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Year: 2023

Redox-based transistor as reservoir system for neuromorphic computing

Posted on by Tokyo University of Science

Physical systems known as “reservoirs” are designed to emulate neural networks and meet the need for improved computational efficiency and speed. Overcoming the previous issues with compatibility, performance, and integration of such reservoir systems, researchers from Japan have recently developed an ion-gating transistor with improved reservoir states and short-term memory capabilities based on redox reactions. This development opens us the possibility of utilizing redox-based ionic devices for high-performance neuromorphic computing.

With major breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, image recognition, and object detection, the field of computing has witnessed a remarkable revolution in recent times. Being a data-driven field, the efficient analysis and processing of large and complex datasets is of utmost importance in computing. To enhance the efficiency and speed of data-driven tasks, researchers are exploring the possibility of recognizing complex patterns and relationships inherent in the data for the development of high-performance “neuromorphic” computing technology. This cutting-edge approach aims to replicate the brain’s ability to process information in a parallel and interconnected manner. By doing so, it seeks to construct a network of nodes capable of transforming data into high-dimensional representations suitable for complex tasks like pattern recognition, prediction, and classification.

Physical reservoirs resembling neural networks receive and interact with input signals or data, and their constituent elements, namely neurons and their interconnections, dynamically change over time. These reservoir states represent the physical system at a specific point and play a vital role in transforming input signals into high-dimensional representations. Securing the high dimensionality of a physical reservoir to achieve a sufficiently large number of reservoir states is, however, a challenging task.

Now, in a study published in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems, researchers from Japan led by Associate Professor Tohru Higuchi at Tokyo University of Science (TUS) have developed a redox reaction-based ion-gating reservoir (redox-IGR) that can achieve a record-high number of reservoir states. With this development, Dr. Higuchi, along with Mr. Tomoki Wada and Mr. Daiki Nishioka from TUS, and Dr. Takashi Tsuchiya and Dr. Kazuya Terabe from National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan, have now advanced the possibility of translating higher-performance neuromorphic computing technology into a reality.

Ion-gating reservoirs consist of gate, drain, and source electrodes and are separated by an electrolyte that acts as a medium to control the flow of ions. Applying a voltage to the gate electrode triggers a redox reaction within the channel connecting the source and drain electrodes, resulting in a drain current that can be precisely modulated. Converting the time-series datasets into gate voltages can thus allow the corresponding output currents to serve as distinct reservoir states.

In this study, the researchers used lithium (Li+) ion conducting glass ceramic (LICGC) as an electrolyte. In LICGC, the Li+ ions travel faster compared to the channel, leading to the generation of two output currents — the drain current and an additional gate current, effectively doubling the number of reservoir states. Moreover, the different rates of ion transport in the channel and the electrolyte results in a delay in response of the drain current compared to the gate current. This delayed response enables short-term memory capabilities within the system, allowing the reservoir to retain and utilize information from past inputs, a crucial requirement for physical reservoirs.

To fabricate this device, the researchers deposited a 200-nm thick film of lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) onto a 0.15-mm thick LICGC substrate. The gate electrode was composed of a thin film of Li-ion/platinum (Pt), while Pt thin films were used for the drain and source electrodes. The channel connecting the drain and source electrodes consisted of a 100-nm thick tungsten (VI) oxide (WO3) thin film.

“We have successfully reproduced electrical characteristics similar to those of neural circuits by utilizing redox reactions induced by the insertion and desorption of Li+ ions into the LixWO3 thin film,” explains Dr. Higuchi.

Demonstrating remarkable capabilities, the device achieved a total of 40 reservoir states (20 from the drain current and 20 from the gate current). It outperformed other physical reservoirs such as memristors and spin torque devices when solving second-order nonlinear dynamic equations. Most notably, the nonlinearity, the short-term memory capabilities, and the high number of reservoir states enabled the device to make predictions with a low mean square prediction error of 0.163 in the second-order nonlinear autoregressive moving average (NARMA2) task — a benchmark test for evaluating the performance of a reservoir system in performing complex nonlinear operations and predicting the future value of a time-series input based on its past values of both input and output.

Explaining the real-life implications of this development, Dr. Higuchi concludes, “The developed system has the potential to become a general-purpose technology that will be implemented in a wide range of electronic devices including computers and cell phones in the future.”

