The Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) of the University of Macau (UM) presents the 2023/2024 “Teaching Excellence Award” and “Research Excellence Award” to 4 professors yesterday (13 March). After the selection by FST management committee, the “Teaching Excellence Award” were presented to Prof Wong Fai, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Prof Lihu Xu, Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics. The “Research Excellence Awards” were presented to Prof Xu Qingsong, Professor in the Department of Electromechanical Engineering and Prof Xu Huanle, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science. The award aims to commend these professors for their constantly improvement in teaching and perseverance and innovation in research. They successfully enhanced the quality of teaching and research of UM, as well as setting up a role model for other academic staff and students.

Wong Fai, Derek, an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at UM. He is committed to igniting students’ passion for learning and nurturing their spirit of exploration. He actively contributes to curriculum reform, promotes professional certifications, and ensures high teaching standards. Prof. Wong covers core subjects such as natural language processing, machine translation, compiler construction, data science, and databases. He encourages students to pursue extracurricular knowledge and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. His guided research projects have received numerous awards in local and Asia-Pacific competitions.

Lihu Xu is an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics at UM. Since joining UM in 2014, he has devoted to developing innovative approaches to mathematics education, such as incorporating real-world data analysis into statistics courses and integrating local elements into stochastic calculus.  In his courses in statistics, he devised projects where students are asked to analyze the real-world data such as the Titanic disaster survivors and the bicyclists on the Brooklyn bridge in the New York city. In the course ‘Introduction to Stochastic Calculus’, he utilized the martingale theory to elucidate why prolonged gambling leads to losses. He has also explored advanced topics like “Diffusion Models and Generative AI” in undergraduate projects. Additionally, he has popularized the theory of Nash equilibrium in secondary schools, and delivered a lecture on the pivotal role of the mathematical tiling theory in the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the open day event. Professor Xu’s exceptional achievements in teaching quality and inspiring students have earned him high praise.

Xu Qingsong is a professor in the Department of Electromechanical Engineering at UM. He joined the University of Macau in 2010 and is primarily engaged in research on robotics, mechatronics, and intelligent control. In addition to being a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), he has also served as an editor for several prestigious international journals and has received multiple awards, including the Macao Science and Technology Awards and Best Paper Awards at international conferences. During the pandemic, he developed Macau’s first intelligent disinfection robot, which was deployed in hospitals and government buildings. Furthermore, his research on intelligent micro/nano-manipulation robots and microgripper systems, novel magnetically controlled medical soft robots, and 3D vision perception and compliant force-controlled next-generation industrial robots have resulted in patented technologies that have generated transfer demands from multiple companies. His work has made a positive contribution to promoting the service robot industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and diversifying Macau’s economy.

Xu Huanle is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at UM, where he joined in 2021. His primary research interests include cloud computing, performance optimization and resource management in large-scale distributed systems, as well as using machine learning to solve practical application problems. In recent years, Professor Xu has published over 40 academic papers in top-tier journals and conferences in the field of computer systems, including more than 20 A-class papers recommended by the China Computer Federation. He was awarded the Best Paper Award at the 2021 ACM SoCC, an international top conference on cloud computing, making his team the first from mainland China and Hong Kong and Macao to receive this award in the history of the conference. Professor Xu’s team has engaged in extensive collaboration with internationally renowned cloud computing enterprises such as Alibaba and Huawei.

FST presents the “Teaching Excellence Award” and the “Research Excellence Award” as a recognition to academic staff in making unremitting efforts in teaching and research. It reflects the pursuit of the qualities in teaching and research of the Faculty, as well as the aims of stimulating talent development, scientific progress and local competitiveness of the university.

The Communist Youth League of the Civil Engineering Department of Tsinghua University, China organized an exchange visit program named “Macau Experience” for the students of the Department of Civil Engineering of Tsinghua University, and meetings with students of the Department of Civil Engineering of the Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) of the University of Macau (UM) and the Honours College of the University of Macau were arranged during visit. The students of the two Universities shared their learning experiences and life stories, while the students from the University of Macau shared the cultural highlights of Macau, fostering friendship and cooperation between the two institutions and regions.

The main purpose of this program is to provide students from Tsinghua University with a deeper understanding of the research progress and experimental equipments and international teaching environment of the UM. The students visited the Structures Laboratory, Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory, Environmental Engineering Laboratory and the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City (SKL-IOTSC). To enhance Tsinghua students’ understanding of UM’s cutting-edge research progress in civil engineering, Prof. Mi Pan, Prof. Xianfei Yin, and Prof.  Zhenning Li, engaged in face-to-face discussions with the participating students, sharing their research achievements. The students actively asked questions, creating a lively and enthusiastic atmosphere.

