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The changing culture of the Desert in Western China is described in detail in Xuemo’s works. One of his novels, Into the Desert, focuses on two female characters, Ying’er and Lanlan, who are bartered into marriage because their families are poor. They come to believe that their hardships in life are due to their poverty and can be alleviated by running away to Salt Lake, a place in the northwestern region, will improve their lives. During this trip, they encounter, overcome and survive many perils. When they reach their destination and struggle to reach their goals, they come to realize that they are still ordinary mortal women who can be abused without mercy by others. They finally admit that against their wills, they and many other women are powerless and must submit to their predestinated fates. The broader implication of this story is that women live at the mercy of men as the ultimate victims. Into the Desert, describes this suffering and, in so doing, stresses that it needs to be alleviated, especially among the rural women now being trampled on repeatedly, by reforming the way of life is passed down from generation to generation.

The article deals with the Chinese vernacular urbanonyms as part of the modern urban language and culture. The author studied the origins and use of popular urbanonyms with their speech practices and nominative creativity. The research involved some methods of cultural and social linguistics, as well as an online questionnaire of Chengdu citizens. The respondents saw vernacular urbanonyms as a sign of familiarity with the urban environment. Such words were popular with young people and working-age residents, regardless of their education background. In general, vernacular urbanonyms were seen as part of informal interpersonal communication and were evaluated quite positively. According to the respondents, vernacular urbanonyms emerge for the following reasons. They contrast with boring official names because they are "vivid" and "lively", with emotional, evaluative and figurative connotations. They help to distinguish between similar environmental objects with the same functions. They are shorter than official names. They identify nameless urban objects. They preserve old names that are out of official use. The onomasiological analysis established that vernacular urbanonyms verbalize a number of motives, e.g., a landmark, a reinterpretation of official urban names, a reduced official name, a metaphor, phonetic similarity with the official name, etc. As a result of social practices of ordinary city culture, vernacular urbanonyms reflect the values of everyday city life, e.g., wayfinding, linguistic economy, expressiveness, and subjectivity. The pragmatics of urbanonyms reveal crude folk humor and irony. However, some of them demonstrate positive and even lyrical imagery, which is typical of Chinese national linguistic culture.

Previous literature in the area of computer assisted language learning in Second/Foreign Language (L2/FL) education has highlighted the benefits of using virtual environments for learning the target language and culture (e.g. Blyth, 2018; Lloyd, Rogerson, & Stead, 2017; Shih, 2015). In addition, a number of researchers have demonstrated that one of the important attributes of virtual environments for language learning is the affordances of physical and social presence (e.g. Cho, Yim, & Paik, 2015; McKerlich, Riis, Anderson, & Eastman, 2011; Peterson, 2011; Wang, Lawless-Reljic, Davies, & Callaghan, 2011). However, to our knowledge, no previous studies have investigated the affordances of virtual environments from the makers’ point of view. In this present study, 22 Canadian pre-service teachers used a 360 degree camera and Virtual Reality (VR) software to construct VR environments that were used as cultural virtual tours. They then invited 24 Taiwanese students to interact with them in their created immersive environments. Analyses of the pre-service teachers’ final written reflections showed that most of them reported that they experienced a sense of physical and social presence in their self-created VR environments and that they enjoyed participating in the VR project. However, various factors, such as the design of the task, technical difficulties with the VR equipment, and limits of the social VR network were also found to have negatively influenced their satisfaction with the VR experience. Findings from this study might inform other L2/FL teachers who design VR environments and integrate social VR in their classes. Suggestions for future research are also provided.

