CONTENTS COVER STORY RESEARCH Connecting the Dots HKU scholars have produced world-leading research on COVID-19, but that is only one part of their contribution to the concept of One Health, which involves human, animal and planetary health. The ‘One Health’ Challenge Disunity of Purpose Chain Reactions A New Angle on Views Vital Signs Clicking with the Right People Social Media and the Workplace Simple Materials, Complex Outcomes Leapin’ Lizards The Appeal of Machine Justice Twitter Alert Using AI to Predict Trafficking Sentences Healing through the Arts Paintings from Myanmar’s Lost Transition A Brief History of Art Zooming across the World Advanced and Affordable Care Natural Life Lessons Digital Transformation Museums of Remembrance and Forgetting Art from All Angles 02 04 08 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 32 36 34 42 46 26 28 30 38 40 44 TEACHING AND LEARNING KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE PEOPLE BOOKS ARTS AND CULTURE Meet HKU’s New Chief Information Officer and University Librarian MS FLORANG
CONNECTING THE DOTS A decade ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organisations endorsed the One Health concept – the idea that the health of people, animals and the environment are deeply interconnected and can only be optimised by collaboration between multiple disciplines (not just health), at the local, national and global levels. The hope was that such endorsement would give impetus to breaking down silos between medicine, veterinary science, engineering, environmental sciences and other disciplines, and get policymakers to think more comprehensively about the impact of their decisions. Unfortunately, as the COVID-19 pandemic and looming threats from climate change show, the message has thus far failed to penetrate. But at HKU, researchers are persisting with efforts to provide evidence and perspectives on One Health through their work on emerging infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance, regulatory options and the mapping of disease outbreaks and environmental change. 03 02 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 COVER STORY
THE ‘ONE HEALTH’ CHALLENGE Health threats from animal and environmental sources are on the rise – not just from COVID-19, but antimicrobial resistance and other infectious diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). HKU academics have been at the forefront producing collaborative, multidisciplinary research to identify and control these threats. What does One Health mean in practice? Professor Malik Peiris, TamWah-Ching Professor in Medical Science, of the School of Public Health, one of the most highly cited scholars in the world on emerging infectious diseases and recent joint recipient of the prestigious 2021 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award with colleague Professor Guan Yi, Daniel C K Yu Professor in Virology, provides a telling example based on his work as a virologist in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. He specialised back then in mosquito-borne diseases, and Japanese encephalitis was on the rise in a region of the country. After much investigation, the cause was found to be a well-intentioned policy: the government decided to help poverty-stricken rice farmers by giving them pigs to raise. The combination of mosquitoes and pigs – which are often a vector of viruses between humans and other animals – “just lit the spark to the dynamite,” he said. “I’m sure the health department wouldn’t have thought of this happening either. It just shows how these ecological balances can be upset by some of the most wellmeaning gestures.” Such interplay between humans, animals and the environment is at the heart of the One Health concept, which started to consolidate after outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu and SARS (both centred in Hong Kong) and was formally endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization and World Organisation for Animal Health in 2010. It has leapt up the agenda in the wake of COVID-19, which has been the latest and worst of recent viruses that threaten human health. “For the last two decades, we have had a major, novel infectious disease threat almost every two or three years – SARS, swine flu, avian flus H5N1 and H7N9, MERS, Zika, Ebola and now COVID-19,” Professor Peiris said. All have been traced to animal sources – birds, bats, pigs, camels and primates – but human interactions with these animals have created conditions that allow viruses to jump species. “Previously, livestock was raised in a backyard. People had a few pigs or chickens and if a virus got into those animals and jumped to humans, it was a localised effect,” he said. “Now, livestock animals are raised in the tens of thousands and shipped thousands of miles to market. You also have these game animal markets, which have become a huge trade because of greater affluence in China and parts of Asia, and you can have thousands of animals in the larger markets. That is, of course, how SARS managed to develop. “COVID-19 really should be a wake-up call to the global community that humans are not superhuman. The forces of nature are much more powerful than us and we tamper with this at our peril.” Viruses not the only threats Professor Peiris and other scholars at HKU are at the frontlines trying to assess the threats emerging from the human-animalenvironment interface and propose ways to manage them. The concern is not confined to viruses but also antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is developing more slowly than new viruses but has the potential to be very damaging to health. AMR was identified by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2017 as one of the top six emerging issues of global environmental concern. Currently, about 700,000 people die each year because AMR has made antibiotics less effective against bacterial infections. By 2050, the number could be 10 million (twice as many as died of COVID-19 in its first 18 months) if nothing is done, according to a UK-commissioned report. A 2019 report by the UN’s Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, titled ‘No Time to Wait’, also warned of the growing impact of AMR on the environment and ecological systems. Professor Zhang Tong of the Department of Civil Engineering leads an ongoing theme-based research project to investigate AMR flows from pollution hotspots to the environment, with a focus on sewage. He works in collaboration with HKU’s School of Public Health and the Hong Kong Government and is also a member of an expert panel preparing a special report on the environmental impact of AMR for a special session next year of the UNEP. “It is impossible to completely remove antibiotics from wastewater so some inevitably escapes into the environment,” he said – whether from human or animal farm sewage or the effluents of the pharmaceutical industry. The residual antibiotics may apply selective pressure on bacteria, some of which will develop resistance to