Sparkle S&T Training Launched
To materialize the strategic objectives defined by the Sparkle Program and let farmers to have more S&T knowledge, recently the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Central Committee of the Youth League have jointly launched a massive S&T training campaign in the rural areas.
The dedicated Sparkle S&T training action has set the targets to improve the job skills of the workers of small township businesses, farmers and young people in the rural areas. The Sparkle Program management personnel, grassroots S&T management personnel, foreign trade oriented S&T personnel and intermediaries in the rural areas will also become beneficiaries of the campaign. The training activities will be conducted in the form of township enterprise training, young S&T leader training, Sparkle management S&T training, distant Sparkle S&T training, and foreign trade oriented S&T business training. It is planned to develop within a period of three years a well established Sparkle S&T training framework integrated with the training information resources access and rural labors’ S&T literacy monitoring and reporting. In the meanwhile, six major systems including Sparkle training management, training base network, job skill training, training materials, trainers, and funding & policy support will be established. It is planned, through the massive S&T training of 10 million person/time in the rural area, to develop the human resources capable for the rural economic development, greatly strengthening the S&T capacity and improving the overall S&T innovation capability of the rural areas.
It is also disclosed that the Ministry of Science and Technology will make the funding of the training activities a regular and long term budget by investing not less than RMB 50 million as the starting funds in three years.
IP Protection Advanced
Wang Jingchuan, Administrator of State Intellectual Property Office expressed at the International Seminar on Cooperation between China and Europe in Intellectual Property Protection held October 23, 2003 in Beijing that China has witnessed since becoming the member of WTO major progresses in improving its IP system, especially in legislation and the associated enforcement.
Since its accession to WTO, China has embarked upon vigorously updating and revising its legislation on IP. China has not only revised major legal documents such as copyright law, trademark law, patent law and regulations on protecting computer software, but also worked out a number of new laws such as on the layout of integrated circuits. The draft regulations on service invention and regulations on patent agency have also been completed.
In addition to updating relevant laws, the Chinese government has enhanced the enforcement of these laws. As shown by the incomplete statistics, the IP authorities at different levels had handled in 2002 1442 patent disputes cases with 1,291 of them concluded with the verdicts. In the meanwhile, the industries and commerce authorities in the country had handled 39,105 trademark violation cases, and the copyright authorities received 6,408 copyright violation cases with 6,107 of them concluded with verdicts. The copyright authorities have also confiscated 6,790 piracy products. In addition, the courts in the country had handled 6,201 civil cases for IP violation.
Mr. Wang added that China has not only made itself be basically in line with the international norms in IP protection, but also worked out the legislation enforcement mode of “dual approaches under the parallel operation” which is tailored to China’s own situation, namely the combined law enforcement force made of both the people’s courts and the patent authorities.
Campus S&T Parks for Innovations
The second session of National Campus S&T Park Conference was held October 23, 2003 in Wuhan. Mr. Zhou Ji, Chinese Minister of Education pointed out at the conference that the construction of top notch campus S&T parks, the development of high tech and realization of associated industrialization constitute the basic requirements and major objectives for top ranking universities. In this context, universities shall serve for the major battlefields of the national economic development, advocating for the vigorous development, regulated management, reform and innovations, creating new development patterns for national campus S&T parks, and relentlessly promoting S&T innovations and associated industrialization.
China’s campus S&T parks budded at the end of 1980s and in 2000 22 campus S&T parks including Tsinghua S&T Park had been certified as the national campus S&T parks jointly by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology. Up to date, there have been 44 national campus S&T parks in the country either established or under the construction. These S&T parks have found the physical existence in 104 universities with a total funding amounting to RMB 29.7 billion. So far 1,200 research institutions and 5,500 industrial businesses have registered their presence in the parks. These parks have turned out 1,860 S&T findings and results on a combined basis, obtained 1,923 national patent grants, developed 4,116 new products, retained 1,300 returned overseas Chinese graduates, and created nearly 100,000 new jobs.
The Outlines for the Development of National Campus S&T Parks for the period of 10th Five-year Plan(2001-2005) has defined the missions to construct 100 campus S&T parks with full service functions and standardized management and operation; incubate 5,000 or more proprietary high tech businesses of strong market competitiveness, and develop a high quality management and service contingent for the national campus S&T parks.
China’s Food Risk System
The study of imported food security and associated risks control technologies, a priority topic under the parent project ‘food security and associated key technologies’ for the 10th Five-year Plan has recently passed its evaluation check, which marks that China has established the security and risk analyzing system for imported foods.
The study has defined for the first time in the country the general principles for analyzing the risks of imported foods, and established an information platform for food risks analyzing and the associated theoretical system for such analysis. The development helps China guard against the possible risks of import foods, showing that China has advanced from the theoretical study of food risk into applied analysis.
Under the general principles defined by the study and by taking into account the urgent issues raised in China’s foreign trade activities and relevant international hot issues, the solutions to risk analysis have been worked out for the applications in selected ports. The applications have greatly facilitated the imported food quarantine, produced fine social and economic benefits and made the imported food quarantine and control a more scientific, regulated and standardized process.
Xiangshan Meeting Memorized
Recently the Chinese S&T community got together to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Xiangshan Science Meeting at Beijing Xiangshan Hotel.
