Fractal analysis of CE CT lung tumours images

AIM The fractal dimension (FD) of a structure provides a measure of its complexity. This pilot study aims to determine FD values for lung cancers visualised on Computed Tomography (CT) and to assess the potential for tumour FD measurements to provide an index of tumour aggression. METHOD Pre-and post-contrast CT images of the thorax acquired from 15 patients with lung cancers of greater than 10mm were transformed to fractal dimension images using a box-counting algorithm at various scales. A region of interest (ROI) was determined covering tumour locations, which were more apparent on FD images as compared to images before processing. The average tumour FD (FDavg) was computed and compared with the intensity average before FD processing. FD values were correlated with 2 markers of tumour aggression: tumour stage and tumour uptake of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) as determined by Positron Emission Tomography. RESULTS For pre-contrast images, the tumour FDavg correlated with tumour stage (r = 0.537, p = 0.0387) and FDG uptake (r= 0.64, p< 0.001). FDavg decreased following contrast enhancement for most tumours. CONCLUSION Fractal analysis of CT images of lung tumours could potentially provide additional information about likely tumour aggression and so impact on clinical management decisions and choice of treatment

Texture analysis of aggressive and nonaggressive lung tumor CE CT images

This paper presents the potential for fractal analysis of time sequence contrast-enhanced (CE) computed tomography (CT) images to differentiate between aggressive and nonaggressive malignant lung tumors (i.e., high and low metabolic tumors). The aim is to enhance CT tumor staging prediction accuracy through identifying malignant aggressiveness of lung tumors. As branching of blood vessels can be considered a fractal process, the research examines vascularized tumor regions that exhibit strong fractal characteristics. The analysis is performed after injecting 15 patients with a contrast agent and transforming at least 11 time sequence CE CT images from each patient to the fractal dimension and determining corresponding lacunarity. The fractal texture features were averaged over the tumor region and quantitative classification showed up to 83.3% accuracy in distinction between advanced (aggressive) and early-stage (nonaggressive) malignant tumors. Also, it showed strong correlation with corresponding lung tumor stage and standardized tumor uptake value of fluoro deoxyglucose as determined by positron emission tomography. These results indicate that fractal analysis of time sequence CE CT images of malignant lung tumors could provide additional information about likely tumor aggression that could potentially impact on clinical management decisions in choosing the appropriate treatment procedure

Two Ships in the Night or in the Same Boat Together? Why the European Court of Justice Made the Right Choice in the Kadi Case. College of Europe EU Diplomacy Paper 03/2009, June 2009

This paper investigates the approaches to the recent Kadi case taken by both the Court of First Instance and the Advocate General and asks whether the European Court of Justice made the right choice with regard to the case’s implications for the relationship between European and international law. It argues that the Court’s judgement of 3 September 2008 in Kadi is to be welcomed, also from an internatio-nal perspective. It rightly rejected the approach presented by the Court of First Instance, which, albeit stressing the importance of the UN Charter, ultimately turned out to be a ‘false friend’ of international law. By largely following the Advocate General’s Opinion, the Court maintained the integrity and the superior human rights standard of the EU legal order. Without jeopardizing the compliance of the Member States with their UN Charter obligations right away, it sent a clear warning signal to the United Nations Security Council to exhaust its potential for reform of the targeted sanction regime to the fullest. The Court showed that in an interdependent world of multilevel governance, the different components cannot ‘pass by each other like ships in the night’. In the face of threats like global terrorism like the threat of terrorism as well as undue curtailing of human rights, we are all in the same boat together after all

EU Law, International Law, and Economic Sanctions Against Terrorism: The Judiciary in Distress?

