Process-Related Mechanical Degradation of the Wood Component in High-Wood-Content Wood-Plastic Composites

Micromorphological studies of wood-plastic composites (WPC) are crucial for deeper understanding of their physical, mechanical, and durability properties. The objective of this study was to examine process-related mechanical degradation of the wood component in an extruded high-wood-content WPC. WPC with ≈70% wood content and three distinctly different ground wood components were manufactured by a conical extrusion technology, ie WPC were prepared with an unmodified, acetylated, or thermally modified wood component. Size and shape of wood components were determined before and after the extrusion process. Micromorphology of WPC samples was studied using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a surface preparation technique based on UV laser ablation. This micromachining technique was also applied to prepare thin specimens for micromechanical analysis using a tensile stage mounted in a SEM. Results show that extrusion processes cause a significant mechanical degradation of the wood component. Degradation was most pronounced for the thermally modified wood component, and interestingly, this resulted in a more homogenous WPC micromorphology compared with WPC with unmodified and acetylated wood components. WPC with thermally modified wood also exhibited the highest micromechanical strength

The process of juridification of school inspection in Sweden

Since 2008, Swedish school inspection has leaned heavily on the Education Act and Ordinance. The increasing importance of the legal framework is in this study understood as a juridification process. This study explores the shift to a more legally oriented inspection and governing and highlights the inspectorate’s processes leading up to new assessment areas closely related to the Education Act, how these areas are practiced by the inspectors and how head teachers may react to them. Interviews with legal experts, managers, inspectors and head teachers as well as observations of the inspectors’ school visits are used. The results indicate that within the new inspection agency in 2008, the process started with a review of research on successful schools before turning to the Education Act, and that the inspection process is sometimes perceived as more legalistic than pedagogic by head teachers. The consequences of the juridification of Swedish school inspection is discussed in relation to constitutive effects

Effects of Water Soaking–drying Cycles on Thermally Modified Spruce Wood–plastic Composites.

The overall aim of this work was to gain more insight on the potential of modified wood (TMW) components for use in wood–thermoplastic composites (WPCs). Laboratory-scale TMWPCs were produced, and the effects of severe water soaking–drying cycles on the samples were studied. Water sorption behavior and resulting dimensional and micromorphological changes were also studied, and the results were compared with those of unmodified wood–plastic composites (UWPCs) used as control. The TMW was prepared by cutting a spruce board into half and subjecting one-half to an atmosphere of superheated steam at atmospheric pressure with a peak temperature of 210°C, with the other unmodified wood (UW) half as a control. The TMW and UW components were then prepared by a Wiley mill and thereafter sifted into smaller (mesh 0.20-0.40 mm) and larger (mesh 0.40-0.63 mm) size fractions. A portion of the wood components were also subjected to thermal extraction (HE). Composite samples with these different wood components, polypropylene (PP) matrix, and maleated PP (MAPP) as coupling agent (50/48/2 wood/PP/MAPP ratio by weight) were then prepared by using a Brabender mixer followed by hot pressing. The matching micromorphology of the composites before and after the soaking–drying cycles was analyzed using a surface preparation technique based on ultraviolet-laser ablation combined with scanning electron microscopy. The results of the water absorption tests showed, as hypothesized, a significantly reduced water absorption and resulting thickness swelling at the end of a soaking cycle for the TMWPCs compared with the controls (UWPCs). The water absorption was reduced with about 50-70% for TMWPC and 60-75% for HE-TMWPC. The thickness swelling for TMWPCs was reduced with about 40-70% compared with the controls. Similarly, the WPCs with HE-UW components absorbed about 20-45% less moisture and showed a reduced thickness swelling of about 25-40% compared with the controls. These observations also were in agreement with the micromorphology analysis of the composites before and after the moisture cycling which showed a more pronounced wood–plastic interfacial cracking (de-bonding) as well as other microstructure changes in the controls compared with those prepared with TMW and HE-UW components. Based on these observations, it is suggested that these potential bio-based building materials show increased potential durability for applications in harsh outdoor environments, in particular TMWPCs with a well-defined and comparably small size fractions of TMW components.

