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Multilingual learners confront challenges not only in mastering new languages but also in forming new identities. Guided by the investment model, we traced the learning of Chinese and English of two Uyghur women who attended a coastal Chinese university and investigated how they navigated the Chinese mainstream education system to university level. Findings of this ethnographic work revealed that moving from their less developed hometown to a major city, the participants expanded and enriched their repertoire of symbolic and material resources on which they could rely to effect more powerful social memberships and negotiate their educated Uyghur identities. Their Chinese and English language learning journey and the educational experiences in the host community also changed how Uyghur women perceive their future possibilities. Their struggles and agency in their journey were also highlighted.

Education 4.0 (E4) aims to improve the teaching-learning process and democratize access to quality education by using Industry 4.0 technologies in educational environments. The main objective of this article is to propose a framework containing a package of policies and initiatives for the drivers of society (industry, government, and academia) to develop E4. The framework was elaborated through systematic review based on good practices, challenges, and opportunities of E4, which were systematized considering the technical-scientific literature and the authors' experience. The main scientific contribution of this work is the creation of a new block of knowledge about E4 that expands and at the same time deepens the existing literature and can support new research and foster initiatives on the subject. Its main applied contribution is to increase access to quality education through the development of E4.

This paper reports on how varied study abroad experiences transformed understanding of difference of student-teachers from two universities. Data were collected through a qualitative questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with 14 Chinese and Scottish student-teachers who presented what they had experienced and how they had made sense of difference. Drawing on transformative learning, this study reveals that opportunities to experience difference and resultant emotional struggles can develop student-teachers' emotional maturity and readiness for change. It also highlights that critical reflection on challenges in their preconceptions about the self and others is essential to transform their preconceived views and develop their openness to difference. To maximise the transformative potential of study abroad programmes, we argue that student-teachers must be provided with a discourse that disrupts their taken-for-granted views and learning opportunities that have a critical orientation.

Locating itself broadly within the "sociolinguistics of mobility" (Blommaert, 2014) and taking heed of Stornaiuolo and Hall's (2014) call to "trace resonance" in writing and literacies research, this article works to trace academic literacies across the emerging "literacy sponsorscapes" (Wargo, 2016a) of contemporary culture. Despite its variance and recent resurgence (Lillis and Scott, 2007), academic literacies continues to be reduced to: (1) an instrumentalist and pragmatic pedagogy, and (2) the ability to navigate academic conventions and practices of higher education (Lea and Street, 1998), in particular the writing classroom (Castelló and Donahue, 2012). This centred focus, however, is limiting, and silences the more innocuous and less tangible sponsors of academic literacies: "mobilities," "ideologies," "identities," and "technologies." Set against the backdrop of globalization, and grounded in two case studies, this article considers how academic literacies are not an "and" but an "elsewhere", thereby emphasizing the importance of sociolinguistic space in academic literacy development. In it, we chart new directions for scholarship and underscore how ideologies shift with mobilities (Pennycook, 2008; Pennycook, 2012), are indexed by identities (De Costa and Norton, 2016; Hawkins, 2005), and extend through technologies (Lam, 2009; Rymes, 2012). By outlining a "literacy sponsorscapes" framework for studying academic literacies, this article highlights the purchasing power of seeing academic literacies not solely as a field or set of practices, but rather as a locating mechanism for studying a range of hybridized repertoires that are shaped and constituted by the physical and social spaces that contemporary youth inhabit.

