe describes as the political to re-enter the policy field. The study draws on fieldwork comprising interviews, policy documents and observations. The thesis shows that regional development is changing into a broader and more societal-oriented field as a result of the sustainability efforts, but the major problem representations identified in the policy proposals produce sustainability as a problem of outdated methods, silo-based organisation and a lack of innovative tools. Aspects such as climate change, inequality or loss of biodiversity are seldom addressed in the proposals. Together, this constitutes sustainability in regional development as a matter of form, rather than content. As a consequence of the effects of how sustainability is currently represented, the thesis concludes that there are openings for re-vitalisation due to colliding aims and approaches, but the challenge they pose to the established rationality has not yet induced a (re)politicisation of development in regional policy.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Tim, 1989-
(författare)
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Automated Tactile Sensing for Quality Control of Locks Using Machine Learning
- 2024
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis delves into the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for quality control in manufacturing systems, with a particular focus on anomaly detection through the analysis of torque measurements in rotating mechanical systems. The research specifically examines the effectiveness of torque measurements in quality control of locks, challenging the traditional method that relies on human tactile sense for detecting mechanical anomalies. This conventional approach, while widely used, has been found to yield inconsistent results and poses physical strain on operators. A key aspect of this study involves conducting experiments on locks using torque measurements to identify mechanical anomalies. This method represents a shift from the subjective and physically demanding practice of manually testing each lock. The research aims to demonstrate that an automated, AI-driven approach can offer more consistent and reliable results, thereby improving overall product quality. The development of a machine learning model for this purpose starts with the collection of training data, a process that can be costly and disruptive to normal workflow. Therefore, this thesis also investigates strategies for predicting and minimizing the sample size used for training. Additionally, it addresses the critical need of trustworthiness in AI systems used for final quality control. The research explores how to utilize machine learning models that are not only effective in detecting anomalies but also offers a level of interpretability, avoiding the pitfalls of black box AI models. Overall, this thesis contributes to advancing automated quality control by exploring the state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms for mechanical fault detection, focusing on sample size prediction and minimization and also model interpretability. To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first study that evaluates an AI-driven solution for quality control of mechanical locks, marking an innovation in the field.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Dersjö, Tomas, 1981-
(författare)
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Methods for reliability based design optimization of structural components
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cost and quality are key properties of a product, possibly even the two most important. Onedefinition of quality is fitness for purpose. Load-bearing products, i.e. structural components,loose their fitness for purpose if they fail. Thus, the ability to withstand failure is a fundamentalmeasure of quality for structural components. Reliability based design optimization(RBDO) is an approach for development of structural components which aims to minimizethe cost while constraining the probability of failure. However, the computational effort ofan RBDO applied to large-scale engineering problems has prohibited it from employment inindustrial applications. This thesis presents methods for computationally efficient RBDO.A review of the work presented on RBDO algorithms reveals that three constituentsof an RBDO algorithm has rendered significant attention; i ) the solution strategy for andnumerical treatment of the probabilistic constraints, ii ) the surrogate model, and iii) theexperiment design. A surrogate model is ”a model of a model”, i.e. a computationally cheapapproximation of a physics-based but computationally expensive computer model. It is fittedto responses from the physics-motivated model obtained via a thought-through combinationof experiments called an experiment design.In Paper A, the general algorithm for RBDO employed in this work, including the sequentialapproximation procedure used to treat the probabilistic constraints, is laid out. A singleconstraint approximation point (CAP) is used to save computational effort with acceptablelosses in accuracy. The approach is used to optimize a truck component and incorporatesthe effect that production related design variables like machining and shot peening have onfatigue life.The focus in Paper B is on experiment design. An algorithm employed to construct anovel experiment design for problems with multiple constraints is presented. It is based onan initial screening and uses the specific problem structure to combine one-factor-at-a-timeexperiments to a several-factors-at-a-time experiment design which reduces computationaleffort.In Paper C, a surrogate model tailored for RBDO is introduced. It is motivated by appliedsolid mechanics considerations and the use of the first order reliability method to evaluate theprobabilistic constraint. An optimal CAP is furthermore deduced from the surrogate model.In Paper D, the paradigm to use sets of experiments rather than one experiment at atime is challenged. A new procedure called experiments on demand (EoD) is presented. TheEoD procedure utilizes the core of RBDO to quantify the demand for new experiments andaugments it by a D-optimality criterion for added robustness and numerical stability.
