After a short interruption due to the dedication of the September issue of PRO LIGNO Journal to the scientific events organised in June by the Faculty of Wood Industry, we hereby get back to a regular column of our journal, namely FRONTLINES, meant to present you the subjects which are included in the present curricula of our faculty. Starting with Vol. 2, Nº 2 - June 2006, we presented during three consecutive journal issues the subjects taught during the first year. Afterwards, during two more consecutive issues (Vol. 3, Nº 1 and 2), some subjects taught during the second year were presented. Out of this serie, we hereby present you two more disciplines: "Wood Preservation" and "Computer Programming and Programming Languages in Wood Industry"

Course title: WOOD PRESERVATION

Semester / Year of study: semester II, 2nd year

Course status: compulsory

Objectives:
- Gaining the basic knowledge on the biotic and non-biotic wood degradation factors, on the degradation mechanisms and on the methods applied for the preventive protection of wood, in the logical sequence cause-effect-action.
- Substantiation of the basic concepts of wood preservation, such as natural durability of wood, biological hazard classes, and the correlation between these, presented in accordance to the CE specific Norms and Directives.

Contents:
The course is referring to wood bio-protection (wood preservation), wood fire protection and weathering protection, as well as to the technical treating procedures, being structured as follows:
1. Wood protection (preservation): the concept, necessity, role, classification.

2. Wood preservation (protection against biotic agents):
- Biotic degradation agents, natural durability of wood, evaluation methods and durability classes.
- Biological hazard classes.
- Correlations between natural durability of wood, the utilisation conditions and the wood preservation methods necessary to adopt.
hemical wood preservation, biocides and wood preservatives, actual restrictions.
- Determination of the efficacy of wood preservation methods, the durability of treated wood.

3. Wood fire protection:
- Wood combustibility.
- Fire protection principles.
- Fire retardants - technical products.
- Determination of efficacy of wood fire protection treatments.

4. Wood weathering protection:
- The effect of climatic factors on wood.
- Principles and methods for protection of wood for outdoors utilisation.
- In-time behaviour of treated wood.

5. Technical treating procedures for wood protection.

6. Ecological aspects and alternative wood preservation methods.

The lecturing hours are completed by application sessions consisting in practical laboratory works and a small applicative theoretical project.

The laboratory practical sessions cover the following topics:
1. Surface treatment of wood.
2. Wood impregnation at atmospheric pressure.
3. Determination of the specific values characterising treatment efficiency; comparative evaluation of the efficiency of the treatment procedures applied.
4. Determination of wood natural durability and of the efficiency of wood preservatives by specific biological tests.
5. Substances and methods of wood fire protection.
6. Determination of efficacy of wood fire protection methods by the burning test.

The applicative project, also done during the application hours allocated in the second part of the semester, entitled "Elaboration of an adequate preservation/treating technology for a certain wooden element/application of wood in constructions as a function of the service conditions, the biological hazard class and the natural durability for two wooden species", has as main objective the application of the theoretical knowledge, of the European Norms and technical data for different wood preservation products for a correct evaluation of protection necessities and proposal of a valid technology.

Based on some individual initial data, each student has to solve the following steps:
- resentation of the considered wooden element/application: type, in-service utilisation conditions, drawings, dimensions.
- General presentation of the biotic and non-biotic degradation factors important for the considered wooden element/application.
- Establishment of the biological hazard class according to SR EN 335 and specification of the types of active biotic agents.
- Presentation of the natural durability and impregnability for the two given wooden species according to SR EN 350.
- Evaluation of the necessary protection treatments based on the correlation between the natural durability of wood and the biological hazard class, according SR EN 460.
- Selection of biocides/ wood preservatives and establishment of adequate treating.
- Calculation of the necessary amount of biocides/wood preservatives.
- Evaluation of the necessity of wood finishing for the given application, choice of coating materials, calculation of consumption.
- Costs calculation for the necessary wood preservatives and coating materials.

History:
"Wood preservation" started to be an independent course since the academic year 2000-2001 with the status of optional course in the curricula of the specialisations Wood Processing (initially in the studying year V and then studying year III) and Furniture design and wooden finite products (studying year III). Since the academic year 2005-2006, when the new Curricula according to the Bologna came to force, "Wood preservation" became a compulsory course, in the category of domain technical subjects.

Before the year 2000 "Wood preservation" was one of the three modules of the complex course "Technological materials" including wood preservation, wood adhesives and wood finishing materials.

