Squaring the circle on PPE: a systemic approach to designing and repurposing gowns
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The lack of a systemic approach to the provision and servicing of reusable personal protective equipment (PPE) currently limits possibilities for extended use. The paper documents the research and development of a reusable PPE isolation gown and its’ integration within a virtuous, circular system, which tackles the human and environmental issues caused by single-use products, through a holistic design for reuse approach. The dual aim of the research is to enhance the design of PPE gowns to improve user experience while decreasing medical plastic waste, in line with net zero targets. The collaborative design of a reusable PPE/surgical gown is the outcome of empirical research supported by a distributed manufacturing network, comprising partnerships between academia and local specialist textile, gown and laundry suppliers and a company focused on enabling fully circular textile systems. The co-design methodology has been implemented through engagement with the industry partners, by analyzing the PPE needs of the active healthcare user, and through wearer trials with NHS trusts in the UK. Following interactions with all stakeholders in the supply and value chain, we have devised a Circular PPE System that addresses the significant barriers relating to the longevity of reusable gowns. The model is based on developing net zero processes, such as fibre-to-fibre recycling, zero waste pattern cutting, design for reuse tactics, low environmental impact decontamination hubs, medical and creative repurposing strategies to extend the functional life of the garment and its materials.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.025 | 0.015 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.032 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.013 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.013 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".