The behavior near the singularity of an isotropic, homogeneous cosmological
model with a viscous fluid source is investigated. This turns out to be a
relaxation dominated regime. Full extended irreversible thermodynamics is used,
and comparison with results of the truncated theory is made. New singular
behaviors are found and it is shown that a relaxation dominated inflationary
epoch may exist for fluids with small heat capacity.Comment: 7 pages, LaTeX. To be published in Physics Letters
