OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of disinfectants and distilled water on the micro-hardness of heat cure acrylic resins. METHODS The case-control study was conducted at Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan Institute of Oral Health Sciences, Dow University of Health Sciences, and Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, from April to October 2011. Specimens were fabricate...

OBJECTIVES This study evaluated the effect of sports and energy drinks on the surface hardness of different composite resin restorative materials over a 1-month period. MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 168 specimens: Compoglass F, Filtek Z250, Filtek Supreme, and Premise were prepared using a customized cylindrical metal mould and they were divided into six groups (N=42; n=7 per group). For th...

Th e aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition and antioxidants capacity of three plum cultivars, namely ‘Top’, ‘Elena’ and ‘Bistrica’. Fruits were harvested and following parameters were determined: dry matter, total acids (TA), total soluble solids (TSS), pH, vitamin C, total phenols, nonfl avonoids and antioxidant capacity. Diff erences between cultivars for most of the che...

We consider offline algorithms for minimizing the total flow time on O(1) machines where jobs can be preempted arbitrarily but migrations are disallowed. Our main result is a quasipolynomial time approximation scheme for minimizing the total flow time. We also consider more general settings and give some hardness results.

Copper (Cu), iron (Fe), and iodine/thyroid hormone (TH) deficiencies lead to similar defects in late brain development, suggesting that these micronutrient deficiencies share a common mechanism contributing to the observed derangements. Previous studies in rodents (postweanling and adult) and humans (adolescent and adult) indicate that Cu and Fe deficiencies affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-th...

The locus coeruleus (LC) is a dense cluster of neurons that projects axons throughout the neuroaxis and is located in the rostral pontine tegmentum extending from the level of the inferior colliculus to the motor nucleus of the trigeminal nerve. LC neurons are lost in the course of several neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. In this study we used Nissl s...

BACKGROUND The association between dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and low thyroid hormone (TH) levels has been previously described. In these patients abnormal thyroid function is significantly related to impaired left ventricular (LV) function and increased risk of death. Although TH was originally thought to be produced exclusively by the thyroid gland, we recently reported TH biosynthesis in t...

The Equal Sum Subsets problem, where we are given a set of positive integers and we ask for two nonempty disjoint subsets such that their elements add up to the same total, is known to be NP-hard. In this paper we give (pseudo-)polynomial algorithms and/or (strong) NP-hardness proofs for several natural variations of Equal Sum Subsets. Among others we present (1) a framework for obtaining NP-ha...