193,801 research outputs found
The modification of activated carbon cloth by alumina deposition
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The impregnation of mesoporous carbon cloth with alumina has been studied. The most successful method of impregnation resulted from preparation of the alumina phase by a sol/gel route. This method involves a boehmite intermediate, and the heating environment for the thermal transition of boehmite to the final alumina was investigated. Heat treatment of the boehmite intermediate under flowing N2, flowing
air and vacuum was found to give a different pore size distribution for the final alumina than did still air heat treatment. For the former environments the transition from boehmite to alumina was not accompanied
by the usual increase in pore size. Alumina/carbon composites were made by dipping pieces of mesoporous carbon cloth in a boehmite sol. The distribution of boehmite about the carbon cloth was found to be improved by pre-wetting the carbon cloth and by the use of ultrasonic dispersion during boehmite impregnation. Dried boehmite/carbon composites, with loading levels of up to 180wt.%, were heated under vacuum to 5000 C. In this manner alumina/carbon composites of up to 60wt.% alumina were fabricated. The distribution of the alumina phase about the carbon cloth was investigated by electron microscopy and by gas adsorption techniques. Nitrogen isotherm data indicated that the mesopores of the carbon cloth were not blocked by the deposited alumina, rather the pore volume of the carbon cloth was increased by the clustering of porous alumina about the pore entrances of the carbon cloth. Water isotherms were determined for the composite materials. The water activity of the composite, particularly at low relative pressures, was found to be significantly greater than that of the carbon cloth as a result of the
presence of alumina. CO2 activity of the composites was investigated by a gas chromatographic technique. The CO2 activity of the composite material was found to be up to 500 times greater than that of virgin
carbon cloth.This study is funded by a research grant from ALCOA
Markerless Real-Time Garment Retexturing From Monocular 3D Reconstruction
No full textWe present a fusion of augmented reality (AR) and virtual try on (VTO) that incorporates sparse 3D point recovery by exploiting distance constraints based on 2D point correspondences between a deformed texture in monocular video and a reference texture which is derived from the start of the sequence by face detection aided segmentation. A hierarchical and multi-resolution surface reconstruction approach is proposed, employing thin-plate splines, cloth modeling, and patch tessellation. Our method attempts to accurately recover a rectangular surface from a deformed arbitrarily shaped texture. We also propose a hue-based method for segmenting garment cloth and printed texture. The methods are demonstrated in an AR framework for real-time visualization of a virtual garment worn in a real scene. Real-time AR cloth retexturing from monocular vision is a state-of-the-art field. Previous work lacks realism and accuracy, only recovering the 2D cloth layout and lacks robustness, requiring a special T-shirt color and simple texture along with lab hardware. Our approach alleviates these limitations. We design a practical approach which considers a typical consumer environment with a mid-range PC and webcam. Our results are convincing and photorealistic with robustness to arbitrary T-shirts, subjects, and backgrounds. Future work will focus on extending our global model and quantitative analysis
Monetary Policies, Guild Labour-Strife, and Compulsory Arbitration during the Decline of the Late-Medieval Flemish Cloth Industry, 1390 - 1435
No full textThis paper explores the impact of the Count of Flanders' monetary and wage policies upon the fortunes of the Flemish woollen cloth industry in a crucial but penultimate phase of its irredeemable decline, from 1390 to 1435, when it was beginning to yield to the growing supremacy of the now rapidly expanding English cloth trade. More narrowly (leaving larger issues of industrial decline to other papers), it focuses upon the sudden imposition and enforcement of Flemish monetary reforms in the early 1390s, after a half century of inflationary coinage debasements; those reforms greatly exacerbated other existing forces of deflation in north-west Europe. In the view of the count, his officials, and entrepreneurs in the cloth trades, this monetary reform could work effectively only if wages were cut proportionately; and such wage-cutting policies naturally provoked bitter resentment (even though the ongoing deflation in fact raised real wages). In the Flemish cloth industry, the only wage-earning artisans who were organized into a guild, and one that resembled a modern labour union, were the fullers, exclusively male workers, whose tasks were crucial in ensuring the luxury quality of the Flemish industry's chief exports. Their reaction to the post-Reform wage cuts of the 1390s was to go on strike (uutgangen), thus forcing the intervention of the count's officials, who imposed compulsory wage arbitration, establishing new wage contracts that gave the draper-entrepreneurs only half of their demanded cuts. One of these contracts specified the fullers' new wages in terms of both the silver and gold coinages, in an era when the gold:silver ratio was unusually low. After the Flemish count had resumed inflationary coinage debasements in 1416, leading to a rise in the gold:silver ratio (i.e. making gold coins more valuable in terms of the silver), some fullers' guilds now cited these contract provisions and demanded payment in gold coin, provoking new labour strife, which ended only with another monetary reform in 1433- 5. The paper also poses and answers the question: why did the draper-entreprenuers not respond to this labour strife by displacing fullers with water-powered machines? Mechanical fulling would have ruined the reputation for luxury quality on which the industry vitally depended, while reducing prices only minimally.