Universitas Sumatera Utara researchers study key indicators for mangrove restoration success

Posted on by Editorial Team

Rapid mangrove loss rates have prompted the urgent implementation of conservation and restoration programs. Currently, restoration efforts have high failure rates (mainly because they only consider intensive planting of mangrove seedlings, often in monocultures and low-lying tidal flats. In many cases, this approach must pay more attention to measuring ecosystem habitat functionality and adaptive management.

A study from the Center of Excellence for Mangrove Universitas Sumatera Utara (CoE for Mangrove USU) recently reported that macrozoobenthic community assemblage is a key indicator for mangrove restoration success. The idea behind this new study, led by Prof. Mohammad Basyuni of Universitas Sumatera Utara and Dr. Alejandra G. Vovides of the University of Glasgow and published in the journal Restoration Ecology (https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13614), was simple. The recognition of the high value of mangrove forests and the wide array of ecosystem services they provide has motivated investment in worldwide restoration efforts. However, current metrics of functional restoration (other than seedling survival rates and plant community composition) are often not readily available for local community managers, highlighting an urgency to identify easy-to-measure indicators to assess the functionality of restored mangroves.

The macrozoobenthic community could be such a practical indicator, as macrozoobenthic communities are sensitive to changes in their environment and can be surveyed easily within local managing programs.

Macrozoobenthos on the roots of mangrove.

The study focusing on three main mangrove management conditions (natural, planted, and naturally regenerated) in North Sumatra and the province of Aceh, Indonesia, compared vegetation and macrozoobenthic community diversity indices and identified environmental variables that best describe the forest management conditions and their associated macrozoobenthic community assemblage. These land uses have further undergone mangrove vegetation recovery either due to abandonment followed by natural regeneration of mangroves or due to mangrove planting efforts. This provided the possibility to compare two management conditions (i.e., planted and naturally regenerated) with mature natural mangroves used as reference. The study found that the macrozoobenthic community can be used as a restoration indicator and could serve as a baseline to empower monitoring activities and community-based adaptive management practices to improve the outcomes of restoration efforts. Coastal communities that utilize the mangrove forest are familiar with the macrozoobenthos species. This familiarity will help in designing community-based monitoring programs to evaluate mangrove restoration success.

Macrozoobenthos.

Environmental conditions at mangrove restoration sites can rapidly change, as evidenced by Pulau Sembilan in Malaysia, which was first managed through planting between 2008 and 2012, but then additionally underwent hydrological connectivity restoration. Despite the limitations of this study, low pH and DO at Percut Sei Tuan are probable evidence of hydrologically impaired conditions. These environmental attributes, alongside the early pioneer vegetation recorded at Percut Sei Tuan, indicate low restoration success due to a continued hydrological impairment. However, allowing natural regeneration to occur without any intervention could result in functional recovery times becoming prolonged or even not occurring at all, depending on the nature, intensity, and duration of the disturbance (Ellison et al., 2020). Here, both vegetation and macrozoobenthos community assemblages formed three distinct groups associated with management. The vegetation NMDS showed high dissimilarities between natural and planted mangroves, where the differences in vegetation and environmental attributes might, in turn, influence the macrozoobenthic community assemblage, as was found to occur in riparian streams.

CoE for Mangrove USU is collaborating with the School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom, and the Department of Environment, Thuyloi University, Vietnam. The project suggested that identifying indicator species to support rapid bio-assessments can aid conservation diagnostics and management program design. Overall, the study showed that the community assemblage has the potential to be an indicator of mangrove functional restoration success. It showed that natural mangrove regeneration favors the recovery of macrozoobenthic functional groups over plantations. Facilitating natural mangrove regeneration through ecological and hydrological restoration may take longer than direct planting. Still, it will create the suitable flooding regimes and “natural” species assemblages needed to facilitate the functional recovery of the macrozoobenthic communities. Documenting the macrozoobenthic community under different mangrove conditions (including bare mudflats) and throughout the restoration programs can help understand the functional restoration trajectories. Further, combining nature-based solutions such as elevation or hydrological restoration with planting or dispersal of local pioneer species could accelerate the natural functional recovery of ecosystems.

Searching for joy in the university

Posted on by Ant Bagshaw

Universities are often focused on efficiency and productivity, which can happen at the expense of the individual, leading to a workplace that is stressful and unfulfilling. Dr Ant Bagshaw explores the meaning and importance of joy in higher education institutions.

