Background: Non-nutritive sucking habits are common in infants and toddlers. One of the most common non-nutritive sucking habits is pacifier; its prevalence varies from one population to another. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of pacifier sucking habit among children aged 1-5 years old in Baghdad city and to assess its effect on the occlusion of primary dentition concerning posterior crossbite. Materials and methods: The study was carried out among 1222 children aged 1-5 years old, from which 50 children with continues pacifier sucking habit were chosen to be the study group, compared to 50 children without any sucking habit (control group) matching the study group in age and gender. Children were examined clinically to record the presence of posterior crossbite. Results: The prevalence of pacifier sucking habit was 24.54%; it is tend to decrease with age. Posterior crossbite was found in18% of the pacifier sucking group and all of these cases were unilateral, however, none of the control group had posterior crossbite. In this study girls had higher tendency to suck pacifier and to have posterior ccrossbite than boys. Conclusions: Prevalence of pacifier sucking habit was more among girls, it can cause posterior crossbite which is mainly unilateral and more among girls than boys.
Objectives The strategies of tissue-engineering led to the development of living cell-based therapies to repair lost or damaged tissues, including periodontal ligament and to construct biohybrid implant. This work aimed to isolate human periodontal ligament stem cells (hPDLSCs) and implant them on fabricated polycaprolactone (PCL) for the regeneration of natural periodontal ligament (PDL) tissues. Methods hPDLSCs were harvested from extracted human premolars, cultured, and expanded to obtain PDL cells. A PDL-specific marker (periostin) was detected using an immunofluorescent assay. Electrospinning was applied to fabricate PCL at three concentrations (13%, 16%, and 20% weight/volume) in two forms, which were examined through field emission
... Show MoreTo accommodate utilities in buildings, different sizes of openings are provided in the web of reinforced concrete deep beams, which cause reductions in the beam strength and stiffness. This paper aims to investigate experimentally and numerically the effectiveness of using carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips, as a strengthening technique, to externally strengthen reinforced concrete continuous deep beams (RCCDBs) with large openings. The experimental work included testing three RCCDBs under five-point bending. A reference specimen was prepared without openings to explore the reductions in strength and stiffness after providing large openings. Openings were created symmetrically at the center of spans of the other specimens
... Show MoreThe Gas Assisted Gravity Drainage (GAGD) process has become one of the most important processes to enhance oil recovery in both secondary and tertiary recovery stages and through immiscible and miscible modes. Its advantages came from the ability to provide gravity-stable oil displacement for improving oil recovery, when compared with conventional gas injection methods such as Continuous Gas Injection (CGI) and Water – Alternative Gas (WAG). Vertical injectors for CO2 gas were placed at the top of the reservoir to form a gas cap which drives the oil towards the horizontal oil producing wells which are located above the oil-water-contact. The GAGD process was developed and tested in vertical wells to increase oil r
... Show MoreMedication safety and effectiveness can be improved through interprofessional collaboration. The goals of this study were to measure the degree of physician–pharmacist collaboration within Iraqi governmental healthcare settings and to investigate factors influencing this collaboration.
This cross-sectional study was conducted in Al-Najaf Province using the Collaborative Working Relationship Model and Physician–Pharmacist Collaborative Instrument (PPCI). Four phar
Diesel engine oil was subjected to thermal oxidization (TO) for six periods of time (0 h, 24 h, 48 h, 72 h, 96 h, and 120 h) and was subsequently characterized by terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). The THz refractive index generally increased with oxidation time. The measurement method illustrated the potential of THz-TDS when a fixed setup with a single cuvette is used. A future miniaturized setup installed in an engine would be an example of a fixed setup. For the refractive index, there were highly significant differences among the oxidation times across most of the 0.3–1.7 THz range.
A Wearable Robotic Knee (WRK) is a mobile device designed to assist disabled individuals in moving freely in undefined environments without external support. An advanced controller is required to track the output trajectory of a WRK device in order to resolve uncertainties that are caused by modeling errors and external disturbances. During the performance of a task, disturbances are caused by changes in the external load and dynamic work conditions, such as by holding weights while performing the task. The aim of this study is to address these issues and enhance the performance of the output trajectory tracking goal using an adaptive robust controller based on the Radial Basis Function (RBF) Neural Network (NN) system and Hamilton
... Show MoreThis work revealed the spherical aromaticity of some inorganic E4 cages and their protonated E4H+ ions (E=N, P, As, Sb, and Bi). For this purpose, we employed several evaluations like (0D-1D) nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS), multidimensional (2D-3D) off-nucleus isotropic shielding σiso(r), and natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis. The magnetic calculations involved gauge-including atomic orbitals (GIAO) with two density functionals B3LYP and WB97XD, and basis sets of Jorge-ATZP, 6-311+G(d,p), and Lanl2DZp. The Jorge-ATZP basis set showed the best consistency. Our findings disclosed non-classical aromatic characters in the above molecules, which decreased from N to Bi cages. Also, the results showed more aromaticity in E4 than E4H+
... Show MoreThe present study aims to get experimentally a deeper understanding of the efficiency of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets applied to improve the torsional behavior of L-shaped reinforced concrete spandrel beams in which their ledges were loaded in two stages under monotonic loading. An experimental program was conducted on spandrel beams considering different key parameters including the cross-sectional aspect ratio (