The concept of stay-in-place (SIP) structural formwork has the potential to simplify and accelerate the construction process to a great extent. Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) SIP structural formwork offers further potential benefits over existing formwork systems in terms of ease and speed of construction, improved site safety and reduced long-term maintenance in corrosive environments. However, it is not without its limitations, including primarily the possibility of a lack of ductility, which is a key concern regarding the use of FRP structural formwork in practice. This thesis presents the findings of an experimental and analytical investigation into a novel FRP SIP structural formwork system for a concrete slab with a particular emphasis on its ability to achieve a ductile behaviour. The proposed composite system consists of a moulded glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) grating adhesively bonded to square pultruded GFRP box sections. The grating is subsequently filled with concrete to form a concrete-FRP composite floor slab. Holes cut into the top flange of the box sections allow concrete studs to form at the grating/box-section interface. During casting, GFRP dowels are inserted into the holes to further mechanically connect the grating and box sections. An initial experimental investigation into using GFRP grating as confinement for concrete showed that a significant increase in ultimate strength and strain capacity could be achieved compared to unconfined concrete. This enhanced strain capacity in compression allows greater use of the FRP capacity in tension when used in a floor slab system. Further experimental investigation into developing ductility at the grating/box-section interface showed that the proposed shear connection exhibited elastic-‘plastic’ behaviour. This indicated the feasibility of achieving ductility through progressive and controlled longitudinal shear failure. Following these component tests on the concrete-filled grating and the shear connectors, a total of six (300 x 150 x 3000) mm slab specimens were designed and tested under five-point bending. It was found that the behaviour of all specimens was ductile in nature, demonstrating that the proposed progressive longitudinal shear failure was effective. A three-stage analytical model was developed to predict the load at which the onset of longitudinal shear failure occurred, the stiffness achieved during the post elastic behaviour and, finally, the deflection at which ultimate failure occurred. Close agreement was found between experimental results and the theory.

<p>The aim of this study was to observe the housing support team (boendestödssteamet) in Västerås City in its visiting work and how they empowered clients. Tenants are visited by social workers, in its visiting works, when the habitants have rental charge debts. Participating observations is common in case studies, but also in fieldwork which was the foundation in our study. Our method of collecting data consisted of a triangulation; unstructured interviews with social workers, participating observations and a following up with a questionnaire. We took part in participating observations of social workers whilst visiting tenants with rental charge debts. The social services in Västerås City are getting 120-125 reports concerning rental debts from the landlords every month. We visited 46 tenants and it resulted in 23 of them paying their rental debts. All of the tenants have not paid their rental debts. We have seen how em-powering social workers activity is. Empowerment has been seen in individuals while regain-ing their own power, but also in the community when taking control over their problems with too large rental debts. Empowerment becomes a social work tool, in their visiting work, in helping tenants.</p>

