Toy Boat Research Articles

Biocomposite materials from natural rubber/polylactic acid blends reinforced rubberwood sawdust for producing children's toys

Biocomposite materials are prepared by blending natural rubber (NR) and polylactic acid (PLA) reinforced with rubberwood sawdust (RWS). This study aimed to investigate the effects of PLA grade, NR/PLA blend ratio, and RWS content on flexure, tension, hardness, and water absorption characteristics, including thermal stability. The RWS content significantly affected the physical and mechanical properties of the biocomposite materials. The increasing additions of RWS from 30 to 50 wt% increased the mechanical modulus, hardness, and water absorption but decreased the thermal stability of the biocomposites. Polymer blended with an NR/PLA ratio of 30/70 reinforced with 30 wt% RWS exhibited the highest mechanical strength, whereas a blend ratio of 40/60 was found to be reinforced with 40 wt% RWS. The polymer matrix blended with a higher PLA content resulted in superior biocomposite properties. Thus, the biocomposites with an NR/PLA ratio of 30/70 had better properties than those with a ratio of 40/60. Further, biocomposites with PLA grade of low melt flow rate (6 g/10 min) improved their properties more than that of a high melt flow rate (80 g/10 min). Therefore, the appropriate formulation of biocomposites for producing children's toys is a blend ratio of 30/70 with 2003D PLA grade of low melt flow rate and reinforcement with 30 wt% RWS. The tensile, flexural, and compressive forces of a toy boat prototype were 70.08, 104.9, and 124.8 N, respectively, while the specified standard is 69.0, 69.0, and 113.5 N, respectively, thus meeting the requirements of the American Society for Testing and Materials F963.

“Teacher, I know how to do it”: An engineering design-based STEM activity on the concepts of forces and floating/sinking for young problem solvers

This article aims to implement an engineering design-based STEM activity for young children and evaluate the implementation process of the activity, along with providing some revision ideas. The activity was held as a 90-minute weekend workshop with the participation of six children aged four to seven. Data were collected through digital observations and field notes. In the activity, the children followed a four-step engineering design process. They solved the cartoon characters’ problem by designing a floatable boat that could take the characters across the lake. In addition, the children tried to move their toy boats on the water without touching them. Throughout the activity, children gained hands-on experience with the concept of force. They made predictions about and tested what material would suit their designs. Thus they had the opportunity to think about what might affect the sinking or floating of objects in the water. They heard each other’s ideas and observed the testing process of both their own and other children’s designs. In all these respects, this article suggests that playful and developmentally appropriate engineering design challenges can be effective in creating STEM mindsets. This article also includes some revision ideas for integrating activity into the curriculum in early childhood education settings in line with the experiences obtained from the implementation process.

Flexural-tensegrity snapping tails for bio-inspired propulsion in fluids

Many aquatic animals propel themselves by flapping their tails. Leveraging a recently proposed snapping cantilever beam based on the concept of flexural tensegrity, we propose a bio-inspired propulsion device. The design comprises a segmental beam with hollow voussoirs in unilateral contact along tailor-shaped surfaces, held together by a prestressed internal cable. Prescribing relative periodic rotation to a pair of consecutive control segments of the structured beam produces multi-articulated sequential snapping of all joints. We built a series of prototypes and performed precision experimental tests in water to characterize their propulsive capacity. A parametric study was carried out to characterize the dependence of the thrust produced by the oscillating tail on the following factors: number of segments, shape of the internal cavities dictating the cantilever curvature, and mobility constraint of a fin appended at the end of the tail. The results provide a proof of concept that our design for a snapping structured beam can be used as a propulsive device. We further demonstrate the feasibility of this propulsion unit to propel a toy boat in a water basin.

