Your search
Results 411 resources
-
The aim of this study was to explore home–school collaboration in the areas of assessment, placement, and Individual Education Plan (IEP) development for children identified with disabilities or special educational needs (SEN) in Macao. Despite the noted benefits of parent–school partnerships from prior research, minimal research has been conducted from the perspective of parents of children with SEN to examine whether these partnerships materialize in the context of Macao. Participants included 115 parents of school-aged children diagnosed with SEN. They provided demographic information and completed a 36-item questionnaire derived from two validated instruments. The research identified a range of factors which hinder parental involvement in decision-making and in the inclusion of children with SEN in optimal ways in Macao schools. Parents indicated they were not receiving relevant information and assessment feedback from the teachers; they were minimally involved in the IEP process, and their children were not receiving one-to-one support, regardless of the type of placement. Parents also underlined issues related to the timing of assessment procedures. Parents of children attending special classes in regular schools voiced more satisfaction with support provision than parents of children following the full inclusion model. Recommendations about how services could be improved for greater parental involvement are discussed. Key Words: parental involvement, school–family collaboration, inclusion, special educational needs, Macao, Individual Education Plans, IEP
-
The article analyses the media system in Macao, a special administrative region of China that transitioned from Portuguese to Chinese sovereignty in 1999, becoming one of cities in the world with the largest number of published newspapers per capita. Combining historical research with the analysis of contemporary empirical data collected through interviews with journalists working on the ground, the research demonstrates how there is a long tradition of state control that goes back to the colonial era and that has assumed different forms, ranging from outright censorship to physical intimidation of journalists and economic dependence on the government. Limitations and control strategies imposed on news reporting during the Portuguese administration continue to be practiced today by the Chinese authorities. Even so, journalists operating on the Macao media market tend to overstate the level of freedom they are given, which can be attributed to media outlets being economically dependent on the state. Nevertheless, the level of freedom attributed to the press is today higher than it had been during the colonial period with some critical voices being allowed to reach the media. This needs to be understood in the context of what has been defined as the Chinese safety valve strategy.
-
We critically review studies of subjective wellbeing conducted in China by the International Wellbeing Group, and we evaluate the International Wellbeing Index (IWI), a new instrument they developed. Subjective wellbeing was positive and similar in studies across China, and conformed to the normative range. Its resilience (PWI = 61.2–67.1) mirrors survey findings conducted in Western countries, in agreement with Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. Reliability, validity and psychometric analyses support the utility of the IWI as a measure of subjective wellbeing. Our conclusions have implications for research and social development in China, discussed further in this review.
-
In this essay, we put forth a novel solution to Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, utilizing recent work done by Duncan Pritchard on radical skepticism. Key to the success of Plantinga’s argument is the doubting of the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties. We argue (viz. Pritchard and Wittgenstein) that the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties constitutes a hinge commitment, thus is exempt from rational evaluation. In turn, the naturalist who endorses hinge epistemology can deny the key premise in Plantinga’s argument and avoid the dilemma posed on belief in the conjunction of naturalism and evolution.
-
Abstract With its large population and natural resources, Africa needs investors who can sustain its development. At the same time, foreign investors expect returns on their investments. In ...
-
Since the beginning of bilateral aid giving in the aftermath of the Second World War, the motives for aid giving have changed from being purely political and humanitarian to a mix of different interests. While poverty reduction is frequently stated as the goal of aid giving, it is commonplace for donors to use aid to advance their national interests. The rise of new, emerging donors is creating discussion in both the political and academic fields of aid giving. Traditional or western donors see emerging donors, such as China’s efforts in aid-giving as seeking the natural resources of the recipient countries. This paper provides a historical analysis of the aid-giving motivations underlying an emerging donor, China, and a traditional donor, France. The motives for China’s and France’s aid giving to African countries, with special focus on Guinea, show a great number of similarities.
