A New Era Begins 1975-78

(3) Anti-hypertension Herbs: A crystalline compound has already been extracted from a certain Chinese herb, and its chemical structure and biological activities are being investigated. The second research Unit is concerned wi th two of the most serious threats to mankind: food shortage and environmental pollution. Here again the Unit is interdisciplinary, involving staff from Biology, Chemistry, Marine Science, and Business Administration, supplemented by engineers from the Buildings Office. The Unit is conducting two main lines of investigation: (1) Production of Food Protein from Treated Sewage Wastes: Briefly the process involves cleansing the nutrient material in the effluent by using an efficient algae culture system which, at the same time, can produce food for plants of economic value. (2) The Production of Straw Mushrooms from Cotton Waste and Used Tea Leaves: The edible mushroom is a neglected source of high quality protein. The straw mushroom, in particular, can be readily cultivated in tropical and sub-tropical countries. It is expected that the research will be valuable to the mushroom industry in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. In furtherance of this project, The Chinese University in 1977 conducted a “Training Course of the Cultivation of Edible Fungi (Mushrooms)". Hung On-To Research Centre for Machine Translation The on-going experimentation in machine translation of languages, specifically Chinese to English, named CULT (Chinese University Language Translator) was first designed and tested in October 1972 by the Machine Translation Project established wi th a grant from The Asia Foundation. Subsequently, difficulties encountered in linguistics have been identified and rectified. Since 1975, CULT has been used regularly in translating the complete texts of 13 issues of Acta Mathematics Sinica and 2 issues of Acta Physica Sinica and many articles in biochemistry (all from Chinese to English) published by Peking. The Project has also comp i l ed A Glossary of the Mathematical and Computing Sciences (C-E/E-C )， without which the output would be greatly reduced. The Project was further strengthened by a donation of half a million Hong Kong dollars from the Hung On-To Memorial Fund in early 1978 for the purchase and installation of a mini-computer system which would give the Project exclusive usage. Subsequently, the Project was expanded and reorganized into the Hung On-To Research Centre for Machine Translation in April 1978 under the Institute o f Science and Technology. The next phase o f the Centre will be to translate from English to Chinese. A new and expanded edition of the Glossary of Mathematical and Computing Sciences is also completed. 58