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Awards & Awards & RecognitionsRecognitions

Dragons Play with A Ball. Name from the Old Chinese Story. The Material is ZnO Nanoparticlesby Yang Huiying, Project Officer, School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

R e s e a r c h R e p o r t 2 0 0 6 . A w a r d s & R e c o g n i t i o n s120

Assoc Prof Graeme Britton Internationally Recognised for Research Excellence

Assoc Prof Britton receiving his higher doctorate from the Robin Mann, Chancellor of the University of Canterbury

In April 2006, Assoc Prof Graeme Britton from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) was awarded the higher doctorate, the Doctor of Engineering (DEng), in recognition of his significant research contributions in the field of Design and Manufacturing. The DEng was awarded by the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Higher doctorates (Doctor of Engineering, Doctor of Science, etc) are awarded on the basis of about a decade of outstanding research, judged through examination of publications by internationally recognized Professors who already are DSc or Deng holders.

planning, specifically manufacturing tolerance analysis and sheet metal stamping process planning.

Assoc Prof Britton is the Director of the Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CADCAM) Laboratory of the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE). His current research interests include his work as an international research consultant for the Institute of Production Engineering, Tampere University of Technology, Finland. This international research program is aimed at developing new techniques for integrating product design and manufacturing system design.

Development of Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Using a 3D Inkjet Modelmaker

Assoc Prof Britton’s research is based on the application of systems and graph theory to design and manufacturing. His research in design focuses on developing an expert,

knowledge-based, functional design system with specific applications in plastic injection mould design and automated assembly. In manufacturing, his focus is on process

Internal porous structure of collagen scaffold

3D Inkjet Modelmaker

The 3D Inkjet Modelmaker is a three-dimensional rapid prototyping technique. Its superiority lies in its ability to fabricate very thin slices of 20 micrometers, which means it is able to produce a model of the internal porous structure of collagen scaffolds. Through this research work, the team comprising of Ms Yeong

Wai Yee, Assoc Prof Chua Chee Kai and Assoc Prof Leong Kah Fai of the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) won a Best Paper Award, entitled “Development of Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Using a 3D Inkjet Modelmaker” which was presented at the 2nd International Conference on Advanced Research in Virtual and Rapid Prototyping, Leiria, Portugal in October 2005.

A w a r d s & R e c o g n i t i o n s . R e s e a r c h R e p o r t 2 0 0 6 121

Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship Award 2006

He Qi

entitled ‘Anticipatory Event Detection’ is together with Assoc Prof Lim Ee-Peng and Asst Prof Chang Kuiyu.

Ten project proposals have been selected for the award of the Information and Communication Technology Grant (Idea-Bank) out of the 36 proposals submitted. With the endorsement of the Dean of the College of Engineering, Prof Pan Tso-Chien, four faculty members from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) are in the selected list. They are Asst Prof Sudha Natarajan (Design of Efficient Techniques for Iris Recognition), Assoc Prof Yeo Chai Kiat (Pervasive Network Communication Module for Ubiquitous Broadband Wireless Access), and Asst Prof Deepu Rajan and Assoc Prof Tan Ah Hwee (Knowledge Discovery with Multi-Modality Media Analysis).

ICT Grant Awardees from SCE

Prof Goh with the SPRING award

Prof Srikanthan; teacher, researcher, and mentor

Two faculty members from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) received national recognition for their outstanding contributions to education in Singapore by being awarded the National Day Awards - Public Administration Medal. Prof Angela Goh and Prof Thambipillai Srikanthan have excelled in teaching, research and administration, bringing honour to the school in many ways. They are also much respected and loved by students and peers. Prof Goh was awarded the Silver Medal and Prof Sri the Bronze Medal.

Prof Goh, Associate Chair (Academic) of SCE, also received the SPRING Outstanding Achievement Award in Standardisation in 2005, in recognition of her outstanding performance in leading standardisation initiatives outside formal standards programmes.

Prof Srikanthan, Director of the Centre for High Performance Embedded Systems (CHiPES) and the Intelligent Devices & Systems (IDeAS) Cluster has dedicated more than 15 years to education in Singapore. He has also made significant contributions towards advancing research in embedded systems.

National Recognition for SCE Faculty Members

He Qi, a PhD student from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), is the winner of the Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) Fellowship Award 2006.

