AITEC NEWS No.19
 |
September 14, 1998 |
Issue #19
(issued on August 24, 1998 in Japanese) |
Introduction
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The weather this summer was very abnormal as had been predicted, with much
rain and few hot clear days ... autumn has come already.
Another issue this summer was the upper house election, which focused on
rebuilding Japan's economy as the nation's most urgent problem. Japan's
economy is as bad as the summer.
The TV and newspapers have been closely followed to learn about how the new
government plans to restore Japan's battered economy according to political
parties and economic specialists. The plans can perhaps be divided into two
types, short-range ones and long-range ones.
Information technology, which is our specialty, has been used to improve the
productivity of various industries and make life more convenient. IT is also
now used to provide more influential systems such as the Internet and
Electronic Money. IT is becoming an increasingly important part of our lives
and has the potential to radically change economic activity and social
structure in the long term.
We must seriously consider the future of the IT industry in the rebuilding of
Japan, since the fact is that Japan's IT industry lags far behind that of the
US and Europe. What should Japan do?
The Machinery and Information Industries Bureau of MITI recently released a
report on how R&D in IT in Japan should be restructured to regain its
competitiveness in the world market. AITEC helped to compile this report, by
setting up a research team and committees to conduct various surveys such as
on R&D schemes and related legal systems of the US and Europe; the results
were submitted to MITI for the report. (Our survey reports (in Japanese) are
available on AITEC's Web server.)
The MITI report pointed out that the government should invest more and
immediately make Japan's IT market more open and competitive.
In parallel with these activities, AITEC has been funding domestic and
overseas research groups in academia to stimulate development of advanced
software in knowledge processing and parallel symbol processing. AITEC also
holds events such as the KLIC programming contest for disseminating the FGCS
technology. Although such activities have only a small budget, we hope that
they will help boost Japan's IT industry and thus strengthen the economy in
the long term.
As everyone is well aware, Japan's economy is in dire straits, and is as
abnormal as the summer weather. However, we hope that patient efforts with
your support will help restore the IT industry and bear fruit once again.
Let's start with the headlines of AITEC NEWS No. 19.
(Chie Takahashi)
AITEC NEWS Headlines
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1. KLIC Programming Contest Subjects Released
The subjects for the KLIC programming contest 1998 have been announced:
"LIGHTS OUT" is for the Entry category; "SKELETON CONTEST" is for the Speed
category.
We especially encourage KL1 novice users to participate in the Entry Category.
This will be the final chance to test your programming skills in the contest,
so go on and enter the contest!
KLIC Programming Contest Homepage:
http://www.icot.or.jp/AITEC/FGCS/KLICON/main-E.html
(Article No.19-1)
2. The First ICOT OB/OG Reunion Party
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We will announce the first ICOT OB/OG reunion party in October. It is more
than three years since ICOT was wound up in 1995, and as you know AITEC has
been promoting IFS (FGCS products) since then.
At the end of FY 1998 we will cease promoting IFS, and will conduct only a
little server maintenance for IFS delivery and respond to inquiries. This will
be done by some professors and researchers at universities and manufacturers
on a volunteer basis.
This announcement will also be sent to you by postal mail. If you know anyone
who we cannot make contact with and would like to join the party, please
forward it to him or her.
We very much look forward to meeting ICOT people again at the party.
Date: October 1, 1998 (Thursday) 18:30 - 20:30
Place: Melparc Tokyo (Yubin-Chokin-Kaikan), Tokyo (Tel: 03-3433-7210)
Charge: 5,000 yen
Please let us know whether you intend to join or not by September 11 (Friday)
by email or postal mail.
Email Address: junko@icot.or.jp (Junko Togiishi)
Address: 2F, Tokyo Kaijo Bldg., 2-3-3, Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0014
Secretariat: Setsuko Oyama, Tatsuo Okuyama, Junko Togiishi, Mitsuo Komine,
Shunichi Uchida
(Shunichi Uchida)
(No Reference Article)
3. MITI Releases Report on Reforming Japan's IT Industry
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As is often mentioned, the IT industry in Japan, especially the software
industry, lags far behind the US and some European countries, and this has
been affecting the entire Japanese IT industry. The government is developing a
policy to address the situation, and holds committee meetings to discuss this
issue at the Machinery and Information Industries Bureau in MITI. The
committee discusses how R&D on IT in Japan should be reformed to regain
competitiveness in the world market, and has released a report.
