Newsletter No. 4

CUHK Newsletter University News Shaw College Of f i c ial ly Opened Shaw College was officially opened on 2nd March by His Excellency the Governor and Chancellor of the University, Sir David Wilson, and the Patron of the college, Sir Run Run Shaw. Situated in the northwestern part of the campus, Shaw College is the fourth constituent college of the University. Facilities have been built with a generous donation of $100 million from Sir Run Run Shaw. Speaking at the opening ceremony, Sir Q. W. Lee, Council Chairman of the University, pointed out that 'as the University is poised for the next crucial phase of development in higher education, the establishment of Shaw College no doubt represents an important and timely contribution to the University infrastructure. With this substantial addition to its facilities. The Chinese University is, I am sure, better prepared for its educational mission in the next decade.' Attending the grand opening ceremony were over 500 guests including senior government officials, foreign consuls, local academics, community leaders and friends of the University. Conference on ‘ Chinese Banking i n Asia 一 Pacific Region ‘ The Overseas Chinese Archives of the Centre for Contemporary Asian Studies organized an international conference on ‘Chinese Banking in Asia - Pacific Region' from 22nd to 23rd February. About 100 scholars, professionals and bankers from Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia attended the function. Professor Gerald H. Choa, chairman of the executive committee of the Overseas Chinese Archives, officiated at the opening ceremony. Mr. A. W. Nicolle, Hong Kong Banking Commissioner, delivered the keynote speech. The conference was sponsored by the Hong Kong Society of Asia - Pacific 21 and five local banks. This University has become Southeast Asia's first user of the RIOS workstation, the latest IBM product, through an ‘Early User Agreement' with the IBM. Other academic institutions which have participated in similar programmes include such famous universities as the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University and Camegie-Mellon University. First User of IBM's RIOS System Initial experimentation with RIOS carried out by the University's Engineering Programme shows that the model excels in speed performance. It can run 20 times faster than a highspeed personal computer and can be extremely useful in researches on computer-aided design, multimedia, chemistry and physics calculations, large systems simulation, and artificial intelligence. The University has actively been seeking opportunities of joint projects with major computer vendors. The Apple Computer, for example, recently donated two top-range computer systems to the University for research on the Chinese medicinal information retrieval system and an advanced scientific typesetting system. Meantime, the Engineering Programme is working on a project to set up in CUHK the most advanced campus computer network in Asia. The network will be supported by hundreds of state-of-the-art workstations with performance at least as powerful as the new IBM ROIS workstations. 5