Hong Kong

A vital part of a child’s development is learning to regulate emotions and build relationships: often called ‘socioemotional competence’. To encourage this life-long learning, The Education University of Hong Kong, with the support of the Simon K. Y. Lee Foundation, has created the 3Es project. The project is in its sixth year and its name represents the goals of early prevention, early identification and early intervention, where local children encounter difficulties in reading and arithmetic (hard skills), and in managing emotions and behaviour (soft skills).

Researchers at the Department of Microbiology at The University of Hong Kong have succeeded in the isolation of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant from clinical specimens. This is the first known research team in Asia that has succeeded in isolating the Omicron variant. The isolated variant will enable the development and production of vaccines against Omicron, which has been designated as a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization.

Lingnan University (LU) in Hong Kong will confer honorary doctoral degrees upon four distinguished individuals in recognition of their outstanding achievements in their respective professions and valuable contributions to the well-being of society.

The Hong Kong SAR Government’s 2018-19 Health Behaviour Survey showed that around 96% of residents aged 15 or over consumed less than five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Added to this, almost 10% of these people ate processed meat at least once a day, on average. The World Health Organisation states that an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity are leading global risks to health, and its member states have agreed to halt the rise of diabetes and obesity in adults, teenagers, and of overweight children by 2025.

Poor sleep kills people through medical illnesses, traffic accidents (impaired concentration and decision making), and suicides (relating to mood disorders). Since joining The Education University of Hong Kong in 2015, Dr Esther Lau Yuet-ying, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, has been conducting a long-term research programme that sheds light on the underlying mechanisms of sleep deprivation and its negative effect on emotions, cognition and daily functioning. The findings have been disseminated via public media and workshops to education and government bodies and have led to changes in community attitudes and school policy. They have also resulted in the establishment and strengthening of clinical and consultation support for sleep health in universities and government departments.

Lingnan University (LU) has recently established an off-campus learning hub at the Jao Tsung-I Academy (JTIA) in Lai Chi Kok to enhance academic staff and students’ teaching and learning experience. An opening ceremony was held on Tuesday (9 November) and officiated by Dr Rex Auyeung Pak-kuen, Chairman of MTR Corporation Limited and former Council Chairman of LU, President of LU Prof Leonard K Cheng and Mr Mike Y W Lai, Chief Executive Officer, JTIA.

The Education University of Hong Kong won 10 awards at the 6th International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada (iCAN), with three gold medals, one silver, one bronze and five special prizes, in August 2021.

The Centre for Film and Creative Industry, the University Library and the Department of Visual Studies of Lingnan University (LU) jointly launched “A History of Film Exhibition and Reception in Colonial Hong Kong (1897 to 1925)” database. The open-access database, developed under the Research Grants Committee-funded project “Screen Practices in Colonial Hong Kong: A History of Film Exhibition and Reception from 1897 to 1925”, serves as an essential resource for research on Hong Kong film history from the initial screenings of motion pictures in the late 1890s to the mid-1920s when the local film industry took shape. It provides online access to over 29,000 items of news materials, covering movie theatres, distribution companies and circuits, advertisements, and film reviews.

Biologists from Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) have discovered in Hong Kong waters a new species of hard coral and two new species of nudibranch, a type of marine mollusc, that have never been identified anywhere else in the world. The discoveries of new species from these commonly seen animal groups are a vivid reflection of Hong Kong’s rich marine biodiversity.

The UNESCO-listed Wolong National Nature Reserve, a prime habitat for the endangered panda, was badly damaged by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. To rebuild the reserve into an ecologically sustainable area, Dr Lewis Cheung Ting-on, Associate Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), and his research team devised two unique accreditation systems for the ecotourism industry, one for tourism businesses and one for ecotour guides, as part of the regulations for the tourism development in the ecologically sensitive reserve. The guidelines included holistic recommendations for ecotourism planning, activities, infrastructure and marketing. In 2016, the local administration in Wolong implemented the recommendations in full. This was the first regional ecotourism certification programme in a protected area in China and it has had a positive influence on the ecotourism development in other protected areas in the mainland and in Taiwan.

“Speaking the same language” and careful choice of words are the key to crowdfunding success, according to a recent study conducted by the Department of Marketing and International Business of Lingnan University (LU) in Hong Kong. The study also showed the substantial power of specific words and phrases in predicting crowdfunding outcome. With crowdfunding being an increasingly popular and major source of capital for new ventures, these findings do have important implications for budding entrepreneurs as subtle nuances in word choice might mean a critical difference during the evaluation by the potential backers, and hence significantly affecting the success rate of the pitch.

EdUHK audiology experts have found improved ways to test the hearing of the young and elderly through technological innovation.

With a generous donation from respected social entrepreneur Dr Joseph Lee Chung-tak, Chairman of Wofoo Foundation, the Wofoo Joseph Lee Laboratory has been established to facilitate pioneering research in Lingnan University (LU)’s Department of Applied Psychology.

Undergraduate students usually need to collaborate with others to complete various types of group projects. However, it is not easy to distribute the work evenly among the group members, and some members are even called “free riders” because of their small contributions to the project.

The conventional composer-performer-audience model requires students to spend a large amount of time learning complex musical notation and instrumental skills before enjoying the process of music-making. This makes music inaccessible for many, who therefore give up at an early age.

