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Virtual reality, a computer-generated 3D environment, allows one to navigate and possibly interact, resulting in real-time simulation of one or more of the user’s five senses (Gutierrez et al., 2008; Vince, 2004). Virtual tours and places have swiftly become popular in education, professional training, arts, exhibitions, and medication and rehabilitation. The empirical studies derived from the PhD thesis research aim to identify the conditions for Macao’s single-user experience to achieve mindfulness in virtual reality through immersion and interactivity.

The purpose of this study is to examine work engagement and mental well-being in Macau, specifically after more than three years of COVID. Examine whether external factors such as emotional support from supervisors, co-workers, and family members have a positive impact on work engagement and mental well-being, and whether the internal factor self-reflection with its three aspects of need for self-reflection, engagement in self-reflection, and insight from self-reflection moderates the relationship between emotional support, work engagement, and mental well-being. The target audience consists of Macau's integrated resort, hospitality, and gaming industry employees. According to the Affective Event Theory (AET), affective events at work generate emotional responses that influence the attitudes and behavior of employees in the workplace. In this study, this theoretical framework was used to clarify the interplay of variables that explain emotional support from supervisors, co-workers, and family members, work engagement, and mental well-being. An online self-response survey (N=325) was used to conduct quantitative and cross-sectional research. There was also a combination of simple random sampling, convenience sampling, and referral sampling. All variables were found to be correlated, and while perceived supervisor support was a significant predictor of all aspects of work engagement and mental well-being, family and co-worker support only predicted certain aspects of these variables. Self-reflection partially moderated the positive effects of certain emotional support on work engagement and mental well-being

Social workers’ work engagement and burnout were tested in relation to (a) personal variable, i.e., emotional intelligence; (b) organizational variables, i.e., work satisfaction and affective commitment. Regressions revealed emotional intelligence - controlling self – negatively predicted depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment and positively predicted three facets of work engagement. Emotional intelligence - understanding others – was a negative predictor of reduced personal accomplishment. In addition, work satisfaction negatively predicted three components of burnout and positively predicted emotional work engagement. Affective commitment was a positive predictor of three facets of work engagement and negatively predicted reduced personal accomplishment. Implications for management are discussed.

<jats:p>Detecting emotions is a growing field aiming to comprehend and interpret human emotions from various data sources, including text, voice, and physiological signals. Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a unique and promising approach among these sources. EEG is a non-invasive monitoring technique that records the brain’s electrical activity through electrodes placed on the scalp’s surface. It is used in clinical and research contexts to explore how the human brain responds to emotions and cognitive stimuli. Recently, its use has gained interest in real-time emotion detection, offering a direct approach independent of facial expressions or voice. This is particularly useful in resource-limited scenarios, such as brain–computer interfaces supporting mental health. The objective of this work is to evaluate the classification of emotions (positive, negative, and neutral) in EEG signals using machine learning and deep learning, focusing on Graph Convolutional Neural Networks (GCNN), based on the analysis of critical attributes of the EEG signal (Differential Entropy (DE), Power Spectral Density (PSD), Differential Asymmetry (DASM), Rational Asymmetry (RASM), Asymmetry (ASM), Differential Causality (DCAU)). The electroencephalography dataset used in the research was the public SEED dataset (SJTU Emotion EEG Dataset), obtained through auditory and visual stimuli in segments from Chinese emotional movies. The experiment employed to evaluate the model results was “subject-dependent”. In this method, the Deep Neural Network (DNN) achieved an accuracy of 86.08%, surpassing SVM, albeit with significant processing time due to the optimization characteristics inherent to the algorithm. The GCNN algorithm achieved an average accuracy of 89.97% in the subject-dependent experiment. This work contributes to emotion detection in EEG, emphasizing the effectiveness of different models and underscoring the importance of selecting appropriate features and the ethical use of these technologies in practical applications. The GCNN emerges as the most promising methodology for future research.</jats:p>

Macau is often affected by typhoons and rainstorms, especially during summer and autumn, there are also an increasing number of natural disasters due to the current climate change. On top of that, in 2017, tremendous devastation was caused by Typhoon Hato. However, there is only limited research on the psychological impact of natural disasters on Macau residents. This study aims to develop culturally appropriate psychometric instruments to assess fears and emergency reaction in children and adolescents from Macau. By applying this instruments to Macau children and adolescents, the study aims to assess the level of preparedness of children and adolescents in emergencies, fill the research gap, and contribute to future development of courses and training programmes to prepare them for future natural disasters. Specifically, this study aims to adopt the Emergency Reaction Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA) and the Short Form of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (FSSC-R-SF) and to examine their psychometric properties with a sample of children and adolescents in Macau. Firstly, the ERQ-CA and FSSC-R-SF were translated into Chinese, and 6 children aged 8-9 were invited to take the Think-Aloud-Protocols (TAP). The content of the questionnaires was suitable for children and adolescents. Secondly, the ERQ-CA and FSSC-R-SF were administered to 262 children and adolescents aged 9-15 who were studying in non-higher education institutions in Macau. The questionnaires were analysed for their reliability and validity. With some adjustments, the two Macau versions of the instruments showed satisfactory psychometric properties regarding construct validity, reliability, and convergent validity. Recommendations for the practical use of the ERQ-CA and the FSSC-R-SF in Macau and future directions are presented