-
This paper examines the extent to which China’s aid policies integrate poverty alleviation as a goal of their aid in general, particularly in Guinea. More specifically, the paper analyzed how aid donors focus on poverty alleviation and which policies and mechanisms are in place to address poverty in the countries receiving aid. Regarding the methodology, the author collected data from secondary sources, including government declarations of donors, policy documents at both the donor and recipient levels, as well as from scholarly publications. The following findings resulted from study: China’s aid policies have progressively incorporated poverty alleviationobjectives and identified sectors for intervention against poverty. However, the limitations of China approach to poverty is that China adopts a top-down approach to poverty reduction and lacks of an impact evaluation mechanism based on poverty alleviation.
-
China's re-emergence as an aid donor has attracted the attention and criticism from Western donors, academia, and the media. In contrast to traditional donors, China's aid has been portrayed as anti-poverty aid, mainly due to its combination with other instruments, such as investment, and the absence of any political or economic conditions. This paper examines the impact of Chinese aid projects in Guinea's education sector from the perspective of the beneficiaries. The author collected data from both primary (interviews) and secondary (document analysis) sources. The present study concludes that China's aid projects in the education sector have received both positive and negative feedback, mainly because the recipients' needs have not been appropriately targeted. This study contributes to the literature on China's role in Africa. More specifically, it discusses the conditions for aid effectiveness in the field of education. Moreover, in the context of the globalization of aid practices, the study proposes best practices for China to adopt in order to improve the practices of its aid delivery. The novelty of this study lies in the methodology (qualitative method) used to understand China's aid from the perspective of the beneficiaries of its aid.
-
Over the past several decades, the dichotomy between traditional and emerging donors has been based upon the notion that emerging donors (such as China) support authoritarian regimes and use foreign aid to pursue their economic interests at the expense of the poor in the recipient countries. Accordingly, Western donors, media, and scholars portray Chinese aid as non-poverty-focused. This study aims to review and analyze whether the dichotomy between traditional and emerging donors is still relevant in the current aid system and to propose a new and rigorous criterion for recategorizing donors. In terms of methodology, this study relies on secondary data, including scholarly works on traditional and emerging donors and foreign aid policy documents. Conclusions based on the research indicate that the divide between traditional donors and (re)emerging donors is becoming more ambiguous. The literature review indicates that the two donors’ aids had a mixed impact and that their approaches were similar. This paper highlights the importance of developing different recategorization criteria depending on the impact of aid.
-
Reaction of ultramafic rocks with seawater and subsequent serpentinization has been considered one of the most important factors controlling the formation of ultramafic-hosted seafloor massive sulfide (UM-SMS) deposits. However, the mineralization processes responsible for these deposits remain poorly understood, in particular because they are less abundant as compared with their basaltic counterparts. In this work, serpentinites with different alteration grades collected at the Tianzuo hydrothermal field (THF), Southwest Indian Ridge, were studied. Mineralogical and chemical analyses were performed in the secondary opaque minerals resulting from serpentinization to understand the role of this process during the formation of UM-SMS deposits. Our results show that these opaque minerals mainly consist of magnetite, hematite, pentlandite, and minor pyrite, suggestive of high but varying oxygen and sulfur fugacities. The hematite is characterized by an enrichment in Mg, Si, Ni, and Co as compared with magnetite. Pentlandite associated with hematite has elevated and consistent Ni contents as compared with that associated with magnetite. These results indicate that breakdown and decomposition of primary silicate and sulfide minerals during serpentinization has controlled the sources of ore-forming materials. Concentrations of Te are variable and show a positive correlation with Ni in pentlandite associated with magnetite or hematite, suggesting that gabbroic intrusions provided additional material to the hydrothermal system. Oxidation and sulfidation conditions are ideal for the formation of trisulfur ion S3− in THF, which can significantly improve the capability of hydrothermal fluids for leaching ore-forming metals from the wall rocks, promoting the formation of THF. In addition of reduced systems, hydrothermal fluids with high oxygen and sulfur fugacities triggered by extensive seawater infiltration can most likely also develop in ultramafic-hosted systems. These results suggest that the areas with well-developed fractures are promising candidates for further exploration of UM-SMS deposits along mid-oceanic ridges.
