Hong Kong and Chongqing Air Pollution Essay Example

Hong Kong and Chongqing Air Pollution Essay Example Hong Kong and Chongqing Air Pollution Paper Hong Kong and Chongqing Air Pollution Paper 055 hours, which is much lower than some nations of Northern Europe. (Wisped: Cocooning) Cocooning is adjacent to northeast part of Chuan province, and the area of this city is over 23,000 km with 1 million population. Cocooning is one of the most polluted cities in China: from 1 981 to 1 996, SIS (Sulfur Dioxide) emissions were about 800,000 tons, and TTS (Total Suspended Particulates) emissions were about 200,000 tons per year. The daily concentration of SIS reached to 0. 26-0. MGM/mm, which is 3-7 times higher than the Class II national standard of air quality (0. OMG/mm). Cocooning, with more than 1 00 days of fog per year, is also commonly known as the Fog City (Wide, *B), and a thick layer fog shrouds it for 68 days per year during the spring and autumn. Another famous case in the world is London, which accelerated its development and status during Industrial Evolution. London was also endowed with a different city appearance during that time: full of fog. More explanations wil l be introduced to correlate these two cities in later parts. In a generic sense, three segmented climate types will attribute to the shaping of Choosing Fog City. First and foremost, haze. Treated as atmospheric brown clouds, it is defined as a turbid air phenomenon caused by a large number of very fine particles, which is floating in the air evenly and diminishing the meteorological visibility to less Han 10 km. Secondly, fog. It is a type of stratus cloud, distinguished from the more generic term cloud in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated locally. Similarly, mist consist of liquid or solid water and hygroscopic condensation nuclei, so the air is often humid with high humidity. When the number Of atmospheric aerosol is up to a certain extent, and then makes the meteorological visibility less than 10 km, it becomes a haze day. (Fan et al 2009) This explains the root cause of why Cocooning possesses amazing amount of fog. Besides, both cities were officially established in 1997, which can give more explanation to the track of social and economic development. More details can be located in the following table. Table 1. 1 Comparable Similarities between Hong Kong and Cocooning Name Index Hong Kong SARA Cocooning Municipal Official Establishment Time 1997 Area (kilo mm) 1104 1200 Population (million) 7. 3 7. 95 (9 urban districts) Famous for Finance, system, pearl river and mountains, night scene Hotpot, beauties, fog city and mountains, night scene Climate Type humid subtropical climate Us m mere Hot and humid (36. 1 C) Hot and humid(44 C) Winter Moderate temperature above 10 C; sunny Moderate temperature above 10 C; cloudy part 2 Analysis on Hong Songs Air Po llution There are two challenges for air pollution in Hong Kong: Street level pollution and regional smog. The former is mainly contributed by motor vehicles, such as trucks, buses and light buses. The latter is caused by diesel vehicles and industrial plants in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta (PRO) In Hong Kong, the dominance of transportation tools is mainly contributed by the diesel vehicles, which have the diesel engines that release some major air pollutants: sulfur dioxide (SIS), resalable suspended particulates (RSVP), trigger dioxide (NON) and carbon monoxide (CO). Table 2. 1 lists the concentration of these four pollutants in detail and compares the two locations: Shah Tin (a general station) and Mongo Kook (a roadside station). The CO data for Shah Tin station was unavailable because traffic is low in this kind Of residential area. Overall, this figure clearly suggests that the concentration of these air pollutants at roadside stations is higher than the general station. Besides, figure 2. 2 shows that the average yearly variations of these four major air pollutants levels at general station and road station are both lower urine June, July and August and higher in October, November, December and January. There is more rainfall during the summer season and it will wash the particles from the air, having low levels of pollutants in atmosphere. Although the Hong Kong Government has implemented lots of measure to control the emission of pollutants from diesel vehicles, the visibility and the pollution index are sometimes higher than the standard established by the World Health Organization (WHO). For the numerous high rise building in Hong Kong, once having traffic congestion in a high dense urban environment, it will create a canyon effect trapping local pollutants. Meanwhile, some pollutants with wind transport from China contribute to pollution level in Hong Kong. In other words, air pollution problems In Hong Kong are the collective problems, and cannot be solved by one regions environmental policies. Studies by Fens Ixia, Victor Bracer (2006) find evidence to suggest that the levels of PM O (particulate matter with less than 10 micrometers in diameter) in Hong Kong appear to be significantly related to the air pollution index in Sheehan, with a one-point increase in Sheens pollution index causing a 0. In Hong Kong. In addition, the particulate levels are significantly correlated with the distance from Southern China. Specifically, one percent of distance (which measured at the mean, is equivalent to 2. Km) farther away from China reduces the local PM O level by 17%. Moreover, the IMO level increases between 3% and 4% if the wind blows directly from China and also if one percent increases in wind speed can lead to an increase of 12% in Hong S ongs particulates. Nitrogen dioxide in Hong Kong is also significantly related to the pollution index in Sheehan (SOAPS). A one-point rise in SOAPS leads to a 0. 