Geb Impact aims to scale up microalgae production to provide novel super food ingredient by cost-effective mass cultivation of microalgae

A research team led by scientists at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) has developed a novel cell sensor with a barcode-like micro-channel structure that enables rapid and low-cost screening of drug-resistant bacteria. The invention could potentially be used on a large-scale in resource-limited situations such as frequent safety screenings of water, food and public facilities, as well as urgent surveys of massive samples during an infectious disease outbreak, particularly in developing countries.

Lingnan University in Hong Kong (LU) will confer Honorary Fellowships upon four distinguished individuals in recognition of their outstanding achievements in their professions and valuable contributions to society. The Honorary Fellowship recipients are: Hong Kong-based Teochew entrepreneur Mr Chan Wai-nam, BBS（陳偉南先生）, legal expert Mr Simon Ip Shing-hing（葉成慶先生）, philanthropist Ms Christina Maisenne Lee（李美辰女士）, and advocate for disability inclusion Mr Nelson Yip Siu-hong, MH（葉少康先生）.

While the Covid-19 pandemic is ongoing, another public health threat, antibiotic resistance, continues unabated. Microbiologists and chemists from two universities in Hong Kong recently made a breakthrough in synthesizing the first vaccine against one of the most deadly antimicrobial resistant pathogens, Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii). The vaccine shows good protection against the superbug in mice, indicating great potential as a vaccine for humans.

Research by Professor Lim Cher Ping, Chair Professor of Learning Technologies and Innovation at The Education University of Hong Kong, has significantly contributed to pedagogical and technological innovations in higher education institutions (HEIs), especially in the Asia-Pacific region. He has developed a framework for HEIs to drive and support blended learning to improve access to quality higher education. The framework has been disseminated by UNESCO (Asia-Pacific) to ministries of education and HEIs in Asia-Pacific countries. It has been adopted and implemented by ministries and universities in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, South Korea, Mongolia and the mainland. The research has provided HEIs with a framework and self-assessment tool to analyse and revise their existing blended learning practices and policies to enhance student learning engagement and outcomes.

The Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative (LEI) of Lingnan University (LU) in Hong Kong has developed the CREW Wheelchair Control System which intelligently predicts a carer’s intentions so as to better control a wheelchair, improving the safety of both wheelchair users and carers. The research team recently won the Gold award at the international MUSE Design Awards, and has already filed patent applications in Hong Kong and Mainland for this ground-breaking system.

Inspired by a kind of tree leaf, scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) discovered that the spreading direction of different liquids deposited on the same surface can be steered, solving a challenge that has remained for over two centuries. This breakthrough could ignite a new wave of using 3D surface structures for intelligent liquid manipulation with profound implications for various scientific and industrial applications, such as fluidics design and heat transfer enhancement.

Accommodation for young people in Hong Kong has long been at the top of the policy agenda. Recent research conducted by Lingnan University in Hong Kong (LU) and the City University of Hong Kong on the younger generation’s housing opportunities finds that 26 per cent of parents who responded expect to subsidise their adult children when they buy a property. Findings also suggest reliance on the family is now increasingly frequent, and important to young adults who wish to live independently and have a choice.

The Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative (LEI) of Lingnan University has received two Gold awards at the MUSE Design Award in the category Conceptual Design for their “CREW Wheelchair Control System” and “12° Mask” respectively.

Similar to a magnet that always has both south and north poles, a kind of special quasiparticles in condensed matter called “Weyl Fermions” always appear in pairs with opposite chirality. There had been no experimental report that unpaired Weyl points exist in condensed matter until recently, a City University of Hong Kong (CityU) physicist observed the first unpaired singular Weyl magnetic monopole in a specific kind of single crystalline solid.

Cochlear implants help deaf patients in hearing, yet the current technology remains far from perfect. A research team led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has shown that neonatally deafened rats could be trained with cochlear implant stimulation to restore the ability to locate the directions of sound origins. The finding implies that shortcomings in current cochlear implant technology, rather than the lack of auditory experience in early childhood, maybe the reason why cochlear implant patients usually have poor spatial hearing performance.

Would you feel depressed if it has rained for several days? Sunshine affects our mood. The medical sector generally believes that seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is related to shorter sunshine duration in autumn and winter, as sunlight affects the activity of the brain. A study participated by an accounting scholar from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) found that if the weather is sunny immediately before releasing an earnings forecast, firm managers tend to issue more upwardly biased forecasts. The study results provided insight into the role that transient emotional states play in shaping managerial judgment.

Social media makes it easy for us to know how friends are doing recently, and even give us clues about our friends’ social networks. But in order to know the social networks of people of the past, you may have to bury yourself in countless ancient books and put in a lot of effort to figure out their actual relationships. A historian from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) who actively promotes digital humanities research uses digital tools to study the history of the Song dynasty. For example, he is drawn to the “circles of friends” from the letters written by historical figures from the Song dynasty in China. He has been sharing his experience in applying computer and information technology to the humanities in recent years. In addition to revolutionalising the humanities research model, he hopes to gather scholars from different fields to conduct joint research initiatives.

A recent study conducted by the Science Unit of Lingnan University in Hong Kong (LU) shows that concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from incense burning both inside and outside temples could be 6 times and 4 times of the recommended levels respectively. In addition, the more temples there are in the same district, the higher the respiratory mortality rate. The research team suggests that alternative measures, such as installation of automatic mist sprayers to reduce smoke dispersion, as well as using incense made with non-toxic substances to minimise health risks to worshippers and neighbours, should be considered.

Lingnan University (LU) in Hong Kong organised a series of online orientation activities to welcome about 850 new undergraduate students today (26 August).