AITEC NEWS No.21
 |
March 10, 1999 |
Issue #21
(issued on February 12, 1999 in Japanese) |
Introduction
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Many people started 1999 with hope that the economy would improve, and yet the
Japanese economy remains weak as the 21st century approaches.
What will 1999 bring? A new currency, the euro, has ushered in a new era of
unification to Europe, not only a regional unity but also a monetary one.
Meanwhile, although AITEC is much smaller than Europe, we too shall be
adopting a new scheme this year.
At the end of March, the four-year FGCS technology dissemination project,
including the research funding program conducted mainly by experts in leading
universities, will come to a close.
The objective of the research funding program was to develop software that
could be used as a common tool or a material for new research by users other
than the developer. However, program development was typically done as part of
graduation work or for master theses at universities in Japan, so many of the
programs did not meet our expectations.
When we started the research funding program, some of the programs we received
had insufficient documentation, some were too complicated, or did not run
properly.
In order to develop usable software, we worked hard to assist academics and
students. We tried to make program development an important part of writing
theses in Japanese universities, which is something that Japanese academia
needs to do anyway with.
Although the AITEC research funding program will terminate in March, the KLIC
Association will be established and will promote such a culture in
universities by developing KLIC and other FGCS technologies.
As technology progresses in the 21st century, parallel, faster, easier to use
and intelligent systems will be essential. FGCS technology will thus become
increasingly important in the networked society of tomorrow.
We hope that this year marks a turning point for the software research
community in Japan as well as the software industry, just as 1999 will be a
memorable year in Europe with monetary unification.
Let's start with the headlines of this issue.
(Chie Takahashi)
AITEC NEWS Headlines
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1. AITEC Activity - 1999 by Director Uchida
Dr. Uchida (Director of AITEC) comments on AITEC activities in 1999, including
some internal organizational changes and other activities.
(Article No.21-1)
2. KLIC Association to be Established.
The KLIC Association will be established as a center for developing,
maintaining, promoting and improving KLIC on a voluntary basis.
Dr. Chikayama (professor, The University of Tokyo), who was one of the
proposers of the association, gives an overview of the association and its
activities.
Please read it, if you are interested in KLIC and the future activities of the
association.
(Article No.21-2)
3. Workshop on Research Funding Program in FY 1998
The workshop on research funding program in FY 1998 will be held as follows:
Date: March 11 - 12, 1999
- Reception party on the evening of 11th (Wed.)
Place: Shiba Park Hotel (Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
(No Reference Articles)
4. FGCS Digital Archive
As described in this issue of AITEC News, dissemination of FGCS technology
such as the research funding program or KLIC programming contest will be
terminated at the end of March 1999. AITEC is now collecting various materials
related to the FGCS project in order to set up an "FGCS Digital Archive."
The plan is to include software developed under the research funding program
and other historical records such as publications of ICOT. These pages will be
available on our website.
The software and other materials that AITEC has released will be divided into
two categories: active software that contains software and materials that are
still being modified and updated by ICOT researchers and the like, and static
software and materials that is unlikely to be updated but that have historical
and technological significance. We plan to include many photos and figures in
the materials as well as ICOT publications and technical reports.
We will ask research groups that are still developing and modifying the
software to set up appropriate website pages that link to their archive files,
and we will link to the pages from the FGCS Digital Archive.
We will also ask those who participated in our research funding program to set
up similar website pages.
We are now revamping AITEC's website to include the FGCS Digital Archive, and
would be grateful for your help if needed during this process.
(Akira Aiba)
THIS ISSUE'S ARTICLE
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1. Activity Plan for 1999 - S. Uchida, Director
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AITEC will celebrate its fourth anniversary this March. When we set up our
projects, we planned to review our activities after the four-year term. Thus,
in FY 1998, we summarize and evaluate our activities over the four years,
and consider our future role and existence.
As we have previously described, AITEC has conducted various activities to
achieve its two main missions.
One of the missions was to analyze and assess Japanese government supported
R&D schemes for information technology (IT), especially software R&D. The
objective was to make Japan's IT industry and R&D more competitive by
identifying weak points and compiling an advisory report for submission to
MITI.
