Blog Archives

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blog entry#213

Jul 24, 2008

To: Institute for the Future’s Science X2 (sciencex2.org)

Subject: Materials science in China

The stellar rise of materials science in China is documented in a commentary by Zhou, Li and Shi in the August issue of Nature Materials. This commentary, by three former presidents of the Chinese Materials Research Society, is part of a special issue on research in China.

Since the opening of the country to the outside world thirty years ago, the output of scientific publications in materials science from China has risen from almost nowhere to become the third largest in the world. However, as argued in the commentary, as well as the editorial that introduces this special issue, the quality of this research is still lagging behind Western standards, despite clear efforts to improve the situation.

The significant advances that have been made in the Chinese research infrastructure are outlined in an exclusive interview with Lu Yongxiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Also in the August issue, a second commentary, by Paul Ching-Wu Chu, President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, focuses on Hong Kong and how its future prosperity relies on its reinvention as a knowledge-based society.

Excerpts from editorial "The dragon awakens" by Joerg Heber, Nature Materials:

The record-breaking economic growth since China opened itself to the outside world thirty years ago is mirrored in the number of scientific publications. For 1981, the Thomson ISI Web of Science lists 1791 papers with at least one author based in China, for 2007 this figure has grown to 98,147 publications. In materials science, China’s output in publications already ranks third behind the US and Japan.

This fast scientific growth has been enabled by dramatic increases in research budgets, which are expected to increase from about 1.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) to at least 2.5% by 2020. All this on the back of an already fast-growing GDP that has averaged about 10% growth per annum in recent years. The budget of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, which funds basic science in China, grew by an average of more than 20% each year for the past decade. These figures illustrate that research funding, even for basic sciences, is much less an issue than in many other countries.

However, the quality of some of this research is still an issue, because in the past the system used to be geared towards high volume output rather than quality. This problem is now acknowledged and there is a perceptible shift in emphasis towards high-quality research.

Further deficits lie in the education of students. Each year, approximately 10 million students take the nationwide National College Entrance Exam. Of these, only a few thousand will be accepted for the country’s most prestigious universities. The question is whether the present extreme selection process truly promotes independent, creative thinking that is needed in many areas to push Chinese science towards the forefront of research in fundamental sciences.

Nevertheless, the situation is improving rapidly, and close scientific exchange with Chinese scientists is more and more inevitable.

Commentary "Materials research in China" by Lian Zhou, Hengde Li and Changxu Shi, former presidents of the Chinese Materials Research Society:

Taking steel as an example, China produced 25 million tons in 1977, compared with 489 million tons of an increasing number of steel varieties in 2007. Similar advances can be listed for a number of other materials and materials-consuming commodities, such as titanium alloys or structural and functional ceramics. Not to mention the huge production of electronic devices such as TVs and mobile phones. In high-tech areas such as nanomaterials, China now has hundreds of companies putting their nanotechnology products on the market.

[...]

In recent years, research funding in China has been increasing steadily with an annual growth rate of around 20%, compared with an approximate annual increase of 10% in national gross domestic product (GDP). In 2006, the total research funding totalled 300.3 billion RMB (about 43.5 billion US$), accounting for 1.42% of the total GDP. An international comparison of expenditures on R&D is shown in Fig. 1. It is apparent that the present portion for research expenditure in China is still too low. Nevertheless, in comparison with other research areas, materials science does see some relative advantage.

[...]

As a result of [several] initiatives, China’s output in scientific papers has grown at an annual rate of 18% over the past 10 years. However, owing to a lack of originality, the scientific quality of many of these publications still lags behind international standards. For example, from 1996 to 2006, China’s total number of papers in the Science Citation Index (SCI) published in materials science and technology reached 45,000, second only to the United States and Japan, although the average citation number is much lower and stands at only 2.65.

