Sunshine Project for Rural Migrant Labor
On April 7, 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Construction jointly launched the socalled Sunshine Project, an initiative to train migrating rural labor forces in the country. The project will be implemented on a 3-phase basis. During the period from 2004 to 2005, major efforts will be made to support short term employment skill training activities in major food production areas, labor force exporting areas, poverty stricken areas and old revolutionary areas. Efforts will also be placed to work out a feasible mechanism for migrating labor forces training, creating a solid ground for extended training activities of same kind. During the period, 5 million migrating rural workers will be trained, or 2.5 million a year. In the second phase ranging from 2006 to 2010, a nation wide migrating rural labor force training campaign will be launched, with associated training mechanism being further improved and rural human resources tapped up. This phase will accomplish the training of 30 million rural workers. In the last phase starting from 2010, training activities will be further expanded, and the level be raised to meet the coordinated development of both urban and rural areas. These efforts will eventually make the rural labor forces and their S&T and culture quality basically in line with the nation's modernization development. To make training activities be conducted on an open, fair and equal basis, the sponsoring ministries ask local authorities to
bid for training contracts among qualified education institutions at different levels. The joint announcement also makes clear that the government training subsidies shall fully go to farmers. Training related details, including training institutions, orientations, topics, charge standards and subsidies, shall be made public. Farmers are allowed to select training institutions, curriculum and time at their will. Any mandatory arrangements or conduct forcing farmers to accept training arrangements shall be strictly prohibited. The sponsoring parties also ask involving training institutions to make training courses to feed farmers with basic and necessary working skills, and to run training courses scientifically, equipping farmers with a skill for future employment. To strengthen training activities' supervision, the sponsoring government agencies also issued a management procedure for migrating rural labor force training, and framework comments on selecting migrating rural labor force training bases. Reporters are told that a number of other regulatory documents, including a management procedure for migrating rural labor force training funds, and an inspection and verification procedure for migrating rural labor forces training projects, will soon be released to intensify the supervision part of the Project. The supervision will mainly focus on bases selection, project registration, implementation monitoring and verification check. To make vast rural populations in the nation aware of coming training activities, the Farmers S&T Education and Training Center, a part of the Ministry of Agriculture, opened up on April 7, 2004 a website to share the information of migrating rural labor forces training (http://www.nmpx.gov.cn).
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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION |
China-EU S&T Cooperation Strengthened
On April 7, 2004, Mr. XU Guanhua, Chinese Minister of Science and Technology and Mr. Philippe Busquin , EU S&T officer inked a joint declaration on the cooperation between China and EU in the field of science and technology. Both sides reiterate their strong support for the implementation of the China-EU S&T cooperation protocol, and support for the perspective cooperation in the fields of space applications, hydrogen energy, nuclear fusion, science and society, biotechnology, and other activities under the framework of Asia-Europe meeting. Both sides agree that the high level China-EU space cooperation forum held April 7 in Beijing has constituted an important action in promoting the space cooperation between two sides, creating a broad cooperation perspective in ground observation, satellite communication and the Galileo Program. Both sides also share the view that a dialogue mechanism shall be established for the long term cooperation in space applications and technologies.
Both sides nod to co-sponsor a China-EU S&T Policy and Strategy Forum in 2005 in China. In addition, both sides are pleased with the fruitful cooperation achieved between China and EU in the fields of science and technology.
Mr. Philippe Busquin, at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, had his official visit to China April 6-11, 2004. During his stay, Mr. Philippe Busquin visited the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation, the China National Space Administration, universities and research institutes.
China's Inactivated SARS Vaccine Highly Thought
To promote the development of China's inactivated SARS vaccine, and work out a scientific plan for clinic testing of inactivated SARS vaccines, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the World Health Organization has recently co-sponsored an international seminar to share major technical developments in inactivated SARS vaccines. More than 20 officials and experts from WHO's representative office and 8 countries, together with 60 and odd Chinese vaccines experts, were present at the seminar.
