News on China's scientific and technological development.

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China's super hybrid rice output sets new world record
Xinhua| 2018-09-03 21:12:26

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Super hybrid rice output in test fields in southwestern Yunnan Province has set a new world record, local authorities said Monday.

The latest output of three plots at a super hybrid rice demonstration base located in Datun Township in the city of Gejiu reached an average of 1,152.3 kg per mu (about 0.07 hectares).

The demonstration base started to plant hybrid rice in 2009.

A group of experts from agricultural and scientific universities and research institutions randomly selected three plots on the rice fields and supervised the harvest.

With an average temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, the base lies at an altitude of more than 1,200 meters above sea level. Proper annual precipitation and flat terrain also contribute to the harvest of hybrid rice, according to Xie Hua'an, leader of the research team.

Click to expand...

***
one hectare is 15 mu, so it'd mean 15*1.152=17.28 t per hectare yield (if scaled up), more than
Greatest wheat yield

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LOL didn't know, quote, “Beidou” rhymes with “play dough”, unquote:
Beidou 3 Sat Navigation System Could Be Completed In 2020

Sep 10, 2018

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China’s Beidou 3 satellite navigation system may be completed in the first half of 2020, earlier than expected.

By the end of November, 19 of the system’s planned 30 satellites will be in orbit, China Central Television says in a report quoting the China Satellite Navigation Office. Twelve are already on station.

“Consider that after we have launched 19, there will be only 11 more to go,” the director of the office, Ren Chengqi, told the broadcaster. “We could bring the plan forward and complete the global constellation in the first half of 2020.”

The program has been working toward a target of completing the system in 2020—meaning it would be on time if the last satellite was on station at the end of that year. Ren’s remarks therefore imply a possible acceleration of at least six months.

But Ren’s count of Beidou 3 satellites is inconsistent with earlier statements that the complete system would have 35 spacecraft: 27 Beidou 3M satellites in medium orbit, five Beidou 3Gs in geostationary orbit and three Beidou 3Is in inclined geosynchronous orbit, all by 2020.

Four rocket launches between now and the end of November will put seven Beidou 3 satellites into orbit, the broadcaster said. The ninth and 10th spacecraft of the system were launched together in July and the 11th and 12th together in August; for both missions the rocket was a Long March 3B.

The 19 satellites due to be in service by year’s end are expected to provide a basic navigation service.

Beidou 3 follows the experimental Beidou 1 and interim Beidou 2 systems; the latter was also called Compass. “Beidou” means “Big Dipper” and rhymes with “play dough.”

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signals from 4 to 5 Beidou MEOs can already be received in northern Europe, 2 to 3 out of them can be locked on by smart phone.

Another thing is that, although widely used by media, there is NO Beidou 3 system. There is only Beidou 1 and 2 systems. Beidou 3 satellites are actually upgraded version of Beidou 2 system. It is more accurate to call them Beidou 2 block 2 satellites in line with GPS naming, OR call it Beidou 3 satellites instead of Beidou 3 system according to Chinese naming.

Background Infor.

1. Beidou 1 system, use ONLY high orbit GEO and GSO satellites to triangulate location of the user. User device must send signals to satellites first. It is different in principle with GPS, Gallilio and Glonass
2. Beidou 2 system, use both GEO, GSO and MEOs to locate user device. User device does NOT need to send signals for calculation, BUT retains the capability of sending text messages to satellites.
   
3. Beidou 3 satellites are new generation of Beidou 2 satellites with improvement in clocks, increasing accuracy.
   
4. Beidou 2 system works in the same principle as GPS, Gallilio and Glonass, except having the extra capabilities of
   1. Communication between device and satellites
   2. GEO and GSO relaying and broadcasting information about clock sync, orbital information etc. It is essentially a space based auguration system SBAS. While all other systems (GPS etc.) rely on ground based system. Think it as a space based A-GPS and more.

China Is Overtaking the U.S. in Scientific Research
Beijing’s long-term efforts to promote academic scholarship are paying off.


By Peter R. Orszag
Sep.13 2018

Thirty years ago in December, the modern of scholars between the U.S. and China began. Since then, have become the most prolific global contributors to publications in physical sciences, engineering and math. Recent attempts by the U.S. to curtail academic collaboration are unlikely to change this trend.

