Reconciling discrepancies in the source characterization of VOCs between emission inventories and receptor modeling

Emission inventory (EI) and receptor model (RM) are two of the three source apportionment (SA) methods recommended by Ministry of Environment of China and used widely to provide independent views on emission source identifications. How to interpret the mixed results they provide, however, were less studied. In this study, a cross-validation study was conducted in one of China's fast-developing and highly populated city cluster- the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. By utilizing a highly resolved speciated regional EI and a region-wide gridded volatile organic compounds (VOCs) speciation measurement campaign, we elucidated underlying factors for discrepancies between EI and RM and proposed ways for their interpretations with the aim to achieve a scientifically plausible source identification. Results showed that numbers of species, temporal and spatial resolutions used for comparison, photochemical loss of reactive species, potential missing sources in EI and tracers used in RM were important factors contributed to the discrepancies. Ensuring the consensus of species used in EIs and RMs, utilizing a larger spatial coverage and longer time span, addressing the impacts of photochemical losses, and supplementing emissions from missing sources could help reconcile the discrepancies in VOC source characterizations acquired using both approaches. By leveraging the advantages and circumventing the disadvantages in both methods, the EI and RM could play synergistic roles to obtain robust SAs to improve air quality management practices

テープ ツウシン オ モチイタ ニホンゴ コース ノ ココロミ : ホンコン デノ ビジネス ジャパニーズ ノ バアイ

香港城市理工學院(現、香港城市大學)、商業及管理學系の日本語コースでは国際貿易専攻の学生が副専攻として日本語を学び、香港社会の要求にあった日本語が使えるビジネス・パーソンの養成をめざしている。このコースでは、海外で日本語を学ぶ場合問題となる言語教育環境を「質的」「量 的」に補強するために教師と学習者との「テープ通信」を用いて改善を試みたが、その結果、両者のインターアクションの機会が高まり、言語運用能力の向上にも効果 が現れた。「テープ通信」は以下の方法で行なう。 1. 学習者が発話できる環境を整えるために、テープ録音の課題を与える。(3分間) 2. 教師は個別にテーマやタスクを与える。 3. 教師はこの場合の重要なコミュニケーションの参加者である。したがって、返信では自然な発話を心がけ、学習者との対話を行なう。 4. 課題は通信テープの中に録音する。 「テープ通信」の結果、とくに学習者の談話の型で発展がみられ、ほとんどの学習者が「段落レベル」の談話を構成できるようになった。本稿では、「テープ通 信」の実践を報告し、今後の可能性を考えたい。The "Audio-Tape Correspondence" is an approach aiming at improving the oral proficiency of students of Japanese in learning through the means of an interactive audio record of exchanges between them and the teacher. This paper will report on the results observed through the use of "Audio-Tape Correspondence" in a "Japanese for Business" course in Hong Kong.Methodology In order to provide interactive stimuli, the teacher gives each student various tasks through the use of audio-tape recordings. Recording topics are then given according to each student\u27s individual language level and interests. The teacher then responds to students on the tape as if in audio correspondence. The student next continues to record on the tape following the teacher\u27s instructions. Following the audio-tape correspondence, the student next gives classroom oral presentations, not only on everyday topics, but on academic issues. Through observation, the author has found that "Audio-Tape Correspondence" has been effective in enhancing students\u27 speech levels, especially in developing their oral skills for rendering extensive texts. These results may be attributed to more qualitatively-based learning activities provided through this approach. This paper will also examine the importance of the active student\u27s role as a sender of information to an audience

Non-adjacent dependency learning in Cantonese-speaking children with and without a history of specific language impairment

Purpose: This study investigated non-adjacent dependency learning in Cantonese-speaking children with and without a history of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in an artificial linguistic context. Method: Sixteen Cantonese-speaking children with SLI history and 16 Cantonese-speaking children with typical language development (TLD) were tested with a non-adjacent dependency learning task using artificial languages that mimic Cantonese. Results: Children with TLD performed above chance and were able to discriminate between trained and untrained non-adjacent dependencies. However, children with SLI history performed at chance and were not able to differentiate trained versus untrained non-adjacent dependencies. Conclusions: These findings, together with previous findings with English-speaking adults and adolescents with language impairments, suggested that individuals with atypical language development, regardless of age, diagnostic status, language and culture, showed difficulties in learning non-adjacent dependencies. This study provides evidence for early impairments to statistical learning in individuals with atypical language development

