News

Information Security Management Workshop on CISA and CISSP

COMP organised a 3-day online summer workshop on the professional examinations of information security management for our Year 3 to Year 4 students and fresh graduates to prepare them for their career in the related field. Information Security Management is critical in today’s IT industry. Many technical applications such as Fintech, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Data Centre require good information security control and practice. International qualifications such as Certified Information System Auditor (CISA) and Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP) are highly regarded and recognized by employers. Dr Walter Fung, the workshop instructor and Teaching Fellow of COMP, reviewed the nature and scope of the examinations, qualifications and requirements for being fully certified upon gaining relevant work experience. Various industry practitioners and recent graduates who have attained CISSP and CISA were invited to share their experiences and tips. They also explained the technical details, modules and sample questions under different scenarios. Covering major technical topics, simulation and sample exercises, the workshops successfully guided the students to understand what the certified qualifications are, and enabled them to obtain practical knowledge and helped them to have better preparation for the professional examinations, enhancing their technical competencies and overall employability.

Prof. Chen Changwen is elected as Member of Academia Europaea

We are proud to announce that Prof. Chen Changwen, our Chair Professor of Visual Computing, has been elected as a Member of Academia Europaea (Academy of Europe) under the Informatics Section in recognition of his distinguished achievements and outstanding contribution in the field of computer science. Prof. Chen’s research interests include Multimedia Communication, Internet of Video Things (IoVT), GAN/CNN for Image Aesthetics, Immersive Tele-systems, Machine Learning, Mobile Virtual Reality, etc. He served as the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Multimedia from 2014 - 2016 and for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology from 2006 - 2009. He has also served as Conference Chair for several major IEEE, ACM and SPIE conferences related to multimedia video communications and signal processing. As an expert in visual computing, Prof. Chen’s research has been supported widely by the industry including NSF, DARPA, Air Force, NASA, Whitaker Foundation, Microsoft, Intel, Kodak, Huawei, and Technicolor. With his exceptional research efforts, Prof. Chen has been named an IEEE Fellow and SPIE Fellow. He has also received a series of research and professional achievement awards, including Sigma Xi Excellence in Graduate Research Mentoring Award in 2003, Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2009, the University at Buffalo Exceptional Scholar - Sustained Achievement Award in 2012, the State University of New York System Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2016, and the Distinguished ECE Alumni Award from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019. Formed in 1988, Academia Europaea is the pan-European academy of science, humanities and letters, with a membership of over 4,000 eminent scholars, drawn from all countries of Europe, and all disciplines, nationalities and geographical locations. In July 2021, the Academy announced that 366 international scholars have been invited to accept membership of the Academia Europaea, following a rigorous peer-review process. Congratulations to Prof. Chen on receiving this honour.

COMP MScIT Welcoming Orientation Session 2021

COMP MSc Orientation Session was smoothly concluded on 28 August 2021. More than 130 newly admitted taught postgraduates participated this year. Dr Korris Chung, Associate Professor and Coordinator of MSc Postgraduate Scheme in Computing, warmly welcomed the students with a brief introduction to the latest development of COMP. Dr Chung also provided information on subjects offered and study patterns. Dr Ken Yiu, Associate Professor and MScIT Programme Leader, shared about programme structure and curriculum while Dr Qixin Wang, Associate Professor and MSc Thesis Coordinator, further explained the study plan for the dissertation and project. Other support including departmental facilities and access to learning resources were demonstrated as well. The Q&A session was very engaging in which the students and our faculty members interacted very well. The Orientation serves as an informative platform for the freshmen to get familiar with the MScIT programme and campus life before the commencement of the semester. Once again, welcome to COMP and hope you all enjoy studying with us!

COMP Undergraduate Orientation Session 2021

To prepare new students for adapting to university studies, COMP organised the Orientation Session virtually for all new undergraduates on 24 August 2021, attracting nearly 200 freshmen. Ir Prof. HC Man, Dean of Faculty of Engineering, officiated the Orientation by extending his warm welcome to students and encouraged them to grasp every opportunity to learn during the time at PolyU, while Dr Hong Va Leong, our Associate Professor and Associate Head (Teaching & Learning), began with the Academic Advising System and learning initiatives at COMP. Various lecturers were invited to briefly introduce the subjects they will be teaching for Year 1. The Orientation also covered Work-Integrated Education and internship, and other student supports and services offered by PolyU. The Orientation was concluded with individual group meetings in breakout rooms between the students and their designated Academic Advisors, who will guide them throughout their studies at COMP, providing them with a great chance to get connected before the commencement of the new academic year. We wish all newbies a fruitful and rewarding learning journey.