Microfluidic-assembled hierarchical macro-microporous graphene fabrics towards high-performance robust supercapacitors

Advanced fabric with ordered structures, unimpeded ionic channels, and high mechanical flexibility are profoundly significant for wearable supercapacitors. However, the restacking structure and weakened porosity, both of which block ionic kinetic migration and surface accessibility, result in low energy density. Here, we develop a hierarchical porous graphene fibers-assembled fabric (HP-GFF) for high-performance supercapacitors. By precisely manipulating the microfluidic assembly and chemical etching processes, the HP-GFF maintains open inter-linkage porous backbone, ordered pathways, large accessible surface (221 m2/g), high mechanical flexibility (elongation: 197%) and large production size (30 × 20 cm), which also help in facilitating electrolyte ions migration and intercalation. The resulting HP-GFF displays a large capacitance of 312.9F/g (1248.5 mF/cm2) and ultrahigh stability (60000 cycles) in H2SO4 electrolyte. Furthermore, the HP-GFF-constructed solid-state flexible supercapacitor also delivers high energy density (120.2 μWh/cm2), excellent capacitance, and washable/deformable capabilities, which are remarkably demonstrated in actually wearable and self-powered applications such as a toy boat, electrical fan and smart watch.

A Postdramatic Engagement with Robinsonade Motifs in Tim Crouch’s I, Caliban

Tim Crouch’s I, Caliban is a postdramatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest included in a collection titled I, Shakespeare in which he recreates Shakespeare’s most marginalised characters. The focus in this sequel adaptation is on Caliban who tries to survive after Prospero and all others have left the island. Different from the representation of Caliban in postcolonial reworkings of Shakespeare’s play, Caliban, in this work, is not preoccupied with taking revenge. Instead, he emphasises the need for social interaction as he has been left alone on his island. Drawing on former structural comparisons of The Tempest and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe based on their common themes such as the island setting, master-servant relationship, colonial expansion, and power politics, the aim of this paper is to discuss Crouch’s adaptation as a transformation of common motifs of the Robinsonade in its attempt to respond to the ideologicalformations of Shakespeare’s text. Among such transformations, the concept of survival, for instance, is handled from the native’s viewpoint in Crouch’s work. Instead of the figure of the stranger who finds life on an unknown land difficult to cope with, this time, the native turns into a captive on the island though it is a familiar setting. Another motif used in an alternative manner is isolation, which is not presented as fuel for civilisation but as Caliban’s psychological trauma, which he explores through storytelling as a postdramatic element. Apart from the narration, the play demonstrates other uses of postdramatic elements to suggest an isolated figure on an uninhabited island like the use of objects such as toy boats and tape of sea sounds. Instead of seeing Crouch’s work as a postcolonial response to Shakespeare’s work, this paper will try to investigate how the use of island setting and the theme of isolation can make it closer to a Robinsonade. By this means, it will also try to ask whether an adaptation could also be read in relation to a work that is not intended as its source text.

Floating boat—the answer

In our article (D Featonby and David Keenahan 2018 Phys. Educ. 53 067002) we asked what would happen to a balanced trough as a toy boat floats from one end to the other.

A thermodynamic cycle for the solar cell

A solar cell is a heat engine, but textbook treatments are not wholly satisfactory from a thermodynamic standpoint, since they present solar cells as directly converting the energy of light into electricity, and the current in the circuit as maintained by an electrostatic potential. We propose a thermodynamic cycle in which the gas of electrons in the p phase serves as the working substance. The interface between the p and n phases acts as a self-oscillating piston that modulates the absorption of heat from the photons so that it may perform a net positive work during a complete cycle of its motion, in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. We draw a simple hydrodynamical analogy between this model and the “putt-putt” engine of toy boats, in which the interface between the water’s liquid and gas phases serves as the piston. We point out some testable consequences of this model.