The global spread of English has made it the dominant language in academic publishing (Hyland, Ken. 2015. "Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Construction of Knowledge." Oxford: Oxford University Press). Influenced by enterprise culture, scholars from peripheral non-Western countries face mounting pressure to publish in English (Curry, Marry Jane & Theresa Lillis (eds.). 2017. "Global academic publishing: Policies, perspectives and pedagogies." Bristol, UK: Multilingual matters). The English academic publishing industry has also ballooned in China (Tian, Mei, Yan Su & Xin Ru. 2016. Perish or publish in China: Pressures on young Chinese scholars to publish in internationally indexed journals. "Publications" 4(2). 9.). In response to the Chinese government's commitment to developing world-class universities and disciplines to enhance the internationalization of its higher education system, local Chinese scholars are increasingly encouraged to produce research that has international impact, as well as to engage in international academic exchange and cooperation arrangements (Li, Yongyan & Guangwei Hu. 2018. Collaborating with management academics in a new economy: Benefits and challenges. "Publications" 6. 1-17). In seeking academic collaboration, a growing number of Chinese academics have participated in visiting scholar programs offered by western-based universities. In light of this emergent phenomenon, this study explores how Chinese visiting scholars, driven by an ethical imperative to enhance human capital at "neoliberal universities" (Holborow, Marnie. 2013. Applied linguistics in the neoliberal university: Ideological keywords and social agency. "Applied Linguistics Review" 4(2). 229-257), exploited language-related resources available to them to succeed in English academic publishing. Data, which include in-depth interviews, social media posts, journals, resumes and manuscripts that were in press at academic journals, were collected from two Chinese professors who took part in a one-year visiting scholar program in the U.S. university. Our findings revealed that under the mounting expectations to publish in English-dominated SSCI journals, our focal participants enacted linguistic entrepreneurial practices.

Building on recent calls to examine the material realities of people's lives, our paper explores how developments in ecological approaches to second language acquisition (SLA) and recent SLA identity work can help advance the language policy and planning (LPP) research agenda. To this end, we draw on (1) the multi-level transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world put forward by the Douglas Fir Group (Mod Lang J 100(S1):19-47, 2016), which examines how language learning and teaching are influenced by micro-, meso-, and macro-level forces, and (2) Darvin and Norton's (Annu Rev Appl Linguist 35:36-56, 2015) model of investment, which looks at the intersection of identity, capital and ideology. By combining these two frameworks, we explain how an ecologically-oriented LPP research agenda can be advanced by taking into consideration key social actors who exist in the complex material realities within which learners are embedded. We anchor our arguments in a case study of a Uyghur youth, Alim, in China whose Putonghua learning trajectory is traced as he moves across several cities over the span of 16 years. Alim's lived experience illustrates how a SLA and LPP interface can be realized in research.

This article reviews the process of design, development, and implementation of the Modern Greek online courses (Chinese version) in Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University (SFU), in collaboration with Chinese university partners. The purpose of this study is (a) to explore the effectiveness of the course design, and (b) to reveal the challenges to popularizing these courses in more Chinese universities. The findings from our survey of students in Beijing Language and Culture University show that the multimedia technology combined with appropriate instructional design can create a good learning environment that leads to effective language learning. Meanwhile, challenges have been revealed during the implementation that calls for future study. Other future research issues on learning the Greek language in China are also discussed. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)

We focus on the learning of English in a Chinese university in Jiangsu and the university's preferential language policy, which allowed Uyghur minority students from Xinjiang to be enrolled despite their lower scores in the entrance examination. Guided by the constructs of language ideologies [Kroskrity, P. V. (2000). "Regimes of language: Ideologies, politics, identities." Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press] and language regimes [Sonntag, S. K., & Cardinal, L. (2015). Introduction. In L. Cardinal & S. K. Sonntag (Eds.), "State traditions and language regimes" (pp. 3-26). Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press], we adopted an ethnographic approach [McCarty, T. L. (2015). Ethnography in language planning and policy research. In F. M. Hult & D. C. Johnson (Eds.), "Research methods in language policy and planning: A practical guide" (pp. 81-93). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell] to investigate how Uyghur students viewed their English learning and how the university responded to macro-level national language planning decisions to foster social harmony. Our findings revealed that the minority students were marginalized in their study of English and disadvantaged compared to Han students. Consequently, we argue for a consideration of the impact of power inequalities in relation to English language learning. Such a critical perspective entails (1) acknowledging the disadvantaged position from which these minority students began their formal education because English was a third language for them [Yang, J. (2005). "English as a third language among China's ethnic minorities." "International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism," 8(6), 552-567] and (2) recognizing that access to English education is not equitable because students who attend schools in economically developed provinces such as Jiangsu are more likely to get a better education in English than those from a less developed province such as Xinjiang.

