IAS Newsletter, September 2018

Abstract



If you cannot view this image, please click here. IAS Newsletter 09. 2018 (Sep 2018 Issue) IAS Newsletter (Feb 2018 Issue) - Cover Story: Parallels in Music and Literature research Excellence - IAS Newsletter (Sep 2018 Issue): Knowing Faces - How the Fruit Fly Illustrates the Brain’s Capabilities IAS Community - IAS Newsletter (Sep 2018 Issue): IAS Senior Member and Junior Fellows Published in Top Scientific Journal Intellectual Hub - IAS Newsletter (Sep 2018 Issue): Memories of Stephen Hawking IAS Community | Intellectual Hub | IAS Scholars | Join Our Events | IAS Corner HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study T: (852) 2358 5912 E: ias@ust.hk W: ias.ust.hk

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Cover Story Parallels in Music and Literature An Interview with Bright Sheng and Yan Lianke

To a good many people, music and literature are two domains that seem out of reach for students at a science- and technology-centric university like HKUST. This, of course, is a myth. At the IAS, we recognize the profound benefits that the arts offer to our future innovators. Fostering new ways of thinking and provoking imagination aside, the very essence of arts education is to provide our students with a window onto the creative process.

Albert Einstein, arguably one of the greatest minds of all time and a gifted musician, once said, “The greatest scientists are artists as well,” and he often attributed his scientific accomplishments to music. One can certainly argue that not every artist is a great scientist, but they do share a few common traits, such as seeing things from a different perspective and having the ability to articulate complex thoughts.

The IAS has been engaging in knowledge exchange beyond scientific research. With two IAS Professors-at-Large, Professor Bright SHENG and Professor YAN Lianke, our students and postdoctoral fellows have access to an incredible array of performing arts and literary activities alongside research in their fields. Here, these two award-winning artists talk about their journeys at HKUST and tell us what it takes to make a great piece of work. \\ The greatest scientists are artists as well. \\ Why did you choose to work with the IAS? What is your view on Hong Kong’s arts and cultural scene?

Sheng:

My relationship with HKUST began in 2011 when I was appointed as the Y K Pao Distinguished Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies. At that time, I was mainly in charge of The Intimacy of Creativity (IC), an annual event promoting dialogue between young student composers and eminent performers at the University.

Last year I was honored to receive the IAS Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Professorship-at-Large. In this new role, I am here to program Music Alive! and a series of other projects outside IC. The IAS provides me with an office with great scenery and a piano. I am able to work quietly and develop my vision of bridging Asian and Western cultures through music.

In my opinion, Hong Kong, infused by some of the oldest Chinese culture and traditions, is probably one of the freest places in Asia in terms of spiritual thinking. Because of its historical context, Hong Kong is diverse and has all kinds of artists and musicians, providing more possibilities for arts and cultural exchange than any other place in the world. Yan:

The HKUST environment is a paradise to me. Inspiration always comes from the world around us, and this place, with the sea and mountains, can change one’s heart and boost creativity.

The IAS offers me much more support than I could ask for and has a diverse student body. The Institute values the importance of literature and creative arts. Many students who attend my creative writing lectures are cross-registered from other local universities. Although they are of different ages, they are all literature lovers.

I don’t think anyone would say that Hong Kong is a cultural desert anymore. It is an oasis instead! With the high level of freedom, people dare to explore and lead new styles in literature. No other city populated by seven million people has the same influence and vigor as Hong Kong. What about your interactions with students? To what extent do these interactions contribute to artistic creation? Sheng:

We are not here to turn our students into artists, but some of them do become musicians in the end. Our goal is to offer them hands-on experience in music and the arts, to help them understand what it means to be a creative artist. I always tell my students to write something that excites them.

Composers and performers are often too much into composing and performing. Sometimes, they neglect potential collaborative relationships. The IC project aims to regain the intimate relationships between performers and composers, as well as students and communities. It is a reciprocal creative process, I think.

​​​​​​​

Yan:

Some HKUST students have excellent writing skills and their works sometimes surprise me. One semester, a female business student wrote an erotic love story with vivid depictions of the city, the people, and the society. The open-mindedness and boldness of her writing, free from any moral restrictions, is something that many mainland students, even those from my master class at Renmin University of China, cannot match.