Every week, I spend time on a university campus, talking to colleagues and friends about their experiences of higher education. There’s one thing about the discourse on the contemporary university which is bothering me: we seem to be able to have successful institutions working well, in aggregate, but failing to ensure that each individual member of the community finds personal satisfaction.

The universities I work with are objectively successful. In Australia, where I live, universities have grown significantly in size offering educational opportunities to an increasingly large proportion of the population. The sector is also demonstrably attractive to international students from around the world. Additionally, research and innovation outcomes are excellent for the investment of public and private money. Universities play a major role in national life and have a positive impact in communities across the country. So far, so great.

This success of higher education could also be said about other systems. When I visit institutions across Southeast Asia, North America or Europe, leaders there also tell stories of ambition, growth, and success. Globally, we see enormous demand for higher education and graduates can find interesting and engaging jobs. Our universities are also the sites of amazing discoveries, cultural progress and new knowledge.

If universities are so successful, what’s the problem?

For many students and graduates who I talk to, higher education is, disappointingly, an impersonal and uninspiring experience. Yes, they have found friends and experienced intellectual growth, but they describe the experience in terms which suggest that this was in spite of the university, not because of it. There are persistent complaints about the variability of the teaching experience, inadequate student support, and technologies which inhibit rather than enable learning.

There is a particular dissonance for the experience at large research-intensive, high prestige, universities. Here, the institutional incentives for research dominate and educational experiences are often a comparatively low priority. In some institutions, there is a lingering attitude that students should be grateful for having been admitted, positioning them without power to seek better than that which is offered. While this is a broad-brush description, the issues are raised so regularly that it feels like there’s a pattern and not just my sampling bias.

The challenge is perhaps even more acute when speaking to faculty and professional staff. Workloads are high, the pressure to hit performance metrics is intense, and where universities have sought to be more efficient, staff are asked to do more with less. My work takes me to the UK regularly where I see these issues most starkly. In England, there is massive pressure on institutional budgets from eroding fee levels and increasing costs. Aside from the economics of higher education, the national political discourse positions universities as ‘part of the problem’, not the creators of solutions.

Academic staff in England are taking industrial action including a marking boycott which will see thousands of students’ graduations delayed. This is the latest in a wave of strikes over recent years, including among professional staff, which have demonstrated dissatisfaction with levels of pay, casualisation of the academic workforce, precarious career pathways, and worsening pension provision.

How do we know when there’s a big problem?

It could be fairly easy to dismiss the issues in contemporary higher education as the same experienced by every generation. Staff and students want more from their institutions than it’s possible to give. Students will always want better facilities, teaching, and support whatever the absolute level they actually receive. Staff will always want higher pay, lighter workloads, and more financial security in retirement. The pandemic disrupted organisational lives as well as personal ones: universities are still dealing with changes from health requirements, new learning modes, and the financial implications from a difficult few years.

While it’s possible to dismiss complaints with a focus on all the good which universities do, I think that there’s another way to come at this question. I think that there is a big problem, but it’s not one specific to any of the issues I’ve touched on. Our universities’ incentives and measures of success focus too much on the aggregate and too little on the individual. This is the structural problem which means that we’re not going to fix the experience such that everyone in the university community is enabled to find their own success.

What’s joy got to do with it?

I recently wrote an essay about the need for joy in universities. This was in response to a question inviting respondents to identify one aspect of higher education institutions to improve and how to go about it. I’ve been talking about joyful universities for a while as a prompt for reflection and discussion among senior leaders. It’s a term which usually gets people to stop and think.

Joy is a provocative term. It’s generally not a word used in workplaces. Joy is personal and intimate, the antithesis of corporate. And that’s why it’s powerful. It turns out that asking people to reflect on emotional responses to the world around them generates a different sort of discussion from the norm.

The core of my argument is that universities are too focused on efficiency, on being measured against performance targets which homogenise the experience of thousands of staff and students. This process of aggregating experiences eliminates that which is personal about learning in, or working at, a university.

Joy should be a route to high performance

Each time I’ve discussed trying to make universities into more joyful places, I hear a difficult story. While it varies a little by context, it usually goes like this: there’s an academic who is a star researcher, the leader in their field, who is known to have difficult and unpleasant behaviours but who is unchallenged because of their research reputation. It is far too common that universities are places where bullying and harassment are well known but not addressed. As academic staff come up through these environments, they learn that anything goes so long as you are among the best in research.

