China Science & Technology Forum

[JSCh]

Are they the first to come up with this idea?

Yes, I would have expect that to be the case.


Paper:
Hong Zhang, Xiaopei Qiu, Yurui Zou1, Yanyao Ye, Chao Qi, Lingyun Zou, Xiang Yang, Ke Yang, Yuanfeng Zhu, Yongjun Yang, Yang Zhou and Yang Luo. "A dye-assisted paper-based point-of-care assay for fast and reliable blood grouping". Science Translational Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf9209

Finding the right type
Blood type matching is important for pregnancy, blood transfusion, and bone marrow transplantation. Zhang et al. developed a blood typing assay based on the color change that occurs when a common pH indicator dye reacts with blood. Red blood cells (RBCs) and plasma were separated from small volumes of whole, uncentrifuged blood samples using antibodies immobilized on paper test strips. The assays performed forward grouping (detecting A and/or B antigens on RBCs) and reverse grouping (monitoring the agglutination between RBCs and anti-A and/or anti-B antibodies in plasma) within 2 min and could also perform Rhesus and rare blood typing. A machine-learning algorithm grouped human blood samples automatically on the basis of spectral analysis of the colorimetric assay readouts. This economical and robust assay is useful for time- and resource-limited environments.

Abstract
Fast and simultaneous forward and reverse blood grouping has long remained elusive. Forward blood grouping detects antigens on red blood cells, whereas reverse grouping identifies specific antibodies present in plasma. We developed a paper-based assay using immobilized antibodies and bromocresol green dye for rapid and reliable blood grouping, where dye-assisted color changes corresponding to distinct blood components provide a visual readout. ABO antigens and five major Rhesus antigens could be detected within 30 s, and simultaneous forward and reverse ABO blood grouping using small volumes (100 μl) of whole blood was achieved within 2 min through on-chip plasma separation without centrifugation. A machine-learning method was developed to classify the spectral plots corresponding to dye-based color changes, which enabled reproducible automatic grouping. Using optimized operating parameters, the dye-assisted paper assay exhibited comparable accuracy and reproducibility to the classical gel-card assays in grouping 3550 human blood samples. When translated to the assembly line and low-cost manufacturing, the proposed approach may be developed into a cost-effective and robust universal blood-grouping platform.​

*****###*****
​

A new test can detect your blood type with color-changing paper
It could be crucial in emergency situations and remote areas

By Claire Maldarelli posted Mar 15th, 2017 at 4:41pm

H. Zhang et al, Science Translational Medicine 2017​

The paper turns teal or brown, depending on whether the right combination of antigens and antibodies are present.


Knowing a person’s blood type is crucial in medicine. If a traumatic injury leaves you in need of a donor's blood, an infusion from the wrong blood type can result in a life-threatening reaction. But not everyone knows their blood type off the top of their head (I don’t, and I am a self-proclaimed hypochondriac). Blood typing is typically a lengthy process that requires a lab and all the equipment that comes with it. But in a report out this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers have come up with a better method: A paper-based test that identifies a person’s type with just a few drops of blood. They say this test could be most helpful in emergency and remote areas, where conventional blood typing isn’t feasible.

Traditional blood typing requires the use of a centrifuge, which spins the blood and separates it into its different components. Since most remote locations don’t have this type of equipment, the holy grail of blood type detection has been to design a process that doesn’t need a centrifuge.

The researchers worked around the need for a lab by finding a common dye—bromocresol green—that interacts with blood. What makes people have different blood types—A, B, AB, and O (as well as some other rare types)—is that each has different antigens and antibodies. Antigens are specialized proteins that sit on the outside of red blood cells, and antibodies are proteins that your body produces to fend off invaders. If a person has blood type A, they will have A-type antigens and B-type antibodies. The opposite is true for people with blood type A.

The device looks like a long thermometer with two ends. One the left end the user would place a solution containing antibody A and on the right end she would place a solution with antibody B. Then a drop of blood would be placed in the center, followed by a drop of the dye. The solution would travel down the paper and reach both antibody solutions. If the blood type was A, then the left solution—with a combination of antibody A, antigen A, and dye—would turn brown, and the right solution—with a combination of antibody B, antigen A, and dye—would turn teal. If the blood type were B, the left solution would be teal and the right solution would be brown. Type AB, in which both antigens are found on red blood cells, would turn both solutions teal, and type O, with no antigens at all, would turn both solutions brown.

