Funded Projects

Project Reference No.: UGC/IDS11/15
Project Title: Establishment of Healthcare Research Centre
Funded Amount: HK$ 7,900,000

Abstract

Hong Kong is now facing a serious problem of fast ageing population with increased life expectancy. Caritas - Hong Kong, the sponsoring body of Caritas Institute of Higher Education (the Institute), devotes to resolving this problem through its Medical Services Division and Social Services Division which are two of its four major servicing areas. The Institute shares its mission and vision as our sponsoring body and has identified healthcare as its strategic area for development. The School of Health Sciences (the School) was established to focus on the education of healthcare professionals.

The Institute proposes to establish a Healthcare Research Centre (the Centre) as a flagship research centre at the Institute. The Centre aims to provide a powerful research infrastructure in healthcare and related areas. The Centre will promote and coordinate the research activities in this strategic area to produce synergy effect among all its research projects. It is expected that this area of research will enhance development and delivery of healthcare programmes in the School.

The Institute has planned the following Programme on Research at the Centre.

1. The Centre will collaborate with the Medical Services Division and the Social Services Division of its sponsoring body to collect data in their service units and develop a database for big data of health information for healthcare research.
2.  The Centre will set up a big data analytics platform with high-performance computing facilities and state-of-the-art big data analytics software and visualization tools to support sophisticated analysis of health information big data. Workshops on big data analysis will be organised to enhance faculty members' generic research capabilities.
3. The Centre will help faculty members at the School of Health Sciences to design analytic models for big data of health information. The Research Fellow employed will assist faculty members to analyse health information.
4. The Centre will conduct some showcase research activities in order to demonstrate these research ideas to faculty members. Selected faculty members will be motivated and invited to join the research team with the aim of cultivating and polishing their research skills.
5. The Centre will provide medical consultation and services to its visitors with the aim to facilitate the faculty members' research in healthcare and the collection of first hand data for their experiments.
6. The Centre will invite renowned scholars in the field of healthcare and health informatics to conduct research workshops on the latest research information in the area. These workshops will help faculty members in the School of Health Sciences and other affiliated members of the Centre to develop their research emphases, for example, formulate their research ideas, exchange their research information with experts in the areas, etc.
7. The Centre will organise reflection workshops for colleagues in the School of Health Sciences and other schools in the Institute. We will connect researchers from different schools in the Institute to promote cross-disciplinary research collaboration.

Summing up the above, the Healthcare Research Centre will play a major role in facilitating and overseeing all research activities in healthcare and related areas. We expect that these research activities will have a positive impact on the teaching of healthcare programmes in the Institute. As a long term prospect, the Centre will also seek to contribute to the efforts of the Hong Kong community in addressing various issues arising from its ageing population.

Project Reference No.: UGC/IDS11/14
Project Title: Establishment of Research Office
Funded Amount: HK$ 7,000,000

Abstract

Central to the proposed Programme on Research is the setting up of a research office with its primary aim of providing a powerful research infrastructure to render support to staff members in their research, to ensure robust research standards and effective management of all research work through the following planned activities:

1.  Professional editing service will be provided to coordinate research projects and ensure the overall quality of research publications. Workshops on research writing skills will be offered to sharpen faculty members' skills in writing for academic publication;
2. Workshops on research skills will be delivered to heighten the research expertise and competency levels of faculty members. The Office will collaborate with other institutions and professional bodies to organize similar workshops;
3. Technical support in statistical analysis will be made available to staff in need. Consultation sessions on statistical analysis will also be provided. The Office will help research projects to design statistical models and undertake data analysis and compilation if required;
4. A research funding scheme will be implemented to give opportunities to faculty members to pursue research in cutting edge areas. Priorities will be given to young and new faculty members to induce a research culture in the Institute;
5. Sponsorships will be allocated to support staff members for participation in conferences, exchange programmes and training workshops;
6. A student research programme will be introduced to final year undergraduate students across all disciplines of studies for them to conduct small-scaled research projects under the supervision of faculty members. This programme has the potential to nurture future researchers and young prodigies;
7. Inter-institutional research collaborative arrangements will be made with other self-financing degree-awarding institutions to create synergy in joined research efforts. Working in unison, overall research output will be maximized and resources required minimized;
8. A Research and ethics committee will be established to safeguard professional issues and ethics related to research and protect the interest of stakeholders. The committee will also ensure that the research activities are in line with the contributory role the Institute wishes to play in the community; and
9. A Research handbook will be written and published to provide guidelines related to research activities and seminars will also be held for renowned scholars, seasoned professionals and veteran researchers to share expertise and good practice with other researchers and staff members.

The Research Office will play a major role in facilitating and overseeing all research activities in the Institute.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/B03/18
Project Title: Book-Tax Tradeoff Theory and Corporate Acquisition Payment Methods: Evidence from China
Principal Investigator: Prof CHAN Koon-hung
Funded Amount: HK$ 878,700

Abstract

The main objective of the proposed research is to investigate whether tax avoidance based on the book-tax tradeoff theory is associated with and influences the choice of corporate acquisition payment methods in Merger and Acquisition (M&A) transactions.  Specifically, we test the applicability of the book-tax tradeoff theory in a new context, that is, whether it can explain the relationship between tax avoidance and the choice of corporate acquisition payment methods. The proposed research will be the first attempt to explore this relationship.

 Corporate acquisitions are often extremely large and important transactions. While research has shown that tax can be an important determinant of M&A activities, no research has been identified that investigates whether the level of tax avoidance as explained by the book-tax tradeoff theory relates to the choice of an acquisition payment method. Our proposed research intends to fill this gap in the literature. If a significant relationship between corporate tax avoidance and the choice of acquisition payment method can be established through the framework of a sound theory, the proposed research will have important implications for shareholders to assess their wealth, for corporations to allocate their resources and for tax authorities and public policy makers to formulate policies that address M&A transactions.

 Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 which necessitated business expansions and the industrial upgrading of Chinese companies, M&A activities have tripled in China. These activities involve mainly domestic entities, but the number of outbound M&As is increasing, and these can involve many Hong Kong entities. While the majority of the acquisitions involve non-SOEs from numerous industries, SOEs have also become more actively engaged in such activities in recent years. The increase in M&A activities by Chinese firms in overseas markets suggests that our research findings from China are relevant to other economies.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H01/18
Project Title: Origins of the grammar of Chinese Pidgin English
Principal Investigator: Dr LI Michelle Kin-ling
Funded Amount: HK$ 464,700

Abstract

From the 18th to the mid-20th century, Chinese Pidgin English (CPE) was used to enable communication between Chinese and foreigners at different parts of China and Hong Kong. Despite its historical and linguistic significance, systematic research on CPE is still lacking. This project aims to investigate the origins of the grammar of CPE and construct a corpus comprising of data from diverse historical sources. The corpus will be the first of its kind, offering CPE data written in both the Chinese and English language. The quantity and diversity of sources make the corpus a valuable resource for generating new ideas on CPE as well as contact languages in general. This research focuses on the development and characteristics of two grammatical constructions in CPE: the light verb makee construction as in (1) and for as a complementation marker as in (2).

