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Based on a theoretical perspective of the optimum stimulation level (OSL), we investigate how the cross-media usage (multi-device and multi-app usage) of individual users influences their exploration of new music in a music-streaming platform. We also examine whether gender moderates the link between cross-media usage and new music exploration behavior. We analyze survey responses from 1116 college students in China, and our findings show a significant and positive effect of multi-device usage on new music exploration. By contrast, multi-app usage does not have any statistically significant effect. The results also indicate that being a woman positively moderates the relationship between multi-app usage and new music exploration behavior. Our study contributes to the understanding of exploratory user behavior in a new media context by linking the OSL theory to digital music consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, which has made a major economic breakthrough, has become one of the most important actors in international politics by increasing its military power in recent years. China's increasing power and influence in the international arena arouses increasing curiosity about the country's foreign policy. With Xi Jinping becoming president, China began to display a more assertive attitude or behavior on many issues. This study basically seeks an answer to the question of what differences Xi Jinping brought to Chinese foreign policy. What kind of changes do these differences lead to in Chinese foreign policy? In this study, the general tendencies and directions of Chinese foreign policy during the Xi Jinping period are discussed. The assertive foreign policy approach that Xi Jinping is trying to implement is analyzed. In this context, the visions of "Chinese dream", "new type of great power relations", "new type of international relations", "Belt and Road Initiative" and "a community with a common future for humanity", which reflect Xi's assertive foreign policy approach, are examined. At the same time, challenges to the assertive foreign policy implemented under Xi Jinping are discussed. The study mainly questions the extent to which Xi Jinping's assertive foreign policy approach is successful. The study concludes that Xi Jinping's active foreign policy approach has not increased China's sphere of influence in the international arena to the extent expected. As China becomes more visible in the international arena, the country's foreign policy challenges seem to be increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of psychological stimuli on students' continuance intention to use massive open online courses (MOOCs), through the mediation effects of emotions under a stimulus-organism-response framework. Perceived competition, perceived risk, and curiosity are the psychological stimuli. Four emotions (happiness, interest, sadness, and anxiety), enjoyment, and stress are considered as the organism. Continuance intention to use MOOCs for learning is the response. To test the hypotheses empirically, 574 valid responses were collected from individuals who claimed that they had learning experience on the Chinese University MOOC. This is a well-known, official online learning platform supported by the Chinese Education Ministry and has the largest number of active MOOC users in China. The study employs partial least squares structural equation modeling to validate the research model. The results show that perceived competition has both positive and negative effects, perceived risk has no significant effect, curiosity only has a beneficial effect, and the four emotions play important mediation roles. This research unveils the internal effect mechanisms of psychological factors and emotions on continuance intention in the context of online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US–China relations are increasingly important for international politics. It is a matter of curiosity what kind of relationship the United States, which is still the hegemonic power, will have with the rising China. As an unexpected event, the 9/11 attacks changed the foreign policy priorities of the United States. Likewise, these attacks caused a significant change in the normal course of China–US relations. This study aimed to respond to the question of how the 9/11 attacks and the events that followed impacted China–US relations. In this study, it is claimed that the 9/11 attacks delayed the rise of China as a top priority in the US foreign policy for a long time. It is argued that the 9/11 attacks prevented the formation of a consistent policy against China. The 9/11 attacks and the developments afterward delayed the US view of China as a strategic competitor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of Chinese scientists are working overseas, especially in the USA and Europe, where scientific communities are highly internationalized and diverse. In contrast, international scientists working in China are fewer, naturally generating some curiosity about them—why do they come to China, and how are their experiences in China? In this article, we introduce five such scientists and their stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Mathematical modeling has become a crucial competence in mathematics education in many countries and regions due to the increasingly complex real-world problems that students face in the 21st century. Previous research has shown that mathematical modeling contributes to the development of students’ creativity, particularly with respect to stimulating and protecting the curiosity of children. However, previous studies have not explored or examined the relationships among middle school students’ mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, and creativity based on data drawn from large-scale assessments and have not investigated the influence of teachers’ teaching methods in this context. Methods: This study used convenience sampling to select 4,531 seventhgrade students from eastern and western, urban and rural areas in China. Online tests and questionnaires were used to measure their mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, creativity and guided inquiry teaching, and a moderated mediation model was used to analyze the effect of mathematical modeling competency on creativity. Results: The results showed the following. (1) There are statistically significant differences between boys and girls in terms of their mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, and creativity. Specifically, boys score significantly higher than girls on these variables. (2) Creativity exhibits a statistically significant positive correlation with mathematical modeling competency, curiosity, and guided inquiry teaching. (3) Curiosity mediates the relationship between mathematical modeling competency and creativity, and guided inquiry teaching moderates the influence of curiosity. In high-level guided inquiry teaching classes, curiosity has a stronger influence on creativity, and it mediates the relationship between mathematical modeling competency and creativity more strongly. Discussion: This study empirically verified the influence of mathematical modeling competency on creativity and provided a possible way to cultivate children’s creativity. Future research should use longitudinal analysis to verify the causal relationship between mathematical modeling competency and creativity and to systematically explore the possible path by which mathematical modeling competency affects creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical evidence demonstrated the significant contributions of character strengths to wellbeing. However, the co- or non-existence of a general factor (G-factor) of good character and the specific factors (S-factors) of character strengths (i.e., inquisitiveness, caring, and self-control) remain debatable. A total of 1866 individuals from Mainland China completed the Three-dimensional Inventory of Character Strengths (TICS), of which a sub-sample (N = 498) also completed the additional Flourishing Scale. The bifactor Exploratory Structural Equation Model (bifactor-ESEM) were tested, results showed the bifactor-ESEM model of character strengths had excellent goodness-of-fit. G-factor and the S-factors were well defined by the presence of strong and significant target loadings. The G-factor and S-factors' contribution to wellbeing were further examined through ESEM-within-CFA (EwC) method. The G-factor significantly explained the 50.3% variance of wellbeing when it was the sole predictor and remained significant when inquisitiveness, caring, and self-control factors were considered. The present study confirmed the G-factor of character strengths and its significant contribution to wellbeing. Future studies can develop clinical and non-clinical wellbeing enhancement interventions with a focus on general and specific character strengths that transcend the current signature-strengths paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of entrepreneurial passion on business model innovation has become a research focus in the field of entrepreneurship. This study aimed to examine the effect of entrepreneurial passion on entrepreneurial learning and business model innovation. The study used partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM 4) to test the hypotheses on a sample of 389 manufacturing and technology enterprises in the South region of Henan province China. The results of this study revealed that entrepreneurial passion has a positive and significant influence on entrepreneurial learning and business model innovation. The findings of this study showed that entrepreneurial learning positively and significantly mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and business model innovation. Furthermore, the results of this study indicated that curiosity positively and significantly moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and entrepreneurial learning. Lastly, the results are discussed with implications and limitations, which open up future research perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study characterized the whole genome of Companilactobacillus futsaii subsp. chongqingii CQ16Z1 isolated from Chongqing of China, performed genome sequence analysis with Companilactobacillus futsaii subsp. futsaii YM0097 isolated from Taiwan of China, and experimentally verified drug resistance and effect on the exploratory behavior of male C57BL/6 mice and analysis of gut microbiota and metabolomic studies. The genome of CQ16Z1 is 2.6 Mb. Sequence analysis between genomes showed that the two strains are Companilactobacillus futsaii. The unique genes of CQ16Z1 and YM0097 are 217 and 267, which account for 9% and 11% of the whole genomes, respectively. According to unique gene annotation, the results showed that genes associated with carbohydrate metabolism, environmental information processing, metabolism of cofactors and vitamins, cell wall/membrane/envelope biogenesis, phage and drug resistance are significantly different. The results of the drug resistance experiment showed that YM0097 had different degrees of resistance to 13 antibiotics, while CQ16Z1 was sensitive to more than half of them. YM0097 contains 9 prophage regions and CQ16Z1 contains 3 prophage regions. The results of the open field test showed that the time (P = 0.005; P = 0.047) and distance (P < 0.010; P = 0.046) of the central area of Y97 group and CQ group are