Search

In contrast to the continued decline of liberal arts education in the US, there has been a revived interest in liberal arts education in Asian countries in recent years. Grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the central tenets of liberal arts education in the West, this paper looks into the struggles Asian countries face in their exploration of liberal arts education and provides a direction for Asian countries in their efforts to practice liberal arts education. This paper establishes the deep connections between humanistic approaches of the Confucian tradition and liberal arts education by pointing to a common ground for the education of humanity. Ultimately, the purpose of liberal arts education, in the East as well as in the West, should be the liberation of human beings from the constraints of ignorance, prejudice and traditional customs and through the cultivation of a cosmopolitan morality that emphasizes unity, solidarity and the fusion of humankind. Chinese universities should contemplate the purpose and value of higher education in the 21st century and tap into the rich resources of Confucianism in order to give its liberal arts education a "soul."

Forest fires in the southern region of China pose significant threats to ecological balance, human safety, and socio-economic stability. Forecast zoning the occurrence of these fires is crucial for timely and effective response measures. This study employs the random forest algorithm and geospatial analysis, including kernel density and standard deviation ellipse methods, to predict forest fire occurrences. Historical fire data analysis reveals noteworthy findings: (i) Decreasing Trend in Forest Fires: The annual forest fire count in the southern region exhibits a decreasing trend from 2001 to 2019, indicating a gradual reduction in fire incidence. Spatial autocorrelation in fire point distribution is notably observed. (ii) Excellent Performance of Prediction Model: The constructed forest fire prediction model demonstrates outstanding performance metrics, achieving high accuracy, precision, recall, F1-scores, and AUC on the testing dataset. (iii) Seasonal Variations in High-Risk Areas: The probability of high-risk areas for forest fires in the southern region shows seasonal variations across different months. Notably, March to May sees increased risk in Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, and Fujian. June to August concentrates risk in Hunan and Jiangxi. September to November and December to February have distinct risk zones. These findings offer detailed insights into the seasonal variations of fire risk, providing a scientific basis for the prevention and control of forest fires in the southern region of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of left-behind children has emerged in rural China as a result of the large-scale migration of rural farmers to urban cities since the 1990s. With the absence of parent(s) from the family, the left-behind children face crises in socialization and their relationships with their parents are threatened by physical distance. This paper investigates how Chinese left-behind children negotiate the missing roles of parents and how the parent-child relations in such families change over time, through in-depth case studies of two left-behind children with different family backgrounds in rural Henan province.

Southwestern China is an area heavily affected by forest fires, having a complex combination of fire sources and a high degree of human interference. The region is characterized by karst topography and a mixture of agricultural and forested areas, as well as diverse and dynamic mountainous terrain. Analyzing the driving factors behind forest fire occurrences in this area and conducting fire risk zoning are of significant importance in terms of implementing effective forest fire management. The Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) model offers advantages in terms of efficiency, low memory usage, accuracy, scalability, and robustness, making it a powerful predictive algorithm that can handle large-scale data and complex problems. In this study, we used nearly 20 years of forest fire data in Southwestern China as the data source. Using mathematical statistics and kernel density analysis, we studied the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of forest fires in Southwestern China. Considering 16 variables, including climate, vegetation, human factors, and topography, we employed the LightGBM model to predict and zone forest fire occurrences in Southwestern China. The results indicated the following conclusions: (i) Forest fires in Southwestern China are primarily concentrated in certain areas of Sichuan Province (such as Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and Panzhihua City), Guizhou Province (such as Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture), Yunnan Province (such as Puer City, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, and Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture), and Chongqing Municipality. (ii) In terms of seasonality, forest fires are most frequent during the spring and winter, followed by the autumn and summer. (iii) The LightGBM forest fire prediction model yielded good results, having a training set accuracy of 83.088080%, a precision of 81.272437%, a recall of 88.760399%, an F1 score of 84.851539%, and an AUC of 91.317430%. The testing set accuracy was 79.987694%, precision was 78.541074%, recall was 85.978470%, F1 score was 82.091662%, and AUC was 87.977684%. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the LightGBM model in predicting forest fires in Southwest China, providing valuable insights regarding forest fire management and prevention efforts in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derived from the Confucian educational tradition, the term "Tongshi" reflects a contemporary Chinese effort to break away from the former Soviet legacy and forge undergraduate curricula on the basis of a US general education model. In recent years, "Tongshi" education reform has entered the spotlight in Chinese universities as they have sought international recognition. This article examines the cultural dynamics underlying "Tongshi" education reform in Chinese universities, using Renmin University of China (RUC), a well-known university in China, as a case. By exploring curriculum changes before and after the reform and investigating faculty and student attitudes toward "Tongshi" education at RUC, this article shows that although "Tongshi" education exhibits features in common with both a Chinese educational tradition and the Western notion of general education, it is, nonetheless, a created rhetoric in the contemporary discourse of "building world-class universities." (Contains 2 footnotes and 3 tables.)

