SEVERAL ISSUES CONCERNING FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH

This article expounds the strategic significance and main tasks of fundamental research, and analyses the situation that the Chinese Academy of Sciences is faced with in its fundamental research, and the measures which should be taken.

Announcement: Upcoming Special Issue of Neural Regeneration Research

Neuronal trauma remains to be a serious medical condition with few established treatments despite decades of effort. The current research has been focused on using multiple disciplinary techniques to enhance the recovery in different stages of trauma and recovery. This special issue aims to provide a platform to facilitate a review by communicating and synergizing the current state of neurotrauma research. It is our goal to stimulate and galvanize new ideas towards the establishment of effective treatments for neuronal injury. Potential topics include, but are not limited to：

A “Stem Cells in Cancer” special issue in Translational Cancer Research

Somatic stem cells （SSCs）, being essential in maintaining homeostasis of normal tissue, replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues for organism. On the other hand, with the self-renewed ability, SSCs are ideal cellular targets to be acquired in multiple mutations transforming SSCs to cancer stem cells （CSCs） which cause malignancies and even recurrence after cancer treatment if CSCs fail to be eradicated （1）.

Pressing Issues for Accounting Research in China

Many researchers, both at home and abroad, are interested in issues in Chinese finance and accounting. However, there are different approaches to topic selection. Some may wish to test a theory or adopt a theory to explain accounting practice in China; others prefer to replicate a foreign theory in the Chinese context; and still others may want to formulate a theory on the basis of specific observations. Last but not least, the area investigated may depend on government research plans. However, none of these four approaches systematically chart the most serious research issues. This paper seeks to identify those issues by adopt-

Acknowledgments

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder of the brain that affects people worldwide at any age from newborn to adult. It is characterized by recurrent seizures, which are brief episodes of signs or symptoms due to abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. The electroencephalogram, or EEG, is a physiological method to measure and record the electrical

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.