Ag2S-Ag2O-Ag/poly-2-aminobenzene-1-thiol Nanocomposite as a Promising Two-Electrode Symmetric Supercapacitor: Tested in Acidic and Basic Mediums.

A Ag2S-Ag2O-Ag/poly-2-aminobenzene-1-thiol (P2ABT) nanocomposite was prepared using the photopolymerization reaction using AgNO3 as an oxidant. The size of the nanocomposite was about 40 nm, in which the morphology was confirmed using TEM and SEM analyses. The functional groups of Ag2S-Ag2O-Ag/P2ABT were confirmed using FTIR; also, XRD confirmed the inorganic Ag2S, Ag, and Ag2O formation. This nanocomposite has great performance in supercapacitor applications, with it tested in acidic (1.0 M HCl) and basic mediums (1.0 M NaOH). This pseudo-capacitor has great performance that appeared through the charge time in an acid medium in comparison to the basic medium with values of 118 s and 103 s, correspondingly. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) analysis further confirmed the excellent performance of the supercapacitor material, as indicated by the large area under the cyclic curve. The specific capacitance (CS) and energy density (E) values (at 0.3 A/g) were 92.5 and 44.4 F/g and 5.0 and 2.52 W·h·Kg-1 in the acidic and basic mediums, correspondingly. The charge transfer was studied through a Nyquist plot, and the produced Rs values were 4.9 and 6.2 Ω, respectively. Building on these findings, our objective is to make a significant contribution to the progress of supercapacitor technology through a prototype design soon.

Assessment of the Current Endodontic Practices among General Dental Practitioners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

A contemporary knowledge of root canal treatment (RCT) is a prerequisite for a successful outcome. Studies observed that General Dental Practitioners (GDPs) were not abreast of current endodontic knowledge due to a lack of continuing dental education, not following the treatment protocols that they had learned in their undergraduate program, and overlooking the evidence-based current endodontic practices. Therefore, this study was intended to assess the awareness, attitude, and clinical endodontic practices among General Dental Practitioners in Saudi Arabia. This cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted among all 312 GDPs working in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire consisted of socio-demographic details and 23 questions regarding current endodontic practices. The collected data was analyzed using the SPSS Version 21 (Chicago, IL, USA). The chi-square test was applied to explore the influence of gender, workplace, and the years of professional activity on the materials and techniques employed in the RCT procedure. The study results showed that of all respondents, 159 (51.0%) were males, 153 (49.0%) were females, and 286 (91.7%) were Saudi nationals. Most of the GDPs, i.e., 204 (65.4%) practiced in private hospitals or clinics whereas 108 (34.6%) practiced in Government hospitals. Root canal treatment on all teeth had been performed by 196 (62%) of the practitioners. Association of gender with demographic details and endodontic practices revealed a statistically significant difference between both genders with respect to region, nationality, type of RCT treated on the tooth, and the technique used to measure the working length (p < 0.05). Furthermore, years of professional experience and workplace significantly affect endodontic practices (p < 0.05). This study concluded that most of the general dental practitioners complied with quality standard guidelines showing a positive attitude toward endodontic practices. Furthermore, irrespective of gender, most of the steps in endodontic procedures revealed a significant association with years of professional experience and the workplace.

Effect of Au Plasmonic Material on Poly M-Toluidine for Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Generation from Sewage Water.

This study provides H2 gas as a renewable energy source from sewage water splitting reaction using a PMT/Au photocathode. So, this study has a dual benefit for hydrogen generation; at the same time, it removes the contaminations of sewage water. The preparation of the PMT is carried out through the polymerization process from an acid medium. Then, the Au sputter was carried out using the sputter device under different times (1 and 2 min) for PMT/Au-1 min and PMT/Au-2min, respectively. The complete analyses confirm the chemical structure, such as XRD, FTIR, HNMR, SEM, and Vis-UV optical analyses. The prepared electrode PMT/Au is used for the hydrogen generation reaction using Na2S2O3 or sewage water as an electrolyte. The PMT crystalline size is 15 nm. The incident photon to current efficiency (IPCE) efficiency increases from 2.3 to 3.6% (at 390 nm), and the number of H2 moles increases from 8.4 to 33.1 mmol h-1 cm-2 for using Na2S2O3 and sewage water as electrolyte, respectively. Moreover, all the thermodynamic parameters, such as activation energy (Ea), enthalpy (ΔH*), and entropy (ΔS*), were calculated; additionally, a simple mechanism is mentioned for the water-splitting reaction.

Converting Sewage Water into H2 Fuel Gas Using Cu/CuO Nanoporous Photocatalytic Electrodes.

