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This study aims to compare the aptitude of pine as a softwood and beech as a hardwood, regarding their different retention and antimicrobial performances as compared to polyethylene.

Four sets of tests were carried out: recovery, cleaning, remobilization and survival experiments. For all experiments wood and control blocks or chippings were spiked with bacteria and tested at set intervals for bacterial counts using standard procedures.

Overall, wood performed at least as good as polyethylene. Polyethylene is not as easy to clean. The problematic cleansing capabilities of wood are compensated by its open structure. Pine exerted antimicrobial abilities faster than beech and showed better performance than both beech and polyethylene. The differences between beech and polyethylene were only marginal.

The findings may help along with further research to re‐establish the value of wood in some food processing settings and in the home. However, only new materials were used so that no statement on the performance of used wood and plastic utensils can be made. Besides, only two types of woods and one type of plastic were used in this study.

This article is written with the expertise of the authors and will be of interest to those in the field.

Beech Aircraft Corporation announced today it is implementing a wing‐structure service‐life programme that will provide Beechcraft King Air owners guaranteed useful wing life.

Examines the restructuring of the sales and marketing departments of Beech Aircraft Corporation, brought about by a collapsing market in a troubled economy. Details the factors necessitating the restructuring, particularly the effects of a new international market. Presents the creation of a new structure and the results produced. Argues that the experience of working in a team has great advantages over a leader/follower relationship, stating that this new kind of team approach is becoming increasingly popular with companies. Concludes that a new, more flexible and forward‐thinking breed of manager is essential to enable US business to compete on an international scale.

Different types of wood (ash, oak and beech) have been activated by new activation method. The aim of this work is to study the effect of different types of wood on the physical and chemical properties of Ni/Pd coatings.

The wood was activated by ablation of the Pd target using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. Different diagnostic techniques such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), attenuated total reflection (ATR) spectroscopy and energy dispersed X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), in parallel with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to achieve this goal.

The XPS technique confirmed that the highest concentration of Pd was found in the Pd/beech sample, which is associated to the texture of the beech wood substrate surface. EDS results confirmed the absence of any contamination related to electroless plating method. It is concluded that the wood morphology and its surface roughness play a conclusive role to obtain different quantity of metal by PLD and electroless plating methods.

Although several works have been performed to study the influence of substrates on the coated metals and away of the traditional methods in activating non-catalytic surface, in this paper, PLD method is used to obtain a good quantity of Pd distributed on the entire surface and inside the porous of the wood. This study could be considered as a step investigation for understanding the role of the wood substrate morphology on the physical and chemical properties of films. To our knowledge, there are no works of combining a coated Ni/Pd by electroless plating and PLD methods on wood.

Perhaps the most difficult objection raised by skeptics of the real options approach concerns the apparent lack of market transactions that would verify that real options have actual value. Although there are no organized exchanges with publicly disclosed prices, there are nevertheless several mechanisms for buying and selling real options. Observing these could offer important advantages in the quest for enhancing the role of real options in financial decision making:•demonstrate that real options can indeed add value•in some cases even gain a sense of the amount of value added by real options•offer expert appraisers methods for improved estimation of the value of a business when real options are part of the organizational capital

The most frequently used method for buying or selling real options occurs when a product that includes real options is sold to customers (often at a premium above the price of a comparable product that does not include real options). Real options that are part of the organizational capital of a business are part of the package in an acquisition (or minority equity position). In this chapter we examine several cases of such transactions.

The purpose of this study is the numerical investigation of densification and molding processes of wood. Providing theoretical and numerical approaches with respect to a consistent multi-physical finite element method framework are further goals of this research.

Constitutive phenomenological descriptions of the thermo-mechanical and moisture-dependent material characteristics of wood are introduced. Special focus is given to a consistent hygro-thermo-mechanical modeling at finite deformations to capture the realistic material behavior of wood, especially when it is subjected to densification and molding processes.

Realistic theoretical formulations of different hygro-thermo-mechanical processes are provided. A successful numerical modeling is demonstrated for beech wood by validation at experimental findings.

