Beautification of Chinese Architectural Images in the New Media Age

From the perspective of communication science, the communication of architectural images in the new media age has an obvious beautifying trend. Due to the differences in politics, economics, and cultural environment between China and western countries, the beautification of architectural images in China is a unique phenomenon. This study classifies the beautification of Chinese architectural images into different types in terms of image communication: audience orientation, time orientation, space orientation, and cultural orientation. By investigating and analyzing relevant cases, this study explores the beautification of Chinese architectural images in the new media age and puts forward thoughts and evaluation, aiming to better comprehend the relationship between beautification and architectural communication.

Culture or Context: a Qualitative Approach Investigating the Relationship of Scheduling Styles and Situational Context in Uganda and Germany

Previous literature suggested that different countries and regions are associated with different temporal cultures resulting in according scheduling styles: people in anglo-european countries supposedly plan and structure their life predominantly according to the clock (clock time orientation) while people in some other parts of the world are more prone to live their lives in disregard of clock time but follow inner needs and/or the structure given by the events that happen in their lives (event time orientation). However, recent research shows that scheduling styles are also adaptive responses to situational demands and event and clock timing are associated with different experiences of control. Transferring these findings to a cross-cultural setting, we investigated whether situational context is the predominant factor explaining the application of different scheduling styles. To this end, we used a mixed-methods approach with semi-structured interviews exploring whether participants from Uganda and Germany (employees with fixed working hours) differ in the level to which they structure their narratives of daily routines of time associated with work primarily in reference to the clock while recounting free time predominantly in reference to events and/or inner needs. Our data, processed using qualitative content analysis, show this pattern for the participants from both countries. Overall interviewees from Germany do not refer to the clock more often than their Ugandan counterparts. This suggests that individuals’ scheduling styles reflect intersituational adaptations to a given demand for synchronization rather than being kind of a strong cultural imprint on individuals.

On the Counter-Rotation of Closed Time-like Curves

While it is tempting to think of closed time-like curves (CTCs) around rotating bodies, such as a black hole, as being “caused” by the rotation of the source, Andréka et al. pointed out that the underlying physics are not as straightforward as this, since such CTCs are “counter-rotating”, i.e., the time orientation (the opening of the local light cones) of the CTCs is opposite to the direction in which the singularity or the ergosphere rotates. It was also suggested that this is a generic phenomenon that calls for a deeper intuitive physical understanding. In this short note, we point out—with Kerr–Taub–NUT as an example—that CTCs are counter-rotating with respect to the local angular velocity of the spacetime, not the global angular momentum, nor the angular velocity of the black hole horizon, which makes the physical interpretation of CTCs being “caused” by a rotating source even more problematic.

TRAILER AS AN ECTOCOMPONENT OF CINEMA DISCOURSE: NEUROLINGVOSEMIOTIC QUALIFICATION OF A LANGUAGE ORGANIZATION

The article is devoted to the problem of neurolinguosemiotic qualification of the language organization of trailers as autonomous components of film discourse. The author of this article draws the following conclusions: 1) the trailer belongs to the external components of film discourse, which is due to the presence of semantic and functional correlations with the concept of «advertising»; 2) between the concepts of «trailer text» and «advertising text» the relationship of the so-called approximate identity, because they have identical structural elements, primarily of a reference nature; 3) the text of the trailer is more complex compared to the advertising text, because the linguosemiotic structure of the first introduced a larger number of typological types of signs; 4) the linguosemiotic structure of the advertising text, in which there are dialogic and monologue signs, has the form of meaningfully and formally interconnected remarks of actors who can perform different roles (average consumers of goods / services, professionals, celebrities, etc.), with the final thesis announcer (rarely – titrated on the screen graphically); 5) the linguosemiotic structure of the trailer text is a combination of autonomous multifunctional monologue signs, nonlinearly related to each other by subject (signs of actor, expert, witness and announcer); 6) the vectors of influence of linguosemiotic units of advertising texts and trailer texts do not coincide, because in the former the metaprograms of centrifugal / centripetal motivation, activity, desired modality, comparison focus are actualized, and in the latter – metaprograms of time orientation, breakdown size, way of thinking.

Restaurant service: from satisfying utilitarian and pragmatic to cultural and leisure needs

The purpose of the article is to analyze the main requirements for the organization and management of various types of restaurant facilities, taking into account the need to ensure the cultural and leisure needs of the population. Research methodology. The basis of the research is the general scientific interdisciplinary methodology, which is based on the fundamental provisions of management, cultural studies, design, and other sciences. Common scientific methods are used: analysis, synthesis, generalization, classification, etc. The scientific novelty of the obtained results is that the main tendencies of the reorientation of catering establishments, in particular in Ukraine, in the original centers of culture, with their functions of leisure centers and entertainment, which is reflected in the National Standard, are also revealed. Conclusions. Despite the importance and numerous variations of the communication and entertainment and visual and artistic component of the interior space of restaurant enterprises, the main function of their catering is the priority of their internal arrangement. In the XX - the beginning of the XXI century, several basic types of functional types of institutions have been formed, with their inherent features of creation, zoning, and arrangement in accordance with the interests of clients of certain strata of the population, which imposes specific requirements for their organization, in particular, taking into account the leisure-time orientation.

