Reconfigurable superconducting vortex pinning potential for magnetic disks in hybrid structures.

High resolution scanning Hall probe microscopy has been used to directly visualise the superconducting vortex behavior in hybrid structures consisting of a square array of micrometer-sized Py ferromagnetic disks covered by a superconducting Nb thin film. At remanence the disks exist in almost fully flux-closed magnetic vortex states, but the observed cloverleaf-like stray fields indicate the presence of weak in-plane anisotropy. Micromagnetic simulations suggest that the most likely origin is an unintentional shape anisotropy.

Usefulness and safety of percutaneous coronary interventions for cardiac transplant vasculopathy.

Late morbidity and death as a result of progressive coronary vascular obliteration remains a major unsolved problem after orthotopic heart transplantation. Various percutaneous catheter intervention (PCI) methods have been used to treat transplant coronary artery disease (CAD), but few reports have assessed the longitudinal results of these procedures. Of 1,440 cardiac transplant patients at University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, treated between 1984 and 2004, 65 patients who had undergone orthotopic heart transplantation underwent PCI on a total of 156 coronary artery lesions because of transplant CAD between July 1993 and August 2004.

Coronary steal syndrome with coil embolization of a large LIMA side branch: radionuclide evidence for reversible ischemia.

This case presents the controversy over coronary artery steal syndrome following bypass surgery when a large branch of the left internal mammary artery (LIMA) is not ligated. A discussion of previous attempts to understand the physiology of this anatomy is compared with case reports of objective evidence for ischemia that resolves following occlusion of the LIMA side branch.

Percutaneous snare retrieval of a partially embedded Wallstent.

Although removal of a stent is a well described method for treating an acutely dislodged or embolized device, removal of a previously deployed stent is unusual. We describe a case where a partially dislodged wallstent in a saphenous vein graft was removed using a snare to permit deployment of a balloon mounted stent across a proximal vein graft stenosis.