The color change happens within 30 seconds, which is much faster than traditional testing which takes hours or days in a lab. The researchers tested 3,550 blood samples and had an accuracy rate of 99.9 percent. Further, because the result relies on a simple color change (which people who have red-green color blindness can also detect), it's easy for first responders or people in remote areas to use.

While the results seem promising, the work is still in its proof-of-concept stage. More testing is needed to ensure the test can hold up in a variety of settings. The researchers also want to expand its ability to identify rarer blood types, or ones where the interaction between the antigens and the antibodies isn’t as strong. The current test also can’t distinguish blood from other fluids, which could contain antigens that produce color changes. Nevertheless, if this test makes it out into the real world, it could be a game-changer for remote or point-of-care medicine.



A new test can detect your blood type with color-changing paper | Popular Science

 

[Dungeness]

Yes, I would have expect that to be the case.


Paper:
Hong Zhang, Xiaopei Qiu, Yurui Zou1, Yanyao Ye, Chao Qi, Lingyun Zou, Xiang Yang, Ke Yang, Yuanfeng Zhu, Yongjun Yang, Yang Zhou and Yang Luo. "A dye-assisted paper-based point-of-care assay for fast and reliable blood grouping". Science Translational Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf9209

Finding the right type
Blood type matching is important for pregnancy, blood transfusion, and bone marrow transplantation. Zhang et al. developed a blood typing assay based on the color change that occurs when a common pH indicator dye reacts with blood. Red blood cells (RBCs) and plasma were separated from small volumes of whole, uncentrifuged blood samples using antibodies immobilized on paper test strips. The assays performed forward grouping (detecting A and/or B antigens on RBCs) and reverse grouping (monitoring the agglutination between RBCs and anti-A and/or anti-B antibodies in plasma) within 2 min and could also perform Rhesus and rare blood typing. A machine-learning algorithm grouped human blood samples automatically on the basis of spectral analysis of the colorimetric assay readouts. This economical and robust assay is useful for time- and resource-limited environments.

Abstract
Fast and simultaneous forward and reverse blood grouping has long remained elusive. Forward blood grouping detects antigens on red blood cells, whereas reverse grouping identifies specific antibodies present in plasma. We developed a paper-based assay using immobilized antibodies and bromocresol green dye for rapid and reliable blood grouping, where dye-assisted color changes corresponding to distinct blood components provide a visual readout. ABO antigens and five major Rhesus antigens could be detected within 30 s, and simultaneous forward and reverse ABO blood grouping using small volumes (100 μl) of whole blood was achieved within 2 min through on-chip plasma separation without centrifugation. A machine-learning method was developed to classify the spectral plots corresponding to dye-based color changes, which enabled reproducible automatic grouping. Using optimized operating parameters, the dye-assisted paper assay exhibited comparable accuracy and reproducibility to the classical gel-card assays in grouping 3550 human blood samples. When translated to the assembly line and low-cost manufacturing, the proposed approach may be developed into a cost-effective and robust universal blood-grouping platform.​

*****###*****
​

A new test can detect your blood type with color-changing paper
It could be crucial in emergency situations and remote areas

By Claire Maldarelli posted Mar 15th, 2017 at 4:41pm

H. Zhang et al, Science Translational Medicine 2017​

The paper turns teal or brown, depending on whether the right combination of antigens and antibodies are present.


Knowing a person’s blood type is crucial in medicine. If a traumatic injury leaves you in need of a donor's blood, an infusion from the wrong blood type can result in a life-threatening reaction. But not everyone knows their blood type off the top of their head (I don’t, and I am a self-proclaimed hypochondriac). Blood typing is typically a lengthy process that requires a lab and all the equipment that comes with it. But in a report out this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers have come up with a better method: A paper-based test that identifies a person’s type with just a few drops of blood. They say this test could be most helpful in emergency and remote areas, where conventional blood typing isn’t feasible.

Traditional blood typing requires the use of a centrifuge, which spins the blood and separates it into its different components. Since most remote locations don’t have this type of equipment, the holy grail of blood type detection has been to design a process that doesn’t need a centrifuge.

The researchers worked around the need for a lab by finding a common dye—bromocresol green—that interacts with blood. What makes people have different blood types—A, B, AB, and O (as well as some other rare types)—is that each has different antigens and antibodies. Antigens are specialized proteins that sit on the outside of red blood cells, and antibodies are proteins that your body produces to fend off invaders. If a person has blood type A, they will have A-type antigens and B-type antibodies. The opposite is true for people with blood type A.

