IAS Newsletter, February 2017

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 IAS Newsletter 02.2017 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for advanced study

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Cover Story The Physicist with a Music Degree The New IAS Director Andrew Cohen Has an Intriguing History Before joining IAS, Prof Andrew Cohen has been Professor of Physics at Boston University. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of the Aspen Center for Physics since 2015. \\ I owe my parents a tremendous debt, allowing me to be reckless while finding my own way. \\

Prof Andrew Cohen, the new Director of lAS, Lam Woo Foundation Professor and Chair Professor of Physics at HKUST, is not your typical scientist. In fact, nobody, himself included, would have guessed he would one day become a physicist. His father received a college degree relying on the Gl Bill for returning World War II veterans, but having a real academic in the family was not something that his parents had ever considered. As a child, Cohen hated school and his parents let him drop out when he was just 13 years old.

He loved museums, though, and there was an abundance of them in his hometown of Washington DC. He could often be found roaming around the museums and learning on his own. But DC wasn't the ideal place for him. “Unlike the vibrant capitalcity of today, it was a bit of a sleepy area back then, especially the suburb I grew up in. In retrospect it was a great place to grow up, but at the time I desperately wanted to get away,” he said.

A 14-year-old Cohen thus left his childhood home and enrolled at the University of Delaware. A year and a half later he moved to California to join Stanford University. “In addition to pride, I guess my parents were mostly gripped by fear as I was on my own at such a young age,” he joked. “But I owe them a tremendous debt, allowing me to be reckless while finding my own way.”

Stanford was an eye opener to the young Cohen, who was amazed by the variety of new things to learn. While at Stanford he changed his major almost constantly, taking courses in everything from computers to psychology. He eventually settled on specializing in physics and music, earning degrees in both areas.

Other than music and physics, he was a lover of foreign literature. His first taste of Chinese literature was the Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢), a novel he read after being told that the book was one of the greatest masterpieces in the Chinese language. Yet he found the novel in translation underwhelming. To find out if the book was truly as good as people claimed, Cohen decided to study Chinese with the hope of reading the novel in its original language. “Even though my Chinese is quite limited, after a second read, I fell in love with it,” he recalled fondly.

In 1979, a delegation of prominent US scientists, including the soon-to-be Physics Nobelist Prof Arthur Schawlow, visited China. Cohen, just finishing his final year as an undergraduate, was working in Schawlow's laboratory. After returning from the trip and learning about Cohen's interest in Chinese, Schawlow told the young Cohen that he knew the President of the East China Normal University who might be able to arrange a trip to China for him. It was through this connection that Cohen was among the first group of Americans to visit China when the nation reopened its gates to the world in the late 1970s.​ An Unlikely Physicist

When his sojourn in China concluded, Cohen returned to the US where he was asked by Schawlow to enroll as a non-matriculated graduate student and work in his laboratory. On a whim, he applied to the Harvard graduate school, with little understanding of what research in physics was like. “I thought it would be the same as undergraduate studies in which professors lecture students in classrooms, and we spend our time mastering the profound accomplishments of the past. It was a complete novelty to me that graduate schools are about students making their own discoveries,” he said.

As a person of many interests, Cohen found physics particularly appealing: “It is a broad discipline that engages with the way the world works across a huge variety of phenomena. For example, quantum physics allows understanding of atomic and subatomic systems, where probability and statistics enter in a deep way; econophysics uses the area of physics known as statistical mechanics to solve economics problems; the renormalization group—a technique developed to understand how the behavior of systems on the large scale can arise from the interactions of its components on small scales—has been applied to machine learning in computer science.”

Driven by his newfound passion for research, Cohen went on to earn a PhD in Physics at Harvard University. There he spent one year as a postdoctoral fellow and then joined the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he relished the intellectual exchange with peers from across a wide variety of disciplines.

Cohen studies how nature operates at extremely short distances in a field known as high energy physics. It is so named because probes with very high energy are needed to explore the principles that govern the behavior of physical systems at short distances. Particles are first accelerated to high energies and subsequently allowed to interact or “collide”, and the products of these interactions are then examined. The large complexes used to accelerate the particles, collide them, and observe the outcome are called colliders. The highest energy collider currently in operation is the Large Hadron Collider located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

One piece of work that Cohen has a particular fondness for arose from another experiment at CERN. In 2011, scientists on the OPERA experiment reported on subatomic particles called neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light, in apparent violation of the principle of special relativity. Cohen was in Boston when he heard the news. “It was a bombshell. It would be one of the most important discoveries of the century if proven true,” he recalled. Nobel Laureate Arthur Schawlow, featured in this photo taken at his Stanford laboratory, saw the potential in the young Collen and encouraged him to pursue a graduate degree in Physics.

He was obsessed with the news and poked at the results as scientists do. Then a thought struck him: it was well-known that electrons traveling faster than light lose energy through a phenomenon known as Cerenkov radiation. Cohen knew that faster-than-light neutrinos do not produce Cerenkov radiation since neutrinos are not electrically charged. But he realized that such neutrinos would emit a peculiar relative of Cerenkov radiation, which has since become known as Cohen-Glashow radiation.

Over the next two days, he worked out the details to conclude that if the neutrinos were traveling as fast as reported by the OPERA experiment, these neutrinos would have lost all their energy to Cohen-Glashow radiation. Hence the observation of high energy neutrinos in the OPERA experiment was incompatible with faster-than-light travel. On the third day, he finished the paper with a collaborator, Sheldon Glashow, and the paper was published a few weeks later.

