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The inundation problem in Macao is getting more attention recently, especially after the destructive impacts of typhoons Hato (2017) and Mangkut (2019). The inundation caused by storm surges is getting more severe with the rapid sea-level rise in Macao. Moreover, the potential threat of a tsunami in Macao, may be enhanced with rising sea-level. This research evaluated the risk of coastal hazards in Macao by analyzing the local meteorological data. The results of the analysis indicate a rising trend in the tropical cyclone intensity and more severe storm surges are expected to occur in the future. Moreover, this research explores the potential of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), particularly mangroves, to address the inundation problem in Macao. The study included a preliminary laboratory-based experiment and the application of local mangroves data in numerical models. The results of the experiment and numerical models demonstrate the ability of mangroves to attenuate waves. These findings, although preliminary, indicate that mangroves could be a promising NbS to address inundation issues in Macao. To effectively implement this NbS, further field investigations are needed to measure attenuation in-situ, as well as determine optimal locations for mangrove restoration projects

Climate change is a global issue but its impact can be felt locally. Macau SAR has been rapidly developing since the single shift towards a gaming industry-dominated economy, the overwhelming anthropogenic activities contributing to increasing pollution. Mangroves, which play an essential role as the blue carbon system with a high carbon sequestration rate could be a natural base solution to the pollution. This study aims to determine 1) the total organic Carbon (TOC) in the soil of Macau mangrove sites, 2) comparison with the methodology evaluating the organic Carbon, and 3) organic Carbon comparison between Macau and other regions. Soil sampling were processed under the Blue Carbon Initiative guideline, and the samples were divided into two parts for determining the TOC%, combustion method from Hong Kong, and methodology of ashing in our laboratory. The overall estimated TOC% of Macau mangrove sites was 1.29%. There are still a lot of potentials in Carbon storage and for climate change mitigation in Macau

This paper analyses the valuation of McDonald's Corporation (MCD) as of December 31, 2021. An estimate of the Company's intrinsic value will also be provided. In addition, the internal company factors and external market conditions influencing company valuations and share prices will be discussed. The study has two main objectives: Determine the intrinsic value of McDonald's common stock as of December 31, 2021, and compare it to the actual stock market price on the same date. An assessment of the stock’s market price should represent the Company's true value on that day. Research can then verify whether it was overvalued or undervalued on that day. Identify internal company factors and external market environment factors that affect the Company's operations. This information will be used to gain a deeper understanding of the sensitivity analysis results. Possible scenarios will be discussed to reflect how these factors stimulate macroeconomic, industry, and business developments, as well as the strategic responses of industry players or competitors. McDonald's possible strategic responses to these scenarios will also be assessed. In this paper, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods will be employed. Data collection and analyses in Chapters 2 to 5 will use a qualitative approach, which includes data related to McDonald's, industry, and economic analyses. Chapters 5 to 8 will apply qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods. Data will be collected from McDonald's annual report for the fiscal year from December 2017 to December 2021

"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 dissertation focused on the consumers’ consumption behavior in Macau flower retailers. It revealed what factors affect consumers’ choice of flower shops during purchase. Also, what contributes to the customers’ loyalty towards a flower retailer by having interviews with the female target groups aged between 20 to 50 who work in the office. This study is important to the flower business owner because the result can allow them to understand the thoughts and feelings of their consumer. By interviewing 11 heavy users of floral products with 16 questions based on the five consumption values, we can communicate with the consumers directly and learn the reasons behind their purchasing behavior. Questions have been divided into 5 consumption values according to the previous research by (Sheth, Newman, & Gros, 1991), including functional, conditional, social, emotional, and epistemic values. The research has collected data on how and at what level these values may affect consumer consumption choices individually. The finding part analyzed the reason why those values affect consumers’ choices. Most of the interviewees stated that service is the most important compared to quality because the owner should be enthusiastic to provide product information and understand the consumer very well to impress and retain them with good personal service

