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Both collexeme analysis and correspondence analysis were implemented to investigate the relationship between congruent patterns of modality and metaphorical patterns of modality in different genres of American English and British English in this paper. The findings are summarised as follows: 1) modal adverbs and/or adjectives that are significantly attracted to congruent patterns of modality are also significantly attracted to metaphorical patterns of modality in both varieties of English; 2) the significant attraction in both congruent and metaphorical patterns of modality is genre-sensitive, i.e., it preferably happens in academic genre for the purpose of making propositions at issue non-negotiable and projecting authoritative stances to non-communicative readers; 3) the same significant attraction in both patterns of modality occurs more preferably in British academic genre than in American academic genre. This research is of significance in that it highlights not only metaphorical patterns of modality but also congruent patterns of modality; additionally, it also bridges theories in Systemic Functional Linguistics and advanced approaches such as collexeme analysis and correspondence analysis in Corpus Linguistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The grammatical pattern of explicit objective modal expressions and its three subtypes (i.e., explicit objective expressions of probability, usuality and obligation) are investigated in this paper. By implementing a collostructional analysis, specifically collexeme analysis and multiple distinctive collexeme analysis, we aim at uncovering how, with respect to different genres in COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), modal expressions are significantly attracted or repelled by the grammatical pattern, and how these expressions are diachronically associated with the grammatical pattern in different time periods of COCA and COHA (Corpus of Historical American English). The genre-related findings demonstrate that explicit objective modal expressions of probability and obligation are attracted by formal genres while repelled by informal ones, whereas those of usuality are repelled by both formal academic and informal spoken genres. The diachronic findings demonstrate that modal expressions that denote low values of probability and obligation have undergone a path of gradual change from repulsion to attraction because of an accumulation of negotiability and politeness by language users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English elemental ordering in a non-canonical word order incorporates preposing, postposing and elemental reversal. This paper intends to explore how these types of elemental ordering are distributed during the last two centuries by employing the Corpus of Historical American English or COHA. The findings demonstrate that preposing has been increasing apparently but still in its inceptive phase; postposing, subsuming existential there and presentational there, generally keeps plateauing with existential there dominating presentational there; and elemental reversal experiences a trend of gradual decreasing, which is attributed to the dominance in occurrences of passive with a by phrase construction over those of inversion. This research provides us with a corpus linguistic insight of exploring elemental ordering, which distinguishes itself from other researches focusing on information status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings: In this study, we investigate how to exploit big and open data (BOD) to quantitatively examine the relationships between transit-oriented development (TOD) attributes and TOD outcomes. Here, TOD attributes are measurable or perceivable attributes that TOD proponents cherish, and TOD outcomes are the targeted outcomes, such as increased ridership, associated at least partially with TOD attributes. Based on BOD from Shenzhen (China), we create indicators to measure both TOD attributes and outcomes. We explore the associations of TOD attributes, including centrality of a TOD site, travel time to the central business district, density, destination, diversity, and design, with TOD outcomes. We identify the TOD attribute that best predicts TOD outcomes such as metro ridership, frequent riders, people co-located in a station area, and ratios derived from these outcomes. We find that special neighborhoods, specific metro lines, and age of the district significantly influence TOD outcomes. Our study has a few limitations: a) the BOD we use do not directly measure TOD attributes, so proxies must be used; and b) the BOD we use contain little information about "why," "who," and "how," such as why people rode transit, who they were, and how they perceived/appreciated various TOD attributes. Takeway for practice: BOD-derived variables allow planners to revalidate existing planning guidelines and principles concerning TOD and adapt them to local contexts. BOD can also be used to formulate new metrics to evaluate different TOD plans or projects in ways not achievable with traditional data alone. In short, BOD can and should be used to refine TOD analytics and design and to implement corresponding theories in pursuit of TOD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines new indicators for evaluating the probable impacts of introducing different land use/transport policies on the commuting efficiency of a city. It uses Beijing as a case study to describe how smartcard data can be used to derive a large number (n = 216,884, 9% of the population) of bus commuters' workplace and residential locations. Using existing excess commuting indicators and new commuting efficiency gain indicators established to assess policy options, it