63 candidates sent their applications, from which 34 cleared the evaluations. The review team was impressed with He Qi’s writing and presentation skills. He also had a good publication record and an interesting research topic on Multi-lingual Anticipatory Event Detection (MAED). His current research project


UK-Singapore Partners in Science Collaboration AwardsSome faculty members from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) will soon be able to travel to England on overseas travel grants awarded by the British High Commission as part of the UK-Singapore Partners in Science Collaboration initiative. They are Assoc Prof Lee Bu Sung (Associate Chair (Research) of SCE), Assoc Prof Alvis Fong, Assoc Prof Alexei Sourin, Asst Prof Malcolm Low, Asst Prof Ong Yew Soon, Asst Prof Vinod A Prasad, and Asst Prof Miao Chun Yan. They will visit and network with potential overseas partner institutions to exchange research visions, and possibly collaborate in the areas of Grid-computing and e-Science.

Asst Prof Tay Joc Cing from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) was awarded the UK-Singapore Partner in Science Collaboration in the area of computational immunology. He was in London in June 2006 to give a seminar to the Windeyer Institute of Medical Science on “Individual-based Epidemiological Models” as part of this collaboration.

SCE Don is UK-Singapore Partner

SCE’s Research Recognised at SIGKDD 2006 The Association for Computing Machinery – Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (ACM SIGKDD) is the most prestigious conference in data mining research. Assoc Prof Sourav S Bhowmick from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) and his PhD student Zhao Qiankun, won the ACM Student Travel Award with their paper, “Event Detection from the Evolution of Click-through Data” presented during the recent 12th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD 2006) which was held in Philadelphia, USA. In a collaborative effort with Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, Assoc Prof Bhowmick, Zhao, and T-Y Liu and W-Y Ma (from Microsoft Research Asia) investigated a novel approach that would detect events from search engine log data by analysing the evolution pattern of the data. This data can be used in several applications such as event-based advertisement, event directory, event-based search results, and web-based event alert system.

Assoc Prof Bhowmick and his PhD student, Zhao Qiankun

Brilliant Regional Coder

Ardian Poernomo, a student from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), out-coded 14,000 other participants from the region take the top prize in Google’s India Code Jam programming contest for the past two years. Ardian was the only finalist to solve two complex programming problems in the last round of the contest this year. A programming whiz, Ardian was very happy to pit his skills against other coders in the region. He is now reading his PhD in SCE.

Ardian Poernomo (centre) at the India Code Jam 2006

Speckled ComputingA senior tutor from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), Mr Steven Wong Kai Juan, who is currently pursuing his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, was featured in the popular Australian documentary ‘Beyond Tomorrow’ on 28 September 2005. The programme featured his project on Speckled Computing and the prototype “ProSpeckz” which he developed. “ProSpeckz” is currently used by some of the staff and students from several Scottish universities including the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, Napier University, University of St Andrews, University of Strathclyde and the Edinburgh College of Art.

Speckled Computing is an emerging technology in which data from any physical environment would be sensed in minute semiconductor grains called Specks. Information will be extracted in situ from each autonomous Speck, exchanged and processed in a collaborative fashion in a wireless network of thousands of Specks. Given their small footprints, Specks can be scattered or painted onto surfaces and everyday objects such as chairs and cups. This enables Specks to be part of a distributed, intelligent, autonomous, pervasive and reprogrammable sensor network known as a Specknet.


Started in 1999, Microsoft Research Asia has been awarding the fellowship to the keenest mind in science and technology with the potential to become a leader in research. A PhD student from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), Wang Jinjun, won the

Wang Jinjun receiving the award from Dr Kurt Akeley, Asst Manager of MSRA

Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship Award 2005

The Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (ACM CIKM) is a premier international forum for presentation and discussion of research on information and knowledge management, as well as recent advances in data and knowledge bases. PhD student Erwin Leonardi and his supervisor Assoc Prof Sourav S Bhowmick from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) won the Student Travel Award at the 14th ACM CIKM held in November 2005 in Bremen, Germany. Their paper entitled “Detected Changes on Unordered XML Documents Using Relational Databases: A Schema-Conscious Approach” investigated the performance of a relational-based unordered XML change detection technique, HELIOS, which uses a schema-conscious approach (Shared-Inlining) as the underlying storage strategy. It was shown that for large datasets, HELIOS is up to 52 times faster than X-Diff, a published main-memory based unordered XML change detection algorithm.

ACM CIKM 2005 ‘Student Travel Award’

Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship Award for 2005. He impressed the evaluation panel with his clear and focused research topics and excellent academic records. Jinjun also received US$6,000 and an attachment with the Microsoft Research Asia Lab in Beijing for a period of 3 to 6 months.

