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Caring For Your Collectible Doll}
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Caring For Your Collectible Doll
by
Evelyn WhitakerIt can sometimes be difficult to know how to clean your cherished collectible without causing harm. The following is a simple guideline for you to help you learn which way is the best way to care for your doll.Porcelain Dolls:With porcelain, the decorations are usually fired on, so it would be unlikely that that you would hurt them by cleaning. Use warm soapy water. If this doesn’t work good enough, try a wet eraser to remove marks. As a last resort, very, very gently clean with a low abrasive cleaner such as Tilex or Soft Scrub. Use caution because some cleansers have bleaching agents that could be devastating to antique clothing, wigs or bodies. Ultra violet rays can be very damaging to porcelain dolls, so when you are displaying your doll, avoid direct sunlight.Celluloid Dolls:These dolls are extremely perishable. They are easily broken and can become very brittle over time. Proper care and respect of a celluloid doll helps a perfect example remain in that condition. Heat is celluloid’s worst enemy. Keep these dolls in a cool room with good ventilation – and never store celluloid in a sealed case – it can combust!Cloth Dolls:Vintage cloth dolls can be worth thousands of dollars and deserve your best efforts to preserve them and prevent needless deterioration. Keeping the fabric clean is important because it’s exposing the fabric to pollutants that will weaken the material. Direct sunlight is not good for these dolls. You should also inspect your cloth dolls every now and then for insects. There are insecticides designed especially for textiles under many brands and the results can be excellent if used according to instructions.If you decide to vacuum your doll, place a nylon screen over the fabric first to protect the delicate fibers. Most often, a good vacuuming is enough to restore a doll to display condition. If you doll is badly soiled, get the advice of a professional who specializes in preserving textiles.Sometimes you can use an eraser or art gum, tapeten and reinger-and-absorene to clean your cloth doll. These seem to give the best results. Ink can be removed with hairspray, but first test an area on the doll to assure that no damage will occur. Apply the hair spray with a cloth, and wipe in a light rubbing motion with a clean white cloth.For display purposes, it is best to keep them in protective cases and inspect them regularly. Moth crystals should be placed near your dolls. Many collectors recommend making a small cloth pouch, filling it with moth crystals and placing it under the doll’s hat or tying it around its waist beneath the clothing.Composition and paper-mache Dolls:These dolls pretty much require the same care as the cloth type dolls. They are especially susceptible to damage from temperature changes. Never store composition or paper-mache dolls in a hot or cold attic, or in a damp basement.Most collectors will accept some signs of aging on composition dolls – fine craze lines or cracked eyes, for example.There are many popular ways for cleaning composition, but first always test it on an inconspicuous area of the doll and work quickly – never leave any cleaning agent on the doll for any length of time. Pond’s Cold Cream or Vaseline and a soft tissue work well for these dolls. Another option is paste window cleaner but not the ammonia type. You want the old fashioned paste that you can get at most hardware stores.Wigs can be restyled after spraying with Johnson’s & Johnson’s No More Tangles. Faded or worn-off facial features can be touched up with artist’s colored pencils. When moistened, they are very easy to apply. Crackled eyes are best left alone.Hard Plastic Dolls:These types of dolls are very resilient and can be cleaned with almost any soap detergent. You can clean stubborn stains with cold cream or waterless hand cleaner. Avoid chlorine, bleach and ammonia. Never use fingernail polish remover or lacquer thinner which may eat into the plastic! You can use Oxy-10 to remove stains that are not close to painted surfaces. Just moisten a cotton ball and allow it to sit on the stain for several hours. You may have to repeat this process several times. After each cleaning, wash the doll with mild soap and rinse well.For displaying purposes, avoid direct exposure to ultraviolet light. Although they may seem indestructible, hard plastic can slowly oxidize and change color and direct heat can also cause warping.Rubber Dolls:These dolls will deteriorate no matter what precautions you take, but you can delay the process. Any form of grease is harmful and accelerates deterioration. If you have a “Magic Skin Doll” always wear cotton gloves when handling her. Rubbing corn starch on these kinds of dolls twice a year will help to preserve the dolls’ life. Maintain an even temperature and avoid changes in humidity.Tin Dolls:These dolls often have chipped paint which can happen from the metal getting cold which in turn causes the paint to lift off the face. Try to keep these dolls in a constant temperature environment.Vinyl Dolls:Vinyl dolls are probably the most lifelike in appearance and touch. In order to keep them looking that way, special care is needed. Extreme room temperatures are harmful. Even quality vinyl dolls subjected to heaters or air conditioners can be damaged in just a