News on China's scientific and technological development.

kyanges said:

Maybe I'm just rambling, but I honestly think that there's nothing inherently wrong with using garbage cigarettes when the entire focus of the tests was about what to do with garbage cigarettes.

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For a small company that is trying to make a profit off of something that costs nothing, it works fine. However, for a scientific project, this is too low level. It sounds too much like a high school science project. A kid might decides to collect some cigarette butts and see what good it does, like putting them in water and see if it prevents corrosion of steel. Actually, it's not a very original idea and too sloppy an experimental design, even for a high school science project.

I honestly believe this is exactly why the research in China is degrading. The much of the focus has been put on things that look more in place in a tabloid magazine than in a science lab. More people are looking to get their 15-minute fame than settling down and digging deep for some truly ground-breaking scientific discovery, which normally takes years/decades of back-breaking hard working and obscurity for those doing these projects.

kyanges said:

Now that they've discovered what the garbage can do, now they can try to test clean ones for the specific chemicals involved. You never know, maybe it's the very act of using a cigarette that causes a particular chemical change, without which the cigarette butt wouldn't have the same anti-corrosive effects.

Maybe I'm just rambling, but I honestly think that there's nothing inherently wrong with using garbage cigarettes when the entire focus of the tests was about what to do with garbage cigarettes.

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If you look at it a little harder, you'll see that the outcome of the study doesn't actually mean anything. You say garbage. What is garbage? the stuff that owner of the material doesn't want. It could be a TV, a leftover meal, a piece of carpet, etc... you can see that it could be anything. So if they found cigarette butts found in garbage is useful, should we start collecting garbage? What kind of garbage? Ones near neighborhood, near factories, or near markets? You can see that there is simply too much unknown. That's why I said the experimental design is sloppy. The data obtained from the study can't prove anything.

vesicles said:

For a small company that is trying to make a profit off of something that costs nothing, it works fine. However, for a scientific project, this is too low level. It sounds too much like a high school science project. A kid might decides to collect some cigarette butts and see what good it does, like putting them in water and see if it prevents corrosion of steel. Actually, it's not a very original idea and too sloppy an experimental design, even for a high school science project.

I honestly believe this is exactly why the research in China is degrading. The much of the focus has been put on things that look more in place in a tabloid magazine than in a science lab. More people are looking to get their 15-minute fame than settling down and digging deep for some truly ground-breaking scientific discovery, which normally takes years/decades of back-breaking hard working and obscurity for those doing these projects.

If you look at it a little harder, you'll see that the outcome of the study doesn't actually mean anything. You say garbage. What is garbage? the stuff that owner of the material doesn't want. It could be a TV, a leftover meal, a piece of carpet, etc... you can see that it could be anything. So if they found cigarette butts found in garbage is useful, should we start collecting garbage? What kind of garbage? Ones near neighborhood, near factories, or near markets? You can see that there is simply too much unknown. That's why I said the experimental design is sloppy. The data obtained from the study can't prove anything.

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I agree here, so I'm going to clarify the second part of what I said, which is they now have the motive to clarify their findings with cleaner samples. The focus of this stage of the study is just to establish a correlation first. As you said, garbage has so many variables, let alone the chemicals present even in an unused cigarette, so without some hints of correlation, further study isn't really warranted. You're absolutely right that the data obtained so far doesn't prove anything yet, because the only thing they're looking for are avenues for more specific testing later, and that's where the useful data will be gathered.

Having read the article again, I want to point out the part where the article states the researchers identified a specific number of chemicals out of their mixture before proceeding, so they've clearly narrowed down their testing variables to a manageable size, compared to the randomness of regular trash.

As for objections over their sloppy procedure, I guess we have to look at the integrity of the journal they submitted their paper to, "Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research", and see if they're a reputable journal. Otherwise, there's really no knowing for sure how well regarded their results will be. .

bladerunner said:

QS says it ranked Asia’s top 200 universities by criteria such as academic peer review, staff-to-student ratios, citations, and the number of foreign teachers and students on campus.

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Don't mean to nit-pick, but I find the criteria for "number of foreign teachers and students on campus" to be rather interesting. Here's why:

China's population: 1.3+ billion (2010 estimate)
EU's population: ~500 million ()

Now, if all Europeans in European universities are considered locals instead of foreigners (i.e., no differentiation between Germans, French, Italians, Swedes, etc), I wonder how their rankings will be affected?

