S&T Personnel Contingent Better Structured
As shown by the statistics published by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, as of the end of 2002, China had registered an S&T population of 3.18 million personnel, or 23% up compared with 1995. The personnel who are directly involved in research and development in the population reached 1.04 million FTEs and the number of scientists and engineers accounted for 810,000 FTEs, or 38% and 55% respectively higher against the preceding year. China's R&D personnel population and the associated proportion of scientists and engineers has basically become a comparable match with that of the US and Japan in terms of the absolute S&T personnel population. In 2001, China's R&D expenditure marked 1.09% in the GDP and further raised to 1.23% at RMB 128.76 billion in 2002.
China's S&T activities have been streamlined under a three-tiered pattern made of high tech development and the associated industrialization, the basic and public good researches, and industrial technical development. As a result, the high concentration of S&T personnel in the public and higher learning domains has been diluted and the industries have gradually become the mainstream of technical innovations.
Numerous national programs such as 863 Program, 973 Program and the Natural Science Foundation have for many years made the personnel training an important endeavor, paying great attention to nurturing out academic leaders in S&T activities and improving the overall level of the entire S&T contingent. The establishment of national key labs, national engineering centers, the industrial parks for returned overseas Chinese graduates and campus S&T parks has improved research conditions, making more opportunities available for turning out high caliber S&T personnel and creating better platforms for industrial innovations.
China has launched series of S&T personnel training projects such as “Million Talents Project”, “Hundred High Caliber Talents Project” and “Yangtze River Scholar Project” to select and nurture academic leaders, especially those who are at younger age. Authorities concerned has continuously upgraded the quality of S&T personnel through absorbing more high caliber personnel with advanced learning, in-site training and establishing post-doctoral stations. As a result, the one with the academic degree of Bachelorship or above have taken 76% of the total S&T personnel population. These efforts have undoubtlessly improved the innovation capacity of Chinese S&T personnel and led to a great number of S&T innovative results of important significance and impacts.
To make more fine young scientists to show themselves, recent years have seen the reform of the establishment of S&T projects by practicing the bidding mechanism, requesting the research institutions to open up their recruitment door to the whole society, and introducing new personnel system based on the selection among the competitors. These measures have not only created fair opportunities for the competition among young scientists, but also made the whole S&T personnel contingent younger in age. Now the S&T personnel who are under 35 year old have reached 50.5% of the nation's total S&T population with 86.7% under 50 years of age, which makes the young and middle-aged S&T personnel the dominant part of the contingent.
Since the adoption of the reform and opening policy in the country, China's overseas student population who are studying in 100 and more countries or regions has reached 580,000 in total. In recent years, the central government has enhanced its efforts to attract more Chinese overseas graduates to return by establishing the platforms for them to create their own businesses in the country. As a result, the increasingly more overseas Chinese graduates are willing to return and the number of the returned graduates has now approached 160,000. Many returned graduates have been made the head of research institutions, becoming a backbone force working on major national S&T projects. Now the returned graduates have enjoyed a sustained average annual increase of 13%.
China's 5th Place for World S&T Papers
The Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of China announced on December 9, 2003 that following its overtaking both Italy and Canada in 2001, China has further advanced its ranking to the fifth place in 2002 before France in terms of the number of international S&T papers it published.
As shown by the statistics, 2002 had witnessed a large increase of international papers published by Chinese scientists. The three influential international search systems the SCI, EI and ISTP have altogether collected 77,395 Chinese S&T papers with a growth of 19.9% compared with 2001, or 21.9% higher than the growth of the total international S&T papers collection. As a result, China's international S&T papers have taken a portion of 5.37% in the world total, or 0.97% higher than its record in the preceding year, ranked in the 5th place after the US, Japan, the UK and Germany.
