On 10-11 April 2013 in Malta, the textile and clothing sector from the Euro-Mediterranean Area will discuss how social dialogue can address skill needs.

Representatives of national administrations, industrial associations, trade union and educations centres in textile and clothing from the Euro-Mediterranean Area will:

• assess the industry's skills needs and expectations;
• debate how the national administrations can work together with social partners in solving the longstanding and growing skills mismatch;
• emphasise the creation of stable and sustainable job and business opportunities in the area.

Participants will try to answer these two key questions:

• How can we assure that available trainings and education curricula match the needs of textile and clothing companies in the Euro-Mediterranean Area?
• What can we do to enhance the skills development in the textile and clothing industry?

For the first time participants from Western Balkans are invited, too.
The event is organised with the support of the TAIEX instrument and the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Link to video: European Skills Council - Textile Clothing and Leather

For more information about the background and recent activities of the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue on textile and clothing, please see:

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/textiles/external-dimension/euro-mediterranean-region/index_en.htm

Documents & links:

Draft programme

Registration for the conference

The integration of electronics into textiles is a burgeoning field of research that may soon enable smart fabrics and wearable electronics. Bringing this technology one step closer to fruition, Jin-Woo Han and Meyya Meyyappan at the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., have developed a new flexible memory fabric woven together from interlocking strands of copper and copper-oxide wires. At each juncture, or stitch along the fabric, a nanoscale dab of platinum is placed between the fibers. This "sandwich structure" at each crossing forms a resistive memory circuit. Resistive memory has received much attention due to the simplicity of its design.

Imagine plugging a USB port into a sheet of paper, and turning it into a tablet computer. It might be a stretch, but ideas like this have researchers at North Carolina State University examining the use of conductive nanocoatings on simple textiles – like woven cotton or even a sheet of paper.

"Normally, conductive nanocoatings are applied to inorganic materials like silicon. If we can find a way to apply them to textiles – cheap, flexible materials with a contorted surface texture – it would represent a cost-effective approach and framework for improving current and future types of electronic devices," says Dr. Jesse Jur, assistant professor of textile engineering, chemistry and science, and lead author of a paper describing the research.

A new fabric that can selectively trap gases is being developed at Cornell University, in a breakthrough that promises to help protect soldiers and first responders from exposure to toxic chemicals. The garments use “metal organic framework molecules” and cellulose fibers that were assembled in Fiber Science Professor Juan Hinestroza’s lab to create the special cloth. Metal organic framework molecules, or MOFs, are clustered crystalline compounds that can be manipulated at the nanolevel – as small as one millionth of a millimeter – to create “cages” that are the exact same size as the gas they are trying to capture.

Researchers in Singapore have discovered a method through which they could cause the silkworms to produce coloured silk. The new method would help to skip the process of dyeing silk and is also more eco-friendly.

Under the new method, mulberry powder and a special coloured substance is mixed in the silkworm’s diet. Once the silkworms consumes and digests this food, they start producing coloured silk. A team of eight scientists representing the Agency for Science, Technology and Research was working on the project from 2009 onwards. According to them, the new process not only helps to conserves water, but also involves lesser use of resources as compared to the conventional silk production techniques.

Source:http://www.fibre2fashion.com/news/textile-news/newsdetails.aspx?news_id=97151