Call for Nominations: Outstanding Alumni Award of Department of Computing 2022

The year 2022 marks the 85th Anniversary of PolyU. New features are introduced to the Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award (OPAA) including adding awards at department and faculty levels, to recognise our distinguished alumni’s diverse accomplishments and contributions. The Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Department aims to give public recognition to outstanding graduates of a PolyU academic department for their professional achievements and significant contributions to the community and their alma mater.   Award Categories and Selection Criteria The OPAA will be conducted at three levels: Department level, Faculty/ School level and University level. The recipients of the Department Award will be nominated to the Faculty Award. All Faculty/ School awardees will be considered for the University Award.   There are four achievement categories, namely “Professional Achievement”, “Entrepreneurial Achievement”, “Scholarly Achievement” and “Community Service Achievement”. Selection is based on the nominee’s accomplishments in his/ her personal achievements in the field, contributions to the community, and support and contributions to PolyU. Special recognition to young alumni awardees in the award category is added. A candidate who is aged under 40 by the end of the award year can be considered under the Outstanding PolyU Young Alumni stream. Eligibility The nominated candidate must be a bona fide graduate who has successfully completed the full-time or part-time programme offered by PolyU (or its forerunners: Hong Kong Government Trade School, Hong Kong Technical College, Hong Kong Polytechnic; and its constituent units: School of Professional Education & Executive Development and Hong Kong Community College) which led to academic award accredited by the respective Institution.   The proposer can be a PolyU graduate, Honorary Graduate, University Fellow, PolyU staff, current PolyU Council and Court member and current Advisory Committee member. There is no limit to the number of nominations to be submitted by each proposer. However, the proposer cannot be the candidate himself/ herself or a direct relative of the candidate.   Nomination and Selection Schedule The Department of Computing (COMP) is now inviting nominations for the Outstanding Alumni Award of Department of Computing 2022. Please download the Nomination Form and return it to comp.marketing@polyu.edu.hk with all required supplementary documents on or before 31 December 2021.   Selection for the Department Award will be conducted by early Jan 2022. Panel of Judges A panel of judges, comprising both internal and external members, will be formed to examine the nominations and assess candidates’ qualifications and performance for the awards.   Enquiries Department of Computing The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Email: comp.marketing@polyu.edu.hk

PolyU Two-day University Experience Programme 2021

On 3 – 4 August, the Faculty of Engineering (FENG) organised the Two-day University Experience (TUE) Programme online under the theme of “From Physics and ICT to Engineering”, aiming at Secondary 4 to 5 students who are taking Science, ICT, or M1/ M2 subjects. FENG arranged a series of thematic online lectures and quizzes on seven fields of engineering during these two days. Dr Henry Chan, our Associate Professor and Associate Head, represented FENG to officiate the opening of TUE and welcomed the attendees. To begin the COMP’s session, Dr Chan introduced some basic computing concepts with an interactive game to arouse students’ interest. Dr Peter Ng, our Teaching Fellow, delivered a mini-lecture on “Game Technologies” directly afterwards. Students were able to grasp the idea of game development and computer vision including Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). To further illustrate the know-how, they were taken on a virtual tour of our VR and Game Lab. Dr Ng also demonstrated a machine learning project “physical toys recognising” and created two online polling questions about maths in game programming and machine learning for students to express their views. It attracted more than 140 participants. After the closing ceremony, Dr Walter Fung and Dr Richard Lui, our Teaching Fellows, met and chit-chat with the students in the breakout room where they could know more about the study life at COMP and our teaching initiatives. TUE Programme provides a valuable opportunity for secondary students to engage with university academics and experience university learning during the summertime.

Cybersecurity seminar for undergraduates

To equip our undergraduate students with the knowledge and skills in cybersecurity and assist them in planning their pathways for further studies or career development in the field, COMP hosted an online seminar “How to be a competent cybersecurity researcher and practitioner?” on 2 August 2021. Cybersecurity has become one of the issues that arouse public concern, along with the rise in popularity of financial technologies and related applications, e.g., virtual banking and digital identity. Cybersecurity threats keep evolving, mutating, and occurring in different circumstances. The research community is constantly exploring these vulnerabilities, proposing new models and protocols to fulfil the security requirements of these applications. Dr Daniel Luo, our Associate Professor, and Dr Dennis Liu, our Teaching Fellow, shared with the participants the research on smart contract analysis by addressing the research questions in detail and illustrating concrete research examples. Dr Luo also talked about smart contract security from the practitioners’ perspectives and offered professional advice for the better implementation of smart contracts in blockchain applications. The seminar enabled students to understand the process of doing research on cybersecurity as well as various channels and resources to explore new knowledge.