few months. Direct sunlight can be deadly. Vinyl is also sensitive to fluorescent light; use indirect non-fluorescent lights. Finally, avoid tightly sealed show cases or glass domes because condensation can form and damage vinyl dolls.Wooden Dolls:Chipping paint is a major problem with wooden dolls. Humidity and mistreatment are the two main culprits. Keep wooden dolls in a dry atmosphere. Expanding and contracting associated with high humidity causes paint to chip. Knocks and bumps can also chip paint, so take care in moving or displaying wooden dolls.Wax Dolls:Wax dolls can be intimidating to many collectors. They do require special care, but so do all types of dolls. Basic care and common sense will help preserve a wax doll in perfect condition. Of course, never place a wax doll in direct sunlight or near any heat source, such as a fireplace mantle.The best way to start cleaning these types of dolls is to use a solution of cool water and Woolite. Saturate a cotton ball or a Q-tip and wash the wax. If this doesn’t work, try a dab of cold cream on a Q-tip, followed by a rinse of the Woolite solution and then clean, cool water. As a last resort, try denatured alcohol on a cotton ball, followed by a through rinsing. Never use turpentine to clean wax dolls because it can soften the wax!Tips for Barbie Doll Collectors:Remember those Barbie Dolls with the earrings and how it would eventually create green deposits around the ear? Here’s a way to remove it:Cover the ears with a small piece of cotton soaked in Tarn-X silver cleaner. Wrap the head in saran wrap to keep the application moist. Check after two days. If the ears are still green, replace the saran wrap. If, the ears are still green after four days, repeat the procedure with fresh cotton balls. Once the green is gone, rub a paste of baking soda and water over the treated areas. After several days, flake off the dried baking soda and clean the area with warm, soapy water on a Q-tip. Tarn-X causes a chemical reaction that acts as a bleach; the baking soda neutralizes the reaction; and the warm, soapy water removes any residue. It is important to perform each step as described and to inspect the doll periodically throughout the process.Bubble cut Barbies often have sticky or greasy faces. This is due to an ingredient being emitted by the vinyl. Here’s a tip to take care of that:Carefully remove the head from the body and clean inside and out with a Q-tip soaked in alcohol. Dry it good and fill the head cavity with baking soda. Then replace it on the body. The baking soda will neutralize the chemicals and absorb the extracted grease.Old Tips Recommended By Some Doll Collectors- To remove mildew: soak in sour milk and salt. Then lay the doll in the sun. To remove milk therapy, follow with a warm soapy water wash and rinse.- To restore color to faded cloth: sponge with chloroform.- To soften old kid: saturate an old woolen rag with kerosene and rub in the kid.- To clean old ivory: scrub with Ivory soap; bleach in the sun for several days, reapplying the soapy solution often.- To remove tar: clean first with turpentine, then clean with Lux soap.- To remove paint: Patient rubbing with chloroform.- To restore faded calico: wash in water with a teaspoon of sugar of lead; soak for fifteen minutes and launder.- Black taffeta is best washed in strong tea.Hopefully, we given you some helpful information!
Evelyn Whitaker writes articles for
Deutsches Haus
http://www.deutscheshaus.cc which is located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Deutsches Haus offers German collectibles, souvenirs, gifts and foods.
Article Source:
eArticlesOnline.com}
Gastric bypass surgery performed by remote control
Sunday, August 21, 2005
A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.
If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.
There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”
There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.
Interview: Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
January’s second Interview of the Month was with Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on 23 January in IRC.
The EFF is coming off a series of high-profile successes in their campaigns to educate the public, press, and policy makers regarding online rights in a digital world, and defending those rights in the legislature and the courtroom. Their settlement with Sony/BMG, the amazingly confused MGM v Grokster decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the disturbing cases surrounding Diebold have earned the advocacy organization considerable attention.
When asked if the EFF would be interested in a live interview in IRC by Wikinews, the answer was a nearly immediate yes, but just a little after Ricardo Lobo. With two such interesting interview candidates agreeing so quickly, it was hard to say no to either so schedules were juggled to have both. By chance, the timing worked out to have the EFF interview the day before the U.S. Senate schedule hearings concerning the Broadcast flag rule of the FCC, a form of digital rights management which the recording and movie industries have been lobbying hard for – and the EFF has been lobbying hard to prevent.
Actress Virginia Mayo dies
Thursday, January 20, 2005Virginia Mayo, an actress famous for her movie roles of the 1940s and 1950s, died Monday, January 17, 2005 in a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, California, of pneumonia and heart failure.
