As centers of economic activity, cities face pressures from population growth, resource depletion, and pollution. The Circular Economy (CE) provides a greener alternative to the traditional model, facilitating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, blindly pursuing circularity may undermine long-term sustainability. Compared to advanced economies, the CE remains sparsely implemented in emerging economies. There is still controversy surrounding the relationship between urban CE and sustainability. This study analysed the CE principles adopted in developing countries, aiming to monitor and assess the consistency between urban circularity and the SDGs. The findings suggest that the number of CE principles mentioned in definitions has increased over time. Environmental indicators closely align with various SDGs, while economic indicators are linked to SDGs 8 and 9, and social indicators to SDGs 2 and 3. Furthermore, the study notes that digital technologies have great potential to improve efficiency and advocates a multi-dimensional approach. The novelty of the research lies in deepening the insight of urban circularity, identifying linkages between indicators and SDGs in emerging economies, and spotlighting the key role of digital technologies.

In modern society, travel and video games serve as important means for alleviating life stress. This study aims to explore whether players' gaming experiences can transcend virtual boundaries and extend into the real world, thereby triggering travel intentions to visit the real-world prototypes of game settings. Taking the phenomenal game Black Myth: Wukong as the research object, this game not only draws inspiration from the natural landscapes of multiple Chinese provinces, but also deeply integrates elements of traditional Chinese culture into its game design. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theoretical framework, this study systematically examines the influence mechanisms of spatial presence and social presence as stimulus variables, and cognitive image and affective image as mediating variables, on players' travel intentions. Analysis of 459 valid questionnaires revealed that presence positively influences players' cognitive and affective images, with cognitive image significantly driving travel intention. This study not only verifies the intrinsic mechanisms through which video games enhance tourism intent, but also provides crucial insights for the development of various cultural IP tourism initiatives. The findings offer empirical support for destination marketing strategies while proposing concrete pathways for cross-sector collaboration between game companies and tourism authorities, thereby providing universal guidance for deepening the integration of digital entertainment with the real economy.

Contemporary cross-media Intellectual Property (IP)-based creative practices have posed significant challenges to traditional paradigms of literary criticism, chiefly because IP creation links textual works with commercial product chains, thereby requiring criticism to confront non-textual yet literature-related creative outputs. In response to these new forms of criticism, non-textual phenomena may be reconceptualized as forms of narrative phenomena that remain semantically affiliated with the textual work. This non-textual narrative phenomenon may be interpreted through the concept of “narrative performance”. However, the concept only summarizes the non-textual narrative of a single segment within an IP production chain. A comprehensive understanding of the entire chain necessitates the perspective of “narrative event combination”, which integrates non-textual narrative processes with textual creation. Building upon this framework, this article proposes the notion of Dynamic Narrative Aesthetic. This idea not only constitutes a critical response to IP literature creation, but also offers a forward-looking reflection on AI-generated art as an emergent technological and aesthetic trend.

The May Poetry Society is the first literary group in Macau to actively champion modernism, disseminate modern poetic theories, and promote the practice of modernist composition. When reflecting on the historical position of the May Poetry Society, discussions often focus on its role in introducing and disseminating modernist trends, while rarely delving deep into how its members, who carried different cultural backgrounds, incorporated their unique poetic pursuits into a shared literary ideal. The members of the May Poetry Society often wandered between “encouraging creativity” and “pursuing avant-garde”. Although caught in this paradox, they remained unshaken due to their passionate pursuit towards Macau's literary image. Through the efforts of the May Poetry Society, the “City of Poetry” gradually took shape. By describing the literary practices of the May Poetry Society, this article seeks to highlight the overlooked aspects of the modernist poetry movement in Macau.

Before the mid-20th century, the Macao Peninsula faced a scarcity of freshwater resources, making wells the core infrastructure that sustained the functioning of society and influenced the urban industrial layout and community patterns of Macao. This article elucidates the reliance on wells in certain social and civil industries, such as the water-carrying vendors, tea houses and eateries, slaughterhouses, and laundry services. It also illustrates that wells were not only a source of daily water for the populace at the time but also the foundational guarantee for the social and industrial development of the Macao Peninsula during the pre-industrialization period. The traditional well system in Macao underwent a triple value transformation, evolving from a means of livelihood to a factor of production, and ultimately into a cultural symbol. This approach to sustainable utilization of historical spaces through functional repurposing rather than simple preservation can serve as a paradigm for the conservation of cultural industrial heritage in micro-cities.

