发信人: maomaoboo(方圆), 信区: SJTUNews
标 题: 《Science》跟进质疑“透明计算”
发信站: 饮水思源 (2015年02月04日08:30:01 星期三)
Original website:
http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2015/02/critics-pounce-china-s-top-science-prize
Critics pounce on China’s top science prize
Controversy has erupted over China’s highest science prize for 2014. Critics
are blasting the winning project, on network computing, as not innovative and
undeserving.
On 9 January, the State First-Class Natural Science Award went to Zhang Yaoxue
, a computer scientist and member of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engine
ering, and his team. The 200,000 yuan ($32,000) annual prize is considered pre
stigious because it is awarded sparingly: Nine times in the past 15 years ther
e have been no winners. The government has said that it is better to have no w
inners than to award the prize to undeserving work.
That’s why many scientists are fuming over the selection of Zhang’s “transp
arent computing” research for the 2014 award. Zhang’s work is “too engineer
ing-oriented and too ordinary” to warrant the top science prize, and the awar
d has drawn “a barrage of criticism” from China’s information technology co
mmunity, says Liu Yang, a computer engineer who builds and hosts websites. Liu
was the first to question the merit of Zhang’s work on ScienceNet.cn; he wro
te in a blog post (later deleted by censors) that Zhang’s work “at most is a
n application of some open-source software.” Many people share Liu’s view. W
ang Xiaoping, a computer scientist at Tongji University in Shanghai, wrote in
a blog post that Zhang’s work is “a far cry” from the standard required for
winning the science award.
In an interview in Science and Technology Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s sc
ience ministry, which oversees the nation’s science prizes, Zhang describes h
is work as a “meta–operating system” that allows operating systems to be ru
n on any hardware. The breakthrough, he says, lies in “separating computing f
rom storage and making software independent of hardware.” He gave a link to a
video demonstrating “transparent computing” on personal computers, tablets,
and smart phones. Comments posted at that site say that Zhang’s model is no
different from a remote desktop—a software tool that allows users to access a
nother device on a network with the local device serving as a desktop of the r
emote computer—or from a network computer, a diskless device made by some U.S
. companies in the late 1990s that depends on other devices on a network to st
ore software and data. Zhang did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
For years, many in China’s scientific community have criticized the selection
process for S&T prizes as too political. The process involves researchers sub
mitting their own work to ministries, agencies, and provincial governments, wh
ich then nominate submissions for awards. Before being appointed president of
Central South University in Changsha in 2011, Zhang had served for more than a
decade as an official at the education ministry, which nominated his work for
the award. An anonymous comment on ScienceNet.cn put it this way: Zhang’s “
transparent computing is so transparent that it’s like the emperor’s new clo
thes.”
China’s professional computer society, the China Computer Federation (CCF), s
eemed to disagree with the selection of Zhang’s work for the top science awar
d. On 21 January, CCF posted an appeal on its website, calling on the governme
nt to stop meddling in science awards. The statement was replaced 2 days later
with a notice saying that the appeal was not related to last year’s science
awards and was removed “in order not to mislead the public.”
Posted in Asia/Pacific, People & Events
--
※ 来源:·饮水思源 bbs.sjtu.edu.cn·[FROM: 183.195.186.237]
标 题: 《Science》跟进质疑“透明计算”
发信站: 饮水思源 (2015年02月04日08:30:01 星期三)
Original website:
http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2015/02/critics-pounce-china-s-top-science-prize
Critics pounce on China’s top science prize
Controversy has erupted over China’s highest science prize for 2014. Critics
are blasting the winning project, on network computing, as not innovative and
undeserving.
On 9 January, the State First-Class Natural Science Award went to Zhang Yaoxue
, a computer scientist and member of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engine
ering, and his team. The 200,000 yuan ($32,000) annual prize is considered pre
stigious because it is awarded sparingly: Nine times in the past 15 years ther
e have been no winners. The government has said that it is better to have no w
inners than to award the prize to undeserving work.
That’s why many scientists are fuming over the selection of Zhang’s “transp
arent computing” research for the 2014 award. Zhang’s work is “too engineer
ing-oriented and too ordinary” to warrant the top science prize, and the awar
d has drawn “a barrage of criticism” from China’s information technology co
mmunity, says Liu Yang, a computer engineer who builds and hosts websites. Liu
was the first to question the merit of Zhang’s work on ScienceNet.cn; he wro
te in a blog post (later deleted by censors) that Zhang’s work “at most is a
n application of some open-source software.” Many people share Liu’s view. W
ang Xiaoping, a computer scientist at Tongji University in Shanghai, wrote in
a blog post that Zhang’s work is “a far cry” from the standard required for
winning the science award.
In an interview in Science and Technology Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s sc
ience ministry, which oversees the nation’s science prizes, Zhang describes h
is work as a “meta–operating system” that allows operating systems to be ru
n on any hardware. The breakthrough, he says, lies in “separating computing f
rom storage and making software independent of hardware.” He gave a link to a
video demonstrating “transparent computing” on personal computers, tablets,
and smart phones. Comments posted at that site say that Zhang’s model is no
different from a remote desktop—a software tool that allows users to access a
nother device on a network with the local device serving as a desktop of the r
emote computer—or from a network computer, a diskless device made by some U.S
. companies in the late 1990s that depends on other devices on a network to st
ore software and data. Zhang did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
For years, many in China’s scientific community have criticized the selection
process for S&T prizes as too political. The process involves researchers sub
mitting their own work to ministries, agencies, and provincial governments, wh
ich then nominate submissions for awards. Before being appointed president of
Central South University in Changsha in 2011, Zhang had served for more than a
decade as an official at the education ministry, which nominated his work for
the award. An anonymous comment on ScienceNet.cn put it this way: Zhang’s “
transparent computing is so transparent that it’s like the emperor’s new clo
thes.”
China’s professional computer society, the China Computer Federation (CCF), s
eemed to disagree with the selection of Zhang’s work for the top science awar
d. On 21 January, CCF posted an appeal on its website, calling on the governme
nt to stop meddling in science awards. The statement was replaced 2 days later
with a notice saying that the appeal was not related to last year’s science
awards and was removed “in order not to mislead the public.”
Posted in Asia/Pacific, People & Events
--
※ 来源:·饮水思源 bbs.sjtu.edu.cn·[FROM: 183.195.186.237]
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