Wetlands are major microplastic sinks with a large atmospheric input. However, many details of such deposited atmospheric microplastics entering into wetlands remain unclear, including temporal patterns of input and ecological effects. We monitored the aerial microplastics during four seasons in eleven economically developed cities along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, China. The average microplastic deposition rate was 512.31 items m−2 d−1, equivalent to an annual contribution of 17.46 metric tons of plastic to the surveyed wetlands with a total area of 1652 km2. These microplastics were predominantly composed of polyamide and polyethylene terephthalate with 61.85 ± 92.29 µm sized pellets, and we obtained similar results for microplastics intercepted on moss in wetlands. Microplastic input varied between wet and dry periods, primarily influenced by wind, rainfall and ozone concentration. Civilian vehicle density and textile industry were the primary socioeconomic factors driving microplastic deposition. Further indoor microcosm experiments revealed that moss phyllosphere bacterial community structure and function were influenced by microplastic abundance and size, exemplifying the unique ecological risks of aerially deposited microplastics to wetlands. These results indicate that mosses and their phyllosphere microbiota could serve as bio-indicators of aerial microplastic characteristics and impacts.
Sunlight-driven photosynthesis by covalent organic frameworks (COFs) from water and air without using sacrificial reagents is a promising H2O2 fabrication approach, but is still restricted by the insufficient charge separation and sluggish 2e- water oxidation process. Herein, we provide a facile strategy to simultaneously improve charge separation and water oxidation in COFs via confining the charge transfer pathways from two diversion ones to a confluence one through regulating the site of nitrogen in bipyridine. Combining in-situ characterization with computational calculations, we reveal that compared to COF-BD1 containing two diversion charge transfer pathways, the charge transfer pathway in COF-BD2 is confined to a confluence one due to the electron-deficiency effect of nitrogen, which greatly accelerates the intermolecular and out-of-plane charge transfer. Via effectively reducing the energy barrier of rate-determining water oxidation reaction, the subsequent water oxidation process to produce key *OH intermediate in COF-BD2 is also greatly facilitated, boosting the yield of H2O2 (5211 μmol g-1 h-1) from water, oxygen, and light without sacrificial agents or additional energy consumption. We further demonstrate that H2O2 can be efficiently produced by COF-BD2 in broad pH range, in real water, and in enlarged reactor with using natural sunlight for water decontamination.
Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study examines the impact of art education on Chinese citizens’ trust in Americans. We find that participation in art tutorials correlates with increased trust towards Americans, with the level of trust rising with time spent in art education. Further analysis indicates that this effect is more pronounced in males and individuals whose parents already hold positive views of Americans. These results highlight the role of art education in fostering intercultural understanding. The study contributes to the literature on trust formation and the effects of art education, underscoring the significance of cultural engagement in promoting cross-cultural trust in global relations.
Addressing poverty is paramount, aligning with the first Sustainable Development Goal focused on eradicating poverty in all its forms. While the effects of high-speed rail (HSR) on absolute poverty have been documented, its impact on relative poverty remains understudied. This paper examines the influence of HSR on household relative poverty in China through a quasi-experimental design. The main results are as follows: (1) The opening of HSR significantly reduced the household relative poverty by approximately 1.8 %. (2) This alleviation effect primarily transpires through the expansion of economic activities and employment opportunities. (3) Notably, the impact of HSR is more pronounced in lower-ranked, smaller cities and in the western regions of China. Moreover, households with migrant workers or those engaged in non-agricultural sectors derive greater benefits from HSR developments. Our results suggest that HSR opening could have contributed to China’s relative poverty alleviation. Policymakers can consider the role of transportation infrastructure in mitigating household relative poverty, especially for low rank cities, small cities and periphery regions in other developing countries.
The advantage of Chinese-as-a-heritage-language (CHL) learners in acquiring Chinese has been widely recognized. However, it is still unclear whether the effect of CHL background on Chinese receptive vocabulary breadth varies across different countries. To address this gap, the present study recruited 232 Chinese language learners (half were CHL learners) from Indonesia and Thailand and administered a Chinese vocabulary proficiency test. The results of regression analysis revealed an interaction effect between country and CHL background on vocabulary breadth, with the contribution of CHL background to vocabulary breadth more robust in the Indonesian group than that in the Thai group. Interviews were then conducted to explore the factors that might influence such an interaction effect. Analysis of the interview data found that the influencing factors could be categorized into four themes, including individual differences, family background, Chinese language education and socio-cultural factors. The overall results were discussed within the framework of ecological system theory, and pedagogical implications for CHL learners were proposed.
Worldwide, humanities and social sciences (HSS) scholars produce and disseminate knowledge in an unequal global knowledge space, which can be caused by various structural, epistemological, and individual-level factors. Although global epistemic injustice receives much attention, the factors contributing to it, including the extraverted mindsets and practices of non-Euro-American scholars, remain less discussed. This article draws on semibiographical interviews with 30 high-achieving ethnic Chinese HSS scholars in mainland China, in Hong Kong, and overseas. It explores how these scholars display intellectual extraversion and why and how they are reflexive about and confronting it. The findings reveal three manifestations of intellectual extraversion, four sources of reflexivity regarding such extraversion, and three ways to confront it. The research uncovers the continuous reflexivity and efforts of ethnic Chinese HSS scholars in dealing with lingering epistemic discontinuities and exclusions and sheds light on new possible approaches to challenging global epistemic injustice in HSS research.
As a judicious correspondence to the classical maxcut, the anti-Cheeger cut has more balanced structure, but few numerical results on it have been reported so far. In this paper, we propose a continuous iterative algorithm (CIA) for the anti-Cheeger cut problem through fully using an equivalent continuous formulation. It does not need rounding at all and has advantages that all subproblems have explicit analytic solutions, the objective function values are monotonically updated and the iteration points converge to a local optimum in finite steps via an appropriate subgradient selection. It can also be easily combined with the maxcut iterations for breaking out of local optima and improving the solution quality thanks to the similarity between the anti-Cheeger cut problem and the maxcut problem. The performance of CIAs is fully demonstrated through numerical experiments on G-set from two aspects: one is on the solution quality where we find that the approximate solutions obtained by CIAs are of comparable quality to those by the multiple search operator heuristic method; the other is on the computational cost where we show that CIAs always run faster than the often-used continuous iterative algorithm based on the rank-two relaxation.
ABSTRACT An increasing body of research has investigated the role of enjoyment in second language acquisition (SLA); however, few studies have explored whether learners of Chinese as a second/foreign language (CS/FL) experience enjoyment in learning Hanzi (Chinese characters) and how enjoyment impacts Hanzi recognition performance. To address this gap, a Hanzi Learning Enjoyment Scale was developed and administered to 446 Arabic CS/FL learners, 144 of whom also completed a Hanzi recognition test. Two key findings emerged. First, the results of factor analysis revealed four factors underlying Hanzi learning enjoyment: Hanzi culture, personal attitudes, teacher support, and personal fulfillment. Second, enjoyment did not emerge as a significant predictor of Hanzi recognition performance. Notably, the variance in Hanzi recognition scores explained by enjoyment ranked among the top three explanatory variables, comparable to the predictive power of years spent learning Chinese. This study concludes with theoretical insights into the construct of foreign language enjoyment (FLE) across different languages and language components, as well as practical recommendations for enhancing Hanzi instruction.