6% or a 0. % increase in Hong Gongs NON levels. Nitrogen dioxide is affected by the distance from Southern China, which will have much lower concentration in long distance from South China. Even though some regions in Hong Kong are farther away from Southern China, it still has higher concentration of nitrogen dioxide in densely populated urban areas. With 1% more density leads to over 20% more NON. This result can explain nitrogen dioxide is a traffic-based pollutant and the concentration in air is usually much higher in urban areas with more traffic activity. The data in report studied by Fens Ixia, Victor Bracer (2006) shows hat no statistically significant impact on NON according to the amount of rainfalls and wind speed. In other words, the driving force behind NON pollutant levels is mostly based on population density and related human activities. Part 3 Causes of Fog City Formation Cocooning has been seeing a tremendous speed of both economic and social progress. It keeps maintaining a high ranking of GAP growth rate and attracts a great deal of both domestic and oversea investors in recent years, since the State pours enough much and magnificent attention into Choosing strategic development with great sums of national financial fund. Cocooning belongs to one of four municipalities, while it is the newest and most vibrant one. It spares no effort to catch this opportunity to and stimulate diversified industries, such as tourism, manufacturing, off-shore finance and electronics. With all these programs being under highly fast construction, Cocooning may not escape the common development track of suffering from pollutions, just like other advanced industrial cities. It is reported that 16 of the worlds 20 most air-polluted cities AR in mainland China (source: State of the World 2006), under which circumstances, China suffered SIS$38 billion in costs elated to sulfur dioxide emissions in 2005. (source: State Environmental Protection Agency 3-8-06). Till ending part of last century, ambient concentrations of particulates and sulfur dioxide in many Chinese cities are among the highest in the world and are significantly above World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines and Chinese air quality standards. An article released in 1998 by the WHO noted that seven of the ten most polluted cities in the world can be found in China (Green Nature, 2004). When in light of energy consumption, coal consumption is the major one, and accounts for about 62. 5% of total energy consumption. This kind of energy using led to the deteriorating of air quality. Since 1997, the year Of Cocooning municipal establishment, the Fog City becomes more and more foggy. The air pollution resulted from diverse ways, namely houses everyday cooking factories emission and vehicles gas exhausting. However, the floating dust may stem largely from the building of construction sites, a host of high roads and flyovers. The problem remains serious, along with inhale particles, which even took place of floating dust and became Choosing primary pollutant. Even under this scenario, before 2005 launched Action Blue Sky Campaign, Cocooning was not aware of the severity and did not take steps to prevent the prevailing use of high-sulfur coal in factories, which were the primary source of letting out the sulfur dioxide, which will definitely result in the widespread acid rains. Many citizens in Cocooning complained the atmospheric issues and acid rains. They declared acid rain should be responsible for their losing hair and skin diseases. Long before, the scholars have already asserted the acid rain mainly concentrated in the region: south region to the Yanking River, east to Chuan and Yuan, including Sneezing, Fijian, Axing, most of Human and Cocooning as well as the Yanking River delta and Pearl River delta. This phenomenon means the acid rain issue is not just regional one, but a national issue worth every individuals attention. The power sector, with its widespread use of tall smoke-stacks, is probably the main contributor to long-range transport of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. Based on large amount of files, coal consumption is still the major source of air pollution in Cocooning. About 62% of total smoke and dust emissions and 95% of sulfur dioxide (SIS) come from coal combustion (In and See, 1998). However, some studies suggest that a sizable portion Of long-distance sulfur deposition can come from non-power sector, or areas and sources too. PM (particulate matter), or particulates, is another vital term making a negative influence on the air quality and belongs to particle pollution scope. They can adversely affect human health and also have impacts on climate and precipitation. Subtypes of atmospheric particle matter include suspended particulate matter (SUMP), resalable suspended particle (RSVP; particularities diameter of 10 micrometers or less), fine particles (diameter of 2. 