Review by Yu-lung Tseng on Timothy Brook's The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2023.
Cultural backgrounds shape individuals' perspectives and approaches to problem-solving. Since the emergence of GPT-1 in 2018, large language models (LLMs) have undergone rapid development. To date, the world's ten leading LLM developers are primarily based in China and the United States. To examine whether LLMs released by Chinese and U.S. developers exhibit cultural differences in Chinese-language settings, we evaluate their performance on questions about Chinese culture. This study adopts a direct-questioning paradigm to evaluate models such as GPT-5.1, DeepSeek-V3.2, Qwen3-Max, and Gemini2.5Pro. We assess their understanding of traditional Chinese culture, including history, literature, poetry, and related domains. Comparative analyses between LLMs developed in China and the U.S. indicate that Chinese models generally outperform their U.S. counterparts on these tasks. Among U.S.-developed models, Gemini 2.5Pro and GPT-5.1 achieve relatively higher accuracy. The observed performance differences may potentially arise from variations in training data distribution, localization strategies, and the degree of emphasis on Chinese cultural content during model development.
With the in-depth integration of mobile Internet and widespread adoption of social platforms, user-generated content in the Chinese cyberspace has witnessed explosive growth. Among this content, the proliferation of toxic comments poses severe challenges to individual mental health, community atmosphere and social trust. Owing to the strong context dependence, cultural specificity and rapid evolution of Chinese cyber language, toxic expressions are often conveyed through complex forms such as homophones and metaphors, imposing notable limitations on traditional detection methods. To address this issue, this review focuses on the core topic of natural language processing based toxic comment detection in the Chinese cyberspace, systematically collating and critically analyzing the research progress and key challenges in this field. This review first defines the connotation and characteristics of Chinese toxic comments, and analyzes the platform ecology and transmission mechanisms they rely on. It then comprehensively reviews the construction methods and limitations of existing public datasets, and proposes a novel fine-grained and scalable framework for toxic comment definition and classification, along with corresponding data annotation and quality assessment strategies. We systematically summarize the evolutionary path of detection models from traditional methods to deep learning, with special emphasis on the importance of interpretability in model design. Finally, we thoroughly discuss the open challenges faced by current research and provide forward-looking suggestions for future research directions.
BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound global impact, leading to a range of persistent sequelae referred to as post–COVID-19 condition or “long COVID” that continue to affect patients worldwide. Among these sequelae, post–COVID-19 insomnia (PCI) has emerged as a significant issue. Conventional treatments, including cognitive behavioral therapy and pharmacological interventions, face limitations such as variable efficacy, potential side effects, and substantial costs. Recently, acupuncture has gained traction due to its efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and safety profile.
ObjectiveThis study aims to conduct a meta-analysis and systematic review evaluating the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for the treatment of PCI to delineate the optimal modality, intervention frequency, and duration for achieving the most beneficial outcomes, thereby providing a comprehensive understanding of acupuncture’s role in managing PCI, contributing to evidence-based clinical practice, and informing clinical decision-making.
MethodsElectronic searches will be performed in 12 databases from inception to October 2024 without language restrictions. This includes both English databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase, OVID and Scopus), as well as Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan-Fang Data, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Duxiu Database and the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry Center). Randomized controlled trials on acupuncture for PCI will be included. Primary outcomes will include the response rate and insomnia severity; secondary outcomes will include the Traditional Chinese Medicine Symptom Scale (TCMSS) and adverse event rates. Data synthesis will use risk ratios for dichotomous data and mean differences for continuous data. Study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment will be conducted independently by 2 reviewers. Methodological quality of eligible studies will be evaluated following the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (version 6.3). Meta-analysis will be performed with RevMan 5.3.
ResultsBased on the data on response rate, insomnia severity, TCMSS score, and adverse event rates, this study will provide an evidence-based review of the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for PCI treatment.
ConclusionsThis systematic review will present the current evidence for acupuncture for PCI, aiming to inform clinical practices and decision-making and to enhance the understanding of acupuncture’s role in managing PCI. Furthermore, it will identify research gaps and suggest potential areas for future investigation.
