To investigate the effect of the verge line on the appearance of brassieres, the difference in the verge lines of individuals with the same brassiere size was examined. A new method for designing a brassiere was proposed, taking into account the individual's verge line using a computerised pattern-making system. Three different brassieres were made by changing the verge line of three dummy models (nine different brassieres in total). It was found that the verge line of the bust could differ even for the same bust size. Brassiere patterns and brassieres were made using the proposed design method and it was found that the verge line affected the bust cup shape and the appearance of the brassiere.

The objective of this study was to develop an original anti-bacterial material for skin wound healing. Collagen-chitosan nanofibrous membranes were fabricated by electrospinning. The morphology, tensile strength and contact angle of the membranes were measured. In addition, cell adhesion and proliferation on the membranes were evaluated. The antimicrobial property against Staphylococcus aureus of the membranes was also determined. The results indicated that the diameter of electrospun collagen-chitosan nanofibrous membranes was 221 ± 105 nm, the tensile strength was 1.53 ± 0.12 Mpa and the contact angle was 42.44 ± 4.03 ° . Besides, the collagen-chitosan nanofibrous membranes promoted cell attachment and proliferation and also inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus aureus. In conclusion, these data suggest that electrospun collagen-chitosan nanofibrous membranes have potential to serve as skin wound healing materials, which might be ascribed to its favorable mechanical strength, excellent cell affinity, as well as good antimicrobial properties against Staphylococcus aureus.

Although shoes are conventionally chosen based on the size indicated on the label, it is also possible to accurately gauge foot size using a technique known as morphometry to measure the three-dimensional shape of feet in a state of rest. However, because shoe sizes differ slightly for each shoe manufacturer despite the use of a standardized labeling system, there is no guarantee that consumers will be able to choose a pair of shoes that properly fit the size of their feet. Furthermore, some consumers are in the habit of wearing larger shoes to accommodate the width of their feet. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative understanding of the relationship between shoe size (foot length) and gait by using techniques such as electromyogram of the lower leg, measurement of ground reaction force, and subjective evaluation. The subjects, five male university students with no history of leg injury, all had a foot length of 26.5 cm and a foot width of size D as defined by JIS standards. Prior to the experiment, the subjects' consent were obtained after briefing them on anticipated risks and safety considerations, management of their personal information, and other aspects of the study. Experimental samples consisted of a total of five D-width shoes in sizes ranging from 26.0 cm to 28.0 cm, in 0.5 cm increments. Each subject was fitted with an electromyogram measuring device on the gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior muscles on his right leg, and a plantar pressure distribution measuring sheet was placed in each of the sample shoes. Each subject took 10 strides while wearing each sample shoe along a predetermined route in the lab, under which a device for measuring floor reaction force had been installed. After each subject had walked in each shoe sample, they filled out a questionnaire on the sensations experienced while walking. When the shoe size (foot length) was at least 1 cm longer than the subject's proper size, a significant increase in activity by the gastrocnemius muscle was noted along with a significant decrease in the floor reaction force value (F2) at kick-off. These changes were attributed to the psychological effects of factors such as ease of kick-off. The findings suggest that the parameters used in this study, including muscular activity level, floor reaction force peak value, and gait reproducibility, have the potential to serve as useful indicators in evaluating the functional compatibility between shoe wearers and shoe size.

A new electronic tester consisting of capacitive sensors and optical sensors is now introduced into raw silk inspection. Compared with the traditional seriplane test, the quality indices change a lot. In assessing the yarn evenness, the electronic tester measures the coefficient of variation of the raw silk size (CV_{even}%, CV_{5 m}%, CV_{50 m}%), while the seriplane uses evenness II. In assessing the yarn defects, the electronic tester measures the slubs, thick places and thin places, SIE (small imperfection element), while the seriplane test uses cleanness and neatness. However, raw silk users who have been used to the seriplane test report want to know how to interpret the electronic test indices, they want to be convinced by knowing the correlation between the indices of the two test systems. In this study 50 lots of raw silk are sampled and tested by the two test systems, and the correlation coefficients of the corresponding indices are computed and analyzed. The result shows that there are significant correlation between evenness II and CV_{5 m}%, a strong correlation between cleanness and slub by the optical sensor, a strong correlation between neatness and SIE by both the capacitive and the optical sensor, and a strong correlation between neatness and the thick and thin places by optical sensor. The result confirms the substitution of the electronic test for seriplane test in future from the technical viewpoint.