From this comparison, it is apparent that the quality and the effectiveness of research funding in China needs to be improved. Of course, as research funding in China increases, original innovations will emerge and will improve the quality of the scientific output. In addition, what should not be ignored is the fact that there is quite a large number of independent materials research laboratories, institutes and centres that are interfacing with industry. Not only do they perform applied research targeted at specific applications, but they are also involved in basic research. Hundreds of these centres used to be large governmental labs attached to various ministries. About ten years ago they were converted into independent enterprises with the aim to earn profits — it would improve the quality of scientific output if these enterprises could be redirected towards more basic research.

[...]

Currently, China’s science and technology research is carried out mainly at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), at industrial research institutes, and in universities. By the end of 2006, the total number of research staff in China stood at 36 million. The focus at CAS is mainly on basic research, with nearly 30 scientific institutes doing materials-related work. Research in the independent industrial institutes, with nearly 800 of them involved in materials science, is mainly devoted to technological innovation and applied research. Furthermore, about 380 universities have set up departments of materials science and engineering.

[...]

In 2006 there were 147,000 registered university students majoring in materials science and engineering. Of the 27,800 students that graduated in the same year, more than 1,000 did so with a PhD degree.

These numbers demonstrate that, at present, student numbers are certainly not a problem, although there are a number of challenges China faces in the education of its students. For example, the quality of the faculty in some universities needs to be improved, a modern curriculum introduced, more freedom given to the students to select their courses, interdisciplinary education should be promoted through materials research centres, and finally, more funds are needed to allow students to conduct research activities that help them to stimulate their scientific interests and creativity. Universities are too traditional in structure and in operation. Facing tough international competition and the need to bring Chinese science and technology to the global stage, university education is the most important task we need to tackle. However, this is not to say that a good university education will solve all problems. Leading scientists and innovators are not simply created in the classroom. Their own motivation and education beyond school, a good mix of education involving tours of duty at multiple institutions as well as other external circumstances may be of influence.

Another problem is with Chinese researchers leaving the country, which began with the opening of China in 1978, when a large number of students left to go abroad to study. Today this number continues to increase, while at the same time the age at which they leave China is decreasing. Many young students now go abroad for undergraduate degrees or even to attend foreign high schools. The problem is that only an estimated third or a quarter of these students return to China. This is insufficient […]. A number of attractive programmes have therefore been established by various institutions. A recent figure from 2006 disclosed that since 1978 275,000 overseas scholars have returned —many of them as professors and senior researchers.

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The political part of the commentaries has deeply impressed me. In the commentary by Zhou, Li and Shi we can read:

China is a large country with a huge population, and has a long history. For the past two centuries, its population has gone through many wars, internal turmoil and natural disasters. Following such difficult times, it is clear that the Chinese people want to live a safe, peaceful life in health and prosperity. It is our duty as researchers to work towards this goal, and advances in materials science have always had an important part in this. The continuation of this aim should be the guiding light for materials science in China.

[...]

China is an old country, yet in its development it is still young; it is large but at the same time weak. Its steps on the road to modernization are just beginning.

And in the commentary "Prolific research on a barren rock" by Paul Ching-Wu Chu, in the office of the President at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, and in the Texas Centre for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Texas, we can read:

[...] even the government’s innovation and technology strategy has expressly stated that Hong Kong’s research focus is on market relevance and industry participation, without realizing that private business generally has only a short-term interest in the bottom line. […] For long-term strategic vision the stimulus has to come from the government, as it has in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. Hong Kong has never had an industrial policy, in stark contrast to its neighbouring countries.

The habitual confidence of Hong Kong business people in their ability to weather any storm no longer serves the city well. For one thing, Hong Kong now faces strong competition from other economies in the region with rising levels of affluence. It is no longer competing with regional underdogs. The benefits of its low tax regime are largely cancelled out by its high property or rental prices, which many see as another form of heavy taxation. The old British laissez faire attitude of waiting for the market to lead may leave Hong Kong lagging seriously behind other more proactive government leaderships in charting out new economic courses in the ever-changing global economy.