“It was the fastest paper I have ever written and one of my fondest memories in research so far,” he said. After a year of painstaking work by the OPERA scientists, a flaw was found in the original apparatus. Once the flaw was corrected, the neutrino speed was found to be compatible with the speed of light. Cohen's work still provides the best limit on the maximum speed of neutrinos. \\ Cohen's work still provides the best limit on the maximum speed of neutrinos. \\ Research and Education The Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, at the CERN lab in Geneva consists of a 27-km ring of superconducting magnets. Cohen has been working closely with scientists there to test predictions of different theories.

Basic research advances our fundamental knowledge about the world. It is not uncommon for people outside the scientific community, including politicians, businessmen, and other laypeople, to question the practicality of this kind of research. Cohen believes that research need not always be in the service of specific applications or technologies. Scientific research, like other creative activity, has intrinsic value in discovering how our world works and finding our place in the universe.

“That said, scientific discoveries have led to, and will continue to lead to, profound changes in our lives. But at the time the research is conducted, we often cannot tell how these developments may lead to important applications. If we limit ourselves to applied research, we would miss opportunities for potential applications in the future,” he added. Indeed, were it not for basic research in science and mathematics a century ago, little of today's technology would exist. It is unlikely that scientists of previous generations would have predicted the profound effect on our civilization that their work has had.

Cohen tries to imbue the spirit of discovery in everything he does. At Boston University, he has taught a course for undergraduates not specializing in the sciences. “All undergraduates are required to take a set of so-called general education courses, designed to introduce students to a variety of fields outside their own specialization. Such general education courses often function as surveys of subjects, and rarely introduce students to material that they might find useful in later life. For example, students are often expected to memorize Newton's Laws in a physics general education course. But being able to recite these laws is not particularly useful to these students.What is more important is to provide students with the tools to observe the world around them and extract meaning from what they see,” he said.

He often used movies to inspire students to make discoveries on their own: “Movies function like a shared laboratory. Each film has its own physical rules and tends to stick to those rules. By observing the movie we can try to determine these rules in a process of discovery that is very much like determining the laws of nature.” To Cohen, the hero of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is Yuen Woo-ping, the martial arts choreographer, who weaves together physics and character development. \\ If we limit ourselves to applied research, we would miss opportunities for potential applications in the future. \\

One of his favorite movies for the course was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍). He would ask students to observe the character movements, especially during fight scenes, and attempt to deduce when real rules of nature, such as the conservation of momentum, were being obeyed, and when they were being violated. For this particular movie, the students would learn that character arcs played a role in whether the rules of nature were being obeyed or not. The action scenes were often choreographed to illuminate the character of the protagonists, and students were able to quantitatively understand this through their own observation. Cohen's unorthodox approach to teaching has earned him awards and a reputation as an excellent lecturer. Coming to HKUST

Having called Boston his home for almost 30 years, Cohen's decision to move to Hong Kong was not made lightly. Impressed by his time at the Harvard Society of Fellows, he hopes to create an environment at HKUST where researchers can pursue their ideas unfettered by administrative constraints and surrounded by peers from other disciplines. lAS presents the perfect opportunity to pursue this passion of his.

Cohen has joined several programs and conferences hosted by IAS in the past, including the High Energy Physics program and the Gordon Research Conference​. He thinks very highly of HKUST: “It is an amazing institution and vastly more accomplished than a 25-year-old organization has any right to be. HKUST is comparable to other great universities and the institution and its faculty deserve more recognition.”

Institutions in the US and Europe are facing increasing challenges in financing and conducting scientific research. The strong drive at HKUST for doing high quality research and the support the University administration provides is clearly one reason the University has been so successful. “Hong Kong is not well known in the US and Europe as a research powerhouse, but it should be. And perhaps even the Hong Kong people themselves are not fully aware of the amazing activities that take place here. The conditions are great at HKUST and with the proper support we can build upon the successful center of research and higher learning that is already here,” he said. Prof Cohen enjoys bringing people together to engage in intellectual discussions and creative activities. © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Research Excellence Lego Blocks for Tomorrow’s Factories

IAS Visiting Fellow Frank Park on the Quest to Revolutionize Manufacturing The Fury of Nature: Coping with Landslides

By Dr Clarence Edward Choi, IAS Junior Fellow and Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering IAS Community It's Time to Party

December 2016 marked the last month of Prof Henry Tye's six years of service as lAS Director. To express our appreciation and gratitude to Henry ... IAS Professor Receives the 2017 IEEE Nishizawa Medal

lAS Bank of East Asia Professor Ching Tang was awarded the 2017 IEEE Nishizawa Medal together with ... IAS Senior Visiting Fellow Awarded HKUST Honorary Degree

At HKUST's 24th Congregation last November, Prof Kam-Biu Luk, lAS Senior Visiting Fellow, from the University of California at Berkeley was conferred an honorary degree ... Economy and Astronomy: IAS Faculty Address Hot Topics

As part of the celebratory events for HKUST's 25th anniversary, two lAS faculty members were invited to share with ... Say Hello to Our New IAS Junior and Postdoctoral Fellows

We welcomed a highly diverse group of new Junior and Postdoctoral Fellows at our annual orientation session in October 2016 ... The Power of 'Useless' Knowledge

Do you know that without Einstein's theory of general relativity, we would not have Pokémon Go today? ... IAS Scholars IAS Visiting Professor Arup Chakraborty Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Prof Chakraborty was born in India, and immigrated to the US in 1983 after an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur) ... IAS Senior Visiting Fellow Kingsley Haynes George Mason University

