Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 16, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Laurel Wilson. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1986.

Transnational production arrangements have been widely argued to lessen the organising capacities of industrial workers, none more so than in the case of women workers in ‘export’ or ‘world market’ factories in developing countries. This thesis contests this assertion by showing that women workers’ ability to form enterprise unions in the Philippine garments industry are enhanced by transnational production arrangements involving an overseas market. Specifically, the thesis demonstrates that, in order to meet the quality and delivery requirements of overseas buyers and contractors, local owners and/or production managers are forced to routinely keep more production in-house in order to exert more direct controls over the work processes of their women sewers. By thereby limiting the amount of local subcontracting which is done, women workers are agglomerated in larger numbers in the one place and, consequently, their capacities to engage in collective action – as indicated by the establishment of enterprise unions – is markedly increased. Empirically, the argument of the thesis draws on a ‘multiple-case’ study of sixty-five garment-making establishments located in and around Manila. The study involved interviews with owners, production managers and/or trade union officials about the local subcontracting practices of their establishments. The conclusions drawn about the links between export production and enhanced labour organising capacities at the enterprise level are corroborated by the ‘commodity chain’ literature on industrial deepening in the international garments industry and the status of the Philippine industry in this regard. But rather than think simply in terms of industrial deepening, this thesis is concerned with the impacts of exporting on class processes. Theoretically, the thesis thus draws on the Marxist view that capitalist development entails changes in the social form of labour, through the real subsumption of labour. But, whereas Marx linked the real subsumption of labour to greater capitalist controls over the labour process, in this thesis the real subsumption of labour is also tied to concomitant changes in the spatial form of the labour process. From this standpoint, the thesis engages with labour process theory after Braverman (accusing it of often failing to link capitalist control to class processes) and with theories of class (which often ignore the social and spatial form of the labour process). In tying organising capacities of women workers at the enterprise level to changes in social and spatial form of the labour process, it is nevertheless argued that these capacities are also shaped at the national level by the legal framework for legitimate organising and by ‘political space’ in which the law in fact operates. In this regard, it is argued that, whilst the state often passes laws to protect labour standards, it does not grant workers the means to ensure such standards are actually enforced. The thesis also challenges the view that the recruitment of women is a strategy which employers deliberately use in the Philippine garments industry to limit industrial conflict. Against this assertion of a rational economic basis to women’s employment, the thesis argues that women are employed for sewing jobs as a result of the sex-typing of such jobs; but that this is also more an effect than a cause as the feminisation of sewing in the modern garments industry is embedded in class processes in the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. Gender is a dimension of labour control, but women workers in the garments industry are not employed to limit enterprise unionism.

No description available.

Study in the field of product development about Illuminating material for fire-fighter garments & others in the future / Program: Magisterutbildning i Applied Textile Management

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

The purpose of this research was to evaluate performance claims in athleisure, in order to confirm or refute their authenticity. Aesthetic properties and functional claims were evaluated initially, and after repeated home laundering. A convenience (nonprobability) sample of activewear with performance features consisted of ninety garments that are currently on the market and commonly used by consumers. The garments included men’s and women’s t-shirts, polos, leggings, windbreakers, hoodies, sweatpants, and warm-up pants of various fiber contents and performance chemistries. The focus of the garment selection was on garments with performance properties relating to moisture management. Performance claims listed on the hang tags included moisture management, wicking, quick dry, stay cool, breathable, water resistant and wind resistant. Garments in the sample were a combination of natural, synthetic and blended fiber contents. The garments were tested initially, after one, five, ten, fifteen and twenty laundry cycles. The garments were evaluated for smoothness, dimensional stability, color change, pilling, horizontal wicking of textiles, water repellency- spray test, water resistance- impact penetration, water resistance- hydrostatic pressure, absorbency of textiles, aqueous liquid repellency and air permeability. All testing was performed in accordance with AATCC and ASTM standard test methods and was conducted under controlled laboratory settings.

The contamination of sterile pharmaceutical products is a serious event which has in the worst case scenario led to patient death. Operators are the primary source of clean room contamination, with the majority of their detritus being identified as skin squames and their related microorganisms. The ability of operator associated bacterial contamination to disseminate through specialist garments worn in the clean room environment is apparent in the literature. However, despite the fibres of such garments being identified as a suitable substrate for bacteria to adhere to and grow upon, the bacterial bioburden of the surface of clean room operators’ garments is an area which severely lacks in published research. Reported here is the recovery, enumeration and comparison of the levels of bacteria on the surface of reusable antistatic carbon filament polyester clean room garments, using the direct agar contact method, following their laundering with and without terminal gamma sterilisation, immediately following their donning with operators dressing wearing either no gloves, non – sterile gloves or sterile clean room gloves, and following their wear within the clean room environment, with respect to gender. The aforementioned method, with its recovery efficiency shown to be unaffected by agar composition (NA or TSA), recovered bacteria from the surface of garments laundered with and without gamma sterilisation. Such terminal decontamination was shown to reduce the surface bacterial bioburden of the garments, especially at the chest and umbilicus regions, which were shown to harbour higher levels of bacteria than the other sites tested. The direct agar contact method, showing an increase in recovery efficiency following a 48 hour agar incubation period as opposed to a 24 hour period, also recovered bacteria from the surface of clean room garments donned by operators dressing wearing either no gloves, non – sterile gloves and sterile clean room gloves. Bacteria were transferred onto the surface of these garments via the hand borne route, with the chest and oral cavity regions being found to harbour more bacteria than the other sites tested. Overall, glove type was shown to have no effect upon the resultant bacterial bioburden of the surface of the garments, suggesting expensive clean room gloves could be substituted for their cheaper non – sterile equivalents or no gloves during the donning process without subsequently increasing the surface bacterial bioburden of the garment. The direct agar contact method also recovered bacteria from the surface of clean room garments worn by male and female operators, following their working period within a clean room environment. Gender was found to significantly affect the surface bacterial bioburden of the garments, with the surface of those garments worn by male operators being more contaminated than the surface of those worn by their female counterparts. In addition, the donning of a clean room hood was shown to reduce the levels of bacteria at the chest and posterior cervicis regions of suits worn by both genders. Overall, the direct agar contact method was identified as a successful tool to recover, enumerate and estimate the surface bacterial bioburden of reusable antistatic polyester carbon filament clean room garments. Finally, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, found to be more reliable and accurate at identifying unknown isolates than traditional phenotypic first - stage tests, which were subsequently found to misidentify > 85 % of the isolates tested, a self - selected representative number of isolates recovered from the surface of garments during the laundering and gender comparison studies were predominantly identified as skin commensal species of Staphylococcus and Micrococcus, as well as environmental species of Bacillus. The knowledge contained within this thesis, with respect to clean room operators and their specialist garments, contributes towards improving contamination control standards within clean room facilities.