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COMP launched a brand new Cyber Security and Privacy Laboratory (CSPL) on 26 May 2016. The opening was officiated by academia and industry professionals. Relevant government bodies also joined us to celebrate the launch of CSPL together.

With the increasing attacks, crimes and threats in the cyberspace, tackling cyber security and privacy threats is one of the greatest global challenges facing all nations. COMP is keen to be a key player in achieving new breakthroughs in cyber security and privacy research and addressing the challenges ahead. CSPL aims to help make the cyberspace a secure and safer place for business and personal activities by performing quality research and training skillful security researchers and professionals. The CSPL will collect and share threat intelligence, develop innovative security and privacy methods and software, and transfer state-of-the-art technology to the industry, law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

The first initiative of the CSPL was “Forum on FinTech Security” in the same afternoon. Panel members and guests had a lively discussion on cyberspace security and exchanged ideas sincerely. We look forward to collaborating with the industry, security professional bodies, law enforcement and government departments to safeguard the cyberspace worldwide in the near future.

We are delighted to announce that COMP is ranked 49th in the newly released QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016 in Computer Science & Information Systems. We are also ranked 35th worldwide in the 2016 Best Global Universities for Computer Science Ranking published by the U.S. News and World Report.

The outstanding results recognise our staff members’ continuous efforts in achieving excellence in research and academic performance.

Officiating guests of the ceremony: (From left) Dr Rocky Chang, Prof. Ir Daniel Lai, JP, Prof. K.Y. Wong, Prof. Jiannong Cao

Forum on FinTech Security

I S S U E 0 1

COMP is Ranked 49th in the QS World University Rankings by Subject

Opening Ceremony of Cyber Security and Privacy Laboratory

J u l y 2 0 1 6

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COMP Research Open Day 2016

Following the great success of the first Research Open Day held in 2014, COMP organised the second Research Open Day on 27 and 28 May 2016 which attracted over 200 visitors.

During this two-day open house event, more than 30 prominent research projects with live demonstrations were showcased. Our research teams worked closely together on their innovative projects, covering a wide range of domains such as Big Data Analytics, Bioinformatics, Cloud Computing, Emotional Computing, Image and Video Processing, Information Security and Privacy, Machine Learning, Mobile Applications, Natural Language Processing, Smart City, Social Media Analytics, Text Mining, Wireless Networks.

Moreover, the Research Open Day also provided an excellent platform for COMP alumni, staff, researchers and industry partners to exchange ideas, share insights and experience, and explore opportunities for collaboration.

COMP organised the 2016 International Conference on Cloud Computing and Big Data (CloudCom-Asia) from 7 to 9 June 2016. The opening ceremony was officiated by Prof. Jiannong Cao, Head of COMP, Dr Bin Xiao, Associate Professor of COMP and Prof. Chunming Rong, Head of the Center for IP-based Service Innovation (CIPSI) at the University of Stavanger, Norway.

CloudCom-Asia 2016 consisted of three keynote sessions, five presentation sessions, and one panel session on “Research Trend and Challenge in Cloud Computing and Big Data”. The conference brought both academia and researchers from the globe together at PolyU to discuss and exchange views on cloud computing and related technologies such as cloud security, cloud architecture, trust model and data protection, scheduling and outsourcing technology. It also provided opportunities for participants to explore possibilities for collaboration in related areas.

2016 International Conference on Cloud Computing and Big Data (CloudCom-Asia)

Guests at the opening ceremony of COMP Research Open Day 2016

Open house live demonstrations during the two-day showcase period

(From left) Dr Zili Shao, Prof. Wenzhan Song, Prof. Chunming Rong, Prof. Albert Y. Zomaya, Prof. Jiannong Cao, Dr Bin Xiao, Prof. Xianghan Zheng

Panel Session on “Research Trend and Challenge in Cloud Computing and Big Data”

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COMP Research Seminars (March - June 2016)

Seminar Topic (March - June 2016) Speaker Institition

Machine Learning in Medical Imaging Analysis Prof. Dinggang Shen Department of Radiology Biomedical Research Imaging Center The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill USA

Affective and Social Signal Processing for HCI & HRI Dr Hatice Gunes Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge UK

