Calendar 2005–06

152 Part 3 • Research Units and University Extensions • to cooperate with the Institute of Classical Texts Studies of Zhongshan University in the research of Lingnan (South China) classical texts. A major task of the CUHK side, at present, is the compilation and edition of the Full Compilation of Cantonese Poetry ; and • to establish an electronic database of Lingnan classical texts in different stages. The institute plans to submit research proposals on relevant areas for research grants. An electronic database will be built in the process of research for the purpose of academic analysis. Joint Centre for Intelligence Engineering (JCIE) Tel.: 2609 8270 Fax.: 2603 5558 E-mail: pcching@ee.cuhk.edu.hk Website: http://www.se.cuhk.edu.hk/jcie The new millennium witnesses a dire need for revolutionizing technologies that support data mining, information access, management, processing, retrieval and visualization. Research and development of intelligent information technologies with a high degree of usability has become a critical problem for the engineering discipline. The JCIE was set up in 1999 to embark on this exciting research area. It advocates close collaboration between the Chinese University and Peking University. It capitalizes on the synergy of the two institutions to fulfil the general mission of becoming a world-class research centre in the promotion of basic and applied research in intelligence engineering. ‘Intelligent Speech for Information Systems’, the first project conducted under JCIE, has made tremendous progress in the development of a sophisticated trilingual (putonghua, Cantonese and English) spoken dialogue system for the finance domain by developing and integrating a host of innovative speech and language technologies to facilitate fully automated human–machine communication. Joint Laboratory for Geoinformation Science (Please refer to p.113 under ‘Research Institutes and Centres’.) Joint Laboratory for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Tel.: 2609 6286 Fax.: 2603 5646 E-mail: bio@cuhk.edu.hk Website: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/bio In the coming decades, China and the world will face increasing demands for food security, health care, and a sustainable environment. Recent advances in molecular biology and biotechnology offer new hopes and solutions to these challenges. In view of these developments and their potential, and exploiting the high concentration of expertise, state-of-the-art equipment and facilities of both partners, the Chinese University and Peking University jointly established a Joint Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in March 1999.