News

COMP Alumni Homecoming cum Alumni Award Presentation Ceremony

The COMP Alumni Homecoming cum Alumni Award Presentation Ceremony held on 17 September 2022 at PolyU Alumni Atrium was concluded in an atmosphere of happiness and warmth. It was also organised in celebration of the 85th anniversary of PolyU. More than 60 alumni and their families, and our current and former faculty members reunited at the event. The homecoming event was kicked started with the opening remarks by Prof. LI Qing, Chair Professor and Head of COMP, and Prof. CAO Jiannong, Dean of Graduate School and former Department Head. They are grateful for the achievements of our alumni and wish to deepen the connections further. After the opening remarks, Dr Henry CHAN, Associate Professor and Associate Head in Partnership and Collaboration, presented the updates and recent alumni work to the guests. Two alumni were invited to deliver speeches at the event. Mr Andy WAN shared his feeling about receiving this year’s Outstanding Alumni Award in “Professional Achievement” of PolyU Department of Computing, as well as his valuable experience in career development. Mr Sky TANG talked about how to overcome challenges in starting a business, his experience in entrepreneurship and the reasons for scholarship donation. In recognition of the remarkable contribution and involvement of our alumni, especially the Computing Alumni Association, COMP mentors and Academic-Industry seminar speakers, the certificates of appreciation were presented to them during the event. Engaging networking activities started immediately following the ceremony, and our guests were tested on their knowledge of PolyU and the Department. The event was wrapped up by the department tour which our guests visited different labs and teaching facilities. The afternoon was filled with laughter and joy, where our alumni and guests rekindled old friendships and revisited fond memories.

COMP Taught Postgraduate Orientation Session 2022

COMP organised a hybrid MSc Orientation Session on 27 August at PolyU, drawing over 130 new students to participate. Dr Korris Chung, Associate Professor and MSc Scheme Leader, warmly welcomed the students. Immediate after the overview of the Department and the MSc Scheme delivered by Dr Chung, the programme leader of MSc in Information Technology, Dr Ken Yiu, Associate Professor, introduced the programme requirement and study plans. The study information for MSc in Blockchain Technology, a new programme commencing in the academic year 2022/23, was presented by the programme leader Dr Daniel Luo, Associate Professor. To provide more guidelines on dissertations and projects for students who wish to pursue research after graduation, Dr Wang Qixin, Associate Professor, gave helpful advice in this area. The orientation session also covered an overview of the Department’s resources and facilities. The orientation was concluded successfully with a responsive and interactive Q&A session. We hope the orientation will help students to get prepared for their new start.

COMP Undergraduate Orientation Session 2022

COMP Undergraduate Orientation Session was held on 25 August to welcome new students for the academic year 2022/23. Over 150 freshmen attended the hybrid orientation on campus or joined the live streaming on Zoom. The session was hosted by Dr Hong-va Leong, our Associate Professor and Associate Head (Teaching & Learning), at the same time the scheme leader of the undergraduate programmes. At the beginning of the event, Ir Prof. HC Man, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, introduced our faculty to the students. Prof. Qing Li, Chair Professor and Head of COMP, then welcomed the students and encouraged them to explore different opportunities the university offers. Students learnt about the academic advising system, learning supports, internship programmes and resources and services for COMP students. They also met their first-year subject lecturers and their academic advisors at the event. The second part of the orientation was conducted in the virtual gathering space, namely Gather Town COMP Space, where students and their academic advisors e-met at virtual offices, participated in team-building games and had a joyful afternoon. Welcome all freshmen! We wish them a fruitful and rewarding learning journey at COMP.