Common Developments of Convex Polyhedra Prof. Ryuhei Uehara School of Information Science Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Japan

Building Scalable Machine Learning Systems by Running a Parameter Server with the Apache Spark Engine

Dr Xue Liu School of Computer Science McGill University Canada

Two Auxiliary Features to Top-k Processing Dr Kyriakos Mouratidis School of Information Systems Singapore Management University Singapore

Symmetric Assembly Puzzles are Hard, Beyond a Few Pieces Dr Yota Otachi School of Information Science Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technoogy Japan

The Preference-Oriented Scheduling Framework Dr Dakai Zhu Department of Computer Science The University of Texas at San Antonio USA

e-Intangible Heritage Prof. Katsushi Ikeuchi University of Tokyo Japan

Achieving Yield, Density and Performance Effective DRAM at Extreme Technology Sizes

Prof. Bruce Childers Department of Computer Science The University of Pittsburgh USA

e-tangible Heritage Prof. Katsushi Ikeuchi University of Tokyo Japan

When Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Meets Security: New Opportunities and Challenges

Dr Guofei Gu Department of Computer Science & Engineering Texas A&M University USA

Matrix-Tensor network methods for Brain Connectivity Prof. Pedro A. Valdes-Sosa China-Cuban Joint Lab UESTC Cuban Academy of Science Cuban Neuroscience Center Cuba/China

Effectiveness of Music Therapy as an aid to Neurorestoration of children with severe neurological disorders

Prof. Maria L Bringas China-Cuban Joint Lab Neuroinformation of UESTC Neuroscience Cuba/China

Fun Research in Computer Vision: from robots, sports, face to medicine Prof. Takeo Kanade* Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University USA

*Prof. Takeo Kanade is the U. A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon. He works in multiple areas of robotics: computer vision, multi-media, manipulators, autonomous mobile robots, medical robotics and sensors. He has written more than 400 technical papers and reports in these areas. He has been the principal investigator of more than a dozen major vision and robotics projects at Carnegie Mellon. Prof. Kanade has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Awards he received include the Franklin Institute Bower Prize, ACM/AAAI Newell Award, Okawa Award, NEC Computer and Communication Award, Tateishi Grand Prize, Joseph Engelberger Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Pioneer Award, and IEEE PAMI Azriel Rosenfeld Lifetime Accomplishment Award.

Towards More Effective and Resilient Power Apps Exploiting Modern Communications and Computational Resources

Prof. David Bakken School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Washington State University USA

Latent Variable Modeling for Dynamic Time Series Prof. Joe S. Qin Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California USA

Browsing Unstructured Social Media Feeds on Mobile Devices Prof. Chang Wen Chen Department of Computer Science and Engineering State University of New York at Buffalo USA

Traffic-aware Geo-distributed Big Data Analytics with Predictable Performance Prof. Song Guo School of Computer Science and Engineering The University of Aizu Japan

CopperDroid: Automatic Android Malware Analysis and Classification Dr Lorenzo Cavallaro Information Security Group Royal Holloway, University of London UK

To keep our academic staff and students up-to-date with the cutting-edge technical knowledge in computing-related disciplines, as well as assist them in gaining exposure to a broad range of research topics, COMP regularly invites renowned speakers from a variety of global institutions to share with us their latest research findings.

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Best Paper Award at ACM CHI 2016

COMP research students, Mr Michael Huang and Ms Tiffany Kwok together with COMP staff members, Dr Grace Ngai, Dr Stephen Chan and Dr Hong-Va Leong received a Best Paper Award at ACM CHI 2016 for the paper entitled “Building a Personalized, Auto-Calibrating Eye Tracker from User Interaction”. The paper will be appeared in the Proceedings of the 34th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016).

ACM CHI is the leading international conference for Human-Computer Interaction, and its Best Paper Award is a prestigious, highly selective award. Of the ~2325 paper submissions in CHI 2016, only 23 papers earned a Best Paper status (less than 1%). These papers were selected by the CHI 2016 Programme Committee as well as a special Best Papers Committee and truly represent the best of CHI!

Congratulations to the team and we look forward to more great achievements in the future!

Congratulations to COMP academic staff on receiving Faculty of Engineering Awards in 2014/15, including Outstanding Performance/Achievement and External Grants Achievement.

