The concentration dependent properties exhibit a break point due to the micellization.The CMC of surfactant is usually determined by plotting those properties as a function of concentration. The other important property of ionic surfactant solutions is the degree of micellar counterion dissociation, which has been used to be quantified by the two-site model (7,8). From this simple model one can calculate the α by using the concentrations of "free" ions in the aqueous bulk phase and "bound" ions in micellar phase. The model has successfully The MQAE probe was developed to study the transport of chloride ion in liposomes (11).The MQAE are highly polar and membrane impermeant, which has suitable physical properties for measurement of the concentration of free chloride ion. When the cationic MQAE is introduced to cationic surfactant solutions, the MQAE will tend to partition in aqueous bulk phase due to the low octanol-water partition coefficient in addition to the electrostatic effect.The fluorescence behavior of water-soluble MQAE can be expected to related to the chloride ion concentration in aqueous bulk phase. Fig. 2 shows the Stern-Volmer plots for quenching of MQAE fluorescence by various cationic surfactants. The fluorescence intensities of MQAE 5 were found to decrease in the presence of CTAC, TTAC, TDBAC and DAC. The observed quenching can be ascribed to the free chloride ion dissociated from the surfactant. All experimental data gave linear plots below their CMCs. The slopes of plots, K SV , below CMC are summarized in Table 1. The K SV for CTAC agreed very closely with that of NaCl. The K SV for surfactant monomer tend to decrease with decreasing length of the alkyl chain. The decrease in

Ultrathin, flexible and highly water-permeable nanostructured carbon (NC)-based membranes are formed on porous polymer supports by plasma high-power impulse magnetron sputtering in order to fabricate carbon-based membranes for water desalination. The carbon membranes are produced at room temperature using mixtures of argon (Ar), nitrogen (N 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) as precursors, and this procedure constitutes a simple solvent-free, waste-free scalable process. Structural characterization, molecular simulation, water permeation and salt rejection assessments are used to correlate the performance and membrane structure. Molecular simulations indicate that nitrogen doping on the carbon-based membranes drastically modifies the pore distribution and avoids the formation of clustered regions of high-density carbons. The optimum NC-based membrane has up to 96% salt rejection rate for 0.2 wt% NaCl saline water, with high water permeability ca. 25 l m − 2 h − 1 MPa − 1 . The NC-based membranes as active layers for desalination membranes exhibit attractive characteristics which render them a potential alternative to current polymeric technology used in reverse osmosis processes.

Human hair damage is caused by chemical treatments and various daily factors. A number of cosmetic ingredients have been developed to repair hair damage. It is important to know the localization of cosmetic ingredients distributed on human hair to understand the interaction mechanism of these ingredients with the hair.In this work, the distribution of cosmetic ingredients on damaged hair was investigated using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). We examined the penetration of L-theanine and the adsorption of cationic chitosan. The TOF-SIMS imaging analysis revealed that L-theanine penetrated deep and was distributed uniformly inside the damaged hair. Further, cationic chitosan was uniformly adsorbed on the hair surface. The analysis results showed that TOF-SIMS is one of the most convenient methods to estimate the distribution of cosmetic ingredients on the hair.

Experimental hydrops caused by underabsorption of endolymphatic fluid is a model of remissional stage of Meniere's disease. In this study, another type of model, ie, hydrops caused by overproduction of endolymphatic fluid, was accomplished by applying various pressures into scala media through a micropipette via stria vascularis. This type of hydrops could be a model of attacks of Meniere's disease. By using two types of the model, effects of glycerol administration and of opening the endolymphatic sac were discussed.

The clinical symptoms of colonic tuberculosis are variable, among which massive melena is extremely rare. Herein, we report two cases of colonic tuberculosis representing with massive melena, both of whom never had active pulmonary tuberculosis. The first case was a 55-year-old woman. Although her emergency colonoscopic setting suggested colonic tuberculosis, no evidence of tuberculosis could be found at that time. We performed a therapeutic trial and observed a drastic regression of the initial changes with 4-week treatment using antituberculous agents. The second case was a 37-year-old man. His emergency colonoscopy showed lesions mimicking colon carcinoma. However, the histological examinations did not indicate malignancy. The polymerase chain reaction of colonic biopsy specimen was positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Similar to the first case, a significant improvement of the initial lesions was observed after 4-week treatment using antituberculous agents. Collectively, although the massive melena is a rare manifestation, tuberculosis of the colon should be suspected in the patients with such symptom.