The other mission was the FGCS technology dissemination project. We have
improved and expanded the ICOT Free Software (IFS), developed new IFS by
funding academic groups, and also promoted the technology through the KLIC
programming contest and IFS distribution via the Internet.
One of the main activities of the former mission was to help the committee
devise a new R&D system for government-supported IT projects. The committee
was set up by the Machinery and Information Industries Bureau of MITI, and
compiled a report based on our advisory reports.
In this mission, we conducted various surveys such as on R&D funding
mechanisms, related laws, evaluation systems, and so on for IT projects in the
United States. The results showed that the R&D system in Japan was obsolete in
many respects and was failing to keep pace with rapid technology development
and social system changes.
Based on these surveys, we are going to write reports on the problems of R&D
in comparison with the U.S., as well as advisory reports for submission to
MITI.
The main survey reports can be found on our website.
(http://www.icot.or.jp - only in Japanese)
We are now planning future activities for the Department of Future Technology
Studies (FTS) in FY 1999. We intend to conduct more specific surveys on
Japanese IT R&D and management systems, and to draw up a proposal for a new
R&D system including recent IT themes that the Japanese government should
support.
On the other hand, concerning the FGCS dissemination projects, we will
continue to distribute, via the Internet, information about IFS, extended IFS
and various materials related to the FGCS project. (These have been
reorganized into one large database called "FGCS Digital Archive.")
Many software researches that were conducted within the FGCS project are still
being continued by ICOT academics. Examples are KLIC, Parallel Theorem Prover
and Legal Reasoning System, which are being maintained and improved.
Prof. Takashi Chikayama of The University of Tokyo, who was one of the main
designers of KLIC, has been taking the lead in developing KLIC since the FGCS
project came to an end. Now that promotion by AITEC has also ended, he is
proposing to set up the KLIC Association. The KLIC Association is a non-profit
organization that will develop KLIC and FGCS technology, and will promote it
instead of AITEC.
Concerning the dissemination of KLIC, we intend to promote it because general
massively parallel machines are now being installed by more and more
universities and laboratories. Client-server computer systems are now popular,
so massively parallel machines as servers are very important. KLIC, a KL1
language processing system for massively parallel machines, is an efficient
system. In this context, we are sure that KLIC and FGCS technology will be
increasingly used in practice.
AITEC supports the setting up of the KLIC Association. We will hold a workshop
on research funding program in FY 1998 on March 11 and 12 at the Shiba
Park Hotel in Tokyo. The general meeting for establishing the KLIC Association
will be held after the workshop on the 12th.
The KLIC Association consists of voluntary researchers and engineers from
universities, national laboratories and companies and will carry out
improvement, extension and dissemination of KLIC and FGCS technology. The
association will make KLIC (public domain software) a popular and convenient
tool. Please read the article below for more details about the KLIC
Association.
The KLIC Association will take over the practical work of the projects from
April, 1999. We strongly hope that you will continue to support the
association.
AITEC will therefore become a small institution that will focus on conducting
advanced technology studies next year.
In Japan, almost all industries as well as central and local governments are
facing major economic problems, and revolutionary organizational changes are
under way everywhere. We must devise a new IT R&D system that will be
effective in the digital, borderless world of the future.
Private companies in Japan are being forced to change their management policy
from the old "family-protective" style to the American competitive model. In
the traditional system, the welfare and pensions of employees are taken care
of by their employer. However, if the new management scheme is introduced,
employees may no longer be supported by companies, and so only globally strong
companies may survive in the next century.
The role of government must therefore change dramatically. It must initiate
new policies to invest more in venture and small businesses with new
technologies and create new industries. The government must also encourage
university students to have entrepreneurial spirit.
Since AITEC lies between government and industry, our role is to maintain
close communication between the two sides, and to provide accurate information
and advice to help IT industries prosper.
On behalf of AITEC, we would like to thank everyone for your kind support and
cooperation.
(Shunichi Uchida)
2. KLIC Association Information
--Dr. Takashi Chikayama: Professor, The University of Tokyo
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KL1 is a concurrent and parallel logic programming language developed in the
FGCS project. KL1 emerged in the development of software systems on the FGCS
prototype system consisting of a parallel inference machine and that of other
experimental application software systems.