The constitutive laws and numerical findings are new, as they govern a multi-physical large deformation framework and are applied to the advanced technology of densification and molding of wood.

WOOD, in the natural state, possesses certain great advantages, and some grave disadvantages, as a structural material. The same is true of the untreated metals. But, whereas nowadays the metallic raw products are, in general, transformed into materials of higher quality by careful smelting, alloying, and other processes, wood is still employed to a great extent in its raw state, i.e., as it occurs in Nature. All previous attempts to improve wood have yielded quite inadequate results, judged by the standard of the advances made in this direction in the field of metallurgy.

The aim of this paper is to provide up‐to‐date discussion of the types of factors used to assess sexual offenders risk.

The current status of the factors used to assess risk in sexual offenders is examined.

Risk factors broadly fall into two categories: static factors (i.e. generally unchangeable information such as previous offence history) from which a number of actuarial scales have been developed; and dynamic factors (i.e. psychological dispositions) that are typically identified in treatment. It is suggested that these risk factors are artefacts of the same behavioural and psychological vulnerabilities at different stages of assessment, with static factors acting as markers for underlying dispositions, while dynamic factors are the underlying dispositions.

The paper discusses in some detail the status of age as a risk factor, where even though it is typically considered a static risk factor in a number of actuarial scales (allowance typically being made if individuals are over/under 25), there is a dynamic element (i.e. change with age or the passage of time) to this aspect of assessment.

This paper may be useful to practitioners working in the field, in terms of providing a useful heuristic framework for risk conceptualisation.

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to sketch the historical and evolutionary development of the Wichita Aircraft Manufacturing Cluster from inception to present and provide a descriptive narrative of aircraft industry knowledge spillovers currently driving effort to establish a Medical Device Manufacturing Cluster. The chapter illustrates how carbon-fiber composite materials knowledge and technology developed for use in the aviation industry is facilitating the creation and growth of medical device manufacturing.

Methodology/approach – We use an historical case study approach to trace the development of the aircraft cluster in the Wichita, KS metropolitan area. A number of technologies are identified that had initially been adopted by one firm but eventually diffused through other firms in the local cluster and ultimately throughout the industry.

Findings – In addition to providing examples of within industry knowledge spillovers, we provide an example of technology-based knowledge that is diffusing through the aircraft manufacturing industry and is now being used as the basis for establishing an unrelated industry manufacturing cluster. The use of carbon-fiber composites in aircraft manufacturing has diffused from one manufacturer to many in the industry. Subsequently, the knowledge base surrounding carbon-fiber composite materials is being used in a local R&D effort to create a second manufacturing cluster producing medical devices ranging from surgical instruments to joint-replacement implants.

Originality/value of paper – The chapter illustrates a unique example of a manufacturing cluster, intra-industry knowledge spillovers, and inter-industry knowledge spillovers to create a new manufacturing cluster.

The premise of this discussion is that private equity players intend to create real options that maximize the value derived from potential movement in the worth of the underlying business platform. This intended maximization occurs when the current value of the exercise instrument equals the current value of the underlying asset (so the option is at the money). It is also clear that when the time horizons of different arrangements tend to be consistent (as tends to happen in private equity arrangements) the attraction will be for higher volatility. The actions often criticized in the media are readily understandable in this context. For example, private equity partnerships are criticized for “borrowing heavily to buy companies, breaking them up, and selling off the pieces at huge profits.” Even before exiting, the private equity players separate the acquisitions into business units and asset pools. This changes an option on a portfolio into a portfolio of options, and we know from option pricing theory that the resulting position is worth more than the starting point.

Private equity partnerships also have been criticized for putting acquisitions into debt to receive dividends. Upon acquisition of a new business platform (perhaps composed of multiple business units) the private equity firm has paid a substantial premium for an option on a portfolio. After separating it into multiple options on different business units, the private equity firm might understandably want to sell assets that do not need to be owned (but could be leased instead), thereby reducing their equity investment and bringing the options closer to the money. Then additional borrowing (and withdrawal of dividends) again brings the options closer to the money.

In order to illustrate the nuances of private equity as real options, we include discussion of three recent cases, each illustrating one of the common paths followed in private equity.