In 1993, under the sponsorship of the former State Science and Technology Commission, and with the support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China National Natural Science Foundation, the socalled Xiangshan Science Meeting mechanism was established. Aiming at exploring scientific cutting edges and promoting innovations, the Xiangshan Science Meeting has created an open academic atmosphere for free exchanges of different academic views and tapping up innovative ideas in the exchanges. The Xiangshan Science Meeting mechanism is featured with cross disciplinary exchanges in small scale and running the meetings on a regular basis. The Xiangshan Science Meeting find its main expression in the form of seminars, lectures and forums, which has provided an ideal platform for the collisions and arguments among scientists. During the past decade, the Xiangshan Science Meeting has sponsored 200 seminars for different disciplinary topics with the participation of experts from both home and abroad for 8,000 person/time. Many renowned scientists and academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering had made their presence.
Simultaneous Service for 20 Satellites
The successful completion of China’s maiden manned space flight has once again demonstrated the sophistication and reliability of China’s space control and communication system. In the course of developing the control and communication system for the manned space flight, Beijing Institute of Tracking and Communication Technologies had, on the basis of existing satellite control network, designed and developed the new generation S-band space control center under the unified standards and in line with international norms. The new system has ensured timely communications between the ground control center and the spacecraft through the network made of the ground stations both at home and abroad and four ocean going measuring vessels deployed over the three major oceans. It is reported that China’s current space control network is able to provide support services for 20 or more satellite in the same time, basically meeting the needs for controlling China’s varieties of space vehicles such as satellites in the middle and lower orbits, manned spacecraft, and synchronic satellites in their earlier orbit and associated positioning.
The new manned space flight control and communication system has used the frequency standards defined by the ITU, capable for the voice, video, image communications and high speed date transmission between the earth and space. The fully automatic space control system has delivered the full solution to the digital video image and voice communications, which keeps the ground control center well informed of the astronaut’s health condition and state of mind, and makes the accurate communication between the astronaut and the control center possible. China’s maiden manned space flight has proved that the communication between the ground and the spacecraft is as easy as making an international long distance call via satellites.
China’s First SARS Diagnostic Reagent
On September 30, 2003, China State Food and Drug Administration inked the approval for the market access of SARS HPV testing reagent, the first of its kind in China.
Developed by Shenzhen Piji Bioengineering Co. Ltd with a positive readout rate between 50%-70%, the reagent can be used to make the early diagnosis of SARS viruses through testing the RNA of coronavirus in human blood or wastes. The positive readout for the waste specimen of the patient who has the fever within 0-10 days reached 55%, with 76.9% for the one within 11-20days, and 59.3% within 21-30 days. For the blood specimen, the positive readout rates were 57.2%, 36.5% and 25% respectively for patients within 0-10 days, 11-20days and 21-30 days.
At present, the research team has been working on the clinic diagnosing standards for PCR early diagnosing. In the meanwhile, to allow the testing people to have an accurate application of the PCR testing procedure, the researchers will run a training course for them to improve their skill in early SARS diagnosing.
World First Genetic Drug
Under the support of Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and thanks to the decade long efforts, the proprietary p53 gland virus injection was approved to be a new drug by China State Food and Drug Administration. It is reported that the new drug is the first genetic medicine that has won the official approval in the world.
Shenzhen Saibainuo Genetic Technology Co. Ltd. in collaboration with Tsinghua University, launched the study of p53 gland virus injection and established the associated production line under the support of the national 863 Program, special national S&T project and local authorities. The new drug went into clinic testing in October 1998 for treating nasal and pharynx cancers.
The clinic experiments on a hundred and more patients have shown that the new drug has remarkable treatment effects when used together with chemotherapy. Experts of Beijing Tumor Hospital subordinated to Peking University explained that in addition to treating nasal and pharynx cancers, the new drug has proved also effective in treating stomach cancer and other non neck or head cancers. The new drug will soon make its debut on the market after acquiring the production permit and GMP certification.
World Advanced Panda Reproduction Technology
Chinese researchers have long made efforts to study the panda’s migration sites and the associated protection. Up to date, there have been in the country 40 and odd panda related research topics such as the study of the digestion and malnutrition of penned panda” by Beijing Zoo and the project to establish the permanent panda’s gene and genome bank. In addition, researchers have been working on the vaccines to prevent panda from catching some avoidable diseases.
Researchers of China Wolong Panda Protection Research Center published the findings on panda reproduction activities earlier this year, which was acknowledged by experts the highest level findings on improving the survival rate of baby pandas.
The study of artificial insemination technology for the penned panda made by Chengdu Panda Reproduction Research Base has represented the highest level panda reproduction technology in the world. The panda feed study that recently passed the verification check has attracted the experts’ attention as the effort has resulted in the mechanic production of bamboo-like feed cakes. The research base has also completed the study of panda’s earlier pregnancy diagnosis, which is helpful for improving female panda’s pregnancy rate.
This year China has witnessed the birth of 16 artificially conceived baby pandas with a survival rate of 84%, the year enjoying the highest survival rate of baby pandas. The panda’s pregnancy rate also saw an increase by 6% at 46% compared with the previous year.
Active Full Color Organic Display
Under the support of the national 863 program, Chinese researchers made the debut of the country’s first active full color AM-OLED able to show real-time dynamic data on October 23, 2003. With an effective displaying area of 2.1 inches, 160×3×128pixels and DVI interface, the display is the result of concerted efforts of Nankai University and Hong Kong S&T University for the P-Si TFT base board, Huazhong S&T University for full digital control and circuit driven technology, and Tsinghua University and Beijing Weixinnuo for the manufacturing and installation of OLED. Thanks to their combined efforts, researchers found the solution by adding filter film over white light on TFT board and eventually achieved the success at Tsinghua University.
The active TFT driving technology is an important technical base for making large sized OLED display. The result has marked a new milestone in China’s OLED technology development.
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