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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION |
Largest China-EU Remote Sensing Project
China and the EU formally launched their joint “Dragon Project” on April 27, 2004, at a 3-day event jointly held by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the European Space Agency. The development marks the largest cooperation efforts between two sides in the field of remote sensing.
Scheduled for a duration of 3 years, “Dragon Project” will work on 15 cooperative research topics, including agricultural applications, hydraulic disaster monitoring, forests mapping, rice monitoring, forest fire, marine study, topographic measurement, drought monitoring, air pollution watch, ozone watch, sea water color study, and water resources. Attracting the participation of nearly 140 scientists, the project makes the largest cooperation jointly launched by two sides. At the 3-day launching event co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the European Space Agency, participants had a full discussion of the project’s pre-phase work foundation and cooperation details. Prof. Jose Achache, Head of the Ground Observation Department under the European Space Agency, and 48 other participants from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, the UK, Finland, Belgium, and the Netherlands attended the meeting. 50 and odd participants from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and more than 20 remote sensing related institutes were also present.
Special Techniques for 3-D Chip
As reported by the April 26 online issue of the journal Nature, QIU Jianrong, a physicist with the Shanghai Institute of Optic and Sophisticated Machinery, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his Japanese collaborators have recently made a 3-D chip on a glass panel. After mixing gold oxide with glass proportioned at 1:10000, researchers bombarded a point in the glass panel with laser pulse, which decomposed gold oxide. When heating the glass panel to 550?C, gold atoms condensed into droplets in the glass. The gold atoms can shape out different structures, much like ink dotted newspaper photos. The only difference is the latter presents a 2-D picture, while the former gives out a 3-D result.
Researchers have so far worked out using the technique many 3-D images in the glass panel. For example, a 5-micron wide 3-D butterfly image is made up of millions of ball shaped gold atoms, with each atom only having a 7-nanometer diameter, or one ten-thousandth of a human hair’s diameter. Researchers also found that, as the existing structures can be wiped out by a fresh laser bombardment, gold atoms can be rearranged at will.
Based on the preliminary experiments, and believing that a gold-rich glass panel can bear more circuit knots, researchers have set to work on an operational computer chip with the new technique.
China-German Cooperation in Computation Biology
According to a briefing issued by the International Cooperation Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) on May 8, 2004, CAS has deepened its cooperation with the German Max Planck Society(MPS). Both sides are planning to establish a multi-disciplinary institute in Shanghai to study computation biology.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the cooperation ties forged between CAS and the German MPS. During the past three decades, the two organizations have gone through 5 development phases, from creating joint labs to introducing the “young scientists groups”, and further to setting up CAS-MPS pal groups, establishing joint multi-disciplinary cutting edge research centers, and conducting joint studies for SARS control and prevention. The collaborative researches have covered extensive fields, including astrophysics, space science, nuclear physics, molecular biology, cellular biology, immunology, evolution biology, earth science, resources and environment, mathematics and system science. The cooperation scale has expanded from a few of Chinese scientists being dispatched to study in Germany to the current annual dispatch of about 200 Chinese scientists to Germany for cooperative researches. German scientists have also made their joint study in China. In the last 3 decades, CAS and MPS have created 6 young scientists groups and 9 pal groups headed by Chinese scientists. The cooperation has advanced from a pattern that the Chinese side enjoys more benefits from the cooperation to the current win-win mode. The cooperation has been thought highly as one of the most successful S&T cooperation efforts between two nations having different social systems, and has become a role model in international S&T cooperation. The cooperative activities have produced impacts on the S&T and socioeconomic development in both nations.
China-UK Study Climate Impacts
A seminar, jointly sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was held on May 12, 2004 in Beijing to discuss climate change’s impacts on China’s farming. More than 70 participants from the two countries attended the meeting. Heads in charge of climate change issues from both sides presented keynote speeches on climate change policies in their respective countries. The Chinese authorities has long paid great attention to climate change issues, and has worked out a series of policies and measures to protect the global climate system. Having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, China will seriously fulfill its obligations as a developing nation under the climate change convention and the protocol. China will also join other countries, especially the developed ones, in protecting climate. China has so far effectively reduced its greenhouse gas emission, through restricting the population growth, improving energy efficiency and intensifying afforestation efforts.
The Chinese and British governments launched in September 2001 the joint study of climate change and its impacts on China’s farming. Thanks to the concerted efforts of the scientists from both nations, the study has achieved rich findings on assorted issues, including predictions for future climate changes, simulated study of climate change’s impacts on farming, analysis of China’s future socioeconomic situation, assessment of climate change’s comprehensive impacts and associated responding strategies. Participants shared, at the seminar, their findings and the latest developments in the study of global climate change and its impacts on farming, and discussed future arrangements for an expanded collaborative study.
China-Canada for Clean Development
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology staged on May 9, 2004 a China-Canada clean development mechanism (CDM) demonstra tion project to promote the capacity building in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Representatives from the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese State Development and Reform Commission, the Chinese Meteorological Administration, and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Government were present.
Aiming at promoting the CDM capacity building in the autonomous region, the joint CDM capacity building project will enhance the region’s CDM projects developing and sponsoring capacity, and set a role model for launching similar efforts in other provinces. The project has defined numerous objectives, including further building up the CDM environmental protection service center in the region, helping local authorities to develop and manage CDM projects, and preparing teaching materials for CDM capacity building training. The project plans to run 4 rounds of training courses for 350-400 trainees, so as to forge up a CDM expert team in the region. It will also look into the CDM projects in the region, and develop and complete 12 potential CDM projects. In addition, the collaborating parties will, in line with international standards, work out designing documents of 3 CDM demonstration projects recommending to Canadian businesses. Meanwhile, the project will design a greenhouse gas emission reduction network for China’s west region.