This isn’t good enough. Staff leave toxic working environments, and they may leave academia all together. Universities, and particular departments and groups within institutions, gain reputations for making lives miserable. What if this pattern could be reversed? What if institutions were known to be safe and respectful environments in which people were able to do their best work?

My proposal for a joyful university may sound reasonable in abstract: if the workplace is one where people are able to find personal satisfaction, the aggregate experience will be better. However, as with the issues of student experience and teaching quality, there is an enormous challenge in large and complex institutions of finding ways to enable colleagues to find joy in their work.

What’s joy got to do with it?

I recently wrote an essay about the need for joy in universities. This was in response to a question inviting respondents to identify one aspect of higher education institutions to improve and how to go about it. I’ve been talking about joyful universities for a while as a prompt for reflection and discussion among senior leaders. It’s a term which usually gets people to stop and think.

Joy is a provocative term. It’s generally not a word used in workplaces. Joy is personal and intimate, the antithesis of corporate. And that’s why it’s powerful. It turns out that asking people to reflect on emotional responses to the world around them generates a different sort of discussion from the norm.

The core of my argument is that universities are too focused on efficiency, on being measured against performance targets which homogenise the experience of thousands of staff and students. This process of aggregating experiences eliminates that which is personal about learning in, or working at, a university.

Joy should be a route to high performance

Each time I’ve discussed trying to make universities into more joyful places, I hear a difficult story. While it varies a little by context, it usually goes like this: there’s an academic who is a star researcher, the leader in their field, who is known to have difficult and unpleasant behaviours but who is unchallenged because of their research reputation. It is far too common that universities are places where bullying and harassment are well known but not addressed. As academic staff come up through these environments, they learn that anything goes so long as you are among the best in research.

This isn’t good enough. Staff leave toxic working environments, and they may leave academia all together. Universities, and particular departments and groups within institutions, gain reputations for making lives miserable. What if this pattern could be reversed? What if institutions were known to be safe and respectful environments in which people were able to do their best work?

My proposal for a joyful university may sound reasonable in abstract: if the workplace is one where people are able to find personal satisfaction, the aggregate experience will be better. However, as with the issues of student experience and teaching quality, there is an enormous challenge in large and complex institutions of finding ways to enable colleagues to find joy in their work.

This article was from the QS Insights Magazine, Issue 4. Read the full edition.

Building fluency and confidence through English Language Camp

Posted on by PKKUniMAP

Mastery of the English language not only makes it easier for us to connect with the outside world, but it also guarantees smooth dealings involving other countries.

As a university that values ​​close community-based relationships, be it locally or in neighbouring countries, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) took the initiative to conduct the Basic English Language Camp (BELSA) programme.

The Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation, Professor Ir. Dr. Rizalafande Che Ismail said, UniMAP, through the Languages ​​and General Studies Department of the Faculty of Business and Communication (FPK), organized BELSA to improve English language skills among school students in the Satun region.

“This programme provides exposure and training to 318 students from 25 religious primary schools in the Satun region about the importance of communicating in English throughout our daily life.

“In addition, it can improve communication skills and language-related knowledge for students and teachers who participate in this programme, as well as showcasing UniMAP in teaching and learning activities (PdP) for overseas students,” he said when officiating on behalf of the Vice Chancellor at the closing ceremony of the BELSA programme at Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Chancellery Auditorium, here, recently.

Earlier, the Manager of Thammasat Wittaya School Satun, Umar Akem said the BELSA programme gave the primary school students of the Satun region the opportunity to learn the basics of English in an exciting environment abroad, namely Malaysia, especially in the university environment at UniMAP.

Chulalongkorn researchers win Gold, special awards at INTARG 2023 in Poland

Posted on by Chulalongkorn University

Prof. Pol.Capt. Pharm. Dr. Suchada Sukrong, lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and a researcher at the Center of Excellence in DNA Barcoding of Thai Medicinal Plants, Chulalongkorn University, Dr. Kannika Thongkhao, and Pharm. Chayaphol Tangpatthong have won the gold medal and two Special Awards, namely the FIRI Award in the Best Invention category from “The first institute of inventors and researchers of Iran” (FIRI), Iran, and a Special Awards from “The Industrial Property Office of the Czech Republic the Czech Metallurgical Society,” The Czech Republic, in The 16th International Invention and Innovation Show (INTARG 2023) on May 24-25, 2023, at Katowice International Conference Center, Katowice, Republic of Poland, with their “Rapid DNA immunochromatographic assay for detection of toxic Aristolochia species, the plants responsible for aristolochic acid nephropathy”

Participants from over 30 countries around the world submitted more than 300 works to this invention and innovation contest. Thailand had 29 works from 19 agencies, including Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Kasetsart University, Srinakharinwirot University, Burapha University, Naresuan University, Mae Jo University, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Rajamangala University of Technology Suvarnabhumi, Chiang Mai Rajabhat University, Princess Chulabhorn Science High School Lopburi, Satri Witthaya, and the Prince Royal’s College. Participation in this contest was supported by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation.