Vid ortopedavdelning 3A och 3B inom länsverksamhet ortopedi Landstinget i Värmland har ett projekt startats för att förändra organisation och arbetssätt utifrån så kallade patientnärmre vård. Detta är en arbetsmodell som bygger på att vården skall ske i nära anslutning till patienterna och en förutsättning är att selektera bort så mycket vårdadministration som möjligt från sjuksköterskornas praktiska arbete. Syftet med studien, som är en del i ett större projekt, var att beskriva nuläget vid ortopedavdelningarna 3A och 3B före införandet av arbetsmodellen patientnärmre vård. Enkäter delades ut till patienter och medarbetare där de viktigaste frågeområdena var vårdkvalitet, hälsoindex, arbetsklimat och delaktighet. Undersökningsgruppen bestod av 130 patienter (96% svarsfrekvens) och 64 medarbetare (94% svarsfrekvens). Resultatet visade på en högt skattad vårdkvalitet i patientgruppen och en något lägre skattad vårdkvalitet i medarbetargruppen. Patientgruppens lägsta skattningar handlade om ”delaktighet i beslut”, ”egna önskemål” och ”information om ansvarig sjuksköterska”. Patienterna skattade genomgående de olika kartlagda vårdaspekterna som mer betydelsefulla än vad medarbetarna gjorde. Patienterna upplevde sitt hälsotillstånd som relativt gott, det psykiska välbefinnandet skattades dock som bättre än den fysiska hälsan. Medarbetarna upplevde stor delaktighet i det egna teamet och närhet till patienterna. Lägre värden framkom dock på möjligheter att observera patienterna och att påverka arbetet. Arbetsklimatet upplevdes som stagnerat inom dimensionerna konflikt, utmaning och frihet. I dimensionerna idé-stöd och risktagande närmade sig organisationen ett innovativt klimat, vilket kan ha positiv betydelse vid ett förändringsarbete. / At the Clinic of Ortopedic Surgery, wards 3A and 3B, in the County Board of Health Care in Värmland, a project has been initiated with the purpose of changing the workprocess in accordance with so called Patient-Focused Care. This is a working model built on the principle that care should take place in a close relationship with the patient with the prerequisite of reducing as much care administration as possible from the nurses’ work. The aim of the study, which is a part of a larger project, was to describe the current status at the wards, before the implementation of the Patient - Focused Care work model. Questionnaires containing questions on quality of care, a health index, organizational climate, and opportunities for participation were distributed among patients and staff. The study group consisted of 130 patients (96 % response rate) and 64 staff members (94 % response rate). The results showed that the patients rated the quality of care as high, while the staff members give somewhat lower ratings. The least favourable ratings in the patient group were noted on questions designed to measure “participation in decision making”, “own preferences,” and “information on the responsible nurse.” Compared to the staff members, the patients ascribed higher subjective importance to all mapped aspects of care. The patients experienced their health status as relatively good, however, the subjective well-being was rated as more favourable than the physical health. The staff members experienced a high participation in their team and a sense of being close to the patients. Less favourable ratings were noted on the possibilities to observe the patients and to have an influence on their own work. The organizational climate was perceived as declined in the dimensions of conflict, challenge and freedom. In the dimensions of idea-support and risk taking the organization approached an innovative climate, which might have a positive impact in an organizational change process.

We use the Garman-Kohlhagen model to compute the hedge and price of a participating forward contract on the US dollar that is written by a Turkish Bank. The algorithm is computed using actual market data and a weekly updated hedge is computed. We note that despite a weekly update and many assumptions made on the volatility and the interest rates the model gives a very reasonable hedge.

Thermal radiation is of significant importance in a broad range of engineering applications including high-temperature and large-scale systems. Although the governing equations of thermal radiation have been known for many years, the complexities inherent in the phenomenon, such as the multidimensionality and integro-differential nature of these equations, have made it difficult to obtain an accurate, efficient, and robust computational method. Developing the finite volume radiation method in the 1990s was a significant progress but not a panacea for computational radiation. The major drawback of this method, which is common among all methods that solve for directional intensities, is its slow convergence rate in many situations which increases the solution cost dramatically. These situations include large optical thicknesses, strongly reflecting boundaries, and any other factor that causes strong directional coupling like complex geometries. Several acceleration schemes have been developed in the heat transfer and neutron transport communities to expedite the convergence and reduce the solution cost, but none of them led to a general and reliable method. Among these available schemes, the two most promising ones, the multiplicative scheme and coupled ordinates method, suffer from failing on fine grids and being very complicated for complex scattering phase functions, respectively. In this research, a new computational method, called the QL method, has been introduced. The main idea of this method is using the phase weight concept to relate the directional and average intensities and re-arranging the Radiative Transfer Equation to find a new expression for the radiant heat flux. This results in an elliptic-type equation for the average intensity at each control volume which conserves the radiant energy in all directions in the control volume. This formulation gives the QL method a great advantage to solve for the average intensity while including the directional effects. Since the directional effects are included and the radiant energy is conserved in each control volume, this method is expected to be accurate and have a good convergence rate in all conditions. The phase weight distribution required by the QL method can be provided by a method like the finite volume method or discrete ordinates method. The QL method is applied to several 1D and 2D test cases including isotropic and anisotropic scattering, black and partially reflecting boundaries, and emitting absorbing problems; and its accuracy, convergence rate, and solution cost are studied. The method has been found to be very stable and efficient, regardless of grid size and optical thickness. This method establishes very accurate predictions on the tested coarse grids and its results approach the exact solution with grid refinement.