AITEC provided various survey results and data to the committee for discussion.
We have focused on how to reform R&D systems and related legal systems
concerning national IT, especially software development, in order to
strengthen the international competitiveness of software industry.
The report released by MITI focused on problems such as how the government
should efficiently integrate the results of government sponsored R&D with
industrial activities.
1) In order to boost competitiveness to a world-class level, the national R&D
funding system should:
- switch from government support of specific big companies to a merit-based
approach;
- switch from "flat-support" to an open, competitive approach; and
- choose appropriate R&D themes as market needs change.
2) The government should promote R&D themes that will help rebuild the
Japanese economy and create new businesses, and should change the scheme of
using the government owned intellectual property. We must therefore
consider:
- Regarding intellectual property, a distinction should be made between
fundamental R&D and R&D related to the creation of new business and
economic restructuring.
- For software, intellectual property owned by the government should be made
easier to use, such as program source code and know-how, to encourage the
creation of new business.
- In addition to technological evaluation, commercial potential should be
considered.
- Testbeds meeting international standards should be provided in more
national IT projects.
An abstract of this report was put up on the MITI Homepage on July 31, 1998
(http://www.miti.go.jp/press-j/f-menu-j.html)(in Japanese).
AITEC survey reports that provided the data for the MITI report can be found
at (http://www.icot.or.jp/AITEC/FTS/FTS-home.html)(in Japanese).
(Hiroshi Sato)
(No Reference Article)
4. AITEC's Research Funding Program for Intelligent Software Development
-- Research Themes for FY 1998 Selected
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The AITEC's Research Funding Program, which has grown internationally, will
wind up its four years of activities at the end of this fiscal year.
Therefore, this fiscal year's program will focus on brushing up IFS and
extended IFS to allow use by more researchers and engineers in a wider variety
of fields as tools and education materials.
The Research Funding Program for intelligent software has been producing
software (based on IFS) mainly related to parallel symbol processing and
knowledge processing. Access to such products from many countries is
increasing, so we must continue to improve their usability.
For this year's program, we received 15 new proposals from domestic and
overseas researchers. As we have 6 continued projects from last year, we
evaluated 21 projects in total. As a result, we have selected 19 projects
(16 domestic ones and 3 overseas ones) among the 21 projects.
The project titles and principle investigators are listed in Article No. 2.
(Akira Aiba)
(Article No.19-2)
Articles In This Issue
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1.
KLIC Programming Contest Subjects Released
The subjects for KLIC Programming Contest for FY 1998 have been released
(for Entry category and Speed category).
For details of the subjects, see the Contest WWW page:
http://www.icot.or.jp/AITEC/FGCS/KLICON/main-E.html
The Entry category is for KL1 novice users to enjoy programming, with many
chances to win bonus prizes. We hope that novice users as well as experts will
enjoy programming in the Entry category.
There are following three categories in the contest:
- ENTRY CATEGORY: Subject: "Let's program LIGHTS OUT Game!"
If your program works correctly, you will win a
bonus prize of 20,000 yen
A test program to check the correctness of your program is
also provided.
- SPEED CATEGORY: Subject: "SKELETON CONTEST"
Faster and better performance programs can win prizes.
Test your programming skills and intelligence!
- IDEA CATEGORY: Free category: Program anything you like!
As there have been fewer competitors in this category in
the previous contests, you've more chance of winning.
Please register with the Contest Mailing List to receive the latest contest
information by email. (You can register from the above contest WWW page.)
Again, we emphasize that this is the last and best chance to try your
programming skills. We look forward to receiving your entry!
(Kiyoshi Kaneda)
2. AITEC's Research Funding Program for Intelligent Software
-- Research Themes for FY 1998
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In AITEC NEWS No.17, we called for research themes for FY 1998's Research
Program for Intelligent Software. Our FGCS promotion activities will end this
fiscal year, and so this Research Program will be the final one.
For this fiscal year, we have called for proposals for brushing up IFS and
extended IFS, in order to build software resources and create usable software
for engineers and users who are not necessarily in the IT industry.
Brushup IFS and extended IFS means:
- Improving the operability of software
- Expanding the user's manual and/or examples
- Improving documentation explaining the program and/or its algorithms
In addition to the 6 two-year projects continued from FY 1997, 15 new projects
were judged by the refereeing committee, and 19 projects (16 from domestic
researchers and 3 from overseas) were selected.
