How can the business potential of products with health claims increase? - A case study of PrimaLiv

The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the influencing factors of the busi-ness potential of products with health claims, using PrimaLiv as an example, and give recommendations on how a dairy producer, which is present in the Swedish market, could improve the sales rates of products with health claims. We have chosen to put a main focus on the consumers, since they determine the business potential. This is an unusual approach since most studies cover the producer's perspective. We thereby wish to contribute with new knowledge on the area in question. In order to understand the consumer's attitude towards products with health claims a questionnaire and a sensory analysis have been carried out as a complement to discussions in focus groups. 36 persons, men and women, of various ages and with different backgrounds participated in the consumer investigation. Also, we have carried out a high number of interviews with people in the academic world, experts, important authorites, pro-ducers and retailers. Through covering all of the important actors, which influence the consumer we have mapped the situation on a systemic level. The consumer investigation shows that consumers do not spontaneously put products with health claims into the category of healthy products. Instead, natural products like meat and fish, fruits and vegetables and fibre rich bread are associated with healthy products. Consumers are not willing to negotiate about the taste of a product just be-cause it is healthy and good taste is co-related to natural characteristics. Since natural taste associations create positive experiences, the flavour of a product with health claims should reflect something that is naturally healthy. It is also advantageous if the flavours are easy to recognize by the consumer. To make sure that the consumer's requirements concerning taste are fulfilled, a producer should invest in a sensory evaluation before launching the products in the market. The nutritional value of a product is also considered important so the keyhole symbol adds value to the product. Further on, consumers express an unsecurity concerning how, when and why they should consume products with health claims and they are sceptical about the stated health effects. Moreover, products with health claims are more expensive than ordi-nary products, and to make the consumer willing to pay this additional cost he or she needs to understand the health effect. There are a number of channels in which a pro-ducer could communicate its message to the consumer. Our investigation shows that the most efficent way to reach potential buyers is to promote the products on the tele-vision, followed by magazines with a health approach. Another way is to network with health care professionals since consumers listen to and follows their recommen-dations. Today, health care professionals? have knowledge lacks about the effects of the products with health claims, which makes this group potential. In order to create a high potential of a product with health claims, studies show that the health effect should be experienced in connection to the time of consumption as a guarantee from the producer that the product really has a health promoting effect. If the producer succeeds in this, the possibility of a second purchase increases. The food industry is a market with intense competition and due to this fact it is impor-tant to build strong brands and products demanded by the consumer. There is no space for products with questionable taste and high price. The producer must know what kind of product design that is appealing to the consumer, which makes the prod-uct development process into a vital step. Money spent in this phase will be payed-off if spent on increasing the producer's knowledge about the consumer

Urban experimental housing projects' potential for sustainable urban development : a case study of Greenhouse, Brf Viva and Kvarteret Backåkra 2