When the City of the Name of God of Macao marked 400 years of Portuguese administration in 1956, the Catholic community’s participation was marked by a wide range of activities that included liturgical celebrations, public processions and other devotions that involved large numbers of the lay faithful, members of confraternities, in addition to the clergy and religious of the enclave. Twenty-one years later the Diocese of Macao celebrated its own quatercentenary with celebrations of a decidedly more sober character and at the retrocession of Macao to Chinese control in December 1999, other than a few liturgical events and hierarchical presence at civic ceremonies, the Church was all but invisible. As the Diocese of Macao plans for its 450th anniversary, some of the former richness has begun to return. This paper outlines the long ebb tide and now-nascent flow of the tide of Catholic public piety in Macao over this period by reference to the Catholic religious processions of the City and seeks to offer tentative explanations grounded in the theological, ecclesial, political and cultural winds that have blown across the Pearl River Delta since the end of the Second World War.

The main focus of this thesis was to characterize the patient information leaftlets as a text genre in Portugal, compare it with the same text genre in other countries and propose a new form of elaborating these documents in order to rise its comprehensibility levels. Therefore, we proceeded with an analysis of the patient information leaflet as a text genre and its relationship with text linguistics and translation. We also analyzed a corpus of 50 patient information leaflets with focus not only on its content, but also in the way they were created. In order to know the opinion of the general public, a survey about the situation of these documents in Portugal was distributed. In order to find the differences between these documents in different contexts, we made a comparison of a portuguese leaflet with leaflets from other countries. By last, we proposed a new writing scheme for these documents, reformulating one of the leaflets analyzed in the corpus and, to get the opinion of the general public, distributing a survey where the reformulated version was compared to the original one. The results point out to a lack of uniformity between documents and the way that they are created in pharmaceutical companies. The content of the patient informations leaflets in Portugal has an excess of text, technical language and a visual organization that is not appealing, problems that were also pointed out by the public in a survey. In the comparison between leaflets of different countries, big differences were found even when they were produced by the same company. When confronted with the original version and the reformulated version of the same document, the general public prefered the latter.

Introduction This study aimed to investigate elite athletes’ mental well-being, and to ascertain whether the personal factor resilience and the social factor social support can play a role in promoting mental well-being and life satisfaction. In addition, this is one of the first studies to investigate well-being among elite athletes who are from a region belonging to an unrecognised National Olympic Committee and are not eligible to join the Olympic Games. Material and methods Eighty-four full-time elite athletes (37 males, 47 females) with mean age of 22.36 years old participated in this quantitative research study. Formal letters describing the purpose and organiser of the study were sent to the sport entities in Macao asking their permission for the researchers to contact the elite athletes to participate in this study. After gaining the permission, the elite athletes belonging to these entities were approached individually, to inform them of the purpose of the study and receive their consent. Results Regression revealed that emotional support and adaptability of resilience were strong positive predictors of mental well-being. Additionally, mental well-being was found to be a strong positive predictor of life satisfaction. The results reflected that in elite athletes possessing high adaptability and receiving more emotional support could help to maintain their mental well-being. Conclusions Implications (based on the findings) are discussed in order to provide insights for policy makers or coaches how to promote elite athletes’ mental well-being.

Parental nutrient reserves are directly related to reproductive performance in sea cucumbers. This study focused on the lipid requirements of male and female sea cucumbers Apostichopus japonicus during the reproductive stage and analyzed their physiological responses to a high-fat diet (HFD). The intestinal lipid metabolites and microbiome profile changed significantly in animals fed with the HFD, as given by an upregulation of metabolites related to lipid metabolism and an increase in the predominance of Proteobacteria in the microbiome, respectively. The metabolic responses of male and female sea cucumbers to the HFD differed, which in turn could have triggered sex-related differences in the intestinal microbiome. These results suggest that the lipid content in diets can be differentially adjusted for male and female sea cucumbers to improve nutrition and promote reproduction. This data contributes to a better understanding of the reproductive biology and sex differences of sea cucumbers.