In 1937–38, Igor V. Sposobin and three co-authors at the Moscow Conservatory published Uchebnik garmonii [Harmony Textbook]. This was the first officially approved harmony textbook in the USSR, which came to be adopted as “the basic textbook for courses on harmony in the music schools of the Soviet Union” (Vladimir Protopopov, 1960). Characterized by its promulgation of the “scientifically based” theory of harmonic functions, this book was destined to be read by many more musicians in a foreign land. In 1955–56, Boris A. Arapov decreed at meetings held at the Central Conservatory of Music in China that the problem posed by the ethnicization of harmony should be solved by combining musical elements that are considered ethnically distinct with functional harmony. Wu Zuqiang, who had studied at the Moscow Conservatory in the 1950s before he headed the Central Conservatory in the 1980s, published a chapter from Uchebnik garmonii already in 1955. The first Chinese translation of the whole book by Zhu Shimin was then published in 1957–58. The book soon attained canonic status in China and has been used in virtually all Chinese music institutions up to the present day. It is listed in the entrance examination syllabi of selected conservatories and reputable music theorists have published model answers to the exercises it contains. This article investigates how the Chinese reception of Uchebnik garmonii diverges from the sources that had inspired Sposobin and his colleagues to compose it in the first place, and throws light on the far-reaching impacts and ramifications of Uchebnik garmonii in China. // 1937–38 publizierte Igor V. Sposobin gemeinsam mit drei Ko-Autoren Uchebnik garmonii [Lehrbuch der Harmonik] am Moskauer Konservatorium. Diese erste offiziell anerkannte Harmonielehre der UdSSR wurde zum “grundlegenden Lehrbuch für Harmonielehrekurse an Musikausbildungsstätten der Sowjetunion” (Vladimir Protopopov, 1960). Charakterisiert durch seine Verbreitung einer als “wissenschaftlich fundiert” erachteten Funktionstheorie, sollte das Buch noch von vielen weiteren Musiker*innen in einem anderen Land gelesen werden: Boris A. Arapov erklärte 1955–56 bei einer Konferenz am Zentralkonservatorium Beijing, dass das Problem einer “Ethnisierung” von Harmonik gelöst werden solle, indem musikalische Elemente, die als ethnisch different aufgefasst werden, mit Funktionsharmonik kombiniert werden. Wu Zuqiang, der in den 1950er Jahren am Moskauer Konservatorium studierte und in den 1980er Jahren dann Präsident des Beijinger Zentralkonservatoriums wurde, legte bereits 1955 die Übersetzung eines Kapitels aus Uchebnik garmonii vor, worauf 1957–58 dann die erste vollständige Übersetzung von Zhu Shimin folgte. Das Lehrbuch erhielt rasch einen kanonischen Status in China und ist in nahezu allen Musikinstitutionen des Landes bis zum heutigen Tag in Verwendung. Es ist in den Anforderungen zur Zulassungsprüfung und den Lehrplänen einiger Konservatorien angeführt, und angesehene Musiktheoretiker haben Modelllösungen zu den Übungen des Buchs veröffentlicht. Dieser Beitrag untersucht wie die chinesische Rezeption von Uchebnik garmonii sich von den Quellen entfernte, die Sposobin und seine Kollegen ursprünglich motiviert hatten, das Buch zu verfassen. Dadurch wird deutlich, welche weitreichenden und unvorhersehbaren Auswirkungen Uchebnik garmonii in China mit sich brachte.

Chemical disinfection is an indispensable means of preventing infection. This holds true for healthcare settings, but also for all other settings where transmission of pathogens poses a potential health risk to humans and/or animals. Research on how to ensure effectiveness of disinfectants and the process of disinfection, as well as on when, how and where to implement disinfection precautions is an ongoing challenge requiring an interdisciplinary team effort. The valuable resources of active substances used for disinfection must be used wisely and their interaction with the target organisms and the environment should be evaluated and monitored closely, if we are to reliable reap the benefits of disinfection in future generations. In view of the global threat of communicable diseases and emerging and re-emerging pathogens and multidrug-resistant pathogens, the relevance of chemical disinfection is continually increasing. Although this consensus paper pinpoints crucial aspects for strategies of chemical disinfection in terms of the properties of disinfectant agents and disinfection practices in a particularly vulnerable group and setting, i.e., patients in healthcare settings, it takes a comprehensive, holistic approach to do justice to the complexity of the topic of disinfection.

C22H26O6, orthorhombic, P212121 (no. 19), a = 7.6648(5) Å, b = 11.2663(6) Å, c = 22.7321(7) Å, V = 1963.0(2) Å3, Z = 4, Rgt(F) = 0.0652, wRref(F2) = 0.1399, T = 273(2) K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to explore the effects of psychological needs on the relationship of peer victimization and anxiety. Methods: A sample of 889 4th, 5th and 6th primary school students in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were recruited with the measurement of Peer victimization Questionnaire, Psychological needs Scale and Anxiety Scale (SAS). Results showed that: (1) There were no significant gender and grade differences with respect to Peer victimization; (2) Significant negative correlations were found between all types of peer victimization and the subscales of psychological needs. In addition, significant positive correlations were found between all types of peer victimizationand, anxiety and significant negative correlations between all the subscales of psychological needs and anxiety; (3) Psychological needs partially mediated the relationship between Peer victimizationexperience and anxiety.