- Tony Gieske. “Goldwyn Girl Virginia Mayo, versatile actress, dies at 84” — The Hollywood Reporter, January 18, 2005
- Adam Bernstein. “Actress Virginia Mayo, 84; Star of ’40s Musicals” — Washington Post, January 19, 2005
- Ronald Bergan. “Virginia Mayo: Technicolored glamour in blonde and cream” — The Guardian, January 19, 2005
Getting the exclusive lowdown on The Lowdown
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The Lowdown, is a youth-targeted website aimed at helping young New Zealanders get through depression and other mental illnesses, and curbing New Zealand’s high suicide rates. Wikinews’ Gabriel Pollard spoke to Candace Bagnall who manages the Ministry of Health’s National Depression Initiative which runs The Lowdown.
| The Lowdown is one of many attempts to improve access to services to young people in need. | ||
The Lowdown is a service that allows young people to talk about how they’re feeling while facilitating the new ways of communication easily adopted by those aged 13-24 years, the demographic of The Lowdown. Young people can talk with the team via email and mobile phone texting, and they also have the opportunity to talk with other similar like-minded people through the on site Internet forum. Ms Bagnall said that research undertaken proved that text and email were the most “effective” ways of communicating with youth. “We also consulted and pre-tested with young people.”
Texting is the preferred method for communication.
Ms Bagnall said they were unsure how much the service – which started December 6, 2007 – would cost annually, but expected it to be near the half-million dollar mark due to the recent nature of the site and on going development.
They do not receive any free services from Internet providers and mobile phone companies. However this isn’t a worry for them because, as Ms Bagnall says, it is a “public service, not a commercial one so it is not trying to run at a profit.”
The Lowdown is always able to be reached. A trained health professional is available between midday and midnight each day, including Christmas Day. Ms Bagnall said, “They work shifts and have their holidays at other times.”
There are six staff members at The Lowdown. However, Ms Bagnall says, “The Ministry is aware of gaps […] in the number of health professionals available to young people. The Lowdown is one of many attempts to improve access to services to young people in need.”
Not only do they have health professionals on staff, but they also have support from celebrities. Local New Zealand celebrities accompany the exploration of the site giving helpful advice; sharing their own personal experiences and stories on depression; and home grown music provided free of charge. “The musicians were extremely generous with their time and music. They were very supportive of the purpose of the website and didn’t get paid for their contributions, but their music is being promoted through the site.”
An average of 320 visitors per day have visited the depression-focused help site between January 1 and January 23, 2008. Ms Bagnall said that most of those accessing the service are in the targeted market. “The service has been running for only a few weeks so we don’t have accurate figures yet and we don’t know the ages of site visitors unless they access the help services.”
New Zealand has high suicide statistics for both youth and older people. Each year there are 500 suicides, of which young people account for 100. Compared to other OECD countries, males between 15 and 24 years of age have the second highest suicide rate behind Finland. New Zealand is placed third behind Finland and Japan for females of the same age group. Age-standardised rates for males are fourth highest in the OECD, the fifth highest for females.
Virgin Media investors want to discuss company’s strategy
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Virgin Media announced weak results last week, in part due to competition from Sky. Virgin Media lost 47,000 customers from January to March 2007, while Sky gained 51,000 customers in the same time period.
Franklin Mutual Advisers, which has 9.4% of the Virgin Media shares (Sir Richard Branson owns 11%) wants to have a meeting with Virgin Media about its “strategic direction, corporate governance and management”. Franklin Mutual Advisers is known to take great interest in the companies in which it invests.
This has caused many of the other investors of Virgin Media to demanding meetings with the management of the company. The demands are due to confusion among shareholders at the direction in which the company is heading, The Guardian reports. After the attempt to buy ITV was stopped last year, the shareholders think that Virgin Media may lose its battle with Sky and TalkTalk.
Another issue causing concerns amongst investors is the £25.2 million pay cheques for the top seven executives of Virgin Media. Virgin Media reported a £15.3 million loss last year.
Strong earthquake near Solomon Islands, tsunami reported
Sunday, April 1, 2007
A magnitude 8.1 undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami that has killed at least fifteen people, including six children, in the Solomon Islands. Tsunami warnings have been issued for parts of Australia as well.
According to the US Geological Survey, the magnitude 8.0 quake struck Sunday, April 1, 2007 at 20:39:56 (UTC) about 45 km (25 mi) south-southeast of Gizo, New Georgia Islands, Solomon Islands, at a depth of 10 km.
Contents
- 1 ‘Disaster’ declared in the Solomons
- 2 Region on alert
- 3 Related news
- 4 Sources
News briefs: March 17, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
We briefly recap some of the stories appearing on Wikinews this week from around the world.
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| Saturday, March 17, 2012 |
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Cleveland, Ohio clinic performs US’s first face transplant
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A team of eight transplant surgeons in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA, led by reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow, age 58, have successfully performed the first almost total face transplant in the US, and the fourth globally, on a woman so horribly disfigured due to trauma, that cost her an eye. Two weeks ago Dr. Siemionow, in a 23-hour marathon surgery, replaced 80 percent of her face, by transplanting or grafting bone, nerve, blood vessels, muscles and skin harvested from a female donor’s cadaver.
