Introduction: Carrier-based gutta-percha is an effective method of root canal obturation creating a 3-dimensional filling; however, retrieval of the plastic carrier is relatively difficult, particularly with smaller sizes. The purpose of this study was to develop composite carriers consisting of polyethylene (PE), hydroxyapatite (HA), and strontium oxide (SrO) for carrier-based root canal obturation. Methods: Composite fibers of HA, PE, and SrO were fabricated in the shape of a carrier for delivering gutta-percha (GP) using a melt-extrusion process. The fibers were characterized using infrared spectroscopy and the thermal properties determined using differential scanning calorimetry. The elastic modulus and tensile strength tests were determined using a universal testing machine. The radiographic appearance was established using digital periapical radiographs. Results: The composite core carrier exhibited a melting point of 111°C to 112°C, which would facilitate removal by heat application. The elastic modulus and the tensile strength were found to be lower than those of Thermafil carriers (Dentsply Tulsa Dental, Tulsa, OK). The preliminary radiographic evaluation showed that the novel composite core carrier is sufficiently radiopaque and can be distinguished from gutta-percha. Conclusions: The PE-HA-SrO composites were successfully melt processed into composite core carriers for delivering gutta-percha into the root canal space.
Video copyright protection is the most generally acknowledged method of preventing data piracy. This paper proposes a blind video copyright protection technique based on the Fast Walsh Hadamard Transform (FWHT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), and Arnold Map. The proposed method chooses only frames with maximum and minimum energy features to host the watermark. It also exploits the advantages of both the fast Walsh Hadamard transform (FWHT) and discrete wavelet transforms (DWT) for watermark embedding. The Arnold map encrypts watermarks before the embedding process and decrypts watermarks after extraction. The results show that the proposed method can achieve a fast embedding time, good transparency, and robustness against various
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The study aims to build a training program based on the Connectivism Theory to develop e-learning competencies for Islamic education teachers in the Governorate of Dhofar, as well as to identify its effectiveness. The study sample consisted of (30) Islamic education teachers to implement the training program, they were randomly selected. The study used the descriptive approach to determine the electronic competencies and build the training program, and the quasi-experimental approach to determine the effectiveness of the program. The study tools were the cognitive achievement test and the observation card, which were applied before and after. The study found that the effectiveness of the training program
... Show MoreLevofloxacin belongs to the fluoroquinolone family; it is a potent broad-spectrum bactericidal agent. The pharmacophore required for significant antibacterial activity is the C-3 carboxylic acid group and the 4-pyridine ring with the C-4 carbonyl group, into which binding to the DNA bases occur. In this work, we tried to show that by masking the carboxyl group through amide formation using certain amines to form levofloxacin carboxamides, an interesting activity is kept. Levofloxacin carboxamides on the C-3 group were prepared, followed by the formation of their copper complexes. The target compounds were characterized by FT-IR, elemental analysis. The antimicrobial activity of the target compounds was evaluated and showed satisfactory resu
... Show MoreBackground: Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) is a simple, low cost and minimally invasive way to obtain a natural concentration of autologous growth factors and is currently being widely experimented in different fields of medicine for its ability to aid the regeneration of tissue with a low healing potential. Fields of application are sports medicine, orthopedics, dentistry, dermatology, ophthalmology, plastic and maxillofacial surgery, etc. The rationale for using platelets in so many fields for the treatment of different tissues is because PLTs constitute a reservoir of critical GFs and cytokines, which may govern and regulate the tissue healing process that is quite similar in all kinds of tissues. Materials and Methods: Screw titanium implan
... Show MoreAb – initio density function theory (DFT) calculations coupled with Large Unit Cell (LUC) method were carried out to evaluate the electronic structure properties of III-V zinc blend (GaAs). The nano – scale that have dimension (1.56-2.04)nm. The Gaussian 03 computational packages has been employed through out this study to compute the electronic properties include lattice constant, energy gap, valence and conduction band width, total energy, cohesive energy and density of state etc. Results show that the total energy and energy gap are decreasing with increase the size of nano crystal . Results revealed that electronic properties converge to some limit as the size of LUC increase .
Single mode-no core-single mode fiber structure with a section of tuned no-core fiber diameter to sense changes in relative humidity has been experimentally demonstrated. The sensor performance with tuned NCF diameter was investigated to maximize the evanescent fields. Different tuned diameters of of (100, 80, and 60)μm were obtained by chemical etching process based on hydrofluoric acid immersion. The highest wavelength sensitivity was obtained 184.57 pm/RH% in the RH range of 30% –100% when the no-core fiber diameter diameter was 60 μm and the sensor response was in real-time measurements
The demand for single photon sources in quantum key distribution (QKD) systems has necessitated the use of weak coherent pulses (WCPs) characterized by a Poissonian distribution. Ensuring security against eavesdropping attacks requires keeping the mean photon number (µ) small and known to legitimate partners. However, accurately determining µ poses challenges due to discrepancies between theoretical calculations and practical implementation. This paper introduces two experiments. The first experiment involves theoretical calculations of µ using several filters to generate the WCPs. The second experiment utilizes a variable attenuator to generate the WCPs, and the value of µ was estimated from the photons detected by the BB
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Zigbee is considered to be one of the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) designed for short-range communications applications. It follows IEEE 802.15.4 specifications that aim to design networks with lowest cost and power consuming in addition to the minimum possible data rate. In this paper, a transmitter Zigbee system is designed based on PHY layer specifications of this standard. The modulation technique applied in this design is the offset quadrature phase shift keying (OQPSK) with half sine pulse-shaping for achieving a minimum possible amount of phase transitions. In addition, the applied spreading technique is direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) technique, which has
... Show MorePeak ground acceleration (PGA) is one of the critical factors that affect the determination of earthquake intensity. PGA is generally utilized to describe ground motion in a particular zone and is able to efficiently predict the parameters of site ground motion for the design of engineering structures. Therefore, novel models are developed to forecast PGA in the case of the Iraqi database, which utilizes the particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach. A data set of 187 historical ground-motion recordings in Iraq’s tectonic regions was used to build the explicit proposed models. The proposed PGA models relate to different seismic parameters, including the magnitude of the earthquake (Mw), average shear-wave velocity (VS30), focal depth (FD
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