these antibiotics. “Eventually, there will be more and more superbugs.” He is in the process of collecting water and soil samples from multiple sites, such as hospitals, water treatment plants, farms, beaches and sewage treatment plants, with the aim of developing a local map of the current baseline conditions that can be used to monitor AMR progress in Hong Kong’s environment and develop control strategies. The baseline will also be compared to other territories to see how Hong Kong fares globally. Professor Malik Peiris (second from right) and his team found that novel coronavirus can infect the human respiratory tract even better than SARS-CoV. An electronmicroscope picture shows that the cells fromhuman bronchial tissue can be infected byMERS-CoV and theMERS-CoV can replicate in human respiratory tissues. COVID-19 really should be a wake-up call to the global community that humans are not superhuman. The forces of nature are much more powerful than us and we tamper with this at our peril. PROFESSOR MALIK PEIRIS 04 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 05 COVER STORY
This detection work is made possible by DNA technology Professor Zhang developed to detect antibiotic-resistant genes in water samples, which has been widely adopted by researchers across the world. He has also applied molecular detection work to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 in local sewage samples. Using an RNA-based technology he developed and working with HKU’s School of Public Health, Professor Zhang and his team began to detect the virus last November, days before cases were confirmed. This led to the government introducing compulsory testing for places with positive signals from sewage samples. The team have since developed a method to identify variants of the virus. “COVID-19 is an example of how we understand One Health from another angle. We see the flow of pathogen from human to environment. We can use information from one compartment to indicate the situation in another. The same thing applies to antibiotic-resistant genes. We survey the environment to not only look at the possible sources of AMR in humans and animals, but also as a reflection of what may be happening in humans and animals,” he said. Our gut contributions One of Professor Zhang’s collaborators has been Dr Hein Tun, a veterinary public health specialist in the School of Public Health who has multiple projects of his own on the nonhuman sources of human AMR. For instance, an ongoing study is measuring AMR levels and transmission across beaches, healthy people, hospital patients, farms, rivers and creeks in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Thailand. So far, the data shows AMR levels are higher in animal production than in people. Dr Tun is also in the process of studying the levels and sources of AMR in hospital wastewater, which does not require special treatment in Hong Kong before being discharged into the sewage system, and how AMR may be transmitted in the household, such as via countertops or other surfaces. “The One Health concept is very useful not only for COVID-19 but other types of diseases. Whether you look at the community level, the global level or the individual level, this concept can apply. You cannot stay away from the environment,” he said. Dr Tun’s work on a particular type of AMR bacteria, ESBL-E, has been revealing of how environmental and human factors interact. The WHO has prioritised ESBL-E because it can transfer AMR to other bacteria, so if someone with ESBL-E in their gut is exposed to salmonella, it can transfer resistance to the salmonella, making it very difficult to treat it with antibiotics. In a study of 90 Hong Kong travellers that measured their gut microbiota before and after travelling, he found exposure to raw seafood was a factor in those who acquired ESBL-E after their trips (although about 40 per cent tested positive before travelling). People were also more likely to have ESBL-E if their gut lacked bifidobacteria, which are beneficial. “This is why carriage of AMR bacteria is so important. If healthy people carry it in their gut, those bacteria can share the resistant gene to pathogenic bacteria and put their health at risk,” he said. Dr Tun also studied AMR in the wake of COVID-19 among some members of the traveller cohort. There was speculation that AMR would increase as people self-medicated with antibiotics, which the study seemed to support – participants had more AMR bacteria as well as chemicals related to masks in their guts. “We are trying to recall these participants to study the health impacts of this,” he said. “We need to think collectively, across different sectors and expertise, to have more of the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration that we’ve seen with COVID-19. It’s also important to have participation from the public,” he said. Dr Tun has been promoting citizen science in less-developed countries to involve residents in collecting data, such as exposure to animals and the environment, through their phones. “This way they can know what their risk is and what the problems are. They can have a sense of ownership of the data and findings.” Stark warning That need for collective purpose is echoed by Professor Zhang and Professor Peiris. The concept of One Health should be an easy sell, Professor Zhang said. “Especially in China because Chinese philosophy tells us that everything is connected, that it’s not separate.” He sees the environmental sector as best placed to lead the way, such as through UNEP. Professor Peiris, however, has seen firsthand the difficulties of having policymakers and businesses monitor and respond to health threats – in the lead-up to the H7N9 outbreak in China, the poultry trade had little incentive to monitor for viruses because any infections meant they would have had to cull their stock. Similarly with MERS, the camel industry in Saudi Arabia has been resistant to evidence that the MERS virus comes from camels. MERS remains a pandemic threat. Recent research by Professor Peiris and international collaborators showed that it is present in camels across North Africa and the Middle East. It is still in a milder form than the Saudi Arabian version, but the worry is that it, too, could evolve to be more pathogenic in humans. “We have to be concerned because MERS is repeatedly jumping to humans. There is no reason why it cannot further adapt to become more efficiently transmissible to humans,” he said. Professor Peiris sees infectious disease threats in the wider context of the great challenges facing the planet and the similar urgent need to collaborate and break down institutional and other barriers in order to find solutions. “It’s not just infectious disease. You can see issues of climate change, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity – we are really rupturing the limits of sustainability of our planet. I think it’s important for everybody’s education, but particularly for medical education, for us to realise that it’s