For decades, China's growth was driven by shifting workers from agriculture to manufacturing. As the country started to approach the so-called , when such shifts no longer raise overall productivity, the government made an to build the scientific base to provide another vector for growth. The results of those efforts are showing up in both the rankings of Chinese universities ( of the top 100 globally) and in scholarly output.

Qingnan Xie of Nanjing University of Science & Technology and Richard Freeman of Harvard University have China’s contribution to global scientific output. They document a rapid expansion between 2000 and 2016, as the Chinese share of global publications in physical sciences, engineering and math quadrupled. By 2016, the Chinese share exceeded that of the U.S.

Furthermore, the authors argue that these metrics -- which are based on the addresses of the authors -- understate China's impact. The data don't count papers written by Chinese researchers located in other countries with addresses outside China and exclude most papers written in Chinese publications. The researchers adjusted for both factors and conclude that Chinese academics now account for more than of global publications in these scientific fields.

The quality of Chinese research is also improving, though it currently remains below that of U.S. academics. A recent suggests that, measured not just by numbers of papers but also by citations from other academics, Chinese scholars could become the global leaders in the near future. Similarly, Xie and Freeman examine authorship of publications in Nature and Science, arguably the two most prestigious scientific journals. They find that in 2016, 20 percent of the authors were Chinese -- more than twice the share in 2000.

At the same time, this dramatic expansion in scientific scholarship has raised serious concerns, including whether the Chinese government excessive influence over both Chinese and professors in the U.S. A related concern is whether the deep ties between Chinese and U.S. academics facilitates too much technology transfer and even academic espionage.

the rules for obtaining visas. The scientific community has reacted with , arguing that the scientific process requires open collaboration and that individual episodes of espionage or other inappropriate behavior should be dealt with through criminal prosecution or academic expulsion rather than blanket restrictions.

Although many Chinese students seem by the visa restrictions, over time the impact is likely to deter foreign study at U.S. universities. Students from China represent of the foreign students at U.S. institutions, and some American colleges are already feeling the of diminished overall foreign interest.

Whatever the other costs or benefits of the restrictions, and I believe there are more of the former than of the latter, they seem unlikely to alter in any significant way the global rise of China as an academic power. We may not want to admit it yet, but the rise of China to the top ranks of global scientific achievement is now a historical fact.

now noticed the tweet





Lancé le 7 Septembre, le satellite océanique chinois HY-1C commence à envoyer des données au sol.

Translated from French by
launched on 7 September, the Chinese oceanic satellite HY-1c begins sending data to the ground.

now noticed the tweet





“Four vertical and four horizontal high-speed railway network” will make China the world’s first country with a complete high-speed rail network in operation, said a recent report released by the National Bureau of Statistics

The electric plants powering China’s new agricultural revolution
Scientists hail breakthrough as results of the world’s largest experiment confirm fruit and vegetable output can soar without chemical pesticides and fertilisers

Chinese growers have the answer to a question that has been baffling scientists for three centuries: Can electricity boost plant growth?

To find out, China has been conducting the world’s largest experiment and the results are transforming agricultural production in the world’s most populous nation with a jolt.

Across the country, from Xinjiang’s remote Gobi Desert to the developed coastal areas facing the Pacific Ocean, vegetable greenhouse farms with a combined area of more than 3,600 hectares (8,895 acres) have been taking part in an “electro culture” programme funded by the Chinese government.



Last month the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other government research institutes released the findings of nearly three decades of study in areas with different climate, soil conditions and plantation habits. They are hailing the results as a breakthrough.

The technique has boosted vegetable output by 20 to 30 per cent. Pesticide use has decreased 70 to 100 per cent. And fertiliser consumption has dropped more than 20 per cent.

The vegetables grow under bare copper wires, set about three metres (10 feet) above ground level and stretching end to end under the greenhouse roof. The wires are capable of generating rapid, positive charges as high as 50,000 volts, or more than 400 times the standard residential voltage in the US.






The high frequency electricity kills bacteria and virus-transmitting diseases in the air or soil. It also suppresses the surface tension of water on leaves, accelerating vaporisation.

Within the plants, the transport of naturally charged particles, such as bicarbonate and calcium ions, speed up and metabolic activities, like carbon dioxide absorption and photosynthesis, also increase.

Professor Liu Binjiang, government agriculture scientist and a leading member of the project, said the electric current flowing through the wires is only a few millionths of an ampere by volume – lower than a smartphone cable’s workload.

