A slide fastener (i.e., zipper) is widely used as a secondary material in apparel products. However, the texture of the slide fastener is totally different from the main fabric because the reflection properties change according to the structure or the material. Traditionally, the appearance of the slide fastener has been considered unimportant and so is often concealed. However, recently, novel color technologies such as structural color and mimetic metallic processing have been proposed for slide fasteners made from low-cost plastic. The aesthetics and modern appearance of these new slide fasteners have become attractive to end-users. In spite of the growth of slide fasteners with novel colors, no research has investigated or assessed the applicable photometric or colorimetric methodologies. The absence of a quantitative test method decreases the e±ciency of the production of slide fasteners. This study proposes a quantitative methodology to assess the aesthetics of slide fasteners produced with either conventional or the novel color technologies, based on a data set of light reflection properties of slide fasteners. First, the structure of subjective attributes obtained from the human visual sense was analyzed by sensory evaluation and factor analysis. Then, the measurement of the light reflection properties of slide fasteners was conducted with an experimental goniophotometric system developed in this study. The parameters that highly correlated with the subjective scores of representative features were explored. As a result, three principal factors, "profoundness", "elegance" and "novelty" were identified as aesthetic factors for slide fasteners.

Warp-knitted mesh spacer fabrics are widely used as seat mattress for their excellent pressure-relief performance and heat and moisture comfortability; however, action and reaction between human body and spacer fabrics are still not well-known, which is attributed to the unknown contacting geometry. The main content dealt with in the paper is to measure surface geometry of warp-knitted mesh spacer fabric under spherical compression, and also to discuss the influence of sphere with different diameters on compression behavior. Resin curing method was utilized to fix the surface geometry of compressed warp- knitted mesh spacer fabric, so as to obtain surface geometry functions of spacer fabrics. Experimental results demonstrate that the cross-sectional curves of both the non-contacting part and contacting part are exponential function and circular function, respectively. Moreover, correlations of maximum compressional strain between spherical compression from different spheres were calculated, which reveals that there exist a good correlation between maximum compressional strain decrease and increasing diameter of sphere. The paper is helpful for studying compression behavior of warp-knitted mesh spacer fabrics and its interaction with different parts of the body in mattress materials.

Paclitaxel-loaded alginate-chitosan complex microcapsules were successfully prepared by the high-voltage electrostatic technique. The effect of paclitaxel concentration and drug-loading methods on drug loading of alginate-chitosan microcapsules, and the effect of methanol concentration, chitosan concentration and chitosan molecular weight on encapsulation effciency were investigated. Experimental results showed that calcium alginate beads had a good degree of sphericity and a uniform size of 299.8§3.6 m. After encapsulation with chitosan membrane followed by freeze drying, microcapsules shrunk and collapsed with a mean particle size of about 60.0 m. Drug loading results showed that as paclitaxel concentration increased from 2 mg/mL to 8 mg/mL, drug loading of microcapsules was increased from 1.95% to 11.16%. Microcapsules with dynamical paclitaxel-loading at 30 C had the highest drug loading, followed by those with statical paclitaxel-loading at 4 C and 37 C. Encapsulation effciency results showed that microcapsules washed with 0.5% (v/v) methanol had the highest encapsulation e±ciency of 2.85%. The encapsulation effciency was decreased with the increase of chitosan concentration, while it firstly decreased and then increased with the increase of molecular weight of chitosan. These results provide primary information about drug loading and encapsulation e±ciency properties of paclitaxel-loaded alginate-chitosan microcapsules as a novel drug carrier.

A heat and humidity transfer model for the pilot wearing bladder anti-G garment system is developed. In the model, an 85-node human thermoregulatory model is developed for predicting pilots' thermal stresses and the coupled heat and humidity transfer equations including latent heat sorption/release of the Phase Change Materials (PCM) are utilized for the garment. Meanwhile, the garment inner boundary conditions are treated by considering the bladder eRects. Also, the model is validated by comparing the simulation with experimental results. After the validation, water vapour concentration and temperature at different parts of garment and evaporation heat loss, dry heat loss and skin temperature at different parts of body are predicted and compared to study the influences of bladder. Otherwise sweat rate, sweat accumulation, mean skin temperature and comprehensive index of thermal stress under garments with different volumetric fractions of PCM are also predicted and compared to study the influences of PCM. The conclusion shows that bladders will produce more heat stress on wearers and PCM can improve the thermal performance of the bladder anti-G garment.

