Volvo Human Monitoring (VHM) is an ongoing project at Volvo Cars where they measure, amongst other parameters, inhalation and exhalation through a device called Respiratory Inductance Plethysmograph (RIP), on drivers. RIP measures changes in the cross-sectional area of the chest and abdomen. When the driver is in motion, such as when she is turning the vehicle, the cross-sectional area changes and noise in the RIP signal may arise.The noise results in a large number of manual adjustments in the analysis of the RIP signal, which is very time consuming and the validity of the device for measuring inhalation and exhalation is questioned.The purpose of this study was to improve the efficiency of the analysis of the RIP signal. The goal was to create a new data processing tool in Matlab that automatically detects inhalation and exhalation from a RIP signal with higher validity compared to the previous data processing tool.In this study, nine tests were performed on drivers while they were driving in different scenarios such as highway, country road and in city traffic. Inhalation and exhalation was measured using a RIP, a pneumotachograph with a tightly sealed facemask and a thermocouple placed between the nose and mouth, which was used as reference to the RIP.The result of this study was a data processing tool that automatically detects inhalation and exhalation with higher validity compared to the previous data processing tool.

Volvo Human Monitoring (VHM) is an ongoing project at Volvo Cars where they measure, amongst other parameters, inhalation and exhalation through a device called Respiratory Inductance Plethysmograph (RIP), on drivers. RIP measures changes in the cross-sectional area of the chest and abdomen. When the driver is in motion, such as when she is turning the vehicle, the cross-sectional area changes and noise in the RIP signal may arise.The noise results in a large number of manual adjustments in the analysis of the RIP signal, which is very time consuming and the validity of the device for measuring inhalation and exhalation is questioned.The purpose of this study was to improve the efficiency of the analysis of the RIP signal. The goal was to create a new data processing tool in Matlab that automatically detects inhalation and exhalation from a RIP signal with higher validity compared to the previous data processing tool.In this study, nine tests were performed on drivers while they were driving in different scenarios such as highway, country road and in city traffic. Inhalation and exhalation was measured using a RIP, a pneumotachograph with a tightly sealed facemask and a thermocouple placed between the nose and mouth, which was used as reference to the RIP.The result of this study was a data processing tool that automatically detects inhalation and exhalation with higher validity compared to the previous data processing tool.

The effects of dexmedetomidine and butorphanol sedation on skin reactivity during intradermal testing in healthy dogs were evaluated. The effects of dexmedetomidine and butorphanol were compared to medetomidine, a sedative agent having scientific proof of not interfering with skin test reactivity, in a randomised, double blind, cross over study performed on 8 adult dogs. The dogs were sedated with medetomidine (Domitor vet.®, 0,01 ml kg-1) intravenously, or dexmedetomidine and butorphanol intramuscularly (Dexdomitor vet.®, 0,01 ml kg-1; Dolorex vet., 0,01 ml kg-1) after which they received intradermal injections of positive control solutions (histamine 0,1 mg ml-1, 0,05 mg ml-1, 0,025 mg ml-1), a negative control solution (0,9 % NaCl) and allergen extract (Dermatophagoides farinae, Cladosporium and Artemisia vulgaris). After a wash out period the trial was repeated with a reversed sedation protocol.Skin reactivity (wheal size, induration and erythema) and quality of sedation (immobilization, response to stimuli and injections as well as over all working conditions) were evaluated. The combination of dexmedetomidine and butorphanol provided reliable, good sedation and analgesia without adverse effects.

Hip dysplasia is a common, inherited malformation of the coxofemoral joint that eventually leads to osteoarthrosis. Several breeds of dogs are affected and the prevalence varies between different breeds. As part of the effort to reduce the prevalence of hip dysplasia and select dogs suitable for breeding, radiological screening is performed by at least 12 months of age. Before the radiological examination the dog has to be chemically restrained, sedated or anesthetized. The sedation protocol used differs between veterinary clinics. The impact of sedation method of the screening result for hip dysplasia has been studied.

Bronchiolitis is a common performance decreasing disease in horses (Bracher et al, 1991¸Dixon et al, 1995) Its medical treatment includes inhalation therapy with corticosteroids and b2-adrenoceptorer stimulators. Use of both these medicines is prohibited for sport horses and athletes. Because the facemasks used for inhalation therapy are not airtight, there is a risk for leakage of these medicines. We wanted to see if cross exposure of nearby horses can result during normal recommended treatment of a horse, and assess if this could result in doping positive urine sample from the person treating the horse and from horses in the same airspace. We did a pilot study with four healthy horses. The experiment was divided into four parts.

This thesis presents a system which has been implemented to satisfy a need in theresearch on how speech planning interacts with syntactic and prosodic structure inspontaneous speech. The long-term purpose of the research is to provide models forautomatic parsing of spontaneous speech and for psycholinguistical modelling of speechproduction. Identification of inhalation pauses is an important step in the developmentof automatic methods for spontaneous speech parsing.Identification of inhalation pauses is considered to be a keyword-spotting speechrecognition problem. Hybrid HMM(Hidden Markov Models)/ANN(Artificial NeuralNetworks) approach is applied to this problem. Method gets 90,8% in Recall, 66,4% inPrecision and 76,7% in F-score.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether the sedation method had an effect on the screening result for hip dysplasia (HD). Another aspect considered was if the dog?s weight had an impact on the results. This study was a follow up on the results from an earlier study of sedation routines in Swedish dogs. The breeds included in this study were the same as in the earlier one; German shepherd, Bernese mountain dog, Boxer, Newfoundland, Rottweiler, Saint Bernard, Golden and Labrador Retriever.

