Cracks in concrete structures can have a negative impact on durability and aesthetic appearance. It is therefore important to estimate crack widths before construction, and to use suitable reinforcement amounts to limit crack widths. Crack widths are however hard to predict in restrained structures, as cracking reduces the stiffness, which in turn reduces the restraint and thereby the amount of cr

The communication of requirements within software development is vital for project success. Requirements engineering and testing are two processes that when aligned can enable the discovery of issues and misunderstandings earlier, rather than later, and avoid costly and time-consuming rework and delays. There are a number of practices that support requirements-test alignment. However, each organis

ObjectivesCultural behaviors are theoretically linked to future life chances but empirical literature is scant. We use heavy metal as an example of cultural identities due to its high salience. We first assess the social morphology of metal preferences in terms of socio-economic and socio-structural positions, and then asses the short term outcomes of being a heavy metal fan on education and healt

Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Tanzania share a past and present as authoritarian states. Dominant parties are in power in Tanzania and Kazakhstan, while elections are competitive but not democratic in Kenya and Kyrgyzstan. Returns for political support (clientelism), and persecution of political adversaries and the electorate (repression), are key components in all four states. This dissertati

The mechanical, optical, and electrical properties of III-V semiconductor heterostructures are investigated in thisthesis. The semiconductor materials are grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy, yielding wire shaped crystals(nanowires) having a length of ~ 1 μm and diameter of ~ 100 nm. Nanowires are relevant for many applications,such as optical detectors, photovoltaics, light emitting diodes

Ice throw is a significant risk factor in the vicinity of wind turbines located in cold climate areas. We present a method to estimate the ice chunk trajectories. First, similar to the common practice, only translation is accounted for and the object trajectory is determined by gravity and the aerodynamic drag force. The sensitivity of the trajectories to the launch positions, wind speed, turbine

The dynamic response of cantilevers to a hydrodynamic load has been studied numerically. The Reynolds number of the flow was fixed at 5000 and the variation in re-duced velocity was achieved by varying the Young’s modulus of the cantilever. Cantilevers with aspectratios of 5 and 10 were considered for reduced velocities in the range 2 to 30. The simulations were performed using a strongly coupled

Jet impingement cooling is commonly used in gas turbines. Usually the spent air from the upstream jets forms a cross-flow past the downstream jets, which degrades their heat transfer performance. In the present study, a new method was proposed to promote the jet penetration and enhance the impingement heat transfer. By placing a delta-winglet vortex generator pair (VGP) in the cross-flow upstream

The sound art scene is not limited to the northern hemisphere. Rather, it is globally distributed and has for decades also appeared in various manifestations and constellations in the Global South. Globalization, postcolonialism, and decolonization are therefore issues that are just as crucial to the field of sound art as they are for other fields of social and human science. These issues are slow

Here, we propose a new procedure for output feedback design for systems with nonlinearities satisfying quadratic constraints. It provides an alternative for the classical observer-based design and relies on transformation of the closed-loop system with a dynamic controller of particular structure into a special block form. Asymptotic stability is shown using Lyapunov theory with strictly positive

The Barnahus model was launched in Iceland in 1998, and it subsequently spread to all the Nordic countries. It is an interagency, co-located model for working with cases of violence and abuse against children that addresses two vital concerns of welfare societies: to process cases through the legal system and to offer support and treatment to victims. The model is currently recommended as a best-p

Sexual conflict is thought to be an important evolutionary force in driving phenotypic diversification, population divergence, and speciation. However, empirical evidence is inconsistent with the generality that sexual conflict enhances population divergence. Here, we demonstrate an alternative evolutionary outcome in which sexual conflict plays a conservative role in maintaining male and female p

Importance: Since 2004-2007, national guidelines and recommendations have been developed for the management of extremely preterm births in Sweden. If and how more uniform management has affected infant survival is unknown. Objective: To compare survival of extremely preterm infants born during 2004-2007 with survival of infants born during 2014-2016. Design, Setting and Participants: All births at

Background: The aim of this study was to compare QOL among people in India using lower-limb prostheses or orthoses with people without disability. A further aim was to compare subgroups and investigate whether QOL was associated with physical disability, gender, income, living area, and education. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire study in which the World Health Organization Quality of Life

The sustainable and green chemistry concept calls for effective separation and recycling of valuable functional nanoparticles. In this work, a viable approach to separate and recover synthetic nanoparticles without involving heavy-duty instruments was established. The nanoparticle separation was enabled by using reversible boronate ester and boroxine bonds formed between boronic acid-functionalize

Background: Depression, metabolic disturbances and inflammation have been linked to cardiovascular disease and mortality. Low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-cholesterol), a known marker of cardiovascular risk, have been observed in patients with major depression in psychiatric populations. Our main aim was to explore associations between depression, antidepressants, and metab