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The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of leadership styles and organizational cultures to employee’s organizational commitment under the pandemic situation in Macao. The dependent variables comprise of the three dimensions of organizational commitment. Among those three, affective commitment and continuance commitment are considered to be analyzed in this study. The leadership styles concept and organizational cultures are applied as the independent variables. The objectives are achieved using quantitative research method with questionnaires in Likert scale scores. The two significance reveals that laissez-faire leadership style had a positive relationship with continuance organizational commitment (H4) and innovative culture had a positive correlation with continuance organization commitment (H6). Such outcomes were extended to a qualitative study with qualitative approach on discourse analysis to explore the potential factor and a leadership discourse analysis was initiated. While the findings on influence of leadership and culture on organizational commitment is not a major concern for Macao employees in the pandemic situation, the significance of specific leadership style and culture rationalizes the transformation and status of Macao employees’ views towards leadership and employers’ perspective on organizational culture. The data collected in this study may also provide valuable resources for future study and training programs for the coming batch of employees in the coming new phase of Macao in entering the 2nd round of gaming licensing. Create the right leadership and culture for the organization to bring back the passion of Macao employees

Seagrasses play a critical role in coastal ecosystems worldwide, providing various ecosystem services based on their region and genus. In Southeast Asia, where seagrass biodiversity and extents are at their highest, the livelihoods and food security of many coastal communities depend on these plants. Despite their ecological and economic importance, seagrasses face global threats from human activities such as pollution and land use changes. Enhalus acoroides, a widely distributed seagrass species in the tropical Indo-Pacific region, is particularly valuable for coastal management and conservation efforts due to its size and provision of various ecosystem services. Although previous research has indicated that it is less sensitive to environmental changes than other tropical seagrass species, recent reports highlight its vulnerability to siltation and eutrophication. This dissertation aimed to examine how Enhalus responds and adapts to changes in light availability, taking into account both morphological adaptation and phenotypic plasticity. Field surveys, reciprocal transplantation field experiments, and investigations of sexual reproductive effort were conducted in the Bolinao-Anda Reef system (NW Philippines) to evaluate the impact of long-term environmental changes on Enhalus populations. The findings of this study revealed that Enhalus has the capacity to adapt its traits and survive changes in depth, light gradients, and different habitat types. This is evidenced by larger shoots in low-light environments, which is apparently a response to the reduction in light availability, as evidenced in both in situ and experimental setups. Larger leaf surface area in light-reduced setups also had higher concentration of chlorophylls a and b pigments. Transplants from light-reduced environments, although morphologically large, appeared more vulnerable (with low survival values) to environmental changes associated with translocation. Being morphologically large is therefore likely a stress response to light reduction, allocating more energy on light harvesting than sexual reproduction. Reciprocal transplantation experiments indicated a high survival rate, suggesting the potential of Enhalus for use in rehabilitation. However, despite having wider plasticity to adapt to light-limitation, they can be wiped out when threshold is reached. This thesis underscores the need for further research on Enhalus' response to stressors, genetic variation, and adaptive capacity to address conservation and management challenges

"Parenting styles may have various effects on children’s development and educational outcomes, particularly a relationship with behavioral problems and academic achievement. This study examines the relationship of between parenting styles, behavioral problems and academic achievement. A cross-sectional and questionnaire-design (Parenting Style Scale (Saunders et al., 2013); Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman & Goodman, 2009; Goodman, 1999; Goodman, 1997)) study was used with a sample total of 98 parents with the eldest child of the family aged between six to twelve. Results of the findings are mainly inconsistent with the majority of literature. Indulgent and authoritative parenting are the predominant parenting styles, yet parenting styles does not relate to academic achievement. On the other hand, the correlation between behavioral problems, specifically prosocial behaviors and academic achievement are moderate. Furthermore, there is no difference between the type of behavioral problems according to gender. In further studies, a larger sample size, teachers and students as informants, and the inclusion of the analysis of other factors that could be influencing parenting styles, behavioral problems and academic achievement are suggested to be considered. "

