Effects of sock type on foot skin temperature and thermal demand during exercise

Many fabrics and clothing ‘systems’ have been designed to enhance heat balance and provide greater thermal comfort for the wearer. However, studies on the effects of socks have largely been ignored in clothing research. It has been suggested that the thermal state of the extremities may alter core temperature and mental stress may be a major determinant of skin blood perfusion on the foot. However, no definite conclusions have been drawn. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of two different sock types on foot skin temperature and to investigate any impact on whole body thermoregulation and energy expenditure. Sixteen subjects carried out two sessions of treadmill running exercise, one session wearing a standard running sock and one session wearing an ergonomic asymmetric fitted sock. The overall mean heart rate, core (aural) temperature, foot skin temperature, weighted mean skin temperature and sweat rate during exercise were not statistically significant between the sock conditions (p?>?0.05). There was a consistent trend in all participants for the ergonomic sock to induce a higher core temperature and higher skin temperatures compared to the standard sock. Overall mean ratings of perceived exertion and ratings of thermal perception were similar for both sock conditions. Participant questionnaires highlighted a general perception that the ergonomic socks had superior cushioning but that the standard socks were comfortable to wear. Despite there being no significant physiological or thermal differences between socks, the ergonomic sock was perceived to be cooler and was the preferred sock which suggests that subjective perceptions may be more important than objective measurements when selecting a sock for wear during prolonged exercise.     

SPEED OF WORK AS A MEASURE OF WORK INTENSITY

A device is described which makes it possible to record the intervals produced by a subject in a method for measuring perceptual motor load.

The system is specially adapted for field work and operating under difficult for electrical conditions.     

Gender classification by combining clothing, hair and facial component classifiers

In this paper, we propose a novel gender classification framework, which utilizes not only facial features, but also external information, i.e. hair and clothing. Instead of using the whole face, we consider five facial components: forehead, eyes, nose, mouth and chin. We also design feature extraction methods for hair and clothing; these features have seldom been used in previous work because of their large variability. For each type of feature, we train a single support vector machine classifier with probabilistic output. The outputs of these classifiers are combined using various strategies, namely fuzzy integral, maximal, sum, voting, and product rule. The major contributions of this paper are (1) investigating the gender discriminative ability of clothing information; (2) using facial components instead of the whole face to obtain higher robustness for occlusions and noise; (3) exploiting hair and clothing information to facilitate gender classification. Experimental results show that our proposed framework improves classification accuracy, even when images contain occlusions, noise, and illumination changes.     

基于我国服装出口自主品牌国际化战略的研究

随着我国加入世贸组织后的全面深入,必须加快我国服装企业发展创新的步伐,开创服装出口自主品牌国际化战略,不仅可以发展服装自主品牌出口,还可以转变传统服装出口增长方式,提升服装品牌影响力,提升我国服装在国际服装市场中的竞争力,为我国自主品牌服装的国际化发展带来巨大推动作用。本文探讨研究我国服装出口自主品牌国际化战略,以提升我国自主品牌服装在国际市场中的地位和竞争力。     

Comparison between required clothing insulation and that actually worn by workers exposed to artificial cold

Required Clothing Insulation (IREQ) is a new thermal index submitted to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) for discussion. It is designed to prevent general body cooling and is based on an analysis of heat exchanges. The thermal clothing insulation actually worn (lcl) is estimated using a new method, also submitted to ISO.

IREQ of 54 workers exposed to artificial cold (air temperature between −30° C and +10° C) was compared with lcl actually worn by these workers. The results of the present study show that, on average, the workers choose accurately lcl they need if their IREQ is below and up to 1·5 clo. Moreover, these workers prefer to wear garments which provide them with thermal comfort. If IREQ of workers is higher than 1·5–2 clo (i e, workers exposed to −20° C), it is difficult for them to increase their thermal insulation with additional garments. Although their lcl is not sufficient, there is no risk of gradual body cooling because of their continuous time exposure (CTE) which is shorter than the calculated Duration Limited Exposure (DLE). On the other hand, Wind Chill Index (WCI), which is proposed to prevent local cooling, is better adapted to prevent cold injuries than physiological thermal strain; for example, impairment of manual dexterity cannot be prevented with this index.     

