Dental caries (tooth decay) is one of the most prevalent infectious disease and although of multifactorial origin, Streptococcus mutans is considered the principal pathogen in its development (i.e. bacterial processes damage hard tooth structure (enamel, dentine and cementum), producing dental cavities (holes in the teeth). The bactericidal properties of the Nd:YAG laser has been researched analyzing its use in caries prevention and bacterial reduction. One hundred twenty five samples were collected from carious teeth and isolated bacteria were diagnosed using microscopic examination, culture, biochemical tests, and Api 20 strep system. The results of this study showed that a noticeable decrease in the viability of Streptococcus mutans w

Background :Evening preparation for colonoscopy is often unsatisfactory and inconvenient. This study was performed to compare the efficacy of bowel preparation at two different timings: night before and morning of endoscopy and to compare the cecal intubation rate and disturbance of sleep hours between these two groups.
Methods: In this prospective randomized endoscopist- blinded trial, 150 patients were enrolled between March 2010 and August 2011. Patients aged between 18 to 80 years needing colonoscopy were included. Patients with prior bowel surgery, suspected bowel obstruction or those who didn't completely fulfill the preparation instructions were excluded. Patients received polyethyelen glycol electrolyte preparation in a mornin

Background: Painful elbow joint over the lateral epicondyle especially with resisted wrist extension are common signs of lateral epicondyle tendinopathy, also called tennis elbow. Objective: To evaluate the clinical outcome of local platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection in patients with chronic tennis elbow compared with a steroid (Depomedrol 40 mg) injection. Methods: A total of 88 patients with chronic tennis elbow were treated at Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital and private clinics. All patients had chronic pain for about 24 weeks or more and had failed first line treatment. The patients dividing into two groups, Group A injected with PRP (n = 44), and group B injected with depomedrol 40 mg (n = 44). A good clinical result w

Background: Painful elbow joint over the lateral epicondyle especially with resisted wrist extension are common signs of lateral epicondyle tendinopathy, also called tennis elbow.

Objective: To evaluate the clinical outcome of local platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection in patients with chronic tennis elbow compared with a steroid (Depomedrol 40 mg) injection.

Methods: A total of 88 patients with chronic tennis elbow were treated at Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital and private clinics. All patients had chronic pain for about 24 weeks or more and had failed first line treatment. The patients dividing into two groups, Group A injected with PRP (n = 44), and group B injected with d

ABSTRACT— In primary teeth, root canal treatment is a time consuming and challenging procedure, particularly during the most important step in endodontic treatment which is the preparation of the canal. Pulpectomy is the treatment of choice in all the necrotic primary teeth. For better treatment protocol, advancing technology brought the rotary system to reduce the manual dexterity and improve the quality of treatment for pulpectomy. This study aimed to compare and assess the efficacy of cleaning and the time required for the instrumentation during the preparation of root canals of the primary molars using the rotary and the manual (conventional) systems. Thirty root canals of primary teeth were selected. These teeth submitted to a

  In this paper, the concept of contraction mapping on a -metric space is extended with a consideration on local contraction.  As a result, two fixed point theorems were proved for contraction on a closed ball in a complete -metric space.

This paper proposes a self organizing fuzzy controller as an enhancement level of the fuzzy controller. The adjustment mechanism provides explicit adaptation to tune and update the position of the output membership functions of the fuzzy controller. Simulation results show that this controller is capable of controlling a non-linear time varying system so that the performance of the system improves so as to reach the desired state in a less number of samples.

Self-repairing technology based on micro-capsules is an efficient solution for repairing cracked cementitious composites. Self-repairing based on microcapsules begins with the occurrence of cracks and develops by releasing self-repairing factors in the cracks located in concrete. Based on previous comprehensive studies, this paper provides an overview of various repairing factors and investigative methodologies. There has recently been a lack of consensus on the most efficient criteria for assessing self-repairing based on microcapsules and the smart solutions for improving capsule survival ratios during mixing. The most commonly utilized self-repairing efficiency assessment indicators are mechanical resistance and durab

The grasping stability of robotic manipulators is crucial to enable autonomous manipulation in an environment where robots are facing obstacles in their route, where abrupt changes in the robot’s speed are induced. These speed variations will produce forces affecting the robotic manipulator, hence its grasping stability. In this research, the grasping stability of a robotic manipulator that functions according to a frictional self-locking mechanism is investigated statically and dynamically. Both theoretical and experimental results showed that the grasped object size, weight, and its orientation inside the gripper have a great effect on grasping stability. Both the theoretical and experimental results indicated that the grasping object p