Craftmanship and Digitalization in the Italian Knitwear Industry. A Paradigm Shift for the Narrative of Made in Italy

Knitwear is a consolidated industry in Italy and, at the same time, a typical expression of the Made in Italy paradigm linked to the ideas of craftsmanship. While, on the one hand, knitwear is associated with the idea of craft and manufacturing traditions, on the other hand, it is nowadays produced by numerical control machines (CNC) where the technological contribution and the level of automation are very relevant. The convergence of physical and digital environments, at the heart of the Fashion Industry 4.0 debate, is an established feature of knitwear design practice. In the contemporary industrial scenario, knitted items are produced on digitally programmed machines through sophisticated software, and the manual contribution of the individual operator during the knitting phase is reduced to a minimum. In the light of these premises, this contribution questions the opportunity and value of the integration of digital technologies in the storytelling of traditional manufacturing without losing the power to evoke Made in Italy’s values such as quality, aesthetic refinement, and exclusivity. To analyze these issues, the authors report the case study of SMT – Società Manifattura Tessile, a leading knitting company where the technological presence equals that of traditional manufacturing craftmanship, keeping both elements at balance. The case study suggests the importance of the contemporary knitting craftsman to increasingly develop communication skills to make the relationship between technology andmanufacturing explicit and possibly smoothly blend it with the Made in Italy archetypes

CAPABLE: Engineering, textile, and fashion Collaboration, for citizens' Awareness and Privacy Protection

Many private companies and public bodies in authoritarian and democratic states have joined facial recognition technology, used for various purposes. This situation is due to the gene- ral absence of a specific regulation that monitors its use. There is no consensus in society regarding the ethics of this technology. Furthermore, there are many doubts concerning the long-term ethical sustainability of facial recognition and its compliance with the law. A pro- blem that emerges from the use of this technology is its obscurity. We do not know who is responsible for the decision automatically made; we do not know how the data is used by those who collect it, how long this data is kept, who can have access to it, to whom it is sent, and how this is used to create a profile. In addition, facial recognition systems are powered by numerous images collected from the Internet and social media without users’ permission: it is, therefore, impossible to trace the origin of the data. Consequently, any citizen could be classi- fied, most likely discriminated against, and become the victim of an algorithm. The boundary between security and control is decidedly blurred: many cameras do not respect the privacy of individuals and often harm human rights when they are used to discriminate, accuse, power, and manipulate people. From this discussion on privacy and human rights, it was born first the desire to create awareness, in particular regarding these technologies and the possible issues linked to them. Secondly, it was born the will to create a product that would be the spokesperson for these concerns and allow citizens to protect themselves. On this basis, a col- laboration between fashion, engineering, and textile has developed to produce fabric and then garments, which confuse facial recognition systems in real-time. The technological innovation aims to create a system capable of generating adversarial knitted patches that can confuse the systems that capture biometric data. By integrating an adversarial algorithm into their jacqu- ard motifs, the garments prevent the wearers from being identified, preserving their privacy. The adversarial textile is made with computerized knitting machines. Compared to a printed image, knitwear acquires texture, durability, wearability, and practicability. Furthermore, a knit- ted fabric allows modifying the single yarn material based on the results and performance we want to obtain. These fabrics have been tested on Yolo, the fastest and most advanced algorithm for real-time object recognition. The project was born in New York in 2019; the first experiments with computerized knitting machines were carried out at the Politecnico di Milano in January 2020. The textile was developed in the workshops of the Shenkar College of Tel Aviv. On February 8, 2021, the patent of the industrial process to produce the adversarial knit- ted textile was filed, with the patronage of the Politecnico di Milano. Today, the research on this fabric and these thematics has carried on within a Ph.D. that combines human-centric design and engineering

METODO PER REALIZZARE UN TESSUTO DI MAGLIA CHE RIPRODUCE UN’IMMAGINE AVVERSARIA

METODO PER REALIZZARE UN TESSUTO DI MAGLIA CHE RIPRODUCE UN’IMMAGINE AVVERSARIA PER CONTRASTARE LA LETTURA IMPROPRIA DI DATI SENSIBILI PER LA PRIVAC

Epidemiology of skin disorders in Ethiopian children and adolescents: An analysis of records from the Italian Dermatological Centre, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia, 2005 to 2009

Skin disorders are an important problem in children living in developing countries, but only a few epidemiologic investigations on pediatric dermatoses are available in the literature. Our study is an analysis of the range and frequency of skin diseases presenting to the Italian Dermatological Center in a pediatric Ethiopian population. A retrospective analysis was performed on 17,967 medical records of children aged 0 to 18 years attending the Italian Dermatological Centre in Mekele (Ethiopia) from January 2005 to December 2009. Infections and infestations accounted for 47% of the disorders seen; fungal infections were the most common (44.1%), followed by bacterial and parasitic diseases. Dermatitis constituted the second most common diagnostic category (24.7%) of the disorders seen, and contact dermatitis was the most common diagnosis (48.8%). Pigmentary disorders and disorders of skin appendages were more common in girls, whereas fungal and parasitic infections were more common in boys. Bacterial and parasitic infections were more common in children younger than 1 year old, fungal infections in those aged 1 to 5.9, and disorders of skin appendages and pigmentary disorders in those aged 15 to 18. These findings demonstrate that most of the disorders seen could be easily managed in clinical practice with appropriate skill development. It is crucial to ensure that training of medical students and pediatricians focuses on accurate recognition, diagnosis, and management of these common skin diseases and that families, teachers, health workers, and nurses be educated about the most common signs of prevalent skin diseases to help facilitate appropriate care. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc