China's World Advanced Remote Sensing
On the basis of massive input and concerted efforts of the state for a long period of time, China's remote sensing technology has basically reached the internationally advanced level. During the mid-1990s, on the basis of scientific and thorough feasibility studies and experts' evaluation, the former State Science and Technology Commission listed the integrated application studies of remote sensing, geographic information system and GPS as a priority among the priorities defined by the Program addressing major S&T issues during the 9th Five-Year Plan period. The said integrated studies have covered numerous important projects suchas the establishment of the national remote dynamic information service system for basic resources and environment, the upgrading of major natural disasters monitoring and assessment operational system, the development of localized geographic information basic software, the promotion of GIS industrialization and demonstrated applications, remote sensing cutting edge studies and the development of national space information infrastructures. Thanks to the 5-year tireless and painstaking efforts, the integrated studies has fulfilled its tasks as prescribed and achieved encouraging results on the applications and industrialization of the remote sensing technologies with RMB 335 million for direct economic benefits and RMB 1.5 billion the indirect ones. It has also achieved remarkable social benefits in the fields of resources survey and disasters alleviation. These achievements indicate that China's remote sensing technologies have risen from the experimental phase during the past 6th, 7th and 8th Five-Year Plan periods to the current operational phase. Natural disaster alleviation is a major topic for realizing the social sustainable development. The concerted efforts on addressing the major issues in the field of natural disasters monitoring and assessment have led to series achievements such as the establishment of integrated disaster monitoring and assessment operation system focusing on draughts and floods, and the improvement of remote sensing data acquisition and transmission, data editing and processing, disasters assessment and online distribution and charts output for three fields such as real time transmission of air born radar data, high resolution remote sensing and extensive watch of meteorological satellites. These systems were put into operation when the flash floods attacked Yangtze River, Nenjiang River and Songhuajiang River in 1998 and provided first hand information on disasters to the national decision making authorities. Through the development of geographical information software and application demonstrations, it has basically established China's geographic information software industry. Thanks to 5-year efforts, China's geographic information software industry has taken preliminary shape with its market share rising from almost zero in 1995 to the current 28.9%, exceeding its prescribed 15% target.
Along with the development of the domestic geographic information industry, the enterprises dedicated to the development of Chinese geographic information softw are and associated technical services mushroomed and gained remarkable growth. The revenues of products sale and technical services harvested by these enterprises have reached RMB 250 million and the output value of national economy stimulated by the said industrial development RMB 1.3 billion.
Through the close tracking after the latest international development in the said field, China has landed 92% accuracy for the high resolution classification and identification of crops, the satellite based rice and cotton identification and area calculation. In addition, China has mastered other related technologies such as fast processing of large remote sensing images and space database support and integration and quantitative analysis of remote sensing data, which remarkably shorten the cycle of space data acquisition and information updating.
The establishment of the national remote sensing dynamic information service network for resources and environment and the disasters monitoring and assessment operational system for droughts and floods has made China one of the few countries in the world possessing national remote sensing information service system. The establishment of China's GIS software industry has made the contributions to the information process in the country.
Major Progress in Steel Science and Technology
Thanks to the S&T breakthroughs in the iron and steel industry in the country, China has made its world advanced facilities in the iron and steel industry rise from 10% at the end of the 8th Five-Year Plan period to the current 30% with 50% of its facilities reaching the domestically advanced level. As a result, its steel product quality that has reached the double standards for the general and advanced international levels is stabilized at 87% or more with the assortment number of steel products reaching the advanced level amounted to 160.
There are now 125 steel works in the country having realized the full continuouscasting，with the full continuous casting rate going up from 46.2% five years ago to the current 81.1%, approaching the world average level. The said breakthrough has benefited China's iron and steel industry with nearly RMB 10 billion earnings.
Along with the breakthroughs in continuous casting, there are other seven major breakthroughs landed: oxygen blast furnace process replaced open hearth process, which has not only outdated open hearth but also become a milestone showing the technical progress of China's iron and steel making; blast furnace coal dust blowing process has ranked in the world advanced with the achievement of a series of S&T results with independent intellectual properties; fine feed technology has simulated the optimization of iron making structure, reduction of energy consumption and improvement of environment, harvesting economic benefits of RMB 4 billion as the result of the said improvement; the development and application of oxygen tilting open hearth protection technology has made the furnace life reach the world advanced; the new breakthroughs in polymetallic associated iron mineral separation and smelting techniques over Panzhihua and Baiyun'ebo areas have created new approaches to the comprehensive resources utilization in the country. In addition, the technical transformation of steel rolling process with high technology has made China's techniques and equipment level in the said field up to a new stage; the collective breakthroughs in clean steel making technology and high accurate steel rolling preparation technology have brought out a group of new products of high additional values and high technology contents to China's iron and steel industry.