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| 9. |
- Fransson, Moa, 1981-
(författare)
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CNS-Targeted Cell Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system (CNS). In the current thesis, we have preformed an immunological investigation of patients with MS and developed an immunosuppressive cell therapy that could be beneficial for these patients. MS has been considered to be driven by T helper type1 (Th1) lymphocytes but new data indicate the involvement of Th17 responses. T cells from patients with MS that were evaluated for immunological status secreted both interferon-γ and interleukin-17 upon stimulation. However, T cells from patients with MS in remission, in contrast to relapse, had poor proliferative capacity suggesting that they are controlled and kept in anergy. T regulatory cells (Tregs) are important to maintain self-tolerance and the role of CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ Tregs in autoimmunity has been extensively investigated. We analyzed Tregs from patients with MS in relapse and remission by multicolor flow cytometry for the expression of CD3, CD4, IL2R (CD25), FoxP3 and the IL7R (CD127). Patients in relapse exhibited higher levels of FoxP3-positive Tregs lacking CD25 compared to healthy controls, indicating that Tregs might attempt to restrain immune activity during relapse. In the murine experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model of MS, therapy with suppressive cells such as Tregs or mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) has proven beneficial. However, systemic administration of such cells may immunologically compromise the recipient and promote infections due to general immunosuppression. We hypothesized that suppressive cells can be equipped with a CNS-targeting receptor and be delivered intra-nasally to avoid systemic exposure. CD4+ T cells were modified with a lentiviral vector system to express a myelin oligodendrocyte (MOG)-targeting receptor in trans with the FoxP3 gene that drives Treg differentiation. Genetically engineered Tregs demonstrated suppressive capacity in vitro and localized to the brain and suppressed ongoing encephalomyelitis in vivo. Cured mice were rechallenged with an EAE-inducing inoculum but remained healthy. MSCs are a heterogeneous population of stromal cells residing in most connective tissues and have the capacity to suppress effector cells of the immune system. MSCs were engineered to express MOG-targeting receptors using lentiviral vectors. Genetically engineered MSCs retained their suppressive capacity in vitro and successfully targeted the brain upon intranasal delivery. Engineered MSCs cured mice from disease symptoms and these mice were resistant to further EAE challenge. Encephalitic T cells isolated from cured mice displayed an anergic profile while peripheral T cells were still responsive to stimuli. In conclusion, MS patients have peripheral CNS-reactive T cells of both Th1 and Th17 type that, while in remission, are kept in anergy. Also, MS patients in relapse exhibit increased levels of CD25 negative Tregs indicating an attempt to restrain immune activity. Finally, immunosuppressive cells can be genetically engineered to target CNS and efficiently suppress encephalomyelitis in an active EAE model upon intranasal delivery.
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| 10. |
- Högelin, Klara Asplund, et al.
(författare)
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Development of humoral and cellular immunological memory against SARS-CoV-2 despite B cell depleting treatment in multiple sclerosis
- 2021
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Ingår i: iScience. - : Elsevier BV. - 2589-0042. ; 24:9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- B cell depleting therapies (BCDTs) are widely used as immunomodulating agents for autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Their possible impact on development of immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has raised concerns with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We here evaluated the frequency of COVID-19-like symptoms and determined immunological responses in participants of an observational trial comprising several multiple sclerosis disease modulatory drugs (COMBAT-MS; NCT03193866) and in eleven patients after vaccination, with a focus on BCDT. Almost all seropositive and 17.9% of seronegative patients on BCDT, enriched for a history of COVID-19-like symptoms, developed anti-SARS-CoV-2 T cell memory, and T cells displayed functional similarity to controls producing IFN-gamma and TNF. Following vaccination, vaccine-specific humoral memory was impaired, while all patients developed a specific T cell response. These results indicate that BCDTs do not abrogate SARS-CoV-2 cellular memory and provide a possible explanation as to why the majority of patients on BCDTs recover from COVID-19.