The imminence and necessity requirements are common conundrums in the adjudication of self-defense, both of which are prominently manifested in the context of defense within dwellings. The Castle Doctrine is a doctrinal achievement that addresses these two issues. Originating from the Anglo-American legal system, the Castle Doctrine had the broadest defensive right in the common law period, but was progressively limited in the statute period, yet both phases pertain to the interpretation of criminal law rather than its amendment. The Castle Doctrine is also reflected in the cases in China, and while drawing from it, we should distill indigenous expressions within the context of Chinese law. In terms of legal doctrines, the “reasonable belief” of the Castle Doctrine is equivalent to the “ordinary person standard” in China. In specific application, the imminence requirement for self-defense is satisfied upon an illegal entry into the dwelling, while the necessity requirement for the use of deadly force is met when the occupants' personal safety is threatened with serious violence.

Teacher's identity is the core and important driving force in teacher's professional development. Employing a narrative inquiry approach, and drawing on reflective journals, classroom observations, and in-depth interviews, this study explores the trajectory of identity transformation experienced by an international Chinese teacher within the multilingual-teaching-reform virtual teaching-research community. It is found that teacher identity changes from marginal participants to active participants, from theoretical adherents to theory-informed practitioners, from skilled teachers to teaching researchers. The construction of teacher identity was shaped by teachers' development needs and agency, the environment of virtual teaching-research community, and the interaction between teaching theory and practice. The conclusions of the study offer insights for the construction of virtual teaching-research community and for the professional development of international Chinese language teachers.

To date, research on second language reading ability has predominantly employed qualitative analysis methods, with relatively insufficient attention to quantitative analysis. This study establishes a descriptor corpus based on nine domestic and international language proficiency standards. Through term frequency statistics, n-gram extraction, and word position analysis, we reveal the characteristics of the descriptor corpus and construct a fundamental framework for second language reading ability. The framework comprises 6 dimensions with 83 indicators: scope of reading materials, range of topics, cognitive level, linguistic elements, reading speed, and degree of comprehension. The construction of this second language reading ability framework yields three key insights: emphasizing the description of learners' cognitive levels, prioritizing the specification of linguistic element scopes, and enhancing quantitative and level-based descriptions in reading ability descriptors. This study actively explores the application of language information processing techniques in the development of standards for International Chinese Language Education, offering new perspectives for research on various standards in this field.

This paper explores the issue of developing countries catching up with developed nations. It points out that most developing countries have fallen into the poverty trap or middle-income trap since World War II due to the influence of mainstream theories such as structuralism and neo-liberalism, while some East Asian economies and China have achieved rapid development. The paper proposes the theory of New Structural Economics, emphasizing that economic structure is endogenous to factor endowment structure. Development should follow comparative advantages, requiring the coordination of an effective market and a proactive government, supplemented by appropriate industrial policies. This theory not only explains the failure of previous mainstream development ideas but also aligns with the common characteristics of successful economies, providing new theoretical guidance and practical paths for developing countries to achieve sustainable growth and catch-up by leveraging their own endowments and latecomer advantages.

With the gradual spread of Mandarin across different levels of education in Madagascar, phonetic instruction has become increasingly important in the local promotion of Mandarin. Tone perception is a crucial indicator of whether learners can effectively acquire the Mandarin phonological system. To investigate the Mandarin tone perception of Malagasy learners, this study conducted two perception experiments with ten intermediate-level learners, focusing on their recognition of both monosyllabic tones and disyllabic tone combinations. The analysis of perception accuracy and reaction times revealed learners' weaker performance in perceiving T2 and several disyllabic tone combinations, including T3+T1, T3+T4, T1+T2, T4+T3, and T4+T2. These results suggest that learners have not yet fully established distinct categories for Mandarin tones. Further examinations of the learners' error patterns showed that they tended to confuse T2 and T3 in perception, which was closely related to factors such as tonal category, tone combinations, and the position of a tone within a given combination. Moreover, it is argued that their tone perception was affected by the stress patterns of Malagasy, especially the “high-low” stress template, making them more sensitive to Mandarin T1 and T4. At the same time, learners' second language, French, also appeared to influence their tone perception performance.