Trial RegistrationPROSPERO CRD42024499284; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=499284
International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/69417
Medicine, Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
This study investigates the diachronic evolution of female stereotypes in China from 2008 to 2023, against the backdrop of rapid socio-cultural changes and uses a combination of word embeddings and qualitative analysis. Based on the corpus of Southern Weekly, the most influential newspaper in China, this study identifies 15 words with significant differences in gender association distances for analysis from the list of 114 words across multiple dimensions. By analysing the gender biases and relational shifts of the selected 15 words, this article reveals societal expectations and stereotypes of gender roles as reflected in the distribution of lexical gender biases. Furthermore, it examines the dynamic changes in word associations, offering insights into the evolving perceptions of gender roles in Chinese society. Through the lens of media discourse analysis, this research contributes to understanding the intersection of language, gender and cultural transformation in contemporary China.
In developing the teaching program for a course in Oral Expression in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language at the university level, the teacher designs communicative tasks based on conflicts to encourage learners to engage in interactive dynamics and develop their oral interaction skills. During the design of these tasks, the teacher uses ChatGPT to assist in finalizing the program. This article aims to present the key characteristics of the interactions between the teacher and ChatGPT during this program development process, as well as to examine the use of ChatGPT and its impacts in this specific context.
Suku Tionghoa yang dapat dan menetap di Surabaya berasal dari berbagai daerah di Tiongkok, salah satunya adalah sub-suku Hakka. Dalam berkomunikasi sub-suku Hakka ini dominan menggunakan bahasa Hakka. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian analisa kuantitatif deskriptif dengan mengumpulkan data kuesioner. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui dalam kondisi atau situasi apa, berkomunikasi dalam bahasa Hakka ini digunakan oleh sub-suku Hakka. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan sub-suku Hakka yang tinggal dan menetap di Surabaya ini lebih sering menggunakan bahasa Hakka dalam ranah keluarga, misalnya hadir pada kegiatan-kegiatan atau pertemuan-pertemuan yang dilakukan bersama dengan keluarga, kerabat dan teman satu sub-suku, sedangkan dalam ranah masyarakat bahasa Hakka digunakan untuk membicarakan topik rahasia.
Against the dual backdrop of multicultural integration and the policy of Filipino Chinese schools, the fifth generation of Chinese youth are facing the dilemma of fragmented cultural identity and weakened motivation for learning Mandarin. This study uses socio-cultural theory and Gardner's second language motivation theory as frameworks, and employs questionnaire survey and in-depth inter-view methods to conduct empirical research on 326 Chinese adolescents aged 12-18 from four Chinese schools in Manila and Cebu, Philippines. By exploring the intrinsic relationship between mother tongue cultural identity (cognitive identity, emotional identity, behavioral identity) and Chinese language learning motivation (integrative motivation, instrumental motivation), it was found that Chinese adolescents maintain moderate mother tongue cultural identity while politically identifying with the Philippines; The dimension of emotional identity has the strongest predictive power for integrative motivation (β=0.42, p<0.001); The instrumental motivation is significantly influenced by the inter-action between cognitive identity and social environment; The inheritance of family culture and the teaching of Chinese school culture have a mediating effect on motivation enhancement. The research conclusion provides theoretical sup-port and practical path for optimizing the Chinese language teaching strategy in the Philippines and constructing a cultural identity oriented teaching system.
Bahasa Mandarin pada saat ini merupakan bahasa dengan penutur terbanyak nomor dua tingkat dunia. Pada perkembangan zaman, maka akan banyak perkembangan bahasa salah satunya pada bahasa mandarin. Penelitian ini mengkaji bahasa – bahasa gaul yang muncul pada kalangan muda di platform aplikasi WeChat. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode Kualitatif Deskriptif. Sumber Data yang diambil dari untuk penelitian ini adalah melalui media sosial Wechat. Data untuk penelitian ini berupa kata gaul yang digunakan oleh masyarakat Terutama remaja China baik didalam media sosial maupun di kehidupan sehari – hari. Hasil yang ditemukan, sangat banyak sekali pemotongan kata yang digunakan anak muda China dengan tujuan mempersingkat dan efesiensi waktu, Bunyi bahasa gaul pada Bahasa Mandarin dapat berpengaruh pada Fonem serta Morfologi dari kata itu sendiri.