Efficient Clothing Fitting from Data.
No full textA major drawback of shopping for clothes on-line is that the customer cannot try on clothes and see if they fit or
suit them. One solution is to display clothing on an avatar, a 3D graphical model of the customer. However the
normal technique for modeling clothing in computer graphics, cloth dynamics, suffers from being too processor
intensive and is not practical for real time applications. Hence, retailers normally rely on a fixed set of body
models to which clothes are pre-fitted. As the customer has to choose from this limited set the fit is typicallly not
very representative of how the real clothes will fit. We propose a method that uses a compromise between these
two methods. We generate a set of example avatars by performing Principal Component Analysis on a dataset of
avatars. Clothes are pre-fitted to these examples off-line. Instead of asking the customer to choose from the set of
examples we are able to represent the users avatar as a weighted sum of the examples, we then fit clothes as the
same weighted sum over the clothes fitted to the examples
Hanseatic Commerce in Textiles from the Low Countries and England during the Later Middle Ages:
No full textThis paper analyses the major changes in textile products, production costs, prices, and market orientations during the era when the �draperies� or cloth industries of the late-medieval Low Countries and England had become increasingly dependent upon northern markets and the German Hanseatic League as the major vehicle in marketing their textiles. In several previous articles, I had examined the major factors that had led to the industrial and commercial reorientations of the these cloth industries during the 14th and 15th centuries. In brief, the spreading stain of widespread warfare, piracy, and general insecurity, especially in the Mediterranean basin, from the 1290s (to the 1460s), led to a rise in transport and transaction costs that, in turn, had three major consequences for the Low Countries� and England�s textile-based economies: (1) to cripple the export-oriented production of the very cheap and light fabrics, most of which had been sent to Mediterranean markets and had comprised the bulk of northern textile shipments to this region; (2) to encourage most draperies in the Low Countries and England to re-orient their export-oriented cloth production more and more towards high-priced ultra-luxury quality woollens, woven almost exclusively from the finer English wools, but wools that came to be burdened with high export taxes; and (3) to force these northern cloth industries, facing increasing difficulties in Mediterranean commerce, to become far more dependent on Hanseatic merchants and German towns for their cloth sales, certainly by the mid-14th century. But in effecting these industrial and commercial orientations, the Low Countries� draperies encountered a new and even more dangerous challenge from expanding English competition in textiles, which enjoyed the signal advantage of control over high quality wools, which, for the domestic cloth industry, were tax-free and much cheaper. Nevertheless, for reasons outlined in this and earlier papers, the English took well more than a century to achieve final victory in the woollen broadcloth trade, though one that came to be fundamentally based upon German commercial forces, along with other commercial, monetary, and industrial factors outlined in this paper. Obeying the law of comparative advantage, the textile industries of the Low Countries responded to this English victory by once more re-orienting production to cheaper cloths, especially cheap, light worsted-says; but they were able to do so only when structural changes in European markets and trading networks, with falling transaction costs, from the later 15th century, once more favoured the export-oriented production of such cheap textiles. The major contributions of this paper, however, also lie in analysing production, product, cost, and prices changes in textiles, both cheap worsted and luxury woollens, in terms of 15 tables: (1) English wool and broadcloth exports, 1281-1550; (2) Production indices for the woollen cloth industries of the southern Low Countries, 1316-1575; (3) Production indices for the Hondschoote sayetterie and Leiden woollen industry, 1376-1570; (4 - 7) Prices and relative values of Ghent woollens: in terms of values of commodity baskets and a mason�s