not just about treating individual humans. We have to take account of animals and the environment, too. We have to be advocates. “If we want human health to be better, we have to look after planetary health, environmental health and animal health,” he said, adding this cautionary note: “Rene Dubos, a French microbiologist, said in 1959 that ‘at some unpredictable time and in some unforeseeable manner, nature will strike back’. COVID-19 is a great illustration of that.” Increased opportunistic pathogens and resistance genes in the gut microbiome during the first wave of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Professor Zhang Tong (right) giving a presentation to the HKSAR Chief Executive Mrs Carrie Lam, HKU Council Chairman Professor Arthur Li and HKU President Professor Xiang Zhang on the work of the Environmental Microbiome Engineering and Biotechnology Laboratory. Professor Zhang Tong (centre) with Laboratory Manager Ms Vicky Fung (left) and Research Assistant Professor Dr Yu Deng (right). A conceptual model to demonstrate the evolution and emergence of antibioticresistant genes accelerated by selective pressure of antibiotics. Extraction of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from sewage using an automatic extraction machine. It is impossible to completely remove antibiotics from wastewater so some inevitably escapes into the environment... Eventually, there will be more and more superbugs. PROFESSOR ZHANG TONG The One Health concept is very useful not only for COVID-19 but other types of diseases. Whether you look at the community level, the global level or the individual level, this concept can apply. You cannot stay away from the environment. DR HEIN TUN 06 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 07 COVER STORY
DISUNITY OF PURPOSE Governance and laws relating to human, animal and ecological health are divided across the world, making it difficult to coordinate responses to emerging health threats. Dr Calvin Ho has been analysing the problem. In 2007, the Indonesian government announced it would stop sending samples of the H5N1 avian influenza virus detected in its country to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) reference laboratories. Its worry was that these samples, provided freely, would be used by pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines the country could not afford. The situation prompted the establishment of a new international framework for data and pathogen sharing – but only for H5N1 and other influenza viruses with human pandemic potential. Despite other circulating threats to human health, such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and emerging zoonotic diseases like the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, there is as yet no comprehensive international framework for sharing biological materials and related data to address these concerns. Even the COVID-19 global pandemic has yet to motivate any change. Dr Calvin Ho of the Faculty of Law, and Co-Director of the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law, has been looking at ethical and legal means to facilitate data and pathogen sharing for AMR and One Health research, and the development of appropriate countermeasures. AMR, which arises mainly from misuse and overuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobials, is a major concern because drug-resistant pathogens circulate among humans, animals and the environment and are projected to lead to 10 million additional deaths each year globally by 2050. Its growing threat prompted the WHO to endorse the One Health concept in 2010 and recognise that protecting and promoting human health is closely interconnected to animal and environmental health. The WHO also adopted a global AMR action plan in 2015 to drive concerted actions across governments and the private sector but to date, the platform has not realised its aims. A key problem is that specialist bodies remain stuck in their silos, so laws and regulatory bodies on human, animal and environmental health are largely disconnected. Fair share “One of the big struggles is getting people to talk to each other. We can all cover our own specific fields well, but it is less clear how things work across the various domains,” Dr Ho said. He believes legal and regulatory levers premised on fairness and equity are necessary to break down the barriers and get all parties to share data and pathogens that are crucial to addressing AMR and future pandemics. “We need good data to develop countermeasures and predictive modelling, so we can at least have a clearer sense of what is coming. But to get that data, and get people to share and work together, you need fairness. That’s why laws and regulatory instruments at the domestic and global levels, especially the global level, are really important,” he said. While some places have made some progress – Hong Kong, for instance, has a strategic action plan on AMR for 2017–2022 – many governments elsewhere are stretched in terms of capacity and resources. “But AMR is not just a single-country issue, it is a global issue. Ultimately, with global travel and the world being very connected, you cannot isolate diseases – which is why collective action is really crucial.” At the international level, laws relating to public health do exist, but they are narrow in focus and there is nothing that addresses the interdisciplinarity of One Health. The International Health Regulations, for instance, govern the sharing of human health data while the Convention on Biological Diversity applies to the sharing of plant and animal data and materials. Yet viruses like H5N1 and SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID-19) are very likely to be from animal sources. “This just basically reflects the silo problem that we have,” he said. Limits of market-based solutions Dr Ho believes reliance on the market mechanism is not sufficient for such a large and complex task, given there are often limited information and resources to work with. Without a formal plan for sharing global public health data, less-resourced countries are at a disadvantage. Indonesia’s worry about H5N1 vaccines is a case in point. In contrast, China was able to share data on the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen because it has the scientific and production capabilities to produce its own vaccine, so it did not need to worry about being left out. And, while biotech companies responded quickly to develop COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines represent only a fraction of their business, which at its core is based on profit not equity. “The values of the market are premised on efficiency and a narrow notion of fairness, which is reasonable enough, but it cannot apply everywhere,” he said. Dr Ho sees an urgent need to start getting the infrastructure in place for collective action to address not only AMR and emerging zoonotic diseases, but the health impacts of climate change. This will be a huge challenge because of short-term thinking, the difficulties of getting people to work together at the international level, and the decline in multilateralism. “It is not a rosy picture. Unfortunately, unless people are faced with very immediate and catastrophic events, we don’t seem to know how to get our act together,” he said. One of the big struggles is getting people to talk to each other. We can all cover our own specific fields well, but it is less clear how things work across the various domains. DR CALVINHO The Centre for Medical Ethics and Law held a conference titled ‘Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: Meeting the Global Challenge of AMR’ in collaboration with the School of Public Health. 08 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 09 COVER STORY
