Guide for smart practices to support innovation in smart textiles

Smart Textiles for STEM training (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math’s) is an Erasmus+ project aiming to bridge Textile Companies with the Education sector via Smart Textiles Innovation and Training. Industries have been surveyed to analyze the needs for new jobs and skills in Smart textiles, contributing to improve the links with VET Schools training and closing the gap between industry and education. During the project a number of smart textiles examples and prototypes are worked to be transferred to Schools and used by students and teachers, aiming to foster STEM training. This paper presents the results of the survey applied to selected textile companies on Technical and Smart Textiles, based on data collected from 63 textile enterprises in Romania, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal and Czech Republic. The survey identifies existing opportunities for producing smart textiles in enterprises and forecasting expected occupations and work profiles for young trainees. The guide for smart practices presents the results of this survey and aims to transfer smart practices from enterprises to Vocational Education and Training (VET) schools and young students. Providing real life prototypes and multi-disciplinary working activities on smart textiles will make textile occupations more attractive to young students, and will improve knowledge, skills and employability of VET students in STEM related fields

Smart education for smart textiles

The aim of this paper is to present the main objectives and achievements of the Skills4Smartex project, according to its declared goals. The Erasmus+ project "Smart textiles for STEM training" is funded with support from the European Commission and it is a Strategic partnership - KA2 / Vocational Education and Training (VET), in the field of transfer of innovation from research providers towards textile enterprises & VET schools. The students within technical education acquire basic disciplines, such as mathematics, physics, technical drawing, chemistry, biology, mechanics, but the horizon of the end applications and usefulness of such basic disciplines is often not touchable. In correlation with these facts, the Skills4Smartex project is centred on improving knowledge, skills and employability of VET students in the STEM related fields, by providing the adequate training instruments to understand multidisciplinary working

Smart textiles to promote multidisciplinary stem training

Smart textiles consist of multi-disciplinary knowledge. Disciplines such as physics, mathematics, material science or electrics is needed in order to be able to design and manufacture a smart textiles product. This is why knowledge in smart textiles may be used to showcase high school and university students in basic years of preparation some applications of technical disciplines they are learning. The Erasmus+ project “Smart textiles for STEM training – Skills4Smartex” is a strategic partnership project for Vocational Education and Training aiming to promote additional knowledge and skills for trainees in technical fields, for a broader understanding of interconnections and application of STEM, via smart textiles. Skills4Smartex is an ongoing project within the period Oct. 2018-Sept. 2020, with a partnership of six research providers in textiles www.skills4smartex.eu. The project has three intellectual outputs: the Guide for smart practices (O1), the Course in smart textiles (O2) and the Dedicated e-learning Instrument (O3). The Guide for smart practices consists in the analysis of a survey with 63 textile companies on partnership level and interviews with 18 companies. Main aim of O1 is to transfer from source site to target sites technical and smart textile best practices and the profile of workforce needed for the future textile industry. The needs analysis achieved within O1will serve to conceive the Course for smart textiles with 42 modules (O2), to be accessed via the Dedicated e-learning Instrument (O3). All outputs are available with free access on the e-learning platform: www.adva2tex.eu/portal

2020 taxonomic update for phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales.

In March 2020, following the annual International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) ratification vote on newly proposed taxa, the phylum Negarnaviricota was amended and emended. At the genus rank, 20 new genera were added, two were deleted, one was moved, and three were renamed. At the species rank, 160 species were added, four were deleted, ten were moved and renamed, and 30 species were renamed. This article presents the updated taxonomy of Negarnaviricota as now accepted by the ICTV

New Multilocus Sequence Typing Scheme for Enterococcus faecium Based on Whole Genome Sequencing Data

