The aim was to investigate the effect of simulated low-temperature degradation (s-LTD) and hydrothermal fatigue on the degradation of three ZrO2-based dental materials. Lava, IPS, and NanoZr discs were randomly assigned to (1) Control-Storage in distilled water at 37°C; (2) Aging at 134°C for 5 h (s-LTD); (3) Thermocycling in saliva for 30,000 cycles (TF). XRD revealed that ZrO 2 m phase was identified in all groups but TF increased the m phase only for Lava. Under the FESEM, Lava showed no alterations under s-LTD, but displayed corrosion areas up to 60 μm wide after TF. We conclude that TF accelerated the degradation of Lava through an increase in the m phase and grain pull-out from the material surface.

A gene encoding Bfr (bacterioferritin) was identified and isolated from the genome of Desulfovibrio vulgaris cells, and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. In vitro, H2O2 oxidizes Fe2+ ions at much higher reaction rates than O-2. The H2O2 oxidation of two Fe2+ ions was proven by Mossbauer spectroscopy of rapid freeze-quenched samples. On the basis of the Mossbauer parameters of the intermediate species we propose that D. vulgaris Bfr follows a mineralization mechanism similar to the one reported for vertebrate H-type ferritins subunits, in which a diferrous centre at the ferroxidase site is oxidized to diferric intermediate species, that are subsequently translocated into the inner nanocavity. D. vulgaris recombinant Bfr oxidizes and stores up to 600 iron atoms per protein. This Bfr is able to bind DNA and protect it against hydroxyl radical and DNase deleterious effects. The use of H2O2 as an oxidant, combined with the DNA binding and protection activities, seems to indicate a DPS (DNA-binding protein from starved cells)-like role for D. vulgaris Bfr.

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The deactivation reaction of the [CoCp(1,4-sigma-C(4)-[Ph](4))PPh(3)] catalyst for the cyclotrimerization of acetylenes has been kinetico-mechanistically studied under different temperature, pressure, and solvent conditions. The results indicate a dramatic change in mechanism from conventional to ionic liquid solvents due to the polarity of the medium.

For r≥3, a clique-extension of order r+1 is a connected graph that consists of a Kr plus another vertex adjacent to at most r-1 vertices of Kr. In this paper we consider the problem of finding the smallest number t such that any graph G of order n admits a decomposition into edge disjoint copies of a fixed graph H and single edges with at most t elements. Here we solve the case when H is a fixed clique-extension of order r+1, for all r≥3 and will also obtain all extremal graphs. This work extends results proved by Bollobás [Math.\ Proc.\ Cambridge Philosophical Soc 79 (1976) 19--24] for cliques.

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In the last few decades there has been a massive growth in the Waste of Electric and ElectronicEquipment (WEEE). Part of these residues was already properly treated in some countries, but the lack of environmentally friendly options forced the European Union (EU) to take action. Two EU directives were created based on reduction, reutilization and recycling of WEEE. The need to properly designrecoverynetworks for such products appears as mandatory, where not only the economic aspects should be accounted for but also the environmental ones. The present paper addresses this problem and presents a generic optimization model for the design and planning of a recovery and treatment network of WEEE, minimizing both the costs and the environmental impacts that arise from the activity performed.

The model is applied to the real case of Amb3E, the Portuguese Association for the Management of Waste of Electric and ElectronicEquipment. Since its formation, in 2006, this organization has been registering an immense growth in the volume of residue collected, and faces now the necessity of reformulating its recoverynetwork. Both the actual cost structure and the best possible cost structure for Amb3E, given by the optimization of the model, are analyzed. These two scenarios are compared in order to turn clear the differences between them and to assess how the recoverynetwork of Amb3E can be improved through optimization. A similar analysis is performed from an environmental impacts perspective.

Software transactional memory is a promising programming model that adapts many concepts borrowed from the databases world to control concurrent accesses to main memory (RAM). This paper discusses how to support revertible operations, such as memory allocation and release, within software libraries that will be used in software memory transactional contexts. The proposal is based in the extension of the transaction life cycle state diagram with new states associated to the execution of user-defined handlers. The proposed approach is evaluated in terms of functionality and performance by way of a use case study and performance tests. Results demonstrate that the proposal and its current implementation are flexible, generic and efficient

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