The energy intensity target in China's 11th Five-Year Plan period-Local implementation and achievements in Shanxi Province

Facing the mounting pressure on energy security and increasing environmental concerns about air pollution and climate change, the Chinese government set a mandatory goal of 20% reduction of energy intensity in its 11th Five-Year Plan period (FYP, 2006–2010). In this paper we use Shanxi province to illustrate how policies and measures are implemented in practice at a provincial level as a response to the National FYP issued by the central government. Local policies are described and their effects are analyzed. We compare reported energy saving achievements with our own estimates and conclude that the achievements in Shanxi probably have been substantial since the start of the 11th FYP period. The most important measures taken by provincial and local governments seem to be in the secondary sector, such as Top-200/Top-1000 program and phasing out outdated technologies. However, Shanxi has still a long way to go to achieve satisfactory energy use. Further improvement of energy intensity will require continuing efforts. Although many measures are necessary, improving the energy efficiency in heavy industries and reducing the dependence on these industries should be particularly effective

Mechanism of online emotional support accompany group for stress: The role of social support

ObjectiveTo investigate the effect of social support on stress, and to clarify the effect and mechanism of Online Emotional Support Accompany Group (OESAG).MethodsThe group members who signed up for the public welfare project “Psychological Rehabilitation Group Psychological Service under the COVID-19 Pandemic” were divided into the treatment group, the control group, and the blank group with 37 members each. The treatment group received OESAG intervention, the control group received online time management group intervention, and the blank group was the waiting group. The three groups of subjects were synchronously tested before and after the intervention group.ResultsAfter the OESAG intervention, compared with the control group and the blank group, the treatment group showed that perceived social support was improved, and loneliness and stress were decreased.ConclusionImproving social support can effectively reduce stress. OESAG can effectively improve social support and so too decrease stress. This study could help in designing effective psychological intervention measures to reduce the degree of stress symptoms and enhance both personal and social levels of coping with stressful events

Health Impact and Control Policy of Air Pollution in Shanxi, China

Facing the increasing environmental degradation locally and globally, the Chinese government sets mandatory goals of 10% reduction of SO2 emission and 20% reduction of energy intensity in its 11th Five-Year Plan period (FYP, 2006-2010). This study uses Shanxi Province to show the health effects of air pollution and health benefits resulting from various air pollution control scenarios in Shanxi province, illustrate how policies and measures have been implemented in practice in the province as a response to the National Environmental Five Year Plan issued by the central government, and demonstrate how the various responses have contributed to meeting targets. The study shows that the economic costs of air pollution in Taiyuan in the base year 2000 were large, and that control strategies especially targeting area sources (low level distributed sources) could lead to substantial health benefits for the population in Taiyuan and that the gain is greater the earlier control actions are taken. The results in Paper I have been updated, using exposureresponse functions from the most recent publications on the topic. Although there are large uncertainties in the estimates of health benefits and the implementation of air pollution control measures, the study shows that scenario-based and pollution source-oriented health benefit evaluation of air pollution in Taiyuan can be very useful. Even though selection of optimal control scenarios for Taiyuan requires further cost-benefit analysis and regional considerations, this study does provide decision-makers with evidence about not only the significance of control and prevention of environmental pollution, but also gives indications of what measures are most effective locally. The national air quality standard Grade II is a bit less strict than the WHO guidelines, and the study implies that there are large health benefits to be gained by setting stricter standards for the future in China. China has already in 2012 set a new ambient air quality standard which lowers the previous threshold value of PM10 (Grade II: annual average from 100 μg/m3 to 70 μg/m3) and includes an index (standard) for PM2.5 (Grade II: annual average 35 μg/m3) for the first time. The achievements in energy saving and emission reduction in Shanxi have been substantial in the 11th five-year plan period (2006-2010). The provincial and local governments have put energy efficiency and environment protection very high on its policy agenda, and devoted a considerable amount of effort to achieving the goals. Very detailed requirements and regulations have been issued. The most important measures so far seem to be in the industrial sector. Particularly, the Top-200 Program and phasing out outdated capacity contributed, respectively, 63% and 30% of the total energy savings. The reduction by FGD in the power sector dominated the total SO2 reduction. However, Shanxi has still a long way to go to achieve satisfactory energy use and limit the emissions of pollutants such as SO2, NOx, CO2 and PM. Further improvement of energy intensity and environment will require continuing efforts to optimize the economic structure, in particular a shift to low-carbon economy and reduction in the dependence on heavy industry. The personnel appraisal system should also be improved to provide stronger incentives for achieving further energy intensity and pollution reductions

A method of neighbor classes based SVM classification for optical printed Chinese character recognition.

In optical printed Chinese character recognition (OPCCR), many classifiers have been proposed for the recognition. Among the classifiers, support vector machine (SVM) might be the best classifier. However, SVM is a classifier for two classes. When it is used for multi-classes in OPCCR, its computation is time-consuming. Thus, we propose a neighbor classes based SVM (NC-SVM) to reduce the computation consumption of SVM. Experiments of NC-SVM classification for OPCCR have been done. The results of the experiments have shown that the NC-SVM we proposed can effectively reduce the computation time in OPCCR

The energy intensity target in China's 11th Five-Year Plan period--Local implementation and achievements in Shanxi Province

Facing the mounting pressure on energy security and increasing environmental concerns about air pollution and climate change, the Chinese government set a mandatory goal of 20% reduction of energy intensity in its 11th Five-Year Plan period (FYP, 2006-2010). In this paper we use Shanxi province to illustrate how policies and measures are implemented in practice at a provincial level as a response to the National FYP issued by the central government. Local policies are described and their effects are analyzed. We compare reported energy saving achievements with our own estimates and conclude that the achievements in Shanxi probably have been substantial since the start of the 11th FYP period. The most important measures taken by provincial and local governments seem to be in the secondary sector, such as Top-200/Top-1000 program and phasing out outdated technologies. However, Shanxi has still a long way to go to achieve satisfactory energy use. Further improvement of energy intensity will require continuing efforts. Although many measures are necessary, improving the energy efficiency in heavy industries and reducing the dependence on these industries should be particularly effective.China Energy intensity Energy policy

The IR and CC for MNIST dataset.

<p>The linear function is applied in M1– M5.</p

The assessment of health damage caused by air pollution and its implication for policy making in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China

We establish the link between energy use, air pollution, and public health impacts in Taiyuan for 2000, and for 2010 and 2015 under alternative scenarios. We find that in year 2000 more than 2200 excess deaths may have been caused by particulate matter (PM) pollution. Using alternative methods for monetization of health impacts the total health damage amounts to 0.8-1.7 billion Yuan, which is 2.4-4.9% of the city's GDP in 2000. Compared to the business-as-usual scenario, scenarios assuming extensive fuel switch in low-and-medium-stack pollution sources and extension of the district heating system could prevent 200-1100 PM10-related premature deaths in 2010 and substantially reduce population morbidity. The actual PM pollution in 2007 was lower than modeled in these two scenarios. We also find that if air quality in urban Taiyuan were to reach the Chinese National Grade II Standard in 2015, the number of premature deaths would still be around 1330 and the economic cost about 1-2% of the city's GDP in 2015. Our results imply that there are large health benefits to be gained by setting stricter standards for the future in China, and that targeting low-and-medium-stack source effectively reduces health damage.Air pollution Health impacts Control scenarios