Preoperative radiotherapy in rectal cancer : aspects of different regimens

In Sweden approximately 2000 patients are annually diagnosed with a rectal cancer. The main treatment of the cancer is surgery. Radiotherapy (RT) is used as an adjuvant treatment in >60% of these patients to improve local control and in some patients to downsize a primary non resectable tumour to facilitate surgery. However RT has drawbacks as acute adverse events due to RT, increased risk of postoperative complications and mortality and late side-effects from RT. To optimise RT schedules regarding oncological and negative effects the Stockholm Colorectal Cancer Study Group initiated the Stockholm III Trial in 1998 to compare different fractionations of RT and the importance of timing to surgery. The trial is randomising patients with primary resectable tumours to one of three treatment schedules: short-course RT with immediate surgery (SRT); short-course RT with delayed surgery (SRT-delay); long-course RT with delayed surgery (LRT-delay). In Paper I, III and IV patients randomised in the on-going Stockholm III Trial were studied. In Paper II were patients having SRT-delay outside the Stockholm III Trial in the Stockholm-Gotland region studied. The papers conclude that the Stockholm III Trial is a feasible study with acceptable compliance to the protocol. Acute adverse events due to RT were low both within the Stockholm III Trial as well as after the SRT-delay schedule outside the trial. In Paper II, patients outside the Stockholm III Trial had SRT-delay, a schedule still without strong scientifically support, mainly due to primary non-resectable tumours and co-morbidities. The short-term outcome of the treatment was in line with established schedules. RT has been shown to impair the postoperative leucocytosis after surgery and increase complications and mortality. A depression of the bone marrow due to RT is one potential reason of these findings. In Paper III allocated treatment were related to postoperative complications and the leucocyte reaction to RT, measured as a ratio between leucocyte counts (LC) postoperative days 1 or 2 and the preoperative LC. Patients with low ratios had more complications compared to patients with intermediate and high ratios irrespective of RT regimen. Patients having SRT had more patients with low LC-ratios and more complications compared to the two other arms. There was no association between preoperative low (<4.0) LC and postoperative complications. Short-course RT has been considered not to have a downstaging effect, however with surgery immediately after the end of RT. In Paper II with surgery delayed there were lower stages and less involved margins after the RT when the clinical stages and margins were compared to the pathological stages and resection margins, indicating downstaging. Also in Paper IV, comparing the arms with short-course RT, a downstaging effect were indicated when the patients in the SRT-delay arm had significantly lower TNM Stages and T-stages and in addition more tumour regression compared to patients in the SRT randomisation arm

Environmental factors and risk of acoustic neuroma

The aim of this thesis was to increase the knowledge about environmental risk factors of acoustic neuroma and to increase the understanding of the methodological problems encountered when studying this tumor. Acoustic neuroma is a benign, usually slow growing, intracranial tumor of the vestibulocochlear nerve (cranial nerve VIII), the nerve that transmits information about hearing and balance from the inner ear to the brain. Acoustic neuroma is usually not life threatening, the most common symptoms are unilateral hearing loss and balance problems, but more severe symptoms like hydrocephalus may occur because of its intracranial location. Very little is known about acoustic neuroma etiology. The only well-established environmental risk factor is ionizing radiation, but associations have been observed with non-smoking, income, and education. This thesis includes studies that investigated the associations between acoustic neuroma and mobile and cordless phone use, occupational and leisure time exposure to loud noise, and occupational exposure to chemical agents. In addition, a validation of self-reported start year of mobile phone use was performed, using operator data as gold standard. The thesis is based on a Swedish nationwide population based case- control study of acoustic neuroma risk factors. The study includes 451 cases of acoustic neuroma and 710 controls, matched on age, sex and residential region. Postal questionnaires were used to collect exposure information about environmental and lifestyle factors. No evidence was found for an association between use of mobile phones and acoustic neuroma risk. Odds ratios for regular use and for long-term use of mobile phones were close to unity. An elevated odds ratio was found for the highest quartile of lifetime cumulative duration of calls but no corresponding increase in the highest quartile of cumulative number of calls. An association was found for regular use of cordless phones, but not for long term use. Also for cordless phones an increased odds ratio was found in the highest quartile of cumulative duration of calls but not for number of calls. The increased odds ratios were confined to cases without histological confirmation of the tumor, which may indicate that mobile and cordless phone use increases the probability of detection of the acoustic neuroma tumors. Odds ratios were generally higher for mobile phone use on the non-tumor side of the head and the laterality analyses indicated that laterality specific analyses suffered from reversed causality as cases changed the preferred side of use because of hearing loss on the tumor side. The validation showed large random errors in the self-reported information about start year of mobile phone use. Associations were found between acoustic neuroma and exposure to leisure time loud noise, but not with occupational noise, and associations were found for occupational exposure benzene, diesel engine exhaust, gasoline, and methylene chloride

