Investigation of polyurethane paintwork materials and firms Verinlegno Akzo Nobel coatings and on their basis

По заказу предприятия была проведена проверка свойств полиуретановых материалов фирм Verinlegno и Akzo Nobel на соответствие их заявленным свойствам с целью определения наиболее рационального и экономичного технологического процесса формирования покрытия для столярных изделий.By order of the company has been audited by the properties of polyurethane materials Verinlegno and Akzo Nobel companies on their compliance with the stated properties in order to determine the most efficient and economical process for forming a coating joinery

Extra Financial Analysis – EFA: Environmental and financial performances of ABB, Akzo-Nobel and SCA: Picturing the business opportunities and risks associated to stakeholder perceptions and environmental and social prerequisites

External assessment of companies’ environmental aspects often focus on the existence of strategies, commitments, management systems and reporting of firms that concerns environmental aspects. Instead, in line with extra financial analysis, in order to play a role in decision-making, analysis of environmental aspects should incorporate the influence that stakeholders may have on future revenues of the assessed firm and how well advanced corporate strategies are in meeting these threats, turning them into business opportunities. Thereafter, the environmental information financial analysts’ use in their financial analyst reports as well as the relation between environmental and financial performance are illuminated. Three industry sectors, Chemicals, Electrical Equipment and Paper & Forest Products, are specially analysed in this report. Out of almost 4500 analyst reports about 36 percent contain environmental information, but when looking at industry sectors these numbers range from only 3 to up to 79 percent. The type of environmental information that the analysts focus on in their reports are on how firms’ products and product portfolios are adopted to Environmental regulations facing customers/markets, Customer demands and Eco-Efficiency. This product perspective is strongly related to discussions of business opportunities of the firm. In fact, a good 77 % of the financial analyst reports containing environmental information dealt with opportunities linked to environmental aspects. To a lower extent, financial analysts write about company specific risk issues like emissions and litigations while their reports is virtually absent from aspects like environmental strategies, policies, management systems, reporting and auditing. The correlation between corporate financial and environmental performances is illuminated through regression analyses. Industry environmental risk is found to be negatively correlated to corporate return on assets – ROA – (in an static model) while (when applying a dynamic model) corporate environmental performance and ROA have a positive correlation in the short term, which can find support by other studies using different data.Extra financial analysis; EFA; Financial analyst reports; Content analysis; ESG Framework; Return on assets; ROA; Environmental performance; Social performance; financial performance; Financial accounting; Non-financial information

Evaluation of polymer based third order nonlinear integrated optics devices

Nonlinear polymers are promising materials for high speed active integrated optics devices. In this paper we evaluate the perspectives polymer based nonlinear optical devices can offer. Special attention is directed to the materials aspects. In our experimental work we applied mainly Akzo Nobel DANS side-chain polymer that exhibits large second and third order coefficients. This material has been characterized by third harmonic generation, z-scan and pump-probe measurements. In addition, various waveguiding structures have been used to measure the nonlinear absorption (two photon absorption) on a ps time-scale. Finally an integrated optics Mach-Zehnder interferometer has been realized and evaluated. It is shown that the DANS side-chain polymer has many of the desired properties: the material is easily processable in high-quality optical waveguiding structures, has low linear absorption and its nonlinearity has a pure electronic origin. More materials research has to be done to arrive at materials with higher nonlinear coefficients to allow switching at moderate light intensity (< 1 W peak power) and also with lower nonlinear absorption coefficients

