Biliquid oil-in-water nanofoams and spontaneous emulsification obtained with a surfactant resistant to curvature changes.

Hypothesis: Due to its huge polar headgroup, octaoxyethylene octyl ether carboxylic acid (CECHCOOH = Akypo LF2™) is supposed not to be able to change its curvature sufficiently to form bicontinuous microemulsions. Instead, upon adding an oil to the binary water - surfactant system, excess oil could be squeezed out or a biliquid foam could form.

Experiments: An auto-dilution setup was used to record small-angle X-ray scattering data along six dilution lines in the newly established phase diagram of the ternary system 2-ethylhexanol - CECHCOOH - water.

A dilute nematic gel produced by intramicellar segregation of two polyoxyethylene alkyl ether carboxylic acids.

Motivation: Surfactants like CECHCOOH have such bulky headgroups that they cannot show the common sphere-to-cylinder transition, while surfactants like CECHCOOH are mimicking lipids and form only bilayers. Mixing these two types of surfactants allows one to investigate the competition between intramicellar segregation leading to disc-like bicelles and the temperature dependent curvature constraints imposed by the mismatch between heads and tails.

Experiments: We establish phase diagrams as a function of temperature, surfactant mole ratio, and active matter content.

SAGES perspective: professional medical associations, commercial interests, and conflicts of interest.

Background: Professional medical associations (PMAs) have an essential role in advancing medical care and health. PMAs promote skills training, clinical standards, and other important educational activities. Most often, PMAs are not-for-profit entities that rely upon funding from industry to help cover the costs of these valuable activities.

The effect of ethanol on fibrillar hydrogels formed by glycyrrhizic acid monoammonium salt.

Motivation: The monoammonium salt of glycyrrhizic acid (AGA) is known to form fibrillar hydrogels and few studies regarding self-assembly of AGA have been published. Yet, the understanding of the fibrillar microstructures and the gelation remains vague. Thus, we attempt to achieve a deeper understanding of the microstructures and the gelation process of binary solutions of AGA in water.

Concordance of financial disclosures among faculty at the 2018-2020 SAGES annual meetings.

Background: Financial relationships with industry may bias educational content delivered by physicians. SAGES strives to mitigate potential bias, relying on physician self-reporting. Retrospective review of relationships is possible using the Open Payments Database (OPD), a public record of industry-reported payments to US physicians.