CHAIN REACTIONS Professor Peng Gong, a geographer and environmental scientist, began applying his expertise to public health issues more than two decades ago when he focussed on tiny parasites. He has been scaling up ever since and today focusses on the One Health challenge from global climate change. The H5N1 bird flu first jumped to humans in 1997 in Hong Kong, killing six of the 18 patients infected. But that was not the end of H5N1. In 2003 it resurfaced in humans and over the next few years was detected in wild birds in many regions around the world. For Professor Peng Gong, who has devoted much of his career to spatial modelling and identifying connections between the environment and disease, this proved to be a telling example of a One Health challenge. While others focussed on the disease, he applied his expertise to understand the bigger picture by mapping the environmental factors behind the spread of H5N1 globally. “We found that because of land use changes and climate change, the protected habitats of wild birds were shrinking and so you had more birds using a smaller area. This helped facilitate the virus to pass between them and strengthened transmission of the disease. And because of the reduced habitat, it also brought them closer to poultry and duck farms that are run by humans, and infected these vulnerable birds,” he said. “Humans have been squeezing the living space for other species that have nowhere to escape to. With One Health, we need to take a systematic view – in Chinese, One Health is called ‘Big Health’ – because the health of the ecosystem is actually related to human health.” Professor Gong, who is concurrently Chair Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences (Geography) and Faculty of Science (Earth Sciences) and HKU’s Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Development), has been working on One Health issues for more than two decades. His expertise has been recognised by the prestigious health journal The Lancet, which recently appointed him as the only non-medical member of its international advisory board (previously he was an advisor on two specialty publications of The Lancet focussing on public health and planetary health). Interdisciplinary collaboration His interest in using a systems-based approach to analyse the interactions of the environment and health began in the 1990s with a mathematical model on the spatial distribution of schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms that breed in both snails and humans and that can infect people through contact with contaminated freshwater. It can cause multiple health problems, particularly after prolonged exposure, and as a parasitic disease is second only to malaria in the devastation it causes around the world. China is one of the countries affected by schistosomiasis, so Professor Gong first applied his mapping skills there, in collaboration with public health specialists from UC Berkeley, to show which areas were suitable for the disease to transmit or spread, which areas were difficult and which were impossible. He subsequently used this approach to show how climate change is taking dengue fever-carrying mosquitoes beyond tropical regions (although this may be mitigated by the concreting of land and human management, which seem to be reducing mosquito populations and people’s exposure to mosquito-borne diseases), and to study animal migration in Africa where human activity and land management are reducing the animals’ ranges. “If you go to Africa, your heart feels heavy because these magnificent animals, like lions and zebras and wildebeest, are constrained to 100–200 kilometre ranges,” he said. Driver for change The impact of humans on the environment, and the subsequent impact from the environment to human health, have also driven Professor Gong to study the effects of urbanisation. In a major paper published in 2012, he and his colleagues found rapid urbanisation in China was changing health patterns, such as increasing the greater proliferation of chronic and age-related diseases and illnesses related to pollution. Professor Gong has more recently focussed on the interaction of health and climate change at the global level and is part of a team that produce an annual assessment for The Lancet on climate change mitigation and population health. The latest issue found health impacts were worsening, with disadvantaged populations especially vulnerable. “Extreme weather, like heat and drought, and rising sea levels will all impact people’s health,” he said. “We hope that the focus on health can be a key driver to make people change their habits and make organisations and governments change policies so they can become more adaptive, mitigate climate change and reduce the impacts on people.” Humans have been squeezing the living space for other species that have nowhere to escape to. With One Health, we need to take a systematic view – in Chinese, One Health is called ‘Big Health’ – because the health of the ecosystem is actually related to human health. PROFESSOR PENG GONG Representative spread routes of the H5N1 viruses in four years. Triangles and dots represent spatial-temporal cluster centres. The numbers on the triangles and dots are the reported months of the cases. At Poyang Lake, Professor Peng Gong’s teamwere conducting surveys related to avian influenza in wild water birds. Documenting Professor Peng Gong’s field work on site where the team were conducting an environmental survey of snail density at Poyang Lake. 11 10 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 COVER STORY
