Your search
Results 68 resources
-
Over the years Macao has been exposed to different cultures and has been influenced by various political and economic interests. The booming casino economy has ultimately transformed the city into the largest gambling hub in the world. In spite of the consensus about Macao's shiny future, there are factors (such as the large reliance on a single industry) and socio-economic problems (such as labor shortage, unequal income distribution, and inflationary pressure) that moderate the optimism. By making use of the Chatterjee and Nankervis' convergent and divergent process model for management, this paper examines how global, regional, and local forces have impacted the economic development process, form and type of organizations in Macao. The paper also suggests that the government implement a framework that develops and diversifies the economy but also takes into consideration the social needs of the community.
-
This study analyzes the green marketing strategies with specific reference to the hotel industry. The concept of green marketing in this sector is crucial due to the growing expected importance of tourism in the future of global economy and its potential impact on social and economic development; this is true particularly in areas with relevant volumes of tourist arrivals. In this sense, we carried out an exploratory research in the hotel industry of the Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Macao in order to: highlight the primary motivations that underlie interventions geared towards the eco-sustainability of hotels, the services they offer and point out the problems, issues, and future prospects in the development of green marketing, as well as explore the role of eco-sustainable values in hotels’ online communication policies. In order to reach these aims a qualitative research was carried out with a semi-structured questionnaire (face-to-face interviews) to a group of hotels. The research was finished by an analysis of their websites, in order to verify possible references to the steps taken to protect the environment.
-
This paper is motivated by two observations in the large civil aircraft (LCA) industry. (1) Boeing and Airbus are significantly different in the degree of offshoring. (2) The degree of offshoring also changes among different aircraft models. To offer an explanation, this paper focuses on issues related to fragmentation. Existing literature has established the tie between fragmented technology and offshoring. However, it is assumed that production can be fragmented readily and at no cost; and only exogenous global economic factors have impact on the degree of fragmentation. This model distinguishes itself from others by incorporating endogeneity in fragmentation. A final-good firm can spend on R&D specifically for its own fragmented technology. As a result, the final-good firm can optimally choose the portion of components to be offshored. A strategic trade policy model is used to show that the degree of offshoring depends on the firm's own cost of production, the host country's cost of production, the global state of technology as well as the government trade policies. In particular, export subsidy and subsidy on R&D of fragmented technology are shown to be policy substitutes. Keywords: Fragmentation; Offshoring; Outsourcing; Aircraft; Export subsidy; R&D subsidy; Boeing; Airbus JEL classification: F12; F13; F23; L13
-
Association Rule Mining by Aprior method has been one of the popular data mining techniques for decades, where knowledge in the form of item-association rules is harvested from a dataset. The quality of item-association rules nevertheless depends on the concentration of frequent items from the input dataset. When the dataset becomes large, the items are scattered far apart. It is known from previous literature that clustering helps produce some data groups which are concentrated with frequent items. Among all the data clusters generated by a clustering algorithm, there must be one or more clusters which contain suitable and frequent items. In turn, the association rules that are mined from such clusters would be assured of better qualities in terms of high confidence than those mined from the whole dataset. However, it is not known in advance which cluster is the suitable one until all the clusters are tried by association rule mining. It is time consuming if they were to be tested by brute-force. In this paper, a statistical property called prior probability is investigated with respect to selecting the best out of many clusters by a clustering algorithm as a pre-processing step before association rule mining. Experiment results indicate that there is correlation between prior probability of the best cluster and the relatively high quality of association rules generated from that cluster. The results are significant as it is possible to know which cluster should be best used for association rule mining instead of testing them all out exhaustively.
-
This paper introduces a concept proposal for accessing driving behavior in public transportation through Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS), as part of a long-term research project on Advanced Public Transportation System (APTS). The proposed concept makes use of mobile device's accelerometer and passengers' qualitative evaluation to identify aggressive driving behavior, which is believed to be a major factor for unnecessary accidents and fuel consumption. A survey and comparison of IT services (mobile applications and websites) provided by Macau Government and private bus companies in Macau, regarding bus-related information, such as fares, routes and route diversions is also provided.
-
One of the biggest challenges that we have encountered, when trying to encourage digital games in schools, is trying to explain what its benefits are in teaching and learning environments. In this pilot experimental study we explore how multimodal audio and visual games can be used in learning environments for children, specifically by fostering creative behaviors through User-Centered design approaches. To achieve this objective, a framework is being developed with multimodal experiences based on flexible design patterns that exploits basic visual and audio elements, allowing children from three to six years of age to play and learn through fun and subsequently trigger creative behaviors. These studies are making use of tangible objects, digital games and mobile platforms. We are making use of commercial digital games to understand and discuss the affordances of these games in an educational environment and how they support creativity in learning. (Fig.1)
-
Nowadays, contemporary art practices have been expanding into fields outside their own borders. According to Claire Bishop (2012), this expanded field of post-studio practices currently goes under a variety of names: socially engaged art, community-based art, experimental communities, dialogic art, littoral art, interventionist art, participatory art, collaborative art, contextual art and (most recently) social practice. By engaging, artists nurture the sense of belonging and search for an identity of the place they inhabit. In Hong Kong and Macao, as well as in the Pearl River Delta and China in general, the speed of urban transformation is forcing artists to reconsider their participation in the city in order to develop a creative place making process that is according to the new identity of the place. By doing so, they are also included in what has been defined as “creative industries” that tries to build a new image of the urban fabric. Linked with this sort of collective attitude, there is also an attempt to find a sense of local identity that has been disappearing in the face of these major developments. Engaging with the city and the communities may constitute, therefore, a challenge for the young generation, especially in hybrid places such as Hong Kong and Macao, where artists find themselves in an effort to understand the core values of their fragmented identity. In this paper we will analyze some projects that artists are doing in both SAR´s, in order to create a sense of place in this state of transition.
