Hong Kong – SB and Shenzhen University sign MOU to deepen youth work
SB and Shenzhen University sign MOU to deepen youth work
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The Security Bureau (SB) today (November 18) held an induction course for members of the new-term SB Youth Uniformed Group Leaders Forum to launch training activities in the coming year, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Shenzhen University to jointly promote Hong Kong-Shenzhen youth development and co-operation on cultural exchanges, deepening the Leaders Forum’s work in nurturing young people.
Witnessed by the Secretary for Security, Mr Tang Ping-keung, and the Director General of the Youth Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Mr Zhang Zhihua, the MOU was signed by the Permanent Secretary for Security, Mr Patrick Li, and Vice President of Shenzhen University Mr Wang Yongcheng, enabling the two sides to co-organise activities in the coming three years with 15 students from Shenzhen University joining activities of the Leaders Forum to enhance exchanges between youths in Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
Noting at the signing ceremony that Shenzhen University has the nation’s top academic talent and teaching resources, Mr Tang said that the university will provide teaching guidance and arrange visits for the Leaders Forum, including visits to government departments, scientific research and cultural institutions as well as major enterprises, to assist members to obtain a deeper understanding of the country’s development. He said the SB will also organise training camps with distinctive features of the disciplined services and visit activities to provide teamwork and leadership training, and hold seminars on different themes as well as study tours to allow members to learn more about the country and broaden their horizons.
The two-day, one-night induction course of the Leaders Forum is being held at the Hong Kong Police College in Wong Chuk Hang. In addition to training in discipline, physical fitness and team building, a number of distinguished personalities from different sectors were invited to share their experiences, including the Permanent President of the Leaders Forum, Mr Chan Hak-kan, who analysed the current situation of Hong Kong society; the founder of Bastille Post, Mr Lo Wing-hung, who will explain the ecology of the media and its social functions; teachers from Shenzhen University, who explored patriotic education; Hong Kong table tennis athlete Mr Wong Chun-ting, who will share how to rise to challenges to reach new heights; and Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award winner in 2023 Ms Sandy Lau, who will share youth and community work. The Leaders Forum’s Founding Chairman, Mr Yeung Fun-bun; and Presidents Mr Cheung Wah-fung and Mr Kwan Chi-ping also shared their successful experiences at a seminar.
The SB established the Leaders Forum in October last year to deepen the participation of government departments and civil services in youth work. There are 29 members aged between 16 and 25 in the new term of the Leaders Forum. All participants are distinguished members of various youth uniformed groups of disciplined services with great potential, and have been chosen as members of the Leaders Forum following rigorous selection.
University students savour first taste of bilingual law drafting in Law Drafting Competition 2023 (with photos)
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Addressing the ceremony, the Secretary for Justice, Mr Paul Lam, SC, said that the competition was inaugurated by the DoJ to encourage people to know more about law drafting, and it represented an innovative attempt by the DoJ to take forward the education and promotion of the rule of law in a proactive and diversified way. Mr Lam noted that the event was content-rich and challenging, and he congratulated the select few students who won in the competition.
Also present to share the joy of the winning students were the Deputy Secretary for Justice, Mr Cheung Kwok-kwan, and former Law Draftsman Mr Tony Yen. Both were members of the competition’s adjudicating panel, the other being Legislative Council Member and Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress member Dr Priscilla Leung.
Launched with the slogan “Write Laws for Good”, the competition encouraged university students to devise legislative proposals and draft proposed bills on their own, so that they could understand the importance of good legislation to the rule of law, and appreciate the unique advantages of Hong Kong being the only common law jurisdiction in China and the only place in the world that has a legal system operating in both English and Chinese languages.
The competition received an encouraging response, with a total of 19 teams (35 students) completing all the challenges. Every participating team was required to choose between the topics of “Private Information on the Internet” and “Homicide Offences”. The teams had to formulate legislative proposals based on their choice and draft proposed bills in both English and Chinese. In February this year, the Law Drafting Division organised two sessions of a Law Drafting Workshop for the teams, covering the origins of statute law in Hong Kong, structure of bills, plain language drafting, and features of bilingual drafting.
The winner and first and second runners-up of the competition were, respectively, Mr Chen Zhongyu (Postgraduate Certificate in Laws, City University of Hong Kong), Ms Tsoi Cheuk-ling (Bachelor of Laws (Year 3), City University of Hong Kong) and the team formed by Ms Amanda Huang Wan-ning (Bachelor of Laws (Year 3), the University of Hong Kong) and Mr Oscar Wong Tsz-shing (Bachelor of Social Sciences (Government and Laws) and Bachelor of Laws (Year 4), the University of Hong Kong).
