The number of domestic studies on "variational pragmatics" (Ren Yuxin, Chen Xinren, 2012) is very limited. The research scopes are also relatively limited, which has not yet attracted the attention of more researchers. Therefore, based on this book The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Pragmatics, this paper aims to sort out and summarize the development trend of pragmatics from the meaning, goal and theory of variational pragmatics, and then put forward suggestions for future research.

With the development of globalization and diversification, more and more people attach importance to English, and a great number of primary schools in China begin to attach importance to English teaching. As an international mainstream English teaching method, phonics has gradually been used in primary school education in China. Phonics guides students to match letters or letter combinations in the words with sounds, and read or spell words through these pronunciation rules, so that students can learn the vocabulary in a relaxed and pleasant way. It will also reduce obstacles to reading and writing words, and improve students’ learning efficiency. However, there are still some problems in primary school English teaching in China, such as lack of systematic teaching, neglect of phonetic symbol learning and neglect of word meaning, which need to be further improved so that phonics can better assist primary school English teaching.

The work is devoted to the numerical solution of the initial boundary value problem for the heat equation with a fractional Riesz derivative. Explicit and implicit difference schemes are constructed that approximate the boundary value problem for the heat equation with a fractional Riesz derivative with respect to the coordinate. In the case of an explicit difference scheme, a condition is obtained for the time step at which the difference scheme converges. For an implicit difference scheme, a theorem on unconditional convergence is proved. An example of a numerical calculation using an implicit difference scheme is given. It has been established that when passing to a fractional derivative, the process of heat propagation slows down.

National governments and academic higher education institutions continue to realign human resource development (HRD) strategies to address the gaps in HRD mandate. This study will investigate new and recalibrated skills that higher institutions (HEIs) professionals and the labor force produce to reconfigure curriculum development in tertiary education. The study extracts narrative from 6 curriculum developers, 3 HRD heads and h3 manpower organizations on the labor landscapes from different local and multinational industries from entry-level to mid-career ranges through case scenario-based interviews and focus group discussions to determine the skills around motivation, innovativeness, and adaptability and subsequently integrate strategic initiatives to reconfigure the compatibility of these skills from higher education institutions to post-pandemic industries. The findings reveal skills that can be managed at the individual level, e.g., self-motivation and adaptability as well as the need to emerge from the technological pressures by adapting to organizational and clientele demands. These human resource traits become the mantra of surviving and progressing in a landscape shaped by the pre- and post-pandemic setting and become the basis of HEI programs to match the needs of the labor force and the industries.

Projects implemented under life cycle contracts have become increasingly common in recent years to ensure the quality of construction and maintenance of energy infrastructure facilities. A key parameter for energy facility construction projects implemented under life cycle contracts is their duration and deadlines. Therefore, the systematic identification, monitoring, and comprehensive assessment of risks affecting the timing of work on the design and construction is an urgent practical task. The purpose of this work is to study the strength of the influence of various risks on the duration of a project implemented on the terms of a life cycle contract. The use of the expert assessment method allows for identifying the most likely risks for the design and construction phases, as well as determining the ranges of deviations from the baseline indicator. Using the obtained expert evaluations, a model reflecting the range and the most probable duration of the design and construction works under the influence of risk events was built by the Monte-Carlo statistical method. The results obtained allow monitoring and promptly detecting deviations in the actual duration of work from the basic deadlines set in the life cycle contract. This will give an opportunity to accurately respond to emerging risks and build a mutually beneficial relationship between the parties to life cycle contracts.

This work aimed to evaluate the effects of using three different substrates in the semi-hydroponic culture of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) using two different nutrient solutions. A first trial was performed with a nutrient solution rich in macronutrients and micronutrients suitable for lettuce culture, and a second trial with a nutrient solution with pretreated wastewater from effluents of a cheese factory. The experimental design was in randomized blocks with three repetitions and three substrates were used: perlite, coconut fiber, and expanded clay, in both trials. The following parameters were observed: number of leaves, diameter of the cabbage, fresh and dry weight of the aerial part, chlorophyll index and mineral composition of the lettuce. For the first trial, the highest result for the number of leaves (20 leaves), fresh weight (142.0 g) and dry weight (7.2 g) of the aerial part was obtained in the plants growing on perlite. In the second trial, the highest result for the number of leaves (28 leaves), diameter of cabbage (26.7 cm), fresh weight (118.8 g) and dry weight (9.5 g) of the aerial part were achieved by the plants that were grown in coconut fiber. The nutrient solutions were analyzed after each irrigation cycle to verify the possibility of their discharge into the environment. Several parameters were analyzed: pH, conductivity, redox potential, nitrates, nitrites, ammoniacal nitrogen, chlorides, hardness, calcium, phosphates, sodium, potassium, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and magnesium. Ammoniacal nitrogen was found to be the only nutrient that can limits the discharge of nutrient solutions into the environment. It was also proven that the plants, besides obtaining the nutrients necessary for their development in the semi-hydroponic system with the nutrient solution with pre-treated residual water, also functioned as a purification system, allowing the said nutrient solution to be discharged into the environment at the end of each cycle.