Organic−inorganic hybrid gels have been synthesized from the multifunctional cyclic siloxane, 1,3,5,7-tetramethylcyclotetrasiloxane (TMCTS), or the cubic silsesquioxane, 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15-octakis(dimethylsilyloxy)pentacyclo-[9,5,1,1,1,1]octasilsesquioxane (POSS), as cross-linking reagents with α,ω-nonconjugated dienes, 1,5-hexadiene (HD) or 1,9-decadiene (DD), using a photo hydrosilylation reaction with a bis(acetylacetonato)platinum catalyst in toluene. Network structures of the resulting gels, mesh size, and mesh size distribution were quantitatively characterized by means of a novel scanning microscopic light scattering (SMILS). The effects of the monomer concentration in the resulting gels were investigated, and gels with homogeneous network structure formed by 1.4 to 1.6 nm size of mesh were obtained under the monomer concentrations that are relatively higher than the critical gelation concentration. The mesh sizes of gels, that were determined with SMILS, with DD were larger than those with HD and were independent of the nature of the cross-linking reagents. The TMCTS-HD gel formation process was successfully traced with SMILS. The result indicates the formation of microgels in the early stages of the reaction following aggregation of the microgels, extension of the microgels, or both to form the infinite network that occupies the space of the reaction system around the gelation point. Photo-pattern coating of a glass plate with the POSS-DD gel was achieved by means of the photo hydrosilylation reaction of the cast reaction medium.

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We have investigated an active size controlled droplet generation system by using magnetically driven microtool (MMT). With a lateral motion of the MMT in microchannels, the continuous phase can be pinched off by the movement of MMT to obtain size-controlled droplets actively. With this method particle-enclosed droplet can be produced on demand to fit the size of each enclosed particle, and which is difficult to carry out by fluid dynamic force. For the current study, the system has been evaluated in terms of the frequency of MMT actuation and the size of droplets produced and which contribute to the effective transportation of cells in microchannel.

This article arises from critical conversations about the politics of place that began in 2015 at the "Worlding Oceania: Christianities, Commodities and Gendered Persons in the Pacific" conference in Canberra, Australia. At the conference, anthropologist Kalissa Alexeyeff and Samoan artist Yuki Kihara both spoke on their research, which deals with overlapping themes of art, colonial imaginaries, gender, and representation. Both discussed the trope of Pacific paradise in Western and Pacific imaginaries. Alexeyeff talked about how images of tropical paradise were used to decorate homes of Cook Islanders living in Aotearoa/New Zealand. These included poster-sized pictures of sandy, palm tree-lined beaches and tourist-promotion leaflets of smiling Polynesian dancing girls. The utilization of these images, she argued, enacted a repossession or repurposing of the paradise trope to express longing and nostalgia for home back in the Cook Islands (Alexeyeff 2016). Kihara spoke about her photographic series, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (Kihara 2013), in which she dresses in Victorian mourning wear and poses at iconic sites in Sāmoa. One image in the series is of a paradisiacal tourist beach. Kihara discussed how her Victorian figure "haunts" this beach, grieving for local lives lost at this spot in 2009 as the result of Tsunami Galu Afi. Kihara's work repossesses the generic and timeless tourist paradise in order to thoroughly embed it in the social-historical memories of a particular landscape. This conference experience led the authors to further collaborative engagements that took place across countries, at various academic conferences and art exhibitions, and through co-participation in the Master of Development Studies program at the National University of Samoa in 2016. We first discussed Kihara's work Der Papālagi, the subject of this article, in Melbourne in 2016. The photographs that comprise this work

We proposed a polymer-metal hybrid MMT (magnetically driven microtool) which has properties of both elasticity and rigidity. A magnetic metal axle is made by electroplating, then it is mounted directly in the center of the MMT during molding. By using this process, we could fabricate a hybrid MMT whose fixed axes are elastic to move specific direction, while the center axle is rigid to prevent bending by the unwanted external force. The magnetic metal axle also has a merit to have higher magnetic property which contributes to the powerful actuation. We designed a hybrid MMT for on-demand droplet dispensing on a chip. It has a parallel plate structure to be constrained in translational motion. The displacement of the hybrid MMT was about 300 Pm which was 6 times larger than that of the conventional MMT, and on-demand droplet generation was successfully performed. We confirmed production of the 177.7±2.3 Pm droplet.