In 2002, the SCI, known for its basic research collections, had collected 40,758 international papers authored by Chinese scientists, which landed a growth of 14% compared with 2001 and advanced China from the 8th place to the 6th place in the world. EI, the world renowned search engine for engineering papers collected 23,224 Chinese papers in the same year with a growth of 25% against 2001, making China furthered from the 3rd to the 2nd place in the world only after the US. As indicated by the statistics published by the ISTP, the Chinese papers delivered at international meetings amounted to 13,413 in number in 2002, or 3,150 more compared with 2001, sitting in an advanced position from the 6th to the 5th in the world.
2002 also witnessed the increasing influence of Chinese S&T papers with the number of the papers quoted internationally rose from 18,358 in 2001 to 24,154 and the quoting frequency from 38,827 times to 51,766 times, achieved a respective growth of 31.6% and 33.3%.
Beijing SARS Lab Networked
Beijing SARS Lab has made itself a network with the National Diseases Control Center and Beijing Municipal Diseases Control Center as the core, membered with P3 Lab of Beijing Institute of Genetics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing 120 Emergency Center who is responsible for shipping SARS specimen. Being a basic platform for SARS testing and study, the Lab is subject to the direct leadership of the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau.
The National Diseases Control Center and Beijing Municipal Diseases Control Center, the core of the network, will supervise the quality control of the whole system and be responsible for the analysis and evaluation of the testing results of member labs, in addition to other chores such as sample collection, registration and storage. The member labs are requested to observe the following four principles: 1) providing the fast response upon the emergency; 2) disclosing no findings, information, data nor papers without authorization; 3) sharing internal resources, validating each other's experimental results so as ensure the accuracy; and 4) the unified management of SARS specimen at the Beijing Municipal Diseases Control Center. The member labs are requested to report the quantity, conditions and applications of the specimen to the Center.
In case SARS epidemics appears, the Beijing Municipal Diseases Control Center shall assign the member labs to promptly work on SARS testing according to their respective strength and make the resources be shared among members. In the meanwhile, to ensure the safety of Beijing citizens, all other labs but the member labs in the Beijing area are no longer allowed to work on SARS testing or study.
China's Moon Exploration Roadmap
It is disclosed that China has approved its roadmap for the moon exploration as well as the preliminary shape of the moon exploration satellite named Chang'e I.
According to the briefing made by the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, Chinese scientists have made major breakthroughs in the required key technologies and the satellite development has proceeded smoothly. To ensure the successful launch, it is planned to make the moon satellite into the moon orbit through the multi-phased boosting. The plan will allow the satellite, after the separation from the rocket, to make three to four rounds of flight surrounding the earth orbit before it gradually picking up the speed into the oval orbit heading for the moon.
It is explained that to ensure the satellite being accurately positioned at its prescribed place near the moon, it needs a number of orbit modifications in the course of shifting from the earth to moon orbit. When nearing the moon, the satellite has to be decelerated to move around the moon. The planned three perilune brakings will gradually reduce the orbit altitude to allow the satellite eventually into the working orbit of 200 km away from the moon surface and start its moon expedition. It will take 8 to 9 days to complete the whole journey heading for the moon. The currently designed satellite will have a flying speed for a dozen of kilometers a second, though the speed can be further geared up.
The satellite will be aboard with seven major sounding equipment including CCD camera, imaging spectrograph, γ/X spectrometer, solar high energy particle detector, and low energy ion detector. With a weight about 2 tons and 3-axis attitude control mechanism towards the moon, the satellite is expected to work in the orbit for about one year to collect and transmit the data of the moon's geology, soil, environment and resources on a real time basis.
Chinese Scientist Heads Human Proteome Project
The Chairman of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) recently announced in Beijing that the Organization had formally kicked off the international human proteome project and the Chinese scientists were designated to chair the implementation of the human liver proteome project.
Being a group who started the liver proteome study as earlier as in 1998, Chinese scientists initiated the proposal for the human liver proteome study at the first international seminar on proteome. To head the international human liver proteome project, Chinese scientists are supposed to complete 20% of the total required workload.