-
Crime fiction in China emerged in the 1890s in translations of Western works, and evolved from the mere imitation of Western crime fiction to becoming an autonomous literary genre. Despite fluctuations in popularity, the genre of Chinese crime fiction, the plots of which are based on true cases, has retained a reasonably constant presence on the literary scene, and has captured the popular imagination in contemporary China and, more recently, across the world. After the demise of Mao, under whose governance the genre was banned, the government of the early Deng regime began to favor so-called “legal system literature” (fazhi wenxue), and aimed to use it to propagate moral principles and maintain political control in opposition to writers who strived for independence and originality. Since the mid and late 1980s, which were considered the heyday of Chinese crime fiction, and the expansion of the legal system and legal institutions, crime fiction has served to illuminate the role of law and to display new social perceptions. To investigate these attitudes, I focus on works of contemporary Chinese crime fiction by arguing that they are expressions of a confluence of cultural exchange and new trends. Several factors may have contributed to such a change, from the impact of the cinema and television serials in China to the celebrity status of Chinese detectives, lawyers and judges both as crime solvers and writers in the Chinese mainland and amongst the Chinese writing diaspora. An important finding is that besides giving detailed descriptions of legal procedures, all of the works studied have clearly shifted away from the traditional formula of Chinese crime fiction, that is, of the quest of a hero for justice, punishment, and revenge, to focus on the process of solving crime and the rendering of justice through legal processes. It seems that crime fiction is becoming crucial in conveying a new understanding of citizen’s rights in an attempt to fit into ongoing contemporary debates on universalistic notions of justice and the competence of legal institutions to provide justice to increasingly marginalized sectors of contemporary China.
-
This paper starts to address the affect and side-effects of social media on people’s live in a pure contemplation perspective. Social networks are revised and some issues regarding its impact on education was not forgotten such as the teacher role in the digital classroom, formal versus informal learning or Web 2.0 tools use. Since Moodle is the first Learning Management System whilst Facebook is the first social network in the world, a survey was accomplished with two independent classes of e-business students at University of Saint Joseph, Macao, China, on their attitudes toward both online services in a learning framework. In general, the results confirms to a certain extent others previous studies on the question of whether using Facebook as an educational tool is more effective than Moodle.
-
Information contained within documents is an essential ingredient of any office operation. A content management application (CMA) is an organization plan for the conception, use, retention, disposal and selective preservation of its data. Using an appropriate CMA framework can greatly help Macao Government agencies, for instance, that are increasingly using electronic means to create, exchange and store a major variety of records daily. By definition, a record is information, in whatever form, for government functions, activities, decisions and other important transactions. As expected, as the volume of electronic information increases, so does the complexity of managing electronic records. This project goal was to evaluate the software capabilities of the Alfresco© Enterprise Content Management (ECM) against a set of functional requirements, aimed by the Macao Government agency. Drawing on the results of this evaluation, the present analysis concludes that Alfresco© ECM is capable of supporting an entire agency needs related to the management of its records content.
-
In an international study, experts reflected on their national state of computer science education in school, and the associated situation and education of computer science teachers. While these situations are shaped by local circumstances, they are also shaped by changes in the discipline. The results of the study showed a number of recurrent themes and patterns such as curriculum difficulties, training and support for teachers, as well as the understanding (e.g. computer science vs. information technology) and relevance of computer science. The study also draws attention to initiatives that are being undertaken at the local and international levels to solve these problems. Finally, the study points out trends which are -- according to the experts asked -- likely to occur within the next few years.
-
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have recently become a hot topic in the academic world, launching a wide ranging discussion on a number of issues. In this research, we surveyed academics' awareness, attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of MOOCs. We received responses from 236 academics from 23 countries, who were working in different roles such as teachers, researchers, managers, and pedagogical developers. Participants were invited to answer questions concerning their awareness and attitudes towards MOOCs. For participants with some knowledge of MOOCs, we requested their experiences and their observations of the impact of MOOCS on their students, teaching colleagues, and within their institutions. We found the most common reaction to MOOCs amongst the academics was concern but many were positive about the phenomenon. The academics claimed their students could be motivated to take MOOCs because of flexibility and no cost involved. While many academics were not aware of their students taking a MOOC and had not observed any changes to teaching programs at their institutions because of MOOCs, there was evidence of some activity and future plans for engagement in MOOCs.
-
The contemporary city is a complex system where a multitude of factors and dwellers interact, creating a multi-layered spatial structure that supports the urban life. To successfully research and intervene in this context, one needs to develop fitting approaches and methods to be able to analyze it in depth.