 (1)   make trade 'to trade'
          makee die 'to die'

(2)   must make go chop chop for see dat doctor man. (Tilden 1831-32: 764-65)
        '(You) must go to see the doctor quickly.'

 Both the light verb makee and the complementation marker for are common in pidgins and creoles; however, their origins still require more investigation, especially the light verb makee. This project addresses their grammatical characteristics and the languages and factors involved in their formation. It is hoped that results from this project can generate new discussions on the genesis of pidgins and creoles. Chinese Pidgin English is one form of the outcome of Chinese-English bilingualism. Results obtained from this project have potential to explain similar contact situations, such as Cantonese-English code-switching and contemporary English variety spoken in Hong Kong. This impact of this project can be manifested in different ways. The CPE corpus serves as an important resource for systematic documentation of the pidgin, paving the way for future projects. The availability of an electronic corpus also allows other researchers to access CPE data. The project could also cast new light on different facets of Chinese-English bilingualism.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H04/18
Project Title: Social worker turnover and organizational career management in social work organizations of Mainland China
Principal Investigator: Dr MO Yuen-han
Funded Amount: HK$ 745,875

Abstract

At present, research studies on organizational effort in handling turnover problems and in retaining social workers have been lacking in Mainland China. The high social worker turnover is caused by the low social status and poor professional identity of social workers, poor management in social work organizations, and an imperfect social welfare system. Organizational career management in social work agencies, however, remains a significant yet little understood area. Organizational career management (OCM) refers to various activities employed by an organization to promote the career development of employees, develop staff's potential, and retain employees. OCM consists of different dimensions such as the provision of training courses, mentoring, supervision, job rotation, line management support, performance appraisal, and career planning. Therefore, this study is to explore how organizational career management can be theorized further as to how it can be extended or adapted for the social work context in Mainland China. A mixed-method approach will be adopted includes quantitative survey, in-depth interviews, document review, and site visits. The theoretical contribution will be identifying the missing components of organizational career management in the social work sector and suggesting the development of a theoretical framework for social work organizations.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/M08/18
Project Title: Care providers' experiences of managing challenging behaviours of persons with intellectual disabilities in residential care: A qualitative vignette study
Principal Investigator: Prof LOW Lisa Pau-le
Funded Amount: HK$ 810,001

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of care providers in managing challenging behaviours of persons with intellectual disability and who are living in residential care services. A descriptive qualitative approach based on the use of non-structured direct observations and vignette interviews. Conveniently-selected residential care services for persons with disabilities from four non-government organizations will be approached. Maximum variation convenience sampling will be used to recruit care providers from the residential care services. The final sample size will depend on the numbers required to reach data saturation. Direct unstructured observations for each residential care services, and audio-taped recorded vignette-based interviews are the data collection methods to be used. Latent content analysis will be used to analyze the observation and interview data. Dedoose data analysis software will be used. The findings will provide data on the types, events and interactions that can trigger off challenging behaviours for persons with intellectual disability and residential care services. Responses of the staff and their management of different types of challenging incidents and events will also be described. This study acknowledges that care providers are an asset to any organizations and focused attention should be given to address their needs and concerns when they have to confront and handle a range of challenging behaviours of persons with intellectual disability.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H03/17
Project Title: A Research on the Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel under the Perspective of Literary Philosophy: Subversion and Reconstruction of Values
Principal Investigator: Dr HSU King Chiu
Funded Amount: HK$ 283,000

Abstract

The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel (四大奇書, abbr. the Four Masterworks): "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"("三國演義"), "Outlaws of the Marsh"("水滸傳"), "Journey to the West"("西遊記"), "Golden Lotus"("金瓶梅") were favourably praised as "Qi Shu"(奇書) for their "uniqueness". The academia is not on the same page regarding the standard of their "uniqueness", but as a whole the uniqueness is constructed by the common basis of the form (rhetoric) and the content (philosophical thought). In this regard, our project is planned to focus on the Four Masterworks' content (philosophical thought) to elucidate their uniqueness and complexity which were unattended from previous studies. From a broader perspective, there is a relationship of mutual influence, development and construction between literature and philosophy, rather than literature is interpreted as reflecting the society, culture and thought. Therefore, this study will focus on the variation, breakthrough and construction of the philosophical thoughts being embodied in the Four Masterworks. Our study will further explore its continued development and influence on the philosophy of the Qing Dynasty.

In the past, the study on the philosophical thought of the Four Masterworks always emphasized the guidance or exhortation of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, such as the concept of loyalty and righteousness(忠義), sunyata and rupa(色/空), transcendental and secular(出世/入世) as well as "Universal peace must be preceded by national harmony; national harmony, by familial solidarity; and familial solidarity, by personal integrity" (修身齊家治國平天下). In the other words, most of the studies in the past have been to reflect the traditional norms and values ("theory of reflection") to conscribe the Four Masterworks - even in the form of "irony" or "sense of humor". However, by scrutiny of the texts, we will find that the author(s) attempted to challenge the traditional values in order to subvert the tradition, anti-society and even anti-fate as a main axis through the works of the characters, the plot and the theme. It is not difficult to find the author(s) of the Four Masterworks to try to explore and construct values that are distinct from traditional ideas and values.

Although the main theme of the Four Masterworks are different from each other and discussed with the predecessors, we believe that the Four Masterworks could be penetrated by an axis, that is, anti-tradition. The content of anti-tradition is the "exploration of human desire and its moral signification" ("Satisfaction of human desire"), and this theme also continued and resulted in a great impact on philosophy and literature of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, this study will employ this axis as a starting point to launch an in-depth and specific analysis of the following questions:

1. The relationship between the development of philosophy of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Four Masterworks.
2. The exploration of human desire and its moral signification by analysis of characters, plot and theme of the Four Masterworks.
3. The novel commentators' comments on philosophy of the Four Masterworks in the period of late-Ming Dynasty.
4. The Influence on development of philosophy (Confucianism) in Qing Dynasty.

This proposal would gather, collate and analyze relevant texts such as original texts, commentaries and related research materials. The research results would be published in the form of papers and participated in academic conferences to exchange point of views with scholars. Finally, various papers would be published in a book to share the research achievements.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/M02/16
Project Title: Potential involvement of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 in emesis and feeding in Suncus murinus
Principal Investigator: Dr CHAN Sze-wa
Funded Amount: HK$ 1,271,537

Abstract

Nesfatin-1 is a newly discovered 82-amino acid anorectic peptide derived from nucleobindin2 (NUCB2). NUCB2/Nesfatin-1 immunoreactivity is highly expressed in hypothalamic as well as medullary nuclei such as the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) and dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMNV), brain areas implicated in feeding and emesis control. Over the past decade, nesfatin-1 has been extensively studied in common laboratory animals because it is generally believed that the peptide not only reduces food intake and gastric emptying but is also involved in the long term regulation of body weight, making it a promising target for anti-obesity therapeutic drugs. Nevertheless, we know relatively little concerning the potential involvement of nesfatin-1 in emesis control because common laboratory animals (e.g. rat and mouse) are incapable of emesis and therefore the role of nesfatin-1 as a transmitter linking the forebrain and hindbrain being involved in nausea and emesis and feeding control has been overlooked.

