Abstract: This paper revisits the concept of “school awareness”, which in the previous scholarship was mostly regarded as a product of penetration of Chinese patriarchal patterns into the Buddhist community against the background of loosened state control during the late Ming dynasty. Particular attention should be directed to the fact that such mindset of Buddhist monks existed even as late as the XVIII century, with one of the main examples here being Wenhai Fuju (1685-1765), who adopted a series of steps to promote the Qianhua lineage of Vinaya school of Chinese Buddhism. In order to explore his activities in detail, this paper synthesizes data form various sources producing a complete, chronologically arranged biography. The analysis of obtained results shows that the majority of Wenhai Fuju’s endeavors embodying his “school awareness” were in fact driven by the needs and opportunities of interaction with the Yongzheng (1723-1735) or Qianlong (1736-1795) emperors. This allows concluding that the official authorities expected and approved such desire for domination for a particular Buddhist school. Accordingly, it was the impact of imperial policy that could have kept up such “school awareness” in the XVIII century China.

Keywords: Wenhai Fuju, Qianhua, Vinaya, Qianlong, Yongzheng, Qing, Buddhism, religion, China, school awareness

Abstract: The object of this research is the area of formation of the fortified settlements of the Bronze Age in South Ural – Bolshekaraganskaya Valley and the territory within the boundaries of Chelyabinsk Oblast adjacent to it. The subject of this research is the territorial-geographical complexes and historical-theoretical approaches towards studying the fortified settlements of ancient Ural in the dynamics of their development. The author meticulously examines such aspects of the topic as formation of the center and core of settlement structure of the Bronze Age in the basing of Bolshaya Karaganka River, which joins the Ural River, in the southern part Chelyabinskaya Oblast, territory also known as Arkaimskaya Valley. Special attention is given to localization and layer wise fixation of the fortified settlements, as well as typology of their morphogenesis. Research methodology is built on the theory of historical-architectural comparativism and comparative analysis of patterns of the fortified settlements in their layer wise fixation. The main conclusion is defined by the most comprehensive review of the typology of fortified settlements of South Ural of the Bronze Age. The analysis of planning analogues determined the typological and morphological similarity of the objects, continuity of building traditions in territories with the development town planning syste4ms of Middle Asia. The author provides certain clarifications in determination of the unique morphology of the patterns of fortified settlements, practically first known in history at the time of study, production-housing fortification constructs with the dominant metallurgical function. The research results suggest the origin of Sintashtinsko-Petrovsky town-forming fortification system in correspondence with the ancient architectural and urban traditions in Middle Asia at the early development stages of Indo-European states.

Keywords: historical heritage, ancient civilization, Bronze Age, Proto-Indo-European frontier, Sintashta, Ancient Ural, Bolshekaraganskaya Valley, fortified settlements, planning structures, settlement systems

Abstract: Based on desk research, this paper seeks to build on existing literature concerning how Africa can enhance effective government systems needed to make policies work better for poor people and meet the challenges of globalisation. While making an in-depth examination into the current seemingly antagonistic public-private development platforms in Africa, the paper also feeds into a dominant narrative which indicates areas of relevance to poverty reduction and participatory development when critical actors work in synergy. Through the use of an analytic narrative and descriptive method of data analysis, it therefore, explores the role national partnerships can play in bringing governments, the private sector and civil society together around shared strategies for formulation and implementation of pro-poor policies.

Keywords: poverty, government, Africa, researchers, pro-poor policy, globalisation, development, сivil society, government departments, overview

Abstract: The article tackles new technologies impact on urban transportation and gives some projections on how the future of urban passenger transit and urban goods transportation would look like. The research is centered mainly on the impact of those technologies on modal choice and explains how the impact of new theologies will contribute to the obsolescence of the public urban transport. Several factors are taken into account to support this idea. Projections on decrease in urban transport are based on major challenges of labor market (automation and teleworking), as well as ecommerce development, which will cut the demand for public transport ridership by half. Those trends will also substantially reduce the car ownership, and thus contribute to traffic decongestion. At the same time, shared-ridership platforms (Uber, etc.) have significantly decreased the cost of transit by private means of transport, equal to some fares of public transport, whereas driverless and electric cars will further decrease the cost of transit by private means of transport up to making public transport unnecessary.

Keywords: individual vehicle, urban traffic, modal choice, new technologies, car, public transport, urban transit, Urban Transport, cargo transportation, communication technologie

Abstract: The research is devoted to the problem of assessing the mutual influence of economic and demographic factors in the development of large cities (on example of cities in the Siberian Federal District (SFD)). The aim of the study is to analyze the trends and factors of the mutual influence of the demographic potential and economic development of large cities. The results show that the total number of cities in the SFD has not significantly change over the past decade. However, the socioeconomic development of cities is characterized by unevenness. There have also been noticeable changes in the structure and population of cities. A set of indicators assessing the dynamics of urban development based on the analysis of economic and socio-demographic trends is proposed. The development dynamics of the large cities in the SFD and their rating have been evaluated, which made it possible to determine the points of growth. The uniform “saturation” is revealed for the SFD cities based on the analysis of the Zipf’s curves. At the same time, we identified a reverse trend characterized by improving the parameters of settlement against the rapid growth of the largest cities. It is predicted that the share of the urban population will gradually increase.