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| 11. |
- Käll, Anton, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
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Scheduled Support Versus Support on Demand in Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder : Randomized Controlled Trial
- 2023
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Ingår i: Clinical Psychology in Europe. - : PsychOpen. - 2625-3410. ; 5:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: Clinician-supported internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) can be an effective treatment option when treating social anxiety disorder (SAD). Unguided ICBT is often found to be less effective. One possible solution to reduce the costs of clinician support is to provide support on demand. In this format of guidance, participants have the option to contact their clinician if needed. In a few studies, this mode of support has been compared favorably to scheduled support.Method: Participants in a previously reported controlled trial on SAD who had been in a waitlist control group were randomly allocated to ICBT with either on-demand guidance or scheduled weekly therapist guidance. A total of 99 participants were included. Data were collected weekly on the primary outcome measure, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale self-report (LSAS-SR), and at pre- and post-treatment for secondary measures. Data were analyzed in accordance with the intention-to-treat principle using mixed-effects models.Results: Both groups improved significantly during the treatment according to the LSAS-SR ratings. The groups did not differ in their estimated change during the treatment period, with a between-group effect of d = 0.02, 95% CI [-0.37, 0.43]. Both groups experienced similar improvement also on the secondary outcome measures, with small between-group effect sizes on all outcomes.Conclusions: The findings indicate that support on demand can be an effective way of providing guidance in ICBT for SAD, although more research on this topic is needed. A limitation of the study is that it was conducted in 2009, and the findings were in the file drawer. Subsequent published studies support our initial findings, but more research is needed.
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| 12. |
- Månsson, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding and overcoming obstacles in adaptive management
- 2024
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Ingår i: Trends in Ecology and Evolution. - : Elsevier Ltd.. - 0169-5347 .- 1872-8383. ; 38:1, s. 55-71
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Adaptive management (AM) is widely promoted to improve management of natural resources, yet its implementation is challenging. We show that obstacles to the implementation of AM are related not only to the AM process per se but also to external factors such as ecosystem properties and governance systems. To overcome obstacles, there is a need to build capacities within the AM process by ensuring adequate resources, management tools, collaboration, and learning. Additionally, building capacities in the legal and institutional frames can enable the necessary flexibility in the governance system. Furthermore, in systems experiencing profound changes in wildlife populations, building such capacities may be even more critical as more flexibility will be needed to cope with increased uncertainty and changed environmental conditions.
