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PolyU scholar honoured with international GIScience awards, visited by renowned academic for the research center

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) scientists excel in the scientific research of geomatics and GeoAI to address societal and environmental challenges, receiving international awards and visit from esteemed academician.  Prof. Qihao WENG, Chair Professor of Geomatics and Artificial Intelligence of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, Global STEM Professor, and Principal Investigators and Directors of the Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Geomatics (RCAIG) and the JC Stem Lab Earth Observations (POLEIS) at PolyU, has defined urban remote sensing as a new field and has transformed urban environmental research through theoretical and technical advancements. These include novel algorithms and innovative methods for sub-pixel-scale analysis and time series imagery. Prof. WENG has been honoured with the 2024 AAG Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography presented by the American Association of Geographers (AAG). The Wilbanks Prize is awarded to geographers who have made groundbreaking contributions in the fields of Geography and GIScience.  Additionally, Prof. WENG has received the Remote Sensing Speciality Group’s (RSSG) Lifetime Achievement Honour Award for the year of 2024, which serves as a testament to his significant contributions to the field of remote sensing. The RSSG of AAG is dedicated to promoting the understanding of remote sensing science and fostering dialogue and interaction among geographers in the applications of remote sensing technology across various domains, including research, teaching, public service and private enterprise.  From heatwaves to pandemic diseases, the urban environments worldwide face numerous challenges. Prof. WENG and his research team are harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and informatics to address emerging concerns related to environmental changes and urban growth.  Innovative geospatial and AI technologies offer ground-breaking solutions and insights into the dynamic changes occurring in our natural and social surroundings. The applications of GeoAI are rapidly expanding across various fields, encompassing transportation, urban and public safety, planning, climate change and natural disasters. The research led by Prof. WENG has significantly advanced our theoretical understanding and empirical knowledge of urban heat islands, urban sprawl, urbanization effects, and urban environmental sustainability. By establishing relationships among satellite thermal infrared imagery, land surface temperature, and air temperature, the research connects remotely sensed data to urban spatial patterns, radiation budgets, and climate change. The methodology, developed in collaboration with other researchers in 2024, for estimating land-surface temperature from satellite-derived attributes of vegetation, has had far-reaching impacts in various fields, including urban geography, landscape ecology, urban planning, urban meteorology, and climatology. Prof. WENG is also a Foreign Member of The Academy of Europe (Academia Europaea), and a Fellow of IEEE, AAAS, ASPRS and AAIA. Moreover, recently, Prof. Jun CHEN, an esteemed member of the International Advisory Committee of the Research Institute of Land and Space and Chief Scientist at the National Geomatics Centre of China, visited the RCAIG and POLEIS research centre led by Prof. WENG. Prof. WENG and Prof. CHEN engaged in insightful dialogues covering frontiers in scientific research of geomatics and GeoAI and the advantageous research climate fostered by the Hong Kong SAR Government's favourable policies. The research team of Prof. WENG took this opportunity to present their latest research initiatives to Prof. CHEN. Their presentations covered advanced remote sensing for environmental monitoring, urban heat island effect analysis, and cutting-edge techniques in global urban mapping, among other topics. These presentations underscored PolyU’s innovative drive in geospatial technology and GeoAI. Prof. CHEN also delivered an insightful talk to the research team as well. For More: https://polyu.hk/krgeW Learn more about Prof. Qihao Weng’s research focus in the video: https://polyu.me/3Vt7yih  

PolyU hosted technology exchange event with Jiangsu province

The Research and Innovation Office (RIO) of PolyU co-organised an exchange event with Jiangsu Science and Technology Department and Productivity Centre of Jiangsu Province on campus on 16 April.  The event aimed to connect Jiangsu enterprises with PolyU researchers. Approximagely 70 participants and 20 Jiangsu enterprises participated in this academic and industry exchange programme.  Prof. Christina Wong, Director of RIO, delivered a welcoming remark to warmly welcome the Jiangsu delegates. A poster exhibition area showcasing Jiangsu enterprises and PolyU research was arranged to facilitate potential collaborations in three themes: Manufacturing Technology, AI/IoT, and Green Technology.

