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While previous research has explored the social and academic experiences of international students when studying abroad, limited attention has been paid to local students and their adaptation to the internationalization of higher education. To fill this gap, the present study, adopting identity as an analytic lens, examined a group of Chinese university students' perceptions and experiences in an internationalized curriculum in China. The findings show that the participants tried to interpret, construct, and refine their individual, academic, and cultural identities on a daily basis. In particular, they encountered and negotiated with three identity paradoxes, i.e., between "dedicated learners" and "disoriented bees", between "global citizens" and "proud Chinese", and between "team players" and "independent fighters". The study provides useful implications for university management, teachers, and students in response to the ongoing trend of internationalization of higher education.

This paper investigates whether CEOs working near their birthplace (i.e. local CEOs) commit less fraud. Using data of Chinese listed firms, where local social network is important for business, we find that local CEOs are associated with less fraud commitment. Cross-sectional analyses show that the inhibitory effect is weakened when the CEOs have poverty or oversea experiences. Such impact is more pronounced when the firms are owned by non-state owners or have weaker internal control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Richly embellished tombs of powerful Sogdian immigrants found in China have greatly increased our knowledge on Central Asians who were active along the so-called Silk Road during medieval times. Sino-Sogdian funerary monuments often display scenes such as banquets, hunts, and funerals with images of Sogdian Zoroastrian deities that offer interesting parallels with Sogdian paintings and ossuaries from pre-Islamic sites in modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The comparative study of the representations of the passage into the Zoroastrian underworld in Sino-Sogdian art and several Sogdian ossuaries could shed new light on the identification of Zoroastrian deities and rituals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether and how executives' political connections affect their incentives to withhold bad news, measured by the stock price crash risk. We find that political connections are negatively associated with the stock price crash risk. Moreover, we show that political connections reduce firms' financial constraints and encourage firms to disclose more bad news to compete for government subsidies, which lowers managers' incentives to hide bad news. We also find that the negative relationship between political connections and crash risk varies with external institutions. Our results are robust to numerous robustness tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] The aim of this paper was to study the genotype, pathogenicity and nucleotide difference between Newcastle disease virus (NDV) isolates and traditional NDV vaccine strain (La Sola). [Method] A suspected NDV strain was isolated from a chicken farm. The isolate was preliminarily determined by HA and 111 tests. A pair of primers was designed based on the partial sequence of NDV F gene published in GenBank (accession No. JF950510.1). F gene was amplified by RT-PCR, cloned and sequenced. The sequencing result was compared with the F gene sequences published in GenBank, and the phylogenetic tree was constructed to analyze the genotypes. The pathogenicity of the virus was determined by mean death time (MDT) of chicken embryos, intracerebral pathogenicity index (ICPI) of one-day-old chicks and intravenous pathogenicity index (IVPI) of six-week-old chickens, respectively. Based on the NDV genome sequence published in GenBank (accession No. JF950510.1), nine pairs of primers were designed to amplify the genome sequence of the isolate, and its structure was analyzed. [Result] The length of F gene was about 500 bp, and a NDV strain of genotype VII was isolated. The MDT, ICPI and IVPI were 52.8 h, 1.675 and 2.46, respectively, indicating the isolate was a virulent strain. The whole genome sequence analysis results showed that the full genome length of the isolate was 15 192 bp, which had 6 more nucleotides than thaL of La Sola strain, and the homology between the two strains was 82.8%. [Conclusion] A virulent NDV strain of genotype VII was isolated, with low homology to La Sota strain in nucleotide sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the association between trade credit financing and stock price crash risk within China's context. We find that firms using more trade credit financing have significantly lower future stock price crash risk. This negative association is more pronounced for firms