CHINA  SCIENCE  AND  TECHNOLOGY
NEWSLETTER
The Ministry of Science and Technology
People's Republic of China

Shuguang Dawns on High Performance Computers

Not long ago, Shuguang Corp. officially kicked off a nationwide campaign for diffusing high performance computers. The computer maker also proposed ten standardized technologies, in a move to facilitate the spread and application of high performance servers.

Shuguang, in collaboration with a line of hardware and software makers including AMD, will run road-shows in more than 30 cities, covering technology diffusions, channel training, and users gathering. Aiming at promoting the diffusion and application of Shuguang 4000 series servers and associated industrial solutions, the campaign will allow the public to know more about high performance computer products. While focusing on both traditional science and engineering computation and commercial computations, the campaign talks to a range of information centers serving for e-government, education, campus network, universities and research institutes, petroleum, weather service, taxation, public security, online services, social security, and major industrial sectors. The entire mileage of the roadshow expects to reach 17,000 km.

Shuguang also dished out ten major standardized server technologies, including remote operation and control technology, integrated monitoring technology, intelligent rack technology, integrated technology for platforms with different structures, simplified management technology for sophisticated servers, balanced workload technology, security management technology, fast deployment technology, parallel in-out technology, and industry optimization technology. Shuguang officials told reporters that these technologies are proven feasible, as they have been used and perfected in the course of many-year applications. They will become industry standards, and a guaranteed benchmark for diffusion and application of high performance computers.

MBA for S&T Innovations

The Torch Center, part of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University have recently launched their first joint project: MBA degree for science, technology, and innovation management. According to a briefing issued by the Center, the enrollment will be mainly the middle and high ranking management  personnel who work for national high tech parks, national pioneering service centers, and major high tech enterprises. In an attempt to meet the new challenges for the high tech business development in an new ear, and to facilitate the socalled “second pioneering initiatives” of national high tech parks,  the effort will raise the industry’s proprietary innovation capacity, and produce more high caliber S&T management personnel. The collaborating parties believe that the new MBA project will serve to lift China’s management level in science, technology, and innovations, and form a management contingent for existing and future S&T and innovation activities.

Guanghua School of Management has long paid great attention to the training of high caliber S&T management personnel for science, technology, and innovations. The School has for the purpose opened MBA courses involving management science, economics, management in S&T and innovations. These courses, with many of them being the first of their kinds in the nation, are teemed with the knowledge needed by the “second pioneering initiatives” of national high tech parks and S&T and innovation management.

China First Standardized High Tech Park

Not long ago, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the Standardization Administration of China inaugurated a standardization role model for high tech industry at Xi’an ‘s High Tech Town. The development marks the birth of China’s first standardization demonstration project for high tech park development.

A few years ago, the Xi’an high tech town established a steering panel to work on standardization matters. The panel produced 19 industrial policies to support standardization activities in the field, and created five platforms for standard catalogues and fast search for information in text format. Up to date, 41% of the businesses in the town have developed their own standard systems, with 404 types of products being produced in line with international standards or latest overseas standards. Statistics show that the high tech town has produced 50 international, national and industry standards since it was established. A dozen of businesses in the town are currently working on 45 new standards. In addition, numerous enterprises have established technically advanced research centers or labs equipped with world-class instruments and facilities. On October 2003, the high tech town was selected as a role model for high tech standards. The town has developed a range of advanced proprietary high-tech standards, internationally or domestically, which constitutes the core competitiveness of the town. The TD-SCDMA standard, for example, prepared with the involvement of Datang Telecom (Xi’an) and others, has been adopted by ITU and 3GPP, and become a third mainstream standard, following the ones developed by the US and Europe.

New Theory for Painkilling

A research team, headed by ZHANG Xu, a research fellow working for the Institute of Neuroscience under the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found that preprotachykinin is a key molecule directly involving in modulation of pain transmission in the spinal cord. Reported in a recent issue of journal Cell, the finding makes a breakthrough challenging the traditional roles of the substance P and opioid analgesia.

Researchers found that the direct interaction between protachykinin and δ-opioid receptors (DORs) is responsible for sorting of DORs into large dense-core vesicles (LDCVs), allowing stimulus-induced surface insertion of DORs and DOR-mediated spinal analgesia.

Further study also revealed that a rat depleted with the preprotachykinin A gene reduced stimulus-induced surface insertion of DORs and abolished DOR-mediated spinal analgesia and morphine tolerance. As a result, the rat produced no morphine tolerance, which means the painkilling effects of morphines will not be reduced when painkillers are used in a protracted period of time. The finding, with a conclusion that protachykinin is essential for modulation of the sensitivity of nociceptive afferents to opioids, creates a new theoretical basis for developing new painkillers.

SiRNA Reduces SARS Infection

Reporting in the online edition of the journal Nature Medicines, a research team, headed by LU Yang, a Chinese scholar working in the US, have found that two types of siRNA can reduce the number of SARS viruses in monkeys, in addition to its prevention functions.

Researchers used 5 control groups of monkeys in the comparative study. Each group is made up of 4 short tail apes. Two of the groups are allowed untreated. Of the rest three groups, one receives a siRNA treatment before becoming infected with the SARS viruses. One is allowed to receive the treatment and get infected by the viruses at the same time. The last group is administered with the treatment after being infected. All SARS viruses and siRNA matters are transmitted through nasal channels. As a result, all the infected monkeys show the affected symptoms. However, the monkeys treated with siRNA show greatly reduced damage to their lungs, with less temperature variations. The untreated monkeys show serious damages to lung cells. By contrast, the treated monkeys show lighter symptoms. A four-day treatment results show that the SARS viruses are reduced to only 25%. The monkeys who are treated before infected show slightest symptoms, least temperature variations, and smallest damages to their lungs.