Natural cellulose fibers extracted from Eulaliopsis Binata (EB) were systematically investigated in this paper. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) were used to investigate the chemical composition, morphological structure and crystalline structure of the resulting fibers. Furthermore, some basic physical properties of the EB fiber, i.e., mechanical properties, water absorption, antimicrobial performance were also evaluated and discussed. It was found that the non-cellulose substances were su±ciently removed or reduced after the degumming process, but the cellulose I structure was not changed based on the XRD and FTIR results. Meanwhile, the EB fibers exhibited high breaking strength (3.5?6.9 cN/dtex) and remarkable moisture region (6.3?7.7%). It also exhibited moderate antimicrobial effects against Escherichia coli. All these results indicated that the BP fibers had properties resembling those of traditional natural cellulose fibers (e.g. cotton and flax); therefore, they could be viewed as a promising alternative source for natural cellulose bundle fibers.

Tussah silk fibroin is a promising material for drug release because of protein component, biocompatibility, aqueous processability, and biodegradability. Tussah silk fibroin nanoparticles were self-assembled and prepared in this paper. Their appearances and sizes were modified by altering the volume ratios between tussah silk fibroin and ethanol. When 9 mL of ethanol was added, the average microsphere size was 184.52 nm and the scattered index was 0.2903. The tussah silk fibroin nanoparticles for controlled drug release was studied and the result showed that the time of drug release was significantly longer. The process of drug release was divided into rapid release in early stage and slow release in late stage. The target drug delivery can reduce the negative effects and improve the efficiency of the drug. As a result, it favors deeper investigation of tussah silk fibroin nanoparticles as drug carriers for controlled release of sensitive biologicals.

In this study, the electro-spun PET (polyethylene terephthalate) fibrous mats with fiber diameters ranging from 400 nm to 6 1m were produced with the different settings of the polymer solution concentration, spinning voltage and receiving distance. The morphological properties and structure of the fibrous membrane were evaluated for the investigation of the effects of the electro-spinning parameters on fiber properties using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) respectively. The experimental results showed that the continuous PET fibers without beads can be spun with the following settings: spinning voltage at 20 kv, receiving distance at 15 cm, and concentration of polymer solution 10%-16%. The electro-spinning process can be controlled well at a spinning voltage of 16-22 kv. The eRects of receiving distance on the fiber diameter and morphological structure were not obvious; however, the crystallinity of the PET fibers was relatively lower than other spinning methods.

Use of improved Wheatstone bridge in measurement of fabric moisture content as well as its measurement principle is introduced in this paper. A new detection circuit of fabric moisture content based on improved Wheatstone bridge is designed, and its measurement result is standardized by oven method. The fitted curves representing fabric moisture content of different materials are plotted after the experimental data is processed. Compared with oven method, errors are analyzed. The results reveal that the detection circuit can accurately measure the changes in fabric moisture content and errors are small (within 1% for cotton), which can meet the need of fabric moisture content detection online system.

Fabric hand is defined as the human tactile sensory response towards fabric, which involves not only physical but also physiological, perceptional and social factors. Fabric hand is one of the most important characteristic of a fabric. This paper discusses the relationship between technical features of high counts and high density fabrics and their hand evaluation. 13 samples of high counts and high density fabrics were selected to be measured by the Kawabata Evaluation System (KES). The range of the mechanical properties of high counts and high density fabrics was given. Using factor analysis with quartimax rotation, 5 factors model was generated. The relationship between the 5 factors and the technical features was shown by using correlation analysis. The study in this paper can oRer references for the quality control of high counts and high density fabric design.

Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) is a three-dimensional (3D) deformity of the spine that can occur in children aged 9 and older. It is more commonly found in girls. This paper presents an ergonomic flexible girdle or brace design for preteen and teenage girls who have early scoliosis with a spinal curve that is less than 20 degrees, which reduces the chances of further aggravation of their scoliosis by exerting corrective forces onto their torso and improving their posture. During the design and development process, it was found that the key factors that affect the e±ciency of the flexible girdle are the design and fit of the garment, corrective force mechanism employment, material selection and application, and aesthetic and convenience of the product that affect compliance. The results of ergonomic design process in this project can be applied to related product development projects in the future and used as reference for doing so.

