Ceramic processing: Experimental design and optimization

The objectives of this paper are to: (1) gain insight into the processing of ceramics and how green processing can affect the properties of ceramics; (2) investigate the technique of slip casting; (3) learn how heat treatment and temperature contribute to density, strength, and effects of under and over firing to ceramic properties; (4) experience some of the problems inherent in testing brittle materials and learn about the statistical nature of the strength of ceramics; (5) investigate orthogonal arrays as tools to examine the effect of many experimental parameters using a minimum number of experiments; (6) recognize appropriate uses for clay based ceramics; and (7) measure several different properties important to ceramic use and optimize them for a given application

Factors influencing plasma amino acids in calves

International audienc

Resin infusion of layered metal/composite hybrid and resulting metal/composite hybrid laminate

A method of fabricating a metal/composite hybrid laminate is provided. One or more layered arrangements are stacked on a solid base to form a layered structure. Each layered arrangement is defined by a fibrous material and a perforated metal sheet. A resin in its liquid state is introduced along a portion of the layered structure while a differential pressure is applied across the laminate structure until the resin permeates the fibrous material of each layered arrangement and fills perforations in each perforated metal sheet. The resin is cured thereby yielding a metal/composite hybrid laminate

LDA+Gutzwiller Method for Correlated Electron Systems

Combining the density functional theory (DFT) and the Gutzwiller variational approach, a LDA+Gutzwiller method is developed to treat the correlated electron systems from {\it ab-initio}. All variational parameters are self-consistently determined from total energy minimization. The method is computationally cheaper, yet the quasi-particle spectrum is well described through kinetic energy renormalization. It can be applied equally to the systems from weakly correlated metals to strongly correlated insulators. The calculated results for SrVO$_3$, Fe, Ni and NiO, show dramatic improvement over LDA and LDA+U.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Painting the ideal home: using art to express visions of technologically supported independent living for older people in North East England

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process. Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach

Fast interior point solution of quadratic programming problems arising from PDE-constrained optimization

Interior point methods provide an attractive class of approaches for solving linear, quadratic and nonlinear programming problems, due to their excellent efficiency and wide applicability. In this paper, we consider PDE-constrained optimization problems with bound constraints on the state and control variables, and their representation on the discrete level as quadratic programming problems. To tackle complex problems and achieve high accuracy in the solution, one is required to solve matrix systems of huge scale resulting from Newton iteration, and hence fast and robust methods for these systems are required. We present preconditioned iterative techniques for solving a number of these problems using Krylov subspace methods, considering in what circumstances one may predict rapid convergence of the solvers in theory, as well as the solutions observed from practical computations