The Evolution of China’s Sporting Diplomacy since 1949: The History, Experience and Promotion Strategies

The sporting diplomacy in China, as an integral part of China’s overall diplomacy, unswervingly upholds the funda mental foreign policy goal of preserving world peace and promoting common development since New China was founded. After adopting the policy of reform and opening, the sporting diplomacy in China has made historical achievements through intensive participation in international sporting competitions, extensive involvement in international sporting organizations, active hosting of mega sports events, and frequent engagement in cultural sporting exchanges with other countries. In the last decade, with a constant increase in China’s economy, cultural soft power and international influence of sports, China makes an all-round effort in the pursuit of major countrywide sporting diplomacy with Chinese charac teristics. Currently, despite the severe challenges outside China, Beijing is making smooth preparations for the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, which embraces another milestone in the diplomacy of sport in China. This paper analyzes decision environments, goals, actions and defining features of China’s sporting diplomacy in different periods and follows on to summarize practical experiences in the development of the sporting diplomacy in China. The paper shows that the resounding success of China’s sporting diplomacy can be attributed to its commitment to serving the country’s diplomatic strategy and core interests, its commitment to following the Chinese path of sporting diplomacy, and its commitment to the traditional Chinese value of peaceful development. Finally, emerging issues and promotion strate gies are presented

Correlation Between Different Domains of Social Capital and Psychological Distress Among Chinese High School Students

Social capital has been shown to have positive effects on multiple health outcomes among young people. Studies suggest that social capital is an important predictor of health and wellbeing of children and adolescents, including their mental health. This research examined the correlation between different domains of social capital – in the family, in the neighborhood, and at school – and the level of psychological distress among high school students in China. A cross-sectional survey among 501 high school students (217 males and 284 females), aged 15–19 years old, was carried out in the 2020–2021 school year. Logistic regression was used to examine the association of family, neighborhood, and school social capital with the risk of high psychological distress, measured by the Kessler–6 scale. The findings in this study suggest that young people with a higher level of family support, higher level of neighborhood trust and higher level of teacher-student interpersonal trust are less likely to report high psychological distress. Social connectedness within the family, neighborhood and school thus appear to be important factors influencing mood among young people

Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of TCP family genes in Catharanthus roseus

IntroductionThe anti-tumor vindoline and catharanthine alkaloids are naturally existed in Catharanthus roseus (C. roseus), an ornamental plant in many tropical countries. Plant-specific TEOSINTE BRANCHED1/CYCLOIDEA/PCF (TCP) transcription factors play important roles in various plant developmental processes. However, the roles of C. roseus TCPs (CrTCPs) in terpenoid indole alkaloid (TIA) biosynthesis are largely unknown.MethodsHere, a total of 15 CrTCP genes were identified in the newly updated C. roseus genome and were grouped into three major classes (P-type, C-type and CYC/TB1).ResultsGene structure and protein motif analyses showed that CrTCPs have diverse intron-exon patterns and protein motif distributions. A number of stress responsive cis-elements were identified in promoter regions of CrTCPs. Expression analysis showed that three CrTCP genes (CrTCP2, CrTCP4, and CrTCP7) were expressed specifically in leaves and four CrTCP genes (CrTCP13, CrTCP8, CrTCP6, and CrTCP10) were expressed specifically in flowers. HPLC analysis showed that the contents of three classic TIAs, vindoline, catharanthine and ajmalicine, were significantly increased by ultraviolet-B (UV-B) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) in leaves. By analyzing the expression patterns under UV-B radiation and MeJA application with qRT-PCR, a number of CrTCP and TIA biosynthesis-related genes were identified to be responsive to UV-B and MeJA treatments. Interestingly, two TCP binding elements (GGNCCCAC and GTGGNCCC) were identified in several TIA biosynthesis-related genes, suggesting that they were potential target genes of CrTCPs. DiscussionThese results suggest that CrTCPs are involved in the regulation of the biosynthesis of TIAs, and provide a basis for further functional identification of CrTCPs

Effects of robot gaze and voice human-likeness on users’ subjective perception, visual attention, and cerebral activity in voice conversations

Robot gaze and voice are essential anthropomorphic features to promote users' engagement in voice conversations. Earlier research chiefly examined how robot gaze and voice human-likeness separately influenced users' subjective perception. When implementing gaze on robots with different human-like voices, there has little evidence of their possible interaction effects, particularly on users' visual attention and cerebral activity, which could help to understand the perceptual and cognitive processing of anthropomorphic features. Therefore, a within-subject experiment of voice conversations with diverse robot gaze (gaze versus no gaze) and human-like voices (high human-like versus low human-like) using subjective reporting, eye-tracker, and fNIRS was conducted. The results showed that the robot with gaze or a high human-like voice evoked more pleasure, higher arousal, more perceived likability, and less negative attitudes. Robot gaze significantly increased users' average fixation durations and total fixation time, while voice human-likeness prolonged first fixation durations. Moreover, the robot with a high human-like voice (or gaze) induced increased activity in the left DLPFC and decreased activity in the right Broca's area than that had no gaze (or a low human-like voice). The results suggest that robot gaze might chiefly capture users' sustained attention, voice human-likeness might attract users' initial attention, and they might jointly influence users' perceptual processing of prosodic features and emotional processing.</p