Background and objectives: This study aimed at testing the effect of plastic sleeve or barrier, used to cover the guide of the light cure unit to prevent cross-infection, on the shear bond strength and site of bond failure of stainless steel and ceramic orthodontic brackets. Materials and methods: Forty orthodontic brackets; twenty stainless steel and twenty ceramic brackets bonded to forty extracted human maxillary first premolars using light cure adhesive cured with and without the use of a protective plastic barrier on the guide. Comparing the effect of this barrier on the shear bond strength and adhesive remnant index was performed using an independent t-test and Chi-square test. Results: The protective barrier had decreased the shear b

The measurements of major and trace elements in different brands of milk powder selected from the Iraqis market via the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) Technique have been studied in the present work. The result of the measurements reveals the high concentrations of sodium, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Furthermore, low concentrations of aluminum, silicon, iron, bromine, molybdenum, iodine, barium, titanium, manganese, cobalt, chrome, nickel, copper, zinc and lead were detected. Neutron activation analysis (NAA) and Kjeldahl technique were also employed to determine the concentrations of nitrogen. It was found that the nitrogen concentration was in the range of (1.96 - 3.23) % which is within the permissible li

The aim of the present study is to research two morphological processes: acronym and compounding (phrasal compounds/ circumlocution) and one syntactic category which are 'existential sentences' in science fiction short stories. The present paper identifies different types and rates of existential sentences. In this respect , 'bare existential and locative’ read the high percentages and may be contrasted with other classifications of English existential sentences which have a verb other than 'be' and a definite expression. 'Phrasal compounds' vary in rates as they constitute notable percentage for those that involve 'lexical means and lexical relations' followed by 'prepositional compounds' , 'conjunctional compounds' , and those invo

This paper presents a newly developed method with new algorithms to find the numerical solution of nth-order state-space equations (SSE) of linear continuous-time control system by using block method. The algorithms have been written in Matlab language. The state-space equation is the modern representation to the analysis of continuous-time system. It was treated numerically to the single-input-single-output (SISO) systems as well as multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems by using fourth-order-six-steps block method. We show that it is possible to find the output values of the state-space method using block method. Comparison between the numerical and exact results has been given for some numerical examples for solving different type

This paper proposes a new structure of the hybrid neural controller based on the identification model for nonlinear systems. The goal of this work is to employ the structure of the Modified Elman Neural Network (MENN) model into the NARMA-L2 structure instead of Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) model in order to construct a new hybrid neural structure that can be used as an identifier model and a nonlinear controller for the SISO linear or nonlinear systems. Weight parameters of the hybrid neural structure with its serial-parallel configuration are adapted by using the Back propagation learning algorithm. The ability of the proposed hybrid neural structure for nonlinear system has achieved a fast learning with minimum number

Background: Osteoarthritis is a chronic pathology of the joints causing disability and morbidity. Diacerein is a disease-modifying agent indicated for osteoarthritis management with enhanced performance and have much lower side effects profile than conventional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Oral administration of Diacerein is associated with a laxative effect, thus causing treatment discontinuation. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate the activity of Diacerein novasome-based transdermal gel compared with standard oral treatment in the management of induced osteoarthritis in a rat model. Materials and methods: A single intra-articular injection of monosodium iodoacetate was administered to the left knee joint, resulting in the develop

The special core analysis tests were accomplished on a set of core plugs for Mishrif Formation (mA, mB1, and mB2cde/mC units) in West Qurna/1 oilfield, southern Iraq. Oil relative permeability (Kro) data and the Corey-type fit of the data as functions of the brine saturation at the core outlet face for individual samples in the water-oil imbibition process to estimate relative permeability measurements by the centrifuge method were utilized. Identical correlations for oil and water relative permeabilities were extracted by steady-state and unsteady-state methods. For the mA samples, the gas-water capillary pressure curves were within a narrow range (almost identical) indicating that mA is a homogeneous unit. Kro curves for three mB2

The special core analysis tests were accomplished on a set of core plugs for Mishrif Formation (mA, mB1, and mB2cde/mC units) in West Qurna/1 oilfield, southern Iraq. Oil relative permeability (K_ro) data and the Corey-type fit of the data as functions of the brine saturation at the core outlet face for individual samples in the water-oil imbibition process to estimate relative permeability measurements by the centrifuge method were utilized. Identical correlations for oil and water relative permeabilities were extracted by steady-state and unsteady-state methods. For the mA samples, the gas-water capillary pressure curves were within a narrow range (almost identical) indicating that mA is a homogeneous unit. Kro curves for thr