The aim of the project is to use Suncus murinus (house musk shrew) to investigate if NUCB2/nesfatin-1 is a key transmitter in emesis and feeding control. We identified that S. murinus nesfatin-1 shares >85% amino acid sequence similarity with human and mouse. Our pilot study showed that central administration of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 potently reduced food intake and induced emesis in S. murinus. In the current proposal, therefore, we will identify the anatomical distribution of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 protein and mRNA using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization, respectively. We will also examine plasma and tissue expression of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 in the fasted and fed states. We will elucidate the role of NUCB2/nesfatin-1 in mechanisms of feeding, biomarkers of nausea, and mechanisms of emesis in S. murinus. Experiments will be performed using standard behavioural testing and established surgical and radiotelemetric techniques combined with measurement of brain monoamine neurotransmitters and immunohistochemistry. The studies will use a range of classical and novel anti-emetic drugs to determine the mechanism of action of nesfatin-1 to reveal the differential effect of nesfatin-1 in the regulation of feeding and emesis. Our findings will yield novel mechanistic insights into forebrain-brainstem communication.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H04/16
Project Title: A Qualitative Exploration of Leadership and Management Styles among Management Staff and How They Influence the Care Providers Caring for the Older People in Residential Care Homes
Principal Investigator: Dr LOW Lisa Pau-le
Funded Amount: HK$604,195

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the study is to explore the styles of leadership and management adopted by management staff, and how these styles influence front-line care providers' perceptions when they provide care and support to the older residents in residential care homes.

Design: A multi-site exploratory descriptive qualitative cum focused ethnographic study.

Settings: Conveniently-selected residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) from three distinctly different non-government organizations (NGOs) and independent private aged homes will be approached. Three care-and-attention homes, two contract/self-financing homes, one nursing home and two private aged homes will be selected, giving rise to eight homes that differ in terms of types of homes, resident capacity, staffing numbers and religious affiliation.

Participants: Maximum variation sampling will be adopted to recruit the staff members at two levels. Level one will be the management staff (senior staff) appointed to perform leadership and managerial duties and responsibilities. These include the superintendents and assistant superintendents or equivalent grades, social work assistant or equivalent, registered nurses, and health workers or equivalent (if in private aged homes). Level two will be the care providers (front-line staff) performing the daily care for the residents. These include enrolled nurses, health workers and personal care workers. The selection criteria for staff refers to the professional (social and health care personnel) and non-professional care staff who provide or influence the physical, psychosocial and/or spiritual care of residents; at least one staff representative from each rank; and, a willingness to engage in an individual interview with the researcher. Twelve staff members from each type of home will be recruited. Depending on the capacity of the eight homes, the preliminary calculation of the sample size will be 96 staff members. The final sample size will depend on the numbers required to reach data saturation.

Methods: Individual audiotaped semi-structured interviews and non-structured participant observations will be adopted for each home. Field notes will be collected to supplement the analytical descriptions of the interview data. Constant comparative analysis methods will be used to analyze the observational and interview data. Once the coding scheme is confirmed, a final analytical framework will result to describe the leadership and management styles adopted by management staff from across the homes, and how these styles influence the care providers' perceptions when they provide care and support to the older residents.

Results and Conclusion: The preliminary framework will delineate the leadership and management styles perceived by management staff to be appropriate and relevant for Hong Kong RCHEs. Findings will also examine how the management staffs' perceptions of leadership and management styles are translated into the work practices of care providers. Factors underpinning the practice of leadership and management styles, and how they influence the attitudes, behaviours and views of care providers looking after residents with different needs will be revealed. Specifically, findings will increase our understanding of Chinese styles of improving organizational effectiveness and staff relationships in RCHEs. Methodologically, interviews and participant observations are used to generate understanding of the phenomenon. The study also provides a glimpse of the situation in the NGO and private sectors by including all types of RCHEs in Hong Kong. Recommendations hope to identify ways to prepare people to be leaders and managers and hold supervisory/visionary and/or managerial positions in RCHEs; and, strategies to equip them and the staff to work creatively to achieve common goals in the provision of high standards of resident-family care. The ultimate output is to equip the staff working in the homes to operate effectively to satisfy the multiple needs of the residents, family and staff.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/B01/16
Project Title: Economic Consequences of the Anti-Corruption Campaign in China
Principal Investigator: Dr MAN Paul Ho-yin
Funded Amount: HK$ 496,325

Abstract

Upon taking office in 2013, President Xi Jinping called for a revamp of the Communist Party's approach to fight corruption and launched an anti-corruption campaign to pursue officials of all rankings within the Party. In China, it is a common practice for officials to sit on the board of companies. Taking advantage of this political connectedness, and together with corruption practices in some cases, these firms very often enjoy preferential business privileges over their competitors. We conjecture that the launch of the anti-corruption campaign will have direct negative impact on these political-connected firms, resulting in a much tougher operating environment for them. However, management's possible response, in terms of accounting practices, to the changed operating environment is subject to debate. One line of argument is that they will refrain from managing earnings in order to access external debt finance or avoid further political scrutiny. Another line of argument is that they will window-dress their financials to meet investors' or analysts' expectations. Our findings will help to address this issue and highlight the possibility that the anti-corrupting campaign may result in an unintended scenario of higher level of earnings management for these firms.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H03/16
Project Title: Exploring the Sexual Self of Female Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
Principal Investigator: Dr NG Hoi-nga
Funded Amount: HK$ 667,100

Abstract

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) refers to the involvement of a child in sexual activity to which the child is unable to give informed consent (Hong Kong Social Welfare Department, 1998). This study adopts a mixed method research with concurrent triangulation design to investigate the relationship of CSA with sexual self-concept among female adult survivors of CSA. Sexual self-concept generally refers to how individuals perceive themselves as sexual beings. It also refers to individuals' evaluation of their sexual feelings and actions (Buzwell & Rosenthal, 1996; O'Ssulivan et al., 2006).

This study aims to (1) present a comprehensive understanding of the sexual self-concept of female adult survivors; (2) describe the current level of psychological functioning (self-evaluation, social relationship, and psychological well-being) of female adult survivors of CSA; (3) examine the nature of the relationship between CSA, sexual self-concept, and psychological functioning of female adult survivors; (4) explore intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors affecting sexual self-concept and to investigate if there are any factors that act to intervene the effects of CSA.

The qualitative study of the mixed method research involves conducting in-depth interviews with 20 female adults who reported CSA experience. Participants of the interviews would be recruited through referrals from NGOs which provide services for female adult survivors; and through convenience sampling by posting recruitment note on campus, in church, in Facebook, and in emails. Semi-structured interview guide would be used to conduct the in-depth interview, which lasts for about 2-3 hours. The interviews would be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by Fraser's method of narrative analysis. Results of the qualitative study would be integrated with that of the quantitative study.

A questionnaire would be designed for collecting quantitative data. It consists of objective self-report inventories of self-evaluation, social relationship, psychological well-being, and eight dimensions of sexual self-concept. The eight dimensions of sexual self-concept (viz., sexual self-esteem, sexual self-efficacy, sexual satisfaction, sexual anxiety, sexual depression, sexual fear, sexual motivation, and sexual-consciousness) are selected from a multidimensional sexual self-concept questionnaire. The selection was based on extensive literature review of female adult survivors of CSA, feedback from counsellors of CSA survivors, PI's previous research on female sexuality, and PI's pilot studies on female survivors of CSA. A targeted sample of minimum 80 female adult survivors of CSA would be gathered over a consecutive period of 1? years from sources similar to those of the qualitative study. All those who participate in in-depth interview would also be invited to fill in the questionnaire.

