Introduction: Salivary melatonin is a critical antioxidant that contributes to oral health by mitigating oxidative stress. Psychological stress linked to thumb sucking may disrupt oral homeostasis, leading to conditions such as dental caries and fungal infections. Aim: This study explores the relationships between thumb sucking, salivary melatonin levels, dental caries, and the presence of Candida albicans (CA) in children. Materials and methods: A case-control study was conducted with 60 children aged 4-5 years at the University of Baghdad’s College of Dentistry. Participants were divided into thumb-sucking (n=30) and non-thumb-sucking (n=30) groups. Salivary melatonin levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), dental caries were assessed via the dmfs index, and CA counts were quantified on Sabouraud dextrose agar (SDA). Statistical analyses were performed, including t-tests, ANOVA, and correlation assessments. Results: Thumb-sucking children exhibited significantly lower salivary melatonin levels (28.620±2.278 pg/mL) compared to controls (34.525±2.142 pg/mL; p=0.044). The thumb-sucking group also had higher dmfs scores (15.033±1.449 vs. 8.667±0.899; p=0.000) and greater CA counts (18.900±1.048 vs. 13.583±0.549; p=0.000). Negative correlations were observed between salivary melatonin levels and the severity of dental caries, while positive correlations linked CA with dental caries. Conclusions: Thumb sucking adversely affects pediatric oral health by reducing salivary melatonin, increasing dental caries risk, and promoting fungal overgrowth. Early intervention to curb thumb-sucking behaviors may mitigate these risks and improve oral health outcomes.
This study concerns the role of activated carbon (AC) from palm raceme as a support material for the enhancement of lipase-catalyzed reactions in an aqueous solution, with deep eutectic solvent (DES) as a co-solvent. The effects of carbonization temperature, impregnation ratio, and carbonization time on lipase activity were studied. The activities of Amano lipase from Burkholderia cepacia (AML) and lipase from the porcine pancreas (PPL) were used to investigate the optimum conditions for AC preparation. The results showed that AC has more interaction with PPL and effectively provides greater enzymatic activity compared with AML. The optimum treatment conditions of AC samples that yield the highest enzymatic activity were 0.5 (NaOH (
... Show MoreVirtual reality, VR, offers many benefits to technical education, including the delivery of information through multiple active channels, the addressing of different learning styles, and experiential-based learning. This paper presents work performed by the authors to apply VR to engineering education, in three broad project areas: virtual robotic learning, virtual mechatronics laboratory, and a virtual manufacturing platform. The first area provides guided exploration of domains otherwise inaccessible, such as the robotic cell components, robotic kinematics and work envelope. The second promotes mechatronics learning and guidance for new mechatronics engineers when dealing with robots in a safe and interactive manner. And the thir
... Show MoreIn this research, the theme for employing a simple and sensitive method is to employ a new Schiff base ligand (N’-(4- (dimethyl amino) benzylidene)-3, 5-dinitrobenzohydrazide) to estimate Ni (II) to form orange complex (N-(4-(dimethyl amino) benzylidene)-3, 5-dinitrobenzohydrazide nickel (II) chloride) in acid medium (hydrochloric acid), it gives an absorption peak at the wavelength 485 nm. The preferred conditions were studied to form the complex and obtain the highest absorbance including concentration of Schiff base ligand, the best medium for complex formation, effects of addition sequence on complex formation, the effect of temperature on the absorbance of the complex formed, and the setting time of the formed complex. The obtained r
... Show MoreThis paper aims to study the chemical degradation of Brilliant Green in water via photo-Fenton (H2O2/Fe2+/UV) and Fenton (H2O2/Fe2+) reaction. Fe- B nano particles are applied as incrustation in the inner wall surface of reactor. The data form X- Ray diffraction (XRD) analysis that Fe- B nanocomposite catalyst consist mainly of SiO2 (quartz) and Fe2O3 (hematite) crystallites. B.G dye degradation is estimated to discover the catalytic action of Fe- B synthesized surface in the presence of UVC light and hydrogen peroxide. B.G dye solution with 10 ppm primary concentration is reduced by 99.9% under the later parameter 2ml H2O2, pH= 7, temperature =25°C within 10 min. It is clear that pH of the solution affects the photo- catalytic degradation
... Show MoreThis paper considers a new Double Integral transform called Double Sumudu-Elzaki transform DSET. The combining of the DSET with a semi-analytical method, namely the variational iteration method DSETVIM, to arrive numerical solution of nonlinear PDEs of Fractional Order derivatives. The proposed dual method property decreases the number of calculations required, so combining these two methods leads to calculating the solution's speed. The suggested technique is tested on four problems. The results demonstrated that solving these types of equations using the DSETVIM was more advantageous and efficient
Promoting the production of industrially important aromatic chloroamines over transition-metal nitrides catalysts has emerged as a prominent theme in catalysis. This contribution provides an insight into the reduction mechanism of p-chloronitrobenzene (p-CNB) to p-chloroaniline (p-CAN) over the γ-Mo2N(111) surface by means of density functional theory calculations. The adsorption energies of various molecularly adsorbed modes of p-CNB were computed. Our findings display that, p-CNB prefers to be adsorbed over two distinct adsorption sites, namely, Mo-hollow face-centered cubic (fcc) and N-hollow hexagonal close-packed (hcp) sites with adsorption energies of −32.1 and −38.5 kcal/mol, respectively. We establish that the activation of nit
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to show the concepts of nuclear shape and the geometrical picture to the even-even nuclei of 164,166,168E isotopes in the context of the Interacting boson Model IBM-1. The energy spectra were calculated and the effective charge values (eB) of the electromagnetic transition strength were obtained and used to calculate the B(E2) values of the electromagnetic transitions and the quadrupole moment Q of 2+ -states. The Hamiltonian parameters were calculated by taking in account the properties of these nuclei. Comparison were made with the available experimental data and included in tables. The geometrical picture of these nuclei were looked at by calculating the deformation which were represented by the potentia
... Show MoreThe δ-mixing of γ-transitions in 70As populated in the 32 70 70 33 Ge p n As (, ) γ reaction is calculated in the present work by using the a2-ratio methods. In one work we applied this method for two cases, the first one is for pure transition and the sacend one is for non pure transition, We take into account the experimental a2-coefficient for previous works and δ -values for one transition only.The results obtained are, in general, in a good agreement within associated errors, with those reported previously , the discrepancies that occur are due to inaccuracies existing in the experimental data of the previous works.