Chinese Scholar Elected US Academician
The US National Academy of Sciences recently unveiled the election results of its new academicians at the 141st annual meeting of the Academy. WANG Xiaodong, a Chinese-American scientist is among the newly elected.
Obtained his Bachelor’s degree from the Beijing Normal University, Dr. WANG earned his doctor degree of biochemistry in 1991 at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He made his post-doctoral study under the guidance of Frederick Grinnell Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein, 1985 Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. WANG is now a professor of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and an investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. WANG is currently working on the biochemical path and process leading to cells’ decay and death. Cellular decay and death marks a self-destruction, or a programmed death, playing an important role in the life cycle. Cells’ self-destruction mechanism, when going wrong, is associated with the occurrence of many diseases. Dr. WANG has sorted out some proteins that play a key role in cellular decay and death. His findings provide important clues for working out new therapeutic methods in treating cancers and senile dementia.
China’s S&T Ties with 152 Countries or Regions
According to a briefing made by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, China has so far established S&T cooperation ties with 152 countries or regions, signed inter-governmental S&T cooperation agreements with more than 90 countries, and become a member of over 1,000 international S&T cooperation organizations. China launched the socalled the international S&T cooperation program for key projects in 2001, in an effort to seek more extensive international cooperation. Recent years have witnessed China’s participation in numerous major international S&T cooperation initiatives, including the human genome project, global environmental change project, the European Nuclear Research Center’s project, and nuclear fusion study among many others. China collaborates with France and Germany in creating joint labs for information automation and biomedicine. At the same time, it has intensified the international cooperation in high tech fields, including the construction of China-US S&T Park at the University of Maryland, China-Russia S&T Park, and China-Singapore S&T Park. All these efforts have resulted in satisfactory accomplishments.
Advanced Amylose Extracting Technique
Based on their many-year study, researchers from the Institute of Life Science, a subsidiary of Tianjin Nankai University, Tianjin Medical University, and Tianjin Tumor Hospital have finally found a solution to separate activated amylose from plants. The technique, extracting live biological matters from the key parts of herbal plants, is able to turn amylose compounds extracted through conventional means into GPS with biological activity. A pharmacological testing report released by the national drug authorities shows that the activated amylose has numerous health benefits, including activating, enhancing and regulating human immunity, anti-cancer, anti-infection, anti-viruses and repairing immunity related diseases.
Tianjin Biomedicine Co. Ltd. has developed “Kangqi capsule”, using modern biochemical techniques to separate and extract activated amylose from Chinese wolfberry and vanilla grass. The new product has been approved by the Ministry of Health to be sold as an immunity regulating health product. In addition, the State Drug Administration has recently accepted the new drug application for “vanilla amylose enteric coated tablets”.
Sympathetic Nerve Regulates Immunity
Based on many-year efforts, researchers of the Shanghai Institute of Life Science affiliated to CAS have discovered that the dormant protein, an important signaler in receipting β2 adrenalin, is able to directly restrict the activation of NF-κB, a transcription factor governing the expression of numerous genes in the immune system. The dormant protein can also prevent NF-κB from entering nucleolus, making it unable to give out genetic expressions. At the same time, researchers found out that β2 adrenalin is also able to enhance the restriction role. It is a common knowledge that NF-κB plays a pivotal role in immune functioning, stress reaction, tumor forming, and cell aggregation and division. Researchers, therefore, believe that it is extremely important to understand the approach, through which the sympathetic nerve system regulates the immune system at the molecular level. The innovative finding provides a possible target and clue for working on relevant medicines in the future.
The finding was published in the May 7 issue of Journal of Molecule Cytology.
Supercomputer Provides Service
A 5-trillion-time super computer, homed at the CAS Computer Network Information Center, has formally opened up for providing service to the public. The speedy supercomputer will soon make its service available for network based distance computation. Designed to play an important role in weather forecasting for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the supercomputer is able to simulate future weather conditions for more accurate weather predictions. Reporters are given examples that it would take about 300 days for a Pentium-IV computer (2.4G)to work out a 500km × 500km weather pattern at a 5km resolution using the preceding year’s weather data. It would also take a month time for a 10-billion-time supercomputer to produce the same result. However, it only takes a bit over a day’s time to get the same weather pattern from a supercomputer with a peak calculation speed at 5 trillion times a second.
The Computer Network Information Center possesses 4 supercomputers with a respective calculating capacity at 6.4 billion times, 9.6 billion times, 117 billion times and 5 trillion times a second. Equipped with diverse programming languages, parallel tools and engineering application software, these supercomputers have created a super computation environment. The Center provides super computation services through the China S&T Network. So far it has sold out more than ten millions of CPU-hour service for over a hundred distance customers.
China Ranks First in FVC2004
Thanks to their year long painstaking preparations and a strong will for success, the Chinese team, made up of experts from the Institute of Automation affiliated to CAS and the Beijing Digital Fingerprint Co., have won the first place in the International Fingerprint Verification Contest-2004 (FVC2004) among institutional competitors.
The event attracted the participation of more than 40 competitors from different countries. It is explained that the current fingerprint testing methods applied in the world have to go through FVC for a professional pass. FVC2004 sets two competition modes: open and light. Light is a limited mode, while open is an open-ended mode with more practical applications. Both China’s open and light algorithms rank the fifth place in fingerprint testing business, but the first place for institutional ranking. China’s rich harvests of 5 gold medals, 7 silvers and 7 coppers has deeply impressed its peers from other countries.
Comments or inquiries on editorial matters or Newsletter content should be directed to:Mr. Mao Zhongying, Department of International Cooperation, MOST 15B, Fuxing Road Beijing 100862, PR China Tel: (8610)58881360 Fax: (8610) 58881364
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