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Asia University (AU) continually expanded the scholarly communication with several top universities in the USA. During the Lunar New Year, AU President, Jeffrey J. P. Tsai, traveled to the United States to host the 13th IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing. He also visited Rice University, the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, and the University of California at Irvine to deepen and broaden future cooperation chances with these top universities, and moreover, to increase international interactions between the teachers and students of these schools.

From January 30 to February 1, AU President, Jeffrey J. P. Tsai, held the IEEE conference and discussed the newest developments in the field with representatives from the academia and industry. The field of semantic computing explores semantic derivations from all types of information, description, interrelation and usage. It can be applied to various fields such as biomed, IoT, cloud computing, wearable computing, context awareness, search engines, question answering, big data and multimedia.

The IEEE conference invited a professor from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Dr. Chris Dede, as a speaker. Prof. Dede is a very outstanding scholar in learning technologies. During the speech, he demonstrated techniques to interpret the learning behaviors which have been considered as more abstract in the past. Now learning behaviors can be visualized and assist teachers in classrooms; through effective data analysis, they provide more precise learning guidances. AU devotes on innovative teaching, and her education blueprint of the future aims at introducing artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) technologies to subvert traditional teaching methods and enhance the students’ learning experiences. In this year, AU will hold a related forum, and for this purpose, President Tsai invited Prof. Dede as a keynote speaker, and expects him to join the cooperative research in field of learning technologies between AU and Harvard University.

President Tsai also visited Rice University and met the President of the school, Prof. David Leebron, to discuss future cooperations between the two universities. Rice University is ranked No. 14 in the USA by both of the Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education Rankings. In the meantime, President Tsai invited President Leebron to participate a global university president forum which will be held at AU in the following May on the issue of the university responsibility in the society. In addition, he met the Chair of the Information Engineering Dept., Prof. Luay Nakhleh, and Chair Professor Antonios G. Mikos who teaches in three departments the Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biomolecular Engineering Depts. Prof. Mikos is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Member of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering. He is the Director of the Center of Engineering Complex Tissues. The center has been granted a project of 6.25 million USD recently by the National Institute of Health (NIH). The project aims to assist the development new technologies in the fields of tissues engineering, 3D printing, and bio-printing. Prof. Mikos has accepted the invitation and will give a speech at AU in this year to share his experiences of 3D printing developments in bioengineering.

Furthermore, President Tsai visited the MD Anderson Cancer Center to meet an academician of Academia Sinica in Taiwan, Prof. Mien-Chie Hung, who is going to assume the position of the President of China Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan. Prof. Hung right now is the Vice President for Basic Research of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas at Huston. The MD Anderson Center was founded in 1941 and has a history of nearly 80 years. This institution has been ranked as the national top-one cancer cure center by the US News and World Report Magazine. The vision of the MD Anderson Center is “making cancer history.” By this visit, President Tsai hopes a better chance can be created for the AU Hospital to join world-class cancer researches.