The determination of curve generation rules for the body features is the lynchpin in the creation of computer generated three dimensional (3D) lower body human mannequins. In this paper, methods to determine the characteristic features of the curves, such as the waist curve, abdomen curve and hip curve were analyzed as a precursor to creating female lower body 3D mannequins. Methods to generate the profile curves for the different body features were devised by adding insertion points onto the curves. The relationships between the coordinates of the insertion points and body measurement data were analyzed using SPSS software and rules for the generation of curves for each of the featured parts were determined. Subsequently these were used to provide the basis for the creation of a female lower body 3D mannequin, which can be useful for the further development of clothing e-commerce. The modelling system was developed by automatically extracting anthropometric data from a non-contact 2D anthropometry system (photographs) and used to generate human models according to their different body features. The system can facilitate the interactive design of diRerent fashion styles and the automatic generation of garment patterns.

Feature extraction and feature classification are two important stages in most EEG based Brain-computer Interfaces (BCI). The features extracted by DiscreteWavelet Transform (DWT) have a great relationship with sampling frequency. On the other hand, the features extracted by Amplitude-frequency Analysis (AFA) always ignore time information. In this paper, we proposed a feature extraction scheme based on Time-Amplitude-Frequency analysis (TAF) for classifying left/right hand imagery movement tasks. The time and frequency information are included in the proposed features. The Graz datasets used in BCI Competition 2003 and the datasets collected in the lab of Electromagnetic Theory and Artificial Intelligence of Chongqing University are used to show the effectiveness of the proposed features. The simulation showed that the proposed features improved the classifying accuracy and the Mutual Information (MI) for both datasets. The mutual information of TAF for Graz2003 dataset is 0.58 which is better than that of AFA and DWT.

Interference fit is one of the most common assembly methods in textile machinery, this paper focuses on the interference assembly of hollow shaft and sleeve. The mechanical behaviors of hollow shaft and sleeve were investigated by using the finite element method under interference fit and axial tension load. The effects of interference, hollow degree, axial load, friction coefficient, sleeve thickness on the mechanical property were studied. The results show that there is still an end effect of the contact stress and equivalent stress of the sleeve under axial load. Maximum equivalent stress of hollow shaft appears on the inside cylindrical surface under tensile loading. Under axial tensile load, contact stress and the equivalent stress of sleeve increases with the increasing of interference, sleeve thickness, and decreases with the increasing of hollow degree and load. The equivalent stress of hollow shaft increases with the increasing of the four parameters. The friction coefficient has a very small effect on the mechanical property.

Multiple layers of clothing are known to increase thermal resistance and evaporative resistance. This study investigates the effect of wearing abaya, an Islamic outerwear stipulated for women, on thermal resistance performance assessed with a female thermal manikin. Tests were conducted at two climatic conditions. The first set was at 23 C and 50% RH as the dry condition and the second set was at 35 ±C and 40% RH as the wet condition. Thermal resistance and evaporative resistance properties were measured by dressing a female thermal manikin in various ensembles of clothing within diRerent types of abaya. The test results revealed that for all abaya combinations with daily wear, the manikin needed less heat to maintain the average skin temperature than with daily wear clothing alone. This study suggests that the abaya provided additional thermal and vapour resistance. Among the types of abaya evaluated, those worn on the head oRered higher thermal resistance than those worn from the shoulder with tight sleeves. Marginal variations were also observed on the basis of the clothing worn under the abaya.

A survey was performed to measure the anthropometric dimensions of 201 young men, with ages ranging from 18-28 years, in Western China. A total of 25 anthropometric dimensions were measured for these young men. Mean values, standard deviations, 5th, 50th and 95th percentiles for these anthropometric dimensions and 7 body proportions were determined. Subsequently, the anthropometric dimensions of these young men were compared with those from central and eastern regions of China and also national standards. It was found that the body shapes of the young Western Chinese men were significantly different from those of other regions. In addition, the following five factors were identified, according to a factor analysis of the data obtained in the study: waist girth, abdominal girth and waist height, as being the most important anthropometric variables to be considered when designing trousers.