| 1. |
- Hjalmarsson, Anders
(författare)
-
Behovet av struktur och frihet : En avhandling om situationsanpassad facilitering vid samarbetsinriktad modellering
- 2009
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Informationssystem är resultatet av samarbete människor emellan. System designas, realiseras, testas och implementeras i de verksamheter som de ska stödja. Samarbete krävs under alla dessa steg. I utvecklingsarbetets inledning är det inte ovanligt att kraven på systemen formuleras genom projekt som organiseras genom olika typer av samarbetsformer. I föreliggande avhandling lyfter vi på locket på samarbetsinriktad modellering och studerar i detalj vad som sker när krav på system formuleras. Genom en gedigen forskningsdesign och ett rikt datamaterial följer vi två modelleringsteam när de faciliterar verksamhetsrepresentanter i olika situationer under tre modelleringsprojekt. Avsikten är att utveckla kunskap om vad som utmärker facilitering i dessa situationer samt studera vad som utmärker situationsanpassning när modellerarna underlättar och möjliggör arbetet. Genom videobaserad forskning har modelleringsarbetet dokumenterats och med hjälp av olika analysmetoder, såsom konversationsinriktad handlingsanalys och multigrundad teoriutveckling, tolkas episoder i materialet och en plattform för en praktisk teori om facilitering utvecklas. Resultatet utgörs av en typologi över samarbetsinriktad modellering, åtgärder för att utföra facilitering av arbetet, samt insikter om vad som utmärker situationsanpassning när facilitering utförs och olika omständigheter måste mötas. Synsättet som förespråkas är att tillämpandet av struktur och utnyttjandet av frihet är förutsättningar då goda krav på informationssystem ska formuleras genom samarbete.
|
|
| 2. |
- Goldin, Stephen, 1948-
(författare)
-
Living in the present with the past : mental health of Bosnian refugee children in Sweden
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The negative impact of war on child mental health has been repeatedly documented. Still, the majority of children exposed to ethnic and political violence show no signs of clinical disorder. In Western countries of exile, these findings have prompted a variety of attempts to evaluate refugee children, in the hope of identifying and offering support to those children “at risk”. This study critically examines one such attempt. The aims are fourfold: 1. to describe the range and pattern of child trauma-stress exposure and mental health reactions as captured on clinician semi-structured interview; 2. to critically compare clinician assessment with independent parent, child and teacher reports; 3. to identify factors of potential risk or protective import for child mental health; 4. to draw clinical implications: from whom and by what means can children at risk be reasonably identified? The target of our study was the entire population of Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian speaking child refugee families assigned to Umeå and surrounding municipalities during 1994-95. Fifty families, containing 90 children aged one month to 20 years, were included in the study. Assessment occurred in two phases. First, a semi-structured interview was conducted that inquired broadly as to the child’s family background, trauma-stress exposure, emotional-behavioral problems, patterns of family functioning, and future hopes. Second, standardized self-report questionnaires were administered, separately to parent and child, to provide alternative appraisal of the child’s war exposure, mental health symptoms, coping strategies, and social network. Teacher evaluation of child cognitive-social functioning as well as emotional-behavioral problems was also obtained. Clinician semi-structured interview revealed the child’s pre-war period as preponderantly good, and provided richly detailed narratives of child exposure during war and resettlement that clustered into a limited number of type-stories. Independent parent assessment captured the same broad strokes of child war exposure; but both approaches – fixed questionnaire and semi-structured interview – showed specific areas of blindness. Teenage self-report offered a disparate but equally rich account of war exposure, while that of primary school child was significantly less detailed. Nearly half of the study children (48%) were identified on clinician interview with one or more mental health problem “demanding further attention”. Depressiveness was the single most prevalent symptom (31%), followed by posttraumatic reactions (23%) and anxiety-regressiveness (15%). Independent symptom appraisal by parent and primary school child was largely concordant with that of clinician, while teenagers made similar assessment as to who was in distress, but defined the nature of that distress differently. Teacher report stood apart, identifying fewer inward emotional problems and asserting the cognitive-social competence of the vast majority of study children. Trauma-stress exposure during both war and resettlement presented as an unequivocal risk to mental health, but accounted for only part of outcome variance. Additional factors of strong import related broadly to “living in the present”. Parent impairment of daily routines, child dissatisfaction with school and an ongoing quarrelsome relationship presented as risk factors. Protection was associated with parent maintenance of a warm family climate and of concrete physical-emotional caring, child social ties to physically present others, including teacher; and above all, a family sense of hope for the future. Results support the general robustness of our semi-structured approach. Exploring the child’s present well-being in narrative relation to past and future, our assessment captured and gave meaning to the complexity of child exposure and behavior. At the same time, independent parent and child appraisals provided an additional richness to the retelling and evaluation of child experience. Particularly the apartness of teacher report underscores the need to incorporate an outside-world vantage point in the process of risk assessment.