There are various themes in the 19 projects, such as infrastructure like KLIC,
applications like legal reasoning and genetic information processing, and
collaborative themes with existing technology like Java.
The workshop of the Research Funding Program FY 1998 is scheduled to be held
in February 1999, to which we hope to invite overseas researchers who
participate in the program.
We will continue releasing IFS and extended IFS for wider use in FY 1999. This
year's brushup projects should help make the programs more accessible, easier
to use, and useful shared software resources.
-- 19 RESEARCH PROJECT THEMES FOR FY 1998 --
1. Distribution Project of IFS Japanese Morphological Grammar
Hiroshi Sano: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
2. An Improved Threading of KL1
Hiroshi Nakashima: Toyohashi University of Technology
3. Development of a Java-MGTP System and Advanced Inference Mechanism
Ryuzo Hasegawa: Kyushu University
4. Research and Development of a Data Mining Engine DATAGOL
by Inductive Logic Programming
Kouichi Furukawa: Keio University
5. Applying Constraint Logic Programming Languages for Modeling
Multi-objective Decision-making under Uncertainty
John Darlington: Imperial College (UK)
6. Distributed Constraint Solving for Functional Logic Programming
Bruno Buchberger: RISC Linz (Austria)
7. WEB-KLIC Software
Enrico Pontelli: New Mexico State University (USA)
8. Visual Interface of klic (Klitcl) and Message Interface
of klic and Java (Javaklic)
Jiro Tanaka: University of Tsukuba
9. Set Constraint Solvers
Yousuke Sato: Ritsumeikan University
10. Development of a Legal Reasoning System Based on Goal-Dependent Abstraction
Tokuyasu Kakuta: Hokkaido University
11. A Programming System for Statistical Modeling: PRISM
Taisuke Sato: Tokyo Institute of Technology
12. A Drawing Editor Based on Constraint Solving
Takeo Igarashi: The University of Tokyo
13. DJ: A Java-based Constraint Language and System
Neng-Fa Zhou: Kyushu Institute of Technology
14. Improving Usability of the Parallel Visual Programming Environment KLIEG
Etsuya Shibayama: Tokyo Institute of Technology
15. Development of Cooperative Robot Programming Language System
Fumio Mizoguchi: Science University of Tokyo
16. Static Analyzer of KL1 Programs
Kazunori Ueda: Waseda University
17. KLIC version 3: Introduction of Generational Garbage Collector
Takashi Chikayama: The University of Tokyo
18. Application of Parallel Logic Programming for Reconstruction of Molecular
Phylogenetic Trees using the Maximum Likelihood Method
Naruya Saitou: National Institute of Genetics
19. Enhancing and Porting an Efficient Constraint Solver for Hierarchical
Linear Systems
Satoshi Matsuoka: Tokyo Institute of Technology
(Tomoaki Moro, Akira Aiba)
Message From the Editorial Desk
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We have introduced the KLIC Programming Contest and the Research Funding
Program in this AITEC NEWS. We look forward to receiving your entry to the
KLIC Programming Contest. If you have any questions about the contest, please
contact:
klic-contest@icot.or.jp
If you know anyone who might wish to subscribe to AITEC NEWS, or if you have
changed your email address, please let us know. Please also feel free to send
your comments, opinions and requests to the following address:
aitec-news@icot.or.jp
See you in the next AITEC NEWS.
**********************************************************************
* *
* A I T E C N E W S Issue #19 *
* AITEC NEWS Editorial Team: *
* Makiko Sato, Chie Takahashi, Akira Aiba *
* Kazumi Kasai, Kouichi Takeda, Yoshiharu Torii *
* Hiroshi Sato, Shunichi Uchida *
* AITEC NEWS English Version Team: *
* Masayo Fukushima, Shunichi Uchida *
* Issued on: August 24, 1998 (Japanese Version) *
* September 14, 1998 (English Version) *
* By: Research Institute for Advanced Information *
* Technology (AITEC), a subcenter of *
* Japan Information Processing Development *
* Center (JIPDEC) *
* 2-3-3, Minato-ku, Shiba, Tokyo 105-0013, Japan *
* TEL: +81-3-3456-3191 FAX: +81-3-3455-4877 *
* E-mail: aitec-news@icot.or.jp *
* http://www.icot.or.jp *
* *
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