COMP has won the Faculty Awards for Outstanding Performance/Achievement for 9 consecutive years since 2006/07. It reflects the great effort and contributions made by COMP staff members and we all look forward to more great achievements in the future.

Ir Prof. Alex Wai, Vice President (Research Development) presented the awards to the following awardees:

• Outstanding Award in Teaching – Dr Vincent Ng

• Outstanding Award in Services (Team – Dr Stephen Chan, Dr Grace Ngai and their team)

• Merit Award in Research and Scholarly Activities – Dr Zili Shao

• Research Grant Achievement Award – Dr Maggie Li

Dr Vincent Ng (right) received the Outstanding Award in Teaching from Ir Prof. Alex Wai

Dr Maggie Li (right) received the Research Grant Achievement Award from Ir Prof. Alex Wai

Ir Prof. Alex Wai presented the Merit Award in Research and Scholarly Activities to Dr Zili Shao (right)

Ir Prof. Alex Wai (third from left) presented the Outstanding Award in Services to Dr Stephen Chan (fourth from left), Dr Grace Ngai (left), and their teammates

Faculty of Engineering Awards Winners

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Prof. David Zhang and Prof. Lei Zhang Named as The Highly Cited Researchers (Engineering Category)Prof. David Zhang, Chair Professor, and Prof. Lei Zhang, Professor & Associate Head, were recognised in Thomson Reuters’ list of Highly Cited Researchers 2015 for exceptional impact in their fields. They are the only two representatives on list among PolyU. This is the first year for Prof. Lei Zhang on the list while Prof. David Zhang was named a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher for the second year in a row.

The Highly Cited Researchers list represents some of the world’s most influential scientific minds. About 3,000 researchers earned the distinction by writing the greatest number of reports officially designated by Essential Science Indicators as Highly Cited Papers. They are ranked among the top 1 percent of the most cited thought leaders in their fields.

Congratulations to Prof. David Zhang and Prof. Lei Zhang!

Prof. David Zhang’s research interests include Biometrics, Pattern Recognition and Image Processing, Information Security, and Neural Networks. He is the author of more than 10 Monographs, over 300 international journal papers and 34 patents from USA/Japan/HK/China. According to Google Scholar, his papers have got over 33,000 citations and H-index is 82.

Prof. Lei Zhang’s research interests include Image and Video Processing, Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Biometrics, etc. Prof. Zhang has published more than 200 papers in those areas. According to Google Scholar, his works have been cited more than 12,000 times and his H-index is 55.

Automated tongue analysis system

Project of Prof. Lei Zhang:Image and Video Resolution and Quality Enhancement

A low resolution image A resolution-enhanced image by Prof. Lei Zhang’s innovative technology

Project of Prof. David Zhang:Tongue/ Pulse/ Odor Detection for Healthcare

A pulse analysis system

A breath analysis system for diabetes detection

Prof. David Zhang (second left) Prof. Lei Zhang (left)

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Talented Students Shined in Microsoft Imagine Cup 2016 Hong Kong Final

Source of Photos: Microsoft Hong Kong

Led by Dr Henry Chan and Dr Peter Ng, three students have brought glory to COMP by winning Championships of all three categories in the “Microsoft Imagine Cup 2016 Hong Kong Final”.

On 13 April 2016 at Hong Kong Science Park, 150 students from 9 tertiary institutions formed into 50 teams, they are required to transform their innovative ideas into reality through the application of their skills and technical knowledge. They either developed new technologies to address social issues (in the category “World citizenship”), exciting new games (“Games”) or innovative applications (“Innovation”).

COMP student Mr Shiu Fung Lau and his teammates from HKUST created an app namely “RealME” which won the champion in “World citizenship” category. “RealME” aims to help wheelchair users identify the nearest barrier-free facility and obtain detailed information on barrier-free facilities.

The champion of “Games” category, Mr Zachary Sin, developed “HelloPlanet”, which is an educational simulation game about realism which teaches users to interact with the living world.

Mr Peter Ho was the champion of “Innovation” category. He designed “KinectGarten”, an app which incorporates Kinect technology and requires children to make gestures to pick their answers, making learning interactive and fun.

The three teams will be nominated for the World Semi-Final to compete with the worldwide talents.