|
|
| 3. |
- Persson, Anders, 1953-
(författare)
-
Volume imaging of the abdomen : three-dimensional visualisation of tubular structures in the body with CT and MRI
- 2005
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The overwhelming amount of image-based information in modem medicine makes it crucial to develop methods to handle and analyze images and make them comprehensible for users. The aim of this thesis was to study the radiological practice of three-dimensional (3D) visualization of tubular structures in the body with CT and MRI. All the studies cancern 3D imaging of tubular structures with camputed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The first three studies examine the abdominal aorta; the two later ones the, bile ducts.Study I compared measurements of aorta diameters taken from MR images presented using two visualization methods - maximum intensity projection (MlP) and volume rendering (VRT) - with invasive angiography (DSA) and CT as reference methods. Mean diameters of MR images were smaller than those from DSA and CT when MlP was used, but in general not when VRT was used.Study II evaluated the dependence on the observer and the choice of method and settings during rendering using the same material as in Study 1. In both MlP and VRT, the choice of settings had significant influence on the results. With DSA as the reference method, VRT gave larger measurement errors than MIP when the rendering parameters were set to fixed values, but not if the user was allowed to select the settings freely.Study III evaluated three new techniques for standardizing VRT protocols for MRA. Inter-reader variability and agreement with DSA were studied by comparing diameter measurements of the abdominal aorta obtained by the three new techniques, by VRT with freely chosen parameters and by MlP. All three new methods were significantly better than MlP and VRT with freely chosen parameters conceming inter-observer agreement. Agreement with DSA was significantly better for one of the methods. Standardized protocols seem to have a potential to make VRT a clinically useful alternative to MlP for MR angiography measurements.Study IV evaluated CT imaging of the bile ducts after drip intravenous infusion of the contrast medium iotroxate (CT cholangiography) in terms of adverse effects and visibility. With infusion time adjusted for individual variation in serum bilirubin concentration, a total side-effect frequency of less than 1% was found. A systematic review of previously published studies indicated a frequency of 2.3%. Good contrast excretion and visualization of bile ducts even in patients with elevated bilirubin levels were noted.Study V evaluated the diagnostic benefits of the same imaging method by comparing it with findings from surgery and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). The consensus sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing biliary stones was 88% and 94%, respectively. The use of VRT improved diagnostic certainty in 14% of the evaluatians, and the visualization of ductal stones was improved in 38% of the positive cases.In conclusion, volume rendering technique with standardized parameters may become a clinically useful tool in the clinical MRI environment. DIC-CT with bilirubin-governed infusion time and volume rendering post-processing produces detailed images of the biliary tree, resulting in good sensitivity and specificity. Moreover the safety is acceptable.
|
|
| 4. |
- Arvidson, Markus
(författare)
-
Den fabricerande människan : Om bedrägeri som vardaglig interaktionsform
- 2007
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present dissertation takes the multi-faceted phenomenon of deception as its point of departure. The aim is to make a case for deception as a social phenomenon, and to frame theoretically and define the skills and abilities that make deception possible.A theoretical model based on a number of ideal types is constructed. The purpose of the model is to differentiate particular aspects of deception, and the model is illustrated with examples of actions of more or less well-known impostors. The examples were collected from a variety of sources, such as autobiographies and television programs.As a first step, the legal definition of deception, i.e. fraud, and statistics on crimes of deception in Sweden are presented. Different theoretical approaches are also discussed; deception as a personality trait, and deception as communication and interaction.In order to illuminate the social dimensions, it is emphasized that deception constitutes a particular type of relationship between deceiver and deceivee. This particular form of interaction exploits elementary forms, and it is also asymmetrical in terms of the intentions of the parties involved.The concept of social competence is used to describe the skills and abilities required for successful acts of deception. It is argued that the social competence of deceivers consists of three types: strategic, normative, and dramaturgic competencies. The strategic competency involves being goal-rational and strategic, for example, the ability to predict the actions of the potential addressee. In the normative competency, norms and reference to norms are used strategically. The dramaturgic competency represents an operationalization and enactment of the two other competencies, and resembles the preparation and performance of an actor.The different contexts in which deception can occur are also discussed. A preliminary typology is presented, with the aim of demonstrating the difficulties in drawing clear lines between various types of deception. The extended approach to deception also means that it can be viewed as a part of everyday social interaction.Finally, some thoughts on deception in the light of societal changes are presented. It is argued that the increasing demands on people to promote themselves in various ways in today’s society can be perceived as an invitation to deception and fabrication. These demands can generate feelings of inferiority and a fear of eventually being unmasked as an impostor, or a phony.