Nonetheless, the deterioration in the quality of China's universities in recent years is not surprising. This is due to the massive expansion in intake at their universities as the central authorities push for more people to be educated at the tertiary level.

Referencing:

"(3)Higher education has enjoyed rapid development with an improvement in schooling efficiency.

　　In 1995, there were altogether 2210 higher education institutions (HEIs) in China, among which 1054 were regular HEIs and 1156 adult HEIs.The total enrollment of students in bachelor degree programmes and sub-degree programmes in 1995 reached 5.474 million, representing an increase by 46.9% compared with that in 1990, an annual increase rate of 8.0%.Among every population group of 100,000 people, 457 were students studying in HEIs and the gross enrollment rate among the age group of 18-21 was as high as 6.5%.From 1990 to 1995, the average enrollment of every HEI has been expanded from 1919 to 2759 and the ration between students and teachers has been increased from 5.2:1 to 7.3:1.If postgraduate students, international students, students for advanced studies, students in evening classes and correspondence classes are also calculated as the students in bachelor degree programme or sub-degree programme in accordance with the standard set by the government, the ration between students and teachers in regular HEIs has been increased from 6.6:1 to 8.9:1."

Realistically speaking, it is an enormous undertaking. And quality will suffer when quantity surges in a short period of time.

China's Nebulae supercomputer comes in second in the Top 500 list. One interesting note is that it has the smallest number of cores among six of the top 10.

The Nebulae has the fastest theoretical peak performance. How useful is this theoretical performance in practical use?


China’s new Nebulae Supercomputer is No. 2, right on the Tail of ORNL’s Jaguar in Newest TOP500 List of Fastest Supercomputers
Fri, 2010-05-28 00:31
HAMBURG, Germany—China’s ambition to enter the supercomputing arena have become obvious with a system called Nebulae, build from a Dawning TC3600 Blade system with Intel X5650 processors and NVidia Tesla C2050 GPUs. Nebulae is currently the fastest system worldwide in theoretical peak performance at 2.98 PFlop/s. With a Linpack performance of 1.271 PFlop/s it holds the No. 2 spot on the 35th edition of the closely watched TOP500 list of supercomputers.

The newest version of the TOP500 list, which is issued twice yearly, will be formally presented on Monday, May 31st, at the ISC’10 Conference to be held at the CCH-Congress Center in Hamburg, Germany.

Jaguar, which is located at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, held on to the No. 1 spot on the TOP500 with its record 1.75 petaflop/s performance speed running the Linpack benchmark. Jaguar has a theoretical peak capability of 2.3 petaflop/s and nearly a quarter of a million cores. One petaflop/s refers to one quadrillion calculations per second.

Nebulae, which is located at the newly build National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, China, achieved 1.271 PFlop/s running the Linpack benchmark, which puts it in the No. 2 spot on the TOP500 behind Jaguar. In part due to its NVidia GPU accelerators, Nebulae reports an impressive theoretical peak capability of almost 3 petaflop/s – the highest ever on the TOP500.

Roadrunner, which was the first ever petaflop/s system at Los Alamos in June 2008, dropped to No. 3 with a performance of 1.04 petaflop/s.

At No. 5 is the most powerful system in Europe -- an IBM BlueGene/P supercomputer located at the Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ) in Germany. It achieved 825.5 teraflop/s on the Linpack benchmark.

Tianhe-1 (meaning River in Sky), installed at the National Super Computer Center in Tianjin, China is a second Chinese system in the TOP10 and ranked at No. 7. Tianhe-1 and Nebulae are both hybrid designs with Intel Xeon processors and AMD or NVidia GPUs used as accelerators. Each node of Tianhe-1 consists of two AMD GPUs attached to two Intel Xeon processors.

The performance of Nebulae and Tianhe-1 were enough to catapult China in the No.2 spot of installed performance (9.2 percent) ahead of various European countries, but still clearly behind the U.S. (55.4 percent).

