From May 25 to 26, 2019, the finals of the 16th "Challenge Cup" Shanghai University Student Extracurricular Academic and Technological Works Competition were successfully held. Three teams guided by teachers Chen Ying, Huang Tao, and Wu Chunjie from our School of Statistics and Management all won the second prize in Shanghai.
The "Challenge Cup" competition is hailed as the "Olympic" event of contemporary Chinese college students' scientific and technological innovation. It is currently the most concerned and hottest national competition for university students in China, and is the most representative, authoritative, demonstrative, and guiding science and technology innovation competition for college students nationwide. Since its launch in March this year, the "Challenge Cup" has received enthusiastic responses from nearly 40,000 students across the city, with over 8,000 entries submitted. Three teams from our college stood out, with their entries competing in the finals alongside 160 other works, ultimately winning all second prizes.
The academic work "Factors Influencing the Click Rate of Articles on Official WeChat Accounts of Universities in Shanghai," guided by Associate Professor Chen Ying and the team led by Xia Xuan, aims to maximize the content output and multi-channel interaction of official university WeChat accounts. The team utilized Python to crawl objective data information from articles published by official WeChat accounts of 8 universities in Shanghai, constructed a CART decision tree model under multiple factors, established keyword analysis indicators, and utilized subjective questionnaires for validation, exploring the specific influencing factors of click rates for university official WeChat articles. Project team members applied statistical knowledge, considering various aspects including macro and micro perspectives, qualitative and quantitative analyses, and subjective and objective factors, to propose targeted improvement suggestions for existing university official WeChat accounts, thereby presenting and disseminating excellent campus culture in a broader and more refined manner.
The academic work "The Current Situation and Countermeasures of Ancient Towns in Jiangnan under Commercial Development Model" guided by Associate Professor Huang Tao and the Liu Mian team focuses on the relationship between economic development and the protection of traditional culture. The project team conducted extensive research over nearly two years, issuing over 1300 questionnaires and covering 38 ancient towns across the Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai regions. They crawled over 40,000 pieces of shop data, aiming to establish a logistic regression model to depict the impact of population tourism characteristics on tourism satisfaction from both the supply side and demand side. The project established a self-limiting growth model, identifying five stages and four characteristic points in the commercialization process of ancient towns, and proposed targeted measures. By taking the Shipu Fishing Port Ancient City and Xitang as examples, it demonstrated that moderate commercial development is beneficial for the protection of local traditional culture.
The academic work "Exploration of the Popularization and Normalization Development Mechanism of Waste Classification" by Professor Wu Chunjie’s team, led by Xu Yin, investigates the operational mechanisms of waste classification and reduction through collaboration with government departments and relevant organizations. It seeks to establish an innovative regulatory model and evaluation system for waste classification guidance. The project team conducted nearly ten in-depth interviews and discussions, collected over 800 resident questionnaires, and established an understanding and satisfaction evaluation model to assess the execution efficiency and impact of the mechanism. The project also employed a dual-boundary binary conditional willingness-to-pay assessment method to analyze residents' willingness to pay for waste classification, further supporting the conclusions of the empirical research. Additionally, it provides a theoretical basis for the charging system that may be implemented in Shanghai in the future, offering reasonable suggestions and prospects for the future enforcement and normalization of waste classification.
With the support of the school and the Youth League Committee, the three awarded projects not only leveraged the professional advantages of statistics to address real-world issues but also demonstrated the students' strong sense of social responsibility and solid academic innovation capabilities.
In recent years, the college has implemented the spirit of the National Education Conference, adhering to the principle of moral education and focusing on the needs for statistical talents and social talents in the big data era. Relying on the first-class undergraduate construction leading project in Shanghai and the educational reform project for the Statistics major, the college strives to develop a distinctive "Statistics and Management Cross-Platform" and aims to cultivate "top-tier" statistical talents. The college encourages students to actively participate in practical projects, using their knowledge of statistics, finance, and management to build statistical modeling methods to solve real-world problems, with a focus on enhancing students' ability to apply what they have learned. At the same time, the college actively expands external resources and integrates the advantages and resources of various disciplines through school-enterprise interaction and inter-institutional cooperation to improve students' research capabilities.