|
|
| 5. |
- Fridberg, Marie, et al.
(författare)
-
Protein expression and cellular localization in two prognostic subgroups of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma : higher expression of ZAP70 and PKC-beta II in the non-germinal center group and poor survival in patients deficient in nuclear PTEN
- 2007
-
Ingår i: Leukemia and Lymphoma. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1042-8194 .- 1029-2403. ; 48:11, s. 2221-2232
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Patients diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) show varying responses to conventional therapy, and this might be contributed to the differentiation stage of the tumor B-cells. The aim of the current study was to evaluate a panel of kinases (ZAP70, PKC-β I and II and phosphorylated PKB/Akt) and phosphatases (PTEN, SHP1 and SHP2) known to be frequently deregulated in lymphoid malignancies. De novo DLBCL cases were divided into two subgroups, the germinal center (GC) group (14/28) and the non-germinal center (non-GC) or activated B-cell (ABC) group (14/28). ZAP70 and PKC-β II were expressed in a significantly higher percentage of tumor cells in the clinically more aggressive non-GC group compared with the prognostically favourable GC group. Also, the subcellular localization of PKC-β I and II differed in DLBCL cells, with the PKC-β I isoform being expressed in both the cytoplasm and nucleus, while PKC-β II was found exclusively in the cytoplasm. Loss of nuclear PTEN correlated with poor survival in cases from both subgroups. In addition, five cell lines of DLBCL origin were analyzed for protein expression and for mRNA levels of PTEN and SHP1. For the first time, we show that ZAP70 is expressed in a higher percentage of tumor cells in the aggressive non-GC subgroup of DLBCL and that PKC-β I and II are differently distributed in the two prognostic subgroups of de novo DLBCL.
|
|
| 6. |
- Persson, Anders
(författare)
-
Förutsättningar för sammanhållen kommunal eFörvaltning
- 2009
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- De senaste decennierna har inneburit en kraftig fokusering på förvaltningsutveckling i Sverige och internationellt. Såväl informationsteknik som från näringslivet överförda arbetssätt och synsätt på förvaltningen har kommit att bli centrala inslag i olika ansatser för reformering av den offentliga förvaltningen. Större medborgarfokusering, högre effektivitet och bättre horisontell och vertikal samverkan mellan myndigheter är paradbegrepp för utvecklingen. Utvecklingen kring eFörvaltningen i Sverige har främst inriktats på och skett i statliga myndigheter medan kommunerna kommit att senare anamma denna utvecklingstrend. I avhandlingen studeras förutsättningarna för sammanhållen eFörvaltning med sammansatta ärenden gentemot företag som söker etablering eller utveckling av sin verksamhet i en kommun. Dessa sammansatta ärenden är ur företagets perspektiv uppfattat som ett ärendeaggregat men är ur den kommunala förvaltningens perspektiv ett stort antal ärenden inom olika förvaltningar. I avhandlingen diskuteras överföring av synsätt och arbetssätt från näringslivet och att dessa kan innebära konflikter med traditionella till offentlig förvaltning knutna värden och således bör behandlas med försiktighet. Arbetet har utförts genom en fallstudie i en av Sverige större kommuner där förutsättningarna för sammanhållen förvaltning och kommunal eFörvaltning studerats exemplifierade genom sammansatta företagsärenden och nyetableringsärenden. På förvaltningarna involverade i dessa sammansatta ärenden har intervjuer genomförts och gemensamma seminarieaktiviteter utförts för att utreda vilka potentiella risker och förtjänster som kan aktualiseras genom samverkan och klientfokusering. Förutsättningarna för informationssystemstöd och gränsöverskridande informationshantering är centrala inslag i analysen. I avhandlingen förmedlas kunskap kring sektoriseringens negativa och positiva effekter i kommunal förvaltning samt värdekonflikter kring kundorientering, processorientering och reduceringen av en multiklientrelation till en dyadrelation i sammansatta ärenden. Detta bildar grunden för diskussionen om begränsningar och restriktioner för sammanhållen kommunal förvaltning och vilken roll informationshantering och informationssystem kan spela i förvaltningsutvecklingen.
