The National S&T Results Management Strengthened
To upgrade the registration system in the management of the findings and results derived from national S&T programs and to streamline the public announcement system for S&T findings, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has recently published the Interim Regulations on Strengthening the Management of the Results of the National S&T Programs.
The Regulations has clearly defined the responsibilities and obligations of different parties in the course of managing S&T results produced by the national S&T programs. The institutions contracted to the national S&T projects, the management institutions under the authorization or consignment of the Ministry of Science and Technology for partial management of and organizing the implementation, the planning and management departments within the Ministry of Science and Technology, the S&T results management bodies and news and publication authorities shall observe the following stipulations:
1) Practice the reporting system on major national S&T results, ensuring timely and effective knowledge of the outputs from the national S&T program. The Regulations reiterate that all the projects under the national S&T programs shall strictly observe the results registration system. The project implementor shall report, through planning and management channels, the major findings or results to the results management body under the Ministry of Science and Technology.
2) Practice the public announcement system on major national S&T results. The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for the public announcement of the major national S&T results and associated management. The Ministry may initiate the public announcement of the major national S&T results at regular basis or when necessary. The past practice that some project implementors announced the major results without communicating with the Ministry of Science and Technology nor with the approval of the latter shall be changed for the purpose of safeguarding our national security and interests.
3) Further regulate the publication of academic reports, papers and monographs related to the national S&T programs. Authors are requested to acknowledge the financing of the national S&T programs. The project implementors are in the meantime requested to be well informed of the publication of academic reports, papers or monographs under the project and report the publication of the major results in the forms of academic reports, papers and monographs to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
4) Major projects shall be associated with the relevant intellectual property management authorities. And the intellectual property rights derived from the projects shall be clearly defined between the state and the project implementor.
5) Further strengthen the management of the scientific data, the archives and the instruments prepared under the national S&T programs. The utmost goal is to lay the foundation for changing the situation of blockading technology, resources and information among agencies and institutions; to promote resources sharing and to open the state procured instruments and equipment for social service.
6) Strengthen the construction of the information platform for the national S&T results dissemination and the public awareness of these results. Enhance the influence of the national S&T results, creating the climate favoring results diffusion, application and industrialization.
Technical Innovation Pilot Projects Harvested
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology launched the regional technical innovation experiment in 1997. Up to date, the experiment has extended to 37 municipalities and 2 national high tech development parks. In the past 5 years, the participating cities have implemented 584 technical innovation projects with an investment of RMB 6.7 billion.
The five-year long practice has made technical innovations gradually become an important means for the local government to stimulate the local economic development and improve the urban management level. All the participating cities have established their respective steering group headed by their mayors for the purpose of the participation of relevant governmental departments. All the cities that participated in the technical innovation experiment have made weighted input, or at least 1.3% of their financial revenues of the year. Private S&T businesses won the contracts to 80% of the S&T projects under the initiative. The technical innovation results produced by these private businesses occupied more than 70% of the total achieved in the locality. The participating cities have so far created 1,500 businesses for their technical innovation demonstration.
The productivity promotion centers established in 39 participating cities and 2 high tech development parks have reached 25% of the nation's total in number. And the high tech incubators created by these cities have amounted to 23% of the nation's total. Most participating cities have seen the increased contribution of their high tech output value to 20% of the total industrial output value in the locality. Cities such as Jiangyin, Changsha and Kunshan, in particular, have augmented their high tech industrial output value to 30% of the total local industrial output value.
The National S&T Infrastructure Platform
The Joint Meeting on the Construction of the National S&T Infrastructure Platform sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology with the participation of 16 governmental agencies or institutions under the State Council was called on July 23, 2003 in Beijing.
The National S&T Infrastructure Platform is designed to perform the strategic restructuring and optimization of the resources such as the large S&T facilities, the natural S&T resources, the S&T literature and the S&T basic data in the distribution of S&T resources by taking advantage of those modern technologies such as information and network processes. The Platform will promote, at the national level, the rational distribution and efficient application of the innovation resources through establishing resources sharing mechanism in the country. It is also a material and information supporting system with a rational and open structure, full functions, high efficiency and the well established system.
To ensure the scientific and democratic process of the governmental decision making, an expert advisory panel made up of 23 renowned experts was established on the same day.
Core Satellite Technologies Mastered
Dongfanghong IV, China's new generation geostationary telecommunication satellite has seen smooth development with all of its core technologies being worked out and verified at integrated engineering stage. So far, the satellite has completed its engineering verifications and has entered the stage of prototype designing and production.
It is revealed by Head of the Chinese Institute of Space Technology that both the establishment of the large-scale telecommunication broadcasting public platform and Dongfanghong IV satellite developed by the Institute are able to meet China's future demands for telecommunication satellites. They will accelerate the development of satellite telecommunication, radio and TV broadcasting and information dissemination, narrowing down the gaps between China and other advanced countries in the fields of telecommunication and broadcasting satellite. The new satellite will make China one of the few countries in the world capable of manufacturing the large-scale telecommunication broadcasting satellites and platform.
Compared with its predecessors such as the first and the second generation telecommunication broadcasting satellites, Dongfanghong IV, being China's third generation telecommunication broadcasting satellite, has numerous merits such as the large power capacity, the strong payload capacity and the long service life. Designed with a life span for 15 years, the new satellite can provide 38 C-band transponders and 16 KU-band transponders for telecommunication broadcasting and TV live broadcasting.
It is briefed that SINOSAT II, the first satellite to be launched as China's new generation telecommunication broadcasting satellite based public platform has also seen smooth development. The satellite is scheduled to complete its assembling at the end of 2004 and to be launched by Long-March III B carrier rocket at Xichang Satellite Launching Center in the first half of 2005.
