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Scientific evaluation of yachting tourism safety risks (YTSRs) is crucial to reducing accidents in this sector. This paper is based on the data of 115 yachting tourism accidents in China's coastal areas from 2008 to 2021. A fishbone diagram and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were used to identify the risk factors of yachting tourism from four aspects human, yachting, environmental, and management risk and to construct an evaluation index system. To perform dynamic evaluation, a dynamic evaluation model of YTSRs was built using dynamic Bayesian networks (DBN). The results indicate that human factors, such as the unsafe behavior of yachtsmen and tourists, are the primary risk factors; the risk is higher in summer than in winter, and the Pearl River Delta region has a greater risk of yachting tourism. It is suggested to improve the normal safety risk prevention and control system of yachting tourism, to advocate for multi-subject coordination and co-governance, and to improve the insurance service system so as to provide a guarantee for the safe and healthy development of yachting tourism in China. The findings provide theoretical and practical guidance for marine and coastal tourism safety management, as well as the prevention and control of YTSRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effectiveness of phonemic awareness drills on phonological awareness and word reading performance in English of Mainland Chinese students in primary school. Notes findings strongly support the statement that explicit instruction in phonemic awareness promoted phonological awareness and word reading in English of Chinese primary school children. (SG)

Yao, Y.; Zheng, R., and Parmak, M., 2022. Using an evaluation index system to examine the developmental potential of yachting tourism. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(6), 1195–1206. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The quantitative measurement and comparison of the development potential of yachting tourism to determine its development type are greatly significant to the reasonable planning and development of the yachting tourism industry. This study constructs an evaluation index system comprising elements, such as yachting tourism destination, source-market, travel, and support systems, to examine the development potential of yachting tourism. Further, the evaluation system comprehensively employs the analytic hierarchy process, as well as the entropy and cluster analysis methods, to empirically evaluate the tourism development potentials of 84 marinas in 29 coastal cities in China. The results demonstrate that the destination system comprising natural and scenic resource endowments and commercial basic conditions accounts for the core elements of regional yachting tourism development. The high potential of the marinas for yachting tourism mainly derives from the superior regional tourist market, traffic conditions, and the yacht industry foundation. Furthermore, regional development strategies comprising four potential types are also discussed to improve the competitiveness and attractiveness of yachting tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The main aims of this study were to develop analytical scales for yachting tourism push-pull motivations and constraints, and analyze how these factors may influence the revisit intention of yachting tourists in China. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis was conducted using the PLS-SEM, including the evaluation of measurement models and the structural models. SPSS18.0 and SmartPLS 3.3.5 software were used for statistical analysis. Findings: We conducted a survey of 451 respondents who participate in yachting activities in Dalian, China and identified six push motivational factors (novelty and stimulation, sightseeing and leisure, sports and learning, social relationships, self-esteem and prestige and self-realization), three pull motivational factors (featured activities and services, destination environment, destination facilities) and two constraints (internal and external). Partial least squares structural equation modelling showed that all hypothesized interactions between identified factors were statistically significant and meaningful. Originality/value: The push-pull-constraint model offers a new interpretation to the traditional push-pull model in theory, and the results contribute to local yacht industry sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In December, 2019, the newly identified severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China, causing COVID-19, a respiratory disease presenting with fever, cough, and often pneumonia. WHO has set the strategic objective to interrupt spread of SARS-CoV-2 worldwide. An outbreak in Bavaria, Germany, starting at the end of January, 2020, provided the opportunity to study transmission events, incubation period, and secondary attack rates.Methods: A case was defined as a person with SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by RT-PCR. Case interviews were done to describe timing of onset and nature of symptoms and to identify and classify contacts as high risk (had cumulative face-to-face contact with a confirmed case for ≥15 min, direct contact with secretions or body fluids of a patient with confirmed COVID-19, or, in the case of health-care workers, had worked within 2 m of a patient with confirmed COVID-19 without personal protective equipment) or low risk (all other contacts). High-risk contacts were ordered to stay at home in quarantine for 14 days and were actively followed up and monitored for symptoms, and low-risk contacts were tested upon self-reporting of symptoms. We defined fever and cough as specific symptoms, and defined a prodromal phase as the presence of non-specific symptoms for at least 1 day before the onset of specific symptoms. Whole genome sequencing was used to confirm epidemiological links and clarify transmission events where contact histories were ambiguous; integration with epidemiological data enabled precise reconstruction of exposure events and incubation periods. Secondary attack rates were calculated as the number of cases divided by the number of contacts, using Fisher's exact test for the 95% CIs.Findings: Patient 0 was a Chinese resident who visited Germany for professional reasons. 