Background: Waterpipe tobacco smoking has become common especially among young people, Waterpipe smoking misconcepted as a safer mean of smoking, so in this study we will highlight the effect of Waterpipe smoking ‎on periodontal and oral health.‎ Materials and method. The selected ‎‎‎100 male subjects of 30-40 years, ‎categorized into 4 groups (each group ‎‎25 subject): Waterpipe smoker ‎with ‎healthy periodontium, ‎Waterpipe smoker ‎‎with chronic periodontitis, Non-‎‎smoker ‎with healthy periodontium and Non-smoker ‎with chronic periodontitis. Whole ‎unstimulated ‎saliva was collected. Clinical measurements: plaque ‎index, ‎gingival index, ‎bleeding on probing, salivary flow ‎rate ‎and ‎salivary pH were recorded‎.‎ ‎ Results. In the healthy groups: plaque index and salivary pH were ‎higher in smokers than non-smokers but with no ‎significant difference (P>0.05). While gingival index and salivary flow rate were ‎higher in smoker than non-smokers and with significant ‎difference (p<0.05). In the chronic periodontitis groups: plaque index, gingival index and salivary flow rate ‎were higher in the non-smokers than smokers and with ‎significant difference (p<0.05). While salivary pH was ‎higher in the non-smokers than smokers but with no ‎significant difference (P>0.05). Correlation between ‎weekly smoking hours with pH and salivary flow rate, in the ‎smoker healthy groups, showed ‎significant negative correlation, while plaque index showed ‎significant positive correlation at (p<0.05). But in the smokers with chronic periodontitis, only gingival index ‎significantly correlated with weekly smoking hours. Conclusion. Waterpipe smoking has a detrimental effect on the periodontium and overall oral health.
Objectives This study aimed to compare the clinical effectiveness of four aligning archwires: Superelastic Nickel-Titanium (Superelastic-NiTi), SmartArch, Copper-Nickel-Titanium (Cu-NiTi), and Speed Tubular coaxial-Nickel-Titanium (Tubular coaxial-NiTi), regarding the alignment efficiency, associated perception of pain, and possibility of inducing root resorption.
Materials and Methods This study includes two randomized clinical trials run in parallel. Patients with 5 to 9 mm of mandibular anterior teeth crowding according to Little's irregularity index (LII) who needed fixed orthodontic appliances without extraction were randomly assigned to four groups of
BACKGROUND: HLA-B27 can effect clinical presentation and course of ankylosing spondylitis. Different detection techniques of HLA-B27 are available with variable sensitivities and specificities. OBJECTIVE: To compare serologic and molecular diagnostic techniques of detecting HLA-B27 status and to correlate it with some clinical variables among ankylosing spondylitis patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 83 Iraqi patients with ankylosing spondylitis. Clinical and laboratory evaluations were reported. HLA-B27 status was determined in all patients by real-time PCR using HLA-B27 RealFast™ kit; ELISA method was used as well to detect soluble serum HLA-B27 antigens using Human Leukocyte Antigen® kit. RESULTS:
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to design suitable neural network (ANN) as an alternative accurate tool to evaluate concentration of Copper in contaminated soils. First, sixteen (4x4) soil samples were harvested from a phytoremediated contaminated site located in Baghdad city in Iraq. Second, a series of measurements were performed on the soil samples. Third, design an ANN and its performance was evaluated using a test data set and then applied to estimate the concentration of Copper. The performance of the ANN technique was compared with the traditional laboratory inspecting using the training and test data sets. The results of this study show that the ANN technique trained on experimental measurements can be successfully applied to the rapid est
... Show MoreIn this research, several estimators concerning the estimation are introduced. These estimators are closely related to the hazard function by using one of the nonparametric methods namely the kernel function for censored data type with varying bandwidth and kernel boundary. Two types of bandwidth are used: local bandwidth and global bandwidth. Moreover, four types of boundary kernel are used namely: Rectangle, Epanechnikov, Biquadratic and Triquadratic and the proposed function was employed with all kernel functions. Two different simulation techniques are also used for two experiments to compare these estimators. In most of the cases, the results have proved that the local bandwidth is the best for all the
... Show More