Orthodontic treatment is widely used to correct irregular teeth and/or jaw discrepancies to improve oral function and facial aesthetics. However, it is frequently associated with enamel damage that include chipping, demineralisation, and white spot formation. So far, current bonding systems that can maintain shear bond strengths (SBS) suitable for clinical performance are unable to limit enamel demineralisation, adhesive remnants and damage caused on removal of brackets after treatment. This study reports a novel “safe enamel etch” clinically viable procedure that was accomplished via application of novel etchant pastes developed with β-tricalcium phosphate and monocalcium phosphate monohydrate powders mixed with citric acid (5 M) or phosphoric acid (37% PA) to yield BCA and BPA etchants respectively. Although enamel etched with clinically used PA gel yielded higher SBS than the BCA/BPA etchants, it exhibited greater adhesive remnants with evidence of enamel damage. In contrast, the experimental etchants resulted in unblemished enamel surfaces with zero or minimal adhesive residue and clinically acceptable SBS. Furthermore, the BPA etchant caused lower enamel decalcification with extensive calcium-phosphate precipitation. The study conclusively showed that BPA facilitated
A novel robust finite time disturbance observer (RFTDO) based on an independent output-finite time composite control (FTCC) scheme is proposed for an air conditioning-system temperature and humidity regulation. The variable air volume (VAV) of the system is represented by two first-order mathematical models for the temperature and humidity dynamics. In the temperature loop dynamics, a RFTDO temperature (RFTDO-T) and an FTCC temperature (FTCC-T) are designed to estimate and reject the lumped disturbances of the temperature subsystem. In the humidity loop, a robust output of the FTCC humidity (FTCC-H) and RFTDO humidity (RFTDO-H) are also designed to estimate and reject the lumped disturbances of the humidity subsystem. Based on Lyapunov theo
... Show MoreThe Khor Mor gas-condensate processing plant in Iraq is currently facing operational challenges due to foaming issues in the sweetening tower caused by high-soluble hydrocarbon liquids entering the tower. The root cause of the problem could be liquid carry-over as the separation vessels within the plant fail to remove liquid droplets from the gas phase. This study employs Aspen HYSYS v.11 software to investigate the performance of the industrial three-phase horizontal separator, Bravo #2, located upstream of the Khor Mor sweetening tower, under both current and future operational conditions. The simulation results, regarding the size distribution of liquid droplets in the gas product and the efficiency gas/liquid separation, r
... Show MoreCircular thin walled structures have wide range of applications. This type of structure is generally exposed to different types of loads, but one of the most important types is a buckling. In this work, the phenomena of buckling was studied by using finite element analysis. The circular thin walled structure in this study is constructed from; cylindrical thin shell strengthen by longitudinal stringers, subjected to pure bending in one plane. In addition, Taguchi method was used to identify the optimum combination set of parameters for enhancement of the critical buckling load value, as well as to investigate the most effective parameter. The parameters that have been analyzed were; cylinder shell thickness, shape of stiffeners section an
... Show MoreThe rapid sprawl in urban areas caused by excessive production and consumption of goods (as driven by local poor social choices) has inevitably resulted in a major burden due to environmental degradation worldwide. Unfortunately, these traditional models of urban planning fail to properly account for the intricacies that permeate a modern city and are deficient in terms of their approach as they shape themselves within an environment largely divorced from natural systems, resulting in vast mismanagement of resources, guiding cities down trajectories where growth destroys both physical and cultural landscapes. As cities suffer from increasing scarcity, we advocate for regeneration and resilience to be embedded in advanced urban design approa
... Show MoreThis deals with estimation of Reliability function and one shape parameter (?) of two- parameters Burr – XII , when ?(shape parameter is known) (?=0.5,1,1.5) and also the initial values of (?=1), while different sample shze n= 10, 20, 30, 50) bare used. The results depend on empirical study through simulation experiments are applied to compare the four methods of estimation, as well as computing the reliability function . The results of Mean square error indicates that Jacknif estimator is better than other three estimators , for all sample size and parameter values
Background: Nursing interventions tailored to the smoking triggers in patients with non-communicable chronic diseases are essential. However, these interventions are scant due to the nature of factors associated with smoking cessation and the poor understanding of the effect of nurse-led intervention in Iraq.Purpose: This study aimed to determine the dominant smoking triggers and examine the effects of a tailored nursing intervention on smoking behavior in patients with non-communicable chronic diseases.Methods: Convenience samples of 128 patients with non-communicable chronic diseases, male and female patients, who were 18-70 years old, were recruited in this quasi-experimental, randomized comparative trial in the outpatient clinic
... Show MoreBackground: Nursing interventions tailored to the smoking triggers in patients with non-communicable chronic diseases are essential. However, these interventions are scant due to the nature of factors associated with smoking cessation and the poor understanding of the effect of nurse-led intervention in Iraq.Purpose: This study aimed to determine the dominant smoking triggers and examine the effects of a tailored nursing intervention on smoking behavior in patients with non-communicable chronic diseases.Methods: Convenience samples of 128 patients with non-communicable chronic diseases, male and female patients, who were 18-70 years old, were recruited in this quasi-experimental, randomized comparative trial in the outpatient clinic
... Show MoreBecause of cost-effective production and abundant resources of calcium, Ca-ion batteries (CIBs) are an appropriate option to alternate Li-ion batteries (LIBs). A new category of anode materials for CIBs has emerged since the successful synthesis of carbon nanotubes, which are B and N doped derivatives of it. For high-performance CIBs, BC2N nanotube (BC2NNT) has been studied as promising anode materials. In order to comprehend electrochemical attributes, cycling stability, and adsorption behavior of BC2NNT, first-principles computations have been executed. Based on nuclear magnetic resonance computations, two types of hexagonal rings (B2C2N2 (I) and BC4N (II)) were specified that are non-aromatic. Ca has adsorption on B2C2N2 and BC4N with ad
... Show MoreThis paper deals with defining Burr-XII, and how to obtain its p.d.f., and CDF, since this distribution is one of failure distribution which is compound distribution from two failure models which are Gamma model and weibull model. Some equipment may have many important parts and the probability distributions representing which may be of different types, so found that Burr by its different compound formulas is the best model to be studied, and estimated its parameter to compute the mean time to failure rate. Here Burr-XII rather than other models is consider because it is used to model a wide variety of phenomena including crop prices, household income, option market price distributions, risk and travel time. It has two shape-parame
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