Prof Haynes received his PhD in Geography and Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. After serving on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin ... Intellectual Hub The Answers to Water Pollution

lAS Summit Hong Kong - Inventing Today Imagining Tomorrow for Water Pollution Control (Oct 20-22, 2016) Accelerating and Energizing Particle Physics

IAS Program on High Energy Physics (Jan 9-26, 2017) Probing into Molecular Systems

IAS Focused Program on Advanced Microscopy and Spectroscopy of Supramolecular and Macromolecular Systems on Surfaces (Dec 12-15, 2016) Tackling Real-World Issues with Inverse Problems

lAS Workshop on Inverse Problems, Imaging and Partial Differential Equations (Dec 5-9, 2016) Chinese Literature in a Global Age

lAS Program on Chinese Creative Writing (Oct-Nov 2016) Unlocking the Secrets of the Human Brain

16th Japan-China-Korea Joint Workshop on Neurobiology and Neuroinformatics (Dec 19-20, 2016) Editors Sherring Ng, Linus See Writer Towni Lao Contributing Staff Tsz Chun Chan, Betty Chau, Karol Cheung, Eric Lin, Nancy Pun, Prudence Wong © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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IAS Corner What Can IAS Do for You?

\\ We provide a platform for prominent scholars to inspire new thinking and share the latest fruits of their research with HKUST and the wider community through IAS Distinguished Lectures or Joint School Lectures / Seminars.

\\ We host IAS Visitor Programs to attract internationally renowned scholars to IAS for extended visits and collaboration with HKUST faculty to drive cutting-edge discovery and advance academic excellence.

\\ We propel the development of research activities and initiatives at HKUST and seek solutions to the most challenging problems in high-impact areas in the form of IAS Programs, international conferences, symposiums or workshops.

We encourage you to submit proposals of the various formats above mentioned. Please visit our website for details: ias.ust.hk/proposal

You may also contact our Director, Prof Andrew Cohen, and Executive Director, Prof Che Ting Chan, to discuss further (E: ias@ust.hk | T: 2358-5968). © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Join Our Events What’s Next at IAS?

View our events in the coming months. IAS Distinguished Lectures

Usually lasting for 1-2 hours, these lectures focus on topics of wider interests for a general audience. Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Interfaces in Crystalline Materials (Feb 16)

Speaker: David Srolovitz University of Maryland; IAS Visiting Professor Predators-prey Model with Competition, the Emergence of Packs and Territoriality (Feb 16)

Speaker: Henri Berestycki PSL Research University Recent Advances in Geohazard Mitigation in China (Mar 10)

Speaker: Zuyu Chen China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Droplet Microfluidics for Single Cell Studies (Mar 20)

Speaker: David Weitz Harvard University Nanocarbons for Electrochemical Energy Storage (Apr 13)

Speaker: Hui-Ming Cheng Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences Joint School Lectures

In collaboration with various Schools, these events cover a specific topic that is of interest to those from a particular discipline. 10M-Core Scalable Fully-Implicit Solver for Nonhydrostatic Atmospheric Dynamics (Feb 17)

Speaker: Chao Yang Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences Business Model Innovation and Digital Disruption (Apr 5)

Speaker: Serguei Netessine INSEAD Full Genome Analysis: Technology and Application for Rare Disease Diagnosis (May 19)

Speaker: Pui-Yan Kwok University of California at San Francisco IAS Programs

These advanced activities feature in-depth discussions on specific research topics in such formats as seminars, workshops and student-led discussions, often spanning multiple days. IAS Quantitative Finance and Fintech Seminar on TENAR - Tail Event Driven Network AutoRegression of SIFIs (Mar 3)

Speaker: Wolfgang Härdle Humboldt University of Berlin IAS Focused Program on DNA Nanotechnology and Smart Sensors (Mar 19-23)

Organizers: I-Ming Hsing HKUST Sumita Pennathur University of California at Santa Barbara Kevin Plaxco University of California at Santa Barbara Shuhuai Yao HKUST Applied Environmental Nanotechnology Workshop (Jun 1-2)

Organizers: John D Fortner Washington University in St. Louis Daniel E Giammar Washington University in St. Louis Irene Lo HKUST Gordon Research Conferences (GRC)

As one of the world's premier conferences, GRC gathers prominent scientists in biological, chemical and physical science disciplines at IAS for a weeklong conference, which provides an interactive platform for hundreds of researchers, scholars and postgraduate students to exchange new research ideas and broaden their network in the global academic community.

Chairs & Vice-Chairs:

Topological & Correlated Matter (Jun 18 - 23)

Yong-Baek Kim – University of Toronto Yayu Wang – Tsinghua University Vic Law – HKUST Ali Yazdani – Princeton University

*Particle Physics (Jun 24 - 30)

Hitoshi Murayama – University of California at Berkeley / Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe / University of Tokyo Tao Liu – HKUST Andrew Cohen – HKUST

Genome Architecture in Cell Fate & Disease (Jul 2 - 7)

Wange Lu – University of Southern California David M Gilbert – Florida State University Yijun Ruan Jackson – Laboratory for Genomic Medicine

Neurobiology of Drug Addiction (Jul 16 - 21)

Eric J Nestler – Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinal Yan Dong – University of Pittsburgh Yavin Shaham – National Institute on Drug Abuse, Intramural Research Program, National Institutes of Health Marina E Wolf – Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

*Marine Molecular Ecology (Jul 22 - 28)

Stanley Lau – HKUST Curtis Suttle – University of British Columbia; IAS Senior Visiting Fellow Madeleine van Oppen – Australian Institute of Marine Science / The University of Melbourne Qinglu Zeng – HKUST

