Search

Smart wearable electronic textiles (e-textiles) that can detect and differentiate multiple stimuli, while also collecting and storing the diverse array of data signals using highly innovative, multifunctional, and intelligent garments, are of great value for personalized healthcare applications. However, material performance and sustainability, complicated and difficult e-textile fabrication methods, and their limited end-of-life processability are major challenges to wide adoption of e-textiles. In this review, we explore the potential for sustainable materials, manufacturing techniques, and their end-of-the-life processes for developing eco-friendly e-textiles. In addition, we survey the current state-of-the-art for sustainable fibers and electronic materials (i.e., conductors, semiconductors, and dielectrics) to serve as different components in wearable e-textiles and then provide an overview of environmentally friendly digital manufacturing techniques for such textiles which involve less or no water utilization, combined with a reduction in both material waste and energy consumption. Furthermore, standardized parameters for evaluating the sustainability of e-textiles are established, such as life cycle analysis, biodegradability, and recyclability. Finally, we discuss the current development trends, as well as the future research directions for wearable e-textiles which include an integrated product design approach based on the use of eco-friendly materials, the development of sustainable manufacturing processes, and an effective end-of-the-life strategy to manufacture next generation smart and sustainable wearable e-textiles that can be either recycled to value-added products or decomposed in the landfill without any negative environmental impacts.

The calibrated data from the Cluster fluxgate magnetometer instruments (FGMs) aboard the four Cluster spacecraft are accessible through the European Space Agency (ESA) Cluster Science Archive (CSA). The FGM team at Imperial College – the PI institute that built and supports operation of the magnetometers – has regularly provided validated data to the CSA since its inception. The calibration and validation pipeline is well established and provides measurements at the highest instrument resolution within an uncertainty as low as 0.1 nT. New methods for magnetic field calibration have been proposed in the many years since Cluster’s commissioning. One of these uses mirror mode waves in the Earth’s magnetosheath to determine the spin-axis offsets of an in-flight magnetometer instrument. The FGM team applied this method to the Cluster instrument data during periods when the spacecraft spend a substantive proportion of their orbits in the magnetosheath, typically May-June and October-November. The offsets determined by this method were compared to those determined by the method already integrated into the pipeline. Good agreement was found between the two methods.Due to the limitations in resource, the substantial effort that would be required to change calibration methods and re-deliver over 20 years of FGM data, and the potential impact on literature already published, the team would not recommend retroactive integration of the new method into the pipeline. However, the study provides a useful sense check of the pipeline and the data already delivered, as well as the remaining data to be delivered through to the end of the Cluster mission.

In this study, we reported the large‐amplitude and fast‐damped flapping of the plasma sheet,which co‐occurred with magnetic reconnection. Data from the Double Star TC‐1 and Cluster satelliteswere used to analyze the features of the plasma sheet flapping 1.4 RE earthward of an ongoing magneticreconnection event. The flapping was rapidly damped, and its amplitude decreased from themagnetohydrodynamics scale to the subion scale in 5 min. The variation in the flapping period (from 224 to20 s) indicated that the source of the flapping had highly dynamic temporal characteristics. The plasma sheetflapping propagated duskward through a kink‐like wave with a velocity of 100 km/s, which was inagreement with the group velocity of the ballooning perturbation. A correlation analysis between themagnetic reconnection and plasma sheet flapping indicated that the magnetic reconnection likely facilitatedthe occurrence of ballooning instability by altering the state of plasma in the downstream plasma sheet. Inthis regard, the reconnection‐induced ballooning instability could be a potential mechanism to generatethe flapping motion of the plasma sheet.

