中大研超級電容器 效能最高創文獻紀錄

全球氣候變化加劇，開發可再生能源對未來社會發展相當重要。不過可再生能源供電不穩定，限制了其發電的普及性。中文大學工程學院院長汪正平領導的研究團隊，進行為期五年的研究計畫，團隊最近成功研發出全球文獻紀錄中最高效能的超級電容器及最高容量的液流電池，大大提升儲存及傳輸可再生能源的效能，有助促進可再生能源發電的普及化。相關研究成果分別於三本學術期刊刊登。
Date: 
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Media: 
Sing Tao Daily
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http://goo.gl/ATZ0DH

A Breakthrough in Storage and Transmission of Renewable Energy

Date: 
2016-09-14
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Prof. Wong Ching-ping has been leading a cross-institutional research team to conduct a five-year research project entitled ‘Smart Solar Energy Harvesting, Storage and Utilization’. The research team of CUHK has successfully invented the most efficient supercapacitors and the flow batteries with the highest volumetric capacity reported to date. The inventions can strongly enhance the efficiency of renewable energy storage and transmission and increase the penetration of renewable electricity generation. The research findings on the supercapacitors have been published in Nano Energy. The research findings on the new flow batteries have been published in Nature Communications and Advanced Energy Materials. 

With the fast-growing demand for energy consumption, the greenhouse gas emissions caused by fossil fuels accelerate climate change. The development of renewable energy becomes critical to the future development of society. According to the report of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published in June 2016, it is forecasted that the electricity generation from solar energy will increase from less than 2% today to 13% of the world by 2030. It is equivalent to an average annual capacity addition of more than double in the next 14 years. The report also illustrates that the electricity generation from solar energy in 2014 has grown by nearly 40% as compared to 2013. The electricity generation cost is forecasted to decrease by nearly 60% in the next ten years. These figures reflect the growing emphasis on and the promising potential for solar energy technology in future. 

Many governments are devoted to promoting the use of renewable energy, but its unstable supply and its inability to provide sufficient energy when electricity demand peaks, limit its penetration. The asymmetric supercapacitors and the new flow batteries invented by the CUHK research team are able to push beyond the limit of the current technology.

Supercapacitors with record performance in efficiency

Traditional batteries have high energy density, but low power density. They can store large amounts of energy, but the charging time is longer. Capacitors have high power density, but low energy density. The charging time is faster, but they can only store a small amount of energy. Traditional batteries and capacitors, therefore, cannot reach the best level of performance due to their drawbacks. 

Prof. Wong has been working with Prof. Zhao Ni, Assistant Professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering, CUHK, as well as their team of students and post-doctoral fellows, to develop nanostructured metal oxide-carbon composites for asymmetric supercapacitors. The energy density and power density of asymmetric supercapacitors can reach as high as 98.0 W h kg-1 and 22,826 W kg-1 respectively, making them the best performing supercapacitors. 

Prof. Wong Ching-ping said, “The supplies of renewable energy, such as solar energy and wind energy, are not stable. They cannot generate electricity at night or on windless days. Therefore, a more effective capacitor is needed to store more renewable energy on sunny or windy days, thereby supplying electricity stably. Asymmetric supercapacitors combine the advantages of batteries and capacitors and successfully improve the amount of energy stored and transmitted. This can address the unstable supplies of renewable energy.” 

Catholyte flow batteries with the highest volumetric capacity reported to date

The research team led by Prof. Lu Yi-Chun, Assistant Professor of the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, CUHK, has successfully developed catholyte flow batteries last year whose volumetric capacity reached  294 Ah L-1. The team has made a breakthrough again this year. They have further increased the volumetric capacity to 550 Ah L-1 by combining liquid phase, lithium iodide and solid phase sulphur flow cathodes. It is the highest catholyte volumetric capacity to date. Prof. Lu successfully obtained a patent on the technology and planned to apply it to electric cars.

Prof. Wong said, “With the popularity of electric cars, this technology’s future development is promising. In fact, the research findings are widely recognised and supported by the industry. Some companies have approached us for further collaboration. Meanwhile, it also signifies a step forward in the penetration of renewable energy and improvement of air quality.” 

The research team is now conducting a field demonstration at a student hostel at Lee Woo Sing College, CUHK. The team has installed rooftop solar panels, a smart power storage system and microgrids. Led by Prof. Chiu Dah-ming, Winston, Research Professor of the Department of Information Engineering, CUHK, the research team has been collecting data for analysis and assisting the College to deploy appropriate energy-saving initiatives. The data can also provide reference figures to smart cities.    

‘Smart Solar Energy Harvesting, Storage and Utilization’ Research Project

The five-year research project has been funded by the Theme-based Research Scheme (TRS) of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong Government (HK$ 60.33 million) since 2014, with another HK$ 13.8 million support from CUHK and HK$ 3 million from other partner universities. More than 30 scholars and experts from CUHK, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and The University of Hong Kong has been working together to enhance the efficiency of solar power and the penetration of the technology. 

Project website: https://sse.erg.cuhk.edu.hk/sse/

 

(From left) Prof. Zhao Ni, Assistant Professor of the Department of Electronic Engineering, Prof. Wong Ching-ping, Dean of Engineering and Prof. Lu Yi-Chun, Assistant Professor of the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering.