For many people, an art museum is a place to display artifacts, artworks, and the temporaryhistory of a community or country. It also advocates for an artist’s viewpoints on art. In fact,museum design is closely related to politics. The purpose for building a museum in a city is toexhibit information about the development of the local culture. Moreover, high culturalvalue land is usually built with museums displaying their heritage nearby, so that people canexplore and learn more about the local historical background and artifacts of the place.The abandoned Iec Long Firecracker Factory in Taipa Center, Macau has been on hold formany years and has also been used as a war game venue that resulted in scratches on thewalls of the dilapidated old heritage buildings. Recently, the Macau government has finalizedits plans for the revitalization of this local heritage site. Due to its dispersed layout andsurrounding landscape, there are some design constraints around the preservation of thisimportant heritage site. The design for high cultural value land should not only consider thepreservation and renovation of old buildings but also consider more ways to effectively usethe site as an important public venue for the city.For developing the methodologies of this project, several concepts and case studies wereanalyzed to extract ideas that can be referenced and to unveil strategies for designing apossible solution to this problem. This dissertation intends to create a model for developingand integrating architectural design into this heritage site and will study the spacearrangements for both the indoor space and the outdoor space within the concept of afragmented space integration. Fragmented space, means that a place is designed using adecentralized layout. This conceptualization of a design can preserves the original appearance of the cultural value of land and at the same time, the space can be used moreefficiently to create a circulation for the public to visit and enjoy the location

Vertical housing is essential for modern cities because of its efficiency in using space (Wang, J. Murakami, A. 2019). The architecture of vertical housing is often determined by developers and designers. Therefore, the architecture of the building is fixed, and the end users are not involved nor can they influence its final appearance. For residential buildings, the unit sizes are based on market demand at a given point in time, which does not reflect the dynamic needs of the population as they evolve and may result in a mismatch between the supply and the demand for housing. The design of housing towers that have demographic characteristics and family size is dependent on housing size and can be very uncharacteristic and repetitive. The research question identified and addressed in this study is: How can residential buildings meet the evolving demand for housing units? Based on this question, this research paper develops a prototype for residential to resolve the dilemma between the supply and the demand in terms of the apartment size and layout. This research is a project-oriented project that focuses on residential that reflects the different family sizes required to be housed in the building and is combined with the open building method to maximize building performance. Ultimately, this research represents a meaningful innovation for market-driven architecture and defines architectural design based on the changing needs of the population using the open construction method. It also provides an opportunity to improve the design efficiency and develop a method for future growth, upgrades, and user needs. It may also be able to reflect the current housing ratio of the residential building. This work can be further explored to verify its effectiveness for other housing types and community living spaces