Xiong'an New Area is defined as the future city of China, and the regulation of water resources is an important part of the scientific development of the city. Baiyang Lake, the main supplying water for the city, is selected as the study area, and the water quality extraction of four typical river sections is taken as the research objective. The GaiaSky-mini2-VN hyperspectral imaging system was executed on the UAV to obtain the river hyperspectral data for four winter periods. Synchronously, water samples of COD, PI, AN, TP, and TN were collected on the ground, and the in situ data under the same coordinate were obtained. A total of 2 algorithms of band difference and band ratio are established, and the relatively optimal model is obtained based on 18 spectral transformations. The conclusion of the strength of water quality parameters' content along the four regions is obtained. This study revealed four types of river self-purification, namely, uniform type, enhanced type, jitter type, and weakened type, which provided the scientific basis for water source traceability evaluation, water pollution source area analysis, and water environment comprehensive treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale monitoring of water quality parameters (WQPs) is one of the most critical issues for protecting and managing water resources. However, monitoring optically inactive WQPs, such as total nitrogen (TN), ammoniacal nitrogen (AN), and total phosphorus (TP) in inland waters, is still challenging. This study constructed retrieval models to explore the spatiotemporal evolution of TN, AN, and TP by Landsat 8 images, water quality sampling, and five machine learning algorithms (support vector regression, SVR; random forest regression, RFR; artificial neural networks, ANN; regression tree, RT; and gradient boosting machine, GBM) in the Nandu River downstream (NRD), a tropical river in China. The results indicated that these models can effectively monitor TN, AN, and TP concentrations at in situ sites. In particular, TN by RFR as well as AN and TP by ANN had better accuracy, in which the R2 value ranged between 0.44 and 0.67, and the RMSE was 0.03–0.33 mg/L in the testing dataset. The spatial distribution of TN, AN, and TP was seasonal in NRD from 2013–2022. TN and AN should be paid more attention to in normal wet seasons of urban and agricultural zones, respectively. TP, however, should be focus on in the normal season of agricultural zones. Temporally, AN decreased significantly in the normal and wet seasons while the others showed little change. These results could provide a large-scale spatial overview of the water quality, find the sensitive areas and periods of water pollution, and assist in identifying and controlling the non-point source pollution in the NRD. This study demonstrated that multispectral remote sensing and machine learning algorithms have great potential for monitoring optically inactive WQPs in tropical large-scale inland rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the successful holding of the Winter Olympics, China's enthusiasm for ice and snow sports has soared, and its enthusiasm for ice and snow tourism has also been further stimulated. At present, most of China's ice and snow tourism (IST) attractions are concentrated in the three eastern provinces. At the same time, due to the increasingly harsh environment, the natural landscape of IST is also shrinking. Therefore, this paper aims at studying the strategies of IST to optimize the ecological environment and economic growth from the perspective of sustainable development. First of all, this paper makes a certain introduction to the current situation of IST. After that, the current IST resources in China were analyzed, and the three northeastern provinces were taken as the research objects, and the distribution location, traffic conditions, and development trends of IST resources were studied in detail. Then, the autoregressive model is used to fit the tourism resources and tourist growth with the economic growth, and combined with the trend shown by the economic growth model, a strategy for the sustainable development of IST is proposed. The experimental results of this paper prove that the regional system attribute of IST resources and economic growth model is between 3 and 5, and the average is about 3.6, which shows that the growth of tourism resources has a positive correlation with economic growth. Therefore, from the perspective of sustainable development, the economic growth of the IST industry should also focus on the protection and humidity development of natural ice and snow landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vigorously developing high-tech industry has been considered to be an effective way to coordinate economic growth with excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, previous studies have not explored the heterogeneous impacts of high-tech industry on CO2 emissions in regions with different levels of high-tech industry development, and not distinguished the direct and indirect impacts. Based on STIRPAT model, this study investigates the impacts of high-tech industry development on CO2 emissions in China between 2005 and 2016. Adopting the K-medians cluster method, effects in regions with high, middle, and low levels of high-tech industry development are considered. Indirect effects of high-tech industry development on CO2 emissions by affecting industry structure upgrades and economic growth are explored. Empirical results illustrate a positive U-shaped nonlinear link between the level of high-tech industry development and CO2 emissions at the national level and regional (high, middle, and low) level. In terms of indirect impacts, high-tech industry development attenuates the reduction of