The rapid S&T development of iron and steel industry has made China's steel products basically meet the demand of the national economic development with the steels needed by high tech industries such as space, aviation and defense basic allymet by the domestic production. Now China is able to manufacture 1000 and more sorts of steel products including high temperature and sophisticated alloys with the market share of domestically made steel products rising to 91%.
International Recognition of China's Three Original Results
It is reported from the source of Chinese University of Science and Technology that the Quantum Telecommunication and Quantum Computation Open Lab chaired by Prof. Guo Guangcan, a tutor for doctorate students has worked out three major original results on the basis of quantum information technology. Prof. Guo proposed for the first time in the world the probability quantum cloning principle, established for the first time in the world the theory on quantum error coding avoidance and proposed a new quantum processing free from decoherence. These findings have rendered important contributions to making China internationally advanced in the field of quantum information science.
On the basis of the said three major results, Prof. Guo and others have published 150 and more papers and 10 monographs including Quantum Optics.
The principle of non-cloning quantum is a major basis for information theory asit provides theoretical guarantee for the security of quantum coding. However, Prof. Guo and others proposed that if a restriction was imposed on the quantum state, the said quantum state could be accurately cloned under certain probability, or so-called "probability quantum cloning". On the basis of the theory, they designed optic quantum logic network and realized the accurate cloning of a quantum polarization state on its track in a prescribed probability and successfully demonstrated the principle of probability quantum cloning. The finding has created a new approach for the effective collection of quantum information and opened up a new direction for quantum cloning. The said basic principle has been extended into other quantum information related areas and was termed by the international academic community as 'Duan-Guo Cloning Mechanism' for the maximum cloning efficiency.
The major obstacles for the practical application of quantum computer remains the decoherence issue while the major means to overcome such decoherence is quantum coding. Up to date, the international academic communities have worked out quantum coding systems based on three different principles: error correction, erroravoiding and error prevention, of which the error avoiding is proposed by Prof. Guo and others. Two renowned labs in the US have confirmed the correctness of the said principle through quantum and ion approaches.
In the field of quantum information, it is well acknowledged that it is desirable to use the atoms in the optic chamber as the information storage and processor. While Prof. Guo and others proposed a new quantum processor able to effectively overcome the coherence effect in the optic chamber as they thought the popular theory was of some defects, and proved that the new system can realize numerous quantum information functions such as the preparation of atom tangling state, realizing controlled quantum-NOT gate and hidden transmission of atom's unknown quantum state among many others. After two months of the publication of their papers on 'new quantum processor', a renowned French scientist has successfully prepared the atom tangling state on the said model, which confirmed the experimental feasibility of the scientific thinking (predicted quantum gate) of Prof. Guo and others.
High Power Environment Friendly Battery
The environment friendly high power solid battery developed by Beijing Qingdahuayan S&T Development Co. Ltd. has recently passed the testing of the State Battery Quality Control Center. In the meanwhile, it has applied for national patent and associated trademark registration.
Termed as a green power source, the said battery is free from acid, gas or electrolyte secretion as it is applied with solid electrolyte. Under the normal condition, its operational life is twice that of conventional battery. Thanks to its enhanced capacity volume, its deep discharge restoration capacity exceeds 95%. It is able to be used in both extremely cold and hot areas, which effectively addresses the difficult operation of traditional lead-acid battery.
Experts believed that the said new battery can find extensive applications in the fields of transport, telecommunication, illumination, instruments, power generation, banking, petroleum and constructions with broad market perspectives.
China's Bio Face Identification System
The so-called bio facial image identification system has recently passed the technical checks in Changsha. The said system was jointly developed by Hunan Subotaike Data System Engineering Co. and Huaxiangteng Digital S&T Corporation. Following the principle that no one in the world has the identical facial features to the others', they proposed for the first time in the country the new thinking on the technical development of bio facial image identification system which can be hidden from the sight but capable of direct recognition. They pooled up strong expertise to attack numerous technical difficulties and eventually turned out this major result of advanced means, wide recognition scope and accurate identification.
