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EDUCATION
of Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Philosophy, Doctor of Medicine, and Master of Surgery, as well as doctorates in Letters, Science, Social Sciences, Divinity, and Laws. Certificates and diplomas are obtainable in the fields of law, education, psychology, various engineering subjects, Chinese language, medical sciences, and management studies.
The Faculty of Medicine contributes significantly to the higher professional training of registered doctors in Hong Kong. It also provides training for teachers of pre-clinical and clinical subjects from other medical schools in Southeast Asia.
In 1980, the Department of Extramural Studies provided 671 evening and day courses in a wide variety of vocational and professional fields for more than 20,000 adult students. The number of full-time teaching posts (including demonstratorships) at the university at the beginning of the 1980-1 academic year as 706.
The number of volumes held in the university libraries in 1980 comprised 314,000 in the general library, 224,000 in the Fung Ping Shan Chinese Library, 50,000 in the medical library, 18,000 in the law library, and 3,000 in the dental library.
Research
In the Faculty of Arts, research is progressing into aspects of both Chinese and English language and literature; comparative literature; the philosophy of language; the history of Chinese arts with special reference to painting; soil conditions; meteorology; biogeography; transportation and population geography; urban development; Chinese history; and Hong Kong history.
The Faculty of Science is engaged in research into the ecology of marine and freshwater organisms; the ecology of enterobacteria in Hong Kong waters; the physiology and metab- olism of fish with application to pond and marine culture; pathogens of local crop plants; parasites in humans and animals; the endocrinology of reproduction and foetal develop- ment; agricultural pests; the relationship between water stress and amino acid metabolism in local crops; nerve endings in the back muscles of scoliotic patients; the structure and function of avian muscle stretch receptors; the genetics, development and cell biology of unicellular animals; the genetics of bacterial viruses and the molecular structure of their nucleic acids; fouling problems in freshwater pipelines and sea-water intakes; pollution studies on Hong Kong roadside plants; the cell and tissue culture of some important local crop plants; the identification of timber rots and studies of biodeterioration in stored foods; the study of hydrogen bonding by polar C-H groups; the use of multinuclear n.m.r. in structural investigations; the structure and reactivity of co-ordination compounds of elements such as rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and germanium with macrocylic ligands; the catalytic features of halides in various hydrocarbon reactions; the study of natural products of local origin and of fats and oils; the analysis of trace metals in local food products and the development of analytical methods suited to local problems; the develop- ment of synthetic methods for heterocyclic and natural products; pure mathematics; numerical weather prediction and application of operational research techniques; develop- ment of teaching materials for mathematics; the relation of local ionospheric and geo- magnetic phenomena to global variations; the cosmic ray flux in Hong Kong; data analysis and general theories of the origins of cosmic rays; methods of distinguishing and categorising gemstones; spectroscopic parameters of paramagnetic ions in crystals; and plasma theory, especially in relation to astrophysics.
The Faculty of Medicine is conducting research into a wide range of fields of both local and international interest, including cell and reproductive biology; the visual system; reproductive physiology; neurophysiology; endocrinology; temperature regulation;