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Visualizing medical images from patients as physical 3D models (phantom models) have many roles in the medical field, from education to preclinical preparation and clinical research. However, current phantom models are generally generic, expensive, and time-consuming to fabricate. Thus, there is a need for a cost- and time-efficient pipeline from medical imaging to patient-specific phantom models. In this work, we present a method for creating complex 3D sacrificial molds using an off-the-shelf water-soluble resin and a low-cost desktop 3D printer. This enables us to recreate parts of the cerebral arterial tree as a full-scale phantom model (10×6×410×6×4 cm) in transparent silicone rubber (polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS) from computed tomography angiography images (CTA). We analyzed the model with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and compared it with the patient data. The results show good agreement and smooth surfaces for the arteries. We also evaluate our method by looking at its capability to reproduce 1 mm channels and sharp corners. We found that round shapes are well reproduced, whereas sharp features show some divergence. Our method can fabricate a patient-specific phantom model with less than 2 h of total labor time and at a low fabrication cost.

Enterprise social networks are closed social networks with the purpose of increasingcommunication within the company. However, a current estimate is that up to 80% of theimplementations of an enterprise social network fails due to low usage. Previous studies havelisted several important influencing factors that will impact the usage of this platform. Sinceidentifying these factors however, the field has mainly moved away from studying this andbecause of that there are few studies confirming the factors that have been discovered and fewindependent research teams that have worked on this topic.This work aims to observe actual historical usage of an enterprise social network to observe ifthe previously identified influencing factors provide a good indication about its usage. Thework will be able to provide an indication to the scientific community that there are stillunknown parameters relating to the usage of enterprise social networks.The purpose of the thesis is hence to test the existing theories and the research question of thework is: How well can known influencing factors predict the usage of an enterprise socialnetwork in a global manufacturing company?During the work, seven factors were studied. Of these seven, one of the factors could beconfirmed. For three of the factors there were insufficient data to draw any reliableconclusions and for three of the factors no or only a weak correlation between the usage of theenterprise social network and the influencing factor was observed. As such, the knowninfluencing factors do not appear to be able to predict the usage of an enterprise socialnetwork in this setting.Hence, this work indicates that further studies are needed within this area and that theinfluencing factors as listed today are inadequate in predicting the usage of an enterprisesocial network. The answer to the research question is thus that the quality of any predicationmade of these influencing factors appears to be weak at best and the scientific cont

Massa- och pappersindustrin är stora energiförbrukare och står för 6 % av världens totala industriella energiförbrukning. I Sverige ligger andelen än högre, 50 % av den svenska industrins energiförbrukningen används av massa- och pappersindustrin. Anledningen till denna stora energiförbrukning är att det krävs stora mängder värme vid framställning av massan samt vid torkningsprocesser för papperstillverkning. Värmebehovet möts genom att producera ånga. Den höga energiförbrukningen gör att arbetet gällande energieffektiviseringar ständigt är pågående, både med hjälp av ny teknik och optimering av befintlig teknik.BillerudKorsnäs Karlsborg är ett massa- och pappersbruk med idag 400 anställda och en produktionskapacitet på 350 000 ton/år. Bruket har utmaningar med trycksvängningar som uppstår i ångnätet, vilket till stor del orsakas av Karlsborgs typ av kokprocess som består av åtta batchkokare. Batch innebär att ångförbrukningen i kokeriet inte är konstant utan är beroende av kokcykeln för samtliga kokare. Syftet med arbetet var att få en bättre förståelse för de svängningar som uppstår i ångnätet genom att kartlägga uttagningsmönster för de olika ångförbrukarna, samt identifiera möjligheter till minimering av svängningar i ångnätet. Ångnätet är den del av ångsystemet som kopplar samman ångproduktion med ångförbrukarna. Olika trycknivåer hålls i nätet beroende på vilka behov ångförbrukarna har, högtrycksånga från pannorna tryckreduceras via en mottrycksturbin eller via direktreducörer.Kartläggningen visar på tydliga samband mellan de kraftiga flödesvariationerna av ånga till kokeriet och trycksvängningar i ångnätet. Det totala ångbehovet i kokeriet är större under kallare perioder, dock sker stora flödesvariationer under alla förhållanden vilket medför att en viss typ av svängningar finns under hela året. Dessa svängningar har en amplitud på cirka två bar och uppstår vid ``normal drift´´ av fabriken, vilket innebär att de inte går att koppla till någon driftstörning i