My mission here is to break the myth of literature and make students fall in love with reading and writing. To say that one must have talent to study literature is an exaggeration. Of course, being a professional writer is one thing; writing as a hobby is another. Writing has power, and HKUST students who are not in liberal arts majors can have great potential in literary writing. Both of you experienced the Cultural Revolution. How did it influence your lives and creative processes? Sheng:

Since I was young, I have known that I am destined to do something different from others, and this is part of my survival instinct. I have the DNA of independence and rebellion! During the Cultural Revolution, I was sent to Qinghai in Eastern Tibet for 7 years. At that time, I was 15 years old. I taught myself music theory and studied the local folk music, which had a great influence on me and became my inspiration in composition.

People who survived the Cultural Revolution have a different perspective on life. We look at life differently. The ups and downs do not matter. I never feel dismayed and only work on my career according to my own capability.

Yan:

For someone like me who lived in a village, the primary motivation to write at that time was to move to the city. Because of the Cultural Revolution, the only valuable books that I read before the age of 20 were Dream of the Red Chamber and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They made me realize that there are two worlds: one in real life, and another one in books. I saw that young people who wrote excellent books and articles were redeployed to the city and earned new “social status”. I was eager to change my fate, so I started writing.

It may sound a bit pessimistic, but I think the family you are born into determines your fate and the kind of literature you write. Somehow I am against the notion of “observational learning” in real life. In my opinion, good literature writing is in fact related to the writer’s sensitivity and appreciation of life. With the Western influence on Eastern culture, as an artist how do you take advantage of and strike a balance between the two cultures? Sheng:

When learning about different cultures, you have to get into the situation and the context, but most importantly you need to admire your own culture. There is a Chinese saying, “師古而不泥古”, which means that you learn from the past but you are not restricted by it. It took me a long time to figure this out when I first arrived in the US, because reflecting both sides of both cultures in my work is essential.

As an artist, I always remember where I came from; my roots are fundamental. With talent, I can express myself freely from what I have learned and find my own way, my own attitude and temperament. It is like a process of catharsis. Thanks to my cross-cultural background, I can be a bridge linking Eastern and Western musical genres and techniques. Yan:

My peer writers, the generation between the ‘50s and ‘60s, are greatly influenced by Western culture, although they may not admit it. The ‘80s was a time of innovation, and every one of us strived to absorb global literature.

I think every culture is unique, so when we talk about ancient and modern, West and East, one should learn about the differences, not for the sake of proving that the East is better than the West, but to nourish our own culture by realizing the differences. What is the relationship between arts and emotions? How do art forms influence each other, and how do we find their meanings? Sheng:

All art forms have the same function: to move and touch people. I am always interested in Chinese and Western literature. Although I have very limited training, I am inspired by poetry and I particularly admire Romanticism, which has a simple way of expressing feelings.

Music is a living art, and art itself is emotion. Even now, science still cannot adequately interpret why music can touch the human heart and evoke powerful feelings, taking you to a different world. ​​​​​

Yan:

Different art forms penetrate each other. Folk music is abundant in China and is a valuable source of inspiration for me. You can also say that my novels are like paintings, with every word and sentence being part of the depiction.

Literature writing is no doubt an expression of emotion. The greatest stories share emotional experiences. Literature is also like the wind on the river. No wind can change the course of a river instantly, but it may have long-term effects, like the impact of literature on people.

Professor Bright SHENG (盛宗亮) IAS Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Professor-at-Large Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Composition, University of Michigan

Born in Shanghai, China, in 1955, Sheng received informal piano lessons from his mother when he was 4 years old. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to Qinghai, where he performed as a pianist and percussionist in the provincial music and dance theater. He was among the first students admitted to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he earned an undergraduate degree in music composition. He then obtained his MA from Queens College, where he studied composition and conducting under Leonard Bernstein, who later became his mentor. He gained his Doctor of Musical Arts from Columbia University in 1993. In 2013, Sheng was awarded a Doctor of Humanities honoris causa from HKUST.

