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Prof. W.K. Cham, PI of the Project “Future Multimedia Standards”, has been awarded a research grant of HK$1,000,000 (Aug. 2008 – Jan. 2010) from Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Ltd.
Project Title: Future Multimedia Standards
The objective of this project is to develop new video coding techniques for future multimedia standards. This project will investigate the use of new integer transforms to improve video fidelity and the use of human visual system models to improve subjective visual quality of coded video. The results will be submitted for the consideration of becoming an international coding standard.
The project will allow Hong Kong to be a central place for intellectual property creation and accumulation in the multimedia consumer electronics space, enhance the competitiveness of local industries, and help them to capture the huge emerging market opportunities for multimedia devices, applications and services.
Prof. J. B. Xu has recently been selected as Member of International Advisory Committee of International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology, China 2009 (ChinaNano 2009). The conference is presumably the largest one on nanoscience and nanotechnology in the Greater China and Asia. The Conference Chairman is Prof. Chunli Bai, Executive Vice President of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The extraordinarily high level of current international funding in nanoscience and nanotechnology explicitly manifests its perceived importance for a whole range of technologies in the coming 20 years or so. The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to two discovers of GMR also ascertains this importance. GMR is now widely used in PC hard disks for achieving ultra-high density of data storage. The discovery is considered as one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology, as announced by the Nobel Prize Committee.
Prof. William S.Y. Wang and Dr. James W. Minett have recently published a new book titled “Language, Evolution, and the Brain”.
This volume consists of an important collection of papers presented at the Seminar on Language, Evolution, and the Brain (SLEB), hosted by the International Institute for Advanced Studies in Kyoto, Japan, bringing together distinguished researchers with backgrounds in cognitive science, anthropology, linguistics, robotics, physics, etc. Major topics discussed include:
- Creoles and pidgins, and their implications regarding language evolution.
- Quantitative analysis and modeling of various aspects of language evolution, including the evolution of lexical items and color terms, the emergence of linguistic categories, and the dynamics of language competition.
- The evolution of the human brain, and how that relates to language evolution.
- The evolution and role of mirror neurons in both humans and non-humans.
- Evidence that the influence of language on color perception (an example of the Whorf Effect) is stronger for the right visual field than the left.
Led by Prof. Li Quan of the Physics Department and Prof. Xu Jianbin of the Electronic Engineering Department, the research team at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) revealed a breakthrough in semiconductors. It opens up a new front in semiconductor physics and nanotechnology, and holds promise to take the development of computer technology to new heights with faster computing speed and larger data storage capacity, but less power consumption.
The press release has been issued to the media and posted on the University website. Here are the links for your information:
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/cpr/pressrelease/090719c.htm(Chinese)
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/cpr/pressrelease/090719e.htm(English)