Interactive virtual try-on clothing design systems

Clothing computer design systems include three integrated parts: garment pattern design in 2D/3D, virtual try-on and realistic clothing simulation. Some important results have been obtained in pattern design and clothing simulation since the 1980s. However, in the area of virtual try-on, only limited methods have been proposed which are applicable to some defined garment styles or under restrictive sewing assumptions. This paper presents a series of new techniques from virtually sewing up complex garment patterns on human models to visualizing design effects through physical-based real-time simulation. We first employ an hierarchy of ellipsoids to approximate human models in which the bounding ellipsoids are optimized recursively. We also present a new scheme for including contact friction and resolving collisions. Four types of user interactive operation are introduced to manipulate cloth patterns for pre-positioning, virtual sewing and later obtaining cloth simulation. In the cloth simulation, we propose a simplified cloth dynamic model and an integration scheme to realize a high quality real-time cloth simulation. We demonstrate the robustness of our proposed systems by complex garment style virtual try-on and cloth simulation.     

The approximation between thermal sensation votes (TSV) and predicted mean vote (PMV): A comparative analysis

The Fanger's predicted mean vote (PMV) model is used to evaluate thermal comfort. However, when PMV is compared to people's real thermal sensations, collected in field studies, some discrepancies are verified. One of the components for the calculation of PMV is clothing surface temperature (t_cl), which can be a factor that contributes towards these discrepancies. The aim of this study was to propose alternative methods for predicted mean vote, seeking to reduce these discrepancies. The mathematical Newton's method was applied to obtaining t_cl values. The PMV₁ was determined by replacing the t_cl values in the traditional equation of PMV as described by ISO 7730 (2005). The second model of thermal prediction, named as PMV₂, was obtained by a multiple linear regression considering the thermal sensation votes, the metabolic rate and the six heat exchange mechanisms. Two groups (welders and army officers) were used to verify the accuracy of the methods used in this research. The results show that both methods were able to describe the thermal sensation votes. For the welder group, both PMV₁ and PMV₂ overestimated the results: when people voted TSV = 0, PMV₁ = 0.64 and PMV₂ = 0.23. In the case of the army officers group, applying PMV₁, when TSV = 0, PMV₁ = 1.47. The application of the multiple regression increased the potential of PMV₂ to obtain responses closer to those provided by the occupants of the thermal environment studied: when TSV = 0, PMV₂ = 0.0068, demonstrating a greater effectiveness of this method.     

A quasi-physical model for predicting the thermal insulation and moisture vapour resistance of clothing

Based on the improved understanding of the effects of wind and walking motion on the thermal insulation and moisture vapour resistance of clothing induced by air ventilation in the clothing system, a new model has been derived based on fundamental mechanisms of heat and mass transfer, which include conduction, diffusion, radiation and natural convection, wind penetration and air ventilation. The model predicts thermal insulation of clothing under body movement and windy conditions from the thermal insulation of clothing measured when the person is standing in the still air. The effects of clothing characteristics such as fabric air permeability, garment style, garment fitting and construction have been considered in the model through the key prediction parameters. With the new model, an improved prediction accuracy is achieved with a percentage of fit being as high as 0.96.     

服装用聚酰胺热熔胶生产工艺

较为3具体地介绍了服装衬布用聚酰胺热熔胶性能及其生产技术。该热熔胶以尼龙－6盐－尼龙－66盐－尼龙－1010盐共缩合物为主体加入其他助剂而成，主要用于服装粘合衬布的生产。     

The effect of unevenly distributed thermal stimuli on the sensation of warmth and coolness

Combinations of clothing provide different degrees of thermal insulation for various parts of the body. The effect of this uneven thermal insulation on general comfort is examined by using experimental clothing which could provide varying degrees of thermal resistance. The relationship between skin temperature and sensation was found to be approximately linear when the exposed areas were not large, and that clothing of the same thermal resistance can yield different sensations depending on the parts of the body involved.