“It does absolutely no harm to the plants or to humans standing nearby,” he said.

Thanks to the positive findings of the study, the area devoted to electrified farms in China is now growing with unprecedented speed, according to Liu, from 1,000 to 1,300 hectares each year.

That means up to 40 per cent growth in electro culture farming could be achieved within the next 12 months.

“Most recent investments have come from the private sector,” Liu said. “The business is taking off. We are supplying the technology and equipment to other countries including the Netherlands, United States, Australia and Malaysia.

“China is a step ahead of the world.”






THE HISTORY

It was not always so. In fact, China was more than 200 years late to the game.

In 1746, just a few years before Benjamin Franklin sent a kite to catch lightning in a storm, Dr Maimbray of Edinburgh in Scotland electrified two myrtles.

He observed the trees put forth new branches in October, something which had never happened before.

The news travelled. Many similar studies were carried out across Europe, some confirming Maimbray’s findings, others not.

One experiment in Turin, Italy, for instance, found the plants became unfruitful and wilted after an unusually prolific period.

In 1902, physics professor S. Lemstroem visited the Arctic region and discovered some trees grew faster under the aurora borealis than those in milder climates further south.

Lemstroem attributed the phenomenon to the natural electrical conditions produced by the aurora, also known as the northern lights. He conducted a series of experiments in the laboratory to prove it and even wrote a book to promote his hypothesis.

British physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, a key inventor in the development of radio, read the book and reportedly achieved a 24 to 39 per cent increase in wheat grain yield in an eight-hectare experiment.

It caught the attention of governments. The British and American authorities each commissioned separate studies on electro culture in the early 20th century.

The British findings were positive, while the American results were negative.

continued..

These experiments were mostly small and conducted in open fields, with conditions which varied from one location to another. The wide range of natural elements affected the final output and there was no universal standard for hardware design or technical details such as voltage and frequency.

The scientists in these pioneering studies also lacked advanced equipment, such as today’s portable spectrum analyser, to study the plant’s response to electricity at the molecular level.

As a consequence, explanations of the observed phenomenon remained speculative and interest waned with the advent of chemical fertilisers and pesticides to achieve mass agricultural production.

CHINA TAKES THE LEAD

Public interest in electro culture revived with the rise of organic farming and the Chinese government started funding experiments in the technique in 1990.

He Feng, senior technician of Yufa Jingnan Vegetable Production and Sales, one of Beijing’s largest vegetable producers, said the company had taken part in the programme since 2014 and the results were “very satisfactory”.

In just two years the electrified vegetables had brought in extra revenue of nearly 1.2 million yuan (US$175,000).

“We are still running the equipment, which consumes very little power,” he said.







One hectare of electrified greenhouse requires about 15 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day, which is about half the power usage of an average American family.

Inside the greenhouse the air smells like the aftermath of a summer thunderstorm. Humidity is low and the plants rarely get sick.

The biggest burden is the installation cost, He said, with the necessary hardware costing tens of thousands of yuan. Without government support, the company could not have afforded to wire up all its greenhouses.


Liu Yongyi, owner of City Luhai Xinghua Sightseeing Agriculture company in Beijing’s Daxing district, which is also engaging in electro culture, said the technology would significantly improve China’s food safety by massively reducing the use of pesticides.

“Pesticide residue is a huge threat to public health. Electricity provides a physical solution to disease and pest control. It is much cleaner than chemicals. The government should subsidise the electro culture revolution,” he said.

Liu said visitors to the farm were intrigued when they saw the system at work and he believed the public would be quick to embrace the technology.

“The theory is easy to understand. I believe people would be willing to pay a premium for electrified vegetables and fruits in the near future,” he said.

Professor Guo Yalong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Beijing’s Institute of Botany, said the impact of electricity on plant “definitely exists”.







“Electricity is like air and water. It is part of the natural environment,” said Guo, who was not involved in the project.

“Many ionised particles in plants have either negative or positive charges. They can respond to the presence of a man-made electric field nearby,” he said.

China has greenhouses covering more than 4 million hectares, producing nearly 1 trillion yuan worth of vegetables each year.

Professor Liu said there were no plans to electrify them all, as the investment would be unaffordable for most farmers.