"Adult neurogenesis, i.e., the production of new neurons in the adult brain, has been studied intensively in the past years, both in humans and in animal models, as the understanding of this process can have major clinical implications. The study of neurogenesis in fish has been receiving more attention as, unlike mammals, they possess remarkably high levels of adult neurogenesis and a high capability for neuronal regeneration and replacement where neuronal death has occurred. Less is known, however, on the importance of adult neurogenesis for behavioural plasticity, i.e., for the capacity to change behaviour according to context. As a product of the brain, behaviour relies on functional neuronal networks and it may be expected that more permanent changes in behavioural states imply structural reorganization of neuronal circuits, with the integration of new neurons. Interestingly, the high level of brain plasticity of fish is paralleled by a high degree of behavioural plasticity, with many examples of species that change, either reversibly or irreversibly, their behavioural phenotype during their lifetime, as illustrated by species with functional sex-change and alternative reproductive phenotypes. Flexibility in behaviour may thus require a reorganization of neuronal networks underlying these behaviours with recruitment of new neurons. In this thesis, the link between brain and behavioural plasticity was studied in a small marine fish that inhabits the Mediterranean and adjacent Atlantic coasts, the peacock blenny Salaria pavo. In this species, males adopt nests in rock crevices and attract females into the nest for egg laying, with the male taking care of the eggs until hatching. In some populations, a scarcity of nest sites drives smaller and young males to adopt an alternative reproductive tactic to reproduce. These “sneaker” males mimic the females’ morphology and reproductive behaviour in order to illude the larger nesting males and parasitically fertilize eggs during mating events. Sneaker males later transition into the nesting male phenotype, and this major behavioural transformation in the same animal, first courting males and afterwards courting females, may imply significant reorganization of brain areas associated with reproductive behaviour. During the study, a brain atlas for the species was developed and the main cell proliferation regions, i.e. niches of stem cells birth that may differentiate into cells of the nervous system, characterized. Proliferative areas were observed throughout the whole brain and paralleled the pattern described for other teleosts. Proliferative cells were abundant namely in areas like the olfactory bulbs (granular and glomerular), the anterior subdivision of the dorsomedial telencephalon (DMa), the dorsal and ventral part of the ventral subdivision of the dorsomedial telencephalon (DMvd and DMvv), the dorsal part of the dorsal subdivision of the dorsomedial telencephalon (DMdd), the posterior subdivision of the dorsolateral telencephalon (DLp), the posterior zone of the dorsal telencephalic area (DP), the preoptic area (POA), the dorsal, supracommissural and ventral nucleus of the ventral telencephalic area (Vd, Vs and Vv), the optic tectum and its periventricular grey zone (TeO and PGZ), the ventral zone of the periventricular hypothalamus (Hv), the cerebellum, mainly the molecular layer (CCeM) and the caudal lobe (LCa). A study of the brain nuclei activated during female courtship events using immediate early-genes suggested that some of the areas of the social behaviour network (SBN), a set of brain nuclei underlying the expression of social behaviour across vertebrates, are implicated in female courtship, in particular nuclei in the ventral telencephalic regions. This was followed by an experiment to investigate the possible link between cell proliferation and male tactic switch. Nest availability was manipulated to allow a fraction of sneaker males to adopt a nest and start the transition to nesting males. Ten days after the experiment, some of the smaller males had indeed started switching into nesting males, adopting a nest and starting to develop male secondary sexual characters. The pattern of brain proliferation was studied in these fish to try to confirm that the irreversible behavioural transition would be associated with the reorganization of brain nuclei, assuming that cell proliferation relates to neurogenesis and structural reorganization. Transitional males had elevated cell proliferation levels, as compared to males that remained sneakers, in the dorsolateral anterior and posterior telencephalic regions, thought to be homologous to the hippocampus in mammals. Cell proliferation levels were generally elevated in ventral and ventromedial telencephalic nuclei in both sneakers and transitional males, as compared with nesting males and females, areas considered to be homologous to nuclei of the amygdaloid complex of mammals. There was large variation in proliferation levels within transitional males, and in particular one male more advanced in the transition had higher numbers of BrdU-positive cells than the others. This suggests that a longer time-window for detecting the peak in brain cell proliferation associated with tactic transition in some fish may have been needed. Overall, the study supports the hypothesis that behavioural transition in males of this species is paralleled by an increase in cell proliferation in nuclei potentially relevant for the expression of reproductive behaviours, and establishes the peacock blenny as a new relevant model for the study of neuronal plasticity in vertebrates."

The aims of the present study are to investigate the level of work engagement of the inclusive teachers in Macau and what potential factors would contribute to the increase of their level of work engagement. In this research, the framework of the self-determination theory developed by Ryan and Deci in 2000 was partially employed. I suggested the inclusive teachers’ self-efficacy and perceived autonomy to act as the independent variables, while perceived organisational support was involved as the mediating variable. Quantitative method was applied in this study by using an online self-response questionnaire (N= 150). The stratified sampling strategy was applied as well in order to ensure the representativeness. No gender difference of work engagement level was found among Macau inclusive teachers. Positive correlations were found among all variables. Besides, perceived organisational support was expressing positive mediating effects on the relationships between independent and dependent variables under some specific circumstances. For example, the relationship between efficacy to use inclusive instructions and emotional and physical work engagement; the relationship between perceived autonomy and cognitive, emotional, and physical work engagement. Theoretical and practical implications for the non-tertiary schools and inclusive teachers can be found in this study. Future studies should be continued to investigate the limitations and suggestions of this field of research

With the rapid expansion of mobile e-commerce, an increasing number of businesses have jumped into the fray in all facets of the mobile electric commerce industry chain. The payment link is the most competitive. From the norm in the sector to the consumer market, telecom operator rivalry, as well as third-party payment between different companies, never ceases. In the context of mobile e-commerce, however, competition has shifted from traditional product-centered to customer- centered, and business success frequently rests on the customer. As a result, the competition in the mobile e-commerce payment industry is essentially about competing for users. Mpay is characteristic of mobile e-commerce payment firm representatives; on the basis of theoretical analysis, combined with the reality of the economic background, the study chose Mpay mobile payment users as research subjects and analyzed the major variables of user acceptability. The model was built on the basis of an extensive evaluation of past research results of user acceptance model and reference to UTAUT model. The model considered performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence, facilitating condition as independent variables determining user behavior intention, Based on the conceptual model, the paper conducted an empirical investigation as a case study of a Mpay mobile payment user using data from a questionnaire, while also conducting a separate discussion of the impact of perceived risk and trust on user acceptance. The empirical results indicate that for mobile payment users, performance expectancy has the greatest positive effect on behavior intention, while facilitating conditions, social influence, perceived risk, effort expectancy, and trust have no effect. In addition, gender and age were discovered to influence user acceptance

