Detection of equestrian falls using smartphone sensors

Horseback riding is enjoyed by millions of people worldwide, both as a competitive sport and as recreational activity. Horses have a congenital habit to flee from potential danger and the nature of the sport carries with it a risk of falling from the horse. Equestrians are often riding alone and the additional risk of being unaided after a severe fall accident is prominent. The need of a smartphone application able to sense a fall and automatically contact preselected relatives is identified. An equestrian fall detection algorithm using smartphone sensor data is developed in this master thesis. The work was made from scratch, including data recording of both normal horseback riding activities and simulated fall events. Additional signal representations were derived and features calculated. Their contribution of interesting information was evaluated and the most suitable features made the final threshold based fall detection algorithm. The algorithm was implemented as an Android application running on real time sensor data for evaluation. In total, 53 out of 55 simulated falls were detected and no false alarm was obtained during eleven hours of normal riding activity. The algorithm is considered as suitable for its purpose of increasing equestrian safety.Innovation för ökad säkerhet inom ridsporten Ungefär 500 000 av Sveriges invånare rider regelbundet på olika nivåer. Att rida ensam är inte ovanligt och farhågan att ramla av hästen är alltid närvarande. Snart kan risken att bli ensam utan hjälp efter ett fall minskas drastiskt, med din egen mobiltelefon som enda verktyg

Designing for a Repository of Virtual Crisis Management Tabletop Exercises – Lessons Learned from a Scandinavian R&D Project

Crisis training exercises play a vital role in preparing local and regional governments for the management of crises and disasters. Unfortunately, conducting sufficient training is demanding, especially in small municipalities, due to constrained time and personnel resources, but also complex planning and scheduling of the dominant on-site training methods. Virtual training has been suggested as a resource-efficient and flexible complement. However, despite numerous specifications of digital technology for training, research on organisational implementation and usage is lacking, indicating a low uptake. This article presents a cross-border R&D effort to facilitate the digitalisation of crisis management training by developing generic virtual tabletop exercises (VTTXs) to be shared via a repository, and (re-)used in, and adapted for, diverse contexts. The purpose of this article is to identify essential aspects in designing and conducting virtual tabletop exercises (VTTXs) for collaborative crisis management training

Fantasy at the preschool playground : a study of the outdoor environment’s role when pretend playing

Det finns forskning om barns lek i utomhusmiljö, men fantasileken som anses viktig för barns utveckling i förskoleåldern är särskilt lite studerad. Målet med examensarbetet är att utforska betydelsen av en förskolas utemiljö utifrån dess inverkan på barnens lek och att som blivande landskapsarkitekt vinna större förståelse för lekmiljöers utvecklingsmöjligheter. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilken roll utemiljön har för barnens lek på förskolegården med särskilt fokus på den fysiska miljöns betydelse för fantasin så som det kommer till uttryck i fantasilek. Följande frågeställningar har väglett det arbete som ska presenteras; Vilka platser/element använder barn i fantasilek? Vilka typer av fantasilek återfinns i förskolans utemiljö? Vilken betydelse får naturmiljö och naturelement i leken? Teori och tidigare forskning ligger till grund för ett fältarbete som genomförts på en förskola i Malmö. Barn mellan fyra till sex år har studerats genom observation och gåtur. Resultatet beskriver fantasilekens utbredning över utemiljöns och naturens roll i dess utveckling. Resultaten visar betydelsen av naturens element t ex vatten, kullar och buskage och hur den fysiska utemiljöns struktur och specifika egenskaper skapar goda förutsättningar för barnen att använda sin fantasi.There is research on children’s play in the outdoor environment, but the imaginary play considered particularly important for children’s development of preschool age is less studied. The goal of the project is to explore a preschool’s outdoor environment based on its impact on children’s play and as landscape architect student gain a greater understanding for the development of play environments. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of the outdoor environment for children’s play on preschool playgrounds with a particular focus on the meaning of the physical environment for pretend play. The following issues have guided the work to be presented; What places/ elements are children using during imaginary playing? What types of pretend play take place in the preschool’s outdoor environment? What meaning does the natural environment and nature elements take on for the children during play? Theory and previous research are the basis for the fieldwork at a preschool in Malmö. Children between four and six years old have been studied through observations and walk through evaluations. The results describe how pretend play is distributed over the outdoor environment and the role of nature in its development. The results show the importance of elements such as water, hills and shrubbery’s and how the physical structure and specific characteristics of the environment creates opportunities for the children to use their imagination