Patterns of technological progress and corporate innovation

The bulk of the global innovative effort takes place in 5 countries: USA, Japan and China as leaders, with France and United Kingdom as immediate followers, which all display, on the long run, a negative marginal value added on innovation. The present paper attempts to answer the following question: why does most of innovative activity takes place in markets apparently hostile to innovation, i.e. giving back negative marginal value added on innovation ? A model is introduced in which any market may be represented as a Selten’s extensive game, subgames of which are played as Harsanyi’s games with imperfect information, by a temporarily finite and changing set of players. The firms’ innovative activity is a Nash’s dynamic equilibrium in which innovating is rational though suboptimal, without premium on innovation being a real economic profit. The model is the theoretical framework for the study of six cases: Ford Motor, General Motors, Honda, Chevron, Akzo Nobel and IBM, which allow to conclude that firms do innovation either because they have to or because this is their comparative advantage and they can do it in an exceptionally efficient way. As economic growth is grounded in efficient business patterns and in some countries those business patterns shape themselves in the context of a strong exogenous pressure on innovation. This leads to the development of economies which, regardless its pace of economic growth and balance of payments, come to a point when marginal value added on innovation is negative. At this point, however, incentives to innovate do not disappear and firms continue to apply the same business patterns and thus do create scientific input which gives back negative marginal real output. This pattern of global technological progress seem to be quite durable, with financial markets that allow to compensate, by successful financial placements, the downturns of innovative projects.innovation; technology; technological progress; corporate strategies

Best Practice In Company Standardisation

Though the majority of standards are company standards, scientificstandardisation literature pays hardly any attention to them. In thispaper we describe results from a research project on companystandardisation (Oly & Slob, 1999). The researchers investigated sixchemical and petrochemical industries in the Netherlands: Akzo Nobel,Dow Chemical, DSM, Gasunie, NAM and Shell. These companies havenumerous standards for their installations. Best practice fordeveloping such standards was developed by examining the companies andusing insights from relevant literature. This paper describes thescientific approach used and some of the best practice results.benchmarking;standard;standardization;company standardization;process industry

Evaluation of laboratory methodologies for froth flotation of feldspar and kaolin

This report describes work carried out to establish and evaluate methodologies for the laboratory froth flotation of feldspar and kaolin. One of the main aims was to ascertain the feasibility of separating glass-grade feldspar from granite quarry dust and [meso As part of this, a method for HF-free froth flotation of feldspar was evaluated. This work was carried out as part of the ongoing 'Maintenance of capability in Mineral Sciences' project, 75C

Effects of Feed Additives and Mixed Eimeria Species Infection on Intestinal Microbial Ecology of Broilers

Evaluation of digestive microbial ecology is necessary to understand effects of growth-promoting feed. In the current study, the dynamics of intestinal microbial communities (MC) were examined in broilers fed diets supplemented with a combination of antibiotic (bacitracin methylene disalicylate) and ionophore (Coban 60), and diets containing 1 of 2 essential oil (EO) blends, Crina Poultry (CP) and Crina Alternate (CA). Five treatments were analyzed: 1) unmedicated uninfected control; 2) unmedicated infected control; 3) feed additives monensin (bacitracin methylene disalicylate) + monensin (Coban 60; AI); 4) EO blend CP; and 5) EO blend CA. Additives were mixed into a basal feed mixture, and EO were adjusted to 100 ppm. Chicks were infected by oral gavage at 19 d of age with Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria maxima, and Eimeria tenella. Duodenal, ileal, and cecal samples were taken from 12 birds per treatment just before and 7 d after challenge; 2 samples each were pooled to give a final number of 6 samples total; and all pooled samples were frozen until used for DNA extraction. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was used to examine PCR-amplified fragments of the bacterial 16S ribosomal DNA variable region. Results are presented as percentages of similarity coefficients (SC). Dendrograms of PCR amplicon or band patterns indicated MC differences due to intestinal location, feed additives, and cocci challenge. Essential oil blends CP and CA affected MC in all gut sections. Each EO had different effects over MC, and they differed in most instances from the AI group. The cocci challenge caused drastic MC population shifts in duodenal, ileal, and cecal sections (36.7, 55.4, and 36.2% SC, respectively). Diets supplemented with CP supported higher SC between pre- and postchallenge MC (89.9, 83.3, and 76.4%) than AI (81.8., 57.4, and 60.0%). We concluded that mixed coccidia challenge caused drastic shifts in MC. These EO blends modulated MC better than AI, avoiding drastic shifts after a mixed challenge

Foreign takeovers of British companies

Geoffrey Owen sheds light on the impact of foreign takeovers on the British economy through the experience of Courtauldsforeign takeovers