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 research aimed to explore the challenges and future possiblities of ways of promoting elderly social participation in Macau. As lack of related research has been conduted in Macau, this community services and government policies and to provide suggestions for improving the direction of sustainable development and future possible research topics in this area. The research adopts a qualitative and phenomenological approach to explore the current situations, difficulties and ideas through the industry experience and insights. Nine in-depth interviews with 9 representatives of elderly social service providers subsidised by Macau SAR Government from late April to July 2022 in Macau. The content analysis using open coding to collect inductive data. Throughout themetic analysis identified by four levels: individials, community and social services, governmental policies and infrastructures. Overall, the study found that the autonomy trend of future social participation of the elderly in Macao is enhanced by education and self-health concerns and they are more independent, but the participation of male elders and female elders is unbalanced. Social service providers for the elderly provide a large number of repetitive services and are too passive and dependent on government policies andsupport, resulting in a lack of innovative thinking. The infrastructure design promoted by the government does not consider the continuous health and activity development of the elderly. This study looks at the ability of the elderly in Macau to continue to develop their strengths in the future, and suggests the need to strengthen individual retirement life planning and development for the elderly, personal health monitoring improvement, diversification of social services, elderly-led community programs, private social enterprise capital, and elderly volunteering The urgency of the number of elderly people, more practical and effective elderly inclusive urban planning."

We see security guards around in Macao in our daily lives and they are the ones who are responsible for protecting people’s safety and properties. Most security guards are non-local workers and might have different workplace stress levels. This study’s main aim is to investigate how job satisfaction and supervisory support are related to burnout among security guards in Macao. The research is carried out through a quantitative questionnaire to collect data and deliver it to the local and non-local security guards working in Macao. A total of 132 questionnaires were collected. It is expected that when security guards have higher job satisfaction and more supervisory support, they will experience less burnout. This intention enables the organization to make some changes to help the security guards from burnout due to job dissatisfaction and no supervisory support. The practical implication for reducing stress is introducing training courses such as mindfulness-based stress training programs. Future research will investigate other support like organizational support, peer support, and family and friends support on security guards

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

Starbucks Corporation (hereinafter “Starbucks” or “the Company”) is a worldwide coffee retailer, which operates over 33,000 stores located in over 83 countries nowadays. The purpose of the study is to estimate Starbucks’ intrinsic value as of December 31, 2021 and identify whether the Company was overvalued or undervalued. Several analyses give investors and shareholders an insight into how the Company may develop or identify the ability to generate positive returns from investing in Starbucks. This study is mainly separated into two aspects. The first part specifically discusses the Company overview, industry analysis, and economic outlook, which includes SWOT analysis, PESTEL analysis, Porter's five forces analysis, and value chain analysis to identify external and internal factors that may influence the Company. The second part focuses on financial analyzes, including both historical and forecasted financial statement. Three valuation models and a sensitive analysis are applied to understand the Company’s financial conditions and performance. Starbucks’ intrinsic value is derived from the three discounted cash flow models, indicating the market overvalued the Company’s stock price as of December 31, 2021. Finally, investors and shareholders can understand more about Starbucks’ capital structure, financial highlights, and intrinsic value, because this set of information is critical for existing investors and potential investors to make investment decisions