Qualitative and quantitative data are gathered separately yet concurrently. Data collected would be integrated in the interpretative phase of the study. However, throughout the research process, investigators of qualitative and quantitative study are in continual dialogue to ensure that data collection procedure is properly done and cross-validated.

Results of this study would present a comprehensive understanding of the sexual self-concept of female adult survivors of CSA and factors associated with CSA. The findings should have significant implications for training of professionals and for intervention of CSA. For examples, knowledge generated may enrich the current social work training curriculum content relevant to CSA. Information gathered is useful for enhancing frontline intervention strategies for CSA adult survivor. Findings would also help advocating prevention of CSA and promotion of well-being of survivors.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E04/16
Project Title: Structural Modeling, Characterization and Analysis of New Receptor-Ligand Systems: Applying Computational Methods in Molecular Binding Affinity Analysis
Principal Investigator: Dr WANG Dan
Funded Amount: HK$ 1,147,621

Abstract

Recently, with the rapid development of computer techniques, computational studies have become an indispensable alternative in bioinformatics, healthcare informatics and cancer research. Among these studies, binding-affinity analysis for a receptor-ligand system, which closely relates to enzyme inhibitor potency estimation, is an appealing and important representative. However, current studies mostly focus on reversible binding systems and lack investigations of irreversible or hybrid ones. Major reasons include the evolved binding mechanism and increased modeling complexity of such systems. Besides, the higher computational complexity in system dynamics simulations and affinity calculations can also be a practical difficulty in these studies.

To tackle the difficulties regarding computational modeling, characterization and analysis of new receptor-ligand system structures, we initiate this project. In this project, we will rise to the challenges including simplification of evolved binding mechanisms, reasonable modeling and characterization of new systems, and efficient calculation and analysis of molecular binding affinities.

Our straightforward idea for system simplification and modeling is outlining a structure based on its atomic information and using building blocks to represent the irreversible binding-site variants. Computational characterization of the binding mode in a new receptor-ligand system will be subsequently implemented. In this step, we will develop novel feature-extraction methods relying on free energy calculation and decomposition, interface shape/volume estimation and binding-site motion analysis. Examples of such computational characterizations will be shown in this project, and these characterization alternatives will lead to efficient calculations of binding affinity in a new receptor-ligand system. We will combine the alternatives into an integrated software/program suite, which can encourage users to select different models based on specific requirements or within various application scenarios. Finally, a post-analysis will be conducted for a situation where a group or crowd of system variants are involved. We will utilize well-validated methods for supervised or unsupervised learning of these system samples, and will thus make predictions of newcomers or variants. This analysis will also join the software/program suite for multi-purpose analyses or studies. Moreover, the whole software/program suite will be adapted at the end of this project, to provide compatible interfaces with other broadly-used software of molecular modeling, molecular dynamics simulations and structural analysis.

With the success of tackling above challenges, the proposed project will encourage the development of cancer studies and structure-based drug design. Also, it will output useful publications and software/program suites that can benefit researchers and fresh users. In addition, this research project will provide valuable and practical experiences for undergraduates to improve their analytical/programming skills and to apply them to a specialized project or field.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E03/16
Project Title: Sentiment Analysis based on Multi-source Social Network Data
Principal Investigator: Prof WANG Fu-lee
Funded Amount: HK$ 789,000

Abstract

Sentiment analysis aims to extract sentiment-related information from text automatically. Although most sentiment analysis is concerned with the detection of opinions from reviews, there is increasing interest in the affective dimension of the social network. The abundant social network data include comments on media published in YouTube, Flickr and Last. FM, in addition to discussions of politics, sport and the news in blogs. Analysing sentiment in this broad class of text is valuable because it can aid the discovery of sentiment-related patterns, such as gender differences and successful communication strategies. However, analysing social network data using traditional sentiment analysis methods is problematic for several reasons.

The first issue is the preprocess of short text which is prevalent in social networks. The second issue is how to deal with noisy labels. Due to the fact that it is hard to control the authenticity and quality on the social network, spotting potentially malicious users and detecting noisy labels are critical to sentiment analysis. The third issue is that emotion perception is very personal and could vary from one person to another, that is, different users may have different attentions, perspectives or abilities when labeling documents emotionally. Thus, sentiment analysis is not only text-related but also user-dependent. The fourth issue is that the sentiment embedded in social networks often has intrinsic dynamics. Capturing such dynamic characteristics of sentiments is critically important for the successful development of various social services, such as public opinion monitoring and social event detection. Last but not the least, the application of sentiment analysis in recommendation systems, stock price prediction and other domains deserves further research.

In light of these considerations, we firstly expand short documents in social networks by extracting the most similar words from the whole corpus. Secondly, we develop de-noising models to identify noisy sentimental labels. We consider the following two constraints in our models: (i) the simplicity of assigning the sentimental category to a document by users under any contexts, and (ii) the authority of a user in assigning sentimental categories to documents across various domains. Thirdly, we extract the sentiments from the social network comprehensively and accurately by jointly modeling the users, text and labels in the latent topic model. Fourthly, due to that the spread and evolution of an event will affect the general public's sentimental responses (including the category and intensity of sentiments), we propose an event-based framework of dynamic sentiment analysis. Finally, we explore the application of sentiment analysis in other domains.

This project is concerned with sentiment analysis based on multi-source social network data, which will not only tackle the challenging research problems triggered by noisy labels, varied user emotion perception and sentiment evolution in multi-source social network data, but also shed light on computational social science, natural language processing and other areas. To evaluate the effectiveness of our model, algorithm and framework, we plan to collect diverse social network datasets from Twitter, Sina Weibo, MySpace, BBC Forum and so forth. Based on sufficient social network data, user opinions could be sensed, evaluated, and even predicted in a certain circumstance.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/M02/15
Project Title: Investigation of the differential roles of centrally located GLP-1 receptors in emesis and feeding in Suncus murinus
Principal Investigator: Dr CHAN Sze-wa
Funded Amount: HK$ 1,149,606

Abstract

The aim of the project is to use Suncus murinus to investigate the mechanisms of the differential roles of centrally located glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptors in emesis and feeding control.

There is strong evidence from clinic studies and from published pre-clinical studies using common laboratory animals that GLP-1 receptor systems are involved in nausea and emesis and in mechanisms regulating feeding. Thus, GLP-1 receptor agonists can be associated with nausea, emesis and reduced appetite in man. Common laboratory animals (e.g. rat and mouse) are incapable of emesis and therefore the link between a novel GLP-1 receptor being involved in nausea and emesis and feeding control has been missed. This project is based on our own original observations that administration of the GLP-1 receptor agonist, exendin-4, prevents feeding at low doses and at higher doses affects glucose homeostasis and induces emesis in both Suncus murinus and ferrets. We also showed that the GLP-1 receptor antagonist, exendin (9-39), antagonised emesis but it was ineffective in reversing the exendin-4-induced inhibition of food intake. In the ferret, exendin-4 also increases blood pressure and heart rate and decreases heart rate variability (HRV) and the dominant frequency of gastric myoelectrical activity (GMA) without affecting body temperature. The differential effects of exendin (9-39) on emesis and feeding suggest that exendin-4 may act via more than one type of receptor, or a "non-classical" GLP-1 receptor. If this is the case, the "non-classical" receptor may be responsible for the side effect profile of exendin-4, or other GLP-1 receptor agonists; the receptor may also be involved in mechanisms of nausea that are dissociated from those regulating the control of emesis.

