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The objectives of this thesis are to study time-dependent fracture behaviour in concrete. The thesis consists of an experimental study, constitutive modelling and numerical analysis.

Linear time-invariant models are widely used in the control community. They often serve as approximations of nonlinear systems. For control purposes linear approximations are often good enough since feedback control systems are inherently robust to model errors. In this thesis some of the possibilities for linear time-varying modeling are studied. In the thesis it is shown that the balanced trunca

The theoretical part develops Michael Grossman’s dynamic demand-for-health model by (a) letting the depreciation rate depend upon the level of health, (b) allowing a continuous set of health states, (c) introducing uncertainty (by letting health be a stochastic variable), (d) introducing social and private insurance and (e) releasing the assumption of an isoperimetric budget constraint. Beside the

In late modernity, the media is one of the most important social institutions in influencing people's knowledge, perceptions and actions. The media supply citizens with health-related messages and contribute thereby to their health development. The abundant flow of health-related messages, however, makes it difficult for the individual to separate good and reliable information from information of

The purpose of this paper is to defend G. E. Moore's open question argument, understood as an argument directed against analytic reductionism, the view that moral properties are analytically reducible to non-moral properties. In the first section I revise Moore's argument in order to make it as plausible and resistant against objections as possible. In the following two sections I develop the argu

Batch processes are becoming more and more important in the chemical process industry, where they are used in the manufacture of specialty materials, which often are highly profitable. Some examples where batch processes are important are the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, polymers, and semiconductors. The focus of this thesis is exception handling and fault detection in batch control. In the

An open, crossover and randomized study was carried out to compare the safety and efficacy of salbutamol inhaled using the dry-powder inhaler Turbuhaler, and using a pressurized metered-dose inhaler (pMDI). Twelve patients with moderate to severe asthma, aged 47-68 years, were included in the study. On two separate days, patients received a total dose of 1600 micrograms of salbutamol administered

The concept of brain plasticity covers all the mechanisms involved in the capacity of the brain to adjust and remodel itself in response to environmental requirements, experience, skill acquisition, and new challenges including brain lesions. Advances in neuroimaging and neurophysiologic techniques have increased our knowledge of task-related changes in cortical representation areas in the intact

In this Letter, we report the electronic spectrum of the allyl radical, obtained with multiconfigurational perturbation theory (MS-CASPT2). The assignment of the spectrum is in accordance with experiment to within 0.2 eV. We have computed the complete first Rydberg series and the beginning of the second Rydberg series. A new valence-excited 2B1 state has been found which has hitherto been hidden b

We present numerical simulations that reproduce the salient features of the amazingly strong [Fe ii andFe ii emission spectra in the B and D Weigelt blobs of Carinae. For our studies we have used spectraobtained during the 1998 epoch observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The spectrum of the Band D Weigelt blobs dominates in [Fe ii and Fe ii emission lines. The same observations show

An excess mortality is well described after vertebral fracture. Deaths are in part related to co-morbidity, but could also be due to the fracture event itself, either directly or indirectly. The aim of this study was to examine the quantum and pattern of mortality following vertebral fracture. We identified 16,051 men and women aged 50 years or more with a vertebral fracture that required hospital

The search for an enzyme as a reagent for selective bioanalytical detection of the neurotoxic amino acid, beta-N-oxalyl-L-,alpha,beta-diaminopropionic acid, beta-ODAP (found in grass pea, Lathyrus sativus) led to its redox catalytic reaction by glutamate oxidase (GluOx). Homogeneous kinetic studies and an immobilized GluOx reactor-based flow-injection assay were initially made for beta-ODAP with s