Legitimising male grooming through packaging discourse: a linguistic analysis

While packaging is a common marketing subject, this illustration paper provides an alternative perspective through the linguistic examination of packaging as discourse, focusing on male grooming, masculinity and metrosexuality. Male grooming is often perceived as trespassing into feminine space and creating ambiguity in gender borders. This study aims to explore how packaging designers negotiate masculinity, in order to persuade men to accept grooming products through social interactions within the packaging of L'Oréal Men Expert. Employing Scollon's mediated discourse analysis and incorporating the Barthesian order of signification, the study analyses how different social actions within the packaging discourse are mediated by multimodal features. The findings reveal five negotiating strategies, i.e. constructing a hegemonic masculine image; negotiating (a masculinised) metrosexuality; empowering men; giving men a logical reason to groom; and a different portrayal of skincare products. The key aim of this paper is to illustrate the differences between marketing and linguistics and propose possible collaboration.     

The Status and Characteristics of Couple Violence in China

A couple’s relationship is very important to marital well-being as well as the harmony of family and society. Violent behaviors in marriage have bad effects on people’s physical and mental health and cause large social burdens. In this study, we investigated 194 couples in Beijing to explore the status and characteristics of couple violence from three aspects by using Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2). We conclude that: (1) Couple violence is universal, although the frequency is not so high. Prevalence and frequency of psychological violence are higher than physical and sexual violence; rate of wives’ victimization is significantly higher than that of husbands; frequency of the perpetration of sexual violence by husbands is significantly higher than that by wives. (2) There is concurrence of different types of couple violence. Specifically, physical and sexual violence are usually accompanied by psychological violence; however, psychological violence exists independently. (3) Couple violence is often bidirectional, especially in psychological violence. (4) Marital length is negatively correlated to wives’ perpetration of physical violence and their victimization of sexual violence.     

加快新疆新型工业化建设的思考

加快推进新疆新型工业化进程,是新疆经济跨越式发展、实现全面建设小康社会目标的迫切需要。针对目前新疆工业化进程中面临的问题,提出了加快推进新疆新型工业化建设的总体思路和对策。     

痛经宁对气滞血瘀型原发性痛经患者血清前列腺素和β-内啡肽的影响

目的 观察痛经宁对气滞血瘀型原发性痛经的临床疗效及对血清前列腺素、β 内啡肽的影响。方法 将70例气滞血瘀型原发性痛经患者随机分成治疗组和对照组各35例。治疗组服用自拟痛经宁汤剂,对照组服用痛经宝颗粒。观察两组临床疗效和治疗前后血清前列腺素E2(prostaglandin E2,PGE-2)、血清前列腺素F-2α(prostaglandin F2α,PGF2α)、β-内啡肽（β-endophin,β-EP）水平的变化。结果 治疗组、对照组分别脱落4例和5例。治疗组愈显率显著高于对照组（P＜0.05）。与正常组比较,治疗前两组PGE2、PGF2α、β EP差异均有统计学意义（P＜0.05）;与治疗前比较,治疗后治疗组3种指标的血清水平均有显著变化（P＜0.05）,对照组仅PGF2α和β-EP的血清水平发生显著变化（P<0.05）。结论 痛经宁治疗气滞血瘀型原发性痛经具有较好的临床疗效,且对前列腺素、β-内啡肽有调整作用。     

Dueling experts and imperfect verification

In the Dueling Experts Game, adversarial experts strategically produce “good” or “bad” evidence to support their partisan testimony. Good evidence is probative while bad evidence has no evidentiary value. The new feature of this Game is that Judge sometimes erroneously identifies good evidence as bad evidence and vice versa. Along the Game’s equilibrium path, each partisan expert produces only good evidence if it supports his side. When favorable good evidence is unavailable, an expert produces bad evidence to support his testimony. Hence, dueling experts always contradict one another. Despite their conflicting testimony, one of the experts invariably produces the available good evidence for Judge. Therefore, Judge always receives the available good evidence. A central result is that the quality of experts, including their ability to persuade judges using available good evidence, and the quality of judges – their ability to distinguish good from bad evidence – determine the accuracy of verdicts. Remarkably, the likelihood that experts are endowed with good evidence does not matter provided that this likelihood is not identically zero or one.     