exemplifies how to assess impacts of different policies on bus commuting efficiency gains. The case study indicates policies that directly target bus commuters (such as BRT) bring greater commuting efficiency gains when compared to other policies such as car usage restrictions and stringent travel demand management measures in the downtown area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'Belt and Road Initiative' was announced in 2013 to better connect China economically, socially and culturally with the world by new transport infrastructures. Before forecasting the long-term impacts of the initiative on economic activities and population, one could learn from history about how transport infrastructures and the corresponding accessibility of different locales they engendered or enhanced might have shaped and reshaped the distribution of the population and economic activities in Europe. Historic maps of transport infrastructures and population statistics were collected from such sources as the Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World, the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, and the Gridded Population of the World Version 4. By digitizing and synthesizing the maps and statistics, transport accessibility in Europe and its nearby areas was mapped during both the Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD) and the Middle Ages (1000–1500 AD), as well as the population distribution in Europe and its nearby areas in 2015. The mapping efforts indicated that the transport network changed greatly over time for various reasons, and that transport accessibility is a sufficient but not necessary condition for different locales' population growth and economic prosperity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to develop a scale to measure students' STEM continuing motivation (CM). In accordance with the conceptualisation of CM by Maehr (1976. Continuing motivation: An analysis of a seldom considered educational outcome. Review of Educational Research, 46(3), 443–462. doi:), we define STEM CM as students' tendencies to actively engage in STEM-related activities. The STEM Continuing Motivation Scale was developed from a literature review and student cognitive interviews, and was validated on a sample of 465 Chinese 7th and 8th graders. The results demonstrated that the developed scale had high reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.91) and good validity. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that boys had significantly higher STEM CM than girls and there were significant differences in engineering CM among students from different schools. The implications of the findings of this study are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are where innovations, face-to-face interactions and social capital are commonplace. Nevertheless, often regarded as ‘the ivory tower’, universities cannot be separated from the social and economic transformations outside of them. Traffic, information and financial flows between universities and other locations can be used to reveal connections between the ivory tower and other locales. Therefore, this paper uses the weekday public transit smartcard records from 6 to 9 April 2010 (158,262 transit trips in total, including bus-only, bus plus subway and subway-only trips) to identify and profile the most popular destinations of student riders from the ‘985 universities’ (a short list of top universities designated by the Chinese Central Government in 1999) and associated transit trip flows in Beijing. It identifies destination hotspots for the 985 universities’ students in Beijing, allocates traffic volume to major roads and delineates the transit trips of students from each campus. The results indicate that there exist only weak ties and little movement between the top universities and the most disadvantaged areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the United States, millions of university students drive alone to school. Therefore, decreasing driving alone and related car dependence among university students is as important as doing that among the general population. But how can we prioritize resources allocated to different possible and alternative actions? This article completes a case study to systematically single out different factors that influence university students' mode choice and quantify their marginal effects, which are regarded as important references for prioritizing actions. Los Angeles, a place notorious for its car dominance, is chosen as the site of the case study. It is argued that if we could succeed in promoting non-driving-alone (NDA) modes there, we should be able to do it elsewhere, at least in the US context. Based on statistical analyses and multinomial logit models, we find that (a) access to bus services and a subsidized transit pass can boost the usage of NDA modes; (b) commute time is significantly associated with the probability of using transit and a long commute time by transit does not necessarily reduce transit's utilities or intrinsic values; (c) male and/or undergraduate students are more likely to bike or walk to the campus than other students; (d) the top three factors that have the greatest marginal effects on mode choice are ownership of a subsidized transit pass, status (graduate vs. undergraduate), and gender. These results have important policy implications for designing and prioritizing mode-sensitive programs to promote the usage of NDA modes among university students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study uses smartcard data to quantify and visualize the most popular destinations (‘central places’) and corridors of transit riders in Brisbane, an emerging global city in Queensland, Australia. It shows that the number and distribution