Keywords: spatial development, Siberian federal district, Zipf’s law, ranking, economic development, urban resettlement, socio-demographic processes, large cities, social-economic factors, classification

Abstract: The subject of this article is the ever-rising demand for professional development for tertiary teaching faculty dictated by educational evolution and innovative pedagogy in Russia. In their article, the authors substantiate the idea that teacher development is a lifetime process, starting from the initial pursuit of this career to retirement. Therefore, this study attempts to review all available internal and external models of continuous education, on-job and outside trainings that will potentially enhance teachers’ productivity and professionalism throughout their careers. Driven by the realization that even the most recent approaches today seem outmoded, the paper aims at illustrating what options are currently available in a particular country at a specific timeframe. The authors utilize the quantitative and qualitative analyses of data collected, which demonstrate a paradigm shift in the urgency of continuous evolvement not only of professional, but also personal competencies mediated by either the administration, or individual initiative.

Keywords: innovative pedagogy, in-service training, certificate courses, professional development, higher institution faculty, educational innovations, life-long learning, competative edge, reliability, competence

Abstract: The subject of the study is gender characteristics of insincere statements and behavior. The experimental material includes 100 video fragments in Russian and 100 video fragments in American English. The study of this material included perceptual-auditory and perceptual-visual types of analysis, which were conducted with the involvement of groups of test-auditors. The results of perceptual-auditory and perceptual-visual types of analysis revealed some gender differences in insincere statements and behavior. However, most of the parameter values noted by the subjects when working with the material are in the zone of average values, which makes the study of these parameters especially difficult and indicates the relevance of this problem. Processing such a data set (915,600 cells) was carried out for the first time, but it did not reveal major gender differences in the speech and behavior of communicants, which indicates the need for further study of this problem.

Keywords: perceptual-visual analysis, perceptual-auditory analysis, insincerity, lie detection, deception detection, deception, lies, paralinguistics, speech analysis, voice analysis

Abstract: The subject of this research is the nature of national specificity manifestation of the lacunae belonging to different parts of speech. The goal is to describe the thematic groups of Russian-English verbal, substantive and attributive lacunae relating to the military sphere. The system of formalized indexes is used to elucidate the national peculiarity. The novelty of this research consists in revealing and testing new formalized parameters within the groups of lacunae that have not been studied from such perspective. In the course of the research, the following methods were employed: the continuous sampling method from a lexicographical source, the quantitative analysis method, comparative analysis and comparative-parametric method of linguistic research. The theoretical importance of the research is defined by the fact that methods of comparative description received further amplification. The indexes are used to determine quantitative characteristics of national peculiarity. The results obtained can be utilized in practice of teaching professionally oriented translation, comparative typology of the Russian and English languages, and be used for further inter and intra-linguistic research. Through the prism of the indexes, conclusion about the degree of the groups’ national specificity is drawn.

Keywords: national specificity, degree of manifestation, semantic proximity, the index of gender lacunae, antonymic pairs, the index of nominative non-representativeness, formalized parameters, military sphere, Russian-English lacunae, explicit-generalizing attributive lacunae

Abstract: The subject of the article is emotional utterances in literary texts. The research is aimed at revealing and studying the pragmatic potential of such utterances. Pragmatic potential is defined as additional information that needs to be decoded. A literary text has been chosen as the source of emotional utterances because it creates the circumstances for the fullest functional manifestation of their pragmatic potential. The author meticulously studies such linguistic means of expressing emotions as nomination, description, tropes and figures of speech. Research methods include definition, semantic and pragmatic analyses of linguistic means of expressing emotions, selected by the continuous sampling method. The processing of the factual material has also been performed by the method of contextual determination. The novelty of this research is substantiated by the combined approach to the analysis of emotional utterances and by revealing hidden meanings of both, expressed and implied emotions. The analysis has shown that emotional utterances provide better understanding of the speaker’s illocution, and that the intensity of illocution is influenced by the choice of linguistic means. The expression or implication of emotions intensifies the speaker’s intention and creates a stronger pragmatic effect. Furthermore, it has been determined that emotional utterances may perform several illocutionary acts, but it is context that reveals the true intention.

Keywords: seme, literary text, illocution, speech act, pragmatic potential, pragmatics, emotivity, emotional utterance, emotion, appraisal