Postcards

Postcards compiled and edited by Barbara Lehman Set in the hustle and bustle of New York City’s Manhattan, Bob Staake’s Bluebird is a wordless narrative that brings together a shy young boy and a charismatic little bird in its exploration of both camaraderie and bereavement. After quietly observing the boy’s rough day at school under the jeers of some schoolyard bullies, the bluebird takes it upon himself to swoop in and befriend him. Staake’s effective use of multi-paneled spreads traces the nuances of the boy and the bluebird’s blossoming relationship as they play a game of hide and seek, share a cookie, and sail a toy boat at the pond where the bluebird connects the boy to the other friendly children playing around them. The increasing darkness of Staake’s grey, white, and blue palette brings with it a reappearance of the scowling bullies; and as the bluebird dives between the boy and the stick one of the bullies throws, the unexpected death of the bluebird is tackled head on by Staake through a small solid black panel followed by a zoomed in focus on the boy’s emotional changes from shock to grief and, finally, acceptance. The bullies fearfully run away, but in their place the boy is greeted by a flock of rainbow-coloured birds, which lift him and the bluebird high above the city skyline. Meant to be an open-ended conclusion to the book, the reader is encouraged to bring his or her own interpretation to the story – a powerfully visual and wordless way to escape didacticism and empower discussion about an intense subject matter. Melissa Li Sheung Ying Bluebird Bob Staake New York: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2013; 40 pp. ISBN 9780375870378 (Picture Book; Ages 4+) Kata Kata Kata The Building is a story about a treadle sewing machine, a little girl, and her grandmother. The machine amazes the little girl because it makes many beautiful things and answers her wishes. One day while her grandmother is halfway done making her drama costume, the machine stops working; therefore, the grandmother finishes sewing the costume by hand. Standing proudly on stage in the costume made by her grandmother, the girl realizes it is grandma who makes her wishes come true. To give her grandma a surprise, the girl and her father transform the out-of-order sewing machine into a table for the grandma to enjoy tea. Told from the girl’s point of view, Kata Kata Kata is a book full of sensory details. Through the words and pictures, readers see how the sewing machine works, hear its kata kata kata sound, smell the osmanthus, and feel the line of stitches on the cover. The endpapers show the motif of wallpapers in the girl’s home, which set the mood for the story. The unrestricted lines and strokes match the girl’s mischievous behaviors and imaginative mind. This book received the 2015 Feng Zikai Best Chinese Children’s Picture Book Award. Yi-Ching Su (Kata Kata Kata) Bei Lynn Illus. Bei Lynn Taipei: Art & Collection Group, 2014. 36 pp. ISBN: 978-986-6049-66-8 (Picture book; ages 5+) Canadian musician Stan Rogers composed the song “Northwest Passage” in 1981 to describe his own “passage overland, In the footsteps” of explorers and to remember John Franklin’s disastrous 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage. In this stunning book, recipient of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Children’s Illustration, Matt James combines paintings that accompany the song with illustrations about Franklin’s quest to discover the Northwest Passage, a sea route to connect the Arctic region with the Pacific Ocean. The resulting visual feast features colorful, expressive illustrations rendered in India ink and acrylic paint that depict the words of the song, the journey of Stan Rogers, and interesting facts about exploring the Northwest Passage. The song’s chorus refers to John Franklin, who lost two ships, 134 men and his own life, in his failed attempt to discover the Passage. An annotated timeline begins in 6000 BCE with the arrival of the first Arctic peoples and ends in 2012 with the lowest recorded ice levels in...

