The purpose of this research is to examine the determinants of the textile and apparel exports of India and South Korea over 1974-2001. This was addressed through an econometric analysis of the effects of several independent variables on the gross and net exports of textiles and apparel for India and South Korea. The analysis employed four linear models, which were each estimated separately for textiles and apparel for India and South Korea. The independent variables were net value of physical-capital stock, technological capital, two different levels of human capital, unit labor cost in textiles and in apparel, per-capita domestic apparel production, and domestic cotton production. The study extends that by Zhang and Dardis (1991) who analyzed the determinants of textile exports over the period 1970-1985, using a sample of 27 major textile exporting countries. Secondary data for each year over 1974-2001 were used for the variables in the analysis. The data analysis included 32 estimations using the four different linear models to test the hypothesized relationships between textile and apparel exports and the independent variables for India and South Korea separately. Model 1 examined the impact of current year values of the independent variables on current-year gross or net exports of textiles or apparel. Model 2 examined the impact of one-year lagged values of the independent variables on current-year gross or net exports of textiles or apparel. Model 3 examined the impact of changes in the current-year values of the independent variables on changes in current-year gross or net exports of textiles or apparel. Model 4 examined the impact of one-year lagged values of changes in the independent variables on changes in current-year gross or net exports of textiles or apparel. Major findings indicate that current-year net value of physical-capital stock positively impacted the gross textile exports of India and both gross and net textile exports of South Korea over 1974-2001.Although the results indicate positive effects of current-year net value of physical-capital stock on India's gross and net apparel exports, they indicate negative effects on South Korea's gross and net apparel exports. One-year lagged net values of physical-capital stock were positively related to South Korea's current-year gross and net apparel exports. A negative impact of previous-year net value of physical-capital stock was found in one instance, South Korea's current-year gross apparel exports. Technological capital measured as the number of scientists, engineers, technical personnel involved in R&D, negatively affected South Korea's gross and net apparel exports. The impact of one-year lagged technological capital was negative on both India's and South Korea's current-year gross and net apparel exports. Human capital measured by enrollment in secondary-level education showed positive impact on India's current-year gross and net exports of textile and apparel and on South Korea's current-year gross and net apparel exports. The results also showed a negative impact of current-year changes in secondary-education enrollment on current-year changes in net textile exports of India. Human capital measures by enrollment in tertiary-level education indicated a positive impact on South Korea's net textile exports and gross apparel exports. One-year lagged tertiary-education enrollment also positively affected South Korea's gross textile exports and its gross and net apparel exports. Contrary to expectations, current-year change sin tertiary-education enrollment showed a negative impact on current-year changes in India's net textile exports. Per-capita domestic apparel production showed a positive impact on India's gross and net textile exports and on South Korea's gross apparel exports. One-year lagged domestic apparel production also had a positive impact on India's current-year net textile exports and South Korea's gross apparel exports. The results of one-year lagged domestic cotton production had a positive impact on South Korea's current-year gross and net textile and apparel exports. / Master of Science

Crease-resistance is a very greatly desirable property in textile fibers. Of the natural fibers, wool exhibits this property to the greatest degree, followed by silk, cotton, and flax, which has a very low crease-resistance. The artificial cellulose fibers fall considerably below wool and silk in this respect. The improvement of the crease-resistance of rayon and other fibers has been sought in various after-treatment processes, in which substances are either deposited within the fiber, or react with it. There are numerous patents (22) for such methods of imparting crease-resistance. It would be highly desirable if the crease-resisting powers could be achieved "by a modification of the intrinsic properties of a fiber, that is, by producing a fiber which already is crease-resistant. The purpose of the work reported here was to attempt to produce a viscose rayon fiber with better crease-resisting properties, and to study the effect of a variation in the cellulose chain length distribution in the rayon upon this property. This work was done under a Fellowship of the Behr-Manning Corporation, Troy, New York. / Ph. D.

The suitability of powdered starch with borax or glycerine accessories for dark cottons of three different colors and weights and with selected construction gestures was ascertained. Selected colors, weights, and construction features were evaluated by analysis of variance for their effect on the suitability of the starch and its additive. The scores recorded by a panel of competent judges supplied data on the change in color, luster, and hand of the starched fabric. The color was statistically significant in only half of the instances for which it was analyzed. The weight of the fabric was significant for one-fourth of the starched samples. Construction influenced starching only when combined with another factor, and then is only one case of a possible six. Scores indicated starching caused from moderate to considerable change for the majority of the samples. The glycerine and starch treatment was more affective than the starch and borax combination. / M.S.