Cotton can be coloured by dyeing and printing using either dye or pigment colourants. Pigments are insoluble in water but can be dispersed in a polymer print binder and heat-fixed to the fabric. Vat and sulphur dyes similarly have low solubility in water but through alkali/reduction can be solubilised and exhausted onto the cotton fibre. Following their reoxidation, the dyes are insolubilised in the fibre and, like pigment prints, in general exhibit good wash fastness. In this study, sequential acid/alkali/peroxide or acid/dithionite/peroxide treatments were investigated as a means of removing pigment/polymer prints and common sulphur and vat dyes from coloured cotton fabric. Using the sequential acid/dithionite/peroxide treatment, up to 97% of both sulphur and vat colourants could be “stripped” from dyed cotton producing a white cellulosic feedstock material that could be used for “new” fibre regeneration. By contrast, the “stripping” of the pigment/polymer binder colourant system was less predictable and less complete and is probably a reflection of the different chemical natures of the polymer binder and pigments. This contrasting behaviour highlights the range of chemistries applied to cotton and that developing a universal single treatment to strip out all finishes may be problematic.

A “commercial hostage” or “debt hostage” situation involves a dispute between a foreign company and its local partner over such matters as payment, the closing of a local office or facility, the laying off of local employees, the transfer or ownership of intellectual property, etc. Rather than file a lawsuit seeking money damages or an injunction, the local partner takes extra-judicial steps to detain the foreigner against their will, so as to pressure the foreign company into resolving the dispute. The local police may even actively assist the local partner by way of inaction when the foreign company asks for help. While this activity occurs in a number of countries, this study focuses on China. One challenge in studying commercial hostage situations is gathering enough cases to be able to gauge the factors that drive them. Stated differently, how can scholars shift the study of this important topic from the anecdotal to a data-based approach? This study is an initial attempt to do just that – it mainly attempts to gauge the frequency of recent commercial hostage activity in the P.R.C. Secondarily, it sheds light on where that activity occurs, why, and the identity of its victims. To accomplish this, Freedom of Information Act requests were submitted to six Western countries (including the U.S.) with significant China trade. English and Chinese business and legal media reports were also searched for commercial hostage cases involving foreigners. Between these two sources, dozens of commercial hostage incidents were identified. The vast majority occurred in or near Tier 1 cities and/or coastal regions, a significant number involved foreign firms operating in the commodity goods space, and a disproportionate percentage involved ethnic Chinese. Building on these findings, we conclude by providing a risk assessment matrix that foreign businesspersons can use to evaluate the risk of traveling to the P.R.C. for business. As trade tensions rise between the U.S. and China, the importance of this issue and evaluating commercial hostage risk may only increase.

The current study examines the determinants of cross-cultural leadership adjustment (CLA) and explores any potential linkage with performance. CLA adaptions are observed using a sample of leaders from two cultural regions, the United Kingdom and Germanic-Europe, with expatriate experience at a British multinational enterprise (MNE) in seven different countries, including non-European nations. Using data from a single company in multiple regions helps to isolate the firm, industry and regional effects. We adopted mixed method approach to address the question on what mode of adjustment leads to better performance and the antecedents of CLA which leads to better work-performance. The results indicated that most expatriate leaders used the exploration mode of adjustment, under which both they and subordinates made substantial behavioral adaptations. This mode of adjustment addressing cultural differences had a positive impact on work-performance along with replication mode. Additional antecedents here, such as differences relating to hierarchy, decision-making and language/ communication, also impacted CLA.

Sulphur‐dyed cellulosic textiles are susceptible to washing powders containing activated peracid formulations resulting in obvious fading during repeated laundering. This study presents a novel one‐bath/two‐stage exhaust finishing process to improve the oxidative wash fastness of CI Leuco Sulphur Black 1‐dyed cotton fabric. The effect of the combined Tinofix ECO and Bayprotect Cl after‐treatment was to impart better colour fastness to oxidative International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 105 CO9 washing of the dyed cotton compared with those dyed fabrics after‐treated with Tinofix ECO alone. In addition, while the dyed fabrics rub and light fastness performances were unchanged by the after‐treatments, some improvement in the tensile strength of the combined Tinofix ECO and Bayprotect Cl after‐treated fabrics was observed.

