Year: 2021

A “magic” spray for turning objects into agile millirobots to deliver drugs precisely inside a living body has been developed in joint research led by a scientist from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU).

This pioneering approach to creating millirobots hinges on the M-spray, a composited glue-like magnetic spray. A magnetic force can move an object around different surfaces after it has been sprayed with the M-spray. This technology has great potential for biomedical applications, including catheter navigation and precise drug delivery.

The research team is led by Dr Shen Yajing, Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at CityU, and is supported by the National Science Foundation of China and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.

The research findings have been published in Science Robotics titled “An agglutinate magnetic spray transforms inanimate objects into millirobots for biomedical applications”.

Composed of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), gluten and iron particles, M-spray can adhere to the surfaces of one (1D), two (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) objects instantly, steadily and firmly. The film formed on the surface is about 0.1mm to 0.25mm thick, which is thin enough to preserve the original size, form and structure of the objects. The magnetic coating is biocompatible and can be disintegrated into powder when needed.

“Our M-spray can stick on the targeted object and ‘activate’ the object when driven by a magnetic field,” explained Dr Shen.

Under the control of a magnetic field, the millirobots can change between different locomotion modes, such as crawling, flipping, walking, and rolling, on surfaces such as glass, skin, wood and sand.

What makes this approach special is the team can reprogramme the millirobot’s locomotion mode on demand.

Yang Xiong, a PhD student in BME and the co-first author on this paper, explained that by fully wetting the solidified M-spray coating to make it stick like glue and then by applying a strong magnetic field, the distribution and alignment direction of the magnetic particles of the M-spray coating can be changed.

This reprogrammable actuation feature is helpful for navigation towards targets. The team demonstrated that the M-spray coated catheter can perform sharp or smooth turns. The impact of blood/liquid flow on the motion ability and stability of the M-spray coated catheter was limited, too, the results showed.

Another important feature of this technology is that the M-spray coating can be disintegrated into powder on-demand with the manipulation of a magnetic field. “All the raw materials of M-spray, namely PVA, gluten and iron particles, are biocompatible. The disintegrated coating can be absorbed or excreted by the human body,” said Dr Shen.

In an in vivo test with rabbits for drug delivery, the team has demonstrated that the M-spray- enabled millirobot can reach the targeted region in the stomach precisely. Researchers disintegrated the coating by applying an oscillating magnetic field.

In response to the impact of the earthquake that occurred last January in Mamuju City, West Sulawesi, the World University Association for Community Development (WUACD), Universitas Airlangga,  held an international webinar on this issue. Titled Airlangga Social Responsibility in Disaster Management and Mitigation, the discussion on Monday, February 8, 2021, highlighted the earthquake disaster in Mamuju as well as a possible prevention and handling efforts by the university.

As a speaker, the Head of the Indonesian Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc., Ph.D. conveyed various disaster scenarios and their handling following the case that occurred in Mamuju.

According to her, there are two earthquake disaster scenarios that can occur in the Sulawesi region- an earthquake followed by aftershocks and an earthquake with tsunami potential. Both scenarios require the government’s responsiveness to establish shelters as well as appropriate mechanisms for handling residents.

“Therefore, the role of academic institutions lies not only in social assistance but also in research and innovation, especially in sensors and earthquake and tsunami predictions,” she explained.

Meanwhile, a professor of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) Prof. Dr. Ir. Krishna S. Pribadi highlighted his great concern on efforts to prevent the impact of disasters. He explained that from 2010-2019, Indonesia had experienced 20,702 natural disasters which caused social, material and casualty losses.

Prof. Krishna also emphasised the importance of certain actions for prevention. These actions include disaster management planning, disaster risk reduction, prevention, integration into development plans, disaster risk analysis, education and training, development of technical standards for disaster management, and so on.

Following these important steps in disaster management, Dr. Christrijogo Soemartono W. also shared UNAIR’s contribution to disaster management efforts. The chairman of Ksatria Airlangga Floating Hospital (RSTKA) explained how the floating hospital he led handled thousands of patients in the outer regions of Indonesia, including in Mamuju.

“This year we have visited 43 islands and handled 14,000 patients. Our services are free and voluntary. Not only limited to the medical aspect, but also sanitation, socialization, trauma healing, and so on, ” he explained.

