Illegal births and legal abortions – the case of China

BACKGROUND: China has a national policy regulating the number of children that a woman is allowed to have. The central concept at the individual level application is "illegal pregnancy". The purpose of this article is to describe and problematicize the concept of illegal pregnancy and its use in practice. METHODS: Original texts and previous published and unpublished reports and statistics were used. RESULTS: By 1979 the Chinese population policy was clearly a policy of controlling population growth. For a pregnancy to be legal, it has to be defined as such according to the family-level eligibility rules, and in some places it has to be within the local quota. Enforcement of the policy has been pursued via the State Family Planning (FP) Commission and the Communist Party (CP), both of which have a functioning vertical structure down to the lowest administrative units. There are various incentives and disincentives for families to follow the policy. An extensive system has been created to keep the contraceptive use and pregnancy status of all married women at reproductive age under constant surveillance. In the early 1990s FP and CP officials were made personally responsible for meeting population targets. Since 1979, abortion has been available on request, and the ratio of legal abortions to birth increased in the 1980s and declined in the 1990s. Similar to what happens in other Asian countries with low fertility rates and higher esteem for boys, both national- and local-level data show that an unnaturally greater number of boys than girls are registered as having been born. CONCLUSION: Defining a pregnancy as "illegal" and carrying out the surveillance of individual women are phenomena unique in China, but this does not apply to other features of the policy. The moral judgment concerning the policy depends on the basic question of whether reproduction should be considered as an individual or social decision

“No man is an island”: How Chinese netizens use deliberate metaphors to provide “depression sufferers” with social support

Objective Online social support provides a way to positively influence depression sufferers. In the present study, we aim to analyze how social support in Chinese online depression communities is communicated through the lens of deliberate metaphor theory (DMT) to deepen the understanding of the under-researched complicated, emotionally laden, and culture-related concepts of this experience. Methods We collected data (n = 3546 comments) from the Warm Supporting section of the Depression Super Topic, a major Chinese online depression community on Weibo. The data were analyzed using a metaphorical analysis with the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit and a thematic analysis. Results Our findings identify two themes: deliberate metaphors (DMs) of depression and DMs of social environment for depression sufferers. The former conceptualizes future expectations without depression (as rosy images ; victorious battles ; the beaten black dog ); disorder (as subtle objects ; subjective initiative events ); depression sufferers (as valuable objects ; important roles ); and present life with depression (as optional events ; spiritual practices ; fragile objects ). The latter conceptualizes social connection (as solid objects ; nonessentials ); individuals in the social environment (as energetic objects ; vicious roles ); and prejudice (as colored objects ). Conclusions The findings suggest that DMs as important online social support resources, helping to express empathy and normalize depression with more common-sense, and non-judgmental concepts. Additionally, in DMs, Chinese netizens navigate the intricate intersection of medical and moral perspectives on depression and its recovery, leveraging both aspects to offer comprehensive social support. “Confucian-based” elements are embedded in culture-related social support expressions in DMs. In practice, our findings contribute to tailored and appropriate health interventions for depression

Non-pedagogical factors hindering the reorientation of China's English education

Conference Name:2011 International Conference on Computer Science and Service System, CSSS 2011. Conference Address: Nanjing, China. Time:June 27, 2011 - June 29, 2011.Zhejiang University; Nanjing University; Nanjing University of Science and Technology; Shanghai Jiao Tong University; University of Science and Technology of ChinaThe paper aims to explore into the non-pedagogical factors in China's English education as a whole. It analyses the underlying non-pedagogical problems that hinder the reorientation of English education in China and puts forward some remedies to the existing problems. ? 2011 IEEE

Walking out of the light verb jungle: Exploring the translation strategies of light verb constructions in Chinese–English consecutive interpreting

Cross-linguistic features of light verb constructions (LVCs) profile a major facet of the typological difference between Chinese and English. By adopting a theory-driven, context-based interpreting task, this study explores the effectiveness and variability of translation strategies in dealing with 12 target LVCs extracted from a Chinese–English Consecutive Interpreting test to capture effective translation strategies fit for Chinese English-as-foreign-language (EFL) learners (N = 66). Appropriate rates and entropy values denoting variability of strategy selection are calculated by using 12 LVC segments and nine strategies, respectively. A correlation test is also carried out for vocabulary knowledge and the appropriate rates of LVCs to assess the efficacy of learners’ vocabulary knowledge in interpreting performance. Results show the general preferences for strategy selection among Chinese EFL learners as well as typical structural patterns in LVC translation. The degree of lightness of the light verbs exerts a reverse effect on the appropriate rates and consistency of strategy selection, and the positive correlation between vocabulary knowledge and LVCs’ appropriate rates suggests the need to incorporate the constructional teaching into the EFL learning curriculum. Thus felicitous conditions of applying the strategies have been proposed