Megawatts Wind Generator in Grids

A megawatt-level VSCF wind power generator, developed by the Shenyang Industry University, was successfully connected to the local power grids on July 31, 2005, after being installed at the Liaoning Xianrendao Wind Mill on 23 of the same month. The system’s major components, including vanes, gear box, generator, and controller, are all Chinese designed and manufactured. With a localization rate above 85%, the system is able to produce an output of 1,000 kilowatts. Designed with a vane of 60.62m across, a height of 91.76m, and a weight of 138 tons, the generator will go through a 2000-hour test run in three phases to verify security performance, designed functions, and parameter indicators.

Two megawatt VSCF wind power generators that can be driven either in varied speeds or directly are being readjusted for a trial operation. The development marks a raised technical level of China’s energy equipment manufacturing. It provides a mainstream wind generator for the commercial applications of wind mills during the 11th Five-year period(2006-2010), and for realizing a 4-million-kilowatt installed win power capacity by 2010.

Fast Erucic Acid and Glucosinolate Test

A research team, headed by LI Peiwu, a research fellow at the Oil Crop Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, proposed a technical line to test rapeseeds’ glucosinolate, using the reactions between rapeseeds’ glucosinolate and specific external enzyme and a special developer.  Under the process, researchers obtained a colorful matter structure from the reaction, absorbing wavelengths, reacting temperatures, PH implications on the activity of specific enzyme, and processes to collect and refine the samples. As a result, the team developed a fast quantitative technique to test glucosinolate and the associated test plate. Based on a systematic analysis of stabilizers, temperatures, volumes, preparation methods, and implications of sample volume on obtained erucic acid values, researchers defined the interrelationship between erucic acid content and turbidity, and finally rolled out a fast quantitative technique and reagent to test erucic acid values. The team also developed a fast test instrument that can produce direct readouts.

With a competitive accuracy up to both the domestically and internationally accepted standards, it only takes 15 minutes and one Chinese dollar to obtain the results, extremely desirable for test activities at labs and rapeseeds purchasing sites at the county level.

Progress for Bird Flu Study

Chinese scientists have recently published their findings on bird flu study in a latest issue of the journal Science. The report cited an event that saw H5N1, a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu, attacking migrant birds in the first half of the year at the Qinghai Lake, the first instance causing massive death of migrant birds by the virus. Through an analysis and study of the sequenced virus, researchers reached a preliminary conclusion that the attack could mark a recurrence of the combination of a number of virus strains, or it could be the first time discovery by scientists though the virus may have already existed in nature. Further studies also show that the H5N1 strain has an enhanced capacity to cause birds ill, compared with similar flu viruses found in domestic birds. The findings remind people of raising their alert against the migrant birds flu viruses, in addition to its public health significance. The occurrence of the migrant birds flu over an extended area indicates that such epidemic is no longer a regional or national issue, but rather a common issue facing the global community, though the original source of the viruses remains undetermined.

Fossilized Cambrian Sponge

ZHAO Yuanlong, a research fellow at the Guizhou University, announced on August 22, 2005 that he and his team have found intact fossilized sponges in global shape that has an age of 543 million years. The fossils were discovered by ZHAO and other researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, a part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Changyangou Village, Yankong, Jinsha County in Guizhou Province. Some 50 pieces of fossilized ancient sponges are currently preserved at the Paleontology Museum of the Guizhou University. The unearthed fossilized sponges are the precursors of the first sponge explosion or radiation, which are important evidences for studying the evolution of the sponge from the late Neoproterozoic to Cambrian Periods.

China’s First CIS Battery Line

Not long ago, Nankai University signed a cooperation agreement with the Tianjin Bonded Zone on constructing an experimental assembly line to produce copper-indium-selenium film batteries, the first of its kind in the country. The development makes China fourth nation in the world working on the new batteries, following Germany, the United States, and Japan. The effort will lead to the establishment of a proprietary CIS solar film battery industry in the country.

Thanks to 3-year painstaking efforts in addressing numerous technical difficulties, a team led by Prof. SUN Yun has rolled out a range of film sediment equipment, and an experimental platform in line with international standards. The team has produced a battery having a photoelectricity conversion rate up to 14%. The research team is currently in a pilot phase to test the lab proven technology, which expects to complete at the end of 2006. In the following year, technology development will be kicked off to prepare for a 5-megawatt production line.

Raised Hybrid Rice Yield

China Rice Institute has recently rolled out Guodao I, a proprietary hybrid mix with an average yield of 685 kg per mu (1 mu=0.0667 hectare), a thousand-grain-weight of 27.8 grams, and a grain-bearing rate 90.91%.

Not long ago, some 120 domestic rice breeders and seeds vendors visited a 140-mu demonstration plot in Group 5, Putian Village, Maojiagang Township of Gong’an County in Jingzhou City, Hubei Province.  Visitors concluded that the new hybrid mix is of numerous improved features, including exuberated growth, appropriate height, thick stalks, fine tillering, straight leaves, strong resistance, moderate reproduction cycle, and appropriate grain number. Thanks to its fine quality, high yield, strong resistance, and wide adaptability, the new super hybrid rice will greatly increase the added values of rice and associated products, which in turn brings more money to farmers.

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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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