We report the structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric characterization of glass-coated Ni_42.9Mn_37.1Sn_20.0 microwires produced by the Taylor-Ulitovsky method. Microwire samples crystallized into a single-phase austenite with the L2₁-type crystal structure (space group $Fm\bar{3}m$ , lattice parameter a ≈ 6.02 Å) and a Curie temperature of 349 K. A distinctive feature of the produced microwires is that saturation magnetization is reached at a very low magnetic field (∼0.15 T). For a magnetic field change of 3 T, the produced microwires showed a reversible maximum magnetic entropy change |ΔS_M|^max of 2.3 J kg⁻¹ K⁻¹ and a refrigerant capacity of 197 J kg⁻¹, which are similar to the values reported by other austenitic NiMnSn alloys produced by rapid quenching techniques.

The rare-earth magnetism in the intermetallic compound Yb_0.5Ce_0.5Ni₅ was studied using X-ray diffraction, magnetization, heat capacity, and electrical resistivity measurements. The effect of spin fluctuations (SF) was observed in M(T) at ~40 K. The measurement of thermal and transport properties supported the results obtained from magnetic measurements. Collected experimental data showed that Yb/Ce substitution shifts the maximum temperature for spin fluctuations to a lower temperature compared to that for pure CeNi₅. Moreover, at low temperatures, an anomaly in the heat capacity of possible magnetic origin arising from Yb³⁺ was detected. Ce atoms seemed to remain in a non-magnetic valence state at almost 4+.