Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Institutional RepositoryNot a member yet
162821 research outputs found
Sort by
Desalination and the Middle East: research, practices, implications, and prospects
No full textGrowing reliance on desalinated water, a vital resource for sustaining life, has greatly accelerated the worldwide endeavor to develop safe and sustainable desalination methods. The Middle East, well-known for its substantial oil reserves and hot weather, constitutes 46.9% (60.1 million m3/day) of contracted and 41.8% (28.96 million m3/day) of the current total operational desalination capacity worldwide (i.e., 128 million m3/day and 69.3 million m3/day, respectively). As a result, the region accounts for 50.68% (52.83 million m3/day) of the world’s brine production (104.2 million m3/day). This immense dependence of the Middle East on desalinated water has made desalination research imperative in academia and the region’s industries, hence making remarkable advancements in the field. This study encapsulates the six decades of desalination progression in the Middle East, sharing specifics of the facilities with “online/presumed-online” status. It shares desalination chronicles, capacity/user distribution, cumulative capital/operational expenditures trend, brine production/management practices, policies related to desalination/water security in the region, and plans. Also, it provides a comprehensive overview of the research and development (R&D) activities pertaining to desalination, highlights the top institutions/organizations actively engaged in research, classifies the investigated areas, and shares details of the funds supporting research and development in the region for advancing desalination.</p
Inspired by ion-specific effects: Repurposing metformin to tackle protein crystallopathy
No full textThe spontaneous crystallization of galectin-10 (gal-10) in vivo is closely associated with the pathological mechanisms of certain intractable diseases, including eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (ECRSwNP), for which targeted therapies are currently lacking. Gal-10 crystals have been identified as a promising target for clinical intervention against these diseases. However, the development of small-molecule drugs that target gal-10 crystallization has remained elusive. In this study, we discover an FDA-approved drug, metformin, which effectively induces the dissociation of gal-10 crystals in vitro by exploiting ion-specific effects that modulate the stability of protein crystals. We assess the therapeutic efficacy of metformin through both intratracheal and oral administration in a mouse model with gal-10 crystal-induced lung inflammation. Our results, including proinflammatory cytokine release and pathology tests, highlight the potency of metformin in ameliorating the symptoms of gal-10 crystallopathy in vivo. This work demonstrates a drug repurposing strategy that can guide the discovery of lead compounds for the treatment of protein crystallopathies.</p
Investigating the Dynamics of Single Synaptic Vesicle Recycled by Spontaneous and Evoked Release Using Nanometer-Accuracy Microscopy
No full text
Optimal Job Assignment With Spillover Effects
No full textThis paper studies a principal's problem of assigning a job to one of a set of candidate agents, in the presence of a spillover effect on the agents who are not assigned the job. Such a spillover effect is commonly seen in various contexts. We consider the job assignment mechanisms that (a) maximize social welfare without money transfer, (b) maximize social welfare with budget balancing, or (c) maximize the principal's revenue. When a money transfer is forbidden, we show that the structure of the optimal mechanism is driven by two conflicting forces: The winning and the free-riding effects. If one effect dominates the other, the allocation outcome cannot achieve social efficiency because the agents are incentivized not to tell the truth. When a money transfer is allowed, however, our results suggest that a socially efficient outcome can always be brought about. In the case of revenue maximization, we show that the principal will design the mechanism in a way that discourages free-riding behaviors. We extend our model in several directions, and the implications from these extensions are discussed.</p
Parenthood and Subjective Financial Well-Being: Reconsidering the Economic Consequences of Parenthood
No full textObjective: We aim to examine how experiences of parenthood influence subjective financial well-being, particularly in the context of rising economic uncertainties and the pressures of intensive parenting norms. Background: Despite the widely recognized negative effects of financial pressure on subjective well-being, limited research explores the connection between parenthood and subjective financial circumstances. Method: This study uses longitudinal data from 19,258 respondents in the United Kingdom with 118,664 person-year records and fixed effects (FE) models and fixed effects models with individual constants and individual slopes (FEIS) to examine the impacts of parenthood on subjective financial well-being among couples. Results: Parenthood significantly reduces subjective financial well-being, with women experiencing a more pronounced decline than men. This gender difference is primarily due to greater changes in women's engagement in the labor market. The negative impact of parenthood on subjective financial well-being is especially pronounced for couples with more than one child, for mothers with very young children, or couples with teenagers, and when women hold more egalitarian views on gender ideology. Conclusion: This study reveals the dynamics of subjective financial well-being during the family formation process. The findings highlight the need for more policies to minimize employment disruptions for new parents and provide financial support for families with teenagers or older children.</p
Temporal consistent multi-view perception for robust embodied manipulation
No full textPerception plays a critical role in developing effective policies for multi-task embodied manipulation, in which visual comprehension and task interpretation are essential. Existing methods typically rely on multi-view 2D representations for visual perception, aiming to build computation-friendly perception modules through imitation learning from extensive collections of high-quality robot trajectories. However, these approaches face significant challenges when expert demonstrations are limited or tasks are highly complex, resulting in inefficiencies. To address these limitations, we propose Temporal Consistent Multi-View Perception (TMVP), a sample-efficient two-stage framework for robot manipulation that integrates temporal information into multi-view representations. Specifically, TMVP employs contrastive learning to extract meaningful, task-relevant features from visual inputs, enhancing temporal consistency and alignment with task instructions. This results in visual representations that are temporally coherent and grounded in task trajectories, enabling the model to better comprehend and execute complex manipulation tasks from diverse perspectives. Experiments conducted on RLBench demonstrate that TMVP outperforms baseline models across a wide range of tasks, achieving superior multi-task performance and few-shot training efficiency. These results highlight the potential of TMVP as an efficient and effective solution for embodied manipulation.</p