Durability testing of coconut shell according to ENV 807

Coconut shell was tested in the laboratory according to the European standard ENV 807 with three different soil types: compost soil, brown rot/soft rot rich soil and white rot/soft rot rich soil. Mass losses between 14 and 16 % were achieved with all three soils, indicating that the decay type is of little importance in the degradation process. Somewhat higher mass losses, 19-22 % were obtained for the durable/moderately durable, according to EN 350-2, wood species Sipo (Entandrophragma utile), whereas preservative-treated references had significantly lower mass losses, 0.5-7 %. The results of the test were promising but further experiments and testing will be necessary to explore the full potential for coconut shell to be used e.g. for composite materials with enhanced durability against decay fungi

Evaluation, Language, and Untranslatables

The issue of translatability is pressing in international evaluation, in global transfer of evaluative instruments, in comparative performance management, and in culturally responsive evaluation. Terms that are never fully understood, digested, or accepted may continue to influence issues, problems, and social interactions in and around and after evaluations. Their meanings can be imposed or reinvented. Untranslatable terms are not just lost in translation but may produce overflows that do not go away. The purpose of this article is to increase attention to the issue of translatability in evaluation by means of specific exemplars. We provide a short dictionary of such exemplars delivered by evaluators, consultants, and teachers who work across a variety of contexts. We conclude with a few recommendations: highlight frictions in translatability by deliberately circulating and discussing words of relevance that appear to be foreign; increase the language skills of evaluators; and make research on frictions in translation an articulate part of the agenda for research on evaluation.Peer reviewe

National Policy Brokering and the Construction of the European Education Space in England, Sweden, Finland and Scotland

This paper draws on a comparative study of the growth of data and the changing governance of education in Europe. It looks at data and the ‘making’ of a European Education Policy Space, with a focus on ‘policy brokers’ in translating and mediating demands for data from the European Commission. It considers the ways in which such brokers use data production pressures from the Commission to justify policy directions in their national systems. The systems under consideration are Finland, Sweden, and England and Scotland. The paper focuses on the rise of Quality Assurance and Evaluation mechanisms and processes as providing the overarching rationale for data demands, both for accountability and performance improvement purposes. The theoretical resources that are drawn on to enable interpretation of the data are those that suggest a move from governing to governance and the use of comparison as a form of governance

Regulatory frameworks: shifting frameworks, shifting criteria

This chapter draws on the idea of ‘an infrastructure of rules’ in order to discuss the regulatory frameworks that guide the work of inspection in the three systems in our study. As we pointed out in our introductory chapter, embodied knowledge risks being ‘dismissed as irrelevant’ (Fourcade 2010: 571-2) unless there is a presence of an infrastructure of rules and conditions of collection and centralised reporting systems that structure personal observations so that they are not dismissed as ‘merely a mass of observations’ (Fourcade 2010). Inspection frameworks are such an infrastructure of rules. They regulate the inspectors’ practice through prescribing what and how information is to be systematically and/or deliberately collected, as well as what type of relation and distance there should be between inspectors and those inspected. The discussion of the inspection frameworks in our three countries also provides a picture of the types of knowledge that are valued and preferred when judging education quality in schools. What has to be measured and assessed, in order for the inspections to be regarded as valid and reliable and in order for the schools to improve? Assumptions about what counts as a solid basis for judging quality in schooling, of what is a reasonable process for supporting improvement, and about what provides resources for the successful governing of schooling, may be highlighted by studying inspection frameworks. Inspection frameworks may also tell us something about how neo-liberal agendas (see chapter 2) and their pre-occupation with ‘steering the future’ are operationalised in practices requiring a variety of data, information and knowledge, or as Hayek puts it: ‘this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner.’ (Hayek 1945: 520). But these projects also need the work of a nation state trying to preserve a balance between the market and the public interest (Wilkinson 2013). This balancing act directed at the future reflects a tension played out in school inspection in the three countries over time, as we illustrate through discussion of the constant change in the frameworks of inspection