Sheng’s accomplishments span across stage, orchestral, chamber and vocal works, bringing the East and West together through his musical vision. His commissions and performances have involved the world’s greatest orchestras and foremost musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma, Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Masur and Leonard Bernstein. Sheng was commissioned by the White House to create a work to honor the then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji during a state visit, and composed music for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. He was a recipient of the highly prized MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.

Professor YAN Lianke (閻連科) IAS Sin Wai Kin Professor-at-Large of Chinese Culture Professor of School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University of China

Originally from Henan, China, Yan is one of China’s most distinctive contemporary writers. He is based in Beijing. He joined the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) when he was 20. Yan graduated from a Political Education degree at Henan University in 1985, and received a degree in Literature from PLA Academy of Art in 1991.

Yan began his writing career in 1979, and has published more than 11 full-length novels, including Lenin’s Kiss, Four Books, Summer Sunset and Years After Years, plus 10 novellas, including The Years, Months, Days, Golden Cave, Marrow, and Toward Southeast; and numerous volumes of prose and discourse. His books have been translated into over 20 languages, and received numerous awards including the Lu Xun Literature Prize and the Lao She Literature Prize in China. Yan is a member of the Chinese Writers Association. He was the first Chinese writer to earn the Franz Kafka Literature Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, among others. In 2017, Yan was conferred a Doctor of Letters honoris causa by HKUST. © Copyright 2018 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 Knowing Faces How the Fruit Fly Illustrates the Brain’s Capabilities

Face recognition technology is now used in many applications. Financial institutions use it as an electronic personal identifier, and governments apply surveillance technology to improve public safety. Although face recognition technology has been developed to an advanced level, it is still unclear how humans are able to recognize such a large amount of faces in a fraction of a second. For the past three years, Professor Charles F. STEVENS from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has sought to answer this question.

How Fruit Flies Recognize Odors

Many people can recognize the model of a car solely by listening to the engine. The subtle differences in sound, including the frequencies and certain other functions, allow accurate identification of each engine. This is a skill that humans can develop with practice. “If cars can be recognized in this way, it may well be possible to create an algorithm to describe the process by which our brains compute external data to achieve the feat of face recognition,” Stevens suggests.

“The human brain may be too complex a processor for its behaviors to be observed directly.” Stevens first sought others’ insights into how fruit flies differentiate one odor from another and then used available data to describe the process.

\\ Many contemporary research techniques were totally unimaginable when I first started research. My latest work is made possible only by the discovery of many new findings. \\

Stevens explains the basics: “When it comes across an odor, a fly encodes this odor using a grid of 50 different receptors. These receptors send information to another part of the brain called the mushroom body. In this process, 2,000 neurons are involved, and each takes a random sample of the firing rates from the 50 receptors. As a result of the competition among these 2,000 neurons, 50 will be chosen to fire signals to the brain. These 50 signals are fired in a very compressed way that allows the fly’s brain to recover all of the encoded information associated with this odor. If the fly comes across another odor, a different set of 50 will fire.”

The fly’s brain can also use what is called a compressed sensing technique. “Think about how our cell phone camera takes a picture. The camera tries to reduce the number of pixels required to save the picture. For example, if there is a plain white wall in the background of a family photo, the camera does not need to remember every pixel of the plain background because they are largely the same. When saving the picture, the phone does not simply remember each pixel on the wall, but also recalls that the wall is of a uniform color. This is similar to how a fly remembers an odor. The 50 signals fired from the neurons are given a tag that represents its context to reduce the amount of information that must be transmitted.” How Human Brains Recognize Faces

The visual system works by taking whatever patterns it sees and encoding the patterns into the firing of each of the cells that receives this input. The primary visual cortex cannot recognize an object—rather, its task is to encode all of the information needed to replicate the object. Recognition is performed by face patches, which use a combinatorial code in which a large group of cells respond to exactly the same stimulus at different rates. Building on the work of his colleagues and his own study of the activities of face-recognizing neurons in humans, Stevens showed that for every face, the cells that fire spikes always fire at the same average rate and that there is an exponential distribution of firing rates.