Due to the increasing complexity of cities and the involvement of multiple stakeholders in urban planning, the field encompasses vast amounts of information, expertise, planning tools, and communication skills. Planning support systems (PSS) are geo-information-technology-based instruments that offer a suite of supportive tools to aid the urban planning process. Over the past three decades, PSS has seen widespread exploration and implementation globally, including within the rapidly evolving context of China. Nonetheless, language barriers have posed challenges in reviewing and synthesizing PSS advancements documented in Chinese publications. To provide a thorough and objective perspective of the achievements in Chinese literature for international scholars, this study adopts a systematic review methodology. It screens 68 relevant high-quality articles from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure and conducts statistical analyses on them, focusing on publication time, geographic distribution, fields of study, etc. Then it mainly summarizes the development of foundational elements and the applications of the systems. It is found that in terms of system elements, China has developed some unique theories and corresponding planning models, alongside exploring various technological aspects. In applications, PSS serves various functions across different subfields, reflecting the division of labor in China’s planning process and the orientation of its policies. Future research avenues could encompass the creation of policy-driven comprehensive management functions, the development of systems tailored to specific contexts, and the exploration of new technologies like Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and generative Artificial Intelligence to boost PSS functionality and efficiency.
Abstract This paper conducts an in-depth study centering on the beauty of context and its expression in Chinese language literature, mainly from the perspective of semantic contrastive Analysis. Firstly, the study utilizes various natural language processing techniques including LSTM neural network and GRU model to acquire and process textual semantic information by constructing a specific Chinese language contextual model. Then, an empirical analysis of Chinese language literature was conducted, and accuracy and recall were used as evaluation criteria to compare different Chinese language contextual models. The results show that the LSTM-GRU-based Chinese language contextual model significantly improves accuracy and recall. In addition, the model’s effectiveness in improving the ability of contextual Analysis in Chinese language literature is demonstrated through the review and Analysis of Chinese language literary works. Finally, the article proposes strategies to improve the ability of contextual Analysis in Chinese language literature.
Abstract In this paper, webpage information is extracted by the directed crawling method in data crawling technology so as to obtain a collection of Chinese language literature, which is processed by data cleaning, Chinese word splitting, and de-duplication. Text mining techniques such as machine learning, the LDA model, and semantic networks are used to perform operations such as sentiment analysis, theme extraction, and linguistic association analysis on the acquired text. Based on the mined text, text value assessment and linguistic characterization of literary works written in Chinese are carried out. The text value is quantified and graded using the PMC index model, and the linguistic features of the text, including punctuation, vocabulary, and sentences, are analyzed by constructing a linguistic feature model. Eight of the 10 Chinese literary works selected in this paper, including Alive, have text values at an excellent level. The frequently used punctuation mark in works is the period. The average word length is around 2.75, and the degree of discreteness of sentences is small.
The present study investigated the effects of language dominance on the cross-linguistic influence in the first and second languages (L1 and L2) of lexical tone production by Mandarin–Cantonese late bilinguals. Although the participants were unable to retain their L1 tonal system or to fully acquire the L2 tonal system after long-term exposure to their L2, certain correlations emerged between language dominance and tone production in L1 and L2. These findings add to the existing literature on language dominance and support the general assumption that bilinguals' two languages interfere with each other.