A NEW ANGLE ON VIEWS It’s widely agreed that a view of nature is beneficial to our well-being. Now a new urban study uses open big data to see how view height is a factor too in high-rise cities like Hong Kong. Inevitably, a view from a 30th-floor window is different to that from the second floor. But how do you monitor the benefits of either? In the time of COVID-19, ‘view health’ is particularly important as going outside may be restricted. Now a technological window of opportunity has opened, enabling researchers and urban designers to use big data to easily assess view health from any level. It is common for big data sets to be collected and opened by various organisations using advanced information and communications technology (ICT) devices. Examples are the government’s photorealistic City Information Model (CIM) of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and Tencent’s/Google’s Street Views for Hong Kong. “However, to a certain extent, the big data is still ‘data’ rather than information – for example ‘0x5F889D-like RGB values of green pixels’ – instead of ‘two palm trees are here’ – for computers and urban analysts,” said Dr Frank Xue, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Architecture’s Department of Real Estate and Construction. “The focus of our work is: first, to understand what geometries, semantics and objects are there; second, to quantify meaningful indices (information) for urban analysts; and third, to compute complex concepts (such as streets and environment) as highdimension vectors.” His team have now developed a method to transfer deep learning to assess the nature views (such as green, sky, water) at windows for high-rise high-density areas automatically. “The data source was the photorealistic CIM, surveyed and opened by the Planning Department of the Hong Kong Government in 2019; and the outputs enrich the open CIM with new semantics,” said Dr Xue. “The accuracy was satisfactory on a pilot area in Central, while the processing time per window view was about 1 second on a desktop (Nvidia 2070 GPU) and 0.5 seconds on HKU’s new AI-research platform.” The work with CIM also focusses on the Nature Accessibility Index (NAI) concerning nature view and nature accessibility, and Dr Xue’s co-supervised PhD student Mr Eric Maosu Li has produced a study titled ‘Save people from the concrete barriers – Integrated assessment of visual and physical accessibility to nature in 3D cities’. The research won the 2021 Esri Young Scholars Award. Mr Li’s study focussed on high-rises in an area of Wan Chai and combined visual Nature View Index (NVI) patterns with physical accessibility patterns, with the result being the NAI. “Our findings are useful for providing quantified evidence of the nature visibility and accessibility in a 3D city,” said Mr Li. “The implications can be used to find new means for urban optimisation.” Town planning and policy The research also highlights inconvenient buildings and promotes urban greenery management and self-greenery management in Hong Kong. The uses for this kind of big data research are numerous for town planning and government policy. “Quantitative Nature View Indices can help the decision-making of architects, town planners, and designers,” said Mr Li. “Architects used to apply qualitative judgment and domain knowledge to incorporate the views into their multi-criteria decision-making process. In the last decade, they have increasingly used drones to capture the environment and quantify views; however, the drone-based NVI involves high labour costs, and is non-scalable and timeconsuming. Our CIM-based NVI has just been proposed for architectural space planning. “From the perspective of the government, a Visual Impact Assessment report [Town Planning Board 2010] is required for new constructions in Hong Kong. But, it mainly concentrates on the interests of public places (from the outside). For example, will the building obstruct the site views of the harbour/ hills/skyline? The NVIs of windows and residents’ exposure to nature have not yet been included.” This summer, Mr Li worked at Hong Kong’s Urban Renewal Authority (URA) as an intern for two months. “The aim of urban renewal is to realise the sustainability and healthy development of the city,” he said. “Our idea has attracted the URA’s interest, since it can help quantify nature views for large-scale areas automatically – which means at a low cost. However, at the moment they are still focussing on the more scientific utilisation of basic indicators such as building conditions. A city-wide NVI dataset could be helpful in the future.” This work is the beginning of Hong Kong’s CIM enrichment and Mr Li is now working on new methods that are five to 10 times faster and even more accurate. His future work will also link to AI building optimisation for window views, including aesthetic attributes, nature attributes and cost attributes, and AI town optimisation for both visual and physical access to nature. The vertical development in Hong Kong captured by the photorealistic City Information Model (CIM), surveyed and opened by the Planning Department of the Hong Kong Government. Disparate nature views of 314 buildings in Wan Chai, with the darker colour representing higher quality. The focus of our work is: first, to understand what geometries, semantics and objects are there; second, to quantify meaningful indices (information) for urban analysts; and third, to compute complex concepts (such as streets and environment) as highdimension vectors. DR FRANK XUE Automatic window view captured by the City Information Model (CIM), which allows researchers and urban designers to use big data to easily assess view health from any level. Ruttonjee Hospital (shaded in red) enjoys a higher Nature View Index than its surrounding environment in Wan Chai, thus potentially providing its patients and members with better view health. 12 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 13 RESEARCH
The advanced device can pick up signals other sensors cannot and uses transistors to form an inverter capable of detecting strokes. Dr Paddy KL Chan, Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, leads the team which, in collaboration with Nanjing University, developed the device. “The core breakthrough here is that our inverter uses a high-performance transistor, which includes high carrier mobility, ultralow contact resistance and sub-threshold swing,” said Dr Chan. “These three parameters are the important indicators of transistor performance. It is not the ECG sensor but the transistor which is crucial in this device. “We used two transistors to form an inverter, which has a unique function that can amplify the signal while at the same time filtering out noise. Conventionally, as the electrophysiological signal from the human body is in the range of millivolt to microvolt, this weak signal would require a more sophisticated set-up to measure properly. But, if a device can amplify the target signal while at the same time suppressing the noise, it can significantly improve the quality of the data and make it suitable to be measured by a basic – or even portable – set-up.” Powered by a simple button battery, the device can be worn by patients night and day, and even in the shower. The signal amplification is outstanding, with a high gain of more than 10,000 which enables it to detect electrophysical signals – known as the f-wave – with a frequency of between 300 and 600 beats per minute, which indicates atrial fibrillation. “The f-wave can be considered as the ‘signature’ of patients with atrial fibrillation,” said Dr Chan. “The capability to detect the high signal is down to the organic