News

Dr Ray Yang awarded NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund 2020

We are pleased to announce that Dr Ray Yang has secured a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Excellent Young Scientists Fund 2020 for his research project titled “Battery-free Internet of Things”. As the fundamental infrastructure, the Internet of Things (IoT) has developed rapidly in recent years. However, the existing Internet of Things is powered by batteries. Once the nodes run out of power, the whole network is broken down. This project proposes an efficient and battery-free IoT, which can harvest energy from ubiquitous electromagnetic waves for wireless transmission and sensing. Dr Yang joined COMP in 2016 and he is currently an Assistant Professor. Dr Yang focuses on the research areas of IoT, Wireless and Backscatter Communication, Mobile Computing, and AI-enabled Wireless Sensing. He has published over 50 research papers and received the Best Paper Award in several international conferences, including IEEE SECON, ACM MobiCom and ACM MobiHoc. The NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Fund supports young scholars with good achievements to conduct innovative research in the areas of their own choice. It aims at promoting fast growth of creative young talents and fostering a number of outstanding researchers on the frontiers of international science. Media interview: http://m.news.cctv.com/2020/09/24/ARTIlMzMIeqj8DXBVB43mYJ6200924.shtml

COMP PhD students won in the first "Malan Mountain Cup" International Audio & Video Algorithm Competition

Organised by the CPC Hunan Provincial Committee Cyberspace Administration, Hunan Association for Science and Technology, China (Changsha) Malan Mountain Video Cultural and Creative Industrial Park, and Mango TV, the first "Malan Mountain Cup" International Audio & Video Algorithm Competition was successfully concluded on 15 June 2020. It attracted nearly 1300 teams from over 20 countries and regions including China, USA, UK and Australia, to compete on the AI algorithm technologies in 30 days. We are delighted to announce that “ManGoGoGo”, a team consisted of our PhD students Mr Hui Zeng and Mr Xi Yang, together with Mr Hui Xian from DAMO Academy of Alibaba Group, won the Champion under the track of “Image Quality Restoration” in the competition. The team proudly received the honour at the award presentation ceremony held in Changsha, China on 8 September 2020. “We joined the contest because we are very curious about the needs of the industry. Our goal is not just to have the research papers published but also hope that our research work can solve real-world problems,” said Mr Zeng, the team leader. “We have laid a solid foundation through our research studies supervised by Prof. Lei Zhang. The training enabled us to identify a clear direction upon receiving the competition data, allowing us to save much time and effort in completing the tasks.” “ManGoGoGo” solved the challenge of restoring a damaged video to a high definition one by adopting a multi-frame strategy to fully utilize the complementary information among video frames, which could significantly improve the signal to noise ratio. The team designed a network architecture taking large image patches as inputs, facilitating the model to leverage the larger scale of spatial information for a better restoration. They also carefully controlled the model complexity to balance its performance and efficiency. “The prospects in the image quality restoration field are quite broad. Under the national policy of advancing and popularising the 4K ultra high definition technology, the application and demand for image quality restoration are expected to increase greatly. For example, some TV dramas and advertising video products are requiring higher image quality,” another team member Mr Yang shared. “On the other hand, the restoration technique is often used to repair some old data and images, which is also noteworthy for cultural heritage.” The “Malan Mountain Cup” comprises three tracks: Video Specific Point Tracking, Video Recommendations and Image Quality Restoration. The competition aims at building a technology platform for top algorithm talents to demonstrate their innovative ideas and skills of deep learning as well as to explore the future of the film and television industry. Some contents above are extracted and translated from the interview by Toutiao of Mango TV Photo source: Mango TV