The device looks like a long thermometer with two ends. One the left end the user would place a solution containing antibody A and on the right end she would place a solution with antibody B. Then a drop of blood would be placed in the center, followed by a drop of the dye. The solution would travel down the paper and reach both antibody solutions. If the blood type was A, then the left solution—with a combination of antibody A, antigen A, and dye—would turn brown, and the right solution—with a combination of antibody B, antigen A, and dye—would turn teal. If the blood type were B, the left solution would be teal and the right solution would be brown. Type AB, in which both antigens are found on red blood cells, would turn both solutions teal, and type O, with no antigens at all, would turn both solutions brown.

The color change happens within 30 seconds, which is much faster than traditional testing which takes hours or days in a lab. The researchers tested 3,550 blood samples and had an accuracy rate of 99.9 percent. Further, because the result relies on a simple color change (which people who have red-green color blindness can also detect), it's easy for first responders or people in remote areas to use.

While the results seem promising, the work is still in its proof-of-concept stage. More testing is needed to ensure the test can hold up in a variety of settings. The researchers also want to expand its ability to identify rarer blood types, or ones where the interaction between the antigens and the antibodies isn’t as strong. The current test also can’t distinguish blood from other fluids, which could contain antigens that produce color changes. Nevertheless, if this test makes it out into the real world, it could be a game-changer for remote or point-of-care medicine.



A new test can detect your blood type with color-changing paper | Popular Science

It is going to be a really big deal if they are the first.

Did some digging, and apparently some Americans reported their trial in 2010 on Science Daily, not sure if they actually come to any conclusion.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100602121200.htm

 

[JSCh]

Watch a special paper tool that can determine your blood type in seconds

By Lindzi Wessel
Mar. 15, 2017 , 2:00 PM

Knowing a patient’s blood type is critical before a transfusion, but current techniques are time consuming and require expensive equipment. Now, researchers have proposed a new paper-based method for quickly and inexpensively determining blood type, published today in Science Translational Medicine. The method relies on a special dye that shows up brown when mixed with whole blood, but turns teal when mixed with plasma that has been separated from red blood cells. To make that separation happen, scientists employed antibodies that force red blood cells to clump. Blood cells are dotted with markers that can be recognized by antibodies produced by the immune system—type A blood has A markers, type B has B markers, type AB has both, and type O has neither. To test the blood, researchers place a droplet in the center of a paper-based chip that holds anti-A antibodies to the left, and anti-B antibodies to the right. As blood absorbs and moves through the paper membrane toward the ends of the chip, it hits the regions of antibodies, clumping or not, depending on what markers it carries. If the red blood cells clump, only the plasma will make it through, causing the dye to turn teal and indicating that the corresponding marker (A on the left and B on the right) is present. If the marker isn’t there, the blood won’t clump and the dye will be brown. The process takes about 30 seconds and can be modified for rare blood types. The researchers hope the tests will be useful in regions with limited resources and during emergencies.


Watch a special paper tool that can determine your blood type in seconds | Science | AAAS

 

[JSCh]

China’s first wastewater plant using radiation opens in Zhejiang
By Zhang Huan (People's Daily Online) 15:50, March 16, 2017

Electron beam technology is used to clean industrial wastewater at a textile dyeing facility in Jinhua city, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai. (Photo: Nuclear and Energy Technology Institute, Tsinghua University, Beijing.)

Recently, China debuted its first wastewater treatment facility to use electron beams, ushering in a new era for radiation technology, according to an IAEA press realease.

Bacteria are the workhorses of wastewater treatment, as they digest and break down pollutants. Wastewater from textile dyeing, however, contains molecules that cannot be treated with bacteria. To color textiles, compounds with large, long and complex chains are used, meaning that wastewater from the industry can contain more than 70 complex, hard-to-degrade chemicals.

Nevertheless, by irradiating the waste that flows into the water supply using electron beams, scientists are able to break these complex chemicals into smaller molecules, which can in turn be treated and removed using normal biological processes. Irradiation is done using short-lived reactive radicals than can interact with and break down a wide range of pollutants.