Here are some other highlights from the latest list showing changes from the November 2009 edition:

•The entry level to the list moved up to the 24.7 teraflop/s mark on the Linpack benchmark from 20 teraflop/s six months ago. The last system on the newest list would have been listed at position 357 in the previous TOP500 just six months ago. This replacement rate was far below average. This might reflect the impact of the recession and purchase delays due to anticipation of new products with six or more core processor technologies replacing current quad-core based systems.
•Quad-core processor based systems have saturated the TOP500 with now 425 systems using them. However, processor with six or more cores per processor can already be found in 25 systems.
•A total of 408 systems (81.6 percent) are now using Intel processors. This is slightly up from six months ago (402 systems, 80.4 percent). Intel continues to provide the processors for the largest share of TOP500 systems. The AMD Opteron is the second most common used processor family with 47 systems (9.4 percent), up from 42. They are followed by the IBM Power processors with 42 systems (8.4 percent), down from 52.
•IBM and Hewlett-Packard continue to sell the bulk of systems at all performance levels of the TOP500. HP lost its narrow lead in systems to IBM and has now 185 systems (37 percent) compared to IBM with 198 systems (39.8 percent). HP had 210 systems (42 percent) six months ago, compared to IBM with 186 systems (37.2 percent). In the system category, Cray, SGI, and Dell follow with 4.2 percent, 3.4 percent and 3.4 percent respectively.
•IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list in performance with 33.6 percent of installed total performance (down from 35.1 percent), compared to HP with 20.4 percent (down from 23 percent). In the performance category, the manufacturers with more than 5 percent are: Cray (14.8 percent of performance) and SGI (6.6 percent), each of which benefits from large systems in the TOP10.
•The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 282 of the 500 systems (up from 277). The European share (144 systems – down from 152) is still substantially larger then the Asian share (57 systems – up from 51). In Europe, UK remains the No. 1 with 38 systems (45 six months ago). France passed Germany and has now 29 (up from 26). Germany is still now the No. 3 spot with 24 systems (27 six months ago). Dominant countries in Asia are China with 24 systems (up from 21), Japan with 18 systems (up from 16), and India with 5 systems (up from 3).
The TOP500 list is compiled by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim, Germany; Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of NERSC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. For more information, visit .

Rock Stars, Hollywood Take a Look at Researcher’s Unique 3-D Technology
Released: 6/15/2010 5:00 PM EDT
Source: Iowa State University



Newswise — William Lohry took a seat before a projector-camera combination and offered his best smile.

And there, on a nearby computer monitor, was a perfect, but colorless, 3-D image of every line, contour and movement on the face of the senior chemical engineering major from Sioux City. It was like a moving mask, digitally and exactly executed.

Song Zhang, an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, remembers the reaction when he first showed his imaging technology to a scientific conference in 2004: “They were shocked by this technology.”

Back then, Zhang was a doctoral student at New York’s Stony Brook University working to develop high-resolution, real-time, precise, 3-D images of lung and chest movement. The idea was to develop a new kind of imaging technology to diagnose health problems.

But attendees at the conference were more interested in using the technology to scan faces. It could, for example, be used in face recognition and security applications. And now, with the spread of 3-D movies and television, Zhang is regularly hearing from Hollywood, video game producers and even rock stars.

One of the latest calls came from megaband U2. The band was looking for some imagery to show on the video screens during its performance of “Even Better than the Real Thing” at this month’s Glastonbury Festival in England. Band representatives contacted Zhang and he sent along footage of his technology in action. U2, however, has had to cancel its festival appearance because of a back injury to singer Bono.

But Zhang isn’t too disappointed. He thinks the band will eventually use his footage. Besides, a stylized version of his technology is already featured in a music video by the band Radiohead: .

As for Hollywood and the video game industry, Zhang says he has some work to do before he can help. The current technology requires a lot of data and memory. It’s too much to be practical for the entertainment industries right now, but Zhang and his research group are working to develop tools that don’t require as much data.

Zhang’s technology depends on some simple hardware: one camera, one projector and one personal computer. The projector sends coded patterns over a subject such as Lohry’s smiling face. The camera, positioned at a different angle than the projector, records the resulting images. The key to producing real-time, high-resolution, 3-D images is the software developed by Zhang.

“There are many technologies that come together to make this possible,” said Zhang.

Zhang and the Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc. have filed patents for the 3-D technology.

Zhang’s work is currently supported by university startup funds and a $360,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant. He’s also collaborating with other researchers to develop new applications for the technology.

One project, for example, involves imaging a beating heart at 1,000 frames per second. Another project is developing a vision system for a robot. The graduate and undergraduate students working in Zhang’s 3-D Machine Vision Laboratory are working on several other projects: Nik Karpinsky, a master’s student from Schofield, Wis., who’s studying human computer interaction, is working to develop 3-D video conferencing technology. Yuanzheng Gong, a doctoral student from China studying mechanical engineering, and Victor Villagomez, a senior from Mexico City studying computer engineering, are working on 3-D image analysis.

Zhang said there are many more possibilities for this technology.