Nano-Mechanical Interfaces (Jul 30 – Aug 4)

Julia R Greer – California Institute of Technology Yuan Lin – The University of Hong Kong Gang Li – Clemson University Wenjing Ye – HKUST

*Neutron Scattering (Aug 5 - 11)

Bruce D Gaulin – McMaster University Masatoshi Arai – European Spallation Source

*Posttranslational Modification Networks (Aug 12 - 18)

Heribert Hirt – King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Lan Huang – University of California at Irvine Steven P Briggs – University of California at San Diego Yingming Zhao – The University of Chicago

*These four conferences start with a Gordon Research Seminar on the first day. For more details: ias.ust.hk/grc

The above activities were last updated on Feb 15, 2017 and are subject to change. For the latest list of events, please visit ias.ust.hk/events © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Research Excellence Lego Blocks for Tomorrow’s Factories​ IAS Visiting Fellow Frank Park on the Quest to Revolutionize Manufacturing

As some may be old enough to remember, Hong Kong in the 1970s was a thriving manufacturing hub, assembling everything from toys and textiles to consumer electronics. These and many other products are now manufactured in neighboring Shenzhen and Dongguan. Today, the Pearl River Delta region is indisputably the center of the world’s computer, communications, and consumer electronics (3C) industry. Few would welcome the return of such jobs to Hong Kong, however, as they are usually low-paid and menial, and sometimes even dangerous. Surprisingly, the process of assembling 3C products has changed very little since these jobs migrated north, with workers still responsible for the bulk of the assembly work. Challenges on 3C Assembly Automation

Why have machines not displaced workers in 3C factories as they have in automobile factories? The answer, according to Prof Frank Park, IAS Visiting Fellow and Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Seoul National University, is that 3C assembly is deceptively difficult. “Today’s industrial robots are very good at welding, painting, and picking up objects and moving them from one place to another,” explained Park. “But machines are still no match for humans in assembling small flexible parts with varying shapes in tight spaces, threading, winding, and connecting wires and cables, visually distinguishing dust from a scratch, or detecting the subtle differences in the sound of a defective motor—all tasks that take humans just a few seconds to complete.”

Yet robotics is making steady progress. Robots can now grasp objects of varying shapes with some competence and assemble simple parts, at least in structured settings. Park and his HKUST Robotics Institute colleagues, Prof Michael Wang and Prof Zexiang Li, study the fundamental theoretical foundations of assembly processes as well as their realization in hardware and software.

“The notion that all assembly tasks can be reduced to a core set of primitive motions arranged in the right sequence, and that a similar core set of hardware devices can physically carry out these assembly sequences when paired with the right algorithms, has been around for at least 25 years,” said Park. “What has advanced considerably is our understanding of the mechanics and control of manipulation. With recent breakthroughs in mechatronics, materials, and computing, the implementation of these ideas is now very close to becoming reliable and cost-effective enough for industry use.” A Solution to Automation

Two extremes have emerged in the current landscape of assembly automation. At one end lies sophisticated, flexible, all-purpose robots, which are expensive and difficult to program. At the other end lies highly specialized and efficient assembly machines that are mini-factories in themselves; these are expensive, arduous to design, and difficult to reconfigure for new and redesigned products.

Park and his colleagues have proposed a solution located between these two extremes: the use of simpler, less sophisticated robots driven by only one or two motors, augmented by soft smart grippers, modular fixtures, and customizable parts feeders, and paired with sophisticated software that allows these heterogeneous devices to be easily interconnected and controlled. He describes such robots as “Lego blocks” in the construction of assembly-automation systems, driven by an operating system and coordinated by higher-level application programs. The process is similar to putting together mobile-telephone hardware run by an Android or iOS operating system and coordinated by mobile applications.

However, many challenges must be met before these ideas can be realized in practice. How should hardware and algorithms be designed to enable flexible parts assembly? What can we do to make programming easier? How can we deploy minimalist assembly systems to ensure that they operate safely alongside human workers? Finding cost-effective solutions to these problems will require considerable effort. Some progress has already been made, however, Park and his Robotics Institute team recently developed an automated electrical motor inspection system based on deep learning, and are currently building soft grippers capable of manipulating flexible parts. Park has been devoted to the study of robotics for over 20 years. His team has developed several mobile manipulation systems and simulations on robot design. Hong Kong: A Global Hub for Robotics Research

If such automated-assembly technology can be successfully developed, the payoffs for Hong Kong and the region will be immeasurable. The struggles faced by today’s 3C companies due to rising wages and a shortage of workers are well known, and this confluence of economic and demographic factors has made manufacturing automation more important than ever. Park noted that “with the emergence of global companies like DJI, an industry leader in civilian drones founded by an HKUST alumnus, Hong Kong’s strong tradition in robotics research has begun to be recognized.”

Given this tradition and Hong Kong’s proximity to the “world’s factory” in Shenzhen and Dongguan, the city is ideally positioned to become a global innovation center for manufacturing automation. The manufacturing centers of the future will be small, locally distributed, fully automated, and interconnected, in stark contrast with the large factories employing hundreds of thousands of workers that we see today. “It is no secret that the best research is usually driven by local needs,” said Park. “It is only fitting that HKUST and the robotics research community in Hong Kong take the lead in these efforts and swing for the fences with high-risk, high-payoff projects that have the potential to transform society.

