Resilient polymeric materials such as silicone elastomers are currently used for maxillofacial prostheses construction but the strength of these materials and their clinical performance need to be optimized with the addition of reinforcing fillers. This study investigates the effect of zirconia nanopowder addition on tear strength, tensile strength, elongation at break, Shore A hardness, surface roughness and cytotoxicity of VST-50 maxillofacial silicone. Silicone base was mixed with different amounts (1%, 2% and 3%) of zirconia nanopowder using a vacuum mixer. Silicone without filler was used as control for comparison. Scanning Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy were utilized to assess the efficiency of high-shear vacuum mixing as filler dispersion method and the surface topography, respectively. Both SEM and AFM images showed that the zirconia nanopowder were distributed fairly well within the polymer. Statistically, highly significant increase in tear strength, tensile strength and hardness with non-significant decrease in elongation at break and non-significant increase in surface roughness were seen with 1% and 2% groups. Whereas with 3% group, there was significant improvement in tear strength, tensile strength and hardness but there was significant undesirable decrease in elongation and increase in roughness. Cytotoxicity test revealed that the addition of zirconia nanopowder was nontoxic to Rat Embryonic Fibroblast (REF) cells and there was non-significant change in the cell viability of all study groups after 24- and 72-hours incubation periods. In conclusion, the addition of 2% by weight nano zirconia to VST-50 maxillofacial silicone could be beneficial in enhancing its performance.
The insurance companies are one of the organizations that rely mainly on human capital to underwriting to insurable risks because most of risks have many variables, so the aim of the research is to show the level of interest of the researched company in human capital, the reality of the underwriting policy in it, and the relationships of correlation and effect between them, and the approach has been used Analytical descriptive, as books, research and other related sources were used for the purpose of completing the theoretical side, on the practical side, a questionnaire was prepared, which represents the main tool for collecting data and distributed to a random sample of 64 people from underwriting managers and employees in spec
... Show MoreSteady conjugate natural convection heat transfers in a two-dimensional enclosure filled with fluid saturated porous medium is studied numerically. The two vertical boundaries of the enclosure are kept isothermally at same temperature, the horizontal upper wall is adiabatic, and the horizontal lower wall is partially heated. The Darcy extended Brinkman Forcheimer model is used as the momentum equation and Ansys Fluent software is utilized to solve the governing equations. Rayleigh number (1.38 ≤ Ra ≤ 2.32), Darcy number (3.9 * 10-8), the ratio of conjugate wall thickness to its height (0.025 ≤ W ≤ 0.1), heater length to the bottom wall ratio (1/4 ≤ ≤ 3/4) and inclination angle (0°, 30° and 60°) are the main consid
... Show MoreThis paper is based on the Sentinel-2 satellite data: the thermal, red, and NIR bands. The Babylon city was chosen in this study for different reasons: its location in the middle of Iraq and it represents the largest capitals of the Mesopotamia civilization in the word. The Land Surface Temperature (LST) was determined using a method that incorporates remote sensing, geographic information systems, and statistics. This process has made it possible to monitor the relationship between land usage and the land surface temperature for four seasons in the year 2021. The mapswere processed and analyzed by using ArcGIS software. Five maps of the LST were constructed. Each map represents diffe
Addition of bioactive materials such as Titanium oxide (TiO2), and incorporation of bio inert ceramic such as alumina (Al2O3), into polyetheretherketone (PEEK) has been adopted as an effective approach to improve bone-implant interfaces. In this paper, hot pressing technique has been adopted as a production method. This technique gave a homogenous distribution of the additive materials in the proposed composite biomaterial. Different compositions and compounding temperatures have been applied to all samples. Mechanical properties and animal model have been studied in all different production conditions. The results of these new TiO2/Al2O3/PEEK biocomposites with different
... Show MoreIn this work, the precursor [2-(1,5-dimethyl-3-oxo-2-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-4-ylimino)acetic acid] was synthesised from 4-aminoantipyrine and glyoxylic acid, this precursor has been used in the synthesis of new multidentate ligand [2-((E)-3-(2-hydroxyphenylimino)-1,5-dimethyl-2-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-4-ylimino)acetic acid][H2L] type (N2O2). The ligand was refluxed in ethanol with metal ions [VO(II), Mn(II), Co(II) and Ni(II)] salts to give complexes of general molecular formula:[M(H2L)2(X)(Y)].B, where: M=VO(II), X=0, Y=OSO3-2, B=2H2O; M=Mn(II),Co(II) ,X=Cl, Y=Cl, B=0; M=Ni(II), X=H2O, Y=Cl, B=Cl. These complexes were characterised by atomic absorpition(A.A), F.T-I.R., (U.V-Vis)spectroscopies (1H,13C NMR for ligand only), alon
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