“The radiation treatment technology does not add additional chemical reagents, and is listed as the main research direction of Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy of the Century by [the International Atomic Energy Agency], as it offers a rapid response and high efficiency,” said Yu Jiang, general manager of CGN Dasheng Electron Accelerator Technology Co. Ltd., which cooperates on the project with the Nuclear and Energy Technology Institute at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

“Despite advances in conventional wastewater treatment technology in recent years, radiation remains the only technology that can treat the most stubborn colorants in wastewater,” said Sunil Sabharwal, Radiation Processing Specialist at the IAEA. “The problem is that the technology exists in developed countries, while most of the need now is in the developing world.”

To bridge the knowledge gap, the IAEA ran a coordinated research project on the technology, including its transfer to several countries, mostly in Asia.

At present, the new plant, which is located in the city of Jinhua, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, treats 1,500 cubic meters of wastewater on a daily basis. Chinese researchers are also considering the use of electron beam technology to treat residue from pharmaceutical plants, paper mills, chemical plants and other industrial parks with complex water treatment needs.

 

[JSCh]

China creates world's first coal-to-ethanol production line
By Zhang Zhihao | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-03-17 16:06

China has successfully created the world's first production line to turn coal into ethanol, or drinking alcohol, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said on Friday.

Created by Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum and the academy's Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics in Liaoning province, the production line went into operation in January and has the capacity to make more than 100,000 metric tons of pure ethanol every year, according to Liu Zhongmin, the institute's deputy director.

By 2020, China will build a factory capable of producing 1 million tons of ethanol each year using the same technology, he said.

The country currently produces 7 million tons of ethanol each year using other methods, which can "hardly satisfy" its industrial and energy needs, according to Liu.

"Most countries produce ethanol using food, such as corn or sugar cane, but this is not a viable option for China given its massive population," he said.

"By turning China's abundant coal resources into ethanol, the technology will help safeguard our energy and food security,"

Moreover, ethanol is a green fuel and versatile ingredient. "Utilizing it could reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, and make our industrial production and energy structure more environmental friendly," Liu said.

In addition to alcoholic beverages, ethanol can be used to produce thousands of everyday products from plastics to detergents. It can also replace more toxic ingredients, such as methanol, during industrial production.

Other uses include mixing it with petroleum to increase its fuel efficiency and reduce pollution. An abundant supply of ethanol would also make ethanol-fueled vehicles more viable, Liu said.

 

[JSCh]

It is going to be a really big deal if they are the first.

Did some digging, and apparently some Americans reported their trial in 2010 on Science Daily, not sure if they actually come to any conclusion.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100602121200.htm

The full paper is here -->

A dye-assisted paper-based point-of-care assay for fast and reliable blood grouping | Science Translational Medicine

excerpt from the paper,

Paper-based assays, which are rapid, convenient, and inexpensive, hold promise for point-of-care (POC) blood grouping with a readout visible to the naked eye (11, 12). However, the previously reported approaches depend on either the recognition of red blood cell (RBC) clots (13, 14) or the distance gap of wicking between RBCs and plasma after separation (15, 16), which prevents accurate discrimination between nonblood solutions that resemble type O blood because specific RBC membrane antigens are absent in both types of samples.

.....

Reference 13, 14, 15 and 16 from top to bottom.

• T. Arbatan, L. Li, J. Tian, W. Shen, Liquid marbles as micro-bioreactors for rapid blood typing. Adv. Healthc. Mater. 1, 80–83 (2012).
• M. Li, J. Tian, M. Al-Tamimi, W. Shen, Paper-based blood typing device that reports patient’s blood type "in writing". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 51, 5497–5501 (2012).
• M. S. Khan, G. Thouas, W. Shen, G. Whyte, G. Garnier, Paper diagnostic for instantaneous blood typing. Anal. Chem. 82, 4158–4164 (2010).
• D. R. Ballerini, X. Li, W. Shen, An inexpensive thread-based system for simple and rapid blood grouping. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 399, 1869–1875 (2011).

Paper no. 15 is the one reported in Science Daily. You will notice W. Shen is in that papers and is the corresponding author for all later paper. He/She is from Monash U and all the researcher are from Australia.

 

[Dungeness]

The full paper is here -->

A dye-assisted paper-based point-of-care assay for fast and reliable blood grouping | Science Translational Medicine

excerpt from the paper,

Paper-based assays, which are rapid, convenient, and inexpensive, hold promise for point-of-care (POC) blood grouping with a readout visible to the naked eye (11, 12). However, the previously reported approaches depend on either the recognition of red blood cell (RBC) clots (13, 14) or the distance gap of wicking between RBCs and plasma after separation (15, 16), which prevents accurate discrimination between nonblood solutions that resemble type O blood because specific RBC membrane antigens are absent in both types of samples.