Departing from the view that learner beliefs are mental traits and in keeping with the discursive turn in SLA (Kalaja, 1995, 2003; Young, 2009), I argue that SLA learner beliefs research can be advanced through the use of two constructs--language ideology and positioning--that originate from linguistic anthropology and discursive psychology, respectively. Applying these two constructs to a year-long ethnographic case study based in a Singapore secondary school, I investigate how the language ideologies and positioning of a 16-year old immigrant ESL learner from China ultimately impacted her language learning outcomes. To illustrate this, I draw on audio-taped interview and video-taped interaction data involving her. This study supports the view that a contextual approach to examining learner beliefs affords a refined understanding of beliefs through an emic perspective. (Contains 1 table.)

This article reports a cross-national study of developmental change in health-enhancing behavior--healthy eating and regular exercise--among adolescents in China and the United States. The application of a conceptual framework comprising psychosocial and behavioral protective and risk factors--both proximal and distal and at both the individual and social contextual level--is shown to provide a substantial account of variation in change in those behaviors over a 2-year interval. The explanatory account has generality across gender, the 3 grade cohorts, and most importantly, across the 2 markedly diverse societies.

This article reports on year-long critical ethnographic study conducted in a Singapore school and examines how the standard English language educational policy is interpreted by a Secondary 3 (Grade 9) female student from China. She is a member of an exclusive group of academically able students who has been carefully recruited by the local authorities and awarded scholarships in order to pursue their education in Singapore. This study sheds light on the language learning experience of a so-called designer immigrant, that is, an immigrant who possesses high-level skills and global goals and interests (Simmons 1999). By focusing specifically on how this student managed the ideologies embedded in the standard English language educational policy, the present study also explicates how operations of power at a local level are realized. The data of the study, including interviews, classroom interaction data, and written artifacts, revealed that even in the face of overwhelming forces, the student was able to exercise her agency and to do so in ways complementary to prevailing ideologies which subsequently bolstered her learning. This study contributes to a better understanding of designer immigrant students in contemporary language policy research and more broadly to advance the sociolinguistics of globalization (Blommaert 2003).

A theoretical framework about protective factors (models protection, controls protection, support protection) and risk factors (models risk, opportunity risk, vulnerability risk) was employed to articulate the content of 4 key contexts of adolescent life--family, peers, school, and neighborhood--in a cross-national study of problem behavior among 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-grade adolescents in the United States (n = 1,596) and the People's Republic of China (n = 1,739). Results were very similar in both samples and across genders. Measures of protection and risk in each of the 4 contexts uniquely contributed to the account of problem behavior involvement even when individual-level measures of protection and risk were controlled. Context protection was also shown to moderate individual-level risk and protection in 1 context moderated risk within that context and in other contexts. Controls protection--protection provided by rules, regulations, and expected sanctions for transgression from adults and peers--was the most important measure of context protection in all but 1 context. The family and peer contexts were the most influential in the U.S. sample, and the peer and school contexts were the most influential in the Chinese sample; the neighborhood context was least influential in both samples. (Contains 3 tables, 2 figures and 5 footnotes.)