Outstanding Student Award 2019/20

We are glad to announce that our final year student of BSc (Hons) in Computing, Mr Shiqi He, has been awarded the “Outstanding Student Award of Department” for his excellent academic performance, active involvement in extra-curricular activities and good personal qualities. The Outstanding Students Award Scheme is one of the most prestigious award schemes at PolyU which is set up to recognise high achievers. Mr He is an all-round student who has exceptional accomplishments in both academic and non-academic pursuits. He was included in the Dean's Honours List and received numerous competitive scholarships. Besides, he enthusiastically participated in co-curricular activities and substantial community services, including outbound exchange to Korea and Japan, international and regional competitions, internship at Microsoft Research Asia and voluntary teaching. He also provided extensive services to the University by assisting in the PolyU Education Information Day and PolyU Orientation Programme for non-local students as well as serving as the IT Secretary for the PolyU Chinese Mainland Student Association in which his leadership was well-demonstrated. “My goal is to become a professional researcher in computer science. Through my 4-year study at COMP, I have acquired a solid foundation in computing knowledge and the skills of cutting-edge technologies,” Mr He shared. “In the age of artificial intelligence, I chose distributed machine learning as the topic for my Capstone Project and I believe this would help to prepare myself for fighting the scientific challenges in the future.” Congratulations to Mr He on receiving the honour!

COMP MScIT Orientation Session 2020

COMP organised an online Orientation Session for all newly admitted taught postgraduates on 5 September with a participation of over 150 students. Dr Korris Chung, Associate Professor and Coordinator of MSc Postgraduate Scheme in Computing, started the Orientation with a warm welcome and an introduction of COMP. A series of information sessions about programme structure, subjects offered and study pattern was conducted by our faculty members including Dr Ken Yiu, Associate Professor and MScIT Programme Leader, and Dr Qixin Wang, Associate Professor and MSc Thesis Coordinator. Other supports such as departmental facilities and access to learning resources were also demonstrated. The Orientation serves as an informative guide for the students to get familiar with the MScIT programme and plan for their studies before the commencement of the semester. Once again, welcome to COMP!

COMP Undergraduate Orientation Session 2020

COMP organised an online Orientation Session for all new undergraduates on 1 September 2020. Over 200 freshmen spent a fruitful afternoon with us before the commencement of the new academic year. Ir Prof. HC Man, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, kicked off the Orientation with his warm welcome, followed by a pleasant greeting from Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor of Data Science and Head of COMP. Our dedicated team of academic and teaching staff were also invited to introduce their research areas and the subjects they will be teaching. In addition to presenting COMP’s learning opportunities, Academic Advising System, Work-Integrated Education and internship, the Orientation covered other student resources, supports and services offered by PolyU. The Orientation was concluded with individual group meetings and team building games between the students and their Academic Advisors. It is not only a great platform for the students to know more about university life but also enables them to connect with their Academic Advisors who will guide them throughout their studies at COMP. We wish all newbies a rewarding learning journey. The top 3 winning groups of the team building game are shown below: Rank Group Members First Place FENG Yuqi LAU Siu Fung LAU Yiu Hei LI Honglin LIU Qianli WONG Sum Yi WONG Yau Chuen WOO Kwan Ngo YANG Zhanpeng ZHAO Zian Second Place HO Yan Kiu KWOK Shan Shan LAM Chun Wong LEE Min Yeong LEE Seung Moo PARK Jungwon TSANG Tsz Chung Third Place HAN Jiaming HE Zhejun LO Yan Suet TAM Ching Yuen WANG Zhuchen WU Meijia

Workshops on information security professional examinations

To further enhance our students’ employability, COMP organised a series of online workshops about the professional examinations of information security for our Year 3 to 4 undergraduates and MSc students this summer. The workshops covered major technical topics, simulation and sample exercises, as well as included sharing by industry practitioners who are Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). In today’s IT industry, many technical applications such as Fintech, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Data Centre require good information security control and practice, and credentials like CISSP and CISA are two of the most popular ones that are highly regarded. Dr Walter Fung, the workshop instructor and Teaching Fellow of COMP, reviewed the nature and scope of the examinations, qualifications and requirements for being fully certified upon gaining relevant work experience. Apart from that, two COMP alumni, Mr Thomas Kung, Director of Information Security and Privacy from Crypto.com, and Mr Jacky Chan, App Developer from WeLab Bank, were invited as guest speakers to share their tips and experiences. They also explained the technical details, modules and sample questions under different scenarios. The workshops enabled our students to obtain practical knowledge and helped them get prepared for the professional examinations, enhancing their technical competencies and employability. Certified students could receive higher recognition from employers.

Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2019/20

Congratulations to Dr Dennis Liu and Prof. Song Guo on receiving the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2019/20. This truly reflects the great efforts and contributions made by our staff members. Faculty Award in Teaching - Merit Award (Individual) Dr Dennis Liu, Teaching Fellow Faculty Award in Research and Scholarly Activities - Merit Award (Individual) Prof. Song Guo, Professor and Associate Head (Research & Development) The winners of the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement are chosen by a Faculty Assessment Panel, comprising the Heads (or their delegates) and chaired by the Dean of Faculty of Engineering (FENG), from amongst a pool of well-qualified nominees put forward by individual departments under FENG. The selection is made with reference to the indicative criteria for assessment as laid down by the University for the exercise.

PolyU Two-day University Experience Programme 2020

Under the theme of “From Physics and ICT to Engineering”, the Faculty of Engineering organised a Two-day University Experience (TUE) Online Programme on 3 – 4 August for secondary students who are taking Science, ICT, or M1/M2 subjects. A series of thematic online lectures on seven disciplines of engineering were arranged in these two days. Among them, the lecture delivered by the Department of Computing (COMP) attracted more than 220 Secondary 3 to Secondary 5 attendees. Dr Henry Chan, Associate Professor and Associate Head of COMP, started the session by bringing some basic concepts of computing to the participants with an online game. Dr Peter Ng, Teaching Fellow of COMP, was also invited to introduce “Computing and Game Technologies”, enabling students to grasp the idea of game development and computer vision including Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). To further illustrate the know-how, participants were taken to a virtual tour of our VR & Game Lab. Dr Ng also demonstrated a machine learning project “physical toys recognising” and created two online polling questions about maths in game programming and machine learning for the students to express their views. TUE Programme provides a valuable opportunity for secondary students to experience learning at the university and interact with academics during the summertime.

Prof. Jiannong Cao is elected as Member of Academia Europaea

We are proud to announce that Prof. Jiannong Cao, Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Professor in Data Science and Chair Professor of Distributed and Mobile Computing, has been elected as a Member of Academia Europaea (Academy of Europe) under the Informatics Section. Founded in 1988, Academia Europaea is a European, non-governmental association acting as an Academy of Humanities, Letters and Sciences with about 4,000 members and amongst them, 72 are Nobel Laureates. The members are eminent scientists and scholars from all academic disciplines who collectively aim at promoting learning, education and research. Membership is by invitation only and the primary criterion is “sustained academic excellence in the candidate’s field”. In July 2020, the Academy announced that 361 international scholars have been invited to accept membership of the Academia Europaea, following a rigorous peer review process. Prof. Cao has joined COMP since 1997. His research interests include Parallel and Distributed Computing, Wireless Networking and Mobile Computing, Big Data and Machine Learning, and Cloud and Edge Computing. In addition to publishing over 700 papers in major international journals and conference proceedings, Prof. Cao has directed and participated in over 90 research and development projects and, as a principal investigator, obtained over HK$60 million grants from national and local funding agencies as well as key technology companies. For his exceptional research efforts, Prof. Cao has also been named Fellow of IEEE, Distinguished Member of ACM and Senior Member of CCF. The honour from Academia Europaea further reflects Prof. Cao’s outstanding accomplishments and contributions in the field of computer science for the advancement of public benefit.

COMP scholars won the Best Paper Award at IEEE INFOCOM 2020

We are proud to announce that Dr Jiaxing Shen, Research Assistant Professor, Dr Yanwen Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Dr Yuanqing Zheng, Associate Professor, received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE INFOCOM 2020 with the paper titled “Push the Limit of Acoustic Gesture Recognition”. This research project aims at developing a contact-free gesture recognition technology by analysing ultrasound echoes reflected from the user’s hand with neural network models. The team proposes to automatically generate training data using data augmentation technique to improve detection accuracy and robustness. The experiment results show that their work can substantially outperform the state-of-the-art in practice. In the future, the team hopes the touch-free gesture recognition technology can be used in kiosks and service robots to reduce the risk of spreading bacteria or virus via touchscreens in public areas (e.g., food ordering kiosks in canteens, queue ticket machines in restaurants, and self-check-in kiosks in airports). IEEE INFOCOM is a top ranked conference on networking in the research community. It is a major conference venue for researchers to present and exchange significant and innovative contributions and ideas in the field of networking and closely related areas. It covers both theoretical and systems research.