16 subsequent cases, often with mild and non-specific symptoms, emerged in four transmission generations. Signature mutations in the viral genome occurred upon foundation of generation 2, as well as in one case pertaining to generation 4. The median incubation period was 4·0 days (IQR 2·3-4·3) and the median serial interval was 4·0 days (3·0-5·0). Transmission events were likely to have occurred presymptomatically for one case (possibly five more), at the day of symptom onset for four cases (possibly five more), and the remainder after the day of symptom onset or unknown. One or two cases resulted from contact with a case during the prodromal phase. Secondary attack rates were 75·0% (95% CI 19·0-99·0; three of four people) among members of a household cluster in common isolation, 10·0% (1·2-32·0; two of 20) among household contacts only together until isolation of the patient, and 5·1% (2·6-8·9; 11 of 217) among non-household, high-risk contacts.Interpretation: Although patients in our study presented with predominately mild, non-specific symptoms, infectiousness before or on the day of symptom onset was substantial. Additionally, the incubation period was often very short and false-negative tests occurred. These results suggest that although the outbreak was controlled, successful long-term and global containment of COVID-19 could be difficult to achieve.Funding: All authors are employed and all expenses covered by governmental, federal state, or other publicly funded institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity of producers (e.g. plants) usually increases the diversity of associated organisms, but the scale (i.e. the spatial area of plant diversity considered) at which plant diversity acts on other taxa has rarely been studied. Most evidence for cross‐taxon diversity relations come from above‐ground consumers that directly interact with plants.Experimental tests of plant diversity effects on elusive organisms inhabiting the leaf litter layer, which are important for nutrient cycling and decomposition, are rare.Using a large tree diversity experiment, we tested whether tree diversity at the larger plot (i.e. community) or the smaller neighbourhood scale relates to the abundance, species richness, functional and phylogenetic diversity of leaf litter ants, which are dominant organisms in brown food webs.Contrary to our expectations of scale‐independent positive tree diversity effects, ant diversity increased only with plot but not neighbourhood tree diversity. While the exact causal mechanisms are unclear, nest relocation or small‐scale competition among ants may explain the stronger tree diversity effects at the plot scale.Our results indicate that even for small and less mobile organisms in the leaf litter, effects of tree diversity are stronger at relatively larger scales. The finding emphasizes the importance of diverse forest stands, in which mixing of tree species is not restricted to small patches, for supporting arthropod diversity in the leaf litter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the reign of China's Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong (1949-1976), any political or academic dissent was brutally suppressed. With Mao's death in 1976, China, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and his successors, opened China to the outside world and loosened political controls over the intellectual community. As China moved to a market economy and engagement with the Western world, the party loosened controls over intellectual endeavors. Nevertheless, a small number of intellectuals who criticized party' policies and publicly called for democratic reforms were silenced and a a number of them were imprisoned. Though, intellectuals enjoyed more personal and academic freedom in the post-Mao era, if they criticized the party's policies or practices directly, they were ostracized from the intellectual community and a small number were imprisoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effectiveness of paired repeated reading on silent reading fluency in English of Mainland Chinese English language learners in fifth grade. Participants were 101 (49 treatment and 52 comparison) students attending a bilingual elementary school in a metropolitan city in China. Treatment students received paired repeated reading 10 minutes per day, three days a week, for 5 weeks. The comparison students engaged in the traditional English curriculum. Findings revealed the intervention provided substantial benefits in favor of treatment students on measures of silent word reading fluency and silent contextual reading fluency in English, whether male or female. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of intellectuals in China in that country's politics and government. The long tradition of intellectuals' involvement in public life in China, which dates back to Confucianism, is described. The Chinese Communist Party which has ruled since 1949 is said to have evolved from a totalitarian regime in which all elements of intellectual life were rigidly supervised by the government and dissenting views on political issues were not tolerated to a more ambivalent authoritarian system. Intellectuals may be prosecuted or harassed by the Chinese government for political statements, but there is no generalized policy of suppression. Intellectuals seeking greater individual freedoms and civil rights in China focus on calls for the government to adhere to international agreements on these issues which it has formally joined.