PolyU shares with THE Campus how the university supports world-changing research

To generate world-changing research, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s Research and Innovation Office takes on the role of fostering collaboration and allocation of resources to allow their academics to focus completely on their work. THE Campus has published our insights on how to enable academics to focus on their work, findings, and potential applications through comprehensive support. This has led to impactful research projects and brought innovative solutions for society across wide-ranging fields. The full article (English Only) : THE Campus - Researchers need support to change the world – here’s how to provide it Learn more about the successful research promotion cases shared in the article: PolyU scholar’s transformative work on the Leidenfrost effect PolyU supports new wholesale central bank digital currency project PolyU projects supported by RGC Theme-based Research Scheme funding Young Innovative Researcher Award Optoelectronic graded neurons for perceiving dynamic motion

PolyU showcases innovative technologies at the Digital Economy Summit 2024

PolyU is participating in the flagship event, Digital Economy Summit (DES) 2024, jointly organised by the HKSAR government and Cyberport on 12-13 April. As the Innovation Research Partner of the event, PolyU showcases the latest technologies of AR, blockchain, cybersecurity, and precise positioning to the participants.  Prof. Allen Au, Professor of the Department of Computing at PolyU and founding members of the CBDC Expert Group, will join the panel discussion on 13 April to share his insights on how CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) empowers the development of Hong Kong's economy. DES serves as a platform for thought leaders, industry experts, and policymakers to collaborate, share insights, and explore how cutting-edge technologies and innovative applications are reshaping the urban landscape and the modern digital economy. The event is attracting over 5,000 online and onsite attendees from around the world. Click here for more information>>

Visit by delegation of Hefei government

A delegation led by Hefei Municipal People’s Government Mayor Mr YunFeng LUO visited The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) on 11 April. The delegation was welcomed by Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, President of PolyU; Prof. Christopher CHAO, Vice President (Research and Innovation) of PolyU and Prof. DONG Cheng, Associate Vice President (Mainland Research Advancement) of PolyU. Prof. TENG introduced the latest developments of PolyU to the delegation, as well as its strategic focus on research collaborations with the mainland.  PolyU seeks to make substantial contributions to the economic prosperity of both regions, ultimately supporting the nation in attaining high-quality development. Last October, PolyU and the Hefei Luyang People’s Government reached an MoU to jointly establish the PolyU-Hefei Technology and Innovation Research Institute (the Research Institute), with the aim of fostering in-depth and effective collaboration in industry, academia and research and cultivating talents.  Both parties are now working towards the establishment of the Research Institute, which contributes to enhancing and facilitating research development, academic exchange, nurturing of talent, and knowledge transfer in various fields, including biomedical and sensing precision technology, and aerospace information. By leveraging the research and academic excellence of PolyU, these collaborations support the development of a top-notch innovation platform in Hefei.  Click here for more: https://polyu.hk/PTOXK  

Visit by Delegation of Quanzhou Government

A delegation led by the Quanzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, along with leading industry representatives from the textile and garment, sports footwear and apparel, and new materials sectors, visited PolyU on 11 April. Prof. Christopher CHAO, Vice President (Research and Innovation) of PolyU warmly welcomed the delegation. The delegation was guided through a tour of School of Design, the University Research Facility in 3D Printing, and the PolyU-Huawei Joint Laboratory for Optical Interconnection Network and Advanced Computing System, providing an in-depth look at PolyU's achievements in design and scientific innovation. During the meeting, both parties engaged in a thorough discussion on facilitating the practical application of research achievements. PolyU hopes to further strengthen technological collaboration with Fujian government entities and businesses, making a greater contribution to the economic prosperity of both regions.  

PolyU and Alibaba Cloud join hands to advance signal quality estimation technology, driving dynamic networks adoption in the telecoms industry Deployed by data centres in 15 countries and regions; network capacity potentially increases by 10%