This paper, situated within the context of international Chinese education and country-specific studies, adopts the framework of third language phonetic acquisition theory (TLPA) and employs phonological contrastive analysis and experimental phonetics methods to investigate the production of Mandarin stop consonants by 11 trilingual learners with L1 Spanish, L2 English, and L3 Mandarin. The study analyzes their voice onset time (VOT) in stop production, aiming to identify the main error patterns and underlying causes. The results show that: (1) The learners' production of L3 Mandarin stops is influenced by both their L1 Spanish and L2 English, indicating significant cross-linguistic phonetic transfer. (2) For aspirated voiceless stops p, t, k (/p^h, t^h, k^h/), errors include insufficient aspiration and blurred aspiration/non-aspiration contrasts. For unaspirated voiceless stops b, d, g (/p, t, k/), the main errors involve voicing confusion. Overall, k (/k^h/) and g (/k/) were acquired with relatively higher accuracy, whereas p (/p^h/) and b (/p/) showed lower accuracy. (3) Learners' error patterns and accuracy are closely related to their L3 proficiency and immersion, with higher-level learners producing VOT values closer to those of native speakers. This study fills a research gap on Spanish-speaking trilingual learners of Mandarin, revealing their characteristic error features and proposing targeted teaching strategies and suggestions to inform both pedagogy and further research.

In the contemporary market environment with intense competition, service organizations are forced to continuously renew their processes and offerings to obtain competitive advantages and maintain business sustainability. How to further improve employees' service innovative behaviors has become critical to organizations' survival and success. Servant leadership, as a leadership style characterized by serving others, is closely related to employees' service innovative behaviors. Therefore, in order to investigate the influence mechanism of service leadership on employee service innovation behavior, this study aims to establish a theoretical framework to construct a moderated mediating model based on the mediating role of prosocial motivation and the moderating role of team emotional climate. This paper collected 788 valid questionnaires from 89 teams (89 leaders and 394 employees) and used SPSS 27.0 and Mplus 6.0 to test the hypothesis. The findings revealed that (1) servant leadership positively influences service innovative behaviors, (2) prosocial motivation plays an intermediary role between servant leadership and service innovative behaviors, and (3) team emotional climate positively or negatively moderates the relationship between servant leadership and service innovative behaviors. These novel findings contribute to the literature and help company managers in enhancing employee innovation and performance. From the perspective of practice, some suggestions for how to motivate employees' service innovation behavior in the new environment and maintain the core competitiveness.

With the rapid development of China's artificial intelligence industry, the lack of institutional protection for legal safeguards of AI-generated content has become increasingly evident. According to traditional legal principles, artificial intelligence is not recognized as a legal subject and therefore cannot constitute an author as defined by copyright law. From a legal hermeneutics perspective, AI-generated content also struggles to meet the originality requirement stipulated by copyright law, which means that the rights and interests associated with such content cannot be protected under the current copyright framework. Article 18 of the Draft Amendment to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that “the legitimate rights and interests of business operators in commercial data shall not be harmed.” Although this provision primarily addresses commercial data, it can also be interpreted to apply to AI-generated content. Granting limited rights to AI-generated content through the Anti-Unfair Competition Law would not only maintain the stability of the copyright legal system but also align with the law's function of providing “complementary protection” for intellectual property. Furthermore, it would effectively mitigate the risk of “misattribution”, thereby establishing a legal development pathway for the artificial intelligence industry.

The significant differences in information disclosure standards between listed companies in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, the lack of interoperability for ESG information, the absence of regulations for third-party verification bodies, and the insufficient collaborative regulatory mechanism are currently hindering market integration and international development in the Greater Bay Area. To address these issues, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange should further improve its rules by clarifying the scope of mandatory disclosure, specifying quantitative disclosure requirements, and implementing measures to ensure the authenticity of disclosures. The Hong Kong Exchange needs to enhance its rules by differentiating disclosure standards across industries, regulating third-party verification bodies, and reducing the disclosure burden on small and medium-sized enterprises. Additionally, coordination and alignment of ESG information disclosure rules for listed companies in the Greater Bay Area can be achieved by establishing unified ESG information disclosure standards, creating an ESG information disclosure data platform, and developing a collaborative regulatory mechanism. Macao can also align its corresponding rules to achieve its sustainable development goals.