This innovation originated from an interest in khrai khruea, the root of the Aristolochia genus, which is used widely around the world, as well as in Thai medicinal formulas. The herb has anti-fever properties and boosts appetite. However, it contains Aristolochic acid as a chemical component, which is a carcinogen and can cause many types of kidney diseases, such as kidney failure, kidney cancer, and urinary tract cancer. The continuous monitoring of the use of khrai khruea by the research team of the Center of Excellence in DNA Barcoding of Thai Medicinal Plants, Chulalongkorn University, headed by Prof. Pol.Capt. Pharm. Dr. Suchada Sukrong, found that plants of this genus are still available for sale and mixed in medicinal recipes.

The “Rapid DNA immunochromatographic assay for detection of toxic Aristolochia species” consists of an antigen-labeled primer set and a lateral flow test kit, which can be used to accurately test the existence of Aristolochia species, e.g., khrai khruea, in various types of herbal medicines, such as pharmaceutical recipes, pharmaceutical powder, formulas, and bolus. The kit is highly sensitive and easy to use. The results can be interpreted with the naked eye in 90 minutes by reading the color lines that resemble the COVID-19 ATK or a pregnancy test kit. The “Rapid DNA immunochromatographic assay for detection of toxic Aristolochia species” can be used by entrepreneurs to inspect herbal raw materials or to inspect finished products by public health authorities and law enforcement agencies.

However, the Center intends to further develop the innovation for faster detection, which can yield results on the spot, and enable the public to test their own herbal medicines.

HKAPA appoints Jorge Luis Cacheiro as Dean of Drama

Posted on by Communications Office

The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) is pleased to announce that Mr. Jorge Luis Cacheiro has been appointed Dean of the School of Drama with effect from June 1, 2023.Mr. Cacheiro is a prestigious and well-respected theatre innovator with extensive teaching experience in acting and directing, as well as an award-winning theatre director and producer whose work has been presented globally. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of California and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing from Yale University.

Professor Gillian Choa, Academy Director, welcomes Mr. Cacheiro to join the Academy community and remarks, “I look forward to working with Mr. Cacheiro and am sure that his experience, expertise and international connections will make a very positive and valuable contribution to the Academy, especially for the further development of the School of Drama.”

Mr. Cacheiro has devoted himself to higher education in the performing arts for over 25 years and served as Founder cum Executive Director of the School of Performing Arts at Pace University. Prior to his tenure at Pace, he founded the New Works Initiative (NWI) at Montclair State University.

Mr. Cacheiro has taught Master’s acting and directing classes at the University of California, Cal Arts, Princeton University and the University of Iowa. Along with his long history of directing world premieres of new plays, he became the first American director to be invited to lead a Cuban company in a Latin American production in 2010.

UiTM dentistry undergraduates head to Xi’an for summer camp

Posted on by Fara Azwin Adam

UiTM aims to have an international reputation as a top institution by 2025. The anchors of this approach are the Three (3) Strategic Thrusts of Quality Education, Global Excellence, and Value-Driven Performance. Each strategy thrust is connected to acknowledged Strategic Themes to ensure the intended goal is accomplished.

The Faculty of Dentistry has established relationships with higher institutional partners to broaden student knowledge and provide them with the leading-edge technical tools for employability, keeping with UiTM’s objective to educate professionals of the highest calibre.