5 micrometers or less, ultramarine particles, and soot). PM. 5 at present is catching more attention, since Beijing suffers a great deal of misty days, which mostly resulted from PM. 5. In addition, the direct aerosol effect consists of any direct interaction of radiation with atmospheric aerosol, such as absorption or scattering. It affects both short and long wave radiation to produce a net negative irradiative forcing. (Carlson, R. J et al. , 1992) The magnitude of the resultant irradiative forcing due to the direct effect of an aerosol is dependent on the lobed of the underlying surface, as this affects the net amount of radiation absorbed or scattered to space. Haywood et al. , 2000) The Direct aerosol effect is a first order effect and is therefore classified as a irradiative forcing by the EPIC. (Foresters, Piers et al. , 2007) Luckily, Choosing problem with PM. Is not as ill as that in Beijing. According to report released on the State of Environment in China (Jiao and Cocooning Environmental Monitoring Center (hanging Jeannine,IÂ ¶ *ENJOY), during 2001 and 2003, the sever misty days occurred in Cocooning were around 120-130 per year, and what is horrible is that such days were more than 150 days per year after 2004. The severity of such a problem has exceeded greatly than the same issue in Pearl Rive r delta, if we measure by the criteria of happening frequency. Though Cocooning belongs to one of the 6 key cities (Sanctimoniousnesss, the terrifying environmental problems, particularly the air pollution, never attract enough attention from no matter central governments or municipal governments. To summarize, diverse versions of reasons should be responsible for the formation of Choosing unique weather and the shaping of air pollution. Notwithstanding, the most prior issue should lie in that the governments did not take enough attention and measures to keep the citys development sustainable during the enormously fast industry acceleration. Hence, various levels of governments are ought to burden the responsibilities voluntarily and as efficiently as they can. Part 4 Approaches Hong Kong and Cocooning Governments Take to Solve the Air Problems To improve the air pollution problems in Hong Kong, the Government set the emission reduction target for the four major air pollutants: sulfur dioxide (SIS), Knox, RSVP and volatile organic compounds (VOCE) by 40%, 20%, 55% and 55% respectively in the region by 2010, using 1997 as the base year. Meanwhile, Hong Kong Government noticed that the milestones of air pollution. In December 2003, the Pearl River Delta (PROD) Air Quality Management and Monitoring Special Panel was set up under the Hong Kong/Conditioning Working Group to follow up on the tasks under the Management Plan To control the emission of pollutants from motor vehicles, the Hong Kong Government implemented a comprehensive motor vehicle emission control programmer. From 1st January 2005, the Hong Kong Government tightened the motor petrol standard to Euro IV. Meanwhile, the Government required the installation of vapor recovery systems for vehicles refueling at petrol filing stations from 31 March 2005. In 2005, the Gudgeon Provincial Government was inclined to focus on controlling pollutants from industrial plants. The Government constructed four large natural gas power plants and required all coal-fired power plants must retrofit with Low-Knox burner (LEN). Furthermore, the Government evaluated the numerous industrial plants in relation to processes and facilities, and closed those industrial plants with high SIS and dust emissions. Compared with Table 4. 1 , Table 4. Shows that the change in emission level during 1997-2006 for four pollutants had a bigger improvement, especially the SIS, which was reduced hang in emission from 31% to 12%. This implies that the measures carried out by both governments were really effective. To further control the emission reduction from diesel vehicles, the Chief Executive announced a series of new init iatives in his 2006 Policy Address. On 1 April 2007, the Hong Kong Government launched a one-off granted scheme with 33. 2 billion to subsidize the car owners to replace their pre-Euro and Euro I commercial diesel vehicles with Euro IV models. Meanwhile, the Government extended the mandatory requirement of installing emission reduction devices to long idling pre-Euro diesel vehicles from 1 April 2007. Since then, all pre-Euro diesel vehicles are required to install emission reduction devices. In order to control the SIS emission, the Government imposed emission caps on power plants and tightened them progressively. In August 2007, the two governments signed the Cooperation Agreement to Promote Energy Efficiency, Cleaner Production and Comprehensive Utilization of Resources to Enterprises in Hong Kong and Gudgeon. They also jointly conducted demonstration projects on cleaner production by industrial enterprises and launched a five-year Cleaner Production Partnership Programmer starting room April 2008 to encourage Hong Kong-owned factories operating in the PROD region to adopt cleaner production technologies and practices. Starting from July 2009, the Gudgeon Provincial Government implemented comprehensive measures focused on three parts: a) Controlling Emissions from Power Generation b) Controlling Emissions from Road Transport c) Controlling Emissions from Industrial Sector. For power generation, the Gudgeon Government prohibited the new development of power plants with coal-fired or oil-fired in the PROD region. The Government required that all newly vehicles in Provinces must fulfill the National Ill vehicle emission tankard and provide clean motor fuels to all cities in the PROD Region by the end of this year so as to control the emission of pollutants from road transport. Industrial sector is encouraged the use of clean energy at industrial boilers and kilns and installed dust removal, desertification and low KNOX combustion technologies at industrial boilers and kilns. The figures of 2009 show that with the implementation of local control measures and Gudgeon Provincial Government co-operation, the emission of the four major air pollutants has decreased by 24% to 58% from 1 997 to 2009. Even though the hang in emission level during 1997-2009 for KNOX, RSVP and VOCE has reached the 2010 emission reduction target, the SIS was far away from the reduction target, as shown in Table 4. 