Ancient Andean Textiles

This article includes publications on the yarns, fabrics, and textiles produced for millennia in the Andes before the 16th-century European invasion. The geographical coverage is from Colombia in the north as far as northern Chile and northwestern Argentina in the south. Textile scholars often distinguish between fabrics and textiles. The former term is more encompassing and includes nonwoven cloth, such as felt or constructions made with a single element such as looping. Textiles, on the other hand, are the outcome of regularly interlacing a vertical set of elements, the warp, with a horizontal one, the weft, in a pliable plane of interacting threads. In the form of garments, regalia, bags, wall hangings, and funerary offerings, pre-Hispanic fabrics and textiles from the Andes can be spectacular, in both visual appearance and technique. A particularly long record exists of extremely well preserved examples, including a large number of complete garments, conserved due to the aridity of Andean deserts and the freezing conditions at 6,000 meters above sea level, where mountaintop shrines are encountered. The iconographic range is impressive—from naturalistic renditions of the creatures and beings of this and other cosmological worlds to highly abstract and geometric forms of expression. Some Andean visual imagery characteristically refers to yarn and fabric construction, whether it be plying yarn or looping, twining, or braiding cloth. In this sense, to borrow Marshall McLuhan’s well-used coinage, “the medium is the message.” This interest in the visual characteristics of the medium precedes the introduction of record-keeping by means of the khipu or chinu, the Quechua and Aymara terms for what, in Spanish, is called quipu (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Latin American Studies article “Quipu”). Scholars have therefore explored the significance of textiles, sometimes using as a premise that Andean textiles encode culturally meaningful information in an analogous manner to the storing of information in the knots of a khipu. Such characteristics have led to the publications included here, in which the authors pay attention both to concepts of structure, construction, and process in the production of yarn and fabrics as well as to the visual expression of iconographic themes.

3D ordered macroporous MoO2 attached on carbonized cloth for high performance free-standing binder-free lithium–sulfur electrodes

A free-standing Li–S electrode was fabricated based on the in situ growth of 3DOM MoO2 on carbonized nonwoven cloth. The Li–S electrode with high sulfur loading exhibits superior storage capability and structural robustness.

Effect of Wheat Flour Packaging Materials on Infestation by Lasioderma serricorne (F.)

The ability of the cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne (F.) (Coleoptera: Anobiidae), to infest wheat flour under packaged and unpackaged conditions was investigated in the laboratory at 27 ± 2°C and 75% ± 5% relative humidity. Five common packaging materials, namely, vacuum plastic bags, kraft paper bags, nonwoven cloth bags, aluminum foil bags, and woven plastic bags, were investigated. Adults and eggs of L. serricorne were released on different packaged wheat flour or on unpackaged wheat flour, and infestation levels (number of live adults and larvae) were determined after 45 days. When adults were released on wheat flour, the infestation degree varied depending on the package materials. The highest infestation was observed in refined wheat flour packaged in nonwoven cloth bags. With wheat flour packaged in kraft paper bags exposed to adults or eggs, there was no insect infestation or insect infestation was negligible (mean population, <1.3). With wheat flour packaged in aluminum foil bags and vacuum plastic bags exposed to adults or eggs, there was no insect infestation. Damage to the packaging materials along the folds or edges was found in nonwoven cloth bags and woven plastic bags. Therefore, both aluminum foil and plastic bags had the greatest resistance to package invasion by L. serricorne.

Fe2O3–AgBr nonwoven cloth with hierarchical nanostructures as efficient and easily recyclable macroscale photocatalysts

The Fe2O3–AgBr nonwoven cloth with hierarchical nanostructures synthesized by an electrospinning–calcination method exhibits efficient photocatalytic activity and easy recycling features.

Removal and Transfer of Viruses on Food Contact Surfaces by Cleaning Cloths

ABSTRACTContamination of food contact surfaces with pathogens is considered an important vehicle for the indirect transmission of food-borne diseases. Five different cleaning cloths were assessed for the ability to remove viruses from food contact surfaces (stainless steel surface and nonporous solid surface) and to transfer viruses back to these surfaces. Cleaning cloths evaluated include two different cellulose/cotton cloths, one microfiber cloth, one nonwoven cloth, and one cotton terry bar towel. Four viral surrogates (murine norovirus [MNV], feline calicivirus [FCV], bacteriophages PRD1 and MS2) were included. Removal of FCV from stainless steel was significantly greater (P≤ 0.05) than that from nonporous solid surface, and overall removal of MNV from both surfaces was significantly less (P≤ 0.05) than that of FCV and PRD1. Additionally, the terry towel removed significantly fewer total viruses (P≤ 0.05) than the microfiber and one of the cotton/cellulose cloths. The cleaning cloth experiments were repeated with human norovirus. For transfer of viruses from cloth to surface, both cellulose/cotton cloths and microfiber transferred an average of 3.4 and 8.5 total PFU, respectively, to both surfaces, and the amounts transferred were significantly different (P≤ 0.05) from those for the nonwoven cloth and terry towel (309 and 331 total PFU, respectively). There was no statistically significant difference (P> 0.05) in the amount of virus transfer between surfaces. These data indicate that while the cleaning cloths assessed here can remove viruses from surfaces, some cloths may also transfer a significant amount of viruses back to food contact surfaces.