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| 13. |
- Olsson, Anki
(författare)
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Hemostatic function and inflammatory activation after weaning from cardio pulmonary bypass
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) contributes to perioperative platelet dysfunction, increased fibrinolysis and impaired coagulation, which can have an impact on postoperative bleeding. During CPB the blood is exposed to foreign surfaces leading to activation of the coagulation system and a systemic inflammatory response with complement and leukocyte activation. Anticoagulation with heparin is used to prevent immediate blood clotting within the circuit. The heparin effect is reversed with protamine sulfate after weaning from CPB. Protamine has been suggested to impair platelet function in high doses although the mechanism is incompletely understood. Platelet dysfunction can promote bleeding which can necessitate transfusion and sometimes surgical re-exploration.After weaning from CPB the residual blood in the heart lung machine is usually retransfused to the patient in order to reduce the need for blood transfusion. The most common technique to transfuse residual blood is to collect the blood from the CPB circuit in an infusion bag (IB). An alternative way to re-transfuse the residual blood is by chasing it through the heart lung machine with Ringers solution, the Ringer chase technique (RC).The aim of this thesis was to examine a possible inhibitory effect of protamine on platelet aggregation. A second aim was to evaluate different techniques for retransfusion after weaning from CPB.Study I and II in this thesis are focused on the protamine effect on platelet aggregation and study III and IV on the quality of the blood in relation to the two different retransfusion techniques.In Study I we found that platelet aggregation evaluated by impedance aggregometry was reduced by approximately 50% after in vivo protamine administration. Protamine added in vitro also reduced platelet aggregation, by itself or in combination with heparin. Study II showed that protamine induces a marked but transient decrease in platelet aggregation already at a protamine-heparin ratio of 0.7:1, which also was sufficient to reverse the heparin anticoagulation as measured by activated clotting time (ACT). No further decrease was observed when additional protamine was given within three minutes. Platelet aggregation had begun to recover 20 minutes after protamine administration.In study III and IV we evaluated possible differences in quality of the retransfused residual blood from the heart-lung machine depending on if it is returned to the patient by the RC-technique or by an IB. Study III focused on biochemical markers of hemostasis, coagulation and fibrinolysis. Study IV concerns biochemical markers of inflammatory activity characterizing the inflammatory response during cardiac surgery with CPB including heparin binding protein (HBP) a new marker of neutrophil activation. CPB is associated with a marked systemic inflammatory response and levels of HBP indicates a pronounced neutrophil activation as part of a systemic inflammatory process. HBP levels during CPB was much higher than previously found during severe inflammatory conditions. We also concluded that the handling of the blood after weaning from CPB reduces platelet function, activates coagulation and fibrinolysis, increases hemolysis and the inflammatory response. Retransfusion of pump blood with the RC-technique was associated with better preserved platelet function, less hemolysis, less signs of activation of coagulation and fibrinolysis and less pronounced inflammatory activity than the commonly used IB technique. In the event of cell salvage technique not being feasible, we suggest that the RC technique is preferable to the IB technique but acknowledge that the clinical importance of this finding in terms of outcomes warrants further investigation
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| 14. |
- Olsson, Tomas
(författare)
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A Data-Driven Approach to Remote Fault Diagnosis of Heavy-duty Machines
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Heavy-duty machines are equipment constructed for working under rough conditions and their design is meant to withstand heavy workloads. However, the last decades technical development in cheap electronically components have lead to an increase of electrical systems in traditionally mainly mechanical systems of heavy-duty machines. As the complexity of these machines increases, so does the complexity of detecting and diagnosing machine faults. However, the addition of new electrical systems, such as on-board computational power and telematics, makes it possible to add new sensors that measure signals relevant for fault detection and diagnosis, and to process signals on-board or off-board the machines.In this thesis, we address the diagnostic problem by investigating data-driven methods for remote diagnosis of heavy-duty machines, where a part of the analysis is performed on-board the machine (fault detection), while another part is performed off-board the machine (fault classification). We propose a diagnostic framework where we use a novel combination of methods for each step in the diagnosis. On-board the machine, we have used logistic regression as an anomaly detector to detect faults that will lead to a stream of individual cases classified as anomalous or not. Then, either on-board or off-board, we can use a probabilistic anomaly detector to identify whether the stream of cases is truly anomalous when we look at the stream of cases as a group. The anomalous group of cases is called a composite case. Thereafter, off-board the machine, each anomalous individual case is classified into a fault type using a case-based reasoning approach to fault diagnosis. In the final step, we fuse the individual classifications into a single aggregated classification for the composite case. In order to be able to assess the reliability of a diagnosis, we also propose a novel case-based approach to estimating the reliability of probabilistic predictions. It can, for instance, be used for assessing the confidence of the classification of a composite case given historical data of the predictive reliability.