An extended investigation of the long-term trends in the fluxgate magnetometer (FGM) calibration parameters on the four Cluster spacecraftLeah-Nani Alconcel1, Tim Oddy2, Patrick Brown2, and Chris Carr21 University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom2 Imperial College London, London, United KingdomOver 20 years of calibrated data from the Cluster fluxgate magnetometer instruments (FGMs) aboard the four Cluster spacecraft are now accessible through the European Space Agency (ESA) Cluster Science Archive (CSA). The FGM team at Imperial College – the PI institute that built and supports operation of the magnetometers – has regularly provided validated data to the CSA since its inception. In 2014, the team published an initial investigation of the long-term trends in the calibration parameter stability between 2001 and 2012. The investigation showed that the offset parameter drift for three of the Cluster spacecraft FGMs (C2, C3 and C4) was nearly negligible, with the fourth being approximately 0.2 nT per year. This remarkable level of consistency is crucial to Cluster mission science, as the FGM data are used for the derivation of some datasets from other Cluster instruments.With our dataset doubled in length, it is possible to quantitatively analyse very slow variations (years-long) trends observed in both the offsets and other parameters. We are now able to present an update to the earlier work, showing correlations between instrument calibration and housekeeping parameters.

The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission will provide simultaneous measurements from two spacecraft, offering an unprecedented opportunity to investigate magnetospheric and exospheric dynamics at Mercury as well as their interactions with the solar wind, radiation, and interplanetary dust. Many scientific instruments onboard the two spacecraft will be completely, or partially devoted to study the near-space environment of Mercury as well as the complex processes that govern it. Many issues remain unsolved even after the MESSENGER mission that ended in 2015. The specific orbits of the two spacecraft, MPO and Mio, and the comprehensive scientific payload allow a wider range of scientific questions to be addressed than those that could be achieved by the individual instruments acting alone, or by previous missions. These joint observations are of key importance because many phenomena in Mercury's environment are highly temporally and spatially variable. Examples of possible coordinated observations are described in this article, analysing the required geometrical conditions, pointing, resolutions and operation timing of different BepiColombo instruments sensors., Comment: 78 pages, 14 figures, published

Personal protective clothing is critical to shield users from highly infectious diseases including COVID‐19. Such clothing is predominantly single‐use, made of plastic‐based synthetic fibers such as polypropylene and polyester, low cost and able to provide protection against pathogens. However, the environmental impacts of synthetic fiber‐based clothing are significant and well‐documented. Despite growing environmental concerns with single‐use plastic‐based protective clothing, the recent COVID‐19 pandemic has seen a significant increase in their use, which could result in a further surge of oceanic plastic pollution, adding to the mass of plastic waste that already threatens marine life. In this review, the nature of the raw materials involved in the production of such clothing, as well as manufacturing techniques and the personal protective equipment supply chain are briefly discussed. The environmental impacts at critical points in the protective clothing value chain are identified from production to consumption, focusing on water use, chemical pollution, CO2 emissions, and waste. On the basis of these environmental impacts, the need for fundamental changes in the business model is outlined, including increased usage of reusable protective clothing, addressing supply chain “bottlenecks”, establishing better waste management, and the use of sustainable materials and processes without associated environmental problems., The environmental impacts are reviewed for personal protective clothing from production to consumption, focusing on water use, chemical pollution, CO2 emissions, and waste. Based on these environmental impacts, the need for fundamental changes are outlined, including increased usage of reusable protective clothing, addressing supply chain “bottlenecks”, establishing better waste management, and the use of sustainable materials and processes.