VIP from Microsoft Research Asia Visited COMP

On 27 April 2016, Ms Winnie Cui, Senior Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Asia paid a visit to COMP.

During the visit, Ms Cui met with Head of COMP and other faculty members to exchange ideas and experience in IT technologies, and explore collaboration opportunities. Apart from that, Ms Cui also visited our state-of-the-art research center and laboratories, and had a casual conversation with COMP students.

The visit further strengthens the ties between COMP and Microsoft Research Asia. We look forward to establishing closer collaboration with Microsoft to facilitate innovative research and education activities.

(From left) Dr Henry Chan, Mr Zachary Sin, Mr Shiu Fung Lau, Mr Peter Ho, Dr Peter Ng

Prof. Tsui Lap Chee, Founding Dean, Hong Kong ASTRI presented the prize to Mr Zachary Sin (left)

Mr Peter Ho (left) received the prize from Dr Harry Shum, Executive Vice President, Technology and Research of Microsoft Hong Kong

Mr Shiu Fung Lau (third from left) and his team members received the prize from Mrs Fanny Law, Chairperson of Board of Directors, HKSTP (right)

(From left) Mr Peter Ho, Mr Zachary Sin, Ms Winnie Cui, Mr Yik Him Ho, Dr Henry Chan

(From left) Ms Winnie Cui, Prof. Jiannong Cao, Dr Henry Chan, Dr Vincent Ng

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Award Project Name Student Name Department

•Gold Award•Best Theme Product Award - Education for All•Best Audience Award

Go Go Astronaut PLUS Cheung Hei Ting SeraphKwok SumarisaLeung Wun KingLi Wai KinNg Kong SumYuen Lok Lin

SDSDSDEIEEIEEIE

•Silver Award•Best Theme Product Award - Health Matters

A & E ExpressWestRailLine

Lam Ping HimSo Lai ManWong Siu Ting KlausYau Yim Ching ConnieYeung Pik LinYeung Tung Hoi Alan

COMPSDEIESNEECOMP

•Bronze Award Chinese Medical Cloud System

Bai ZhiyuHui Tsun KitLi JiayuLiu ZezhouWan XiaogeWang Shi

SDISEEIECOMPCOMP COMP

Participants of Polyhack 2016

Gold award winners of Polyhack 2016

Students presented their ideas to the panel of judges

Students developed software to solve a real-world problem

The First Polyhack Explored Innovation through Multidisciplinary Collaborations

COMP organised the first hackathon event, PolyHack, to challenge students’ problem-solving ability, teamwork spirit and presentation skills, with the support of Faculty of Engineering, School of Design and Students’ Union. The 24-hour competition was held on 20-21 February 2016. Around 100 students from more than 15 departments gathered in the Innovation Think Tank to realize their innovative ideas on two themes - “Health Matters” and “Education for All”.

PolyHack encourages cross-discipline cooperation, motivating students to explore new possibilities. The event consisted of a series of intensive workshop and a final 24-hour period for all teams to develop their working prototypes. Participants were required to apply their skills and technical knowledge to produce a working software/hardware prototype solving a real-world problem. The prototypes were displayed in the product showcase, and the participants presented their bright ideas to a panel of judges. Judging criteria include user experience and user interface, technology, novelty, presentation and the impact on education/health.

The competition offered a unique platform for PolyU students to gain experience in goal-oriented multidisciplinary teamwork and innovative technological design.

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Participants of CSI! 2016 Inception

Panel of judges: (From left) Dr Rocky Chang, Mr Derek Lee, Dr Jackei Wong, Dr Korris Chung, Dr Edmond Ho, Mr Paul Wang, Dr Huaxin Wei, Dr Memory Chiu

The finalist teams presented their innovative ideas to judges

Prototype developed by the winning team

Prototypes developed by the participants of CSI! 2016 Inception were showcased for all PolyU students to vote

Computing Solved It! (CSI!) 2016 Inception Inspired Students to Think Big

Founded and organised by COMP, the 3rd Computing Solved It! (CSI!) 2016 Inception has come to a fruitful close with active participation. The Final Stage of the team-based problem solving competition was successfully held on 1 April 2016. The competition aims at motivating our freshmen students to imagine and attempt the impossible, and challenging them to innovate technologies and applications.