Traces of Life

Traces of Life Holly St. John Bergon (bio) Shell Shock —for Samuel Menashe, World War ii soldier and poet I read in the newspaper about a poet who returned from World War ii, amazed to hear people talk about what they might do next summer, or the year after next year, years of plans they were making, innocent of the sheer impossibility of a belief in continuity. On the December morning of the Battle of the Bulge, he was one of a company of one hundred and ninety-seven men. By evening, twenty-nine remained. I think these days about shellshock, its detonative power to explode the supermarket’s neon-bright oranges at the precise moment we lean over them, hand outstretched, or a belief that the breath I take, right now, is all there is, all there can be. [End Page 213] Yet the poet insisted in the story, “Don’t make me grim,” and, to me, he wasn’t, appearing, instead, to bear within himself one moment, untouched by time, rounded, whole, translucent with whatever light there was on that December morning when he and all his men were still alive. Monk’s House —after a visit to the house of Virginia Woolf Now that the room’s cleared of strangers, I’ll read my day’s mail and drink tea before the fire, but first I’ll record in my journal the brazen remarks I heard from today’s tourists—complaints about my so-called predilection for pea-green wall paint, the lowness of the ceilings, the suspicion of damp. And where did she sleep? And with whom did she sleep? I’ve watched visitors to my house year after year trying to find in what I left behind some trace of the life I lived, but not content with a trace, they want to see through the armchairs and bookcases into my soul. [End Page 214] I felt almost sorry for a woman who stared at the mantelpiece. I knew she was wondering what it would be like to write my final note to Leonard and leave it propped on the mantel for him to find, too late, that morning. I saw her walking toward the river, and I knew she was trying to know what it was like for me to fill my pockets with stones and step into the river Ouse and walk in and in and in, but she will never know. I shooed her off to Charleston to let her bask in the afternoon sun breaking through clouds in Vanessa’s garden fat with flowers and paintings of flowers. I cannot grant her the sight she wants. Still she’s stubborn. I see her glancing back along the dirt track leading from Monk’s House to Charleston. She shades her hand against the sun, but I am too far away for her to see. [End Page 215] Spring in Cornwall Everywhere in Cornwall, photos of shipwrecks abound: schooners smashed into cliffs, the timber of hulls littered about the shoreline or another ship listing in flat water as if a breeze might come along and right everything. The weather’s “unstable” as the English like to say, lovely one moment, the next a chill rain drifts across Falmouth Harbor like a line of magnetized filings in a child’s game and umbrellas sprout like mushrooms. The stout ferry I ride ploughs, like a toy boat, through waves on my way toward the pastel-painted houses of St. Mawes where once again the sun breaks out across the town’s pink and yellow and azure façades. Wherever I am in England I like to touch the water, the only highway out of town for my ancestors, I think, and wading into the sea I reenact the push and pull of immigration, the desire to leave, the longing to stay. These Isles, land of contrasts, white sand, gnarly rocks, black sea, blue sea, clouds and sun, emotional reserve and easy chat, my blood link both loose and strong and I walk into the ocean only so far before returning to shore. [End Page 216] Holly St. John Bergon Holly St. John Bergon has published...

Propulsion of a microsubmarine using a thermally oscillatory approach

In this paper, motivated by the driving mechanism of a putt-putt toy boat, we explore the feasibility to propel a microsubmarine using a thermally oscillatory approach, which only requires a simple design and does not involve any complicated propulsive systems. We investigate the design, fabrication, actuation and horizontal motions of the corresponding microsubmarines. Based on the understanding gained through preliminary tests on two manually fabricated putt-putt boats, we designed and fabricated the prototype of a microsubmarine. Similar to a putt-putt boat, the prototype also uses a thermally oscillatory process for propulsion. In a cyclic period of this process, due to the expansion and shrinkage of a vapor bubble inside the reservoir of the submarine, liquid is first ejected outside and then sucked into the reservoir. Due to the difference in liquid flow directions between ejection and suction stages, a thrust is produced to propel the submarine. At an applied voltage of 16 V and pulse frequency of 100 Hz, the submarine was found to have the highest speed of 1.8 mm s−1 and longest travel distance of 12.6 mm. The corresponding thrust was estimated to be 67.6 nN.

A Ship Made of Paper: From Dissociation to Engagement to Empathy

This article examines how modes of play in psychoanalytic child treatment can create clinical momentum and resumption of psychological growth through a process of procedural enactment, empathic immersion, and ongoing repair of fragile relational bonds. The author portrays a process of treatment that allowed an engagement of previously dissociated affect states and served to build expanded capacities for both self-reflective thought and creative action. The author provides clinical material that portrays work with a schoolyard “bully” in a series of enactments that enabled her to empathically engage with the patient while also helping the patient to establish new empathic capacities—for both self and others. Together, the patient and the analyst constructed a cardboard toy boat, which came to serve both as a vivid depiction of the vicissitudes of the emergent analytic third, as well as a symbol of the forward edge of development.