Experts, entrepreneurs and government officials from the EU, the US, the Netherlands, Korea, Canada, Thailand, Austria, France and China shared, at the seminar, their findings in SARS vaccine development and associated management. Surrounding China's clinic testing plan for inactivated SARS vaccines, experts had a heated discussion of virus strains selection, preparation and animal experiments from different angles, including virology, immunology, clinic study and life ethics. WHO's representatives thought highly of the tireless efforts made by the Chinese Government in accelerating the development of vaccines, and of the progresses achieved by China in producing the world first inactivated SARS vaccine. Now that China's inactivated SARS vaccine development has secured a leading position in the world, WTO's experts will, in collaboration with Chinese experts, establish a WHO's SARS antibody reference based on the serum of recovered SARS patients. As a reference for evaluating different clinic testing results of SARS vaccines in the world, the WHO's SARS antibody standard will play an important role in streamlining global SARS vaccine studies.
Sloan Research Fellowship Honored Chinese Young Scientist
The Sloan Research Fellowship recently announced Prof. DUAN Luming, a researcher of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), a 2004 Sloan Research Fellow.
Mr. DUAN and his collaborators published their finding involving the entanglement of a single trapped atom with a single quantum in the cover story of March 11, 2004 issue of the Nature magazine. The finding, together with their other findings previously published, create a possible approach for large scale geometric manipulations for quantum computation.
Graduated in 1994 at Department of Physics, USTC and obtained his PhD in 1998 at the same school, Prof. DUAN conducted his postdoc studies at Innsbruck University in Austria and California Institute of Technology in the U.S. Prof. DUAN is also a candidate to be considered under the Introducing Overseas Talents Program initiated by the Chinese Academic of Sciences. The Fellowship winner is currently working as Deputy Director of the CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information (USTC) and an assistant professor of University of Michigan. He is also a reviewer for a number of internationally renowned magazines or journals, including Nature and Physics Review Express. Prof. DUAN has made series of creative theoretical accomplishments of international influence in the fields of quantum information and optics. In collaborating with Prof. GUO Guangcan, a CAS academician, Prof. DUAN has proposed a completely new orientation to study probability quantum cloning. The theory, having being widely quoted and thought highly of among his overseas counterparts, is honored as “DUAN-GUO Limit”.
Chinese Rice Father Won World Food Prize
On March 29, the World Food Prize Foundation announced the 2004 World Food Prize Laureates: Professor YUAN Longping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and internationally renowned rice expert, and Dr. Monty Jones of Sierra Leone, former senior rice breeder at the West Africa Rice Development Center (WARDA).
In announcing the recipients, World Food Prize President, Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, lauded both scientists for their “breakthrough scientific achievements which have significantly increased food security for millions of people from Asia to Africa.” The Ambassador added that it was particularly fitting that these two pioneering rice breeders be honored during the United Nations International Year of Rice, the crop identified as the staple diet of more than three billion people around the world.
Founded in 1986 with its Headquarters located in Des Moines of the Iowa State, the World Food Prize Foundation selects its recipients once every year, honoring!those who have made outstanding contributions to providing nutritious and sufficient food for human beings. The Prize is the top honor that a scientist can win in the field of agriculture.
China Launches Moon Lander in 2012
Following the start of the socalled “moon orbiting project”, a phase I development of China's moon probe program, the phase II project named “moon landing” also reveals its ambitions to public. According to a recent briefing, the “moon landing” project expects to blast off a soft moon Lander in 2012. The soft Lander will place a rover in a selected area on the moon. The moon rover is supposed to make moon surface investigations and moon-based astronomical observations, collecting necessary data for future moon base site selecting.
At present, a number of Chinese research institutes are competing for prototype moon rover designing, with some of them having prototype moon rovers ready for testing. For example, the Harbin Polytechnic University has designed three different prototype moon rovers. With a required height of 50 cm, width 60cm and length 80 cm, and made of aluminum alloy, they are: a two-wheeled parallel movement moon rover, an obstacle surpassing wheeled moon rover, and a rotational moon rover with automatic arms.
In addition, the moon rover will be equipped with cameras, sounding and measuring instruments, to accommodate moon exploration needs and communications between the moon Lander and satellites. The soft Lander will also carry seismological instruments and telescopes to measure moon quakes and observe different celestial bodies from the air-free moon.
