From the knowledge of piezoelectric material tensorial components one can, by the finite element method, calculate the electrical impedance versus frequency and simulate the mechanical deformation of piezoelectric bars. Here, the simulation results obtained with lead zirconate‐titanate and leadtitanateceramics are reported. In order to check the validity of the simulation, interferometric measurements of the mechanical deformation amplitude were performed. It is shown that these measurements are able to reveal the inhomogeneity of the materials under study and that a small error in the tensorial parameter absolute values leads to an inconsistent picture of simulated mechanical deformation.

The addition of the hormone Oestradiol to Phosphatidylcholine-Cholesterol membrane changes the frequency dependence of the membrane impedance. It increases severalfold the electrical admittance of the polar regions and consequently provides a conducting shunt from the hydrocarbon region to the aqueous phase.

We report the first self-diffusion measurements of elongated micelles in the semidilute regime performed with fringe-pattern photobleaching-recovery techniques. These measurements give evidence for the power-law dependence of the self-diffusion coefficient Ds versus concentration, but polymer models are not adequate. Suggestion is made that such micellar systems behave like ‘‘living polymers.’’

The forces between two mica surfaces covered with an adsorbed layer of protein (mucin BSM) across aqueous solution were measured as a function of distance. Parallel adsorption measurements were performed with radiolabeled mucin. The analysis of the force/distance curves for different mucin surface densities and ionic strengths have shown that (1) in all the studied cases, steric repulsive exponentially varying forces were observed, which increased with the mucin surface density. (2) For a low coverage of the mica surfaces by mucin, bridging effects give rise to large-distance attractive interactions. They disappear at high coverages of the mica surfaces. (3) The mucin macromolecules are more rigid at physiological salt concentrations than at low ionic strengths.