Place- and age-responsive disaster risk reduction for Hong Kong: Collaborative Place Audit and Social Vulnerability Index for elders

published_or_final_versio

Cross-cultural study of family influences on executive functions in late childhood

Recent advances in developmental cognitive neuroscience suggest a link between executive functions (EF) and school achievement, above and beyond the contributions of intelligence. Executive functions are often described as our ability to reason, plan ahead, multi-task or switch between tasks, sustain attention, delay gratification, and make complex decisions. Marked changes in EF occur between childhood and adulthood. Although children from Asia are widely reported to outperform children from North America and Europe on EF tasks (particularly on tests of inhibitory control and attention), the evidence is focused almost entirely on early childhood (e.g., 3- to 7-year-olds) and largely ignores the question of whether there are cross-cultural differences in EF for older children and adults. To date, these cross-cultural studies have assumed that EF tasks are culturally fair and index the same cognitive and social processes in children from different countries. In seeking to explain cultural contrasts in EF, existing studies have assumed (rather than directly measured) contrasts in parenting. In discussing these findings, the focus has been on contrasts in socialization goals (i.e., individual autonomy vs. collective harmony). It is possible that multiple factors contribute to between-country contrasts in children's social environments. In particular, to date cross-cultural studies have ignored potential differences in parental EF. Further, there is growing interest in the relation between EF and school achievement. Again, most of the research in this area has focused on early childhood and there are no existing studies attempting to explore the interplay between EF and academic achievement in a cross-cultural sample. Thus, the aim of the current study is to uniquely explore the EF skills and academic achievement in late childhood with children and parents from both the United Kingdom and Hong Kong to better understand the importance of family factors on EF development and its relation to school performance. The study outlined here will include parent-child dyads completing a fairly extensive assessment battery. The study focuses on late childhood with participants between the ages of 8 and 11 years. The test battery will include multiple measures of EF (i.e., working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and planning), other cognitive measures (i.e., verbal skills, general cognitive ability), parenting measures (socialization goals, quality of parent child-relationships) and academic ability (i.e. literacy and numeracy skills). In this way, EF will also shed light on the cultural universality / specificity of the correlates of variation in older children's EF, family factors and academic achievement. This collaborative venture promises to be fruitful as it brings together researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge with diverse areas of expertise (e.g., experimental task design for online testing, cognitive assessments, psychometrics, etc.). In addition, by partnering with researchers in the Departments of Psychology and Educational Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the applicants are well placed to ensure that policy-relevant findings are disseminated efficiently to educational practitioners in Hong Kong.Recent advances in developmental cognitive neuroscience suggest a link between executive functions (EF) and school achievement. Briefly, executive functions include our ability to reason, plan ahead, multi-task or switch between tasks, sustain attention, delay gratification, and make complex decisions and change dramatically between childhood and adulthood. Children from Asia are widely reported to outperform children from North America Europe on EF tasks, but this evidence is focused almost entirely on young children and largely ignores the question of whether there are cross-cultural differences in EF for older children and adults. This project includes two studies that have been carefully designed to establish the validity, magnitude and universality of any East-West contrast in children’s EF performances. Together, these studies have three key goals: to improve the measurement of children’s EF by developing psychometrically robust, culturally-fair task batteries that are suitable for use across a broad range of ages to enhance our understanding of putative cultural contrasts by examining links between within-group variation in EF performance and parenting factors to explore whether the link between EF and academic achievement show cultural universality and the extent that parental factors influence this link.</p

Asian Anthropology, Volume 5, 2006

Main Articles Women's Stories, Discourse, and "the Power of Feelings" in China: A Case from a Muslim Neighborhood Maris GILLETTE Speaking Bitter-Sweetness: China's Urban Elderly in the Reform Period Friederike FLEISCHER Family Care or Residential Care? The Moral and Practical Dilemmas Facing the Elderly in Urban China Hong ZHANG The Stoic Monastic: Taiwanese Buddhism and the Problem of Emotions Hillary CRANEChina, Hong Kong, Chinese, Muslim, Anthropology

Asian Anthrpology, Volume 4, 2005

Main Articles Hahoe: The Appropriation and Marketing of Local Cultural Heritage in Korea - Okpyo MOON The Polder Museum of Ogata-mura: Community, Authenticity, and Sincerity in a Japanese Village - Donald C. WOOD Political Economy after Mao: Towards a Neo-Durkheimian Theory - Andrew B. KIPNIS Kinship, Identity and Control in a Sri Lankan Muslim Village - Victor C. de MUNCKanthrpology, sociology, history, hong Kong, Anthropology