The intricacies of identity within Miguel Street have consistently captivated scholarly attention, with a predominant focus on identity loss. Remarkably scarce are analyses delving into the characters' mimicry and development. Employing Homi Bhabha's theories of mimicry, hybridity, and “unhomeliness”, this paper articulates a dynamic evolutionary framework for the identity of the colonized in Miguel Street. It argues that the characters progress through and interact with three stages: spiritual unhomeliness, mechanical mimicry, and hybrid progression, thereby demonstrating how the postcolonial individuals evolve their strategies of identity construction. The analysis reveals Naipaul's emphasis on the colonial subjects' ongoing and active agency. They are not passive victims of fate; instead, they actively shape their dignity through cultural synthesis, along a non-linear but discernible trajectory of development.

This paper focuses on the high-context cultural text “Bai Yuyu” in Liaozhaizhiyi. By comparing “The History of Woo-Tsing-Yen”, published in Fraser's Magazine in 1835, and “Bai Yuyu”, included in Zhang Qingnian's 1997 translation Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio, we explore the commonalities and particularities in how translators from different cultural backgrounds interpret the same source text. The findings show that both translations adopt the strategies of clarity and omission to transform and interpret the original text, reflecting the translators' active participation and intervention. The similarity in the use of clarity strategies also demonstrates that the translators across different periods were motivated by a common desire to introduce Chinese culture and literature in-depth. At the same time, the translators' distinct cultural identities and cognitive orientations give rise to interpretive individualities: the English native translators tend to use poetic and purified interpretations, guided by the intervention of the translators' self-consciousness and values, while the Chinese native translators favor a concise and realistic interpretation of the text, which is faithfully rooted in the historical context of the original text.

The 2008 financial crisis spurred China to promote the use of renminbi (RMB) in international transactions in order not to be trapped deeper in a US “dollar trap”. The launch of cross-border RMB trade settlement marked the start of RMB's internationalization. Early on, China had to choose between fully liberalizing capital flows and maintaining capital control for the sake of financial stability. It opted for a gradualist policy approach. RMB internationalization has made progress, with gains in international usage, foreign exchange reserves, international payments, and global trade finance. Yet, it still lags way behind the US dollar and the Euro. The US dollar's dominance has contributed to the existing monetary system's drawbacks that include global currency instability, deflationary bias in global aggregate demand due to the accumulation of currency reserves by developing countries to deal with the instability, and inequality in the international allocation of resources in the sense that the value of exports from developing countries to developed countries exceeds that of their imports from developed countries. Among the various reform proposals for the international monetary system, more feasible would be a multi-polar system whose core currencies include the US dollar, RMB, and the Euro competing with each other. It would make the global currency market more stable, reduce the global aggregate demand's negative bias, and make the international resource allocation more equitable. RMB internationalization still has a long way to go to match China's relative economic size and share of international trade. With China's economic growth, the extent of RMB internationalization may rise much further, thus contributing to the formation of a multi-polar international monetary system.

As an innovative form of education that integrates international Chinese education and vocational education, “Chinese + vocational skills” education is committed to meeting the dual needs of global learners for Chinese language and vocational development, reflecting China’s image as a responsible country with Chinese as its native language. Comparing with the experience of Japanese for vocational purposes, it is found that there are similarities in the “language + vocational skills” education between China and Japan in terms of empowering workers with vocational skills through language education, following the objective patterns of language globalization, and respecting learners’ needs. There is also partial overlap in the countries of origin of learners and the vocational sectors targeted. However, the two countries differ in terms of language acquisition environments and the mechanisms that activate deeper learning motivations. Through a comparative analysis of learners, learning motivations, teaching organizers, and teaching resource construction, it is found that Japan’s approach to vocational Japanese instruction offers valuable insights-including stronger intrinsic learner motivation, a joint public-private instructional model led by enterprises, and more flexible and open teaching resource construction. Drawing on these insights, we believe that “Chinese + vocational skills” education should: (1) enhance the management of learner motivation and increase the added value of Chinese learning; (2) encourage deeper participation of Chinese enterprises operating overseas in program implementation; and (3) improve the accessibility of teaching resources by building an open, inclusive, and user-friendly system for collaborative resource development and sharing.

