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In southeast Asia, males of the Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens, have been selected across centuries for winning paired staged fights and previous work has shown that males from fighter strains are more aggressive than wild-types. This strong directional selection for winners is likely to have targeted aggression-related endocrine systems, and a comparison between fighter and wild-type strains can bring into evidence the key hormones implicated in aggression. Here, we compared the plasma levels of the androgen 11-ketotestosterone (KT) and of the corticosteroid cortisol (F) in F2 males of a fighter and a wild-type strain raised under similar laboratory conditions. We show that F was generally lower in fighter as compared with wild-type males, while no overall differences in KT levels were detected between strains. When presented with a mirror-induced aggressive challenge, post-fight levels of F increased but more significantly so in wild-type males, while KT increased in males of both strains. After the challenge, fighter males had higher levels of KT as compared with wild-type males, while the pattern for F was opposite. As compared with animals in social groups, wild-type males placed under social isolation had lower F levels, while KT decreased for fighters. Taken together, this data suggests that while wild-type males responded to aggression with an increase in circulating levels of both androgens and corticosteroids, males selected for winning fights maintained a blunt F response, increasing only KT levels. These data agree with the hypothesis that a combination of high levels of androgens and low levels of corticosteroids is associated with high aggression. Overall, these results seem to indicate that selection for winning had a stronger impact in the hypothalamus-pituitary-interrenal axis than in the hypothalamus-pituitary–gonadal axis in B. splendens.
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The geochemistry and mineralogy of sediments provide relevant information for the understanding of the origin and metallogenic mechanism of ferromanganese nodules and crusts. At present, there are still few studies on the sediment origin of the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ) of the east Pacific, particularly on the systematic origin of sediments with a longer history/length. Here, bulk sediment geochemistry and clay mineral compositions were analyzed on a 5.7 m gravity core (GC04) obtained at the CCZ, an area rich in polymetallic nodules. The results indicate that the average total content of rare earth elements (REE), including yttrium (REY), in sediments is 454.7 ppm and the REEs distribution patterns normalized by the North American Shale Composite of samples are highly consistent, with all showing negative Ce anomalies and more obvious enrichment in heavy REE (HREE) than that of light REE (LREE). Montmorillonite/illite ratio, discriminant functions and smear slide identification indicate multiple origins for the material, and are strongly influenced by contributions from marine biomass, while terrestrial materials, seamount basalts and their alteration products and authigenic source also make certain contributions. The REY characteristics of the sediments in the study area are different from those of marginal oceanic and back-arc basins, and more similar to pelagic deep-sea sediments. Based on LREE/HREE-1/δCe and LREE/HREE-Y/Ho diagrams, we conclude that samples from the study area had pelagic sedimentary properties which suffered from a strong “seawater effect”.
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In recent years, entrepreneurship and innovation have been highly propagandised for Macau's economic development, diversification, and the Greater Bay Area (GBA). Since 2013, efforts have been exerted by the Macau government to encourage and support entrepreneurship, from the launching of the Young Entrepreneurs' Aid Scheme in 2013 and the Macau Young Entrepreneur Incubation Centre in 2015. While the failure rate of startups has been considered high in most parts of the world, the rate was only as low as 14% in Macau, with many businesses created every year. This research aims to study the unique entrepreneurial environment for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) starting up in Macau from the experience of local entrepreneurs who are benefactors of government support. In-depth interviews were conducted to understand the experience and perceptions of these entrepreneurs as they go through each stage of the entrepreneurial process. Existing research on entrepreneurial processes varies from the two-stage process, which focuses on the beginning of an enterprise, to the different models of various stages from ideas generation to exit or long-term development. From the consolidation of the literature on the entrepreneurial process, five key stages were taken to guide this qualitative research. Findings suggested that idea validation at the start of the entrepreneurial process is almost non-existent amongst our research subjects. Yet it does not affect the implementation and growth of these SMEs. The growth strategies tend to be steady and for the long term, with most SMEs having no consideration of an exit plan.
