Meet Lily, a small toy seller on a major online marketplace. She relies on two key services: customer trend data to know what products to stock, and short-term loans to buy inventory before the holiday rush. But new research by HKUST’s Professor Lijian Lu and colleagues shows these services don’t always reinforce each other. Using a game-theory model of ... Read More

One of the many painful lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the world’s supply chains are highly vulnerable to external shocks, especially when manufacturers rely on a single source for the parts that they need. This issue created a severe problem when governments and ventures were racing to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production. Offering cutting-edge ... Read More

Step-down care units (SDUs) are a cost-effective way to treat patients referred from intensive care units (ICUs), but they could be failing patients admitted from emergency departments (EDs). In an important new study, HKUST’s Lijian Lu and co-researchers examine the effectiveness of SDUs and identify stark differences in patient outcomes. ED patients ... Read More