daily wage: 1331-1570 (no. of days� wages to buy one cloth); (8) Prices of English woollen cloths at Cambridge and Winchester: and values in terms of a mason�s daily wage; and mean values of English cloth exports in pounds sterling, groot Flemish, and florins; (9) Prices of various Flemish woollen broadcloths, compared to the Flemish composite price index: 1351-1550; (10) Prices of various Brabantine woollen cloths, compared to the Brabant composite price index; and the no. of days� wages for a master mason to buy one Mechelen broadcloth, 1351-1520; (11) Prices of Hondschoote Says and Ghent Dickedinnen Woollens, in pounds groot Flemish, compared with the purchasing power an Antwerp master mason's daily wages; (12) Purchase prices of Ghent woollens: by rank order of values, 1360-69: in pounds groot Flemish, units of Commodity Baskets of equivalent value, and the number of a master mason�s day�s wages required to purchase each cloth (from the cheapest to highest priced); (13) Dimensions, composition, and weights of selected Flemish and English textiles, 1456-1579; (14) Prices of and taxes on exported English wools (sacks), 1211-1500: (15) Prices of English Wools (48 grades) sold at the Calais Staple, in 1475 and 1499.Germany, the Low Countries, England, Hanseatic League, woollens, worsteds, wools, dyestuffs, prices, wages, inflation, deflation, monetary changes
Craft in unexpected places
No full textWithin the shifting territories of craft practice, the handmade has become a relational form of contemporary activity that transforms our understanding of place through a hands-on, minds-on process of collective-making. The conceptual significance of craft is activated through a chance encounter with the handmade in daily life. During the article we aim to explore the confluence between crafting, social engagement, volunteering and the realms of education and creative practice that we have both experienced first hand. What will be revealed will be the voices of practitioners collectively exploring cloth’s potential as a metaphor for consciousness, carrier of narrative and catalyst for community empathy and cohesion. This will be informed by an enquiry into historical forms of communal crafting drawn from archival research at the Imperial War Museum London and Foundling Hospital Collection housed at the Foundling Museum in London and a primary case study of the workshop ‘Desconocida – Unknown – Ukjent’. We employ a method used in object-based research: a value system that can be applied to the consideration of cloth as an object of study – namely, the locational, iconographical, archival, aesthetic and transferral. Focusing particularly on the transferral and locational, we will examine the significance of the handmade gesture in particular artistic, political and social contexts. These visual and textual narratives will inform our perception of ‘Craft in unexpected places’ and bring visibility to a selection of craft interventions by making links between the wide-reaching possibilities for craft-based practices and their expressive potential within the social and political landscapes they inhabit
Crafting the Community
No full textPurpose – Crafting the Community is a volunteering project run by the Textiles Department at the University of Huddersfield to promote and deliver textile craft activities to the wider community.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how volunteering can be a powerful tool for enriching peoples’lives while deepening students’ textile-related competencies through placing their learning in social and communal settings.
Design/methodology/approach – Initially the paper will articulate how the project has been developed to bring innovation to the forefront of the curriculum, equipping students with tools for playing a meaningful and constructive role in society. Subsequently the paper will investigate how volunteering can be used to affect real-life changes in homelessness, archival threats and rural transport.
Findings – The paper uses a case study approach to realise the vision of Crafting the Community that enables students to put into practice their learning while capturing the imagination of local communities.
Social implications – As active players in society, staff, students and external partners create an engaged and interrelated learning experience as an evolving process, mimicking the repetitiveness and structure of the warp and weft of cloth itself.