\\ There is no way I can predict how we will be doing research in ten years’ time or what questions we will be asking. The technology is developing much faster than we could ever imagine. \\

Referred to as the “maximum entropy distribution” by statisticians and information scientists, the way that cells respond to different faces by firing spikes at different rates allows the largest number of faces to be encoded with the smallest number of errors. “Through this finding, we can say that the human brain recognizes faces in the same way that the fly recognizes odors,” Stevens says.

“Three parts of the human brain—the olfactory system (where information is taken in), hippocampus (where learning takes place), and cerebellum (where motions are learned)—share similar features with the operation of the fruit fly’s brain when it recognizes odors. The hippocampus takes information from a small number of cells and expands that information over a larger number of cells. It then uses inhibition to reduce the number of cells that fire spikes, and in that way generates a tag. The cerebellum is a structure that captures information on motion and expands it into a gigantic number of cells, which together make up half of all the cells of the brain. Despite this huge expansion, only a few of the cells fire spikes. Those few are tagged and used for learning motion.” Depiction of the cerebellum

The Human Brain at Work

Apart from the quest to understand face recognition in human brains, Stevens has spent recent decades trying to discern the rules that regulate the operation of the human brain. Many of his studies involved the observation of a variety of species, ranging from goldfish to fruit flies, to discover whether similar rules are followed in human brains.

“My colleagues look at the way that a fly does things and compare it with the way that Google updates its database. We find that the fly is at least as good as Google and in many ways it’s even better. If this is also how the human brain works, we may well wonder how evolution has designed us in such a way.”

Use of fruit flies Fruit flies are a convenient tool in research because their genetic information is relatively simple compared with many other animals. Every piece of their genetic information is known and can be manipulated. Edited genes can be inserted into fruit flies, after which their behavior can be observed. Flies for experimental use can be tagged at a stable position while the fly’s external environment is simulated, in a manner similar to virtual reality.

This research technique was only developed in the past decade and has greatly enhanced the capacity of Stevens’ research. Although he does not currently work with flies himself, the findings of his fellow researchers have already shed much light on the topic.

How Do Different Species Smell?

Each species has a different amount of odor receptors and their olfactory capability varies.

About Prof. Charles F. STEVENS

Prof. Charles F. STEVENS is currently a professor at the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His long-term research goal is to understand the mathematical operations carried out by neural circuits, and to understand the design principles that underlie the scalable architecture of neural circuits.

Most humans can rapidly learn to recognize any one of the seven billion human faces in the world, despite the fact that faces are extremely complex stimuli. Once a face has been learned, we remember it for a long time and can recognize a familiar face in a fraction of a second. In April, Stevens gave a lecture on “How the Primate Brain Recognizes Human Faces” at the IAS. He described where the neurons that encode faces reside in the brain, and explained the neuronal code the brain uses for face recognition.

Prof. Charles F. STEVENS Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies © Copyright 2018 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 Junior Fellow and Research Assistant Professor of Physics GUAN Dongshi

Dr. GUAN Dongshi received his PhD in Physics from HKUST in 2016. He was trained as a soft matter physicist, and gradually became involved with interdisciplinary research on biological systems. In his research, he uses the atomic force microscope (AFM) as a microscopic “finger” to detect liquid-air interfaces, soft material surfaces, and living matter such as cells and tissues, to study their mechanical properties and underlying physics. He aims to develop new techniques for studying cellular biophysics, and to gain a better understanding of living matter from the viewpoint of a physicist.

In 2014, Guan was a Visiting Scholar at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique in Grenoble, France. After graduation, he served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics at HKUST, and subsequently became an IAS Junior Fellow and Research Assistant Professor of the Department of Physics in 2017. Where Physics Meets Biology

Although science is often taught as if the various disciplines were clearly separate, exciting things can happen when the boundaries blur. The study of soft matter is one emerging field that has received increasing interdisciplinary attention from researchers in physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, and life science. Living cells, as particular forms of soft material, exhibit unique mechanical properties that are closely related to their activities, functions and health. One remarkable example is cancer cells, which appear to be softer than normal cells.

Accurate measurement of the morphology and viscoelastic (squishy) properties of living cells is thus essential for understanding the microscopic origins of cell mechanics in relation to cell responses and functions. As Guan explains, “A major challenge to the experiments is that the cells are extremely soft and delicate, and are surrounded by a liquid medium.”