Machines have already displaced humans in some heavy industries such as automotive industry. However, humans are still better at manufacturing 3C products. \\ Park and his Robotics Institute team recently developed an automated electrical motor inspection system. \\

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IAS Community The Power of 'Useless' Knowledge

Do you know that without Einstein's theory of general relativity, we would not have Pokémon Go today? In his talk on Pokémon Go and Physics at the lnnoTech Expo 2016 held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, lAS Executive Director Che Ting Chan used the wildly popular mobile game to illustrate how curiosity-driven discoveries that were once viewed as useless or purely academic have become essential in our lives today.

Pokémon Go's augmented reality is made possible by GPS, which determines your relative location by comparing the time at your location to that at other locations. To make GPS work, we need to know very accurately how long a signal takes to travel from the satellite to your mobile phone. Yet according to the theory of general relativity, time is slowed down by gravity, meaning that the clocks of the satellites run more quickly than your watch on the earth's surface. Thanks to Einstein's theory of relativity, engineers who design GPS can make the necessary adjustments to correct the differences in clock speed at various locations This way, the clocks on earth and in the satellites are synchronized and Pokémon Go can successfully pinpoint your location to within one meter.

Similarly essential today is quantum physics, a bizarre science that to the uninitiated seemingly has little application. At a forum co-organized by lAS for the lnnoTech Expo, Prof Jian-Wei Pan from the University of Science and Technology of China and Prof Vic Law of Physics at HKUST discussed the application of photons-quanta of light-in communications. Due to the quantum nature of photons, any tinkering with them is detectable, making it impossible for eavesdropping to go unnoticed. With the right technology, quantum mechanics can communications for military, commercial purposes.

Prof Jian-Wei Pan (2nd from left) and Prof Vic Law (3rd from left) shared tile latest breakthroughs in quantum communications during the panel session. Prof Che Ting Chan (left) used Pokémon Go (right) to show how physics plays a role in our everyday life. © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Research Excellence 133 homes were destroyed in the 2014 Hiroshima landslide. The Fury of Nature: Coping with Landslides

By Dr Clarence Edward Choi, IAS Junior Fellow and Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

As human development encroaches upon hillsides in densely populated cities and extreme rainfall events occur with increasing frequency due to climate change, the danger posed by landslides will inevitably increase. The real global threat posed by landslides is reflected in the landslide disasters that occurred in Oso, Washington in the United States in 2014, which resulted in 43 deaths and the destruction of 29 homes, and in Hiroshima, Japan, where there were 74 fatalities and 133 homes demolished.

To mitigate this hazardous phenomenon, scientists and engineers must evolve with available smart technology and innovate easy-to-construct and sustainable structural countermeasures to better understand and control landslides.

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of HKUST, under the leadership of Prof Hong K Lo, has recently been awarded a research grant from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute to develop a smart Landslide Information System (LIS). More importantly, Prof Charles W W Ng of the department recently obtained a landmark grant of HK$33.25M from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong for a Theme-based Research Scheme project named “Understanding Debris Flow Mechanisms and Mitigating Risks for Sustainable Hong Kong”. Choi focuses on investigating the interaction between landslides and structural countermeasures. Smart Technology and Structural Countermeasures

Prof Y H Wang of the geotechnical group is the pioneer of using machine learning to interpret data and developing sensors to study landslide initiation in the geotechnical group. The LIS, building on his strong foundation, will leverage the use of mobile smartphone technology, including crowdsourcing and GPS technology, to expand the scale and responsiveness of landslide management. It will serve as a decision-making tool for engineers using susceptibility modeling to predict landslide danger under different rainfall scenarios and enable interactive numerical simulations to delineate the extent of a landslide. Schematic of the 20-m flume model under construction at the Kadoorie Centre in Hong Kong.

The LIS can be further expanded to couple with smart instrumentation on hillsides and barriers, providing real-time landslide data to notify the public and emergency responders of obstructed transportation lines, identifying high-danger areas, facilitating the reporting of landslide incidents, and enhancing the preexisting quality of landslide incident reporting by the public.

By better understanding the complex interaction between landslides and structural countermeasures, engineers can also adopt sustainable, smart, and optimized solutions to protect human lives and infrastructure around the world. The geotechnical group led by Prof Charles W W Ng and Prof Limin Zhang of the department specializes in the physical modeling, specifically flume and centrifuge modeling, of the complex interaction between landslides and structural countermeasures, including an array of baffles, rigid and flexible barriers, slit-dams, and deflectors.

The group is working on the Theme-based Research Scheme project which focuses on the development of world-class facilities to model landslide interaction with barriers at realistic scales, including (i) a new pendulum impact facility in Shenzhen, China; (ii) a new 20-m-long flume model at the Kadoorie Centre, Hong Kong; and (iii) a full-scale 120-m-long flume model in Kunming, China. Prof Jidong Zhao and Prof Gang Wang of the department have also been instrumental in enhancing the current understanding of debris flow through their expertise in numerical modeling and soil dynamics respectively.

The 120-m flume is also a collaborative research project between the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and HKUST. It will have a channel width of 10 m to facilitate the installation of prototype barriers and can simulate up to 500 m3 of landslide. These pioneering facilities will be of paramount importance in revealing the fundamental interaction mechanisms between landslides and barriers. Sustainable Offshore Development

In addition to subaerial landslides (onshore), it is foreseeable that engineers will need to switch gears and place a greater emphasis on submarine (offshore) landslides. As we aggressively expand offshore in search of natural resources, it is expected that the rate of submarine construction adjacent to steep submarine slopes will surge, and offshore structures in these areas will be susceptible to submarine landslides.

