Emulsion stability and potassium leakage in emulsion liquid membrane systems

Potassium leakage was studied in liquid membrane systems containing various emulsifiers and compared with emulsion, stability in the storage test. The effects of various parameters upon emulsion stability and the leakage of standard traces are discussed. The transfer of cations can be caused by emulsion breaking, by transport with the specific carrier and/or with surfactants used as emulsifiers. The latter case becomes especially important when hydrophilic surfactants, e.g. ones containing polyoxyethylene chains, are present in liquid membranes. In systems containing hydrophobic emulsifiers the transfer of potassium is relatively low. In each case considered the effect of emulsifiers upon the transfer of the standard tracer should be checked prior to using the leakage test to characterize emulsion stability.     

Enhancing calibration models for non-invasive near-infrared spectroscopical blood glucose determination

Partial least-squares regression (PLS) and radial basis function (RBF) networks are used to compute calibration models for non-invasive blood glucose determination by NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. A model computation shows that even extremely small deviations of the spectra induce increased prediction errors. Since the spectral contribution of blood glucose is much smaller than deviations resulting from the non-invasive measuring process a method based on Pearson’s correlation coefficient can be used for evaluating the quality of the recorded spectra during the prediction step. Another method is based on the leverage values from the hat matrix of the RBF network. Both methods lead to a significant decrease in prediction error.     

Many-cluster-systems: models of inhomogeneous matter

First, some general remarks concerning macroscopic “cluster matter” are given. In the second part, three recent, mainly optically and electron-microscopically performed investigations are discussed which deal with special properties of noble metal cluster systems forming the building units of this kind of matter:(1) dressed Au-55 clusters,(2) electromagnetic coupling effects among coagulated clusters,(3) the transition towards compact inhomogeneous matter caused by coalescence of clusters.     

Characterization of polyethylene terephthalate by gel permeation chromatography (GPC)

The use of the solvent mixture chloroform/hexafluoroisopropanol (98 : 2 vol %) in the GPC-analysis of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is described. PET-samples of different molecular weight have been prepared and characterized by light scattering, viscometry, and improved techniques of osmometry and end group titration. These well characterized samples were used in calibrating the GPC. The calibration with polydisperse standards was found superior to the universal calibration procedure in the solvent system chosen.