Culture plays a crucial role in the design of locally developed Chinese language textbooks, raising important pedagogical questions regarding which cultures should be included, whose cultures are represented, and how these cultural elements are integrated. This study examines cultural representation in two localized Chinese textbooks: Across the Silk Road 2 (United Arab Emirates) and Everyday Chinese: Chinese Language Textbook for Thai Secondary Schools 3 & 4 (Thailand). Employing content analysis, the study systematically encodes and quantifies both the types and presentation patterns of cultural content. The findings reveal four major patterns: (1) a marked imbalance in cultural representation, with a predominant focus on the target language culture-especially contemporary Chinese culture-while local culture is marginally included and global culture is rarely addressed; (2) cultural content remains largely knowledge-oriented, lacking the depth necessary to foster critical reflection among learners; (3) the target language culture is typically presented in fixed textbook sections, whereas local culture appears in a fragmented and dispersed manner; and (4) intercultural comparisons between the target culture and local culture are present but limited in scope. Based on these findings, the study offers practical recommendations for the integration and design of cultural content in future locally compiled Chinese textbooks.

The widespread future application of innovative technologies may trigger corresponding risks, including technological and political risks stemming from diversified technological creation, information and ethical risks caused by intelligent development, as well as social and institutional risks resulting from high-efficiency applications. As the legal domain most closely related to technological innovation, intellectual property law should abandon the deliberate, persistent, and irreversible nature of these future risks through institutional innovation. On one hand, intellectual property law should enrich its legislative purpose with “long-term stability of human society” as a key element. On the other hand, its regulatory framework should expand to include risk assessments encompassing private personal and property safety, as well as public interests involving social and national security. Furthermore, future intellectual property legal systems should adopt a human-centric collaborative approach to establish the theoretical foundations for transcending the territorial limitations of intellectual property rights.

The Macao SAR Penal Code uses subjective intent as the decisive criterion for distinguishing between money laundering offenses and offenses of concealing or disguising criminal proceeds, whereas the Criminal Law of Mainland China focuses primarily on predicate crimes. The prevailing interpretation of “laundering” and the “funds” involved in China's mainland criminal law doctrine has, to some extent, deviated from the financial nature inherent in the crime of money laundering. In 2006, Amendment VI to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China expanded the scope of money laundering offenses-a legislative response to FATF’s requirements regarding the expansion of predicate offenses. Moving forward, Mainland China should consider reverting to its more scientifically grounded framework prior to the 2006 amendment. It would be advisable to restore Article 191 as the exclusive provision for money laundering offenses and directly expand the scope of predicate offenses within this article. This study addresses emerging challenges in China’s anti-money laundering landscape by restoring conceptual coherence, logical consistency, and systematic integrity within the criminal framework, thereby enhancing alignment with international conventions and resolving normative inconsistencies arising from the criminalization of self-laundering.

Based on the theory of multimodal metaphors, this study argues that the multimodal metaphor of Chinese culture-loaded words is a transitional process of “from penetration to mutual assistance” through semantic mapping. Additionally, the teaching should emphasize “contrast”: in the beginner level, “translation strategies” and “visualization methods” are used; in the intermediate level, the focus is on “old to new”; and in the advanced level, the guidance of “Chinese-style thinking” is provided. Regarding metaphors, the integrated course should focus on basic meanings, cultural connotations, comparison, and communication; the listening and speaking course should emphasize application scenarios, and the reading and writing course should focus on historical origins and written expressions. Based on the MAP model, this paper designs a teaching plan for Chinese culture-loaded words and evaluates its effectiveness through a comparative teaching experiment involving 20 participants. The results show that students who were taught using the multimodal metaphor method performed better than those taught using traditional methods, and the multimodal metaphor method proved more advantageous in enhancing vocabulary production. This study provides new perspectives and practical guidance for teaching culture-loaded words in international Chinese language education.

Before the full-scale outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, China maintained a close relationship with Nazi Germany. After China declared war on Germany in 1941, Chiang Kai-shek, as the Supreme Commander of the China War Zone, adopted a policy toward Germany that was both complex and inherently contradictory. On the one hand, he linked Germany's military actions to China's resistance against Japan, attempting to leverage Allied cooperation against the Axis powers; on the other hand, he remained attentive to German military technology and formulated plans to harness German scientific and technical personnel for post-war reconstruction. However, Chiang’s assessments of the international situation were often overly idealistic. For example, his persistent belief that Japan would inevitably attack the Soviet Union and his expectations of utilizing German talents after Germany’s defeat were significantly misaligned with actual developments. Notably, Chiang adopted a policy that drew a clear distinction between the German populace and the Nazi regime when addressing the issue of defeated Germany. While this policy reflected a certain degree of pragmatic consideration, it also revealed his emphasis on Germany’s military modernization from a technical perspective, with insufficient reflection on the systemic and ideological roots of German militarism. Examining Chiang Kai-shek’s policies toward Germany after 1941 provides new perspectives for understanding the complexity of Sino-German relations during this period.