In the early 2000s, the radiology community was awakened to the limitations of electronic media (CDs, DVDs) for exchanging imaging exams. Clinicians frustrated by the time-consuming task of opening discs, while Internet-based exchange of music, photos, and videos were becoming more widespread. The RSNA, which had extensive experience working on interoperability issues in medical imaging, began to look for opportunities to address the issue. In 2007, in the wake of the financial crisis, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) issued an RFP to address Internet-based exchange of medical images. The RFP defined requirements for the network, including that it needed to be patient controlled and standards based. The RSNA was awarded funding for what came to be known as RSNA ImageShare. Over the next 8 years, the RSNA worked in partnership with several vendors and academic institutions to create a network for sharing image-enabled personal health records (PHR). The foundation of interoperability standards used in ImageShare was provided by Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), a standards-development organization with which RSNA has had a long association. In 2018 and 2019, the RSNA looked at what had been accomplished and asked if we could take that next step at a national level and promote a solution by which any standards-compliant party could exchange imaging exams through an HIE mechanism.

In this study, cotton fabric and nylon fabric were dyed with a range of commercial sulphur dyes and the light and wash fastness of the coloured fabrics was investigated. The effect of after‐treating the coloured cotton and nylon fabrics with a tannin‐based commercial product, Bayprotect Cl, in the presence or absence of sodium sulphate in the treatment bath, was found to significantly improve the light fastness of the sulphur‐dyed cotton, and the photoprotective effect was partially stable to ISO 105‐C06 washing. In addition, the tannin‐based after‐treatment also improved the colour stability of the dyed fabrics to the perborate‐based ISO 105‐C06 washing. The possible mechanisms for the improved fastness properties are also discussed. The application of sulphur dyes to nylon is potentially commercially useful but has been limited because of the reported poor light fastness of the dyeings. The photoprotective effect of the tannin‐based after‐treatment was investigated with a view to providing the necessary commercial performance. However, it was established that on this fibre, the light fastness improvement was marginal, and the associated wash fastness to oxidative bleach‐based ISO 105‐C06 washing was limited.

Graphical abstract, Highlights • Wool fibers are shrink-resist treated to make the wool garments machine washable. • The scales available on wool fiber surface are responsible for felting shrinkage. • Various treatments have been investigated to make wool garments shrink-resistant. • The chlorine-Hercosett process is the most effective but harmful to the environment. • The future trend of green and sustainable alternatives treatments are discussed., Wool fiber is a natural protein fiber, which is used for the manufacturing of apparels, and floorcoverings because of its excellent fire retardancy, stain-resistance, antistatic and odor control properties along with exceptional warmth and resilience. However, wool fiber has several serious demerits, such as garments made of wool fibers extensively shrink during their laundering. To overcome this problem, wool fibers, especially those are used in apparel, are frequently shrink-resist treated to make them machine-washable. A wide range of treatments including oxidative, enzymatic, radiation, polymeric coatings, sol-gel coatings, and plasma treatments have been investigated to make wool fiber shrink-resistant. In this review, the mechanisms of wool fiber shrinkage, the research carried out until recently to make wool fiber shrink-resistant, and the current status of the sustainable alternatives developed, have been compiled and presented. The various methods investigated have been critically discussed with their merits and demerits, shrink-resist performance, and their shrink-resistance mechanisms. The chemistry and synthesis of various polymers used for the shrink-resistance and their reactions with wool fiber have been outlined. This review also includes the current challenges to make shrink-resist treatments green and sustainable, and also the future directions to meet these challenges. Some of the treatments investigated may affect the biodegradability of wool fibers, especially those are based on coating with synthetic polymers. A sustainable alternative polymeric coating based on sustainably produced polymeric resins, especially bio-based resins, needs to be developed so that the future treatments become sustainable.