3. In fact, air quality in districts with heavy traffic has already improved after 1999. Compared with 1 999, the roadside concentration of pollutants released from vehicles, such as suspended particulates, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, has been reduced by 34%, 60% and 30% respectively in 201 0, as shown in Figure 4. 1 . As a result of the introduction of ultra-low sulfur diesel for vehicle fleet in late 000 and the subsequent introduction of Euro V motor diesel in Deck 2007, the average SIS concentration at roadside in 201 2 (Oops/mm) dropped by 63% as compared with the 1999 (peg/mm), as shown in Figure 4. 2. Besides, High level of roadside RSVP has long been a major air pollution concern in Hong Kong. The annual average of RSVP concentration at roadside in 2012 had reduced by 42% when compared with 1999 value as a result of the implementation of various vehicle emission control measures in recent years (Figure 4. 3). The annual average of Knox in urban areas exhibited a gradual decline inning trend over the past decade. During the same period, the roadside KNOX concentration showed a more distinct decreasing trend, reflecting a reduction in vehicular KNOX emission as a result of vehicle emission control measures implemented in the past decade. The roadside KNOX concentration in 2012 was 31 % lower than that in 1999 (Figure 4. ). Simultaneously, to make compensations to the aforementioned deteriorating of air quality, the Cocooning Government did not hesitate to take moves. In 2005 had decided to launch a municipal program called Action Blue Sky Campaign. The campaign was anticipated gradually to maintaining the high level of air laity, conceiving a favorable living environment for citizens and gradually removing all the root causes stem from air pollution that can lead the citizens to suffer. All this campaign was planned to be implemented around six years, at the cost 3. Billion Yuan in the first three years and primarily focused on the nine main urban districts (Chemung, covering 2737 Square kilometers. Almost in the mean time, Hong Kong also set up a campaign to prevent air pollution. What is funny and coincident is that the action name is exactly the same with Choosing campaign: The Action Blue Sky Campaign. This environmental campaign was organized by the Environmental Protection Department to clean up the citys air pollution. It was officially launched by Chief Executive Donald Teasing on July 25, 2006. According to a press release of the Hong Kong government, its campaign slogan in Chinese is , (All of the city participate to fight for a blue sky), while its campaign slogan in English is Clean Air for a Cool Hong Kong! Many activities are planned to reach the environmental goals of the Action Blue Sky Campaign, such as exhibitions with quiz booths are set up in 18 districts, educating the public about air pollution, the Environmental Campaign Committee will reinforce green messages to the public, encouraging people to take various measures to save energy and improve air quality and so on. Before this universally conducted program, a series of similar programs were already launched since 2000, such as Energy Sanitation and Action Purified Air. Fortunately, these programs effectively hold back the expansion of air pollution. Some sever and quite harmful pollutions, like PM O (particles with diameters Of 1 Urn or less) and sulfur dioxide pollution have been eased Step y step. Under this circumstance, some may claim that no more actions need be initiated since the air is getting better and better and the sound of citizens complaining is weakening. However, due to the scientific criteria, the effect was not comprehensive in every sector and the airy problem still remained serious and much worse compared to other cities in China. The general ranking of air quality keeps floating from 30-42 among all the 47 environmentally key cities (Hanging Ghanaian bayou during these decades and only showcases Choosing air quality and retention level belong to or below the intermediate echelon nationally. The municipal government aimed to design the blueprint by different periods of stages and implement the Action Blue Sky Campaign in a long term. Three air-related aspects stem from the aforementioned pollution causes were highlighted: Flowing dust pollution, coal and powder pollution, vehicles- related pollution. Not only pollution, but the relevant safeguard mechanism shall be on the agenda and look forward to a further comprehensive construction. More actions must be taken to protect and optimize the urban ecological environment. Moreover, the government cannot neglect the building of strict environment supervision from interrelated municipal offices. This program also aimed at guaranteeing the days meeting Class II standard can reach and stick around eighty percent of all days counted. In 2006, two years of official conduction of Campaign Blue Skies Action, articles on mass media announced the appealing news from the Cocooning executive meetings that the satisfying and acceptable days in this very year reached 287 days, which implied residents in Cocooning can enjoy nearly more 1 00 fine says (reaching the Class II) than 2000. Thanks to the Action Blue Sky Campaign, more thrilling results manifested: 54 relative manufacture factories were forced to relocate because of their equipments characters: high energy consumption and heavy pollution; API (Air Pollution Index) in nine main urban districts fell to 3. 0 firstly, which implied Cocooning was no longer a polluted city; Morbidity of citizens disease of respiratory system was 17% less than last years figure. Furthermore, first half year of 201 3 has seen that the situation is quite joyful since a great deal of improvement has occurred in he aforementioned aspects. The ranking of Choosing environment, especially air pollution field, was not embarrassing among all the first batch of cities with new criteria nationwide for air quality. In contrast, though worse than Shanghai, the overall level still remains above Beijing, Tannin and a host of surrounding geographically cities, such as Asian, Changed, and Changes. Consequently, more stages were elaborated to fulfill the original goals. 2008-2012 was a period with a fund over 5. 9 billion Yuan and a much higher figure of days meeting the satisfying standard.

