HKU Bulletin May 2009 (Vol. 10 No. 2)

27 Honorary Degrees Architecture The first integrated comprehensive examination of China’s urban development in a dynamic market has changed the prevailing view of state intervention in space commodification in China. The research was publ ished in the book Urban Development in Post-reform China; State, Market, and Space by Professor Wu Fulong, Dr Xu Jiang and Professor Anthony Yeh Gar On, and has been praised by scholars in the field. Arts A biography of the Prussian top civil servant, Georg Michaelis, who became the sixth German Imperial Chancellor in 1917, offers a more balanced portrayal of this historic figure and his deeds, as well as a better understanding of his times. Georg Michaelis: Prussian Official, Imperial Chancellor, Christian Reformer 1857- 1936 (as translated from the German original) was written by Dr Bert Becker. Business and Economics ‘ “Having It All” No Longer: Fertility, Female Labor Supply and the New Life Choices of Generation X’ sums up the changes Dr James Vere found among younger women in the labour force. This paper is the first to show they are exhibiting less labour force attachment and having more children, which has implications for policy-makers. The paper was published in Demography . Dentistry Puerarin is a common health supplement in dishes in Asian meals and new research suggests it can also stimulate bone formation. The discovery by Dr Ricky Wong Wing Kit and Professor Abou Bakr Mahmoud Rabie opens up a new area of research in bone tissue engineering. ‘Effects of Puerarin on Bone Formation’ was published in OsteoArthritis and Cartilage . Education A pioneering study on ‘The Influence of the Language that Hong Kong Primary School Students Habitually Speak at Home on their Chinese Reading Ability in School’ has received international honours and is having an impact on literacy curriculum design and development in the region. The paper was written by a team led by Professor Tse Shek Kam and published in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development . Engineering Interdisciplinary work between engineers and scientists has resulted in a unique model to predict the spatial and temporal occurrence of red tides and algal blooms. ‘A Simple Model for Forecast of Coastal Algal Blooms’, by Dr Ken Wong Tse Man, Professor Joseph Lee Hun Wei and Professor John Hodgkiss, was one of the most downloaded articles in 2007 in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science . Law A comparison of the telecom-sector competition laws of Hong Kong and Singapore evaluates both regimes in the context of international practices and microeconomic concepts. The paper, ‘A Tale of Two Competition Law Regimes – The Telecom-Sector Competition Regulation in Hong Kong and Singapore’ earned a Young Writers’ Award nomination for Mr Thomas Cheng Kin Hon from the journal World Competition . Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine A new treatment approach for demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis, has been recognized by many international scientific organizations and had tremendous impact. ‘LINGO-1 Antagonist Promotes Spinal Cord Remyelination and Axonal Integrity in MOG-induced Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis’ was written by a team led by Mi Sha and published in Nature Medicine . Science Professor Vesselin Drensky and Professor Yu Jietai solved a long-standing open problem concerning free associative algebras and also produced algorithms that, together, will have a significant effect in the field for many years. ‘The Strong Anick Conjecture is True’ resolved this conjecture in combinatorial and computational algebra. The paper was published in the Journal of the European Mathematical Society . Social Sciences Five centuries of evidence was assembled to show how climate change affects human population dynamics, by changing regional food production which in turn leads to competition in the form of war. ‘Global Climate Change, War and Population Decline in Recent Human History’, written by a team led by Professor David Zhang Dian, has attracted global attention and was published in The National Academy of Sciences of the USA . Research Output Prize T he University has had the pleasure of holding two separate Honorary Degree Congregations this academic year. In December, Chancellor of the University, Dr the Honourable Donald Tsang Yam Kuen, conferred honorary degrees on such luminaries as former President of the United States, Bill Clinton (Doctor of Laws honoris causa ) and former Time magazine ‘Man of the Year’, Dr David Ho (Doctor of Science honoris causa ), at the 179th Congregation, in recognition of their shared commitment to humanitarian causes and global leadership in HIV/AIDS research and advocacy. Mr Clinton and Dr Ho spoke to over 800 guests at the University’s Loke Yew Hall. The Honourable William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States of America, and under his leadership, the country enjoyed the strongest economy in a generation and the longest economic expansion in US history, including the creation of more than 22 million jobs. Following his time in Office, he established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the mission of strengthening the capacity of people around the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. The Foundation includes Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, which is helping 1.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS access lifesaving drugs. Mr Clinton said: “We now have pots of money available, even in this economic downturn, that can be used to purchase most of the medicine for most of the poor people in the world. But with AIDS medicine, you can’t simply fly over a remote village and drop it out of a parachute, and pretend that everything will go right.” Dr David Ho is the Scientific Director and CEO of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, and Irene Diamond Professor and Physician at the Rockefeller University, New York. He has been at the forefront of AIDS research for three decades and is credited, worldwide, with fundamentally changing the way scientists look at the AIDS virus, initiating a crucial shift in the treatment paradigm to hitting the virus early and hard with a combination of antiretroviral drugs. Dr Ho said: “As our world is becoming smaller in the era of globalization, I strongly believe that we must adopt the best core values from each culture, East or West, North or South. The real decision in front of us is not to which nationality we belong, but how we can become better citizens of the world.” “We need people who are trained to provide basic healthcare including the testing, prevention and especially prevention of mother and child infection.” Bill Clinton, speaking on the challenge of combating the global AIDS epidemic. “Major advances in science have often been brought forth by individuals who are willing to challenge authority and conventional wisdom.” Dr David Ho, speaking at the 179th Congregation. 26 TEACHING AND RESEARCH