of central places vary significantly across different periods of the day and so are their respective scopes of influence, which are measured by a standard deviational ellipse, and the associated transit corridors, which connect visitors of central places to other locales in the city. As a whole, this study shows the potential of smartcard data in efficiently verifying and even extending existing economic geography theories, models or concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Transit and land-use integration is regarded as one of the most important means of avoiding or reducing car dependence and urban sprawl, which are thought as major culprits of unsustainability. In developing countries, rail rapid transit could be too expensive to become the predominant component of their respective systems. However, bus rapid transit (BRT) as one of the cheapest forms of mass transit is a better alternative for those countries. In developing countries, BRT has transformed numerous cities such as Curitiba, Brazil; Bogota, Columbia; and Guangzhou, China. Can BRT have the same transformative impacts for cities in developed countries as well? Can the impacts of BRT be visualized using the transit population? Given that few cities in developed countries have BRT and ridership data of BRT are not always available, the above questions have not been well addressed before. To answer these two questions, we analysed smartcard swipes over a five-day weekday period (11–15 March 2013) for Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, and reconstructed trip trajectories of those 255,887 transit riders. We found that BRT serves a significant percentage and number of travellers, thus shaping travel behaviour and ultimately land use – when transit ridership and rate of transit usage are used as indicators. This is a significant achievement in Australia, a country known for its car dependence and urban sprawl. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Problem: Recently, public health researchers have argued that infill development and sprawl reduction may improve respiratory outcomes for urban residents, largely by reducing vehicle travel and its attendant mobile-source emissions. But infill can also increase the number of residents exposed to poor air quality within central cities. Aside from emissions studies, planners have little information on the connections between urban form, ambient pollutant levels, and human exposures or how infill changes these. Purpose: We examined neighborhood exposures in 80 metropolitan areas in the United States to address whether neighborhood-level air quality outcomes are better in compact regions than in sprawled regions. Methods: We used multilevel regression models to find the empirical relationship between a measure of regional urban form and neighborhood air quality outcomes. Results and conclusions: Ozone concentrations are significantly lower in compact regions, but ozone exposures in neighborhoods are higher in compact regions. Fine particulate concentrations do not correlate significantly with regional compactness, but fine particulate exposures in neighborhoods are also higher in compact regions. Exposures to both ozone and fine particulates are also higher in neighborhoods with high proportions of African Americans, Asian ethnic minorities, and poor households. Takeaway for practice: Compact development and infill do not solve air quality problems in all regions or for all residents of a given region. Planners should take differences in neighborhood air quality and human exposure into account when planning for new compact developments rather than just focusing on emissions reductions. Research support: This project was supported by a grant from the ShenAir Institute at James Madison University and by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract\nHIGHLIGHTSWith the development of children’s education, parents and teachers pay more and more attention to the learning and training of children with developmental dyslexia (DD). There are many reasons for DD and various intervention tools with a large number of learning costs. In this paper, we aim to analyze the relationship between music, pinyin, and reading, and confirm the theoretical link of "music - Chinese pinyin - reading ability". Then, we sort out a method to design the music intervention tool in this article, which is a new tangible interactive tool for children with DD. This tool is composed of hardware and software and has three modules: music intervention, pinyin intervention, and reading intervention, covering a total of 11 levels and is suitable for classroom teaching, home self-study, and other scenarios, to improve the Chinese pinyin and reading abilities. Subsequently, we conducted a pre-experiment and formal experiment on 20 children with DD to demonstrate the effectiveness of this tool, while using the SUS scale to analyze the evaluation of these children. Finally, we figured that the intervention tool designed in this study has a certain helpful effect on improving the phonetic and reading abilities of children with DD, and is more effective than the three intervention methods used alone. This study has certain reference significance for the designers of intervention tools and also provides new intervention methods for teachers in training institutions. It also provides another possibility for the self-treatment and training of children with developmental dyslexia.Combine music with Chinese Pinyin and Chinese reading to design.Provide a new tangible interactive intervention tool for children with developmental dyslexia in China.Design several levels for music, Pinyin, and reading intervention systems using an advanced music teaching method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]