Examining the role of ideological and political education on university students' civic perceptions and civic participation in Mainland China: Some hints from contemporary citizenship theory

A long existing compulsive curriculum of ideological and political education is employed by the Chinese government to promote citizenship education among Chinese university students. This article builds on the findings of a mixed-methods research that examined the role of ideological and political education on university students’ civic perceptions and civic participation. The results showed little evidence of this curriculum having a clear effect on students’ political participation such as voting, as well as their idealized broad civic participation, but did reveal relatively positive effects on students’ civic intention and civic expression. In addition, it also identified its significant role in organizing students towards attending party-related activities. It shows that ideological and political education is insufficient to achieve specified aims of citizenship education among Chinese university students. We then argue that it results from a mechanistic understanding of citizenship and participation in educational policies and structural barriers to young people’s formal participation. Hence, this article argues that the forms and contents of citizenship education in China need to be reconsidered beyond the limits of the current ideological and political education and that the analyses contributed to an argument for a broader approach to citizenship education to be developed and adopted

Vortex-state-mediated Josephson effect

The Josephson effect is a kind of macroscopic quantum phenomenon that supercurrent flows through a Josephson junction without any voltage applied. We predict a novel vortex-state-mediated Josephson effect in an SNS Josephson junction supporting vortices. The vortex-state-mediated supercurrent is enhanced or reduced significantly in magnitude depending on the junction length, and exhibits several steps with the number of effective propagating channels in current-phase evolution at zero temperature. At finite temperatures, these supercurrent steps persist in the short junction limit, and develop into sawtooth oscillations if the junction length becomes comparable to the coherence length $\xi=\hbar v_F/\Delta$ of the superconductor, and in later case a supercurrent reversal can be observed. These findings may provide a smoking-gun signature of vortex bound states in superconductors and promise possible applications in future Josephson devices.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Preliminary study of 10Be/7Be in rainwater from Xi'an by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry

The 10Be/7Be ratio is a sensitive tracer for the study of atmospheric transport, particularly with regard to stratosphere-troposphere exchange. Measurements with high accuracy and efficiency are crucial to 7Be and 10Be tracer studies. This article describes sample preparation procedures and analytical benchmarks for 7Be and 10Be measurements at the Xian Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (Xian-AMS) laboratory for the study of rainwater samples. We describe a sample preparation procedure to fabricate beryllium oxide (BeO) AMS targets that includes co-precipitation, anion exchange column separation and purification. We then provide details for the AMS measurement of 7Be and 10Be following the sequence BeO- -> Be2+ -> Be4+ in the Xian- AMS. The 10Be/7Be ratio of rainwater collected in Xian is shown to be about 1.3 at the time of rainfall. The virtue of the method described here is that both 7Be and 10Be are measured in the same sample, and is suitable for routine analysis of large numbers of rainwater samples by AMS