In the current proposal, therefore, we will elucidate the role of exendin (9-39)-insensitive GLP-1 receptors (non-classical GLP-1 receptors) in mechanisms of feeding, biomarkers of nausea, and mechanisms of emesis in Suncus murinus. The studies will be performed using standard behavioural testing and established surgical and radio-telemetric techniques coupled with immunohistochemistry and optical imaging of a fluorescent imaging probe to assess effects on gastric emptying. The studies will determine if another classical GLP-1 receptor agonist, GLP-1 (7-36) amide, shares similar pattern of action with exendin-4 to induce emesis and inhibit food intake. The studies will determine the potential site of action of GLP-1 receptor agonists and GLP-1 receptor antagonists to modulate feeding and emesis relative to brain areas regulating vasopressin release and changes in gastric myoelectric activity, which are known to be altered during nausea and emesis. The In-vivo Xtreme imaging system, with a novel near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent imaging agent GastrosenseTM 750, will be used to permit a monitoring and quantification of gastric emptying rates in vivo and in real time.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H02/15
Project Title: A Study of Ethnic Economy of Disadvantaged Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong: Exploring Experiences in the Process of Social Integration
Principal Investigator: Dr KWOK Kim
Funded Amount: HK$ 549,735

Abstract

As an Asian world city, Hong Kong is proud of being a multicultural society and officially describes itself as "open, tolerant and pluralistic". (Information Services Department 2010:29). However, this claim and self-image has not been fully echoed by many studies (Ku et al. 2004; Hewison 2004; Crabtree & Wong 2012; Law & Lee 2012) on immigrant integration in Hong Kong. Multiculturalism in Hong Kong has remained a descriptive term rather than a benchmark of achieving equal opportunity of rights and resources. With 6.4% of non-Chinese in the total population (Census and Statistics Department 2012), Hong Kong accommodates migrants of various ethnic origins and backgrounds. In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of clusters such as "Little Thailand" in Kowloon City and "Little Indonesia" in Causeway Bay, with restaurants, fast-food shops, grocery shops, hair salons and remittance banks as some typical examples of ethnic economic activities. These activities have not merely enriched the city ethnoscape with a multicultural touch, but also suggested significant implications for integration of ethnic minority migrants. However, these implications have not yet been well-explored in Hong Kong.

This study is an exploratory research on this less touched upon dimension of social integration of ethnic minorities, namely the ethnic economy. It aims to understand the experiences of ethnic minority groups in business, and in particular, the significance of ethnic economy in the long-term social integration process of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. More concretely, the study endeavors to obtain a general mapping of ethnic economies by identifying their patterns, distribution and tendencies. Secondly, it explores and analyzes experiences of ethnic entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. How do they make use of various individual and group resources for achieving economic goals? How do they experience empowerment and disempowerment in the process of overcoming structural constraints? Thirdly, it identifies areas for improvements in policy making and service provision. Emphasis will be put on the experiences of the disadvantaged ethnic minority groups (South Asians, South East Asians and other groups). Conceptually, it takes reference to the literature of ethnic economy, multiculturalism and immigrant integration, and adopts mixed embeddedness (Kloosterman, Van der Leun & Rath 1999) as its analytical framework. Methodologically, this study combines a baseline study with qualitative methods including field investigation, key informant interviews, semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyses of media materials and documents.

Contributions of this study will be twofold. Academically, by examining ethnic economy in Hong Kong in the regional and international contexts, this study contributes to the conceptual discussions on ethnic business in general, and in particular, ethnic business as a potential means to social integration in advanced Asian societies, which is still an under- researched area. Empirically, findings garnered will enrich our knowledge and understandings of ethnic minorities' life patterns and needs in Hong Kong. This will enhance the awareness of policy makers and practitioners on the significance of ethnic economy. Moreover, towards the goal of achieving a more inclusive multicultural society, the study will shed light on how policy makers and practitioners can improve by formulating measures and appropriate services for ethnic minority entrepreneurs in order to facilitate their social integration in the long run.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H03/15
Project Title: For Whom and for What? Examining the Impact of Self-financing Sub-degree Education on Social Mobility of Hong Kong Youth
Principal Investigator: Ms LO Villy Suk-ling
Funded Amount: HK$ 622,150

Abstract

Level of educational attainment of the population is an important indicator of human capital development of modern society especially in what we called the 'knowledge-based' one. Education is also commonly assumed to be a legitimate and significant key to advancing one's social position. As an important social investment that is positively associated with the city's competitiveness, the Hong Kong Government has been spending considerable amount of money in education, accounting for an average of around 20% of annual total public expenditure. Amid the flourishing of degree and sub-degree programs all around the world, Hong Kong's post-secondary education has expanded much more dramatically. Among the senior secondary school leavers, the government aimed at increasing their post-secondary education opportunities from 33% in 2000 up to 60% in 2010. This target has achieved eventually and mainly, however, only by the introduction of two-year post-secondary sub-degree education, including the higher diploma (HD) programs and the newly developed associated degree (AD) programs, offered by self-financing higher education institutions in Hong Kong. With the increasing chances of educational attainment, social mobility of young people seems to be promising. Has it really been the case? What are the concrete developmental paths of the sub-degree program graduates grown up in a period of 'credential inflation' or 'diploma disease'? Is the self-financing sub-degree education in Hong Kong articulated to degree education, higher employability and income, and thus upward social mobility? What is/are the directions and possible intermediated factors affecting their social mobility (if any) after student's graduation? Do professionally accredited sub-degree programs contribute to better prospect of graduates than those graduated from programs without professional accreditations? What are the actual personal aspirations, family environment, mobility barriers/generators and school life experiences of the students studying sub-degree programs?

This research will be the first of its kind to examine the impact of self-financing sub-degree education on social mobility of Hong Kong's youth. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods will be adopted. Focus group method and research methodology is informed by the critical consciousness raising pedagogy suggested by Paulo Freire and the related critical narrative analysis. Questionnaire surveys and focus group interviews will be conducted with current students and graduates of self-financing sub-degree programs with and without professional accreditation offered by Caritas Institute of Higher Education. The research will access the actual impacts of the self-financing sub-degree education on social mobility with the considerations of different underlying and possible intermediated factors including credential inflation, social class and professional qualification. It will bring about theoretical concerns and teaching reflections on the expected role of educational attainment in the pursuit of a more open and equal society particularly in the years witnessing youth activism in Hong Kong.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H06/15
Project Title: Exploring family caregiving experiences and identifying the process of the ageing carers' planning for continuation of care for the community-dwelling person with intellectual disability
Principal Investigator: Dr LOW Lisa Pau-le
Funded Amount: HK$601,404

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the study is to explore family carers' experiences of current caring needs, the support they have received and their plans to continue to provide care for community-dwelling persons with mild and moderate intellectual disability (ID) as carers themselves are approaching old age.