Dr Henry Chan received the 2022 IEEE Education Society William E. Sayle II Award for Achievement in Education

We are glad to announce that Dr Henry Chan, our Associate Professor and Associate Head of COMP has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 IEEE Education Society William E. Sayle II Award for Achievement in Education with the following citation: for contributions to computing education and to the development of the TALE conference. As one of the major awards of the IEEE Education Society (EdSoc), the award recognises significant contributions over a period of years in the fields of interest to EdSoc. IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Founded in 1957, EdSoc is one of the oldest technical societies in the IEEE. It is an international organisation with a worldwide community of professionals dedicated to ensuring high-quality education in science and engineering. It promotes, advances, and disseminates state-of-the-art scientific information and resources related to the EdSoc’s field of interest and provides professional development opportunities for academic and industry professionals. Congratulations to Dr Chan!

COMP x CAA Academic-Industry Seminar Series – Entrepreneurship (Aug 2022)

With the mission to encourage knowledge exchange between academia and industry, COMP and the Computing Alumni Association (CAA) co-organised the fifth seminar of the "COMP x CAA Academic-Industry Seminar Series" via Zoom on 18 August 2022. The seminar was kick-started with a warm welcome by Dr Henry Chan, Associate Professor and Associate Head of COMP. Dr Chan then introduced Dr Gong Chen, who talked about the growth of AI startups in the past ten years and some hot topics that could attract potential investors. Also, Dr Chen shared his insights on future opportunities for startups.  Our outstanding alumnus, Dr Abraham Lam, Director & CEO of MEGA Automation Ltd, was invited to share his success story and inspiring journey of running a startup company. Abraham also discussed how to convert innovative ideas into real-world products from a business perspective. In the wrap-up, Dr Chan summed up that the key to entrepreneurship is to identify customer needs and provide effective solutions. He suggested COMP students to consider from both the business and technological perspectives. We hope that this seminar could bring enlightening exchange and spark ideas for business ventures to our students, alumni and faculty members.  

PolyU Two-day University Experience Programme 2022

The Two Days University Experience (TUE) Programme organised by Faculty of Engineering was held virtually on 16 and 17 August 2022. “From Physics and ICT to Engineering” was the theme this year which aimed at imitating the university study experience by providing lectures to secondary 4 or 5 students taking Science, ICT or M1/ M2 subjects and who are interested in engineering study.   Dr Henry Chan, Associate Professor and Associate Head of COMP, and Dr Peter Ng, our Teaching Fellow, delivered a lecture on computing and game technologies and brought a virtual laboratory tour to 139 participants, letting students to had a glance at the department facilities.   49 students joined the breakout room session on the second day of the programme. Dr Walter Fung and Dr Dennis Liu, Teaching Fellows of COMP, interacted with the participants and provided first-hand information on study planning.   TUE Programme offered potential secondary students a valuable glimpse into university learning and to engage with university academics during the summertime. Different departments from FENG jointly delivered a series of thematic online lectures and quizzes in seven fields of engineering. The programme was kick-started with an open ceremony and sharing of JUPAS programme choices, career aspirations, student life and experiences by engineering student ambassadors.

PolyU InnoTech Open Day 2022

PolyU InnoTech Open Day was smoothly held at the campus on 16 July 2022. Being one of the signature events of PolyU’s 85th Anniversary celebrations, the InnoTech Open Day has showcased the university’s endeavours in interdisciplinary research, innovation, knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship. In the afternoon session, face-to-face student consultations, info seminars about PolyU’s academic programmes etc., were arranged for visitors, especially JUPAS applicants and their parents. Our staff members joined the booth of the Faculty of Engineering to provide study advice and comprehensive information on the programmes offered by COMP. Hundreds of visitors had lively interactions and fruitful exchanges with our academic staff. On the other hand, to further promote the new programme hosted by COMP, namely “Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA)”, Dr LEONG Hong-va, our Associate Professor and Associate Head (Teaching & Learning), was invited to deliver two informative talks with full house participation. Starting from the 2022/23 academic year, PolyU will introduce two new programme elements, providing students with more flexible study options and helping them to enhance their competitiveness. AIDA is one of the new programmes that will be incorporated into the General University Requirements, and students can also study AIDA as a Secondary Major or a Minor.

Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2022

Congratulations to the following staff members on receiving the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Achievement 2022. This truly reflects the great efforts and contributions made by them.    Category of Award  Award  Awardee Faculty Award in Teaching Outstanding Award (Team) Dr LEONG Hong Va (Team Leader), Associate Head and Associate Professor Dr Dennis LIU, Teaching Fellow Dr Richard LUI, Teaching Fellow Dr Peter NG, Teaching Fellow   Research and Scholarly Activities: Outstanding Researcher Merit Award (Individual) Prof. GUO Song, Professor Research and Scholarly Activities: Outstanding Young Researcher Merit Award (Individual) Dr WU Xiaoming, Associate Professor Faculty Award in Service Merit Award (Individual) Dr Henry CHAN, Associate Head and Associate Professor   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.  

Dr Daniel LUO received the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at ISSTA 2022

Our Associate Professor Dr Daniel LUO and his PhD students Mr ZHOU Hao and Mr WU Shuohan received the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award with the paper titled “NCScope: Hardware-Assisted Analyzer for Native Code in Android Apps” at the 31st edition of ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA). Other collaborators of this paper come from Pennsylvania State University, Zhejiang University, Tsinghua University, and Washington State University.   The paper proposes and develops a novel hardware-assisted analyzer for native code in apps. The research team leverages ETM, a hardware feature of ARM platform, and eBPF, a kernel component of Android system, to collect real execution traces and relevant memory data of target apps, and design new methods to scrutinise native code according to the collected data. To show the unique capability of NCScope, the team applies it to four applications that cannot be accomplished by existing tools, including systematic studies on self-protection and anti-analysis mechanisms implemented in native code of apps, analysis of memory corruption in native code, and identification of performance differences between functions in native code. The results uncover that only 26.8% of the analysed financial apps implement self-protection methods in native code, implying that the security of financial apps is far from expected. Meanwhile, 78.3% of the malicious apps under analysis have anti-analysis behaviours, suggesting that NCScope is very useful to malware analysis. Moreover, NCScope can effectively detect bugs in native code and identify performance differences.   ISSTA is the leading research symposium on software testing and analysis, bringing together academics, industrial researchers, and practitioners to exchange new ideas, problems, and experience on how to analyse and test software systems.

Dr SHI Jieming received 2022 ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Award

We are pleased to announce that our Assistant Professor Dr SHI Jieming and his collaborators from Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore and Hamad Bin Khalifa University received the 2022 ACM SIGMOD (Special Interest Group on Management of Data) Research Highlight Award, for the paper titled “No PANE, No Gain: Scaling Attributed Network Embedding in a Single Server”. The work was also awarded Best Research Paper Award in VLDB (Very Large Data Bases Conference) in 2021.   This paper addresses the lack of scalability of existing attributed network embedding (ANE) techniques by proposing PANE, an effective and scalable approach for massive graphs in a single server that achieves state-of-the-art result quality on multiple benchmark datasets for two common prediction tasks: link prediction and node classification. Under the hood, PANE takes inspiration from well-established data management techniques to scale up ANE in a single server. Specifically, it exploits a carefully formulated problem based on a novel random walk model, a highly efficient solver, and non-trivial parallelization by utilizing modern multi-core CPUs. Extensive experiments demonstrate that PANE consistently outperforms all existing methods in terms of result quality, while being orders of magnitude faster.    The SIGMOD Research Highlight Award aims to make the selected works widely known in the database community, industry partners as well as the broader ACM community. It is a highly selective and prestigious award that showcases a set of research projects that exemplify core database research.   ACM SIGMOD is concerned with the principles, techniques and applications of database management systems and data management technology. Its members include software developers, academic and industrial researchers, practitioners, users, and students. SIGMOD sponsors the annual SIGMOD/PODS conference, which is one of the most important and selective in the field.