Background. To identify the most common retention protocols practiced by Iraqi orthodontists using a specially designed e-survey. Furthermore, this study aimed to assess the effect of sociodemographic factors on the participant’s choice. Methods. Two hundred and twenty-five questionnaires with 23 multiple choice questions were sent to members of the Iraqi Orthodontic Society. The questionnaire was organized into four sections representing information about sociodemographic status of the orthodontists, factors affecting the selection of the retention system, commonly used retainers in the upper arch and lower arch, and duration of the retention system. The chi-square test was used to test the significant association between differe

In this work, the nuclear electromagnetic moments for the ground and low-lying excited states for sd shell nuclei have been calculated, resulting in a revised database with 56 magnetic dipole moments and 41 electric quadrupole moments. The shell model calculations are performed for each sd isotope chain, considering the sensitivity of changing the sd two-body effective interactions USDA, USDE, CWH and HBMUSD in the calculation of the one-body transition density matrix elements. The calculations incorporate the single-particle wave functions of the Skyrme interaction to generate a one-body potential in Hartree–Fock theory to calculate the single-particle matrix elements. For most sd shell nuclei, the experimental data are well rep

The present study was undertaken in order to investigate the role of gentamicin in the gene expression of toxA in Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from cow mastitis. A total of ten P. aeruginosa strains originally isolated from cows infected with mastitis. Agar dilution methodology was performed to determine the minimal inhibitory concentration of gentamicin, all of which developed resistance toward gentamicin. The findings presented here demonstrated that all these strains harboured toxA depending on PCR-based assay. Nonetheless, RT-PCR technique revealed a wide variation in expression of toxA. Moreover, the cultivation of P. aeruginosa in the presence of gentamicin, significantly (P< 0.05), induced the expression of toxA, in addition to th

Genetics play a major role in diabetic retinopathy DR, which is a leading cause of blindness worldwide. Although the factors such as how long a person has had diabetes and high blood sugar are important, the wide variation and progression of DR indicates to a clear genetic influence. Early studies focusing on a few candidate genes (such as VEGF) produced conflicting and population-dependent results. This confirmed the multifactorial nature of the disease and the limitations of small-scale studies. Conversely, genome wide association studies (GWAS) have provided more consistent findings in detection a new genes related to DR. For example, rs2239785 variant which is located in the APOL1 gene was found to be a high risk factor for diabetic mac

The insulation system of a machine coil includes several layers made of materials with different characteristics. The effective insulation design of machine coils, especially in the machine end winding, depends upon an accurate model of the stress grading system. This paper proposes a modeling approach to predict the transient overvoltage, electric field, and heat generation in machine coils with a stress grading system, considering the variation of physical properties in the insulation layers. A non-uniform line model is used to divide the coil in different segments based on material properties and lengths: overhang, stress grading and slot. The cascaded connection of chain matrices is used to connect segments for the representation of the