This work reports on H2 fuel generation from sewage water using Cu/CuO nanoporous (NP) electrodes. This is a novel concept for converting contaminated water into H2 fuel. The preparation of Cu/CuO NP was achieved using a simple thermal combustion process of Cu metallic foil at 550 °C for 1 h. The Cu/CuO surface consists of island-like structures, with an inter-distance of 100 nm. Each island has a highly porous surface with a pore diameter of about 250 nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the formation of monoclinic Cu/CuO NP material with a crystallite size of 89 nm. The prepared Cu/CuO photoelectrode was applied for H2 generation from sewage water achieving an incident to photon conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 14.6%. Further, the effects of light intensity and wavelength on the photoelectrode performance were assessed. The current density (Jph) value increased from 2.17 to 4.7 mA·cm-2 upon raising the light power density from 50 to 100 mW·cm-2. Moreover, the enthalpy (ΔH*) and entropy (ΔS*) values of Cu/CuO electrode were determined as 9.519 KJ mol-1 and 180.4 JK-1·mol-1, respectively. The results obtained in the present study are very promising for solving the problem of energy in far regions by converting sewage water to H2 fuel.

Quercetin and naringenin abate diethylnitrosamine/acetylaminofluorene-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in Wistar rats: the roles of oxidative stress, inflammation and cell apoptosis.

This study was designed to assess the preventive effects and to suggest the probable mechanisms of action of quercetin and naringein in diethylnitrosamine (DEN)/2-acetylaminofluorene (2AAF)-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in Wistar male rats. The chemical-induction of hepatocarcinogenesis was performed by injection of DEN intraperitoneally at 150 mg/kg body weight (b.w.) twice/week for two weeks, followed by oral administration of 2AAF at 20 mg/kg body weight (b.w.) 4 times/week for 3 weeks. The DEN/2AAF-administered rats were co-treated with quercetin and naringenin at dose level of 10 mg/kg b. w. by oral gavage for 20 weeks. The treatment of DEN/2AAF-administered rats with quercetin and naringenin significantly prevented the elevations in serum levels of liver function indicators (ALT, AST, ALP, γ-GT, total bilirubin and albumin) and liver tumor biomarkers including AFP, CEA and CA19.9. The cancerous histological lesions and inflammatory cells infiltration in liver of DEN/2AAF-administered rats were remarkably suppressed by treatments with quercetin and naringenin. The hepatic oxidative stress markers including NO level and lipid peroxidation significantly decreased while the SOD, GPx and CAT activities and GSH content significantly increased in DEN/2AAF-administered rats treated with quercetin and naringenin when compared to DEN/2AFF-administered control rats. Furthermore, the lowered mRNA expression of liver IL-4, P53 and Bcl-2 in of DEN/2AAF-administered rats were significantly counteracted by treatment with quercetin and naringenin. Taken together, our results demonstrate that quercetin and naringenin may abate hepatocarcinogenesis via enhancement of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and apoptotic actions.

Lightweight Digital Certificate Management and Efficacious Symmetric Cryptographic Mechanism over Industrial Internet of Things.

The certificate authority, a trusted entity, issues digital certificates which contain identity credentials to help Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices to represent their authenticity in a secure means. The crucial challenge of a digital certificate is to how design a secure certification authority management system that can counteract cyberattacks on the IIoT network. Moreover, current IIoT systems are not capable of implementing complex mathematical operations due to their constrained power capacity and processing capability. This paper proposes an effective, secure symmetric cryptographic mechanism (ESSC) based on the certificate authority management and Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman (ECDH) to share a digital certificate among IIoT devices. The proposed certificate authority is used to securely exchange the shared secret key and to resolve the problem of spoofing attacks that may be used to impersonate the identity of the certificate authority. Also, ESSC uses the shared secret key to encrypt the sensitive data during transmission through the insecure communication channel. This research studies the adversary model for ESSC on IIoT and analyzes the cybersecurity of ESSC in the random oracle model. The findings that result from the experiments show that ESSC outperforms the baseline in terms of communication, computation, and storage costs. ESSC thus provides an adequate lightweight digital certificate management and cryptographic scheme which can help in the detection and prevention of several cyberattacks that can harm IIoT networks.

Effect of laser treatment on outcomes of tooth replantation - A systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: Over the last few years, several studies have investigated the effect of laser treatment on the replantation of avulsed teeth. We conducted this study to systematically analyse and assess the outcomes and quality of these studies. METHODS: Using the keywords 'laser', 'tooth', and 'replantation', two investigators conducted an electronic search of the PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, ISI Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar databases. Any studies not meeting the inclusion criteria were excluded. The focused question was 'Does laser treatment influence the outcomes of tooth replantation?' RESULTS: Nine studies were included and assessed in this review. In the majority of the selected studies, laser treatment had a positive outcome on preventing root resorption and in promoting periodontal regeneration. However, only three studies were given a quality score of 'medium', while six were marked as 'low'. CONCLUSION: Laser irradiation may reduce root resorption and favour periodontal regeneration following replantation of the avulsed tooth. However, more well-designed long-term animal and human studies are needed before lasers can be used clinically to improve the outcomes for replanted teeth.

