A buckling-based metrology for measuring the elastic moduli of polymeric thin films.

As technology continues towards smaller, thinner and lighter devices, more stringent demands are placed on thin polymer films as diffusion barriers, dielectric coatings, electronic packaging and so on. Therefore, there is a growing need for testing platforms to rapidly determine the mechanical properties of thin polymer films and coatings. We introduce here an elegant, efficient measurement method that yields the elastic moduli of nanoscale polymer films in a rapid and quantitative manner without the need for expensive equipment or material-specific modelling.

Growth hormone reserve in diabetes mellitus.

The magnitude of hGH reserve was investigated in young (16-40 years old) diabetic patients. Forty patients were examined with the arginine infusion test, twenty three with a sensitized version of the L-Dopa test. The patients were divided into four groups based on the type of their illness (IDDM or NIDDY) and the clinical stage of IDDM.