Soft nanostructuring of YBCO Josephson Junctions by phase separation

We have developed a new method to fabricate biepitaxial YBa2Cu3O(7-x) (YBCO) Josephson junctions at the nanoscale, allowing junctions widths down to 100 nm and simultaneously avoiding the typical damage in grain boundary interfaces due to conventional patterning procedures. By using the competition between the superconducting YBCO and the insulating Y2BaCuO5 phases during film growth, we formed nanometer sized grain boundary junctions in the insulating Y2BaCuO5 matrix as confirmed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Electrical transport measurements give clear indications that we are close to probing the intrinsic properties of the grain boundaries.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Wave Propagation on Power Cables with Special Regard to Metallic Screen Design

The high frequency properties of coaxial power cables are modeled using time- and frequency-domain numerical simulations. This is required due to the complex helical structure of the outer metallic screen. The finite element (FEM) and finite difference time domain methods (FDTD) have been employed to study the effect of screen spiralization. It is established that this screen design causes a dependence of the cable high frequency characteristics on the surrounding medium. Analytical model based on modal analysis of wave propagation in coaxial cables confirms the numerical observations

A pore-scale model for permeable biofilm: numerical simulations and laboratory experiments

In this paper we derive a pore-scale model for permeable biofilm formation in a two-dimensional pore. The pore is divided in two phases: water and biofilm. The biofilm is assumed to consist of four components: water, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), active bacteria, and dead bacteria. The flow of water is modeled by the Stokes equation whereas a diffusion-convection equation is involved for the transport of nutrients. At the water/biofilm interface, nutrient transport and shear forces due to the water flux are considered. In the biofilm, the Brinkman equation for the water flow, transport of nutrients due to diffusion and convection, displacement of the biofilm components due to reproduction/dead of bacteria, and production of EPS are considered. A segregated finite element algorithm is used to solve the mathematical equations. Numerical simulations are performed based on experimentally determined parameters. The stress coefficient is fitted to the experimental data. To identify the critical model parameters, a sensitivity analysis is performed. The Sobol sensitivity indices of the input parameters are computed based on uniform perturbation by $\pm 10 \%$ of the nominal parameter values. The sensitivity analysis confirms that the variability or uncertainty in none of the parameters should be neglected

Adaptive Task Automata with Earliest-Deadline-First Scheduling

Adjusting to resource changes, dynamic environmental conditions, or new usage modes are some of the reasons why real-time embedded systems need to be adaptive. This requires a rigorous framework for designing such systems, to ensure that the adaptivity does not result in invalidating the system’s real-time constraints. To address this need, we have recently introduced adaptive task automata, a framework for modeling, verification, and schedulability analysis in adaptive, hard real-time embedded systems, assuming a fixed-priority scheduler. In this work, we extend the adaptive task automata framework to incorporate the earliest-deadline-first scheduling policy, as well as enable implementation of any other dynamic scheduling policy. To prove the decidability of our model, and at the same time maintain a manageable degree of conciseness, we show an encoding of our model as a network of timed automata with clock updates. To support this, we also show that reachability in our class of timed automata with updates is decidable. Our contribution helps to streamline the process of designing safety critical adaptive embedded systems

En modernare mutlagstiftning? - En studie av mutlagstiftningens utveckling och tillämpning med fokus på rekvisitet tjänstesamband

