Regional Disparities in Emissions of Rural Household Energy Consumption: A Case Study of Northwest China

The purpose of this paper is to present the emissions status of multiple rural areas from the perspective of a field survey and make up for the defects of the traditional emission cognition of single type of area. The basic data in the lower reaches of the Weihe River of Northwest China were collected through household questionnaire surveys, and emissions from rural household energy consumption were calculated in the paper. In addition, the grey relational analysis method was used to identify influential factors of emission disparities. The results show that the total emissions of the plain, loess tableland, and Qinling piedmont areas are 1863.20, 1850.43, and 2556.68 kg, respectively. Regional disparities in emissions of rural household energy consumption vary greatly. CO2 emissions are highest in the Qinling piedmont area, followed by the loess tableland area. For other emissions, there is no fixed order of the three areas, which suggests that disparities in emissions are connected with the dominant type of energy consumption. Diversification of energy use might not necessarily produce higher emissions, but the traditional biomass energy pattern does generate more emissions. The regional supply capacity of household energy is the original influence factor of disparities in emissions, and factors that influence these disparities are directly related to differences among farmers, followed by the age structure, educational background, income level, occupation, and so on

Improving Accuracy in Imitating and Reading Aloud via Speech Visualization Technology

This article reports on a teaching experiment that uses speech visualization technology to facilitate EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ ability of imitating and reading aloud (IRA). Traditional practice of “listen and repeat” used in pronunciation and intonation training often only hazily illustrates some salient speech features, such as pitch and intensity, etc., making it difficult for learners to accurately differentiate the features of pronunciation and capture the subtlety of intonation of the target language . As speech visualization transforms aural information into visual graphics and illustrates it in a clearer way, it can highlight the most important phonetic features of utterances. Such technology was used in a three-month teaching experiment carried out in a senior middle school in southern China for the purpose of reducing learners’ phonetic errors and enabling them to perceive sense groups appropriately.The results indicated that this approach was effective in increasing accuracy in pronunciation while did not have a significant effect on the fluency and rhythm in speech

Oxide reinforced Ni base composite prepared by spark plasma sintering

Y2O3 is a favourable reinforcement for the oxide dispersion strengthened superalloy due to its good high temperature stability, excellent strength and large elastic modulus. In this work, Y2O3 is introduced into the K4169 superalloy aiming to improve its high temperature properties. The high quality Y2O3 and K4169 powder mixture can be obtained with the addition of the process control agent of stearic acid after high energy ball milling, and the Y2O3/K4I69 composite with uniformly dispersed reinforcement of nanoscale Y2O3 particles are finally synthesized with the ball-milled powders by using spark plasma sintering

Oxide reinforced Ni base composite prepared by spark plasma sintering

Y2O3 is a favourable reinforcement for the oxide dispersion strengthened superalloy due to its good high temperature stability, excellent strength and large elastic modulus. In this work, Y2O3 is introduced into the K4169 superalloy aiming to improve its high temperature properties. The high quality Y2O3 and K4169 powder mixture can be obtained with the addition of the process control agent of stearic acid after high energy ball milling, and the Y2O3/K4I69 composite with uniformly dispersed reinforcement of nanoscale Y2O3 particles are finally synthesized with the ball-milled powders by using spark plasma sintering