Curing spurious magneto-mechanical coupling in soft non-magnetic materials.

The present work is concerned with the issue of spurious coupling effects that are pervasive in fully coupled magneto-mechanical finite element simulations involving very soft non-magnetic or air-like media. We first address the characterization of the spurious magneto-mechanical effects and their intuitive interpretation based on energy considerations. Then, as main contribution, we propose two new cures for the issue under consideration that completely prune the undesired spurious magneto-mechanical coupling in non-magnetic media.

Analytical estimation of non-local deformation-mediated magneto-electric coupling in soft composites.

For a long time, the search for magneto-electric materials concentrated on multi-ferroics and hard-matter composites. By contrast, rather recently the exploitation of strain-mediated magneto-electric (ME) coupling in soft composites was proposed. The basic idea behind this approach is to combine the magneto- and electro-mechanical responses of composites consisting of a soft matrix carrying magnetic inclusions.

Improvement of the cardiac marker N-terminal-pro brain natriuretic peptide through adjustment for renal function: a stratified multicenter trial.

Background: N-terminal-pro brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) is a useful cardiac marker that is also influenced by renal dysfunction. It was our objective to assess the relationship between NT-proBNP concentrations in plasma and worsening renal function, and to attempt adjustment of NT-proBNP for renal dysfunction in a prospective, stratified multi-center study.

Methods: We stratified 203 male patients according to their cardiac status and the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR).

Smoking as a risk factor for end-stage renal failure in men with primary renal disease.

Background: It is not known whether smoking increases the risk of end-stage renal failure (ESRF) in patients with primary renal disease.

Methods: We performed a retrospective multicenter case-control study including 582 patients from nine centers in Germany, Italy and Austria. The diseases investigated were IgA glomerulonephritis (IgA-GN) as a model of inflammatory renal disease and autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) as a model of non-inflammatory renal disease.