Newsletter No. 117

2 No. 117 4th December 1997 CUHK Newsletter Exchange with UT and Tsinghua Reinforced T h e Universit y signed a collaborative agreement with the Universit y o f Toront o (UT ) o n 8th Novembe r to strengthe n an d expand academic link s betwee n the two institutions. The agreement, signed by Prof. J. Robert S. Prichard, president of UT, and Prof. Arthur K.C. Li , vice-chancellor o f th e University , wi l l consolidat e existing studen t an d staf f exchang e programme s an d extend the scope and scale of collaboration in areas such as joint academic programmes, workshops and seminars, and international consultancy partnership. Formal links between th e two universitie s wer e firs t establishe d i n 1992. On th e same day , a trilateral agreemen t wa s als o concluded among CUHK, UT, and Tsinghua University to enable top scientists from the three institutions t o wor k closel y o n biotechnological research . It was an outgrowth o f th e highl y successfu l biotechnology work-statio n established in 199 4 t o poo l th e resources o f UT , CUHK , an d th e Commission o f Scienc e an d Technology o f Chin a fo r j o i n t projects o f scientifi c significance . The mov e als o goe s i n lin e wit h recommendations mad e by the MI T Industrial Performanc e Centr e i n a report commissioned by the government's Department o f Industry. The report stresses the need for state-of - the-art biotechnology in Hong Kong to enhanc e th e manufactur e o f cutting-edge product s throug h researc h an d development, and suggests that local institutions work closel y with thei r counterpart s i n mainlan d Chin a an d othe r developed countrie s wher e importan t resource s an d facilities are available. At the signing ceremony, Tsinghua University was represented by vice-dea n o f internationa l affair s Prof . Chen Guo Qiang , UT b y vice-presiden t Prof . Heathe r Munroe-Blum, an d th e Universit y b y pro-vice - chancellor Prof . Kenneth Young. According to Prof. C.Y. Lee, chairman of the CUHK Department of Biochemistry, bioinformatics and human functional genomics will be major focus of collaborative research. Innovative Chines e Processing System Receives Award fo r Meritorious Design Prof. Wong Wing-shing (in suit) working with a colleague on Jasmine & ANSeRS J asmine & ANSeRS , a softwar e platfor m fo r automated Chines e tex t analysi s wit h a search engine fo r Chines e Internet/Intrane t application s developed b y th e Departmen t o f Informatio n Engineering, was awarded the Certificate of Merit in Consume r Produc t Desig n i n th e 199 7 Hon g Kong Award s fo r Industr y organize d b y th e Federation of Hong Kong Industries . The Hon g Kon g Award s Fo r Industr y wa s launched i n 198 9 t o recogniz e an d encourag e excellence i n seve n mai n area s o f industria l performance: consume r produc t design , expor t marketing, machiner y an d equipmen t design , productivity, quality , environmental performance , and technological achievement . Jasmine & ANSeR S wa s develope d by Prof . Wong Wing-shing , professo r o f informatio n engineering, and a PhD student Mr. Qin An to tackle the problem o f word segmentation in Chinese text analysis and retrieval. Jasmine feature s th e function s o f automate d segmentation and part-of-speech-tagging needed for advanced text processing. Using a hybrid approach, it combines the learning ability o f neural networ k with th e efficienc y o f tabl e look-up . Th e syste m has a wide range of applications including automatic Chinese documen t classificatio n an d informatio n filtering, text-to-voic e translation , accurat e translation betwee n simplifie d an d traditiona l characters, as well as intelligent Chinese text editor with functions like 'spel l checking' . ANSeRS, th e associativ e networ k searchin g robot system fo r Chines e database using Jasmine, meets the needs of the growing number of Internet users who use Chinese. The system queries with Chinese words or sentences and uses topics rather than exact matches as search keys. Hence, word segmentation is not required for input. T o date , the syste m ha s searched more than 440,000 Interne t we b page s i n Chines e an d i s continuousl y building the database of Chinese web pages. ANSeRS is also the first and only topical searching engine that can read GB web pages and Big5 web pages in one browser. Interested parties can try the system by visiting the website http://www.jansers.org . Professor of Statistics Outlines Developmen t of Structural Equation Models P rof. Lee Sik-yum, professor o f statistics, delivere d his professorial inaugural lecture on 7th November 1997 at the Lady Shaw Building. In his lecture entitled 'The Development of Structural Equation Models', Prof. Lee examined the development from the factor analysis model to the general LISREL mode l with examples o f applications i n behavioural , educational , an d socia l sciences. H e als o presente d the basi c theoretica l an d computational development s fo r practica l users , an d highlighted the major achievements in structural equation modelling. Th e lectur e concluded with hi s prediction s of the direction of future research. Prof. Lee obtained his master and doctoral degrees from th e University o f California a t Los Angeles , and joined the University's Department of Statistics in 1982. A kee n researcher , h e ha s sinc e publishe d ove r 7 0 academic papers and is credited with launching the first Conference o n Recen t Developmen t i n Statistica l Research in 1990 . He received the Best Teacher Award from th e CUH K studen t unio n i n 1987 , an d a distinguished servic e awar d fro m th e Internationa l Chinese Statistica l Associatio n i n 1993 . H e wa s appointed professor of statistics in April 1996 . Compulsory Education Is the Theme of HKERA Annual Conference The Hon g Kon g Educationa l Researc h Association (HKERA ) hel d it s 14t h annua l conference o n 15t h an d 16t h November a t the University. Sponsore d b y th e University' s Faculty of Education and the Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research, the theme of this year's conference wa s 'Compulsor y Educatio n an d Beyond'. Some 140 papers were presented which, together wit h th e workshop s held , addresse d different aspects of compulsory education , such as curriculum development, teacher and principal development, schoo l administration , an d computer applicatio n i n education . I n thei r keynote speeches , Prof . Mi n Weifan g fro m Peking University reported on strategies adopted by Chin a i n it s attemp t t o develo p compulsor y basic education , whil e Prof . F . Ramire z fro m Stanford Universit y discusse d the rational e fo r compulsory schoolin g in contemporary society . Prof. Rut h Hayhoe , th e gues t o f honou r an d president o f HKERA , provide d a 'civilizatio n perspective' o n compulsor y educatio n i n he r address.