.....

Reference 13, 14, 15 and 16 from top to bottom.

• T. Arbatan, L. Li, J. Tian, W. Shen, Liquid marbles as micro-bioreactors for rapid blood typing. Adv. Healthc. Mater. 1, 80–83 (2012).
• M. Li, J. Tian, M. Al-Tamimi, W. Shen, Paper-based blood typing device that reports patient’s blood type "in writing". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 51, 5497–5501 (2012).
• M. S. Khan, G. Thouas, W. Shen, G. Whyte, G. Garnier, Paper diagnostic for instantaneous blood typing. Anal. Chem. 82, 4158–4164 (2010).
• D. R. Ballerini, X. Li, W. Shen, An inexpensive thread-based system for simple and rapid blood grouping. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 399, 1869–1875 (2011).

Paper no. 15 is the one reported in Science Daily. You will notice W. Shen is in that papers and is the corresponding author for all later paper. He/She is from Monash U and all the researcher are from Australia.

It looks like the idea itself is not new and others tried before, but the Chinese team is the only one that comes close enough to make it commercially feasible. Good Job.

 

[Bussard Ramjet]

It looks like the idea itself is not new and others tried before, but the Chinese team is the only one that comes close enough to make it commercially feasible. Good Job.

It is more like being an increment on the present technology.

Also, I don't understand, why did they publish it when they could have patented it?

 

[KediKesenFare3]

It looks like the idea itself is not new and others tried before, but the Chinese team is the only one that comes close enough to make it commercially feasible. Good Job.

You are right. The concept is nothing new or special but I guess the Chinese made it for an affordable price.
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/turk...f-detecting-cancer-with-drop-of-blood.475234/

Congratulations.

 

[JSCh]

Chinese hackers win 2017 world hacking contest
By Xie Zhenqi
2017-03-18 14:00 GMT+8

‍The three-day Pwn2Own 2017 World Hacking Contest has just finished. Qihoo's 360 Security team from China ranked first among the competitors with a total score of 63, receiving the “Master of Pwn” championship cup.

Pwn2Own, hosted by the Pentagon's network security service Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), is a worldwide computer hacking contest held annually at the CanSecWest Applied Security Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Pwn2Own 2017 is held from March 14 to 17.

The scale this year is the largest ever since the game began in 2007, with the largest number of registrations, the most entries and the highest prizes in history.

360 Security team. /360 Photo​

Teams from the US, Germany, China and more participated in the game, aiming to hack the latest products from Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, VMware and other technology companies. Contestants are challenged to exploit widely used software and mobile devices with previously unknown vulnerabilities.

The 360 Security team successfully exploited MacOS, Safari, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash and Windows 10 during the first two days. On the last day, it chose to challenge the so-called "hardest in history" serial hacking, and they managed to take down Microsoft Edge and escape a virtual machine VMware to boot in only 90 seconds, achieving a score of 27, the highest in history on a single entry.

Microsoft Edge is a type confusion in the Windows kernel, and an uninitialized buffer in VMware Workstation for a complete virtual machine escape.

List of standing ranked by total scores received after day three. /360 Photo​

Hacking contests have long been dominated by Western teams, but Chinese teams start to outperform in recent years. According to ZDI, the 360 Security team has been rewarded with a sum of more than 280,000 US dollars. The two other Chinese teams sent from Tencent Security and Chaitin Security received second and third place in the race.

All purchased bugs were privately disclosed to the vendors. Pwn2Own will continue working with them as they develop security patches.

The battle between cyber attack and defensive activities is endless, and only through constant innovation and improvements can experts explore the most effective security solutions.

 

[Keel]

Chinese hackers win 2017 world hacking contest
By Xie Zhenqi
2017-03-18 14:00 GMT+8

‍The three-day Pwn2Own 2017 World Hacking Contest has just finished. Qihoo's 360 Security team from China ranked first among the competitors with a total score of 63, receiving the “Master of Pwn” championship cup.

Pwn2Own, hosted by the Pentagon's network security service Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), is a worldwide computer hacking contest held annually at the CanSecWest Applied Security Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Pwn2Own 2017 is held from March 14 to 17.

The scale this year is the largest ever since the game began in 2007, with the largest number of registrations, the most entries and the highest prizes in history.