His project team is taking a different approach and developing a compact, all-in-one vegetable growing chamber using electro culture technology.

“Each family would be able to grow their own food in the kitchen, on the balcony or in the backyard,” he said.

The chamber uses an artificial light source and electric field to stimulate plant growth and prevent diseases. Operation is automatic and almost care and maintenance free.

“One day these tiny chambers may become an alternative to large scale farms,” Liu said. “That would trigger another agricultural revolution.”

Via Taishang
Chinese smartphones win market share and positive reputation in Europe

() 09:19, September 17, 2018



Photo shows local customers buying Xiaomi products from the authorized Xiaomi store in Paris. (Gong Ming/People’s Daily)


Chinese smartphone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus, and OPPO have gained increasing popularity in the European market, even though Europe's smartphone market has become saturated.

Sales of French-made smartphones declined by 5 percent in 2017; Korean company Samsung, though topping the list, also saw a shrinking market share; while Chinese smartphone makers take up almost 30 percent of the European market, according to latest statistics released by the International Data Corporation (IDC), a US-based company that provides services covering market research and analysis.

During the second quarter of this year, the sales volume of Huawei mobile phones doubled year-on-year, exceeding 6.7 million. With its market share increasing from 16 percent to 24.8 percent over the last year, the company has outperformed Apple (22.5 percent) and become the second largest mobile phone provider in Europe.

Besides Huawei, other Chinese mobile phone brands have also gained popularity in Europe. The yearly OnePlus release always creates a stir, and the authorized Xiaomi shop in Paris sees a continuous stream of customers.

The Huawei P20 series, OnePlus 6, Xiaomi Pocophone F1, and Honor (also a brand of Huawei) Play series were listed as the most anticipated new mobile phones on the list of best mobile phones in 2018 by L’Express, a weekly French newspaper.

The Huawei Mate 10 series, Xiaomi Mix series, Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 and OPPO Find X are also highly recommended on many mobile phone websites in France. A stark contrast to 2010, when Chinese mobile phones had an almost zero percent market share in France, Chinese smartphones are now on display in many Parisian shopping malls, some even included in the “high performance” mobile phone recommendation list.

High performance and low cost, with innovative features and a fashionable appearance are the main secrets to success for these Chinese smartphone brands.

Chinese mobile phones are innovative, at a low price, while their quality is not inferior to other international brands, expressed a French man. He told People’s Daily, “It doesn’t matter what brand it is, good quality and suitable price are what matter,” adding that many of his friends are now using Chinese brands.

A member of staff in Xiaomi’s authorized store in Paris said that business has been “very very good” since they opened in May, “with high performance and low price, plus their fashionable appearance, Xiaomi is a good choice for young people who live on a lower income.”

“Excellent quality and reasonable price are the main attractions of Xiaomi mobile phones,” said a manager of the authorized Xiaomi store in Paris, noting that Chinese brands always react quickly to market demand. For example, when consumers demanded more from the camera feature, Chinese phone makers raced to excel in this area.

During the first half of this year, Huawei, Xiaomi, and OPPO, which are described as “The Three Musketeers” of the smartphone industry by French media, have launched new products in Paris one after another. Many fans have come to Paris from other countries to be the first to experience the new features and technologies.

Many media outlets praised the world's first three-camera design of Huawei P20, while the large full-screen and hidden 3D camera of OPPO Find X were met with rave reviews.

With significant investment in technological research and development, Chinese mobile phones are marching towards medium and high-end models while maintaining reasonable prices, to become a firm favorite in the European market.

According to French newspaper L’Ouest-France, Huawei has established an R&D center and design center in France, injecting 10 percent of its business income into R&D every year, which is higher than the industry average. Chinese phone makers attach great importance to R&D and innovation, which has put considerable pressure on brands like Samsung and Apple, said the newspaper.

Caption: Photo shows local customers buying Xiaomi products from the authorized Xiaomi store in Paris. (Gong Ming/People’s Daily)

‘Made In China 2025’: a peek at the robot revolution under way in the hub of the ‘world’s factory’

In the second report in a series, He Huifeng and Celia Chen look at how Beijing's ambitious industrial plan aims to break China’s reliance on foreign technology and pull its hi-tech industries up to Western levels

Amid the sprawl of drab, dusty concrete factories in Shunde district in the southern Chinese city of Foshan, one gleaming new structure stands out.

