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Oriental lacquer, a natural and renewable polymeric coating, comes from the sap produced by lacquer trees. For practical applications, oriental lacquer must be refined to reduce its water content and enhance its quality. In this study, drying oils were blended with oriental lacquer during a refining process to produce oil-modified refined lacquer (OMRL). Rhus succedanea lacquer, composed of 54.1% urushiols, 34.3% water, 7.2% plant gum, and 4.4% nitrogenous compounds, and drying oils, including tung oil (TO), linseed oil (LO), and dehydrated castor oil (DCO), were used as materials in this study. The effect of type and amount (0%, 10%, and 20% by wt %) of drying oils added to lacquer on lacquer properties were evaluated. Results show that the drying oils acted as a diluent, which reduced the viscosity, and enhanced workability, shortened touch-free drying time and accelerated the hardened drying of the OMRL. The results also indicated that the hardness, mass retention, Tg, tensile strength, abrasion resistance, and lightfastness of OMRL films decreased as more drying oils were blended with lacquer. Conversely, the bending resistance, elongation at break, impact resistance increased. Gloss was greatly improved through the blending of more drying oils with lacquer. In conclusion, the LO-modified refined lacquer (RL) had the highest film gloss and the DCO-modified RL had the shortest drying time for coating. Otherwise, the film properties were similar among the three types of drying oils.

Although annual statistics present data on the growth of endowments for specific institutions (CAE, 2006; NACUBO, 2006), relatively little research has been conducted to better understand the institutional factors that account for differential changes in the overall endowment value of institutions. This study is to determine what relationships exist between institutional characteristics and endowment growth by comparing and categorizing institutions with endowment market values in excess of $120 million in 1995 and tracing the pattern of growth for the past decade. The set of 147 institutions included 100 private institutions and 47 public institutions of several types (that is, 94 research/doctoral universities, 8 master's universities and 45 liberal arts colleges based on the Carnegie classification). Based on the literature and discussion about endowment growth, the following 10 variables were identified as possible predictors of growth in endowments: governance, institution type, enrollment, geographical location, region, research activities, state funding, tuition revenue, alumni giving rate (AGR) and student selectivity. The findings revealed that endowment growth was closely intertwined with a variety of crucial institutional characteristic factors, including SAT scores, R&D expenditures, AGR and tuition revenue, which indicates that these institutional characteristics are significantly and positively correlated to endowment growth.