Two professors, Prof Fang Kai-Tai and Prof Xu Baojun, from the Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) at Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University (BNBU) have been named to Elsevier's 2024 Highly Cited Chinese Researchers list, which is released in April 2025.
Prof Fang, recognised in the fields of statistics and mathematics, more specifically, in experimental design, multivariate analysis and data mining, with 24 textbooks and over 300 research papers published, is renowned for being the co-inventor of the uniform experimental design. Prof Xu, recognised in Chemistry, has published around 400 papers, including over 350 SCI-indexed papers, 10 ESI highly cited papers, two ESI hot papers, authored nine English books and 10 English book sessions, significantly influencing public health and food science.
Prof Fang Kai-Tai (left) and Prof Xu Baojun
In student research, three teams from the Department of Computer Science have had their papers accepted by the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME 2025):
"DAE-Fuse: An Adaptive Discriminative Autoencoder for Multi-Modality Image Fusion" is developed by Guo Yuchen, Xu Ruoxiang, and Li Rongcheng under Prof Su Weifeng's guidance. This adaptive discriminative autoencoder enhances multi-modal image fusion, extending its application from static images to video, crucial for autonomous driving and surveillance.
Xu Ruoxiang, Guo Yuchen, Li Rong Cheng and Prof Su Weifeng (from left)
"Contrastive Gaussian: High-Fidelity 3D Generation with Contrastive Learning and Gaussian Splatting" is created by Liu Junbang and Huang Enpei under Prof Zhang Hui's mentorship. This model integrates contrastive learning with Gaussian splatting to achieve high-fidelity 3D content generation from single-view images, improving texture fidelity and geometric consistency.
"Boosting Audio-Visual Segmentation via Triple-Modalities Alignment" is authored by Li Yujian under Dr Fan Wentao's supervision. This approach utilises a triple-modality alignment method (TM-align) to enhance audio-visual segmentation, aligning audio, video, and textual data to improve segmentation accuracy.
In environmental and energy research, undergraduate student Du Ruoxin co-authored the paper, "Enhancing Plastic Decomposition in Mealworms (Tenebrio Molitor): The Role of Nutritional Amino Acids and Water" in the journal, Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research, revealing that the abundance of essential amino acids in mealworms significantly affects their plastic degradation rate, providing insights into sustainable waste management. The paper's corresponding authors are Dr Danny Leong of BNBU and Dr Matthew Lui of Hong Kong Baptist University.
Du Ruoxin in lab at BNBU
Additionally, doctoral student Wang Xiuzhi received the Best Presentation Award at the 15th International Conference on Future Environment and Energy (ICFEE 2025) for his research, "Influence of urban development and landscape factors on the habitat utilisation of the Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor): A study in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China".
Wang Xiuzhi
Wang with Prof Tsim Siutai conduct research on the Black-faced Spoonbill
These achievements underscore BNBU's commitment to fostering a research-driven educational environment, integrating faculty expertise with student innovation to address global challenges.
From MPRO
Reporter: Uki Zhou
Photos provided by the interviewees and FST
Editor: Cecilia Yu
