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Examine the effects of sudden environmental disasters on the advancement of both renewable and conventional energy technologies.

Utilizing panel data from 31 Chinese provinces spanning 2011 to 2022, the SEM (Spatial Error Model) dual fixed model is utilized to examine the impact of sudden environmental disasters on energy technologies.

The findings reveal that: (1) Sudden environmental disasters exert a markedly positive influence on the Innovation of Renewable Energy Technologies (IRET), while their impact on conventional energy technologies is positively non-significant. (2) Sudden environmental disasters not only significantly enhance innovation in local renewable energy technologies but also extend this positive influence to neighboring regions, demonstrating a spatial spillover phenomenon. (3) Research and Development (R&D) funding serves as a partial mediator in the relationship between sudden environmental disasters and renewable ETI. In contrast, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) exhibits a masking effect.

Consequently, the study advocates for intensified efforts in post-disaster reconstruction following abrupt environmental events, an elevation in the quality of foreign direct investments, and leveraging research funding to catalyze innovation in renewable energy technologies amid unforeseen environmental crises.

The purpose of this paper is to provide the historical background of genealogical records and analyze the value of Chinese genealogical research through the study of names and genealogical resources.

The paper examines the historical evolution and value of Chinese genealogical records, with the focus on researching the Islamic Chinese names used by the people living in Guilin. The highlight of this paper includes the analysis and evolution of the Islamic Chinese names commonly adopted by the local people in Guilin. It concludes with the recommendations on emphasizing and making the best use of genealogical records to enhance the research value of Chinese overseas studies.

The paper covers the history of Islam and describes how the religion was introduced into China, as well as Muslims' ethnicity and identity. It also places focus on the importance of building a research collection in Asian history and Chinese genealogy.

This research study has a strong subject focus on Chinese genealogy, Asian history, and Islamic Chinese surnames. It is a narrow field that few researchers have delved into.

The results of this study will assist students, researchers, and the general public in tracing the origin of their surnames and developing their interest in the social and historical value of Chinese local history and genealogies.

The study of Chinese surnames is, by itself, a particular field for researching the social and political implications of contemporary Chinese society during the time the family members lived.

Very little research has been done in the area of Chinese local history and genealogy. The paper would be of value to researchers such as historians, sociologists, ethnologists and archaeologists, as well as students and anyone interested in researching a surname origin, its history and evolution.

This study analyses the advantages and weaknesses of using Facebook to aid the learning of Japanese as a foreign language.

A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from 100 Hong Kong Japanese language learners (who are generally fluent in Chinese and English), ranging from total amateur to advanced learners (Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) qualified at different levels).

The authors' results suggest that the advantages of using Facebook to help learn Japanese include: (1) serving as a free-of-charge, casual, and convenient learning platform; (2) enriching learners' knowledge beyond the language learning and (3) encouraging interactive and collaborative learning with other users for practicing the language. However, the low credibility and unstructured educational materials posted on Facebook and being easily distracted by other Facebook feeds are the major weaknesses of learning a language through Facebook. Furthermore, the authors' result shows that Facebook is especially effective for Japanese learning when learners fall into either one of the following groups: young, female, or intermediate (N2/3) learners.

Scant studies focus on the aid of learning Japanese via Facebook, especially Hong Kong learners' perceptions, or generally in the East. Therefore, this study aims to fill this research gap. The authors' findings will facilitate the students, teachers, and language institutions from Hong Kong and other countries to improve the students' effectiveness in learning and teaching Japanese.

China is primarily a nonreligious country with less than 10% of people following Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, or other religions. Two major communication paths, the land and sea Silk Roads, directly affected the distribution and development of Muslim tourism and attractions. The combination of Islam with local custom and culture is a unique feature in China, and contributes to its development as a form of ethnic rather than religious tourism. As a result, research in China focuses on ethnic product development, minority sports and anthropological tourism, themed events, and intangible cultural heritage.

The MoS₂/graphite composite coatings modified by La₂O₃ through spraying technique were successfully prepared on the inner rings of spherical plain bearings. As a comparison, unmodified coatings were also prepared. This paper aims to study the La-modified MoS₂/graphite composite coating experimentally and improve the tribological performance of self-lubricating spherical plain bearings.

The performance of La₂O₃ toward the friction coefficient, temperature rise and wear rate of the coatings was studied by a self-made tribo-tester under different swing cycles. And the texture, surface morphology and element composition of the coatings were characterized by scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray diffractometry.

The additives La₂O₃ refined the coatings’ microstructure and improved the tribological properties of the coatings. The oxidation of Mo + 4 to Mo + 6 was effectively inhibited. And the amount of abrasive grains, peeling pits and local cracks on the coatings surface decreased and homogeneous lubricating films formed, which were attributed to the existence of La₂O₃. The wear mechanisms of unmodified coatings were severe abrasive wear, adhesive wear and delamination wear. However, it exhibited superior wear resistance of the La-modified coatings to unmodified coatings, presenting slight abrasive wear and adhesive wear. The service life of bearings was prolonged under the protection of the modified coatings.

