Background: Spices and herbs have been used by many cultures to enhance the flavor and aroma of food and for their medicinal value. Black cardamom is one of these spices widely used in cooking because of its unique taste and powerful flavor. The aim of study was to test the effect of black cardamom on Mutans Streptococci in comparison to chlorhexidine gluconate (0.2%) and de-ionized water. Materials and methods: Dried fruits of black cardamom were extracted by using alcohol (70% ethanol). Saliva was collected from seven volunteers. Agar well technique with different concentrations of black cardamom extracts was used to test the sensitivities of Mutans Streptococci, as well black cardamom extracts effect on viable counts of Mutans Streptococ

Water quality sensors have recently received a lot of attention due to their impact on human health. Due to their distinct features, environmental sensors are based on carbon quantum dots (CQDs). In this study, CQDs were prepared using the electro-chemical method, where the structural and optical properties were studied. These quantum dots were used in the environmental sensor application after mixing them with three different materials: CQDs, Alq3 polymer and CQDs and Alq3 solutions using two different methods: drop casting and spin coating, and depositing them on silicon. The sensitivity of the water pollutants was studied for each case of the prepared samples after measuring the change in resistance of the samples at a temperature of

A potentiostatic study of the behaviour of Inconel (600) in molar sulphuric acid has been carried out over the temperature range 293-313 K. Values have been established for the potentials and current densities of the corrosion, active-passive transition, passivity and transpassive states. For corrosion, the current density (ic) and potential (Ec) have been determined from well-defined Tafel lines. The potential and current density prior to the commencement of passivity have been obtained corresponding respectively to the critical potential (Ecr( and to the current density (icr) for the active-passive transition state. The passive range was defined by the respective potentials and current densities for passive film formation and dissolutio

Background: Preeclampsia (PE) is a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality, complicating 3-14% of all pregnancies. Although the etiology remains unknown, placental hypoperfusion and diffuse endothelial cell injury are considered to be the central pathological process; many endocrinological changes have been linked to the etiology of preeclampsia including parathyroid hormone and calcium level. Objective: to compare serum parathyroid hormone and total serum calcium levels in mild and severe preeclampsia versus normal pregnancy. Patients and methods: Serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) level and total serum calcium level were measured in thirty normotensive pregnant women and thirty women with mild preeclampsia and thi

The clinical spectrum of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), an intracellular parasitic pathogen, ranges from a single sore healing to chronic crusty lesions with a manifestation of treatment resistance. The complicated interaction between Leishmania bodies and the early immune response, including innate and adaptive mechanisms, determines the evolution of nodules. This study examined the levels of the chemoattractant interleukin 8 (IL-8), pro-inflammatory nitric oxide (NO), and immunoregulatory macrophage inhibitory factor (MIF) in the serum of subjects recently diagnosed with cutaneous leishmaniasis, in parallel with patients being monitored during consecutive sodium stibogluconate (Pentostam) treatment. A total of 161 serum samples of newly di

This study focused on determining the markers of Macrophage migration inhibitor (MIF), as well as the N-telopeptides of type I bone collagen (NTX), and some other parameters (alkaline phosphatase (ALP), vitamin D (Vit D), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), and magnesium (Mg), and their correlation with other parameters in osteoporosis. One hundred ten subjects were involved in the current study. There were two groups of patients: group I (30) women with severe osteoporosis and group II (30) women with mild osteoporosis. For comparison, 50 apparently healthy individuals were included as a control. Serum levels of MIF, and NTX were significantly higher in groups I and II as compared to the control group, which indicate that these two parameters

The increasing requirement and use of dental implant treatments has rendered dental implantology indispensable in dentistry. The aim of this study is to determine the optimum concentration of calcium silicate to be incorporated into a polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) matrix used as an implant material to enhance the bioactivity and mechanical properties of the composite compared with unmodified PEKK. In this study, different weight percentage (wt%) of micro-calcium silicate (m-CS) is incorporated into PEKK with ethanol as a binder. Subsequently, the mixture is dried in a forced convection oven at 120°C and poured into customized molds to fabricate a bioactive composite via compression molding (310°C, 15 MPa, and 20 min holding time

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to evaluate the capability of Glutamine (Gln) and its derivative chemicals as inhibitors for the anti-corrosive behavior of iron. The current work is devoted to scrutinizing reactivity descriptors (both local and global) of Gln, two states of neutral and protonated. Also, the change of Gln upon the incorporation into dipeptides was investigated. Since the number of reaction centers has increased, an enhancement in dipeptides’ inhibitory effect was observed. Thus, the adsorption of small-scale peptides and glutamine amino acids on Fe surfaces (1 1 1) was performed, and characteristics such as adsorption energies and the configuration with the highest stability and lowest energy were ca