For two consecutive years Joshua Lau, a student from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), has won the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) Publication Gold Award (Student Category). Supervised by Assoc Prof Jagath Rajapakse, Joshua’s paper was on his final year project entitled “Independent Component Analysis with Reference on EEG and MEG data”.

Best Paper Award at PADS 2006The 20th ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS) by the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Simulation (ACM-SIGSIM), Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers Computer Society Technical Committee on Simulation (IEEE-TCSIM), and Society for Modelling and Simulation International (SCS) was the scene of triumph for Chen Dan, Assoc Prof Stephen J Turner, and Assoc Prof Cai Wentong from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE). Out of 21 other papers submitted, the team from SCE won the coveted Best Paper Award with “A Framework for Robust High Level Architecture (HLA)-based Distributed Simulations”.

This paper introduced a framework for robust HLA-based distributed simulations using a “Decoupled Federate Architecture”. What this framework does is exploit the architecture to provide a generic fault-tolerant model that uses a ‘dynamic substitution’ approach to deal with failure. It supports reusability of legacy federate code, and is platform-neutral and independent of federate modelling approaches.

IES Publication Gold Award

Joshua (left) receiving his award at the IES D&D

Vietnamese Intellect 2006, annual software contest for youth talents, wrapped up Monday, 2 January 2007, in Hanoi with the winners taking home prizes of over VND300 million (US$18,650). Twenty-three-year-old Vuong Ba Quy, a graduate student from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) won the top prize of VND70 million ($4,350) and a laptop for a software that creates and recognizes mathematics expressions. Quy recently got a doctoral scholarship from the Vietnam Education Fund. The winners were selected from among 12 entries which made it to the final from 106. The Vietnamese Intellect 2006 was organized by Lao Dong Newspaper, Vietnamese Television, and the Corporation of Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT).

Vietnam Software Contest Winners Named Source: Thanh Nien – Translated by Luu Thi Hong


Agent ‘Neil’ Activated at ART CompetitionThis agent is no spy but the project developed by a PhD student, Weng Jianshu from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE). Jianshu and his team won the second prize at the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (AAMAS) in Hokodate, Japan, in May 2006. Agent ‘Neil’ outdid 19 other research teams from different universities and institutes in the Agent Reputation and Trust (ART) Competition.

The team comprised Jianshu, supervisors Prof Angela Goh and Asst Prof Miao Chun Yan from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), with Dr Shen Zhiqi and Prof Robert Gay from Information Communication Institute of Singapore at NTU’s School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE). The trust and reputation evaluation metrics used by ‘Neil’ will be further applied to an A*STAR-funded national research project.

Weng Jianshu at ART Competition in Japan

Data Mining Gets Competitive at PAKDD 2006The 10th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD) 2006 together with SAS, Singapore Institute of Statistics, and the Pattern Recognition & Machine Intelligence Association of Singapore was organised by faculty members from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE).

Participating teams had to solve a classification problem with the objective to accurately predict some customer data for a telco operator. A fourth year student from SCE, Hanny Yulius Limanto, together with Asst Prof Tay Joc Cing, Assistant Chair (Student Affairs) in SCE, and Dr Andrew Watkins from Mississippi State University emerged as the Champions in the University Category. The team made use of an immune-system-inspired data mining algorithm to predict the data.

Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) Assistant Chief Executive Mr Khoong Hock Yun, Mr Hanny Yulius Limanto and Asst Prof Tay Joc Cing

Discover Engineering!

The winning team of the Most Popular Undergraduate Project category

Discover Engineering@NTU was held in March 2006. The event called on all engineering schools in NTU to display interesting exhibits and showcase research projects to the public. This year’s committee was chaired by Assoc Prof Lee Keok Kee from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE).

SCE won the first and second prizes in the Most Popular Undergraduate Project category. The first prize was won by Asst Prof Miao Chun Yan, Abhinav Agrawal and Wang Jianshu with the project titled “Multi Agent System for Interactive Lab”.

The second prize went to Asst Prof Franklin Fu, Cheok Meeau Chin, Lee Ri Kang Kelvin, Lin Jiating Justin, Koh Hong Hui, Nguyen Hoang Anh and Ong Sze Wee Francis with “Faculty Mining via SIMPLICITY”.

For Most Popular Nanyang Research Program Project, SCE came in first and third. The first prize was won by Ms Li Fang, Choon Kean Fatt, Tejas Shikhare and Victor Chan with the project entitled “Palmprint Classification”. The third was won by Asst Prof Vivekanand Gopalkrishnan, Swati Gupta and Zhiren Yang with their project “OLAP Reporting Tool for Mobile Clients”.