significantly different from the control group. The results of the elevated plus maze test showed that compared with the control group, Y97 group had significant differences in the number of entries to the open arms and the percentage of open arms entry times (P = 0.004; P = 0.025), while the difference between the CQ group and the control group was not significant. YM0097 has a more obvious effect on the exploratory behavior of mice. The effects of YM0097 and CQ16Z1 on the intestinal flora of mice are also different. YM0097 may be more beneficial to the intestinal flora of the host. And LC/MS also showed that the metabolic effects of the two strains on the host are different. Finally, we believe that YM0097 is more suitable for application research as a psychobiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2019, China has gradually seen a "blind box" boom, and young people have quickly become the main buying force of blind boxes, promoting the continuous development of the blind box industry. Previous studies have shown that uncertainty in events with positive prospects can play a more positive role than certainty. However, how does uncertainty in the blind box affect consumers' emotions and cognition and trigger subsequent consumption decisions? To clarify the internal mechanism of this process, this paper takes the blind box as the research object and constructs the mechanism model of perceived uncertainty on consumers' impulsive purchase intention, based on Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theory. In addition, the curiosity variable and perceived luck variable are introduced according to the information gap theory and optimism theory. On this basis, we conduct an empirical analysis by means of a questionnaire survey. The results show that perceived uncertainty has a positive impact on consumers' impulsive purchase intentions, in which curiosity plays a mediating role. Besides, perceived luck positively moderates the impact of perceived uncertainty on impulsive purchase intention. This study clarifies the internal impact of perceived uncertainty on impulsive purchase intention of the blind box and enriches the basic theory of uncertainty reward and purchase intention. At the same time, we also offer related recommendations for future enterprises to learn from the marketing model of uncertain rewards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If the major endeavor of Taiwan anthropology’s study of the ethnic Han during the 1960s and 1970s focused on dimensions of culture and society harking back to the Qing dynasty, there remained in the background a powerful but unsatisfied curiosity regarding contemporary China. The opening up of China to fieldwork initiated a period of new concern with the present, in China research, to be sure, but also for anthropology in Taiwan. The middle-class transformation of society on both sides of the Taiwan Straits created the environment for a new phase of anthropological research. For China anthropology the middle class has become a defining element in the study both of those who are in it and those marginal to it. Middle-class characteristics now dominate this anthropology, ranging from the emergence of individualism and the triumph of the commodified and commodity-seeking self to the struggle for place in an insecure and rapidly changing class setting, to nationalism, and even to the impact of automobile ownership. Contrasts with Taiwan highlight and make explicit how China ethnologies share a framework of research and analysis, albeit one not defined by shared theoretical approaches, but nevertheless one that might be usefully and critically expanded to include comparable areas of concern in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise or fall of China has always been the determining factor in the East Asian regional order. The re-emergence of China as a great power in the 21st century accelerates the discussions on how the regional and global order will be shaped. China's economic and military power leads an asymmetrical dependency relationship with many actors in favor of China. It is a matter of curiosity whether the economic and military inequality between China and other countries will lead to a hierarchical order as in the tribute system. In this study, what kind of order the rising China will seek was analyzed based on historical experiences. The study aims to answer the question of how an economically and militarily powerful China will conduct its foreign affairs. It is argued that the economic and military asymmetry between China and other countries will allow China's relations with some countries to be carried out on an unequal basis, as in the tribute system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the representation of China in La Chine ouverte: aventures d'un Fan-Koueï dans le pays de Tsin (1845). Pretending to be an expert on China, the author provides a panorama of Chinese society in the late Qing. Yet, this is a fictional travel account, as the author did not set foot in China. Thus, its representations are based either on second-hand knowledge or imagination. Along with literary and visual representations, one finds a discourse permeated by the contemporary surge of colonialism and the insatiable curiosity of the West regarding Chinese culture, and how realism, vraisemblance , and imagination can be fraught with ideological implications and interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experience report seeks to present an experience of socio-educational inclusion carried out in a non-formal teaching environment through the project methodology. The experience aimed to elaborate, develop and exhibit a project about China, striving to work on its multiple potentials. It was