This Article seeks to examine the relationship between European Union (“EU”) law, international law, and the protection of fundamental rights in light of recent case law of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) and the Court of First Instance (“CFI”) relating to economic sanctions against individuals. It first looks at the judgment in Kadi. After a short presentation of the factual and legal background, it explores the question of whether the EU has competence to adopt smart sanctions. It then examines whether the EU is bound by resolutions of the UNSC, whether the ECJ has jurisdiction to review Community measures implementing such resolutions, and looks at the applicable standard of judicial scrutiny. It analyzes the contrasting views of the CFI, the Advocate General, and the ECJ, taking account also of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR” or “Strasbourg Court”). Further, the Article explores the consequences of annulling the contested regulation. It then turns to discussing CFI case law in relation to sanctions lists drawn up not by the UNSC but by the Community. The Article concludes by welcoming the judgment of the ECJ. While its reasoning on the issue of Community competence is questionable, once such competence is established, it is difficult to support the abrogation of Community standards for the protection of fundamental rights. Such standards should ensure procedural due process while recognizing the importance of public security

Terrorism and the ECJ: Empowerment and Democracy in the EC Legal Order

In its judgment in Kadi &amp; Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council (C-402/05 P &amp; C-415/05 P) Not yet reported September 3, 2008, the ECJ held that the Community has competence to adopt economic sanctions not only against states but also against individuals on the basis of Arts 301, 60 and 308 EC. It also held that UN Security Council resolutions are binding only in international law and cannot take precedence over the Community’s internal standards for the protection of fundamental rights. The judgment raises some profound constitutional questions pertaining to the competence of the Community, its relationship with international law and the scope of fundamental rights protection. In parallel, in a number of cases culminating in its judgment of October 23, 2008 in People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran v Council (OMPI II) (T-256/07), the CFI has annulled anti-terrorist sanctions imposed by the European Community indicating a strong adherence to process rights. The purpose of this contribution is to discuss the above case law and its implications

Criminalizing Support for Terrorism: A Comparative Perspective

The student project Elba at KTH started in 2011 and is a project where a battery driven prototype car is developed. The vehicle competes in Eco Shell Marathon in Rotterdam, Holland. In this competition the vehicle that travels a certain distance including several starts and stops with the lowest energy consumption wins. To minimize the consumption is therefore very important, which requires knowledge of the vehicles energy losses. A vehicle's energy losses depends on several factors and can be divided into the powertrain efficiency and the driving resistance. The driving resistance can then be divided in to rolling and air resistance, if smaller losses like vibrations are ignored. This report seeks to develop, describe, and evaluate a couple of methods to measure these two parameters on behalf of KTH Transport Labs. The methods chosen are based on a literature study of earlier developed methods and a dialog with the clients. The measuring methods have been adapted to a low budget and simple measuring conditions such as a garage or a tarmac road. The methods are based on either pulling and free rolling, or only free rolling. The traveled distance, speed, acceleration and driving force are logged during the measurements. The measurements have been done at two different locations, in a garage at Stockholmsmässan in Älvjö and on a parking lot by Teknikringen 8 at KTH. To measure the different parameters an encoder, accelerometer and force transducer has been used. To computing the driving resistance a graphical user interface was developed in Matlab. The developed measuring methods compute both the rolling and air resistance coefficients which creates great demands on the environment for the measurement. This could make it hard to find a satisfying test track. The unreasonable results from the coast-down, were Elba were rolling freely, at Teknikringen 8 shows the difficulties when the measurement is unprotected from the wind. With small resistance, as in an energy efficient vehicle like Elba, the measurement is more sensitive to disturbances. This causes the need of preprocessing data before the calculations are done. The final finding is that a combination of the described methods is preferable. A measurement to calculate the rolling resistance coefficient is made by pulling the car. Then a coast-down is made according to any of the two suggested methods. This allows the cast down to be done on a different road surface than the one that the rolling resistance coefficient is calculated for. This means that the air resistance for instance could be measured indoors where there is no wind. The purpose of this project was to develop a method to measure rolling and air resistance for Elba or similar vehicles. Due to technical issues and poor measuring conditions no reliable values of the resistance have been resolved with the developed and chosen methods. If the measurements would be repeated with better equipment and better conditions, a good result would be possible to get.Studentprojektet Elba på KTH startade 2011 och är ett projekt där en batteridriven prototypbil avsedd att tävla i Eco Shell Marathon i Rotterdam, Holland tas fram. I denna tävling vinner det fordon som på utsatt tid kör en viss sträcka inkluderande flera starter och stopp med en så låg energiförbrukning som möjligt. Att minimera energikonsumtionen är alltså mycket viktigt vilket ställer krav på kunskap om fordonets förluster. Ett fordons energiförluster beror av flera faktorer såsom drivlinans verkningsgrad och färdmotståndet. Om mindre förluster så som vibrationer försummas kan färdmotståndet i sin tur delas upp i rull- och luftmotstånd. Denna rapport syftar till att ta fram, beskriva och utvärdera några metoder för att mäta dessa två parametrar på uppdrag av KTH Transport Labs. Metoderna som har valts att studeras är baserade på en litteraturstudie av tidigare framtagna metoder och samtal med beställaren. Valen utgår från en låg budget och enkla testmiljöer så som garage eller asfaltsväg. Metoderna består av att antingen dra och frirulla, eller enbart frirulla fordonet. Tillryggalagd sträcka, hastighet, acceleration och drivande kraft loggas under mätningen. Mätningar har genomförts vid två olika platser, i ett garage vid Stockholmsmässan i Älvsjö och på en parkering vid Teknikringen 8 på KTH. För att mäta de olika storheterna har en pulsgivare, accelerometer och kraftgivare använts. För behandling av data och beräkning av färdmotstånden har ett grafiskt användargränssnitt tagits fram i Matlab. De framtagna mätmetoderna beräknar både rull- och luftmotståndskoefficienten vilket ställer stora krav på mätmiljön. Detta kan göra det svårt att hitta en tillfredställande testbana. De orimliga resultaten från utrullningen, där Elba frirullas, vid Teknikringen 8 visar på svårigheterna då mätningen görs utan skydd från vinden. Med små färdmotstånd, som hos ett energisnålt fordon som Elba, blir beräkningarna känsligare för störningar. Detta medför att viss förbehandling av data krävs innan beräkningarna kan genomföras. Slutsatsen är att en kombination av de beskrivna metoderna är att föredra. Ett dragtest görs separat för att bestämma rullmotståndskoefficienten. Sedan appliceras någon av de två metoderna för att beräkna luftmotståndskoefficienten. Detta gör att utrullningen inte behöver ske på det underlag som rullmotståndskoefficienten söks för. Det innebär att luftmotståndet är möjligt att mätas inomhus där det är vindstilla. Syftet med detta arbete var att ta fram en metod för beräkning av rull- och luftmotstånd hos Elba eller andra liknande fordon. På grund av tekniska problem och bristfälliga mätmiljöer har inga tillförlitliga värden för motstånden tagits fram med de utvecklade och valda metoderna. Om mätningarna skulle återupprepas med bättre utrustning och med bättre förhållanden skulle dock trovärdiga resultat kunna uppnås

