Prof Dieter Bimberg, Chair of Applied Solid State Physics at Technical University of Berlin for the past 30 years, gave a fascinating talk on “Our Daily Life with Semiconductor Lasers” at HKUST in January.
The talk, jointly organized by the School of Engineering and HKUST Institute for Advanced Study, examined the amazing success story related to semiconductor lasers. It explored how a fundamental physics breakthrough regarded as useless to the economy 50 years ago, has evolved through fur ther engineering and discover y to become a key part of modern life.
The new knowledge and understanding went on to spur intercontinental optical communication, the basis of the internet, and to form the backbone of modern energy efficient systems. DVDs, the optical mouse, and medical applications, are just some examples of the
p r o d u c t s n o w associated with the discovery.
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Heartfelt appreciation to members* of the Hong Kong Electrical Appliances Manufacturers Association and other donors for sponsorship of prizes:
Allan International Holdings Ltd.*
Chiaphua Industries Ltd.*
Chung Mei Industries Ltd.*
Fook Tin Technologies Ltd.*
G.E.W. Corporation Ltd.*
Goldwise Development Co.
Hong Kong Ferry (Holdings) Co. Ltd.
Philips Electronics HK Ltd.*
Sonca Products Ltd.*
Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd.*
Students Students
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20th Anniversary 20th Anniversary
Multinational experience-sharing was the order of the day when the School of Engineering’s Center for Engineering Education Innovation (E2I) brought together more than 100 engineering educators from over 30 universities in the Second International Workshop on Innovative Engineering Education (IEE 2011) to review and share good practices in innovative engineering education.
Those attending the fruitful two-day forum in January came from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, US and Australia. The event was organized in collaboration with the Sungkyunkwan University Hub Center for Innovative Engineering Education (SKKU Hub
Center) and supported by the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) and Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
In addition to welcome addresses by Prof Sung-Jin Song, Director of the SKKU Hub Center and Chairman of the Organizing Committee, and Prof Khaled Ben Letaief, Dean of Engineering at HKUST, a total of 14 keynote and invited speakers made presentations on topics related to accreditation of engineering programs, program-level assessment of learning outcomes, faculty development, and interdisciplinary and intercultural issues in engineering education.
A post-conference wor kshop on the use of pedagogies, assessment strategies, and technology in enhancing student learning was held at HKUST.
The two gatherings provided excellent oppor tunities for par ticipants to networ k and identify potential areas for collaboration in the future.
20th Anniversary
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Students The School of Engineering is proud to commemorate HKUST’s 20th
Anniversary through arranging and participating in the following special events that highlight the University’s emphasis on innovation, high achievement, knowledge transfer and team spirit.
Photography has taken on a new dimension for over 50 elite high school students from local and international schools in Hong Kong following an interactive workshop on how to create multi-image panoramas by Prof Pedro Sander, Computer Science and Engineering. Prof Sander broke the global record in December 2010 when he created the world’s largest digital photo of 150 billion pixels.
During the workshop sessions, Prof Sander introduced the technologies and methods involved in creating his pioneering photograph depicting his hometown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Students were fascinated by the power of the photograph,
which allowed them to zoom in on even distant areas and clearly see all the details.
Later, they set out to make their own multi-image panoramas of the HKUST campus by taking pictures and using software to
“stitch” the images together. They also acquired knowledge of the algorithms and concepts behind the software.
Prof Sander said, “Through this workshop, I hope that students will see fur ther evidence that working on engineering and computer technology is interesting, fun, useful and also highly intertwined with our daily lives.”
Zooming In on the Big Picture
It has been a wonderfully eventful year for MPhil Computer Science and Engineering student Emprise Yun Kwan Chan.
He has become this year’s champion of HKUST’s Mr Armin and Mrs Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award scheme. He has also seen his research project on social networks and machine learning lead to a paper that was recently accepted by a top international artificial intelligence conference.
Entering HKUST as a straight A student, Emprise has made stellar progress at the University, finishing his difficult double degree in Computer Science and Math (General Math) in just 2.5 years. He is now on course to complete his MPhil in just 1.5 years.
Emprise credits his early research experience on the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)
with Prof Dit-Yan Yeung in Year 2 and Year 3 as providing essential early training that has given him a head star t at postgraduate level.