The field of clinical sport psychology is rapidly advancing in research, policy, and practice. Indeed, recent attention to athletes’ mental health has been fueled by courageous professional athletes who have publicly disclosed their struggles balancing the tension between optimum mental health and sport performance in high-pressure environments. Built upon the early success of sport performance interventions, practitioners of clinical sport psychology are now able to access sport-specific and psychometrically validated mental health assessments/screens, awareness programs, engagement interventions, and treatments developed in controlled clinical trials with athletes. These developments have assisted in answering the call from athletes, sport administrators, and athletes’ family members to improve athletes’ safety and overall mental wellness. In this chapter, we review scope of practice issues that are relevant to clinical and counseling sport psychologists including historical overtures, required qualifications and proficiencies, implementation settings, and clinical and administrative strategies and recommendations to assist practitioners in successfully navigating through multiple and complex systems.

The magnetometer instrument MPO-MAG on-board the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) of the BepiColombo mission en-route to Mercury is introduced, with its instrument design, its calibration and scientific targets. The instrument is comprised of two tri-axial fluxgate magnetometers mounted on a 2.9 m boom and are 0.8 m apart. They monitor the magnetic field with up to 128 Hz in a $\pm 2048$ ± 2048 nT range. The MPO will be injected into an initial $480 \times 1500$ 480 × 1500 km polar orbit (2.3 h orbital period). At Mercury, we will map the planetary magnetic field and determine the dynamo generated field and constrain the secular variation. In this paper, we also discuss the effect of the instrument calibration on the ability to improve the knowledge on the internal field. Furthermore, the study of induced magnetic fields and field-aligned currents will help to constrain the interior structure in concert with other geophysical instruments. The orbit is also well-suited to study dynamical phenomena at the Hermean magnetopause and magnetospheric cusps. Together with its sister instrument Mio-MGF on-board the second satellite of the BepiColombo mission, the magnetometers at Mercury will study the reaction of the highly dynamic magnetosphere to changes in the solar wind. In the extreme case, the solar wind might even collapse the entire dayside magnetosphere. During cruise, MPO-MAG will contribute to studies of solar wind turbulence and transient phenomena.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers (HCWs) from highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, hospitals have been at risk of running out of the safe and effective PPE including personal protective clothing needed to treat patients with COVID-19, due to unprecedented global demand. In addition, there are only limited manufacturing facilities of such clothing available worldwide, due to a lack of available knowledge about relevant technologies, ineffective supply chains, and stringent regulatory requirements. Therefore, there remains a clear unmet need for coordinating the actions and efforts from scientists, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, and regulatory bodies to develop and produce safe and effective protective clothing using the technologies that are locally available around the world. In this review, we discuss currently used PPE, their quality, and the associated regulatory standards. We survey the current state-of-the-art antimicrobial functional finishes on fabrics to protect the wearer against viruses and bacteria and provide an overview of protective medical fabric manufacturing techniques, their supply chains, and the environmental impacts of current single-use synthetic fiber-based protective clothing. Finally, we discuss future research directions, which include increasing efficiency, safety, and availability of personal protective clothing worldwide without conferring environmental problems.

International audience; In this study, we reported the large-amplitude and fast-damped flapping of the plasma sheet, which co-occurred with magnetic reconnection. Data from the Double Star TC-1 and Cluster satellites were used to analyze the features of the plasma sheet flapping 1.4 R E earthward of an ongoing magnetic reconnection event. The flapping was rapidly damped, and its amplitude decreased from the magnetohydrodynamics scale to the subion scale in 5 min. The variation in the flapping period (from 224 to 20 s) indicated that the source of the flapping had highly dynamic temporal characteristics. The plasma sheet flapping propagated duskward through a kink-like wave with a velocity of 100 km/s, which was in agreement with the group velocity of the ballooning perturbation. A correlation analysis between the magnetic reconnection and plasma sheet flapping indicated that the magnetic reconnection likely facilitated the occurrence of ballooning instability by altering the state of plasma in the downstream plasma sheet. In this regard, the reconnection-induced ballooning instability could be a potential mechanism to generate the flapping motion of the plasma sheet.

