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"Cantonese opera (CO) represents an art form that had its golden time in Macao during the mid-twentieth century. CO still has many loyal fans but they mainly are in the older generation. The purpose of this study was to explore if CO is considered a cultural capital heritage in Macao, related to cultural identity and transmitted across generations to support social bonding. Applying a qualitative methodology, a script for exploring participants’ experiences and opinions about CO was designed, and different groups of individuals were recruited for semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The data collected was analysed by a thematic analysis of the verbatim transcripts. Findings show that in the past first contacts with CO happened in family and related social context, mainly during participants’ developing age. However, currently CO is no longer passed on to the next generation. Despite that the young generations acknowledging their cultural identities in CO, mainly in terms of Cantonese culture and Cantonese language, older individuals engaged with CO seemed to perceive their cultural identities more in depth in its history, literacy and music. Actually, engagement is an important factor that generates social bonds. The CO leisure practitioners, no matter young or old, experienced the effects of social bonding during the ritual of enquiry in the process of learning and practising CO. To improve CO’s preservation in Macao, the adoption of strategies such as developing new productions, crossover with other media, innovations in promotion targeting the young audiences, and absorbing audiences in the Great Bay area were proposed. Finally, the potential use of CO as a tool in counselling and community work is discussed. "

"This study explored the relationships of work-life balance and turnover intentions of full-time employees in Macao, and role of gender, parenting, and elderly care. Namely: (1) What is the relationship between work-life balance perceptions and turnover intentions? (2) What is the moderating role of gender in the relationship between work-life balance perceptions and turnover intentions? (3) What is the moderating role of parenting (i.e., having children or not) in the relationship between work-life balance perceptions and turnover intentions? And, (4) what is the moderating role of care for elderly family members (i.e., having to provide care or not) in the relationship between work-life balance perceptions and turnover intentions?"

This research paper analyses the marketing efforts and important attributes of Macau tea restaurants that have been open for more than 20 years, especially the digital methods that tea restaurants have used to sustain their business and meet customers' needs in the era of digital transition after the onset of the 2019 Covid 19 pandemic year. Using online marketing channels nowadays become an important tool for communicating with customers today. Despite the old Tea Restaurants in Macau did not put much efforts on digital channels for communication yet, to find out how tea restaurants survive in the rival restaurant industry in Macau, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to see how they meet the needs of their customers. For the quantitative method, an online survey questionnaire in bilingual English and Traditional Chinese was conducted with 280 respondents on customer purchase habits, importance of restaurants’ attributes and social media insights on tea restaurants, and the data was analysis by SPSS for the relationship and significance. For the qualitative method, 7 interviews were conducted with the business owners of the old tea restaurants which that have been opened for more than 20 years, including marketing efforts and their attitudes towards digitalization. To find out the marketing strategy of Macau’s old tea restaurants in the digital transformation era, it was found that “place” and “product” are the most important marketing mix for customers. Tea restaurant owners focus on product quality, and generate “word-of-mouth” which is customer-generated marketing, and is an effective way to influence customers for local tea restaurants. Meanwhile business owners will consider digitalize in the near future as well to match the new young customers’ online habits and the need for “place” such as online delivery platform

Establishing and improving the independent reading ability of middle school students has become one of the critical topics in the world, especially for second language learners. The cultivation of independent reading ability has specific challenges. This action research investigated the effectiveness of integrating robot-assisted teaching in reading lessons at lower primary grades. A group of third-grade students (n=15) participated in this research. The instruments include the pre-and post-test of a reading competency test (RCT) and motivational index (MI), a teacher reflection journal, and focus group discussion with parents. The whole intervention is conducted in two cycles, and requires the completion of four 40-minute lessons each week per cycle. The findings support the view that integrating robot-assisted teaching in the classroom can improve students' learning motivation to a certain extent, and that intervention programs positively impact students' learning motivation and independent reading ability in English. This study provides suggestion for the design of English reading instruction, and encourages English teachers to pay more attention to improving students' independent reading ability

The purpose of the study was to explore the smoking behaviour of the smokers living in Macao. I was part of the 1st group of doctors to have chosen to initiate smoking cessation in Macau. In addition to my diverse academic background of study in laws- a dissertation about the effect of tobacco control program in Macao (submitted in 2011), a master in Public Administration, and five years of working experiences as an Inspector Assistant of tobacco, I had the conviction that I have to write to share my experience and knowledge about smoking cessation to contribute to the field of counselling and psychotherapy as there is little research data concerning smoking prevalence and demographics in Macao. This study consists of two parts – PART I presents the quantitative data collected by a questionnaire-survey over 1378 smokers and PART II qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 10 adult smokers to explore their experiences of smoking and smoking cessation in Macao. Quantitative data analysis was conducted with the SPSS, while qualitative analysis with coding and theme identification by following the grounded theory procedures. The study found that about 85% smoker surveyed consumed more than half a pack of cigarette per day and about 31% reported various symptoms like irritability, fatigue, loss of appetite and difficulties in concentration. The qualitative study has identified major positive factors related to initiation and maintenance of smoking cessation, namely health concerns, financial concerns and family support. Major negative factors related to relapse of smoking are peer influences, smoking of family members, and impacts of stressful life events. Based on findings of the study, it is argued that preventive anti-smoking education should be implemented among young people. Promotion of health education and preventive anti-smoking strategist and policy in Macao are discussed. The data collected indicate the fact that individuals who have pathologies of the cardiovascular system as a motivating factor for contemplating or taking actions for smoking cessation. Moreover, financial problems, gender (male predominantly), married with family support, higher educational level, without psychological diseases, better economic status, lower nicotine dependent are predictors to success in quit smoking. It also raises the possible need to deepen some evaluation parameters hither to be only superficially addressed. Therefore, and by limitations inherent to the study, this hypothesis needs further investigation. I argue that non-pharmacological treatment methods alone have proven to be effective in the smoking cessation process. However, it is argued that this combined with pharmacological therapy, in particular in specialized consultations, would be more effective and capable in increasing success rates in smoking cessation