This course, that has had different titles over the years, including "Wood preservation, gluing and finishing" was lead by Prof.dr.eng. Daniela MIHAI between 1978-2001. Prof.dr.eng. Daniela MIHAI brought an important contribution to the development of this subject through both teaching and research activities. This contribution includes the publishing of the course support "Technological Materials" Vol. I, 1976, printed at the Publishing House of Transilvania University in Brasov and the monography "Technological Materials", 1983, printed at the Technical Publishing House in Bucharest. Theses publications contain an important section of wood protection. Before 1978, an equivalent course of materials, called "Auxiliar materials", lead by Senior lecturer Ion CRISTEA, also contained some basics of wood preservation.

The laboratory practical sessions, in the actual organisation of the discipline, were and are lead by Prof.dr. Maria Cristina TIMAR, Lecturer dr.eng. Emanuela BELDEAN and Lecturer dr.eng. Octavia ZELENIUC.

Present Head of Discipline:
Maria Cristina TIMAR, Professor, PhD, graduate of the Faculty of Chemistry, specialisation Organic chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, class 1980.
Title of PhD thesis: "Chemically modified wood for thermally formed composites", defended at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College - Brunel University, UK , in May 1998.

Publications within the field of discipline:
- Wood improvement (in Romanian language). Editura Universitatii "Transilvania", Brasov 2003. ISBN ISBN 973-635-141-6.
- The European Approach For An Efficient And Environmentally Friendly Wood Preservation. In: Environmental Engineering and Management Journal,Vol. 4, Nº 2, June 2005, pp. 29-46.
- Outcomes of a Long-Term Modified L-joint Test - Parts 1-3. In: Proceedings of International Conference ICWSE 2007, Brasov 2007, ISSN 1843-2689, pp. 171-190.

Titles/awards: Ron Cockroft Award, 1997.

Perspectives and Opportunities:
Future developments of the course, in direct correlation with the importance of wood preservation for a rational and economical utilisation of wood resources in the context of the "sustainability" concept, are focusing on the following main directions:
- Enrichment of the endowment of the Laboratory of Wood preservation of the Faculty of Wood Industry from Brasov, with laboratory equipments allowing the surface treatment and deep impregnation of wood by procedures at atmospheric pressure and pressure treatments, the control of the specific technological parameters, precise determination of the values characterising the efficiency and uniformity of treatment.
- Arrangement and adequate equipping of a microbiology laboratory to carry out the standard biodegradation tests for evaluating the natural durability and testing the efficiency of different wood preservatives. The necessary equipment include a sterilisation autoclave, an incubator with controlled microclimate, a cooling incubator, UV sterilising lamps, analytic scale, laboratory oven.
- Utilisation of the experience gained in field testing the durability of wood and efficiency of treating products/technologies (modified L-joint test) for promoting new testing methods, setting up new multifunctional stands and organisation of a testing field.
- Continuing the research for development and application of adequate methods for evaluating the ecological impact of wood preservatives and treating technologies.
- Continuous updating of the course content by presenting the latest outcomes in the worldwide research and newest products and equipments available on the market, information accessed by participating at international conferences
- Publication of a monograph on the theoretical basis and the practice of wood preservation to be used as course support for our students and information source for the specialists from industry and of a laboratory notebook also containing a guide for a correct choice of treating products and technologies as a function of wood utilisation.

In bringing to reality these plans, for suggestions of improving the present course structure and content in accord to the market requirements, or for approaching new studying and research subjects, as well as for the adequate technical endowment of our laboratory, imperiously necessary, we are hoping in a tight connection and good co-operation with the interested industrial economical agents.

Subject title: COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES IN WOOD INDUSTRY

Semester/ Year of study: semester II / 2nd year

Status: compulsory

Objectives:
Gaining knowledge of the aim, acquisition modality, processing, interpretation and analysis of experimental data, which are governed by statistics rules and which are obtained in research and production specific to wood engineering.

Contents:
The lectured material is structured as follows:
- Probability theory elements. Stochastic variables. Stochastic variable distribution and graphic representation. Frequency function and numerical characteristics of the stochastic variable.
- Distributions of the stochastic variables. Binomial distribution. Poisson distribution. Continuous distribution of the stochastic variable. Chi-Square statistic. Stochastic distribution analysis.
- Sample and statistic distribution. Frequency distributions. Empiric distributions. Empiric function distribution. Position and variation parameters.
- Testing and estimation for statistical parameters. Checking the statistical hypothesis. Normal distribution.
- Student (T) test. Checking the stochastic character. The confidence interval for average distribution.
- Information about processing experimental data by using the EXCEL program.
- Information about internet using and functioning.
- Finding and sending methods for specific wood industry information and data by using the internet.
- Experimental data and information presentation on the internet, by creating the WEB pages, by using the HTML language.