Silver Award at DSTA Best Projects Competition

SCE third year student, Wong Chia

Sern (left)

SCE Don Gets Invited

Assoc Prof Rajapakse is Deputy Director of the BioInformatics Research Centre (BIRC), NTU

applications of computational techniques and information technologies to address diverse problems in life sciences. Assoc Prof Rajapakse would be the first Asian in the editorial board of this prestigious journal, excluding Japan. He was also appointed as Associate Editor of a new journal: International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, published by Hindawi Publishing Inc. This journal publishes articles on computational techniques inspired on brain functioning such as neural networks, fuzzy techniques, evolutionary algorithms, and modelling neural circuits, leading to brain function. Assoc Prof Rajapakse was selected to serve as General Co-Chair of 2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (IEEE CICBB 2007) to be held in Hawaii, USA, from 1–5 April 2007.

JC Students’ Paper Downloaded Over 250 Times within Two Months of Publication

Assoc Prof Jagath C Rajapakse from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE) was invited to serve as Associate Editor of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. The journal covers a full range of articles covering

and “Multiple Path Finder (MPF)”. The competition organised by DSTA involved projects undertaken by students during their internship with the company.

APDS project uses the Bayesian networks approach to artificial intelligence. With APDS, a commander would be able to focus on strategies while the system monitors the ongoing situation and alerts the commander accordingly. The system also provides recommended courses of actions to help the commander in his decisions. The other project, MPF, uses the A* search algorithm to find three distinct, short paths from a starting point to a designated end point. The system also provides alternative paths in the event that the best path choice is impassable. A feature of this project is the ability to find efficient paths in a large road map swiftly.

Three Junior College (JC) students working on a Nanyang Research Program project with Dr Jose Martinez of the National Institute of Education (NIE) have recently published their work in the European Journal of Physics (vol 27, pp 805 - 817, 2006) whose editors have informed them that their article had been downloaded over 250 times during the first two months since the article’s publication. The paper, “Fluid Flow up a Spinning Egg and the Coriolis Force”, is the work of Ankita Bansal (St Andrew’s JC), Wang Yifeng and Wang

noninertial force, the Coriolis force, which is the cause of the vortex motion characterizing typhoons or tornados. While the pattern discussed by the students for water flow showed a universal character, the corresponding results for

Fountain of water droplets formed at the equator of a sphere rotating at 600 rpm

Water threads being spun off the equator which is due to the interplay surface tension and centrifugal forces

A third year student from NTU’s School of Computer Engineering (SCE), Wong Chia Sern, was awarded the Silver Award in the DSTA Internship Best Projects Competition 2005 for two of his projects, “Advanced Planning and Decision System (APDS)”

Shengtao (Hwa Chong JC). It discussed the resulting phenomenon when the bottom of a rapidly rotating egg was in touch with a quiescent fluid. Surprisingly the fluid trailed in sinuous rivulets up the egg, collected at its equatorial region and was flung out as a spectacular fountain of droplets. The paper compared theoretical predictions of the fluid paths up the egg (or sphere) with photographs of the actual flows and found good agreement. The highly non-intuitive result which seems to defy gravity is due to a

viscous flows seemed to differ markedly. Recently another paper by Dr Martinez (“Berry’s Phase and Space Symmetries”, Journal of Physics A, vol 29, pp185 - 201, 2006) had also been downloaded over 250 times.


SCBE Graduate Student Wins TKK Young Inventor’s Award

Adin proudly presenting

his certificate (left), actuating

mechanism (upper right), prototype

(lower right)

Asst Prof Boh Wai Fong of Nanyang Business School

Asst Prof Boh Wai Fong is awarded by Academy of Management, in recognition of Finalist Academy of Management’s Newman Award for Best Paper

Asst Prof Boh Wai Fong is also recognized by Academy of Management, for Honorary Mention: Academy of Management’s division of Organizational Communication and Information Systems’ Best Reviewer Award

Asst Prof Lam Shun Yin is awarded the Best Reviewer Award by Journal of Interactive Marketing

Assoc Prof Tsui-Auch Lai Si, is awarded Citation of Excellence by Emerald Management Reviews

Assoc Prof Tsui-Auch Lai Si of Nanyang Business School

Tan Ming Adin, a graduate student from the Division of Bioengineering of the School of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering (SCBE), was awarded the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors’ Award 2006 (Defence Section, Commendation Award) for his contribution to the NTU Anti-Landmine Shoe, developed by him and his supervisor Assoc Prof Franz Konstantin Fuss (SCBE).

