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New horizons in research funding: Developing junior academics and enhancing research support for humanities and social sciences
The Research Grants Council (RGC)
plans to enhance support to junior academic scholars by launching an
“Early Career Scheme” with an estimated
fund of HK$150 million. The scheme is
designed to nurture the development of
promising research talents by supporting
the research projects of junior scholars
at the beginning of their academic career. It is hoped that the scheme
will encourage outstanding junior
academics to Hong Kong to launch their
careers, start up research programs, and
strengthen the bond between research
and teaching.
RGC Chairman Professor Roland Chin announced
the details of the “Early Career Scheme” at a media
briefing on 15 February 2011. He explained that
the grant each scholar receives will vary depending
on the research topic and practical needs of the
research, with an estimated average of HK$1
million grant funding being allocated for each
project and its educational activities. The scheme
will be open for applications starting this August,
and the outcome will be available by summer
2012. Application proposals will be reviewed
independently by international experts, who will
further shortlist up to 5% of the top junior scholars
to receive the honorary title of “Early Career Award”.
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Reorganization of RGC Subject
Panels
To improve the effectiveness of the
evaluation mechanism, the RGC endorsed the formation of a new
subject panel and two sub-panels to
assess the applications submitted under
various research funding schemes:
(a) a Business Studies Panel be established under the RGC to replace the
Business Studies Sub-Panel;
(b) the Humanities, Social Sciences and Business Studies Panel be
renamed as the Humanities and Social Sciences Panel;
(c) a Mechanical, Civil & Materials Engineering and System Design
Sub-Panel be formed under the
Engineering Panel; and
(d) an Arts and Humanities Sub-Panel be formed under the Humanities
and Social Sciences Panel.
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Liquid-based Photovoltaic/
Thermal Cogeneration for Real Building
Application
Hong Kong, a modern sub-tropical city, has
a great potential of applying solar energy in hot water and
electricity cogeneration. Most buildings here
are provided with conventional gas/electrical water heaters
for serving hot-water supply. According to
the energy end-use data (2010) published by the Hong Kong Government, direct hot
water production consumes about 5% of
the total energy use in the city, and 20% when considering only the domestic sector.
Since 2005, the Hong Kong Government has
been targeting at 2012, with 1-2% of the territory-wide energy use from renewable
energy sources. On the other hand, direct electricity generation from photovoltaic (PV)
is more expensive than conventional power generation. The situation is expected to remain
for some years.
By integrating PV modules with
solar water heating collectors, the increased energy yield per unit
collector area is able to shorten the economical payback period to less
than 1/4 of the plain PV application. Such photovoltaic/water-heating
(PVW) cogeneration is found to be much promising than the separate
side-by-side installations of PV modules and solar thermal collectors from
energy conversion, space utilization, and aesthetic points of view. The rationale behind
the integration is that a PV cell available in the
commercial market converts solar radiation to
electrical energy with a peak efficiency in the
range of 6-15%, depending on the specific PV-cell type in use. Most of the incident solarenergy
is converted as heat, leading to an increase in the cell working temperature.
By cooling the PV module with a stream of water, the electricity yield can be improved.
In many places including Hong Kong, the promoted use of renewable energy has
become a long-term government policy. With more and more solar systems required to be
installed in buildings, the available roof space
and facade surface area will sooner or later
become inadequate for the wider application of solar energy. The hybrid PVW collector thus
has a market potential to become a popular commercial product.
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Development and Study of
Hybrid Photovoltaic Cells
Hybrid photovoltaic cells are electronic devices designed
for conversion of light into the noblest form of energy,
electricity. They are cost effective alternatives to
conventional silicon solar cells. Although their power
conversion efficiency has been low so far, they can
potentially surpass the conventional silicon cells not only in the
production cost but also in performance because of their unique architectures
combining organic and inorganic materials.