Can it be this political part as important as Philip Cho said past May 25, 2008 (http://sciencex2.org/en/node/21151)?:

In April, 2007, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology created a stir by selecting the 55 year old [Wan Gang] as its first director who was not a communist party member. Two months later, the Ministry of Health elected as director [Chen Zhu], also not a party member. These two appointments were the culmination of a trend since 2004 of a new generation of non-communist party leaders filling key positions in China’s research and higher-education community. [...]

[...]

These changes, however, may only be cosmetic. The directors, as the public face of China’s science and technology ministries and top universities, may be young with international savvy. Yet, many of the vice-directors [...] remain party bureaucrats. The Chinese Academy of Science especially [...] continues to combine science and politics as its top leadership are also all high party officials. Hence, while China’s science and technology community may be opening up to the rest of the world at the highest administrative levels, the political climate within the country may remain the same.

Could you imagine a Western scientist speaking of how old his country is, how strong and weak at the same time, how many wars and calamities had the country endured? It doesn’t matter how much time I spend reading about China or talking to people there of from there, it continues to strike me as thinking of other world.

Jorge Mata

References

Nature Materials, Vol.7 No.8, August 2008. http://www.nature.com/naturematerials

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blog entry#212

Jul 09, 2008

To: Institute for the Future’s Science X2 (sciencex2.org)

Subject: The absence of a balanced assessment can feed a public misperception that U.S. science and technology is failing

Excerpts of “U.S. Still Leads the World in Science and Technology; Nation Benefits From Foreign Scientists, Engineers”, Rand Corp. [1], press release announcing “U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology” [2]:

Despite perceptions that the nation is losing its competitive edge, the United States remains the dominant leader in science and technology worldwide, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

[...]

"Much of the concern about the United States losing its edge as the world’s leader in science and technology appears to be unfounded," said Titus Galama, co-author of the report and a management scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "But the United States cannot afford to be complacent. Effort is needed to make sure the nation maintains or even extends its standing."

U.S. investments in research and development have not lagged in recent years, but instead have grown at rates similar to what has occurred elsewhere in the world -- growing even faster than what has been seen in Europe and Japan. While China is investing heavily in research and development, it does not yet account for a large share of world innovation and scientific output, which continues to be dominated by the United States, Europe and Japan, according to RAND researchers.

However, other nations are rapidly educating their populations in science and technology. For instance, the European Union and China each are graduating more university-educated scientists and engineers every year than the United States.

Policymakers often receive advice from ad hoc sources. Although their viewpoints are valuable, they should be balanced by more complete and critical assessments of U.S. science and technology, said report co-author James Hosek, a RAND senior economist. The absence of a balanced assessment can feed a public misperception that U.S. science and technology is failing when in fact it remains strong, even preeminent.

"There is a pressing need for ongoing, objective analyses of science and technology performance and the science and technology workforce. We need this information to ensure that decision makers have a rigorous understanding of the issues," Hosek said.

[...]

Among potential weaknesses faced by the United States are the persistent underperformance of older, native-born K-12 students in math and science and the heavy focus of federal research funding on the life sciences versus physical sciences. Another unknown is whether an increasing U.S. reliance on foreign-born workers in science and engineering makes the U.S. vulnerable. In recent years, about 70 percent of the foreign scientists and engineers who receive PhDs from U.S. universities choose to remain here, but the stay rate could fall as research conditions and salaries improve abroad.