360 Security team. /360 Photo​

Teams from the US, Germany, China and more participated in the game, aiming to hack the latest products from Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, VMware and other technology companies. Contestants are challenged to exploit widely used software and mobile devices with previously unknown vulnerabilities.

The 360 Security team successfully exploited MacOS, Safari, Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash and Windows 10 during the first two days. On the last day, it chose to challenge the so-called "hardest in history" serial hacking, and they managed to take down Microsoft Edge and escape a virtual machine VMware to boot in only 90 seconds, achieving a score of 27, the highest in history on a single entry.

Microsoft Edge is a type confusion in the Windows kernel, and an uninitialized buffer in VMware Workstation for a complete virtual machine escape.

List of standing ranked by total scores received after day three. /360 Photo​

Hacking contests have long been dominated by Western teams, but Chinese teams start to outperform in recent years. According to ZDI, the 360 Security team has been rewarded with a sum of more than 280,000 US dollars. The two other Chinese teams sent from Tencent Security and Chaitin Security received second and third place in the race.

All purchased bugs were privately disclosed to the vendors. Pwn2Own will continue working with them as they develop security patches.

The battle between cyber attack and defensive activities is endless, and only through constant innovation and improvements can experts explore the most effective security solutions.

Congrats!
So a clean sweep!

"The two other Chinese teams sent from Tencent Security and Chaitin Security received second and third place in the race. "

Chinese programmers continue to cement our position among the world's elites by producing top results consistently ... not by bragging!

Again well done Chinese programmers!
Though we did not do too well at the 2017 All-England; but the following should be a consolation wining 4 out of 5 titles and we just keep moving on

http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1048317/lin-wins-all-chinese-final-at-bwf-swiss-open

 

[Bussard Ramjet]

Congrats!
So a clean sweep!

"The two other Chinese teams sent from Tencent Security and Chaitin Security received second and third place in the race. "

Chinese programmers continue to cement our position among the world's elites by producing top results consistently ... not by bragging!

Again well done Chinese programmers!
Though we did not do too well at the 2017 All-England; but the following should be a consolation wining 4 out of 5 titles and we just keep moving on

http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1048317/lin-wins-all-chinese-final-at-bwf-swiss-open

Why are you bringing badminton in here?

And, Swiss is actually a very small tournament.
You won 4 titles there because you showed up, no other strong players were there.

 

[shadows888]

Why are you bringing badminton in here?

And, Swiss is actually a very small tournament.
You won 4 titles there because you showed up, no other strong players were there.

well, i guess showing up is half the battle. that's why Americans are TWO TIMES BACK TO BACK WORLD WAR CHAMPS!!

 

[JSCh]

Chinese scientists use remote sensing technology to detect underground Great Wall remains
(People's Daily Online) 16:37, March 20, 2017

(Photo/WeChat of RADI)​

More than 1,000 years ago, several dotted, flake-shaped sections of the Great Wall stood in Xinjiang, protecting the border and the trade road. Recently, researchers from the China Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) analyzed the distribution of ancient Great Wall sections in Xinjiang using remote sensing technology. They also used the technology to "restore" the wall's appearance.

(Photo/WeChat of RADI)​

Remote sensing archaeology entails the use of electromagnetic waves and other sensors for long-distance observation and detection of surface and underground remains. Aerospace development, and especially the increased resolution of remote sensing satellites, has provided greater precision and a more efficient platform for remote sensing archaeology.

Nie Yueping, a researcher at RADI, explained that electromagnetic waves produced by vegetation, soil and geomorphology are different from those of historical sites. Such differences cannot be seen by the naked eye. However, special equipment can obtain electromagnetic wave data via remote sensing platforms such as space shuttles, satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles. Archaeological information then can be extracted from the data through computer processing.

(Photo/WeChat of RADI)​

So far, more than 600 ancient remnants of the Great Wall have been found. Yu Lijun, an associate researcher at RADI, said that the team has outlined a Great Wall resource distribution line, and are working to "restore" images of the ancient Great Wall. Through virtual reality technology, people may soon be able to take an online tour of the remains in Xinjiang.

Compared with traditional archaeological methods, remote sensing has many advantages. With the popularization of satellite technology, remote sensing data can be obtained under all weather conditions. Moreover, the cost of using the technology is relatively low, and causes little damage to ancient remains.

(Photo/WeChat of RADI)​

 

[Keel]

well, i guess showing up is half the battle. that's why Americans are TWO TIMES BACK TO BACK WORLD WAR CHAMPS!!