It also inspired his paper “A Convex Formulation of Modularity Maximization for Community Detection”, which Emprise will present in July at the major International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in Barcelona, Spain. The paper was co-authored with Prof Yeung.
Among the five winners in the research award scheme, four were from the School of Engineering. The winners were selected from 2010 UROP participants.
The Rewards of Early Research Training Advancing Engineering Education Across Borders
A top tr io of Computer Science and Engineer ing undergraduates beat 38 other teams from universities in Hong Kong and Macau to take the Champion Team Award at this year’s exciting IBM DB2 UDB Inter-Univer sity Programming Contest in January. The competition attracted participants from eight universities.
Desmond Hung (Year 3), Qifeng Chen (Year 2) and Jueyi Wang (Year 1) showed their outstanding programming and problem solving skills by successfully completing a series of questions to score the highest marks in the shortest time.
The three students formed one of five HKUST teams entering the contest, which also saw HKUST receive the overall Champion University Award for the highest total scores earned by its teams. Students from Computer Science and Engineering, Computer Engineering Program, and Economics took part, with support and encouragement p r ov i d e d b y f a c u l t y c o a c h P r o f W i l f r e d N g a n d
postgraduate coach Derek Hu.
The contest aims to strengthen students’ capabilities in relation to the DB2 database management system.
HKUST Students Shine in Inter-University Contest
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Students
Student Honors, Awards and Achievements
■ PhD candidate Vincent M a n P u n C h a n , E l e c -tronic and Computer Engineering, won Fir st P r i ze i n t h e S t u d e n t P a p e r A w a r d a t t h e 2010 Institute of Electri-cal and Electronics Engi-neers (IEEE) Asia Pacific
Conference on Circuits and Systems. His winning paper,
“A Monolithic 2nd-Order Boundar y Controller for Buck Conver ter with Fast Tr ansient Response”, was co-authored by Prof Philip Mok. The biennial conference is a major international forum established by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society for researchers to exchange their latest findings.
■ A HKUST Programming Team (HKUST Optimus Prime) r e a c h e d t h e wo r l d fi n a l s o f t h e p r e s t i g i o u s AC M International Collegiate Programming Contest in Florida, US, following their triumph in this year’s regional contests in Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur. The team comprised Danqi Chen, Year 2, Computer Engineering Program, Yuliang Li, Year 2, and PhD candidate Lu Wang, Computer Science and Engineering. The team was led by Prof Ke Yi and postgraduate coach Hao Hu. This year, around 7,000 teams worldwide par ticipated in the regional contests, with 102 teams qualifying for the finals.
■ M P h i l s t u d e n t Pa k Ming Cheung, Elec-tronic and Computer Engineering, won the Champion Award in the Design for Elderly Competition 2011.
His winning proposal
focused on designing e-games under the “Innovative Ideas for Quality Living” category. The contest was held as par t of Hong Kong Engineering Week 2011.
■ Darren Sin Wang Chiu, Ye a r 2 , C o m p u t e r Engineering and Global Business Management, w a s a w a r d e d t h e 2009-10 Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) Scholarship for
his outstanding academic achievement.
■ PhD student Wenqi Du, Civil and Environmental Engineer ing, has won the Arup Research Prize 2 0 1 1 . T h e a c c o l a d e , funded by Ove Arup &
Pa r t n e r s H o n g K o n g L t d , i s a w a r d e d t o undergraduate or
post-graduate students to promote creativity and high stan-dards of technology. Wenqi’s research seeks to develop guidelines for seismic design of buildings in Hong Kong and the results of his work are expected to bring great benefit to the local building industry.
■ Electronic and Com-p u t e r E n g i n e e r i n g P h D c a n d i d a t e Shaoqi Feng received t h e B e s t S t u d e n t Pa p e r Aw a r d ( 2 n d R u n n e r- u p ) a t t h e 11th IEEE Photonics Society Hong Kong
Chapter Postgraduate Conference. His winning paper,
“Electro-optical Tunable Time Delay and Advance in a Silicon Feedback-microring Resonator”, was co-authored by Dr Xianshu Luo and Prof Andrew Poon.
■ PhD student Cuiting Guo, Industrial Engineering and Logis-tics Management, received the Best Short Paper Award at the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2011, held in Singapore.
