A Preliminary Assessment of Rural Corruption in China

Rural-related corruption in China manifests itself differently in terms of different forms and intensity over time. The preliminary findings indicate that rural-related corruption in China is a particular type of white-collar crime. It embraces a mixed dimension of political crime, economic crime, corporate crime, environmental crime, and crimes within social control systems, such as the police. The time series analysis demonstrates an increase of diversity and intensity of this corruption. It also shows that rural corruption is dynamic and its dynamics have evolved significantly over time. An analysis of the historical context identifies three distinctive stages of rural-related corruption (1995-2007; 2008-2012, and 2013-2017), from acknowledgement of the issue, to issue outbreak, to a "rampant" stage, all with consistent determinants and explanations. Evidence shows that Chinese national land use policy is among the leading explanations of rural corruption. The majority of other types of rural corruption also are rooted in land-related issues. The causes of corruption in rural China have both institutional and individual behavioral explanations, which distinguishes them from the explanations of general corruption. General criminological explanations of corruption must be modified to fit a rural context and the unique histories of particular society, which in this case, is China

Psycholinguistic Analysis of the Influence of Affective Factors on College English Learning

 There are many factors that affect college students’ English learning. In order to help college students learn English effectively, we need to analyze the corresponding factors. This paper mainly analyzes the emotional factors of college students’ English learning from the perspective of psycholinguistics, and actively explores the corresponding solutions, so as to promote the improvement of college students’ English learning ability of China

The Structure of Chinese Higher Education Corruption: A Case Statistical Analysis

Corruption in the Chinese higher educational sector is an increasing concern but it has not been systematically studied. This paper distinguishes three major intermingled structural typologies of corruption in the Chinese higher education sector: academic specific, non-academic specific and a combination of the two. Data supporting this conceptualization come from a case statistical analysis of a non-randomized sample of 215 court decisions on corruption cases detected in Chinese universities during 1994-2009, complemented with a perception-based survey in different Chinese universities. The result postulates taxonomy of the distribution of corruption among the three typologies. This study finds non-academic specific corruption cases take up a disproportionately high portion of corruption compared to that of academic specific corruption in the Chinese higher education sector. None of the scholarly academic corruption cases was detected from the case statistical analysis though there is obvious reflection of scholarly academic corruption in the perception-based data. What has been neglected is the lack of sector-specific Chinese central government anti-corruption initiatives, especially those that are scholarly academic related even though the consequences could be more detrimental than corruption in the non- academic field

ECOLINGUISTICS AND THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE

Most ecolinguistic analysis is conducted with texts produced for the general public. This article explores the use of ecolinguistics in the education of young people. The analysis focuses on young people’s media, specifically focusing on films. Two children’s movies (The Lorax and Back to the Outback) are analyzed using the ecolinguistic concept of stories we live by and the ecojustice concept of intersectionality. This analysis is undertaken to explicate these concepts in the hope that others will employ these same concepts to analyze other texts. These example analyses are explained about classroom practice and generating “noticing” as a learning outcome. Finally, five further techniques for involving students and others in ecolinguistic and ecojustice analysis are described. This article gives important insight into practical tools that can benefit teachers and students in the classroom. Additionally, children’s films and other media developed for children and youths may also be useful for the enjoyment and education of adults

On corruption-related crimes in Transitional China---a panel data analysis from criminological and other multi-disciplinary perspectives

Compared with other countries, any discussion of corruption has been a recent phenomenon in China, especially if the research used a quantitative method. One of the unexplored aspects of current China studies is a measure and explanation of the impact of corruption in different regions in China. This study is both descriptive and exploratory of the manifestation and determinants of corruption in Transitional China. It highlights the differences in the forms of corruption, intensity of corruption, and the major etiological factors behind it. This study assesses corruption within traditional criminological as well as multi-disciplinary perspectives and employs three theoretical levels of analysis— structural, institutional, and individual, and analyzes the causes and determinants of increased corruption-related crimes in China. The major findings are: 1) anti-corruption enforcement is effective on some forms of corruption but not all; 2) corruption manifests itself in different forms at different stages of development (1980-1988; 1989-1997; 1998- 2007); and 3) the same forms of corruption manifest differently in different stages. The impact is also dynamic. The quantitative empirical results show that the same factors do not necessarily have the same impact on the different forms of corruption

Ecolinguistics for and beyond the Sustainable Development Goals

This article considers potential impacts the study of language, including ecolinguistics, can have on important real-world issues, and how linguists and others can involve themselves in addressing these issues for a sustainable future. The article is divided into two parts. The first part provides an illustrative study in which computer tools were utilized to investigate media reporting. The study examined the relative coverage of issues of basic human needs (food, clean water, and sanitation), which are part of the focus of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, in four major newspapers from Malaysia, Singapore, the UK and the US. Data were collected between November 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was in its early days in terms of worldwide attention. During that time period, the pandemic received far more coverage in those newspapers than did the other issues, even though basic human needs greatly outweighed the COVID-19 pandemic as to deaths and other forms of suffering at the time of data collection, not to mention the toll on human life in the many years before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Reasons for this severe discrepancy were explored with insights from professionals working in the media and related sectors. The skewed distribution of media coverage, we argue, reflects a crisis of responsibility and values. The second part of the article serves to highlight how those of us in language studies can make a contribution to the wider discussion about, among other important concerns, the role and responsibility of media in shaping the public’s views and actions on issues that are at the heart of sustainable development, and how we can be more socially engaged. We conclude by arguing that ecolinguists have much to contribute to the sustainability of the world, which ultimately requires a respect for the entire ecological community

Identification of growth trait related genes in a Yorkshire purebred pig population by genome-wide association studies

Objective The aim of this study is to identify genomic regions or genes controlling growth traits in pigs. Methods Using a panel of 54,148 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we performed a genome-wide Association (GWA) study in 562 pure Yorshire pigs with four growth traits: average daily gain from 30 kg to 100 kg or 115 kg, and days to 100 kg or 115 kg. Fixed and random model Circulating Probability Unification method was used to identify the associations between 54,148 SNPs and these four traits. SNP annotations were performed through the Sus scrofa data set from Ensembl. Bioinformatics analysis, including gene ontology analysis, pathway analysis and network analysis, was used to identify the candidate genes. Results We detected 6 significant and 12 suggestive SNPs, and identified 9 candidate genes in close proximity to them (suppressor of glucose by autophagy [SOGA1], R-Spondin 2 [RSPO2], mitogen activated protein kinase kinase 6 [MAP2K6], phospholipase C beta 1 [PLCB1], rho GTPASE activating protein 24 [ARHGAP24], cytoplasmic polyadenylation element binding protein 4 [CPEB4], GLI family zinc finger 2 [GLI2], neuronal tyrosine-phosphorylated phosphoinositide-3-kinase adaptor 2 [NYAP2], and zinc finger protein multitype 2 [ZFPM2]). Gene ontology analysis and literature mining indicated that the candidate genes are involved in bone, muscle, fat, and lung development. Pathway analysis revealed that PLCB1 and MAP2K6 participate in the gonadotropin signaling pathway and suggests that these two genes contribute to growth at the onset of puberty. Conclusion Our results provide new clues for understanding the genetic mechanisms underlying growth traits, and may help improve these traits in future breeding programs