Using Verb Tenses in Chinese

Using Verb Tenses in Chinese Western languages such as English have several ways to express tense. The most common are verb conjunctions which change the form of the verb depending on the time frame. For example, the English verb eat can be changed to ate for past actions and eating for current actions. Mandarin Chinese does not have any verb conjugations. All verbs have a single form. For example, the verb for eat is Ã¥ Æ' (chÄ «), which can be used for the past, present, and future. Despite the lack of Mandarin verb conjugations, there are other ways to express timeframes in Mandarin Chinese. State the Date The simplest way to  clarify which tense you are speaking in is to directly state the time expression (like today, tomorrow, yesterday) as part of the sentence. In Chinese, this is usually at the beginning of the sentence. For example: æ˜ ¨Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã¥ Æ'è ± ¬Ã¨â€šâ€°Ã£â‚¬â€šÃ¦Ëœ ¨Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã¥ Æ'çÅ' ªÃ¨â€šâ€°Ã£â‚¬â€šZuà ³tiÄ n wÇ’ chÄ « zhÃ… « rà ²u.Yesterday I ate pork. Once the timeframe is established, it is understood and can be omitted from the rest of the conversation. Completed Actions The particle ä ºâ€  (le) is used to indicate that an action occurred in the past and has been completed. Like the time expression, it can be omitted once the timeframe has been established: (æ˜ ¨Ã¥ ¤ ©)我å Æ'è ± ¬Ã¨â€šâ€°Ã¤ ºâ€ Ã£â‚¬â€š(æ˜ ¨Ã¥ ¤ ©)我å Æ'çÅ' ªÃ¨â€šâ€°Ã¤ ºâ€ Ã£â‚¬â€š(Zuà ³tiÄ n) wÇ’ chÄ « zhÃ… « rà ²u le.(Yesterday) I ate pork. The particle ä ºâ€  (le) can also be used for the immediate future, so be careful of its usage and be sure to understand both functions. Past Experience When you have done something in the past, this action can be described with the verb-suffix  Ã© Å½ / è ¿â€¡ (guà ²). For example, if you want to say that you have already seen the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (è‡ ¥Ã¨â„¢Å½Ã¨â€" Ã© ¾ /Ã¥  §Ã¨â„¢Å½Ã¨â€" Ã© ¾â„¢ - wà ² hÇ” cng long), you can say: 我å · ²Ã§ ¶â€œÃ§Å"‹é Å½Ã¨â€¡ ¥Ã¨â„¢Å½Ã¨â€" Ã© ¾ Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã¥ · ²Ã§ » Ã§Å"‹è ¿â€¡Ã¥  §Ã¨â„¢Å½Ã¨â€" Ã© ¾â„¢WÇ’ yÇ jÄ «ng kn guà ² wà ² hÇ” cng long. Unlike the particle ä ºâ€  (le), the verb suffix guà ² (é Å½ / è ¿â€¡) is used to talk about an unspecific past. If you want to say that you saw the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon yesterday, you would say: æ˜ ¨Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã§Å"‹è‡ ¥Ã¨â„¢Å½Ã¨â€" Ã© ¾ Ã¤ ºâ€ Ã¦Ëœ ¨Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã§Å"‹å  §Ã¨â„¢Å½Ã¨â€" Ã© ¾â„¢Ã¤ ºâ€ Zuà ³tiÄ n wÇ’ kn wà ² hÇ” cng là ³ng le. Completed Actions In The Future As mentioned above, the particle ä ºâ€  (le) can be used for the future as well as the past. When used with a time expression such as 明å ¤ © (mà ­ngtÄ «an - tomorrow), the meaning is similar to the English perfective. Take for instance: 明å ¤ ©Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã¥ ° ±Ã¤ ¼Å¡Ã¥Å½ »Ã¥  °Ã¥Å'â€"ä ºâ€ Ã¦ËœÅ½Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¦Ë†â€˜Ã¥ ° ±Ã¤ ¼Å¡Ã¥Å½ »Ã¥  °Ã¥Å'â€"ä ºâ€ Mà ­ngtiÄ n wÇ’ jià ¹ huà ¬ qà ¹ TibÄ›i le.Tomorrow I will have gone to Taipei. The near future is expressed with the combination of the particles è ¦  (yo - to intend); Ã¥ ° ± (jià ¹ - right away); or Ã¥ ¿ « (kui - soon) with the particle ä ºâ€  (le): 我è ¦ Ã¥Å½ »Ã¥  °Ã¥Å'â€"ä ºâ€ WÇ’ yo qà ¹ TibÄ›i le.Im just going to Taipei. Continuing Actions When an action is continuing to the present moment, the expressions æ ­ £Ã¥Å" ¨ (zhà ¨ngzi), æ ­ £ (zhà ¨ng) or Ã¥Å" ¨ (zi) can be used, along with the particle å‘ ¢ (ne) at the end of the sentence. This can look something like: 我æ ­ £Ã¥Å" ¨Ã¥ Æ'é £ ¯Ã¥â€˜ ¢WÇ’ zhà ¨ngzi chÄ «fn ne.I am eating. or 我æ ­ £Ã¥ Æ'é £ ¯Ã¥â€˜ ¢WÇ’ zhà ¨ng chÄ «fn ne.I am eating. or 我åÅ" ¨Ã¥ Æ'é £ ¯Ã¥â€˜ ¢WÇ’ zi chÄ «fn ne.I am eating. or 我å Æ'é £ ¯Ã¥â€˜ ¢WÇ’ chÄ «fn ne.I am eating. The continuative action phrase is negated with æ ² ¡ (mà ©i), and æ ­ £Ã¥Å" ¨ (zhà ¨ngzi) is omitted. The å‘ ¢ (ne), however, remains. For example: 我æ ² ¡Ã¥ Æ'é £ ¯Ã¥â€˜ ¢WÇ’ mà ©i chÄ «fn ne.I am not eating. Mandarin Chinese Tenses It is often said that Mandarin Chinese does not have any tenses. If tenses mean verb conjugation, this is true, since verbs in Chinese have an unchangeable form. However, as we can see in the above examples, there are many ways to express timeframes in Mandarin Chinese. The main difference in terms of grammar between Mandarin Chinese and European languages is that once a timeframe has been established in Mandarin Chinese, there is no longer any need for precision. This means sentences are constructed in simple forms without verb endings or other qualifiers. When talking to a native Mandarin Chinese speaker, Westerners may get confused with this lack of continuous precision. But this confusion arises from the comparison between English (and other Western languages) and Mandarin Chinese. Western languages require subject/verb agreements, without which the language will be glaringly wrong. Compare this with Mandarin Chinese, in which a simple statement can be in any timeframe, or express a question, or be an answer.