Design: A grounded theory methodology using a constructivist approach.

Settings: The settings for this study will be conveniently-selected sheltered workshops from Caritas-Hong Kong and Yan Chai Hospital. The sheltered workshops will be selected from the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department's list of services provided to persons with ID. These sheltered workshops will be the sites used to recruit those family carers who look after persons with mild to moderate grades of ID. For Caritas-Hong Kong, two sheltered workshops providing services for persons with ID will be approached. These are Caritas Lok Hang SW (capacity 150) and Caritas Lok Kin Workshop (capacity 126). For Yan Chai Hospital, there is only one sheltered workshop named 'Yan Chai Hospital Madam Lo Lee Pui Ching Memorial Workshop' (capacity 150). Therefore, there will be a total of three sites, giving a capacity of 426 potential clients with ID in which to recruit their family carers.

Participants: Purposive sampling will be used to begin the recruitment of family carers, followed by theoretical sampling. Based on the principal investigator's prior work in conducting qualitative research in multi-sites, fifteen family carers are planned to represent each site, giving rise to a total of 45 family carers. At this point without undertaking the study, it is not possible to know whether the capacity of the sheltered workshops may influence the phenomenon under study - the family caregiving experiences. Indeed, these sites are larger in capacity than the sites used in the principal investigator's prior study to estimate the sample size. Furthermore, as the actual number of clients with ID who are mild and moderate cannot be determined at this stage this will therefore influence the number of family carers that will be recruited. As a contingency measure, this project will target at sampling 20 family carers per site, giving an estimated number of 60 family carers. Therefore, the final sample size of this project will depend on the numbers required to reach data saturation.

Methods: Individual audiotaped semi-structured interviews will be adopted. An interview schedule composing of broad questions has been developed based on the search of the literature and the research team's prior knowledge and expertise of conducting research with persons with ID and on family carers. Field notes will be collected to supplement the interview data. Constant comparative analysis methods will be undertaken to generate the concepts and to develop the theory of family caregiving experiences, and to identify the processes of the ageing carers' planning for continuation of care for their family members with ID.

Results and Conclusion: The theory will capture family caregiving experiences and the processes of family carers in addressing caring needs, the support received and the family carers plans to continue to provide care for the community-dwelling persons with ID in their later life. New understanding and insights into emerging issues, needs and plights of family carers will be made available to inform the policies and practices to improve the care of the persons with ID living in the community, as well as to provide better support for the family carers who are ageing themselves. The theoretical framework that will be generated will be highly practical and useful in generating knowledge about factors that influence the caregiving processes; and, tracking the caregiving journey at different time-points to clearly delineate areas to implement practice changes. In this way, the theoretical framework will be highly useful in guiding timely and appropriate interventions to target at the actual needs of family carers as they themselves are ageing and will need to continue to take care of their family members with ID in the community.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E03/15
Project Title: Vision-based Two-hand Gesture Recognition and Evaluation System for Healthcare Training
Principal Investigator: Dr PANG Wai-man
Funded Amount: HK$ 884,839

Abstract

Applying game concept and Virtual Reality (VR) technology for healthcare education and medical training is becoming popular and widely accepted in practice. These medical related serious games are attractive and prove to be cost effective in motivating learning. Many healthcare training systems share a common goal in requiring trainees to accomplish specific tasks with strong two-hand interaction and hand-eye coordination. These tasks usually look simple, but repeated practices are necessary in order to achieve certain skill level. Otherwise, it is difficult for the trainee to perform the task properly, and this can easily lead to risk in hygiene or even injury. Existing VR-based training systems require tailored devices to provide realistic interaction with the virtual environment, or some others may require wearing of gloves for recognizing hand gestures. These solutions commonly incur high development cost, and the inconvenience in wearing skin contacting devices. For many of the training applications, a fast vision based non-contact hand recognition solution will be more suitable and welcomed, as the solution provides a more comfortable setting to users and require shorter setup time.

Therefore, in this project, our major objective is to enable the development of healthcare related serious game systems with the use of vision based techniques, so that tasks requiring two hands cooperation and interaction skills can be automatically and properly evaluated. A wide range of related healthcare skill training applications can take advantages from the proposed recognition system including training on personal care, rehabilitation, massage, and exercise. Specifically, these training systems can correct and guide the trainees with proper hand gestures when performing certain tasks, and keep practising without the involvement of human coach. Moreover, with the elimination of skin contacting VR devices from the recognition procedure, the concerns for hygiene and long setup time are also reduced.

Our preliminary idea to the solution of the two-hand recognition is to rely on multiview vision based tracking techniques. In recent years, vision based tracking technology is becoming popular. Many attempts try to recognize hand gestures for simple control purposes, such as pointing and dragging operations in the graphical user interface (GUI). Many of them were based on the conventional real-time depth sensors to produce depth map of hand, followed by analyzing hand structure for fast and robust tracking of finger and palm postures. However, it is still challenging in handling highly coupled two-hand interactions. The major difficulties lie in the occlusion problem between two hands, especially when they are close or even touching each other.

To reduce the effect of occlusion, multiple depth cameras are being developed to cover a wider viewing directions. A fast and tailored algorithm in processing the several obtained depth maps or point clouds will also be developed. In brief, the point clouds are first unified by hardware accelerated registration methods. Then, a quick hand parts segmentation will be proposed for the extraction of features used for identifying palm and finger gestures. Finally, the recognition is accomplished by the use of classification or machine learning algorithms on a large set of sample hand gestures obtained from volunteer subjects in laboratory.

At the end of our project, we will demonstrate the capability of the hand gesture recognition system with a serious game in the theme of healthcare. The application will provide repetitive training and practises on tasks requiring skills using both hands which yield instant feedback and suggestion to improve the related skills.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E02/15
Project Title: An Automated Student Program Assessment Framework with Tailorable and Automated Test Oracle for Computer Science Education
Principal Investigator: Prof POON Chung-keung
Funded Amount: HK$ 769,925

Abstract

Teaching and learning of computer programming in beginners' classes are known to be difficult. Students have to do a lot of exercises to practise their programming and debugging skills, and they need feedback on the correctness of their programs. However, assessing students' programming work manually is tedious, time-consuming and error-prone. With the large class and diverse background of students nowadays, it is increasingly challenging for instructors to provide students with adequate appropriate exercises and individual feedback, which are vital to the effectiveness of students' learning and sustenance of their learning motivation. In response, universities worldwide have developed automated program assessment systems (APASs), which free up instructors' time for other un-automated educational tasks. Moreover, APASs are found to be of tremendous benefit in many other aspects, such as facilitating the design of effective pedagogy, provision of instant and personalized feedback to both instructors and students, and enhancing students' learning motivation.