Currently available anti-landmine shoes are either detonation provoking ones (which still cause injuries) or detonation preventing

shoes (which are highly insecure and unreliable). Thus a new automatic electromechanical anti-landmine shoe was developed. This anti-landmine shoe consists of 6 legs. Each of its leg contains a metal detector, a solenoid, and a circuitry. When the detector of one leg senses metal, the solenoid unlocks the lower part of this leg such that it gives way passively and does not transmit any force to the ground, preventing any detonation of landmine. The load is then redistributed among the remaining 5 legs.

Asst Prof Lam Shun Yin of Nanyang Business School


Business Law, Assoc Prof Tan Lay Hong

Assoc Prof Tan Lay Hong’s interest in seeing the development of Chinese law was kindled by the phenomenal rise of China as an economic superpower in the last 15

Asst Prof Sharon Ng focuses her research primarily on the impact of culture on the way brand information is structured in memory

Strategy, Management and Organisations,

Asst Prof Violet Ho Tzu Wei

Asst Prof Violet Ho received the Best Paper Based on a Dissertation award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management, the leading professional association for management scholars internationally for one of her papers in 2003. The same paper was also one of the five finalists (out of 21 nominees) short-listed for the Academy-wide William H.

Nanyang Business School (NBS): Researcher of Division 2006Nanyang Business School (NBS): Researcher of Division 2006

Marketing & International Business, Asst Prof Ng Sok Ling Sharon

Chinese corporations and securities laws, she saw how Chinese law in these areas was heavily influenced by foreign thinking and jurisprudence, albeit often modified to suit Chinese conditions. The study of Chinese law from a comparative perspective makes her understand the various legal systems better and underscores the fact that each country’s legal system is very much a heritage of its own culture, history and political developments. Assoc Prof Tan is in the midst of research into the issue of designing an appropriate system of corporate governance for China’s listed state-owned enterprises. She came to a conclusion that China requires a unique Asian model that will synch with its politico-cultural underpinnings, rather than adopt the Western models of main bank-dominated governance (Germany and Japan) or the external market for corporate control (US/UK). Her research on Chinese law spans the last 10 years and she has produced four published papers, one of which was an “A” journal paper and a book on China Business Law: A Guide for Lawyers and Entrepreneurs that sold 1,000 copies to-date.

Accounting, Asst Prof Low Kin Yew

Asst Prof Low Kin Yew worked as an auditor with an international Certified Public Accountant firm in Singapore and Sydney, Australia prior to joining NTU. He is a member

Newman Best Dissertation award. Asst Prof Ho received the Researcher of the Division award from the Nanyang Business School in 2005 and 2006, and has published in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, Organization Science, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Human Relations, and Information Systems Research. Her research interests include psychological contracts, social networks in organizations, and employee engagement.

years. China is a hotbed for various experimentations on how foreign legal systems can be transplanted into Chinese soil. In her research into

of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Singapore, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the American Accounting Association. He teaches the Assurance and Attestation course at NTU and has published in The Accounting Review in the area of auditor judgments. His research has been presented at the International Symposium on Audit Research. He won the American Accounting Association’s 2003 Outstanding Auditing Dissertation Award.

and how people respond to various branding strategies. She also examines cross-cultural differences in other aspects of consumer behavior such as counterfactual thinking. She has published in journals such as Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Marketing Research.


Information Technology & Operation Management, Assoc Prof Tung Lai Lai & Assoc Prof Christina Soh Wai Lin

Assoc Prof Christina Soh is best known among Information Systems (IS) academics for her work in organizational implementation of large scale enterprise systems packages. Her paper in Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2000 on package-organization misalignments, co-authored with Sia Siew Kien, is among the top 1% in citations in the IS field according to Essential Science Indicators. In 2005, two papers from this stream of work

Assoc Prof Tung Lai Lai Assoc Prof Christina Soh Wai Lin

engagement, and consideration of the Asian environment. Industry research partners include Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), Singapore General Hospital (SGH), Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC), IBM Consulting Australia, RosettaNet Asia, National Computer Board (NCB) and SCS among others. She was invited to be on the opening panel for the Society for Information Management workshop (Las Vegas, December 2005) and presented the Asian

Banking and Finance, Asst Prof Zhang Shaojun

Nanyang Business School (NBS): Researcher of Division 2006Nanyang Business School (NBS): Researcher of Division 2006