For details of the competition and submissions of the winning teams, please visit the competition’s dedicated webpage: www.doj.gov.hk/en/ldd/law_drafting_competition.html.
Nagasaki University and NEC OncoImmunity (NOI), a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, have announced that they will collaborate to use NOI’s AI platform to design universal vaccines against highly pathogenic and tropical infectious diseases. The collaboration between NOI and Nagasaki University aims to harness the power of advanced AI to optimize vaccine designs to be universally and broadly protective against certain pathogen families prevalent in tropical regions. Under the scope of the collaboration, the AI technology from NOI will be used to design both T cell and B cell vaccines. Nagasaki University will subsequently validate the designs using their extensive “wet-lab” capabilities and convalescent donor samples collected from their extensive network of tropical field stations. This collaboration has also led to the establishment of the Vaccine Informatics Department at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University. The department, led by Dr. Trevor Clancy, Chief Scientific Officer of NOI, will employ its AI technology to support the Nagasaki University team in conducting basic research aimed at understanding the immune correlates of protection across a range of tropical diseases. Members of NEC’s AI drug development team will also participate in this department. Professor Takeshi Nagayasu, M.D., Ph.D., Trustee (Strategic Development and Research), Nagasaki University “We are delighted to embark on this collaboration with NEC OncoImmunity in our pursuit of designing universal vaccines targeting tropical infectious diseases. By combining the expertise of Nagasaki University in tropical medicine with the advanced AI technology of NEC, we aim to make significant strides in vaccine development for the benefit of global health.” Richard Stratford, CEO of NOI, expressed his enthusiasm about the collaboration, stating: “NOI’s core AI technology is well suited for the development of universal vaccines, and we are fully committed to delivering effective vaccine designs to Nagasaki University that target highly pathogenic and tropical infectious diseases. We are immensely proud of this collaboration with such a world-renowned tropical medicine institute, and we anticipate significant outcomes from this project.” Masamitsu Kitase, Corporate Senior VP, Head of the Healthcare and Life Science Division, NEC Corporation, commented: “The NEC Group is very excited by this collaboration with Nagasaki University, which will demonstrate interdisciplinary research between computer technology and knowledge for Tropical Medicine, and promises to make significant contributions to vaccine development. Infectious diseases have gained even more attention following the recent pandemic, and NEC is committed to using its state-of-art AI technology to develop effective vaccines in this space.” About the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University The Institute of Tropical Medicine was established in 1942 as the East Asia Research Institute of Endemics, affiliated with Nagasaki Medical College, and later became the Institute of Tropical Medicine, an independent organization separate from the Medical College, in 1967. The Institute is the only research and teaching institution in Japan devoted exclusively to the study of tropical diseases. The Institute is a component of the DEJIMA Infectious Disease Research Alliance (DIDA), which was established at the University to comprehensively and strategically manage the University’s infectious disease research resources. Within DIDA, the University operates a “World-Leading R&D Center for Vaccine Development Program,” funded by SCARDA* for five universities in Japan. The development of vaccines using artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the main pillars of Nagasaki University’s vaccine R&D program. *SCARDA: The “Strategic Center of Biomedical Advanced Vaccine Research and Development for Preparedness and Response” set up under AMED and serves as a command post to coordinate vaccine development in Japan. About NEC OncoImmunity NEC OncoImmunity AS is an AI driven biotechnology company that has developed proprietary machine learning-based software which addresses the key knowledge gaps in the prediction of bona fide immunogenic neoantigens for personalized cancer immunotherapy. The AI technology can be used to identify optimal neoantigen targets for truly personalized cancer vaccines & cell therapies in a clinically actionable timeframe, and also facilitate effective patient selection for cancer immunotherapy. The AI technology has also been repurposed to identify optimal antigens from pathogens for the purpose of designing broadly protective vaccines against highly diverse viral species and viral genera, that are effective in the global population. For additional information, please also visit NEC OncoImmunity at www.oncoimmunity.com/. About NEC Corporation NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies while promoting the brand statement of “Orchestrating a brighter world.” NEC enables businesses and communities to adapt to rapid changes taking place in both society and the market as it provides for the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com, and NEC’s AI Drug Development Business at www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/ai-drug/. Tohoku University and NEC Corporation (TSE: 6701) have started joint research on computer systems using an 8-qubit quantum annealing machine developed by NEC and Japan’s new