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Key Clinical Message: If you encounter an unexplained case of bone marrow edema in a young patient, consider the possibility of osteoid osteoma (OO). Even in the presence of a nidus near vital structures, RFA can safely be used to treat OO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study was designed to use sonography and evaluate arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) in dialysis patients. The aim was to determine criteria for distinguishing between patent AVFs with proper function (healthy) and unhealthy AVFs. Materials and Methods: This study enrolled 106 dialysis patients with an AVF. All fistulas were evaluated using spectral Doppler and grayscale sonography, assessing parameters such as draining vein diameter, distance of the venous vein from the skin surface, feeding artery diameter, presence of thrombosis, and fistula stenosis. Subsequently, Doppler criteria such as flow volume (FV) and resistance index (RI) were measured and compared between healthy and unhealthy AVFs. Results: This cohort's spectral Doppler findings demonstrated lower FV and higher RI, in unhealthy AVFs, compared to healthy ones (283.5 ± 101.26 mL/min vs 1383.43 ± 756.76 mL/min; P =.006) and (0.55 ± 0.33 vs 0.37 ± 0.14; P =.004) respectively. Conclusion: The spectral Doppler and grayscale sonographic imaging made it possible to evaluate AVF performance and determine its quality. In this cohort, a decreased FV, increased RI, and decreased draining vein diameter were observed in unhealthy AVFs. These results would suggest that sonographers and clinicians should pay close attention to these parameters when assessing the function of an AVF, for patients undergoing hemodialysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The event of Sarpol-e Zahab with magnitude of 7.3 severely struck the border area of Iran and Iraq in Kermanshah province, leading to catastrophic damages to a wide region, specially Sarpol-e Zahab city. Doubts arouse whether the damage distribution all over the city stemed from the seismic ground response or superficial loose fill material. The issue was explored in this study by especial attention to an area with high damages in Sarpol-e Zahab, called Fooladi. Since the seismic bedrock motion was not available, it was first deconvoluted from the recorded acceleration on the ground surface. Then ground response analysis was conducted at three different locations in Fooladi area, by applying deconvolved motion. It was determined that the local site condition was accountable for damage severity specially in Fooladi area [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degree of saturation of soil is an important factor in preparing specimens of soil in the laboratory. The moisture content of the specimen affects its behavior, especially in undrained loading, either by change of the structure of soil or by change of effective stress path. Even though a special equipment is required to measure the change of unsaturated specimen's geometry, they are not provided in many engineering laboratories due to economic and technical reasons. One alternative for a precise measurement is to saturate the specimens. We show herein that apart from such expensive measurements and saturating the specimens even though it is not saturated in the field, estimating the change of specimen size by simplifying the relevant assumptions and resembling the degree of saturation of the field in the laboratory is to be preferred. Two case studies of monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests are reported herein to show this priority based on field tests and image processing results. It is concluded that given the variation of the degree of saturation of the soil in the field, as well as its volumetric behavior while being sheared, that is, either being compressional or dilative, are essential to make the optimal decision on the selection of the proper degree of saturation at the laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the results of experimental and numerical studies on effect of Variable Confining Pressure (VCP) on Excess Pore Water Pressure (EPWP) increase in granule-clay mixtures. EPWP plays an important role in the seismic stability of the dams constructed with a core of granule-clay mixture. These dams would experience VCP during an earthquake. This is unlike the previous studies on the material behaviour which only included Constant Confining Pressure (CCP). VCP experiments showed that EPWP increases in the granule-clay mixture compared with the pure clay which agrees with the CCP-based literature in this regard. By comparison of experiments and numerical models, it was shown that the pore pressure build-up between the grains in a granule-clay mixture can be numerically modelled by just modelling two adjacent grains. Numerical models showed that EPWP decreases with an increase in granule size, and increases with an increase in granule content. However, the amount of EPWP increase in a mixture compared to the pure clay is higher in CCP loading, compared with the VCP loading. It means the rate of EPWP build-up in the mixed and pure clay get closer in a VCP loading, compared to the CCP loading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]