Insomnia is getting more prevalent with age, both because of natural changes in the sleep pattern and because of increased morbidity. It can cause dysfunctioning and sedation during the day. Therefore it is often treated with hypnotics. It is possible though that hypnotics can cause daytime sleepiness as well, not to mention increased risk of falling and fractures because of sedation and prolonged reaction time. Benzodiazepines and benzodiazepine related drugs, the subjects of this study, are commonly used as hypnotics.

Bakgrund: Patienter som ventilatorvårdas på intensivvårdsavdelning behöver ofta någon form av lätt sömn (sedering) för att tolerera endotrachealtuben och ventilatorbehandling. De traditionella intravenösa läkemedel som ges har lång halveringstid och det är stor risk för kvardröjande effekter. Syfte: Denna pilotstudie syftar till att studera sederingsdjupet enligt MAAS hos de patienter som blivit sederade med inhalationsgas, kontrollera vakenhetsgraden enligt GCS hos dessa patienter efter avslutad sedering, samt beskriva vilka patientgrupperna är som fått inhalationssedering. Metod: Journalgranskning där resultatet har analyserats och kategoriserats, därefter har en sambandsanalys gjorts. Resultat: I resultatet identifierades 3 patientkategorier som fått isofluransedering: patienter med hotad luftväg som förväntats behöva kort sederingstid och snabb väckning, patienter som var svåra att sedera optimalt med intravenös metod samt patienter med organsvikt där risk för ackumulation och/ eller förlängd elimination av läkemedel förelåg.

This study was performed in order to investigate the difficulty in diagnosing retrobulbar disease with ultrasound. A retrospective study was accomplished to investigate the use of ultrasound in patients with suspected retrobulbar problems, and how often the examination is diagnostic. The computer based patient files, at the University of Agricultural Science in Uppsala, were searched for dogs with suspected retrobulbar disease. During 1999-01-01-2004-04-14, 14 patients fulfilling the search criteria were found. The patient records were studied, and the written reports from the ultrasound examinations were compared with the printed pictures from the examinations.

The aim: was to describe and compare a group of experts and critical care nurses' agreement in detecting delirium in intubated, ventilator treated patients with sedation / analgesia, before and after an in house training intervention with the instrument Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU).Method: A quasi-experimental study, one group pretest - posttest design. A convenience sample of 17 critical care nurses in a general intensive care unit included. To detect delirium the instrument CAM-ICU was used, 21 paired tests before and 22 after an educational intervention.Main Results: The results showed that after an in house training intervention sensitivity and kappa coefficient improved of the characteristic 1 "acute onset and fluctuating course," an improvement that was significant. In other features, and overall values were signs of numerical improvement and deterioration in sensitivity, specificity and kappa coefficient but no significant change.Conclusion: Implementing a new instrument for detecting delirium in clinical practice requires education and follow-up. A small sample of critical care nurses with varying ability to use the new instrument and the fact that patients' status may change rapidly making it difficult to draw any conclusions from this study.

SummaryPatients with burn injuries involving more than 20 percent of the total body surface area lose a lot of fluid and are in the risk of developing a severe hypovolemia. Fluid resuscitation is a corner stone in burn care and is important for preventingfurthercomplications. The most common resuscitation formula is the Parkland Formula. Hourly urine output is a measure used to evaluate if the fluid given is sufficient enough to maintain a sustainable tissue perfusion. Inhalation injury, abuse of alcohol and drugs are some of the factors that may increase the amountoffluid needed.

SummaryPatients with burn injuries involving more than 20 percent of the total body surface area lose a lot of fluid and are in the risk of developing a severe hypovolemia. Fluid resuscitation is a corner stone in burn care and is important for preventingfurthercomplications. The most common resuscitation formula is the Parkland Formula. Hourly urine output is a measure used to evaluate if the fluid given is sufficient enough to maintain a sustainable tissue perfusion. Inhalation injury, abuse of alcohol and drugs are some of the factors that may increase the amountoffluid needed.

SummaryPatients with burn injuries involving more than 20 percent of the total body surface area lose a lot of fluid and are in the risk of developing a severe hypovolemia. Fluid resuscitation is a corner stone in burn care and is important for preventingfurthercomplications. The most common resuscitation formula is the Parkland Formula. Hourly urine output is a measure used to evaluate if the fluid given is sufficient enough to maintain a sustainable tissue perfusion. Inhalation injury, abuse of alcohol and drugs are some of the factors that may increase the amountoffluid needed.

SummaryPatients with burn injuries involving more than 20 percent of the total body surface area lose a lot of fluid and are in the risk of developing a severe hypovolemia. Fluid resuscitation is a corner stone in burn care and is important for preventingfurthercomplications. The most common resuscitation formula is the Parkland Formula. Hourly urine output is a measure used to evaluate if the fluid given is sufficient enough to maintain a sustainable tissue perfusion. Inhalation injury, abuse of alcohol and drugs are some of the factors that may increase the amountoffluid needed.