On the Car Road

On the Car Road David Yost (bio) Later, they’d wonder why it hadn’t been them: Naw Htoo Lei, the youngest, sharpening her dah beside a pond of lilies and duckweed, or Naw Rachel, the eldest, spitting red jets of betel juice as she tied bundles of rosewood and pyinkado. But it was Naw Moo Dah’s foot that found the wire snaking through the ferns, Naw Moo Dah who heard a roar like a thousand waterfalls, Naw Moo Dah who found herself, somehow, lying on the forest floor. Her sisters ran to her, Naw Htoo Lei tearing off her shirt as she knelt. Naw Moo Dah’s calf was flayed to the knee, the bone shattered. Naw Htoo Lei could see at a glance that her sister would lose the leg. Naw Rachel stood above them, breathing hard, already calculating the distance from the pond to the village, from the village to the city. “Please,” Naw Htoo Lei said, “hold her.” Naw Rachel crouched and pinned Naw Moo Dah’s upper thigh with her knee. Her sister screamed like a rabbit in a trap. Naw Htoo Lei twisted her blouse into a rope, wrapped it high on the ruined leg, and cinched it as tight as she could pull. Her sister screamed again and again. Without lifting her knee, Naw Rachel felt around for a fallen stick, stripped it of its leaves, and placed it across Naw Moo Dah’s lips. Naw Moo Dah understood, and bit down. Naw Htoo Lei double-tied the knot and then stood. They were miles from even the outmost fields of the village. At the explosion, even the birds had fled, and the only sounds were the creaking of bamboo and the moaning of her sister. “You need to run,” Naw Rachel said. “Get help.” Already she could hear a wheeze slipping into her voice. Her tongue felt thick and stupid in her mouth. “There’s no time,” Naw Htoo Lei answered. “We have to carry her.” And even as she made the first cut into a culm of bamboo, she could feel the tears pressing her eyelids like children pushing to be born. The sisters had planned to carry their firewood to the car road to look for a buffalo cart or motorcycle taxi, but instead they carried Naw Moo Dah, on a stretcher of bamboo and liana. Every two hundred paces, they stopped for fear of Naw Rachel’s asthma, though both were mad with the desire to run. At times one sister or the other [End Page 189] stumbled with the weight, and Naw Moo Dah groaned through the stick of birch between her teeth. “Your family’s waiting for you,” Naw Rachel tried to tell her. “Saw Kaw Ku will be coming back from the damson orchards. Your daughter will be winnowing the rice, and your son caulking his toy boat.” But Naw Moo Dah only groaned. The next time they stopped to check her, her pulse was weak and she smelled of urine. “Remember when mother used to whip you for wetting the mat?” Naw Htoo Lei asked her, smiling, but Naw Moo Dah was too deep in shock to hear. They’d reached the road, and though following it meant passing the army camp on foot, they agreed they could not wait. Only a single sentry watched them from atop the hill, a boy in his teens with a rifle that looked older than he. “Come down here if you want to stare,” Naw Htoo Lei screamed up to him in Burmese. “Come see what you’ve done, you cowards.” “Just keep walking,” Naw Rachel whispered. But though her shoulders burned and her breath was sharp in her chest, the words poured from Naw Htoo Lei like river water. “Cowards! Shit-eaters! You lay landmines in our village and then hide up there licking each other’s assholes?” The boy called something over his shoulder. More soldiers appeared along the ridge. The sisters kept moving forward. “It wasn’t us!” one of them called to her. “It was your people,” a mustached older man shouted down. “The KNLA ringworm.” “Dog-fuckers!” Naw Htoo Lei screamed back...

Tumtum & Nutmeg: Adventures beyond Nutmouse Hall (review)

Reviewed by: Tumtum & Nutmeg: Adventures beyond Nutmouse Hall Jeannette Hulick Bearn, Emily. Tumtum & Nutmeg: Adventures beyond Nutmouse Hall; illus. by Nick Price. Little, 2009 504p. ISBN 978-0-316-02703-8 $16.99 R Gr. 3–5 This extensive story (previously published as three separate books in Britain) chronicles the various escapades of two mice, Tumtum and Nutmeg Nutmouse, who live comfortably in the well-appointed Nutmouse Hall, hidden inside a dilapidated cottage inhabited by absent-minded inventor Mr. Mildew and his two children, Lucy and Arthur. In the first tale, “Tumtum & Nutmeg,” the two mice become “fairies” for Lucy and Arthur, secretly fixing up the ramshackle home and plot to get rid of the Mildews’ very nasty visiting aunt. “The Great Escape” features adventure-mad General Marchmouse (a neighbor and friend of the Nutmouses) being captured by the children and taken to school (where he is put into the gerbil cage) and his (and the gerbils’) subsequent rescue by the Nutmouses and a troupe of fearless mouse ballerinas. In “The Pirates’ Treasure,” General Marchmouse commandeers a toy boat and sails it (with the reluctant Nutmouses as passengers) to a nearby island inhabited by dangerous rat pirates. Bearn has created an engaging and entertaining domestic animal fantasy world, wherein mice lead parallel lives alongside unwitting humans. There are hints here of The Borrowers, Beatrix Potter, and even The Wind in the Willows (the Nutmouses are very Mole-like in their home-loving natures, while General Marchmouse is much like Mr. Toad), and children who enjoy such imaginative fantasies will lap this up. Bearn’s language is confiding and straightforward (“What they both liked most of all was peace and quiet, so all this excitement did seem rather bad luck”), and it’s easily accessible to [End Page 393] young readers not daunted by the book’s length. There is also a goodly serving of humor here, especially in the impulsive deeds of General Marchmouse (the scenes with the gerbils are particularly amusing). Price’s monochromatic line illustrations, outlined in a border of twigs and acorns, are often so filled with hatching that they are a bit hard to decipher, but they’re detailed and warm. This would be a fine book to hand kids for summer reading, and it would make a splendid readaloud for families and classrooms. Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Images