Asst Prof Zhang’s research concentrates on understanding the effect of the stochastic movement in the volatility of foreign exchange rate on the price of currency options. It has been well documented that the volatility of foreign exchange rate fluctuates over time. Finance theory suggests that investors dislike potential future changes in volatility and are willing to avoid it by paying a price. However, empirical evidence has been mixed on this issue. Some studies support the theory while others disagree. Most of previous studies investigate this issue with stock options. Asst Prof Zhang and his co-author, Assoc Prof Low Buen Sin from the Division of Banking and Finance, conducted a comprehensive study of the over-the-counter currency options and documented

were published in the MISQ Executive and the Journal of Strategic Information Systems. Current work on complex enterprise systems projects focuses on issues of control and knowledge transfer, and her paper written with Cecil Chua was recognized as one of the best papers in the 2005 Academy of Management Conference. She is also known for her work in IT and strategy, both at the organizational and national IT policy level. A recent paper examining strategic configurations of electronic marketplaces after the dot.com bust has been accepted for publication in the MIS Quarterly.

Her 15 years of research has been characterized by industry

context and IT management. She has also been invited to work on this topic as a visiting scholar at the Centre for Information Systems Research in MIT in June/July 2006.

She serves actively in the international research community, being on the editorial board of the MIS Quarterly, MISQ Executive, Journal of the AIS and Journal of strategic Information Systems & Information and Organization. She is also the co-chair for the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2006) doctoral consortium and the 10th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2007) doctoral consortium.

convincing evidence that investors indeed pay a price to buy protection against future change in volatility. Their findings are accepted by the finance research community and published in a top journal in finance.

Assoc Prof Ho Kim Wai (left), Assoc Dean of NBS, is presenting the award to Asst Prof Zhang Shaojun (right)


Distinguished Leadership Award

International Council of Psychologists Seisoh Sukemune/Bruce Bain Early Career Research AwardIn July 2006, Assoc Prof Rebecca Ang Pei-Hui from the Division of Psychology, NTU’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) was awarded the International Council of Psychologists Seisoh Sukemune/Bruce Bain Early Career Research Award. This award is given in recognition of outstanding early career contributions to scholarly endeavors addressing psychological issues of multinational significance. Her award winning paper titled “Dysfunctional Parenting and Parenting Stress among Mothers of Aggressive Boys” reports a study that has the potential to expand our current understanding of parent-child interactions as well as the development of parent-focused preventive interventions for parents of aggressive boys.

She found overall dysfunctional mother parenting at Time 1 to significantly predict Time 2 maternal parenting stress in two subdomains of unrewarding mother-child interactions and a lack of attachment, over and above the variance accounted for by initial Time 1 maternal parenting stress in these respective subdomains. Additionally, maternal laxness at Time 1 predicted Time 2 maternal stress arising from unrewarding mother-child interactions, while maternal overreactivity at Time 1 predicted Time 2 maternal stress arising from a lack of attachment. Maternal verbosity at Time 1 did not add unique variance to the prediction of Time 2 maternal stress arising from unrewarding mother-child interactions and a lack of attachment, over and above that which has been predicted by Time 1 maternal stress in these respective subdomains. These findings have implications for prevention and intervention efforts that attempt to improve parent-child interaction quality and modify coercive operant contingencies within families.

HSS Don Was Sought after by the Local and International Media for His ViewsAssoc Prof Euston Quah from the Division of Economics of NTU’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) who is a well-known environmental economist and who had published several papers in top economics journals on the subject was sought after by the local and international media for his views. He has done analysis to estimate the economic damages arising from the forest fires in Indonesia and the resulting haze to Singapore. Much of his views centered on the need to establish economic incentives and disincentives to the various stakeholders in managing the forest fires and haze; better land use management; change in the legal structures involving the adoption of strict liability in law; cooperation among ASEAN countries; and the need to frequently estimate economic damages so as to monitor losses not only in the aggregate but also sectoral losses. Assoc Prof Quah’s interviews were published in the Straits Times, Taipei Times, Indonesian newspapers, German Press, French Press, Earth Times (USA) and Associated Foreign Press. His views were aired on television over Channel News Asia and on British Broadcasting Corporation, and were also aired on radio stations in Singapore. It was reported on Channel News Asia that the Singapore government will be working closely with Assoc Prof Quah on haze damages for 2006.

Prof Ang Soon, the founder and Executive Director of the Center of Leadership and Cultural Intelligence, of NTU’s Nanyang Business School (NBS), and the Goh Tjoei Kok Chair Professor in Management in NBS, has been named a recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals by the University of Minnesota.