Institutional exchanges between faculty and staff from each partner institution; acceptance of undergraduate and graduate students from each partner institution for periods of study and research; organisation of scientific meetings, conferences, short courses, and meetings on research issues; exchange of information regarding developments in teaching, student development, and research institutions; visiting academician project to teach. To date, a “Summer Programme” run throughout the semester has served as the means of putting the prior efforts into practice. Amidst the pandemic, the MOU signing was held virtually in May 2022, with MyEdu Sdn. Bhd. as witness and consultancy agency. As part of the collaborative effort, delegates from the Faculty of Dentistry UiTM have participated in a Dental Summer Training Summer Camp, which Xi’an Medical University (XMU) organised. This Summer program was held on the 18-24th May, 2023, at Weiyang Campus in Xi’an, China. A total number of 6 dental students who have performed well both in academic and clinical training, accompanied by the Dean, Associate Professor Dr Aida Nur Ashikin Abd Rahman, Deputy Dean of Academic and International Affairs, Associate Professor Dr Siti Mariam Abd Ghani, Deputy Dean of Clinical, Dr Aimeeza Rajali, Liaison of International Affairs, Dr Fara Azwin Adam and Deputy Registrar, Martina Abdul Jalil.

UiTM delegates were given the tremendous opportunity to participate not only in academic activities at the dental clinics but also to be able to participate in the academic discussion and collaboration between UITM dentistry and XMU. The Counsellor General of Malaysia in Xi’an witnessed the discussion. On top of that, delegates were brought for a day tour of a historical place known as the 8th Wonder of the World, the Terracotta Warriors, Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum, and the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. They were able to adventure new places, showcasing historical architecture. The delegates were also given the golden opportunity to visit the Dental Museum at the Air Force Medical University. There, representatives were in awe, witnessing and admiring the detailed records of dental history with the evidence available from inception to the current day on the evolution of dentistry worldwide. Besides that, the delegates were also brought to local eateries in the heart of Xi’an to experience the unique culinary experiences of local foods that are available to portray the unique delicacies of Xi’an, China. The delegates shared much excitement throughout the program.

The greatest hope is that the Summer Program will strengthen the newly crafted relationship between XMU and UiTM and potentiate research collaborations, culture exchange, knowledge, and ideas between the participants. This program will also act as a platform to bring students from different nations globally and path a way for UiTM students to reciprocate the exchange programme to see other countries, as it gives them a chance to interact directly with other cultures while showcasing UiTM and Malaysia to their counterparts.

EdUHK wins 7 awards at Geneva invention expo

Posted on by eduhk

The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) garnered seven awards – a Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury, a Gold Medal and five Bronze Medals – at the 48th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva. The award-winning inventions covered a wide range of areas, including green technology, healthcare, educational technology, food safety, acoustic novelty, metaverse and sport innovation.

An innovation for the rapid quantification of microplastics, developed by Dr Chris Tsang Yiu-fai, Associate Professor at the Department of Science and Environmental Studies (SES), received a Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury in the ‘Protection of the Environment – Energy’ category. This is the first time that any of EdUHK’s inventions have received this prestigious recognition at the Geneva event, and less than 16% of this year’s inventions were awarded such honour.

Dr Fu Hong, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology (MIT), has invented an ocular misalignment measurement system which received a Gold Medal.

The expo is widely recognised as the world’s most important event exclusively dedicated to inventions. This year, it attracted innovations from over 42 countries and regions, featuring a total of 820 exhibits. EdUHK’s award-winning inventions are:

Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury

1. Rapid Quantification of Microplastics Using Total Organic Carbon Analysis with Simple Sample Pretreatment

Principal investigator: Dr Chris Tsang Yiu-fai, Associate Professor, SES

An all-in-one semi-automatic sample pre-treatment device that can efficiently and accurately quantify microplastic abundance in water and slug samples.

Gold Medal

2. An Intelligent Ocular Misalignment Measurement System

Principal investigator: Dr Fu Hong, Assistant Professor, MIT

This fully automated machine measures ocular misalignment, with enormous potential to help mitigate the shortage of eye professionals and provide an objective method with high granular measurement.

Bronze Medals

3. Audio-Tactile Chinese Characters: Bringing Multisensory & Novel Learning Experience to people with visual impairment and with Special Needs

Principal investigator: Dr Hung Keung, Associate Professor, Department of Cultural and Creative Arts

Chinese radicals in several 3D tactile character models allow students to experience the structural formation of Chinese characters through touch and sound. This multi-sensory learning kit is designed to break visual and social learning barriers, especially for people with visual impairment or special needs.

4. Nano-Sensor System for Meat and Seafood Monitoring

Principal investigator: Professor Stephen Chow Cheuk-fai, SES

A food monitoring device that offers a new and convenient way to monitor food safety, with a series of chemo sensors to detect the chemical substance released from rotting food.