This year, the grand challenge is “The iBalance for Life and Work” and each competing team is required to design an innovative product to enhance work-life balance. At the Initial Stage, each team submitted a video and a proposal to demonstrate the idea of the product. At the Final Stage, 9 finalist teams presented their innovative ideas to a panel of judges; at the same time, their prototypes were showcased for all PolyU students to vote as well.

Congratulations to the following COMP winners! Stay tuned for next year’s CSI! Inception.

Award Project Name Student Name

•Grand Award•Best Demonstration Award

Workaholic Bottle Chau Tsz LingWong Fu KwaiLing Ka Hong

•First Runner-Up Schedula Ng Yuen YamWong Cheuk YinTu Shang ChingLau Kwong MingTsang King Ting

•Best Teamwork Award•Most Dare-to-Think Award•Most Popular Award

STRLS Jacky AngaraJiang YifanKharis Daniel SetiasabdaWilly KhosumaNg Shing Chi

•Merit Award Schedulency Lai Chun YinHo Shing FungTsoi Kam Ming

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Session Session name Winner

1 Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Cai Jianrui

2 Network & Cloud Computing Wang Yunxzhe

3 Machine Learning Cai Sijia

4 HCI & System Mohammed Aquil Mirza

Prize Winner

1st place Mohammed Aquil Mirza Cai Jianrui

2nd place Huang Xuelin

3rd place Wang KezeLu XingyeChen ChengyaoLin Chenhao

A student presented his research development to the participants of CARD 2016

Participants of CARD 2016

A showcase of research posters

COMP Annual Research Day (CARD) 2016 COMP Annual Research Day (CARD) was successfully held on 10 June 2016. Prof. Jiannong Cao, Head of COMP, gave an opening speech and marked the start of CARD 2016. Right after the opening ceremony, an invited talk about “Survival guide of a graduate student” was delivered by Prof. John Lui, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

CARD is an annual event at COMP which gathers all research students, research personnel and academic staff members together. It provides an excellent platform for students to present their research development to their peers and faculty members. Students’ research works are also exhibited during the event.

CARD 2016 enabled the academics to give a rating on students’ presentations and honour their achievements. Thus, there was an award presentation on three categories, best presentation, best poster and most inspiring presentation at the end of the day. Here is the list of awardees:

Session Session name Winner

1 Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Li Hui

2 Network & Cloud Computing Li Jiwei

3 Machine Learning Zhao Zijing

4 HCI & System Huang Xuelin

Best Presentation Awards

Most Inspiring Awards

Best Poster Awards

Once again, congratulations to the winners of CARD 2016!

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Mr Horace Chow, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong shared his view on the latest IT development

Students enjoyed the fruitful meeting with Mr Chow

At the job hunting workshop

Challengers Programme (CHAMP) Enhances Students’ CompetitivenessBeyond classroom teaching, COMP offers Challengers Programme (CHAMP) which provides a series of out-of-the-classroom activities, making the study life of students more fascinating and rewarding. The tailor made programme aims to elevate the technical competence, innovation and creativity, interdisciplinary skills and global outlook of students. Built on top of the fundamental activities, three clubs, namely Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow Club, Programming Grus’ Club and Undergraduate Researchers’ Club, are established to unite students of common interests to experience a different aspect of university life.

Visual Studio and Internet of Things (IoT) Training WorkshopOrganised by the Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow Club of CHAMP, a full house of 32 students, from Year 1 to Year 4, attended a training workshop on Visual Studio and Internet of Things (IoT) on 7 January 2016. The workshop provided opportunities for students to learn technical skills and knowledge, and received hands-on experience in programming. After the workshop, students were encouraged to participate in the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2016 Competition.

Meeting with General Manager of Microsoft Hong KongOn 21 January 2016, COMP invited Mr Horace Chow, General Manager of Microsoft Hong Kong to share his view with our undergraduate and research students on the latest development of information technology. Students had a fruitful and enjoyable chat with Mr Chow, gaining insight into the IT industry and having better understanding of the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Job Hunting Workshop Series

In February and March 2016, COMP organised a series of fundamental workshops and individual feedback sessions to enhance students’ job hunting skills and strengthen their competitiveness in career development. The training workshops provided practical training in basic job search, such as resume and cover letter preparation, interview skills, presentation skills. After attending the workshops, students knew more about the job market, acquiring essential career skills which would be beneficial for their future career.