|
|
| 7. |
- Persson, Anders J, 1959-
(författare)
-
Workplace Ethics : Some practical and foundational problems
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the present thesis is twofold: first, to analyse some practical ethical problems that stem from the workplace and the working environment and to offer guidelines concerning how such problems can be solved; second, to illuminate how the specific nature of work and the working environment is intimately connected to the relation between the employee and the employing entity, as set forth in an employment contract, and how the form and content of such contracts are, among other things, determined by culturally and socially established ideas. The normative question to be addressed is thus: which of these ideas should be maintained? This can be seen as a second-order, or more fundamental, ethical question whose answer depends on determining which normative principles are right. An additional aim of this thesis is thus to illuminate that the contract relation has relevance to practical ethical problems in the workplace context in this second-order mode. The thesis consists of an Introduction and five papers. In Paper I (written together with Sven Ove Hansson) we argue that employees have a prima facie right to privacy, but that this right can be overridden by competing moral principles that follow, explicitly or implicitly, from the contract of employment. A set of ethical criteria is developed and summarized in the form of a guideline for determining the moral status of infringements into workplace privacy. In Paper II these criteria are applied to three broad classes of privacy-intrusive workplace practices: (1) monitoring and surveillance, (2) genetic testing, and (3) drug testing. In relation to some scenarios on these themes, it is shown that it is possible to handle such practical ethical problems systematically by way of the proposed guideline. Paper III deals with the fact that employees are protected by health and safety standards that are less protective than those that apply to the general public. Emphasis is put on the distinction between exposure and risk, and this distinction is claimed to be a key determinant for the relevance of arguments put forward in support of such double standards. In Paper IV the nature of the contract of employment is explored from an ethical point of view. An argument is developed against the claim that (a) the individual’s freedom of decision and (b) the practice of institutional arrangements are sufficient to justify a contract of employment. Paper V questions the standpoint that the voluntariness of the contracting parties in an employment relationship has substantial value. One overarching issue concerns the meaning of voluntariness in the employment context, another, its normative importance. It is argued that it is indeterminate exactly where the line should be drawn between voluntary and non–voluntary agreements in this context. Concerning the latter issue, it is claimed that even if we were able to draw such a line, this fact does not tell us anything about the normative importance of the voluntariness condition, nor how much normative weight we should assign to the fulfilment of its conditions in the workplace context.
|
|
| 8. |
- Wang, Chunliang, 1980-
(författare)
-
Computer Assisted Coronary CT Angiography Analysis : Disease-centered Software Development
- 2009
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The substantial advances of coronary CTA have resulted in a boost of use of this new technique in the last several years, which brings a big challenge to radiologists by the increasing number of exams and the large amount of data for each patient. The main goal of this study was to develop a computer tool to facilitate coronary CTA analysis by combining knowledge of medicine and image processing.Firstly, a competing fuzzy connectedness tree algorithm was developed to segment the coronary arteries and extract centerlines for each branch. The new algorithm, which is an extension of the “virtual contrast injection” method, preserves the low density soft tissue around the coronary, which reduces the possibility of introducing false positive stenoses during segmentation.Secondly, this algorithm was implemented in open source software in which multiple visualization techniques were integrated into an intuitive user interface to facilitate user interaction and provide good over¬views of the processing results. Considerable efforts were put on optimizing the computa¬tional speed of the algorithm to meet the clinical requirements.Thirdly, an automatic seeding method, that can automatically remove rib cage and recognize the aortic root, was introduced into the interactive segmentation workflow to further minimize the requirement of user interactivity during post-processing. The automatic procedure is carried out right after the images are received, which saves users time after they open the data. Vessel enhance¬ment and quantitative 2D vessel contour analysis are also included in this new version of the software. In our preliminary experience, visually accurate segmentation results of major branches have been achieved in 74 cases (42 cases reported in paper II and 32 cases in paper III) using our software with limited user interaction. On 128 branches of 32 patients, the average overlap between the centerline created in our software and the manually created reference standard was 96.0%. The average distance between them was 0.38 mm, lower than the mean voxel size. The automatic procedure ran for 3-5 min as a single-thread application in the background. Interactive processing took 3 min in average with the latest version of software. In conclusion, the presented software provides fast and automatic coron¬ary artery segmentation and visualization. The accuracy of the centerline tracking was found to be acceptable when compared to manually created centerlines.