U.S. developers have the numbers, but China and Russia have the skills

A report from HackerRank finds that while the U.S. and India have lots of developers, Chinese and Russian programmers are the most talented

• By Paul Krill
  
  Editor at Large, InfoWorld | AUG 29, 2016
  

Credit: Thinkstock

While the United States and India may have lots of programmers, China and Russia have the most talented developers according to a study by HackerRank, which administers coding tests to developers worldwide.

The study looked at the results of 1.4 million of HackerRank's coding test submissions, called "challenges," during the last few years. "According to our data, China and Russia score as the most talented developers. Chinese programmers outscore all other countries in mathematics, functional programming, and data structures challenges, while Russians dominate in algorithms, the most popular and most competitive arena," said Ritika Trikha, a blogger at HackerRank.

The United States and India provide the majority of competitors on HackerRank but only manage to rank 28th and 31st, respectively. "If we held a hacking Olympics today, our data suggests that China would win the gold, Russia would take home a silver, and Poland would nab the bronze," Trikha said. "Though they certainly deserve credit for making a showing, the United States and India have some work ahead of them before they make it into the top 25."

HackerRank's coding challenges cover aspects of computing ranging from languages to algorithms, security and distributed systems. Developers are scored based on a combination of accuracy and speed. The algorithms category has nearly 40 percent of developers competing, featuring tests on sorting data, dynamic programming, keyword searches and other logic-based tasks. Following algorithms were Java and data structure tests, with 10 percent of developers participating. Distributed systems and security were the least popular tests, although thousands still took them.

To determine which nation had the highest-scoring programmers, HackerRank looked at each country's average score across domains. Data was restricted to the top 50 countries with the most developers on HackerRank. Following China and Russia with the top developers were Poland, Switzerland, Hungary, Japan, Taiwan, France, Czech Republic, and Italy.

"Since China scored the highest, Chinese developers sit at the top of the list with a score of 100," Trikha said. The 100 score does not mean Chinese developer had a perfect score on the tests but represents the country's being first in the rankings. "But China only won by a hair. Russia scored 99.9 out of 100, while Poland and Switzerland round out the top rankings with scores near 98. Pakistan scores only 57.4 out of 100 on the index, (ranking 50th)."

Poland was tops in Java testing, France led in C++, Hong Kong in Python, Japan in artificial intelligence, and Switzerland in databases. Ukrainian programmers led in security, while Finland was top in Ruby coding challenges.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/31...ers-but-china-and-russia-have-the-skills.html

https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-country-would-win-in-the-programming-olympics

Published
August 25, 2016

in Programming
Which Country Would Win in the Programming Olympics?
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Update: This article has been picked up by the Washington Post, Business Insider, eWeek and InfoWorld.

Which countries have the best programmers in the world?

Many would assume it’s the United States. After all, the United States is the home of programming luminaries such as Bill Gates, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Donald Knuth. But then again, India is known as the fastest growingconcentration of programmers in the world and the hackers from Russia are apparently pretty effective. Is there any way to determine which country is best?

We decided to examine our data to answer this question: which countries do the best at programming challenges on HackerRank?

At HackerRank, we regularly post tens of thousands of new coding challenges for developers to improve their coding skills. Hundreds of thousands of developers from all over the world come to participate in challenges in a variety of languages and knowledge domains, from Python to algorithms to security to distributed systems. Our community is growing everyday, with over 1.5 million developers ranked.
Developers are scored and ranked based on a combination of their accuracy and speed.

According to our data, China and Russia score as the most talented developers. Chinese programmers outscore all other countries in mathematics, functional programming, and data structures challenges, while Russians dominate in algorithms, the most popular and most competitive arena. While the United States and India provide the majority of competitors on HackerRank, they only manage to rank 28th and 31st.



***We began our analysis by looking at which test types are most popular among developers. HackerRank developers can choose to participate in 15 different domains, but some are more popular than others. The following table shows the proportion of completed tests that come from each domain.






The most popular domain by far is algorithms, with nearly 40% all developers competing. This domain includes challenges on sorting data, dynamic programming, and searching for keywords and other logic-based tasks. For algorithms tests, developers can use whichever language they choose, which may partially explain why it’s so popular. Algorithms are also crucial for coding interviews, so it could explain why more coders would practice algorithm challenges. At a distant second and third, Java and data structures coming in at about 10% each. Distributed systems and security are our least popular tests, though we still receive thousands of completed challenges in those areas.

