Joint China-Italy research center presents work in Rome

The current and future activities of the China-Italy Joint Research Center (JRC) for Laser Remote Sensing were officially presented with an inauguration ceremony at the Roma-Tre University here on Friday.

The JRC was set up between Italy's National Interuniversity Consortium for the Physical Sciences of Matter (CNISM) and the Beijing Research Institute for Telemetry (BRIT) in September 2012.

Its researches mainly focused on the various possible applications of the laser remote sensing technology, also known as Lidar, in making active responses to climate change, in monitoring and assessing pollution conditions in both atmosphere environment and oceans.

The scientific collaboration between the two countries through the JRC was widely assessed by both Chinese and Italian authorities.

"The cooperation between China and Italy has witnessed fast development," Chinese Ambassador to Italy Li Ruiyu said in his opening speech at the ceremony.

"The 2014 commercial exchange between our two countries exceeded 48 billion U.S. dollars, with a 10.7 percent increase over the previous year and, in this new phase of development, technological innovation and science play an increasingly crucial role," Li said.

The ambassador also recalled China's ability in research and development was rapidly growing: investments in R&D constituted 2.1 percent of China's gross domestic product last year, and the number of international scientific publications ranked second worldwide.

Within this frame, the Sino-Italian JRC high-level cooperation assumed a considerable significance.

Special attention was being paid not only to scientific researches, but also to technology developments, exchange of personnel and training, and academic exchange.

"The Beijing Research Institute for Telemetry is a leading institute for research and innovation in association with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)," Wu Yansheng, general manger of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation explained.

"We are the major provider of technology and products in China in the fields of aerospace measurement and control, satellite communications, meteorological and environmental sensing, and more."

For its part, the contribution of CNISM Consortium in the JRC especially relied on Roma-Tre, and the universities of Naples, L'Aquila, and Pavia, plus on the work of Italy's National Research Council (CNR).

The Aerosol Multi-Wavelength Polarization Liar Experiment (AMPLE), which was already being used to monitor and analyze atmospheric pollution in both Italy and China, was described as a major achievement of the JRC so far.

"The Lidar device completed in the frame of the AMPLE project has been installed in the Beijing city area, which is strongly affected from anthropogenic pollution, and in the Gobi Desert," JRC Scientific Committee director Nicola Spinelli explained.

The aim of the measurements in China was to carry out space and time imaging of atmospheric aerosol distributions, their optical properties, and microphysical characterization, according to researcher.

The other measurement started on the Mount Etna in Sicily, where the goal was to "determine the optical properties of the volcanic ash, in order to establish methods based on depolarization measurements to distinguish them from mineral dust from desert".

Spinelli added other important researches were on going at the JRC, including the joint project LISA-LIDAR for Space Studies of the Atmosphere. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars) Endit