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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.

Low-temperature plasma (LTP) has been increasingly employed for polymer surface modifications. In this paper, plasma gases of oxygen and argon were used for pre-treating polyester fabrics before conducting chemical silver plating, aiming to increase the amount of metal content and improve the performance of the polyester fabrics. After LTP pre-treatment, there was a thin plasma layer generation on the fabric surface which was in good contact with the fibre. Based on the observation of micro-structure using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), it was found that there was an increase in the amount of silver particles deposited on the fibre surface after the LTP pre-treatment. The surface observation implies that the LTP pre-treatment could enhance the hydrophilicity of fibre surface and help facilitate the absorption of silver particle layer to reach the necessary level of uniformity and adhesive strength.

Woven and knitted polyester fabrics were pretreated with formulations containing waterborne UV curable resins and silica particles to improve inkjet print quality. The selected formulations were applied with low add-on to reduce the adverse effect on fabric hand without sacrificing the print quality. A print pattern with block areas and lines in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black colors was designed and inkjet printed on the pretreated fabrics with a wide-format inkjet printer (Encad Novajet 750) to investigate the effects of the UV curable pretreatment on the inkjet print color qualities including color depth, color gamut and color lightness.

Experimental results show that both the color depth and gamut of prints on the pretreated taffeta and knitted polyester fabrics were enhanced compared to those on untreated polyester fabrics. However, both the color depth and gamut of the prints on the pretreated satin polyester fabrics were reduced. The lightness change of the inkjet printed colors on pretreated knitted fabrics is similar to that of untreated fabrics whereas the lightness change of prints on pretreated satin and taffeta fabrics shows some differences. All colors have increased lightness on pretreated satin fabrics. However, magenta and black have decreased lightness on the pretreated taffeta fabrics.

The purpose of this study was to optimise the dyeing conditions to achieve right-first-time dyeing in hard water. Owing to the persistent water scarcity for more than two decades now, the textile industry in Pakistan is forced to rely on high-mineral-content ground water for use in textile wet processing. Furthermore, the limited amount of municipal water that is at the disposal of the textile industry is also high in mineral content. Thus, on the large scale, water hardness has become an acute problem for the textile processor. In particular, in the dyeing process, water hardness is known to have crucial effects. However, to-date, no systematic study has been conducted on this aspect of textile dyeing.

In this study, 3² full factorial design was used to optimise the dyeing conditions to achieve right-first-time dyeing in hard water. Thus, cotton fabric was dyed with Red Reactive dye (of dyebath concentration at 5, 10 and 15 g/L) in prepared hard water (of hardness at 10, 40 and 70°dH), respectively. Analysis of variance, coefficient of determination (R²) and p-values for the models were used to evaluate the adequacy of the predictive models. The surface plots of the effects were studied to further examine the interactions of two independent variables. Derringer’s desirability function was used to determine the optimum levels of each variable.

Three levels for both independent variables generate second-order polynomial models to predict the colour strength, lightness, red/green, yellow/blue and total colour difference values of dyed cotton. The obtained predictive models point out the considerable influence of both water hardness and dye concentration on right-first-time dyeing.

Such a finding enabled the dye-mill to produce the correct shade at water hardness of 10°dH and 15 g/L dye concentration, without the need for corrective reprocessing.

The present research aims to manage the formulations of pigment-based inks containing aminopropyl/vinyl/silsesquioxane (APSV) as a pigment binding agent for inkjet printing of polyester as a commercial trial for the printing of polyester as a single-step process.

The proposed formulations incorporated APSV by using the mini-emulsion technique at a low relieving temperature under the thermal initiation or UV radiation of vinyl-terminated groups in APSV. In this study, the storage stability of inks with regard to physical properties was broadly examined. Moreover, the color performance, including colorimetric data, color fixation and fastness properties of printed fabrics was evaluated.

The results indicated that the inks containing APSV were formulated and were stable in terms of particle size, dispersion stability, surface tension and viscosity over a period of one month and for four freeze/thaw cycles. APSV successfully fixed the pigment-based inkjet inks on polyester fabric and could achieve a significantly higher color performance and degree of fixation than the formulated inks without APSV.

It could also fulfill all the physical properties of ink prerequisites over storing and eliminating all challenges in improving the performance and utilization of inkjet printing.

APSV can also be used as a pigment binding agent to formulate inks for inkjet printing of polyester fabrics as the authors’ past examination for inkjet printing of polyester fabrics post-treated with APSV.

This study eliminates the noteworthy challenges in formulating the pigment-based inks for textile applications by incorporation of a binder while keeping up the necessary viscosity profile for a specific print head.

This study addressed all the issues arising from the complex nature and very challenging requirements of inkjet inks.

