Design and optimisation of a user-engaged system for sustainable fashion

There is increasing pressure to consider sustainability in fashion design from consumers, industry and educators. Although awareness has grown significantly in the last decade, there are various challenges for linking sustainable production and consumption. Tools to support sustainable design practices exist in some disciplines; however, only a few tools exist to support fashion design. Furthermore, there is a lack of enabling tools which support designers to engage with diverse social actors to encourage sustainable fashion as a process of co-design. The purpose of this study was to investigate and develop an effective enabling design system and tool to support fashion designers and other users in considering production and consumption. In order to achieve this, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) was selected. When initially approaching the problem, the results of two online surveys identified designers’ and general public groups’ previous attitudes, experiences and challenges towards sustainable fashion. The key lessons from this study were that although both these groups considered sustainability an important issue, this was not actualised in their daily activities. Secondly, fashion design groups were not aware of existing sustainable design tools and had not actively used them. There is demand for useful design tools for sustainable fashion design. After identifying the problems, a toolkit and co-design process was proposed to aid fashion designers and other users, to generate sustainable fashion designs during idea generation. The toolkit was iteratively refined through participatory research and its effectiveness was evaluated through a series of workshops and interviews. There emerged key considerations for the development of the tool and that a systematic level of change, triggering continuous actions, is essential for sustainable design practices rather than one-off events. Additional findings are discussed along with the feasibility and effectiveness of the toolkit, opportunities and challenges of co-designing in the sustainable fashion design system

Virtual Reality Exercise Program Effects on Body Mass Index, Depression, Exercise Fun and Exercise Immersion in Overweight Middle-Aged Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: This study explored the effects of a virtual reality exercise program on overweight middle-aged women. Methods: This randomized controlled trial included women 40–65 years of age with a body mass index (BMI) of 23 kg/m2 or more living in Daejeon City. The virtual reality environment was set up by attaching an IoT sensor to an indoor bicycle and linking it with a smartphone, enabling exercise in an immersive virtual reality through a head-mounted display. Results: In the virtual reality exercise group, the BMI was significantly decreased after the 8-week intervention compared with the baseline value (F = 59.491, p p p p < 0.001) were significantly higher in the virtual reality exercise group than in the indoor bicycle exercise and control groups. Conclusions: The virtual reality exercise program positively affected the BMI and the levels of depression, exercise fun, and exercise immersion in overweight middle-aged women. It is an effective home exercise program for obesity management in this population

p A Comparative Study on the Taste Characteristics of Satellite Cell Cultured Meat Derived from Chicken and Cattle Muscles

This study investigated the amino acid and nucleotide-related compound composition and taste characteristics of cultured muscle tissue (CMT) obtained by culturing satellite cells isolated from chicken and cattle and compared them to those of traditional meat (TM). The content of all amino acids except valine and tyrosine was significantly different between CMT and TM (p&lt;0.05). The amount of glutamic acid was not significantly different between CMT and TM in cattle, but the glutamic acid in chicken CMT was lower than that of TM (p&lt;0.05). Among the nucleotide-related compounds, only the content of inosine-5&apos;-monophosphate (IMP) was significant, and the amount of IMP in CMT derived from chicken and cattle was significantly lower than that of TM (p&lt;0.05). There were significant differences in the taste characteristics assessed by an electronic tongue system, and the umami, bitterness, and sourness values of CMT were significantly lower than those of TM from both chicken and cattle (p&lt;0.05). The results of the present study suggest that it is necessary to develop a satellite cell culture method that could increase the umami and bitterness intensity of CMT and adjust the composition of the growth medium to produce cultured meat with a taste similar to that of TM.N

Identification and quantification of selected metabolites in differently pigmented leaves of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) cultivars harvested at mature and bolting stages

Abstract Background Identification and screening of cultivars rich in bioactive phytoconstituents can be potentially useful to make nutrient-dense dishes and in medicinal formulations. In this study, we have identified, characterized and quantified caffeoylquinic acids, dicaffeoylquinic acid, dicaffeoyltartaric acid, kaempferol conjugates, quercetin malonylglucoside, sesquiterpene lactones, and cyanidin in 22 lettuce cultivars at mature and bolting stages using UPLC-PDA-Q-TOF-HDMS, UPLC, and HPLC. Results The composition and contents of the studied metabolites and antioxidant activity varied significantly and depend on leaf color, cultivar type and stage of maturity. The main phenolic acid components of lettuce were quinic and tartaric acid derivatives, whereas kaempferol derivatives were the dominant flavonoids. The sum of the content of phenolic acids ranged from 18.3 to 54.6 mg/100 g DW and 15.5 to 54.6 mg/100 g DW, whereas the sum of the contents of flavonoids ranged from 9.2 to 25.9 mg/100 g DW and 14.9 to 83.0 mg/100 g DW in mature and bolting stage cultivars, respectively. The content of cyanidin, lactucin, lactucopicrin, and ABTS radical antioxidant activity were in the range of 0.3 to 9.7 (mature stage) and 0.5 to 10.2 mg/g DW (bolting stage), 1.8 to 41.9 (mature stage) and 9.7 to 213.0 (bolting stage) µg/g DW, 9.9 to 344.8 (mature stage) and 169.2 to 3888.2 (bolting stage) µg/g DW, and 12.1 to 29.0 (mature stage) and 15.7 to 30.3 (bolting stage) mg TE/g DW, respectively. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the green and red pigmented lettuce cultivars were grouped to the negative and positive sides of PC1, respectively, while the green/red pigmented cultivars were distributed throughout the four quadrants of the PCA plots with no prominent grouping. The loading plot showed that phenolic acids, flavonoids, and cyanidin are the most potent contributors to the radical scavenging activity of lettuce extracts. Conclusions Lettuce at the bolting stage accumulate relatively high amount of sesquiterpene lactones (SLs), quercetin malonylglucoside (QMG), methylkaempferol glucuronide (MKGR), kaempferol malonylglucoside (KMG), and 3-O-caffeoylquinic acid (3-CQA) compared to the mature stage. Higher amount of phytoconstituents were found to be accumulated in the red pigmented lettuce leaves compared to the green lettuce leaves. In addition, the contents of most of the metabolites in lettuce seem to increase with age of the leaves. The presence of the two bitter SLs, lactucin and lactucopicrin, in significantly high amount in lettuce leaves at bolting stage could diminish consumer acceptance. However, alternatively, these leaves could be utilized by nutraceutical companies working to recover these compounds

Solution-Processed ZnO-Chemically Converted Graphene Gas

We report a solution-processed gas sensor based on vertically aligned ZnO nanorods (NRs) on a chemically converted graphene (CCG) film. The prepared sensor device effectively detected 2 ppm of H 2 S in oxygen at room temperature. A high sensitivity of the gas sensor resulted from the growth of highly dense vertical ZnO NRs on the CCG film with numerous tiny white dots on its surface, which may provide a sufficient number of sites for the nucleation and growth of the ZnO NRs. The adsorption of oxygen on the surface of the ZnO NRs was found to be crucial for obtaining an excellent gas sensing performance of the ZnO NRs-CCG sensor