with greater information asymmetry and for firms located in less developed financial markets. This finding is robust to the endogeneity concern, alternative measures of stock price crash risk, and the inclusion of other factors identified in prior studies that might affect stock price crash risk. Further evidence suggests that both the monitoring mechanism and the disclosure mechanism drive the documented relation. Our study suggests that access to trade credit can significantly reduce the likelihood of crash risk in a country like China with less developed formal bank financing. Our study also suggests that investors can effectively avoid stock price crash risk by using the trade credit information disclosed in financial statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the effect of heterogeneous beliefs on firms’ mergers and acquisitions (M&A) decisions. Using data of China’s financial market, which is featured with great heterogeneity of belief, we find that heterogeneous beliefs are positively associated with the occurrence of M&A transactions, and firms with greater heterogeneous beliefs are more likely to pay the transactions with stock. Moreover, we show that government intervention, measured by state ownership, weakens the effect of heterogeneous beliefs on firms’ M&A decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used a meq-deleted attenuated MDV-I strain GX0101Δmeq as a vector to construct a recombinant virus expressing the exogenous gene NDV-F. The ORF of exogenous gene NDV-F was inserted into the eukaryotic expression vector pcDNA3.1(-). Then, the expression cassette of NDV-F which contains the CMV promoter was amplified. Simultaneously, we amplified the selected gene Kan+ expression cassette and inserted them into the PMD18-T vector. Tandem expression cassettes were amplified using primers containing the 50-bp homologous arm of MDV-US2. The PCR product was electroporated into EL250 host bacteria containing GX0101Δmeq. Then, the Kan+ expression cassette was deleted from the recombinant virus genome using 1% arabinose. The plasmid of the positive clone which the Kan+ expression cassette was deleted was extracted and transfected into CEFs to rescue the recombinant virus. The recombinant virus was injected into chickens to observe its growth and replication. The recombinant virus rMDV-F containing the exogenous gene NDV-F was rescued successfully. The recombinant virus could duplicate and express well in CEFs, and grow and replicate well in chickens. Using GX0101Δmeq as a vector, combined with a recombinant system of Red E/T and FLP/FRT, we constructed a recombinant virus that expressed the exogenous gene NDV-F. This study could lay the foundation for further study of recombinant viruses.

Objective: To evaluate and compare the immunoprotection between a meq-deleted Marek's disease virus (MDV) and CVI988/Rispens against MDV very virulent strain GX0101., Methods: In total 120 one-day-old SPF chickens were divided into 4 groups (30 each) and kept in 5 isolators with positive pressure-filtered air. At 1 day of age, 2000 PFU of SC9-1 was inoculated subcutaneously into each bird in group 1; 2000 PFU of commercial vaccine CVI988/ Rispens was inoculated subcutaneously into each bird in group 2. No viral challenge was made in group 3 and 4 as controls. Five days later chickens in group 1, 2, 3 were challenged intra-abdominally with 2000 PFU of very virulent MDV strain GX0101. During 90 days after challenge, all dead birds were recorded and checked for necropsy. The tumor-suspected tissues were examined by histopathological biopsy. The antibody titers induced by AIV and NDV vaccination and propagation dynamics of MDV GX0101 were detected. At the same time, parallel tests were performed on Hy-Line Brown chickens containing MDV maternal antibody., Results: SC9-1 stain provided 100% protective efficiency against very virulent GX0101 challenge in SPF and Hy-Line Brown chickens. CVI988/Rispens provided 86. 7% protective efficiency against very virulent GX0101 challenge in SPF chickens and 93% in Hy-Line Brown chickens. Challenge with GX0101 caused 53.3% mortality and 16.7% of birds with gross tumors in SPF chickens while there was 36.7% mortality and 16.7% of birds with gross tumors in Hy-Line Brown chickens, and there was no tumor lesion in histopathological biopsy in control group. The results of qPCR demonstrated that the copies of GX0101 viral genomes in SC9-1 vaccinated chickens was lower than CVI988/Rispens vaccinated chickens in lymphocyte and feather follicle DNA. The results of hemagglutination inhibition test demonstrated that antibody titers of AIV and NDV was higher in SC9-1 vaccinated chickens than that in CVI988/Rispens vaccinated chickens., Conclusion: SC9-1 stain's immunoprotection against MDV is more effective than CVI988/Rispens strain's both in SPF chickens and commercial Hy-Line Brown chickens containing maternal antibody.