Venue: Room 705, the complex building, School of MedicineSpeaker: Prof. Reidar K. Lie, head of Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen, Norway

Speaker: Dr. XU Fei, research fellow, Mohammad R. Seyedsayamdost Lab, Princeton UniversityVenue: Room 205, Administrative Building, School of Medicine

Venue: Room 418, School of Economics, Yuquan CampusSpeaker: Dr. ZHOU SifanZHOU Sifan, Assistant Professor at School of Economics and Wangyanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE) at Xiamen University since 2017. Sifan received her PhD in economics from University at Albany, State University of New York, in 2015. Before joining Xiamen University, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard University. Sifan specializes in labor economics and economics of science, innovation, and technology. She is particularly interested how workers, firms, and universities behave and interact with each other in the production, diffusion, and application of sciences and technologies; and how policy makers, at both local and national level, can optimally intervene these behaviors and interaction.Abstract:Access to knowledge is highly unequal in space. Due to that geographic distance is fixed over time, it has been a challenge to the literature to tell whether localized knowledge diffusion leads to spatial concentration of knowledge or the other way around. Employing patent citation data from United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to measure between-city knowledge flow and using the introduction of new airline flight routes as a source of exogenous variation to proximity, we find that holding geographic distance the same, travel time reduction increases knowledge diffusion. The results are robust when we control for knowledge-sourcing city-level and knowledge-destination city-level shocks that could potentially drive the introduction of new airline routes, and when we consider only new airline routes that are the outcome due to the opening of a new hub. We find the effects are stronger for inventor citations than for examiner citations, for cities with higher absorptive capacity, and for technology areas whose frontiers advance fast than for those that are more mature and stable. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of how knowledge diffusion affects the volume and the direction of future innovation.

Venue: Room 245, College of Life Sciences, Zijingang CampusSpeaker: Dr.Xiuren Zhang is a professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Institute for Plant Genomics & Biotechnology at Texas A&M University.

Speaker: Prof. Parimal Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Harvard UniversityTime and venue:April 24-25, 14:05-15:40, Room 1-204, West Teaching Building, Zijingang CampusApril 26, 14:05-15:40, Room 1-207, West Teaching Building, Zijingang CampusApril 29-30, 14:05-15:40, Room 1-203, West Teaching Building, Zijingang CampusContent:1.Philosophy in Classical IndiaPart 1.What is Indian PhilosophyPart 2.Sources of Knowledge2.How to Argue with a BuddhistPart 1.InferencesPart 2.God?3.Words and Sentences4.Aesthetics,Language,and EmotionPart 1.How words workPart 2.Why (some)people like horror movies5.Reading Philosophy--Dignāga and the basis of consciousness

Venue: Room 201, No. 12 Teaching Building, Yuquan CampusSpeaker: Prof. XIE Xin-chengProf. Xie obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1988 and became a faculty member in Department of Physics at Oklahoma State University in USA in 1991 and was named Regents Professor in 2004. He worked as Chief Scientist and Director of Laboratory of Condensed Matter Theory and Computation at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2005 to 2010. Professor Xie joined Peking University in 2010 as Chair Professor and Founding Director of International Center for Quantum Materials. In 2011 he was appointed as the Dean of School of Physics at Peking University. Professor Xie assumed the role of Divisional Director of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in 2016, and Vice President of NSFC in 2018.Professor Xie’s main research interests include quantum Hall effect, quantum transport, topological matter and strongly correlated electron systems. He is an editorial board member of several international peer-reviewed journals, such as a Divisional Associate Editor for Condensed Matter Division of Physical Review Letters (PRL) and the Editor-in-Chief of Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy. He also serves on the international advisory committees of many international conferences and institutes. Professor Xie was elected as a Fellow of American Physical Society in 2008, a Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015 and a Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in 2018. Abstract:Ever since its first proposal in 1976, Jackiw-Rebbi zero-mode has been drawing extensive attention for its charming properties including charge fractionalization, topologically protected zero-energy and possible non-Abelian statistics. We investigate these properties through the Jackiw-Rebbi zero-modes in quantum spin Hall insulator. Though charge fractionalization is not manifested, Jackiw-Rebbi zero-mode’s zero-energy nature leads to a double-frequency Aharonov-Bohm effect, implying that it can be viewed as a special case of Majorana zero-mode breaking particle-hole symmetry. Such relation is strengthened since Jackiw-Rebbi zero-modes also exhibit non-Abelian braiding properties in the absence of superconductivity, and the symmetry-protected degeneracy of both Jackiw-Rebbi and Majorana zero-modes is proved to be equally important as the topological gap for their non-Abelian statistics.

