Background:Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a progressive, chronic inflammatory illness with an unclear etiology that explicitly targets the vertebral column, peripheral joints, and extraarticular tissues. The purpose of this research was to investigate if the existence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the promoter region of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) gene at positions -1031T/C (rs199964), -857C/T (rs1799724) and -806C/T (rs4248158) in a sample of Iraqi AS patients could influence the patients' outcomes with etanercept.

Methods:Sixty patients with established AS receiving only etanercept were selected to enroll in this study, with a mean age of 40.75±8.6

Background: The success and maintenance of indirect dental restorations is closely related to the marginal accuracy, which is affected by many factors like preparation design, using of different fabrication techniques, and the time of taking final impression and pouring it. The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of different pouring time of conventional impression on the vertical marginal gap of full contour zirconia crowns in comparison with digital impression technique. Materials and Methods: Forty sound recently extracted human permanent maxillary first premolar teeth of comparable size and shape were collected. Standardized preparation of all teeth samples were carried out to receive full contour zirconia crown re

Background: The success and maintenance of indirect dental restorations is closely related to the marginal accuracy, which is affected by many factors like preparation design, using of different fabrication techniques, and the time of taking final impression and pouring it. The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of different pouring time of conventional impression on the vertical marginal gap of full contour zirconia crowns in comparison with digital impression technique. Materials and Methods: Forty sound recently extracted human permanent maxillary first premolar teeth of comparable size and shape were collected. Standardized preparation of all teeth samples were carried out to receive full contour zirconia crown re

Information security in data storage and transmission is increasingly important. On the other hand, images are used in many procedures. Therefore, preventing unauthorized access to image data is crucial by encrypting images to protect sensitive data or privacy. The methods and algorithms for masking or encoding images vary from simple spatial-domain methods to frequency-domain methods, which are the most complex and reliable. In this paper, a new cryptographic system based on the random key generator hybridization methodology by taking advantage of the properties of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to generate an indefinite set of random keys and taking advantage of the low-frequency region coefficients after the DCT stage to pass them to

This study aimed at identifying how children express the emerging coronavirus in general and according to their age groups (4-13 years) by analyzing 91 of their drawings published online, using the descriptive content analytical approach. The results showed that children's artistic expression of the virus came according to the concepts and ideas they carried about the virus for the age groups of (4-7 years) and (7-9 years), while it came according to visual perception for age groups (9-11 years), and from (11-13) years. Also, most children were aware about the presence of the virus and its widespread around the world, but (99%) of them do not realize the seriousness of the virus. It was confirmed that between (25-34%) of children were su

Background: The demand for better esthetic during orthodontic treatment has increased nowadays, so orthodontists starting using esthetic arch wires, brackets and ligatures.Tooth colored brackets were introduced in different types of materials. Sapphire ceramic brackets are one type of esthetic brackets and their color stability remains the main concern for the clinicians and patients at the same time. The present study design to evaluate the effect of three different staining materials (pepsi, black tea and cigarette smoke) on the stainability of sapphire ceramic brackets bonded with three types of light cure orthodontic adhesives which include: Resilience, Enlight and Transbond. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of three hundre

Background: To evaluate the effect of antierosive agents (10% Nano-Hydroxyapatite (NHA), 10% Casein Phophopeptide-Amorphous Calcium Phosphate (CPP-ACP), and combination of 10% NHA and 10% CPP-ACP) on loss of minerals from enamel surface of permanent teeth treated with antierosive agents when exposed to an acidic beverage and investigate the morphological changes of treated enamel surface after demineralization with cola based beverage under Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Materials and Methods: Sixty maxillary first premolars were randomly divided into four groups, 15 teeth for each group. Group I treated with 10% NHA, Group II treated with 10% CPP-ACP, Group III treated with 10% NHA and 10% CPP-ACP, and Group IV did not treat with any

Background: Removing dental plaque is important to maintain a good oral hygiene and prevent periodontal disease; this could not be accomplished by the use of toothbrush alone, it needs the help of interdental aids or intra-oral irrigator devices. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of using Waterpik flosser as adjunct to tooth brushing than using the dental floss with the brushing. Materials and methods: A single blind, six weeks study included 45 subjects divided into three groups of 15 subjects at each group. Group B (brushing) was instructed to use the toothbrush only, group BF (brushing & flossing) was instructed to use dental floss and tooth brushing while group BW (brushing and Waterpik flosser) was instructed to use Water

This research deals with a shrinking method concernes with the principal components similar to that one which used in the multiple regression “Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection: LASS”. The goal here is to make an uncorrelated linear combinations from only a subset of explanatory variables that may have a multicollinearity problem instead taking the whole number say, (K) of them. This shrinkage will force some coefficients to equal zero, after making some restriction on them by some "tuning parameter" say, (t) which balances the bias and variance amount from side, and doesn't exceed the acceptable percent explained variance of these components. This had been shown by MSE criterion in the regression case and the percent explained v