“Hopefully,” he said, “it will be used in many fields.”



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©2010 Newswise, Inc.

The first Olympics for Robots!





English.news.cn 2010-06-24 00:16:13 FeedbackPrintRSS

HARBIN, northeast China, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A three-day robot competition, promoted as the first international humanoid robot Olympics, ended Wednesday in northeast China' s Heilongjiang Province.

Eighteen universities from China, South Korea and the United States attended the first International Humanoid Robot Olympic Games which was held in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, said Professor Hong Bingrong from the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT).

The games, organized by the State Key Laboratory For Robot Science and System from HIT and the China National Conference of Artificial Intelligence, included 24 contest events involving track and field, balls, combat, and dancing.

The rules were similar to the Olympic Games which humans compete in, Hong said.

Chinese teams performed very well in soccer, while American robots proved to be excellent in the steeplechase, he added.

Humanoid robots are defined as android robots designed in human forms, with two legs and two arms.

The purpose of the games was to attract more people to the scientific development of humanoid robots by hosting an Olympics so that robots might become more intelligent and flexible to serve people at work and at home, Hong said.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Quickie said:

The first Olympics for Robots!

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English.news.cn 2010-06-24 00:16:13 FeedbackPrintRSS

HARBIN, northeast China, June 23 (Xinhua) -- A three-day robot competition, promoted as the first international humanoid robot Olympics, ended Wednesday in northeast China' s Heilongjiang Province.

Eighteen universities from China, South Korea and the United States attended the first International Humanoid Robot Olympic Games which was held in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, said Professor Hong Bingrong from the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT).

The games, organized by the State Key Laboratory For Robot Science and System from HIT and the China National Conference of Artificial Intelligence, included 24 contest events involving track and field, balls, combat, and dancing.

The rules were similar to the Olympic Games which humans compete in, Hong said.

Chinese teams performed very well in soccer, while American robots proved to be excellent in the steeplechase, he added.

Humanoid robots are defined as android robots designed in human forms, with two legs and two arms.

The purpose of the games was to attract more people to the scientific development of humanoid robots by hosting an Olympics so that robots might become more intelligent and flexible to serve people at work and at home, Hong said.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

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No Japan?

TSMC continues to impress technologically


Figure 1. Inside TSMC’s Fab 12 GigaFab That Produces 300-mm Wafers

I want to point out that TSMC (i.e. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) continues to impress with improved yields per wafer (e.g. "27 percent area reduction compared to an equivalent 0.25-micron Embedded Flash IP") and lower failure rates.

Firstly, "Next generation of [Intel] Xeon processors was produced using 0.18 micro technology" (see second newslink). TSMC is using the same advanced 0.18 micron technology as Intel. Secondly, "TSMC had observed lower failure rate as compared to the previous generation 0.25 um."



"TSMC Announces 0.18-Micron Automotive Grade Embedded Flash IP
Second generation automotive embedded flash IP achieves AEC-Q100 grade 1 qualification

HSINCHU, Taiwan, R.O.C., May 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced the 0.18-micron automotive Embedded Flash IP as its second generation Embedded Flash IP that passed AEC-Q100 product qualification requirements for a wide range of automotive applications.

TSMC's 0.18-micron automotive Embedded Flash IP macro features 27 percent area reduction compared to an equivalent 0.25-micron Embedded Flash IP. The 0.18um technology generation hits a cost and performance sweet spot as vast amount of IPs have been developed for many applications. The addition of this 0.18-micron automotive qualified Embedded Flash IP enables customers to extend their current 0.18-micron product portfolios to automotive micro-controller applications.

The 0.18-micron automotive Embedded Flash process entered initial volume production last year. More than 38000 8-inch wafers or an equivalent number of 43 Million automotive MCU units have been shipped. So far TSMC had observed lower failure rate as compared to the previous generation 0.25 um in which 0.1ppm or less has been achieved.

Much of the learning in bringing the 0.25-micron Embedded Flash technology to production readiness has also resulted in a quicker time in achieving this new record for the new IP.

"This new milestone results from a truly synergistic alignment between TSMC's strength in manufacturing consistency and our customers' expertise in test methodology. It underscores TSMC's relentless pursuit to meet the stringent automotive electronics requirements," said Kuotung Cheng, director of automotive program at TSMC.

TSMC is the only foundry that provides AEC-Q100 qualified 0.25-micron and 0.18-micron Embedded Flash IP as general offers to all its customers.

