Phytoestrogens are considered to exhibit biological activities in human and animal. There are few data on the contents of phytoestrogens in woody plants. This study was undertaken to examine phytoestrogen contents in five species (Albizzia coreana, Albizzia julibrissin, Gleditsia japonica var. koraiensis, Maackia fauriei and Sophora japonica) of leguminosae. An HPLC method was employed for the first time to analyze phytoestrogens in five species. The contents of daidzein and genistein were in the range of 2.9~170.5 ㎍/g and 1.3~118.4 ㎍/g, respectively. Daidzein and genistein were most abundantly present in the Sophora japonica among the samples examined.

In this study, the Korean pine wood (Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc) and Italian poplar wood (Populus euramericana Guinier) was treated with a mixture of monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and boric acid. Their usability as fire retardant and as decay-resistant construction and interior materials were evaluated by testing of chemicals, corrosion rate and absorption rate, weight loss and chemical contents. An experiment was performed to compare treated pine wood and Italian poplar wood. According to the results, Italian poplar wood had higher specific gravity and retention of chemicals than pine wood, and treated wood showed higher decay-resistance than untreated one. Weight loss was less in treated wood than untreated one because the degree of decay was lower in the former than the latter. Corrosion rate and absorption rate met the KS standard for wood preservative performance. The chemical contents analysis was carried out to determine the degree of decay and it was found that the preservative effect of chemical treatment was lower in Italian poplar wood than in pine wood.

The effect of cadmium ions on ligninolytic and decolourizing activities in cultures of two white-rot fungi, Cerrena unicolor and Trametes versicolor, were examined. Cadmium was added to the shallow stationary cultures growing on a liquid mineral medium. Both examined strains sorbed Cd ions in the first 24 hr of incubation. An appreciable stimulation of the activity of extracellular laccase (LAC) and inhibition of the extracellular manganese-dependent peroxidase (MnP) were simultaneously observed when 25 mgL^-1 and 50 mgL^-1 of cadmium ions were added to the cultures. On the other hand, the addition of cadmium ions also resulted in stimulating the decolorization activity of C. unicolor to decolorize Remazol Brilliant Blue R (RBBR) in the cultures, but decreasing it in the culture of T. versicolor, which is compared to the inhibition of MnP activity in this fungus. Our data indicate that the presence of Cd(II) ions can affect the ligninolytic activity of white-rot fungi. It was found that C. unicolor is a strain resistant to the presence of Cd ions in the liquid culture media, and has a potential to use this strain for bioremediation of sites contaminated with both heavy metals and aromatic pollutants.

The goal of study was to investigate the influence of the acrylated urethane oligomer on mechanical properties, the chemical resistance and thermal resistance of the UV curable urethane acrylate coatings for fancy veneer overlayed plywood flooring. The pencil hardness and abrasion resistance of the coated fancy veneer overlayed plywood floorings increased with increasing the acrylate functionality of the acrylated urethane oligomer. In the case of the UV cured film containing hexa-functional acrylated aliphatic urethane oligomer, high discoloration of the coated fancy veneer overlayed plywood flooring was observed near the cracks at the beginning of the chemical treatment. In this study, it was found that the degradation of the UV cured film caused by an alkaline reagent was higher than that of the UV cured film caused by an acidic treatment.

Inhibitors of α-amylase are important for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Using enzyme inhibitor's activity, ethanolic extracts of 87 species in 12 families were screened and compared their inhibitory effect on α-amylase, As a results, we can find that extracts of Distylium racemosum, Acer tegmentosum, Corylapsis veitchiana, Cornus walteri and Corylapsis spicata showed higher α-amylase inhibitory activities than the others and have potential possibility of using control agents for carbohydrate-dependent disease.

Three flavonoids, quercetin, taxifolin, and kaempferol were isolated from the woods of Liriodendron tulipifera. Their structures were determined by spectral analysis. Based on 1, l-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity method, the antioxidative activities of three isolated compounds and their acetates were measured in order to search for natural antioxidants. The IC₅₀ of quercetin (1), taxifolin (2), and kaempferol (3) were 3.6, 3.9, and 4.1 ㎍/㎖, respectively.

This study was conducted to investigate the performance of sound absorption type-noise barriers manufactured with a combination of wood particles used for particleboard, recycled waste newspaper, and cement. An average density of wood-combined cement board was in the range from 0.83 to 0.96 g/cm³, showing relatively low-density board. Regardless of types of cement bonded board or wooden board, the board with concave holes(凹)-formed surfaces showed greater sound absorption coefficient compared to those of flat surface boards. The board density was not related with those coefficients. Accordingly, it was concluded that concave or deep corrugated surface structure has played an important role in sound absorption for the application of sound absorption type-noise barrier.

To study the efficient usage of small diameter logs and woods containing defects such as knots, slope of the grain and decay, six types of finger-jointed woods with various finger profiles were made of poplar, pine and oak with different density. We investigated the effect of finger profile on static bending strength performances of finger-jointed woods. The efficiency of bending MOE, MOR and deflection showed the highest value in poplar finger-jointed wood with the lowest density of three species, and the lowest value in oak finger-jointed wood with the highest density of three species. The values markedly decreased with increasing finger pitch for finger-jointed wood glued with polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) resin for all tested species, whereas for the finger-jointed wood glued with resorcinol-phenol formaldehyde (RPF) resin, the influence of finger pitch on the efficiency of MOE was not found in all tested species, and those on the efficiency of MOR and deflection indicated the same trend as finger-jointed wood glued with PVAc resin in the case of pine and oak finger-jointed wood with higher densities. It was found that the values tended to decrease with increasing density of species on the whole and the desirable finger pitches were L (6.8 mm) for poplar, M (4.4 mm) for pine and S (3.5 mm) for oak in a view of economy. For finger-jointed wood glued with PVAc resin, the fitness between a tip and a root width of a pair of fingers δ of 0.5 mm indicated the highest efficiency of MOE for all species. And, the influence of δ on MOR was only found in oak finger-jointed wood glued with RPF resin and the desirable δ value for oak was 0.1 mm. However, it was found that the influence of δ on the strength performance was very small.

The influence of liquefied wood (LW) on the mechanical and thermal properties of liquefied wood-polymer composites (LWPC) was investigated in this study. The thermal behaviors of LWPC were characterized by means of thermogravimetric (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analyses. LW showed significant effects on the mechanical strength properties. The increase of flexural MOE and Young's modulus was related to the increase of stiffness of LWPC. The effect of LW was also significant on the flexural and tensile MOR. The impact strength decreased with the increase of LW application level. With the increased stress concentration by the poor bonding between LW and polymer, the impact strength of LWPC decreased, compared with that of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The thermal stability of LWPC decreased with the increase of LW content up to 40%. The melting temperature of HDPE decreased with the increase of LW loading level. Enthalpy of HDPE also decreased with the addition of LW. This study proves the thermal stability necessary for the consolidation of composition materials.