Play in the preschool environment

Lek är något som vi alla människor kan referera till och som ger oss många minnen. Det är något tolkningsbart, som säkerligen skapar egna uppfattningar om vad det egentligen är. Efter några somrar som praktikant på förskolor har jag länge velat undersöka hur denna lek är kopplad till utemiljön. Målet med denna uppsats har varit att kartlägga forskning om hur utemiljön påverkar barns lek och rörelse samt att undersöka vilken betydelse den har för barns utveckling. Detta arbete har gjorts i syftet att få en större förståelse och bredare kunskap till oss blivande landskapsarkitekter och andra verksamma inom området för en framtida planering av den. Dessa mål har skapats utifrån två frågeställningar, som har följt mig genom arbetet. Frågeställningarna är; Hur påverkar förskolans utemiljö barns lek och rörelse? Samt Vilken betydelse har den för barns individuella utveckling? Frågorna är grunden till kandidatexamensarbetet, där jag har funnit teorier genom litteraturstudier som sedan återkopplats i praktiken. Återkopplingen till praktiken redovisas i form av en undersökning, där en intervju har gjorts på en förskola i Malmö. I detta fall Stensjöns förskola. Arbetet har resulterat i en presentation på hur utemiljöns utformning är viktig för barns lek och kreativitet, och hur man skapar förutsättningar för leken genom utformningen. Det har också resulterat i kopplingen mellan utformning och lek och vilken betydelse leken för barns individuella utveckling. Där leken har visat sig ha en betydande faktor i barns olika utvecklingsstadier i livet.Play is something that all people can refer to and that brings a lot of memories. It’s something explicable, who certainly give us our own view of it. After a few summers as an intern at preschools I’ve wanted to investigate the connection between play and its environment. The main case of this essay has been to map research about how the environment affect children’s play and motion and what meaning it has for children’s development. The purpose of the study has been to get a bigger understanding and wider knowledge to us landscape architects and other active people in this area for a future planning of the preschool environment. The cases are taken from two main issues, who had followed me through the work study. The issues are: How does preschool environment affect children’s play and motion? What meaning does the play have for children’s individual development? The questions are the basis for this bachelor degree work, where I’ve found theories through studies of literature. Those theories had later been reconnected with a practical study. This practical study is reported as an investigation, from an interview with the personnel of a preschool in Malmö. In this case it was Stensjöns förskola. The work has resulted with a presentation on how the outdoor environment design is important for children’s play and creativity, and how to create conditions for the play through the design. The work also shows the connection between design and play and what meaning the play has for children’s individual development. The play has been seen as an outstanding element in children’s stages of development

Carrier-mediated transport of monocarboxylic acids in BeWo cell monolayers as a model of the human trophoblast

The monolayer-forming, human choriocarcinoma cell line, BeWo, was used to study the mechanisms of monocarboxylic acid transport across the human trophoblast. Benzoic acid, acetic acid, and lactic acid were used as markers for monocarboxylic acid carrier-mediated transport. The uptake of benzoic acid by BeWo cells was saturable (Kt = 0.6 ± 0.3 mM) at higher concentrations and significantly inhibited by typical metabolic inhibitors, sodium azide and 2,4-dinitrophenol. A selection of different monocarboxylic acids, including a natural substrate lactic acid, also substantially inhibited the uptake of benzoic acid and acetic acid by BeWo cells, whereas dicarboxylic acids did not affect the uptake of either marker. Monocarboxylic acid uptake was pH-dependent and inhibited by carbonylcyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone (FCCP), a protonophore. Kinetic analysis using Lineweaver-Burk plots revealed that monocarboxylic acids competitively inhibited the uptake of benzoic, lactic, and acetic acid by BeWo cells. In transport experiments, the permeation of benzoic acid from apical-to-basolateral side was greater than the permeation from the basolateral-to-apical side, and the transport of benzoic acid from apical-to-basolateral side was inhibited by monocarboxylic acids. The findings obtained in the present study confirm the existence of an asymmetric, carrier-mediated transport system for monocarboxylic acids across the BeWo cell, a representative of the human trophoblast

Ett (o)normalt liv

An (ab)normal life The aim with this study was to analyse how housing supporters describe their approach towards mentally impaired people. The peer group, who needs housing support, are people who live in their own homes and are 18 years old or older. The Swedish psychiatric reform was implemented 1995 due to the deinstitutionalization. The purpose of the reform was to improve the living conditions of people with mental impairments and to integrate them to society. Integration, participation and self-determination were three goals from the reform that we investigated. Due to the fact that housing supporters work closely with the mentally impaired people, we found it interesting to see whether the professionals are applying the named goals. We also wanted to know how diagnosis influences the approach the housing supporters has towards their clients and what kind of strategies they have to pursue their support. We used a qualitative study to reach our aim and used a semi-structured interview technique as well as vignettes to see, how the housing supporters describe their working situations. We had nine interviews with people who work with housing support in southern regions of Sweden. The theories that we applied was social constructionism, norm theory, and empowerment. We found that people who worked with housing support all had integration as a goal for their work and all phrase from the psychiatric reform was applied to their work approach. The results of the current study show that housing supporters worked with strategies such as relationships and motivation to achieve those goals. All professionals knew about the diagnosis and used it as an exploratory model in case of changes in regular patterns of person with mental impairments. The professionals always operated according to prevailing norms, but also had an empowerment approach to help their clients