ABSTRACT The MLST scheme currently used for Enterococcus faecium typing was designed in 2002 and is based on putative gene functions and Enterococcus faecalis gene sequences available at that time. As a result, the original MLST scheme does not correspond to the real genetic relatedness of E. faecium strains and often clusters genetically distant strains to the same sequence types (ST). Nevertheless, typing has a significant impact on the subsequent epidemiological conclusions and introduction of appropriate epidemiological measures, thus it is crucial to use a more accurate MLST scheme. Based on the genome analysis of 1,843 E. faecium isolates, a new scheme, consisting of 8 highly discriminative loci, was created in this study. These strains were divided into 421 STs using the new MLST scheme, as opposed to 223 STs assigned by the original MLST scheme. The proposed MLST has a discriminatory power of D = 0.983 (CI95% 0.981 to 0.984), compared to the original scheme’s D = 0.919 (CI95% 0.911 to 0.927). Moreover, we identified new clonal complexes with our newly designed MLST scheme. The scheme proposed here is available within the PubMLST database. Although whole genome sequencing availability has increased rapidly, MLST remains an integral part of clinical epidemiology, mainly due to its high standardization and excellent robustness. In this study, we proposed and validated a new MLST scheme for E. faecium, which is based on genome-wide data and thus reflects the tested isolates’ more accurate genetic similarity. IMPORTANCE Enterococcus faecium is one of the most important pathogens causing health care associated infections. One of the main reasons for its clinical importance is a rapidly spreading resistance to vancomycin and linezolid, which significantly complicates antibiotic treatment of infections caused by such resistant strains. Monitoring the spread and relationships between resistant strains causing severe conditions represents an important tool for implementing appropriate preventive measures. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a robust method enabling strain monitoring and comparison at the local, national, and global level. Unfortunately, the current, extensively used MLST scheme does not reflect the real genetic relatedness between individual strains and thus does not provide sufficient discriminatory power. This can lead directly to incorrect epidemiological measures due to insufficient accuracy and biased results

Dedicated e-learning instrument to support STEM knowledge by means of smart textiles

Smart textiles represent a future trend of development of high value-added products. Moreover, they are a result of interdisciplinary research, out of disciplines such as: mathematics, physics, textile material science and electrotechnics. All these disciplines may be on the other hand better understood in connection with touchable smart textile prototypes. Students of VET (Vocational Education and Training) in technical fields are tackling within their curricula all these basic disciplines. However, the horizon of end-applications and the interconnections between the disciplines remains often unclear. This is why a showcasing by means of smart textile products will explain them in a better way the usefulness of knowledge within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). The Erasmus+ project Skills4Smartex- “Smart textiles for STEM training” is focused on teaching applied basic disciplines for VET students in technical fields. It is a strategic partnership project with a duration of two years (2018-2020) between a consortium of 6 key European partners in textile education and training. INCDTP-Bucharest coordinates a prestigious partnership: TecMinho/ University of Minho, Portugal; Ghent University, Belgium; University of Maribor, Slovenia; Technical University Iasi and Textile testing Institute; Czech Republic. Project website is www.skills4smartex.eu. The project is structured on three intellectual outputs: the Guide for smart practices (O1) tackles preferences regarding the needed profiles of workers for smart textiles by means of a survey (http://www.advan2tex.eu/portal/mod/book/view.php?id=815), the Course in smart textiles (O2) conceives 56 modules on each of the basic disciplines (Maths, Physics, Material science and Electrotechnics), while the Dedicated e-learning instrument (O3) is a key educational support element. E-learning has already been established as a useful educational method, to enable round-the-hour, distance and interactive educational materials. Skills4Smartex creates a dedicated e-learning instrument for the 56 modules on smart textiles, based on a filter. The 56 modules are classified on chapters, disciplines and either on STEM to Smart or on Smart to STEM direction. First direction shows how basic disciplines support smart textiles and second direction shows the elements of a smart textile prototype reflected in basic disciplines. The PHP/MySQL filter rapidly selects the desired module and enables thus a visual and interactive view of interconnections between the disciplines and examples of end-applications by means of smart textiles products (http://skills4smartex.eu/instrument.php). The project envisages blended courses (e-learning and face-to face) in the fourth semester (Apr-Sept. 2020) and you are invited to participate by contacting the national coordinators of Skills4Smartex