Images Ozaki Seiji Created by Ozaki Seiji, the woodblock prints in this volume depict Okinawan dolls and toys. The prints are reproduced from his book Ryukyu gangu zufu (Kasahara Shoni Hoken Kenkyujo, 1936), which is in the Sakamaki/Hawley Collection in Hamilton Library, of the University of Hawai'i. A multitude of Ryukyu/Okinawa materials were destroyed during World War II, so numerous items in the collection are one of a kind. Ozaki's book is one of the more than nine hundred items collected by the late English journalist-scholar Frank Hawley (1906-1961). Ozaki's captions were translated by Lynette Teruya, Program Coordinator at the Center for Okinawan Studies, of the University of Hawai'i, then edited and abridged for concision; additional help was provided by Kinuko Yamazato. In some cases, Ozaki's 1930s Japanese terms have been modernized and the spelling of Ryukyuan words standardized in accordance with Okinawan-English Wordbook by Mitsugu Sakihara (University of Hawai'i Press, 2006). Any errors introduced in the editing and abridgement are the responsibility of Mänoa's general editor. Click for larger view View full resolution Opening Illustration Equestrienne This type of doll is called chinchin umagwaa, named for the sound it makes (chinchin) when pulled by its string (umagwaa means "small horse" or "toy horse"). It was created by pasting paper over a wooden mold, letting it dry, then painting it. In this case, the wooden mold was superbly carved. The doll resembles ancient Chinese funerary figurines and is unusual in that it is wearinga hanagasa, a large floral hat typically worn in Okinawan dance. Papier-mâché. Made by Tomoshi Ryüwa. Woodblock print by Ozaki Seiji. Click for larger view View full resolution Kite Toy Paper is pasted over bamboo to make this butterfly-shaped toy. When a kite is aloft, the butterfly is threaded onto the string; it ascends, strikes the kite, and releases bits of colorful paper, which gaily flutter down. Bamboo, paper. Woodblock print by Ozaki Seiji. Click for larger view View full resolution Boat With a flag made of chiyogami (handmade, printed Japanese paper), this toy boat at first does not appear to be uniquely Ryukyuan; however, the colors and designs are distinctive. Another type of Okinawan toy boat is made of leaves from the kuba (fan palm). The Ryukyuan toy yanbarushin, a third type of Okinawan boat, is cherished by collectors in mainland Japan. Wood. Woodblock print by Ozaki Seiji. Click for larger view View full resolution Straw Horse This horse figure, made principally of straw and tree bark, captures the unique characteristics of the Ryukyuan breed of small horses. The artistry and craftsmanship are particularly fine. In many other regions of Japan, horse and cow figures are made out of straw and often used in religious rituals to bring happiness to children. After the rituals, the straw figures are given as toys. Straw. Woodblock print by Ozaki Seiji. Click for larger view View full resolution Woman Playing Teeku In the Ryukyus, women play handheld drums (single-sided paarankuu or double-sided teeku) as they dance and sing at such events as the women-only outings held on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar (sangwachisannichi) or at the bon festival (shichigwachieisaa) in the seventh month. Their songs, yarashii and kweena, are sung for the safe voyage and well being of travelers. Teeku are also played at the ushideeku, an autumn harvest festival. The jurigwaa ninjoo (female entertainer doll) depicted here was likely sold at the yukkanufii festival (held during the fourth month of the lunar calendar). The strong, vibrant colors are characteristic of the Southern Islands. Paper-mâché. Made by Tomoshi Ryüwa. Woodblock print by Ozaki Seiji. Click for larger view View full resolution Male and Female Dancers The Ryukyus are extolled as the islands of song and dance, with each village developing its own variations. In addition, there is a national dramatic form, kumiwudui, which derives from classical sources. This female doll has the expressive hand movements of such dances, and is regarded as a jurigwaa ninjoo (female entertainer doll). Her clothing is made of bingata, dyed fabric stenciled with traditional Okinawan motifs...

