Background: Dental erosion is a common oral condition which results due to consumption of high caloric and low pH acidic food such as carbonated drinks and fruit juices. It is expected that these food types can cause irreversible damage to dental hard tissues and early deterioration of the dental restorations. So, this study aimed to evaluate and compare the erosive potential effects of orange fruit juice and Miranda orange drink on the microhardness of an orthodontic composite material. Materials and methods: Thirty discs with a thickness of 2 mm and a diameter of 10 mm were prepared from orthodontic bonding composite. The prepared discs were equally divided into three groups (n=10). Microhardness analysis was carried out both prior to

In this work, p-n junctions were fabricated from highly-pure nanostructured NiO and TiO2 thin films deposited on glass substrates by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The structural characterization showed that the prepared multilayer NiO/TiO2 thin film structures were highly pure as no traces for other compounds than NiO and TiO2 were observed. It was found that the absorption of NiO-on-TiO2 structure is higher than that of the TiO2-on-NiO. Also, the NiO/TiO2 heterojunctions exhibit typical electrical characteristics, higher ideality factor and better spectral responsivity when compared to those fabricated from the same materials by the same technique and with larger particle size and lower structural purity.

Thyroid hormones (TH) regulate the metabolic processes required for normal development and growth; also, to organizemetabolism in adults, any defect in thyroid function leads to abnormality in thyroid hormones level. The current study hasbeen designed to find the relationship between retinol-binding protein-4 and progranulin in the serum of Iraqi women withhypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism, also, to study whether these patients are exposed to a risk of developing diabetes mellitus,and PGRN may be a biomarker in detection early stage of diabetes mellitus.Materials and Methods: in this study, serum samples were obtained from 50 Iraqis women patients, [25 patients withhypothyroidism (G2) and 25 patients with hyperthyroidism (G3)] in addition

Titanium oxide nanoparticles-modified smectite (SMC-nTiO2) as a low-cost adsorbent was investigated for the removal of Rhodamine B (RhB) from aqueous solutions. The adsorbents (SMC and SMC-nTiO2) were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The effects of various parameters like contact time, adsorbent weight, pH, and temperatures were examined. Three kinetic equations (pseudo-first-order (PFO), pseudo-second-order (PSO), and intra-particle diffusion) were used to evaluate the experimental kinetic of the data and the results showed that the adsorption process is in line with the PSO kinetic model. Adsorption equilibrium isotherms were modeled using La

In vitro tests have been carried out to find out the efficacy of watery extracts of garlic Allium sativum and hot pepper Capsicum spp. against the trophozoites of Entamoeba histolytica cultivated in liver infusion agar media at 37 c . The doses of ( 0.01, 0.05 ,0.1, 0.5, 1 ml )of garlic and hot pepper watery extracts were added to certain number of E. histolotica trophozoits for exposure time of 24 hrs., the mortality percentage of trophozoites treated with garlic extract were ( 14.82 %, 31.05% ,46.16% , 64.29% , 92.7%) respectively , these percentages were very close to that obtained from the treatment with the hot peper extract which were (17.86%, 32% , 44% ,66.67% ,100%) respectively . Generally these results showed that the ga

Yeasts are distributed in all environments and have been reported as potential biocontrol agents against various phytopathogenic fungi. To investigate their enzymatic and biological activities, 32 yeasts were isolated from 15 date vinegar samples. Evaluation of the antagonistic activities of isolated yeasts against the plant pathogens Fusarium oxysporium, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and Macrophomina phaseolina indicated that there are two yeasts had the highest inhibitory effect against plant pathogens, these yeasts identified as Kluyveromyces marxianus and Torulaspora delbrueckii using traditional and molecular methods. These yeast isolates were tested for fungal cell wall degrading enzymes (in vitro), and results indicated that the

For criminal investigations, fingerprints remain the most reliable form of personal identification despite developments in other fields like DNA profiling. The objective of this work is to compare the performance of both commercial charcoal and activated carbon powder derived from the Alhagi plant to reveal latent fingerprints from different non-porous surfaces (cardboard, plain glass, aluminum foil sheet, China Dish, Plastic, and Switch). The effect of three variables on activated carbon production was investigated. These variables were the impregnation ratio (the weight ratio of KOH: dried raw material), the activation temperature, and the activation time. The effect factors were investigated using Central Composite Design