Skin innate immunity of diskless-fingered odorous frogs (Odorrana grahami) with spatial-temporal variations

The skin innate immunities of diskless-fingered odorous frogs (Odorrana grahami) from three populations were investigated. The antimicrobial capacities of skin secretions against the 60 representative environmental bacterial strains were evaluated using the values of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) equivalents, which were defined as the volumes of antimicrobial solution just inhibiting the tested bacteria per 1 cm(2) of surface area, from 0.06 to 9.10 mL/cm(2). Our results revealed significantly different skin antimicrobial capacities among the three populations: Mianning < Huili < Kunming. Within the frog population, the skin antimicrobial capacities are highly variable depending on the season: in Mianning frogs, summer < autumn and spring; in Huili frogs, spring < autumn < summer; in Kunming frogs, autumn < spring < summer. The animal density and body mass significantly impacted the skin antimicrobial capacity, while the sex ratio and soil or water bacterial counts did not

Soil microbial communities changed with a continuously monocropped processing tomato system

To reveal the regulatory mechanisms underlying the productivity of long-term continuous cropping of processing tomato, a multi-year study was carried out to understand the effects of long-term continuous cropping on the community structures of the root zone microbes. Soil samples collected from continuous cropping of processing tomato after 3, 5 and 7 years were used for this study. Results showed that soil microbial biomass C (SMBC), N (SMBN) and microbial quotient (qMB) significantly decreased with longer cropping. After seven years of continuous cropping, the SMBC and SMBN contents, and qMB respectively significantly decreased by 52.3%, 78.8% and 48.2% (p < 0.01). In contrast, soil microbial biomass P (SMBP) increased during the first three years of continuous cropping, peaking to up to 1.6 times higher than that of the control, which also declined in the succeeding years. Continuous cropping significantly increased the PLFA of fungi, whereas the opposite trend was observed for bacteria, total PLFAs biomass, and the ratios of bacteria and fungi. The PLFA of actinomycetes have no change throughout. This suggests that fungi were better adapted to nutrient poor conditions than bacteria. Microbial diversity indices reached the highest after three years of continuous cropping, with the lowest observed after seven years. This indicated that microbial community diversity and uniformity decreased with increasing number of planting years. Furthermore, our results revealed that the microbial community structure in processing tomato soils changed with extended cropping, resulting to a decline in soil microbial biomass, which may be both a cause and a reflection of the poor soil quality

Integration of ZiYuan-3 Multispectral and Stereo Data for Modeling Aboveground Biomass of Larch Plantations in North China

Data saturation in optical sensor data has long been recognized as a major factor that causes underestimation of aboveground biomass (AGB) for forest sites having high AGB, but there is a lack of suitable approaches to solve this problem. The objective of this research was to understand how incorporation of forest canopy features into high spatial resolution optical sensor data improves forest AGB estimation. Therefore, we explored the use of ZiYuan-3 (ZY-3) satellite imagery, including multispectral and stereo data, for AGB estimation of larch plantations in North China. The relative canopy height (RCH) image was calculated from the difference of digital surface model (DSM) data at leaf-on and leaf-off seasons, which were extracted from the ZY-3 stereo images. Image segmentation was conducted using eCognition on the basis of the fused ZY-3 multispectral and panchromatic data. Spectral bands, vegetation indices, textural images, and RCH-based variables based on this segment image were extracted. Linear regression was used to develop forest AGB estimation models, where the dependent variable was AGB from sample plots, and explanatory variables were from the aforementioned remote-sensing variables. The results indicated that incorporation of RCH-based variables and spectral data considerably improved AGB estimation performance when compared with the use of spectral data alone. The RCH-variable successfully reduced the data saturation problem. This research indicated that the combined use of RCH-variables and spectral data provided more accurate AGB estimation for larch plantations than the use of spectral data alone. Specifically, the root mean squared error (RMSE), relative RMSE, and mean absolute error values were 33.89 Mg/ha, 29.57%, and 30.68 Mg/ha, respectively, when using the spectral-only model, but they become 24.49 Mg/ha, 21.37%, and 20.37 Mg/ha, respectively, when using the combined model with RCH variables and spectral band. This proposed approach provides a new insight in reducing the data saturation problem

Complete mitochondrial genome of Nanorana pleskei (Amphibia: Anura: Dicroglossidae) and evolutionary characteristics of the amphibian mitochondrial genomes