Immersion Scald Burns and the Ability of Young Children to Climb Into a Bathtub

Immersion scald burns in children are often suspicious for neglect or abuse. The history that a child climbed into a tub previously filled with hot water by the parent is common. The child's ability to climb into such a tub is a major factor in determining the reliability of the history. A standard bathtub was installed in an examination room at a pediatric clinic in a children's hospital. Foam mats were placed in and outside of the tub. Toy boats were placed in the back of the tub. Children were selected if they were between 10 and 18 months of age, born at term, and had no past or present medical condition that could be expected to have affected their fine or gross motor or central nervous system development and had a normal Denver Developmental Screening Test within the past 3 months. The parent placed the child in a standing position with the child holding onto the front of the tub. Parents encouraged the child to climb into the tub and get the toys. The child's efforts were videotaped. Children were allowed 5 minutes to climb, depending on their attention span and tolerance. Of 176 children in the study, 62 (35%) climbed into the tub. One fourth climbed in head first, and the rest climbed in sideways. Our study may have underestimated children's climbing abilities because of the absence of a shower curtain to help with balance and the distracting presence of strangers. The diagnosis of abuse is in part based on a described mechanism being inconsistent with the observed pattern of injury. This has severe repercussions for the child and his or her family. Our study brings into question previously held beliefs that these injuries could only be sustained by direct immersion.

Mother–Child Conversations About Pictures and Objects: Referring to Categories and Individuals

The distinction between individuals (e.g., Rin‐Tin‐Tin) and categories (e.g., dogs) is fundamental in human thought. Two studies examined factors that influence when 2‐ to 3‐year‐old children and adults focus on individuals versus categories. Mother–child dyads were presented with pictures and toys (e.g., a picture of a boat or a toy boat). Conversations were coded for references to generic categories (“Dogs are furry”), ostensive labels (“This is a dog”), or specific individuals (“Lassie”). Overall, pictures generated more talk about categories; objects generated more talk about individuals. However, when objects could not be manipulated, speakers expressed relatively more category references. These results suggest that representations (in the form of pictures or objects‐on‐display) encourage young children and parents alike to think about categories.

The Father's Witness: Patriarchal Images of Boys

THE BODY OF A SMALL BOY PERCHES on one corner of a chair much too large (fig. 1). The toy sailboat resting on one leg is balanced, in the symmetry of the composition, against an incongruous, grandfatherly head, gazing blandly from behind its spectacles as if unaware of its predicament. Only the flicker of a smile around the mouth, fainter even than the Mona Lisa's, hints that the head in its wisdom may be amused by its toy boat and toylike body. Deliberately absurd, this untitled photomontage from around 1915 parodies the impulse to cherish precocious adulthood that has governed literary and artistic representations of children since Virgil first praised Ascanius for being thoughtful, responsible / Beyond his years.' Ernst Robert Curtius gives this a name: he calls it the puer senex, or elderly boy.2 The elderly boy has an antitype, the senexpuer (think of Polonius, or Charles Dickens's Harold Skimpole), and each of these has a sister, the puella senex and the senex puella. The puer senex, though, appears far more frequently than the others do. After Virgil it becomes a topic of praise for writers in the rhetorical tradition of late antiquity when they want to grace a youthful subject with a high-toned allusion. As they work their variations on the topic these writers also stylize it, polarizing its synthesis of youth and maturity to create a more striking image not just a youth mature beyond his years, but a prodigy displaying in a child the wisdom of a graybeard. The nearly anonymous Boston photographer, surnamed Purdy, who created the image is a modern inheritor of this tradition, which in highly sentimentalized form passed through William Wordsworth and Dickens and into Victorian popular culture. Like the rhetoricians who were his distant antecedents, Purdy takes the components of the to opposite extremes. But as parody his image has a disconcerting edge, turning the compliment around to reveal the adult audience for whom it was always, finally, intended. By taking the rhetorical figure literally,