The project is engaged in development and investigation of novel hybrid photovoltaic cells
that will form a base for cost effective devices
with high power conversion. The design of organic/inorganic photocell structures with
implementation of new fabrication approaches
and study of nanomaterial interfaces is the essence of the project. Particularly ZnO
nanostructures with different morphologies including vertical ZnO nanowires and
flocky nanorods (Figure 1a and 1b) prepared by
simple methods are investigated and used in the designed photovoltaic device structures
(Figure 1c). The ZnO nanowires, inherently n-type semiconductors,
are infiltrated by organic p-type conducting materials to provide
large-area p-n heterojunctions. The problem of the size and
functions of the heterojunction interface and the infiltration
by organic semiconductors is specifically investigated
for wettability, electronic interfacial structures, effective
dissociation of photo-induced excitons, their diffusion length
and interfacial field separation. It is foreseen that within the
designed photovoltaic cells the charge recombination
process will be suppressed considerably to provide a
high conversion efficiency of light to electricity. Optimizing
the electrode configuration and possible suppression
of charge recombination in different parts of the devices
by engineering the interfaces in hybrid photovoltaic devices will lead to considerable
improvement of the device efficiency.
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Interfaces between
Fullerenes and Semiconductor Nanowires: Nanofabrication and Photoinduced
Charge Separation
The topic:
Semiconductor nanowires have diameters of about 10 billionths of a meter, or ten thousand
times smaller than a human hair. Owing to their thinness,
such nanowires are expected to have special optical and electronic properties.
For example, they can efficiently transport electrons with a specific energy from one place
to another, a property useful for solar cell applications. Fullerenes, on the other hand, are
carbon cage molecules, among which C60, the Buckminsterfullerene, has the most symmetrical
soccer ball structure. These fullerene molecules
have so far turned out to be the most efficient electron acceptors in organic polymer solar cells.
One of the stumbling blocks in developing this type of solar cells is the difficulty in
controlling the morphology of the mixture of polymers
and fullerenes. To solve this problem, a hybrid structure of inorganic nanowires and fullerenes
has been proposed in this project. The goal was to
create inorganic nanowires coated with fullerene
molecules and study their photoelectric properties.
Methodology used:
The first step was to develop various bottomup chemical methods including direct solution
reactions, electrochemical reactions, and insitu
interfacial reactions to synthesize inorganic nanowires. Then fullerenes were attached to
the surfaces of the nanowires using different strategies including fullerene polymerization,
chemical functionalization, and ligand-binding. Finally photoelectrochemistry measurements
were conducted to uncover the properties of photoinduced charge separation, transport and
collection.
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Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Therapy:A New Tool for Suppressing Visceral Pain
It is well known that a hot drink or a
nourishing meal is relaxing and helps to calm anxiety suggesting that
enhanced sensory vagal inputs originating from the gut modulate attitude and behavior. Although
vagal afferents are activated by noxious gastrointestinal stimuli, the
contribution of the vagal nerve to visceral pain remains unresolved.
Rodents do not have the forebrain structures to generate the cognitive
feelings of humans, the use of behavioral paradigms visceromotor
responses (VMR) to assess spinal pain reflexes in the conscious rat
may help to identify the regulatory role of the vagal nerve in visceral
pain sensation. We demonstrated that chronic subdiaphragmatic
vagotomy decreases the threshold and enhances the VMR to all grades of
colorectal distension (CRD) suggesting vagal nerves are involved in the
inhibitory modulation of visceral pain responses.
Vagus nerve stimulation with the neuro-cybernetic prosthesis generator
has been used clinically as a treatment for refractory epilepsy, major
depression, and gastric dysrhythmia. To date, the influences of vagal
nerve stimulation in visceral pain evoked by viscera nociceptive stimuli
have not been investigated. Vagal electrical stimulation by different
intensities may activate different types of nerve fibers. In this study,
vagal afferent neuronal responses to low or high intensity electrical
vagal stimulation (EVS) of afferent A or C fibers were distinguished
by calculating their conduction velocity. Here, we showed that CRD
produced contractions of the lateral abdominal musculature. High
intensity EVS (400 μA,) which activated C-type fibers had no effect on
CRD-induced abdominal pain. In contrast, low intensity electrical vagal
stimulation (40 μA) which activated vagal A-type fibers reduced
CRD-induced
abdominal muscle contractions. This response was not affected
by perivagal capsaicin-treatment. These observations suggest that vagal
afferent nerves modulate visceral pain. Low intensity EVS which
activates vagal afferent A- fibers reduced visceral pain.