HD-DVD vs. BLU-RAY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

HD-DVD vs. BLU-RAY - Essay Example Weaknesses are happening on a couple of fronts. On the content development front, the DVD authoring front, we continue to see extreme price pressure in authoring services. The price of DVD authoring software has come down. The fact that more and more people are doing it puts incredible pressure on the production community to develop a quality product that is certifiable over all of the various players, delivers the same experience to the customer, and builds and maintains margins in their production services. (Sweeting, 2004, p7-46) On the other side, when we look at the next generation high definition DVD disc, which will certainly be all the rage in 2006, a weakness there is how soon the consumer will embrace this technology, particularly if there are two formats. As we all know, DVD was the most successful consumer product ever launched, but if you look at it now, most people have DVD players and are very content with the experience that they get in watching DVDs in their home. How quickly will they want to purchase a more expensive DVD player to play high definition material is something everyone is grappling with right now. (Capps, 2005) It is likely that moving forward the next wave [of opportunity] will fall to special interest categories and even corporate video--outreach and recruiting applications. Certainly, the opportunities for DVD in 2006 are tremendous. Beyond the applications in the corporate, marketing and outreach programs, we'll see special niche DVDs having greater acceptance. Then, of course, we have the whole next-generation issue, which hopefully will come to the forefront in 2006. The threat, especially for high definition, will definitely be how quickly the consumer will embrace that technology, particularly if there are two competing formats. You'll also have, on another front, a continuing piracy concern. That will bring pressure on studios and on the production community to figure out ways to safeguard the transmission of the information and the actual content on the DVD. We will see more movies being released more quickly to DVD. We will see the continued growth of TV programming and music on DVD, We will see the emerging market of 'special interest' DVDs [from educational, travel, marketing, outreach, recruiting, etc.]. And of course we will see the next generation of DVDs, in high definition.Blu Ray will win the high definition DVD arms race, but my guess is that it will take some time for the 75 percent of households who already own a standard definition DVD player to slowly warm up to parting with the cash to upgrade. In all likelihood the adoption wi ll be much slower than standard DVD. The entire industry is holding off until March to launch both formats [DVD HD and Blu Ray]. So we won't be able to see until March of this year how well the fall of this year will be. Also, how fast will HD disc formats be adopted by consumers It took four years for consumers to adopt DVD; will it take six years to get them over to HD We don't really know. (Laser Focus World, 2004. p11-11) A cross-industry debate over the next-generation high-definition optical-disk format turned uglier after Microsoft and Intel publicly backed the HD-DVD standard over its Blu-ray rival. Moving beyond the turf war talk of whether PCs or consumer electronics will rule the digital living room, the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray battle

Theology second paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Theology second paper - Essay Example It requires them to make reference from the Bible for their daily mannerisms. The belief in Jesus Christ also negotiates their reactions towards the modern society (Moore, 2). The modern society engrosses diverse challenges brought by technology and social dynamics. Therefore, Christians respond to the contemporary social situations in reference with their affiliation with Jesus Christ. Jesus’ death for everyone in the world exhibited his unconditional love. Through this act, Jesus demonstrated equal attention of each person regardless of their originality and background. The modern society is experiencing pronounced inequalities towards particular people and groups (Chopp, 3). Social stratification is an evident phenomenon across the modern society. This challenge requires the Christians to respond in a particular manner. They ought to respond in their belief towards the nature of Jesus Christ. They ought to make a reference to the manifestation of Christ’s love at the cross. He died for each person regardless of their background and originality. The book of I Corinthians 15:1-5 demonstrates the essence of Christ’s death for the human race. It clearly reveals that Christ died for each individual in society (Hanson, 22). Upon observation of Christ’s unconditional love that is free from discrimination, Christians ought to express the same in the modern society. Therefore, this move will entail embracing all the differences amongst the people in society and expressing unconditional love towards them. The contemporary American society has manifested intense levels of discrimination. Persons are highly discriminated and deprived of their rights according to their backgrounds (Chopp, 3). America is a society that entails diverse personalities with unique backgrounds. Within this society, there are immigrants as well as white natives. The key challenge in this society is the persistent antagonism amongst the ethnic clusters. Immigrant

EMMA LARKINS FINDING GEORGE ORWELL IN BURMA Essay

EMMA LARKINS FINDING GEORGE ORWELL IN BURMA - Essay Example The army heightened a state of lawlessness that denied and extorted the people’s little resources to fulfil their political responsibility and unsustainable democracy in their society. The military government of Burma has showed similarities with the British colonial government in many ways for example it led to split of allegiances among different ethnic groups and also between the indigenous people of Burma (Larkin, 2011).  Also ethnic minorities were not allowed to acceses land, it also resulted to religious conflicts between the muslims, budhist, hindus and Christians in Burma. Their was aslo displacement of citizen both inside and outside Burma. Besides forced labour by the military has also been expirieced which has led to the human rights violation as well as explotaiton of the minority goups. Some of the tools used by post colonial government of Burma was one the tgroup identity where the minority were given the priority to manage local properties and istitutions. secondly rebellion rebellion was employed where the minority were rqruited into the police army surpressing the majority Burman. Thirdly the nationalist tool was used where the Burmese language and ethnicity was emphasized because of the cultural and religious diversity of Burman. The fear to loose power as suggested by Aug snag suu kyi led to all injustices of human right violation, ethnicity,forced labour and so on in Burman. Leaving Burma alone fear has been employed in many countries for example employees who advocate for their rights are threatened to be arrested hence they fear and step down.