In this research, a mathematic model for predicting the average pressure at the lower leg caused by socks has been built. This research establishes a relationship between the average pressure of socks, the potential energy of fabrics and the shape of the lower leg section based on the law of conservation of energy. On the basis of the result, the mathematic model has also been built up to predict average pressure, and the model was proved by both the data of experiments and the relation between the average pressure, the shape of the lower leg section and the elastic potential energy of the fabrics. The results has shown that the average pressure caused by the socks at the lower leg is related to the circumference of the welt as well as the circumference of calf and elasticity of the welt. The testing result shows that this model can be used to predict the pressure. This model will simplify the calculation method, and provide a theoretical foundation for the accurate prediction of the pressure at any given positions.

Cotton fabric is treated with a chicken-feather protein derivative auxiliary (named WLS-10) and with a self-made linking cationic agent (named WLS), respectively. WLS-10 was prepared with chicken-feather protein and WLS. The salt-free reactive dyeing properties of the treated cotton fabric were assessed and compared with the untreated cotton fabric dyed with salt. The results show that both the cotton fabrics treated with WLS-10 and WLS dyed without added salt obtained a higher dye uptake (E), color strength value (K=S), fixation of adsorbed dye (F) and the total fixation of the original applied dye (T) than untreated cotton fabric dyed with added salt. The treated cotton fabric did not decrease levelness and color fastness. However the dyeing properties of the WLS-10 treated cotton fabric were better than the WLS treated fabric.

Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a blind source separation technique that has been broadly used in signal and image separation. In order to verify the feasibility of ICA algorithms which will be used for the detection of fabric defect, four kinds of classic ICA algorithms have been chosen and compared in terms of their algorithm performances. The results of simulation experiments show that the separation performances of these algorithms are different and FastICA algorithm has the best separation performance than others.

An Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) method to analyze the similarities of protein sequences is proposed. The EMD method was used to divide a signal sequence converted from a protein sequence into a group of well-behaved Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) and a residue which is monotonic or a trend. This is so that the similarities can be compared among protein sequences by the corresponding residues conveniently and intuitively. This work verifies the method's suitability by using the cytochrome c protein sequences of seven different species.

Portable health monitoring device could benefit the life quality of patients as well as decreasing health care costs. Monitoring Electrocardiogram (ECG) and Impedance Cardiography (ICG) simultaneously can help evaluate cardiovascular disease comprehensively. However most of the ICG monitoring devices are only used in clinical measurement instead of family monitoring. Based on the above concern, this paper designed a portable health monitoring device based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) which is valued for its ultra-low power consumption for long-term continuous non-invasive cardiac activity monitoring by measuring ECG, ICG, acceleration and angular acceleration of body. There are mainly four advantages of this device: 1) High integration: ECG, ICG, acceleration and angular acceleration can be monitored in a single circuit; 2) Low power consumption: The device can monitor continuously for over 83 hours when powered by a 3.7 V lithium polymer battery with 1000 mAh; 3) Small size: The area of the PCB is only 30 mm × 40 mm, so it is very easy to be attached to clothes; 4) Wireless communication: The acquired data can be transmitted to a personal computer or a smart phone wirelessly via Bluetooth. Different body postures (upright or supine) can result in change of ICG signal, which can be used for adjusting patients' hemodynamic parameters.

Image registration is a vital research branch in medical image processing and analysis. In this paper, we proposed a new framework for rigid medical image registration. It can also be regarded as a pre-processing of non-rigid image registration algorithms. The interest of the algorithm lies in its simplicity and high effciency. In the registration algorithm, we firstly segmented the reference image and float image into two parts: tissue parts and background parts. Then the centers of the two images were located through performing distance transform on the two segmented tissue images. Finally, we detected the longest radius of the two tissue regions, by which we determined the rotating angle. We tested the registration algorithm on dozens of medical images, and the experimental results show us that the algorithm is competent for medical image registration.