Road transportation is one of the main sources of air pollution in Macao. This study mainly explores four major roadside locations with high traffic flow in Macao from March to May 2022 and measures their pollutant concentrations (PM10 and PM2.5), traffic flow and their fuel type, as well as considering the meteorological parameters and pollutant concentration of SMG Macao to analyze the relationship between traffic flow and pollutants on roadside locations. Under the measuring distance between 3 and 6 meters, showing that the four locations had a good correlation with the roadside station data provided by SMG on both weekdays and weekends/holidays (PM2.5: R2 is 0.59 to 0.81 on weekdays and 0.79 to 0.88 on weekends/holidays, p<0.01; PM10: R2 is 0.33 to 0.82 on weekdays and 0.30 to 0.58 on weekends/holidays, p<0.05), the overall PM2.5 is 41 to 86% higher than that of the same period of Macao roadside station (SMG), and 68 to 186% higher than that of Taipa Ambient (SMG), indicating that it is more harmful to daily pedestrians. The overall relationship between PM concentration and traffic flow is small on the long-term scale (PM2.5: R2 is 0.01 to 0.13; PM10: R2 is 0.00 to 0.02). This study also analyzed air quality on EBL, the overall PM2.5 and PM10 decreased by 12.3% to 24.8% compared with non-EBL during the period, so that is indeed beneficial to the reduction of pollutant concentrations. In addition, narrower roads were overall higher when road widths added for comparison. Lastly, meteorological data added for comparison, except for relative humidity, it can be found that there is a significant correlation with long-term pollutants (p<0.05). While previous studies have found that single-day traffic flow is related to the increase in PM concentration, this paper is more inclined to their two-way effect when exploring their long-term relationship

Nowadays marketers and practitioners recognize the importance of social marketing as a strategy to acquire customers. Accordingly, the enterprises and brands are embracing the use of social network in communicating with potential consumers ad actual consumers, in order its performance so as to increase its sales. Among all those social media platforms, Instagram is one of the platforms which is image orientated and can easily connect with users and provide information with photos and images. As Macau is small‐sized city where there are abundant small to medium‐sized enterprises, the local small firms are switching their marketing strategies by utilizing the Instagram to promote their product online. In order to get a better grasp of how Instagram affects the promotion of the food and beverage product in Macau, the research question has been formulated: “To what extend can the local food sectors in Macau use Instagram as a marketing tool to engage purchasing intention and strengthen their brand equity? From the perspective of customers.” Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 13 participants who are the Instagram users, with diverse situations of engagement on Instagram. According to the interviews, participants expressed that how Instagram can associate effects with arousal and brand equity (brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty) and formation of purchase intention eventually through the Instagram marketing activities. The results showed that Instagram marketing activities strongly correlated the brand equity (brand awareness, brand image, and perceived quality while which in turn led to purchasing intention towards the brand. This research comprehensively illustrates the influences of Instagram marketing activities on customer‐based brand equity. The findings of this study will enable local food brands to more accurately forecast the future purchasing behaviors of their customers through Instagram marketing activities and provide a guide in managing brand equity as well

The phenomenon of burnout has been recognised as a worldwide occupational health issue after being vastly studied for decades. Trait Emotional Intelligence (trait EI) and resilience have been identified as personal protective factors (Gutierrez & Mullen, 2016; Listopad et al., 2021), while organisational socialisation is suggested to be an organisational factor in helping people in preventing burnout (Taormina & Law, 2000). With the purpose of 1) investigating the phenomenon in the counselling profession, as well as 2) exploring how trait EI and resilience are related to burnout and whether organisational socialisation might impose moderating effects in between, the present study examined 115 counselling professionals currently employed and working in organisational settings in Macau by snowball sampling, using a quantitative and cross-sectional approach through self-reported online questionnaires. From the data obtained, different burnout patterns were observed according to job titles and work settings, indicating that counselling professionals with different specialties and work in different settings have unique sources of stress, which resulting in differences in their burnout patterns. No between-group differences were observed in age and work experience, while male participants have a higher burnout perception than female participants in the current study. On the other hand, current results suggested trait EI and four components of resilience (determination, endurance, adaptability and recuperability) are negatively correlated to counselling professionals’ burnout perception, providing supportive evidence that trait EI and resilience are protective factors against burnout. Moderation analysis results revealed that organisational socialisation has some moderating effects on the relationship between trait EI, resilience and burnout. However, differences in direction and intensity indicated that the moderating effects of organisational socialisation might be influenced by individual differences. Further studies are needed to better the understanding of the moderating effect of organisational socialisation. Limitations of the current research and implications for counselling professionals and organisations were also discussed in the study