Consisting of a number of sub-systems such as facial image collecting system, facial image identification system and integrated facial image information processing system, the result can be used in numerous fields such as public security, border check station, network security, e-commerce and tourism management. It is reported that the bio facial image identification based electric card ticket system applied with the said core technology has made its debut in the world.
China's Confidential Computer System
After its two-year running, the confidential computer system developed by the Chinese scientists on their own has recently passed the technical checks of the state security authorities. Its successful development has marked a major breakthrough of China in the field of computer development.
The said computer system of independent intellectual property was developed by Zhengzhou Xingcai Computer System Development Co. Ltd. on the basis of its many-year efforts. Applied with dual hard drives as the physical division, the said computer system may switch the confidential information network off from the public information network under the physical divisional environment, realizing the function of one computer with two networks or one computer with multiple networks. The traditional multiple networks environment realized its physical division through two computer systems which has not only increased the expenditures but also raised many inconveniences. Now the new confidential computer system has not only reached the physical division required by the state authorities but also saved office expenditures.
In addition, the said system is of the merits of full closed enclosure and protection against theft and raids. Its case is designed without nails or screws. When locked, the case cannot be opened. Its externally sealed disc and CD drives and USB data outlets have made random copying and disc writing and removing inner components impossible. The system is also equipped with built-in high power batteries so as to allow long time power supply for the system when the external power is cut off and avoid the loss of document or impossible operation when the power supply is interrupted.
China's Cased Bionanometer Grains
The research team headed by Prof. Wang Kemin, President of Hunan University has recently turned out the world first technology for producing cased bionanometer grains and applied for the associated patent.
The research team started its concerted efforts on attacking bionanometer technology years ago and worked on the theoretical studies of single cells and single molecules. On the said basis, they took lead in developing cased bionanometer grain technology. Recently they have worked out very tiny highly sensitive biochemical probes that can be used to test living single cells.
As is briefed by Prof. Wang, the so-called the cased bionanometer grain technology is composed of three key elements: core forming technique for producing core materials of even sized grains such as florescent matter, magnetic matter, drugs and biomolecules of only several nanometers in diameter; casing technology allowing the formation of several-nanometer-thick external case made of transparent inorganic molecules or degradable organic high molecules on the core materials; and bio surface finishing technology for planting large biomolecules of different functions on the external surface of cased nanometer grains. The applications of these key technologies may help to produce bionanometer grain materials of unique functions.
Applied in the medical treatment, these cased bionanometer materials have become the florescent nanometer grains able to predicate the leukemia, lupus erythematosus and some cancers at their earlier stage. Such bionanometer grain based testing agent recorded a sensitivity several thousand times higher than the existing testing agent used on diagnosing leukemia. In the field of biology, the magnetic nanometer grain based fast selective DNA separation technology has been developed. In the field of civic industrial field, the nanometer grain based new green cosmetics able to absorb ultraviolet rays and the same material based permanent color retaining paint have been developed.
China's First High Resolution Chip
Logic chip, China's first high resolution chip was rolled off the semi-conductor assembly line of Motorola (Tianjin) on July 4, 2001. On August 21st, 2000, Motorola announced its plan on increasing its investment of RMB 16 billion for the construction of Tianjin Semi-conductor Integration Manufacturing Center and Asian Telecommunication Products Manufacturing Base. Within a short period less than one year, it has worked out its high resolution chip under the concerted efforts of the scientists of a hundred and more companies from 16 countries. Motorola(Tianjin) Semiconductor Integration Manufacturing Center will start the production of the said chip from the specification of 0.35 micron.
National Lab for Sophisticated Nanometer Technology
On June 28, 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly established Shenyang National (Joint) Materials Sciences Lab. Equipped with advanced equipment and instruments, the Lab trains its major aims at the most sophisticated nanometer preparation science and technologies. The said Lab was created on the basis of the previous National Key Lab on Fast Hardening Unequilibrium Alloy, National Key Lab on Material Fatigue and Rupture and Open Lab on Solid Atomic Image under the Institute of Metallurgy of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It will be built into a world first-class materials research base.
The newly established national key lab will work on major basic issues of material science and key technologies relating to the new and advanced materials on adeep and systematic basis. It will organize the research or joint research on selected major international cutting edge topics.
Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Cheng Jiayi, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China Tel: (8610)68512650 Fax: (8610) 68512594 http://www.most.gov.cn
