A detailed rock density model of the Hong Kong territories

We used the geological map and published rock density measurements to compile the digital rock density model for the Hong Kong territories.We then estimated the average density for the whole territory.According to our result,the rock density values in Hong Kong vary from 2101 to 2681 kg·m^(-3).These density values are typically smaller than the average density of 2670 kg·m^(-3),often adopted to represent the average density of the upper continental crust in physical geodesy and gravimetric geophysics applications.This finding reflects that the geological configuration in Hong Kong is mainly formed by light volcanic formations and lava flows with overlying sedimentary deposits at many locations,while the percentage of heavier metamorphic rocks is very low(less than 1%).This product will improve the accuracy of a detailed geoid model and orthometric heights.

Recent geomagnetic storms observed by Macao Science Satellite-1

Geomagnetic storms are rapid disturbances of the Earth’s magnetosphere.They are related to many geophysical phenomena and have large influences on human activities.Observing and studying geomagnetic storms is thus of great significance to both scientific research and geomagnetic hazards prevention.The Macao Science Satellite-1(MSS-1)project includes two high-precision Chinese geomagnetic satellites successfully launched on May 21,2023.The main purpose of MSS-1 is to accurately measure the Earth’s magnetic field.Here,we analyze early MSS-1 geomagnetic field measurements and report observations of two recent geomagnetic storms that occurred on March 24,2024 and May 11,2024.We also calculate the related geoelectric fields as an initial step towards a quantitative assessment of geomagnetic hazards.

A Comparative Study of the L2 Pragmatic Competence of University Students in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland:The Contributions of Sociocultural Context and Linguistic Proficiency

This study investigates the differences in pragmatic competence between Hong Kong and Chinese mainland university students.Participants included 19 native speakers of English,115 Chinese mainland students,divided into those who had spent time abroad in an English-speaking country(CM A)and those who had not(CM NA),and 97 Hong Kong students,divided into those from an English-medium secondary school(Hong Kong EMI)and those from a Chinese-medium school(Hong Kong CMI).Linguistic proficiency was measured by a C-test,and pragmatic competence by a Metapragmatic Knowledge Test,an Irony Test and a Monologic Role Play.Group scores were compared using ANCOVAs to control for differences in proficiency.The results point to a continuum of pragmatic competence—EMI>CMI>CM A>CM NA—reflecting the groups’access to English in real-life contexts.The differences between the Hong Kong groups and the Chinese mainland groups were clearest in those tests measuring processing capacity(i.e.,Irony Response Time and the Monologic Role Play).CM A,but not CM NA,performed as well as the Hong Kong groups on measures of metapragmatic awareness.The results are discussed in terms of Bialystok’s(1993)distinction between analyzed representation and control of processing.

Using Five Music Instructional Methods to Illustrate the Social Constructive Music Teaching Framework in Hong Kong Primary Level Music Education

Music education under the frame name of arts education has been integrated into the primary and secondary education curriculums in Hong Kong for more than 20 years,starting from 2001,the year of launching the Learning to Learn curriculum for the reconstruction of the education system for the younger generation.Music education,embedded into the arts education,was therefore regarded as one of the key subjects to cultivate and uplift student holistic development,focusing on aesthetic skill training and moral growth development.This research was an exploration study of music teaching practices from two private international and two general public school music teachers at the primary school level.The value of this study rested on borrowing the idea of Shulman’s pedagogical content knowledge(PCK)principle to create a social constructivist music teaching framework from five commonly-used instructional methods,namely,Orff,Kodaly,Dalcrozes,Suzuki,and Gordon’s approaches.Based on the evaluations of these four case studies,hypotheses on the differences in the PCK were tested with the types of schools and found to be no difference.The preliminary results suggested that music teachers in private international schools had similar pedagogical approaches to music instruction to teachers in aided-public schools.Additionally,the modeling,guiding,and training approach was identified as a grounded teaching method for music education at the primary school level regardless of different types of schools.Other implications like the further development of the framework were discussed.

Development of International Education Industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Building the Greater Bay Area city cluster is a crucial national development strategy for China.As a vital hub of the Belt and Road Initiative,the Greater Bay Area cannot cultivate into an“international first-class bay area and world-class city cluster”without technological innovation and rapid economic progress,and technological innovation and economic development cannot be attained without the training of high-end talents through international education.Thus,the development of an international education demonstration zone is essential in the formation and development of the Greater Bay Area and making it a highland for education and talent,as well as giving full play to the social function of education.As the core of the accumulation of educational resources in Guangdong,Hong Kong,and Macao,the current situation,future opportunities,and development path of international education development in the Greater Bay Area while building a world-class international education center have become the starting point of this study.