A disperse fluorescent yellow paste was mixed with a dispersant naphthalene sulfonic derivative via wet grinding process to prepare thermal transfer ink with good fluorescence. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The surface tension, viscosity, pH value, zeta potential, stability and the morphology of ink samples were tested after the storing process.

The morphology of paste was homogeneous nearly spherical nanoparticles and the particle size was about 100 nm from the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which was similar to the average particle size obtained from the particle size analyser.

The paste particle size was 126.8 nm after storing at 50°C for one week. The addition of diethylene glycol was conducive to high fluorescent reflectivity and gave good line image quality both in warp and weft directions due to the low viscosity. Inkjet printed polyester fabrics achieved excellent rubbing, laundering and thermal subliming fastnesses.

The polyester fabrics thermal transferred with the ink contained diethylene glycol represented higher fluorescent reflectivity and gave better line image quality both in warp and weft directions. The inkjet printed polyester fabrics showed excellent colour reproducibility and all the fastnesses, including rubbing, laundering and thermal subliming, were higher than Grade 4.

This research investigates Hong Kong academic librarians' attitudes toward robotic process automation (RPA) and their willingness to learn this technology.

This qualitative study collected data through one-on-one semi-structured interviews conducted with video conferencing software. After participants received basic RPA information and three existing library application cases, they answered questions based on the interview guide. This research used the inductive thematic analysis method to analyze the collected data.

Regarding Hong Kong academic librarians' attitudes towards RPA, 19 themes were identified. Although all participants did not have previous knowledge of RPA, most showed positive attitudes toward implementing RPA in their libraries and some willingness to learn it. Besides, among all identified themes, negative attitudes mainly comprised “Affect” and “Cognition” factors, hindering RPA deployment in academic libraries.

This research helps librarians and RPA vendors make better decisions or strategies for implementing RPA for libraries, which has not been explored, especially in East Asia.

Existing studies reflect that traditional teaching–learning relationships between supervisors and graduate students have become disjointed with actuality seriously. In particular, there are practical difficulties in handling many students from coursework-based postgraduate degrees under current university curricula. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between research supervisors and graduate students on social media, which is popular among students.

This study surveyed 109 graduate students from two majors (population around 100 each) of a university in Hong Kong to explore their information usage for research on social media, related attitudes and their perceived supervisor relationships. The differences between the two majors were also compared.

The authors’ findings indicated that graduate students were active on social media, and social media has successfully provided effective alternate ways for students to communicate with their research supervisors. Social media could improve relationships between supervisors and research students and among fellow students. Besides education purposes, students also discussed their personal affairs on social media with supervisors, demonstrating enhanced trusted relationships. Graduate students also showed confidence in the further application of social media in higher education. Some differences between respondents from the two programs were also found in terms of communication contents, strengths, personal preferences and purposes for using social media.

Scant studies focus on the relationship between supervisors and graduate students under the current social media environment, especially for students from coursework-based postgraduate degrees. At a deeper level, for the widespread use of social media in the information age, this study explores the specific changes brought about by social media. Therefore, this study is of great theoretical and practical value to graduate education under the current social media environment.

The Chinese economy has grown rapidly over the past decade, making self-drive tours more affordable among Chinese tourists. Thus, self-driving tours using online tourism-related information have also been popular. This study aims to investigate information search behaviors among different segments of Chinese self-drive tourists under the influence of contemporary mobile internet technologies and compares the results with prior related studies from a global standpoint.

This paper investigates the relationships between tourist demographics and information search behavior in Mainland China based on a quantitative method. This study collected 228 surveys from users with self-drive tour experience. This study also conducted a series of online interviews to explore the potential barriers when self-drive tourists search for information.

The results showed variances within pre-decision and post-decision stages between different age groups, social classes and experience levels. Preference for up-to-date information and contemporary platforms were also observed.

Research paucity exists on self-drive tourists’ information search behavior, using data collected from Mainland Chinese tourists using mobile devices. The findings offer insights to industry practitioners, such as travel agencies and liaison websites, for refining their services to meet the information needs of Chinese self-drive tourists through more comprehensive marketing strategies.

Although cloud storage services can bring users valuable convenience, they can be technically complex and intrinsically insecure. Therefore, this research explores the concerns of academic users regarding cloud security and technical issues and how such problems may influence their continuous use in daily life.

This qualitative study used a semi-structured interview approach comprising six main open-ended questions to explore the information security and technical issues for the continuous use of cloud storage services by 20 undergraduate students in Hong Kong.

The analysis revealed cloud storage service users' major security and technical concerns, particularly synchronization and backup issues, were the most significant technical barrier to the continuing personal use of cloud storage services.

Existing literature has focused on how cloud computing services could bring benefits and security and privacy-related risks to organizations rather than security and technical issues of personal use, especially in the Asian academic context.