Recent local offshore expansion includes an approved wind farm just 9 km east of the Clear Water Bay peninsula and the submarine Pacific Light Cable linking Los Angeles and Hong Kong (announced in 2016). In light of such development, significant research will be required to obtain fundamental scientific knowledge to deal with the threat that submarine landslides pose to offshore structures to provide scientific design recommendations that can prevent costly economic losses from potential damage.

The department is currently developing a new large-scale submarine landslide model to study the impact mechanisms of landslides on oil and gas platforms and pipelines. This offshore landslide research will in turn enhance the application of resilient offshore structures that are capable of withstanding landslide impact while promoting sustainable development.

Looking Ahead

The current fundamental research is timely because there is a genuine and pressing need for research on the interaction between landslides and structures, whether in subaerial or subaqueous environments. The success of this research will enable scientific recommendations that can guide practitioners to formulate robust landslide preventative measures and to encourage the use of smart and sustainable landslide solutions. This research will benefit densely populated mountainous areas such as Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan, and offshore developments around the globe.

\\ The success of this research will enable scientific recommendations that can guide practitioners to formulate robust landslide preventative measures… \\

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IAS Community It's Time to Party

December 2016 marked the last month of Prof Henry Tye's six years of service as lAS Director. To express our appreciation and gratitude to Henry, we organized an appreciation party in his honor in conjunction with the winter party at lAS last December.

The party was attended by over 130 guests from the University. The guests toasted Henry and listened attentively when Prof Tony F Chan, our President, Prof Wei Shyy, Executive Vice President and Provost, and Prof Che Ting Chan, lAS Executive Director, praised Henry as an amiable scientist and a caring and supportive leader who has strengthened the foundation for the continued development of lAS as a top intellectual center.

Although Henry has stepped down from his role as Director, he remains with us as our lAS Professor and keeps working on his research to unlock the secrets of the universe.

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IAS Community IAS Professor Receives the 2017 IEEE Nishizawa Medal

lAS Bank of East Asia Professor Ching Tang was awarded the 2017 IEEE Nishizawa Medal together with two other professors from the University of Michigan and from the University of Southern California for their pioneering work on organic light-emitting diode (OLEO) displays, which offer a superior viewing experience because of their exceptional crispness and visual quality.

The IEEE Nishizawa Medal was established in 2002 in honor of Prof Jun-ichi Nishizawa, the Father of Japanese Microelectronics, and is presented to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to material and device science and technology, including practical applications.

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IAS Community IAS Senior Visiting Fellow Awarded HKUST Honorary Degree

At HKUST's 24th Congregation last November, Prof Kam-Biu Luk, lAS Senior Visiting Fellow, from the University of California at Berkeley was conferred an honorary degree (Doctor of Science honoris causa) in recognition of his outstanding achievements.

In 2002, Luk conceived an experiment to explore neutrino oscillation that led to the first impactful mega Sino-American scientific research collaboration based in China—a project involving over 200 scientists from more than 35 institutions in six countries and regions, including Hong Kong. He has since received the 2014 W K H Panofsky Prize from the American Physical Society and the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the far-reaching attainments of this work.

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IAS Community Economy and Astronomy: IAS Faculty Address Hot Topics

As part of the celebratory events for HKUST's 25th anniversary, two lAS faculty members were invited to share with the regional community the latest research knowledge in fields that concerns the world today.

At the 25A global celebration in Beijing, Prof Sir Christopher Pissarides talked about Chinese Economic Development in a Global Context, suggesting what to expect in the coming years in the face of a volatile global economy. At the 25A Distinguished Speakers Series on HKUST campus, Prof George Smoot engaged the audience with the fascinating discovery of gravitational waves—a century-old prediction first proposed by the legendary Einstein—and how this revelation could lead to new views of black holes and astronomy.

Prof Sir Christopher Pissarides 2010 Nobel Laureatein Economic Sciences lAS Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Prolessor-at-Large, HKUST Prof George Smoot 2006 Nobel Laureatein Physics lAS Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Professor-at-Large, HKUST © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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IAS Community Say Hello to Our New IAS Junior and Postdoctoral Fellows

We welcomed a highly diverse group of new Junior and Postdoctoral Fellows at our annual orientation session in October 2016. Attended by around 30 promising young scholars in a variety of academic fields from countries such as France, Iran, Korea, and Sweden, the orientation facilitated fruitful interactions among the participants and enhanced their understanding of the Institute. Each of the new fellows will work closely with one or more faculty members and contribute to HKUST's research efforts.

Dr Raymond Louie, lAS Junior Fellow, and Dr Jan Hajer and Dr Jonathan Regier, lAS Postdoctoral Fellows, shared their own lAS journeys and useful tips with the newcomers, including how to make successful grant applications and how to strategically expand their networks. Apart from the engaging stories and insider knowledge, the most valuable takeaway for the new fellows that day was definitely their blooming friendships with one another as new members of the lAS family.

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IAS Community The Power of 'Useless' Knowledge

Do you know that without Einstein's theory of general relativity, we would not have Pokémon Go today? In his talk on Pokémon Go and Physics at the lnnoTech Expo 2016 held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, lAS Executive Director Che Ting Chan used the wildly popular mobile game to illustrate how curiosity-driven discoveries that were once viewed as useless or purely academic have become essential in our lives today.

Pokémon Go's augmented reality is made possible by GPS, which determines your relative location by comparing the time at your location to that at other locations. To make GPS work, we need to know very accurately how long a signal takes to travel from the satellite to your mobile phone. Yet according to the theory of general relativity, time is slowed down by gravity, meaning that the clocks of the satellites run more quickly than your watch on the earth's surface. Thanks to Einstein's theory of relativity, engineers who design GPS can make the necessary adjustments to correct the differences in clock speed at various locations This way, the clocks on earth and in the satellites are synchronized and Pokémon Go can successfully pinpoint your location to within one meter.