Looking at the importance of the discussion, UNAIR Vice-Rector for Research and Community Development, Prof. Dr. Ni Nyoman Tri Puspaningsih, M.Si stated in her remarks that this international webinar was the first WUACD regular summit discussing the topic of disaster management and mitigation.

President University and PT Jababeka Infrastruktur held a soft opening for the Jababeka Fabrication Laboratory (Fablab), on 25 February 2021.

Jababeka Fablab is a laboratory that provides technological facilities to support Industry 4.0.

The soft opening was marked by holding a talk titled” Create, Innovate, Collaborate” with speakers Tjahjadi Rahardja and Sutedja Darmono, both Directors of PT Jababeka Tbk. and Professor Dr Jony Haryanto, Rector of President University. The session was hosted by Rudy Subrata, General Manager of Industrial Sales & Marketing of PT Jababeka Tbk.

“We are preparing for training and technology,  including software for companies wanting to apply the Industry 4.0 concept,” said Tjahjadi.

In this laboratory, said Tjahjadi, the public, including President University students, can experiment or create works. Meanwhile, Sutedja hopes that Fablab can support the idea of making the Jababeka industrial area a “silicon valley” for Industry 4.0.

Jony Haryanto hopes that Fablab will help students and the community to improve their skills, especially skills that are in touch with Industry 4.0 technology.

The Faculty of Business and Management (FBM), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia last year organised a program called Autism Friendly Mosque which was initiated by the Research Initiative Group (RIG) Sustaining Quality of Life (SQL). This program was introduced to avoid negative perceptions from the public since most Muslim parents do not bring their autistic children to the mosque.

This program, a collaboration between Government agencies such as the Department of Federal Territory Islamic Affairs (JAWI) and several NGO’s including The National Autism Society of Malaysia (NASOM) and mosques throughout Malaysia was part of the community engagement for the research.

As part of this initiative, more than 45 children with autism and their parents were invited to join this program as far back as April 2018 together with more than 50 volunteers. Several programs have been carried out since then, such as lessons on performing prayers and reading IQRA and Ablution. Unfortunately, in the current pandemic situation, this program was done virtually.

“Walking in the shoes of a child with an autism spectrum disorder: making visiting the religious centre (mosque) easier” was a program organised on 11 April 2020 using Social Media platform and Facebook Live. The program received an overwhelming response from participants throughout Malaysia.

These programs were aimed to open societies’ mind-set and accept those in the spectrums and to put more attention to figure out ways to communicate with them. With the belief that all people are born different but equal and valuable, the RIG from FBM UiTM, NGOs and JAWI hoped that the program achieved its objectives especially to encourage Muslim parents to bring their children with autism to the mosque so that they can enjoy equal and harmonious lives.

Dr Naffisah Mohd Hassan, the team leader of the program highlighted that “these community service responsibility projects also served as a platform for the university staff and students to engage with the needs, to care for those in need exclusively the minority community such as children with special needs and other minority groups in the community, how to reach to them and eventually help them or support them to improve their quality of life”.

Mikhail Brychkov, once a student at Saint Petersburg Mining University, is now Regional Director at Zeppelin Russland, one of the world’s largest Caterpillar dealers for heavy machinery & equipment. 

One of the most efficient ways to train engineers capable of operating and maintaining equipment is to ensure that university curricula include lectures and workshops on how to handle the machines. One can learn how to use and work with Caterpillar machinery at the training facility of Zeppelin Russland, which was established on Mining University’s premises. So far, it is the only Caterpillar’s training unit in Russia.

“The training center enriched the university’s already rich research and laboratory infrastructure. I am a graduate of Mining University myself, so I know about the quality of education it offers. And I do believe the university opened doors for me,” notes Mikhail.

“In my third year, I won the President of Russia Scholarship, which allows studying abroad. The next year I spent studying underground mining techniques and field-specific software at Freiberg University of Mining and Technology. As part of my studies, I also underwent a two-month-long internship in South Africa at De Beers. This international corporation specializes in diamond mining, exploitation and trading,” adds Mikhail.

The former Mining University’s student has been working at the Russian subsidiary of Zeppelin for eleven years already. He started as a sales representative for quarry machinery. Commerce did not initially interest Mikhail, but the company profile influenced his choice.

Zeppelin Russland offers various products – road-building machinery, power units, mining and quarrying equipment, and automatic control systems for roadmaking. Since mining is one of Russia’s leading sectors, Zeppelin Russland set up a separate mining department. When hiring new employees, its director intentionally prefers mining engineers over others.

