Beautiful Scenery and Affectionate People——Reflections on the visit to Republic of Korea with the Chinese Youth delegation

During June 15 -24, I had the pleasure to visit Republic of Korea with the Chinese Youthdelegation sent by All-China Youth Federation.At the invitation of the Ministry of Gender Equalityand Family Affairs of ROK, this visit was arrangedunder the "Youth Exchange Agreement between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and     

New Changes in Northeast Asia and the Post-Kim Jong-il Era

In the long term, a change in the situation in Northeast Asia will depend on the geopolitical and economic structural changes caused by China’s rise; in the medium term,     

Temporal Trends in Rainwater Tank Suicides in Rijeka,Croatia—A 30‐year Study

Although drowning in rainwater tanks is a generally rare phenomenon, this method for suicide has been observed in parts of Croatia. Review of autopsy records at the University of Rijeka, Croatia, was undertaken from 1987 to 2016 to examine this phenomenon. Of 469 drowning deaths, there were 35 suicides in rainwater tanks (7.5%). Overall drowning deaths showed no temporal trends. In contrast, suicidal drownings in rain water tanks showed a marked decline over the years, with 15 cases in 1987–1991, seven in 1992–1996, six in 1997–2001, six in 2002–2006, one in 2007–2011, and none in 2012–2016. Thus, suicidal drowning cases as a percentage of overall drownings dropped from 18% to zero (p<0.001). This study reports a very unusual method of suicide that may have occurred because of the ready availability of large water reservoirs in homes. The recent fall in numbers may relate to less reliance on domestic reservoirs of water.     

Soil forensics: How far can soil clay analysis distinguish between soil vestiges?

Soil traces are useful as forensic evidences because they frequently adhere to individuals and objects associated with crimes and can place or discard a suspect at/from a crime scene. Soil is a mixture of organic and inorganic components and among them soil clay contains signatures that make it reliable as forensic evidence. In this study, we hypothesized that soils can be forensically distinguished through the analysis of their clay fraction alone, and that samples of the same soil type can be consistently distinguished according to the distance they were collected from each other. To test these hypotheses 16 Oxisol samples were collected at distances of between 2 m and 1.000 m, and 16 Inceptisol samples were collected at distances of between 2 m and 300 m from each other. Clay fractions were extracted from soil samples and analyzed for hyperspectral color reflectance (HSI), X-ray diffraction crystallographic (XRD), and for contents of iron oxides, kaolinite and gibbsite. The dataset was submitted to multivariate analysis and results were from 65% to 100% effective to distinguish between samples from the two soil types. Both soil types could be consistently distinguished for forensic purposes according to the distance that samples were collected from each other: 1000 m for Oxisol and 10 m for Inceptisol. Clay color and XRD analysis were the most effective techniques to distinguish clay samples, and Inceptisol samples were more easily distinguished than Oxisol samples. Soil forensics seems a promising field for soil scientists as soil clay can be useful as forensic evidence by using routine analytical techniques from soil science.     

A Bilingual,Bicultural Approach to Detachment and Appraisal in the Law: Tracing Impersonality and Interaction in English and Spanish Legal Op-Eds

The present research study carries out a contrastive analysis between two corpora of legal opinion columns as special types of genres, with a view to assess their opposing patterns of impersonality—authorial detachment—and attitude—emotion, judgment, appreciation, taking as a point of departure appraisal theory, or the interpretation of Halliday's Systemic-Functional Linguistics (1994/2004) by the so-called Sydney School. The long-established perspective is that legal genres are highly impersonal; authoritative instruments representing an intentional exercise of elitist and exclusionary practices. However, the hypothesis embedded in the present study is that some texts, such as news editorials and op-eds, constitute hybrid genres where the writer makes use of all kinds of inducement devices to support his/her theses with effectiveness and credibility (Dafouz in J Pragmat 40:95-113, 2008), nonetheless retaining one of the basic traits of monogloss legal discourse: impersonality. However, it is hypothesized that this hybridity is to take place in different degrees, in tune with the influence exerted by legal system that constitutes the background of each corpus. To prove such a point, 40 legal op-eds—roughly, a thirty-five-thousand-word corpus in English and Spanish overall—were scrutinized, having been extracted from the specialized legal sections of two national newspapers of undisputed prestige as opinion-formation media. Through a contrastive study, the purpose of the present work was set to describe, explain and assess how lexicogrammar devices unveil interesting differences between the expression of impersonality and attitude in legal opinion columns as genres in either language, hence reflecting different ways in which the law is envisioned in each of the particular legal systems they belong to.     

Government regulations and FDI: a historical perspective of mexico

This article analyzes the development of foreign investment regulations and their impact on FDI flows in Mexico. The study covers the evolution of sectoral and aggregate investment patterns from the independence period to the 1994 Peso crisis and its aftermath. The pattern followed by FDI in Mexico has paralleled the transformation of the Mexican economy itself, focusing initially on the extractive and agricultural sectors, then on manufacturing activities, and recently on the services sector. Mexico has continuously reformed and modernized its regulatory system in order to adapt to internal political changes and changes in the world economic environment. Recent economic reforms and liberalization of FDI regulations have had a major positive impact on capital inflows, but more needs to be done, especially in the area of financial services in order to achieve a higher level of economic efficiency and to prevent financial breakdowns like the one experienced in 1994.     

Determining Factors of E-government Development: A Worldwide National Approach

ABSTRACT

The implementation of e-government aims at simplifying and improving the relationships and transactions between public administrations and their users or customers. In this vein, the objective of this work is to analyze the factors that promote the development of e-government in the national governments of 192 countries worldwide, differentiating between developed and developing countries. Our findings emphasize that the development of e-government requires that countries have a degree of economic development that enables their citizens to have a certain standard of living, both economic and cultural, as well as important internal government reforms which promote administrative effectiveness. Once these essential factors are fulfilled, the national government's online presence is favored by governments that rule with a majority in their parliaments and with an important fiscal capacity.