Prof. Alan LAU, Professor of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), and his research team, have recently collaborated with Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, to develop signal quality estimation technology, driving the adoption of dynamic networks in the telecommunications industry. The research team led by Prof. Alan Lau has collaborated with Alibaba Cloud’s technical team to conduct research on Alibaba Cloud’s robust cloud computing platform. By measuring the signal strength at various positions and channels on the fiber-optic network, and integrating the technologies of optics, physics and big data analytics, they have been able to provide a more comprehensive and accurate assessment of signal quality. The research outcomes help cloud service providers gain a deeper understanding of the overall state of signal transmission, enhance the stability of dynamic networks, and strengthen their ability to implement such networks effectively. Adopting PolyU’s new technology, the estimation error of signal-to-noise ratio – a measure comparing the desired and undesired signals – has been reduced from 22% to 4%. In addition, the technology can potentially increase network capacity by 10% under the same level of reliability. The research project has secured matching funding from the Innovation and Technology Commission’s Partnership Research Programme. The technology has been extensively deployed by Alibaba Cloud in its data centres spanning 15 countries and regions, making a positive impact to the cloud provider in supporting notable e-commerce sales events, such as the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival and the upcoming 618 Mid-Year Shopping Festival. As the demand for emerging multimedia network applications such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), metaverse, future 6G mobile network communication and high-definition live video streaming continues to surge, cloud service providers are frequently faced with ad-hoc needs for ultra-fast network connections within a short timeframe and specific range. A dramatic shift toward online shopping, exemplified by events like the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and other large-scale events or festivals has led to an increase in the demand for real-time communication within a limited timeframe, resulting in a surge in network traffic. Prof. Alan Lau said, “While cloud service providers can keep up with traffic demand by expanding bandwidth in their fibre-optic networks, the addition or removal of bandwidth in their networks can lead to nonlinear interference, which ultimately affects the quality of existing signals. As a result, providers tend to be prudent when it comes to scaling up the implementation of dynamic networks. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the accuracy of signal quality assessment in dynamic environments.” Dr Xie Chongjin, Senior Director and Chief Telecommunication Scientist of Infrastructure Product Unit, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, stated, “The technology developed by PolyU is easy to implement and has been applied to Alibaba Cloud’s network operation platforms deployed in 15 countries and regions worldwide. It has effectively enhanced the reliability and agility of our network, allowing us to support future network traffic demand. We look forward to further strengthening cooperation with PolyU to continue driving the innovation and advancement of telecommunication technology.”

PolyU harnesses GeoAI technologies to enable sustainable urban development

Geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) is an interdisciplinary field that combines geospatial science and artificial intelligence (AI). The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is harnessing innovative GeoAI technologies to provide ground-breaking solutions for some of the environmental and social challenges facing the world today, in various fields including transportation, urban and public safety, planning, climate change and natural disasters. Prof. Qihao WENG, Chair Professor of Geomatics and Artificial Intelligence of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, and Global STEM Professor, established the PolyU Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Geomatics (RCAIG), to focus on the development of original and innovative AI methodologies and technologies for geomatics and their applications in urban areas, with the goal of it becoming a global R&D hub in GeoAI. Prof. Weng has recently been honoured with the 2024 American Association of Geographers (AAG) Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography and the 2024 AAG Remote Sensing Specialty Group Lifetime Achievement Honor Awardfor his ground-breaking contributions in geography. One direction for the Research Centre is investigation into human-environment interactions in urbanisation by utilising geospatial analytics, GeoAI and big data methods. Another direction is to create various data products of global urban areas using Earth Observations (EO) and to provide EO-based urban data services. As RCAIG Principal Investigator and Director, Prof. Weng said, “Earth observation is important as a guiding compass for understanding changes in the environment and society. Our research focuses on diverse fields including geospatial big data and AI, remote sensing, ground-based sensors, navigation and positioning, surveying and geodesy, laser scanning, and photogrammetry. These technologies play a crucial role in addressing and resolving key environmental and social challenges.” In particular, GeoAI has revolutionised building monitoring by utilising thousands of learnable parameters. An illustration of this is its ability to automatically learn and identify general patterns of buildings such as colour and shape. This technology is crucially applied to detect disaster-damaged buildings, retrieve building height, identify structural changes and estimate building energy consumption. As a result, GeoAI has emerged as a mainstream solution for more efficient and insightful building monitoring. Environmental monitoring In the field of urbanisation monitoring, an RCAIG research team has developed an impervious surface area based urban cellular automata (CA) model that can simulate the fractional change of urban areas within each grid by utilising annual urban extent time series data obtained from satellite observations. By categorising the historical pathways of urban area growth into different levels of urbanisation, the model offers more detailed insights compared to traditional, binary, CA models. This demonstrates its great potential in supporting sustainable development. Research conducted by Ms Wanru HE, an RCAIG doctoral research assistant, and her team was reported in the paper “Modeling gridded urban fractional change using the temporal context information in the urban cellular automata model”, and has been published in Cities. Their model effectively captures the dynamics of urban sprawl with significantly improved computational efficiency and performance, and will help enable the modelling of urban growth at regional and even global level, under diverse future urbanisation scenarios. GeoAI for traffic management In the area of smart traffic management, to enhance the efficiency of ride-hailing platforms and achieve intelligent management of their services, the RCAIG research team has developed a multi-agent order matching and vehicle repositioning approach. This innovative technology focuses on coordinating the supply and demand of ride-hailing services, ultimately aiming to improve their overall efficiency. Their approach provides a ground-breaking solution to tackle two critical aspects necessary for efficient ride-hailing services. Firstly, it addresses order matching by efficiently assigning orders to available vehicles. Secondly, it incorporates proactive vehicle repositioning, strategically deploying idle vehicles to regions with potentially high demand. Based on multi-agent deep reinforcement learning, this innovation solves the complex planning issues in transportation and offers a new perspective on a long-term spatio-temporal planning problem. The research conducted by Ms Mingyue XU, another RCAIG researcher, and her team, was reported in the paper “Multi-agent reinforcement learning to unify order-matching and vehicle-repositioning in ride-hailing services”, and has been published in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science. The study achieved outstanding results, including reduced passenger rejection rates and driver idle time. About RCAIG With a focus on GeoAI, RCAIG is dedicated to conducting research in diverse fields, including urban building and energy, urban safety and security, environmental monitoring and conservation, urban resilience and public health. This aligns with the 11th United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, which aims to create inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements. Website: https://rcaig.com/ Learn more about Prof. Qihao Weng’s research focus in the video: https://polyu.me/3Vt7yih

