“The most exciting thing about my research is getting to build new toys (instruments) to play with molecules … A good day at work starts with a crazy experimental idea.” Find out more about ...Veerabhadrarao Kaliginedi in his Introducing … Profile.
A thousand years before Isaac Asimov set down his Three Laws of Robotics, real and imagined automata appeared in European courts, liturgies, and literary texts. Medieval robots took such forms as ...talking statues, mechanical animals, and silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic powers, these marvelous fabrications raised fundamental questions about knowledge, nature, and divine purpose in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Robotsrecovers the forgotten history of fantastical, aspirational, and terrifying machines that especially captivated Europe in imagination and reality between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. E. R. Truitt traces the different forms of self-moving or self-sustaining manufactured objects from their earliest appearances in the Latin West through centuries of mechanical and literary invention. Chronicled in romances and song as well as histories and encyclopedias, medieval automata were powerful cultural objects that probed the limits of natural philosophy, illuminated and challenged definitions of life and death, and epitomized the transformative and threatening potential of foreign knowledge and culture. This original and wide-ranging study reveals the convergence of science, technology, and imagination in medieval culture and demonstrates the striking similarities between medieval and modern robotic and cybernetic visions.
Season of Giving
The Electrochemical Society interface,
04/2019, Letnik:
28, Številka:
1
Journal Article
ECS staff generously donated to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation during the holiday season of 2018, as was done for several previous years. Here, an image featuring Lance Corporal Kelshick when he ...visited the headquarters office to pick up the box of toys is presented.
In the last decade, global trends and social media have covered almost the entire world, including children population. The toy industry is filled with new items whose popularity has been triggered ...by viral publications on social networks or by popular animated films. The present experimental study is the first to (i) describe the characteristics of toy choice in the context of the spread of global trends, and (ii) examine the influence of family and individual child characteristics on the dependence on trends in toy choice. The sample consisted of
= 127 children aged 3-4 years. Children had individual assessment of non-verbal intelligence main executive function skills (cognitive flexibility, working memory and inhibition control) and took part in the experiment, while their parents completed a questionnaire on family background. Analysis of children's answers about the reason for choosing a particular toy indicates uncertain motivation in choosing a trendy toy in contrast to the classic ones. It is reflected in the fact that children do not know what exactly and how they will play with it. It is revealed that boys are 1.66 times more likely to prefer the trendy toy than girls. It was also found that as inhibitory control increased, children were less dependent on tendencies to choose toys.
A toy is an object or device designed for play and enjoyment. Engagement of children and adolescents with appropriate toys can have significant influences on their cognitive, emotional and ...socio-psychological development. In this review, we first discuss factors underlying binary gender-based preferences of toys, and their implications for child development. Further, the potential of toys in psycho-social, emotional and sensorimotor development of children and adolescents are debated, with a particular focus on neuro-divergent children. Additionally, implications for toy-play from ancient Indian literature and culture are discussed. Finally, future aspects for play with next-generation toys and challenges associated with them are delineated. We hope that the review will serve as a platform for promoting toys as tools for removing binary gender-prejudices and aiding child/adolescent development. We also anticipate that our work will result in further research and elaboration of this largely ignored field of early/late childhood and adolescence research.
In Anime’s Media Mix, Marc Steinberg convincingly shows that anime is far more than a style of Japanese animation. Engaging with film, animation, and media studies, as well as analyses of consumer ...culture and theories of capitalism, Steinberg offers the first sustained study of the Japanese mode of convergence that informs global media practices to this day.