YEN Hwa is a year-1 student of HKU Mechanical Engineering from Taiwan. He just published his first book entitled "Boys, be ambitious" [ISBN 978-986-272-097-4, by Cite (www.cite.com.tw), Dec 2011]. The book describes his inspiring experience as an exchange student in USA before joining HKU. More details can be found at http://www.wretch.cc/blog/ambitiousboy 

Professor James Lam is appointed Editor-in-Chief of IET Control Theory and Applications. IET Control Theory and Applications ( http://digital-library.theiet.org/IET-CTA) is one of the 24 journals of The Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. It is a continuation of the long-established control journal IEE Proceedings D: Control Theory and Applications (1980-2007). 

Professor James Lam was elected as Fellow of IEEE for his contributions to analysis and synthesis of control systems. The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. The total number selected in any one year does not exceed one-tenth of one percent of the total voting Institute membership. More details can be found at http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/fellows/index.html  

HKU Shenzhen Institute of Research and Innovation (SIRI) was formally launched on 30 Dec 2011 in an opening ceremony attended by the HKU Vice Chancellor Prof Lap Chee Tsui, senior management team members, and local government officials. Within SIRI, the Department of Mechanical Engineering sets up its first Research Lab on Energy and Environment led by Prof Yuguo Li (air environment), Prof Liqiu Wang (nanofluid and thermal engineering), Dr Lixi Huang (noise control) and Dr Fude Liu (solar energy). A total of 8 colleagues from Mechanical Engineering attended the opening ceremony.  

Miss Si Yue LI, a PhD student of Prof Min Wang at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, gave an oral presentation of the paper “Multifunctional Nanodevices Based on Polymer-Metal Hybrid Nanoparticles for Cancer Detection and Treatment” and won the Best Presentation Award at the 9th China-Korea Symposium on Biomaterials and Nano-Biotechnology which was held in Sanya, China, on Dec. 18 - 20, 2011. 

Mr. Chong WANG, a PhD student of Prof Min Wang, at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, won the Best Student Paper Award (Bronze) with the paper and presentation of “Conventional Electrospinning vs. Emulsion Electrospinning: a Comparative Study on the Development of Nanofibrous Drug/Biomolecule Delivery Vehicles”at the 20th International Symposium on Processing and Fabrication of Advanced Materials (PFAM XX) which was held in Hong Kong on Dec. 15 - 17, 2011. 

The article “Electrospinning, Characterization and In Vitro Biological Evaluation of Nanocomposite Fibers Containing Carbonated Hydroxyapatite Nanoparticles” by H.-W.Tong, M.Wang, Z.-Y.Li and W.W.Lu (Biomedical Materials, Vol.5 (2010), 054111, 13pp) was selected and included in the Highlights of 2010 in journal Biomedical Materials (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-605X).

Prof. Min Wang was notified by the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) that their paper (“Selective Laser Sintered Ca-P/PHBV Nanocomposite Scaffolds with Sustained Release of rhBMP-2 for Bone Tissue Engineering” by B.Duan, W.W.Lu and M.Wang) presented at ACerS’ 35th International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ceramics and Composites (Jan. 2011, Daytona Beach, FL, USA) was chosen for Best Paper Award.

The paper “PIIID-formed (Ti, O)/Ti, (Ti, N)/Ti and (Ti, O, N)/Ti Coatings on NiTi Shape Memory Alloy for Medical Applications” by T.Sun, L.-P.Wang, M.Wang, H.-W.Tong and W.W.Lu won Best Paper Award at the 2nd Advanced Welding & Joining Technology Conference (Jan. 2011, Harbin, China).

Prof Min Wang is appointed as Editor of Elsevier’s long-established journal Materials Letters (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0167577X) from January 2012. 

Prof. Min Wang has been elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE, http://www.aimbe.org/). AIMBE Fellows are nominated by their peers, screened by committees of Fellows within their specialty and finally elected by the full College of Fellows. The AIMBE College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the USA. There are 107 Class of 2012 fellows and the fellowship induction ceremony will take place in Washington, D.C. in February 2012. Since 1991, the year AIMBE was founded, the College of Fellows has led the way for technological growth and advancement in the fields of medical and biological engineering. 

