Introduction: Carrier-based gutta-percha is an effective method of root canal obturation creating a 3-dimensional filling; however, retrieval of the plastic carrier is relatively difficult, particularly with smaller sizes. The purpose of this study was to develop composite carriers consisting of polyethylene (PE), hydroxyapatite (HA), and strontium oxide (SrO) for carrier-based root canal obturation. Methods: Composite fibers of HA, PE, and SrO were fabricated in the shape of a carrier for delivering gutta-percha (GP) using a melt-extrusion process. The fibers were characterized using infrared spectroscopy and the thermal properties determined using differential scanning calorimetry. The elastic modulus and tensile strength tests were dete

Sequence covering array (SCA) generation is an active research area in recent years. Unlike the sequence-less covering arrays (CA), the order of sequence varies in the test case generation process. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of the SCA strategies, earlier works reported that finding a minimal size of a test suite is considered as an NP-Hard problem. In addition, most of the existing strategies for SCA generation have a high order of complexity due to the generation of all combinatorial interactions by adopting one-test-at-a-time fashion. Reducing the complexity by adopting one-parameter- at-a-time for SCA generation is a challenging process. In addition, this reduction facilitates the supporting for a higher strength of

—This paper studies the control motion of a single link flexible joint robot by using a hierarchical non-singular terminal sliding mode controller (HNTSMC). In comparison to the conventional sliding mode controller (CSMC), the proposed algorithm (NTSMC) not only can conserve characteristics of the convention CSMC, such as easy implementation, guaranteed stability and good robustness against system uncertainties and external disturbances, but also can ensure a faster convergence rate of the systems states to zero in a finite time and singularity free. The flexible joint robot (FJR) is a two degree of freedom (2DOF) nonlinear and underactuated system. The system here is modeled as a fourth order system by using Lagrangian method. Based on t

A novel method for Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) has been proposed, based on the concept of how DNA sequence detects disease as both domains have similar conceptual method of detection. Three important steps have been proposed to apply DNA sequence for NIDS: convert the network traffic data into a form of DNA sequence using Cryptography encoding method; discover patterns of Short Tandem Repeats (STR) sequence for each network traffic attack using Teiresias algorithm; and conduct classification process depends upon STR sequence based on Horspool algorithm. 10% KDD Cup 1999 data set is used for training phase. Correct KDD Cup 1999 data set is used for testing phase to evaluate the proposed method. The current experiment results sh

A field-pilot scale slow sand filter (SSF) was constructed at Al-Rustamiya Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Baghdad city to investigate the removal efficiency in terms of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Chemical oxygen demand (COD), Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Chloride concentrations for achieving better secondary effluent quality from this treatment plant. The SSF was designed at a 0.2 m/h filtration rate with filter area 1 m2 and total filter depth of 2.3 m. A filter sand media 0.35 mm in size and 1 m depth was supported by 0.2 m layer of gravel of size 5 mm. The secondary effluent from Al-Rustamiya STP was used as the influent to the slow sand filter. The results showed that the removal of BOD5, COD, TSS, and Chloride were