The 40,000 square metre (430,000 square feet) factory, designed by an American architect, cost 120 million yuan (US$17.5 million) to build and is expected to triple Jaten Robot & Automation’s annual production to 10,000 robots.

Just a few miles away, work is under way on an 800,000 square metre, 10 billion yuan industrial estate that will house three ventures between Chinese appliance maker Midea and German robotics firm Kuka, which Midea bought in 2016. The new complex will have the annual capacity to produce 75,000 industrial robots by 2024.

Jaten and Midea are among the biggest players helping to make Foshan – a city of 7 million people best known as the home of the Cantonese style of lion dance and kung fu – the hub of China’s robotics industry.

Under the Chinese government’s “Made in China 2025” industrial master plan, the number of industrial automatons operating in the country would expand tenfold to 1.8 million units by 2025, when up to 70 per cent of the robots used in China would be made in the country, from half in 2020, and 30 per cent now.

It’s an ambitious, multibillion-dollar pursuit. Sitting on the western bank of the Pearl River, with Guangzhou city to the north and Shenzhen to its east, Foshan is at the heart of southern China’s manufacturing industry.

Guangdong province is China’s largest regional economy, accounting for 10.4 per cent of the country’s 2016 gross domestic product, and 11.4 per cent of the industrial base, according to the statistics bureau.

“China is the factory of the world, and there are millions of manufacturers that still depend on traditional labour-intensive methods,” said Ren Yutong, executive president of the Guangdong Robotics Association, a government think tank. “If the country wants to maintain its top spot as a global exporter, each Chinese manufacturer has to start replacing humans with robots due to skyrocketing labour costs and the ageing population. [China] has already started running out of workers.”

The number of domestically made industrial robots sold in China rose 58 per cent last year to 141,000 units, according to government statistics.


Because of China’s outsize workforce, the density of automation usage lags other countries: 68 robots per 10,000 industrial workers, compared with 631 bots for every 10,000 manufacturing staff in South Korea, the global leader in automation. Singapore, Germany and Japan all have higher densities of automation than China.

China wants to more than double that usage density to 150 for every 10,000 workers by 2020. To do so would require massive amounts of government help.

The Guangdong provincial government offered 943 billion yuan in subsidies between 2015 and 2018 to help local manufacturers automate. Further up north in Zhejiang province, local authorities have set aside 800 billion yuan to spur 36,000 enterprises to make a similar switch by 2020.

SowoTech, a Dongguan-based producer of auto-cutting laminator robots integral to the production of printed circuit boards, was offered 3 million yuan last year from the municipal government, and another 1.5 million yuan from the hi-tech area where it is located, as subsidies on 80 million yuan of sales, according to a Chinanews.com report.

Other robot producers in the Songshan Lake Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone similarly would receive up to 1 million yuan in subsidies each to attend conventions and fairs on automation and robotics, the report said.

“The top-down [development] approach [in Made in China 2025] is helping, and the government is doing the right thing in promoting the protection of intellectual properties,” said Angus Muirhead, senior portfolio manager for Credit Suisse’s global robotics equity fund in Zurich.


The opening of the government tap is a bonanza for robotics makers. The 400 companies of the Guangdong industry guild could expect “double-digit” sales growth for their robots for the next few years, Ren said.

A skilled factory worker earns about 36,000 yuan a year in wages and benefits in China’s poorer provinces and second-tier cities, away from the coast. Total remuneration can exceed 60,000 yuan in cities nearer the coast and along the eastern seaboard, like in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas.

A 200,000 yuan robot that can do the job of three humans can recoup its capital cost in 22 months in central provinces, or in a little over a year in coastal cities. In the face of rising prices pressures for labour, energy and rents, such a cost advantage would be attractive to many manufacturers.

Jaten is one of the biggest makers of self-navigating robots used on assembly lines and warehouses. With , each robot – which can navigate autonomously along a grid in any factory space or warehouse and can lift between 500 kilograms to 40 tonnes of load – costs between 100,000 yuan and 1 million yuan.

Company vice-president Chen Hongbo said that with the help of the generous subsidies and incentives, Jaten was aiming to increase its annual sales by 150 per cent, to surpass 1 billion yuan by 2021, when half of its production would be exports.

It would happen because of the “irreversible trend” of automation, and the “vast amount of subsidies” for upgrading, he said.