American mathematician Shing-TungYau, German economist Juergen
Voegele, Japanese medical scientist Yutaka Mizushima and Italian
entrepreneur Elio Matacena received Wednesday the Chinese
governmental award for international scientific and technological
cooperation.
A noted Harvard professor, Shing-Tung Yau solved two important
academic problems, the Calabi Conjecture and Positive Mass
Conjecture. The Calabi-Yau Manifold, named after one of his most
distinguished works, has been proved very vital in theoretical
physics and mathematics.
In 1982, Yau, became the first Chinese American to win a Fields
Medal, which was regarded as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
Yau, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a
foreign member of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, donated 28.56 million yuan (US$3.44 million) and
US$2.98 million for helping China set up several mathematics
institutes.
With six honorary professorships at prestigious universities in
China, Yau has advised dozens of Chinese doctoral candidates.
Juergen Voegele works for the World Bank in China. Since 1992,
he has taken active roles in 46 World Bank aid programs in China,
costing US$6.953 billion.
From 1994 to 2002, he coordinated the Loess Plateau Watershed
Rehabilitation project, benefiting approximately 50 counties and
more than one million people in Shanxi,
Shaanxi
and Gansu
provinces as well as the Inner
Mongolian Autonomous Region.
Yutaka Mizushima served as senator and consultant to the
Japanese prime minister on medical development. In 1993, he decided
to give the right of use of Lipo-PGE1 injection, the best of his
30-plus patents, to the Chinese. Ten percent of its commercial
profits were allocated to a fund, supporting exchanges between
Chinese and Japanese medical experts.
Mizushima also helped the Chinese to industrialize the drug,
which helped relieve the suffering of about 3 million Chinese
patients who had blood circulation problems.
President of Ponte Archimede S.P.A. Company, Elio Matacena
actively pushed forward technological exchange between Italy and
China.
He helped realize bilateral cooperation in Jintang Strait
Submerged Floating Tunnels (Archimede Bridge) project and marine
current electric power generation project. The Chinese and Italian
governments have agreed to apply the two projects to the sixth
Framework Project of the European Union.
Moreover, Matacena donated US$1 million in 2001 for establishing
the Matacena Foundation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Chinese government set up the international scientific and
technological cooperation award in 1994 and awarded the first group
of six scientists in 1995.
Chen Ning Yang and Tsung Dao Lee, both Nobel laureates, are
among the award's 35 recipients from 12 foreign countries.
(People's Daily March 25, 2004)