Thermal radiation is of significant importance in a broad range of engineering applications including high-temperature and large-scale systems. Although the governing equations of thermal radiation have been known for many years, the complexities inherent in the phenomenon, such as the multidimensionality and integro-differential nature of these equations, have made it difficult to obtain an accurate, efficient, and robust computational method. Developing the finite volume radiation method in the 1990s was a significant progress but not a panacea for computational radiation. The major drawback of this method, which is common among all methods that solve for directional intensities, is its slow convergence rate in many situations which increases the solution cost dramatically. These situations include large optical thicknesses, strongly reflecting boundaries, and any other factor that causes strong directional coupling like complex geometries. Several acceleration schemes have been developed in the heat transfer and neutron transport communities to expedite the convergence and reduce the solution cost, but none of them led to a general and reliable method. Among these available schemes, the two most promising ones, the multiplicative scheme and coupled ordinates method, suffer from failing on fine grids and being very complicated for complex scattering phase functions, respectively. In this research, a new computational method, called the QL method, has been introduced. The main idea of this method is using the phase weight concept to relate the directional and average intensities and re-arranging the Radiative Transfer Equation to find a new expression for the radiant heat flux. This results in an elliptic-type equation for the average intensity at each control volume which conserves the radiant energy in all directions in the control volume. This formulation gives the QL method a great advantage to solve for the average intensity while including the directional effects. Since the directional effects are included and the radiant energy is conserved in each control volume, this method is expected to be accurate and have a good convergence rate in all conditions. The phase weight distribution required by the QL method can be provided by a method like the finite volume method or discrete ordinates method. The QL method is applied to several 1D and 2D test cases including isotropic and anisotropic scattering, black and partially reflecting boundaries, and emitting absorbing problems; and its accuracy, convergence rate, and solution cost are studied. The method has been found to be very stable and efficient, regardless of grid size and optical thickness. This method establishes very accurate predictions on the tested coarse grids and its results approach the exact solution with grid refinement.

The aim of this study was to observe the housing support team (boendestödssteamet) in Västerås City in its visiting work and how they empowered clients. Tenants are visited by social workers, in its visiting works, when the habitants have rental charge debts. Participating observations is common in case studies, but also in fieldwork which was the foundation in our study. Our method of collecting data consisted of a triangulation; unstructured interviews with social workers, participating observations and a following up with a questionnaire. We took part in participating observations of social workers whilst visiting tenants with rental charge debts. The social services in Västerås City are getting 120-125 reports concerning rental debts from the landlords every month. We visited 46 tenants and it resulted in 23 of them paying their rental debts. All of the tenants have not paid their rental debts. We have seen how em-powering social workers activity is. Empowerment has been seen in individuals while regain-ing their own power, but also in the community when taking control over their problems with too large rental debts. Empowerment becomes a social work tool, in their visiting work, in helping tenants.

Due to the rapidly development in biomedical industry and the progressive needs in clinical trial, the clinical trial has remarkably increased during the past years. The composition of volunteers is not only included patients but also healthy subjects, which catered for the differences of research design of the trial. Thus, many ethical issues related to clinical trials have gained attention, particularly, the motivations of participating in clinical trials from healthy volunteers are crucial issue. The intention of the study is not only to understand the mainly motivation, perception and personality trait of healthy volunteers, but also to discuss the influence of demographic variables and personality trait on the motivation of volunteers participating clinical trials in Taiwan. This study was a cross-sectional survey research. The study sample included 196 healthy volunteers from three different biomedical clinical trial companies. The self-administered questionnaire contained 15 questions. The internal consistency reliability (£\) for the BFI scale was .789. One-way ANOVA and post-hoc analysis were used to examine the differences of the motivation in different demographic variables. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis was employed to investigate the determinants of different motivation. The results of the study showed most of the healthy volunteers were single male undergraduate students with age 20-24. The types of personality, openness¡Bextraversion and agreeableness, tended to be high tendentiousness. On the other hands, the subjects in neuroticism personality tended to be low tendentiousness. Moreover, the results showed the main motivation of the healthy volunteers is financial rewards, followed by free physical examination and the last is invitation by friends, respectively. According to the results of the study, the relatedness between the motivation of participating clinical trials and different variables showed that the elder subjects considered the free physical examination and promoting scientific and medical development as the mainly motivation, and showed less concern of companion invitation. Also, the subjects with higher education concerned the invitation by companion as less priority. Comparing with students, the waged volunteers showed less consideration of promoting scientific and medical development as motivation. Moreover, the healthy volunteer with average income between 10,000 to 19,999 NT considered mostly free physical examination, promotion of scientific and medical development and curiosity as the main motivation for the trial. The more involved in clinical trial the more consideration of other motivation and less concern of the invitation by companion. Furthermore, the subjects with more agreeableness personality trait tend to be more consideration of promoting scientific and medical development as their mainly motivation. In conclusion, the financial rewards is the priority consideration and shows remarkable influence to the motivation for the healthy volunteers, compared with the risk assessment and the consideration of personal health conditions. Thus, the clinical trials companies should balance between the rewards and health conditions. Particularly, the understandable and fully explanation as well informed consent before any trial implementation are necessary. Moreover, the researcher should be carefully concern about the health condition enrolling volunteers, in order to prevent the volunteer form harm.

