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Introduction: A major public health issue worldwide, induced abortion is probably the least documented demographic and social phenomenon in Morocco. The scarcity of data, the sensitivity of the subject due to its penalization by law (with some exceptions) and the social stigma, make abortion difficult to study. This article aims to contribute to the knowledge of the scale of this phenomenon in Morocco by combining direct and indirect methods.

Mechanical strength enhancement by grain size reduction in a soft colloidal polycrystal.

It has long been known that the mechanical strength of finely grained solid state polycrystals could be enhanced when the grain size is reduced. Indeed, the equation linking the yield stress and the inverse square root of grain size was introduced in the 1950s by Hall and Petch. Since then this relationship has been widely used to engineer structural metals and alloys.

Structure and thermorheology of concentrated pluronic copolymer micelles in the presence of laponite particles.

Small-angle neutron scattering and thermorheology techniques are used to investigate in detail the effect of laponite particles in aqueous solutions of poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(propylene oxide)-poly(ethylene oxide), PEO-PPO-PEO, block copolymers in the concentrated regime. At high polymer concentration or temperature, the micellar solutions exhibit a phase transition from fluid to crystal due to crowding of the micelles. The addition of laponite is found to disturb this phase transition.

Phase behavior and microstructure of microemulsions containing the hydrophobic ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate.

The phase behavior and microstructure of the ternary system water/1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (bmimPF(6))/Triton X-100 was studied as a function of temperature and ionic liquid (IL) mass fraction alpha. In the present study, a hydrophobic IL instead of commonly used organic solvents such as n-alkanes is used. The fish-shaped region is distorted at low and high values of alpha, whereas it is symmetric at intermediate alpha.

Restricted swelling and its orientation effect on copolymer micellar solutions of hexagonal-packed cylinders under steady shear flow.

We investigate the structure of polystyrene-b-poly(acrylic acid, sodium salt) copolymer in aqueous solutions. We offer detailed characterization of the micellar solutions by scattering techniques and show that they form hexagonal-packed cylinders. The micelles follow the swelling law expected for cylinders, upon addition of water, down to a concentration threshold below which the distance cylinder-cylinder remains constant.