Yukio Hatoyama, Reliability Engineer and Ex-Prime Minister of Japan, Received Honorary Doctor of City U of Hong KongYukio Hatoyama, a reliability engineer and ex-prime minister of Japan, recently received the honorary doctor of City U of Hong Kong. Before Prof. Hatoyama’s talk, Prof. Way Kuo, the president of City University of Hong Kong, gave an opening remarks on Professor Hatoyama’s great achievement: Good afternoon everyone. Welcome, Professor Hatoyama, and Mrs Hatoyama. The reason I called him professor is because he was indeed a professor in Japan before he became the Prime Minister. In fact, he is an engineering professor. I have here a copy of Dr Hatoyama’s dissertation presented in 1979 at Stanford University and would like to read one small paragraph to you. In his acknowledgments, he said, “I am also indebted to the other members of the dissertation reading committee, …, and to Professor Nozer D. Singpurwalla for his stimulating interest and helpful comments.” Professor Nozer Singpurwalla is a Chair Professor at City University of Hong Kong now. The reason we are excited about this lecture is that it is not common for an engineering professor to become a prime minister. And we have one before us. I always think if we have more statesmen who have had engineering and sciences training, the world would be much more peaceful. Soon after Dr Hatoyama finished his PhD study at Stanford University, he published two engineering papers on IEEE Transactions on Reliability, the flagship journal in the field, of which I am honored to serve as Editor-in-Chief currently. His first paper is entitled “Reliability Analysis of 3-State Systems” (IEEE Transactions on Reliability, R-28 (5), 386-393, 1979.). Our system usually has two states, either operating or failure. This paper introduced a third state, a fuzzy state. This paper has been cited 25 times. For those who are not in this particular subject, I'd like to tell you that 25 is a large number. His second paper is entitled “On Markov Maintenance Problems” (IEEE Transactions on Reliability, R-33(4), 280-283, 1984). Markov maintenance problem is a highly sophisticated one. One needs applied probability and mathematics to handle the maintenance issues. Professor Hatoyama wrote on the front page of his Ph.D. dissertation a few minutes ago “Friendship and Love”, which is given to City University. It will be displayed in the University Library. Before I end my remarks, I'd like to extend my welcome again to Dr Hatoyama for coming to City University of Hong Kong to deliver this talk. Thank you. |
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