The program achieved a great success with the support and guidance of FST, SKL-IOTSC, and the Youth League Committee of the Department of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University.

Prof Tam Kam Weng from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Macau has been invited by the Portuguese Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology Culture (Ciência Viva) to serve as a science popularization consultant in Portugal, making him the only representative from Asia. Prof Tam Kam Weng will assist the International Advisory Committee of the Portuguese Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology Culture in providing a broader cultural and scientific perspective. Through cross-cultural and cross-regional cooperation and communication, he will further promote the development of science and technology and facilitate cooperation and dialogue between renowned experts in science popularization from Portugal, China, and other countries.

In the early 1990s, Prof Tam Kam Weng was involved in the research and industrialization of the European Union’s Maritime Satellite Navigation Project in Portugal. He particularly focused on the development of the Inmarsat-C/GPS/GIS (MONICAP) system and its commercial applications in Africa and Northern Europe, as well as the research on signal interference resistance for the automatic landing navigation system at Lisbon Airport. The MONICAP system he participated in the development of advanced fishery monitoring technology, which was later transformed into an innovative industry in Portugal and became one of the licensing conditions for offshore fishing operations in Portugal, receiving recognition from the President and Prime Minister of Portugal.

Prof Tam Kam Weng has conducted extensive research in the field of wireless communications and has gained international recognition in areas such as radio frequency identification technology and microwave sensors. Since 2014, he has been elected as a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Chartered Engineer in the United Kingdom. He has also served as a member of the Chartered Engineer Review Committee of the IET, Vice Chairman of the Radio Frequency Identification Technology Council of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), recipient of the EU Visiting Professor Scholarship, IEEE International Science Ambassador, IEEE MGA Achievement Award, International Automatic Identification and Mobility Technology Award, Natural Science Award, Technical Invention Award, and Technological Progress Award from the Macau Science and Technology Awards. He is the Chairman of the Technical Committee recognized by the Macau Special Administrative Region, research advisor on radio frequency radiation safety in the Macau Special Administrative Region, and a board member of the Macau Science Center. He has published more than 200 papers and holds five domestic and international invention patents.

The Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology established a national project called “Ciência Viva” in 1996. Through this project, the Portuguese Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology Culture was established as a national institution for science and technology culture. Currently, there are 22 centers nationwide. The purpose of this institution is to promote science and technology culture to the public in Portugal, especially targeting young students.

The International Advisory Committee established by the Portuguese Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology Culture aims to provide advice and recommendations on strategic planning issues for the national institution of science and technology culture in Portugal. It consists of senior external experts with long-standing reputation and experience. Experts are invited based on their expertise, knowledge, experience, representativeness, and potential networking effect as advocates for the Portuguese Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology Culture and its science centers. Currently, the members of the International Advisory Committee include Dr. Robert Firmhofer, co-founder and CEO of the Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw, Poland, and Professor Nuno Miguel dos Santos Ferrand de Almeida, Director of the Museum of Natural History and Science at the University of Porto, Portugal.

A research team from the Biomedical Imaging Laboratory (BIG), Faculty of Science and Technology (FST), University of Macau (UM) virtually attended the 3^rd East Asia Nuclear Medicine Association Congress, hosted in Osaka, Japan in November. Competing with various institutes of nuclear medicine in Asia, including China Medical University, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Kagawa University Kansai Medical University, and Osaka University, Chen Gefei, a PhD student from BIG lab, won the gold award in the meeting for his work on deep-learning-based segmentations of the liver and tumors from contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) for Yttrium-90 radioembolization dosimetry. This advancement facilitates the treatment planning for hepatocellular carcinoma and liver metastases in Yttrium-90 radioembolization.

Yttrium-90 radioembolization is an effective treatment for inoperable liver tumors, and the treatment planning requires delineation of normal liver and tumors. Deep learning-based methods are feasible for tumor segmentation on single-phase CECT, but there are limitations in differentiating tumors and cysts. In Chen’s project entitled ‘Deep Learning-based Automated Segmentation of Liver and Tumors on CT Arterial Portography and Hepatic Arteriography for Yttrium-90 Radioembolization’, the group evaluated two deep learning-based methods on single-phase and dual-phase CECTs, respectively, for normal liver and tumor segmentation. The deep learning-based method using attention U-Net trained on dual-phase CECTs can achieve superior segmentation accuracy and successfully discriminate cysts and tumors. This method can highly facilitate the Y-90 radioembolization treatment planning procedure.

This project was led by Mok Seng Peng, Greta, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Institute of Collaborative Innovation, and the Ministry of Education Frontiers Science Center for Precision Oncology. It was a collaboration between UM and the Department of Nuclear Medicine, the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, and funded by Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Ciências e da Tecnologia (file number: FDCT 099/2021/A).