-
The recently explored inactive Tianzuo hydrothermal field, in the amagmatic segment of the ultraslow-spreading Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR), is closely associated with detachment faults. In this site, sulfide minerals are hosted by serpentine-bearing ultramafic rocks and include high-temperature (isocubanite, sphalerite, and minor pyrrhotite) and low-temperature (pyrite I, marcasite, pyrite II, and covellite) phases. In this study, trace-element concentrations of isocubanite and pyrite II were used to elucidate mineralization processes in ultramafic rocks hosting sulfides. Results show that isocubanite is enriched in metals such as Cu, Co, Sn, Te, Zn, Se, Pb, Bi, Cd, Ag, In, and Mn, and pyrite II is enriched in Mo and Tl. The marked enrichment in Te, Cu, Co, and In in isocubanite (compared with Se, Zn, Ni, and Sn, respectively) is most likely due to the contribution of magmatic fluids from gabbroic intrusions beneath the hydrothermal field. The intrusion of gabbroic magmas would have enhanced serpentinization reactions and provided a relatively oxidizing environment through the dissolution of anhydrite precipitated previously in the reaction zone, within high temperature and low pH conditions. This might have facilitated the extraction of metals by initial hydrothermal fluids, leading to the general enrichment of most metals in isocubanite. Metals in pyrite II have compositions similar to those of isocubanite, except for strong depletion in magmatically derived Te, Cu, Co, and In. This means that serpentinization processes had a dominating role in pyrite II precipitation as well. The enrichment of pyrite II in Mo and Tl is also indicative of seawater contribution in its composition. The study concludes that serpentinization reactions contribute effectively both to high- and low-temperature sulfide mineralization at Tianzuo hydrothermal field, with gabbroic intrusions further promoting high-temperature sulfide mineralization, providing additional metals, fluids and heat. In contrast, low-temperature sulfide mineralization occurred during the cooling of gabbroic intrusions, with decreasing rates of serpentinization reactions and a significant influence of seawater.
-
It is plausible to assume that the component waves in ECG signals constitute a unique human characteristic because morphology and amplitudes of recorded beats are governed by multiple individual factors. According to the best of our knowledge, the issue of automatically classifying different ’identities’ of QRS morphology has not been explored within the literature. This work proposes five alternative mathematical models for representing different QRS morphologies providing the extraction of a set of features related to QRS shape. The technique incorporates mechanisms of combining the mathematical functions Gaussian, Mexican-Hat and Rayleigh probability density function and also a mechanism for clipping the waveform of those functions. The searching for the optimal parameters which minimize the normalized RMS error between each mathematical model and a given QRS search window enables to find an optimal model. Such modeling behaves as a robust alternative for delineating heartbeats, classifying beat morphologies, detecting subtle and anomalous changes, compression of QRS complex windows among others. The validation process evaluates the ability of each model to represent different QRS morphology classes within 159 full ECG signal records from QT database and 584 QRS search windows from MIT-BIH Arrhythmia database. From the experimental results, we rank the winning rates for which each mathematical model best models and also discriminates the most predominant QRS morphologies Rs, rS, RS, qR, qRs, R, rR’s and QS. Furthermore, the average time errors computed for QRS onset and offset locations when using the corresponding winner mathematical models for delineation purposes were, respectively, 12.87±8.5 ms and 1.47±10.06 ms.
Explore
Academic Units
- Faculty of Arts and Humanities (79)
- Faculty of Business and Law (85)
- Faculty of Health Sciences (34)
- Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy (47)
- Institute for Data Engineering and Sciences (14)
- Institute of Science and Environment (77)
- Library (2)
- Macau Ricci Institute (7)
- School of Education (73)
Resource type
United Nations SDGs
- 01 - No Poverty (1)
- 02 - Zero Hunger (1)
- 03 - Good Health and Well-being (10)
- 04 - Quality Education (5)
- 05 - Gender Equality (1)
- 07 - Affordable and Clean Energy (1)
- 08 - Decent Work and Economic Growth (3)
- 09 - Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (11)
- 10 - Reduced Inequalities (1)
- 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities (5)
- 12 - Responsable Consumption and Production (2)
- 13 - Climate Action (2)
- 14 - Life Below Water (12)
- 15 - Life on Land (4)
- 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (1)