China's S&T Targets for 10th Five-Year Plan
At the National S&T Working Conference sponsored by Ministry of Science and Technology, held on October 30, 2000, Madame Zhu Lilan, Minister of Science and Technology revealed major S&T objectives and development targets in China's next five year plan.
During the said period, China's S&T objectives will find expression in the following four areas: strengthening technological innovations so as to provide strong dynamics for the economic restructuring; strengthening original innovations and enhancing sustainable S&T innovation capacity; accelerating the S&T system innovations and promoting the construction of national innovation system; and creating fine environment and conditions for bettering the qualities of S&T contingent.
Madame Zhu expressed that to ensure the fulfillment of the above mentioned objectives, the Chinese Government has defined explicit targets for the S&T activities in this period, including:
* Greatly enhance the overall industrial technical level and international competitiveness so as to make the technical level, especially the manufacturing technologies and facilities of China's major sectors such as agriculture, industry and services reach the level of developed countries in the mid-1990s with some of them ranking in the world advanced.
* Remarkably improve the innovation capacity of high tech industries. Work out more key technology results of independent intellectual property rights and strong international competitiveness in the fields of information, biology and new materials;
* Materialize the targets that the increased output value of high tech industry shall take 20% and above in the total increased industrial output value by 2005, with the export volume of the same sector ascending to 20% in the total export volume and annual invention patent application of high tech sector going up by 80% against 2000.
* Upgrade the basic research to a new height so as to make China among the top five or ten of the world advanced countries in basic research;
* The S&T input of the whole society shall see a remarkable increase by 1.5% or above in GDP by 2005 and the R&D budget offered by industrial enterprises over half of the total R&D budget in the country.
* The construction of S&T contingent shall see eye catching progress with the number of scientists and engineers engaged in R&D activities reach 900,000 pers on/year by 2005;
* Enhance the S&T support for the coordinated development of population, resources and environment so as to improve people's living standards;
* S&T system restructuring shall land substantive progress, basically completing the restructuring of research institutions and developing a rational pattern for the distribution of S&T forces;
* Further improve S&T facilities.
2000' WTA Conference in Nanjing
2000' WTA Conference and associated China Nanjing High Tech Results Fair cosponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and Jiangsu Provincial Government opened on October 18, 2000 in Nanjing. Representatives of 59 cities from countries such as US, Canada, UK, Sweden, France, Germany, Australia, Japan,Korea, India, Mexico and China and representatives of other WTA member cities, UNESCO and World Local Government Alliances were present at the ceremony.
With "high tech industries marching towards the 21st century" as its theme, this WTA conference will discuss many important issues such as technological innovation, high tech industrialization and venture capital investment, promoting the urban growth with S&T advance and etc. Some other issues such as WTA members taking the challenges of the 21st century, the technical exchanges and economic and trade cooperations among WTA members, promoting the development of high tech industries, WTA's capacity building and definition of its functions will also be discussed, aiming at making WTA an influential international S&T cooperation organization. In the meanwhile, the high tech fair set up 480 and odd counters at Nanjing International Conference and Exhibition Center with 2500 items on display. 16,000 and more S&T results and findings were exchanged over the Internet and tradenegotiations.
WTA, the international organization mainly membered with local governments
and made its debut first in Korea in 1998 convenes its conference every two years, aiming at strengthening the inter-city S&T exchanges and cooperation and promoting the common prosperity of member cities. Up to date, WTA has 27 registered member cities from 12 countries.
China's Own Core Software for GIS
Thanks to their 3-year efforts, the scientists of Chinese Academy of Sciences have successfully worked out SuperChart 2000, a new system software platform for geographic information system, which has made China reach the world advanced level in the area and break the monopoly of imported products over its domestic market.
Being an coordinating institution and industrial development base for CAS' geog raphic information business, CAS' Geographic Information Industrial Development Center and Beijing SuperChart Geographic Information Technology Co. Ltd. have jointly developed this sophisticated system software platform. Applied with the unique massive data storage and displaying techniques and rich-space informationp rocessing functions, the platform has proved the strongest of its functions among its international counterparts.
SuperChart 2000 is an open ended system allowing users to work on professional software products of independent intellectual property rights that can be mixed into other information systems, providing geographic information. While developing geographic information system, it may serve the role as a computer chip. The platform is good for the secondary development, on which scientists have developed numerous professional software. The system has find perspective applications in China's Civil Aviation Administration and became the substitutes of the imported one in a dozen of projects.
Marine Configuration and Terrain Sounding Technology
Thanks to their 4-year efforts, Chinese experts and researchers have completed the studies of marine configuration and terrain sounding technologies, a project under the National 863 Program. They have worked out the solutions to five major difficulties such as accurate marine terrain and landform sounding and in-depth marine crustal structures sounding, and developed 9 innovative technologies and 6 innovative products in the course of studies.
Focused on the possible areas for breakthroughs such as highly accurate multiple wave full area sounding, side screening and deep visual imaging, dual-boat seismological and crustal sounding, the system was integrated with many advanced techniques such as marine floor terrain sounding, side scanning imaging, accurate navigation and positioning, high resolution seismological sounding, dual boat refraction/wide angle reflection seismological reaction, 3-D seismological analysis and imaging, dynamic marine based land mapping reference and other techniques relating to imaging, model identification, automatic graphic system and intelligent interpretation. These developments have stimulated the studies of marine geographic survey techniques and made them reach the internationally advanced level in the 1990s. On the basis of technical experiments over typical marine areas,the optimized sounding technology integration, graphic and displaying integration and intelligent interpretation integration were developed, which provided high tech support for the special studies of China's continental shelf and special economic zones and important scientific evidences for marine demarcation, marine rights
protection and marine resources assessment. The accurate full marine terrain and landform sounding system developed in the studies has put a period to the history that China was unable in the past to carry out large and medium scale ocean floor geographic survey. In the meanwhile, other systems developed such as multiple wave depth sounding, deep side scanning and differential GPS navigation system have made China able to accurately map 3-D marine terrain at a scale of 1: 100,000 and 1: 1,000,000 over an range of 800 km with 10 m positioning accuracy.