5. Learningverse – A 3D Metaverse for Online Collaborative Learning

Principal investigator: Dr Song Yanjie, Associate Professor, MIT

A 3D metaverse providing a custom virtual tool for online collaborative learning in school education. It enables customising of avatars and mirrors users’ interactions with a computer and a webcam to enhance immersive learning.

6. A Tuneable Multi-Feature Active Noise Cancellation Headset

Principal investigator: Dr Steve Mung Wai-yin, Research Assistant Professor

A wireless headset with tuneable active noise control and sound equaliser functions, developed for dedicated applications. It comprises multiple features which can be adjusted to suit the needs of different users.

7. Sitting Light Volleyball and Its Functional Sports Garment

Principal investigator: Dr Leung Ka-man, Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Physical Education

Sitting light volleyball is developed to promote the physical and mental health of people with physical disabilities or older athletes. This garment solves limitations and movement restrictions during the exercise.

New Lingnan programme with focus on housing policy

Posted on by Editorial Team

There are good reasons for Lingnan University’s decision to introduce a new Master of Housing Policy and Management (MHPM) programme, starting in September 2023.

Some tie in with a strategic plan to add more taught postgraduate courses with a professional orientation over the next five years. Others are more market-driven, reflecting the recent surge in demand for new blood in property, housing, and real estate management in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (GBA).

“Part of our vision is to train the talent to meet these strategic manpower needs,” says Professor Yau Yung, programme director of the MHPM. “But we also see an increasing number of prospective students interested in housing policy. With the affordability crisis in Hong Kong and other Asian cities, people are looking for viable solutions. They need high-level training to analyse policy from different perspectives – social economic and environmental – and the knowledge and skills to inform decision making and advocacy.”

Therefore, the MHPM will combine theory and practice, with a focus on using smart technology and data analytics to improve performance. It will also cover the rise of social or third-sector housing plus the challenges facing NGOs and social enterprises running transitional housing.
Students will take nine core courses and electives for a total of 30 credits, including a capstone project on a relevant topic like government intervention in housing markets.

A multidisciplinary teaching team with expertise in urban studies, real estate, social sciences, environmental studies and geography will draw on findings from their ongoing research projects and encourage students to develop new insights and critical thinking skills.

The curriculum will also integrate essential aspects of facilities management and gerontology, an ever-more important area as society ages and communities have to adapt.

Available in one-year full-time and two-year part-time modes, the MHPM will also address questions central to the development of a sustainable built environment, smart cities, and the preservation of natural assets.

“Quality housing management should not just focus on the provision of basic services, but on community development too,” Yau says. “We will teach hands-on skills, for instance in mediation and public relations, through active engagement in real-life situations and learning from activities like role-plays.”

Experienced industry practitioners will teach practical aspects and examine contemporary and legal issues that can result. Due consideration will also be given to emerging market trends, changing customer expectations about environmental hygiene, and use of advanced technologies such as sensors, AI and robotics.

“Housing management professionals should know how to make use of these technologies to facilitate their work,” Yau says. “They must also recognise that communities now tend to be more polarised and diversified, which may create a need for additional facilities.”

The target for the first MHPM intake is 25-30 students. Candidates should have a bachelor’s degree, be proficient in English and, ideally, have some prior experience in housing, property or facilities management or policy research. Yau is confident the programme will reinforce Lingnan’s international reputation for quality education and groundbreaking courses.

Ownership in AI: Who is responsible for the benefits and downsides of AI’s output?

Posted on by Gauri Kohli

Constantly evolving and ever more popular, generative AI is being used by more individuals and organisations. Text, digital art, code and even music is being created with the help of Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. But who is the author, and importantly, who is the owner? Gauri Kohli writes.

Things move quickly in the generative AI world. The fast-paced evolution, backed by the launch of new tools like DALL-E 2, Bard and the recently released GPT-4, however, is creating complex issues surrounding the output generated through these LLMs, such as ownership, attribution and copyrights.
One perspective is that the ownership resides with the companies that invest their resources and expertise in creating these LLMs and that they are responsible for its development. However, LLM users also play a key role in determining the output. They feed in queries, prompts or context that guide the model’s responses. It can be argued that their input is essential in generating the output and thus they must get some level of ownership.

Answering the question of who owns the output is tricky, according to Professor David Epstein, Executive Director, Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy at the Questrom School of Business, Boston University. “There is no law against integrating things that we have read and interpreting that information and creating a new narrative. And that is what is newly copyrighted,” he says.

