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This article proposes a new account for the typologically uncommon grammaticalization path from an adjective meaning ‘tight’ to a progressive aspect marker in Cantonese. I take a formal approach to explain the cognitive foundations in such a grammaticalization path by using formal semantic theories and tools. There are two components in the meaning of the progressive aspect, i.e. temporal inclusion and dynamism. The meaning ‘tight’ is transferred from the spatial domain to describe the close succession of events, which gives rise to the dynamic meaning component. Furthermore, this eventual dynamism is mapped to the temporal domain, which corresponds to the regular partition of the time interval with an infinitesimal measure in the semantics proposed by Deo (2009). My analysis is extended to explain the Cantonese habitual marker with an original meaning ‘open’, and to the use of morphological reduplication to express the imperfective aspect in languages from the Austronesian and Pama-Nyungan families. The theoretical contribution of this article is that the grammaticalization paths of certain aspect markers share a common cognitive foundation in terms of space, events, and time, but they may take different trajectories of evolution that target different parts of a functional morpheme with complex meanings.

This study proposes a theoretical analysis model to analyse the marine riser's coupled cross-flow/in-line vortex induced vibration (VIV) under heave-induced time varying parametric vibration. Combi...

The development of high value-added products prepared by slag has been restricted by the severe damage to refractories occurring during SiO2–MgO-based slag melting. In the current study, the Al2O3–SiC–C refractories were selected to conduct static resistance tests with SiO2–MgO-based slag in air and reducing atmospheres. The results show favorable corrosion resistance but poor permeability resistance in both atmospheres. The poor permeability can be attributed to the cracking of brown fused alumina aggregates caused by volume expansion during the formation of magnesium aluminate spinel. In addition, a model of crack growth for the aggregate is proposed to illustrate the corrosion mechanism of the Al2O3–SiC–C refractories. It is indicated that the crack growth of the aggregate proceeds mainly along the normal direction based on the calculation of the radial and normal lengths of the crack.

Our previous work reported for the first time that antimony tin oxide (ATO) nanoparticles were prepared by using reduced graphene oxide aerogels (rGOA) three-dimensional network as scaffolds. In this study, we encapsulated the hybrid aerogels as a whole by conducting polyaniline (PANI) to investigate the effect of the introducing of PANI on microstructure and performance of rGOA/ATO-PANI hybrids. Characterization of the as-prepared samples were performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, ultraviolet visible near infrared spectroscopy (UV–VIS–NIR) and compressive stress. The electrochemical performances of hybrids were also investigated as well. The results showed that PANI was successfully grafted on rGOA/ATO and formed a compact film, which could further improve the conductivity of the hybrids and infrared absorption performance. The PANI had crystalline phases, and corresponding diffraction peaks were found in rGOA/ATO-PANI, which further indicated that PANI grafted on the surface of rGOA/ATO. The mechanical, electrochemical, infrared barriering performance of rGOA/ATO-PANI were improved as well.

This book is a comprehensive and up-to-date investigation into the role of language as a component of nation-state building and soft power in China's rise over the past two decades. The author draw...

In recent decades, early warning systems using tilt sensors to predict the occurrence of landslides have been developed and employed in slope monitoring due to the simple installation and low cost of these systems. However, few studies were carried out to investigate the tilting behaviors of landslides, and the prediction methods for the occurrence of slope failure based on tilting measurements also demand detailed investigations. In this paper, pre-failure tilting behaviors of slopes were investigated by performing a series of model tests as well as a field test. The test results reveal a linear relationship between the reciprocal tilting rate and time during the acceleration stage of tilting before slope failure. Furthermore, an equation for this linear relation was also proposed. By approximating the reciprocal tilting rate to be 0/o, the slope failure time can be forecasted using the proposed equation, and the predicted failure time is consistent with the actual slope failure time recorded in this study. Additionally, the correlation between the tilting rate and remaining time before slope failure in logarithmic space was also studied, and most of the data is situated in a region with boundaries. Based on this region, it is possible to anticipate the remaining time before slope failure at an arbitrary tilting rate in the acceleration stage. Conclusively, this paper provides comprehensive investigations on the correlation between the pre-failure tilting behaviors and duration time before landslides, and also introduces a method to potentially predict the occurrence of slope failure based on the slope tilting measurement.

This study investigates the dynamic analysis of parametrically excited marine riser under simultaneous stochastic waves and vortex. A general analysis considers the parametric excitation resulting from platform motion, ocean wave loading directly on the rise, and vortex-shedding excitation due to flow bypassing the risers. Stochastic wave force and vortex excitation acting on the riser in the time domain is formulated by the stochastic phase spectrum method and derived by the linear-wave theory using a Pierson–Moskowitz wave spectrum to simulate real sea conditions. A derived parametrically excited top tensioned riser model subjected to simultaneous stochastic waves and vortex excitations is proposed. The efficacy of the present method is assessed by solutions obtained from other existing methods and experimental data of two test models. The present method is evaluated by solutions computed from existing methods and experimental data of two test models, and a general good agreement of the analyses between the proposed approach and other methods is observed. The availability of resonance, parametric stability, energy distribution and transfer, and the sensitivity of key parameters estimated by single-frequency and multi-frequency excitation are compared and discussed. Comparing with the results obtained from the harmonic excitation method, the present method can be used to make more reasonable and accurate calculations of the dynamic response of risers operating in real sea conditions.

In order to understand the hydrological process of expansive soil slopes, simulated rainfall experiments were conducted to study the effects of slope gradient and initial soil moisture content on runoff and infiltration for expansive soil slopes located in south China. The field program consisted of four neighboring slopes (70%, 47%, 32%, and 21%) instrumented by a runoff collection system and moisture content sensors (EC-5). Results from the monitored tests indicate that there was delay in the response of surface runoff. The runoff initiation time decreased with initial soil water content and increasing slope gradient. After the generation of runoff, the cumulative runoff per unit area and the runoff rate increased linearly and logarithmically with time, respectively. The greater the initial soil moisture content was, the smaller the influence of slope gradient on runoff. A rainfall may contribute from 39% to about 100% of its total rainfall as infiltration, indicating that infiltration remained an important component of the rainwater falling on the slope, despite the high initial soil water content. The larger the initial sealing degree of slope surface was the smaller the cumulative infiltration per unit area of the slope. However, the soil moisture reaction was more obvious. The influence of inclination is no longer discernible at high initial moisture levels. The greater the initial soil moisture content and the smaller the slope gradient, the weaker was the change of soil water content caused by simulated rainfall. The influence of initial soil moisture content and slope gradient on the processes of flow and changes of soil water content identified in this study may be helpful in the surface water control for expansive soil slopes.

Pronominal binding in Mandarin Chinese can be affected by different embedding verbs. For example, verbs like “gǎnxiè” (“to thank”) impose a negative constraint that requires the embedded subject pronoun not to be bound by the matrix subject DP. On the other hand verbs like “zhīdào” (“to know”) do not have such a requirement, thus conforming to the Binding Principle B. Importantly, binding relations of pronouns in sentences with verbs like “gǎnxiè” (“to thank”) cannot be accounted for within the framework of the standard Binding Theory. It cannot be explained by the control theory that involves PRO, either, although there is indeed some similarity between such negative constraints and control structures. Therefore I propose to add a negative constraint in the lexical entries of such verbs, based on how control is handled in LFG. This proposal has both theoretical and application advantages.