Architecture

An innovative architectural design, the ‘Baishawan Beach and Visitor’s Center in Taipei, Taiwan’, set an example for sustainability in design and the integration of architecture and landscape. Designed by HKU’s Mr Wang Wei-jen, the centre provides quality public spaces that interact with the natural setting and can be achieved in a low-cost sustainable way. The project was featured in Taiwan Architecture 2010.

Arts

In Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62, Professor Frank Dikötter pieces together the full dimensions of China’s disastrous famine and the political decisions that led to it. Using archival material never before published outside China, he delves into the lives of ordinary people living with the radical collectivism of Mao’s Great Leap Forward. The book, published by Bloomsbury in London and Walker & Co in New York, has received media attention across the globe and won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.

Business and Economics

Developing core capabilities, such as technological capability, has long been viewed as vital for firms seeking to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. However, this paper, ‘Technological Capability, Strategic Flexibility and Product Innovation’, takes the unique approach of examining the potential dark side of technological capability, namely that it may actually stifle a firm’s innovative drive. Through their work, published in the Strategic Management Journal, authors Dr Kevin Zhou Zheng of HKU and Dr Wu Fang of the University of Texas at Austin sought to resolve the capability-rigidity paradox.

Dentistry

‘Proteomics of Drug Resistance in Candida Glabrata Biofilms’ is the first study to investigate the molecular mechanisms by which the common mouth fungus, Candida Glabrata, often causes fatal infections in people with weakened immune systems. Researchers from HKU’s Faculty of Dentistry and Nihon University in Japan show that biofilms are much more drug- and chemical-resistant than free-floating cells and identified a possible novel mechanism of antifungal resistance which could open new research directions. The paper was published in Proteomics.

Education

Dr David Carliss’s book, From Testing to Productive Student Learning: Implementing Formative Assessment in Confucian-Heritage Settings, scrutinises the relationship between assessment and student learning, with specific emphasis on the role of socio-cultural context in affecting the interplay between schooling and examinations. The book, published by Routledge, won recognition as an exceptional item of research by Professor Paul Black of King’s College London, the originator of the ‘Assessment for Learning’ research area.

Engineering

An international project to push the frontier towards achieving an ultraviolet vertical cavity surface-emitting laser resulted in a front cover feature in Applied Physics Letters. The project included scholars from the UK and Singapore as well as Dr Hui Kun-nam and Dr Choi Hoi-wai from HKU. The paper was titled ‘Optically Pumped Ultraviolet Lasing from Nitride Nanopillars at Room Temperature’.

Law

Employment Law and Practice in Hong Kong is the first stand-alone comprehensive work on employment law in Hong Kong, and a valuable resource for judges, practitioners, professionals and academics in the field. Authors Mr Rick Glofcheski and Ms Farzana Aslam cover such work-related issues as employment contracts, health and safety, privacy, discrimination, cross-border employment and trade unions.

Medicine

Intimate partner violence is a serious global public health problem with high morbidity and mortality. Research led by Professor Agnes Tiwari has informed upcoming World Health Organization guidelines on the health sector’s response to violence against women. ‘Effect of an Advocacy Intervention on Mental Health in Chinese Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Randomized Controlled Trial’ was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Science

Professor Zang Wenan of Mathematics worked with two former students, Dr Chen Xujin and Dr Chen Zhibin, to produce a paper that takes a novel look at box-Mengerian hypergraphs, which have been studied extensively in the field of operations research. Their paper, ‘A Unified Approach to Box-Mengerian Hypergraphs’, was published in Mathematics of Operations Research.

Social Sciences

An investigation into the new political identity in Macau provides an innovative perspective for analysing transitional politics and governance. The work by Dr Lam Wai-man shows the importance of cultural, social and economic identities in consolidating political legitimacy in a post-colonial system. ‘Promoting Hybridity: The Politics of the New Macau Identity’ was published in The China Quarterly.