The complete mitochondrial genome of Nanorana pleskei from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was sequenced. It includes 17,660 base pairs, containing 13 protein-coding genes, two rRNAs and 23 tRNAs. A tandem duplication of tRNAMet gene was found in this mitochondrial genome, and the similarity between the two tRNAMet genes is 85.8%, being the highest in amphibian mitochondrial genomes sequenced thus far. Based on gene organization, 24 types were found from 145 amphibian mitochondrial genomes. Type 1 was present in 108 species, type 11 in 11 species, types 5, 16, 17, and 20 each in two species, and the others each present in one species. Fifteen types were found in Anura, being the most diversity in three orders of the Lissamphibia. Our phylogenetic results using 11 protein-coding gene sequences of 145 amphibian mitochondrial genomes strongly support the monophyly of the Lissamphibia, as well as its three orders, the Gymnophiona, Caudata, and Anura, among which the relationships were ((Gymnophiona (Caudata, Anura)). Based on the phylogenetic trees, type 1 was recognized as the ancestral type for amphibians, and type 11 was the synapomorphic type for the Neobatrachia. Gene rearrangements among lineages provide meaningful phylogenetic information. The rearrangement of the LTPF tRNA gene cluster and the translocation of the ND5 gene only found in the Neobatrachia support the monophyly of this group; similarly, the tandem duplication of the tRNAMet genes only found in the Dicroglossidae support the monophyly of this family [Current Zoology 57 (6): 785–805, 2011]

A comparative analysis of modeling approaches and canopy height-based data sources for mapping forest growing stock volume in a northern subtropical ecosystem of China

Lidar has been regarded as the most accurate data source for forest-growing stock volume (FGSV) estimation, but inconsistent acquisition dates of lidar data with field survey often result in poor FGSV estimation accuracy. Spaceborne stereo imagery is captured at regular intervals, providing new opportunities for mapping and updating FGSV spatial distributions. Digital Surface Model derived from spaceborne stereo imagery and Digital Terrain Model (DTM) derived from airborne lidar can be used together to produce a canopy height model (CHM) (LS-CHM), which can then be used to predict FGSV spatial distributions, but this methodology has yet to be explored. Our research attempts to compare the performance of LS-CHM and lidar-CHM (L-CHM) for FGSV modeling and to explore the advantages of using the hierarchical Bayesian approach (HBA) over traditional linear regression and random forest modeling approaches when sample size is small. Considering different forest types and topographical conditions, as well as the number of sample plots for each forest type, HBA is used to develop the FGSV estimation model, and the results are compared with those from linear regression and random forest approaches. The research results in a northern subtropical forest ecosystem indicate that overall, L-CHM provides better predictions than LS-CHM using the same modeling approaches, and L-CHM is especially valuable when FGSV is small or large, but when FGSV falls within 100–200 m3/ha, LS-CHM–based variables produce better modeling accuracy than L-CHM–based variables using linear regression or HBA. The HBA based on stratification of both forest type and slope aspect provides the best FGSV estimation, using either L-CHM or LS-CHM, and solves the modeling problem due to limited sample sizes for forest types. Our research provides new insights to using the combination of satellite stereo images and lidar-derived DTM for mapping and updating FGSV in a large area

Effects of Nitrogen Application Strategy on Nitrogen Enzyme Activities and Protein Content in Spring Wheat Grain

The aim of this study was to determine the regulatory effect of different nitrogen (N) fertilizer application rates on the grain N metabolism enzymes and protein content of drip-irrigated spring wheat under the climatic conditions in Xinjiang, China. A split plot experiment was conducted with strong gluten wheat Xinchun 38 (XC 38) and medium gluten wheat Xinchun 49 (XC 49) as experimental materials. We set up seven nitrogen treatments, in amounts of 300 (Nck), 285 (N5), 270 (N10), 255 (N15), 240 (N20), 225 (N25) and 0 (N0) kg hm&minus;2. The effects of N application rate on nitrate reductase (NR), glutamine synthetase (GS), glutamate-pyruvate aminotransferase (GPT), protein content, protein composition, and yield of wheat grain were studied. The results showed that NR, GS, GPT, protein content, albumin, globulin, glutenin, gliadin, and yield first increased and then decreased with the decrease in N application. Furthermore, different responses to different applications between different wheat varieties was also observed. The indexes of XC 38 reached the maximum in the N15 treatment, and the yield increased 2.99~81.45%. XC 49 showed the best indicators under the N25 treatment and the yield increased 0.37~71.29%. Under the same N level, all indicators of XC 38 were better than XC 49. Correlation analysis showed that the yield and protein yield were significantly positively correlated with NR, GS, and GPT. The interaction of N fertilizer and variety had significant effects on NR, GS, GPT, protein content, components, and yield. These results show that the protein content and yield of wheat grain can be improved by reasonably adjusting the N fertilizer application strategy