European Approaches to Fighting Terrorism

På senare tid har smarta mobila enheter fått en allt större roll i vardagen och det finns en uppsjö av applikationer till dessa. Den som är uppmärksam kan upptäcka att prestandan och användarupplevelsen kan variera kraftigt mellan olika applikationer. Prestandaoptimering är en viktig del i utvecklingsprocessen för mobila applikationer eftersom mobila enheter ofta har betydligt mer begränsade resurser jämfört med till exempel persondatorer. Eftersom prestanda är komplext med många faktorer som spelar in kan man använda sig av verktyg för att underlätta optimeringsarbetet. För att hitta de mest lämpliga verktygen för prestandaoptimering av Android-applikationer har en utvärdering av en delmängd verktyg som finns på marknaden utförts. Utvärderingen har fokuserat på verktygens funktionalitet och effektivitet och målet är att utifrån utvärderingsresultatet ge en rekommendation av de verktyg som är lämpligast att använda. Resultatet av utvärderingen visade på att alla verktyg som utvärderats gav goda indikationer och prestandavinster hos testprogramvaran kunde dokumenteras vid användning av samtliga verktyg. Det verktyg som var mest heltäckande gällande dess funktionalitet var Traceview, ett profileringsverktyg som kunde användas för att analysera CPU-prestanda, layout-prestanda och svarstids-prestanda. För att utföra en heltäckande prestandaoptimering krävdes dock kompletterande verktyg för optimeringsområdet minnes-prestanda. Genom arbetet och den resulterade rekommendationen kan utvecklare av Android-applikationer förbättra sina arbetsmetoder vid prestandaoptimering, genom att använda sig av lämpliga och effektiva verktyg