windowNational Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The 8-qubit quantum annealing machine used in this research has been newly developed using superconducting technology paired with ParityQC Architecture(1). Owing to this, the machine is resistant to noise and remains capable of scaling up to a fully-connected quantum annealing architecture while maintaining a prolonged quantum superposition state. This is the first domestically manufactured quantum annealing machine in Japan that is accessible from the outside via the Internet. This joint research is also the first project to use this machine. Joint research using the newly developed 8-qubit quantum annealing machine Features of the quantum annealing machine Solving complex social issues entails deriving optimal combinations from a large number of options (solution of combinatorial optimization problems). To solve combinatorial optimization problems at high speed and with high accuracy, NEC and AIST are developing a quantum annealing machine(2) using superconducting parametrons(3). Using superconducting parametrons makes this quantum annealing machine resistant to noise and enables a long coherence time (duration for maintaining the quantum state)(4). Coherence time is generally shortened during multi-qubit implementation. However, in addition to the noise-resistant characteristic of superconducting parametrons, the machine is able to maintain a long coherence time even in multi-qubit implementation by adopting the ParityQC architecture, a coupling technology that is highly compatible with parametrons. These features enable the calculation of real-world combinatorial optimization problems at high speed and with high accuracy. In regard to these two technologies, NEC already succeeded in demonstrating the operation of the unit cell consisting of four qubits in March 2022(5). Recently, it succeeded in developing a quantum annealing machine consisting of eight qubits by aligning the unit cells. The newly developed 8-qubit chip based on unit cells with long coherence time Tohoku University and NEC began joint research on high-performance computing technologies in 1958. In 2014, the “Joint Research Division of High-Performance Computing (NEC)” was established within the Tohoku University Cyberscience Center(6) to conduct research aimed at solving various scientific and social issues. For the current joint research, Tohoku University and NEC will study the application of the above quantum annealing machine to many combinatorial optimization problems that exist in the real world, such as deriving optimal evacuation routes to mitigate damage and injuries from tsunami inundation. Prior to this joint research, Tohoku University and NEC were already working on the development of quantum-annealing-assisted next-generation supercomputing platforms under Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s (MEXT) Next-Generation Research and Development Project(7) since 2018. This initiative is aimed at further improving the performance and sophistication of vector supercomputers, which have shown high processing capacity in many practical applications, and at developing a new supercomputing platform through functional complementation of vector supercomputers with quantum and simulated quantum annealing specialized for combinatorial optimization problems. In recognition of these initiatives on quantum annealing, Tohoku University has been accredited by Japan’s Cabinet Office as a “Quantum Solution Center”(8). In the current joint research, the 8-qubit quantum annealing machine based on superconducting parametrons developed by NEC and AIST will be made available to Tohoku University via the Internet. As part of this joint research, Tohoku University and NEC will utilize both the quantum annealing machine and the simulated quantum annealing machine (NEC Vector Annealing) that runs on the vector supercomputer “SX Aurora TSUBASA”(9) installed at Tohoku University to leverage the features of both the quantum annealing machine and the simulated quantum annealing machine(10). Going forward, Tohoku University and NEC will jointly conduct research on computing system architectures to solve complex social issues. Further, they will also explore use cases unique to quantum annealing, which has the potential to perform high-speed computations. In addition to the simulated quantum annealing machine installed at Tohoku University, NEC and Tohoku University will also use the quantum annealing machine installed at AIST via the Internet. Researchers will examine the overall configuration of both machines in consideration of the effects of communication delays and other factors and feed the results back to the future development of both quantum annealing and simulated quantum annealing machines. Furthermore, in order to solve problems in the real world with the speed and accuracy of quantum annealing, they will investigate how to optimally allocate computations to both machines and endeavor to improve their usefulness. Tohoku University and NEC will leverage this joint research as an opportunity to further accelerate the social implementation of quantum computing technologies. Notes: NEC’s Initiatives in Quantum Computing About NEC Corporation NEC Corporation has established itself as a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies while promoting the brand statement of “Orchestrating a brighter world.” NEC enables businesses and communities to adapt to rapid changes taking place in both society and the market as it provides for the social values of safety, security, fairness and efficiency to promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. For more information, visit NEC at www.nec.com.