Autobiographies are traditionally understood as means of selfredemption or self-validation of the respective autobiographers, but they seem to have become tools of self-assertion in the recent times. The writers of this paper noticed that the underlying patterns in major autobiographies of the respective centuries such as those of Augustine, Rousseau, Virginia Woolf, Han Suyin and other male or female autobiographers commonly evolve around one’s ethical choices in response to the vices caused by one’s natural will and when facing ethical dilemmas caused by life challenges. This paper examines the abovementioned autobiographies via the Ethical Literary Criticism (ELC). Developed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao since 2004, ELC is one of the most insightful critiques in expounding the relationship of the self with oneself, self with others, and self with the divine or higher moral order in the context of the literary world.

A Mosaic Menagerie: Creatures of Land, Sea and Sky in Romano-British Mosaics, Patricia Witts, 266 pages, b/w and colour illustrations, Oxford: BAR British Series 625, 2016, £53.00, ISBN 978-1-4073-1541-6.

A tetradentate symmetric ligand bearing both coordination and hydrogen bonding sites, N1,N3-bis(1-(1H-benzimidazol-2-yl)-ethylidene)propane-1,3-diamine (H2bbepd) was utilized to synthesize a series of transition metal complexes, namely [Co(H2bbepd)(H2O)2]·2ClO4 (1), [Cu(H2bbepd)(OTs-)]·OTs- (2),[Cu(bbepd)(CH3OH)] (3), [Cd(H2bbepd)(NO3)2]·CH3OH (4), [Cd(H2bbepd)(CH3OH)Cl]·Cl (5), and [Cd(bbepd)(CH3OH)2] (6). These complexes show similar discrete pincer-like coordination units, possessing different arrangements of hydrogen bonding donor and acceptor sites. With or without the aid of uncoordinated anions and solvent molecules, such mononuclear units have been effectively involved in the construction of hierarchical hydrogen bonding assemblies (successively via level I and level II), leading to discrete binuclear ring (complex 2), one-dimensional chain or ribbon (complexes 3, 4 and 6) and two-dimensional layer (complexes 1 and 5) aggregates.

Statement of Retraction (http://www.efri.uniri.hr/prikaz.asp?txt_id=7366) This is to notify our respectful reading public that the Editorial Board of the journal Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci, časopis za ekonomsku teoriju i praksu/ Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, Journal of Economics and Business has retracted the following article from publication: “Flexible Fourier Stationary Test in GDP per capita for Central Eastern European Countries“, by Hsu-Ling Chang, Chi-Wei Su, Meng-Nan Zhu, published in our journal Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci, časopis za ekonomsku teoriju i praksu/ Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, Journal of Economics and Business, 2011, vol. 29 (1), pp. 51-63 and almost concurrently published in the journal Eastern European Economics, 2011, vol. 49 (3), pp. 54-65. Being in contact with Josef C Brada, Professor Emeritus, Editor of the journal Eastern European Economics (EEE), we realized that the paper had been sent to both journals, although first published in the EEE and then in our Journal. According to professor Brada’s and our analysis, the paper published in these two journals is exactly the same, except for minor differences in wording, most likely due to editing the text before publication. The outstanding differences are in the title and the fact that the paper published in our Journal has three authors and in EEE journal has two. Whatsoever, owing to the fact that the article had been sent to both journals almost at the same time, it had been impossible to find out the case during the review procedure. Due to this unpleasant situation, our Editorial Board would like to inform our valuable readers that all the necessary measures to retract the paper from our publication have been undertaken and according to publishing ethical principles, cooperation with the authors of the retracted paper have been stopped. Although, in this case neither EEE nor our Journal had any chance to envisage and prevent this double publication in time, we do ask our readers to accept our deepest apology. Ivo Sever, PhD Editor- in- Chief

The synthesis, physical characterization and scale-up of conductive, re-dispersible core/shell nanoparticles containing polypyrrole (PPy) in the shell are described. The compressed powders/films show a DC conductivity which is considerably higher than that of commercial standard products based on PEDOT/PSS ('AL 4083' from H.C. Starck). The particles have excellent film-forming properties since thin films (50–100 nm) made by spin-coating from aqueous dispersions of the particles have an AFM film roughness of

A simple catalytic racemic synthesis of benzopyranes, benzothiopyranes and 1,2-dihydroquinolines is presented. The organocatalytic domino reactions between 2-heteroatom substituted aldehyde derivatives and ?,?-unsaturated aldehydes or ?,?-unsaturated cyclic ketones proceed with excellent chemoselectivity to give the corresponding products in good to high yields.