field effect transistors (OFETs) having an ultra-low sub-threshold swing. This enables our ECG sensor to pick up signals from patients which conventional sensors cannot. “The sub-threshold swing is a vital parameter in transistor or inverter operation as it implies how much voltage change is needed to turn the device from the ‘off’ state to the ‘on’ state. Our record low sub-threshold swing device ensures low operating power and high sensitivity.” VITAL SIGNS Miniaturisation Dr Chan’s research team have been focussing on organic field effect transistors for more than 10 years, and one of their main aims has always been to advance the miniaturisation and contact effect in these devices. “Developing high-performance devices to be wearable electronic applications has been a clear goal for me and my group,” he said. “This is why in 2016, we developed a saliva glucose sensor and temperature sensor; in 2018, we developed a C-reactive protein sensor on a medical catheter and also a flexible optical sensor; and in 2020 we developed a conformal skin heater and tissue impedance sensor.” His initial breakthrough in developing the staggered structure monolayer OFETs – the material used in the latest experiment – was published in Advanced Materials in 2020, and a patent was filed for the innovation in the US. In this latest work, his team have advanced the application of the monolayer OFETs to flexible substrate for wearable electronic applications. When the team started working on this particular ECG sensor, a colleague of Dr Chan’s in Nanjing University sent his PhD student to HKU to join the team for 18 months to learn the skills to make high performance transistors. “This student, Zongzong Lou, worked closely with my students – especially postdoctoral The f-wave can be considered as the ‘signature’ of patients with atrial fibrillation. The capability to detect the high signal is down to the organic field effect transistors (OFETs) having an ultra-low sub-threshold swing. This enables our ECG sensor to pick up signals from patients which conventional sensors cannot. DR PADDY KL CHAN A wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor with a novel high-performance memory transistor can detect atrial fibrillation and identify potential stroke patients. fellow, Boyu Peng – on developing the high-gain low-voltage sensor,” said Dr Chan. “When they showed me the performance of the integrated device one evening, I knew we had achieved exactly what we needed for sensing electrophysiological signals from the human body. After that, we started to perform a lot of tests, not only ECG but also including electromyography and electroencephalography.” The team would like to see the device in public use, and to that end they are working to bring it from laboratory scale to mass production scale. “But first we will work on making the device even smaller,” said Dr Chan, “and instead of using one inverter we plan to use a more advanced and sophisticated circuit to do the electrophysiological signal sensing.” Organic electrochemical memory transistors with different physical dimensions. Dr Paddy KL Chan’s team have advanced the application of the monolayer organic field effect transistors (OFETs) to flexible substrate for wearable electronic applications. Dr Paddy KL Chan's team succeeded in adding ‘memory’ or collected signal information to an organic transistor, which paves the way for advanced machine learning to mimic human brain functions. Dr Paddy KL Chan (centre) and his research team in the Laboratory of Nanoscale Energy Conversion Devices and Physics. 14 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 15 RESEARCH
The concept of ‘social capital’ is entrenched in the social sciences. Who we know can make a difference to the opportunities we get in life and the resources we have at our disposal. This insight is mostly based on research in offline settings, where people interact in person. But with the explosion of digital communications has come the new concept of digital social capital – the resources embedded in social connections we make through digital technologies. Dr Feng Shihui of the Faculty of Education is at the forefront studying the phenomenon. “Because of digital technologies, our world is expanding significantly. We not only have chances to know people in our school, workplace or neighbourhood, we also have chances to make connections virtually. And those virtual connections could also have a significant impact on our development,” she said. Dr Feng’s key interest is in network effects on student development. She has been studying the theoretical and practical implications of this new form of social capital mediated via digital environments within the context of education. She points out that digital social capital is unique because it brings a global perspective at a critical time for young people. “They are in the process of getting an understanding of the world and while local support is very important, it’s also important for them to develop some digital connections with others who can show them more of the world,” she said. Digital social capital has the potential to impact students’ academic development, socio-emotional well-being and sociopolitical participation. However, whether or not digital social capital can benefit student development highly depends on their use of digital technologies. “It sounds simple – give the same digital technology tools to all students and the world will become equally open to all of them. But the question here is not only about accessibility, but also how they use technology to make social connections beyond their offline social circles, and access social resources in a global context, beyond pure entertainment,” she said. Indeed, a 2019 study she did found students who made greater use of Facebook or the internet for entertainment had a higher tendency to be distracted during academic tasks. Making students aware “Awareness is the first important step,” she said. “It is critical to raise the awareness of this new form of social capital among students, teachers, parents and other stakeholders in educational systems so they can effectively provide guidance and interventions to help students develop a healthy use of digital technologies. A collective effort among these stakeholders is needed to help students actively develop their digital social capital.” Dr Feng noted that the multifaceted nature of digital social capital is a challenge to researchers, but she is working with collaborators to further define and quantitatively measure it. These measurement methods are critical for improving understanding about the formation and influence of digital social capital. “Digital social capital provides an important theoretical lens for helping us understand the effect of digital technologies on student development. But how do we measure digital social capital? And how do stakeholders in educational systems help the digitally disadvantaged students develop their digital social capital? These are some