Having a nucleus darker than charcoal, comets are usually detected from Earth through the emissions from their coma. The coma is an envelope of gas that forms through the sublimation of ices from the nucleus as the comet gets closer to the Sun. In the far-ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, observations of comae have revealed the presence of atomic hydrogen and oxygen emissions. When observed over large spatial scales as seen from Earth, such emissions are dominated by resonance fluorescence pumped by solar radiation. Here, we analyse atomic emissions acquired close to the cometary nucleus by the Rosetta spacecraft and reveal their auroral nature. To identify their origin, we undertake a quantitative multi-instrument analysis of these emissions by combining coincident neutral gas, electron and far-ultraviolet observations. We establish that the atomic emissions detected from Rosetta around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at large heliocentric distances result from the dissociative excitation of cometary molecules by accelerated solar-wind electrons (and not by electrons produced from photo-ionization of cometary molecules). Like the discrete aurorae at Earth and Mars, this cometary aurora is driven by the interaction of the solar wind with the local environment. We also highlight how the oxygen line O i at wavelength 1,356 A could be used as a tracer of solar-wind electron variability. In situ measurements from the Rosetta spacecraft reveal the presence of atomic emissions close to comet 67P’s nucleus. Such emissions are due to dissociative excitation of molecules by the interaction with the solar wind, identifying them as a form of aurora.

Previous studies have established that the application of crosslinking dyes and easy care finishes to cotton can significantly reduce the dissolution of waste cotton in swelling solvents and limit the potential for recycling of cellulosic materials through the Lyocell fibre regeneration process. In this study a sequential acid hydrolysis-dithionite reduction-peroxide oxidative treatment was investigated as a potential method to completely strip all types of reactive dye chromophores from cotton. It was established that using the sequential treatment the reactively dyed fabrics and post-consumer denim jeans fabric could be completely stripped of their colour resulting in a white, NMMO dissolvable cellulosic material, which was used as a feedstock for Lyocell fibre regeneration. The white cellulose had an acceptable degree of polymerisation and the fibres regenerated through the Lyocell process had structural and mechanical properties similar to those of fibres regenerated from conventional wood pulp. Blending conventional wood pulp and recycled cotton pulp resulted into fibres with improved properties.

We report the evolution of the current sheet associated with a localized flow burst in the near-Earth magnetotail on Sep. 8, 2018 around 14 UT when MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) and Cluster at about X=17 RE, separated mainly in the dawn-dusk direction at a distance of about 4 RE, encountered at duskside and dawnside part of a dipolarization front, respectively. We analyzed the mesoscale current sheet disturbances based on multi-point data analysis between Cluster and MMS. It is shown that the current sheet thickens associated with the passage of the dipolarization front confirming results from previous statistical studies. The thickness of the current sheet, however, decreased subsequently, before recovering toward the original configuration. MMS observed enhanced field aligned currents exclusively during this thinning of the current sheet at the off-equatorial region. Multiple layers of small-scale, intense field-aligned currents accompanied by enhanced Hall-currents were detected at this region. Based on these mesoscale and microscale multipoint observations, we infer the current structures around the localized flow and discuss the role of these mesoscale flow processes in the larger-scale magnetotail dynamics.

This chapter provides a global evolutionary perspective from which to view cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&A) and strategic alliances, and some more minor cooperative options like licensing or franchising. Classic mistakes are most commonly over-reaching in terms of scope, whilst simultaneously going global, or failing two clear acid tests gleaned from more successful cases. Poor approaches are compared with world best practices, contrasting Marconi, Daimler/Chrysler, BMW/Rover, HSBC/HSI, and RBS/ABN AMRO cross-border M&A with more successful M&A approaches at HSBC in the case of Midland Bank and GE world-class, and Ghosn's highly successful global strategy and alliance approaches at Renault Nissan.

This chapter addresses policy concerns relating to global concentration and oligopolies. It analyzes recent trends and profit pools globally. Piketty's concerns are addressed, and a new theoretical framework is developed reconciling Adam Smith's, Schumpeter's, and Marx's theoretical perspectives in today's new contexts.