Background: Plaque retention during fixed orthodontic therapy is an important cause of developing enamel demineralization. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of different brackets types on the count of Streptococcus Mutans in orthodontic patients using conventional fluoridated toothpaste. Materials and Methods: Plaque samples were collected from maxillary 1st premolar teeth of twenty right handed patients (using split mouth technique) before bonding, after 48 hrs of bonding using tooth brush only, and after 2 weeks of using fluoridated toothpaste. Stainless steel bracket was bonded on right first premolar while the left one was bonded with sapphire bracket. The calculation of the Streptococcus Mutans count was done using the plate counting method utilizing colony counter. The differences between the two types of brackets were determined using the Wilcoxon signed ranks test. Results: The median bacterial count on the right side was insignificantly higher than the left side; streptococcus mutans in the plaque sample around the sapphire brackets showed insignificantly less counts than around the stainless steel one, when the patients used tooth brush only or fluoridated toothpastes. Fluoridated toothpastes reduced streptococcus mutans insignificantly around both types of brackets. Conclusion: Fluoridated toothpaste acts effectively in reducing streptococcus mutans colony counts around sapphire and stainless steel brackets. Keywords: Streptococcus mutans, Stainless steel brackets, Sapphire brackets.
Background: Oxidative stress may contribute to the etiology of hypertension in humans. Oxidative stress is an imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant defense mechanisms, causing damage to biological macromolecules and dysregulation of normal metabolism and physiology. Amlodipine as an antihypertensive agent is a long-acting calcium channel blocker that dilates blood vessels and improves blood flow. The aim of this study was to assess the oxidative stress in hypertensive patients on Amlodipine treatment through the assessment of salivary Malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) as a marker of oxidative stress.
Mat
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The current research aims to construct a scale for the nine types of students’ personality according to Rob Fitzel model. To do this, (162) items were formed that present the nine types of personality with (18) items for each type. To test the validity of the scale, a sample of (584) students of Al-Mustansrya University were chosen. The data of their responses was analyzed by using factor analysis. The findings explored (9) factors as one factor for each type of personality with (12) items for each one. Then, the reliability of the scale was found by using the test-retest method and Alfa Cronbach method.
The mobile phone has become one of the most important in our days. The effects of waves from mobile base station may cause health effects on human. The aim of this work was to study the effect of radiofrequency (RF) emitted from mobile base station on the hemoglobin (Hb), packed cell (PCV), white blood cells (WBC) and liver enzymes activity including glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic pyruvie transaminase (GPT) and Alkaline phosphatase (ALP). In this study the people divided into control group who living away from mobile base station and experimental group who living near to the mobile base station. The present result found there is no significant differences (P<0.05) in the Hb and PCV, but there was a significant increases (
... Show More<p class="0abstract">Image denoising is a technique for removing unwanted signals called the noise, which coupling with the original signal when transmitting them; to remove the noise from the original signal, many denoising methods are used. In this paper, the Multiwavelet Transform (MWT) is used to denoise the corrupted image by Choosing the HH coefficient for processing based on two different filters Tri-State Median filter and Switching Median filter. With each filter, various rules are used, such as Normal Shrink, Sure Shrink, Visu Shrink, and Bivariate Shrink. The proposed algorithm is applied Salt& pepper noise with different levels for grayscale test images. The quality of the denoised image is evaluated by usi
... Show MoreIn this work, results from an optical technique (laser speckle technique) for measuring surface roughness was done by using statistical properties of speckle pattern from the point of view of computer image texture analysis. Four calibration relationships were used to cover wide range of measurement with the same laser speckle technique. The first one is based on intensity contrast of the speckle, the second is based on analysis of speckle binary image, the third is on size of speckle pattern spot, and the latest one is based on characterization of the energy feature of the gray level co-occurrence matrices for the speckle pattern. By these calibration relationships surface roughness of an object surface can be evaluated within the
... Show MoreSecure information transmission over the internet is becoming an important requirement in data communication. These days, authenticity, secrecy, and confidentiality are the most important concerns in securing data communication. For that reason, information hiding methods are used, such as Cryptography, Steganography and Watermarking methods, to secure data transmission, where cryptography method is used to encrypt the information in an unreadable form. At the same time, steganography covers the information within images, audio or video. Finally, watermarking is used to protect information from intruders. This paper proposed a new cryptography method by using thre
... Show MoreThis study is to investigate the possibility of using activated carbon prepared from Iraqi date-pits (ADP) which are produced from palm trees (Phoenix dactylifera L.) as low-cost reactive material in the permeable reactive barrier (PRB) for treating lead (Pb<sup>+2</sup>) from the contaminated groundwater, and then compare the results experimentally with other common reactive materials such as commercial activated carbon (CAC), zeolite pellets (ZP). Factors influencing sorption such as contact time, initial pH of the solution, sorbent dosage, agitation speed, and initial lead concentration has been studied. Two isotherm models were used for the description of sorption data (Langmuir and Freundlich). The maximum lead sorp
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