Background: The interest in herbal extracts as antimicrobial agents has increased over the past few years in endodontic therapy. Nasturtium officinale (watercress) is a promising plant with great medicinal values. This study aimed to investigate the antifungal activity of watercress oil in combination with calcium hydroxide against Candida albicans as intracanal medicament. Materials and Methods: Candida albicans was isolated from patients with necrotic root canal or failed root canal treatment. The sensitivity of Candida albicans to different concentrations of watercress oil extract was determined by using the agar well diffusion method in comparison with calcium hydroxide paste. The agar plate method was used to determine the minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) of the tested oil against the fungus. The combination of the oil extract of Nasturtium officinale with calcium hydroxide was evaluated and compared to calcium hydroxide paste with iodoform by using the agar well diffusion method. Results: The oil extract exhibited antifungal activity against Candida albicans, this activity was found to be increased as the concentration of extract increased. The tested combination of watercress oil extract with calcium hydroxide revealed larger inhibition zones than the ones formed by each tested agent individually. Conclusion: The oil extract of Nasturtium officinale is active against Candida albicans suggesting its potential to be used as an intracanal medicament alone or in combination with calcium hydroxide.
Phytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae) are economically important insect pests of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. This study was carried out during the season of 2013 in orchards within Erbil city, to follow the stink bug Mustha spinulosa (Lefebvre, 1831) seasonal fluctuation on some fruit trees: olive, plum, apricot, pear, apple and almond.
The stink bug reaches its maximum abundance throughout the second week of August (38.2/tree) coinciding with mean temperature and relative humidity of 33.40C and 28.14% respectively, and the highest total mean of the number of the insect was recorded on the olive trees (181.8/tree). The study reveals that the stink bug attacked 22 trees (fruit and forest) while it has not atta
Alpha shape theory for 3D visualization and volumetric measurement of brain tumor progression using magnetic resonance images
In this study, a 3 mm thickness 7075-T6 aluminium alloy sheet was used in the friction stir welding process. Using the design of experiment to reduce the number of experiments and to obtain the optimum friction stir welding parameters by utilizing Taguchi technique based on the ultimate tensile test results. Orthogonal array of L9 (33) was used based on three numbers of the parameters and three levels for each parameter, where shoulder-workpiece interference depth (0.20, 0.25, and 0.3) mm, pin geometry (cylindrical thread flat end, cylindrical thread with 3 flat round end, cylindrical thread round end), and thread pitch (0.8, 1, and 1.2) mm) this technique executed by Minitab 17 software. The results showed th
... Show MoreStudies on the flexural behavior of post-tensioned beams subjected to strand damage and strengthened with near-surface mounted (NSM) technique using carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) are limited and fail to examine the effect of CFRP laminates on strand strain and strengthening efficiency systematically. Furthermore, a design approach for UPC structures in existing design guidelines for FRP strengthening techniques is lacking. Hence, the behavior of post-tensioned beams strengthened with NSM-CFRP laminates after partial strand damage is investigated in this study. The testing program consists of seven post-tensioned beams strengthened by NSM-CFRP laminates with three partial strand damage ratios (14.3% symmetrical damage, 14.3%
... Show MoreObjective; swine flu is known to be caused by influenza A subtypes H1N1,H1N2, H2N3, H3N1, and H3N2, was first proposed to be a disease related to human flu during the 1918 flu pandemic, Iraq face the epidemic of 2009, many patients admitted to the medical word of alkindy teaching hospital, the clinical features were observed and managed according to WHO protocols.
The aim of the study; is to asses some features of morbidity and mortality of swine flu epidemic admitted patients in 2009 in alkindy teaching hospital.
Methods; A total 131 patients with suspected influenza
admitted to Alkindy Teaching Hospital all complain of
fever more than 38c, sore throat with or without cough.
The admitted patients are of two main
groups
Now-a-days the Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) technology is very effective in improving the power flow along the transmission lines and makes the power system more flexible and controllable. This paper deals with the most robust type of FACTS devices; it’s a Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC). Many cases have been taken to study how the system behaves in the presence and absence of the UPFC under normal and contingency conditions. The UPFC is a device that can be used to improve the bus voltage, increasing the loadability of the line and reduce the active and reactive power losses in the transmission lines, through controlling the flow of real and reactive power. Both the magnitude and the phase angle of th
... Show MoreIn this work, an estimation of the key rate of measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution (MDI-QKD) protocol in free space was performed. The examined free space links included satellite-earth downlink, uplink and intersatellite link. Various attenuation effects were considered such as diffraction, atmosphere, turbulence and the efficiency of the detection system. Two cases were tested: asymptotic case with infinite number of decoy states and one-decoy state case. The estimated key rate showed the possibility of applying MDI-QKD in earth-satellite and intersatellite links, offering longer single link distance to be covered.
