AndroMedia : Towards a Context-aware Mobile Music Recommender

Portable music players have made it possible to listen to a personal collection of music in almost every situation, and they are often used during some activity to provide a stimulating audio environment. Studies have demonstrated the effects of music on the human body and mind, indicating that selecting music according to situation can, besides making the situation more enjoyable, also make humans perform better. For example, music can boost performance during physical exercises, alleviate stress and positively affect learning. We believe that people intuitively select different types of music for different situations. Based on this hypothesis, we propose a portable music player, AndroMedia, designed to provide personalised music recommendations using the user's current context and listening habits together with other user's situational listening patterns. We have developed a prototype that consists of a central server and a PDA client. The client uses Bluetooth sensors to acquire context information and logs user interaction to infer implicit user feedback. The user interface also allows the user to give explicit feedback. Large user interface elements facilitate touch-based usage in busy environments. The prototype provides the necessary framework for using the collected information together with other user's listening history in a context- enhanced collaborative filtering algorithm to generate context-sensitive recommendations. The current implementation is limited to using traditional collaborative filtering algorithms. We outline the techniques required to create context-aware recommendations and present a survey on mobile context-aware music recommenders found in literature. As opposed to the explored systems, AndroMedia utilises other users' listening habits when suggesting tunes, and does not require any laborious set up processes

Dementia with Lewy bodies —an Investigation of Cause and Consequence

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is today considered to be the second most common primary neurodegenerative dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. However, the disease has only been a clearly defined entity for 13 years. Due to its recent recognition, DLB is still not as extensively studied as are other major dementia disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia, and fronto-temporal dementia. In summary, this thesis demonstrates important differences between AD and DLB. Paper I and II focus on the ultimate consequences of the disease, including resource consumption and impact on quality of life, and demonstrate much more severe consequences of DLB. Paper III and IV focus on diagnosis and prediction of disease progression through CSF analysis, and demonstrate a robust increase of CSF Ca and Mg in DLB but not in AD. Furthermore, CSF t-tau, a marker of AD and neurodegeneration, is demonstrated to increase mortality in DLB, but not in AD. These DLB specific CSF findings give us further understanding of the factors that may trigger the disease and determine disease course. Furthermore, CSF Mg and Ca may be a valuable tool in making a DLB diagnosis, especially when the considered differential diagnosis is AD

Genome-wide association identifies nine common variants associated with fasting proinsulin levels and provides new insights into the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: Proinsulin is a precursor of mature insulin and C-peptide. Higher circulating proinsulin levels are associated with impaired β-cell function, raised glucose levels, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Studies of the insulin processing pathway could provide new insights about T2D pathophysiology. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We have conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association tests of ∼2.5 million genotyped or imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and fasting proinsulin levels in 10,701 nondiabetic adults of European ancestry, with follow-up of 23 loci in up to 16,378 individuals, using additive genetic models adjusted for age, sex, fasting insulin, and study-specific covariates. RESULTS: Nine SNPs at eight loci were associated with proinsulin levels (P < 5 × 10(-8)). Two loci (LARP6 and SGSM2) have not been previously related to metabolic traits, one (MADD) has been associated with fasting glucose, one (PCSK1) has been implicated in obesity, and four (TCF7L2, SLC30A8, VPS13C/C2CD4A/B, and ARAP1, formerly CENTD2) increase T2D risk. The proinsulin-raising allele of ARAP1 was associated with a lower fasting glucose (P = 1.7 × 10(-4)), improved β-cell function (P = 1.1 × 10(-5)), and lower risk of T2D (odds ratio 0.88; P = 7.8 × 10(-6)). Notably, PCSK1 encodes the protein prohormone convertase 1/3, the first enzyme in the insulin processing pathway. A genotype score composed of the nine proinsulin-raising alleles was not associated with coronary disease in two large case-control datasets. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified nine genetic variants associated with fasting proinsulin. Our findings illuminate the biology underlying glucose homeostasis and T2D development in humans and argue against a direct role of proinsulin in coronary artery disease pathogenesis

A genome-wide association search for type 2 diabetes genes in African Americans.

African Americans are disproportionately affected by type 2 diabetes (T2DM) yet few studies have examined T2DM using genome-wide association approaches in this ethnicity. The aim of this study was to identify genes associated with T2DM in the African American population. We performed a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) using the Affymetrix 6.0 array in 965 African-American cases with T2DM and end-stage renal disease (T2DM-ESRD) and 1029 population-based controls. The most significant SNPs (n = 550 independent loci) were genotyped in a replication cohort and 122 SNPs (n = 98 independent loci) were further tested through genotyping three additional validation cohorts followed by meta-analysis in all five cohorts totaling 3,132 cases and 3,317 controls. Twelve SNPs had evidence of association in the GWAS (P<0.0071), were directionally consistent in the Replication cohort and were associated with T2DM in subjects without nephropathy (P<0.05). Meta-analysis in all cases and controls revealed a single SNP reaching genome-wide significance (P<2.5×10(-8)). SNP rs7560163 (P = 7.0×10(-9), OR (95% CI) = 0.75 (0.67-0.84)) is located intergenically between RND3 and RBM43. Four additional loci (rs7542900, rs4659485, rs2722769 and rs7107217) were associated with T2DM (P<0.05) and reached more nominal levels of significance (P<2.5×10(-5)) in the overall analysis and may represent novel loci that contribute to T2DM. We have identified novel T2DM-susceptibility variants in the African-American population. Notably, T2DM risk was associated with the major allele and implies an interesting genetic architecture in this population. These results suggest that multiple loci underlie T2DM susceptibility in the African-American population and that these loci are distinct from those identified in other ethnic populations