To deal with these difficulties, Guan and his colleagues have developed new techniques based on the AFM that enable simultaneous imaging of the surface topography and the viscoelasticity of living cells. This approach can reveal the ways in which the stiffening and softening of a cell is associated with its movement and reproduction. Guan reports that “our noninvasive and ultrasensitive technique opens the door to studying a range of interesting problems in the nano-mechanics of soft matter and the mechanobiology of protein condensates and tissues.”

This year, Guan’s proposal for an experimental study of the volumetric and viscoelastic properties of mitotic cells and their responses to external mechanical cues has been funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. He is collaborating with Prof. TONG Penger and other faculty members from Physics, Chemistry, Life Science and Electronic & Computer Engineering. \\ Soft and living matter mechanics is the bridge between physical and biological sciences. \\

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IAS Community Young Scholars at the IAS Awarded Research Grants

Getting funding for research projects through grant proposals can be a long and difficult process for many academics and research personnel. In the recent General Research Fund (GRF) grant application exercise, IAS Junior Fellows successfully secured funds to push forward their research ideas towards the set goals and objectives.

The General Research Fund is an annual research grant administered by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council to aid academics employed by the local institutions in conducting impactful research projects. Projects’ academic quality, originality of research ideas, potentials for social, cultural or economic application are some assessment criteria to name. Below are some of the projects supported by the GRF funding this year.

IAS Junior Fellow & FieldFaculty CollaboratorResearch Project CHAN Shuning (Civil & Environmental Engineering)Joseph H. W. LEEDisinfection of Treated Sewage by Chlorine Jets Clarence Edward CHOI (Civil & Environmental Engineering)Charles NGImpact of Geophysical Flows on Rigid Barriers with and without Cushioning Materials: Physical Modelling Kim CHOW Hei Man (Life Science)Karl HERRUPA Novel ATM-NRF Axis Facilitates Mito-nuclear Communication in Modulating Fuel Metabolism in Response to Cellular Energy Demand - Implications for Cerebellar Neurodegeneration in Ataxia-telangiectasia DONG Shoucheng (Electronic & Computer Engineering)Ching W. TANGDevelopment of Close-Space Sublimation Processes for OLED Fabrication GUAN Dongshi (Physics)Robert QI Zhong TONG PengerExperimental Study of the Volumetric and Viscoelastic Properties of Mitotic Cells and Their Responses to External Mechanical Cues HUANG Duruo (Civil & Environmental Engineering)WANG GangDeveloping Parametric Models for Strong-motion Amplification Considering 3D Topography and Subsurface Soils NI Rong (Chemical & Biological Engineering)CHAU YingDevelopment of Single Co-Delivery Platform for Stepwise Release of Plasmid DNA and Small Molecular Drugs (Paclitaxel) YAO ShuhuaiReal-time Monitoring of Conformational Changes of DNA–Peptide Co-assembled Viral Mimics in a Nanofluidic Platform XU Duoduo (Social Science)WU XiaogangSocioeconomic Segregation, School Choice, and Geography of Educational Inequality in Hong Kong YE Fei (Life Science)ZHANG MingjieStructure of Disc1 Tetramer and its Interactions with its Target Proteins ZHANG Ting (Physics)SHENG PingA Theoretical Investigation of Berry Phase-induced Metal-insulator Transitions in Disordered, Two-dimensional, Anti-dot Graphene

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Intellectual Hub No Idea Is Too Small Gordon Research Conferences 2018

For the sixth year running, IAS hosted the Gordon Research Conferences (GRCs) at the Institute’s Lo Ka Chung Building. Between June and August, more than 1,000 attendees, both local and overseas scholars, embarked on a journey of science and exploration.

Eight GRCs and four associated Gordon Research Seminars (GRSs) were held at the IAS covering topics such as Solar Energy, Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology, Ocean Biogeochemistry, Genomic Instability, Personalized Medicine, Advanced Materials for Sustainable Infrastructure Development, and Structural Nanomaterials.