The adoption of project management techniques is a crucial decision for corporate governance in construction companies since the management of areas such as risk, cost, and communications is essential for the success or failure of an endeavor. Nevertheless, different frameworks based on traditional or agile methodologies are available with several approaches, which may create several ways to manage projects. The primary purpose of this work is to investigate the adequate project management methodology for the construction industry from a general perspective and consider a case study from Macau. The methodology considered semi-structured interviews and a survey comparing international and local project managers from the construction industry. The interviews indicate that most construction project managers still follow empirical methods with no specific methodology but consider the adoption of traditional waterfall approaches. In contrast, according to the survey, most project managers and construction managers agree that the project's efficacy needs to increase, namely in planning, waste minimization, communication increase, and focus on the Client's feedback. In addition, there seems to be a clear indication that agile methodology could be implemented in several types of projects, including hospitality development projects. A hybrid development approach based on the Waterfall and Agile methodologies as a tool for the project management area may provide a more suitable methodology for project managers to follow.

This research paper analyses the marketing efforts and important attributes of Macau tea restaurants that have been open for more than 20 years, especially the digital methods that tea restaurants have used to sustain their business and meet customers' needs in the era of digital transition after the onset of the 2019 Covid 19 pandemic year. Using online marketing channels nowadays become an important tool for communicating with customers today. Despite the old Tea Restaurants in Macau did not put much efforts on digital channels for communication yet, to find out how tea restaurants survive in the rival restaurant industry in Macau, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to see how they meet the needs of their customers. For the quantitative method, an online survey questionnaire in bilingual English and Traditional Chinese was conducted with 280 respondents on customer purchase habits, importance of restaurants’ attributes and social media insights on tea restaurants, and the data was analysis by SPSS for the relationship and significance. For the qualitative method, 7 interviews were conducted with the business owners of the old tea restaurants which that have been opened for more than 20 years, including marketing efforts and their attitudes towards digitalization. To find out the marketing strategy of Macau’s old tea restaurants in the digital transformation era, it was found that “place” and “product” are the most important marketing mix for customers. Tea restaurant owners focus on product quality, and generate “word-of-mouth” which is customer-generated marketing, and is an effective way to influence customers for local tea restaurants. Meanwhile business owners will consider digitalize in the near future as well to match the new young customers’ online habits and the need for “place” such as online delivery platform

With the comprehensive opening of the global economy, the intensification of market competition and the increasingly prominent value of human resources, all trades and professions are facing unprecedented challenges. In order to remain competitive in the market, human resource management plays an increasingly important role. As an important part of human resource management, enterprise performance management can be used as a key tool to drive the release of employees' potential, which has attracted more and more attention from enterprises. More and more performance management-related systems have been introduced into enterprises. However, in the system introduction and implementation process, there are different degrees of problems, such as ""mechanically copied"" and ""process"". Therefore, according to the specific situation of different enterprises, it is necessary to formulate the corresponding performance management system to maximize the role of motivating employees. This paper explores enterprise performance management's influence on the employee incentive effect. The implementation of enterprise performance management and its influence on employee incentive are analyzed through the literature review, case analysis and empirical analysis. Research has found that effective enterprise performance management can significantly improve the work enthusiasm and satisfaction of employees, thus enhancing the overall performance of enterprises and promoting all-round development. At the same time, this paper also discusses the key factors affecting the incentive effect of enterprise performance management, and puts forward the corresponding optimization suggestions

What strategies did educators use to cultivate a sense of belonging, self-competence, and agency among students with Special Educational Needs (SEN)? Did educators face any challenges in implementing these strategies? Were the findings of this study specific to the inclusive school in Macau, or can they be generalised to other educational settings? This study brings to light educators' inner perspective of students' sense of belonging, self-competence, and agency. Specifically, it aims to uncover the academic and emotional needs of students with SEN and the importance that these may have in promoting a positive educational experience. By gathering the perspectives of educators in an inclusive school in Macau who work side-by-side with these students daily, we can understand how essential these elements are in contributing to their overall development. The purposive sampling approach was used in this study to further investigate various experiences and perspectives of educators within an inclusive classroom setting. The educators interviewed provided insight into an inclusive classroom with students with SEN in full-time attendance. The educators sampled in this study facilitated the search for strategies, challenges and support systems to cultivate a sense of belonging, self-competence and agency, among students with SEN. Findings showed educators' understanding of the importance of students with SEN's sense of belonging, self-competence and agency. The educators' awareness of their students' interactions with peers, and the educators themselves, was prominent, revealing how the sense of belonging for students with SEN affected these relationships. Regarding students' sense of self-competence, according to educators, students with SEN had opportunities to showcase their confidence in specific classroom areas and to exercise independence in the classroom, within the set curriculum and lesson plans. In the findings, educators illuminated the importance of agency in students with SEN. However, they were apprehensive about changes in lesson plans, cultivating a fully independent classroom setting and providing choices to students with and without SEN. The study's implications highlight the educational practices and policies that effectively supplement students with SEN's academic and social environments. The findings of this study aim to guide curriculum developers, educators and parental figures in fostering positive learning experiences for students with diverse learning needs