Wearable computers and e-textiles are increasingly prevalent in today's society. Motion capture is one of many potential applications for on-body electronic systems. Self-contained motion capture applications require information from sensors distributed throughout the body on a "smart" garment. Therefore, this thesis presents the design of a flexible hardware platform for e-textile motion capture applications. This thesis also presents software for one such application, namely, tracking the pose or relative position of body limbs. The accuracy of this solution is compared to an industrial optical motion capture system. The combined hardware and software design are successful at collecting and processing motion capture data in the context of an e-textile jumpsuit. / Master of Science

The concept of replacing threads with flexible wires and sensors in a fabric to provide an underlying platform for integrating electronic components is known as e-textiles. This concept can be used to design applications involving different types of electronic components including sensors, digital signal processors, microcontrollers, color-changing fibers, and power sources. The adaptability of the textiles to the needs of the individual and the functionality of electronics can be integrated to provide unobtrusive, robust, and inexpensive clothing with novel features. This thesis focuses on the design of e-textiles for acoustic signal processing applications. This research examines challenges encountered when developing e-textile applications involving distributed arrays of microphones. A framework for designing such applications is presented. The design process and the performance analysis of two e-textiles, a large-scale beamforming fabric and a speech-processing vest, are presented. / Master of Science

The union of electronics and textiles to form electronic textiles (e-textiles) provides a promising substrate upon which motion analysis applications can be developed and implemented. Familiarity with clothing allows sensors and computational elements to be naturally integrated into garments such that wearability and usability is preserved. The dynamics of the human body and the wide variety of sensor and processing choices render the typical prototype-based design methodology prohibitively difficult and expensive. Simulation of e-textile systems not only reduces these problems but allows for thorough exploration of the design space, faster design cycles, and more robust applications. Gait analysis, the measurement of various body motion parameters during walking for medical purposes, and context awareness, the recognition of user motions, are two immediate applications that e-textiles can impact and emphasize the feasibility of e-textiles as a medium for sensor deployment on the human body. This thesis presents the design of a simulation environment for wearable e-textile systems and demonstrates the use of the simulation via a prototype pair of e-textile pants. / Master of Science

The mature textile industry coupled with our familiarity and comfort level with fabrics and the possibility of seamless integration of electronic components such as sensors, processors, and power sources in the fabric opens up a new dimension of computing. The electronic textile presents a suitable substrate over which numerous applications can be developed. Location awareness is one such application that can reap the benefits of e-textiles such that it can be widely deployed at a reasonable cost for assisting visually impaired people or to provide navigational help during emergency situations. This thesis describes an autonomous, wearable location awareness system that will determine a user's location within a building given a map of that building. The thesis examines the issues, constraints, and challenges concerning the design of such a system. The two-part location awareness algorithm computes the location and orientation within a room as well as determines the user's movement between rooms. The efficacy of the proposed system is demonstrated with a wearable prototype. / Master of Science

Electrical components constantly being scaled down in size allows for small, inexpensive sensors to be placed on or around the human body for motion sensing applications. In addition, the merging of textiles with electrical components, known as electronic textiles (e-textiles), allows for these sensors to be placed directly on a wearable fabric. Simulation allows for extensive application testing and verification before prototype development. This thesis presents a simulation environment for motion sensing E-textiles. Specifically, this environment incorporates motion capture position data to simulate a rate sensing gyroscope and a dual-axis accelerometer. In addition, this simulation environment is applied to the field of gait analysis, which is the process of quantification and interpretation of a person's stride, to calculate a subject's step length. / Master of Science

Improved process technology has resulted in the integration of computing elements into multiple application areas. General purpose micro-controllers are designed to assist in this integration through a flexible design. The application areas, however, are so diverse in nature that the general purpose micro-controllers may not provide a suitable abstraction for all classes of applications. There is a need for specially designed architectures in application areas where the general purpose micro-controllers suffer from inefficiencies. This thesis focuses in the design of a processor architecture that provides a suitable design abstraction for a class of periodic, event-driven embedded applications such as sensor-monitoring systems. The design principles of the processor architecture are focused on the target application requirements, which are identified as event-driven nature with concurrent task execution and deterministic timing behavior. Additionally, to reduce the design complexity of applications on this novel architecture, an automation framework has been implemented. This thesis presents the design of the processor architecture and the automation framework explaining the suitability of the designed architecture for the target applications. The energy use of the novel architecture is compared with that of PIC12F675 micro-controller to demonstrate the energy-efficiency of the designed architecture. / Master of Science

Electronic textiles provide an effective platform to contain wearable computing elements, especially components geared towards the application of activity recognition. An activity recogni tion system built into a wearable textile substrate can be utilized in a variety of areas including health monitoring, military applications, entertainment, and fashion. Many of the activity recognition and motion capture systems previously developed have several drawbacks and limitations with regard to their respective designs and implementations. Some such systems are often times expensive, not conducive to mass production, and may be difficult to calibrate. An effective system must also be scalable and should be deployable in a variety of environments and contexts. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a self-contained motion sensing wearable electronic textile system with an emphasis toward the application of activity recognition. The system is developed with scalability and deployability in mind, and as such, utilizes a two-tier hierarchical model combined with a network infrastructure and wireless connectivity. An example prototype system, in the form of a jumpsuit garment, is presented and is constructed from relatively inexpensive components and materials. / Master of Science