Major Progress for Nuclear Fusion
Chinese scientists have landed a major progress in the controlled nuclear fusion by adding a key component on China Circulator 2-A, a nuclear fusion device. The new development has resulted in the plasma discharge under the new magnetic field reaching 168 ka and the plasma existence for 920 milliseconds. Researchers have captured through the visible imaging a clear view of the averse U-shape of plasma in the bias filter. The relevant diagnosis also confirmed that the Circulator 2-A device has successfully made the discharge at an individual zero bias filter which is very difficult to realize.
China's 4-Valve Heavy Diesel Engine
CA6DL-Aowei, China's first proprietary large power 4-valve heavy diesel engine has made its debut at Wuxi Diesel Factory. Being a commercial 4-valve heavy diesel engine, the new system has shown numerous improvements such as larger power, longer work life and lower emission, noise, cost and fuel consumption compared with the other similar international products. With a power capacity ranging from 260 to 350 horsepower and the emission work reaching the Euro-II standard, the engine may reach the Euro-III standard if applied with electronically controlled fuel infector, with the potential for the Euro-Ⅳ if some other applications are added. The new engine produces the noise 2-3db lower than the conventional diesel engines manufactured domestically with a fuel consumption only at 195g/kwh. On the basis of 5000-hour full speed and full load trial running, the German TV, an internationally authoritative agency has confirmed that the new engine's overhaul life reaches 500,000 km.
Silk Mysteries Conquered
Chinese scientists have recently found the solutions to the wrinkling and shrinkage of silk products, a technical difficulty that has troubled the silk industry for several centuries. The plastic pure silk developed by the researchers at the Suzhou University has realized the multiple functions of pure silk materials and effectively made the pure silk a multiple-pore material, which laid a foundation for the development of pure silk's other functions. The plastic pure silk can be worked on different knitting, weaving and tatting machines to produce the products that feel soft, thick and plastic without the traditional headaches for wrinkling and deforming. Being a new improvement upon the traditional silk material, the plastic pure silk will charm the silk manufacturers by its fine social and economic values not only for the capability to produce beautiful and soft materials and garments but also for presenting no wrinkles after a tight squeeze and nor shrinkage after washing.
Breakthrough in Color TV Technology
Recently the researchers of China Southeast University have achieved the major breakthrough in developing the proprietary plasma super large TV screen. On the basis of finding the technical solutions to making 14-inch plasma TV screen in April 2003, now the researchers have turned out the prototype of 34-inch full color shadow mask plasma TV set.
It is believed that the application of metal components instead of traditional ones in the shadow mask plasma color TV has greatly reduced the cost while effectively improving the performance. The technical breakthrough has not only realized the high resolution and improved the luminance but also solved the problem of electronic shielding.
China Betters Its Satellite Observation System
In his lecture titled “From the Invention of Aircraft to the Manned Space Flight” at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on December 6,2003, Mr. LU Yongxiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences expressed that China has set its near term target to establish a reliable satellite based observation network made of meteorological satellites, resources satellites, marine satellites and small environment disaster satellites. In doing so can China realize the 3-D and dynamic land, air and ocean observations over its territories and adjacent areas.
Mr. LU further expressed that China will also establish its own satellite based broadcasting system, proprietary satellite navigation and positioning system and global satellite remote sensing application system.
In the next two decades, China will make its space technology and satellite applications an industrialized and commercialized business so as to allow the space resources development and utilization to serve for the needs of the economic development, national security, S&T development, social advancement, playing a role in further enhancing the national strength.
New Supercomputer Homes Shanghai
Recently the Shanghai Super Computation Center and Shuguang Information Industry Corp. jointly announced that their newly developed supercomputer Shuguang 4000A would find its home in the Shanghai Super Computation Center. Designed with a calculation speed as fast as 10 trillion times per second, the new supercomputer will be working on the grid computation to provide the massive flow of information service and data exchange, making itself the largest master knot in China's national grid network.
Being the home for 2,000 and more 64-digit AMDOpteron processors to realize the leap from 32-digit to 64-digit calculations, Shuguang 4000A occupies a floor space as large as 1/4 of the regular football field.
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