Chinese Braille Computer System Developed Successfully

Proposed and developed by the Computer & Language Information Engineering Research Center, CAS, Huajian Group Company and Chinese Braille Publishing House, Chinese Braille Computer System has successfully gone through the verification, by which the blind can fully enjoy the convenience of computer.
Such system adopts a special kind of keyboard technology, by which the blind can get phonetic explanation and relating words while putting in Braille publication, Chinese or ASCII. This system provides several automatic transforms translating Chinese to several Braille codings and makes the blind "read" Chinese articles directly.
This system realizes the goal of acquiring and reading the information on the full screen. It can also automatically distinguish simplified Chinese characters from the traditional Chinese characters, and Chinese from English, making the user able to "read" all kinds of information on the screen.
Meanwhile, the system can put out the information acquired from the screen into special equipment and provide the user with the intellectualized phonetic navigation. The blind can use the computer freely and independently like a normal person under the direct "guide" from the computer.

New Advances in the Development of Anti-SARS Compound X-61

New advances have been made in the development of X-61, a strong anti-SARS compound screened by CAS Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) and CAS Institute of Genome. Using X-61 as precursor, researchers in the CAS KIB synthesized 10 serial derivatives through structure modification and chemical synthesis. Through activity screening and structure optimization, the derivatives supplied data for developing new anti-SARS compound with high efficiency and low toxicity. In the near future, KIB will focus its research on preparing the serial derivatives of X-61, studying their anti-SARS activities, displaying the functional mechanism of SARS virus through gene function external expression and starting the pre-clinical tests on monkeys.

State-of-the-art Wind Tunnel for Probing Wind Erosion

Researchers with the CAS Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (CAREERI) have completed the renovation of its wind tunnel for wind erosion test, making it the largest wind erosion tunnel in Asia, according to Prof. Dong Zhibao, executive director of the Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, CAREERI.

The wind tunnel is a tube-like structure in which wind is generated by a large fan and flows over the soil surface to simulate wind in natural field conditions. CAREERI researchers use various wind tunnels to simulate dust and sand storms so they can study wind erosion.

After the reconstruction and expansion of the wind tunnel, its total area is over 500 square meters with a total length of 40 meters. Its experimental section is 21 meters long with a cross-section area of 1.2 meters by 1.2 meters. The wind speed of the tunnel can be continuously adjusted from 2m/s to 40m/s. Moreover, researchers have upgraded its power system with computers and added rooms for model-making, sample-processing, underground studies, engineering control and data analysis.
This rebuilt tunnel will improve the overall performance of a group of wind tunnels at CAREERI (including an indoor sand blowing wind tunnel, a plume wind tunnel etc.), thus play a key role in the studies of wind-sand engineering and desertification.