Similarly essential today is quantum physics, a bizarre science that to the uninitiated seemingly has little application. At a forum co-organized by lAS for the lnnoTech Expo, Prof Jian-Wei Pan from the University of Science and Technology of China and Prof Vic Law of Physics at HKUST discussed the application of photons-quanta of light-in communications. Due to the quantum nature of photons, any tinkering with them is detectable, making it impossible for eavesdropping to go unnoticed. With the right technology, quantum mechanics can communications for military, commercial purposes.

Prof Jian-Wei Pan (2nd from left) and Prof Vic Law (3rd from left) shared tile latest breakthroughs in quantum communications during the panel session. Prof Che Ting Chan (left) used Pokémon Go (right) to show how physics plays a role in our everyday life. © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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IAS Scholars IAS Visiting Professor Arup Chakraborty Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Prof Arup Chakraborty was born in India, and immigrated to the US in 1983 after his undergraduate study at the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur). In December 1988, after earning a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, he became a member of the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley. In 2005 he moved to MIT, where he is currently the Robert T Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry.

Chakraborty is the founding Director of MIT's Institute of Medical Engineering and Science, and he is a founding member of the Ragon Institute of MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard. He was elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Engineering for different bodies of work, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also serves on the US Defense Science Board. \\ The necessary conditions for scientific discovery and innovation are curiosity, persistence, insistence on excellence and rigor, and the willingness to think in unconventional ways. \\ Research Focus

For over seventeen years, the central theme of Chakraborty's research has been the development and application of theoretical and computational approaches, rooted in physics and engineering, to study how the immune system functions. His interests span T cell signaling, T cell development and repertoire, and a mechanistic understanding of HIV evolution and vaccine design.

Collaboration with HKUST

Chakraborty has teamed up with Prof I-Ming Hsing and Prof Matthew McKay of Biomedical Engineering and lAS Junior Fellow Raymond Louie to analyze DNA and RNA sequences for different viruses,such as influenza, hepatitis C and HIV so that more effective drug and vaccines can be designed. While visiting HKUST last December, he also delivered an IAS Distinguished Lecture on the Rational Design of Vaccines against Mutable Pathogens: HIV as a Case Study at the HKUST Faculty Forum on Computational Health Sciences.

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IAS Scholars IAS Senior Visiting Fellow Kingsley Haynes George Mason University

Prof Kingsley Haynes received his PhD in Geography and Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. After serving on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, and Boston University, he joined George Mason University in 1990 as the Dean of the Graduate School and the Founding Dean of the School of Public Policy which he led until 2010. He is currently the Ruth D Hazel and John T Hazel, MD Faculty Chair in Public Policy, the Eminent Scholar, and the Professor of Public Policy, Decision Sciences, Geography and Public Affairs there.

Haynes has been involved in regional economic development policy and natural resource management since the early 1970s. In the US, He has worked with various departments of the state governments and the federal government on regional projects such as in Montana's Yellowstone Basin, the Lake Michigan and Ohio River regions and the Texas Gulf Coast.

Internationally, he directed programs for the Ford Foundation's Office of Resources and Environment on the Nile River-Lake Nasser regions of Egypt and the Sudan. Besides, he was an originating member of the Decision, Risk and Management Sciences Panel of the US National Science Foundation and served as a member of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Social, Economic and Political Sciences Section. \\ It is essential to distinguish between project management and experimentation. Project management requires focus to drive it to success but experimentation which is essential to innovation requires us to recognize the difference between success and failure so we can bury the latter and move on. \\ Research Focus

Haynes' academic interests include transportation and telecommunication infrastructure investment, regional economic development, resources and environmental management policy, and analytic modeling for decision support. He has directed numerous research grants and contracts, co-authored or edited 10 books and over 400 articles and professional reports.

Collaboration with HKUST

With his experience in building the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, Haynes will advise on the key aspects of institutional building for the HKUST Institute for Public Policy (IPP). Also, by sharing his expertise in conducting interdisciplinary research and connections to other prominent researchers, Haynes will contribute to the three key research clusters of IPP: environmental policy and sustainability, China development policy, and science, technology and innovation policy. During his last visit to HKUST in December 2016, he also delivered an lAS Distinguished Lecture on Spatial Impact of Transportation Infrastructure: A Spatial Econometric CGE Approach and an LAPP Distinguished Lecture on High Speed Rail Investments in China and Opportunities for Innovation.

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Intellectual Hub The Answers to Water Pollution

Water pollution poses serious ecological threats that endanger aquatic life and put human health at risk. In China's northeastern region alone, over 80% of rural underground water is deemed undrinkable based on a 2016 government report by the China Ministry of Water Resources. It will take a communal effort by the public, private, and academic sectors to ensure the safety of the earth's most precious resource over the coming decades.

The lAS Summit Hong Kong - Inventing Today Imagining Tomorrow for Water Pollution Control, led by Prof Guanghao Chen of Civil and Environmental Engineering, brought together over 150 water professionals, academics, regulators, policymakers, and students to discuss the latest trends in water sustainability and explore the best way for multiple sectors to work together to combat water pollution.