The paper proposed a new modified MoS₂/Graphite composite coating for the self-lubricating spherical plain bearings. The investigation on the friction, wear and temperature increase behaviors and the wear mechanisms of the coatings are beneficial to prolonging the service life of the self-lubricating spherical plain bearings.

The purpose of this study aims to modify a self-mixing laser mouse as an extremely cost-effective displacement sensor to measure the mechanical oscillation of a commercial shaker and a nano-positioning stage.

This kind of laser mouse, mostly consisting of a pair of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, two photodiodes and an integrated signal processing unit, is capable of directly giving the x-axis and y-axis components of the measured vibrating displacement. Based on the laser self-mixing interference, the velocity of the object is coded into the Doppler frequency shift of the feedback light, which allows accurate determination of the vibration of the object.

A commercial shaker has been used to provide standard harmonic oscillation to test the displacement sensor. Within a vibrating frequency range of 110 Hz, the experimental results show that the micrometer scale resolution has been achieved at the velocity of up to 2 m/s, which is much improved compared with the image-based optical mouse. Furthermore, the measurements of the two dimensional displacement of a nano-positioning stage are performed as well. The minimum measurable velocity limit for this sensor has been discussed in detail, and the relative measurement error can be greatly reduced by appropriate selection of the modulation frequency of the triangular injection current.

These results demonstrate the feasibility of this device for the industrial vibration sensing applications.

Although cloud storage services can bring users valuable convenience, they can be technically complex and intrinsically insecure. Therefore, this research explores the concerns of academic users regarding cloud security and technical issues and how such problems may influence their continuous use in daily life.

This qualitative study used a semi-structured interview approach comprising six main open-ended questions to explore the information security and technical issues for the continuous use of cloud storage services by 20 undergraduate students in Hong Kong.

The analysis revealed cloud storage service users' major security and technical concerns, particularly synchronization and backup issues, were the most significant technical barrier to the continuing personal use of cloud storage services.

Existing literature has focused on how cloud computing services could bring benefits and security and privacy-related risks to organizations rather than security and technical issues of personal use, especially in the Asian academic context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore Taiwan’s regional energy efficiency trend and complement the work of the total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE) index proposed by Hu and Wang (2006). It further extends panel data stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) modeling for estimating disaggregate energy efficiency.

This paper applies the panel data stochastic production frontier to estimate the TFEE scores for 20 administrative regions in Taiwan over the period 2004-2015. The SFA models include five inputs (employed population, amount of productive electricity power consumed, amount of electricity consumed for household and non-household electric lighting, amount of gasoline sales, and amount of diesel sales) and one output (total real income in the base year of 2011).

This research concludes with three main findings: the inefficient administrative regions of Taiwan include mostly large industrial parks and the petrochemical industry cluster; the top five administrative regions with inefficient diesel use are mostly metropolitan areas that the concern of air pollution caused by diesel system arouses the awareness to use less diesel fuel; and the average TFEE score on household and non-household electric lighting is higher than the usage efficiency of productive electricity power, gasoline, and diesel, but there is still room for efficiency improvement.

Most administrative regions in Taiwan are not efficient in almost all kinds of energy use. The results show that the efficiencies of using productive electricity power, gasoline, and diesel need to be improved a lot more.

Air traffic resources mainly include two parts, namely, air traffic controller (ATC) and physical system resources, such as airspace. Reasonable assessment and effective management of ATC and airspace resources are the premise and foundation of ensuring the safety and efficiency of air traffic management systems. The previous studies focussed on subjective workload control and the statistics of control communication time; they revealed the lack of kinetic universality analyses of controlling actions. Although frequency distribution patterns were generated by controlling the timing sequence, the correlation between the controlling actions and terminal airspace (TMA) sector capacity was not revealed. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Thus, given the immeasurable complexity of controlling actions and statistical features of the controlling communications, a dynamical model of ATC was built in this study to identify the frequency distribution patterns generated by controlling the timing sequence. With the Directorate of Operational and Analysis Task method, TMA sector capacity was estimated through multiple linear regression analysis.

With data from the Kunming sector, the power exponent was calculated as 2.55, and the mathematical expectation was determined to be 47.21 s. The correlation between controlling actions (workload) and sector capacity was obtained. Finally, the data were integrated in the verification of the model and its feasibility.

Airspace capacity is an index to measure the ability of the airspace system to deliver services to meet the air traffic demand. A scientific and accurate forecast of airspace capacity is a foundation of the effective management and rational allocation of the airspace resources. The study is of great significance for the efficient use of airspace resources, controller resources.

In recent years, a great number of top conferences and workshops on artificial intelligence (AI) were held in China, showing Chinese AI plays an important role in the world. Meanwhile, Chinese government announced an ambitious scheme, “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” for the country to become a world leader in AI technologies by 2030. The AI research in China has covered various aspects, ranging from chips to algorithms. This chapter attempts to give an overview of the recent advances of AI research and development in China, as well as some perspectives on the future development of AI in China.