“Using that model, as long as ChatGPT does not quote or use sources materially unchanged, then the AI is the owner of that. If a user produces a paper or statement lifted directly or materially unchanged from the AI, then [the AI] should be referenced as the rightful owner of that material.”

Other experts also suggest that the question of ownership is entirely dependent on where you are located. Dr Andres Guadamuz, Reader in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sussex, notes that in some countries, the outputs have no copyright and they’re in the public domain, whereas in others, the question remains open to interpretation. In the UK, for instance, the output belongs to the person who made it possible for the work to be created.

University of Oxford researchers, in collaboration with international experts, recently published a study in Nature Machine Intelligence addressing the complex ethical issues surrounding responsibility for outputs generated by LLMs. The study, co-authored by an interdisciplinary team of experts in law, bioethics, machine learning and related fields, delves into the potential impact of LLMs in critical areas such as education, academic publishing and intellectual property.

While other studies have focussed primarily on harmful consequences and AI responsibility, the paper diverges. To claim intellectual ownership credit, or authorship for a creation, a person has to put in certain amount of skill and effort, explains the paper’s joint first author Dr Brian D Earp. Therefore, they must also be able to take responsibility for the creation, producing what he sees as a paradox for outputs of human-prompted generative AI.

“Suppose you instruct an LLM to write an essay based on a few keywords or bullet points. Well, you won’t have expended much effort, or demonstrated any real skill, and so as the human contributor to the essay, you can’t really claim intellectual ownership over it,” he says.

“But at the same time, the LLM that actually produced the essay can’t take moral responsibility for its creation, because it isn’t the right kind of agent.”

As a consequence, neither entity can take full ownership of the output. Accordingly, there might be a lot of creative work that is generated in the coming years that will strictly speaking be author-less.

What Dr Earp and fellow joint first author Dr Sebastian Porsdam Mann, with their collaborators, are now considering, is the question of credit or blame for outputs of LLMs that have been specifically trained on one’s own prior. human-generated writing. “We argue that if a human uses a personalised LLM, trained on their own past original writing to generate new ideas or articles, then, compared to using a general-purpose LLM, the human in such a case would deserve relatively more credit and should be able to claim at least partial ownership of the output,” observes Dr Earp.

Can AI replace writers and researchers?
While there are issues with the accuracy and bias of the materials that AI platforms generate, there is growing speculation that these platforms could replace some of the work of writers, analysts, and other content creators. “We need to start considering that an increasing number of works are going to be generated with AI, and short of widespread use of AI detectors, this is a reality that we will have to be content with,” said University of Sussex’s Dr Guadamuz.

Experts like Professor Epstein at Boston University believe it will replace much of the work now done by humans. “All those jobs of writers, analysts and other content creators are at risk, and it is unclear that we will need much more content that would employ those replaced. In other words, it is unlikely that work products will expand at the rate that people are replaced to take up the slack,” he says.

As far as inaccuracies and biases are concerned, ideally humans will provide oversight of the AI content generated to ensure the message they are trying to get out is both accurate and unbiased, or biased in the way they want to communicate their opinions. “People will become the editors of the AI instead of the other way around,” adds Professor Epstein.

Experts are also debating whether LLMs be used for processes and fields which require critical decisions like medical care, legal or finance.

Who gets the blame for damaging content?
As frequent users of generative AI already know, LLMs will at times confidently provide inaccurate or outright false information, known as “hallucinations”. For images, it has also tended to struggle with details like fingers. More sinisterly, however, these tools provide opportunities for fraud and hoaxes.
In March, an image of Pope Francis wearing a white, puffy jacket went viral, and many believed it was real before later discovering it was actually created using AI image generator, Midjourney. A month later, music artist Drake appeared to have another hit single on his hands, except he didn’t write or perform it. An AI doppelganger did.

Who is responsible when generative AI produces unwanted or harmful output, either intentionally or unintentionally, remain open ended. Should the generative AI, it’s company or the user who posed the query be liable?

“I believe that the one who publishes this content is liable, however it is generated. The publisher and author are responsible for what is published now, so that should not change just because it is generated by AI,” says Professor Epstein.

However, Dr Guadamuz, whose main areas of research are artificial intelligence and copyright, says the answer will depend on the situation. In their terms of service, OpenAI claims they’re not liable. With the consistent growth of generative AI and its expanding use, the issue of LLM output and IP ownership is set to grow even more complex.

This article was from the QS Insights Magazine, Issue 3. Read the full edition.