Background: University dental students perceived a higher level of stress prior to the final exam associated with raised salivary alpha-amylase levels which could be considered as a useful noninvasive biomarker for measuring acute stress. Using a Helkimo anamnestic and clinical dysfunction scoring for temporomandibular disorders can give a better insight about the association of this marker and temporomandibular disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluation level of salivary alpha-amylase in stressor students with temporomandibular disorders and the relation between the marker in relation to temporomandibular disorders severity. This might give a better understanding to the role of psychological stress as an etiological factor for developing temporomandibular joint problems. Materials and Methods: A total eighty participants aged between 20 to 24 were recruited for this study. The participants were University dental students under graduate students at final examination period who were examined and gave saliva samples in final examination period. Salivary assay kits as alpha-amylase was used to measure those variable and a Helkimo anamnestic and clinical dysfunction scoring for temporomandibular disorders. Results: The group of participants with stress and temporomandibular disorders showed significantly higher levels of salivary alpha-amylase than the control group, the salivary alpha-amylase has statistically non-significant correlation with Helkimo anamnestic categories (Di-I mild, Di-II moderate and Di-III severe. Salivary alpha-amylase levels show non-significant and weak association with two categories of clinical dysfunction criteria in Helkimo index system, which are Muscle pain and temporomandibular joint pain on palpation. Conclusion: This study concluded that University students perceived a high level of stress before the final examination. Salivary alpha-amylase is now the stress biomarker that is most often used to measure acute stress. Helkimo anamnestic and clinical dysfunction scoring criteria for still the pioneer for measuring a TMD.
Realizing the full potential of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) highlights many design issues, particularly the trade-offs concerning multiple conflicting improvements such as maximizing the route overlapping for efficient data aggregation and minimizing the total link cost. While the issues of data aggregation routing protocols and link cost function in a WSNs have been comprehensively considered in the literature, a trade-off improvement between these two has not yet been addressed. In this paper, a comprehensive weight for trade-off between different objectives has been employed, the so-called weighted data aggregation routing strategy (WDARS) which aims to maximize the overlap routes for efficient data aggregation and link cost
... Show MoreThis study aimed to assess the possible association of oxytocin (OXT) gene with reproductive traits in two groups of Awassi ewes that differ in their reproductive potentials. Sheep were genotyped using PCR—single-stranded conformation polymorphism approach. Three genotypes were detected in exon 2, CC, CA, and AA, and a novel SNP was identified with a missense effect on oxytocin (c.188C > A → p.Arg55Leu). A significant (p < 0.01) association of p.Arg55Leu with the twinning rate was found as ewes with AA and CA genotypes exhibited, respectively a lower twinning ratio than those with the wild-type CC genotype. The deleterious impact of p.Arg55Leu was demonstrated by all in silico tools that were utilized to assess the effect of this varian
... Show MoreNowadays, cloud computing has attracted the attention of large companies due to its high potential, flexibility, and profitability in providing multi-sources of hardware and software to serve the connected users. Given the scale of modern data centers and the dynamic nature of their resource provisioning, we need effective scheduling techniques to manage these resources while satisfying both the cloud providers and cloud users goals. Task scheduling in cloud computing is considered as NP-hard problem which cannot be easily solved by classical optimization methods. Thus, both heuristic and meta-heuristic techniques have been utilized to provide optimal or near-optimal solutions within an acceptable time frame for such problems. In th
... Show MoreApplying a well-performing heat exchanger is an efficient way to fortify the relatively low thermal response of phase-change materials (PCMs), which have broad application prospects in the fields of thermal management and energy storage. In this study, an improved PCM melting and solidification in corrugated (zigzag) plate heat exchanger are numerically examined compared with smooth (flat) plate heat exchanger in both horizontal and vertical positions. The effects of the channel width (0.5 W, W, and 2 W) and the airflow temperature (318 K, 323 K, and 328 K) are exclusively studied and reported. The results reveal the much better performance of the horizontal corrugated configuration compared with the smooth channel during both melti
... Show MoreFuture wireless networks will require advance physical-layer techniques to meet the requirements of Internet of Everything (IoE) applications and massive communication systems. To this end, a massive MIMO (m-MIMO) system is to date considered one of the key technologies for future wireless networks. This is due to the capability of m-MIMO to bring a significant improvement in the spectral efficiency and energy efficiency. However, designing an efficient downlink (DL) training sequence for fast channel state information (CSI) estimation, i.e., with limited coherence time, in a frequency division duplex (FDD) m-MIMO system when users exhibit different correlation patterns, i.e., span distinct channel covariance matrices, is to date ve
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