The method of extracting robust feature sets from an image is a crucial issue for the areas of computer vision and pattern recognition. The nature of real data is a very high dimensional data. However, the hidden structure can be well characterized by a small number of features in most cases. As a result, the method of extracting a small number of good features is an important question in computer vision and pattern recognition, etc. We employ the Histograms of Oriented Gradient (HOG) to extract the robust feature sets of facial images, which is a local description operator that possesses a certain degree of invariance against geometric and photometric deformations. Neighborhood Preserving Embedding (NPE) which is a subspace learning algorithm is adopted to extract a small number of good features on the local description operators. We use the novel local description operator - HOG-NPE for facial image recognition, and several experiments on well-known facial databases are conducted, which demonstrate good performance and effectiveness of this novel local description operator.

At present, bra enterprises usually use under bust girth and bust differences to design bra pattern. These kind of bras do not consider the differences of breast shapes and therefore cannot not satisfy the demands of fit and comfort of different breasts. This paper firstly elaborates on the effect analysis of bra wearing to discover the differences then verifies the importance of breast characteristic parameters. Then a three dimensional laser scanner is used to measure the size of 75B of young female breast shape to collect data. In order to analyze breast shape change rule for moulded bra cup and bra structure design, basic statistics analysis, factor analysis and cluster analysis were conducted for breast data. Finally, six major characteristic parameters on breast height, bust external side slope, breast depth, under bust depth, biacromial breadth and center front point-bust inner point length were extracted for bra structure design. Also, cluster analysis was used to divided breast shapes into three shapes. The results of the paper can be used for providing technical parameters and theoretical basis for further study of bra structure design. It also explores a new direction of the development of tailored moulded bra cup and bra structure design.

To construct a litchi harvesting robot, the first key part is the machine vision system which is used to recognize ripe litchi clusters and their main fruit bearing branch. It selects and locates picking points. Hence, in order to establish a threshold computation model used to recognize litchi cluster, the research focus is in recognizing all parts of the litchi image. In this paper, a procedure on how to develop an automatic recognition of litchi cluster, fruits and their main fruit bearing branch guided for litchi harvesting robot is proposed. Firstly, according to the analysis on the specialty of litchi fruits and their main fruit bearing branch, particularity and uncertainty of illumination and environment, an overall scheme on the threshold computation model is used to recognize the litchi cluster based on exploratory analysis and its' application are provided. Secondly, after analyzing and comparing all thresholds, running time and effect on image segmentation by threshold computation methods of the maximum entropy, iterative, Otsu and histogram bimodal method, the interval for recognizing all sorts of litchi clusters is obtained, and a mathematical model for computing threshold to segment litchi cluster is put forward. Finally, all ripe litchi clusters of testing images from 6 groups (all together 120) of differently illuminated (in high light, normal light and backlighting) litchi images from differently-colored main fruit bearing branches (partial red, partial brown and partial brown) collected in natural circumstance are effectively recognized with the threshold segmentation method based on the given computing model, with recognition ratio of 88.89%, 92.0%, 88.24%, and 95.45%, 90.0%, 83.33%, which can satisfy the request of image segmentation on litchi-picking robots in complicated environment.

The paper develops a novel method to explore a suitable scanning installation to reduce deformation effect of foam cups under different moulding conditions, and proposes a quantitative assessment index for the geometric shape of foam cups via non-contact three-dimensional scanning. Two kinds of foams with different performance behaviour were selected for moulding test. Depending on the Box-Behnken design, a total of 12 foam cups in size 34B, 36C and 36DD for each type of foam material were scanned in the bird-view and upward-view positions for comparative purposes. Through a two tailed paired t-test and Pearson's correlation testing results, the most effective foam deformation index was confirmed firstly to assess the quality of the foam cups. The result shows that the deformation between moulded cup and its plastic shot scanned in the bird-view position is consistently less than that in the upward-view position. The amount of dwell time significantly affects the deformation for the two types of foam cups.

Extraordinary mechanical properties in biological composites come from their hierarchical structures and are well seen in bones, teeth, shells etc. Nature inspired knowledge could certainly help in the design of new nanostructured materials. The current study illustrates a multi-scale nanotube model for the purpose of the structure of very large groups of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Two different types of circular beam finite elements are used to shape bond stretching energy or to account for the potential connected to bond angle variation. Multiscale approach considers CNTs at a mesoscopic level through chains of straight cylindrical segments, where mesoscopic force field describes the interactions among the segment. Property dependence at the nanoscale results from the surface and bulk energies competition.