Blockchain technology training programme for OGCIO

COMP and PolyU’s Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship Office (KTEO) jointly organised a training programme on blockchain technology for the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) from June 2019 to May 2021. Dr Daniel Luo, our Associate Professor and Dr Dennis Liu, our Teaching Fellow were two of the workshop trainers. Over 1,500 trainees were benefited from this two-year programme. The blockchain training programme included a series of one-day core classes and two-day advanced courses, targeting all analysts and programmers of OGCIO. We held 24 sessions of the introductory class and five sessions of hands-on training in total. The one-day class provided the participants with an overview of technological development and market trends of blockchain technology, as well as good practices for planning and managing blockchain projects. The trainers introduced the basic concept and growth of blockchain in today’s environment and context and shared some local and global real cases from the private and public sectors. To encourage the trainees to think further and explore possibilities in applying the knowledge to their work, trainers conducted a group discussion and the class voted for the most innovative idea. The two-day training focused on the technical hands-on exercises with various real-world case studies and other interesting examples to deepen trainees knowledge and extend their skills in blockchain technology. They learnt not only about the architecture of blockchain networks but were also taught to develop blockchain applications using Hyperledger Fabric. Overall, the participants understood the importance and value of blockchain technology and they became aware of incorporating blockchain into their future project planning.

COMP undergraduate won First Prize in the COMPSAC’s first Annual Student OER Contest

The IEEE Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) organised its first Annual Student Open Educational Resources (OER) Contest and Alex Zhang Caiqi, (BSc (Hons) in Computing, Year 3) won the First Prize with his OER work titled “Learning Computing by Card Magic”. OERs are publicly available web-accessible entities that can be used for teaching and learning. Many instructors around the world use OERs to supplement their teaching. ‘’Learning Computing by Card Magic’’ is a practical video tutorial created by Alex that aims at teaching basic computing knowledge by playing card magic. To arouse the interest of the audience, Alex first shows a card trick followed by an explanation of the underlying coding concepts. A simple program is formulated at the end to simulate the magic procedure. It helps to improve students’ programming skills and consolidate their understanding of the related theories by using “magic” as an innovative and attractive medium in the OER. “I really appreciate my supervisor, Dr Henry Chan, who gave me so many precious suggestions about my work and recommended me to join the contest,” Alex said. He is considering developing the magic computing tutorial into a series, illustrating other computing knowledge such as the conversion between decimal numbers and binary numbers, and common data structures, with more examples.

Dr Daniel Luo received the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at ICSE 2021

We are pleased to announce that Dr Daniel Luo, Associate Professor of COMP, together with his PhD student, Xian Zhan, and other researchers recently received the ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award at the 43rd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2021) with the paper titled “ATVHunter: Reliable Version Detection of Third-Party Libraries for Vulnerability Identification in Android Applications”. Since third-party libraries (TPLs) have been widely used in mobile apps, accurate detection of TPLs in Android apps is essential to many security and software maintenance tasks, such as repackaged apps identification, vulnerability discovery, etc. Unfortunately, it is non-trivial to identify TPLs accurately due to the challenges like TPL dependency, code obfuscation, and diverse versions. In this paper, the research team proposed and developed a novel system named ATVHunter, which can pinpoint the precise vulnerable in-app TPL versions and provide detailed information about the vulnerabilities and TPLs. Extensive experimental results showed that ATVHunter outperforms state-of-the-art TPL detection tools in terms of accuracy and efficiency. To investigate the ecosystem of the vulnerable TPLs used by apps, the research team constructed a comprehensive vulnerable TPL dataset and used ATVHunter to conduct a large-scale analysis on the apps from Google Play store. ATVHunter found 9,050 apps including vulnerable TPL versions with 53,337 vulnerabilities and 7,480 security bugs, most of which have high risks and were not recognised by app developers. This result uncovered severe security issues in mobile apps and is very important to mobile app developers, users and security researchers. The IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) is the premier software engineering conference. Since 1975, ICSE has provided a forum where researchers, practitioners, and educators gather together to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, experiences and issues in the field of software engineering.