characterized as a case study, of a qualitative nature, and used the project methodology for its realization. It took place for a semester at a Civil Society Organization in the interior of São Paulo that assists girls, children and adolescents in vulnerable situations. Girls between 8 and 12 years old were selected, among them, one with Cerebral Palsy. Based on the interest of the participants, during the meetings, each group researched a certain curiosity about the mentioned country. Throughout the process, the participants had opportunities to make choices about their interest in the subject. The experience was enriching for all, including the girl with Cerebral Palsy who participated throughout the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A suboptimal housing environment such as small cage size can adversely influence many aspects of the biology of laboratory animals including their response in behavioral tests. However, the effect of cage size on the mental and physical conditions of Kunming mice, which have been widely used to develop models of depression, anxiety, and many other diseases in China, are still far from clear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cage size on reproductive ability, exploratory behavior, anxiety, and working memory of Kunming mice. Two cage sizes were used, including a standard cage (20 × 30 × 25 cm3) and a restricted cage (10 × 20 × 25 cm3). The results revealed that compared with mice in the standard cages, mice in the restricted cages showed: (I) a decreased delivery rate of dams (P < 0.05) and a lower survival rate of offspring (P < 0.05), specifically in females (P < 0.05); (II) a decreased exploratory behavior (P < 0.01) and an increased anxiety level (P < 0.01); and (III) higher working memory in the T -maze test (P < 0.05). These results indicated that a restricted cage size has detrimental effects on the reproductive ability and anxiety level, but its effect on cognitive ability is complex and warrants further study. In short, these results provide empirical evidence for better practices in caring for Kunming mice, with some cautions about the effects of cage size on behavioral tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience and positive mental health may be negatively influenced by childhood maltreatment. While many scholars have noted that adolescents exposed to childhood emotional abuse could meet the criteria for flourishing, little research has investigated the mediating effect of self-compassion and the moderating effect of curiosity on the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and adolescent flourishing. This study proposed and tested a moderated mediation model that attempted to explain the pathway from childhood emotional abuse to adolescent flourishing. The sample consisted of 315 female students (mean age 12.81 years, range 12–14 years) in a girls' secondary school in Hong Kong, China. We conducted a three-wave study with six-month intervals. The participants completed self-administered questionnaires at school under the guidance of trained research assistants. Self-compassion at Time 2 mediated the relationship between childhood emotional abuse at Time 1 and adolescent flourishing at Time 3. Furthermore, the mediating effect was moderated by adolescent curiosity at Time 1 and Time 2. The findings of this study suggested that although childhood emotional abuse may hinder the development of self-compassion, reduced levels of self-compassion and curiosity (especially the stretch dimension of curiosity) could work together to promote flourishing in adolescents with a history of childhood emotional abuse. The results lent further support to the developmental psychopathology and resilience perspectives in explaining the relationship between childhood trauma and positive developmental outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS)—China Form consists of four subscales, with six items each to measure Concern, Control, Curiosity, and Confidence as psychosocial resources for managing occupational transitions, developmental tasks, and work traumas. This study investigated the construction and validation of its Chinese Form. Results indicated that 1) internal consistency estimates for the subscale and total scores ranged from good to excellent; 2) the factor structure of this scale was quite similar to the one computed with combined data from 13 countries; 3) the CAAS China Form was identical to the International Form; 4) male students displayed significantly higher scores than female students on all dimensions of CAAS except for Concern, and freshmen and juniors exhibited higher adaptability than sophomores. Implications and future research directions are examined. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There have been numerous researches on autonomous learning, cooperative learning, and exploratory learning, but lack those concerning their relationship. The present aims at that goal from the perspectives of their natures, factors, and functions respectively. It is based on the three dimensions (content, motivation, and interaction) of learning process proposed by the Comprehensive Learning Theory, and discusses the relationship of the three ways of learning. It concludes with a discussion of the possible ways of combination of the three regarding the case of knowledge building community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a self-determination theory perspective, this study tries to investigate how perceived autonomy support, perceived relatedness and competence affect high school students’ intrinsic motivations (enjoyment and curiosity) to use the Internet, and the related outcomes of the motivation. Surveys are distributed to seven junior and ten senior high schools in a prefectural-level city in central China. Existing instruments from previous research are adapted to measure the following constructs: teacher support, parental support, peer influence, Internet self-efficacy, enjoyment, curiosity, flow state and online exploratory behavior. Finally, 3475 valid responses are collected. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to test the research model and the following results are obtained: i) for the perceived autonomy dimension, teacher support only significantly affects curiosity while parental support doesn’t have any significant effect on the two intrinsic motivations; ii) as to the perceived relatedness dimension, peer influence is found to exert the greatest influence on both motivations, and Internet self-efficacy, which belongs to the perceived competence dimension, also positively relates to enjoyment and curiosity; iii) as to the outcomes of intrinsic motivations, both enjoyment and curiosity lead to flow state, however, curiosity rather than enjoyment positively relates to online exploratory behavior, and flow experience also predicts exploratory behaviors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reasonable optimal operation policy for complex multiple reservoir systems is very important for the safe and efficient utilization of water resources. The operation policy of multiple hydropower reservoirs should be optimized to maximize total hydropower generation, while ensuring flood control safety by effective and efficient storage and release policy of multiple reservoirs. To achieve this goal, a new meta-heuristic algorithm, salp swarm algorithm (SSA), is used to optimize the joint operation of multiple hydropower reservoirs for the first time. SSA is a competitive bio-inspired optimizer, which has received substantial attention from researchers in a wide variety of applications in finance, engineering, and science because of its little controlling parameters and adaptive exploratory behavior. However, it still faces few drawbacks such as lack of exploitation and local optima stagnation, leading to a slow convergence rate. In order to tackle these problems, multiple strategies combining sine cosine operator, opposition-based learning mechanism, and elitism strategy are applied to the original SSA. The sine cosine operator is applied to balance the exploration and exploitation over the course of iteration; the opposition-based learning mechanism is used to enhance the diversity of the swarm; and the elitism strategy is adopted to find global optima. Then, the improved SSA (ISSA) is compared with six well-known meta-heuristic algorithms on 23 classical benchmark functions. The results obtained demonstrate that ISSA outperforms most of the well-known algorithms. Then, ISSA is applied to optimal operation of multiple hydropower reservoirs in the real world. A multiple reservoir system, namely Xiluodu Reservoir and Xiangjiaba Rservoir, in the upper Yangtze River of China are selected as a case study. The results obtained show that the ISSA is able to solve a real-world optimization problem with complex constraints. In addition, for the typical flood with a 100 return period in 1954, the maximum hydropower generation of multiple hydropower reservoirs is about 6671 GWh in the case of completing the flood control task, increasing by 1.18% and 1.77% than SSA and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), respectively. Thus, ISSA can be used as an alternative effective and efficient tool for the complex optimization of multiple hydropower reservoirs. The water resources in the river basin can be further utilized by the proposed method to cope with the increasingly serious climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China was the first airline market in the world to be hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been gradually recovering as the pandemic is largely contained domestically. However, with the global pandemic spread and great uncertainty, there has been a remarkable change in airline passengers' travel behavior. This paper collected air passenger-level data from TravelSky in the Chinese market. In addition to the analyses on aggregate passenger flow patterns, this paper explores changes in airline passenger travel behavior, such as ticket booking time, age distribution of passengers, refunds and ticket changes, and passenger arrival time at airports. This is one of the first studies to focus on micro-level changes in airline passenger travel behavior by using objective passenger-level data. The pandemic-induced psychological changes in air travelers are explored, providing useful managerial and policymaking implications for the normalization of the pandemic and the recovery of the airline market in the post-pandemic era. • There has been a remarkable change in airline passengers' travel behavior. • This paper collected air passenger-level data from TravelSky in the Chinese market. • We examine changes in airline passenger travel behavior. • Ticket booking time, age distribution, refunds and ticket changes, and passenger arrival time are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how the thirty years since Deng Xiaoping and other leaders opened China to the outside world has fostered major scientific progress; however, some feel that there are still problems that must be addressed. Certain individuals, including Chinese neuroscientist Rao Yi and theoretical physicist Zhou Guangzhao, assert that China is not achieving its full potential in science. They cite issues such as a lack of scientific curiosity and success being evaluated on quantity, rather than quality, of research. The history of China's period of scientific revival is provided and the importance of grants is discussed.