News

RILS Management Committee Member featured on Now TV

Prof. Eddie C.M. HUI, Management Committee Member of the Research Institute for Land and Space (RILS) and Associate Head (Partnership) and Professor of the Department of Building and Real Estate (BRE), shared his insights on land supply-demand imbalance on Now TV programme “News Magazine” on 7 February. Online coverage: https://news.now.com/home/local/player?newsId=506529&catCode=124&topicId=566 (Chinese only)

First PAIR Salon successfully held

The PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR) has launched a new series of “PAIR SALON” in 2023, with the aim to encouraging industrial collaboration and facilitating knowledge transfer. The first PAIR Salon themed “Beyond Cutting Edge Research: The Marking of Meaningful Work” was successfully held on 1 February 2023 at the Hong Kong Science Park. PAIR members were warmly received by the senior management of the China Resources Group, including Mr CHEN Lei, Deputy General Manager, Science & Technology Innovation Department, China Resources Group and Ms Elaine LAM, General Manager, Hong Kong Business Division, China Resources Cement Holdings Limited. At the Salon, Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR, Prof. LI Li, Associate Director of PAIR and other eight scholars and researchers briefed the audience about PAIR’s latest development, projects and achievements in cutting-edge research and knowledge transfer, and had a fruitful exchange and discussion.

RIAIoT member receives IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award

Congratulations to Dr Zhang Shuowen, Member of the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Things (RIAIoT), for receiving the 2022 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award for the paper titled “Cellular-Enabled UAV Communication: A Connectivity-Constrained Trajectory Optimization Perspective”! Further reading: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8531711

PolyU research project named among top ten innovation and technology news 2022

The research titled “Advanced Vision Sensor with Human Eye Adaptability” led by Prof. CHAI Yang, Associate Dean of Faculty of Science, Professor of Department of Applied Physics, Core Member of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR) and Member of the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Things (RIAIoT) and Photonics Research Institute (PRI), was selected as one of the “Top Ten Hong Kong Innovation and Technology News 2022”. Organised by the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange Centre, the annual selection invites universities in Hong Kong to submit news on Hong Kong developments in innovation and technology and scientific research. Thirty most influential news are shortlisted by an advisory group comprising academics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering in Hong Kong. The final top ten are determined by over 3,360 online votes from members of the public. Learn more about the research project: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/en/media/media-releases/2022/0531_polyu-develops-advanced-vision-sensors-that-emulate-human-visual-adaptability/ Further reading: https://www.bhkaec.org.hk/a/129827-cht (Chinese only)

RILS MC member appointed as Non-official Member of Urban Forestry Advisory Panel of Development Bureau

Sr Prof. Charles WONG Man-sing, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environment, Management Committee Member of the Research Institute for Land and Space (RILS) and Member of the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD), has been appointed as the Member of Urban Forestry Advisory Panel of the Development Bureau by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for a term of two years from 1 January 2023. Further reading: https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202212/30/P2022123000252.htm

Nobel Laureate in Physics to deliver PAIR Distinguished Lecture

PAIR cordially invites you to our Distinguished Lecture on 9 February 2023 (Thursday) at 4:00pm-5:30pm (HKT) via Zoom. The lecture “A 40-Year Journey” will be delivered by Prof. Reinhard GENZEL, Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany. Professor Genzel received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics together with British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose and American astronomer Andrea Ghez, for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. In this lecture, Professor Genzel will discuss the forty-year journey, which his colleagues and himself have been undertaking to study the mass distribution in the centre of the Milky Way from ever more precise, long-term studies of the motions of gas and stars as test particles of the space time. These studies show the existence of a four million solar mass object, which must be a single massive black hole, beyond any reasonable doubt. Don’t miss the chance to learn from distinguished astrophysicist! Find out more and register at: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/pair/news-and-events/events/2023/2/20230209-pair-distinguished-lecture---prof-reinhard-genzel/?sc_lang=en

PolyU partners with Hong Kong local digital payment platform developer Yedpay in promoting FinTech innovation in ASEAN

Hong Kong's first non-bank credit card acquiring service provider Yedpay, at the 16th Asian Financial Forum on 12 January 2023, announced its partnership with Venture Cap, the subsidiary of ASL Securities located in Thailand, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and Easylink, for promoting financial technology innovation.  Dr HU Haibo, Member of the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Things (RIAIoT) at PolyU, noted that the core technology partnered with Yedpay, the Tap-to-Phone function, is an industry leading payment technology for Hong Kong, which is a breakthrough to the traditional point-of-sales (POS) terminals pattern in which allowing merchants to use their mobile phones to process transactions while data security is ensured. Tap-to-Phone is now in its pilot phase and can accept credit cards issued by Visa and Mastercard and is expected to be available to all Yedpay business users in the second quarter of this year.  Further reading: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-local-digital-payment-010000080.html

Prof. SUN Defeng awarded RGC Senior Research Fellowship 2022/23

Prof. SUN Defeng, Leading Member of the Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Things (RIAIoT), Member of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR), Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics (AMA), has been awarded under the Research Grant Committee (RGC) Senior Research Fellow Scheme in 2022/23 for his research project “Nonlinear Conic Programming: Theory, Algorithms and Software”. The project will contribute to a broad range of important applications including the 6G wireless communication technology and automatic driving.   Among the 32 nominations received for this year’s exercise, 10 nominees at full Professor rank at  UGC-funded universities were selected for awards. Each awardee will be conferred the title “RGC Senior Research Fellow” and awarded a fellowship grant of around HK$7.8 million for a period of 60 months.   Online coverage: am730 - https://polyu.me/3GjjvxP (Chinese only)

Prof. David Cardwell, Prof-Vice-Chancellor of University of Cambridge visits PolyU

Prof. David CARDWELL, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Strategy and Planning), University of Cambridge, UK, visited PolyU on 18 January 2023. Prof. Cardwell was warmly received by Prof. TENG Jin-Guang, President of PolyU, Prof. Ben YOUNG, Vice President (Student and Global Affairs), Prof. Christopher CHAO, Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR.  During the visit, Prof. Cardwell exchanged views with PolyU senior management on the trends and future of the higher education. Prof. Cardwell also visited some of the laboratories of PAIR’s constituent research units to understand more about the advanced research facilities and recent research accomplishments in the fields of artificial intelligence of things and resources engineering towards carbon neutrality.

ADoPRI discovers nanoscale ferroelectric new materials

A research team led by Prof. Daniel LAU, Chair Professor of Nanomaterials and Head of Department of Applied Physics of PolyU and Associate Director of Photonics Research Institute (PRI) discovered that bilayers of molybdenum disulphide and tungsten disulphide produced at the nanometre scale retain their intrinsic ferroelectric property so that electrical polarisation can be reversed by simply applying an external electric current. The manufacturing of this new class of nano-scale ferroelectrics can be reproduced at large scales with low cost, low energy demand and faithful reproducibility.  The research result promises to advance the frontier of modern electronics and attract keen interest among electronics manufacturers. This research was a collaboration project involving researchers from the Renmin University of China, University of Cambridge and Nanjing University. The study has been published on Science. Further reading: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/en/media/media-releases/2023/0118_polyu-research-discovers-nanoscale-ferroelectric-new-materials-exhibiting-potential/