So based on these tests, which country has the programmers that score the highest?

In order to find out, we looked at each country’s average score across all domains. We standardized the scores for each domain (by subtracting the mean from each score and then dividing by the standard deviation; also known as a z-score) before finding the average. This allows us to make an apples-to-apple comparison of individual scores across different domains, even if some domains are more challenging than others. We then converted these z-scores into a 1-100 scale for easy interpretation.

We restricted the data to the 50 countries with the most developers on HackerRank. Here’s what we found:





Since China scored the highest, Chinese developers sit at the top of the list with a score of 100. But China only won by a hair. Russia scored 99.9 out of 100, while Poland and Switzerland round out the top rankings with scores near 98. Pakistan scores only 57.4 out of 100 on the index.

The two countries that contribute the greatest number of developers, India and the United States don’t place in the top half. India ranks 31st, with an overall score of 76 and the United States falls in at 28th, with a score of 78.


Though China outperformed everyone else on average, they didn’t dominate across the board. Which country produces the best developers in particular skill areas? Let’s take a look at the top countries in each domain.



China did quite well in a number of domains. Chinese developers beat out the competition in data structures, mathematics, and functional programming. On the other hand, Russia dominates in algorithms, the domain with the most popular challenges. Coming next, Poland and China nearly tie for second and third place, respectively.
What explains the different performance levels of different countries across domains? One possible explanation is that Russians are just more likely to participate in algorithms and therefore get more practice in that domain, while Chinese developers are disproportionately drawn to data structures.

Software engineer Shimi Zhang is one such programmer who ranked among the top 10 programmers in our Functional Programming domain. He hails from China’s city of Chongqing, and moved to the US just two years ago to get his master’s in computer science before coming to work at HackerRank.

On the greatness of Chinese programmers, from top-rankedChinese competitive programmer Shimi Zhang:

In universities and colleges, education resources are relatively fewer in comparison with many other countries, so students have less choices in their paths to programming. Many great students end up obsessed with competitive programming since it’s one of the few paths.



China even has a big population of students who started programming in middle school and high school. They’re trying to solve some hard challenges only few people in this world can solve.


They even host national programming contests for young programmers, like NOIp (national olympiad in informatics in provinces) andNOI (national olympiad in informatics). And after CTSC (China Team Selection Contest), 4 geniuses go to IOI (international olympiad in informatics), and at least 3 have won a gold medal this year. This has been the trend for nearly 10 years.


It’s an even greater achievement considering a special rule: if you had won a gold medal once, you won’t be selected for future IOI team, that means, most IOI team member from China won gold medal with their first try.


Next up, we also compared how the developers in each country split their time up amongst different challenge types and then compared these domain preferences to those of the average HackerRank user. This allowed us to figure out which countries are more likely than the rest to take a test in a particular domain—and which countries are less likely than the rest.



As the table above shows, China participated in mathematics competitions at a much higher rate than would be expected given the average developer’s preferences. This might help explain how they were able to secure the top rank in that domain. Likewise, Czech developers showed an outsized preference for shell competitions, a domain in which they ranked number one.

But beyond these two examples, there seems to be little relationship between a country’s preference for a particular challenge type and its performance in that domain. We also wanted to know whether countries have specific preferences when it comes to programming languages. Are Indians more interested in C++? Do Mexicans code in Ruby?

The following chart breaks down the proportion of tests taken in each language by country.



In general, developers of different nationalities participate in Java challenges more than tests in any other programming language (with a few notable exceptions like Malaysia and Pakistan, where users prefer C++, and Taiwan, where Python is king). Sri Lanka comes in at number one in its preference for Java. India, which supplies a big portion of HackerRank developers, ranks 8th.




*** While Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nigeria are currently toward the bottom of the hacker rankings, they can look to Switzerland’s steadfast developers for inspiration. When a HackerRank developer gives up on a challenge before making any progress, they earn a score of zero. Switzerland has the lowest percentage of nil scoring users, which make Swiss coders the Most Tenacious Programmers in the World.






***Every day, developers around the world compete with each other to become the next Gates or Knuth.


If we held a hacking Olympics today, our data suggests that China would win the gold, Russia would take home a silver, and Poland would nab the bronze. Though they certainly deserve credit for making a showing, the United States and India have some work ahead of them before they make it into the top 25.