Interleukin-10 (IL-10) is an anti-inflammatory cytokine that has been shown to play a role in inflammatory and autoimmune disorders as well as in neuropathic pain conditions.

The objective of the present study was to assess the levels of IL-10 in rat’s dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and the sciatic nerve following four different forms of sciatic nerve injury. The models used to induce the injury included two models of partial nerve injury: partial sciatic ligation (PSL) and chronic constriction injury (CCI), a model of complete sciatic transection (CST) and a model of perineural inflammation with minimal nerve damage (neuritis). Withdrawal responses for mechanical stimulus and withdrawal latency for thermal stimulation were used to measure mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia, respectively, and duration of the nociceptive withdrawal reflex to mechanical stimulus was used to measure mechanical hyperalgesia.

The affected and contra-lateral nerves and the affected side DRG IL-10 levels were assessed by the means of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), 3 and 8 days following the procedure and were compared to naïve rats’ IL-10 levels.

The rats exposed to CCI and neuritis developed significant mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia as well as mechanical hyperalgesia 3 and 8 days following the surgical procedure. Rats exposed to CST did not respond to mechanical stimulation and developed thermal hypoalgesia 3 and 8 days after the surgery.

The DRG IL-10 levels were significantly reduced 3 and 8 days following CCI and PSL, significantly increased 3 and 8 days following CST, and remained unchanged following neuritis.

The sciatic nerve IL-10 levels reduced significantly in both injured and contra-lateral nerves 3 and 8 days following CCI and PSL, elevated significantly in the injured but not in the contra-lateral nerve 3 and 8 days following CST and remained unchanged following neuritis. The results of this study suggest that IL-10’s role in the neuropathic pain etiology may be specific to nerve injury type.

Complete nerve transection increases while partial nerve injury reduces IL-10 levels in the involved nerve, and DRG. Perineural inflammation with minimal nerve damage has no effect on IL-10 levels.

In the present investigation, new subclasses of analytic functions in the open unit disk which are defined using generalized derivative operator are introduced. Several interesting properties of these classes are obtained.

New composite polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/polypropylene (PP) membranes were prepared by combining both solution electrospinning and melt electrospinning methods. Self‐designed and made needleless melt electrospinning device was used to fabricate PP membranes which acted as the support layer. PVA membrane on the surface was fabricated via solution electrospinning. The electrospun PVA/PP composite membranes were characterized by the pore size distribution, pure water flux, and rejection ratio, then compared with general composite membranes. Characterizations revealed that the fiber diameter of solution electrospun PVA membrane and melt electrospun PP membrane were 0.171 ± 0.027 and 2.24 ± 0.33 μm, respectively, and the average pore size was 0.832 μm and 27.29 μm, which was much smaller than the nonwoven membrane. The rejection ratio to the 500 nm particles of the PVA/PP …

We provide a validation of a formal approximate solution to the problem of the evolution of a slowly varying harvested logistic population. Using a contraction mapping proof, we show that the initial value problem for the population has an exact solution lying in an appropriately small neighbourhood of this approximate solution, under quite general conditions.

With the rapid development of the Internet and communication networks, the confidentiality of digital

images transmitted over public networks must be preserved by using encryption techniques. Advanced

Encryption Standard (AES) is one of the most commonly used encryption algorithms at present. Although

AES has several advantages, such as security in data encryption, it also has a number of drawbacks, such as

high computations, pattern problems when used for encrypting images, and fixed S-box weak points. This

paper proposes a method that overcomes the fixed S-box weak points and improves the performance of

AES when used for encrypting images, particularly when the image data are large. In addition, the

MixColumn stage is replaced by chaotic mapping and XOR operation to reduce the high computations in

MixColumn transform. The proposed method is tested on several images, and the results show that the

proposed method efficiently generated cipher images with very low correlation coefficients of adjacent

pixels and provided better encryption speed and high security as a result of the dependence of the S-box on

the key characteristics of the chaotic system

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ABSTRACT Introduction: Salivary gland tumors (SGTs) may represent a considerable diagnostic challenge, primarily because of the complexity of the classification and the rarity of several entities. Since proliferative activity is a reliable method to assess tumor biology. There has been continuous research to find such biological markers. Ki-67 is a widely accepted proliferation marker, with its expression tightly associated with the cell cycle. It is implicated in many of human cancers as a prognostic factor. MCM-3, member of minichromosome maintenance proteins family, is upregulated in proliferating cells. MCM-3 overexpression in almost all human cancers implicates that it might facilitate the tumorigenesis by playing a role in the malignant transformation of cells. Objectives: to evaluate the MCM-3 protein expression in benign and malignant salivary gland tumors and compare the obtained results with the expression of Ki-67 proliferation antigen. Materials and methods: Immunohistochemical analysis of 20 cases of SGTs with 2 sections from each specimen (20 sections for antiKi67antibody and 20 sections for antiMCM3antibody) and 5 control cases. Immunohistochemical staining was performed using a Labeled StreptAvidin Biotin method (LSAB). Results: Normal salivary gland tissue showed negative immunoreactivity for both Ki-67 and MCM-3 in epithelial and myoepithelial cells. All the examined cases showed positive expression for both proliferative markers in benign and malignant SGTs, with different intensities. Conclusions: The proliferative markers Ki-67 and MCM-3 proteins are overexpressed in malignant salivary gland tumors, than benign ones. Both Ki-67 and MCM-3 may be reliably applied as diagnostic markers to distinguish benign from malignant salivary gland tumors. Keywords: Salivary gland tumor, Immunohistochemistry, MCM-3, KI-67.