Miss Si Yue LI, a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was a winner of Bionano@Nice-2011 Student/Post-doctoral Travel Award of the 2011 Spring Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (May 2011, Nice, France). This award enabled her to travel to Nice to present her paper (“Folic Acid-Chitosan@Gold Nanocomposite for Potential Diagnostic and Therapeutic Applications” by S.-Y.Li and M.Wang) at the E-MRS conference. 

Nanomechanical Behaviour of Materials and Bilogical Tissues 

ME Year -2 student Choi Ka Wai awarded a prestigious scholarship from CO2nnsulting Ltd. 

Professor Yiu Wing Mai, a HKU-ME graduate (BEng 1969 with first-class Honours, PhD 1972), currently University Chair & Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Sydney University, was elected on 12 July 2011 as an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, U.K., in recognition of his groundbreaking work in the field of advanced materials and fracture mechanics. Professor Mai is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and The Royal Society, U.K. 

Call for Applications: Interview in Beijing/Shanghai on October 29 for Graduate Studies at HKU Mechanical Engineering 

In March, 2010, Mr. Jimmy Chan, ME2, joined the Speak Out for Engineering competition organized by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). In the competition, the contestants were required to give an oral presentation on a subject related to mechanical engineering. Mr. Chan won the local competition and represented Hong Kong to join the regional competition held in Singapore in April, 2010. The contestants are from Australia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, China and Singapore. His presentation is on Formula One racing. He finally won the champion at that regional competition. 

Student Award Mechanical Engineering level 2 students Jimmy Chan, Timmy Lam Wai Chun and Alvin Ting Ho Yin received the prestigious 2010 Boeing-Cathay Pacific Engineering Internship Award. They will undertake a half-year training in the Boeing Company’s commercial aviation development plant in Seattle, USA and another half-year training in the Swire Group’s companies (HAESL and HAECO). We are very proud of their outstanding achievement as the Award is very competitive and there are only 4 places per year. We hope the high-quality training will not only strengthen their engineering skills and broaden their horizons, but will also enable them to develop a career in aviation sector, thereby setting up a good example for our engineering students to follow.  

The robot team of the Faculty of Engineering took the First Runner-Up and Best Artistic Design Award in the ABU Robot Contest held earlier today in Tokyo, Japan.

There are 20 teams from 19 countries entering this contest. (The host country, Japan, has two teams.)

Our team first beat Malaysia twice to enter the quarter-finals. In the quarter-finals, we beat Indonesia and entered the semi-finals. We then beat one of the Japanese teams to enter the final contest where we met the team from China. China completed the required tasks in 19 seconds and we in 22 seconds. That's how we ended up with the First Runner-up.

The core item of this year's contest is the Kago, the traditional Japanese palanquin or litter of the pre-modern era. People were often carried in Kago to distant places. The Kago was a basket suspended from a wooden pole, called here the Shoulder Pole, as shown in the photo. It was carried by two men, one in front and the other behind. Travel in olden times was far from smooth. There were mountains, steep slopes, and sharply winding roads to traverse. The bearers who carried the Kago had to cooperate very closely to reduce the sway and complete the journey safely.  

Dr. C.O. Ng has been awarded the Best Teacher Award 2008/09 by the Faculty Teaching and Learning Quality Committee. 

For the One-day DBF Competition held in HKPolyU yesterday, we have 12 (L1 and L2) students joining the event. They were assigned to form 3 teams representing HKU. There were other teams from IVY, HKPolyU and HKUST, with a total of about 50 participants. The quality of airplane models built this year was significantly superior than that of last year. The Champion RAEs longest flying distance prize this year went to one of the IVY teams. Our 3 teams also did very well. Their models flew very far and their stability performance was very good and consistent. One of our three teams won the Design Award on excellent aerodynamic performance. They are L1 students Chan Wai Lok, Leung Wai Hong, Leung Yuen Tung, and Wong Kin Hang. Their winning trophy is a very fine Boeing 777-300ER model kit.