A survey of primary homology assessment: different botanists perceive and define characters in different ways

Cladistic analyses begin with an assessment of variation for a group of organisms and the subsequent representation of that variation as a data matrix. The step of converting observed organismal variation into a data matrix has been considered subjective, contentious, under-investigated, imprecise, unquantifiable, intuitive, as a black-box, and at the same time as ultimately the most influential phase of any cladistic analysis (Pimentel and Riggins, 1987; Bryant, 1989; Pogue and Mickevich, 1990; de Pinna, 1991; Stevens, 1991; Bateman et al., 1992; Smith, 1994; Pleijel, 1995; Wilkinson, 1995; Patterson and Johnson, 1997). Despite the concerns of these authors, primary homology assessment is often perceived as reproducible. In a recent paper, Hawkins et al. (1997) reiterated two points made by a number of these authors: that different interpretations of characters and coding are possible and that different workers will perceive and define characters in different ways. One reviewer challenged us: did we really think that two people working on the same group would come up with different data sets? The conflicting views regarding the reproducibility of the cladistic character matrix provoke a number of questions. Do the majority of workers consistently follow the same guidelines? Has the theoretical framework informing primary homology assessment been adequately explored? The objective of this study is to classify approaches to primary homology assessment, and to quantify the extent to which different approaches are found in the literature by examining variation in the way characters are defined and coded in a data matrix.

Effects of dietary selenium supplementation on tissue selenium distribution and glutathione peroxidase activity in Chinese Ring Necked Pheasants

The objective of this study was to determine the concentration of total selenium (Se) and the proportions of total Se comprised as selenomethionine (SeMet) and selenocysteine (SeCys) in the post mortem tissues of female pheasants (Phasianus Colchicus Torquator) offered diets containing graded additions of selenized enriched yeast (SY) or sodium selenite (SS). Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and tissue glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity of breast (Pectoralis Major) were assessed at 0 and 5 d post-mortem. A total of 216 female pheasant chicks were enrolled onto the study. 24 birds were euthanased at the start of the study and samples of blood, breast muscle, leg muscle (Peroneus Longus and M. Gastrocnemius), heart, liver, kidney and gizzard collected for determination of total Se. Remaining birds were blocked by live weight and randomly allocated to one of four dietary treatments (n=48 birds/treatment) that either differed in Se source (SY vs. SS) or dose (Con [0.2 mg total Se/kg], SY-L and SS-L [0.3 mg/kg total Se as SY and SS, respectively], and SY-H [0.45 mg total Se/kg]). Following 42 and 91 days of treatment 24 birds/treatment were euthanased and samples of blood, breast muscle, leg muscle, heart, liver, kidney and gizzard retained for determination of total Se and the proportion of total Se comprised as SeMet or SeCys. Whole blood GSH-Px activity was determined at each time point. Tissue GSH-Px activity and TBARS were determined in breast tissue at the end of the study. There were positive responses (P<0.001) in both blood and tissues to the graded addition of SY to the diet but the same responses were not apparent in the blood and tissues of selenite supplemented birds receiving comparable doses. Although there were differences between tissue types in the distribution of SeMet and SeCys there were few differences between treatments. There were effects of treatment on erythrocyte GSH-Px activity (P = 0.012) with values being higher in treatments SY-H and SS-L when compared to the negative control and treatment SY-L. There were no effects of treatment on tissue GSH-Px activity which is reflected in the overall lack of any treatment effects on TBARS.

Customer service 140 characters at a time: the users’ perspective

Electronic word of mouth (eWoM) has been adopted by Internet users as a way of communicating their consumption preferences and experiences. Consumers are able to reach out to others, unknown to them, and have online conversations that can influence their behaviour. Organisations need to understand how to respond to these brand-related conversations conducted via social media. By looking through the lens of social capital, this paper contributes to social media and social capital research by studying the perceptions that 44 social media users have of companies that interact with them online. The users value social networks and support as part of their online relationships. However, several new value categories are identified when compared to previous research. Further research is required to investigate possible segmentation approaches and alternative methodological choices.

Waste cooking oil as an energy resource: review of Chinese policies

Converting waste cooking oil into biofuel represents a three-win solution, dealing simultaneously with food security, pollution, and energy security. In this paper, we encode the policy documents of waste cooking oil refining biofuel in China based on content analysis, and explore the related policies from the two dimensions as basic policy tools and enterprises supply chain. Research indicates the weak institution coordination of policy issuing entities. Also, the findings show that tools of regulatory control and goal planning are overused. Policies of government procurement, outsourcing and biofuel consumption are relatively scarce. Generally, government focuses more on formulating policies from the strategic, administrative and regulatory aspects, while less on market-oriented initiatives as funding input and financial support.

Implicit learning and imperceptible influence: Syncretic literacy of multilingual Chinese children.

This article reports on an ethnographic study involving the literacy practices of two multilingual Chinese children from two similar yet different cultural and linguistic contexts: Montreal and Singapore. Using syncretism as a theoretical tool, this inquiry examines how family environment and support facilitate children’s process of becoming literate in multiple languages. Informed by sociocultural theory, the inquiry looks in particular at the role of grandparents in the syncretic literacy practices of children. Through comparative analysis, the study reveals similarities and differences that, when considered together, contribute to our understanding of multilingual children’s creative forms of learning with regard to their rich literacy resources in multiple languages, the imperceptible influences of mediators, various learning styles and syncretic literacy practices.