Professor Ang received her doctorate in Business Administration with a supporting field in Industrial Organisational Psychology from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, in 1993. The award is conferred on international alumni who have distinguished themselves as leaders in their professions in institutions or in public

service and have demonstrated sustained outstanding achievement on a local, national or international level. Professor Ang is noted for developing a groundbreaking method to measure the concept of cultural intelligence in 2003. Her co-authored book “Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures”, has had a significant impact on the

field of international education, cross-cultural training and counseling. She has just released a follow-up book, “CQ: Developing Cultural Intelligence at Work” this year. She publishes extensively in top academic journals in the fields of Management, Psychology, Sociology, and Information Systems and has won numerous best paper awards.


One of the Top Library and Information Science (LIS) Researchers in the Asia-Pacific Region

A recent 2006 study of scholarly research authorship from the Asia Pacific region ranked Prof Schubert Foo of NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), as the most contributed author in the top 20 journals in Information and Library Science, and the most contributed author in Information Science journals. These top journals are ranked by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) Journal Citation Reports’ impact factors in the Information and Science journal categories. Prof Schubert Foo

EEE’s MEMS won IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award 2006A research team from NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) led by Assoc Prof Liu Ai Qun did NTU proud by clinching the Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award 2006 organized by the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) in recognition of their research excellence in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. The award presentation ceremony was held during the IES 40th Annual Dinner & Dance on 27 October 2006 at the Grand Hyatt Singapore. The Guest-of-Honour for the evening was Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister of Environment and Water Resources.

With the last six years of MEMS research effort, various breakthrough miniaturized devices for different applications ranging from tunable laser to single living cell detection chip and cells culture chip using MEMS fabrication techniques were innovated and demonstrated. For instance, a 100 pico second optical switch using nano-photonic bandgap crystal for light-tuning-light, was first demonstrated in the world. Another miniaturized injection-locked laser was also first presented in the world by integrating several MEMS components into a functional subsystem.

Says Assoc Prof Liu Ai Qun, “I am thankful to the IES for this special honour and appreciative to NTU for

MEMS group won the IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award

Assoc Prof Liu (center) and Dr Eric Yap (right) with Dr Yaacob Ibrahim (left), Minister of Environment and Water Resources.

providing me with the opportunity and environment to be at the forefront of cutting-edge research. NTU is currently ranked top 19th in the world in the field of MEMS technology and is the only university from Singapore in the ranking.”

The breakthrough research results by the MEMS group were reported 34 times by local and international media and won 14 local and international awards. This series of innovations has generated substantial impact both in engineering and industry where local and international representatives are found following and borrowing the ideas. Their continuous, long term and deep research impact has strengthened their international reputation as one of the world’s leading groups in the research field of MEMS. The winning research achievements by the research team helps to establish NTU’s international reputation and leadership in the MEMS technology.

Assoc Prof Wang Lipo of the School of Electrical & Electronics Engineering (EEE) was elected as Vice President, Technical Activities of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers’ Computational Intelligence Society (CIS), effective from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2007. In this capacity, he will supervise the 9 Technical Committees in various areas of the CIS. The activities of these Technical Committees include proposing and organizing CIS-sponsored conferences and workshops, proposing and evaluating best paper awards for IEEE Transactions sponsored by the CIS. The CIS has over 5000 members world-wide.

Vice President, Technical Activities of IEEE CIS


Student Award Won at ICASSP 2006The paper titled “Enumeration and Parametrization of Distinct Downsampling Patterns in Two-Dimensional Multirate Systems” authored by Mr Zhang Lei and Assoc Prof Anamitra Makur of the Division of Information Engineering, School of Electrical & Electronics Engineering (EEE), received the Student Paper Award in the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2006, held in Toulouse, France. This annual conference is recognized to be the topmost international conference in signal processing. The research done in this paper is expected to considerably simplify further work on two-dimensional downsampling matrices, applicable in image and video processing.

Graphic Used for Cover Image of Applied Physics LettersA graphic relating to the paper entitled “Zinc Oxide Hexagram Whiskers” by Assoc Prof Sun Xiaowei of the School of Electrical & Electronics Engineering (EEE) appeared as the cover image of Applied Physics Letters, 27 February 2006 issue.

Harvard-trained Prof Loh Teck Peng, a synthetic organic chemist, is now among the international guardians of ChemComm, a leading weekly journal

Prof Loh Teck Peng Helps to Shape One of the World’s Top Chemistry JournalsRecently invited to the Editorial Advisory Board of Chemical Communication (ChemComm), Prof Loh Teck Peng, who heads the Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry at the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS), is now one of the international guardians of the high standard of ChemComm, which provides a vibrant blend of quality research from across the chemical sciences.

