Challenges and Solutions for Native Mandarin-Chinese Speakers in Singing German Lieder

ABSTRACT Challenges and Solutions for Native Mandarin-Chinese Speakers in Singing German Lieder Fei Xia The purpose of this research is to focus on the challenges faced by Mandarin-Chinese speaking singers singing German Lieder, as well as providing these singers with solutions for overcoming these difficulties. Singing art songs such as French Mélodies and German Lieder can greatly improve singers’ artistic and aesthetic values because of the beauty of the poetry and the language. However, it is very difficult for native Mandarin- Chinese speakers to sing German Lieder. Some of the primary difficulties faced by Mandarin-Chinese-speaking singers are German diction and interpretation of German poetry and texts. Solutions to these challenges of singing German Lieder will be presented. These solutions are based on the analysis of reference material as well as this writer’s singing and performing experience. This study is expected to provide native Mandarin-Chinese speakers with a helpful guide to singing German Lieder with confidence. This paper starts with the introduction of Chinese Pinyin and IPA, as well as the differences between Pinyin and German IPA, followed by the phonetic problems and solutions for native Mandarin-Chinese speakers in singing Lieder. The paper will then discuss challenges in interpreting German poetry and solutions for Mandarin-Chinese singers in interpreting German texts

Simultaneous measurement for material parameters using self-mixing interferometry

Material related parameters such as Young’s modulus and internal friction are important for mechanical and material engineering. These parameters play key roles in the material performances. It has been a great interest to measure the value of these parameters. Traditional methods including tensile test, flexure test, and others are destructive methods often cause damages to specimen and have low accuracy. In recent years, the impulse excitation technique (IET), a non-destructive technique to determine Young’s modulus and internal friction of the material has attracted great attention. The detection system used for IET is normally microphone, accelerometer and so on. Selfmixing interferometry (SMI), an emerging sensing technique, which is non-destructive, non-contact, compact structure, and low-cost has been developed for high accuracy sensing applications, such as displacement, velocity and distance measurement and so on is suitable for the material related parameters measurement. A normal SMI system consists of a laser diode (LD) and a target to form the external cavity of the LD. When a portion of the light is reflected or backscattered to the laser cavity, leading to a modulated laser power of LD. This modulated laser power is referred as SMI signal, which carries the information of vibration of the target. In this thesis, a measurement method combining IET with SMI for material related parameters measurement is proposed. By applying wavelet transform onto the SMI signal, both resonant frequency and damping factor of the specimen vibration can be retrieved at the same time. Therefore, both Young’s modulus and internal friction of the specimen can be calculated simultaneously. The optical fibre is introduced to the system. With the installation of the optical fibre, the flexibility of the measurement is greatly improved. The measurement results show the feasibility for simultaneous measurement of material related parameters. A graphical user interface is designed to improve the user experience for the measurement

Introducing PR strategies into Chinese exhibition planning services

This professional paper focuses on case studies from three Chinese companies’ exhibition experiences. This paper will use the case studies to investigate clients’ perspectives on the planning deficiencies of Chinese exhibition companies or professional associations. Finally, this paper will propose a relatively executable guide that includes an advanced U.S. planning process for Chinese exhibition companies