Venue: Room 236, No. 14 Teaching Building, Yuquan CampusSpeaker: Dr. Liangliang (Lilian) Jiang is an Associate Professor at the School of Accounting & Finance, Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Her research interests include banking and financial institutions, accounting and auditing in corporate governance, economics of regulation and corruption, and environmental economics. Her papers are published or forthcoming in the Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Comparative Economics, and others. Her works and views have been presented in major finance conferences such as American Finance Association annual conference (AFA), Western Finance Association annual conference (WFA), European Finance Association annual conference (EFA) and various conferences held by institutions such as Hong Kong Monetary Authority, National Bureau of Economic Research and covered by VoxEU and World Economic Forum, etc.

Venue: Room 118, No. 12 Teaching Building, Yuquan CampusSpeaker: Yonggang Huang, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering (by courtesy) Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern UniversityAbstract:Continuous monitoring of blood pressure, an essential measure of health status, typically requires complex, costly, and invasive techniques that can expose patients to risks of complications. Continuous, cuffless, and noninvasive blood pressure monitoring methods that correlate measured pulse wave velocity (PWV) to the blood pressure via the Moens−Korteweg (MK) and Hughes Equations, offer promising alternatives. The MK Equation, however, involves two assumptions that do not hold for human arteries, and the Hughes Equation is empirical, without any theoretical basis. The results presented here establish a relation between the blood pressure P and PWV that does not rely on the Hughes Equation nor on the assumptions used in the MK Equation. This relation degenerates to the MK Equation under extremely low blood pressures, and it accurately captures the results of in vitro experiments using artificial blood vessels at comparatively high pressures. For human arteries, which are well characterized by the Fung hyperelastic model, a simple formula between P and PWV is established within the range of human blood pressures. This formula is validated by literature data as well as by experiments on human subjects, with applicability in the determination of blood pressure from PWV in continuous, cuffless, and noninvasive blood pressure monitoring systems. 

Venue: Room 250, Mon Mai Wai Building, Zijingang CampusSpeaker: Professor Bill DurodieProfessor Durodie is chair of Risk and Security in International Relations, as well as a former head of the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, at the University of Bath in the UK. He was educated at Imperial College London, the London School of Economics and New College Oxford. He obtained his PhD through the Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management of Middlesex University.His main research interest is to examine the causes and consequences of contemporary perceptions of risk, as well as how these are framed and communicated across a range of issues relating to security, science and society.Abstract:Brexit appears to confuse, divide and anger people alike. But is it the cause of this, or the consequence of other processes?Certainly, many associates it with the advent of Trump and the rise of so-called populist parties across Europe and beyond.What does this all mean for a China that is growing and looking for predictability in the world order?Britain is not some third-rate power but remains one of the world's largest economies. Now the EU Council have agreed to allow yet another extension to this exhausting and inflammatory process - to 31 October. But it need not end there. Meanwhile many enterprises complain about being in limbo. And next month, the people of Europe, including the UK now, will get a chance to get their voices heard in European Parliament elections. Already Marinne Le Pen in France, the leader of the nationalist Front Nationale, is campaigning on the basis of the EU not allowing the UK to leave. Of course, all of this had been made worse by a fundamental divide between the people, who voted to leave, and their leaders who do not want to. So what, if anything, ought China to know or learn from all this? Are their important lessons in maintaining popular support that even non-democratic countries ought to head?