Impregnation of Bombax ceiba and Bombax insigne wood with a N-methylol melamine compound

Methylated N-methylol melamine (NMM) is known for its ability to enhance physico-mechanical properties, anti-fungal ability, and hydrophobicity and was therefore used to impregnate two less used and non-durable wood species from Myanmar, Bombax ceiba and Bombax insigne. Solution uptake, weight percent gain and nitrogen content were increased by increasing melamine concentrations with B. ceiba always achieving higher values compared with B. insigne. According to the leaching results, a higher degree of condensation after curing as well as a better crosslinking of NMM could be obtained at higher temperatures. However, both curing temperatures used (90 and 120 A degrees C) resulted in almost the same amount of nitrogen fixed in the cell wall. UV microspectrophotometry confirmed the penetration of the NMM into different morphological regions of wood tissues, which was again supported by the analysis of point measurement spectra of treated and untreated specimens

Teores de lignina e ácidos urônicos na madeira e polpa celulósica de Eucalipto

O teor de lignina influencia a alvura da polpa celulósica e, por isto, é uma variável importante no processo de sua fabricação, o que torna fundamental estabelecer métodos para determinar seu valor. Baseado na hipótese de que os métodos disponíveis para avaliar o teor de lignina solúvel medem, também, os ácidos urônicos na madeira, isto tornaria este método impreciso. O objetivo desse trabalho foi verificar se existe correlação entre a lignina e ácidos urônicos na madeira de eucalipto e na polpa celulósica. Quarenta e seis amostras, sendo 24 amostras de madeira, 11 de polpa não branqueada e 11 de polpa branqueada foram utilizadas para se determinar os teores de lignina e de ácidos urônicos. As amostras de madeira apresentaram maior quantidade de lignina e, por isto, os teores de ácidos urônicos não influenciaram de forma significativa os valores da mesma. Amostras de polpa celulósica, com menor quantidade de lignina, mostraram grande correlação entre os valores de ácidos urônicos e lignina. Os testes de medição de lignina na polpa celulósica apresentaram baixa precisão

Modern Industrial Economics and Competition Policy: Open Problems and Possible Limits

Naturally, competition policy is based on competition economics made applicable in terms of law and its enforcement. Within the different branches of competition economics, modern industrial economics, or more precisely gametheoretic oligopoly theory, has become the dominating paradigm both in the U.S. (since the 1990s Post-Chicago movement) and in the EU (so-called more economic approach in the 2000s). This contribution reviews the state of the art in antitrust-oriented modern industrial economics and, in particular, critically discusses open questions and possible limits of basing antitrust on modern industrial economics. In doing so, it provides some hints how to escape current enforcement problems in industrial economics-based competition policy on both sides of the Atlantic. In particular, the paper advocates a change of the way modern industrial economics is used in competition policy: instead of more and more case-by-cases analyses, the insights from modern industrial economics should be used to design better competition rules