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" 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."

Even with more than 12 billion vaccine doses administered globally, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused several global economic, social, environmental, and healthcare impacts. Computer Aided Diagnostic (CAD) systems can serve as a complementary method to aid doctors in identifying regions of interest in images and help detect diseases. In addition, these systems can help doctors analyze the status of the disease and check for their progress or regression. To analyze the viability of using CNNs for differentiating Covid-19 CT positive images from Covid-19 CT negative images, we used a dataset collected by Union Hospital (HUST-UH) and Liyuan Hospital (HUST-LH) and made available at the Kaggle platform. The main objective of this chapter is to present results from applying two state-of-the-art CNNs on a Covid-19 CT Scan images database to evaluate the possibility of differentiating images with imaging features associated with Covid-19 pneumonia from images with imaging features irrelevant to Covid-19 pneumonia. Two pre-trained neural networks, ResNet50 and MobileNet, were fine-tuned for the datasets under analysis. Both CNNs obtained promising results, with the ResNet50 network achieving a Precision of 0.97, a Recall of 0.96, an F1-score of 0.96, and 39 false negatives. The MobileNet classifier obtained a Precision of 0.94, a Recall of 0.94, an F1-score of 0.94, and a total of 20 false negatives.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Despite the welcome optimism expressed at the government’s plans to resurrect Macau’s economy, its economic recovery will continue to suffer from having had the rug pulled from under its feet by the zero-Covid policy, however well intentioned.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Many employers in Macau expect their employees to have received higher education (HE). This returns to the endless question of what HE is for; is it for job knowledge and skills acquisition, attitude development, thinking abilities, creativity, problem solving, how to learn, or what? What and whose knowledge?

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Just when diversification is the name of the game in Macau, and with the manifold benefits of diversity that internationals can bring, how sensible is it to treat its international non-resident workers so poorly, and with lamentable transparency and accountability?

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Once upon a time there was a cockerel who succumbed to flattery when a wily fox told him that he had the most magnificent singing voice, especially when he sang with his eyes closed tightly.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Here we are, back in full-throttle summer tourism in tiny Macau, with visitors galore, lines of tourist coaches everywhere, and the casinos back on course to welcome gamblers. However, gambling reaches much wider than Macau’s casinos.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | As Macau strives to revive its post-pandemic economy and to reinject life into its ailing society, calls for investment in human capital resurface, alongside endless mantras of economic diversification which, for years, seem to have fallen on deaf ears, and together with plans for further infrastructure development and construction which have already turned Macau into a concrete jungle.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Macau wisely looks to mainland China, South-East Asia, and Portuguese-speaking countries, as part of its economic diversification. However, to be a player on the international stage and world-wide market, it must look wider, and, hence, the standard of English in Macau must improve dramatically and urgently.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Macau Business | December 2023 Keith Morrison – Author and educationist

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | The recent euphoria over Macau’s economic resurrection should not mask the long-standing challenges facing its society and values. Sunshine creates shadows in which can lurk a range of pathologies.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | As Macau rebuilds its post-pandemic economy, one could be forgiven for believing that the good life for all has arrived, as evidenced in the manifest opulence on display in its up-market shopping malls. However, this is not the case; social justice needs attention in Macau.

Macau, Macau Business, MAG, MB, MB Featured, Opinion | Macau’s development of international and tertiary sector industries is the watchword for its long-overdue diversification. Is Macau ready for this?