About TSMC

TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process technology and the foundry's largest portfolio of process-proven libraries, IPs, design tools and reference flows. The Company's managed capacity in 2009 totaled 9.96 million (8-inch equivalent) wafers, including capacity from two advanced 12-inch GIGAFABs™, four eight-inch fabs, one six-inch fab, as well as TSMC's wholly owned subsidiaries, WaferTech and TSMC China, and its joint venture fab, SSMC. TSMC is the first foundry to provide 40nm production capabilities. Its corporate headquarters are in Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please visit .

SOURCE Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd."



"Jan 2, 2010 ... Next generation of Xeon processors was produced using 0.18 micro technology. There were two different versions of these processors - with ..."

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Under the One China policy, Taiwan's scientific and technological developments belong in this thread.



"The One-China policy (simplified Chinese: 一个中国; traditional Chinese: 一個中國; pinyin: yī gè Zhōngguó) states that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is the sole legitimate government of mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Countries seeking diplomatic relations with the PRC must acknowledge this policy and refrain from maintaining official relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan)."

In 1971, Taiwan was ejected from the U.N., because the world only recognizes one legitimate seat at the U.N. for China. The U.N. and the world agree with Mainland China that it is the sole representative of China and Taiwan. Hence, the consistent pledges of adherence to the "One China" principle by every major country in the world.



"United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 25 October 1971 recognized the representatives of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as "the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations" and expelled the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek "from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations".[1]"



"U.S. reaffirms commitment to one-China policy
08:11, March 30, 2010

The United States on Monday reaffirmed its commitment to the one-China policy, saying that it' s a commitment that should be the bedrock of the foundation of its relationship with China.

"The U.S. position on one-China policy is unchanged," Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said at a briefing at the Foreign Press Center in downtown Washington D.C.."



"Mar 21, 2006 ... Russia, China Pledge Closer Ties ... "Russia will continue the policy supporting 'one China' declared by the Chinese government ... and ..."



"Nov 30, 2009 ... The EU reaffirmed its commitment to one China policy and ... follow-up EU-China NZEC project, and the pledge by the European Commission ..."



"Feb 16, 2007 ... China, Japan pledge to strengthen defense exchanges ... He noted that the Japanese government has always supported the one-China policy. ..."



"Jan 14, 2008 ... India, China Pledge To Promote Nuclear Cooperation ... New Delhi declared its adherence to "one China" policy and Beijing supported India's ..."

China forges ahead



"China Now Ahead Of US In Patenting And Commercialization Of Bioethanol
by Staff Writers
Columbus OH (SPX) Jun 30, 2010


File image. [Corn-oil ethanol biofuel]

Chemical Abstracts Service reports that in 2009, China surpassed all other countries in the production of bioethanol patents, emerging as the global leader in the commercialization of bioethanol research.

In the CAS Chemistry Research Report: China Takes Lead in the Commercialization of Bioethanol, CAS examines 40 years of scientific research into biofuel development. Their key finding is that although U.S. researchers continue to publish more scientific research about bioethanol than other countries, China now produces more bioethanol-related patents than anyone. Other important findings include:

+ The U.S. published 105 journal articles related to first- and second-generation bioethanol research in 2009, more than any other country.

+ However, in the same year, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of the People's Republic of China issued the most bioethanol-related patent documents (156).

+ From 2000 to 2009, global research literature on second-generation bioethanol (derived from non-food sources, such as wheat stalks) grew 586 percent, including patenting activity that skyrocketed 2,341 percent.

+ Research into second-generation bioethanol significantly outpaced examination of first-generation (derived from edible feedstocks) and third-generation (derived from algae) bioethanol.

+ U.S. researchers are foremost within the newest category of bioethanol research: third-generation, or algae-based, bioethanol.

"The global research focus on second-generation bioethanol shows a rising interest in a category of fuels widely considered more sustainable, affordable, and environmentally friendly than bioethanol available today," said Christine McCue, vice president of marketing at CAS."

Re: China forges ahead

"The global research focus on second-generation bioethanol shows a rising interest in a category of fuels widely considered more sustainable, affordable, and environmentally friendly than bioethanol available today," said Christine McCue, vice president of marketing at CAS."

Click to expand...

I guess that goes to show that China is putting serious resources into green technology so much so that they are even over-taking US in certain areas.

I'd say that given this trend, China is going to emerge as the global leader in green technology in the near future. And if green technology is anywhere near as profitable as oil is, China is effectively setting itself up as the OPEC of the future.