One core function of APASs is to assess the correctness of students' programs, typically by automatically executing them against a suite of pre-defined test cases and comparing the programs' actual outputs with the instructor's expected outputs. The latter task requires a test oracle, that is, a mechanism for determining the correctness of program outputs. In the field of software testing, the general problem of test oracle automation is well known to be challenging. Implementation of test oracles in existing APASs is often too simplistic, rigid and incapable of being tailored to support the intended educational outcomes of the exercises. For example, multiple correct (or admissible) programming solutions to an exercise may produce different outputs (called output variants). A program which the human instructor accepts to be correct (or admissible) could be inappropriately rejected by a rigid test oracle in an APAS. This technical limitation is common and has been a root cause of many educationally undesirable effects on teaching and learning that can substantially compromise the benefits of an APAS in practice. There is a clear and pressing need to address this limitation, which is said in a recent literature review to be the main disadvantage of using APASs.

In this project, we will develop an automatic program assessment framework which can recognize a variety of admissible output variants so that both instructors and students can focus on the essentials of the exercises instead of minor output deviations. The framework will satisfactorily handle a much broader range of programming exercises to suit different educational needs. We will build an online APAS platform to implement our framework that highly automates the program assessment process for use in real programming courses. The platform will also be instrumental for empirical evaluation and validation of our research. To fully utilize our expertise and collaboration, we will conduct cross-institutional experiments for higher reliability and validity.

Our study is significant in perfecting the state-of-the-art APAS technologies and the advancement of the teaching and learning environment for programming classes, as what the work of ours and others has previously contributed. The research is expected to benefit the learning of hundreds of students each year with visible impact in the form of their improved programming skills. This project will advance the research capability of the investigators so that they can transfer research experiences and new knowledge into teaching and learning in their institutions, which is also the main objective of this Faculty Development Scheme (FDS). Since the newly developed online APAS platform can be used by all academic staff of the institutions, the new knowledge and tangible outcomes arisen from this project will benefit the teaching and learning of all three institutions. Finally, we will actively publicize our research findings both locally and internationally so that their potential benefits and values can be deployed by the global computer education community.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E04/15
Project Title: OREO: Cross-Layer Optimization for Power Efficient OLED Display
Principal Investigator: Dr ZHAO Yingchao
Funded Amount: HK$ 638,250

Abstract

Worldwide smartphone and tablet shipments will surpass two billion in year 2015. Powered by batteries, these mobile devices are in desperate need of higher power efficiency to extend usage time. The display is often the most power-consuming component of a mobile device. Traditionally, the majority of power consumption can be attributed to a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel, which can take up about 60% of the total power consumed by a mobile device. Recently, Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) has emerged as the choice of display, given its advantages of higher emitting efficiency, bigger contrast ratio, brighter colors, and the possibility of being built on a flexible and transparent substrate. Although OLED is more power efficient than LCD, it still consumes quite a lot of power in mobile devices. We tested the OLED display power of a Samsung Galaxy S4, which in standby mode occupies approximately 43% of the total power consumption. One unique property of OLED that differentiates it from LCD is that OLED power consumption is highly color-dependent. This property will be exploited in our project to significantly improve OLED display power efficiency. Specifically, a hierarchical collaborative optimization framework across three layers will be developed.

First, at the device-level, this project will develop a unified power model for OLED cells capable of capturing both color-dependent power consumption and dynamic power from color transformations between adjacent frames.

Second, at the hardware-level, as OLED cells allow trade-offs between power and color, visual-quality aware dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) will be developed for different applications.

Third, at the software-level, as different colors consume different amounts of power, the dynamic tone mapping (DTM) approach will be studied for videos to save display power through video classification and color transformation.

Through exploiting hardware-level power trace information, a novel software-level online video classification technique will be investigated. The most challenging aspect of this project is to adaptively conduct the proposed techniques in a time-conscious and effective manner considering stringent timing requirements for applications such as video streaming and games.

The key is the power model, which integrates the hardware-layer and software-layer to overcome this challenge. Preliminary results re-confirm the huge potential of OLED display power reduction delivered by tri-layer optimizations of OREO.

The principles of power saving for OLED display that will be obtained from this project will also benefit the software development training for undergraduate students whose majors are digital entertainments. They can embed the power saving idea in the design of mobile applications, and eventually build power conscious applications.

With the success of this project, we aim to cut OLED display power by half, which will help reduce power consumption of mobile devices, extend usage time, and contribute to a better user experience, as well as a greener planet.

2014/15

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/H03/14
Project Title: Contextual Analysis of Chinese Language Teachers' Judgment On Student Writing and Exploratory Study in Hong Kong
Principal Investigator: Prof HO Man-koon
Funded Amount: HK$ 727,375

Abstract

Helping language teachers to improve their quality and standard of marking has been a perennial problem confronting trainers of student teachers for many years. Besides attending to heavy work duties, language teachers are faced with the burden of rating and marking student assignments and papers which is an added pressure to an already stringent schedule. This also affects the quality of marking and students become the ultimate losers in the long run.

The writer proposes to explore the composition marking behavior and uniqueness of Chinese language teachers in two secondary schools in Hong Kong. The research team will be stationed in the school during the research period to examine the school culture and group communities (e.g. school policy on marking; views of the Principal and the Panel Heads on teachers' attitude towards marking compositions; students and their parents' opinions on who is responsible for marking) and their influence on teachers' marking behavior through onsite observations of these teacher subjects from classrooms, staff rooms, conference rooms through to informal occasions with respect to their marking behavior, interaction and mutual influence processes; and through multiple, in-depth interviews to understand how they formulate and mode their individual marking principles and strategies under the effects and challenges of community group expectations and extant school culture. Think-aloud protocols, though time-consuming by nature, will be used to elicit teachers' verbalized judgment on student writings instead of relying solely on the textual analysis of composition written by students which can be seen as the most remarkable feature which distinguishes the current project from earlier works of similar nature using the product-oriented approach.

This project will be the first ethnographic study of the marking behavior of Chinese Language teachers in the Hong Kong classroom context from the perspective of contextual analysis. Results of the project will help better understand the judgment of frontline Chinese language teachers in determining what to use or not to use in their marking strategies, how they arrive at the final score and factors influencing their marking behavior and scoring decision. Possible suggestions will be provided on how the marking quality of Chinese language teachers could be further improved and upgraded.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E03/14
Project Title: Web technologies for 3D content creation and collaborative manipulation
Principal Investigator: Dr PANG Wai-man
Funded Amount: HK$ 1,143,100

Abstract

3D visualization and printing technologies has emerged for decades. The advantages of employing 3D technologies for all kinds of business and industries including e-commerce, e-marketing, healthcare, education, and manufacturing are obvious. However, the popularity of 3D content on the web is still low nowadays. One of the major reasons is the lack of low-cost solution to construct high quality 3D contents. Moreover, high development cost for 3D visualization and manipulation platform also affects the popularity of developing 3D related website. All these factors prohibit normal web users to create 3D content in a DIY (Do It Yourself) manner.

Therefore, in this project, we will tackle the difficulties related to the cost and quality of 3D model creation, modification and customization on the web environment. The project will address three challenging areas of problems; they are the low-cost depth camera-based 3D data acquisition, fast and high quality 3D mesh denoising, and collaborative 3D content manipulation and customization under the web environment.

