Ethical consumption, that is, to make certain consumption choices due to personal moral beliefs and values is a growing trend and market. In this article we analyze three ethical smartphone apps developed and marketed in order to help consumers to make ethical product choices: for example, where to find the nearest café selling Fair Trade coffee, whether the salmon in the store is red-listed or if

When a pinhole collimator is to be used for tomographic studies the standard SPECT software has to be modified so as to avoid serious image distortion outside the axis of rotation. The MTF measured at the axis of rotation shows that the better resolution of the pinhole collimator as compared with that of a parallel-hole collimator improves the tomographic image. The low sensitivity of the pinhole

With today's improved measurement and data storing technologies it has become common to collect data in search for hypotheses instead of for testing hypotheses---to do exploratory data analysis. Finding patterns and structures in data is the main goal. This thesis deals with two kinds of structures that can convey relationships between different parts of data in a high-dimensional space: manifolds

Background: Presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is a validated prognostic marker in metastatic breast cancer. Additional prognostic information may be obtained by morphologic characterization of CTCs. We explored whether apoptotic CTCs, CTC clusters and leukocytes attached to CTCs are associated with breast cancer subtype and prognosis at base-line (BL) and in follow-up (FU) blood samples i

This paper presents an idea to extend a certain class of single channel speech enhancement algorithms to include the spatial domain. The resulting blind beamformer does not rely on a-priori knowledge of source and sensor positions and it enhances one or several speech sources based only on received data. The underlying principle in this approach is the fact that speech signals are short time stati

The convenience and the ease of use provided by hands-free operation of speech communication devices mean that speech enhancement schemes are becoming indispensable. In this chapter, two subband adaptive microphone array schemes are presented, which aim to provide good speech enhancement capability in poor signal to noise ratio situations. The basic commonality of the adaptive microphone array sch

The invention relates to an adaptive method of extracting at least of des ired electro magnetic wave signals, sound wave signals (40, 42), and any oth er signals from a mixture of signals (40, 42, 44, 46) and suppressing noise and interfering signals to produce enhanced signals (50) corresponding to de sired (10) signals, and an apparatus (70) therefore. It relies on the concep t of at least one o

Deterministic lateral displacement provides a novel and efficient technique for sorting micrometer-sized particles based on particle size. It is grounded on the principle that the paths associated with particles of different diameters, entrained in flow streaming through a periodic lattice of obstacles, are characterized by different deflection angles with respect to the average direction of the c

We investigate the mixing layer thickness, δ(ξ), along the streamwise coordinate ξ of a straight channel fed with alternating streams of segregated solutes. We show the occurence of convection-enhanced mixing regimes downsteram the channel: i) an early-mixing regime, δ(ξ) ∼ξ 1/3 resembling the classical Lèvêque scaling of the thermal boundary layer, ii) an intermediate anomalous regime δ(ξ)∼ξ 3/5,

We develop a quantitative analysis of mixing regimes in an annular MHD-driven micromixer recently proposed by Gleeson et al. as a prototype for biomolecular applications. The analysis is based on the spectral properties of the advection - diffusion operator, with specific focus on the dependence of the dominant eigenvalue - eigenfunction on the Peclet number and on the system geometry. A theoretic

Aging within the human hematopoietic system associates with various deficiencies and disease states, including anemia, myeloid neoplasms and reduced adaptive immune responses. Similar phenotypes are observed in mice and have been linked to alterations arising at the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) level. Such an association is, however, less established in human hematopoiesis and prompted us here to

Cortical bone mass and density varies across a bones length and cross section, and may be influenced by physical activity. This study evaluated the long-term effects of a pediatric school-based physical activity intervention on tibial cortical bone mass distribution. A total of 170 children (72 girls and 98 boys) from one school were provided with 200 min of physical education per week. Three othe

Primary torsion dystonia (PTD) occurs due to a genetic mutation and often advances gradually. Currently, there is no therapy available that is able to inhibit progression. Neural stem cells (NSCs) are being investigated as potential therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, such as stroke and trauma. The present study evaluated the clinical effectiveness of NSC transplantation in an 18-year-old ma