Macao, China, is a mini-sized economy. As such, diversified production is difficult to achieve, which could create pronounced vulnerability for the economy. Nevertheless, 25 years after its return to China, the region’s GDP per capita remains among the highest in the world, employment opportunities have increased, prices remain relatively stable, government fiscal revenue is substantial and robust, and life expectancy exceeds those of advanced countries. These remarkable development achievements may be termed an economic miracle. How was this accomplished? This article examines multiple policies implemented by the Macao SAR Government, including significant improvements in public security, the introduction of market competition mechanisms to reform the gaming industry, the establishment of a comprehensive education system to vigorously develop education, the enhancement of welfare systems, and the expansion of infrastructure. The analysis leads to a core conclusion: Macao’s success stems from the synergistic and complementary effects of deliberate government policies and market forces. A stable government, a highly effective Legislative Council, and the enhanced professional competence of civil servants resulting from educational reforms have all contributed to economic development and social services. Meanwhile, the high proportion of indirect taxes from the gaming industry has endowed the SAR government with robust financial capacity, enabling it to provide the necessary material conditions for policy implementation.

The convergence of digital technology and language instruction has sparked a surge in the practice and research on digitalized international Chinese language education worldwide. However, a comprehensive overview of the field's evolution remains lacking. To systematically present the current research landscape, this study utilizes a dataset comprising 276 Chinese and 144 English articles from 2000 to 2023, retrieved from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and the Web of Science (WoS) databases. Employing bibliometric methods and the knowledge visualization tool CiteSpace, the study generates scientific knowledge maps. By analyzing publication trends in different phases, prominent journals, core authors and institutes, highly cited works, keywords, and other dimensions, this study outlines the overall development trajectory of the field and highlights differences between Chinese and English literature. Based on these findings, the study provides recommendations for journals, researchers, institutions, and publications involved in the digitalization of international Chinese language education, aiming to advance future practices and research in the field and promote the high-quality development of global Chinese education.

With the rapid development of China, the demand for Chinese language learning continues to be strong, and the demand for Chinese language teacher is also increasing simultaneously. Cultivating excellent teachers has become an urgent task. As the foundational stage of the “training chain”for international Chinese language teachers, the current undergraduate training program for international Chinese education is still a field where theory outweighs practice. To help students build a solid foundation while gaining in-depth understanding of the real-life teaching scenario and requirements of international Chinese education, and to explore development directions, the practitioners at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, based on the “International Chinese Teacher Professional Competency Standards” and experiential learning theory framework, have developed a “XiPu approach”, integrating professional skills, professional practice, and professional knowledge in training. This approach, through the permeation of a four-stage cyclic structure of “concrete experience - reflective observation - abstract conceptualization-active experimentation” in teaching design, encourages students to actively practice this dynamic learning mode in their growth path. It represents an initial exploration of a talent cultivation model with the goal of lifelong learning.

Previous studies about the Parent Reading Belief Inventory (PRBI) have shown discrepant results and have primarily focused on the western hemisphere. The present study aims to explore the fundamental factor structure of the PRBI and re-examine the reliability and validity in a large number of Chinese parents in southern China, expecting to show a multifaceted structure of parental reading belief from diverse socioeconomic status (SES). The significance of this study is underscored by its potential to provide a more culturally sensitive and contextually relevant measure of parental reading beliefs, which can contribute to a better understanding of literacy practices in the Chinese context. PRBI was first introduced by DeBaryshe and Binder (1994) to assess parents’ reading perception, attitude, value, and belief, which is a 42-item instrument composed of 7 subscales. Given the cultural disparities in parenting beliefs, linguistic subtleties, item relevance, and the imperative for contextual adaptation, the original PRBI may not be directly applicable to the Chinese context and requires adaptation. To address this, the study recruited 1,656 parents to complete the PRBI inventory and Home Literacy Environment Questionnaire. The lack of validation for the core factor structure of the Western-focused PRBI warrants careful reconsideration and should be interpreted with caution as researchers in these studies failed to affirm the PRBI’s reliability or validity for their specific cultural group. Therefore, the current study’s revisions aim to address these issues, allowing for a more accurate assessment of parental reading beliefs among Chinese parents. Findings show that the original PRBI exhibited poor fit parameters using confirmatory factor analysis and thus was revised to an inventory with 33 items. This revision fills a needed gap to assess parents’ reading belief in the Chinese context as an instrumental measure to examine parental involvement, early literacy practices, and perceptions on preschooler’s shared-book reading experience and early language development.