The conference is the most prestigious international con-ference focusing on virtual reality. The paper looked at the question: “Could OKAN be an Objective Indicator of the Susceptibility to Visually Induced Motion Sickness?”
■ An Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management under-graduate team comprising Zhiyi He, Year 2, Sihua Luo, Year 1, and Yik Hang Pang, Year 1, gained the Second Runner-up award in the Hong Kong Society for Quality student project competition. The competition is open to university students in industrial, manufacturing, quality or related disciplines, and provides them with an oppor tunity to work on an actual industrial case and propose a resolution.
■ Electronic and Computer Engineering PhD student Xiaocheng Jing won First P r i z e i n t h e S t u d e n t Pa p e r C o n t e s t a t t h e 2010 IEEE International Conference on Electron Devices and Solid-State
Circuits with her paper “Soft-Start Circuit with Duty Ratio Controlled Voltage Clamping and Adaptive Sizing Technique for Integrated DC-DC Conver ter s”. PhD student Chenchang Zhan, Electronic and Computer E n g i n e e r i n g , c a m e t h i r d w i t h h i s p a p e r
“Output-Capacitor-Free Adaptively Biased Low-Dropout Regulators”. Zhan also won the Student Paper Award at the IEEE Inter national Symposium o n C i r c u i t s a n d Systems held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in May with his paper
“ A n O u t p u t - C a p a c i t o r- F r e e A d a p t i v e l y B i a s e d L o w - D r o p o u t R e g u l a t o r w i t h S u b - T h r e s h o l d Undershoot-Reduction for SoC”, co-authored with Prof Wing-Hung Ki. A total of 658 papers were presented in the symposium. Only 3 papers were awarded the Student Paper Award.
■ P h D s t u d e n t L i a n g L u , Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management, received First Prize in the B e s t S t u d e n t P a p e r C o m p e t i t i o n a t t h e Second Production and Operations Management
Society (POMS)-Hong Kong International Conference.
The conference was or ganized by the POMS-Hong K o n g a n d Ta i w a n C h a p t e r s , t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management and the HKUST Logistics and Supply Chain Management Institute.
■ H i n g Y i k N g , Ye a r 2 , M e c h a n i c a l E n g i n e e r i n g , r e c e i v e d t h e Outstanding Student Award 2010 f r o m t h e A i r c r a f t E n g i n e e r Development Scheme (AEDS) in r e c o g n i t i o n o f h e r h i g h - f l y i n g performance in examinations and
par ticipation in AEDS activities. AEDS is organized by the Manufacturing and Industrial Division of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineer s and suppor ted by the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co Ltd and the Royal Aeronautical Society (Hong Kong Branch). It seeks to encourage undergraduates to plan and prepare for a career in aircraft engineering and maintenance.
■ Electronic and Computer Engineering PhD students Mahdi Nikdast, Xiaowen Wu and Yaoyao Ye gained the Best Poster Presentation Award (2nd place) at the AMD Technical Forum and Exhibition 2010, held in Taipei. Their research project, “A Formal Analysis of Crosstalk Noise in Mesh-based Optical Networ k-on-Chip for Chip Multiprocessor s”, was co-authored by Prof Jiang Xu.
AMD is a leading semiconductor company.
■ Postgraduate student Zhijian Zhou, E l e c t r o n i c a n d C o m p u t e r Engineering, has been awarded First Runner-up in the Postgr aduate Categor y of the Student Paper Contest held by the IEEE Hong Kong Section 2010, for his paper “The D e s i g n , F a b r i c a t i o n a n d Characterization of Piezoresistive Ta c t i l e S e n s o r f o r F i n g e r p r i n t Sensing”. 2010 ECE graduate Yue Yu was awarded First Runner-up in the Undergraduate Categor y for her
paper “Modified-MMSE Equalization for Noise and Interference Mitigation in SU-MIMO Systems”
■ S i x t e e n s t u d e n t s f r o m D u a l D e g r e e P r o g r a m i n Te c h n o l o g y a n d M a n a g e m e n t ( T & M ) h a d a g r e a t oppor tunity to learn more about the business world w h e n t h e y p a r t i c i p a t e d i n t h e S c h m i d t - H K U S T Corporate Project in Fall 2010. During the three-month project, the four student teams looked at ways to promote and facilitate adoption of Radio Frequency I d e n t i f i c a t i o n ( R F I D ) . To d o s o , t h e y a t t e n d e d conferences, corporate seminars and conducted market analysis, among other activities, before presenting their proposals to a panel of judges compr ising senior executives and business professionals. The winning team recommended using shor t-range wireless technology to c o n n e c t s o c i a l n e t w o r k s w i t h p h y s i c a l l o c a t i o n information.
