Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1994

• Prof. Natal is Yuen, honorary professor of the Department of Community and Family Medicine, as amember of the Police Complaints Committee for two years from 1 st March 1993, as a member of the Council of City Polytechnic of Hong Kong for one year from 1st January 1994, and as chairman of the School Medical Service Board from 1st April 1994. CUHK to Coordinate Inter-institutional Broadband Communications Network The University recently received HK$1.78 million from the Research Grants Council of the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee to set up an Inter- institutional Broadband Communications Network Testbed. The network will be based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology, which has been adopted worldwide to transport data and switch information traffic on the Broadband Integrated Service Digital Network (B-ISDN). It will greatly facilitate research in network control and management, and the development of network services and applications. Its high speed and multimedia transport abilities will also open up new ways of conducting collaborative research. The proposal to install such a network was made by The Chinese University and supported by the University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The system will consist of three switches, one to be installed at each university. They will be linked by optical fibres and the facilities at each site will be managed separately, with The Chinese University coordinating the overall activities. HK$1 Million from Croucher Foundation for Environmental Research An environmental research project propose d by Dr. Yee Leung, director of the Centre for Environmental Studies, recently obtained financial support to the tune of HK$1,057,000 from The Croucher Foundation. Entitled 'An Environmental Decision Support System for Water Pollution Control of the Tidal River Network in the Pearl River Delta', the project aims at developing an analytical paradigm and an intelligent environmental decision support system for the management of tidal river networks in general and the Pearl River Delta in particular. A component part of the research is a specific application of the system to water pollution control in the Pearl River Delta for evaluation and improvement. Research in Co l l abo r a t i on w i t h UK Universities Eight research projects proposed by staff members of the University will receive grants totalling £48,991 from the UK/HK Joint Research Scheme. The scheme was established in 1991 by the British Council and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong to promote cooperation in research between institutions of higher education in the UK an d Hong Kong, and the University has received funding support from the scheme for the last two years. The eight projects to be supported this year are: Project Title CUHK Investigator(s) Amount Awarded Regulation of Cellulose Genes in the Oyster Mushroom Pleurotus Dr. Kwan Hoi-Shan (Biology) Prof. ST. Chang (Biology) Dr. J.A . Buswell (Biology) £6,696 MOCVD Growth of A1GaAs, A1lnAs and A1GalnP Using TBAs, TBP Dr. C.C. Hsu (Electronic Engineering) £6,429 A Multi-Paradigm Programming Design Methodology Dr. Jimmy Le (Computer Science) £6,691 Theory of Photonic Band-gap Materials Dr. Hui Pak-Ming (Physics) £5,236 Structural Studies on Some Flavour Proteins and Anti-Tumour Agents Prof. Thomas Mak (Chemistry) £6,018 The Therapeutic Effect of Recombinant Epidermal Growth Factor in the Treatment of Neonatal Necrotizing Entercocolitis Dr. P.B. Sullivan (Paediatrics) £6,786 The Effects of NPY and GLP1 on Islet Gene Expression Dr. Y.C. Le (Physiology) £5,714 A Comparative Study of Influences on Teachers' Beliefs and Classroom Practice in Hong Kong and UK Primary Schools Dr. Benjamin Chan (Educational Administration & Policy) £5,421 News in Brief 37