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is one of the most commonly used instruments to measure teaching quality. Its use in higher education is important because it benefits multiple parties. It benefits students because they can voice out their comments on the teaching they receive. It benefits teachers because they can adjust their teaching according to student feedback. Universities also benefit because they can understand the overall teaching performance of their academics. Despite the respondents of the questionnaires for teaching quality evaluation are students, most of these evaluation tools may not be able to reflect students’ perceptions toward the teaching they have received because these tools are usually developed from the universities’ perspective for the purposes of promotions or salary raises. To better reflecting the perceived teaching quality students have experienced, we developed a set of teaching quality evaluation tool adopted from the popular PZB (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry) service quality (SERVQUAL) measurement instrument. Our research model and measurement instrument are tested using surveys with two samples of 358 and 220 recruited from undergraduates in one of the universities in Macau in 2017 and 2023, respectively. The results revealed that, among the five SERVQUAL dimensions, Empathy and Reliability dimensions significantly affected students’ satisfaction towards their teachers, while the Responsiveness dimension did not have such an impact. The Tangible dimension had no impact on satisfaction toward teachers but directly influenced the overall course satisfaction. Satisfaction toward teachers had a significant impact on students’ perceived overall course satisfaction. The impact of Assurance on teaching quality differed between the two cohorts. For researchers, this study demonstrates the suitability of adopting SERVQUAL, a commercial service quality evaluation tool with items revised to fit education context, can effectively measure students’ satisfaction on their learning. For educators, our study sheds light on the directions for teachers to allocate their efforts to help students increase learning effectiveness through their satisfaction on their learning process.

Island tourism is currently showing a thriving development trend, as the demand for vacation and leisure travel continues to increase, making island tourism a popular choice. This study aims to a systematic review focusing on quantitative analysis current research on island tourism using the Web of Science citation database. The research covers 32 years and visualizes keyword co-occurrence, clustering, publication years, etc., through software to obtain a knowledge map of authors, disciplines involved, and more. Additionally, a detailed analysis of the current status of domestic and international island tourism is conducted through knowledge maps such as keyword co-occurrence and clustering. The study found that there are fragmentation issues in island tourism research, with a lack of systematic frameworks and guiding mechanisms. Current research mainly focuses on aspects such as island tourism resources and environments, tourist relationships, and island residents’ perceptions, but lacks the construction of a framework for sustainable development of island tourism on a comparative basis. The results of this study will help reveal the hotspots and trends in island tourism research, providing important references for the academic community and tourism industry, and promoting further development and research in the field of island tourism.

Multi-Channel Network (MCN) generally refers to any entity or organization that assists content creators in achieving commercial monetization, originating from the revenue-sharing model of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) launched by YouTube in the United States in 2007. In 2016, the concept of 'Multi-Channel Network' was introduced to China and quickly localized, forming the 'MCN business model' that integrates multi-channel network organizations with Professional Generated Content (PGC). Unlike the YPP's 'website-influencer' revenue-sharing model, the Chinese 'MCN business model' expands the revenue-sharing subjects by enabling stable commercial monetization for every participant involved in content production on the platform. As a new production form characterized by the participation of multiple entities and content monetization, the 'MCN business model' serves as a dynamic medium connecting the virtual and real worlds. However, content production within multi-channel networks is often rife with issues related to capital expansion, consumerism, and capitalist ideology, which have not received adequate attention from academia. Therefore, this paper focuses on the phenomenon of multi-channel networked production of internet content, exploring the new challenges brought about by contemporary communication technologies from the critical perspectives of historical materialism and political economy.