important questions to be addressed while studying this topic,” she said. While digital social capital is still a developing concept, Dr Feng has also started exploring the interaction of offline and online social connections on student development. A recent study of students in Mainland China looked at how offline social connections CLICKING WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE affected their online and offline civic engagement, such as online voting, helping out at school and in the community, raising money for charity, buying products because of a company’s social values, and discussing public issues with others. Students’weak ties with teachers or peers exerted greater influence than their strong ties with close friends or family members, which was in line with the theory of weak ties and further confirmed that students’ social connections matter. It sounds simple – give the same digital technology tools to all students and the world will become equally open to all of them. But the question here is not only about accessibility, but also how they use technology tomake social connections beyond their offline social circles, and access social resources in a global context, beyond pure entertainment. DR FENG SHIHUI Everyone knows social connections can open doors. Dr Feng Shihui argues this could also apply to connections made virtually through digital technologies, without ever meeting face-to-face. Social connections in the research world Along with her study of social capital theory, Dr Feng is also interested in the mechanisms underlying the development of social connections – why are certain people connected and others not? A study she published last year found that in interdisciplinary research collaboration, researchers prefer to connect with others who have similar interdisciplinary research profiles. This contrasts with the typical assumption that researchers with different backgrounds collaborate in interdisciplinary research. ‘Homophily’– the concept that people prefer to make connections with others of similar characteristics – still prevails in this context. “In interdisciplinary research, researchers tend to have diverse experience in multiple disciplines. In this sense, interdisciplinarity is primarily manifested at the individual level, rather than the pair or group level as one might expect,” she said. “This shows that it is important to provide interdisciplinary training in universities.” 16 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 17 RESEARCH
this was why she failed to receive a year-end bonus and promotion. There is also a small group who comply because they genuinely believe they are inferior – usually those new to the group who feel they have much to learn. Unfortunately, these interactions seem here to stay. WeChat has more than one billion active users and people constantly set up groups to organise social events, such as work dinners or outings. “The workers understand that even if they change jobs, it won’t make much difference. The situation will be the same there,” she said. There was an upside, though, as some found it easier to express deference online with an emoji or a few words of text than to do so in person. However, WeChat may only be the beginning of workplace surveillance. Dr Tian is now looking at DingTalk, the most popular e-work app in China. It ‘dings’ reminders and will even phone users if they fail to respond to a message within an appropriate timeframe, can track an employee’s movements in real time, has a punch-clock app that requires workers to smile when they clock into work, and another function requiring workers to submit daily summaries of their work activities for others to read and comment on. Not surprisingly, Dr Tian said: “DingTalk has the reputation of being the most hated app in China.” to a message because this is about group solidarity. By showing loyalty to the group leader, you are showing loyalty to the group instead of just thinking of yourself,” she said. All this takes a toll on workers. Many of her respondents felt their private lives were being invaded because their supervisors did not respect work hours. She likened the interactions to an all-seeing panopticon. “There is no escape in time or space. Since messages are automatically recorded, you’re under constant and permanent observability,” she said. “This enforces workplace hierarchy because even the language used shows deference – the boss is addressed by their title and what they have said is acknowledged.” Going through the motions Dr Tian found that workers have developed strategies to cope with these pressures. The most popular is ‘cynical performance of compliance’, where workers do not believe they are inferior but go through the motions expected of them; some even use this to gain advantage in the workplace. A small number refuse to comply, although they tend to suffer consequences. One woman who refused to show deference to her supervisor believed It is Chinese New Year, you are enjoying a meal with family when suddenly your phone pings. Your boss has sent you a virtual red packet on WeChat. Do you tuck the phone in your pocket and turn your attention back to your family, or respond right away? Increasingly in Mainland China, the only safe answer is the latter. As Dr Tian Xiaoli of the Department of Sociology has discovered in a study of WeChat use among urban middle-class workers, these workers face immense pressure to engage with their supervisors on the app in their private time about matters unrelated to work – but still with a workplace purpose. “Most of the social interaction on WeChat is not about productivity but about maintaining the workplace hierarchy,” she said. Showing deference to bosses might seem unsurprising, but her research has found fundamental differences between online and face-to-face engagement that are adding to workers’ burden, starting with the lack of physical presence and boundaries. “Your supervisor can message you anytime, anywhere. I heard many stories about workers who felt compelled to reply immediately to messages from supervisors, even at night,” Dr Tian said. Failure to respond is ‘intolerable’ Digital media also means past interactions are recorded, so your boss can refer back to who said what, when they said it, and who neglected to respond. Some workers told Dr Tian they were pulled aside by their bosses because they did not respond to trivial messages and were told they needed to acknowledge all messages s/he sent. “Even small, trivial interactions are easily recorded and traceable and can be referred back to with accuracy. This is very hard to achieve face-to-face,” she said. A third unique feature of online interaction is that it is ‘n-adic’, which means it is impossible to know the number of participants in a chat because anyone can jump into a past interaction at any time and read the exchange, including a boss’s boss. This helps explain why bosses are so keen for their workers to respond to them – they want their own bosses to think they are in control of their team. “One manager summarised it well. He said it’s intolerable if someone does not reply There is no escape in time or space. Since messages are automatically recorded, you’re under constant and permanent observability. DR TIAN XIAOLI Social media is not only blurring the lines between home and work, but reinforcing workplace hierarchies, finds Dr Tian Xiaoli who has been researching social interactions online. SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE WORKPLACE Dr Tian Xiaoli looks into the use of DingTalk, one of China’s most widely used workplace apps, with 500 million users. 18 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 19 RESEARCH