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On the Architecture of Synapses
The brain is full of mysteries and wonders. It is the most delicate and complex organ in
the human body. Fragile yet powerful, the brain
coordinates the functions of almost all other organs in the human body. It
receives information from all over the body, makes
decisions and sends commands to accomplish necessary tasks. Different regions of the brain
are responsible for different functions such
as movements, language, vision, learning, memory and so on. These regions are well
linked to form complicated circuits to process
information. A neuron, by an average number of about 100 billion, is the basic functional unit
of the brain. They have very fine structures
called synapses to send information to or receive information from other neurons.
Each neuron can possess as many as 10,000 synapses, which means a neuron can make
as many as 10,000 connections with others. Irregularities in synapse formation or synapse
activity could possibly destroy the very basis of
brain functions, leading to brain disorders or
psychiatric diseases.
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Unlocking the Causes of Stroke
in Asia: The Importance of Intracranial Atherosclerosis
Stroke is the second leading cause of death
and the commonest cause of disability among the Chinese. More importantly, stroke is
more common in the Chinese than in the Caucasians. Yet there were few data to confirm
if there were any true ethnic differences in
the cause of stroke between the East and the
West. With the support of the RGC, we were the first in the world to confirm that narrowing
of the blood vessels around the brain was the
commonest cause of stroke in the Chinese, in contrast to previous studies that showed
narrowing of the blood vessel in the neck region was the commonest cause in the
Caucasians. The same observation was later confirmed in other Asian populations such
as the Thai, Korean, Malaysian and Indian.
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Area of Excellence in Information Technology
Introduction
The Area of Excellence in Information Technology
(AoEIT) was supported by the University Grants
Committee (UGC) in 2000 to perform research,
teaching, and knowledge exchange to assist the
transformation of Hong Kong into a
knowledge-based
economy, and to help fulfill China’s goal of becoming a technology innovator. It was a
joint project of the Chinese University of Hong
Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the University of Hong
Kong. Our strategy was to leverage our existing
strengths in core information technologies and
their applications, and our research partnerships
with distinguished local, Mainland and overseas
research institutions, to perform research and
development in this multi-disciplinary area.
The project has strengthened inter-institutional
collaborations, as evidenced by joint research
resulting in over 200 publications in prestigious
international journals and conferences. More
than 20 teachers from the three universities
contributed to this project, and over 80 research
postgraduate students were trained. In addition,
collaborations with Mainland and overseas institutions have been
developed. In this article, we will summarize our work, highlight the
key contributions, and describe on-going research.
Accomplishments
This AoEIT has made international impact, as evidenced by best paper awards, novel
prototype systems, one-of-a-kind test-beds, software, international collaborations, and other
accomplishments. The fundamental results and
the salient outcomes of six research areas are
summarized below.
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RGC Collaborative Research Fund
– Layman Summaries of Projects Funded in 2010/11 Exercise
High Precision Measurement of Neutrino Oscillation
at Daya Bay
The recent discovery of neutrino oscillation
– a neutrino travelling in space transforms
from one type to another – has profound impacts on particle physics, astrophysics and
cosmology. The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Oscillation Experiment aims to measure a
key but yet unknown neutrino oscillation parameter, θ13, to an unprecedented precision
of better than 3 degrees, which is critical to
the design of future experimental tests of a
possible explanation of why matter dominates
anti-matter in the universe, a key condition for
our existence.
The Hong Kong team has been an active member of the Daya Bay Collaboration, an
international team with 38 institutions. We will contribute to the commissioning and
monitoring of the experiment and analysis of data, with the help of a subsystem of the
antineutrino detector built by our team. We will also design and construct a continuous
radon monitoring system as well as a cover gas system to minimize radon contamination
of the detectors.
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