Transport Accessibility and Spatial Connections of Cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Based on geographic information system(GIS) spatial analysis technology, the spatial pattern of raster grid transport accessibility for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay area was studied and the states of spatial connectedness were simulated using highway passenger transport, railway passenger transport, port passenger transport and aviation passenger transport data. The result shows that transport accessibility within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay area costs ‘one hour’ and the spatial distribution of accessibility in the area presents clear ‘core-periphery’ spatial characteristics, with Guangzhou, Foshan, Shenzhen constituting the core. The transport accessibility of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao is high. Average accessibility of urban nodes as measured by travel time is 0.99 h, and the areas accessible within 1.42 h occupy 79.14% of the total area. Most of the areas with the lowest accessibility are found in the peripheral area, with the worst accessibility being 4.73 h. Compared with the west-side cities, the economically developed east-side cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay area have higher connectivity with roads, railways, ports, and aviation transport. Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao are closely linked. The higher the accessibility, the closer the intercity connectedness.

Particle Swarm-Based Translation Control for Immersed Tunnel Element in the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge Project

Immersed tunnel is an important part of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge(HZMB) project. In immersed tunnel floating, translation which includes straight and transverse movements is the main working mode. To decide the magnitude and direction of the towing force for each tug, a particle swarm-based translation control method is presented for non-power immersed tunnel element. A sort of linear weighted logarithmic function is exploited to avoid weak subgoals. In simulation, the particle swarm-based control method is evaluated and compared with traditional empirical method in the case of the HZMB project. Simulation results show that the presented method delivers performance improvement in terms of the enhanced surplus towing force.

URBAN TOURISM RESEARCH METHODOLOGY——A Case Study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Area

This paper tries to apply a new and more comprehensive method to urban tourism research in an expanded field instead of only partially, unilaterally and separately focusing on the city itself. Taking the urban tourism of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao as an example, it aims at presenting a new spatial system of urban tourism research and pointing out the new orientation of urban tourism research in combination of macro level and micro level, from description to explanation. The meanings of the spatial framework construction for urban tourism study are to make clear how urban tourism studies vary with the changes of dimensions of time and space. This is a meaningful discussion because it will bring great changes to the using of literatures, the opening of research perspectives on urban tourism and the upgrading of theories, so as to create a new stage for urban tourism study.

LOCATIONAL DISTRIBUTION AND SPATIAL DIFFUSION OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS FROM HONGKONG AND MACAO IN MAINLAND OF CHINA

Foreign direct investments (or FDIs) have been employed since the early 1980s and they have become more and more immportant in Chinese economic development. However, the roles of FDIs are very different between regions, partly due to the different locational preference of various source countries. Some facts show that FDIs from Hongkong - Macao indicate a strong locational preference. Therefore, this paper attempts to make an empirical research on the locational preference of Hongkong - Macao’s FDIs and their spatial diffusion under the support of statistical data with regrereion analysis. In this paper, three statistical models, including the special location model, the general location model and the spatial diffusion model, are created. The results show that this kind of analysis is successful. The major conclusions are as follows. (1) The optimum location for FDIs from Hongkong - Macao lies in the coastal area, especially Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian provinces. Besides, Hubei Province is also an important radon. (2) The FDIs from HongkongMacao in China have diffused gradually from the coastal provinces to the inland regions, the northem and the metropolis and from the locations that had attracted a large number of investments to their vicinities since the 1990s. (3) The special location factors, such as the herder effect, the unique social and kinship ties are the key factors determining the special locational distribution. (4) The general location and spatial diffusion of Hongkong - Macao’s FDIs are the results of interplay of several economic factors. They are the economic scale and advantage, the growth rate, the laier force and economic extrovert etc.

Toward a more open and collaborative climate change policy framework in Hong Kong and Macao within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

The special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao enjoy a high degree of autonomy from the national policy system in devising their local policies,including measures related to climate change.Hong Kong and Macao each have their own climate change policies,some aspects of which are more advanced than policies in China's Mainland.While their high degree of policy autonomy has advantages,this has also isolated them from China's larger environmental management and practices that continue to advance at scale.This paper reviews the climate change policies of the two special administrative regions and analyzes their strengths and innovations,particularly in adaptation.It also identifies areas where there could be closer engagement,collaboration,and capacity-building with the China's Mainland,which has the potential for greater positive impacts,especially on a regional basis.

Hazardous Waste Management in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

1.Introduction Coordinated regional development is one of the national strategies in the new era[1].The fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC)proposed to“promote coordinated regional development,”“persist in implementing a coordinated regional development strategy,”and“improve the coordinated regional development system and mechanism”[2].