Urbana experiment har kommit att bli en framstående strategi inom stadsutveckling, men riskerar att reproducera ojämlika sociala förhållanden och förstärka befintliga hållbarhetsutmaningar. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka vilken potential urbana experiment har för hållbar stadsutveckling, genom ett särskilt fokus på bostadssektorn som redan idag präglas av hållbarhetsutmaningar i form av bostadsojämlikhet samt utsläpps- och resursintensitet. Studien genomfördes som fallstudie av tre urbana experiment i form av bostadsprojekt som anses vara i framkant av hållbar bostadsutveckling: Greenhouse i Malmö, Brf Viva i Göteborg och Kvarteret Backåkra 2 i Stockholm. Genom litteraturstudier kunde ett analytiskt ramverk tas fram för en kvalitativ utvärdering av potentialen i urbana experimentella bostadsprojekt. Projekten har potential om ekosocial integrering uppfylls i kombination med att experimenten leder till kunskapsspridning utanför det aktuella projektet. Ekosocial integrering kan förstås utifrån fyra dimensioner: Social rättvisa och jämlikhet, Hållbarhetsmedvetenhet, Deltagande och governance och Social sammanhållning. Datainsamlingen gjordes genom dokument- och intervjustudier. Analys av motiv, innehåll och lärdomar för respektive fall visade att inget av dem fullt ut är ekosocialt integrerat. Experimentformen har dock möjliggjort att lärdomar kring specifika lösningar inom projekten sprids utanför det aktuella projektet. Studien illustrerar att experimenten generellt har ett tekniskt och ekologiskt fokus, där de sociala aspekterna indirekt nedprioriteras. Detta synliggör konflikten mellan och svårigheten i att förena ekologisk och social hållbarhet. Studien finner därför att experiment, trots dess fördelar för kunskapsspridning, inte kan omfamnas okritiskt som strategi för hållbar stadsutveckling. En ekosocialt integrerad analys är viktig för att säkerställa att experiment bemöter de mest relevanta hållbarhetsproblemen, och kan först då bli användbara verktyg med potential för hållbar stadsutveckling och verkligt ”goda exempel”.Urban experiments have become a prominent strategy within urban development, but run the risk of reproducing inequality and reinforcing existing sustainability issues. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of urban experiments for sustainable development, with a focus on the housing sector which is already characterized by sustainability issues such as housing inequality, and emission and resource intensity. The study was conducted as a case study of urban experiments consisting of three housing projects at the forefront of sustainable housing development: Greenhouse in Malmö, Brf Viva in Gothenburg, and Kvarteret Backåkra 2 in Stockholm. Through the extensive study of a vast body of literature, an analytical framework for a qualitative assessment of the potential in urban experimental housing projects was created. The projects have potential when eco-social integration is achieved in combination with knowledge diffusion beyond the specific project. Eco-social integration can be understood through four dimensions: Social Equity and Equality, Sustainability Awareness, Participation and Governance and Social Cohesion. Data collection was conducted through document and interview studies. An analysis of motive, content and learning in each case displayed that neither case was fully eco-socially integrated. The experimental model did however enable learning to be generated and diffused beyond the specific project. The study illustrated that the experiments generally have a technical and ecological focus, and social aspects are implicitly given a lower priority. This displays the conflict between and the difficulty of connecting ecological and social sustainability. Thus, the study finds that experiments, despite their advantages for knowledge distribution, should not blindly be embraced as a strategy for sustainable urban development. An eco-socially integrated analysis is essential to ensure that experiments address the most relevant sustainability issues and only then can they be utilised as tools for sustainable development and truly become examples of “best practice”

Partnerns upplevelse i samband med ett oplanerat sectio En kvalitativ intervjustudie

Problembeskrivning: Vid ett oplanerat sectio sker en separation mellan mor och barn och partnern får då ta hand om barnet. Det finns sedan tidigare forskning kring kvinnans upplevelse av denna separation. Kring partnerns upplevelse finns inte forskning i samma utsträckning. Syfte: Syftet var att belysa partnerns upplevelse i samband med sectio. Metod: En kvalitativ metod med induktiv ansats användes, där tio nyblivna pappor intervjuades. Det insamlade materialet bearbetades med hjälp av Burnards innehållsanalys. Resultat: Fyra huvudkategorier framkom, Pappans tankar om förlossningen, Pappans upplevelse av första tiden, Pappans tankar om delaktighet och Pappans tankar kring personalen. Slutsats: Papporna var generellt mycket nöjda med förlossningsupplevelsen, de hade en känsla av delaktighet, närvaro och stolthet. Samtidigt som det fanns en känsla av oro, både för kvinnan och barnet. Känslan av att bli familj uppstod först då alla tre var tillsammans. Detta är något som det borde läggas mer fokus på inom förlossningsvården

Improved variance estimation of classification performance via reduction of bias caused by small sample size

BACKGROUND: Supervised learning for classification of cancer employs a set of design examples to learn how to discriminate between tumors. In practice it is crucial to confirm that the classifier is robust with good generalization performance to new examples, or at least that it performs better than random guessing. A suggested alternative is to obtain a confidence interval of the error rate using repeated design and test sets selected from available examples. However, it is known that even in the ideal situation of repeated designs and tests with completely novel samples in each cycle, a small test set size leads to a large bias in the estimate of the true variance between design sets. Therefore different methods for small sample performance estimation such as a recently proposed procedure called Repeated Random Sampling (RSS) is also expected to result in heavily biased estimates, which in turn translates into biased confidence intervals. Here we explore such biases and develop a refined algorithm called Repeated Independent Design and Test (RIDT). RESULTS: Our simulations reveal that repeated designs and tests based on resampling in a fixed bag of samples yield a biased variance estimate. We also demonstrate that it is possible to obtain an improved variance estimate by means of a procedure that explicitly models how this bias depends on the number of samples used for testing. For the special case of repeated designs and tests using new samples for each design and test, we present an exact analytical expression for how the expected value of the bias decreases with the size of the test set. CONCLUSION: We show that via modeling and subsequent reduction of the small sample bias, it is possible to obtain an improved estimate of the variance of classifier performance between design sets. However, the uncertainty of the variance estimate is large in the simulations performed indicating that the method in its present form cannot be directly applied to small data sets

