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With the global expansion of International Baccalaureate (IB), tensions have emerged between IB and the national education systems. This poses challenges to international education governance in many countries. In mainland China, IB programmes have rapidly become more prevalent since their introduction in 1991. However, new policies have imposed censorship and restrictions on international programmes regarding international education as a potential threat to China's educational sovereignty, cultural identity, and educational equity. Shanghai has the highest number of IB schools and the strictest policies in mainland China. To understand China's international education policy governance, this study traces the policy evolution of Shanghai's IB education through document analysis and interviews. Furthermore, this study examines the responses, perceptions, and demands of non-governmental stakeholders regarding current restrictive policies. Results show that the development of IB education in Shanghai has undergone three stages of policy transformation: support, regulation, and restriction. Against this policy transformation, non-governmental stakeholders believe that IB education is a "necessity". Therefore, this study suggests that IB education governance in China should incorporate the elements of network governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-lingual event retrieval is an information retrieval task aimed at cross-lingual event retrieval among multiple languages to find text or documents related to a specific event. Specific to Chinese-Vietnamese cross-language event retrieval, it involves using Chinese as a query to retrieve Vietnamese documents related to the query event. The critical issue is how to efficiently align query and document representations with limited resources. Existing cross-language pre-training models are trained on large-scale multilingual corpora, but their training goals do not include explicit language alignment tasks. Due to the uneven distribution of training corpora between different languages, these models have The problem of language bias. Therefore, this linguistic bias is also inherited in cross-lingual retrieval based on these models. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a Chinese-Vietnamese cross-lingual event retrieval method based on knowledge distillation. This approach enables the model to learn good query-document matching features from monolingual retrieval by transferring knowledge from high-resource to low-resource languages. By enhancing the alignment between queries and documents in different languages in a shared semantic space, the method improves the performance of Chinese-Vietnamese cross-lingual event retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating twenty-first century competencies into the curriculum has become an important issue for education reform worldwide. This study examines and compares twenty-first century competencies demonstrated in mother tongue curriculum standards in China, the United States and Finland. It identifies key similarities and significant differences among them. It shows that the Finnish Curriculum has a more balanced distribution of twenty-first century competencies. While communication and critical thinking are stressed in all three, critical thinking is prioritised in the American Curriculum. In addition to communication and critical thinking, the Chinese Curriculum emphasises citizenship based on national identity, metacognitive strategies and aesthetics. The American Curriculum focuses on information and ICT literacy, and the Finnish Curriculum highlights personal and social responsibility concerning cultural awareness and citizenship. The significant differences between these three Curricula are related to the countries' tradition of curriculum theories – the Chinese integrate Western theories and the Confucian tradition, the American follow the Anglo–American curriculum and the Finnish have roots in Bildung-Didaktik. Curriculum objectives should take into consideration both subject knowledge and skills and the student as a whole person. Additionally, different curriculum traditions should be considered and learned during the curriculum design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) is promising to produce syngas with low ratios of H2/CO with the feedstock of greenhouse gases, CH4 and CO2. Synthesizing active and selective catalysts and developing the protocols for stable and durable operation is crucial to implement DRM for the production of syngas. High‐temperature operation and deposition of carbon on the surface of catalysts represent two significant challenges to prevent the adaption of DRM in industry. Light‐driven catalysis of DRM can lower operating temperature and reduce the deposition of carbon, offering the promise to tackle the challenges faced in traditional thermocatalysis of DRM. Herein, the light‐driven DRM on metal catalysts of various structures, highlighting the encouraging promise of photocatalysis for DRM, is overviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the perceptions and experiences of a teacher and students in a Shanghai public primary school when digital games were used in a second‐grade math class. The participants included one teacher and 45 students. Data collection methods included classroom observation, focus‐group and individual interviews, and document analysis. Digital gameplay, when used once daily over a 6‐day period, was found to enhance student engagement and interest in learning; many students, however, were concerned about its effect on academic achievement and eyesight. The teacher employed a "making thinking visible" approach using pencil and paper and problem‐solving strategies to help students understand the game's mathematical principles and master mathematical knowledge. Obstacles included large class size, difficulty evaluating learning outcomes, balancing fun and learning, and effective game–classroom integration. This study found that exam‐oriented education and traditional teacher‐centred teaching in China influenced participants' perceptions and experiences of digital game‐based learning. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Digital game‐based learning is effective and leads to a more relaxed learning environment that promotes students' engagement, interest, motivation, and confidence.Learning with digital games helps students acquire mathematics knowledge more effectively than traditional classroom lectures.Digital game‐based learning is helpful in math class as it makes students feel challenged and more capable, thereby improving self‐efficacy and task persistence. What this paper adds: Mathematics teachers and students have a contradictory attitude that shows both approval and concern towards game‐based learning.In the Chinese context, exam‐oriented culture is an important factor that influences the teacher's and students' perceptions and experiences of digital game‐based learning.While digital game‐based learning helps students' engagement and interest in math, it also faces numerous challenges such as large class size, balancing fun and learning, and effective game–classroom integration. Implications for practice and/or policy: Digital game‐based learning may be more effective when combined with pencil and paper to write down the process and make thinking visible.Fun and learning should be balanced in digital game‐based learning.Teachers need training and support for digital game‐centred programmes to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capability of manipulating the interfacial electronic coupling is the key to achieving on-demand functionalities of catalysts. Herein, it is demonstrated that the electronic coupling of Fe 2 N can be effectively regulated for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysis by vacancy-mediated orbital steering. Ex situ refined structural analysis reveals that the electronic and coordination states of Fe 2 N can be well manipulated by nitrogen vacancies, which impressively exhibit strong correlation with the catalytic activities. Theoretical studies further indicate that the nitrogen vacancy can uniquely steer the orbital orientation of the active sites to tailor the electronic coupling and thus benefit the surface adsorption capability. This work sheds light on the understanding of the catalytic mechanism in real systems and could contribute to revolutionizing the current catalyst design for HER and beyond., (© 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Metal sulfides for hydrogen evolution catalysis typically suffer from unfavorable hydrogen desorption properties due to the strong interaction between the adsorbed H and the intensely electronegative sulfur. Here, we demonstrate a general strategy to improve the hydrogen evolution catalysis of metal sulfides by modulating the surface electron densities. The N modulated NiCo 2 S 4 nanowire arrays exhibit an overpotential of 41 mV at 10 mA cm -2 and a Tafel slope of 37 mV dec -1 , which are very close to the performance of the benchmark Pt/C in alkaline condition. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and density functional theory studies consistently confirm the surface electron densities of NiCo 2 S 4 have been effectively manipulated by N doping. The capability to modulate the electron densities of the catalytic sites could provide valuable insights for the rational design of highly efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution and beyond.