Carrefour A French Multinational Retailer Marketing Essay

Carrefour A French Multinational Retailer Marketing Essay Introduction Carrefour, a French multinational retailer, was establised by the Fournier and Defforey families as a supermarket in 1959. In 1963, new concept hypermarket, was discovered and invested. Since then, Carrefour owned up to 5,200 stores worldwide, reaching out to 26 countires and region (refer to appendix A). In particular, for Asia, Carrefour have invested in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India as well as Singapore with approximately 361 hypermarkets, 17 supermarkets and 2 other formats of stores (refer to appendix B). Opening its first store in 1997, Carrefour was the first to introduce hypermarket concept in Singapore, where everything can be purchased under one roof (aisaone business 2012; Krishnan 2012). Oxford dictionaries (online) defines hypermarket as a very large self-service store with a wide range of goods and a large carpark typically situated outside a town. Carrefour had two stores in Singapore; Suntec City and Plaza Singapura. Subsequently, in 2000, Giant, a major hypermarket retailer, joined the market, competing with Carrefour. As a result, Carrefour was not progressing well. Reported by numerous news (refer to appendix C), in a press release on 28 August 2011, Carrefour announced the decision to close its two stores in Singapore by the end of 2012. This decision was reached because Carrefour realized that there is no expansion and growth prospect in Singapore that brings them to a leadership position in the long term. Marketing Problem Segmentation/ Customer Research For 15 years, Carrefour has been providing consumers with one-stop service but it did not turn out as expected. Concluded by Krishnan (2012), Carrefour came in with the mind-set that consumers in Singapore would avoid frequent shopping and hence, would buy as much as possible within a trip. Unfortunately, this prediction was not accurate as this behaviour was not seen popular in Singapore. In addition, both Carrefours outlet was located in central hub which in customer perspective brings significant inconvenience such as high travelling cost and traffic congestion. Moreover, Carrefour does not offer unique products that appeal to consumers, enticing them to choose Carrefour over other retailers and local grocery shops (Krishnan 2012). As a result, Carrefour was observed to be targeting at the wrong country and customer segment, facing huge hurdle in attracting consumers with their one-stop shopping proposition, location and products offered. Sales and Distribution Research Being a hypermarket that offers a wide range of food items and non-food items such as appliances and clothing, Carrefour is in a direct competition position with grocery retailer, supermarket such as NTUC FairPrice (Ng 2012) as well as appliances chains such as Best Denki (Krishnan, 2012), which might eventually affect their sales. On top of these competitors, Giant, a hypermarket open by Dairy Farm Group, is their major competitor. Reported by Krishnan (2012), Giant offers consumer lower price, compensating and outweighing travelling cost. Giant is also able to control consumers behaviour as products sold seems to be more appealing to broader segment of market. Hence, with these competitors at hand, Carrefour did not operate as well as expected. Looking at Carrefours 2011 sales report, illustrated in the pie chart below, the highest contributor of 43.2% is France. Aisa, has the lowest contribution of merely 9% which is approximately à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬73 Million (with the closure of Malaysia and Thailand stores). Source: http://www.carrefour.com/cdc/finance/key-figures/our-key-figures-/key-figures-folder/breakdown-sales.html In addition, reported by TODAY news (2012), in 2009, Aisa has accounted for 7.9% of Carrefours total sales of à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬85.9 billion, with Singapore contributing only à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬85 Million (TODAY/CNA 2012). Comparing it with 2011 annual report, sales revenue in Singapore have decreased. Therefore, the failed in Carrefour may be due to its strong competition in Singapore with its direct and indirect competititors. Objectives The main purpose of this research proposal is to investigate the perception of consuerms towards Carrefour against their competitors in Singapore. The objectives of the research proposal are as follows: To evaluate Carrefours performance in comparision to its competitors To examine factors influencing consumers behaviour in patronizing its preferred hypermarket/supermarket retailer To ascertain what kind (demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioural) of consumer frequent Carrefour To investigate the degree of brand loyalty consumer have towards Carrefour Research Design Research Question With the aim of achieving the objectives set, research questions have to be formulated. The following are some example pertaining to the research proposal. Which of the supermarket respondent most frequent? In selecting a supermarket, what are the factors that respondent consider most? Rate the level of awareness respondent have towards Carrefour (1 being the most and 7 being the least) How frequent do respondent shop at any of Carrefours outlet? What are the prominent difference between Carrefour and other supermarket? Research Method Aliaga and Gunderson (2000) quoted from Muijs (2011, p.1) defines quantitative research as a method that explains the phenomena of collecting numerical data that are analysed using some mathematically based methods, in particular statistics. The researcher will thus be adopting a quantitative approach, employing primary research personal survey method, focusing on the phenomenon of consumers decision for patronizing a supermarket; their intentions, behaviour and attitude (A study on factors considered by consumers for patronizing a retail outlet 2010) and gather information on consumer awareness towards Carrefour compared to its competitiors. Personal Survey Malhotra and Birks (2007, p.265) and Malhotra (2010, p.211) defines survey as a method that gathers information based upon questioning respondents a variety of questions regarding their behaviour, intentions, attitudes, awareness, motivations and demographic and lifestyle characteristics. Most researcher noticed that survey is simple to administer and hence is a popular quantitative measure amongst all. Although it is argued that survey can be uncontrollable as respondents may be unable or unwilling to provide accurate responds (especially to motives or sensitive questions), it is recognised that due to the limited alternatives available, data collected will be consistent across and variability of results will be reduced (Malhotra 2010; Malhotra and Birks 2007; insights from decision point 2012). Rea and Parker (2012) further argues that commercial enterprises often use surveys to formulate market strategies for the potential widespread use, performance of new and existing products as well as finding out their market value. These aligns to the researchers aim and objective, to gather information on factors that affects consumer patronage behaviour as well as perception of consumer towards Carrefour. Furthermore, due to the surveys fixed-response alternative questions nature and consistent data gathered, coding, analysing and interpreting of survey results are relatively simplier for researchers compared to observation or experiment method. Appendix D shows a diverse survey techniques, and compares them against numerous factors, shown on appendix E. Personal interviwing street survey, occurs when respondents are intercepted while shopping or walking on the street (Malhotra and Birks 2007). Personal survey technique is a method to collect relevant data from target group and evaluation becomes easier (A study on factors considered by consumers for patronizing a retail outlet 2010), generalising the entire target population from a small amount of data gathered (Rea Parker 2012). Additionally, personal survey allows the researcher control the environment, to source