In the past decades, the field of cinema has undergone several transformations. The digital turn increasingly called for new forms of production, distribution, and exhibition, which imply different ways of thinking, doing, and experimenting cinema. These new forms also reduced the gap between cinema to other so-called visual arts. If cinema and visual arts were already in the process of merging, the last years forced the naturalization of thinking in similar theoretical grounds. This special issue aims to be a forum for the discussion of new practices of researching cinema, and the changes in cinema’s forms of experience and production.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) was first conceptualized in 2016, which aimed to facilitate trade and finance liberalization among the three regions. The trade and financial environment of the GBA is unique. Due to the “one country, two systems” principle, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are considered to be trading partners bounded by WTO rule, but bilateral free trade agreements have been signed between Mainland China and Hong Kong, and between Mainland China and Macau, but not between Hong Kong and Macau. Furthermore, each of the three regions circulates a local currency subject to its own exchange rate policy, with Hong Kong Dollar and Macau Pataca currently pegged to the US Dollar. These affect the mobility of trade and capital flows in the area. Hence, this paper applies the widely-used price-based approach due to Cheung et al. [5] to analyze the degrees of real and financial integration in the GBA based on interest rates, exchange rates, and price indexes data from January, 2016 to November, 2021. The real interest differential (RID), uncovered interest differential (UID) and the deviation from purchasing power parity (PPD) between each regional pair have means that are statistically and economically close to zero, implying high real and financial integration in the GBA. The unit root tests for stationarity also confirm that the time series are mean-reverting, so the economic integration in the GBA in the long run is foreseeable.

Since early times, the effects of a booming sector in other sectors of a small economy have been of interest to scholars. There is a general perception that the booming Gaming sector has contributed to the overall growth in Macau through the trickle-down effect, passing on the benefits of growth to other sectors. After the liberalization of the gaming industry in 2002, this booming sector experienced several years of exponential growth, becoming the driving industry for Macao’s economy. Several scholars and researchers have dedicated their studies to the effects of the casino gaming industry as a booming sector in such a small economy. However, there is a gap in what concerns measuring the influence of the Gaming sector as a driving industry for several other sectors or following industries of Macau’s economy. The purpose of this research study is to investigate in what measure the Gaming sector in Macao leveraged the other economic sectors and how related or correlated are the different industries of Macao’s Economy. A protocol-driven understanding of the state of the art on the interrelations between economic sectors and different techniques used to study those inter-relations was conducted through a systematic literature review. Given the limited available data on the Gross Value Added (GVA), or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the supply side, as a central measure of economic activity in the different sectors, several possible interpolation models using auxiliary high-frequency data (indicators) were compared, to achieve the optimal model for interpolation of each variable. Several forecasts for the future performance of Macau's four major economic sectors were presented based on different regression techniques. Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models were developed to assess the dependence of the future performance of a sector’s GVA on its past performance. Optimal Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models were created to identify the explanatory power of some sectors of Macau’s economy in others. Based on available auxiliary data in high-frequency (quarterly) it was possible to interpolate the quarterly GVA per economic sector, available only in low-frequency (annually), for the major sectors of Macao’s economy. Some sectors have a considerable explanatory power on the performance of other sectors, however, the proposed regression models did not identify a clear relation between the performance of the Gaming sector and the performance of other major sectors from Macao’s economy

<jats:p>Worldwide, cardiovascular diseases are some of the primary causes of death; yet the early detection and diagnosis of such diseases have the potential to save many lives. Technological means of detection are becoming increasingly essential and numerous techniques have been created for this purpose, such as forecasting. Of these techniques, the time series forecasting technique seeks to predict future events. The long-term time series forecasting of physiological data could assist medical professionals in predicting and treating patients based on very early diagnosis. This article presents a model that utilizes a deep learning technique to predict long-term ECG signals. The forecasting model can learn signals’ nonlinearity, nonstationarity, and complexity based on a long short-term memory architecture. However, this is not a trivial task as the correct forecasting of a signal that closely resembles the original complex signal’s structure and behavior while minimizing any differences in amplitude continues to pose challenges. To achieve this goal, we used a dataset available on the Physio net database, called MIT-BIH, with 48 ECG recordings of 30 min each. The developed model starts with pre-processing to reduce interference in the original signals, then applies a deep learning algorithm, based on a long short-term memory (LTSM) neural network with two hidden layers. Next, we applied the root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) metrics to evaluate the performance of the model and obtained an average RMSE of 0.0070±0.0028 and an average MAE of 0.0522±0.0098 across all simulations. The results indicate that the proposed LSTM model is a promising technique for ECG forecasting, considering the trends of the changes in the original data series, most notably in R-peak amplitude. Given the model’s accuracy and the features of the physiological signals, the system could be used to improve existing predictive healthcare systems for cardiovascular monitoring.</jats:p>