Our preliminary idea for 3D data acquisition assumes that consumer level depth camera is employed for capturing 3D surface points of an object, as cost for these devices are becoming more affordable right now. A post-processing step will be introduced for combining 3D points from different views to form a resultant 3D surface model. However, these reconstructed models commonly suffered from serious artifact or noise. As a result, our project will invent novel algorithms for fast 3D mesh denoising, so as to maintain high quality ready-to-use 3D contents for various web-based 3D applications. Finally, to fulfill the needs from na?ve users on modifying and customizing 3D contents, we will develop useful and user-friendly operations for manipulating 3D models on the web. Popular advanced operations like cutting, union, and deformation will be improved with intuitive user interface design and able to work collaboratively with other users under a distributed environment. Some visualization or 3D printing specific operations will also be proposed and included in our project.

To facilitate the evaluation of our proposed methods, we will implement and modulize these methods into software development packages at the end of the project. Moreover, we prepare to demonstrate the practical value and potential benefits of our solutions with a web-based 3D application. One of the possible applications is the development of a comprehensive platform for 3D printing objects with the capabilities of searching, sharing and customization on the web. By solving the above mentioned challenges, we believe the tangible outcomes (publications, algorithms and software packages) from the proposed project should be directly applicable to the community to develop web-based 3D applications with minimal effort. Moreover, the research project will provide invaluable chance in developing teachers and students the necessary skills and capabilities related to the latest 3D graphics technologies which is included in the curriculums and programmes offered by the department and the institute.

Project Reference No.: UGC/FDS11/E06/14
Project Title: Context-aware learner profiling for e-learning system: classization, groupization and personalization
Principal Investigator: Prof WANG Fu-lee
Funded Amount: HK$ 1,124,125

Abstract

Advances in Massive Online Open Course (MOOC), web 2.0 communities, social media, mobile and sensor technologies have been phenomenal in recent years. Worldwide, there is a significant proliferation of learning resources with multimodalities such as online course platforms, lecture videos, and learning materials (e.g., web pages, animations and documents). Meanwhile, the number of people who have access to mobile technologies has also grown exponentially. These developments provide people with more opportunities which help them not only learn new knowledge and skills but also communicate and discuss with other users, sometimes even with instructors and tutors of the courses.

These emerging technologies for on-line learning, on one hand, bring more fruitful learning resources and human interactions. Yet on the other hand, they make more difficult for learners to find their desired learning resources effectively and efficiently when confronting with such a large volume of learning data. To assist learners to find their desired learning materials and suitable virtual classes, it is essential to manage and organize information about learners as well as various learning resources. A main stream solution is to construct user- and resource- profiles, e.g., a bag-of-categories (BoC) or the category tree (Tree-based), so as to facilitate personalized learning services. However, the static nature of categories in profile brings forth two problems to be resolved in e-learning applications. First, it is not unusual that existing data are insufficient to construct a powerful learner profile, since only those categories used by the learner are taken into consideration during the process of profiling her/him. Second, not all categories in learner profiles are useful or necessary to be taken into consideration in different contexts.

To tackle these problems, it is paramount to understand well not only learner behaviors but also the hidden relations among their interested resources and current contexts. As revealed by recent social network studies, user behaviors are highly influenced by his/her neighbors who tend to share similar patterns in behaviors and common opinions. Therefore, we plan to propose a hybrid profiling approach to aggregating the multiple hidden relations, such as pre-requisite relations, content relations and social relations, so as to enrich the learner profile with valuable information from his/her neighbors or some potential interested learning resources. Furthermore, in this project, we also plan to devise an explicit context model to fully exploit the value of learner profile so that the problem of static learner profile can be resolved and context-aware learning services and applications can be supported. Specifically, we will classify contexts into three different layers, which are personal-level, group-level and class-level learning contexts. Each layer of contexts may have different effects on the learner profile. To demonstrate the validity and evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, we plan to apply the hybrid learner profile and context model to a suite of applications in three different layers (i.e., personalization, groupization and classization) for the e-learning systems, including personalized courseware recommendation, group member discovery, and class content pruning (or augmenting).

Project Reference No.: UGC/IIDS11/E01/15
Project Title: Seminar and Workshop Series in Digital Entertainment and Toy Computing
Principal Investigator: Dr TANG Kai-tai
Funded Amount: HK$ 540,500

Abstract

Toy computing is a study on design, computation, prototyping and integration of various toys using computing techniques. Recently, toys are becoming more intelligent and penetrating to gadgets such as smart phones, digital cameras, and motion sensing devices. The player can communicate, interact, or collaborate with them to achieve some tasks. Also, modern toys are closely related digital entertainment. Emerging computing techniques such as Augmented Reality (AR) has become popular for developing creative toys. To promote the studies of Digital Entertainment and Toy Computing to the Hong Kong public, we propose to organize a technical event consisted of a series of seminars (public lectures with panel discussions) and hands-on workshops covering a great variety of creative software and hardware techniques include mobile app development, and creative electronic design, etc. The target participants are toy developers, toy manufacturers, academics in the related fields, safety experts, and the students who are seeking jobs in toy/entertainment industries, etc. After the proposed activities, we expect the participants could gain basic knowledge and self-learning resources for producing creative toys and digital entertainment outputs.

Our project benefits toy manufacturers and developers and digital entertainment producers. In recent years, the toy industry is turning from pure manufacturing to creative design marketing. According to the Hong Kong governments' fact sheet, creative industries (include toy manufacturing) have more than 192,000 practitioners and they contributed nearly $90 billion or 4.7% of Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually by November 2013. It is expected to have more people joining this industry because many high-ended toy manufacturers are moving their design base or even the production line back to Hong Kong. However, there is a lack of talented and skilful young people joining this industry. In order to provide enough human resources to local toy manufacturers, the proposed event aims at enriching the toy developers' skills and guiding them to apply creative ideas to toys through computing techniques. The event will serve as a platform for academics and manufacturers to interact and initiate new collaborations. Moreover, it benefits to safety experts because they will learn the state-of-art trends of cutting-edge computing technologies that are useful for them to examine whether these new toys are safe enough for users, especially small children.

Our project also benefits academics and the students who want to join in the toy industry. The government intended to nurture Design and Digital Entertainment experts; so in the 2014 Policy Address, the Chief Executive introduced a new Theme-based Subsidy Scheme (TBSS) (now it is a.k.a. Study Subsidy Scheme for Designated Professions/Sectors (SSSDP)) to subsidize up to 1,000 students per cohort to pursue designated full- time locally-accredited self- financing undergraduate programmes such as in this discipline, starting from the 2015/16 academic year. The theme of this seminar and workshop series is aligned with the government's policy, and the outcomes of the seminars/workshops and research experiences can be transferred into teaching and learning of the newly introduced BSc. (Honours) Digital Entertainment programme at Caritas Institute of Higher Education (CIHE). The academic staff of different institutes could meet at the event and have a chance to initiate new research collaborations. The event will have a Project Competition for students (mainly undergraduate) to demonstrate their Research & Development outputs to the public, and they may receive useful suggestions from technical/design experts or meet potential employers. In the long run, we intend to consolidate students, researchers (especially the computing and creative media experts), and local inventors to form a community, and promote the innovation and R&D for the toy and digital entertainment industries in Hong Kong. Also, we will make use of the experience to support and enhance the teaching and research in CIHE and OUHK, and strengthen the research collaboration between different tertiary institutes.