He Jifeng, 58, who was trained as a mathematician, is one of the 10 first-place winners in the Science and Technology Commission's annual competition.

He will receive 60,000 yuan (US$7,229).

The commission is also honoring 256 other scientists.

He received Britain's Queen Award in 1989 and 1992 for his work on the software system, which took him 17 years to develop, including 14 years at the Oxford University Computer Laboratory. His work there was funded by a grant of US$5 million from the European Union and the British Natural Science Foundation.

He's Design Techniques for Safety-Critical System makes it possible to decode computers' binary "language" of sequences of zeros and ones into a "drawing sheet."

"When we want to raise a skyscraper, we have to work out a blueprint first. Similarly, it is also necessary to take down our computer programs before they become numerous zeros and ones," he said. "For me, the most challenging part of my job is merging my mathematics major with computer science."

In a world powered by information technology, software and programs are crucial. But their developers have to spend much of the "designing time" ferreting out defects in their products. They have to design another program, sometimes even longer and much more complicated than the main one, to detect problems with it, he said.

Even so, the "cleanup" might not be perfect, which would have grave implications in fields such as aerospace, nuclear power and E-commerce.

"If some bugs were found later, it's pretty tough to efficiently debug them," He said.

He's system's "blueprint" examines system or application software, rather than having to wait until bugs are discovered.

Officials of IBM, which used He's system to check its new software, said it cut their project cost by 11 percent.

He said he wants to help government develop the city's software industry.

(Eastday.com.cn 04/16/2001)