Effective influences in neuronal networks : attentional modulation of effective influences underlying flexible processing and how to measure them

Selective routing of information between brain areas is a key prerequisite for flexible adaptive behaviour. It allows to focus on relevant information and to ignore potentially distracting influences. Selective attention is a psychological process which controls this preferential processing of relevant information. The neuronal network structures and dynamics, and the attentional mechanisms by which this routing is enabled are not fully clarified. Based on previous experimental findings and theories, a network model is proposed which reproduces a range of results from the attention literature. It depends on shifting of phase relations between oscillating neuronal populations to modulate the effective influence of synapses. This network model might serve as a generic routing motif throughout the brain. The attentional modifications of activity in this network are investigated experimentally and found to employ two distinct channels to influence processing: facilitation of relevant information and independent suppression of distracting information. These findings are in agreement with the model and previously unreported on the level of neuronal populations. Furthermore, effective influence in dynamical systems is investigated more closely. Due to a lack of a theoretical underpinning for measurements of influence in non-linear dynamical systems such as neuronal networks, often unsuited measures are used for experimental data that can lead to erroneous conclusions. Based on a central theorem in dynamical systems, a novel theory of effective influence is developed. Measures derived from this theory are demonstrated to capture the time dependent effective influence and the asymmetry of influences in model systems and experimental data. This new theory holds the potential to uncover previously concealed interactions in generic non-linear systems studied in a range of disciplines, such as neuroscience, ecology, economy and climatology

How does comorbidity influence healthcare costs? A population-based cross-sectional study of depression, back pain and osteoarthritis

Objectives To analyse how comorbidity among patients with back pain, depression and osteoarthritis influences healthcare costs per patient. A special focus was made on the distribution of costs for primary healthcare compared with specialist care, hospital care and drugs. Design Population-based cross-sectional study. Setting The County of Östergötland, Sweden. Patients Data on diagnoses and healthcare costs for all 266 354 individuals between 20 and 75 years of age, who were residents of the County of Östergötland, Sweden, in the year 2006, were extracted from the local healthcare register and the national register of drug prescriptions. Main outcome measures The effects of comorbidity on healthcare costs were estimated as interactions in regression models that also included age, sex, number of other health conditions and education. Results The largest diagnosed group was back pain (11 178 patients) followed by depression (7412 patients) and osteoarthritis (5174 patients). The largest comorbidity subgroup was the combination of back pain and depression (772 patients), followed by the combination of back pain and osteoarthritis (527 patients) and the combination of depression and osteoarthritis (206 patients). For patients having both a depression diagnosis and a back pain diagnosis, there was a significant negative interaction effect on total healthcare costs. The average healthcare costs among patients with depression and back pain was SEK 11 806 lower for a patient with both diagnoses. In this comorbidity group, there were tendencies of a positive interaction for general practitioner visits and negative interactions for all other visits and hospital days. Small or no interactions at all were seen between depression diagnoses and osteoarthritis diagnoses. Conclusions A small increase in primary healthcare visits in comorbid back pain and depression patients was accompanied with a substantial reduction in total healthcare costs and in hospital costs. Our results can be of value in analysing the cost effects of comorbidity and how the coordination of primary and secondary care may have an impact on healthcare costs

Online encoder-decoder anomaly detection using encoder-decoder architecture with novel self-configuring neural networks & pure linear genetic programming for embedded systems

Recent anomaly detection techniques focus on the use of neural networks and an encoder-decoder architecture. However, these techniques lead to trade offs if implemented in an embedded environment such as high heat management, power consumption and hardware costs. This paper presents two related new methods for anomaly detection within data sets gathered from an autonomous mini-vehicle with a CAN bus. The first method which to the best of our knowledge is the first use of encoder-decoder architecture for anomaly detection using linear genetic programming (LGP). Second method uses self-configuring neural network that is created using evolutionary algorithm paradigm learning both architecture and weights suitable for embedded systems. Both approaches have the following advantages: it is inexpensive regarding resource use, can be run on almost any embedded board due to linear register machine advantages in computation. The proposed methods are also faster by at least one order of magnitude, and it includes both inference and complete training