Objective Advantageous properties of silicone elastomer made it one of the favorable materials in maxillofacial prosthesis construction, but these properties may change after months of usage or after pigments addition. This study aimed to define the optimum concentration for a mixture of two types of intrinsic pigments that added to VST-50 maxillofacial silicone material and study their effects on mechanical properties before and after artificial aging. Methods After the pilot study was conducted, 0.1% by weight of rayon flocking and 0. 2% by weight of burnt sienna intrinsic pigment concentration was selected because of improvement in tested mechanical properties of VST-50 maxillofacial silicone. A total of one hundred and eighty samples were prepared and divided into three equal test groups (tear strength, hardness and surface roughness), 60 samples were made for each test. Each test group includes 6 subgroups with 10 samples made for each one of them to test before and after (75 hours and 150 hours) of artificial aging. FTIR and XRD tests also were used in the study. Results The results show for pigmented samples before artificial aging that some mechanical properties had improved. After artificial aging, both periods resulted in non- significant decrease in tear strength while hardness and surface roughness had highly significantly increased. FTIR test and XRD test shows no chemical reaction between pigments and silicone. Conclusion The addition of intrinsic pigments had improved hardness and tear strength of maxillofacial silicone but after subjecting it to artificial aging, all of the tested properties had adversely affected.
Background: The roles of AI in the academic community continue to grow, especially in the enhancement of learning outcomes and the improvement of writing quality and efficiency. Objectives: To explore in depth the experience of senior pharmacy students in using artificial intelligence for academic purposes. Methods: This qualitative study included face-to-face individual interviews with senior pharmacy students from March to May 2023 using a pre-planned interview guide of open-ended questions. All interviews were audio-recorded. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: The results were obtained from 15 in-depth face-to-face interviews with senior pharmacy students (5th and 4th years). Eight participants were male, and seven
... Show MoreThe investment climate is the main engine of economic development. If an appropriate and attractive investment climate is created that takes into account economic, administrative, political and environmental issues, it will contribute to the development of industry, transfer of technology, diversification of agricultural production, increased productivity, the promotion of a green economy and support for sustainable and inclusive growth. Thus, analyzing the investment climate of a country can provide reasons and roots for the complexity of the problems in the economy. In the Iraqi economy, the problem has not been rooted in the economy, but the roots of the problem are deeper and inherent in the management of the economy. Investm
... Show MoreAs contemporary security requires the formulation of a comprehensive strategy based on multidimensional sub-strategies (economic, developmental, social, cybersecurity, military,and diplomatic dimensions to achieve so-called sustainable security and address the unconventional challenges that worsened with the turn of the twenty-first century and concerned with violent extremism, often leading to terrorism, Iraq, despite the reversal of the terrorist group ISIS in 2017, seems urgently needed to formulate effective strategies to counter violent extremism, Violent extremism has multiple internal and external reasons. These causes have increased due to local, regional, and international causes. Violent extremist factors began with the outbreak o
... Show MoreThis paper studies the combination fluid viscous dampers in the outrigger system to add supplementary damping into the structure, which purpose to remove the dependability of the structure to lower variable intrinsic damping. It works by connecting the central core, comprising either shear walls or braced frames, to the outer perimeter columns.
The modal considered is a 36 storey square high rise reinforced concrete building. By constructing a discrete lumped mass model, and using frequency-based response function, two systems of dampers, parallel and series systems are studied. The maximum lateral load at the top of the building is calculated, and this load w
... Show MoreThe purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of corrosive environment (corrosive ferric chloride of 1, 2, 5, 6% wt. at room temperature), immersion period of (48, 72, 96, 120, 144 hours), and surface roughness on pitting corrosion characteristics and use the data to build an artificial neural network and test its ability to predict the depth and intensity of pitting corrosion in a variety of conditions. Pit density and depth were calculated using a pitting corrosion test on carbon steel (C-4130). Pitting corrosion experimental tests were used to develop artificial neural network (ANN) models for predicting pitting corrosion characteristics. It was found that artificial neural network models were shown to be
... Show MoreIn the literature, several correlations have been proposed for hold-up prediction in rotating disk contactor. However,
these correlations fail to predict hold-up over wide range of conditions. Based on a databank of around 611
measurements collected from the open literature, a correlation for hold up was derived using Artificial Neiral Network
(ANN) modeling. The dispersed phase hold up was found to be a function of six parameters: N, vc , vd , Dr , c d m / m ,
s . Statistical analysis showed that the proposed correlation has an Average Absolute Relative Error (AARE) of 6.52%
and Standard Deviation (SD) 9.21%. A comparison with selected correlations in the literature showed that the
developed ANN correlation noticeably
A study were conducted to examinate the effect of organic and aqueous (Hot, Cold) Extracts from leaves of Duranta repens on the growth and activities of the following types of Bacteria:- Staphylococcus aureus,Streptococcus pyogens ,Escherichia coli,Klebsilla pneumonia, in addition to the yeast Candida albicans and the fungi Aspergullis niger ,Aspergulls flavus.The result showed that gram Positive Bacteria is more sensitive to the extracts than gram negative bacteria with Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value (50,25,50,100)% and Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) value (100,50,200,100)% for all types Bacteria respectively . The most active extract against A.niger ,A,flavus was cold and hot aqueous extract from the leaves with d
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