SIMPLE MATERIALS, COMPLEX OUTCOMES The Faculty of Architecture’s new Building Simplexity Laboratory has been created based on the philosophy that simplicity in construction can still facilitate spatially complex systems, and in this age of post-digital architecture, simple algorithmic design procedures can lead to complex geometrical built forms. craftsmanship in Hong Kong, but usually for temporary structures such as Cantonese opera theatres and scaffolding. But, if treated for biotic attack and protected from rain and UV light, bamboo lasts and is suitable for permanent structures.” LEAD is about to embark on building a bamboo project in Anji, China where Dr Crolla will also be a judge in a bamboo competition that will see seven more student projects built. There are also engagements with Yangon, Myanmar, to push for the construction of bamboo community projects there. This summer, a course in creating complex bamboo structures enabled students to work using computational design tools employing digital physics-simulation engines. These tools allow users to simulate the bending or load-carrying behaviour of bamboo ahead of time so that designs can respond to it from the conceptual stage onwards. The team are looking into how AR technology can use headsets to instruct holographically on site. Holograms His HoloLab at HKU uses AR-driven holograms to make building non-standard shapes easy, for example with bamboo. In March, Dr Crolla chaired a conference with several workshops, including one on AR “This philosophy allows for interesting research in multiple areas including bamboo, engineered wood, Augmented Reality (AR), and many more,” said the Laboratory’s creator Dr Kristof Crolla, Associate Professor in the Departments of Architecture and Civil Engineering and head of the architecture practice Laboratory for Explorative Architecture and Design (LEAD), who has long been an advocate of bamboo as a versatile, and often underrated, construction material. “Bamboo is spectacular, unique, cheap, pliable and sustainable. Traditionally it is used in construction extensively in places it grows, but not in so-called developed countries,” he said. “There is a great tradition of bamboo for complex bamboo structures. “It enables direct communication between digital design models and on-site construction via holographic visual guides. Feedback systems between both allow for the production of designs in which materials can be used to a greater performance level.” It pains Dr Crolla that bamboo is not viewed in Hong Kong as a viable material for permanent structures. He also thinks there is a misconception over bamboo’s value, partly because there has been little evolution in the craft. “The craft of scaffolding is vanishing as few youngsters want to get involved in it,” he said. He has been working with local craftsmen since 2012 when his team co-designed the award-winning Golden Moon construction in Victoria Park, followed up by the ZCB Bamboo Pavilion in 2015. One of the most exciting parts for him has been communicating with the Cantonese craftsmen – they don’t speak each other’s language but digital tools have made it possible for them to create a workflow and drawing notation system that allows them to communicate the design intent on site practically and translate the digital model into a buildable structure. “Now we’re continuing to hack this design and deliver process further to encourage wider use of bamboo and evolve it for more uses,” said Dr Crolla. “We are also creating a digital design tool manual for the development of bending-active bamboo shell structures, covering design tools and techniques that link to practical on-site construction requirements.” The Building Simplexity Laboratory is now applying its philosophy to engineered wood too. “It’s cheap but elegant,” he said, “and digital technologies have provided new, practical opportunities for its use.” A recent project is YEZO, a cabin in Hokkaido, Japan, which has won multiple awards and attracted interest globally. Its gracefully curved glue-laminated rafters and roof make it environmentally low impact but the essence of the project centred on an evolutionary algorithm that allowed the production of many of these varying curved rafters from a single mould, thus reducing financial and labour costs. Another project involving engineered wood is being set up by Dr Crolla in collaboration with student Gary Fung Ka-chun. His thesis project, ‘Simple Assemblage’, offers a solution for renovating/ repurposing Hong Kong’s many abandoned buildings in rural areas. It comprises an innovative timber building system that provides economically and ecologically sustainable architectural solutions using the latest digitech to design and manufacture elegant and durable wooden structures with low-tech construction systems suitable for easy local assembly. “What is great about this is its flexibility and how the system is overhauling the usual ‘design-bid-build’ architecture construction format,” said Dr Crolla. “The project’s design uses low-carbon materials like cross-laminated timber and employs geometries at the design stage that will minimise material use during construction and energy consumption when the building is in operation. “Like bamboo, engineered wood is relatively affordable, hardwearing, sustainable and flexible. The government wants to find economical ways to renovate and repurpose abandoned buildings on Lantau, such as schools and community halls, and ‘Simple Assemblage’ offers a great potential solution.” Proposal for the conversion of an abandoned school in Yuen Long using the ‘Simple Assemblage’ procedure. (Courtesy of Gary Fung Ka-chun) Scale model of one of the complex bamboo structures from the summer workshops. There is a great tradition of bamboo craftsmanship in Hong Kong, but usually for temporary structures such as Cantonese opera theatres and scaffolding. But, if treated for biotic attack and protected from rain and UV light, bamboo lasts and is suitable for permanent structures. DR KRISTOF CROLLA LEAD’s award-winning YEZO cabin in Hokkaido, Japan is environmentally low impact and was developed using an evolutionary algorithm. (Courtesy of LEAD) Photo credit: Diana Jou 21 20 The University of Hong Kong Bulletin | November 2021 RESEARCH
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