Bringing the Outside inside: Macro and Micro Factors to Put the Dialogue among Highest Courts into its Right Context

Without downplaying the importance of the dialogue that takes place among the ordinary domestic courts and the ECJ, the authors deem the interaction among the highest courts to be even more significant for the nature of European constitutional democracies, since it also impinges upon the way that constitutional courts affect the constitutional setting of national democracies in the European Union. In fact, the dialogue among the highest courts can heavily impact upon the balance between the democratic and the constitutional principle. Although different courts show a different propensity to engage in such interaction, a point that will be considered again in the concluding remarks, the intention of this paper is to analyse the institutional and cultural conditions that can be considered as important conditions in influencing positively or negatively the development of extra-systemic (voluntary) references. This will lead the authors to present an overview of the appointment mechanisms and the professional profiles of justices in six European constitutional courts: France, Italy, and UK (old Member States); Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary (new Member States). Some conclusive remarks will then be offered to point to the institutional mechanisms that should be put in place in order to make constitutional courts accountable, given the different patterns of judicial appointment and the different professional profiles displayed by judges sitting in those courts

Magistrati in Europa: indipendenza, professionalità, responsabilità: ilcaso italiano

Per analizzare il caso italiano e confrontarlo – anche implicitamente – con quello degli altri paesi europei è necessario considerare innanzitutto le profonde trasformazioni che hanno toccato l’assetto della nostra magistratura nella seconda metà del Novecento, anche in conseguenza del processo di attuazione della Costituzione del 1948. Solo così, infatti, è possibile valutare le differenze fra l’assetto italiano e quello che prevale negli altri paesi europei e allo stesso tempo comprendere le difficoltà che qualunque tentativo di riforma è destinato ad incontrare.[Segue...

Extraction socket preservation using porcine-derived collagen membrane alone or associated with porcine-derived bone. Clinical results of randomized controlled study

The aim of present randomized controlled clinical trial was to clinically evaluate hard tissue changes after extraction socket preservation procedures compared to natural spontaneous healing

Histologic evaluation of bone healing of adjacent alveolar sockets grafted with bovine- and porcine-derived bone: a comparative case report in humans

To evaluate and compare histomorphometrically the bone response to two xenografts, one bovine and the other porcine, grafted in adjacent extraction sockets in a human. In this case report, two adjacent maxillary premolars were extracted, and the sockets were filled with two different xenogeneic bone substitutes (first premolar with bovine bone, and second premolar with porcine bone) to counteract post-extraction volume loss. Following 6 months bone core specimens were harvested during the placement of implants at the regenerated sites. Histomorphometrically, for the bovine xenograft the percentage of newly formed bone (osteoid) was 26.85%, the percentage of the residual graft material was 17.2% and the percentage of connective tissue 48.73%, while for the porcine xenograft, newly formed bone (osteoid) represented 32.19%, residual graft material was 6.57% and non-mineralized connective tissue was 52.99%. Histological results indicated that both biomaterials assessed in this study as grafts for socket preservation technique are biocompatible and osteoconductive. Bovine bone derived demonstrated to be less resorbable than porcine bone derived. Both xenogenic biomaterials did not interfere with the normal bone reparative processe

Automatic coarse co-registration of point clouds from diverse scan geometries: a test of detectors and descriptors

Point clouds are collected nowadays from a plethora of sensors, some having higher accuracies and higher costs, some having lower accuracies but also lower costs. Not only there is a large choice for different sensors, but also these can be transported by different platforms, which can provide different scan geometries. In this work we test the extraction of four different keypoint detectors and three feature descriptors. We benchmark performance in terms of calculation time and we assess their performance in terms of accuracy in their ability in coarse automatic co-registration of two clouds that are collected with different sensors, platforms and scan geometries. One, which we define as having the higher accuracy, and thus will be used as reference, was surveyed via a UAV flight with a Riegl MiniVUX-3, the other on a bicycle with a Livox Horizon over a walking path with un-even ground.The novelty in this work consists in comparing several strategies for fast alignment of point clouds from very different surveying geometries, as the drone has a bird's eye view and the bicycle a ground-based view. An added challenge is related to the lower cost of the bicycle sensor ensemble that, together with the rough terrain, reasonably results in lower accuracy of the survey. The main idea is to use range images to capture a simplified version of the geometry of the surveyed area and then find the best features to match keypoints. Results show that NARF features detected more keypoints and resulted in a faster co-registration procedure in this scenariowhereas the accuracy of the co-registration is similar to all the combinations of keypoint detectors and features

Clinical, radiographic, and histologic evaluation of maxillary sinus lift procedure using a highly purified xenogenic graft (Laddec(®))

The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical, radiographic and histologic results when a highly purified xenogenic bone (Laddec(®)) was used as grafting material in maxillary sinuses

Bone healing in extraction sockets covered with collagen membrane alone or associated with porcine-derived bone graft: a comparative histological and histomorphometric analysis

The present paper reports data of a randomized study aimed to analyse and compare the histologic and histomorphometric aspects of bone healing in extraction sites covered with collagen membrane alone or associated with porcine-derived bone graft

Dynorphin gene expression and release in the myocardial cell.

The expression of the prodynorphin gene was investigated in adult cultured rat ventricular cardiac myocytes by using a sensitive solution hybridization RNase protection assay for the quantitative analysis of prodynorphin mRNA. Myocyte culture in high KCl resulted, after 4 h, in a marked increase in cellular prodynorphin mRNA, while a KCl treatment for 6, 12, or 24 h progressively down-regulated the levels of prodynorphin mRNA below the control value. Immunoreactive dynorphin B, a biologically active end product of the precursor, was found to be present in the culture medium in significantly higher amounts than in the cardiac myocytes. The levels of this biologically active K opioid receptor agonist significantly increased after 4 h of KCl treatment and were markedly reduced following a 24-h exposure of the cardiac myocytes to KCl. These KCl-induced effects were all abolished by cell incubation in the presence of the calcium channel blocker verapamil. In single cardiac myocytes, acute stimulation of K opioid receptors with dynorphin B or with the selective agonist U-50,488H increased the level of cytosolic calcium. This effect was abolished by the specific K opioid receptor antagonist (Mr-1452) and was not affected by the removal of calcium from the bathing medium. These results suggest that an opioid gene may influence the myocardial function in an autocrine or paracrine fashion