The present study compared the relationship between Dutch phonological awareness (rhyme awareness, initial phoneme isolation), Dutch speech decoding and Dutch receptive vocabulary in two groups in different linguistic environments: 30 Mandarin Chinese-Dutch bilingual children and 24 monolingual Dutch peers. Chinese vocabulary and phonological awareness were taken into account in the bilingual group. Bilingual children scored below their Dutch monolingual counterparts on all Dutch tasks. In the bilingual group, Dutch rhyme awareness was predicted by Dutch speech decoding, both directly, and indirectly via Dutch receptive vocabulary. When adding Chinese proficiency to the model, Chinese rhyme awareness was found to mediate the relationship between Dutch speech decoding and Dutch rhyme awareness. It can thus be concluded that second language (L2) phonological awareness in Chinese-Dutch kindergartners is affected by their L2 speech and vocabulary level, on the one hand, and their level of phonological awareness in the first language (L1).

With the development of intelligent flexible manufacturing, traditional industrial manipulators with a single configuration are difficult to meet a variety of tasks. Reconfigurable robots have developed rapidly which could change their configurations and end effectors for different tasks. The reconfigurable connecting mechanism (RCM) is a core component of reconfigurable robots. In this paper, we developed two types of intelligent modularized RCMs with light weight, high payload, and large tolerance. One of them is driven by shape memory alloy (SMA) and recovery spring. It is locked by steel balls and key. The other is driven by electromagnetic coil and locked by permanent magnet and key. The locking principle, mechanical system and control system of the two RCMs are detailed. Both of them meet the requirements of high precision and high payload in the industrial field. Finally, the developed RCMs are respectively integrated to a practical robot and experimented. The experiment results verified the performance of the two RCMs.

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Word identification models assume that words are identified by at least two sources of information and analysis; one is phonological, and the other is visual. The present study investigated the influence of phonological awareness, Pinyin letter knowledge, and visual perception skills on Chinese character recognition after controlling for vocabulary, rapid naming, and verbal short-term memory in 80 Mandarin-speaking kindergarten children. Children were tested on phonological awareness (syllable awareness, onset-end rhyme awareness, and tone awareness), Pinyin letter naming, and visual perception (visual discrimination and visual-spatial relationships). The results showed that variance in Chinese character recognition could be explained by syllable awareness and tone awareness, but not by visual perception skills or Pinyin letter knowledge. Analyses further indicated that Pinyin letter knowledge moderated the relationship between tone awareness and Chinese character recognition. A focus on tone awareness and syllable awareness in the kindergarten may help Chinese children to accomplish the transition from phonological awareness to early literacy, while Pinyin letter knowledge can help children to make the connection between Chinese speech and writing.