The accredited university offers generous financial support to students from various backgrounds. Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 21st April 2023, ZEX PR WIRE, Lakewood University is one of the leading online-learning universities in the US, specializing in undergraduate degrees and certifications and graduate degrees across various disciplines. The university accepts students from across the US and prides itself on prioritizing merit as its primary criterion. This is why it offers a generous amount of financial aid and monetary support, including grants, scholarships, and student loans, to make education more affordable and accessible. The university is fully-accredited, which means it is eligible to accept federal loans, grants, scholarships, and internal and external monetary support. Students can explore the various options available and accepted by Lakewood University on its website and see which option they qualify for. It follows a diverse, inclusionary, merit-based admissions policy that applies to its financial aid, grants, and scholarships alike, giving students across the country a fair chance at a high-quality education. With increasing costs of college, never-ending student debt, and financial constraints that would otherwise deter students from pursuing degrees and professional certifications, Lakewood University’s monetary support is a significant help. Dozens of students a year complete their educational goals and dreams due to this financial assistance. A representative of the university shared the following insight: “As a non-profit university, Lakewood University is dedicated to helping students achieve their educational goals, regardless of their financial standing. We’re offering several scholarships, grants, and different forms of financial aid that enable students to enroll at our university and make their dreams a reality. We already have a highly-subsidized tuition structure since we teach online, and monetary support makes it all the more accessible. We believe education is a right and finances should not be a barrier.” Lakewood University specializes in one of the most well-rounded remote-learning experiences for its students, and prospective applicants can find a wide range of resources and support materials online. About Lakewood University Lakewood University is an accredited online university that offers various degree programs and certifications for undergraduate and graduate levels. The non-profit online school provides academic programs for various subjects, including law, healthcare, business management, IT, and entrepreneurship. For additional information and business inquiries, please contact: www.lakewood.edu
Hong Kong – University students savour first taste of bilingual law drafting in Law Drafting Competition 2023 (with photos)
The Law Drafting Competition 2023 organised by the Department of Justice (DoJ) was a success and ended on a high note today (September 28) with a prize presentation ceremony.Nagasaki University and NEC OncoImmunity Collaborate to Design Universal Vaccines Targeting Tropical Infectious Diseases
Topic: Press release summaryJapan – Tohoku University and NEC start joint research on computer systems using a newly developed 8-qubit quantum annealing machine
Joint research between Tohoku University and NEC
(1) ParityQC architecture is developed by Parity Quantum Computing.
About Parity Quantum Computing: https://parityqc.com/
February 10, 2021 Press Release
NEC and ParityQC collaborate to develop highly-scalable, practical quantum computers www.nec.com/en/press/202102/global_20210210_01.html
(2) Ongoing development as a project commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Project Title: Project for Innovative AI Chip and Next-Generation Computing Technology Development
R&D Activity: Integrated research and development of quantum computing and Ising computing systems
Project website: www.nedo.go.jp/english/activities/activities_ZZJP_100123.html
(3) A superconducting parametron is a quantum mechanical resonant
circuit consisting of a superconducting coil and a capacitor; it was first developed by NEC and RIKEN in 2014. Modulating the circuit at twice the resonant frequency results in one of two self-excited oscillation states with a phase of 0 or π. The superposition of these oscillation states can be used as qubits.
(4) The higher the coherence time, the higher the solution accuracy and the higher the computation speed. Research institutes in the U.S. and Europe are also conducting R&D on quantum annealing using qubits with longer coherence times.
(5) March 17, 2022 Press Release
NEC develops the world’s first unit cell facilitating scaling up to a fully-connected quantum annealing architecture
www.nec.com/en/press/202203/global_20220317_01.html
(6) June 27, 2014 Press Release:
Tohoku University and NEC establish joint research division for next-generation supercomputer technologies (Japanese Text)
PDF – www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/newimg/pressimg/tohokuuniv-press_20140627_03web.pdf
(7) A project subsidized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for the advanced utilization of high-performance general-purpose computers
Research period: FY2018 to FY2022
Research Director: Hiroaki Kobayashi, Tohoku University
(8) Launched in February 2021 with the aim of ensuring and strengthening Japan’s international competitiveness in the field of quantum technology, based on the National Quantum Technology Innovation Strategy (Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council, January 21, 2020). Currently, 10 research institutes and universities have received accreditation.
About Quantum Technology Innovation Hub: https://qih.riken.jp/en/
(9) Next-Generation Innovation Platform “SX-Aurora TSUBASA” Series Product website:
www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/hpc/sx/index.html
(10) An annealing machine that simulates quantum behavior using conventional computing technology without utilizing quantum properties.
URL: www.nec.com/en/global/quantum-computing/index.htmlLakewood University Offers Prospective Student Grants, Financial Aid, and Other Monetary Support
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