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How can you predict Click Through Rate (CTR) for online advertising? What are organic eggs? Do you want to know the analysis of housing prices? UIC students were on hand to answer these questions and more at The 7th Science and Technology Poster Presentation on 10 April. A total of 72 student projects from the Division of Science and Technology (DST) were presented to students, staff, external visitors and judges.

Associate Vice President Prof George Wei provided a warm welcome and said how walking into the exhibition hall reminded him of international conferences that he had attended in the past. He also commented on how the “best moment for teachers is to listen to their students’ achievements”.

Prof George Wei comments that knowing students' achievements is the best moment for teachers

Dean of DST Prof Stephen Chung also gave a welcoming speech. He mentioned how there on also non-final year projects this year, and encouraged students to continue to start research as early as possible.

Dean of DST Prof Stephen Chung gives an opening speech

Year 4 Data Science student Kai Weiheng won the Best Poster Award. He studied click through rate (CTR) predictions for online advertising. He described the process of analysing different advertisements that users look at and then generate the potential capability of users clicking on those advertisements for more information.

Best Poster Award winner Kai Weiheng presents his project

(From left) Prof Chung, Kai Weiheng, and Programme Director of DS Dr Xuanyuan Zhe

Year 4 Financial Mathematics student Xu Jiaen was awarded the Best Poster of her programme. She calculated the housing prices between Beijing and Shenzhen over a certain period of time. She mentioned how this study is beneficial for people so that they may compare and contrast the housing prices on where to live and how companies can buy property for their business.

People looking at Xu Jiaen's poster

Year 4 Applied Psychology student Huang Xinyu did his research on the psychological well-being of Chinese adults, inspired by caring for his own grandfather. The final result suggests social activities, like volunteering or chatting with a friend, and physical activities, like tai chi, can help with the mental well-being of older Chinese adults.

Huang Xinyu answers questions from the audience

Year 4 Food Science and Technology student Chen Yining researched the authenticity of organic and conventional eggs marketed in China. She talked about how this research could inform consumers on exactly what kind of egg they are buying. It will give people a better understanding of what nutrition they are eating as well.

Chen Yining with her poster

Year 4 Environmental Science students Chen Weijian, Zhou Zhuofu, and Chen Zhe explored the effects of microplastics in the seawater near Qi’ao Island in Zhuhai compared to the water in the East China Sea and Yangtze River. They explained how this study is important for people to know because of the risk it has towards people. Fish run the risk of consuming microplastic pieces and as a result, people that eat fish could also find themselves consuming microplastic pieces, which could affect their health.

Judge Prof Sookja Chung observing Chen Weijian, Zhou Zhuofu, and Chen Zhe's research

Statistics graduating student Wu Xuan studied the detection of epilepsy of rats. She explained about how she analysed the data, step-by-step. She described how the medical researchers sent specific “signals” to the brains of the rats to see how they would react. Wu Xuan then categorised the reactions into what she labeled as “chunks” to see how the reactions appear on a wavelength.

Wu Xuan discussing her research

Year 4 Computer Science and Technology (CST) students Wang Fuyuan, Guan Shihan and Liu Jiachen did their research project on an automatic robotic arm. They wanted to do this project because not only is it interesting to them, but also very practical because it is designed to solve the recycling problem in UIC’s canteens.

Year 3 CST students Zheng Hao, Wang Jianming, Wu Zhenghao researched a language model to identify and categorise offensive language in social media. They described how some cases identified a word that could be considered offensive; however, it is also based on the context of how it’s used with the rest of the sentence. Their language model identifies the offensive word, but also analyses the other words around it.

The external judges for this event were Professor of Department of Education Studies at HKBU Prof Vicky C. Tam; Director of Zhuhai Zhonghui Microelectronics Co. Ltd, Mr Wu Bin; Co-founder of 4DAGE Technology Ms Zheng Kuan; Assistant Researcher at Jinan University Dr Huang Shan; Senior Lecturer at HSBC Business School in Peking University Shenzhen Campus Ms Priscilla Lynne Young; UIC Adjunct Associate Professor and President of AAFUD Industry (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd Dr Chen Wentian; and President of Greater Bay Area Big Data AI Association Mr Steve Wong. UIC judges included Dean of Division of Culture and Creativity Prof Brian Clarke; General Education Office Prof Sookja Kim Chung; Assistant Professor of DST Dr Wong Chiu Fai; Associate Professor of DBM Dr May Wang; Assistant Professor of FM Dr Zhao Pengfei; Associate Professor of ENVS Dr Tsim Siu Tai; and Assistant Professor of DST Dr Zhang Wei.

The distinguished guests, UIC staff, and judges

Judge Dr Vicky Tan remarked on the event, saying how she was “impressed by the students’ work” that demonstrated a “high standard” of research.

The students with their awards

Associate Professor of DST and chair of the organising committee of the Poster Presentation, Dr Alan Lai passionately discussed the installation of the real-time voting system used for the Student Choice Award popularity vote. “This is the first time using it. We’ve been using the old way of using stickers on a board to calculate votes, but we wanted to try to make it more technological."

Three students volunteered to be the developers of the real-time voting system. They are Year 3 CST students Wu Zhenghao and Deng Renjie as well as Year 2 DS student Liang Changyuan.

Exhibitors observing the votes via the real-time voting system