CO2 emissions due to industry structure upgrades, and promotes economic growth to increase CO2 emissions slightly. The indirect impact intensity gradually decreases as the level of high-tech industry development decreases across three regions. Reasonable implications of our findings are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2001, the Chinese government had passed a series of policies known as ‘the two primary responsibilities’ to allow the rural migrant children to attend urban public schools. However, what the migrant children actually experienced in and after negotiating access to these schools deserves serious attention from educators, scholars and policymakers. Based on prolonged ethnographic fieldwork in a Beijing public school, this study demonstrated three key aspects of exclusions in migrant children’s schooling experiences, namely, (1) access to school, (2) in-class participations and (3) peer interactions, and examined the ‘hidden curriculum’ in the existing school practices that prevented migrant children from integrating successfully in the urban school settings. We found that academic performance lay at the root of social exclusions, but the local educators’ perceptions of migrant children as outsiders, the urban-oriented school curricular and urban children’s involvement (vis-à-vis migrant children’s little involvement) in the extracurricular activities at school as well as the paid supplementary trainings outside school together formed the ‘hidden curriculum’ that led to the marginalization of migrant students in the urban school system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Culex pipiens pallens is the most abundant Culex mosquito species in northern China and is an important vector of bancroftian filariasis and West Nile virus. Deltamethrin is an insecticide that is widely used for mosquito control, however resistance to this and other insecticides has become a major challenge in the control of vector-borne diseases that appear to be inherited quantitatively. Furthermore, the genetic basis of insecticide resistance remains poorly understood. In this study, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping of resistance to deltamethrin was conducted in F2 intercross segregation populations using bulked segregation analysis (BSA) and amplified fragment length polymorphism markers (AFLP) in Culex pipiens pallens. A genetic linkage map covering 381 cM was constructed and a total of seven QTL responsible for resistance to deltamethrin were detected by composite interval mapping (CIM), which explained 95% of the phenotypic variance. The major QTL in linkage group 2 accounted for 62% of the variance and is worthy of further study. 12 AFLP markers in the map were cloned and the genomic locations of these marker sequences were determined by applying the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) tool to the genome sequence of the closely related Culex quinquefasciatus. Our results suggest that resistance to deltamethrin is a quantitative trait under the control of a major QTL in Culex pipiens pallens. Cloning of related AFLP markers confirm the potential utility for anchoring the genetic map to the physical map. The results provide insight into the genetic architecture of the trait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the recent heightened interethnic conflicts that were regarded as threatening national unity and stability, the Chinese government issued ‘ethnic solidarity education’ as a top-down, centrally administered mandate to be implemented ‘correctly’ and in a standardised way by schools throughout China. This paper examines the policy and practice of ethnic solidarity education against the broader, historical context of ethnic relations in China. Based on empirical data obtained through extensive fieldwork in selective Beijing public schools, this study concludes that ethnic solidarity education bears resemblance to multicultural education in the western educational discourse, yet retains special characteristics as an indigenous form of education in the unique Chinese context. Although various teaching and extracurricular activities involving ethnic elements are added to the school curriculum and applauded by the Chinese educators and policymakers as important signs of ethnic integration and cultural pluralism, they tend to focus on static cultural artefacts without touching upon the deeper levels of understandings on ethnicity and the majority–minority relations, and therefore cannot create a truly multicultural learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Vector-borne diseases remain a threat to public health, especially in tropical countries. The incompatible insect technique has been explored as a potential control strategy for several important insect vectors. However, this strategy has not been tested in Culex pipiens pallens, the most prevalent mosquito species in China. Previous works used introgression to generate new strains that matched the genetic backgrounds of target populations while harboring a new Wolbachia endosymbiont, resulting in mating competitiveness and cytoplasmic incompatibility. The generation of these incompatible insects is often time-consuming, and the long-term stability of the newly created insect-Wolbachia symbiosis is uncertain. Considering the wide distribution of Cx. pipiens pallens and hence possible isolation of different populations, we sought to test for incompatibilities between natural populations and the possibility of exploiting these incompatibilities as a control strategy. Methodology/Principal Findings: Three field populations were collected from three geographic locations in eastern China. Reciprocal cross results showed that bi-directional patterns of incompatibility existed between some populations. Mating competition experiments indicated that incompatible males could compete with cognate males in mating with females, leading to reduced overall fecundity. F1 offspring from incompatible crosses maintained their maternal crossing types. All three populations tested positive for Wolbachia. Removal of Wolbachia by tetracycline rendered matings between these populations fully compatible. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings indicate that naturally occurring patterns of cytoplasmic incompatibility between Cx. pipiens pallens populations can be the basis of a control strategy for this important vector species. The observed incompatibilities are caused by Wolbachia. More tests including field trials are warranted to evaluate the feasibility of this strategy as a supplement to other control measures. Author Summary: Population suppression is an important component of mosquito control measures. The incompatible insect technique exploits the monogamous mating behavior of female mosquitoes to decrease the percentage of females inseminated by compatible males and hence reduce overall fecundity. Previous studies used genetically engineered Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes as the sources of incompatible males. The long-term stability of these mosquitoes is unknown. In this study, we examined naturally occurring incompatibilities between different field populations of Culex pipiens pallens, a vector of West Nile Virus and filarial worms widely distributed in China. We found that bi-directional patterns of incompatibility existed between some Cx. pipiens pallens populations. Incompatible males could compete against cognate males in mating with females and suppress reproduction. The level of suppression depended on the relative population sizes of incompatible and cognate males. We also found that these incompatibilities were preserved in the offspring from incompatible crosses, indicating that this control strategy is likely to be sustainable when applied repeatedly to successive mosquito generations. Our data also indicate that these incompatibilities were caused by endosymbiont Wolbachia, which is also the basis for cytoplasmic incompatibility in a variety of mosquito species. Our results may help to design simpler and more time-effective control strategies for a number of vector-borne diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworms are excellent indicators of landscape fragmentation due to their widespread distribution and poor dispersal abilities over water. Based on field studies conducted in the Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas and their associated islands during summer 2009, we analysed the genetic variation of Drawida japonica Michaelsen, 1892 (Oligochaeta, Moniligastridae) using DNA sequences of the 16S and 28S ribosomal genes in samples obtained from 13 localities, 12 of which were islands, one artificially connected to the mainland by man (Yangma SC). We identified 55 haplotypes among 79 samples, based on 1094 bp, including 47 unique haplotypes. The phylogenetic tree topologies showed two distinct clades. A multiple-apex Poisson distribution using a mismatch analysis of nucleotides was also detected. Results of a Tajima D neutral test were not significant (p > 0.05). Genetic divergence among populations was much larger than within populations. A positive relationship between genetic diversity and island area was revealed, but no significant correlation between genetic diversity and distance to the nearest larger landmass was found. These results indicate that the intraspecific genetic diversity of D. japonica has been influenced by geographic isolation (i.e. island habitat). Passive transport via anthropogenic activities or nonhuman vertebrates (birds or mammals) may also play a key role in dispersal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Orienteering has gradually changed from a professional sport to a civilian sport. Especially in recent years, orienteering has been widely popularized. Many colleges and universities in China have also set up this course. With the improvement of people's living conditions, orienteering has really become a leisure sport in modern people's life. The reduced difficulty of sports enables more people to participate, but it also exposes a series of problems. As the existing positioning technology is relatively backward, the progress in personnel tracking, emergency services, and other aspects is slow. To solve these problems, a new intelligent orienteering application system is developed based on the Internet of things. ZigBee network architecture is adopted in the system. ZigBee is the mainstream scheme in the current wireless sensor network technology, which has many advantages such as convenient carrying, low power consumption, and signal stability. Due to the complex communication environment in mobile signal, the collected information is processed by signal amplification and signal anti-interference technology. By adding anti-interference devices, video isolators and other devices, the signal is guaranteed to the maximum extent. In order to verify the actual effect of this system, through a number of experimental studies including the relationship between error and traffic radius and the relationship between coverage and the number of anchor nodes, the data shows that the scheme studied in this paper has a greater improvement in comprehensive performance than the traditional scheme, significantly improving the accuracy and coverage. Especially the coverage is close to 100% in the simulation experiment. This research has achieved good results and can be widely used in orienteering training and competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • This study developed a quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation approach for 6:2 Cl-PFESA health risk assessment. • Intracellular concentration served as bioactivity equivalent concentrations reduced extrapolation uncertainties. • hsa-miR-93-5p/EHHADH axis could serve as an efficient toxicity marker for risk assessment. Human health risk assessment of chemicals is essential but often relies on time-consuming and animal and labor-extensive procedures. Here, we develop a population-based, quantitative in vitro to in vivo extrapolation (QIVIVE) approach which depended on cellular effects monitored by in vitro assays, considered chemical internal concentration determined by LC-MS/MS, extrapolated into in vivo target tissue concentration through physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling, and assessed populational health risk using in silico modelling. By applying this QIVIVE approach to 6:2 chlorinated polyfluorinated ether sulfonate (6:2 Cl-PFESA), as a representative of the emerging pollutants, we find that 6:2 Cl-PFESA disturbed lipid homeostasis in HepG2 cells through enhancement of lipid accumulation and fatty acid β-oxidation, during which miR-93-5p served as a key event towards toxicity and thus, could serve as an efficient toxicity marker for risk assessment; further, the disruption potency of lipid homeostasis of 6:2 Cl-PFESA for the most of studied populations in China might be of moderate concern. Together, our approach improved the reliability of QIVIVE during human health risk assessment, which can readily be used for other chemicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The region along the Taihang Mountains in the North China Plain (NCP) is characterized by serious fine particle pollution. To clarify the formation mechanism and controlling factors, an observational study was conducted to investigate the physical and chemical properties of the fine particulate matter in Jiaozuo city, China. Mass concentrations of the water-soluble ions (WSIs) in PM 2.5 and gaseous pollutant precursors were measured on an hourly basis from December 1, 2017, to February 27, 2018. The positive matrix factorization (PMF) method and the FLEXible PARTicle (FLEXPART) model were employed to identify the sources of PM 2.5. The results showed that the average mass concentration of PM 2.5 was 111 μg/m3 during the observation period. Among the major WSIs, sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium (SNA) constituted 62% of the total PM 2.5 mass, and NO 3 − ranked the highest with an average contribution of 24.6%. NH 4 + was abundant in most cases in Jiaozuo. According to chemical balance analysis, SO 4 2−, NO 3 −, and Cl− might be present in the form of (NH 4) 2 SO 4 , NH 4 NO 3 , NH 4 Cl, and KCl. The liquid-phase oxidation of SO 2 and NO 2 was severe during the haze period. The relative humidity and pH were the key factors influencing SO 4 2- formation. We found that NO 3 − mainly stemmed from homogeneous gas-phase reactions in the daytime and originated from the hydrolysis of N 2 O 5 in the nighttime, which was inconsistent with previous studies. The PMF model identified five sources of PM 2.5 : secondary origin (37.8%), vehicular emissions (34.7%), biomass burning (11.5%), coal combustion (9.4%), and crustal dust (6.6%). [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss regularity of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and chemical oxygen demand (COD Mn ) of runoff under different rainfall intensity and different management practices in Phyllostachys praecox cv. prevernalis forest land was studied. The total nitrogen (TN) and COD Mn concentration in runoff were significantly correlated with the rainfall intensity under the three management modes named as control, fertilization, and cover. Moreover, N mainly lost in the form of nitrate (NO 3 - -N). Generally, the relationship between total and dissolved phosphorus (TP and DP) loss in the three management modes was estimated in following orders: coverage > fertilization > control. The loss of P was mainly in the granular state, and the loss of DP only accounted negligible amount of the TP loss. The loss of COD Mn was closely related to the magnitude of rainfall intensity. Results revealed that COD Mn concentration in runoff under fertilization and cover management was significantly correlated with the rain fall intensity.

Vigorously developing high-tech industry has been considered to be an effective way to coordinate economic growth with excessive carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. However, previous studies have not explored the heterogeneous impacts of high-tech industry on CO 2 emissions in regions with different levels of high-tech industry development, and not distinguished the direct and indirect impacts. Based on STIRPAT model, this study investigates the impacts of high-tech industry development on CO 2 emissions in China between 2005 and 2016. Adopting the K-medians cluster method, effects in regions with high, middle, and low levels of high-tech industry development are considered. Indirect effects of high-tech industry development on CO 2 emissions by affecting industry structure upgrades and economic growth are explored. Empirical results illustrate a positive U-shaped nonlinear link between the level of high-tech industry development and CO 2 emissions at the national level and regional (high, middle, and low) level. In terms of indirect impacts, high-tech industry development attenuates the reduction of CO 2 emissions due to industry structure upgrades, and promotes economic growth to increase CO 2 emissions slightly. The indirect impact intensity gradually decreases as the level of high-tech industry development decreases across three regions. Reasonable implications of our findings are proposed.