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This study explores girls’ attitudes and selfassessment of abilities towards mathematics and science and its effects on career preferences. Results from Pi

At EA/CITAR (School of Arts/Research Centre in Science and Technology of the Arts), sound has always assumed a fundamental role, both in academic research and curricular offer, featuring a Master Program in Sound Design and a Doctoral Program Specialization in Computer Music. This paper presents an overview of some recent artistic/research projects undertaken by students and researchers at this institution, which stimulate the user/listener awareness for the acoustic phenomenon. Furthermore, we describe three pedagogical practices, stemming from Soundscape and Film Sound studies, which aim at training students to avoid the devious influence of sight on the assessment of soundscapes.

Human resources are essential to the survival, success, and long-term growth of a company. Hotel is an industry requiring a high level of human resources for delivering high-quality personal service to the hotel guests to maintain its competitiveness in the business environment. With the rapid economic growth in Macao started in 2002, all the industries have been growing fast and competing fiercely for the limited manpower in Macao. However, the Macao hotel industry has been losing its attractiveness in the Macao labor market and needs to rely on non-local workers with a limited stay in Macao. The management team of the Macao hotel industry is looking for a solution to maintain a stable workforce. Therefore, a study has been conducted on the effectiveness of its employee retention strategies. A questionnaire was designed to collect the preferences of the employees and interviews were conducted to understand the perspective of the management team toward the employee retention strategies. The study shows the employee strategies are focused on key employees’ interests such as career development and prospect. However, the communication between the management team and employees failed and led to employee turnover.

This paper aimed to build up the theorical and conceptual understanding of future forecasting study of Macau’s GDP and Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) by co-movement of economic indicators. Macau GDP and GGR showed co-movements with a number of time series economic indicators, including China’s exports and imports, China’s manufacturing PMI, non-manufacturing PMI, China's electricity production growth, share price of some Macau’s gaming operators, etc. These time series data can be found in statistics departments of China, Macau and Hong Kong, stock exchanges, and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Burns and Mitchell’s study in 1946 identified co-movements between economic indicators and being further carried out and developed leading, coincident and lagging indicators, which is essential for future econometric models and nowcasting techniques developments to study these co-movements. In particular, with the proper application of nowcasting techniques, future studies can exploit the data of leading and coincident economic indicators to forecast Macau’s GDP and GGR within an acceptable level of error. Since Macau is a “monotown,” where the gaming revenue makes a significant contribution to the economy. The forecasting of gaming revenue is crucial as it aids the gambling and tourism industries in preparing supply and provides information to policymakers to plan for the near future. This research also contributes to understand Macau’s economy by investigating its internal and external economic variables.

Countless historical sites worldwide have become unrecognisable based on their historical context. Many are cultural heritage structures with significant historical and aesthetic importance. The majority have not been well preserved; worse, some were demolished (Stenning, 2015). Furthermore, structures are part of a dynamic and changing environment, and their location within the original landscape is not always clear. People have gradually forgotten cultural traditions as environments where historical stories took place, and the look and feel have been corrupted. Immersive Virtual Reality (V.R.) allows us to relive and explore the past. However, in the Pearl River Delta Region, specifically Macau S.A.R., V.R. is still in its infancy and is not frequently used for reproducing historical sceneries. Our research focuses on reproducing heritage structures and scenery based on scarce historical information. It shows how to incorporate facts and memories into the design and create engaging, immersive experiences in V.R. scenery that takes place, both inside and outside of a cultural heritage site that has lost its original appearance. Following this, a prototype was created with specific parameters relating to past and present sceneries. We partially reproduced an existing building complex currently being used for creative and commercial purposes, but it was a shelter for the poor and a house for old ladies to live in. There were not enough facts or images linked to the inner space in the past. Inadequate information allows audiovisual scene creators to be more imaginative. The prototype focuses on a functional design that integrates cultural traits tied to local industries. The researcher used image processing software, and web 3D tools (A-Frame 1.1.0). Users can navigate by virtually “walking” and starting the visual tour; simultaneously, the story unfolds as the timeline progresses. After entering, the users jump from the present to a specific era in the past. With audio guidance, users enter the private space, shared areas, working space, etc. Users can interact with objects from the virtual scenes while the interface displays relevant audiovisual introductions. Users could utilise the virtual system to learn how the old ladies led their daily lives in the Pearl River Delta Region and grasp the local single ladies’ group lifestyle at a specific time in the past (Kwong, 2020). The interactive experience enhances the users’ interest; additionally, the users become more familiar with the region’s traditional customs. With this approach, we can create old stories using modern technology. A-Frame provides users with great convenience and can be used by any Internet browser without relying on professional V.R. devices. The content from this usage provides a greater understanding of our heritage buildings and their historical context to the wider community. This could be used in other heritage sites worldwide to reproduce and maintain structural qualities over time. This immersive experience could be a means to navigate the past while in the present. This application could benefit exhibition developers, and visitors, notably in exhibition guided tours, virtual tours inside museums, or educational assisted historical storytelling.

Digital inclusion in Macao is in the very beginning stage, and disability inclusion practice on social media in producing and promoting accessible social media content and needs is hard to find. This study aims to analyse the factors that influence communication staff's practice of disability inclusion on social media by using the combined employee behaviour and communication process model to provide suggestions to management who wants to promote disability inclusion practice on social media.The Service Centre for the Deaf of the Macau Deaf Association (MDA) was selected as the object for this case study. The online social media used for MDA's communication was analysed, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with members of the Association were conducted. The research findings showed that, except for the reward structure, factors examined from the work environment in terms of organisation, supervision and co-workers; communication staff themselves; outcomes of accessible social media communication; audience and feedbacks show relations with disability inclusion practices on social media. The delivery of inclusive culture, the influential power of disability stakeholders and the positioning of social media platforms are the key influencing factors.The interesting part of this study is that people without disabilities seem to be excluded from the disability inclusion practice carried out on MDA's Facebook. Their social media content is highly accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences yet seems not to involve the general public. The study object is a good model for producing accessible content, yet the optimisation of promoting social media accessibility needs further exploration.

In the last decade, the progress of internet technologies has led to a significant increase in security and privacy issues for users. This study aims to investigate how computer science students perceive computer network security. Thirty three students participated in the study in which we gathered data through a questionnaire. In this paper, we present an analysis that is inspired by the phenomenographic approach. Our conclusion is that the students have different levels of understanding of computer network security depending on their usage of the concepts they have learned, their theoretical or practical orientation to the subject, and their interest in the field.