Students attended a workshop on Visual Studio and IoTStudents gained experience in programming during the workshop

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USA Study Tour Widened Students’ Horizons

Meeting with Ms Lynn Stichnote of Admissions at MST

With Prof. Sajal Das (second from left), Department Chair and Daniel St. Clair Endowed Chair, Computer Science Department, MST

A group of 20 undergraduate and research students joined an exciting study tour to the USA from 15 to 25 May 2016.

This is the first-ever study tour to the USA organised by COMP, aiming to enhance the student’s learning experience outside classroom teaching, enrich them with the recent research trend and development in computing in North America, and broaden their scope of horizons and international perspectives by paying visits to several universities and a startup incubator as well as attending an international conference.

During the 2-week study tour, the students visited University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), Washington University (WUSTL), Missouri University of Science and Technology (MST), Fordham University and New York University (NYU). The students had the opportunity to exchange ideas and insights with local professors and students and gained a better understanding of the local education through the visit.

In addition to visiting local universities, they paid a visit to Cortex, a startup incubator as well as participated in the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Smart Computing (SMARTCOMP) 2016 at St. Louis. Cortex is home to a vibrant 200-acre innovation hub and technology district for a diverse community of big thinkers and risk takers, generating 3,800 tech-related jobs and over $500 million in investment in the last 14 years. At Cortex, the students were introduced with the operation of an innovation hub and ideas of entrepreneurship and startups.

With Prof. K. Ming Leung, Tandon School of Engineering, NYU

At Student Design Center, MST

Sharing with Prof. Lui Sha, Donald B. Gillies Chair in Computer, Department of Computer Science, UIUC

Presentation by Prof. Chenyang Lu, Fullgraf Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, WUSTL

The attendance at SMARTCOMP 2016 provided the students with the latest trend and development in Smart Computing and the students were immersed in the pace of change in computing. Smart computing is emerging as an important multidisciplinary area, which has potential breakthrough in the near future. The 1st SMRTCOMP was hosted by the Department in Hong Kong in 2014 as part of our 40th anniversary celebration and it will return to Hong Kong in 2017.

The students also enjoyed memorable moments during the visits to some popular and historical landmarks there, including the Millennium Park and Grant Park in Chicago, the Gateway Arch and Forest Park in St. Louis, and Wall Street, Statue of Liberty, Trinity Church, Grand Central Terminal and Times Square in New York.

This study tour was rewarding, inspiring and a spectacular success in helping the students to broaden their international outlook, and gaining new perspective on things. The students also opened themselves to many possibilities that are not just contained in one geographical location or culture.

Following the success of this study tour, the Department will explore the opportunity to organize more study tours to different destinations in coming years.

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Dr Xiaoming Wu, Assistant ProfessorDr Wu recently received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University with her dissertation titled “Learning on Graphs with Partially Absorbing Random Walks: Theory and Practice”. She received her bachelor degree in Applied Mathematics and master degree in Computer Science, both from Peking University, and her MPhil degree in Information Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are in the broad areas of machine learning, pattern recognition, and data mining, with a particular focus on graph algorithms and their applications. She has strong interests in both fundamental and applied research, and regularly publishes in prestigious venues such as NIPS and CVPR. Her thesis research has contributed to theoretical understanding of state-of-the-art methods and improved upon them significantly for various applications. Her approaches have been currently adopted in industry.

Welcome OurNew Academic Staff Members

Dr Nan Guan, Assistant ProfessorDr Guan received his PhD degree from Uppsala University, Sweden in 2013, after which he joined Northeastern University, China to work as a faculty member, until joining PolyU in December 2015. His research interests include real-time systems and cyber-physical systems, focusing on resource management for multi-core based platforms. He received the European Design Automation Association (EDAA) Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2014; the Best Paper Award of IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), the flagship conference in the field of real-time embedded systems in 2009; the Best Paper Award of Design Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE) in 2013; and the Best Poster Award of the PhD forum of IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS) in 2012. He served as the technical program committee co-chair of ACM Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT) in 2015, and currently serves as a member of its steering committee.

