Background: Psychological stress is considered the major etiological factor precipitating myofacial pain and temporomandibular disorders.It is known that stress induce various adaptational responses of physiologic systems. The process includes increase in the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis which promotes cortisol secretion. Salivary cortisol has been used as a measure of free circulating cortisol levels.The use of salivary biomarkers has gained increased popularity since collecting samples is non-invasive and painless. The aim of thisstudy was to evaluate the level of cortisol in saliva among sample of university students having myofacial pain, during the final exam period and whether this finding could have a significant value as a symptomatic psychobiological marker. Materials and Methods: Ninety eight (98) university students were enrolled in this study. Fifty(50) were with myofacial pain (symptomatic) and forty eight (48) were without myofacial pain (asymptomatic) as a control group.Each student with myofacial pain was examined according to Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders. Saliva sample were collected from each subject before final examination and three months later for biochemical analysis of cortisolusing ELISA test. Results: A highly significant difference in salivary cortisol level between the two periods for both the study and control groups, and a non-significant difference between the two groups in before examination period. A negative association has been observed between the level of salivary cortisol and severity of pain and a highly significant improvement of pain between the final examination periods and three months later. Conclusions: Dental students perceived a higher level of stress prior to the final exam was associated with raised salivary cortisol levels which could be considered as a useful non-invasive biomarker for measuring acute stress.
Features is the description of the image contents which could be corner, blob or edge. Corners are one of the most important feature to describe image, therefore there are many algorithms to detect corners such as Harris, FAST, SUSAN, etc. Harris is a method for corner detection and it is an efficient and accurate feature detection method. Harris corner detection is rotation invariant but it isn’t scale invariant. This paper presents an efficient harris corner detector invariant to scale, this improvement done by using gaussian function with different scales. The experimental results illustrate that it is very useful to use Gaussian linear equation to deal with harris weakness.
Discrete Krawtchouk polynomials are widely utilized in different fields for their remarkable characteristics, specifically, the localization property. Discrete orthogonal moments are utilized as a feature descriptor for images and video frames in computer vision applications. In this paper, we present a new method for computing discrete Krawtchouk polynomial coefficients swiftly and efficiently. The presented method proposes a new initial value that does not tend to be zero as the polynomial size increases. In addition, a combination of the existing recurrence relations is presented which are in the n- and x-directions. The utilized recurrence relations are developed to reduce the computational cost. The proposed method computes app
... Show MoreThe living urban space is considered one of the most important elements of the success of modern cities, and it is the first mental image that is formed by people (residents and visitors) of the city , a measure of the frequency, presence and interaction of people in the spaces is an indication of the city's vitality, well-being and economic strength .
The occupation of the city of Mosul before the terrorist ISIS in 2014 and the subsequent liberation operations and the end of the war in 2017 had a great impact on the destruction of the old city on the right side and the death of its urban spaces due to the abandonment of people to it, especially the area (Al-Midan and Al-Qalayaat),
... Show MoreThis work includes the geographical distribution variation and notes for the habitat of Iraqi blind snakes Leptotyphlops macrorhynehus. Typhlops braminus, and Typhlops vermicularis. A key was also given for the identification of these three snakes.
Nanoparticles have gained considerable interest in recent times for oil recovery purposes owing to significant capabilities in wettability alteration of reservoir rocks. Wettability is a key factor controlling displacement efficiency and ultimate recovery of oil. The present study investigates the influence of zirconium (IV) oxide (ZrO2) and nickel (II) oxide (NiO) nanoparticles on the wetting preference of fractured (oil-wet) limestone formations. Wettability was assessed through SEM, AFM and contact angle. The potentials of the nanoparticles to alter oil-wet calcite substrates water wet, was experimentally tested at low nanoparticle concentrations (0.004–0.05 wt%). Quite similar behaviour was observed for both nanoparticles at the same
... Show MoreThe possible effects of COVID-19 vaccines on reproductive health and male fertility in particular have been discussed intensely by the scientific community and the public since their introduction during the pandemic. On news outlets and social media platforms, many claims have been raised regarding the deleterious effects of COVID-19 vaccines on sperm quality without scientific evidence. In response to this emerging conflict, we designed this study to evaluate and assess the effect of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine on male fertility represented by the semen analysis parameters.
Writing in English is one of the essential factors for successful EFL learning .Iraqi students at the preparatory schools encounter problems when using their background knowledge in handling subskills of writing(Burhan,2013:164).Therefore, this study aims to investigate the 4thyear preparatory school students’ problems in English composition writing, and find solutions to these pro
... Show MoreGender and culture are among the factors that influence the process of understanding and interpreting different types of communication, especially images. The current study, which is a part of a master’s thesis, aims at investigating the role of gender and culture in interpreting and understanding the caricatures that deal with women’s issues in Arab societies. To this end, the researchers adopted Barthes’ (1957) concepts of denotation and connotation in his theory of mythologies in addition to Langacker’s (1987) theory of (Domains). The research concludes that the female subjects have better cognitive abilities in investing the signs within the selected caricatures. The other factor the study reached to is that the respondents
... Show MoreThe studies on the antiviral compound chalcone in vitro in both tissue and organ culture systems against rubella virus glass that this compound relatively non toxic to the cell culture and organ culture of the concentration of 8 ug/ml or less, chalcone have significantly antiviral activity against rubella virus in tissue culture and organ culture. We find that a concentration of 0.03ug/ml or more inhibit the IOOTCID50 of rubella virus. The therapeutic index (TI) used in this study to evaluate the drug, the (TI) which is the ratio of the dose of drug which is just toxic (Maximum tolerated dose) to the dose which is just effective (Minimum effective dose). If this index is one or less it not possible to use the drug under the conditions outli
... Show MoreAbstract. Geographical and remote sensing, which gave a picture of the change in the area of agricultural land in the study area for selected years (1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020). In particular and Iraq in general, as this led to a reduction in the areas of agricultural lands and in return an increase in arid lands and their desertifica- tion and the loss of their productive value, which as a result leads to the migration of the population, the change of land sex, the failure to achieve food security and dependence on the import of the food basket.