Background: The desire for an attractive appearing fixed orthodontic appliance fueled the use of ceramic brackets and clear accessories. Elastics are one of the most versatile materials available to orthodontists so studying their effect on the esthetic appearance is important. This an in vivo study, conducted to evaluate the effect of exposing stretched clear elastomeric ligatures to the oral environment from four different companies (OrthoTechnology, Morelli, Ortho Organizer, and Ormco). Materials and Methods: A total of 240 elastomeric modules were examined, 60 modules from each brand. Each of the 60 patients enrolled in the study, received 4 elastomeric modules on the 4 lower incisors, one from each brand. The specimens were placed on t

The applications of herbal medicine have recently acquired growing interest in range of the prophylaxis and treatment of diseases. Olibanum has been used since ancient eras and several reports studied the pharmacological characteristics of boswellic acid, particularly their effect on the inflammatory response, analgesic properties, and anti-arthritic activity mostly in cell lines, but new approaches include animal models to assess these natural derivatives effects taking into consideration of being safer than synthetic preparations.  The impact of olibanum oil on several parameters was studied in rats during this study. These included white blood cell (WBC) count, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and C reactive protein (CRP), as well a

Deontic modality expresses what is necessary or possible according to the norms of morality and laws of community. It is a cover term for those cases where modal auxiliaries used to express notions like ''obligation'', ''prohibition'' and, ''permission''. Deontic modals are basically performatives, having the ''so-be-it'' component of directives in that the speaker directs the behavior of the addressee to get things done. The present study identifies the use of deontic models in international contracts to prove that there are major pragmatic strategies employed in writing them. To achieve the aim of the study, a modified model of Danet’s (1980) and Trosborg’s (1995) in accordance to Searle (1969) is used to analyze 16 texts selected fro

The anatomic characteristics of the leaves of 22 taxa of Stachys L. representing seven of the currently recognized sections distributed in northern Iraq, were examined. The study did not found any variations in the characteristics of the stomata system of the leaves.Therewere variations with a good taxonomic value in other anatomic characteristics.Thevariations in characters of the mesophyll tissue in S.kurdica var.brevidens Bom ex Bhattacharjeewas bifacial but in S.kurdica var.kurdica Boiss. & Hohen.was unifacial .The study also found that the taxa S.benthamiana Bioss., S.lanigera (Bornm.) Rech.f. andS.kotscyi Bioss. with 3 vascular bundles in the middle vein while the taxa S.ballotiformis Vatke., S.megalodonta Hausskn. &Bo

The anatomic characteristics of the leaves of 22 taxa of Stachys L. representing seven of the currently recognized sections distributed in northern Iraq, were examined. The study did not found any variations in the characteristics of the stomata system of the leaves.Therewere variations with a good taxonomic value in other anatomic characteristics.Thevariations in characters of the mesophyll tissue in S.kurdica var.brevidens Bom ex Bhattacharjeewas bifacial but in S.kurdica var.kurdica Boiss. & Hohen.was unifacial .The study also found that the taxa S.benthamiana Bioss., S.lanigera (Bornm.) Rech.f. andS.kotscyi Bioss. with 3 vascular bundles in the middle vein while the taxa S.ballotiformis Vatke., S.megalodonta Hausskn. &Bornm.exP.H.Davis

This study was conducted to make an inventory of the monocot plants that were collected before and now which stored in the herbarium of Iraq Natural History Museum for identifying them. The herbarium contains avery large and varied number of plants from different parts in Iraq and for different and varied environments. The plants collected, arranged and identified using taxonomic keys specific to these families. Currently, the plant samples are in the herbarium of Iraq Natural History Museum to be an important scientific reference for all researchers inside and outside the country. With the identification of botanical scientists for each family, gender and year in which it was first diagnosed.

A comparative investigation of the anatomical characters through a microscopical examination of the prepared transverse sections of the stem was carried out. Six plates with 32 photomicrographs were provided to convincingly show the considerable variations of anatomical characters within the nine examined species. The matrix of 18 anatomical characters which included nine quantitative and nine qualitative was applied for the clustering analysis (CA) followed by the principal component analysis (PCA) using the Multivariate Analysis of Ecological Data, PC-ORD.
The results exhibited significant variations among the species resulting in the construction of an artificial key; this key accurately represents a sufficient tool to display the

Liver is considered as the first target for the toxic effects of toxins and other xenobiotics, and this can be attributed to its role as a site which receive all absorbed xenobiotics from the gastrointestinal tract and its role as a major site for biotransformation of xenobiotics. The present study was designed to evaluate the possible hepatoprotective effect of benfotiamine against CCl₄-induced hepatotoxicity in rats. The study was conducted on 48 male albino rats; the animals were allocated into 8 groups (6 rats in each group) and treated as follow: 4 groups treated with oral doses of either normal saline, benfotiamine (100 mg/kg), thiamine (100 mg/kg), N-acetylcystein (400 mg/kg) only without induction of hepatic damage. Th