Originality/value – In response to emerging debates concerning the value, relevance and impact of cloth on societies today the project’s aim is to share the course’s own unique philosophy and insight into the importance of a practical and creative engagement with materials and processes in the wider community. This paper would be suitable for academics that who are interested in textile culture and emergent textile volunteering and socially engaged practices in the public realm
Table Cloth Clasp.
No full textPatent for table cloth clasp, "which may be readily detachably connected with the table top, will securely hold the table cloth in place thereon, and will be entirely concealed by the table cloth" (lines 14-17)
Flemish Woollens and German Commerce during the Later Middle Ages: Changing Trends in Cloth Prices and Markets, 1290 - 1550
No full textThis paper analyses the major changes in textile products, production costs, prices, and market orientations during the era when the 'draperies' or cloth industries of the late-medieval Low Countries had become increasingly dependent upon northern markets and the German Hanseatic League as the major vehicle in marketing their textiles. In several previous articles, I had examined the major factors that had led to the industrial and commercial reorientations of the Low Countries' cloth industries during the 14th and 15th centuries. In brief, the spreading stain of widespread warfare, piracy, and general insecurity, especially in the Mediterranean basin, from the 1290s (to the 1460s), led to a rise in transport and transaction costs that, in turn, had three major consequences for the Low Countries' textile-based economies: (1) to cripple the export-oriented production of the very cheap and light fabrics, most of which had been sent to Mediterranean markets and had comprised the bulk of northern textile shipments to this region; (2) to encourage most Flemish and Brabantine draperies to re-orient their export-oriented cloth production more and more towards high-priced ultra-luxury quality woollens, woven almost exclusively from the finer English wools, but wools that came to be burdened with high export taxes; and (3) to force the Flemish and Brabantine cloth industries (and the English as well), facing increasing difficulties in Mediterranean commerce, to become far more dependent on Hanseatic merchants and towns for their cloth sales, certainly by the mid-14th century. But in effecting these industrial and commercial orientations, the Low Countries' draperies encountered a new and even more dangerous challenge from expanding English competition in textiles, which enjoyed the signal advantage of control over high quality wools, which, for the domestic cloth industry, were tax-free and much cheaper. Nevertheless, for reasons outlined in this and earlier papers, the English took well more than a century to achieve final victory in the woollen broadcloth trade, though one that came to be fundamentally based upon German commercial forces, along with other commercial, monetary, and industrial factors outlined in this paper. Obeying the law of comparative advantage, the textile industries of the Low Countries responded to this English victory by once more re-orienting production to cheaper cloths, especially cheap, light worsted-says; but they were able to do so only when structural changes in European markets and trading networks, with falling transaction costs, from the later 15th century, once more favoured the export-oriented production of such cheap textiles. The major contributions of this paper, however, also lie in analysing production, product, cost, and prices changes in textiles, both cheap worsted and luxury woollens, in terms of nine tables: (1) export and production statistics for the English and Low Countries' textile industries, 1280 - 1549; (2) dimensions, weights, and composition of selected Flemish and English woollens and worsted-says; (3) English wool prices at the Calais Staple, 1475-99; (4) Price relatives for Ghent woollens and Flemish 'commodity baskets', 1340-1540; (5) Rank-order of cloth values at Ghent (from cheap to luxury woollens), for 1360-69, relative to the values of a standard 'commodity basket' and the purchasing power of a mason's wages; (6) Prices of selected Ghent woollens, large (luxury) and small (cheap), 1340-1412, in Flemish pounds groot and Florentine florins; (7) Prices of luxury woollens from Ghent, Mechelen, and Leiden and of cheap Hondschoote says, related to the purchasing power of a mason's wage, for 1535-45; (8) Prices of English wools (with wool-export duties), English and Ghent woollens, in pounds sterling and Flemish pounds groot, with English-Flemish monetary ratios, and with English, Flemish, and Brabantine commodity price-indices, 1320-1550; (9) Prices of various English, Flemish, Brabantine, and Dutch Woollens (in pounds sterling and Flemish pounds groot), 1400-1520.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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