我国城市贫困儿童福利研究：回顾与展望

近年来，理论界围绕我国城市贫困儿童福利政策与福利服务展开一系列研究，有关福利政策、教育救助与最低生活保障制度是大多数学者们关注的焦点，而有关福利服务方面的研究则较少。后续研究有望在研究角度、研究内容与对象、研究方法等方面有所突破。     

城市形象问题探讨

城市形象的塑造 ,是对城市的形与神、精与气、物质与精神的提炼、升华 ,是对城市特殊功能的挖掘与弘扬 ,是寻求城市生长点、突破口的重要战略 ,城市形象定位是城市形象工程的灵魂与核心 ,是城市形象工程塑造的依据。城市政府形象是城市形象的缩影。城市形象的塑造 ,既是城市发展的需要 ,也是政府公关的重要内容。     

Is it really just a game? Copyright and online role-playing games

Legal context. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games(MMORPGs) are a craze that has swept the globe. Online gamershave been reported to spend 22 hours per week online playingtheir favourite games while there have been reports of playersspending up to 55 hours at a time playing. Not all gamers arehobby gamers, nor are they just teenagers having fun. A markethas grown around MMORPGs and a lucrative online market has emergedoutside the games for the sale of game characters and items.The value of this market has been estimated at US$880 million.At the heart of disputes concerning the sale of game charactersand items is the question of copyright ownership. Game providersclaim that the End User Licence Agreements (EULAs) give themintellectual property ownership and rights over any dealingswith the game characters and items. Many gamers on the otherhand are abhorrent at the assertion that they have no claimto characters and items that they have spent many hours developing. Key points. The first issue that needs to be considered is whethercopyright subsists at all in the game characters and items.The next question to be considered is who owns the copyrightin in-game characters and items. To answer the question, onemust look to the EULAs, but the EULAs do not provide all theanswers because issues such as moral rights cannot be governedby EULAs. Further, the practice of farming by companies runningdigital sweatshops complicates the relationship between gamersand game providers. Practical significance. There have been numerous disputes concerningthe game characters and items between game developers, gamers,and farming companies. This article examines the key copyrightissues at stake.     

A Proposal for Formalizing the "No Case Exists" Objections Procedure at the International Court of Justice

This paper describes and analyses the "no case exists" objectionsthat have been made and dealt with in various ways before theInternational Court of Justice. The argument underlying theseobjections usually runs as follows: the Court clearly or manifestlylacks jurisdiction or there is clearly no dispute. This wouldlead to the result that no case exists, because, for a caseto exist, there must be, at a minimum, some dispute as to theCourt's jurisdiction so as to trigger the Court's function underArticle 36(6) of the Statute. Neither the Statute nor the Rulesof Court contains a specific procedure for addressing such objectionsand the various existing procedures do not allow the Statesmaking such objections to achieve their goals. The parties andthe Court have had to struggle with these objections in variousirregular ways. This paper proposes that the Court formalizethe procedure to deal with these objections by amending theRules of Court to provide for a "no case exists" objectionsprocedure. The essay concludes by presenting a proposed ruleas an illustration.     

Ready for Prime Time: The When,Who, and Why of International Mediation

Most of the literature on international dispute resolution emphasizes timing and ripeness when considering whether or not a dispute is suitable for mediation. In addition to this focus, the authors believe analysts should consider whether a particular mediator is ready for prime time. Their framework posits that one may gauge the appropriateness of a mediator for a particular dispute along three different types of considerations: operational and political; strategic and diplomatic; and relationship and cultural fit. They provide numerous case examples illustrating how the choice of a mediator might apply in each dimension.