Making People Everyday Scientists - Designing a Context-Aware Smartphone Application for Citizen Science in Sweden

Citizen science is at the periphery of the public’s attention, but sees some participation from volunteers primarily motivated intrinsically. Research in the field has identified a need to better adapt the practice to fit into the daily lives of potential volunteers. This led to the formulation of this thesis’ research question: What should be considered when designing a context-aware smartphone application intending to engage the general public in citizen science practice? The interaction design process that seeks to build knowledge around this problem is divided into two main phases. The initial phase focuses on extracting information and previous research on the subject, while the latter looks to implement and add to that knowledge. The second phase is an iterative design process, repeated three times, involving users to evaluate and inform the design. In total 39 user tests and 4 co-designers influenced or evaluated the final design, which is represented by an interactive prototype of a smartphone platform application for Swedish citizen science projects. The design includes substantiated ways for users to find meanings in their interactions with it, most notably through actionable context-aware suggestions, inspiration in planning excursions, and an understanding of their local area and community. If the design is successful in its intentions, which evaluations indicate that it could be, it would potentially represent a significant increase in public awareness and engagement in citizen science. This would not only advance research agendas but also be beneficial for volunteers’ informal science education as they can incorporate citizen science practice in their daily lives

Private Equity - Ägarnas roll i den värdeskapande processen

Uppsatsen syfte är att beskriva och analysera Private Equity bolags styrning av portföljbolag, för att därmed implicit studera ägarnas roll i den värdeskapande processen. Metod: Deduktiv ansats och kvalitativ metod. Teori: Teorikapitlet är indelat i tre olika delområden, vilka enligt tidigare forskning visar på värdeskapande i en Buyout transaktion. Empiri: Uppsatsen empiriska underlag består av fyra intervjuer. Slutsats. Private Equity bolagen har i portföljbolagen skapat de rätta förutsättningarna för ledningen att implementera värdeskapande strategier. Detta gäller såväl kapitalstrukturens utformning, som den strategiska inriktningen i portföljbolagen. Private Equity bolagen har därmed kunnat bidra till att skapa en optimal miljö för ledningen att verka inom och har därigenom indirekt medverkat till portföljbolagens värdeutveckling

Genomic subtypes of breast cancer identified by array comparative genomic hybridization display distinct molecular and clinical characteristics

Abstract Introduction Breast cancer is a profoundly heterogeneous disease with respect to biologic and clinical behavior. Gene-expression profiling has been used to dissect this complexity and to stratify tumors into intrinsic gene-expression subtypes, associated with distinct biology, patient outcome, and genomic alterations. Additionally, breast tumors occurring in individuals with germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations typically fall into distinct subtypes. Methods We applied global DNA copy number and gene-expression profiling in 359 breast tumors. All tumors were classified according to intrinsic gene-expression subtypes and included cases from genetically predisposed women. The Genomic Identification of Significant Targets in Cancer (GISTIC) algorithm was used to identify significant DNA copy-number aberrations and genomic subgroups of breast cancer. Results We identified 31 genomic regions that were highly amplified in > 1% of the 359 breast tumors. Several amplicons were found to co-occur, the 8p12 and 11q13.3 regions being the most frequent combination besides amplicons on the same chromosomal arm. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering with 133 significant GISTIC regions revealed six genomic subtypes, termed 17q12, basal-complex, luminal-simple, luminal-complex, amplifier, and mixed subtypes. Four of them had striking similarity to intrinsic gene-expression subtypes and showed associations to conventional tumor biomarkers and clinical outcome. However, luminal A-classified tumors were distributed in two main genomic subtypes, luminal-simple and luminal-complex, the former group having a better prognosis, whereas the latter group included also luminal B and the majority of BRCA2-mutated tumors. The basal-complex subtype displayed extensive genomic homogeneity and harbored the majority of BRCA1-mutated tumors. The 17q12 subtype comprised mostly HER2-amplified and HER2-enriched subtype tumors and had the worst prognosis. The amplifier and mixed subtypes contained tumors from all gene-expression subtypes, the former being enriched for 8p12-amplified cases, whereas the mixed subtype included many tumors with predominantly DNA copy-number losses and poor prognosis. Conclusions Global DNA copy-number analysis integrated with gene-expression data can be used to dissect the complexity of breast cancer. This revealed six genomic subtypes with different clinical behavior and a striking concordance to the intrinsic subtypes. These genomic subtypes may prove useful for understanding the mechanisms of tumor development and for prognostic and treatment prediction purposes