In the FGCS Follow-on project, KLIC, a portable parallel implementation of
KL1, was developed. It is now being used as a basis for various software, such
as ICOT Free Software (IFS), and is used by researchers worldwide for studies
on parallel symbolic processing and as a basis for knowledge processing
systems.
As Dr. Uchida states in his article in this issue concerning activities for
1999, AITEC will limit its activities for the FGCS dissemination project
to distributing IFS. As developers of KL1 and KLIC, we are therefore concerned
that the center of the research community at AITEC will disappear.
As a result of discussions in the group working on the maintenance and
improvement of KLIC, we have decided to set up the KLIC Association as a new
center for voluntary work for the use, maintenance and improvement of KLIC and
its related software. We are delighted to be able to introduce the prospectus
of the KLIC Association in this AITEC NEWS.
At 17:00 on March 12, after the workshop of the AITEC Research Funding Program
at the Shiba Park Hotel, we will hold the first general meeting for forming
the KLIC Association. This association will not only carry out maintenance and
improvement of KL1 and KLIC, but will also serve as a communication center for
users and developers and thus be the driving force for further research
activities. We encourage you to read the prospectus of the KLIC Association,
and to participate in it.
We do not plan to charge any membership fee for the time being, and all
activities will be totally voluntary. Participation will not be restricted
provided you can help with the association's activities. The website of the
KLIC Association will be set up soon with the URL: www.klic.org (the domain
name has already been acquired). We will start our activities and exchange
information on the homepage or via a mailing list.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Prof. Takashi Chikayama
Department of Information and Communication Engineering
School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
Tel: +81-3-5802-3332
E-mail: chikayama@logos.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
(Takashi Chikayama)
Prospectus of KLIC Association
(Translated from the original Japanese version)
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Representative Proposers
Kazuhiro Fuchi
Shunichi Uchida
Takashi Chikayama
Ever-more intelligent computers are required as human activities progress, and
greater functions and efficiency are needed for symbol processing, which is an
important base in knowledge processing. The popularization of parallel
computers and computer networks has enabled more functional, efficient symbol
processing systems to be constructed. Thus, an advanced programming language
with which it is easy to describe knowledge efficiently is needed.
The KL1 concurrent and parallel logic programming language meets these
requirements. It was designed in the Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS)
project conducted by the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology
(ICOT). Later, KLIC, which is a language processor of KL1 for general-purpose
machines, was developed in the FGCS Follow-on project, and was released as
free software. As knowledge processing has become increasingly important, KL1
and KLIC have spread steadily throughout the research community, and their
importance in future research in programming languages and various application
areas is undisputed.
To ensure the smooth development of KL1 and KLIC, we need a central
organization to enable researchers, engineers, and users to communicate with
each other, and to gather together the experience and research results in
order to facilitate continual improvement, maintenance, and diffusion. After
ICOT had been dissolved, AITEC at the Japan Information Processing
Development Center (JIPDEC) took over the work of disseminating FGCS
technology, and played a central role in the research and usage of KL1 and
KLIC. Hereafter, however, AITEC will limit its activities to distributing
ICOT Free Software and technical documents related to FGCS projects.
Therefore, we propose setting up the KLIC Association as the core of the KLIC
research and usage community and to promote the technology. The association
will improve, maintain, and distribute the KLIC language processor by mutual
cooperation among the members of the association. It will also organize
workshops for technical exchanges on the language, the processor,
applications, etc. and seminars for training new KLIC users. We take this
opportunity to welcome research engineers and users who are interested in the
KL1 programming language and KLIC language processor to participate in the
association.
Message From The Editorial Desk
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I hope you enjoyed AITEC NEWS No.21.
As we announced in this issue, the department of FGCS Technology will disband
this March. We have been tied up with moving machines, disposing of garbage
and transferring office in addition to our regular work since the end of last
year.
We would like to ask for your continued cooperation in the final activities of
the department of FGCS Technology, such as the research funding program, the
workshop and preparation of the KLIC Association.
We will be back again with the latest information about the workshop on the
research funding program in FY 1998, in the next AITEC NEWS.
**********************************************************************
* *
* A I T E C N E W S Issue #21 *
* 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: February 12, 1999 (Japanese Version) *
* March 10, 1999 (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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