Open Educational Resources | Pao Yue-kong Library, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Video

Your Words May Predict Your Future Mental Health

Can the way you speak and write today predict your future mental state, even the onset of psychosis? In this fascinating talk, neuroscientist Mariano Sigman reflects on ancient Greece and the origins of introspection to investigate how our words hint at our inner lives and details a word-mapping algorithm that could predict the development of schizophrenia. "We may be seeing in the future a very different form of mental health," Sigman says, "based on objective, quantitative and automated analysis of the words we write, of the words we say."

Subjects:: Health Sciences
Keywords:: Mental health Mental illness
Resource Type:: Video

Video

Why Build Higher?

This video discusses the topic of urban sprawl and the environmental and social impact if a city is expanding too fast

Subjects:: Building and Real Estate
Keywords:: Cities towns -- Growth Housing policy Buildings -- Height restrictions City planning
Resource Type:: Video

Video

What's So Sexy about Math?

Hidden truths permeate our world; they're inaccessible to our senses, but math allows us to go beyond our intuition to uncover their mysteries. In this survey of mathematical breakthroughs, Fields Medal winner Cédric Villani speaks to the thrill of discovery and details the sometimes perplexing life of a mathematician. "Beautiful mathematical explanations are not only for our pleasure," he says. "They change our vision of the world."

Subjects:: Mathematics and Statistics
Keywords:: Mathematics
Resource Type:: Video

Video

What is plagiarism

In this video, Mr Peter Sidorko, the University Librarian of the University of Hong Kong explain the importance of academic integrity. Students are expected to conduct themselves honesty and with integrity. One of the key responsibilities is to assure to credit the materials used to develop the ideas and academic work properly and avoid plagiarism.

Keywords:: Intellectual property Plagiarism Information literacy Academic writing
Resource Type:: Video

Video

What is organizational structure?

What in the world is organizational structure? Check out this explainer video for a quick and easy walkthrough.

Course related:: MM2021 Management and Organization
Subjects:: Management
Keywords:: Industrial organization
Resource Type:: Video

Video

What is a Tuned Mass Damper?

In many of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, there’s a secret device protecting the building and the people inside from strong motion due to wind and earthquakes. Did you know you can tune a skyscraper just like a guitar? In this video, we’re comparing theory to the real world for tuned mass dampers. Luckily this tech is simple enough that we can model it right in the garage. As silly as this little experiment looks, it’s actually not that far off from what engineers do in the real world (maybe without the googly eyes). The design phase for just about every major building includes some physical scale model tests. This video shows that the tuned mass damper is a great example of elegance in engineering.

Subjects:: Structural Engineering
Keywords:: Tuned mass dampers Buildings -- Earthquake effects Buildings -- Vibration
Resource Type:: Video

Video

What Really Motivates People to Be Honest in Business

Each year, one in seven large corporations commits fraud. Why? To find out, Alexander Wagner takes us inside the economics, ethics and psychology of doing the right thing. Join him for an introspective journey down the slippery slopes of deception as he helps us understand why people behave the way they do.

Subjects:: Business Ethics
Keywords:: Business ethics Fraud
Resource Type:: Video

Video

The psychology of narcissism

Narcissism isn't just a personality type that shows up in advice columns; it's actually a set of traits classified and studied by psychologists. But what causes it? And can narcissists improve on their negative traits? W. Keith Campbell describes the psychology behind the elevated and sometimes detrimental self-involvement of narcissists.

Subjects:: Psychology
Keywords:: Narcissism Egoism
Resource Type:: Video

Video

The Taboo Secret to Better Health

Our poop and pee have superpowers, but for the most part we don't harness them. Molly Winter faces down our squeamishness and asks us to see what goes down the toilet as a resource, one that can help fight climate change, spur innovation and even save us money.

Subjects:: Health Sciences
Keywords:: Recycling (Waste etc.) Excretion
Resource Type:: Video

Video

The Psychology Behind Irrational Decisions

Often people make decisions that are not "rational" from a purely economical point of view — meaning that they don't necessarily lead to the best result. Why is that? Are we just bad at dealing with numbers and odds? Or is there a psychological mechanism behind it? Sara Garofalo explains heuristics, problem-solving approaches based on previous experience and intuition rather than analysis.

Subjects:: Psychology
Keywords:: Decision making
Resource Type:: Video

Video

The Physics of The "Hardest Move" in Ballet

In the third act of "Swan Lake", the Black Swan pulls off a seemingly endless series of turns, bobbing up and down on one pointed foot and spinning around and around and around ... thirty-two times. How is this move — which is called a fouetté — even possible? Arleen Sugano unravels the physics of this famous ballet move.

Subjects:: Physics
Keywords:: Ballet dancing Physics
Resource Type:: Video

Video

The Next Step in Nanotechnology

Nearly every other year the transistors that power silicon computer chip shrink in size by half and double in performance, enabling our devices to become more mobile and accessible. But what happens when these components can't get any smaller? George Tulevski researches the unseen and untapped world of nanomaterials. His current work: developing chemical processes to compel billions of carbon nanotubes to assemble themselves into the patterns needed to build circuits, much the same way natural organisms build intricate, diverse and elegant structures. Could they hold the secret to the next generation of computing?

Subjects:: Nanotechnology and Electric and information Engineering
Keywords:: Nanoelectromechanical systems Nanotechnology
Resource Type:: Video

Video

The 100 Year Flood Is Not What You Think It Is (Maybe)

Almost everyone agrees that flooding is bad. Most years it’s the number one natural disaster in the US by dollars of damage. So being able to characterize flood risks is a crucial job of civil engineers. Engineering hydrology has equal parts statistics and understanding how society treats risks. Water is incredibly important to us, and it shapes almost every facet of our lives, but it’s almost never in the right place at the right time. Sometimes there’s not enough, like in a drought or just an arid region, but we also need to be prepared for the times when there’s too much water, a flood. Rainfall and streamflow have tremendous variability and it’s the engineer’s job to characterize that so that we can make rational and intelligent decisions about how we develop the world around us.

Subjects:: Hydraulic Engineering and Disaster Control and Management
Keywords:: Floods Hydrology Flood control -- Management
Resource Type:: Video

Video

Technology Hasn't Changed Love. Here's Why

In our tech-driven, interconnected world, we've developed new ways and rules to court each other, but the fundamental principles of love have stayed the same, says anthropologist Helen Fisher. Our faster connections, she suggests, are actually leading to slower, more intimate relationships. At 12:20, couples therapist and relationship expert Esther Perel steps in to make an important point -- that while love itself stays the same, technology has affected the way we form and end relationships.

Subjects:: Anthropology, Sociology, and Technology
Keywords:: Love Courtship Communication technology Interpersonal communication
Resource Type:: Video

Video

Sand Castle Holds Up A Car! - Mechanically Stabilized Earth

Dirt is probably the cheapest and simplest construction material out there, but it's not very strong compared to other choices. Luckily geotechnical engineers have developed a way to strengthen earthen materials with almost no additional effort - Mechanically Stabilized Earth (aka MSE or Reinforced Soil).