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The development of efficient and reliable online assessments has become increasingly important in the digital era. We developed a 10-min online word reading assessment of global English based on the existing paper-and-pencil version of our English silent word reading test. The test includes two parts, namely, random word recognition and contextual word reading. A total of 889 participants (437 children and 392 adults; 62.7% female) took part in the study. They were from various regions including mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Poland, the United States, and the Philippines. Reliability and validity analyses on various demographics samples (by age and country/region of origin) demonstrated that the WordSword Test is highly reliable and valid (e.g., the correlation of this test with other English reading measures were above.80). Education level was positively correlated with test performance, while the correlations between age and test performance were not consistent. Ninety-seven children participants also took the paper-and-pencil version of the WordSword Test. The correlation between performances on the online and paper-and-pencil versions of the test was.879, one year apart. With more children and adults taking the WordSword Test, we ultimately hope to establish norms by area, grade level, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates different uses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) in national journal rankings and discusses the merits of supplementing metrics with expert assessment. Our focus is national journal rankings used as evidence to support decisions about the distribution of institutional funding or career advancement. The seven countries under comparison are China, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Turkey—and the region of Flanders in Belgium. With the exception of Italy, top‐tier journals used in national rankings include those classified at the highest level, or according to tier, or points implemented. A total of 3,565 (75.8%) out of 4,701 unique top‐tier journals were identified as having a JIF, with 55.7% belonging to the first Journal Impact Factor quartile. Journal rankings in China, Flanders, Poland, and Turkey classify journals with a JIF as being top‐tier, but only when they are in the first quartile of the Average Journal Impact Factor Percentile. Journal rankings that result from expert assessment in Denmark, Finland, and Norway regularly classify journals as top‐tier outside the first quartile, particularly in the social sciences and humanities. We conclude that experts, when tasked with metric‐informed journal rankings, take into account quality dimensions that are not covered by JIFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real estate management systems differ all over the world. Differences arise from the different history of regions, different cultures and customs. The paper presents information about the real estate management systems in China and Poland, two extremely different countries. The authors have tried to show the differences and similarities between the countries. The research methods that were used to prepare the paper include a TOWS/SWOT analysis and a comparative analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The travel restriction leads to the enormous economic loss to the tourism industry. In this paper, the economic loss and the environmental gains (e.g., water and energy resources) from COVID-19 impact on China's tourism industry are estimated based on environmentally extended multiple regional input-output model. Results indicate that the China's tourism consumption loss triggered 921 billion US$ output loss via supply chain in 2020, which account for 7 % of GDP in 2019. Additionally, the economic loss further ripples tourism water footprint conservation of 10 billion m3 (equal to the annual water consumption of Poland) and tourism energy footprint conservation of 116 million tce (equal to the annual energy consumption of Australia). Findings reveal that regions with large tourism economic losses are not completely consistent with the regions with significant relief of water and energy pressures. Water pressure in Xinjiang (Northwest) and energy pressure in Hainan (South) have been alleviated due to reduced tourism consumption along the Southeast coast. These knock-on effects highlight a deeper internal link between the economy and the environment. The development of tourism in the post-COVID-19 era needs to reduce the direct water and energy footprint of local area by applying advanced water-saving and energy-saving technologies. • China's tourism output loss caused by COVID-19 accounts for 7 % of GDP in 2019. • 10 billion m3 of water saving equals to the annual water consumption of Poland. • 116 million tce of energy saving equals to the annual energy consumption of Australia. • Tourism activities decreasing in East relieve great water use stress in Northwest China. • Decreasing tourism demand in Southeast mitigates energy use stress in South China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of financial integration makes a country's economic links difficult. This is especially so for emerging market countries, which are more vulnerable to economic shocks. The objective of this paper is to explore whether the emerging market countries which adopt floating exchange rate system have realized, at the same time, in the aftermath of a crisis, free movement of capital flow and independence of monetary policy. This is done by introducing foreign exchange reserves into Mundell–Fleming model to do derivation. The approach is supported by empirical research based on 20 emerging countries including China, Brazil, Poland and South Africa and others. It was found that: (1) after the crisis, the emerging market countries that implemented floating exchange rate system did not achieve monetary policy independence. Rapid accumulation of foreign exchange reserves weakened the positive effect of the increase in money supply on output; (2) As a result of holding foreign exchange reserves, the independence of monetary policy in emerging market countries has been challenged, independently of the type of exchange rate system adopted, which proves the existence of dilemma phenomenon. Finally, this study puts forward policy recommendations on the exchange rate system and capital account convertibility for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the theoretical rationale and research design of an ongoing study of social structure and personality in transitional urban China. The study is designed to be precisely comparable to recent studies in Poland and Ukraine during the early stages of their transformation from socialism to nascent capitalism, as well as to earlier studies of the United States, Poland when it was socialist, and Japan during more stable times. The paper also presents evidence that the dimensions of personality measured in the previous studies, and the questions used to measure those dimensions, are as appropriate for a study of urban China as they were to studies of the United States, Poland, Japan, and Ukraine, during times both of relative social stability and of radical social change; moreover, these measures of personality are essentially invariant for Chinese cities of differing degrees of wealth and privatization, and for both genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrological processes in river basins of similar size and morphology may differ significantly due to different climatic conditions. This paper presents a comparative analysis of hydrological characteristics of two river basins located in different climatic zones: the Wisłok River Basin in the south-eastern Poland and the Chaohe River Basin in the northern China. The criteria of their choice were similarities in the basin area, main river length and topography. The results show that climate plays a key role in shaping fluvial conditions within the two basins. It is concluded that: 1) precipitation in the Wisłok River Basin is more evenly distributed in the yearly cycle, while in the Chaohe River Basin it is highly concentrated in the few summer months; 2) spring snowmelt significantly contributes to runoff in the Wisłok River Basin, while its role in the Chaohe River Basin is negligible; 3) in the Wisłok River Basin, besides the peak flow in spring, there is also a period of high water in summer resulting from precipitation, while in the Chaohe River Basin there is only one high water period in summer; 4) the Wisłok River Basin shows relatively higher stability in terms of the magnitude of intra- and inter-seasonal discharges; 5) during the multi-year observation period, a decrease in both precipitation and runoff was recorded in the two river basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classrooms of higher education are growing more internationalized in terms of both students and professors. With increasingly cross-cultural contact in the classroom, how individuals react based on their national culture becomes increasing important for educators. This paper investigates student/professor interactions and corresponding improvement strategies across four culturally distinct samples: China, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States. Differences are identified with respect to the types of critical incidents reported and desired responses to those encounters. The potential role that differences in the cultural dimensions of individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation may have in these findings are investigated. Suggestions are provided for specifically applying the research results in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]