At the ceremony

The Jockey Club Smart City Tree Management Project finally came to an end after three successful years of implementation, which resulted in a smart monitoring system of about 8,000 trees all over Hong Kong. In a recent closing ceremony, the system’s technology was officially transferred to the Tree Management Office of the HKSAR Government’s Development Bureau.

Developed by Prof. Charles Wong and his research team at the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), the system involves a Smart Sensing Technology and Geographic Information Systems based platform to monitor changes in the environment and other relevant tree data. The leaning trends of trees installed with smart sensors were predicted by big data analysis, triggering safety inspections of trees whose tilting angles exceeded certain thresholds. Risks to passersby and surrounding properties can thus be averted.

Speaking at the ceremony, PolyU’s Executive Vice President, Dr Miranda Lou, thanked The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust for their generous support in enabling PolyU to contribute to sustainable development and tree conservation through innovative research. The Under Secretary for Development, Mr Chun-san Liu, JP thanked the project team and expressed that the continued use of the system by the government can benefit the community in facilitating urban forestry management.

To keep up with the times and better reflect the expertise of its academic staff, the Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) has been renamed. From 1 September 2021 it is called the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE), offering up-to-date programmes related to Building Sciences and Engineering. Curricula have also been modernised accordingly both in terms of pedagogy and content to include more problem-based, cross-disciplinary and collaborative learning, considering buildings as a system in harmony with the urban environment. Despite the change of emphasis towards more fundamental sciences and emerging technologies, the degree programmes offered will continue to maintain a strong practical orientation and produce job-ready graduates so valued by industry. In addition to serving Hong Kong’s lucrative Building Services and Facilities Management professions, BEEE graduates will have the skills and training necessary to become future leaders who can shape Hong Kong into a world-leading smart, sustainable and resilient city. The same skills will also make them highly attractive hires for leading international consultants and contractors in construction and environment. More information on the department can be found at https://www.polyu.edu.hk/beee.

Prof. Charles Wong and Prof. John Shi of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) have been honoured with 2021 Smart 50 Awards for their smart city projects. Prof. Wong led the first ever smart tree monitoring project using low-power wireless network for urban forestry and tree management. The project also won a Gold Medal at the Special Edition 2021 Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days organised by the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva.

The other winner was Prof. John Shi, who led a team to develop a comprehensive spatial analysis and onset risk prediction platform for tracking the community spread of COVID-19. By analysing Hong Kong’s urban structure, transportation network, population environment and other socio-economic data using spatial big data technologies, an algorithm could accurately predict the development trend of the epidemic in a timelier manner, supporting the public health department to formulate more precise prevention and control strategies.

The Smart 50 Awards recognize 50 of the most innovative and influential smart cities’ projects around the world, in partnership with Smart Cities Connect, Smart Cities Connect Foundation and US Ignite.

PolyU has won the largest share of postdoctoral places in the 2021 Hong Kong Scholars Program (HKSP), getting 22 out of the 52 funded places. Seven of these went to academics in the Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE) for them to engage a mainland scholar as a Postdoctoral Fellow in their research projects. Launched in December 2010 as a joint initiative between mainland authorities and the Society of Hong Kong Scholars, the HKSP promotes academic/ scientific exchanges and collaboration by matching outstanding mainland PhD graduates with leading academics of universities in Hong Kong, who will supervise the mainland scholars for two years in a research project. Following are the details:

On 23 August 2021, the Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE) held its annual forum for some of its leading colleagues to share their successful experiences in writing research proposals for various RGC competitive grants, which have fueled their career development as well as the continued growth of the university. More than 140 academic and research staff attended the live/ online forum. Among the speakers were the Dean of FCE, Prof. Xiangdong Li, who shared the University and Faculty’s strategies for the next Research Assessment Exercise, as well as the following colleagues:

In addition, how to recruit quality candidates for the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme was a topic that was addressed by Prof. Geoffrey Shen of BRE. The Chair of the Departmental Research Committee of the Department of Applied Mathematics, Prof. Xingqiu Zhao, also shared her department’s strategies to enhance its success rate for the GRF, while Prof. Zijian Zheng of the Institute of Textiles and Clothing shared his perspective in writing a successful proposal for the RGC Senior Research Fellowship Scheme. Souvenirs were later presented to these two guest speakers by the Associate Dean (Research) Prof. Meng Ni.

Prof. Shi (left) demonstrating the equipment associated with the mapping backpack

Prof. John Shi of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) has developed a lightweight 3D mobile mapping backpack for surveyors to collect continuous data like coordinates in various indoor and outdoor urban environments. Capable of 3D scanning of building structures and even details like windows and doors, the backpack is installed with two scanners to gather 3D data of buildings and an omnidirectional camera to record non-structural image data like colour and materials of walls. The system adopts advanced Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) technology for positioning, which is not restricted by the signal receiving area of the GPS. His research team plans to apply the system to redevelopment projects and the design of rescue routes.

The Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering (BEEE) recently welcomed two new Chair Professors. The first one is Prof. Christopher Chao, who received his BSc (Eng) in Mechanical Engineering from HKU in 1988, his MSc and PhD degrees in the same field from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992 and 1994 respectively. He climbed the academic ranks at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for more than two decades before joining HKU in 2018 as its Dean of Engineering. A distinguished researcher in the field of Thermal and Environmental Engineering, he has an outstanding track record in research publications and grants. Prof. Chao is concurrently appointed to the post of Vice President (Research and Innovation).

The second one is Prof. Qingyan Chen, who took up the post of Chair Professor of Building Thermal Science in mid-August 2021. He received a BSc degree in Thermal Energy Engineering from Tsinghua University in 1983, MSc and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1985 and 1988 respectively. Before joining PolyU, Prof. Chen was the James G. Dwyer Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University in the US. His research interests include computer simulations and experiment measurements of built environment, energy-efficient, healthy and sustainable buildings. His journal publications have been cited more than 19,000 times and his h-index is 73 according to Google Scholar. He was interviewed by more than 80 media outlets from 10 countries for his research on infectious disease transmission in built environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prof. Chen is concurrently appointed as the Director of PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR).

BEEE also welcomed a new Assistant Professor, Dr Cynthia Hou, who received her PhD in Real Estate and Construction from the University of Hong Kong. Before joining PolyU, she worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Management in the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (2020-2021) and a lecturer in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2015-2020). She has been engaged in research in the field of built environment management. Her research focuses include post-occupancy evaluation, workplace management, strategic facilities management, and heritage management. Recently, she has leveraged smart technologies in her research by investigating smart hotels, smart heritage facilities management, and virtual reality (VR) technologies applications in built environment education. She is also keen to adopt digital approaches in her research.

On 26 August 2021, the four departments of the Faculty of Construction and Environment each held orientations for their new undergraduate students. Department heads and programme leaders provided students with useful information about their respective departments and study programmes. The services of the Student Affairs Office were also introduced. In addition, an online Orientation Info Day organized by the University was held on 27 August 2021 for new students to explore the University’s support services, co-curricular activities and campus life.

Orientations for new MSc students of the Postgraduate Scheme in Construction and Environment were held on 28 August 2021. Different orientation sessions were organized by the four departments. Programme leaders were available to introduce students to their respective programmes that afternoon. Through interacting with the programme leaders, new MSc students learnt more about the programme curriculum and requirements, as well as the opportunities and services available.

At the opening ceremony

On 26 July 2021, the Water Supplies Department (WSD) of the HKSAR Government and the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) jointly hosted an opening ceremony of the Q-Leak Training Centre, the first of its kind in the world for training and developing nondestructive R&D/technology transfer solutions of diagnosing underground water pipe leakage. Officiated by WSD Director Kwok-Wah Kelvin Lo, Deputy Director Sai-Wai Chau, PolyU Deputy President and Provost Prof. Wing-Tak Wong, and Ming Hing Waterworks CEO Johnson Yuen, the opening was witnessed by Prof. Xiangdong Li, Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environment (FCE), Prof. Wu Chen, Head of LSGI, and about 50 members of the Advisory Committee on Water Supplies.

Designed by Ir Dr Wallace Lai of LSGI and his team, the 24,000 square feet centre will be used for training WSD leak detection specialists, industry practitioners, overseas visitors, and high-school STEM educaters. Dr Lai has established more than 80 artificial, hidden and reusable water pipe leakage points in the centre to imitate a blind-test scenario. They will be repeatedly used to assess the success and failure rates of leak detection. LSGI is also in the process of negotiating a MoU with WSD for the future use of the centre.

Mr Saka (left) with his supervisor, Dr Daniel Chan

A PhD student in the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE), Mr Abdullahi Saka, was honoured with a certificate of merit in the Professional Excellence in Building Awards organized by the Australian Institute of Building (Hong Kong chapter) on 17 July 2021. His entry was entitled “Development of a Hybrid Intelligent and Dynamic System for Adoption and Implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Construction Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Developing Countries.” He is currently under the supervision of Dr Daniel Chan, Associate Head (Teaching) of BRE.

Miss Lam (right) receiving her certificate

A year-4 student from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) has come first in the Final Year Projects Competition organized by the Association of Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Specialists (Hong Kong). Miss Hiu Ching Lam was recognized for her outstanding performance in her final year project entitled “Numerical Analysis on Sinkhole Formation.” She was supervised by Dr Andy Leung.