Knowledge and Attitude of Dental Practitioners Related to Disinfection during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The world is currently facing a pandemic crisis due to a novel coronavirus. For this purpose, acquiring updated knowledge regarding prevention and disinfection during the current pandemic is necessary for every dental practitioner. In our study, we aimed to evaluate globally the level of knowledge and the attitude of dental practitioners related to disinfection. A total of 385 participants out of 401 participants from 23 different countries across the world were included in the final analysis after the exclusion of incomplete responses. The majority of the dentists who responded were females (53.8%) and were practicing at private health institutes (36.4%). The mean knowledge score of the participants was estimated to be 4.19 ± 1.88 out of 12, reflecting insufficient knowledge, and the mean attitude score of the participants was estimated to be 12.24 ± 3.23 out of 15, which shows a positive attitude toward disinfection practices during coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). Thus, the current study indicated a lack of knowledge in fundamental aspects of disinfection protocols with a significant and positive attitude from dental health professionals toward disinfection regarding the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Significance of antinuclear antibodies and rheumatoid factor in patients with advanced peripheral arterial disease.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether or not elevated titers of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and/or rheumatoid factor (RF) are associated with patients with advanced peripheral arterial disease (PAD). SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done between September 2005 and December 2006. Fifty-eight patients with clinical and angiographic evidence of PAD and 41 controls were studied. Controls had no documented history of peripheral, coronary or cerebral vascular disease. All subjects were screened for metabolic syndrome and C-reactive protein (CRP) as risk factors for peripheral vascular disease. Additionally, all were tested for anti-mitochondrial, anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic and anti-smooth muscle antibodies; those with positive results were excluded. ANA and RF were measured in sera from cases and controls. RESULTS: One case and 3 controls had positive anti-smooth muscle antibodies and were therefore excluded from statistical analysis. Metabolic syndrome was significantly more prevalent in patients than controls (p<0.05). Mean CRP level was 4.78+/-7.70 and 2.65+/-3.86 mg/dl in cases and controls, respectively (p=0.021). ANA were detected at a titer of >or=1:40 in 6 (10.5%) of the advanced PAD patients but none of the controls; the difference was not statistically significant. RF was less prevalent in cases than controls (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: RF and ANA do not appear to be associated with PAD in a Kuwaiti population.

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with clinically advanced peripheral vascular disease.

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components among 100 patients with progressive peripheral arterial disease (PAD) referred for diagnostic angiography in preparation for a revascularization procedure. The prevalence of MetS was more than 95%. Diabetes mellitus was the most prevalent component followed by hypertension and low high-density lipoprotein. Almost half the patients aggregated in the highest metabolic score category. A direct relationship was identified between the number of MetS components and serum uric acid (P = .001) and C-reactive protein (P = .826), whereas an inverse relationship was seen between the clustering of components and androgen levels in men (P < .001). For PAD, which could have a benign clinical course, early screening for MetS might identify those at greater risk of failing conservative therapy and progressing to a more aggressive atherosclerotic disease typically associated with high morbidity and mortality.

Male infertility in Kuwait. Etiologic and therapeutic aspects.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the pathological patterns associated with male infertility in Kuwait and to characterize treatment outcome after varicocele repair using percutaneous varicocele embolization. METHODS: We carried out a prospective study of 64 infertile men in Kuwait between 2001 and 2005. All patients included had proven non-obstructive azoospermia or oligospermia (sperm count <20 million/ml). All patients underwent ultrasonographic evaluation of the scrotum. Fine needle aspiration of the testes was performed on all azoospermic patients. RESULTS: A total of 24 (38%) patients were azoospermic while 40 (62%) were oligospermic. Sertoli- cell-only pattern was the most common cytopathology associated with primary testicular failure. Among the oligospermic patients, 50% had small to moderate varicocele. Spermatic vein embolization resulted in a significant rise in the mean sperm count from 10.6 +/- 3.8 million/ml to 30.2 +/- 6.8 million/ml (p<0.05) in 5 treated oligospermic patients, followed by spontaneous pregnancy in 2 couples. No effect was seen on azoospermic patients. CONCLUSION: From an etiological point of view, we believe that the high incidence of Sertoli cell-only-syndrome among nationals and residents of a country that underwent a major environmental insult strengthens the chances of an environmental role in the development of this syndrome. From a management point of view, in cultures where in vitro fertilization is either still not widely acceptable or is unaffordable, oligospermia with clinical or subclinical varicocele deserves a trial of a low risk, out patient procedure, namely, spermatic vein embolization that could improve fertility.