Aggression clearly has an adaptive value as it is necessary to secure resources for survival, growth, and reproduction. The Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens, have endured a prolonged process of artificial selection for winning paired-fight contests across Southeast Asia, resulting in strains of short-fin aggressive “fighters”. Across centuries, Thai breeders have been selecting these strains by discarding loser batches and allowing winner batches to breed, claiming that they are significantly more aggressive than wild-types. This natural experiment provides a powerful context to investigate the biological basis of aggressive behaviour in fish, the topic of this thesis. To study aggression, it is important to validate and standardize behavioural assays appropriate for the species under study. Further, different aggression-eliciting stimuli, such as live opponents, 3D models, video playback, or mirror images, may elicit non-equivalent behavioural and physiological responses. For B. splendens, in particular, quantifying aggression from live fights is not ethically acceptable as the high levels of aggression of this species usually result in injuries or even death of the opponent. In Chapter II, it was shown that mirror images elicit very similar aggressive displays and endocrine responses to an interacting opponent behind a transparent partition, validating the use of this test to measure aggression in this model species. Further, it was shown that circulating levels of both androgens (11-ketotestosterone and testosterone) and corticosteroids (cortisol) increased in response to the aggression challenge, even in the absence of conflict resolution, questioning the role of these hormones during present and future aggressive contests. Using the previously validated mirror assay and also tests with live conspecifics, we assessed the impact of selection for winning by comparing, in Chapter III, male and female aggressive behaviour of lab-raised fighter and wild-type strains. The hypothesis that selection for male winners enhanced aggressive displays was confirmed, suggesting that the duration and frequency of threat and attack behaviour correlates with winning probability. However, females of the fighter strain, which are not selected for fights, were also more aggressive than wild-type females. This suggests that male and female aggression share common genetic pathways and physiological mechanisms and raises the possibility that selection for alleles that favour male aggression may have promoted intersexual genetic conflict in this species. After confirming the expected differences in aggressive behaviour between fighter and wild-type fish, the following question was whether endocrine systems, in particular those previously shown to respond to aggression, could have been targeted by the selection process. From previous studies in fish and other vertebrates, it was hypothesised that selection for winners could have increased constitutive levels of androgens or led to an enhanced androgen response to a social challenge. However, in chapter IV, it was shown that levels of 11-ketotestosterone and its response to aggression was similar in males of both strains, questioning the role of androgens in the modulation of aggression in B. splendens. On the contrary, constitutive levels of cortisol and the response of this hormone to an aggression challenge were higher in wild-type compared with fighter fish, supporting previous findings that associated high aggression with a blunted cortisol response. Overall, results from Chapter IV suggest that selection for winning had a stronger impact on the hypothalamus-pituitary-interrenal axis than in the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis. My results support the assumption of the “Challenge Hypothesis” proposed by John Wingfield and collaborators in 1990 to explain the relationship between androgens and aggression, according to which androgen levels above a reproductive baseline are a consequence of the frequency and intensity of social interactions, in particular of male-male agonistic encounters. It is becoming clear that androgens increase rapidly after an aggressive contest, independently of fight outcome. However, the function of this increase remains unclear as the frequency of aggressive displays was unrelated with post-fight androgen levels and constitutive levels of androgens, and androgen responsiveness, were similar between fighter and wild-type males. Results obtained for cortisol agree with a “corticosteroid-mediated dominance hypothesis” whereby low baseline levels and a blunted response of corticosteroids would be associated with a dominant status and high aggression. The work advances our knowledge about the endocrine regulation of aggressive behaviour in B. splendens and opens several testable hypotheses about the role of androgens and corticosteroids in the regulation of fish aggressive behaviour

This study analyzed Tencent Holdings Limited’s internal and external factors and future strategies, forecasted the financial statements of the Company for the next ten years, and measured the intrinsic value of the Company on December 31, 2021 and compared it with the stock market price on the same date. The share price’s sensitivity analysis was also conducted to understand the Company's capital structure and profitability, and the sensitivity analysis can be used to reflect the impact of these factors and strategies on the future share price, which can have a high impact on investors' future investment decisions. This study also used the SWOT Analysis and Michael Porter's Five Forces Analysis to analyze the Company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and the Five Competitive Forces that shape the technology industry to evaluate the Company's external and internal environment and enrich the management with a more intuitive analysis leading to recommendations

This study presents the intrinsic value of Moody’s Corporation, a leading credit rating agency in the U.S. The results of the valuation were compared to the market value of Moody’s Corporation of the same date. The aim of the research is to provide a perspective to the investors on whether the actual value of the Company was overvalued or undervalued in the market, and how much the volatility of the stock price by the change of some factors. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were applied in the research. The historical data, economic outlook, and the Company’s strategies were collected to be the metrics to determine the intrinsic value and provide an analysis of the prospects of Moody’s Corporation. Three valuation models were applied in the research to estimate the intrinsic value of the Company’s common stock. The cost of debt, cost of equity, the weighted average cost of capital, and the market risk premium were introduced and calculated in the research as they were the critical components in the valuation process. Since the valuation was based on assumptions and historical data to determine future growth, which indicates that the results could be changed due to uncertain factors. This study demonstrates that there was some discrepancy between the stock’s market price and the intrinsic value per share of Moody’s Corporation as of December 31, 2021