DR MORGAN YANG, 1996 PhD Director of Operations, China
AECOM
“After my PhD, focused on wind-induced vibration of cable-stayed bridges, I j o i n e d M a u n s e l l ( l a t e r integrated into AECOM) to work on geotechnical and tunnel projects. I was the project manager for the design and construction of the North Point-Quarry Bay
section of the MTR’s Tseung Kwan O line and other signature tunnel projects in Hong Kong.
“The Yangtze River tunnel-bridge, linking Shanghai’s Pudong district and Chongming Island, was my significant Mainland project. It opened in 2009 and is one of the world’s largest shield-driven tunnels, with a diameter of 15.44m.
“The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is one of the most
really good preparation for my career. I also see the strengths of other HKUST gr aduates who come to wor k at the company. They are skilful at advanced computer simulations and have a strong background in mechanics. Their training may have been demanding but it means they are confident too.”
CLAUDIA SIN, 2007 BEng
Second Officer, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Ltd
“Flying has been my dream since I was young.
Although aviation degrees are not yet offered locally, my HKUST civil engineering degree equipped me to fulfill my dream of becoming a pilot. The engineering training at SENG emphasizes logical thinking and analytical skills, which helped me a lot in my career, especially in meeting the challenges of my 14-month cadet training in Australia. During my years at SENG, I was also lucky enough to win several scholarships to gain flying experience in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
“While a SENG student, I won a local eBay business competition with two of my Civil Engineering classmates and this gave us the valuable opportunity to work as interns in three different eBay
Directing Tunnel Projects and Flying Planes
EVENT 5
IEEE Technology Time Machine Symposium
Intriguing insight into next-generation advances was provided at the first IEEE s y m p o s i u m d e v o t e d t o f u t u r e technologies, which was held in Hong Kong and co-organized by HKUST.
More on P14
EVENT 6
Coming Soon!
Look out for more outstanding 20A events from the School of Engineering in the Fall. Events comprise an inspiring
“Br ing Technology to Community”
exhibition, with contributions by School of Engineering faculty, students and alumni; a thought-provoking distinguished lecture by Cambridge University civil engineering expert Prof Robert Mair; and SENG’s Engineering Day.
EVENTS 7,8,9
The Second International Workshop on Innovative Engineering Education
A successful gathering of more than 100 engineering educators took place in Hong Kong in January, co-organized by the Center for Engineering Education I n n o v a t i o n a n d S u n g k y u n k w a n University Hub Center for Innovative Engineering Education. Topics included a s s e s s m e n t , a c c r e d i t a t i o n a n d intercultural issues, among others. The keynote speaker s were Prof David Radcliffe, Purdue University, and Prof E l i z a b e t h G o d f r e y, U n i ve r s i t y o f Technology Sydney.
More on P14
EVENT 1
The Making of the World’s Largest Digital Photo Workshop
Prof Pedro Sander, Computer Science a n d E n g i n e e r i n g , c o n d u c t e d a n eye-opening interactive workshop that i n t r o d u c e d t h e t e c h n o l o g i e s a n d methods involved in creating his global record-breaking digital photo to elite high school students from local and international schools in Hong Kong.
Adding to the special nature of the event, the “train-the-trainer” approach was used, with students encouraged to pass on the knowledge they acquired to classmates, family and fr iends, greatly increasing the potential number of people to gain knowledge from the activity.
More on P14
EVENT 2
SENG/IAS Joint
Distinguished Lecture by Prof Vincent Poor
Eminent academic Prof Vincent Poor, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Michael Henr y S t r a t e r U n i v e r s i t y P r o f e s s o r o f Electr ical Engineer ing at Pr inceton U n i v e r s i t y , g a v e a n e n g a g i n g presentation on “Infor mation and Inference in the Wireless Physical Layer”. In his talk, Prof Poor explored information theoretic or inferential p r o b l e m s , e a c h m o t i v a t e d b y a n a p p l i c a t i o n s - l aye r i s s u e . O ve r 9 0 people attended the lecture.
