Abstract: Objectives: To investigate the effect of temperature elevation on the bonding strength of resin cement to the zirconia ceramic using fractional CO2 laser. Background: Fractional CO2 laser is an effective surface treatment of zirconia ceramic, as it increases the bonding strength of zirconia to resin cement. Methods: Thirty sintered zirconia discs (10 mm diameter, 2 mm thickness) were prepared and divided to three groups (N=10) and five diffident pulse durations were used in each group (0.1, 0.5, 1, 5 and 10 ms). Group A was treated with 10 W power setting, group B with 20 W and group C with 30 W. During laser irradiation, temperature elevation measurement was recorded for each specimen. Luting cement was bonded to the treated z

Photonic crystal fiber interferometers are widely used for sensing applications. In this work, solid core-Photonic crystal fiber based on Mach-Zehnder modal interferometer for sensing refractive index was presented. The general structure of sensor applied by splicing short lengths of PCF in both sides with conventional single mode fiber (SMF-28). To apply modal interferometer theory; collapsing technique based on fusion splicing used to excite higher order modes (LP01 and LP11). Laser diode (1550 nm) has been used as a pump light source. Where a high sensitive optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) was used to monitor and record the transmitted. The experimental work shows that the interference spectrum of Photonic crystal fiber interferometer

In this work, two cone-inverted cylindrical and cross-hybrid dielectric resonator antennas are stacked and excited by the coaxial probe method with an operating standard resonant frequency of 5.438 GHz. A drawback of these standard Dielectric Resonator Antennas (DRAs) is their narrow bandwidth. For good antenna performance, a stacked DR geometry and a thick dielectric substrate having a low dielectric constant are desired since this provides large bandwidth, better radiation power, reduces conductor loss and nonappearance of surface waves. Many approaches, such as changing the shape of the dielectric resonator, have been used to enhance bandwidth. Using DRA, having the lowest dielectric constant, increases the bandwidth and the electroma

The objective of this study was tointroduce a recursive least squares (RLS) parameter estimatorenhanced by using a neural network (NN) to facilitate the computing of a bit error rate (BER) (error reduction) during channels estimation of a multiple input-multiple output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) system over a Rayleigh multipath fading channel.Recursive least square is an efficient approach to neural network training:first, the neural network estimator learns to adapt to the channel variations then it estimates the channel frequency response. Simulation results show that the proposed method has better performance compared to the conventional methods least square (LS) and the original RLS and it is more robust a

Acne vulgaris is a very common, chronic disorder, involving inflammation of the pilosebaceous units that can be varied in presentation and difficult to treat. Inflammatory acne may yield both scarring and pigmentary changes so early and adequate therapy will, in all cases, decrease its severity and may entirely suppress this disease. Serratiopeptidase has anti-inflammatory, anti-edemic and fibrinolytic activity and acts rapidly on localized inflammation. Serratiopeptidase was added in aim to hasten acne resolution. During March to July 2010, A comparative study for a 50 healthy patient suffering from acne was divided into 2 groups: 1^st group treated by common acne modalities and the 2^nd one with same modalities

Fiber reinforced polymer composite is an important material for structural application. The diversified application of FRP composite has taken center of attraction for interdisciplinary research. However, improvements on mechanical properties of this class of materials are still under research for different applications. In this paper we have modified the epoxy matrix by Al₂O₃, SiO₂ and TiO₂ nano particles in glass fiber/epoxy composite to improve the mechanical and physical properties. The composites are fabricated by hand lay-up method. It is observed that mechanical properties like flexural strength, hardness are more in case of SiO₂ modified epoxy composite compare to other nano

Landfill and incineration are the most common and widely used methods to dispose of solid wastes; both of these techniques are considered the main sources of pollution in the world due to the harmful toxic emissions that are considered an environmental problem. Because of the large areas used by landfills, they are not always considered an economical method. With the increase in the production of solid materials, solid wastes increase the pressure on incinerators and landfills, making the environmental pollution hazard more serious. Instead, these waste materials can be used in some other applications. One of the most important of these applications is asphalt pavements, which are the most used types of pavements in the