We are pleased to welcome the following academic staff joining COMP!

Dr Yu Pei, Assistant ProfessorDr Pei’s research interests are in automated software testing, automated program repair, and mining software repositories. His future research plans are directed towards advancing the techniques to automatically test and repair software systems developed in mainstream programming languages and providing tool support for their practical application. He received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 1999 and his first PhD in Engineering Science in 2004, both from Nanjing University, China. From 2004 to 2009, he was an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information Technology in Macau University of Science and Technology. In 2015, he was awarded his second PhD in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, for his work on “Automated Fixing of Programs with Contracts”. Before joining PolyU, he was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich. Dr Pei received the highest score in the teaching evaluation 2008 and the Microsoft Research Asia Fellow Scholarship in 2003.

Dr Lei Yang, Research Assistant ProfessorDr Yang obtained his Bachelor of Science and PhD at Xi’an Jiaotong University. He was also jointly trained in the Department of CSE at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology during pursuing his PhD (2009-2011). Previously, Dr Yang was a post-doctoral fellow in the School of Software at Tsinghua University. He was the recipient of ACM China Doctoral Dissertation Award, Best Paper Awards of ACM MobiCom’14 and MobiHoc’14. He also served on the Program Committee for INFOCOM’16, MASS’15 -16 and ICPADS’14-16. His research interests include backscatter and mobile computing, with a particular focus on radio frequency identification. An example of his research, the Tagoram, is a localization and tracking system using COTS RFIDs, which achieves mm-level accuracy in real-time.

Dr Miao Zhao, Assistant ProfessorDr Zhao was previously a researcher at future networks lab and media lab of Huawei US Innovation Research Center, Santa Clara, California, USA. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from The State University of New York, Stony Brook in 2010 and obtained her bachelor and master degrees in Communication Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. She has published extensively in various academic venues, such as TMC, TC, TON, TCOM, TVT, JPDC, INFOCOM, SECON, MASS, etc. She is also the author of one issued US patent and another five pending US patents. She is a member of IEEE and IEEE Women in Engineering. Her research interests include big data analytics, artificial intelligence, recommender systems, social networks, cloud computing, multimedia networking, wireless communication and networking.

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Dr Stephen Chan took photos with faculty members of COMP

Dr Stephen Chan has made significant contributions to COMP and service-learning activities At the farewell lunch

Prof. Jiannong Cao (right) presented a souvenir to Dr Stephen Chan (middle)

COMP ONLINE is publ ished by the Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic Universi ty. Please contact market ing@comp.polyu.edu.hk for contr ibut ions or further information about the art ic les.

Department of ComputingThe Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityHung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong (852) 3400 3145 comp.enquiry@polyu.edu.hk www.comp.polyu.edu.hk

Retirement ofDr Stephen Chan

Dr Stephen Chan retired from the Department on 11 March 2016 after almost 23 years of dedicated service. Upon his retirement in the department, he will continue to work as the Head of Office of Service Learning (OSL) in PolyU.

Over the years, Dr Chan has made great effort and contribution to the Department and the University in teaching, research and services. In particular, Dr Chan has a strong passion for education, and has devoted much time and effort to the Department and University’s teaching and learning activities. He served as the programme leader for MScIT (1994-96), MScIS (1996-97), BACPT (1997-99) and MScEC for Executives (2000-01), DLTC Chair (2001-08) and Associate Head (2002-08). Dr Chan, together with our colleagues were awarded the President’s Awards (Team) for Excellent Performance/Achievement in Services in 2007/08.

Dr Chan has played an important role in implementing the service-learning requirement and culture in PolyU, and made significant contributions to the department and University’s service learning activities. He was the Acting Head of OSL in 2012-13 and has been the Head of OSL since November 2013. He has worked tirelessly to help in the promotion of service learning as a core academic pedagogy in the University, identification of community needs and sourcing opportunities for service learning. His team was awarded the Faculty Award (Team) for Outstanding Performance/Achievement in Services in 2014/15 in recognition of their outstanding services.

We held a farewell lunch to Dr Chan on 26 February 2016 to express our appreciation to him for his dedication and contribution over the past years. We will all miss his commitment and unstinting support to the Department and we wish him a happy, healthy and well-deserved retirement.

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