Zirconia-nickel functionally graded materials were obtained by powder metallurgy technique. The microstructure, residual stress, fracture toughness and Vickers hardness were investigated. Mixed-mode fracture response of YSZ /Ni functionally graded materials was examined utilizing the three point bending test and finite element method (Cosmos/M 2.7). The results show that the stress intensity fac...

A system is proposed for the recognition of the number of the dots on dice in general table game settings. Different from previous dice recognition systems which use a single top-view camera and work only under controlled illumination, the proposed one uses multiple cameras and works for uncontrolled illumination. Under controlled illumination edges are the prominent features considered by most...

We derive a set of new necessary conditions for Lipschitz strong local minimizers. These conditions restrict the behavoir of the L gradient of the minimizer at its discontinuities. We show by way of examples that the derived conditions are independent of one another.

Introduction. Let M be an analytic n manifold and # = {X : a e A} a collection of analytic vector fields on M. A continuous map M, T > 0, is called a solution of,_!, tt)9 i = 1, —, k. We denote by s...

It is shown that a finite number of conditions are not sufficient to determine the locality of transformations between two probability distributions of pure states as well as the locality of transformations between two d × d mixed states with d ≥ 4. As an example, an infinite, but minimal, set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a local procedure that converts one probab...

The energy-integral of the calculus of variations (1.1), (1.2) below has a limit behavior when q = np/(n − p), where p is the harmonic average of the exponents pi, i = 1, . . . , n. In fact, if q is larger than in the stated equality, counterexamples to the local boundedness and regularity of minimizers are known. In this paper we prove the local boundedness of minimizers (and also of quasi-min...

Studying consumer financing decisions is difficult because of endogeneity problems and scarce data. We use new data and an exogenous change in an interest rate ceiling facing consumers seeking loans from an online peer-to-peer lending intermediary to test how access to finance affects consumers’ borrowing decisions. A differences-in-differences approach reveals that good access to local bank fi...

Understanding the historical processes that generated current patterns of phenotypic diversity in nature is particularly challenging in subdivided populations. Populations often exhibit heritable genetic differences that correlate with environmental variables, but the non-independence among neighbouring populations complicates statistical inference of adaptation. To understand the relative infl...