EVENT 3 EVENT 4
HKUST 20th Anniversary Celebration Program Parade by
School of Engineering
A lively parade was held to showcase the special events organized by the School of Engineer ing to commemor ate the University’s latest historical milestone.
One of the stars of the show was a NAO robot, which gave a fun introduction to the occasion with its rundown of the celebratory line-up. Around 150 students and academics par ticipated including HKUST President Prof Tony F Chan, Vice-President Prof Y S Wong, Associate P r ovo s t D r D av i d M o l e , D e a n o f Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief, and Associate Deans of Engineering Prof Roger Cheng and Prof Charles Ng.
More on robotics on P11
A glimpse of the future was the intriguing prospect at the first IEEE Technology Time Machine (TTM) symposium, which was held in Hong Kong in June and co-organized by HKUST and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI). Themed “Technologies Beyond 2020”, the exciting event organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) focused on a number of potentially high-impact emerging
technologies and scenarios.
The kick off ceremony was officiated by Mr John Tsang Chun-wah, Financial Secretar y of the Hong Kong SAR Government; Dr Gordon Day, IEEE President-Elect; and members of the TTM Organizing Committee, including
General Co-Chair and HKUST Dean of Engineering Prof Khaled Ben Letaief. Through co-hosting the Symposium, Prof Ben Letaief hopes to drive strategic research planning in achieving the goal of the School to provide innovative and creative solution for industries and the society.
At the “Global R&D Leaders” panel discussion, HKUST President Prof Tony F Chan highlighted that business and industry should collaborate closely with universities to promote revolutionary innovative ideas. Panelists shared on innovation and advancement in areas ranging from radio access technology, biomedical sciences, implants of sensors in coronary ar teries to human centric intelligent societies and new organic electronic materials.
Prof Hoi Sing Kwok, Electronic and Computer Engineering, gave a keynote speech on display technologies, the field where he is globally renowned in.
Fast Forward to the Technologies of the Future
Flying High Over World’s Deepest Canyon
Postgraduate students Frank Wang and Jianyu Song, Electronic and Computer Engineering, have soared to new heights in their research and development with the successful autonomous flight of a self-designed unmanned helicopter across the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, the world’s deepest canyon. Located in Tibet, the canyon, also referred to as “the last territor y of myster y on Ear th”, is 504.6 km long and 6,009m deep at its lowest point, nearly three times the depth of the Grand Canyon in the US. Most of its many different terrains have never been traversed.
The helicopter, which flew over the canyon in September 2010, was equipped with the world’s most compact automated piloting system and had an intelligent tracking system which enabled the user to adjust its route during the flight. The challenge for the students was to ensure that the helicopter could continue its designated tasks and safely return to base even if wireless and global positioning signals were lost. The
many blind spots in the complex topography of t h e c a n yo n m a d e t h e location a perfect testing ground. News of the flight was released in December 2010.
E a r l i e r m o d e l s o f t h e H K U S T u n m a n n e d helicopter have tackled the rigors of Mount Everest and assisted earthquake relief in Sichuan by taking surveillance p h o t o s t o s u p p o r t post-disaster restor ation work in areas too dangerous for manned flights.
Triple honors were achieved by teams from the Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department in this year’s HKUST 2011 Entrepreneurship Competition, with three separate groups winning awards out of 11 finalists and an original 124 teams who entered the contest.
The First Runner-up prize went to LEDoS, led by Prof Kei May Lau, for its breakthrough display technology based on proprietary micro-projection devices, which provides cost-effective customizable hardware and software for digital display applications ranging from digital signage to traffic signs.
iFlight Technology team, led by Prof Zexiang Li, received the Third Runner-up award for technology that has turned it into one of the world’s leading developers and manufacturers of helicopter autopilot systems while the Student Award was won by Bull B Tech, led by undergraduate Yik Hei Chan, for a product that streamlines the business-to-customer process and has many applications in the retail industry.
The competition, which first started five years ago, seeks to foster entrepreneurship throughout the University, involving different members of the HKUST community and different Schools.
The competition, which first started five years ago, seeks to foster entrepreneurship throughout the University, involving different members of the HKUST community and different Schools.