Single-cycle kinetics for QCM biosensors for high throughput nanoparticle characterization application

Characterizing nanoparticles to be able to understand how they functions in the body is important for development of drugs. Furthermore with increasing number of nanoparticle product the nanotoxicity of nanoparticles is important to understand. This report is a part of the EU-project Nanoclassifier which purpose is to “develop a cost effective, high throughput screening platform for characterization of the bionanointerface and its cell-binding partners”. Single-cycle kinetic was used to determine the number of binding epitopes on polystyrene nanoparticle with transferrin corona. The number of available epitopes describes how active the Nanoparticle will be in the body. For this purpose Single-cycle kinetic methodology was successfully used on nanoparticles. Single-cycle kinetic methodology has great potential to become the standard method for high throughput nanoparticle epitope characterization

Reduction in simulation sickness from artificial locomotion in virtual reality

För att navigera en värld som är större än användarens spelyta så krävs någon form av artificiell förflyttning. Den neurala missmatchningen som skapas vid artificiell förflyttning kan leda till simuleringsåksjuka. För att minska denna simuleringsåksjuka så testas det i denna rapport en metod som dynamiskt sänker användarens FOV vid artificiell förflyttning. Denna metod testades med hjälp av en artefakt som implementerades i två versioner. Den ena versionen implementerade dynamisk sänkning av FOV och den andra versionen saknade dessa ändringar. Artefakten testades på 18 gymnasieelever och resultatet blev att versionen utan FOV ändringarna skapade 8,25% mer simuleringsåksjuka och den hade även lite större spridning i sina resultat av de mellersta 50 procenten. Det skulle vara intressant att utvidga testningen till en större och mindre homogen testgrupp. Det skulle även vara intressant att testa FOV ändringarna med andra typer av artificiell förflyttning samt att testa att endast applicera FOV ändringar vid hastighetsändringar

Reduction in simulation sickness from artificial locomotion in virtual reality

För att navigera en värld som är större än användarens spelyta så krävs någon form av artificiell förflyttning. Den neurala missmatchningen som skapas vid artificiell förflyttning kan leda till simuleringsåksjuka. För att minska denna simuleringsåksjuka så testas det i denna rapport en metod som dynamiskt sänker användarens FOV vid artificiell förflyttning. Denna metod testades med hjälp av en artefakt som implementerades i två versioner. Den ena versionen implementerade dynamisk sänkning av FOV och den andra versionen saknade dessa ändringar. Artefakten testades på 18 gymnasieelever och resultatet blev att versionen utan FOV ändringarna skapade 8,25% mer simuleringsåksjuka och den hade även lite större spridning i sina resultat av de mellersta 50 procenten. Det skulle vara intressant att utvidga testningen till en större och mindre homogen testgrupp. Det skulle även vara intressant att testa FOV ändringarna med andra typer av artificiell förflyttning samt att testa att endast applicera FOV ändringar vid hastighetsändringar

Personal Information Retrieval

A distinct property of personal information retrieval compared to other information retrieval processes is that the piece of information sought for is already known to the user. It is a process where the user has seen and possibly processed the item on an earlier occasion and now needs it again for some reason. The time span between dealing with the item and retrieving it again may vary from a few minutes to several years. To deal with the increasing amount and types of user items, personal information retrieval systems have been developed. In this article, I will have a brief look at some desktop search engines and more closely look at Phlat, a personal information retrieval sys-tem that aims at using all imaginable information a user can remem-ber regarding an item to find it.

Stöd till ambulanspersonal efter en traumatisk händelse Kartläggning av handlingsplaner i Västra Götalandsregionen

Miljön inom ambulanssjukvården blir allt tuffare med risk för psykisk ohälsa i form av utbrändhet, depressioner och post traumatisk stressyndrom. Det är viktigt att organisationen ger tid för återhämtning och eventuell debriefing. Författarna har granskat handlingsplaner för debriefing inom ambulansverksamheten i Västra Götalandsregionen.Innehållsanalys användes för att analysera handlingsplanerna. Resultatet visar att det skiljer sig mycket i de olika verksamheterna vad det gäller att få hjälp och stöd efter en traumatisk händelse. Enligt arbetsmiljölagen så är verksamheterna skyldiga att upprätta en handlingsplan, men det visade sig att några verksamheter inom regionen helt saknar detta. Om det inte ges tillräckligt med utrymme och tid till återhämtning och stöd finns det risk att personalen drabbas av ohälsa som i förlängningen kan leda till att patienten får ett sämre omhändertagande.Resultatet visar att flertalet av handlingsplanerna har en bra beredskap vid en allvarlig händelse som stora olyckor och där barn är inblandade. Vid mindre och vardagligare situationer som självmord, hot och våld finns det ingen beredskap för omhändertagande av personalenProgram: Specialistsjuksköterskeutbildning med inriktning mot ambulanssjukvår