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| 15. |
- Olsson, Tomas
(författare)
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Bootstrapping and decentralizing recommender systems
- 2003
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of three papers on recommender systems.The first paper addresses the problem of making decentralized recommendations using a peer-to-peer architecture. Collaborating recommender agents are connected into a network of neighbors that exchange user recommendations to find new items to recommend. We achieved a performance comparable to a centralized system.The second paper deals with the bootstrapping problem for centralized recommender systems. Most recommender systems learn from experience but initially there are no users and no rated items to learn from. To deal with this problem we have developed the Genesis method. The method bootstraps a recommender system with artificial user profiles sampled from a probabilistic model built from prior knowledge. The paper describes how this was done for a k-nearest neighbor recommender algorithm in the movie domain. We were able to improve the performance of a k-nearest neighbor algorithm for single predictions but not for rank ordered lists of recommendations.The third paper identifies a new domain for recommendations – product configuration – where new recommender algorithms are needed. A system that helps users configuring their own PCs is described. Recommendations and a cluster-based help system together with a rule-based configurator assist the users in selecting appropriate features or complete PC configurations. The configurator ensures that users cannot choose incompatible components while the recommender system adds social information based on what other users have chosen. This introduces new complexity in the recommendation process on how to combine the recommendations from the configurator and the recommender system. The paper proposes (1) three new recommender algorithms on how to make recommendations in the domain of product configuration, (2) a method for adding social recommendations to a rule-based configurator and (3) a method for applying the Genesis method in this domain. In this case the Genesis method is implemented by a Bayesian belief net that captures the designers' prior knowledge on how to configure PCs. Then instances of complete configurations are sampled from the model and added to the recommender algorithm.
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| 16. |
- Sundström, Johan, Professor, 1971-, et al.
(författare)
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Rationale for a Swedish cohort consortium
- 2019
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Ingår i: Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0300-9734 .- 2000-1967. ; 124:1, s. 21-28
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We herein outline the rationale for a Swedish cohort consortium, aiming to facilitate greater use of Swedish cohorts for world-class research. Coordination of all Swedish prospective population-based cohorts in a common infrastructure would enable more precise research findings and facilitate research on rare exposures and outcomes, leading to better utilization of study participants' data, better return of funders' investments, and higher benefit to patients and populations. We motivate the proposed infrastructure partly by lessons learned from a pilot study encompassing data from 21 cohorts. We envisage a standing Swedish cohort consortium that would drive development of epidemiological research methods and strengthen the Swedish as well as international epidemiological competence, community, and competitiveness.
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| 17. |
- Unga, Johanna, 1973-
(författare)
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Det är en spricka i allt, det är så ljuset kommer in… : Matematik och förskolebarns experimenterande och potentialitet
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In preschools it is common that mathematics mainly focuses on how children learn mathematics through everyday activities, or on children´s understanding of mathematical concepts. However, views on mathematics-learning are today deepened and extended, and embrace children’s own mathematical signs, visual representations and bodily experiences. The overall aim of this thesis is to experiment with how this extended view in which children´s engagement and creativity is affirmed, simultaneously as they are developing knowledge about the world of mathematics with its procedures and rules. With inspiration from the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze´s and Félix Guattari´s immanent ontology and transcendental empiricism, and from the pedagogical philosophy of the preschools in Reggio Emilia, I have experimented both with mathematics, and with toddlers’ explorations and potentiality. The research-material primarily consists of video observations and documentations, and it is taken from a project with a mathematical topic through a cooperative work by me, preschool teachers and children aged 1–3 years. Methodologically the work is based on one example from the project where some children explores and experiment on geometric objects. In relation to the example some concepts from Reggio Emilia’s pedagogical thinking and Deleuze´s and Guattari´s immanent ontology are put to work, by focusing on the connections that emerge. The study make visible that children explore and experiment with mathematics in what in the study has called “a relational field of potentiality”. In relation to preschool didactics the study stresses the importance of teachers paying attention to and “listening” to children’s experimentations and sign-making, in order not to interrupt what is emerging/becoming. This requires an environment that embraces “the hundred languages” and enables collective experimentation for thoughts and ideas to be shared in “togetherness”.
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