Background: Differentiation between malignant and benign vertebral compression fracture is often problematic. This is precisely difficult in elderly who are predisposed to benign compression caused by osteoporosis .Establishing correct diagnosis is of great importance in determining the treatment andprognosis.A study was performed to determine which magnetic resonance imaging findings are useful in discrimination between metastatic and acute osteoporotic compression fractures of the spine. Recently MRI is being increasingly used for evaluation of these fractures.Objectives: The aim of this study is to establish the correct diagnosis of malignant and benign compression vertebral fracture by MRI to determine treatment and prognosis.Methods: MRI of (45 )patients with vertebral compression fracture who underwent MRI of spine during 2 years period ( 2004-2006) in Neuro surgical hospital were retrospectively reviewed by an expedient radiologist , A collapsed vertebra were considered to be acute if there was recent history of back pain of less than 3moths. All MRI sequences needed for spine examination was done( T1WI SE, T2WI GE STIR, and Mylography ) and Gadolinium contrast medium was given to all patients..Results: Of total 45 patients (31male, 14 female, their age range between 18-72years) , The criteria used to differentiate between benign andmalignant collapse spine on MRI was based on the signal intensity, morphology and contrast enhancement for the correct diagnosis. Homogenous and diffuse abnormal signal intensity, posterior convexity and involvement of pedicles are sign that are strongly suggestive of malignant collapse .Conversely, a band like area of low signal intensity adjacent to depressed end plateand preservation of signal intensity of vertebra suggest benign nature of the collapse.Conclusions: We found that MRI features is helpful in differentiation of malignant and benign compression fractures in majority of cases, and if initial MRI finding are equivocal correlation with other images technique, follow up and biopsy in selected cases helpful in arriving correct diagnosis
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When the flange of a reinforced concrete spandrel beam is in tension, current design codes and specifications enable a portion of the bonded flexure tension reinforcement to be distributed over an effective flange width. The flexural behavior of the RC L-shaped spandrel beam when reinforcement is laterally displaced in the tension flange is investigated experimentally and numerically in this work. Numerical analysis utilizing the finite element method is performed on discretized flanged beam models validated using experimentally verified L-shaped beam specimens to achieve study objectives. A parametric study was carried out to evaluate the influence of various factors on the beam’s flexure behavior. Results showed that
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Experimental investigation of the influence of inserting the metal foam to the solar chimney to induce natural ventilation are described and analyzed in this work. To carry out the experimental test, two identical solar chimneys (without insertion of metal foam and with insertion of metal foam) are designed and placed facing south with dimensions of length× width× air gap (2 m× 1 m× 0.2 m). Four incline angles are tested (20o,30o,45o,60o) for each chimney in Baghdad climate condition (33.3o latitude, 44.4o longitude) on October, November, December 2018. The solar chimney performance is investigated by experimentally recording absorber pl
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This work concerns the thermal and sound insulation as well as the mechanical properties of polymer matrix composite reinforced with glass fibers. These fibers may have dangerous effect during handling, for example the glass fibers might cause some damage to the eyes, lungs and even skin. For this reason the present work, investigates the behavior of polymer composite reinforced with natural fibers (Plant fibers) as replacement to glass fibers. Unsaturated Polyester resin was used as matrix material reinforced with two types of fibers, one of them is artificial (Glass fibers) and the other type is natural (Jute, Fronds Palm and Reed Fibers) by hand lay-up technique. All fibers are untreated with any chemical solvent. The Percentage of mi
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The avoidance strategy of prey to predation and the predation strategy for predators are important topics in evolutionary biology. Both prey and predators adjust their behaviors in order to obtain the maximal benefits and to raise their biomass for each. Therefore, this paper is aimed at studying the impact of prey’s fear and group defense against predation on the dynamics of the food-web model. Consequently, in this paper, a mathematical model that describes a tritrophic Leslie-Gower food-web system is formulated. Sokol-Howell type of function response is adapted to describe the predation process due to the prey’s group defensive capability. The effects of fear due to the predation process are considered in the first two levels
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Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides unconditional security in theory. However, practical QKD systems face challenges in maximizing the secure key rate and extending transmission distances. In this paper, we introduce a comparative study of the BB84 protocol using coincidence detection with two different quantum channels: a free space and underwater quantum channels. A simulated seawater was used as an example for underwater quantum channel. Different single photon detection modules were used on Bob’s side to capture the coincidence counts. Results showed that increasing the mean photon number generally leads to a higher rate of coincidence detection and therefore higher possibility of increasing the secure key rate. The secure key rat
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The purpose of this paper is to introduce and study the concepts of fuzzy generalized open sets, fuzzy generalized closed sets, generalized continuous fuzzy proper functions and prove results about these concepts.
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