Background: University dental students perceived a higher level of stress prior to the final exam associated with raised salivary cortisol levels which could be considered as a useful noninvasive biomarker for measuring acute stress. Using a Helkimo anamnestic and clinical dysfunction scoring for temporomandibular disorders can give a better insight about the association of this marker and temporomandibular joint disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluation level of salivary cortisol in stressor students with temporomandibular disorder and the relation between this marker in relation to temporomandibular disorder severity. This might give a better understanding to the role of psychological stress as an etiological factor for developing temporomandibular joint problems. Materials and methods: A total eighty participants age between 20 to 24 were recruited for this study. The participants were University dental students under graduate students at final examination period who were examined and gave saliva samples in final examination period. Salivary assay kits as cortisol was used to measure those variables and a Helkimo anamnestic and clinical dysfunction scoring for TMD. Results: The group of participants with stress and temporomandibular disorder showed significantly higher levels of salivary cortisol than the control group, the salivary cortisol has statistically significant correlation with Helkimo anamnestic categories (Di-I mild, Di-II moderate and Di-III severe. Salivary cortisol levels show significant but weak association with two categories of clinical dysfunction criteria in Helkimo index system, which are Muscle pain and TMJ pain on palpation. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that University students perceived a high level of stress before the final examination. Salivary cortisol is the stress biomarker that is most often used to measure acute stress. Helkimo anamnestic and clinical dysfunction scoring criteria for still the pioneer for measuring a temporomandibular disorder.
Background: Suffering from recurrent boils (furunclosis) is a common problem in our locality as it is noticed by many dermatologists especially in association with increasingly hot weather. The most common causative organisms are staphylococci. Objective: The aim of the study was to shed the light upon this problem and compare two systemic therapeutic agents for the prevention of recurrence, doxycycline and rifampicin. Patient and method: One hundred thirty-five (135) Patients with recurrent boils from Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital dermatology outpatient department were included in this study; age ranged from 10 to 64 years old and out of total patients 32 were males and 103 were females. Patients were assessed by full history and cl
... Show MoreThe purpose of the current investigation is to distinguish between working memory ( ) in five patients with vascular dementia ( ), fifteen post-stroke patients with mild cognitive impairment ( ), and fifteen healthy control individuals ( ) based on background electroencephalography (EEG) activity. The elimination of EEG artifacts using wavelet (WT) pre-processing denoising is demonstrated in this study. In the current study, spectral entropy ( ), permutation entropy ( ), and approximation entropy ( ) were all explored. To improve the classification using the k-nearest neighbors ( NN) classifier scheme, a comparative study of using fuzzy neighbourhood preserving analysis with -decomposition ( ) as a dimensionality reduction technique an
... Show MoreThe analytical study of optical bistability is concerned in a fully
optimized laser Fabry-Perot system. The related phenomena of
switching dynamics and optimization procedure are also included.
From the steady state of optical bistability equation can plot the
incident intensity versus the round trip phase shift (φ) for different
values of dark mistuning
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3
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1.5
0 , o
or finesse (F= 1, 5, 20,
100). In order to obtain different optical bistable loops. The inputoutput
characteristic for a nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalon of a different
values of finesse (F) and using different initial detuning (φ0) are used
in this rese
The present study is a qualitative study that aims to investigate the way the Iraqi caricaturist,Dheaa Al-Hajjar uses caricatures to produce a satirical meaning humorously.Producing satire while at the same maintaining humor requires a creative thinking on the part of the caricaturist. Thus, the study examines the production of humorous satire in terms of creativity. The analysis is done from the cognitive linguistic point of view using Arthur Koestler's theory of bisociation as presented in his book The Act of Creation in 1964. The main principle on which the theory is based is that humor is created via linking (or bisociating in Koestler's terms) two habitually incompatible trains of thought in order to come up with a novel me
... Show MoreContinuous escalation of the cost of generating energy is preceded by the fact of scary depletion of the energy reserve of the fossil fuels and pollution of the environment as developed and developing countries burn these fuels. To meet the challenge of the impending energy crisis, renewable energy has been growing rapidly in the last decade. Among the renewable energy sources, solar energy is the most extensively available energy, has the least effect on the environment, and is very efficient in terms of energy conversion. Thus, solar energy has become one of the preferred sources of renewable energy. Flat-plate solar collectors are one of the extensively-used and well-known types of solar collectors. However, the effectiveness of the coll
... Show MoreThis study focused on benthic algae (epipelic and attached algae on concrete lining stream) in Bani-Hassan stream in Holly Karbala, Iraq. The qualitative and quantitative studies of benthic algae were done by collecting 240 samples from five sites in the study area for the period from December 2012 to November 2013. Also, the environmental variables of the stream were examined in term of temporary and spatial. The results showed that the stream was alkaline, hard, oligohaline and a well aerated. The total nitrogen to the total phosphorus (TN: TP) ratio indicates nitrogen limitation. 129 species of benthic algae belonging to 57 genera were identified. Bacillariophyceae (diatoms) was the predominant taxon (95 species) followed by Chlorophyce
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