This study aims to evaluate the biocompatibility of a novel filler material intended to improve the longevity of polymer systems used in prosthetics in respect of cytotoxicity and skin irritation. RTV50F silicone elastomer incorporated with various percentages of hexagonal boron nitride (H-BN) (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1 wt%) have been tested. Silicone without H-BN was utilized as the control for comparison. The in vitro cytotoxicity test includes specimens (n=18) with 10 mm in diameter and 2 mm in thickness applied directly to the normal human fibroblast cell line (NHF) and incubated for 72 hours, then 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine the cell viability. The skin irritation test was conducted in vivo, in which specimens (n=12) with 25 mm × 25 mm dimensions were applied on the back of 5 different rabbits for 4 hours, then the skin response was evaluated after 24, 48, and 72 hours. The acquired in vitro data were statically analyzed using one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey’s tests with GraphPad Prism 8, where P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The H-BN powder and silicone specimens were studied via field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The results revealed a negligible effect of maxillofacial silicone on cell viability after 72 hours of incubation, only one group (1wt%) showed a significant difference compared to the control group but the toxicity percentage didn’t exceed 30% of cell viability and there was no skin irritation during the in vivo test.
This study expands the state of the art in studies that assess torsional retrofit of reinforced concrete (RC) multi-cell box girders with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips. The torsional behavior of non-damaged and pre-damaged RC multi-cell box girder specimens externally retrofitted by CFRP strips was investigated through a series of laboratory experiments. It was found that retrofitting the pre-damaged specimens with CFRP strips increased the ultimate torsional capacity by more than 50% as compared to the un-damaged specimens subjected to equivalent retrofitting. This indicated that the retrofit has been less effective for the girder specimen that did not develop distortion beforehand as a result of pre-loading. From
... Show MoreIn this study, NAC-capped CdTe/CdS/ZnS core/double shell QDs were synthesized in an aqueous medium to investigate their utility in distinguishing normal DNA from mutated DNA extracted from biological samples. Following the interaction between the synthesized QDs with DNA extracted from leukemia cases (represents damaged DNA) and that of healthy donors (represents undamaged DNA), differential fluorescent emission maxima and intensities were observed. It was found that damaged DNA from leukemic cells DNA-QDs conjugates at 585 nm while intact DNA (from healthy subjects) DNA–QDs conjugates at 574 nm. The obtained results from the optical analyses indicate that the prepared QDs could be utilized as probe for detecting disrupted DNA th
... Show MoreDiabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder categorized hyperglycemia resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action or both. Protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) is an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of phosphate groups from ATP to the tyrosine residues of many important proteins resulting in proteins phosphorylation. The aim of current study was to evaluate serum levels of protein tyrosine kinase enzyme and thyroid hormone (T3, T4and TSH) and to find the correlation between them in type 2 diabetes mellitus and diabetic nephropathy Iraqi patients. Methods: This study was conducted at The National Diabetes Center, Al-Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq and included 150 patients divided into three groups the first group included 50
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
... Show MoreMixed ligand metal complexes of CrIII, FeIII,II, NiII and CuII have been synthesized using 5-chlorosalicylic acid (5-CSA) as a primary ligand and L-Valine (L-Val) as secondary ligand. The metal complexes have been characterized by elemental analysis, electrical conductance, magnetic susceptibility measurements and spectral studies. The electrical conductance studies of the complexes indicate their electrolytic nature. Magnetic susceptibility measurements revealed paramagnetic nature of the all complexes. Bonding

One of the most difficult tasks in modern medical societies is the process of identifying a cure for many infectious diseases caused by drug-resistant microbes. Therefore, it has become necessary to discover new compounds that work in this regard. The currently prepared Schiff base, derived from thiazole, has a biological activity against bacteria and biofilms and its activity increases when it is associated with copper, zinc and platinum ions and forms metal complexes. This study highlights the synthesis and evaluation of novel biological compounds as inhibitors of bacterial growth and biofilms. A three newly complexes are resulting from the reaction of a new Schiff base ligand (LC) with metal ions (Zn, Cu, Pt). The new ligand (LC)
... Show MoreSome new norms need to be adapted due to COVID-19 pandemic period where people need to wear masks, wash their hands frequently, maintain social distancing, and avoid going out unless necessary. Therefore, educational institutions were closed to minimize the spread of COVID-19. As a result of this, online education was adapted to substitute face-to-face learning. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the Malaysian university students’ adaptation to the new norms, knowledge and practices toward COVID-19, besides, their attitudes toward online learning. A convenient sampling technique was used to recruit 500 Malaysian university students from January to February 2021 through social media. For data collection, all students
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