The Effect of Biologic Materials and Oral Steroids on Radiographic and Clinical Outcomes of Horizontal Alveolar Ridge Augmentation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if the addition of biologic materials and/or oral steroids would affect horizontal bone gain, or the bone density of the grafted bone in horizontal alveolar ridge augmentations. A retrospective chart review was completed to assess the clinical and radiographic outcomes of 53 ridge augmentation patients. An average bone gain of 3.6mm of width was found in our study based on radiographic analysis. There were no statistically significant differences found in the linear bone gain with the addition of biologic materials and steroids. A marginally statistically significant difference was found in the bone density when biologics were added (p-value=0.0653). No statistically significant difference found in the bone density with the addition of oral steroids. The use of tenting screws and resorbable occlusive membranes and a combination of allograft and xenograft bone materials provides significant clinical and radiographic dimensional changes in alveolar ridge width

Measurements of mixing and indirect CP violation

LHCb has collected the world's largest sample of charmed hadrons. This sample is used to measure the mixing parameters in the $D^0$-$\bar{D}^0$ system and to search for indirect $CP$ violation. This contribution focuses on measurements of $A_{\Gamma}$ with $D^*$ and semileptonic $B$ decays and on mixing measurements and a search for $CP$ violation in $D\to K\pi$ decays.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of CHARM-2015, Detroit, MI, 18-22 May 2015. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1311.244

Keeping the Cost of Process Change Low through Refactoring

With the increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAIS) large process model repositories have emerged. Over time respective models have to be re-aligned to the real world business processes through customization or adaptation. This bears the risk that model redundancies are introduced and complexity is increased. If no continuous investment is made in keeping models simple, changes are becoming increasingly costly and error-prone. Although refactoring techniques are widely used in software engineering to address related problems, this does not yet constitute state-of-the art in business process management. Consequently, process designers either have to refactor process models by hand or can not apply respective techniques at all. In this paper we propose a set of techniques for refactoring large process repositories, which are behaviour-preserving. The proposed refactorings enable process designers to effectively deal with model complexity by making process models easier to change, less error-prone and better understandable

Does oxidative stress shorten telomeres in vivo? A review

The length of telomeres, the protective caps of chromosomes, is increasingly used as a biomarker of individual health state because it has been shown to predict chances of survival in a range of endothermic species including humans. Oxidative stress is presumed to be a major cause of telomere shortening, but most evidence to date comes from in vitro cultured cells. The importance of oxidative stress as a determinant of telomere shortening in vivo remains less clear and has recently been questioned. We, therefore, reviewed correlative and experimental studies investigating the links between oxidative stress and telomere shortening in vivo. While correlative studies provide equivocal support for a connection between oxidative stress and telomere attrition (10 of 18 studies), most experimental studies published so far (seven of eight studies) partially or fully support this hypothesis. Yet, this link seems to be tissue-dependent in some cases, or restricted to particular categories of individual (e.g. sex-dependent) in other cases. More experimental studies, especially those decreasing antioxidant protection or increasing pro-oxidant generation, are required to further our understanding of the importance of oxidative stress in determining telomere length in vivo. Studies comparing growing versus adult individuals, or proliferative versus non-proliferative tissues would provide particularly important insights

Arrow(s) of Time without a Past Hypothesis

The paper discusses recent proposals by Carroll and Chen, as well as Barbour, Koslowski, and Mercati to explain the (thermodynamic) arrow of time without a Past Hypothesis, i.e., the assumption of a special (low-entropy) initial state of the universe. After discussing the role of the Past Hypothesis and the controversy about its status, we explain why Carroll's model - which establishes an arrow of time as typical - can ground sensible predictions and retrodictions without assuming something akin to a Past Hypothesis. We then propose a definition of a Boltzmann entropy for a classical $N$-particle system with gravity, suggesting that a Newtonian gravitating universe might provide a relevant example of Carroll's entropy model. This invites comparison with the work of Barbour, Koslowski, and Mercati that identifies typical arrows of time in a relational formulation of classical gravity on shape space. We clarify the difference between this gravitational arrow in terms of shape complexity and the entropic arrow in absolute spacetime and work out the key advantages of the relationalist theory. We end by pointing out why the entropy concept relies on absolute scales and is thus not relational.Comment: Contains small corrections with respect to the previous versio

The Crossbyton project

The Analog Design Verification System (ADVS), the largest single solar collector built, was tested. Referred to as the Solar Gridiron or Bowl Concept, it employs a stationary mirror, with tracking accomplished by the mirror

An Approach for Supporting Ad-hoc Modifications in Distributed Workflow Management Systems

Supporting enterprise-wide or even cross-organizational business processes is a characteristic challenge for any workflow management system (WfMS). Scalability at the presence of high loads as well as the capability to dynamically modify running workflow (WF) instances (e.g., to cope with exceptional situations) are essential requirements in this context. Should the latter one, in particular, not be met, the WfMS will not have the necessary flexibility to cover the wide range of process-oriented applications deployed in many organizations. Scalability and flexibility have, for the most part, been treated separately in the relevant literature thus far. Even though they are basic needs for a WfMS, the requirements related with them are totally different. To achieve satisfactory scalability, on the one hand, the system needs to be designed such that a workflow instance can be controlled by several WF servers that are as independent from each other as possible. Yet dynamic WF modifications, on the other hand, necessitate a (logical) central control instance which knows the current and global state of a WF instance. For the first time, this paper presents methods which allow ad-hoc modifications (e.g., to insert, delete, or shift steps) to be performed in a distributed WfMS; i.e., in a WfMS with partitioned WF execution graphs and distributed WF control. It is especially noteworthy that the system succeeds in realizing the full functionality as given in the central case while, at the same time, achieving extremely favorable behavior with respect to communication costs