Seventeen water experts from institutions in Australia, China, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, and the US were invited to share their experiences and breakthroughs in the development of future systems and technologies for water pollution control. A diverse range of important topics were covered, including the concept of sponge cities to address floods, the use of nanotechnology in water treatment, and the development of urban water-use systems adapted for climate change.

lAS Summit Hong Kong - Inventing Today Imagining Tomorrow for Water Pollution Control (Oct 20-22, 2016) © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Intellectual Hub Accelerating and Energizing Particle Physics

The study of High Energy Physics, also known as particle physics, is motivated by our curiosity for the organizing principles of the universe, and has brought tremendous influences to our society. The technology of particle accelerators and detectors used in high energy physics has given rise to the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner and particle therapy now adopted in medical diagnosis and cancer treatment.

Coordinating again with the Center for Future High Energy Physics and the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, IAS ran a three-week program to address issues on the physics, detectors and colliders with an emphasis on the future of this field after the discovery of the Higgs Boson. This year, the program attracted dozens of both returning experts and new faces from institutions in Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan and the US. Upon completion of over 100 talks, and a forum session in the 4-day conference, participants were invited to contribute white papers to the particle physics community documenting the research goals, options of future colliders, and reach of the related experiments. Papers submitted in 2017 are expected to be published by World Scientific in dedicated issues of the International Journal of Modern Physics A.

IAS Program on High Energy Physics (Jan 9-26, 2017) \\ Great conversations and collaborations among theorists and experimentalists. \\ - A physicist, program participant © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Intellectual Hub Probing into Molecular Systems

2016 marked a milestone in the application of molecular interactions, with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to three chemists for their groundbreaking work on molecular machines a thousand times thinner than a strand of hair. The development of these machines was inspired by molecular self-assembly, which is fundamental to the synthesis of supramolecular and macromolecular systems that can produce new organic materials for biomedical and technological use.

In recent years, advanced scanning probes and surface-spectroscopy techniques have revealed the assembly and reaction mechanisms of these molecular systems. A 4-day IAS focused program chaired by Prof Nian Lin of Physics and held in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich and Soochow University had gathered the world’s foremost experts for interdisciplinary discussion and the formation of research partnerships in this active field. \\ ...one of the best international workshops... The talks were one of the highest quality in the field and enabled us to foresee research directions. \\ - A full professor, program participant

IAS Focused Program on Advanced Microscopy and Spectroscopy of Supramolecular and Macromolecular Systems on Surfaces (Dec 12-15, 2016) © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Intellectual Hub Tackling Real-World Issues with Inverse Problems

Inverse problems offer an important mathematical framework for cases in which the causes of a desired or observed effect have yet to be determined. With the leap in computing power and development of powerful algorithms in recent decades, mathematicians have begun to apply such techniques to solve real-world problems of increasing complexity, such as locating oil and mineral deposits in the earth's substructure, uncovering cracks in materials, and modeling in the life sciences.

In 2015, lAS Si Yuan Professor Gunther Uhlmann led a workshop entitled Inverse Problems, Imaging and Partial Differential Equations, which received very positive feedback. Last December, he organized another workshop with Prof Tony F Chan, Prof Shing Yu Leung, Prof Yang Wang and Prof Hai Zhang of HKUST and Prof Gang Bao of Zhejiang University. The 5-day event of the same topic gathered renowned mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists across the world, such as lAS Visiting Professors Mathias Fink and Stanley Osher, to share their latest findings and explore research collaboration on pioneering topics in these fields.

lAS Workshop on Inverse Problems, Imaging and Partial Differential Equations (Dec 5-9,2016) © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Intellectual Hub Chinese Literature in a Global Age

Since 2013, lAS has run the lAS Program on Chinese Creative Writing in collaboration with the School of Humanities and Social Science and the Division of Humanities. Spearheaded by the world-renowned literary critic and writer, lAS Senior Visiting Fellow Prof Liu Zaifu, the program is designed to drive discussion on the characteristics and prospects of Chinese writing in a global age. In fall 2016, distinguished Chinese writers and scholars including Mr Shaogong Han, Mr Yiwei Xue, and lAS Visiting Professor Bright Sheng were invited to HKUST to discuss changes in Chinese literature, the writers' vision and the Dream of the Red Chamber.

The program comprised a series of presentations and discussion sessions in which the audience and acclaimed scholars exchanged their ideas and explored the beauty of contemporary Chinese literature. The participation of faculty and students from science and technology backgrounds also gave rise to a diverse mix of perspectives that served as a breeding ground for innovation. As Steve Jobs once said, 'Technology alone is not enough—it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.'

lAS Program on Chinese Creative Writing (Oct-Nov 2016) © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC

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Intellectual Hub Unlocking the Secrets of the Human Brain

The human brain, which contains more neurons than there are stars in the Milky Way, is one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. The ways in which it commands our nervous system to transmit, integrate, extract, and store a huge volume of information each day have fascinated scientists for centuries, giving rise to the multidisciplinary science of Neurobiology. Meanwhile, the area of Neuroinformatics is gaining worldwide attention as scientists constructed neural-inspired artificial intelligence systems with unprecedented success.

Since 2000, a joint workshop on Neurobiology and Neuroinformatics has been held annually to promote the development of brain science by means of collaboration between researchers from China, Japan, Korea, among others. Led by Prof Michael Wong of Physics at HKUST and Prof Si Wu from Beijing Normal University, the 16th workshop took place in Hong Kong. It focused on deep learning, the most promising technique for artificial intelligence, and visual information processing. More than 50 neuroscientists, physicists, computer engineers and students were brought together to exchange ideas and foster the development of the field.

16th Japan-China-Korea Joint Workshop on Neurobiology and Neuroinformatics (Dec 19-20, 2016) © Copyright 2016 HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study All Rights Reserved W: ias.ust.hk T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk Designed by PTC