Future Expectations and Internet Addiction Among Adolescents: The Roles of Intolerance of Uncertainty and Perceived Social Support

Internet addiction is a common and challenging problem among adolescents. Previous studies have shown that future time orientation is an important protective factor against internet addiction. In this study, the mediating effect of intolerance of uncertainty and the moderating role of perceived social support were examined on the association between future expectations, regarded as the “prospective life course” perspective of future time orientation, and internet addiction among adolescents. A total of 1,006 Chinese adolescents (54% male and 46% female; Mage = 15.42 years, SD = 1.32) recruited from middle schools completed questionnaires. Results indicated that future expectations were significantly negatively associated with internet addiction, and the link was mediated by intolerance to uncertainty in adolescents. Further, the latent moderated structural equation showed that perceived social support moderated the association between future expectations and intolerance of uncertainty. The association was significant only for adolescents with a higher level of perceived social support. The findings of this study provide specific guidelines for how to prevent adolescent internet addiction.

Network communication and its genres as objects of artistic representation (based on Russian literature)

The article analyses a new compositional peculiarity of modern fiction – the introduction of a text fragment related by its lexical and graphic features to one of the genres of network communication (chat, blog, electronic mail, etc.) into the structure of the literary works. The dialogue between characters, who communicate on the Net, becomes one of the stable text-forming means, performing various artistic tasks, including formation of the plotline, creating the image (atmosphere) of the time period, character images, reflection of “language taste of the epoch”, and so on. The reproduction of the main linguistic peculiarities of electronic genres, in its turn, enlivens the literary discourse to a considerable degree; the pastiche of network communication becomes one of the expressive means; the cultural dominant of our time – orientation towards visual perception of information – manifests itself. The research has revealed methods and means of transferring graphic and lexical features of genres of informal network communication in the fictional text. The main ways of reflecting the peculiarities of electronic speech are direct stylization (reproduction of alphabetic and other graphemes used in Runet) and indirect image (verbal designation of non-alphabetic graphemes), which becomes the basis of a new imagery, the tropics (laughing brackets, emoji got nervous, an offended smiley, etc.). The analysis of the features of the display of speech behavior on the Net allows to conclude about the formation of a kind of poetics for the artistic embodiment of the stable theme of modern literature – ”Man in the virtual sphere of communication and being”. The study is built on the basis of general philological analysis and specifically linguistic analysis of a fictional text (total number of analyzed works is about 60) and presents a part of the author’s separate research on the formation of Russian Internet lexis in the modern Russian language and realized within the framework of functional sociolinguistics.

Socioeconomic inequalities in health behaviors: exploring mediation pathways through material conditions and time orientation

Background Socioeconomic inequalities in health behaviors have been attributed to both structural and individual factors, but untangling the complex, dynamic pathways through which these factors influence inequalities requires more empirical research. This study examined whether and how two factors, material conditions and time orientation, sequentially impact socioeconomic inequalities in health behaviors. Methods Dutch adults 25 and older self-reported highest attained educational level, a measure of socioeconomic position (SEP); material conditions (financial strain, housing tenure, income); time orientation; health behaviors including smoking and sports participation; and health behavior-related outcomes including body mass index (BMI) and self-assessed health in three surveys (2004, 2011, 2014) of the longitudinal GLOBE (Dutch acronym for “Health and Living Conditions of the Population of Eindhoven and surroundings”) study. Two hypothesized pathways were investigated during a ten-year time period using sequential mediation analysis, an approach that enabled correct temporal ordering and control for confounders such as baseline health behavior. Results Educational level was negatively associated with BMI, positively associated with sports participation and self-assessed health, and not associated with smoking in the mediation models. For smoking, sports participation, and self-assessed health, a pathway from educational level to the outcome mediated by time orientation followed by material conditions was observed. Conclusions Time orientation followed by material conditions may play a role in determining socioeconomic inequalities in certain health behavior-related outcomes, providing empirical support for the interplay between structural and individual factors in socioeconomic inequalities in health behavior. Smoking may be determined by prior smoking behavior regardless of SEP, potentially due to its addictive nature. While intervening on time orientation in adulthood may be challenging, the results from this study suggest that policy interventions targeted at material conditions may be more effective in reducing socioeconomic inequalities in certain health behaviors when they account for time orientation.