The Review 2009

30 The Review 2009 • Research Helping Poor Children Hear “It looks to be a promising option for treating children in developing countries” Dr Bradley McPherson with one of his young Hong Kong patients Some 61 million children in the world suffer moderate or greater hearing loss but the cost of treating this condition can be prohibitive, particularly in developing countries. Hearing aids can cost many hundreds of US dollars each, in addition to the expense of personnel to test hearing and fit the aids. As a result, many children in poorer areas go untreated and may suffer diminished language acquisition and educational attainment. Dr Bradley McPherson, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, has been working on this problem for more than 30 years in Africa and across Asia. He recently participated in a large-scale project in China to find a more affordable way to test children’s hearing and fit them with hearing aids. The project was organised by WWHearing (WorldWide Hearing Care for Developing Countries), a charity that works closely with the World Health Organisation and of which Dr McPherson is an Executive Committee member. Six hearing centres were set up on the Mainland, two run by audiologists in major cities (Nanning and Beijing) and the rest run by school teachers or administrators who had received special training in remote areas of Guangxi. A total of 216,000 children were screened and 206 of them were fitted with hearing aids, and an analysis of the cost effectiveness was published in BMC Health Services Research . The centres operated by teachers and administrators were found to be both effective and affordable: the total cost per child, including personnel, testing equipment and hearing aids, was US$209 in the rural centres, US$257 in Nanning and US$306 in Beijing. “We wanted to see how effective it would be to train teachers to do the fitting in a primary health care setting compared with professional audiologists, who are still very rare in China, and we found it was considerably cheaper. Although the cost is still greater than we would like it to be, it looks to be a promising option for treating children in developing countries,” Dr McPherson said. 31 The Review 2009 • Research Bright Lights, Green City Felix Wu explains the benefits of his ‘smart grid’ lab Growing evidence of global warming has intensified the race to find alternatives to fossil fuels and to make more efficient use of our energy. Two pioneering initiatives at HKU hope to contribute new solutions for cleaner energy. “We hope we can come up with something that will have a big impact and make Hong Kong more visible on the map” The new Institute of Molecular Functional Materials project, which received a $92 million Area of Excellence (AoE) grant in 2009, is approaching energy issues from a chemistry perspective. Scientists will seek to harness solar light energy to generate useful chemical reactions, such as reducing water to hydrogen gas. They will also create organic and polymer light-emitting diodes (OLEDs/ PLEDs) of various colours and try to create white light OLEDs and PLEDs that are more energy efficient than conventional lighting. Additionally, they will try to develop organic thin film transistors for use in electronics. Professor Vivian Yam, the Philip Wong Wilson Wong Professor in Chemistry and Energy, is leading the multi-institutional, eight-year project, which also involves scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, City University and Baptist University. “We’d like to contribute to the energy debate from a chemistry perspective and synthesise, design and create new molecular materials that would be relevant to OLEDs, organic solar cells and photocatalysts. “We hope we can come up with something that will have a big impact and make Hong Kong more visible on the map,” Professor Yam said. The University is also one of the first in the world to establish a ‘smart grid’ laboratory, which is exploring more efficient ways to deliver energy. The lab was established in 2008, just months before the US, China and other countries made smart grid a highlight of their stimulus bills. Professor Felix Wu, Philip K.H. Wong Wilson K.L. Wong Professor in Electrical Engineering, is leading the smart grid lab, which is focusing on the delivery of wind and solar energy. Currently a lot of renewable energy capacity is wasted because the electricity grid is unable to accommodate it. “We want to make sure we extract the most energy that we can and to do that, we use state-of-the-art information and communication technologies for better management of the grid,” Professor Wu said. The lab is measuring the performance of different kinds of wind generators and solar cells, as well as their control systems, under different conditions. It currently uses data from Europe but discussions are underway with CLP Power about a joint research project for collecting data from a micro grid of small wind and solar systems in Hong Kong. The information will be used to develop smart control systems that balance all the variables to manage electricity transmission more effectively.