J M

References

[1] U.S. Still Leads the World in Science and Technology; Nation Benefits From Foreign Scientists, Engineers. Rand Corporation, June 12, 2008. http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/06/12/index.html

[2] U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology, by Titus Galama & James Hosek. Rand Corp., June 12, 2008. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG674/

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blog entry#211

Jul 08, 2008

To: Institute for the Future’s Science X2 (sciencex2.org)

Subject: Re: First a series of Floods and then Droughts in South Asia

It seemed somewhat plausible to me until I found studies that do not support the first thesis. An example is [1], apud [2] (I've got no access to the original article), where Chinese scientists found this:

Their discussion of flooding and usually cold period continued for the other episodes; they state "The overbank flooding episodes temporally overlap with the cold-dry stages. It implies that during these three episodes both extreme floods and droughts occurred in the tributaries and the mainstream of the Yellow River in its middle and lower reaches." They found flooding during the Little Ice Age stating "During the sixth episode of overbank flooding on the piedmont alluvial plain, 73 out of 110 catastrophic floods on the Sushui River in the Yuncheng Basin during the last 2200 years occurred between the 14th and 19th centuries. Extreme overbank flooding on the Sushui River occurred in AD 1570, 1662, 1745 and 1761, each resulting in hundreds of fatalities and inundation and devastation of thousands of villages and towns."

Furthermore, they found "Our data show that the last three episodes of overbank flooding, including the catastrophic floods recorded in literature, coincide with the cold-dry stages during the late Holocene. During these three episodes there were not only catastrophic floods, but also extreme droughts over the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River drainage basin. For example, the last episode of overbank flooding event corresponds with the well documented ‘Little Ice Age,’ during which there were frequent natural disasters including catastrophic floods, droughts, dust storms, heat waves, migratory locusts and frequent famines and plagues in the middle-lower reaches of the Yellow River drainage basin. Climate departed from its long-term average conditions and was unstable, irregular, and disastrous during these anomalous episodes."

They conclude "The persistence of geomorphic stability on the piedmont alluvial plain and the absence of overbank flooding during the mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum provide evidence that extreme floods were uncommon in the warm-humid period dominated by the southeastern maritime monsoon."

J M

References

[1] Impact of monsoonal climatic change on Holocene overbank flooding along Sushui River, middle reach of the Yellow River, China. Chun Chang Huang a,b, Jiangli Pang a, Xiaochun Zha a, Hongxia Su a, Yaofeng Jia a and Yizhi Zhu b. Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 26, Issues 17-18, September 2007, Pages 2247-2264. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2007.06.006

a Department of Geography, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, Shaanxi, PR China

b State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, CAS, Xian, Shaanxi

[2] World Climate Report: Floods and Droughts and Global Cooling? April 24, 2008. http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/04/24/floods-and-droughts-and-global-cooling

World Climate Report is in the skeptical side. World Climate Report About Us (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/about-us/):

Acclaimed by those on both sides of the global warming debate, World Climate Report has become the definitive and unimpeachable source for what Nature now calls the "mainstream skeptic" point of view, which is that climate change is a largely overblown issue and that the best expectation is modest change over the next 100 years.

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blog entry#210

Jun 26, 2008

To: Institute for the Future’s Science X2 (sciencex2.org)

Subject: "Oriental culture seems to favor obedience a lot more than US culture"

Regarding "Oriental culture seems to favor obedience a lot more than US culture, and creativity is often not compatible with obedience," let me say that my direct supervisor in New York City (and his team-mates) when I worked there in 1993 were not of the obedient type, although they were Chinese.

Later, in 1995 I met a Chinese-American engineer in Washington DC. His business card was bilingual, English and Chinese. A remarkable fellow, who didn't have any qualms saying me when I was wrong. Wasn't of the obedient type.

Later I met a Chinese married couple in Spain in the 2000s, when I tried to learn Mandarin Chinese, and weren't of the obedient type neither - and they were innovative and industrious, true entrepreneurs.

So my experience doesn't let me say things as Mr Goertzel said.

J M

Reply comment on "Orientalism," by Philip Cho. Thu, June 26, 2008 - 9:30pm. http://sciencex2.org/en/node/26355#comment-158

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blog entry#209

Jun 18, 2008

To: Diario de America

Subject: The Boeotians against plastic shower courtains

Thanks be to God, someone is fighting back the barbarians at the gates of the city. Jack N. Gerard, 50, next chief spokesman this fall for the American Petroleum Institute, said: "[w]hen industries are confronted by challenges, they tend to get shellshocked and step back into the foxhole," according to Jeff Birnbaum in the Washington Post. "My philosophy is the opposite. Industries need someone to step forward and make the case when people don't understand them." [1]

And he added: "Because there's a lot of anxiety in the Congress about the industry, we have to step forward and be compelling in our advocacy. It's not a time to be bashful. The more transparent the discussion, the better off we'll be."