|
|
| 9. |
- Wegiel, Barbara, et al.
(författare)
-
A role for cyclin A1 in mediating the autocrine expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in prostate cancer
- 2005
-
Ingår i: Oncogene. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 0950-9232 .- 1476-5594. ; 24:42, s. 6385-6393
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Elevated levels of cyclin A1 expression have been implicated in acute myeloid leukemia and in male germ cell tumors. However, a role of cyclin A1 in tumorigenesis of prostate cancer has not been reported. In the present study, expression of cyclin A1 in patients with prostate cancer and a role of cyclin A1 in mediating expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were investigated. Cyclin A1 was highly expressed in aggressive tumors and was significantly correlated with VEGF expression in 96 patients with prostate cancer. Treatment of LNCaP cells with R1881, a synthetic androgen resulted in increased cyclin A1 expression. Induction of cyclin A1 expression in LNCaP cells led to an increase in VEGF expression and this effect was manifested upon the R1881 treatment. Cyclin A1 failed to mediate VEGF activation in DU-145 cells lacking a functional Rb and an androgen receptor (AR). Although AR expression was induced into DU-145 cells, cyclin A1 was unable to mediate VEGF expression. However, induced coexpression of cyclin A1, Rb and AR in DU-145 cells in the presence of R1881 greatly promoted VEGF promoter activity. This suggests that cyclin A1 mediates VEGF expression in cooperation with Rb- and androgen-dependent pathways in prostate cancer.
|
|
| 10. |
- Wegiel, Barbara, et al.
(författare)
-
Cystatin C is downregulated in prostate cancer and modulates invasion of prostate cancer cells via MAPK/Erk and androgen receptor pathways
- 2009
-
Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - San Francisco : Public Library of Science. - 1932-6203. ; 4:11
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cystatin C is believed to prevent tumor progression by inhibiting the activities of a family of lysosomal cysteine proteases. However, little is known about the precise mechanism of cystatin C function in prostate cancer. In the present study, we examined the expression of cystatin C and its association with matrix metalloproteinases 2 (MMP2) and androgen receptor (AR) in a tissue microarray comparing benign and malignant specimens from 448 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy for localized prostate cancer. Cystatin C expression was significantly lower in cancer specimens than in benign tissues (p<0.001) and there was a statistically significant inverse correlation between expression of cystatin C and MMP2 (r(s) (2) = -0.056, p = 0.05). There was a clear trend that patients with decreased level of cystatin C had lower overall survival. Targeted inhibition of cystatin C using specific siRNA resulted in an increased invasiveness of PC3 cells, whereas induction of cystatin C overexpression greatly reduced invasion rate of PC3 in vitro. The effect of cystatin C on modulating the PC3 cell invasion was provoked by Erk2 inhibitor that specifically inhibited MAPK/Erk2 activity. This suggests that cystatin C may mediate tumor cell invasion by modulating the activity of MAPK/Erk cascades. Consistent with our immunohistochemical findings that patients with low expression of cystatin C and high expression of androgen receptor (AR) tend to have worse overall survival than patients with high expression of cystatin C and high AR expression, induced overexpression of AR in PC3 cells expressing cystatin C siRNA greatly enhanced the invasiveness of PC3 cells. This suggests that there may be a crosstalk between cystatin C and AR-mediated pathways. Our study uncovers a novel role for cystatin C and its associated cellular pathways in prostate cancer invasion and metastasis.
|
|