The Clinic surgeons, in Wednesday’s news conference, described the details of the transplant but upon request, the team did not publish her name, age and cause of injury nor the donor’s identity. The patient’s family desired the reason for her transplant to remain confidential. The Los Angeles Times reported that the patient “had no upper jaw, nose, cheeks or lower eyelids and was unable to eat, talk, smile, smell or breathe on her own.” The clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery chair, Francis Papay, described the nine hours phase of the procedure: “We transferred the skin, all the facial muscles in the upper face and mid-face, the upper lip, all of the nose, most of the sinuses around the nose, the upper jaw including the teeth, the facial nerve.” Thereafter, another team spent three hours sewing the woman’s blood vessels to that of the donor’s face to restore blood circulation, making the graft a success.
The New York Times reported that “three partial face transplants have been performed since 2005, two in France and one in China, all using facial tissue from a dead donor with permission from their families.” “Only the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip, lower teeth and jaw are hers, the rest of her face comes from a cadaver; she could not eat on her own or breathe without a hole in her windpipe. About 77 square inches of tissue were transplanted from the donor,” it further described the details of the medical marvel. The patient, however, must take lifetime immunosuppressive drugs, also called antirejection drugs, which do not guarantee success. The transplant team said that in case of failure, it would replace the part with a skin graft taken from her own body.
Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon praised the recent medical development. “There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.
Leading bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania withheld judgment on the Cleveland transplant amid grave concerns on the post-operation results. “The biggest ethical problem is dealing with failure — if your face rejects. It would be a living hell. If your face is falling off and you can’t eat and you can’t breathe and you’re suffering in a terrible manner that can’t be reversed, you need to put on the table assistance in dying. There are patients who can benefit tremendously from this. It’s great that it happened,” he said.
Dr Alex Clarke, of the Royal Free Hospital had praised the Clinic for its contribution to medicine. “It is a real step forward for people who have severe disfigurement and this operation has been done by a team who have really prepared and worked towards this for a number of years. These transplants have proven that the technical difficulties can be overcome and psychologically the patients are doing well. They have all have reacted positively and have begun to do things they were not able to before. All the things people thought were barriers to this kind of operations have been overcome,” she said.
The first partial face transplant surgery on a living human was performed on Isabelle Dinoire on November 27 2005, when she was 38, by Professor Bernard Devauchelle, assisted by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard in Amiens, France. Her Labrador dog mauled her in May 2005. A triangle of face tissue including the nose and mouth was taken from a brain-dead female donor and grafted onto the patient. Scientists elsewhere have performed scalp and ear transplants. However, the claim is the first for a mouth and nose transplant. Experts say the mouth and nose are the most difficult parts of the face to transplant.
In 2004, the same Cleveland Clinic, became the first institution to approve this surgery and test it on cadavers. In October 2006, surgeon Peter Butler at London‘s Royal Free Hospital in the UK was given permission by the NHS ethics board to carry out a full face transplant. His team will select four adult patients (children cannot be selected due to concerns over consent), with operations being carried out at six month intervals. In March 2008, the treatment of 30-year-old neurofibromatosis victim Pascal Coler of France ended after having received what his doctors call the worlds first successful full face transplant.
Ethical concerns, psychological impact, problems relating to immunosuppression and consequences of technical failure have prevented teams from performing face transplant operations in the past, even though it has been technically possible to carry out such procedures for years.
Mr Iain Hutchison, of Barts and the London Hospital, warned of several problems with face transplants, such as blood vessels in the donated tissue clotting and immunosuppressants failing or increasing the patient’s risk of cancer. He also pointed out ethical issues with the fact that the procedure requires a “beating heart donor”. The transplant is carried out while the donor is brain dead, but still alive by use of a ventilator.
According to Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society’s ethics committee, it is unknown to what extent facial expressions will function in the long term. He said that it is not certain whether a patient could be left worse off in the case of a face transplant failing.
Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon‘s facial transplantation working party, commented that if successful, the transplant would be “a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction” and “a major step forward for the facially disfigured.”
In Wednesday’s conference, Siemionow said “we know that there are so many patients there in their homes where they are hiding from society because they are afraid to walk to the grocery stores, they are afraid to go the the street.” “Our patient was called names and was humiliated. We very much hope that for this very special group of patients there is a hope that someday they will be able to go comfortably from their houses and enjoy the things we take for granted,” she added.
In response to the medical breakthrough, a British medical group led by Royal Free Hospital’s lead surgeon Dr Peter Butler, said they will finish the world’s first full face transplant within a year. “We hope to make an announcement about a full-face operation in the next 12 months. This latest operation shows how facial transplantation can help a particular group of the most severely facially injured people. These are people who would otherwise live a terrible twilight life, shut away from public gaze,” he said.