Surrender after Auschwitz?: Exploring the relation between surrender-and-catch and the Holocaust

I was introduced to the idea of surrender-and-catch in a graduate seminar at Brandeis in 1986. Through the years, I have developed my own understand? ing of this idea by reading and rereading Kurt Wolff s Surrender-and-Catch, by talking and writing about surrender and reading, on occasion, an article or review about surrender. Now I sit at my desk, and I reach for the folder filled with responses to Wolffs idea of surrender-and-catch. The responses are book reviews, articles, and letters written by sociologists, anthropologists, feminists, phenomenologists, philosophers and friends. I take the next few hours of the morning to read some of the articles. By doing so, I hope to deepen my understanding of surrender, to get closer to it. I have just finished reading my fifth article, and I am beginning to feel overwhelmed by the views, reviews and interpretations of the concept of surrender. I feel a distance between myself and what I am trying to under? stand. What I had hoped to be a clarification, has become a distraction. My present understanding of surrender begins to dissipate, unravel. I am sur? prised at the tenuous grip I have on this matter of understanding. I feel like a small bewildered child standing at the edge of a large pond, watching a pre? cious toy boat sail further out of reach. I suddenly realize that the only way I

Object, Image, Space and Light: Paula Dawson's Artwork 1974-1990

Paula Dawson's holographic artwork entices the viewer and confounds critics with a complex web of meanings. Her work demonstrates an absorption with technical experimentation and plays with notions of art and the role of the artist. She explores aspects of the unique characteristics of holography as well as broader concepts related to her own experiences and ways of seeing. Her sense of humour and energy are apparent in everything she creates. Dawson exhibited her first holograms in 1974 [1]. One of these, Toy Boat, comprised technical descriptions of a hologram juxtaposed with a holographic plate that seemed to merely present stains from poor developing. Although a laser was directed at the plate, its beam was not diffused and so no image was visible. The work played on a characteristic approach of hologram viewers that fascinated Dawson,

Durational characteristics of vocal and subvocal speech: implications concerning phonological organization and articulatory difficulty

Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether phonetic sequences which are considered to be “difficult” to articulate show evidence of difficulties at an organizational level and/or at the level of overt articulation. In the first experiment, subjects produced rapid vocal and subvocal repetitions of a variety of bi-syllabic stimuli that were judged to differ in articulatory difficulty (e.g. “toy boat” vs. “tow boat”). With each repetition of a stimulus, subjects tapped on the silent switch of a response box in order to provide a measure of stimulus duration. A substantial range of durations was observed across both the vocal and the subvocal stimuli, suggesting that some stimuli were indeed more difficult to repeat than others. In addition, stimuli which were found to be longer in duration in the vocal condition also tended to be longer in the subvocal condition. This was interpreted as an indication that certain words are difficult to produce not only due to articulatory (i.e. execution) factors, but also due to planning factors. In the second experiment, subjects performed a task similar to that of the first experiment, except that they repeated the individual monosyllables which made up the bi-syllabic stimuli of Experiment 1 (e.g. “tow,” “toy,” “boat,” etc.). Bi-syllabic stimulus durations were then obtained in Experiment 2 by adding the durations of appropriate monosyllables together (e.g. “toy” + “boat”). Based on comparisons that were made between the “summed” bi-syllables of Experiment 2 and the original bi-syllables of Experiment 1, it was concluded that words such as “toy boat” (vs. “tow boat”) are difficult to produce not so much because of properties of the particular segments they consist of, but because of “interference” effects among various segments. One of the primary sources of this interference seemed to be a result of similar segments occurring in similar syllable positions.