 

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網絡安全 科企有責

香港是現代化及高科技城市， 但公眾對網絡安全意識甚低，大部分僅局限於定期更換密碼的層面。然而，日常網絡活動中潛伏着很多不為人知的風險。以容許用戶以同一組賬號及密碼使用不同平台的單點登錄（SSO）服務為例，由於使用程序快捷方便，部分主流身份提供商（IdPs）包括Facebook、Google、騰訊和新浪，以及第三方應用程式開發者均廣泛使用，大部分用者對服務可能埋藏着的保安漏洞卻渾然不知。
Date: 
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Media: 
Hong Kong Economic Journal
Media LInk: 
https://startupbeat.hkej.com/?p=34344

IT giants should make cyber security a corporate social responsibility

or a city that likes to see itself as modern and high-tech, public awareness about cyber security in Hong Kong has largely stayed at a rather basic level where people are told they should regularly change their passwords. Yet cyber security is very fragile, as was dramatically exposed in a recent controversial London art exhibition that featured images captured from unsecured webcams in homes and businesses in Hong Kong.

Date: 
Monday, September 12, 2016
Media: 
China Daily Hong Kong Edition
Media LInk: 
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2016-09/12/content_26766107.htm

Pioneer in Research on Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning

Date: 
2016-08-23
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The Chinese University of Hong Kong is one of the pioneers in the research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning. The CUVideo team from the Department of Electronic Engineering has recently shone in the ‘ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge’ (ILSVRC), one of the most important grand challenges in Computer Vision. Moreover, In the GPU Technology Conference 2016 held in Silicon Valley, CUHK Multimedia Laboratory was named as one of the pioneers in AI research. CUHK was the only institution in Asia to receive this recognition, alongside the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of Oxford. Moreover, the research teams from Department of Information Engineering, Department of Electronic Engineering, Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, as well as the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK are committed to developing a wide variety of Deep Learning and AI applications.  The Department of Electronic Engineering will also introduce a new elective course on Deep Learning for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the academic year 2016-17. 

Outstanding Achievement in the Grand Challenge of Computer Vision 

Led by Prof. Ouyang Wanli, Prof. Li Hongsheng and Prof. Wang Xiaogang of the Department of Electronic Engineering, the CUVideo team has participated in the ‘ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge’ (ILSVRC) which was the most influential challenge in the field of Computer Vision. There were four categories in the challenge; objection detection, object localization, object detection from video, and scene classification. CUVideo team achieved the best result in the challenge of object detection in videos with provided data, which required each team to detect 30 object categories from 1,000 videos. CUVideo team achieved the mean Averaged Precision (mAP) of 67.8% and also won 28 object categories among 30. 

Pioneer in AI Research

CUHK Multimedia Laboratory was established by Prof. Tang Xiao of the Department of Information Engineering in 2001. It was the first research team who applied Deep Learning to Computer Vision in Hong Kong. In the GPU Technology Conference 2016, hosted by NVIDIA in Silicon Valley, CUHK Multimedia Laboratory was named as one of the pioneers in AI research, alongside the laboratories of the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Oxford and other top laboratories. NVIDIA is the inventor of the GPU**.The GPU Technology Conference has gathered top researchers and professionals in the field. CUHK will have priority pre-release access to hardware and software provided by NVIDIA with an aim of advancing the research facilities and technical support for various Computer Vision related applications including video surveillance, web scale image and video search, as well as human and computer interaction, thereby promoting the development of Deep Learning and Computer Vision. 

The team has built a novel facial recognition system that achieved the world’s highest accuracy of 99.15% in 2014*. Its accuracy outperformed human eyes in human face verification performance. Their work with Microsoft Research Asia is now being used by two major Microsoft products: Intentsearch being used in the Bing search engine for similar image search, and Digital Effect being used in MSN webcam. 

Deep Learning’s Development and Nurturing Talents on Deep Learning

Deep Learning is one of the breakthroughs of AI research. It simulates the human brain's behaviors by training large scale neural networks from big data based on intensive GPU computing. CUHK is a pioneer in the research on Deep Learning. The research team led by Prof. Tang Xiaoou and Prof. Wang Xiaogang, developed a novel facial recognition system as early as 2011. It can be applied to security, law enforcement, internet and entertainment. Different research teams are also dedicated to the application of Deep Learning in various areas. Prof. Meng Mei-ling, Helen of the Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management and Prof. Lee Tan of the Department of Electronic Engineering have applied Deep Learning in Speech Recognition and Text-to-speech Technology. In the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Prof. Heng Pheng-ann has applied Deep Learning in Medical Imaging and Prof. Jia Jiaya, Leo has applied Deep Learning in Computer Vision. 

The Department of Electronic Engineering at CUHK will also introduce the territory’s first elective course on Deep Learning for undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students in the academic year 2016-17.  The course will cover the theories, models, algorithms and applications on Deep Learning. 

CUHK Multimedia Laboratory 

CUHK Multimedia Laboratory was established in 2001. It was the first research team to apply Deep Learning to Computer Vision. In 2009, the laboratory won the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). It is the first and only research institute in Asia to receive this top honour since the establishment of the conference 30 years ago. Members of the laboratory also won various paper awards. The laboratory has trained many experts in AI. Some students pursued further studies in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Cambridge, Columbia University and other internationally renowned universities. The laboratory has been selected as Hong Kong’s first NIVDA CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) Research Centre. For more information about CUHK Multimedia Laboratory, please visit http://mmlab.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/index.html

 * It was tested by the ‘Labeled Faces in the Wild’, which was a database of face photographs and contained thousands of picture sets, regardless of changes in lighting, make-up and camera angles. 

** Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is a high-performance processor that generates breathtaking and interactive graphics on game consoles, personal computers and mobile devices.

 

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開發內窺鏡機械人減刺穿風險　中大團隊奪金

為推動醫學工程發展，中大今年舉行全球首個「環球創新醫學工程設計大賽」，吸引40隊來自五大洲的參賽隊伍一較高下，國際評委在隊伍中，選出27隊來自香港、英國、美國、台灣及內地等多個地方隊伍作決賽，競逐金、銀、銅等獎項。

Date: 
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Media: 
on.cc
Media LInk: 
http://goo.gl/5km6d0

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