Background: Teachers are considered as dynamic force who take a pivotal position in any educational system. Since they may play a significant role in passing the preventive information and health promotion, it is important that their own oral health knowledge, attitude, and practices conform to the professional recommendations. The aim of this study was to evaluate oral health knowledge, attitude and practices among kindergarten teachers, and their impact on teachers’ oral health condition in Al-Rusafa Sector, Baghdad, Iraq. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted among 80 kindergarten teachers. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed among these teach¬ers. This questionnaire format contains two parts that deals with oral health knowledge, attitude and practices of teachers, and this was followed by clinical oral examination for all the teachers. Simple random sampling technique was employed for the selection of the study participants. Descriptive analysis was done and data was analyzed using Bonferonni t-test and ANOVA test. Results: Teachers demonstrated adequate but incomplete knowledge regarding oral health. More than 85.0% of teachers were aware of preventive measures to keep good oral health and knew the bad influence of neglecting the oral hygiene. About 65.0% of teachers had the awareness about dental plaque composition and its bad effects. Meanwhile, 45.0% of them were aware about the signs of tooth decay, also 32.5% were aware about the benefits of regular correct brushing on the gingiva. No obvious differences were noticed regarding teachers’ DMFS, plaque and gingival indices mean values in association to the level of teachers’ knowledge, however, a positive relation were found between favorite attitude and practices and mean values of DMFS, plaque and gingival indices. Conclusions: The studied kindergarten teachers demonstrated adequate but incomplete oral health knowledge with many of them adopting poor attitude and practices. There is a definite and immediate need for an integral educational program for kindergarten teachers on basic oral health knowledge and favorable practices. Moreover, teachers’ healthy practices can affect their oral health condition positively.
Massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive-MIMO) is considered as the key technology to meet the huge demands of data rates in the future wireless communications networks. However, for massive-MIMO systems to realize their maximum potential gain, sufficiently accurate downlink (DL) channel state information (CSI) with low overhead to meet the short coherence time (CT) is required. Therefore, this article aims to overcome the technical challenge of DL CSI estimation in a frequency-division-duplex (FDD) massive-MIMO with short CT considering five different physical correlation models. To this end, the statistical structure of the massive-MIMO channel, which is captured by the physical correlation is exploited to find sufficiently
... Show MoreThis paper investigated the fatigue life behavior of two composite materials subjected to different times of shot peening (2, 4 and 6 min).The first material prepared from unsaturated polyester with E-glass reinforcement by 33% volume fraction. While, the second one was prepared from unsaturated polyester with aluminum powder by2.5% volume fraction. The experimental results showed that the improvement in endurance limit was obtained (for the first material) at 2, 4 and 6 min shot peening times where the percentage of maximum improvement was 25% at shot peening time of 6 min. While, the endurance limit of the second material decreased at shot peening times of 2, 4 and 6 min where the percentage of maximum reduction was 29 % at shot peenin
... Show MoreConcrete columns with hollow-core sections find widespread application owing to their excellent structural efficiency and efficient material utilization. However, corrosion poses a challenge in concrete buildings with steel reinforcement. This paper explores the possibility of using glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcement as a non-corrosive and economically viable substitute for steel reinforcement in short square hollow concrete columns. Twelve hollow short columns were meticulously prepared in the laboratory experiments and subjected to pure axial compressive loads until failure. All columns featured a hollow square section with exterior dimensions of (180 × 180) mm and 900 mm height. The columns were categorized into
... Show MoreIn this study, a 3 mm thickness 7075-T6 aluminium alloy sheet was used in the friction stir welding process. Using the design of experiment to reduce the number of experiments and to obtain the optimum friction stir welding parameters by utilizing Taguchi technique based on the ultimate tensile test results. Orthogonal array of L9 (33) was used based on three numbers of the parameters and three levels for each parameter, where shoulder-workpiece interference depth (0.20, 0.25, and 0.3) mm, pin geometry (cylindrical thread flat end, cylindrical thread with 3 flat round end, cylindrical thread round end), and thread pitch (0.8, 1, and 1.2) mm) this technique executed by Minitab 17 software. The results showed th
... Show MoreAs a result of rapid industrialization and population development, toxic chemicals have been introduced into water systems in recent decades. Because of its excellent efficiency and simple design, the three-dimensional (3D) electro-Fenton method has been used for the treatment of wastewater. The goal of the current study is to explore the efficiency of phenol removal by the 3D electro-Fenton process, which is one of the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). In the present work, the effect of the addition of granular activated carbon (GAC) particles to the electro-Fenton system as the third electrode would be investigated in the presence of graphite as the anode and nickel foam as the cathode, which is the source of electro-generated hydrogen
... Show MoreIn this study, the flexural performance of a new composite beam–slab system filled with concrete material was investigated, where this system was mainly prepared from lightweight cold-formed steel sections of a beam and a deck slab for carrying heavy floor loads as another concept of a conventional composite system with a lower cost impact. For this purpose, seven samples of a profile steel sheet–dry board deck slab (PSSDB/PDS) carried by a steel cold-formed C-purlins beam (CB) were prepared and named “composite CBPDS specimen”, which were tested under a static bending load. Specifically, the effects of the profile steel sheet (PSS) direction (parallel or perpendicular to the span of the specimen) using different C-purlins c
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