Projects are tactical and operational initiatives, and achieving specific outcomes through projects can help organizations achieve strategic goals. The effective use of project management tools and techniques is essential to achieve successful results, since the goal is to maximize the realization of the project's plan by effectively using the budget, time, and resources provided by the project owner to achieve the project's original purpose. The Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM) is a tool for measuring project management capabilities and is essential to improve project and portfolio performance in different industries. The main objective of this research is to analyze and characterize the maturity level and capacity of the IT industry in Macau and HengQin based on the assessment of the PMMM. The research also aims to assess and compare the maturity level in the IT industry in Macau and HengQin. An online survey was conducted and sent to IT project managers from Macau and HenqQin. A total of 34 responses were collected, divided into 3 different parts: Part I - General Information, Part II - Project Management Areas, and Part III - Perception. The results indicate that, in general, Project Managers state that their companies do not follow Project Management standards and best practices, classifying as Low and Very Low essential PM areas such as Planning and Scheduling (68%), Scope (61%) and Communications (64%). From a comparison perspective, project managers in Macau follow less formal frameworks than Hengqin in managing the triple constraints of the project. The collected data also indicate that Macau's communication management and stakeholder engagement are less mature than Hengqin's. Furthermore, the data indicate that maturity level is not necessarily related to education level, which means not higher education has a higher maturity level. Recommendations are provided for the IT industry in both areas, and specific comments are provided for each group or professionals. In conclusion, this work allows a novel characterization and a better understanding of the Project Management adoption and maturity level of the IT Industry in Macau and Hengqin

"Abstract The core concept of drama education is the integration and int- ernalization of experience. In the empirical content of the improvis- ational drama, it lays a profound foreshadowing for future life prac- tice through different physical behaviors and facial perceptions. Through drama education, children with autism spectrum disorder can be emotionally adjusted. Emotional and social behavior is essent- ial for children with autism spectrum disorders. The use of improvis- ational drama to study children's emotions with autism spectrum diso- rders is not yet found in Macau. Therefore, this study aimed to inve- stigate the intervention strategies for children with autism spectrum disorders through improvisational drama to fill the research gap. A case study of emotional interventions as a ten-day improvisa- tional drama with an autism spectrum disorder in Macau. The following findings were obtained: 1. The study found that improvisational drama was used to address the theoretica deficits of the mind of children with autism spectrum disorders. 2. Improvisational drama supports the understanding of self-emotions in children with autism spectrum disorder with positive behavior. 3. Shared attention cultivated by improvisational drama can develop social interaction behavior. 4. The improvisational drama techniques can deal with children with autism spectrum disorder and peer conflict. Based on these results, the researcher identified three main is sues in the use of improvisational drama to deal with the emotions of VII children with autism spectrum disorders in Macau: 1. The relative lack of knowledge on the use of improvisational drama as a strategy to support children with autism in Macau. 2. The number of hours and sessions of the Macao training course is too small to be satisfied with frontline teachers' use of improvi- sational drama to provide quality teaching to children with an au- tism spectrum disorder. 3. Failing to understand the emotional needs of children with autism frontline teachers must practice improvisational drama teaching, failing to understand it’s core subjects in depth. Therefore, researchers on the emotions of children with an aut- ism spectrum disorder in improvisational drama. The proposal is divi- ded into three main areas, which are proposed to the government, sch- ools, and teachers: I. Suggestions to the government: 1. Improve the special education policy 2. Increase the number of training courses II. Suggestions for schools: 1. Increase the teaching content of the curriculum for children wi- th autism spectrum disorders III. Suggestions for teachers: 1. Children should lead the curriculum with autism spectrum disord- ers. 2. The curriculum should enhance the cooperation between children VIII with autism spectrum disorders and their peers. This study has identified feasible intervention strategies to he- lp further improve the Macau government's special education policy. The study also aims to help schools to adapt their teaching cont- ents better to suit the needs of children with autism spectrum disord ers. Finally, the study aims to provide teachers with a better unders- tanding of the characteristics and social-emotional behaviors of ch- ildren with autism spectrum disorders to help each other practice education effectively. Only one child with autism spectrum disorder were studied in Mac- ao. As a result, this study failed to represent all children in Macao in practicing emotional interventions in improvisational drama. This study aimed to promote -improvisational comedy strategies in Macau to help children with aut-ism spectrum disorders to understand and expre ss their emotions appr-opriately. It is also expected that the Macau SAR government will re-cognize the importance of drama education for children with autism spectrum disorders and develop policies and ada- pt the content of the curriculum framework to enable the effective i- mplementation of drama education in teaching emotions to children wi- th autism spectrum disorders."