Prof Loh advises the Editorial Board and staff on the impact, content and development of the leading weekly journal. Researchers from around the world may submit manuscripts for publication in ChemComm through Prof Loh.

The award-winning professor, in both teaching and research, and leader in green chemistry and organic synthesis, has published much of his work in the journal.

Prof Lee Soo Ying, Dean of College of Science and Chair of SPMS, notes that the appointment is a great honour for both Prof Loh and NTU, and helps to raise the international profile of the university.


MSE Student Wins Storage Unlimited Design Competition

ANSTO Beamtime Award

Mr Vincent Lau Koon Tuck, an undergraduate from the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) emerged as the winner in the annual design competition, Storage Unlimited Design Competition 2006, organized by A*STAR’s Data Storage Institute.

Mr Tay Yee Yan, a PhD student at the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) won the Australia Nuclear Science & Technology Organization (ANSTO) Beamtime Award for his submission entitled “Photonic Properties of ZnO Induced by Oxygen Vacancies”. Under this award, Yee Yan is able to use the beamtime facilities worth about A$86,250.

The winning entry from MSE was a new conceptual idea in the form of an electronic book which consumes less energy and makes use of e-paper technology. The conventional electronic book in the market could display one book only while this innovative e-book will be equipped with bluetooth capability and can display up to eight books concurrently.

Highest Grade of Membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for Prof Alex KotProf Alex Kot, Associate Chair (Research) of the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE), was awarded the prestigious honor in January for his exceptional contributions to “performance analysis systems and jammer suppression in communication systems”. He joined two other academic staff from the

School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) in receiving the highest grade of IEEE membership. Besides advancing research in his area of expertise, Prof Kot has contributed to IEEE as Distinguished Lecturer, Prestigious Conference Co-Chair, and Associate Editor of several IEEE journals.


NTU Innovation - High Strength Nanopowder for Wide ApplicationsA team of 5 PhD students from the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) competed against more than 70 teams from 30 countries and emerged among the top 10 in the ‘Nanochallenge – International Business Plan Competition’ held in Italy in November 2005. Many of these competing teams included top professors in Europe and actual start-up companies. The unique competition seeks commercially viable business plans from around the world for innovative start-ups to produce and commercialise products in nanotechnology. The top 10 teams are those deemed to have the most promising ideas by a panel of judges made up of

industry professionals, scientists and entrepreneurs. The submitted entry was a plan to develop innovative manufacturing technologies

to deliver quality ‘nanopowder’. Nanopowder can be used as surface coatings or materials fillers to improve performance in

products such as bullet-proof vests, surgical knives, airplane brakes and watches.

Prof Er Meng Hwa, NTU Acting Provost and Assoc Prof Foo Say Wei of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) and former President of the Institution of Engineers Singapore have been conferred the prestigious ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organisation (AFEO) Honorary Fellowship Award at the 24th AFEO Conference Opening Ceremony on 30 November 2006.

AFEO is a non-governmental body affiliated with the ASEAN Secretariat. It comprises the national engineering

NTU Dons Conferred Honorary Fellowships by Regional Engineering Organisation

organisation of each of the 10 ASEAN countries as members.

The AFEO Honorary Fellowship Award is given out annually to a limited number of distinguished individuals from the member countries in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the engineering profession. Prof Er and Assoc Prof Foo were made Honorary Fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the engineering profession in Singapore and the region.


Protective Technology Team Bags Top Defence Technology PrizeFor their outstanding contributions to the defence and security of Singapore, the Protective Technology Research (PTR) Team was awarded the Defence Technology Prize 2006 Team (R&D) Award on 3 November 2006.

The PTR Team is made up of members from NTU, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Defence Science & Technology Agency (DSTA). The team leader from NTU is Prof Pan Tso-Chien, Director of NTU’s Protective Technology Research Centre (which is hosted in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering) and Dean of the College of Engineering.

Noteworthy R&D milestones by the PTR Team include field tests to explore new methodologies of blast-resistant structures, underground ammunition facilities (UAF) which has led to the establishment of the Underground Technology and Rock Engineering (UTRE) programme and a review of state-of-the-art protective materials and advanced technology that protect structures against closed-in blasts and penetrations, as well as an assessment of new materials that could be incorporated into existing buildings for their protection.

Strong defence: (from left) NTU’s Assoc Prof Li Bing, Prof Pan Tso-Chien, Assoc Prof Lok Tat Seng and Prof Lu Yong, co-winners of the Defence Technology Prize 2006

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