“We have always had Mining University’s graduates among our employees. The department’s specialists conduct feasibility studies and comparisons, field tests; they also validate pre-production samples of equipment at enterprises,” elaborates Mikhail, the Regional Director of the Department of Construction and Road-Building Machinery for the Central Federal District.

“When placing an order, customers – chief engineers and heads of organizations – look for a partner, rather than a seller. They want to talk to a specialist who understands the purpose of using machinery, conditions of use, challenges of using it. It has to be someone who will help them select the machine they need. As the consumer decides between competitors, they compare more than just some basic technical parameters. It’s a technology battle that requires us being tech-savvy,” he explains.

Two years after joining Zeppelin Russland, Mikhail was appointed the Head of Projects. He became responsible for cooperation with key companies – LaFarge, Holcim, Sibelco, Heidelbergcement, Knauf, – all of which are present in Russia. Thereupon he moved to the Department of Construction and Road-Building Machinery for the Central Federal District, and in 2019 took the position of Regional Director. At this job, Mikhail coordinates supplies of machinery and technical assistance for equipment delivered to road-building companies and organizations involved in the extraction and realization of industrial materials.

Chitkara Business School has been declared as “B-School of the year 2020” by Academic Insight Magazine. CBS has been selected from the Best B-Schools of India after been assessed on various parameters.

The Academics Insights Magazine, in its blog column, featured Dr Madhu Chitkara, Pro-Chancellor, Chitkara University and covered complete information about the Chitkara Business School.

Starting from infrastructure to the world-class faculty and global exchange programs to placements were mentioned in the blog. It showcased, how CBS being a part of more than 150 international partnerships ranging from study abroad programs, student exchange programs, and so on, is the hotspot for “strong on-campus recruitments”.

Academic Insights is a monthly magazine that aims at showcasing the proficiency and competence of the educational establishments. It conducts yearly surveys for various education courses wherein, according to them, each institute is hand-picked by its panel of experts. Before the final selection, the board spends time analysing each institute precisely, basically following four parameters: Academic Excellence, Infrastructure-Facilities, Industry-Interface, and Placements.

The project of an intelligent system or controlling the movement of people, presented by Sergey Antonov, a master’s student of the Faculty of Computer Science and Technology of ETU “LETI“, has won a grant in the UMNIK competition.

The developed software can be used in retail stores providing functional to divide customers into groups for determining the most popular products for each group of customers and evaluating the effectiveness of advertising, promotions, and other activities.

“Companies can use the project to analyze customer activity in the store and improve the marketing strategy based on the received data. Nowadays, there are many different analogs: from ordinary sensors for counting the number of visitors to analytical systems that use machine learning methods. The system under development will be superior to cheap sensors and comparable to expensive analytical systems,” the developer says.

An intelligent system will identify the most popular products for different groups of visitors and compile statistics to assess the effectiveness of advertising according to the data obtained. Also, the software will have functional to determine the optimal number of consultants and cash registers to ensure quality service and work distribution of staff: the system will help to draw up a schedule of cleaning, maintenance, equipment configuration, and merchandising. The project will also make stores safer for visitors by collecting data on the number of people who were inside after the store was closed or evacuated.

The innovativeness of the development lies in the use of machine learning methods with modern neural network architectures, which allows solving tasks with high accuracy. Specially trained neural networks will identify people on video and recognize their faces. The system uses methods of projective geometry to determine the location of a person: it transforms the image received from CCTV cameras into a top view.

“The proposed solution will find people using CCTV cameras, track and analyze their movements in real-time. With the help of a facial recognition system, the software can identify employees of a store among customers and divide customers into groups by gender and age. Also, now we are working to apply the system for social distance control in the fight against COVID-19,” Sergei Antonov said.

The idea of using such a system in stores appeared after Sergey wrote his bachelor’s degree in Automated System for Controlling the Movement of Employees. After that, the student decided to develop a ready-made system under the guidance of Alexander Sinitsa, a postgraduate student of the Department of Automation and Control Processes.

Sergey assumes that companies in any sphere can use the project to analyze how long employees stay in various departments, are late or absent from work. Museums can use the software to control attendance and analyze capacity.