Chinese scientists told reporters that, in their scenarios, the soft moon Lander, which has a moon rover payload, will make cushion landing on the moon powered by a reverse thrust rocket. After that, the Lander will automatically release a ladder to allow the rover to land on the moon.
64-bit Longxin II Chip Works Smoothly
Longxin II high performance chip, a major project under the joint support of the National 863 Program and CAS knowledge innovation project, has set up its target to work out by the mid-2004 a 64-bit 500MHz CPU, through a 0.18micron processing technique. Striving to score 300 under the SPEC CPU 2000 testing, the Longxin II is designed with a 4-transmitter structure (for simultaneously implementing 4 commands in each clock cycle), 5 powerful functional components, a dynamic memory visiting system, and a large-volume online high-speed buffer saving system. Researchers told a briefing that the Longxin II would gradually be made under a well established design plan, though continuously producing new functions and improving its clock frequency and performance.
The Longxin II had its first verification check in August, 2003 at Shanghai based SMIC. The strict testing has shown that the sample chip works properly in line with its designed functions. The chip has been running smoothly on the PC mainframe board developed by the study team, and passed the SPEC CPU2000 benchmark testing. The prototype chip is able to run basic desk-top PC functions, including a complete 64-bit Linux operating system in Chinese, full-functional Mozilla browser, multimedia player and OpenOffice software.
Using a 3-writing-and-6-reading register developed by the Microelectronics Institute, a unit attached to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Longxin II has created a basic platform for producing a sufficient quantity of high performance CPUs for Longxin II based system software, application software and prototype PCs.
Major Progress for Shade Plasma Display
The project of “34-inch Full Color Shade Plasma Display” undertaken by the Southeast University of China (SUC) has recently passed the verification check. The development marks major innovations and progresses achieved by Chinese scientists in shade PDP technology.
As a major effort under the high resolution flat display topic in the National 863 Program for new materials, the project, headed by Prof. WANG Baoping of the Department of Electronic Engineering, SUC, has harvested major innovative findings in theoretical research, optimized structure design and driving system of shade PDP technology.
Researchers characterized shade PDP technology of numerous merits, including simpler manufacturing technique, higher production efficiency and raised finished products rate. Comparing with current PDP manufacturing techniques, the shade technology is able to produce a display with a higher resolution, better contrast, higher luminance, but at a lower cost (one third of the current manufacturing cost). With a bright industrialization perspective. the greatly reduced manufacturing cost creates a feasible technical approach for China to realize a leaping forward development of its PDP industry.
Crystal Structure of Spinach Light-Harvesting Complex Revealed
China has achieved an eye-catching finding in the photosynthesis membrane protein study. The March 18 issue of the Nature journal published the finding entitled “Crystal structure of spinach major light-harvesting complex at 2.72? resolution”, with the crystal structure map as its cover picture.
Thanks to their 6-year painstaking efforts, the study team, headed by CHANG Wenrui, a research fellow of the Institute of Biophysics, a part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have completed the measurement of 3-D LHC-II structures. The study team of the Institute of Botany, also under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, separated and purified photosynthesis membrane proteins, which laid a material ground for analyzing crystal and spatial structures. Researchers told reporters that the finding has constituted a major mixed result involving biochemistry, crystal science and structural biology. As a fruit of concerted efforts of scientists from different disciplines, the original finding makes China an international leader in the photosynthesis and associated 3-D LHC-II structure study.
China Cloned Flu Replication Gene
Recently, the Harbin Medical School has successfully cloned RNA, a protein polymerase gene that makes flu virus replication possible, and worked out the associated gene chart, the first of its kind in the world. Scientists said, at a briefing, that they used an asymmetric approach to get flu viruses' RNA cloned. In the next step, scientists will screen out effective drugs to cut off flu spread, based on the findings of verified functions of each gene section. Scientists say their ultimate goal is to break up flu's RNA, a gene highly vulnerable to mutation, deactivate it, and eventually cut off the genetic channel of flu viruses distribution.
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