Playing in the dark with online games for girls

Pregnant Rapunzel Emergency is part of a series of online free games aimed at young girls (forhergames.com or babygirlgames.com), where dozens of characters from fairy tales, children’s toys and media feature in recovery settings, such as ‘Barbie flu’. The range of games available to choose from includes not only dressing, varnishing nails or tidying messy rooms, but also rather more troubling options such as extreme makeovers, losing weight, or a plethora of baby showers, cravings, hospital pregnancy checks, births (including caesarean), postnatal ironing, washing and baby care. Taking the online game Pregnant Rapunzel Emergency as an exemplar of a current digital trend, the authors explore the workings of ‘dark digital play’ from a number of perspectives – one by each named author. The game selected has (what may appear to adults) several disturbing features in that the player is invited to treat wounds of the kind of harm that might usually be associated with domestic violence towards women

Beyond the Cyborg: Adventures with Donna Haraway

Feminist theorist and philosopher Donna Haraway has substantially impacted thought on science, cyberculture, the environment, animals, and social relations. This long-overdue volume explores her influence on feminist theory and philosophy, paying particular attention to her more recent work on companion species, rather than her “Manifesto for Cyborgs.” Margret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick argue that the ongoing fascination with, and re-production of, the cyborg has overshadowed Haraway’s extensive body of work in ways that run counter to her own transdisciplinary practices. Sparked by their own personal “adventures” with Haraway’s work, the authors offer readings of her texts framed by a series of theoretical and political perspectives: feminist materialism, standpoint epistemology, radical democratic theory, queer theory, and even science fiction. They situate Haraway’s critical storytelling and “risky reading” practices as forms of feminist methodology and recognize her passionate engagement with “naturecultures” as the theoretical core driving her work. Chapters situate Haraway as critic, theorist, biologist, feminist, historian, and humorist, exploring the full range of her identities and reflecting her commitment to embodying all of these modes simultaneously

Heat capacity of poly(trimethylene terephthalate)

Thermal analysis of poly(trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT) has been carried out using standard differential scanning calorimetry and temperature-modulated differential scanning calorimetry. Heat capacities of the solid and liquid states of semicrystalline PTT are reported from 190 K to 570 K. The semicrystalline PTT has a glass transition temperature of about 331 K. Between 460 K and 480 K, PTT shows an exothermic ordering. The melting endotherm occurs between 480 K and 505 K with an onset temperature of 489.15 K (216 C). The heat of fusion of typical semicrystalline samples is 13.8 kJ/mol. For 100% crystalline PTT the heat of fusion is estimated to be 28--30 kJ/mol. The heat capacity of solid PTT is linked to an approximate group vibrational spectrum, and the Tarasov equation is used to estimate the skeletal vibrational heat capacity ({Theta}{sub 1} = 542 K and {Theta}{sub 3} = 42 K). A comparison of calculation and experimental heat capacities show agreement of better than {+-}2% between 190--300 K. The experimental heat capacity of liquid PTT can be expressed as a linear function of temperature: C{sub p} {sup L}(exp) = 211.6 + 0.434 T J/(K mol) and compares well with estimations from the ATHAS data bank using group contributions of other polymers with the same constituent groups ({+-} 0.5%). The change of heat capacity at T{sub g} of amorphous PTT has been estimated from the heat capacities of liquid and solid to be 86.4 J/(K mol). Knowing C{sub p} of the solid, liquid, and the transition parameters, the thermodynamic functions: enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs function were obtained

Development of Crystallinity in a Polyurethane Containing Mesogenic Units. 1. Morphology and Mechanism

This work extends prior studies of a polyurethane containing mesogenic moieties. Opticaland thermal methods reveal that this polyurethane exhibits monotropic mesomorphic behavior. Two distinctcrystallization mechanisms and crystal morphologies are identified, one arising from the isotropicmelt and producing a spherulitic texture and the other arising from the mesophase and producing a threadedtexture. A combination of thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, and dynamic rheological studies reveals thatcrystals grown from the mesophase are readily perfected to a higher melting form by annealing whereasspherulitic crystals are less amenable to perfection. The development and perfection of the crystallinestate were also found to be dependent on polyurethane molecular weight