The developer will use the funds of the received grant to purchase the necessary hardware and software. The project will take two years to implement. During the first year, the researcher plans to study various models of neural networks and train the suitable ones to find people on video and to develop software for building heat maps with trajectories of found people.

During the second year, the student will research different architectures of neural network models for finding and recognizing faces, compare different classifiers and choose the optimal one for finding the same faces, create a prototype of the user interface, and test the system on real cameras.

Taiwan’s COVID-19 response and low case numbers are recognised around the world. In addition to creating a safe environment for quality education, Taipei Medical University (TMU) has played a pivotal role that’s been realised through the university’s leading alumni, developments in medical technology, healthcare professionals, and international service providers.

With the abundant support, fortunately, TMU helped 98% of enrolled international students successfully travel to Taiwan and join the TMU community under such a vicious pandemic in 2020. Many of the new international students listed Taiwan’s image of safety as a major pull for them to continue their overseas study at a time when friends were cancelling plans to study at places like Japan, Korea, and the US.

TMU manifested its capacity in maintaining a relatively normal campus life. On campus, TMU was busy ensuring students had access to the expected high standard of education, while at the same time prioritizing safety through epidemic prevention. Faculty were quick to embrace distance learning through online courses and videos, and came up with flexible approaches to off-campus internships and service requirements.

After settling to the relative safety of campus life, students might be proud to learn that leading TMU alumni have played no small part in Taiwan’s pandemic response. From the commander of Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) taking immediate actions and activating Taiwan’s epidemic prevention mechanism to front-line healthcare workers curing the confirmed cases, hundreds of thousands of TMU alumni have unwearyingly fought together in this unprecedented epidemic prevention battle.

Likewise, TMU has helped Taiwan lead the way with breakthroughs in medical technology. TMU Hospital, in alliance with forefront tech companies, announced the “Contact-Free Connected Healthcare Platform” which was developed under the umbrella of the Industrial Technology Research Institute’s Service System Technology Center.

This groundbreaking system utilizes thermal imaging and infra-red cameras to automatically collect patients’ vital signs which were later analyzed by AI algorithms with testing and imaging results. Medical alerts can be issued automatically, and patients can track their information with an app. The platform’s integrated video allows doctors, nurses, and patients to communicate remotely, creating an essentially touchless system that minimizes physical contact and reduces the risk of infection.

TMU students have also been actively involved in the government’s pandemic response. Hundreds of interns from the School of Pharmacy helped shoulder the burden of surgical mask rationing. Working at pharmacies across capital Taipei, these students acted as a bridge between the community and the medical establishment, providing accurate and timely information that helped minimize the public’s panic.

Moreover, TMU’s contributions to public health were beyond territory. After receiving a call for assistance from the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) in April 2020, it took just two weeks for TMU Hospital to assemble the “Taiwan We Go” disease prevention and medical care team. After an intensive two-month consultation and training seminars with local health agencies, the country had increased its epidemic prevention capacity at the national level with more than 500 healthcare providers empowered to treat severe respiratory failure.

To better understand the effectiveness of the university’s response to the pandemic on campus, TMU Office of Global Engagement invited its international students to provide their feedback and suggestions on the COVID-19 mitigation initiatives introduced on campus.

According to the “TMU campus survey,” most international students in 2020 acknowledged the pandemic’s impact on their studies, graduation, finances, and freedom of movement. They experienced the growing stress in many different shapes and forms, and like the society in general, have accumulated increasing level of pandemic-related anxiety.

But students also saw TMU’s actions to help mitigate the pandemic’s negative impact on their studies and health, including the compliance of mask-wearing and social distancing requirements, online course delivery to maintain their learning progression, as well as the genuine care about students’ safety from faculty and staff members.

“I can engage with the online teaching, which doesn’t affect my further study,” mentioned a student in the TMU campus survey.

“I’m very impressed with the COVID-19 response of TMU in particular and Taiwan in general,” said another respondent.

“I would like to thank TMU, Taiwan as I am able to focus on my studies in this pandemic period. TMU is providing us with a great learning platform, thank you!”, another student mentioned in the survey.

Having settled into a new normal after a challenging year in 2020, 88% of TMU student respondents agreed that on the whole they felt safe and secured on campus. Together with TMU’s contributions to pandemic response at the campus, national, as well as international levels, the university is committed to making a positive impact on the life of the students, partners, and their families.