RELEVANCE. The study is devoted to understanding and identifying the significance of the eastern style of philosophy and aesthetics of Taoism in the work of the prominent representative of Russian symbolism Andrey Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev), who determined the development of the literary process (modernist and post-modernist movements) and art of the first third of the 20th century and influenced the further development Russian literature. The purpose of the study is to show the conceptual content of the aesthetic thought of the Russian philosopher and symbolist poet through the prism of Taoism and to clarify the presence of Eastern traditional wisdom (“Tao Te Ching”) in the construction of A. Bely’s theory of symbolism.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The research material was the collected works of A. Bely. The translation of the book “Tao Te Ching” written by the great Chinese thinker Lao Tzu, presented for the first time for the Russian-speaking reader, was used.” When solving research problems, a description method with the interpretive function of language was used, that is, a method of studying the interpretation of knowledge about the world. In our case, the interpretation of Taoism is focused on the interpretive activity of an individual creative personality, which always presupposes the subjective selectivity of the word.RESULT AND DISCUSSION. An analysis of the work of A. Bely showed that in reflecting the problems of the symbol, the philosophical principles of symbolism, in addition to two sources, they participate: on the one hand, the ideas of the Slavophiles, arising from the philosophy of V. Solovyov, on the other hand, the system of Western philosophy (the ideas of A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche), a reflection of the creative borrowing of Eastern wisdom, ideas and functions of Chinese literature. The originality of the imaginative thinking of the Russian symbolist poet, who, in accordance with his spiritual nature, followed his bright creative path, is reflected in the development of the artistic method – symbolism.CONCLUSION. The idea of A. Bely’s symbolism is based on the compatibility of the concepts of various thinkers, including philosophizing in the Taoist style. A. Bely created a unified symbolic picture of the world - the unification of artistic, aesthetic, religious, mystical and everyday ideas and knowledge about the world into one whole. The connecting sign of this unification is the Symbol, which has a pronounced authorial character, has an infinity of boundaries of value, and not a semantic individual interpretation of the word and broadcasts the manifestation of systemic pluralism, revealing the essence of the world and being.
Chinese higher education institutions have adopted a US-style tenure track system since the 1990s. This is an important reform aimed at modernizing China’s higher education system. In response, authors have begun to carry out close examination of the career system and analyse its implications in a national context (Republic of China). This study aims to present the key research themes, identify research gaps and offer recommendations from the increasing pool of Chinese-language literature on the tenure track system. A scoping review of Chinese language papers was conducted using the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (including the China Academic Journals Full-text Database, China Core Newspapers Full-text Database, China Doctoral Dissertations Full-text Database, China Masters’ Thesis Full-text Database, and China Yearbooks Full-text Database) (CNKI) database. Four major research themes were identified in Chinese discourse: (1) examining the tenure track system, (2) providing suggestions for better adaptation of the tenure track system in the Chinese context, (3) analysing the negative effects of the tenure track system, and (4) analysing the positive effects of the tenure track system. Generally, authors were concerned with the adaptation and cultivation of the US-originated tenure track system in the Chinese context and emphasized the importance of acknowledging its perceived negative influences on early-career scholars who have not received adequate attention. Overall, the authors demonstrate increasing interest in the tenure track system in China, and the literature is of variable quality. Further empirical studies are needed to analyse, evaluate and guide future improvement of the career system in the Chinese context in practice.
<h4>Introduction</h4>Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), a widely prevalent complication in patients with type 2 diabetes, exerts a significant influence on patients' overall health and financial circumstances. Photobiomodulation therapy is one of the means of physical therapy for DPN. Although preliminary findings suggest the efficacy of photobiomodulation therapy in alleviating peripheral neuropathy, the existing literature lacks substantial evidence regarding its safety and effectiveness specifically in the context of diabetes-related peripheral neuropathy. Therefore, we plan to arrive at more distinct findings through systematic evaluation and meta-analysis.<h4>Methods</h4>We will conduct a comprehensive search for studies published from the beginning until October 1, 2023, using various databases including Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, PubMed, AMED, Wanfang database, VIP database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and the Chinese Biomedical Literature database. Simultaneously, we will also search for the WHO International Clinical Trial Registration Platform, China Clinical Trial Registration Platform, and Clinical Trials.gov. Gray literature will be retrieved using Google Scholar and opengrey.edu. Only randomized controlled trials in Chinese and English were included, with no restrictions on publication status. The primary outcomes will include change of symptom scores, change of nerve conduction velocity. Additional outcomes will encompass quality of life, change in pain, blood glucose levels after fasting and 2 hours after eating, levels of glycosylated hemoglobin, and any adverse events associated with photobiomodulation therapy. Reman V.5.4 and R language will be used for the meta-analysis. Assessment of potential bias will be conducted through Cochrane risk of bias 2 tool (RoB 2.0) and Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Registration: PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42023466586).<h4>Discussion</h4>This meta-analysis aims to assess the efficacy and safety of photobiomodulation therapy as a potential treatment for diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), and providing a straightforward and convenient therapeutic for patients. Additionally, it expands the range of treatment alternatives available to healthcare professionals managing DPN.