How can we provide more sports areas in a high-density urban environment? Nowadays, most cities in Asia are experiencing high-speed development (Satterthwaite, 2023). There is an intensely increasing demand for land that is confronted with an insufficient supply of space, resulting in a shortfall of suitable construction space to meet the rising demand. Over the past few decades, different countries and cities have created various solutions for this issue. This shortage of space has been resolved in various ways, for example: through land reclamation, renovation, and architectural design (Grydehoj, 2015). This dissertation seeks to analyse and discuss how architects have used design to expand spaces within the limited available areas for public spaces like sports facilities (Carmona, 2021). Understanding how sports modalities influence architecture and space utilisation for sports activities will also be covered. Additionally, it will examine case studies on how to better implement the program in a limited urban area with regards to the typology connections of sports facilities and their interaction with users. Finally, this dissertation is practice-based and oriented, the case study and project development will focus on a sports facility in the high-density populated Taipa Centre (Macau). This specific project solution will address the real problem for the city, and research will conclude by analysing the constraints of sports architecture in high-density areas, providing design solutions for these situations, and thereby contributing to the improvement of public spaces in a city

This study identifies Portuguese residents’ behavioural intention towards Chinese electric vehicles from the perspective of the Country-of-Origin Effect (COE) and uses the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT-2) as a guide to design interview questions. According to the existing literature, UTAUT-2, a comprehensive technology acceptance model, has not been used to assess the Portuguese electric vehicle market, and no relevant research has been found to apply the method of combining the COE into the UTAUT-2 framework. The purpose of this study is exploratory in nature, it uses qualitative methods to identify the behavioural intention of Portuguese residents towards the acceptance of Chinese electric vehicles. Data from 16 Portuguese residents was collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed with qualitative methodology. The study found that factors such as performance expectations, environmental concerns, effort expectations, hedonic motivation, and social influence have a positive impact on Portuguese residents' purchase of electric vehicles, while price value, habits, and convenience conditions have a neutral or negative impact. Regarding COE, apart from social influence, it has no impact on other factors. To increase the popularity and sales of Chinese electric vehicles in Portugal, it is recommended that advertising and marketing efforts focus on price, charging services, after-sales service, and design

Nowadays, the increasing number of medical diagnostic data and clinical data provide more complementary references for doctors to make diagnosis to patients. For example, with medical data, such as electrocardiography (ECG), machine learning algorithms can be used to identify and diagnose heart disease to reduce the workload of doctors. However, ECG data is always exposed to various kinds of noise and interference in reality, and medical diagnostics only based on one-dimensional ECG data is not trustable enough. By extracting new features from other types of medical data, we can implement enhanced recognition methods, called multimodal learning. Multimodal learning helps models to process data from a range of different sources, eliminate the requirement for training each single learning modality, and improve the robustness of models with the diversity of data. Growing number of articles in recent years have been devoted to investigating how to extract data from different sources and build accurate multimodal machine learning models, or deep learning models for medical diagnostics. This paper reviews and summarizes several recent papers that dealing with multimodal machine learning in disease detection, and identify topics for future research.

Medical classification is affected by many factors, and the traditional medical classification is usually restricted by factors such as too long text, numerous categories and so on. In order to solve these problems, this paper uses word vector and word vector to mine the text deeply, considering the problem of scattered key features of medical text, introducing long-term and short-term memory network to effectively retain the features of historical information in long text sequence, and using the structure of CNN to extract local features of text, through attention mechanism to obtain key features, considering the problems of many diseases, by using hierarchical classification. To stratify the disease. Combined with the above ideas, a deep DLCF model suitable for long text and multi-classification is designed. This model has obvious advantages in CMDD and other datasets. Compared with the baseline models, this model is superior to the baseline model in accuracy, recall and other indicators.