Scoring recalls for L2 readers of English in China: Pausal or idea units

Written recall may be a powerful tool used to address reading deficiencies in China. With 180 students enrolled in a third-year English class at a large university in northeastern China, the present investigation studies the relationship between pausal and idea units used to codify written recalls, and it investigates whether the strength of the relationship between pausal and idea units depends on other variables, such as length of time spent studying English, the amount of leisure reading done in English, or the version of passage. Findings indicate a strong correlation between idea units and pausal units for written recalls. This correlation underscores prior findings by Bernhardt (1991), and it reveals that the strength of the relationship between pausal and idea units does not depend on the moderating variables examined. Results are discussed in light of prior research and a detailed discussion of future directions for experiments of this type is offered

Textual enhancements and comprehension with adult readers of English is China

The present study utilizes texts from social psychology to examine the effects of textual enhancements on reading comprehension with 185 native adult Chinese speakers learning English in China. Participants read two different vignettes, either with or without an adjunct. Each adjunct consisted of a ‘what’ question along with instructions to either ‘pause and consider’ or ‘pause and write.’ Participants also completed written recall, sentence completion, multiple-choice, and a topic familiarity question. Across passages, findings revealed significant effects of passage version on comprehension as measured via recall and sentence completion and no significant effects of passage version on multiple-choice questions. Participants scored almost the same on recall and sentence completion for versions with no adjuncts and versions with ‘pause and consider’ adjuncts, and they scored significantly lower on these assessment tasks for the version with pause and write adjuncts. Participants scored the same on multiple-choice questions for all three versions of both passages

Analysis on Residents’ Travel Activity Pattern in Historic Urban Areas: A Case Study of Historic Urban Area of Yangzhou, China

Travel behaviors and activity patterns in the historic urban area of a city are expected to be different from the overall situations in the city area. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the residents’ travel activity patterns in historic urban area. Based on survey data conducted in the historic urban area of Yangzhou, the travel activities of local residents in a whole day were classified into five types of patterns. The multinomial logit (MNL) model was developed to evaluate the impacts of explanatory variables on the choices of activity patterns. The results showed that the choice of activity pattern was significantly impacted by five contributing factors including the gender, age, occupation, car ownership, and number of electric bikes in household. The other variables, which were the family population, preschoolers, number of conventional bikes in household, motorcycle ownership, and income, were found to be not significantly related to the choice of activities. The results of this study from historic urban area were compared to findings of previous studies from overall urban area. The comparison showed that the impacts of factors on activity pattern in the historic urban area were different from those in the overall area. Findings of this study provide important suggestions for the policy makings to improve the traffic situations in historic urban areas of cities

Study on Flow Characteristics of Francis Turbine Based on Large-Eddy Simulation

The research object was a Francis turbine, and the working conditions at 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, and 1% opening were determined by the opening size of the guide vane. Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) was adopted as a turbulence model method to conduct three-dimensional unsteady turbulent numerical simulation of the entire flow channel of a Francis turbine, and the flow situation of various parts of the turbine under different working conditions was obtained. The flow characteristics of each component under different working conditions were analyzed, and the hydraulic performance of each part was evaluated. The factors that affected the stability of hydraulic turbines were identified, and their formation mechanisms and evolution laws were explored. The results show that the guide vane placement angle was reasonable in the guide vane area, and the hydraulic performance was fine. The impact on the stability of the hydraulic turbine was small. Further research showed that the hydraulic performance was poor in the runner area, and there were flow separation and detachment phenomena in the flow field. This created a channel vortex in the runner blade channel. The channel vortex promoted the lateral flow of water and had a significant impact on the stability of the hydraulic turbine. The diffusion section of the draft tube can dissipate most of the kinetic energy of the water flow in the draft tube area, and it had a good energy dissipation effect. However, the was a large pressure difference between the upper and lower regions of the diffusion section, and it generated a backflow phenomenon. It created vortex structures in the draft tube, and the stability of the hydraulic turbine was greatly affected