Newsletter No. 211

2 No. 211 19th November 2002 CUHK Newsletter CUHK Stat i st i c ian Wor ld's Sixth Most Frequent ly Ci ted P rof. Fan Jianqing, professor of statistics and chair of the Department of Statistics, was rated the sixth most frequently cited mathematical scientist in the world 1991-2001 by the Institute for Scientific Information, which publishes the Science Citation Index. The Index covers the most renowned academic journals in the field of mathematical science. The information was released in the May/June 2002 issue of the institute's magazine, Science Watch. Prof. Fan is also the only Chinese scholar who made it to the top 10. Prof. Fan is an internationally known statistician with particular interest in the applications of statistics in risk and financial management and biomedical research. He was awarded the President's Award of the Committee of Presidents of the Statistical Societies in 2000 in recog-nition of his significant contribution to the profession of statistics. Regarded as the Nobel Prize in statistics, the award is for outstanding statisticians under the age of 40. CUHK EMBA Forum ： Chair of Ernst & Young on CEO and Auditor Relationship M r. Anthony Wu, chairman of Ernst & Young, spoke to over 80 EMBA students and alumni in the MBA Town Centre on 3rd October 2002 in the second EMBA Forum. The title of his presentation was 'CEO and Auditors: From Enron's Experience'. Mr. Wu shared his views on what went wrong in Enron's case, the relationship between senior management and auditors in Enron, the role o f senior management on f i nanc i al reporting, new relationship between senior management and aud i t o r s, a s we l l a s corporate lessons learnt from this financial reporting crisis. He also provided insight on how the accounting profession could be revitalized. The EMBA Forum, a new initiative of the University's Executive MBA Programme, made its debut on 19th September 2002. Mr. Clement Kwok, managing director and CEO of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, wi ll be the speaker of the third EMBA Forum to be held on 16th January 2003. Management Expert from Cambridge Gives Public Lecture P rof. Michael Dempster, professor of management studies (finance and management science) at the University of Cambridge, delivered a lecture entitled 'Global Asset Liability Management' on 31st October in the Ho Tim Building. The lecture was a L i Ka Shing Foundation Exchange Programme public lecture. In his talk, Prof. Dempster described the construction of a strategic global asset l i ab i l i ty management system for Pioneer Investments. The generation o f global asset returns, pension fund liability structures, model design and management w i t h various attitudes t o risk, op t imi za t i on algorithms, and solution visualization were all discussed. Prof. Dempster was educated at the Universities of Toronto, Carnegie Mellon, and Oxford. He is currently director of the Centre for Financial Research and the Doctoral Programme at the Judge Institute of Management Studies in the University of Cambridge. Besides mathematical and computational finance and economics, Prof. Dempster's research interests include optimization and nonlinear analysis, stochastic systems, algorithm analysis, decision support and applications, software, and telecommunications systems modelling. Jointly with D.G. Richards, he received the D.E. Shaw Best Paper Award at the 1999 Computational Intelligence in Financial Engineering Conference held in New York City. He was recently made an honorary fellow of the UK Institute of Actuaries. Mathematician Visits United College P rof. Tony F. Chan, dean of the Division of Physical Sciences, College of Letters and Science, University of California at Los Angeles, delivered two lectures during his visit to United College from 3rd to 10th November as the college's first Distinguished Visiting Scholar 2002-3. The lectures, 'What's Math Got to Do with It ?' and 'Geometry, PDEs, Fluid Dynami cs, and Image Processing', were delivered on 5th and 7th November respectively in the T.C. Cheng Building. Born in Hong Kong, Prof. Chan obtained his BS degree i n engineering and MS i n aeronautics from the California Institute o f Technology, and his Ph.D. in computational science from Stanford University. He taught seven years at Yale University before joining the Mathematics Department at UCLA. Prof. Chan is a computational and applied mathematician famous for his research contributions to numerical linear algebra and numerical solutions of partial differential equations. Unite d Colleg e C lebrate s 46t h Anniversar y C elebrations for the 46th anniversary of United College officially opened at a ceremony held on the morning of 18th October at Sir Run Run Shaw Hall. Mr. Sham Choi-sang, chairman of the College Board of Trustees, and Ms. Teresa K.F. Mann, District Governor 2002-3, Lion Clubs International District Hong Kong and Macau, officiated at the ceremony and presented academic prizes to students. The ceremony was immediately followed by a grand birthday party on the college campus, featuring the cutting of a 40-pound birthday cake. The day's highlights were the anniversary luncheon held at the college staff common room, and the Feast-for-a- Thousand organized by the United College Student Union in the evening. The college student union also organized a series o f ac t i v i t i es t o celebrate the occasion, including a disco night, an annual concert, the UC fun run, and a bazaar. Chinese and Western Medicine in Focus E xperts in Chinese and Western medicine exchanged views on acupuncture, renal disease, cancer, dermatology, nutritional therapy, evidence-based medicine, and Chinese medicine at the 'Third TWGHs — CUHK Eddie Wang Symposium on Complementary Chinese and Western Medicine — Integrated Approach' held on 25th and 26th October at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Researchers from the University reported on the progress of the various projects under the Area of Excellence in Chinese Medicine Research and Further Development selected by the University Grants Committee in 2001. The symposium was organized by the University and the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. In attendance at the opening ceremony were Dr. Ko Wing-man, director (professional services and public affairs) of the Hospital Authority, Prof. Amb r o se K i n g , v i c e- chancellor of the University, Mr. John Ma, chairman of TWGHs, Mr. Eddie Wang, founder of TWGHs Eddie Wang Chinese Medicine Research and Development Fu nd and t h i r d v i c e- chairman of TWGHs, and Prof. P.C. Leung, chairman of the Management Committee of the Institute of Chinese Medicine. The opening ceremony of the Hong Kong Branch of the Chinese Cochrane Centre under the world renowned Cochrane Collaboration was also held at the symposium. Its establishment points to the important role CUHK plays in evidence-based clinical trials on Chinese and Western medicine in Hong Kong.