title: ARTMEM--an interactive graphical program simulating membrane potential measurements across artificial membranes.
abstract: This paper describes ARTMEM, an interactive graphical simulation program, and its use for teaching students the concept of membrane potentials and the measurement of electrical potentials across an ion-selective membrane. The program, written in Borland C++, and specifically designed for IBM-PC-compatible equipment, can also run on fast Macintosh computers using SoftPC emulation software. It demonstrates how an ion-selective membrane separating two different salt solutions automatically generates a potential across the membrane, as well as how such electrical potentials can be measured simply and the underlying permeability ratio determined. The program was developed to replace a previous experiment with actual artificial resin membranes; virtually every feature of the experiment has been simulated (e.g., unstirred-layer effects, solution-mixing mixing contamination, liquid junction potential effects). In addition, a number of these features and the procedure for data fitting are more clearly demonstrated using the computer simulation. The efficacy of such a simulation is discussed in comparison with the real experiment and other types of simulations.
authors.affiliation: School of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia.
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Barry
mesh_terms: D003196:Computer Graphics; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D008564:Membrane Potentials; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D008838:Microcomputers; D008954:Models, Biological; D012984:Software; D012985:Software Design; D014584:User-Computer Interface
chemical_list: D008567:Membranes, Artificial