Textile engineering (TE) or textile technology deals with the application of scientific and engineering principles to the design and control of all aspects of fiber, textile, and apparel processes, products, and machinery
ibres are categorised in forensic science as trace evidence and can be found at all types of crime scenes. Trace evidence encompasses an incredibly broad range of potential evidence types, such as paint, glass, hair, soil and pollen, but forensic investigations continue to focus on fibres and fabrics due to the plethora of information they provide and the transferability of them through physical contact. The abundance of textiles products used in everyday life makes it no surprise that fabrics are commonly present in crime scenes including clandestine burials. The role of textile products can vary from garments worn by a victim to the item that the victim is disposed of in (carpets, bags, shower curtains, etc.). In addition, fabrics can be resistant to selected environments and therefore can be retained at crime scenes over relatively long periods of time, unless physically moved by wind or rain. For example, cotton is resistant to alkaline environments (i.e. soil that normally have pH values ranging from 3 to 9) and therefore degradation is very gradual, allowing for their preservation and presence in burials (Prangnell and McGowan, 2009).
The successful exploitation of textiles in forensic cases relies on the capabilities of investigators to trace textiles and fibres to their original source, with the collection and recovery of textiles from a scene being dependent upon the requirements of an individual case (i.e. in a volume crime examination, the arrest of a suspect providing garments for comparison may result in the seizure of fibre evidence being a priority for the attending CSI). The examination of textiles is particularly important in cases that involve physical contact, such as assault, rape, homicide, burglary and hit-and-runs where there is usually an unintentional transmission of microscopic evidence. These types of crimes frequently result in the personal contact with another individual or object. The examination of damage (trauma, tears, rips, cuts, fibre disturbance, etc.) sustained to textile products and the transfer of fibres can allow for the recreation of the circumstances surrounding the crime and allow investigators to retrace the events that have transpired. For example, in the case of Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton who was convicted of killing her daughter in 1982 was acquitted in 1988 after forensic textile experts were able to prove that the damage to her daughter's jacket could have been caused by a dingo supporting her original testimony.
There are a series of protocols that are fundamental to preventing contamination and ensuring preservation of textile evidence collected at a crime scene. One problem faced in forensic textile science is the handling of textiles from scenes, which is often varied dependent on the investigators view of the essentialness of the textile. The importance a textile may have in an investigation is not always obvious during the initial stages and therefore the usefulness and achievable knowledge of textiles can be endangered by the careless methods for handling them (Grieve and Robertson, 1999). In addition, because forensic textile science is an advancing field the type of information gathered from textiles and the methods to do so is continuously developing. Therefore, textiles must be stored in a way that allows for the sustainability of the textile products and the evidence that they contain. All evidence collected should be photographed, recorded and placed in an appropriate sealable container to retain the continuity of the exhibit.7 The containers should contain the CSI's initials, date and the allocated exhibit number. It is the fundamental concept of the investigation that all items collected during the processing of a crime scene should be recovered and examined with the intention that they will be presented as physical evidence in a courtroom. With regard to whole garments, frequently the fabric attributes of the item are more robust than fragile DNA evidence that might be associated with the item. In such instances, the requirements of DNA protection are dominant in collection and packaging strategies, with items being collected by a CSI wearing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (usually a minimum of a face mask and gloves).
While some fibres will be obvious at the scene, some can be imperceptible and thus may only become apparent upon examination at the laboratory. A nondestructive technique using high intensity light sources is used by the CSI to detect these (Beaufort-Moore, 2009). This technique causes some fibres to fluoresce, allowing their presence to become more apparent. Fibres and textiles collected at a scene should be photographed in situ before being recovered (Robertson and Roux, 1999), although this is problematic where areas are being speculatively taped for the possibility of fibre transfer, but no visible traces are present that might be captured in a photograph. There are two types of methods commonly used by forensic investigators for the recovery of fibres and textiles from a crime scene: tape lifts and forceps. When utilising either technique there are two essential concepts investigators must maintain. The first is that it is important to leave the fibres intact and the second is to minimise disturbances to the area or object in which the exhibit is being collected. Therefore, both methods must be conducted in a manner that allows for preservation.
The method of collecting fibres through the use of tape, originally proposed by Frei-Sulzer (1951), has become a widely established technique in the forensic science community. This method is used to collect fibres from garments, skin, vehicles and other textile surfaces (Beaufort-Moore, 2009). Taping is a micotrace recovery technique in which small prelabelled clear adhesive strips are systematically pressed onto a surface (Houck, 2009).
The true challenge facing textile education has not been in the ability to develop unique engineering or technology programs that fit the industry's needs of qualified personnel or in conducting top-quality research that can serve the industry in all sorts of innovations and developments. The true challenge has not been in a declining global industry; indeed, it is quite the opposite as the global textile industry in 2017 was worth nearly $4000 trillion. The primary challenge has been in the viability of textile education programs with respect to student's enrollment and fund raising or budget's survival, particularly in Europe and North America. In these parts of the world, students select education programs that can lead to careers in their domestic markets, and many students are not willing to relocate to different parts of the world given the political and economic instability in many regions around the world. To make matters additionally complex, more than 40% of the world's production of textiles is in China and few other countries in Asia. These regions are substantially different in cultural and social structures than Europe and North America. Therefore, for textile education institutes in Europe and North America to survive in the next few years, they must go global, and it will be necessary for these institutes to establish branches of their programs abroad.
The textile education programs also need to be modified in such a way that dynamic adjustments of these programs can be made in accordance to the industry's developments. Indeed, a significant trade-off must be made between strictly following the ABET criteria and meeting the industry's demands. The ABET criteria are based on the classic approach of engineering education, which leads to calculus being the top of the pyramid of mathematical background. Most of us engineers by education understand that this model, though may be academically useful, did not fully reflect engineering applied needs. Certainly, calculus and differential equations are critical in many research applications, but as Arthur Benjamin, a famous American mathematician, puts it (Ted Talk, 2009), only very few of us use calculus in a conscious and meaningful way in our daily practices. He calls for a change in the mathematical pyramid to make statistics the top of the pyramid. Ironically, even the ABET did not realize the importance of statistics except in the last 30 years. Now, in the era of big data and unsupervised machine learning, there is no doubt that statistics should be the top of the mathematic pyramid.
Regarding the industry's demands, today's information technology has widened the base of education in such a way that interdisciplinary education has become a critical necessity. This means that highly specific education programs are likely to give way to more interdisciplinary education programs and joint degrees. A textile engineering program in chemical processing may be attractive to some students who have made up their minds to work in the wet-processing segment of the textile industry, but it will not be as attractive for students who wish to become chemical engineers with ample opportunities to work in a wider range of industries. Similarly, a textile engineering program in product engineering, despite its absolute necessity in the textile industry, will not attract students who wish to become material or mechanical engineers with much wider career opportunities. These critical issues need to be addressed in the schools of textiles around the world; a discussion that may very well result in changing undergraduate textile engineering programs to joint programs with other engineering disciplines.
Another line of thought regarding textile engineering education is toward moving to graduate degrees such as master or PhD degrees in textile engineering and restricting undergraduate degrees to textile technology. This change needs to be made in timely fashion before it becomes inevitable. This can indeed result in a wider attraction to students who graduated from different traditional engineering programs such as chemical, mechanical, or electrical engineering. It will also satisfy the current and future trends in the textile industry in terms of many new directions such as the needs to minimize the industry adverse environmental impacts, the strong trend toward more sustainable products, and the utilization of smart technology and nanotechnology in the make of textile products. These areas require higher levels of education beyond the undergraduate level.