Invisible and visible language planning: ideological factors in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec

This ethnographic inquiry examines how family languages policies are planned and developed in ten Chinese immigrant families in Quebec, Canada, with regard to their children’s language and literacy education in three languages, Chinese, English, and French. The focus is on how multilingualism is perceived and valued, and how these three languages are linked to particular linguistic markets. The parental ideology that underpins the family language policy, the invisible language planning, is the central focus of analysis. The results suggest that family language policies are strongly influenced by socio-political and economical factors. In addition, the study confirms that the parents’ educational background, their immigration experiences and their cultural disposition, in this case pervaded by Confucian thinking, contribute significantly to parental expectations and aspirations and thus to the family language policies.

Reading the world through words: cultural themes in heritage Chinese language textbooks

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate and valued in China as well as in Chinese diasporan communities. Furthermore, it looks at the construction of cultural knowledge in Chinese language textbooks in relation to the mainstream ideology to which immigrant children are exposed in and out of mainstream school classrooms. It looks at how the power relationship between legitimate cultural knowledge in majority and minority contexts is established and to what extent it affects language minority students' literacy practices in mainstream school and heritage language school contexts. Data sources are the Chinese textbooks used from kindergarten to Grade 5 in a Chinese heritage language school.

The classification and application of toxic Chinese Materia Medica

Many important drugs in the Chinese materia medica (CMM) are known to be toxic, and it has long been recognized in classical Chinese medical theory that toxicity can arise directly from the components of a single CMM or may be induced by an interaction between combined CMM. Traditional Chinese Medicine presents a unique set of pharmaceutical theories that include particular methods for processing, combining and decocting, and these techniques contribute to reducing toxicity as well as enhancing efficacy. The current classification of toxic CMM drugs, traditional methods for processing toxic CMM and the prohibited use of certain combinations, is based on traditional experience and ancient texts and monographs, but accumulating evidence increasingly supports their use to eliminate or reduce toxicity. Modern methods are now being used to evaluate the safety of CMM; however, a new system for describing the toxicity of Chinese herbal medicines may need to be established to take into account those herbs whose toxicity is delayed or otherwise hidden, and which have not been incorporated into the traditional classification. This review explains the existing classification and justifies it where appropriate, using experimental results often originally published in Chinese and previously not available outside China.

Fashion magazines: design implications of focus and perception variance between Chinese and UK females

A growing segment of Chinese women are willing to spend a high percentage of their income on fashion related products, however there appears to be concern over the quality of Chinese fashion magazines. Concern can be focused in two major issues: i) fashion magazine design, and ii) pictorial and textual distribution of content. This paper investigates how human factors (i.e. social norms and individual differences) influence fashion magazine design/format preferences, and investigates the difference in readership patterns between British and Chinese Women. Our study identifies significant differences between UK and Chinese readership; which has an impact on magazine viewing patterns and content preference.

Sustaining growth and profits in a rapidly changing world - a Chinese perspective

The aim of this paper is to stimulate discussion about how Chinese construction and professional service companies can best equip themselves and grow sustainably and profitably in a rapidly changing world. It identifies some of the issues and risks faced by Chinese construction and professional service companies operating domestically and overseas. China has experienced a period of rapid economic growth which is also reflected in the annual construction output. China’s population is the largest in the world, but the demographic profile is changing with an ageing population and a changing dependency ratio. The population is urbanising at a fast rate, putting pressure on housing, and infrastructure. The government must plan for the future and the construction sector must be involved in that planning. The paper considers the drivers shaping China’s construction market, how companies are responding by embracing change and internationalising by seeking to exploit their skills overseas. The drivers are globalisation, urbanisation, demographic change, sustainability, safety and health, and the evolution of professional services as a core part of construction activity. Clients/owners are driving change by demanding more certainty and more sustainable projects.

Glacial-interglacial changes in dust deposition on the Chinese Loess Plateau

The Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) contains an extensive record of aeolian deposition through multiple glacial–interglacial cycles. Independent chronologies based on pedostratigraphy, magnetic susceptibility, radiocarbon and luminescence dating were developed for 79 sites and used to estimate aeolian mass accumulation rates (MARs) for marine isotope stages 1–5. The regional median value of MAR for Stage 2 is 310 g/m2/yr compared to an estimate of 65 g/m2/yr for Stage 5. Estimated MARs from individual sites for Stage 2 are approximately 4.3 times greater than MARs for Stage 5 and 2.1 times greater than for Stage 1. MAR values at individual sites are consistently highest in the northwest and lowest in the southwest of the CLP during all marine isotope stages. MARs estimated on sections through loess terraces are consistently higher than MAR estimates at other sites, indicating that local recycling of loess material from exposed river valley deposits has been significant throughout the last 130 kyr. Although the spatial and temporal patterns in MAR are robust, there are uncertainties about the magnitude of these changes due to (a) lack of bulk density measurements and uncertainties in the chronologies for individual sites, (b) site and chronological biases in the sampling used to derive regional estimates, and (c) the unquantified nature of human impact on accumulation rates during the late Holocene. Nevertheless, the records from the CLP pose a number of challenges which could be addressed by numerical models of the palaeo-dust cycle.

A multidimensional comparison of discourse organization in English and Chinese university students' argumentative writing

Three methodological limitations in English-Chinese contrastive rhetoric research have been identified in previous research, namely: the failure to control for the quality of L1 data; an inference approach to interpreting the relationship between L1 and L2 writing; and a focus on national cultural factors in interpreting rhetorical differences. Addressing these limitations, the current study examined the presence or absence and placement of thesis statement and topic sentences in four sets of argumentative texts produced by three groups of university students. We found that Chinese students tended to favour a direct/deductive approach in their English and Chinese writing, while native English writers typically adopted an indirect/inductive approach. This study argues for a dynamic and ecological interpretation of rhetorical practices in different languages and cultures.