Sverige har länge varit förskonat från korruption av större omfattning, landet brukar i Transparency Internationals årliga rapporter rankas som ett av länderna med minst korruption. Det senaste decenniet har dock flera stora korruptionshärvor i myndigheter och offentlig verksamhet uppmärksammats av media och väckt stort intresse hos allmänheten. Undersökningar som BRÅ publicerat visar att mutor i myndigheter sannolikt är vanligare än man tidigare trott. Den globalisering som till stor del styr samhällsutvecklingen innebär många möjligheter, men även en risk för att kulturer där korruption är mer accepterat smittar av sig på svenska myndigheter och företag. Denna utveckling föranledde en översyn av den svenska mutlagstiftningen, vilken ledde till ändringar av lagen år 2012. Målet med utredningen var att åstadkomma en modernare och tydligare mutlagstiftning. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om den mutlagstiftning som nu är i kraft de facto är modern och tydlig. Lagstiftning har tidigare kritiserats för att vara alltför otydlig och generell. Har de senaste ändringarna avhjälpt de problem som kritikerna uppmärksammat? En av lagstiftningens delar som kritiserats för att vara alltför otydlig är rekvisitet tjänstesamband. En förmån kan inte vara otillbörlig om den givits i ett sammanhang utanför tjänsten, t.ex. i ett vänskapsförhållande. Det går inte att direkt ur lagtexten ta reda på hur rekvisitet ska bedömas i oklara situationer. Ett mål med denna uppsats är att närmare undersöka hur rekvisitet tjänstesamband enligt gällande rätt bedöms i oklara situationer. Min slutsats gällande rekvisitet tjänstesamband är att vissa oklarheter kring tolkningen under senare tid klargjorts genom avgöranden från HD. Dock kvarstår faktum att regleringen är otydlig och svårtolkad då lagstiftaren valde att till stora delar behålla mutlagstiftningens utformning, trots att man hade chansen att ta till sig den kritik som framfört och göra ändringar i lagens utformning. Lagstiftningen är generellt hållen för att kunna täcka alla arbetstagare i samhället. Enligt lagstiftaren föranleder det generella skyddsintresset en generell lagstiftning. Min mening är att myndighetsutövning är särskilt skyddsvärd då den ytterst grundas på lagar och förordningar medan den privata sektorn har ett något lägre skyddsvärde. Därför bör mutlagstiftning ändras så att den innehåller egna och strängare bestämmelser för anställda med myndighetsutövande befogenheter. En uppdelning av lagstiftningen skulle också kunna göra den tydligare och lättare att tillämpa eftersom praxis och civila uppförandekoder då tydligare kan knytas till hänförbar sektor.Sweden has long been spared from the corruption of higher extent, Transparency International's annual reports usually rank the country as one of those with the least corruption. The last decade, however, several major cases of corruption in authorities and the public sector have attracted the attention of the media and great interest among the public. Investigations published by BRÅ show that bribes in public authorities is likely to be more common than previously thought. The globalization that largely govern society presents many opportunities, but also a risk that cultures where corruption is more accepted rubs off on the Swedish authorities and businesses. This development prompted a review of the Swedish bribery legislation, which led to amendments to the law in 2012. The aim of the review was to provide a more modern and transparent legislation. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the bribery legislation, which is now in force, de facto is modern and clear. The bribery legislation has previously been criticized for being too vague and general. The question is if the latest amendments have remedied the problems that critics observed? One part of the bribery legislation that has been criticized for being too vague is the necessary prerequisite connection to the service. A benefit may not be unfair if given in a context outside of the service, such as in a friendship relationship. It is impossible to discover how the necessary prerequisite will be assessed in ambiguous situations only by reading the text of the law. One goal of this thesis is to examine how the necessary prerequisite is assessed in ambiguous situations, by examining applicable law. My conclusion regarding the necessary prerequisite connection to the service is that some uncertainties regarding the interpretation have been clarified by recent rulings of The Supreme Court. However, the fact remains that the regulation is unclear and difficult to interpret as the legislature chose to retain the original design of the bribery legislation, despite having had a chance to absorb the criticism put forward and make changes to the design of the legislation. The legislation is generally held to cover all employees in the community. According to the legislature, the general protective interests prompts a generally held law. My opinion is that the exercise of public authority is particularly worthy of protection since it is ultimately founded on the laws and regulations, while the private sector has a slightly lower protective value. Therefore, the bribery legislation should be amended so that it contains its own, more stringent, rules for employees performing governmental powers. A fragmentation could also make the legislation clearer and easier to apply, since practice and civil codes can be associated with the attributable sector in a more pedagogical way

An array of 100 Al-Al2O3-CuSIN tunnel junctions in direct-write trilayer technology

We present superconductor-insulator-normal metal (SIN) tunnel junction thermometers made of arrays of 4-100Al-Al2O3-Cu SIN tunnel junctions fabricated in direct-write technology. The technology is based on in situ evaporation of the superconductive electrode followed by the oxidation and the normal counter-electrode as a first step and deposition of normal metal absorber as a second one. This approach allows one to realize any geometry of the tunnel junctions and of the absorber with no limitation related to the size of the junctions or the absorber, which is not possible using the shadow evaporation technique. Measurements performed at 300 mK showed the high quality of the fabricated tunnel junctions, low leakage currents, and that an R-d/R-n ratio of 500 has been achieved at that temperature. The junctions were characterized as temperature sensors, and voltage versus temperature dependence measurements showed a dV/dT of 0.5 mV K-1 for each single junction, which is typical for this kind of tunnel junction. A temperature resolution of +/- 5 mu K has been achieved which is much better than the previously reported value of +/- 30 mu K for this type of thermometer

Machine Learning Techniques for Gait Analysis in Skiing

We investigate the use of supervised machine learning on data from ski-poles equipped with force sensors, with the goal of auto- matically identifying which sub-technique the skier is using. Our first contribution is a demonstration that sub-technique identification can be done with high accuracy using only sensors in the pole. Secondly, we also compare different machine learning algorithms (LSTM neural networks and random forests) and highlight their respective strengths and weaknesses, providing practitioners working with sports data some guidance for choice of machine learning algorithms