Thanks to the advancements in bioinformatics, drugs, and other interventions that modulate microbes to treat diseases have been emerging continuously. In recent years, an increasing number of databases related to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) or gut microbes have been established. However, a database combining the two has not yet been developed. To accelerate TCM research and address the traditional medicine and micro ecological system connection between short board, we have developed the most comprehensive micro-ecological database of TCM. This initiative includes the standardization of the following advantages: (1) A repeatable process achieved through the standardization of a retrieval strategy to identify literature. This involved identifying 419 experiment articles from PubMed and six authoritative databases; (2) High-quality data integration achieved through double-entry extraction of literature, mitigating uncertainties associated with natural language extraction; (3) Implementation of a similar strategy aiding in the prediction of mechanisms of action. Leveraging drug similarity, target entity similarity, and known drug-target entity association, our platform enables the prediction of the effects of a new herb or acupoint formulas using the existing data. In total, MicrobeTCM includes 171 diseases, 725 microbes, 1468 herb-formulas, 1032 herbs, 15780 chemical compositions, 35 acupoint-formulas, and 77 acupoints. For further exploration, please visit https://www.microbetcm.com.
Prompting has become a practical method for utilizing pre-trained language models (LMs). This approach offers several advantages. It allows an LM to adapt to new tasks with minimal training and parameter updates, thus achieving efficiency in both storage and computation. Additionally, prompting modifies only the LM's inputs and harnesses the generative capabilities of language models to address various downstream tasks in a unified manner. This significantly reduces the need for human labor in designing task-specific models. These advantages become even more evident as the number of tasks served by the LM scales up. Motivated by the strengths of prompting, we are the first to explore the potential of prompting speech LMs in the domain of speech processing. Recently, there has been a growing interest in converting speech into discrete units for language modeling. Our pioneer research demonstrates that these quantized speech units are highly versatile within our unified prompting framework. Not only can they serve as class labels, but they also contain rich phonetic information that can be re-synthesized back into speech signals for speech generation tasks. Specifically, we reformulate speech processing tasks into speech-to-unit generation tasks. As a result, we can seamlessly integrate tasks such as speech classification, sequence generation, and speech generation within a single, unified prompting framework. The experiment results show that the prompting method can achieve competitive performance compared to the strong fine-tuning method based on self-supervised learning models with a similar number of trainable parameters. The prompting method also shows promising results in the few-shot setting. Moreover, with the advanced speech LMs coming into the stage, the proposed prompting framework attains great potential.
New LLM evaluation benchmarks are important to align with the rapid development of Large Language Models (LLMs). In this work, we present Chinese SimpleQA, the first comprehensive Chinese benchmark to evaluate the factuality ability of language models to answer short questions, and Chinese SimpleQA mainly has five properties (i.e., Chinese, Diverse, High-quality, Static, Easy-to-evaluate). Specifically, first, we focus on the Chinese language over 6 major topics with 99 diverse subtopics. Second, we conduct a comprehensive quality control process to achieve high-quality questions and answers, where the reference answers are static and cannot be changed over time. Third, following SimpleQA, the questions and answers are very short, and the grading process is easy-to-evaluate based on OpenAI API. Based on Chinese SimpleQA, we perform a comprehensive evaluation on the factuality abilities of existing LLMs. Finally, we hope that Chinese SimpleQA could guide the developers to better understand the Chinese factuality abilities of their models and facilitate the growth of foundation models.