The article discusses the historic role of public intellectuals as the conscience of society in China and the treatment of those who have openly criticized communist party policy in the post-Mao era. It is argued that intellectuals remain under Chinese Communist Party control and that there are still no laws to protect political and civil rights. The continued contraction of public space for political discourse under the 4th generation of state leaders who came to power in 2002 is examined. The ability of intellectuals who have lost their jobs in academia to find employment and outlets for their political views within China's expanding market economy is assessed.

The year 2007 will be remembered as the year the toy industry was shaken by a seemingly endless stream of recalls. The scope of this recent wave of recalls associated with lead-tainted toys coming from China has focused the attention of parents and others responsible for ers who sell these toys, companies who import these toys, and numerous government officials on the problem of toys that have been painted with lead-tainted paint. Much of the focus of this crisis is on China and its contractors. This is counterproductive and reactive. The problem of lead-tainted imports is not new. The fact that China is currently in the crosshairs is to a large degree a function of their growth in importance as a preferred site for outsourced manufacturing. It is a volume issue. Lead-tainted imports have many causes, and these will be explored in this article. This article concludes with a discussion of lessons that managers can take from this crisis. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Focuses on the role of intellectuals in the political scene in China since 1980. Development of neo-conservative thought in the era of Jiang Zemin and the neo-Confucianist thought; Leadership's use of philosophies in its appeal to nationalism as a unifying force in the mid-1990s; Concern of government on intellectual involvement in worker unrest.

Explores the possibilities for democracy in the post Deng era in China. Dissident voices in the Legislature; Parallels with Taiwan and South Korea.

Focuses on the conception of human rights in China. Consideration of Confucianism as a fundamental tenet the government's responsibility to provide for the basic economic needs of the population; Concern of Confucianism with restraining political power; Confucian literati criticism of the government for unfair treatment of the population and the abuse of power.

Increased interest in religion in post-Mao China stems from disillusionment with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the destructiveness of the Cultural Revolution. Young people, in particular, are searching for a new belief system. Equally important, the Deng Xiaoping leadership is willing to tolerate religious practices and to rebuild religious institutions. Its seemingly benign policy does not stem from a greater appreciation of religion, but from the desire to exert tighter control over religion. The repression of the Cultural Revolution had driven religion underground, outside the Party's control; thus, the Deng leadership's policy of religious tolerance is to lure religious believers from private to public worship, where the Party can reassert its control. Its religious tolerance is also aimed at winning the cooperation of relatively well-educated Christian converts and the assistance of Western nations in its drive for economic modernization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the mismatch between the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) talk of political reform and its actions to repress political expression, such as jailing journalists and public intellectuals. CCP history is discussed, with the party leadership under Hu Jintao described as the fourth generation since its assumption of power under Mao.

The age assigned to the boundary of the Barremian and Aptian stages remains one of the most poorly constrained post-Pangean stratigraphic boundaries. The lack of a Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the stage boundary has hampered efforts to calibrate the absolute age of the Cretaceous period in the geological time scale. The current definition of the Barremian–Aptian boundary also approximates the onset of magnetic polarity chron M0r; the end of this chron denotes the start of the Cretaceous Normal polarity Superchron that is of fundamental importance for plate reconstructions. Currently, there is up to 5% discrepancy in the age estimates of the Barremian–Aptian boundary (ca. 126–121 Ma) and the start of the Cretaceous Normal Superchron. Here, we review available geochronological information from the late Barremian and early Aptian stages collected from the Pacific Ocean, China, California, the Ontong Java Nui large igneous province and the High Arctic large igneous province. By utilizing only robust geochronological data including U-Pb and recalibrated 40Ar/39Ar ages from sites with magnetic polarity information and/or paleontological constraints, we calculate a best estimate of between 123.8 and 121.8 Ma for the Barremian–Aptian boundary and the onset of chron M0r at 2σ confidence. Using estimates of the duration of chron M0r (0.49 ± 0.10 Myr, 2σ), we conservatively compute the start of the Cretaceous Normal Superchron to between 123.4 and 121.2 Ma (2σ). Using an age of 83.07 ± 0.15 Ma (2σ) for the end of the Cretaceous Normal Superchron, the duration of the superchron is also constrained to between 38.0 and 40.5 Myr (2σ). These age ranges for the Barremian–Aptian boundary, the onset of the Cretaceous Normal Superchron and the duration of the superchron currently provide the best estimates until a GSSP is formally ratified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]