Unlike traditional conferences with back-to-back presentations, GRCs have a reputation for intense discussion of research at the frontier of science, which fosters the exchange of new ideas. Dr. Edward DE BONO, the father of lateral thinking, once said,“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” Both GRCs and GRSs provide a platform for established scientists and young scholars around the globe to build collaborative networks with like-minded peers and to discuss the latest research findings, some of which are unpublished.

Several sessions of the GRC Power Hour, an informal gathering open to all conference participants, were also held this year. Attendees of different genders, cultural backgrounds, and career stages were given the opportunity to exchange their perspectives on the challenges women face in science.

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IAS Corner What Can the IAS Do for You? Photo: 'Glowing IAS' by Aaron GAO (ECE)

\\ 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 and 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 scientific 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, symposia or workshops.

You may contact Prof. Andrew G. COHEN, Director of the IAS, to discuss further.

E: ias@ust.hk | T: (852) 2358 5968 © Copyright 2018 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 the IAS?

View our events in the coming months. IAS Conferences/Programs

These advanced activities feature in-depth discussions on specific research topics, often spanning multiple days. Date Event Organizer 2 0 1 8 September 24–27 The 62nd ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop High Luminosity Circular e+e- Colliders (eeFACT2018) Andrew G. COHEN HKUST (Local Committee Chair) Yoshihiro FUNAKOSHI High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) QIN Qing Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Chinese Academy of Sciences Frank ZIMMERMANN The European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) October 26–28 International Human Epigenome Consortium Annual Meeting Danny LEUNG HKUST November 7–9 New Technologies and Translational Applications in Genomics Tom CHEUNG HKUST Anderson SHUM Ho Cheung HKU WANG Jiguang HKUST Angela WU HKUST November 12–13 Neural Codes, Sensing, and Navigation Michael WONG HKUST December 17–21 Quantum Simulations: From Chemistry to Materials Science Garnet CHAN Caltech; HKUST IAS Visiting Professor PAN Ding HKUST YANG Jun HKU 2 0 1 9 January 3–5 Black Holes, Inflation and Gravitational Waves Henry TYE HKUST WANG Yi HKUST January 7–25 High Energy Physics Andrew G. COHEN HKUST (Chair) John ELLIS The European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN); King’s College London; HKUST IAS Visiting Professor LOU Xinchou Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Chinese Academy of Sciences QIN Qing Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP), Chinese Academy of Sciences Henry TYE HKUST

Joint School Lectures

In collaboration with various Schools, these events cover a specific topic that is of interest to those from a particular discipline. Date Event Speaker 2 0 1 8 September 26 Big History: Why We Need a Modern, Science-based Origin Story David Gilbert CHRISTIAN Macquarie University September 28 Analysis of Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Nonconvex Problems

LUO Zhiquan The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen September 28 The Mechanisms and Functions of Spontaneous Neurotransmitter Release Ege KAVALALI Vanderbilt University October 10 Controlling Light-matter Interaction of Design for Molecular Devices Hans ÅGREN KTH Royal Institute of Technology November 20 Towards the Accurate Yet Efficient Molecular Modelling of Large Systems from First Principles XU Xin Fudan University

The above activities were last updated on Sep 24, 2018 and may be subject to change. For the latest details of events, please visit ias.ust.hk/events.

The Bright Sheng Partnership: Composers Meet Performers in Hong Kong 2019

Hailed by the Financial Times as a festival with a “finely hewn sense of craft,” Intimacy of Creativity — The Bright Sheng Partnership: Composers Meet Performers in Hong Kong returns for another innovative season from April 22 to May 5, 2019, co-presented by the HKUST School of Humanities and Social Science and HKUST IAS together with institutional partner Curtis Institute of Music. Call for Scores

We are now accepting applications from talented emerging composers for the 2019 season. Up to six selected Composer Fellows will join Prof. Bright SHENG, IAS Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Professor-at-Large, and distinguished guest artists and composers from the Curtis Institute of Music to present and revise their music compositions through in-depth on-campus open discussions and concerts held at HKUST and in downtown Hong Kong.

Don’t miss your chance to take part in this internationally acclaimed festival. For details of eligibility, submission, and timeline, please visit www.ic.shss.ust.hk/2019-call-for-scores/ © Copyright 2018 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