Oracle Corporation (hereinafter referred to as Oracle, ORCL, or ‘the Company’) is an American multinational company that provides solutions of products and services that serve the enterprises’ information technology (IT) environment. This thesis is to conduct a business analysis of the Company from a financial perspective, determining the Company’s intrinsic value as of May 31, 2021, and comparing it with the respective market value. Thus, this thesis will study, evaluate, and present an overview of the Company, an analysis of the Company’s market, industry, strategy, financial performance, including external and internal factors, a ten-year pro forma financial statement forecast, and the techniques of using the three discounted cash flow models to estimate the intrinsic value of Oracle. The obtained results from the three valuation models, including the Enterprise Discounted Cash Flow (EDCF) model, the Adjusted Present Value (APV) model, and the Discounted Economic Profit (DEP) model, show that the Company’s intrinsic values were estimated at $74.57, $75.21, and $74.82, respectively. When the results were used to compare with the market price of Oracle’s shares as of May 31, 2021, at $78.74, it reflects that the Company was overvalued

This study explored the effect of communication (i.e., among staff, and between staff and clients) and of cultural diversity on job satisfaction (i.e., intrinsic, extrinsic, and general) and perceived service quality of formal caregivers working in elderly services in Macao. We applied a quantitative methodology, based on a cross-sectional design using a self-response questionnaire to 162 staff in six elderly centres in Macao. Based on an extensive review of the literature, we proposed that: H1) cultural diversity is negatively related to (a) intrinsic job satisfaction, (b) extrinsic job satisfaction, (c) general job satisfaction, and (H5) negatively related to perceived competence and service quality; (H2) communication (a) among staff and (b) between staff and clients is positively related to intrinsic job satisfaction (H3) extrinsic job satisfaction, (H4) general job satisfaction, and (H6) perceived service quality; and finally that (H7) intrinsic, (H8) extrinsic, and (H9) general job satisfaction mediate the relationship between (a) cultural diversity, (b) communication among staff and (c) communication between staff and clients, and perceived service quality. We found that more communication among staff was related to higher intrinsic, extrinsic and general job satisfaction, and perceived competence and service quality. And intrinsic job satisfaction mediated the positive effect of communication among staff on perceived service quality. Opposite to predicted communication between staff and clients was related to lower levels of job satisfaction. And cultural diversity was positively related to satisfaction, as well as perceived competence and service quality. The theoretical and practical implications of findings, as well as limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed

" Air pollution in Macau has become a serious problem following the Pearl River Delta’s (PRD) rapid industrialization that began in the 1990s. While there has been continual improvement in recent years, harmful air pollutant concentration levels are still common, impacting Macau residents' health and creating long-term medical costs to local society. With this in mind, Macau needs an air quality forecast system that accurately predicts pollutant concentration and an early alert system instead of only daily real-time reminders. Some scholars have previously carried out studies to develop an air quality forecast for Macau by successfully using statistical models. Therefore, pursuant to the outcomes of previous studies, this dissertation aims to build upon research results and explore further possibilities of building a better ML air quality forecast model based on the time series of air pollutants concentration and meteorological data. Four different state-of-the-art ML algorithms were used to create predictive models to forecast PM2.5, PM10, and carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations for the next 24 and 48-hour. These were Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Random Forest (RF), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). In addition, Multiple Linear Regression MLR, a standard ML model, was used for this dissertation as a baseline reference for performance comparison. The daily measurements of air quality data in Macau from 2016 to 2021 were collected for this dissertation. The 2020 and 2021 datasets were used for model testing while the four-year data prior to 2020 and 2021 were used to build and train the ML models. The results showed that SVM, ANN, RF, and XGBoost were able to provide a very good performance in building up a 24-hour forecast with higher R2 and lower RMSE, MAE, and BIAS. Meanwhile, all ML models in 48-hour forecasting performance were satisfactory enough to be accepted as a two-day continuous forecast even if the R2 value was lower than the 24-hour forecast. The 48-hour forecasting model could be further improved by proper feature selection based on the 24-hour dataset, using the SHAP value test, and the adjusted R2 value of the 48-hour forecasting model."