Allele-specific copy number analysis of tumor samples with aneuploidy and tumor heterogeneity

We describe a bioinformatic tool, Tumor Aberration Prediction Suite (TAPS), for the identification of allele-specific copy numbers in tumor samples using data from Affymetrix SNP arrays. It includes detailed visualization of genomic segment characteristics and iterative pattern recognition for copy number identification, and does not require patient-matched normal samples. TAPS can be used to identify chromosomal aberrations with high sensitivity even when the proportion of tumor cells is as low as 30%. Analysis of cancer samples indicates that TAPS is well suited to investigate samples with aneuploidy and tumor heterogeneity, which is commonly found in many types of solid tumors

Segmentation-based detection of allelic imbalance and loss-of-heterozygosity in cancer cells using whole genome SNP arrays

A strategy is presented for detection of loss-of-heterozygosity and allelic imbalance in cancer cells from whole genome SNP genotyping data

PENGARUH LIMBAH SERBUK BESI SEBAGAI PENGGANTI SEJUMLAH AGREGAT HALUS TERHADAP CAMPURAN ASPAL

The obieaive of this research examining stability andfla+, value was to iwestigste the impact of the utility of iron Jillings waste as a subtitute matqlal for the mtmber of suprisingly small sggregates in the mixture of asphalt. In lhis research, the portion of irontilings waste which given were 5 %o, I0 % and I 5 % of the heauy mixture smooth aggregotes. The stobility quantitative value was 2093 kg in 15 % iron Jilings contents. The higatflow quaftitative value was 3,5 mm in 5 % iron tilings contents. The result of characteristic validdion Mmshall on the number of sabtituted smooth aggregates which used iron/ilings gave o standard coflictent specfrcation 8M.2005. So based on thal, the iron/illings waste technically could be received as a subtitute material for the mixture of suprisingly small aggregates

Изучение байесовского подхода к анализу медико-биологических данных в курсе медицинской и биологической физики

Background: The clinical behaviour of colon cancer is heterogeneous. Five-year overall survival is 50-65% with all stages included. Recurring somatic chromosomal alterations have been identified and some have shown potential as markers for dissemination of the tumour, which is responsible for most colon cancer deaths. We investigated 115 selected stage II-IV primary colon cancers for associations between chromosomal alterations and tumour dissemination. Methods: Follow-up was at least 5 years for stage II-III patients without distant recurrence. Affymetrix SNP 6.0 microarrays and allele-specific copy number analysis were used to identify chromosomal alterations. Fisher's exact test was used to associate alterations with tumour dissemination, detected at diagnosis (stage IV) or later as recurrent disease (stage II-III). Results: Loss of 1p36.11-21 was associated with tumour dissemination in microsatellite stable tumours of stage II-IV (odds ratio = 5.5). It was enriched to a similar extent in tumours with distant recurrence within stage II and stage III subgroups, and may therefore be used as a prognostic marker at diagnosis. Loss of 1p36.11-21 relative to average copy number of the genome showed similar prognostic value compared to absolute loss of copies. Therefore, the use of relative loss as a prognostic marker would benefit more patients by applying also to hyperploid cancer genomes. The association with tumour dissemination was supported by independent data from the The Cancer Genome Atlas. Conclusion: Deletions on 1p36 may be used to guide adjuvant treatment decisions in microsatellite stable colon cancer of stages II and III

Quantification of Normal Cell Fraction and Copy Number Neutral LOH in Clinical Lung Cancer Samples Using SNP Array Data

Technologies based on DNA microarrays have the potential to provide detailed information on genomic aberrations in tumor cells. In practice a major obstacle for quantitative detection of aberrations is the heterogeneity of clinical tumor tissue. Since tumor tissue invariably contains genetically normal stromal cells, this may lead to a failure to detect aberrations in the tumor cells.Using SNP array data from 44 non-small cell lung cancer samples we have developed a bioinformatic algorithm that accurately models the fractions of normal and tumor cells in clinical tumor samples. The proportion of normal cells in combination with SNP array data can be used to detect and quantify copy number neutral loss-of-heterozygosity (CNNLOH) in the tumor cells both in crude tumor tissue and in samples enriched for tumor cells by laser capture microdissection.Genome-wide quantitative analysis of CNNLOH using the CNNLOH Quantifier method can help to identify recurrent aberrations contributing to tumor development in clinical tumor samples. In addition, SNP-array based analysis of CNNLOH may become important for detection of aberrations that can be used for diagnostic and prognostic purposes