Abstract

This study compared the peripheral analgesic effects of a novel opioid agonist 14-O-methylmorphine-6-O-sulfate (14-O-MeM6SU), to that of non-peptide (morphine, fentanyl) and peptide opioid agonists (Met-enkephalin; met-ENK and β-endorphin; β-END) in a model of localized inflammatory pain evoked by intraplantar (i.pl.) Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA). Nociceptive responses to local opioid agonists were measured by pressure paw-withdrawal procedures. In addition, the antinociceptive efficacy and potency of these test compounds in vivo was compared to that in vitro using the rat vas deferens (RVD) bioassay. Intraplantar 14-O-MeM6SU (0.32–2.53 nmol/rat), morphine (14.95–112.15 nmol/rat), fentanyl (0.19–2.36 nmol/rat), met-ENK (0.10–10 nmol/rat) and β-END (0.77–5.00 nmol/rat) dose dependently increased paw pressure thresholds exclusively in inflamed hindpaws. At higher doses analgesic effects were also seen in noninflamed paws for 14-O-MeM6SU, morphine and fentanyl but not for met-ENK or β-END. The maximal possible local analgesic effect (%) measured in inflamed paws was 50.6±2.7, 18.23±1.78, 37.44±2.17, 36.00±1.43, and 40.69±0.91 for 14-O-MeM6SU, morphine, fentanyl, met-ENK and β-END, respectively. Interestingly, i.pl. administered opioid peptides met-ENK and β-END displayed a peripheral analgesic ceiling effect. This local antinociception was antagonized by co-administered opioid antagonist naloxone-methiodide (NAL-M). Similar to the analgesic testing, the RVD showed the following efficacy order of the test compounds: 14-O-MeM6SU>β-END>fentanyl>met-ENK⪢morphine. Taken together, 14-O-MeM6SU was more potent than morphine, fentanyl and met-ENK and β-END and displayed superiority in the maximum antinociceptive effects. The superiority of local antinociceptive effects of 14-O-MeM6SU might be due to both pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic factors.

Most data-hiding techniques have already been investigated in detail as regards image files in both

the spatial and frequency domains. However, they are currently the subject of several investigations in

the video domain. In recent years, among many proposed steganographic methods in the spatial

domain, pixel-value differencing (PVD) provides both high embedding capacity and viable

imperceptibility for images compared with other techniques, such as least significant bit (LSB) method.

It utilizes the remainder of two consecutive pixels in embedding secret data, and the number of

embedded bits is based on the amount of difference. The large amount of difference indicates that more

secret bits can be embedded. However, based on extensive experiments, using such technique to embed

secret data in the frequency domain creates a massive negative effect on hosted data, even resulting in

low embedding capacity, which will lead to undesired distortion in the host file. In this paper, some

modifications to the PVD method are proposed that make it capable of embedding secret information

in macro-blocks of both I-frames and P-frames for MPEG-2 video during compression. The

modifications applied to PVD reduce the distortion drift caused by reversible data hiding within

selected macro-block coefficients. Furthermore, this research devises an adaptive method that can

achieve a more secure scheme for embedding data based on encrypting the host macro-block

coefficients before the hiding process using a secret encrypted key. Based on the simulation results

obtained in this proposed approach, the proposed scheme successfully improves the perceived quality

and achieves much better security compared with PVD-based method while still retaining the

advantage of hiding a large amount of information.

The Effect of Recognizing Lexical Cohesive Relations of Written Text on the Reading Comprehension of Libyan EFL University Students

Libya as many other regions under arid climates suffers from inadequate water resources to cover all the needs of this rapidly developing country. Increasing water amounts for population supply, agricultural irrigation and use for industry are needed. As groundwater is the main water source in the country it represents a natural resource of the highest economic and social importance. Conceptual and numerical models were implemented in a regional scale to show how the natural situation has been changed after heavy groundwater abstraction having occurred in the last decades in the northwestern part of Libya. Results of the numerical model indicated that the current zones of depression in piezometric surface could have been caused by smaller withdrawn amounts than previously estimated. Indicated differences in assessed withdrawn groundwater volumes seem to be quite high and might influence considerably the future possibilities of groundwater use in the study region.  

In this paper, the definition of intuitionistic fuzzy parameterised fuzzy soft set (ifpfs-sets) is introduced with their properties. Two operations on intersection are introduced. Also, some examples for these operations are given. The ifpfs-set, namely union and definition of ifpfs-aggregation operator which forms ifpfs-decision making method is Introduced.