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Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

This paper investigates the effect of three different treatments, namely (i) sunlight exposures, (ii) bleaching and (iii) perming on the damage of the keratin fibres (with the use of human hair). Scanning electron microscopy was applied to examine the surface morphology of the samples. Hair samples appeared to be rougher and their scales diminished after the treatments. The degree of colour change of samples was measured using a diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer. All three different treatments caused a certain degree of colour change on the samples. Urea bisulphite solubility test was also employed to investigate the alkaline damage of samples.

The results illustrated that the urea bisulphite solubility of samples conformably decreased when they were subject to these three types of treatments. With respect to the tensile strength property, the results indicate that the breaking load of treated samples decreased dramatically after undergoing three different types of treatments. On evaluating the test results, it was concluded that the bleaching process imparted the most severe damages to hair. The results of the different test methods were evaluated and discussed.

In this paper, the optimisation of electroless nickel plating is investigated through the Orthogonal Array Testing Strategy. It was found that the electroless nickel plating process at the deposition stage with various parameters, i.e. temperature = 40°C, time = 20 minutes and pH = 10, is the most effective method in improving the metal adhesion performance. The performance of nickel-plated polyester fabrics was found to be dependent on the amount of nickel particles adhered on the fabric surface. The properties of optimised nickel-plated polyester were enhanced in term of fabric weight, fabric thickness and tensile strength. However, there was a moderate decrease in tearing strength and crocking fastness.

This paper provides a picture of using plasma treatment as a means for textile modification. It discusses the different modes for the generation of plasma. As plasma treatment is acting as a surface modification treatment, the paper also addresses the various types of plasmasubstrate interaction and their effects on the substrates. The use of plasma as a finishing application for different textile substrates is another highlight of this study.

It is salient to be acquainted with the key elements that determine educational tourists’ decision in selecting an overseas destination while considering the rise of international competition amidst nations concerning international students. There has been a growth in the number of nations committed to attracting educational tourists. This issue is evident in countries involved in higher education (HE), such as Northern Cyprus, identified as an edu-tourism destination. Northern Cyprus can attract a whopping number of tourists, and the higher population is most likely to be made up of international students regardless of its interdiction on direct flights and political pressure. This chapter centres on analysing educational tourists’ motivators in selecting a tourism education destination abroad and on revealing effective recruitment and promotion plans towards attracting them. The chapter includes the descriptions and discussions of educational tourism, the HE industry over the years, globalisation and internationalisation of educational tourism, factors influencing educational tourists’ decision-making process and key elements influencing educational tourists’ decisions in HE institutions. At the end of the chapter, a case study is presented that reports the findings of interviews with educational tourists, overseas recruitment agents and Eastern Mediterranean University staff responsible for promoting the institution. The results identified eight factors affecting educational tourists’ decisions on study destination. Those factors comprise cost, ease of access, location, social factors, quality of education, instruction language, cultural environment and communication quality. The sub-factors of the main eight factors are scholarships, destination’s scenery, safety, friends’ and relatives’ influence and cultural differences. This chapter brings a significant knowledge about the motives that affect educational tourists in selecting at a particular HE destination. Based on the study’s findings, educational institutions may consider various recommendations to redesign their strategies towards attracting educational tourists more effectively. Generally, this study promotes an apprehension about the diverse elements that affect educational tourists’ selection of a destination study. An in-depth understanding of these factors will help education institutions’ decision-makers better develop plans of action to provide desired services to educational tourists, attract and keep them in return.

This chapter explained the findings of a research that is aimed at studying the effectiveness of cross-border knowledge transfer from Japanese companies to their business affiliates in Malaysia by looking into Japanese organizational culture and the mediating effect of the business affiliate’s learning intent. By focusing on attributes identified by existing literature, there were three aspects being investigated to study their roles in influencing the effectiveness of cross-border knowledge transfer. These aspects are intensive and extensive job training, employee involvement and human relations, and leadership styles. The results indicate that all three aspects indeed led to a higher learning intention. The research also found that the business affiliates’ learning intent significantly mediates the relationship between organizational culture and the effectiveness of cross-border knowledge transfer. This study provides academicians and human resource managers deeper insights on how to improve knowledge transfer in cross-culture organizations by managing organizational culture more effectively.

Trials have been performed to assess the practicability of the electroless nickel plating method applied to textile fabrics with various fabric constructions including polyester woven fabrics and polyester meshes. The effect of electroless nickel plating on different polyester fabric constructions had been studied. The results displayed that the nickel could be successfully plated on various fabric structures. In this study, it was found that fabric constructions can influence the appearance of electroless nickel-plated fabrics and generate different metallic effects. Fabric structure is considered to be a very important factor for determining the desired appearances of electroless nickel-plated fabrics. Moreover, electroless nickel plating is able to simulate the metallic effects of hard metal products on non-conductive fabrics with soft handle. Such findings could give inspiration to designers to design fabrics with different brilliant textures.

A huge amount of Chinese tea residue forms part of everyday waste. In this paper, one of the daily used Lung Ching tea was selected to perform a series of experiments. A pilot scale of simulating the wasted Lung Ching tea residue was conducted using the fresh tea bought from department stores. Endeavours have been made to find out the optimum extraction conditions including the solvent selection, optimum concentration, temperature and time to extract the dyes from the tea residues. The thermodynamic behaviour of Lung Ching tea dyes such as the standard affinity, enthalpy change, dyeing mechanism, time of half dyeing and activation energy were also taken into account. Furthermore, the shade, depth and colour fastness properties of dyed wool fabric under different dyeing conditions were also investigated. The results showed that water was a good solvent to extract tea dye and the optimum extraction conditions was 100°C at 90 min. Dyeing of wool fabric with tea dye can be carried out at room temperature but the affinity on fabric was relatively low. On the whole, tea dye showed a good result of colour fastness tests except a minute colour change after washing which leaves room for further investigation.

A systematical review of catalyst was provided in the paper involving the definition, the sort, effect mechanism and the influence factors which followed that the application of catalyst in the textile industry in terms of dyeing, finishing and effluents treatment. Catalyst is defined as a substance that could change the rate of chemical reaction, while it is not consumed in the overall reaction. The changing of the reaction rate by means of catalyst is known as catalysis. Catalyst could assist in either acceleration or deceleration of the reaction rate. In textile processing, especially in textile wet processing such as dyeing and finishing, for example, easy care and durable press finishes, antimicrobial finishes, ultraviolet protection finishes, flame retardant finishes and water repellent finishes, various types of catalysts will be involved for achieving desired effect. However, there is a less discussion and review on the relationship on the effect of catalyst on the final properties of the textile materials. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the application of catalyst on the textile wet processing and nano-catalyst was also evaluated in the extending to the opportunities and development of textile industry.

An infrared (IR) spectroscopic technique was used to determine the possible functional groups and chemical compounds present in commercially available ink-jet printing reactive dyes of four primary colours, i.e. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Although other instrumental analytical methods can help to determine the actual chemical composition of reactive dyes, the IR technique alone can still provide important structural information about the commercially available reactive dyes. Experimental results revealed that the reactive dyes under determination contained the same functional groups and chemical compounds as the reference reactive dyes.