More Travel Services are Franchised to Hong Kong and Macao Tourism in 2002

In order to provide more convenient conditions for citizens on the mainland of China to travel to the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, the relevant department of the State Council, after consultations with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, has decided to grant franchise to 67 more

Preface to the Special Issue on the Macao Science Satellite-1 Mission

The Macao Science Satellite-1(MSS-1)mission(https://mss.must.edu.mo/)is marked by a new high-precision constellation of satellites that will survey the Earth’s geomagnetic and space environment.MSS-1 consists of two satellites that are to be launched in the near future.Since these two low Earth orbit(LEO)satellites will operate in circular orbits,with an inclination of about 41°,they are expected to provide essential measurements covering the Earth’s lower-latitude regions—including,especially,the South Atlantic Anomaly(SAA).This special issue presents 18 articles to provide the international scientific community with details regarding the mission’s goals,relevant scientific research,on-board payloads,and international collaborations.Contributors are members of the scientific and engineering groups involved in the mission.In this preface,we categorize the articles and give some brief comments or editor’s recommendations.

Study on the estimation of Euler angles for Macao Science Satellite-1

The Euler angle estimation is a calibration method for vector data measured by the magnetometer on a satellite.It is used to find the relative rotation between the coordinate system of the magnetometer and the satellite(usually determined by Star Imagers).Before launch of the low-orbit,low-inclination Macao Science Satellite-1(known as MSS-1),we simulated the estimation of Euler angles by using the magnetic measurements of the in-orbit Swarm and China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite(noted as CSES),with various data combinations.In this study,11 data sets were designed to analyze the estimation results for the MSS-1 orbit by using a joint estimation method of the geomagnetic field model parameters and Euler angles.For the model results,we found that all the spatial power spectral lines showed behavior consistent with that of the CHAOS-7.8 model at low degrees(corresponding to large-scale magnetic signals).The spectra of models without global data coverage deviated much more(by a maximum of~10^(4) nT^(2))from those of the CHAOS-7.8 model at higher degrees.For models with global data coverage and with various data combinations,the spectral lines were distributed similarly.Moreover,the models with accordant power spectral distributions demonstrated different Euler angle estimations.As more vector data at higher latitudes were included,the estimated Euler angles varied monotonically in all three directions.The models with vector data in the same latitude range showed similar Euler angle results,regardless of whether the poleward scalar data were included.The largest value difference was found between the models using vector data within±40°latitudes and those using vector data within±60°latitudes,which reached to~28″.Therefore,we concluded that the inversion of the spherical harmonic Gauss coefficients in our tests was mainly affected by the spatial coverage range of the data,whereas the estimation of Euler angles largely depended on the latitude range where the vector data could be obtained.These results can be used for future in-flight data testing.We expect the estimation of Euler angles to improve as other methods are adopted.

Design of the solar X-ray detector for the Macao Science Satellite-1B

The solar X-ray detector(SXD)onboard the Macao Science Satellite-1B was designed to monitor solar flare bursts and to study the solar activity in the 25th solar cycle.The SXD includes two parts:a soft X-ray detection unit and a hard X-ray detection unit.Both the soft X-ray detection unit and the hard X-ray detection unit include two collimators,two X-ray detectors(a silicon drift detector and a cadmium-zinc-telluride detector),and a processing circuit.Compared with similar instruments,the energy range of the SXD is wider(1–600 ke V)and the energy resolution is better(150 e V at 5.9 ke V,12%at 59.5 ke V,and 3%at 662 keV).

Design and analysis of the Macao Science Satellite-1's laser retro-reflector array

The origin and spatial-temporal variation of the Earth’s magnetic field(EMF)is one of the important scientific problems that has long been unsolved.The Macao Science Satellite-1(MSS-1)under construction is China’s first high-precision EMF measurement satellite.To satisfy the highly precise requirements of the MSS-1 orbit measurement,a light,high-precision,four-prism laser retroreflector array was designed.It weighs approximately 285 g,its effective reflection area is greater than 1.77 cm^(2),and its size is 100×100×41 mm.The laser retro-reflector array has excellent performance,and it can achieve a ranging precision at the subcentimeter level for satellite laser ranging.It will be developed and installed on the MSS-1 as a power-free load for high-precision orbit measurement and accurate orbit calibration.The MSS-1 is planned to be brought into the International Laser Ranging Service observations.More than 31satellite laser ranging stations in the International Laser Ranging Service around the world will be able to measure the MSS-1 with long arcs,which will support the scientific mission of high-precision EMF exploration.