Background: Hyperfunction of the muscles of the upper lip is considered as the most common cause of excessive gingival display (EGD). The aim of this study was to demonstrate the effectiveness of botulinum toxin (BT) injection as a conservative treatment for EGD due to muscular hyperfunction and to compare the outcome of 2 injection methods. Material and methods: This study included 40 participants who were randomly assigned into 2 groups of 20 each, The first group received 2.5IU BT injection at 1 point per side (2-points group), while the second group received a total of 5 IU of BT at 2 points per side (4-points group). The outcome variables were the reduction in the central and lateral gingival display expressed as the difference between

Sansevieriatrifasciata was studied as a potential biosorbent for chromium, copper and nickel removal in batch process from electroplating and tannery effluents. Different parameters influencing the biosorption process such as pH, contact time, and amount of biosorbent were optimized while using the 80 mm sized particles of the biosorbent. As high as 91.3 % Ni and 92.7 % Cu were removed at pH of 6 and 4.5 respectively, while optimum Cr removal of 91.34 % from electroplating and 94.6 % from tannery effluents was found at pH 6.0 and 4.0 respectively. Pseudo second order model was found to best fit the kinetic data for all the metals as evidenced by their greater R2 values. FTIR characterization of biosorbent revealed the presence of carboxyl a

Pure grade II titanium disks were coated with a thin coating of polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) polymer by RF magnetron sputtering using either nitrogen or argon gas. Sputtering technique was employed at 50 W for one hour at 60°C with continuous flow of nitrogen or argon gas. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) showed a continuous, homogeneous, rough PEKK surface coating without cracks. In addition, cross-sectional FE-SEM revealed an average coat thickness of 1.86 μm with argon gas and 1.96 μm with nitrogen gas. There was homogenous adhesion between the coating layer and substrate. The elemental analysis of titanium substrate revealed the presence of carbon, titanium, and oxygen. The RF magnetron sputtering with argon or ni

In this work magnetite/geopolymer composite (MGP) were synthesized using a chemical co-precipitation technique. The synthesized materials were characterized using several techniques such as: “X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), vibrating sample-magnetometer (VSM), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and Barrentt-Joyner-Halenda (BJH)” to determine the structure and morphology of the obtained material. The analysis indicated that metal oxide predominantly appeared at the shape of the spinel structure of magnetite, and that the presence of nano-magnetite had a substantial impact on the surface area and pore st

This study employs evolutionary optimization and Artificial Intelligence algorithms to determine an individual’s age using a single-faced image as the basis for the identification process. Additionally, we used the WIKI dataset, widely considered the most comprehensive collection of facial images to date, including descriptions of age and gender attributes. However, estimating age from facial images is a recent topic of study, even though much research has been undertaken on establishing chronological age from facial photographs. Retrained artificial neural networks are used for classification after applying reprocessing and optimization techniques to achieve this goal. It is possible that the difficulty of determining age could be reduce

        In current study, the dye from flowers petals of Strelitzia reginae used for the first time to prepare natural photosensitizer for DSSC fabrication. Among five different solvents used to extract the natural dye from S. reginae flowers, the ethanol extract of anthocyanin dye revealed higher absorption spectrum of 0.757a.u. at wavelength of 454nm.  A major effect of temperature was studied to increase the extraction yield. The results show that the optimal temperature was 70 °C and there was a sharp decrease of dye concentration from 0.827 at temperature of 70 °C to 0.521 at temperature of 90°C. The extract solution of flowers of S. reginae showed higher concentration in acidic media, especially at pH 4 (0.902). The

Erbil city is located in the northern Iraq with a population of over one million people. Due to water crises farmers usually use wastewater and well water for the agricultural production. In this study six stations were designed to sample waste water and three from well water to define waste water and ground water characteristics. In this study, Residual Na⁺ Carbonate, Mg⁺⁺ hazard, salinity hazard, Kelley index, %sodium, total hardness, permeability index, potential salinity, sodium adsorption ratio, and Irrigation Water Quality Index (IWQI) were determined. The order of average cation concentrations in water was Mg²⁺> Ca²⁺ > Na⁺ > K⁺. While the proportion of main

The present work aims to study the removal of dyes from wastewater by reverse osmosis process. Two dyes were used direct blue 6, and direct yellow. Experiments were performed with feed concentration (75 – 450 ppm), operation temperature (30 – 50 oC) and time (0.2 – 2.0 hr). The membrane used is thin film composite membrane (TFC). It was found that modal permeate concentration decreases with increasing feed concentration and time operating, while permeate concentration increases with increasing feed temperature. Also it was found that product rate increase with increasing temperature, but it decrease with increasing feed concentration and time. The concentration of reject solution showed an increase with increasing feed concentratio