PolyU researcher recognised and awarded for excellence in colour and imaging technologies

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has developed a series of colour management technologies that provide vision-based solutions for lighting, imaging and metaverse systems. These cutting-edge technologies have been adopted by social media, imaging systems and manufacturers of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting products, smartphones and drones. Prof. Tommy Minchen WEI, Professor of the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering and Director of the Colour Imaging and Metaverse Research Centre at PolyU, has spearheaded research on the fundamental of colour science and the development of advanced algorithms and solutions for various imaging systems. He has been bestowed with the Hong Kong Engineering Science and Technology (HKEST) Award by the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences (HKAES) for his contributions in colour and imaging science.  Prof. WEI said, “This achievement has further supported my ongoing pursuit of interdisciplinary research excellence in colour, with the aim of sharping a visually better world for all.” Translating research outcomes with a significant community impact is highly fulfilling. Prof. WEI added, “As a scientist, my aspiration is to develop new algorithms based on human visual mechanisms that enhance colour appearance and calibrate perception variances across imaging systems. These systems encompass displays and cameras used in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and the metaverse.”  One notable achievement is the development of a six-channel RGBACL (Red, Green, Blue, Amber, Cyan and Lime) lighting module and control algorithm, which enhances the colour presentation of LED lighting systems. The algorithm for tuning the colour appearance of human face skin allows quick adjustment when captured by different cameras. This technology has been used by a famous manufacturer of cinema lighting fixtures and in the production of several Hollywood movies and TV series. Prof. WEI also developed various solutions for capturing and displaying colours on video and image shooting equipment. These technologies encompass the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to detect human faces in the frame and optimise the colour appearance of skin tone. Other innovations, such as chips with AI-powered white balance algorithm built-in ensure more faithful colours in photos and videos taken by digital cameras under different environment. These technologies have been adopted by world-class smartphone and XR device manufacturers. Prof. WEI said, “My goal is to empower creative freedom by enabling creators to deliver the precise colours they intend for users to perceive. It is a tremendous honour to witness my research being translated and endorsed by world-class social media platforms, imaging systems, and manufacturers of digital devices worldwide.”

PolyU food scientist’s research on fungus-based fat replacer rolls out for low-fat dessert production at hotel

The Research Institute for Future Food (RiFood) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has developed a groundbreaking fat replacer called AkkMore™. This innovative formula has been used in the production of low-fat food products, including low-fat ice cream with a fat content of 3%. AkkMore™ is a fungus and plant-based supplement targeting obesity or prediabetes. This innovative formula was developed by a research team led by Dr Gail Jinhui Chang, Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at PolyU and a project investigator at RiFood.  Produced from natural fungal sources, AkkMore™ has been tested for its effectiveness in providing numerous health benefits, which include preventing obesity and other metabolic diseases, enhancing gut health, modulating the immune response, and reducing anxiety. It was awarded a silver medal at the 2022 Special Edition of the Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions. Dr. CHANG, said “Our research team has completed three rounds of animal trials on AkkMore™. The results show that the formula can effectively improve metabolism and aid in weight management. Moving forward, we are focusing on exploring applications of AkkMore™ in the development of healthy food.”  The research team is currently developing “Cream Mate”, an AkkMore™-based cream substitute. Cream Mate enables cream products to contain less fat, have the ability to be frozen for a long time, and extend shelf-life while maintaining sensory appeal comparable to traditional cream. The use of Cream Mate helps reduce calorie intake and the consumption of dairy products in desserts, as well as minimise food waste due to expiration. This contributes to making food production more sustainable and economical. In addition, RiFood is collaborating with Hotel ICON on the use of Cream Mate in the preparation of reduced-fat desserts that are served on the hotel’s regular menus, starting from 1 May.