It is desirable to be able to distinguish between Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices purely based on individual hardware imperfections because such imperfections are often prohibitly expensive to imitate. Other works have been done on this topic in the past, which utilized signal transients requiring a multi-GHz sampling rate recorded with costly special equipment to be satisfactorily captured. This work explores an alternative approach which avoids these requirements, with new features tailor-made for the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol that allow us to achieve a micro-recall of 99% with the full test set of 58 motes. The lessons learned during this work bring us one step closer to pervasive deployment where regular BLE-enabled hardware could be configured to use radiometric fingerprinting in order to distinguish between devices in receiver range.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients are an attractive disease model to study tissues with poor accessibility such as the brain. Using this approach, we and others have shown that trisomy 21 results in genome-wide transcriptional dysregulations. The effects of loss of genes on chromosome 21 is much less characterized. Here, we use patient-derived neural cells from an individual with neurodevelopmental delay and a ring chromosome 21 with two deletions spanning 3.8 Mb at the terminal end of 21q22.3, containing 60 protein-coding genes. To investigate the molecular perturbations of the partial monosomy on neural cells, we established patient-derived iPSCs from fibroblasts retaining the ring chromosome 21, and we then induced iPSCs into neuroepithelial stem cells. RNA-Seq analysis of NESCs with the ring chromosome revealed downregulation of 18 genes within the deleted region together with global transcriptomic dysregulations when compared to euploid NESCs. Since the deletions on chromosome 21 represent a genetic "contrary" to trisomy of the corresponding region, we further compared the dysregulated transcriptomic profile in with that of two NESC lines with trisomy 21. The analysis revealed opposed expression changes for 23 genes on chromosome 21 as well as 149 non-chromosome 21 genes. Taken together, our results bring insights into the effects on the global and chromosome 21 specific gene expression from a partial monosomy of chromosome 21qter during early neuronal differentiation.

The amount of data available from genomic medicine has revolutionized the approach to identify the determinants underlying many rare diseases. The task of confirming a genotype–phenotype causality for a patient affected with a rare genetic disease is often challenging. In this context, the establishment of the Matchmaker Exchange (MME) network has assumed a pivotal role in bridging heterogeneous patient information stored on different medical and research servers. MME has made it possible to solve rare disease cases by “matching” the genotypic and phenotypic characteristics of a patient of interest with patient data available at other clinical facilities participating in the network. Here, we present PatientMatcher (https://github.com/Clinical-Genomics/patientMatcher), an open-source Python and MongoDB-based software solution developed by Clinical Genomics facility at the Science for Life Laboratory in Stockholm. PatientMatcher is designed as a standalone MME server, but can easily communicate via REST API with external applications managing genetic analyses and patient data. The MME node is being implemented in clinical routine in collaboration with the Genomic Medicine Center Karolinska at the Karolinska University Hospital. PatientMatcher is written to implement the MME API and provides several customizable settings, including a custom-fit similarity score algorithm and adjustable matching results notifications., QC 20221125

Purpose: Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and/or neurodevelopment disorders (NDDs) are currently investigated with several different approaches in clinical genetic diagnostics. Methods: We compared the results from 3 diagnostic pipelines in patients with ID/NDD: genome sequencing (GS) first (N = 100), GS as a secondary test (N = 129), or chromosomal microarray (CMA) with or without FMR1 analysis (N = 421). Results: The diagnostic yield was 35% (GS -first), 26% (GS as a secondary test), and 11% (CMA/FMR1). Notably, the age of diagnosis was delayed by 1 year when GS was performed as a secondary test and the cost per diagnosed individual was 36% lower with GS first than with CMA/FMR1. Furthermore, 91% of those with a negative result after CMA/FMR1 analysis (338 individuals) have not yet been referred for additional genetic testing and remain undiagnosed. Conclusion: Our findings strongly suggest that genome analysis outperforms other testing strategies and should replace traditional CMA and FMR1 analysis as a first-line genetic test in individuals with ID/NDD. GS is a sensitive, time-and cost-effective method that results in a confirmed molecular diagnosis in 35% of all referred patients. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).