AI科技寓學習於生活 學與教擺脫傳統

今年疫情成為催化劑,瞬間令討論多年的「網上學習」竄紅並落實執行,學校、業界、家長齊齊起動,促使今年的「學與教博覽2020」更富話題性,屆時將會有來自世界各地資深教育工作者,分享電子學習實戰經驗及趨勢。教育與互聯網發展真正接軌,向來是教育工作者的夢想。互聯網與資訊科技的進步,令老師的角色不再畫地自限,單純只是在課堂上向學生單向式傳授知識。
Date: 
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Media: 
Sing Tao Daily

香港家書 中大工程學院副院長黃錦輝——深港創科生態鏈機遇處處

親愛的家恆:
 
 時間飛逝,轉瞬間自你中學畢業之後已離開香港十多年了,六叔非常想念你。在美國加州那邊的生活如何?工作順利嗎?上周我與你爸爸飯聚,從他口中得知你前年已博士畢業,而且你的博士論文屢獲國際殊榮,恭喜恭喜。他也告訴我你的研究題目聚焦於人工智能,研究結果更獲多間跨國大企業垂青並投資在你於矽谷成立的初創公司。六叔在香港從事科技創新及創業工作多年,今次來信建議你回港發展。依我近年觀察,香港在背靠祖國、面向國際的優勢之下,商機處處。再加上「粵港澳大灣區」是國家未來五年「十四五規劃」中的重點發展目標,年青人在大灣區內創科創業必然大有作為。
Date: 
Monday, November 16, 2020
Media: 
RTHK

通用人工智能高不可攀

「自然語言處理」(Natural Language Processing, NLP)是人工智能技術之一,其目標是以機器(硬件或軟件)模仿人類閱讀和編寫語文的能力。在日常生活中,自然語言處理的應用甚廣,例如自動翻譯、網上訊息抽取、聊天機械人等。早期的自然語言處理技術基於規則算法,利用傳統文法來進行語文分析,但語文是活的,文法不斷在演變(例如新名詞的產生),因此規則算法未能有效地處理現代語文。有見及此,語言科學家推出統計語言學,利用統計算法從文獻中自動學習文法。這方法一直流行,而且在網絡文字大數據及深度學習(Deep Learning, DL)的支撐之下,其效能近年突飛猛進。

Date: 
Monday, November 16, 2020
Media: 
HKEJ

Prof. Yi-Chun Lu Selected as the Top 10 Winners of Falling Walls Science Breakthroughs of the Year in Engineering & Technology

Date: 
2020-11-10
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Prof. Yi-Chun Lu from the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering is being selected as one of the top 10 winners of Falling Walls in engineering & technology for her ground-breaking invention of a safe, high-energy, low-cost, and environmentally-friendly battery that serves as a substitute for commercial lithium-ion batteries which are indispensable in our daily lives. She is the only female Asian scientist who has entered the top 10 in this category.

Batteries play a crucial role in our daily lives as they power most of the electronic devices around us. Unfortunately, modern lithium-ion batteries are flammable and toxic, posing safety risks that can harm the development of clean energy. With this in mind, Professor Lu was motivated to find a replacement. She and her team have developed a new battery that replaces the electrolytes in current lithium-ion batteries with a water-based electrolyte system that can reach the same voltage of lithium-ion batteries. It is also non-flammable, non-toxic, and seven times cheaper.

While water-based batteries have been around for many years, they have never been capable of generating sufficient voltage to make them useful. The solution developed by Professor Lu’s team was to adopt a water-soluble polymer called polyethylene glycol (PEG) which is commonly found in many skin care creams, medicine, and food additives. What PEG does is to act as a crowding agent, surrounding water molecules with hydrogen bonds to prevent them from decay due to changes in the water’s hydrogen-bonding structuring. As a result, the battery developed by Professor Lu can successfully expand its capacity to 3.2 volts, making it competitive with the low end of the lithium-ion battery market.

About the Falling Walls Foundation

The Falling Walls Foundation is a non-profit organization supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research. It has been hosting an annual conference since 9 November 2009, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, that showcases and celebrates the most recent breakthroughs in science and society.

This year, the event was conducted online to bring together outstanding science projects and bright minds globally to inspire a discussion on how science and innovation can contribute to the state of mankind. It celebrates work in 10 scientific, innovation, and humanistic categories.

 

 

 

 

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MAE

顛覆創新「跳出框框」 經濟發展新成效

「阿里巴巴」創始人馬雲在剛過去的上海《2020浦東金融峰會》中作主題演講,內容環繞顛覆性創新(Disruptive Innovation)。他以智能手機改變了我們傳統使用電話的習慣,並帶來市場新價值為例子。
 
企業用「ABCD」技術 互聯網主導經濟
 
事實上,互聯網自面世至今,創造了不少顛覆性創新產品,深深改變了人類的生活,例如社交網絡改變了我們在信息溝通、看電視、聽音樂的日常生活文化,無現金支付則改變了我們購物、出行等的模式。這些例子都反映出顛覆性創新為人類帶來的好處,以及對全球社會未來發展的重要性,各國不容忽視。然而,政府若要有效地推行顛覆性創新,必須與時並進,並且顧及現今網絡世代的創新文化。。
Date: 
Monday, November 9, 2020
Media: 
HKET Daily