At present the said technologies and results have been successfully applied in China's survey over its special economic zones and continental shelf and multiple metal nodules mines prospecting over the Pacific Ocean, bringing about remarkable social and economic benefits. The diffusion and application of multiple wave in-situ data quality control alone has saved the costs of RMB 10 million with working efficiency improved by 30%-50%. In addition, many other new technologies were used in the survey of national land and mineral resources and national territory mapping. The applications of the technologies have led to the discovery of a number of seismological refraction to the marine air-hydrates over Xisha marine trough of South China Sea and laid a foundation for the further prospecting of China's natural air-hydrates resources.
Pilot Experiment on Genetically Modified Carps
The studies of the Yellow River carps genetically modified for fast growth chaired by Zhu Zuoyan, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and a research fellow of CAS' Institute of Aquatic Living Creatures have screened out 200 fine Yellow River carps genetically modified for fast growth who recorded a growthrate of 140% faster than that of the comparison group. Experiments have shown that the eggs conceived by genetically modified carps are lower than that of unmodified Yellow River carps in volume though without much difference in fertility and hatching comparison. The genetically modified Yellow River carps have demonstrated strong reproduction capability. The so-called F-1 generation of the new species has not only increased the yield but also reduced the breeding costs and provided the evidence for further screening out better modified species. Its triploid species have recorded an increased growth speed by 15% against that of the comparison group and feed efficiency improvement by 11.1%. The studies have led to the efficient and safe breeding mode for genetically modified carp species. The experiments have also shown that the mouse who ate genetically modified fish has shown no implications on their growth, organ development, blood physiological in dicators, reproduction capacity and the growth and development of their following generations.
Rumen Micro-organism Urase Depressor
Not long ago the research on the synthesizing and applications of rumen microorganism urase depressor, a project financed by Chinese National Natural Science Foundation and chaired by Dr. Wang Jiaqi of the Institute of Animal Husbandry, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has successfully turned out urase depressor applicable to animal husbandry production on the basis of Chinese scientists' three-year painstaking efforts.
It is reported that Chinese scientists have not only extracted the highly pure urase depressor through artificial rumen approach, the first of its kind in the world and measured its physical and chemical properties and determined the elements affecting the urase activity, but also revealed the dynamic relationship between the rumen urase depressing and urase functions. The techniques for synthesizing urase depressor have also been worked out in the lab environment, landing a synthesis efficiency over 60% and purity 80%. The application of urase depressor may slow down the urea decomposition by 55.3% and increase the application efficiency by 16.7%.
Extensive breeding experiments have shown that the application of urase depressor may increase milk produce by 15% and daily beef produce by 18% recording an input-output ratio between 1:3 to 1:8. The successful synthesis of urase depressoris of positive implications on replacing protein feeds with urea, addressing the problems of low urea utilization by beef, cows, sheep and deer, easing the shortage of protein feeds in the country, promoting the feed industrial development for ruminant animals, restructuragricultural structures, stimulating the development of rural economy and increasing farmers' income.
Three Internationally Advanced Chips Projects
Tsinghua Zhongxing Integrated Circuits Designing and Research Center announced recently that it would start to work on three world top chips, namely next generation telecommunication chip, next generation graphic chip and the core chip of ITelectronic household appliances. Co-established by the Institute of Microelectronics of Tsinghua University and Zhongxing Company founded by Chinese doctorate students returned from USA, the Center is working on the breakthroughs for the core chips of information technologies and creating the chip industry of China's own intellectual property rights. The projects recently kicked off by the Center are the third generation radio telecommunication chip, JPER-2000 chip and blue teeth technology.
It is briefed that the Center has proposed a brand new technology for developing sophisticated chips. With the said technology as the core and applied with the patented super low energy consuming chip technology, China will start its own radio telecommunication chip industry. The Center will also focus on the research and development of key integrated circuits for mini radio network represented by blue teeth technologies so as to develop IT electric household appliances of its own independent intellectual property right.
The Fourth Country in the World Manufacturing Spiral CT
China's first home made spiral CT machine developed by Shenyang based Dongda Alpai Digital Medical System Co. Ltd., was recently put into official clinical applications, a development that has made China the fourth country in the world who is able to manufacture spiral CT machine.
It is reported that spiral CT scanner is a high tech product integrating computer based software and hardware technology, controlled X ray generation and detecting, sophisticated machinery and biomedical engineering. Thanks to its numerous merits such as high speed scanning, high quality images and resolution, the full length spiral CT machine has found extensive clinic applications, which greatly improves the diagnosing accuracy and speed, especially the identification of tumors, blood mass, necrotic, fibrocyst, presenting fine diagnostic results for brain diseases such as thrombus, hemorrhage, atrophy and trauma. The efficiency and high tech nature of spiral CT has made it a mainstream product representing
development of CT machines.
It is briefed that up to date there are only three countries in the world including US, Japan and Germany of the said manufacturing technologies and they imposea monopoly over the world CT market. In September 1998, Chinese National Digital Medical Imaging Engineering Research Center and Shenyang based Dongda Alpai Digital Medical System Co. Ltd., successfully worked out China's first conventional full length CT machine. On that basis, they worked hard for another one year and half and turned out its spiral CT machine for the clinical application tested at Shanxi Yuxian People's Hospital in June 2000, a prelude for the eventual of ficial applications announced recently.
