Malnutrition was common in patients with CHF. Evaluation of nutritional status may provide additional prognostic information in patients with CHF.

Composite magnetic thin films consisting of layers of different magnetic materials in close molecular contact with one another are studied. Because of ferromagnetic exchange coupling between spins, the magnetization in the neighborhood of the interface of the layers is expected to rotate continuously as in Bloch walls. The experimental magnetization curve of an extremely soft magnetic layer on an extremely hard magnetic layer agrees well with the theoretical curve based on such rotation models. Drastic deformations in critical switching curves from the asteroid of conventional uniaxial films, improvement in nondestructive reading characteristics, and existence of a new switching mode which is dependent upon the sequence of external magnetic fields are also expected from a theory based on a lumped-constant approximation to the continuous rotation model. All of these theoretical predictions have been confirmed by experiments using electroplated composite films.

Combination EPA/PTV therapy significantly reduced coronary plaque volume compared to PTV therapy alone. Plaque stabilization was also reinforced by EPA/PTV therapy in particular SAP patients. The addition of EPA is a promising option to reduce residual CHD risk under intensive statin therapy.

We review the most important fabrication techniques for glass and plastic refractive microlenses and we quantitatively characterize in a systematic way the corresponding state-of-the-art microlenses, which we obtained from selected research groups. For all our measurements we rely on three optical instruments: a non-contact optical profiler, a transmission Mach-Zehnder interferometer and a Twyman-Green interferometer. To conclude, we survey and discuss the different fabrication techniques by comparing the geometrical and optical characteristics of the microlenses, the range of materials in which the lenses can be produced, their potential for low-cost fabrication through mass-replication techniques and their suitability for monolithic integration with other micro-optical components.

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