“Rice Grain Heart” from the Human Embryo
By July 9, 2003, a human embryo heart cultured at its early development stage by the Reproduction Center of Shenyang Maternity Hospital had independently survived for 34 days in the lab. Researchers nicknamed the tiny heart “rice grain heart” as its size was no bigger than a rice grain. Documentation search result produced by Liaoning Provincial Institute of S&T Information has confirmed that this was the first external human embryo heart model successfully developed in the world. Under the microscope, people can see the rhythmic beating of the “rice grain heart” in the culture dish. It is reported that the heart that possesses the external form of an adult heart has been developing soundly. At the initial stage, the heart ventricle beat 18 to 22 times per minute while the atria beat 60 to 80 times per minute. Now both the ventricle and the atria have produced a matched beating, though the beats per minute have dropped to about 20 times.
On June 5, 2003, the lab of the Reproduction Center of the Hospital collected a embryo specimen aborted by a young lady who had been conceived for 52 days. With the help of the anatomy microscope, researchers picked out a tiny organ in heart shape from the embryo that was as big as a nail, and then rested the heart in a culture dish full of nutritional fluid. To the researchers' surprise, the independent human embryo heart in its early development stage miraculously survived, humming the beating in the round dish. Researchers expressed that they were going to create an environment much closer to the human body and to feed the heart with the oxygen rich blood so as to make it grow properly.
It is reported that the “rice grain heart” provides a study object closer to human physiological conditions for studies in the emerging fields such as cellular genetics, molecular genetics and development biology. Based on the current development, people may further study the external survival conditions of the human heart at the early development stage and associated affecting elements.
Software Identifying SARS Genes
The Biological Information Center of Tianjin University has recently worked out the algorithm and the computer software that are able to identify the gene of coronavirus. On June 11, 2003, the Anti-SARS website run by the Biological Information Center announced the finding and started to provide free online SARS gene identification service.
The software has numerous merits such as fast, accurate and reliable. In a short period of just a dozen of days, 200 and more research institutes or individuals from the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, Norway, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Mainland China requested the service for the SARS gene identification, or visited and downloaded the relevant information from the website. The recent issue of Biochem. Biophy. Res. Comun.307 (2003), (382-388) published the accomplishment. It is reported that this is the first time for the Mainland China's scholars to have their genome study results on SARS published in an internationally renowned academic journal.
China's advanced short wheat breeding
On July 15, 2003, the Chinese Academy of Agriculture announced that its researchers had successfully worked out the world first short stalk wheat called Aibai under China's proprietary technical system for advanced wheat breeding. The result has passed the national verification check.
With Taiguhe infertile wheat as the material and Aibian I the marker, researchers have screened out the materials closely linked with explicit infertility gene Ms2 and explicit short stalk gene Rht10 genetically existed in the short arm of 4D chromosome with an exchange rate of only 0.18%. The manmade specific material combing both short stalk feature and male infertility has become China's unique genetic resource for wheat. When receiving the pollen of other wheat varieties, Aibai wheat will produce a next short stalk generation with male infertility rather than non short stalk offspring remaining with male fertility. Being thoroughly deprived of its maleness, Aibai wheat is of a stable infertility and high grain bearing capacity when coupled with other wheat varieties, which made it a desirable breeding tool for rotational screening.
Aibai wheat, after ten rounds of screening and selected gene insertion, has turned out new wheat species and new wheat series. Of them, Lunxuan 987 has a stalk height of 85 cm, featured with resistance to lodging, powdery mildew and stripe rust and able to shed its yellow leaves when getting ripe. On the basis of Aibai wheat, researchers have made rotational screening as the core process and established a new technical system for efficient wheat breeding, which becomes a proven technical platform of wheat breeding for different improvement objectives and different ecological regions.
A year had 500 and odd days 1.3 Billion Years AgoZhu Shixing, a research fellow working for Tianjin Institute of Geology and Mining and others have recently announced a major discovery: 1.3 billion years ago, in the earth it had 500 and more days to make a year and a year was made up of 13 to 14 months.
Mr. Zhu discovered the evidence supporting his discovery from the stromatite of the ancient stratum in the Yanshan Mountain located in Jixian County, Tianjin Municipality. It is reported that stromatite is mainly made up of blue alga fossils. Blue alga has the habit of growing differently under different duration of sunshine. As a result, the blue alga fossil is deemed as “biological clock” for its ability to accurately record the changes of day and month. The stromatite wad formed 1.3 billion years ago and was then located near the equator. It was removed to the current position along with the long time drifting of the earth plates. Having a well-reserved stratum as thick as 3,336 meters, the stromatite there has become the valuable evidence to understand the evolution of the earth.
It took five years for Mr.Zhu and others to complete the study. The finding was published in the recent issue of the Magazine Micropaleontology and has received Greatattention of international academic community.
High Accuracy Laser Inclinometer
Prof. Chen Yongjin, of China Geology University has recently made the debut of his proprietary high accuracy laser inclinometer. Applied with ceramic pressure electric crystal as the driver for server control, the instrument is able to effectively suppress or eliminate the implications for the earth inclination noise on large-scale sophisticated measuring instruments and improve the accuracy of the measuring results.
With a volume of only one cubic meter and a weight about 80 kilos, the instrument is able to perform real time monitoring of the earth inclination. It is extensively applicable for the accurate measurement in the fields of geophysics, earth studies and astronomy. The improved inclinometer is able to suppress or eliminate the implications for the earth inclination noise on land based sophisticated measuring instruments so that it can perform accurate solid geophysical measurement and the real time monitoring of deformed base rocks of the large-scale hydraulic power stations and other major natural disasters such as mountain slides.
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