Coastal ecosystems have ecological importance worldwide and require control and prevention measures to mitigate human pollution. The objective of this study was to perform a systematic review to provide a comprehensive overview of the global issue of coastal plastic pollution. 689 articles were eligible for qualitative synthesis and 31 were considered for quantitative analysis. There was an exponential increase in articles addressing coastal plastic pollution over the past 50 years. Studies were mainly carried out on beaches, and plastic bottles were the most found item, followed by cigarette butts. Polyethylene was the predominant plastic polymer, and white microplastic fragments stood out. China published most articles on the topic and Brazil had the highest number of sites sampled. Meta-analysis had significant effect sizes based on the reported data. These findings carry significant implications for environmental policies, waste management practices, and targeted awareness campaigns aimed at mitigating plastic pollution. [Display omitted] • Plastic bottles are the most found plastic items in coastal areas worldwide. • Polyethylene is the most prevalent typology of plastic in coastal environments. • Microplastics account for about 60 % of the plastics found in coastal zones • Exponential growth in publications on coastal plastic pollution after 1971 • Standardizing studies on plastic presence in the environment is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Relações Internacionais is the property of Relacoes Internacionais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Due to the researchers' pursuit for bioactive compounds to perform biological activities beneficial for human health, many plants species have been explored. Thus, loquat (Eriobotrya japonica), a subtropical plant originated in south-central China and is nowadays cultivated in more than 30 countries across the globe is drawing attention. Nowadays, its leaves and branches are processed into important pharmaceuticals while its fruit (pulp and peel) still remain insufficiently exploited being consumed mainly in natura. The aim of this work is to conduct a bibliometric survey throughout the Web of Science © (WOS) Main Collection and Dimensions database to highlight and correlate the research that has been carried out on this fruit. The goals are to discover the extent of the research that has already been conducted, from which fields of knowledge the research has been approached, and understand the study trends that point toward future applications in the food industry. With the data obtained by the up-to-date bibliometric analysis was possible to verify that the plant has been well explored in the medicinal, chemical, and pharmaceutical sector, while the fruit, especially their seed and their starch has been highlighted in the medicinal field or food science but with no extensive industrial usage. Only 112 papers were published regarding the loquat seeds and only 4 studied their by-products which are rich in bioactive compounds and therefore have great potential for food applications. • Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) is valuable plant and fruits with remarkable nutrient contents. • Scientific evidences suggest that the Eriobotrya japonica still is a very promising object of study. • Studies in the genetics field gained force recently and should become an important trend in the upcoming years. • Source of bioactive compounds for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food industries. • The fruit by-products could be used to produce biodegradable and edible food packaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural is the property of Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Personality disorders (PDs) are usually construed as psychiatric categories characterized by a unique configuration of traits and behaviors. To generate clinical hypotheses from normal personality trait scores, profile agreement statistics can be calculated using a prototypical personality profile for each PD. Multimethod data from 1,909 psychiatric patients in the People's Republic of China were used to examine the accuracy of such hypotheses in the Interpretive Report of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Profile agreement indices from both self-reports and spouse ratings were significantly related to PD symptom scores derived from questionnaires and clinical interviews. However, accuracy of diagnostic classification was only modest to moderate, probably because PDs are not discrete categorical entities. Together with other literature, these data suggest that the current categorical system should be replaced by a more comprehensive system of personality traits and personality-related problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the reliability, cross-instrument validity, and factor structure of Chinese adaptations of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire (PDQ-4+; N = 1,926) and Personality Disorders Interview (PDI-IV; N = 525) in psychiatric patients. Comparisons with data from Western countries suggest that the psychometric properties of these two instruments are comparable across cultures. Low to modest agreement between the PDQ-4+ and PDI-IV was observed for both dimensional and categorical personality disorder evaluations. When the PDI-IV was used as the diagnostic standard, the PDQ-4+ showed higher sensitivity than specificity, and higher negative predictive power than positive predictive power. Factor analyses of both instruments replicated the four-factor structure O'Connor and Dyce (1998) found in Western samples. Results suggested that conceptions and measures of DSM-IV personality disorders are cross-culturally generalizable to Chinese psychiatric populations.

Life experiences for corresponding age cohorts in the United States (US) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) have been dramatically different. If cohort effects account for cross-sectional age differences in mean levels of personality traits, different patterns of age differences should be seen in samples from the US and the PRC. The present study examined scores on scales from the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1987) in US (N = 348, age = 19-92 years) and PRC (N = 2,093, age = 18-67 years) samples. Very similar patterns of age correlations were seen. To compare results to other cross-cultural studies, CPI scales were interpreted in terms of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality; an FFM Age-Relatedness Index based on American data accurately predicted CPI age correlations not only in the US but also in the PRC sample. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that there are universal intrinsic maturational changes in personality.