Practical laboratory works complete the lectured material. They focus on the following topics:
1. Increasing arrangement of the experimental data array by using the Delphi program.
2. Obtaining and presenting the experimental data. Calculation of the main statistics parameters by using the Delphi program.
3. Eliminating the data affected by gross errors by using the Delphi program.
4. Checking the stochastic character of the experimental data by using the Delphi program.
5. Checking the empiric normality of the experimental data by using the Delphi program.
6. Calculation and testing of the linear correlation coefficient by using the Delphi program.
7. Using the Excel program for processing the experimental data.
8. Finding the information by using the internet.
9. Information transfer by using the internet.
10. Creating the WEB pages by using the HTML language.
11. Presentation of WEB pages which present research regarding the experimental data obtained on the wood industry technological process.

The applicative hours are unfolded under optimum conditions since the faculty has a modern license laboratory, which was develped at the end of 2006, and which comprises a network of 24 performant computers for the students's use.

History:
The subject initially entitled "Research operational methods and computer using" was introduced into the curricula of the Wood Industry Faculty in Brasov in 1973 and it was taught until 1982 by Prof.dr.eng. Romulus FLOREA as head of discipline. In 1978, Prof. Florea edited a course book named "Research operational methods and computer programming - numerical methods". During that time, he developed besides the theoretical course support, programs in Fortran and Basic languages for analyses, processing and interpretation of the statistical data as well as numerical methods.

Between 1982 - 1992, the subject was taken over by Prof.dr.eng. Teofil MIHAILESCU, between 1992-1994 by Assist.prof.dr.eng. Wilhelm LAURENZI and between 1994-2000 by Assist.prof.dr.eng. Victor MAIORESCU. Starting with 2000 and until today the discipline is taught by Lecturer dr.eng. Luminita BRENCI. The subject of the laboratory works were focused at the beginning on applications in Basic and Fortran languages, after 1990 in Turbo-Pascal and finally after 2000 in Turbo-Pascal, Delphi and Excel programs.

After 1982, the discipline staff edited in different stages the following course books and guidebooks for practical applications: "Research operational methods and computer programming in wood industry" - course book by Teofil MIHAILESCU, edited in 1984 at the Publishing House of "Transilvania" University; "Programming and computer aided design in wood industry" - course book by Victor MAIORESCU, edited in 1997 at the "Lux Libris" publishing house; "Programming and computer aided design in wood industry. Statistical processing of the experimental data" - guidebook for practical applications by Teofil MIHAILESCU, Victor MAIORESCU, Wilhelm LAURENZI, Gheorghita COMSA, Luminita BRENCI, edited in 1993, at the Publishing House of "Transilvania" University.

The title of the discipline suffered several changes in time, as follows: "Research operational methods and computer using" (1973-1990); "Computer programming" (1990-2000); "Basics of experimental data processing in wood industry" (2000-2002); "Basics of experimental data processing by using the computer" (2002-2004); "Basics of the documentation, processing and communication of the experimental data in wood industry" (2004-2006) and finally, starting with 2006: "Computer programming and programming languages in wood industry".

Present Head of Discipline:
Luminita-Maria BRENCI, Lecturer, PhD, graduate of the Faculty of Machine Construction Technology, class 1990.
Title of PHD thesis: "Contributions to the study regarding the construction and exploitation of profiled cutters used for cutting wood". Thesis defended in December 2004, at the "Transilvania" University in Brasov.
Publications within the Field of the Discipline:
- Profiled Milling of Wood - Tool Construction and Exploitation - comprising distinctive chapters on Computer-aided Design of Milling Cutters and Processing of Experimental Data (in Romanian language). Editura Universitatii "Transilvania", Brasov 2005, ISBN ISBN 973-635-1482-2.
- Identification Methods Of Wood Roughness Profiled Surfaces By Using Specific Programs. In: Bulletin of Polytechnical Institute Iasi, Tome LII (LVI), 2006, ISSN 1001-285, pp. 995-998.
- Programs for Determining the Roughness of Wooden Profiled Surfaces. In: Proceedings of International Conference ICWSE, Brasov 2007, ISSN 1843-2689, pp. 463-466.
Specialization Courses: Nine post-graduate courses for specialization in programming and computer-aided design.

Perspectives and Opportunities:
The future developing of discipline is taking into account the following directions:
- Continuous enriching of the material basis of the laboratory.
- Enriching the reference literature basis for students (courses and guidebooks for practical applications).
- Acquisitioning of specific programs for processing experimental data.

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