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.
Unlike welding, soldering does not involve melting the work pieces. Soldering is a process in which two or more items are joined together by melting and putting a filler metal (solder) into the joint. Failure in the solder joint may make the system components lose their functions. Electrical wiring and electronic components are joined to devices and printed circuit boards using soldering. Soldering and brazing are both used in the assembly of musical instruments. Lead-tin alloy solder employed in the current investigation which has a diameter of 4 mm and a density of 11.0103 kg/m3 with continuous heat flux heating from the domain's left side and complete insulation on the other side. The melting of PCM was simulated using the ANSYS
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The main function of a power system is to supply the customer load demands as economically as possible. Risk criterion is the probability of not meeting the load. This paper presents a methodology to assess probabilistic risk criteria of Al-Qudus plant before and after expansion; as this plant consists of ten generating units presently and the Ministry Of Electricity (MOE) is intending to compact four units to it in order to improve the performance of Iraqi power system especially at Baghdad region. The assessment is calculated by a program using Matlab programming language; version 7.6. Results show that the planned risk is (0.003095) that is (35 times) less than that in the present plant risk; (0.1091); which represents respectable imp
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The hydrodynamics behavior of gas - solid fluidized beds is complex and it should be analyzed and understood due to its importance in the design and operating of the units. The effect of column inside diameter and static bed height on the minimum fluidization velocity, minimum bubbling velocity, fluidization index, minimum slugging velocity and slug index have been studied experimentally and theoretically for three cylindrical columns of 0.0762, 0.15 and 0.18 m inside diameters and 0.05, 0.07 and 0.09 m static bed heights .The experimental results showed that the minimum fluidization and bubbling velocities had a direct relation with column diameter and static bed height .The minimum slugging velocity had an
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Recent phosphorus (P) pollution in the United States, mainly in Maine, has raised some severe concerns over the use of P fertilizer application rates in agriculture. Phosphorus is the second most limiting nutrient after nitrogen and has damaging impacts on crop yield if found to be deficient. Therefore, farmers tend to apply more P than is required to satisfy any P loss after its application at planting. Several important questions were raised in this study to improve P efficiency and reduce its pollution. The objective of this study was to find potential reasons for P pollution in water bodies despite a decrease in potato acreage. Historically, the potato was found to be responsible for P water contamination due to its high P sensitivity a
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The variability of Candaharia levanderi (Simroth, 1902)(Gastropoda, Stylommatophora, Parmacellidae) in two biotopes (southern and northern slopes, the Kampirtepa gorges, the Kugitang Tau ridge) has been investigated using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with the implementation of primers, the 18S DNA of the region is amplified, the variability (sharply differing in color) of two populations of C. levanderi is studied .
The first population is in the suburbs of Namangan, (Namangan Region); the second population is in Kampirtepa gorges, Kugitang Tau ridge (Surkhandarya Region). It is established that, most often, the variability of morphological signs is observed on the coloration of mollusks. The development of body coloration is an ad
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In this research, the seasonal Optimal Reliable Frequency (ORF) variations between different transmitter/receiver stations have been determined. Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra have been chosen as tested transmitting stations that located in the northern, center, and southern of Iraqi zone. In this research, the minimum and maximum years (2009 and 2014) of solar cycle 24 have been chosen to examine the effect of solar activity on the determined seasonal ORF parameter. Mathematical model has been proposed which leads to generate the Optimal Reliable Frequency that can maintain the seasonal connection links for different path lengths and bearings. The suggested ORF parameter represented by a different orders polynomial equation. The polynom
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In this research, a group of gray texture images of the Brodatz database was studied by building the features database of the images using the gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), where the distance between the pixels was one unit and for four angles (0, 45, 90, 135). The k-means classifier was used to classify the images into a group of classes, starting from two to eight classes, and for all angles used in the co-occurrence matrix. The distribution of the images on the classes was compared by comparing every two methods (projection of one class onto another where the distribution of images was uneven, with one category being the dominant one. The classification results were studied for all cases using the confusion matrix between every
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