Experience economy reinforces not only the correlation intensity between enterprise and its customers, but also the differentiations with competitors. Above all, it enhances value and price, and frees itself from price competition. The operation model and product / service are getting similar in the industry of direct selling, so consciousness of crisis urges those companies to keep close relationship with distributors. Except for reward system, the direct selling companies will seek for intensifying distributor¡¦s willingness and capabilities throughout training and marketing in the ¡§Meeting Place¡¨. The ¡§Meeting Place¡¨ can be regarded as the base where the potential distributors are nurtured. Hence, ¡§participating in every meeting¡¨ has become a key successful factor for direct selling. This study adopts the method of qualitative research to study how the various experiential theories apply to direct selling. It attempts to define and to confer the above-stated terms based on authors¡¦ practical participation experience and analyzes the triple role, consumer-seller-operator; a distributor plays in the mean time. The conclusions of this study are summarized as follows: ¤@Experiential theories are broadly used in the industry of direct selling, but they lack of systematic planning and thinking. ¤@Experiential theories can fit the triple role of different stages. ¤@A model of the activities in the ¡§Meeting Place¡¨ is built as reference of future application for scholars and direct selling operators.

Tyrimas buvo organizuojamas, siekiant ištirti tėvų dalyvavimo ypatumus Šiaulių miesto ikimokyklinio ugdymo įstaigų veikloje ir numatyti jų dalyvavimo galimybes. Literatūros šaltinių analizė parodė, kad aktyvus tėvų dalyvavimas ikimokyklinio ugdymo įstaigų veikloje skatina tarpusavio pasitikėjimą ir pagarbą, leidžia išvengti nepagrįstų lūkesčių vaiko atžvilgiu ir siekti bendradarbiavimo ir partnerystės. Tyrimo rezultatai atskleidė tėvų požiūrį į teikiamų paslaugų kokybę, komunikavimo ir informacijos sklaidą, įstaigos veiklos valdymą ir organizavimą, tėvų švietimą ir dalyvavimą įsitraukiant į ikimokyklinio ugdymo įstaigos veiklą. Apibendrinus abiejų respondentų grupių vertinimus, paaiškėjo, jog dar nepakankamai išnaudota dalyvauti skatinančių metodų sistema, nes tėvai neaktyviai dalyvauja kuriant ir įgyvendinant įstaigos strateginį planą ir metinę programą. Dar nėra veiksminga informavimo sistema ir neišvystyta informacinių technologijų plėtotė. Remiantis atliktais tyrimais, pateikiamos tėvų dalyvavimo Šiaulių miesto ikimokyklinio ugdymo įstaigų veikloje galimybės, siekiant lygiavertiškos partnerystės. / The research was organized on the way to investigate the characteristics of parents’ participating in the activities of Šiauliai pre-school educational institutions and planning ahead the possibilities of their participation there. The analysis of literary showed that active participation of parents’ in the activities of pre-school institutions motivate self-confidence and respect, it lets avoid unfounded expectations in respect of child and tries for cooperation and partnership. The results of the research disclosed the parents’ attitude to the quality of the provided services, the dissemination of communication and information, the management and organization of the institution, parents’ education and their involvement in the activities of pre-school education. Summarising the assessment of the both respondent groups, it emerged that the system of stimulating methods is not used too often, because parents are not active founding and realizing strategic plan and annual curriculum of the institution. The system of the information is not effective and the evolution of information technologies is not developed as well. According the researches which were done, there are proposed potentials of parents’ participating in the activities of Šiauliai pre-school educational institutions by the way of equal partnership.