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Macao is well known for its gaming industry. However, there are also many traditional small-to-medium enterprises which are family-owned and run. There is no doubt that social capital is one of the key competitive advantages that family businesses possess, particularly when it comes to Chinese businesses with strong family values that emphasize the importance of trustworthiness and guanxi (relationships). As opposed to other forms of capital, social capital cannot be passed from one generation to another through the will of the incumbents. So, how is social capital passed on in family businesses from one generation to the next? Based on an in-depth study of five cases of successful family businesses in Macao, this research identified the forms of social capital present in business families and the succession process of these firms. From the generalizations drawn from the five cases, a theoretical framework is proposed to understand the intergenerational transmission of social capital in Chinese family businesses
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Macao SAR, China is one of the more densely-populated territories in the world, and as such necessarily struggles with Soundscape quality. Nonetheless, the territory has already been identified as a unique location for to function as a Soundscape living lab (Cordeiro et al., 2014), since it has a very small manageable area that includes many types of geographical varieties, from extremely high density urban areas to natural environments with dense vegetation highland or varied water front typologies. In addition, Macao has extremely wide multicultural population with a broad range of subjects that have diverse cultural perceptions and thresholds in regards to sonic cognition. The potential impact of this diversity has already been noticed in both tourism (To & Chung, 2019) and research (Chung et al., 2016). The concept of Soundscape itself is garnering increased awareness as a viable alternative to assess the quality of the sonic environment, of use to policy management and legislation, shown not only by the increasing numbers of scientific articles on the subject (Moscoso et al., 2018), but also by recent international standardisation efforts in measuring it (ISO,2018). In this talk we shall give a preliminary description and illustration of the Soundscape in a territory that is rich in diversity and has huge potential for citizen participation. This includes approaches like noise mapping, sound mapping, Soundwalks, grounded theory efforts for detailed descriptions of the environment and use of alternative objective metrics. We will describe how to use the richness of this gathered data in developing artificial-intelligence algorithms to autonomously assess and predict the evaluation of a given Soundscape based on recordings alone. This goal will alleviate the intense human effort in subjective assessment, and may prove to be an effective and substantial diagnostics tool in planning the soundscape for prospective built environments, functioning not only as an analysis and diagnostics tool, but as a design strategy for a sustainable sonic future.
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(Un)Directed Reading is an interactive installation (Edmonds, 2010) initially derived from the “Directed Reading” course, which all undergraduate students at the University must take during their final year. In this course, students are assigned different writing exercises and research assignments to open their creative and constructive minds in writing (EdwardsGroves, 2012; McVey, 2008). Every year, at the end of the course and after a selection process, a collection of stories is uploaded to a database of original stories. We then developed an open-source application to print a receipt ticket from a thermal printer with a randomly picked story every time a user pushes a button. An arcade game-style button is installed on a kiosk designed in collaboration with students and set on the university's campus (left photo). The printed receipt presents a short extract of one of the stories and a QR code that links to the full story decorated with illustrations. In a modern society where most of our interactions are audiovisual-based, young generations are less and less encouraged to read and even less to write. By offering a simple kiosk installation with short stories and graphical illustrations, we propose a new interactive interface that can easily engage passers-by to eventually stimulate their reading and creativity. By reading these stories, students, professors, staff, and visitors can be surprised by the talent of our students, as it stimulates students to write new pieces to be selected. The interactive kiosk was accessible to all for a period of 3 months with 23 stories during which we automatically collected some data to use in quantitative analysis. In this first run, we focused on data from the user's interactions such as story printed, story read, date and time. It allowed us to see the ratio between the printed receipt and the actual online reading of a story and more.
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Macao inhabit a population of 683,100. The birth rate has been dropping while the death rate has risen compared to two years ago. Cemeteries are becoming crowded, and burial spots are demanding. In this case, video calls and social media can be the solution. How about our beloved ancestors? Can we video call them on their memorial days? This paper presents a VR experience of immersing oneself in the 3D VR of the Chapel of St. Michael of Macao to create a peaceful atmosphere for grave mourning. The chapel is also a personal space where we can be truly isolated in serenity. It is a retreat to pray, disconnect, and reconnect to the beloved deaths that may not be buried in an easily accessible location. The authors propose a possible future of mourning our loved ones through virtual reality and telepresence: an immersive experience connected with Macao's extraordinary and cultural unicity.
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It has been proven in numerous research that mindfulness can be helpful to reduce stress and chronic pain (Hall, 2014; Lindström, n.d.; Tong et al., 2015). While interactive mindfulness has been one of the focuses in the recent mobile applications market, usually tackling three essential human senses: audio, visual, and touch, each mobile application has quite some different approaches in terms of interactivity. Some focus on the touch and visual, and some on audio (environmental sounds or instructing meditation). Immersing oneself in virtual reality (VR) creates a constant stream of interactivity. Nonetheless, what are the conditions for an (in)tangible virtual reality to be more effective? Under the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown since the end of 2019, Macao has been facing a social concern that we cannot travel easily to visit our decedents’ graves abroad, let alone the existing concerns of expensive burial services, lack of space, and alternative burial options. Also, taking into consideration that standard funeral service in Macao is often too brief, and getting briefer, thus lacking the opportunity to properly farewell the decedent, this research is proposing a virtual reality 3D model construction of the Chapel of St. Michael, located in St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery in Macao, to be streamed on a 360 virtual tour platform, Kuula. co. By immersing in this virtual reality, the participant is to have a single user experience for mindfulness with the decedent. To ensure valid and reliable results that address the research aims and objectives, a single-user experiment is going to be set up with multiple electronic devices, namely, the smartphone iPhone X with cardboard VR, the tablet iPad Pro, and the Oculus Quest 2. The methodology to collect the data will be using observation and simulation. The experiment will be started with an introduction to the project and conducted with no instruction, allowing users to explore and examine all features in this immersive experience. Along with a post-experience survey (interview + questionnaire), we seek its conditions and impacts on Macao residents in terms of interactive mindfulness and participants’ expectation of testing, for the first time in Macao, a virtual reality grave mourning experience.
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