港院校三學者奪光華工程科技獎

香港文匯報訊 (記者 姜嘉軒)中國工程院第十三屆「光華工程科技獎」頒獎禮昨日於北京舉行,理大、中大及港大均有學者獲此殊榮。該獎項被視為中國工程科技界最高的獎項,每兩年頒授一次,以表彰在工程科學技術及工程管理領域作出重要貢獻、取得傑出成就的華人工程科技專家。經過嚴謹的評選,今年共有41名科學家從296名合資格候選人當中脫穎而出

Date: 
Monday, November 9, 2020
Media: 
Wen Wei Po

Smartwatches powered by wearers: CUHK researchers aim to harvest energy from human movements

CUHK researchers create compact generator small enough to be embedded in smartwatches, which can harvest energy from movement.
Users can power their own devices just by moving around, eliminating the need to ever remove smartwatches to charge them.
Date: 
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Media: 
SCMP

MAE Student Received Best Student Paper Award at CASE

Date: 
2020-11-04
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Lidong Yang, a PhD student at the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, has received the Best Student Paper Award at 2020 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2020).
 
Robots at nanometer to millimeter scales have great potential for minimally invasive medicine.  Recent research has shown the capability of microrobots for targeted drug delivery and precise micromanipulation. As magnetic field has intrinsic safety to living organisms and can penetrate tissues, magnetic microrobots have been preferable candidates for biomedical applications. Large-workspace and high-resolution microrobot navigation is essential for microrobotic delivery in endovascular or digestive systems.
 
However, the large-workspace and high-resolution magnetic microrobot navigation is challenging and remains unsolved in the field of magnetic microrobotics. Firstly, strength of magnetic field decreases very fast when increasing the working distance. Secondly, there is contradiction between resolution and field of view (FOV) of a feedback instrument.
 
Under the supervision of Professor Li Zhang, Lidong provide a solution to this challenging problem by designing a new magnetic manipulation system with mobile coils and eye-in-hand feedback for actuation and tracking of microrobots in large workspace. We also develop automation technologies to allow microrobots to navigate in complex environments automatically. The research work paves the way for the automated large-workspace microrobot navigation and related medical applications.
 
The CASE is a flagship automation conference of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.  The best paper award recognizes the best paper authored primarily by a student and presented by the student at the CASE.  It is supported by his academic family to honor Professor Yu-Chi (Larry) Ho, a Past President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Council, which later became the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.
 
 

 

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中文大學工程學院舉辦網上金融科技會議 探討金融科技的變革與發展

由中文大學工程學院主辦,中文大學系統工程與工程管理學系、中文大學金融工程中心、中文大學創新科技中心及中文大學商學院協辦的網上「金融科技會議2020」於今日(2日)舉行,會議是探討金融科技為市場營運所帶來的變革與發展。

Date: 
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Media: 
香港商報

Effective Energy Harvester Breaking through the Limitation of Battery Life of Smart Watches and Wristbands

Date: 
2020-10-28
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Smart watches and wristbands are becoming more and more popular. Various new functions such as health monitoring, contactless payment, entertainment, living assistance, have been added to these small devices and bring convenience to our daily lives. However, the limited battery life of these devices, due to its critical size, remains a key issue. 
 
To address this issue, a research team led by Prof. Wei-Hsin LIAO, Chairman of the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering (MAE) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has developed an embedded energy harvester which is very efficient in generating electricity to sustainably power the smart watches and wristbands. 
 
Energy harvesters have been used to power up traditional watches in which mechanical gears are equipped to increase the frequency of human motion and convert mechanical energy to electricity. But these designs have the disadvantage of incompact structure and require precision manufacture. The mechanical friction caused by the gears also leads to significant energy loss and such devices occasionally suffer mechanical failure.
 
Prof. LIAO and his research group on smart materials and energy harvesting tried to replace mechanical gears with electromagnetic components to solve the key issue. Dr. Mingjing CAI, one of the research group members, said, “The low frequency of human motion results in relatively low energy conversion efficiency. We applied a magnetic frequency-up converter to increase the frequency of human motion, which helps the energy harvester to efficiently convert the human motion into electrical energy. With the magnetic frequency-up converter, the output power of the device can be significantly enhanced, achieving more than ten times that of the published devices.” 
 
The research team has proposed a highly compact embedded generator, equipped with a motion capture unit, a magnetic frequency-up converter and a power generation unit, together with coaxial topology. Thanks to the magnetic frequency-up converter, the energy harvester is highly compact and has a very high normalised power density. Although the total volume of the harvester is 5cm3, it can still achieve 1.74mW power output. The power density is ten times that of the existing devices. Benefiting from high power output and power density, the energy harvesting system can be easily embedded in the smart watches and wristbands to provide sustainable power supply. Different from mechanical gears, the magnetic frequency-up converter uses magnetic force for transmission, avoiding the energy loss caused by mechanical friction. Also, magnetic transmission can protect the device from impact. Furthermore, the magnetic frequency-up converter has the advantages of simple structure and low cost, which will help to commercialise the device in the future.

Research team members Prof. Wei-Hsin LIAO (right) and Dr. Mingjing CAI (left)

 

The team has produced a miniature energy harvester while maintaining sufficient electricity output to power smart watches

 

 

 

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