Some newfound aggressiveness is also in display in the American Chemistry Council, whose panel on phthalate esters issued this statement to reply to a report released by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, "Volatile Vinyl: The New Shower Curtain’s Chemical Smell" [2]:

"The Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) has made a series of erroneous claims about a family of vinyl softeners called phthalates. In its shower curtain report, CHEJ attempts to imply that phthalates may be partially responsible for the new shower curtain smell despite the fact that phthalates have little to no odor - a fact that is well known to chemists - and CHEJ has failed to produce quantifiable results to identify phthalates off-gassing to the air.

"Phthalates are used to make shower curtains flexible and durable. For CHEJ to suggest that phthalates are linked to serious health problems grossly misinforms the public about the true nature of phthalates. There is no reliable evidence that any phthalates have ever caused any harm to any human in their fifty-year history of use.

"Phthalates are among the most thoroughly studied products in the world, and have been reviewed by multiple regulatory bodies in the U.S. and overseas. For example, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 2002 found DINP poses "no demonstrated health risk" when used in children’s vinyl toys. A recent EU risk assessment has concluded that "the end products containing DINP and the sources of exposure are unlikely to cause a risk for consumers following inhalation, skin contact and ingestion. In short, no reliable scientific evidence has found phthalates to cause adverse human health effects."

Jorge Mata

References

[1] Jeffrey H Birnbaum: A Rising Star in the Hold-Your-Nose Industries. The Washington Post, June 17, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602123.html

[2] The American Chemistry Council: statement by Marian K. Stanley, Manager, Phthalate Esters Panel, with regards to a report released by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Volatile Vinyl: The New Shower Curtain’s Chemical Smell. June 16, 2008. http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_acc/sec_news_article.asp?CID=206&DID=7557

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blog entry#208

Jun 15, 2008

To: Institute for the Future’s Science X2 (sciencex2.org)

Subject: Re: Max Marmer’s “Technological progress doesn't matter if we don't stop Climate Change, Now”

Regarding "Scientists like to low-ball their estimates. The now-famous IPCC scenarios for the effects of climate change are already known to be woefully, unrealistically conservative," [1] let me cite James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who published in 2003 a job titled "Can we defuse The Global Warming Time Bomb?" [2]:

However, are the IPCC scenarios necessary or even plausible? There are reasons to believe that the IPCC scenarios are unduly pessimistic. First, they ignore changes in emissions, some already underway, due to concerns about global warming. Second, they assume that true air pollution will continue to get worse, with O3, CH4 and black carbon all greater in 2050 than in 2000. Third, they give short shrift to technology advances that can reduce emissions in the next 50 years.

An alternative way to define scenarios is to examine current trends in climate forcing agents, to ask why they are changing as observed, and to try to understand whether there are reasonable actions that could encourage further changes in the growth rates. Precise data are available for trends of the long-lived greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are well-mixed in the atmosphere, i.e., CO2, CH4, N2O and CFCs.

[...]

This "current trends" growth rate of climate forcings, i.e., 2 W/m2 in 50 years, is at the low end of the IPCC range of 2-4 W/m2. The IPCC scenario of 4 W/m2 requires a 4% per year exponential growth rate of CO2 emissions for 50 years and large growth of air pollution. The 4 W/m2 scenario yields dramatic climate change for the media to fixate upon, but it is implausible.

According to this, in 2003 the "growth rate of climate forcings" was "at the low end" of the IPCC range.

Since then, Hansen's team published a sensitivity of 0.67 K per W/m2, [3]