for potential surveyee personally, collecting data from the right target segment (Gibran 2010; Rea Parker 2012). Moreover, response rate in persoanl survey can be significantly high as compared to other methods such as mail survey and speed of collecting data is also moderately high. Due to the characteristics of personal survey in appendix E, personal survey will be conducted by the researcher on consumers who patronize any supermarket or hypermarket in Singpaore to collect valuable data on their patronizing behaviour and their level of awareness towards Carrefour against their competitors. Formulate a plan Gibran (2010) suggested that, survey techniques includes selecting respondents randomly from the studied population in an unbiased mannar and having a standardized questionnaire for all respondents. However, Rea and Parker (2012) claims that physical characteristics of surveyee such as attire, cleanliness, manners etcetera is important when selecting respondent. On top of that, sample survey, where data will only be collected from a fraction of the studied population (Statistics Canada 2003, p.2; Rea Parker 2012), will be exploited by the researcher. It is noted that sample survey provides a economical and quicker way of obtaining sufficient information in the field. Hence, in this research, studied population refers to a representative number of consumers, particularly middle-aged women, who patronize any supermarket in any given time. As mentioned, there are two different issues. To attain the objectives, the questionnaire will be targetting at these two issues seperately where specific questions will be asked sequentially. First part of the questionnaire will focus on the factors affecting consumer partonage behaviour while the second part on consumers awareness towards Carrefour. Structured questionnaire, the degree of having a standardisation on data collection (Malhotra and Birks 2007), will be executed by the researcher in a formal and prearranged order,thus having a direct collection process. Although unstructured questions allows respondent to best express their attitudes and opinions towards the topic discussed (Malhotra 2010, p. 343), it will not be address as this is a quantitative research. Hence, the questionnaire will only contain structured questions. Most questions in the questionnaire will be in a likert scale (nominal scale) and respondents will be required to rate them accordingly base on their attitudes and behaviour. Rea and Parker (2012) recommends that sample size must be selected in an appropriate microcosm of the working population. They further concludes that larger samples yield higher degree of accurancy than smaller samples and hence researcher have to weigh the degree of accurancy with time and cost available. Analyze Data Before collating the results through computer-assisted programme, coding will be employed to facilitate capturing of data. This means that researcher will be allocating numerical values to every possible result of each question, giving it meaning (Malhotra 2010; Malhotra Birks 2007). Structured questions will be coded before the fieldwork is performed, while for unstructured questions, responses will be coded after the fieldwork (Statistics Canada 2003; Malhotra 2010, p.455). After which, coded values will be stored into the computer to analyse the questionnaires. As explained by Statistics Canada (2003, p.3), computer-assisted programme enables researcher to directly enter questionnaires into the computer and data will be captured and transform into readable format. Another benefit to computer-assisted programme is that inconsistent and invalid data will be identified instantly for researcher, providing a user-friendly and convenient form of identifying invalid data. The computer-assisted programme used will be SPSS, where data will be analysed into tabular or graphical form (Rea Parker 2012), making comparisons and interpret results for statistical analysis that will be reflected in the research proposal. As this research is about consumers behaviour towards patronizing, the research requires multivariate statistical technique where there are two or more measurements of each element and the variables are analysed simultaneously (Malhotra 2010, p.466). As mentioned, this research involves understanding the patronage behaviour. Hence, responses of the factors that affect respondents behaviour are dependent on each other. For example, respondent patronage behaviour will depend on the location, price, products offered etc. As such, referring to appendix F, a classification of multivariate techniques, the researcher is able to evaluate results with several methods such as cross-tabulation. Conclusion In summary, with the intention of discover the factors to consumer behaviour as well as establishing Carrefours market position in Singapore, the researcher have decided to employ personal survey method. Survey results will be analysed through coding followed by SPSS thereafter by the researcher to interpret these surveys into readable tables and graphs. Limitation Survey may seem to be the best suitable method for this research but it is time-consuming. As mentioned, this research is base on sample survey, which implies that it will not be 100% accurate as not everyone in the studied population is surveyed. Expected contribution With the mentioned objectives, and the methods used to meet these objectives, the researcher believes that this research will be able to contribute to Carrefour in analysing the reasons to their failure in Singapore, thus making improvements in other countries. This research can also set Carrefours management to react fast to changes in other international market, expending their market and prospects.

Global Warming Essay -- Environmental Global Climate Change

Global Warming Global warming is an important factor because every one in the world but most importantly for me it will effect all of my relatives, as it is predicted that countries such as Bangladesh will be totally fooled due to global warming. Global warming interest me because the planet we live in is changing and the change that is happening will effect the way we live and how the future generations live. It has direct effects on the us and the relatives we have all over the, for ex This changes which will likely to alter the natural weather and climate patterns is largely because of human activities in the last century. Scientists believe that the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century. They also believe that most of the warming over the last 50 years is due to human activities. We have changed the amounts and the types of gases in the atmosphere. Gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. What causes global warming? Green house effect. Gases such as Carbon dioxide are normally used to keep the earths at a temperature average level. Which is comfortable for us and the environment. How does the greenhouse effect work? As shown on the diagram the suns heat passe through the atmosphere, some of this heat is absorbed by the earth, and some of it is reflected back by the earth and the atmosphere. The heat that is released by the earth is also passed into the atmosphere, and some is reflected back into the earth and the surrounding gas. This keeps the planets temperature at a comfortable level, which allows plants, an... ...Ã… ¸ Buy energy-efficient appliances. Ã… ¸ Replace your light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Ã… ¸ Weatherise your home or apartment. Ã… ¸ Choose renewable energy. Ã… ¸ Plant more trees Ã… ¸ Change farming practices Ã… ¸ Political action What’s already being done? Ã… ¸ More efficient cars have been made, which release less pollution. For example most cars are fitted with catalytic converters. Ã… ¸ Cars can now use other forms of power, e.g. electricity, hydrogen and even cooking oil. Ã… ¸ Energy saving homes. Ã… ¸ Government laws stop big companies from producing too much pollution. Ã… ¸ Energy saving products introduced, e.g. fridges, cookers, and lights. Ã… ¸ More use of tidal, wind, solar and nuclear energy Ã… ¸ To stop people using cars more taxes. And people are advised to use public transport.