Annual Report 2008–09

44 經濟與金融 Economics and Finance 地球信息與地球科學 Geoinformation and Earth Sciences This is a joint project with researchers from Columbia University and Microsoft Research in Redmond. It received the best paper award in ACMCoNext 2008. Wireless networking has become popular among corporations and home networks, but users still occasionally have to put up with poor wireless data transfer due to inherently unstable wireless medium. In view of the rate anomaly problem suffered by currently deployed IEEE 802.11 WiFi networks in which stations transmitting at low data rates have dramatically reduced the throughput of stations transmitting at high data rates, the project team proposed a practical, deployable system called SoftRepeater. The system allows higher- rate WiFi stations to opportunistically transform themselves into repeaters and relay data for lower-rate stations, and the repeater functionality to be enabled only when appropriate. Through simulation and testbed experiments, SoftRepeater can improve cumulative throughput by about two times. 「制度、金融與經濟發展」研討會 ‘Institutions, Finance and Economic Development’ Symposium 經濟金融研究所繼續倡導研究亞洲及中國地區的經濟與財務問題，並舉辦了連串 國際會議和工作坊。其中表表者為與香港城市大學經濟及金融系合辦的「制度、金 融與經濟發展」研討會，邀請了哈佛大學、麻省理工學院、匹茲堡大學、亞爾伯達 省立大學及清華大學等著名學府的頂級學者，就亞洲及中國的重要議題發表其精 闢研究成果，議題包括法律、金融、中國的發展、政治與經濟，以及司法系統和制 度的演進。研討會提供了交流平台，讓與會者討論其現行研究，藉此發掘進一步 合作的機會。 The Institute of Economics and Finance continued to promote research on economic and finance issues in Asia and China. It has hosted a series of international conferences and workshops. One that stood out was the joint symposium ‘Institutions, Finance and Economic Development’ organized with the Department of Economics and Finance, City University of Hong Kong. The event brought together top scholars from renowned institutions such as Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pittsburg, University of Alberta and Tsinghua University to present high quality research important to Asia and China. The topics discussed included law, finance, Chinese development, politics and economy and the evolution of legal systems and institutions. The symposium has provided an exchange platform for researchers to discuss their work in progress and explore opportunities for further collaboration. 研究空氣污染的新平台 New Platform for Studying Air Pollution 珠江三角洲地區工業迅速發展，導致嚴重空氣污染，成為區內政府最關注的環境 問題。建立一個溝通及協商決策的平台，讓地區內所有持份者合作解決這問題， 實屬必需。 香港中文大學與中山大學合作開發了「協同虛擬地理環境平台」，從跨學科的共 同基礎出發，研究區域性空氣污染問題。有別於現有的方法，研究小組側重以動 態三維技術在珠江三角洲的虛擬地形上表達環境問題，模擬動態空氣污染的傳輸 和擴散等情況，使不同領域的科學家、各地政府官員及公眾更易於理解。 The rapid industrial developments in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region have caused severe air pollution problems—a top environmental issue of the region’s governmental authorities. With this in mind, this research project develops a communication and cooperative decision-making platform for all the stakeholders of the region to tackle this problem. This project, conducted jointly with Sun Yat-sen University, developed a Collaborative Virtual Geographic Environment Platform to study the regional air pollution issues from a common cross-disciplinary foundation, the geographic perspective. Unlike those of existing projects, the methods focus on dynamic 3D volume representation in virtual PRD terrain environments, which makes dynamic air pollution transportation and dispersion simulation easily understood by scientists of different disciplines, governments as well as the general public.