ICOT FREE-SOFTWARE News Letter No.5

                                        27, January, 1993



[Table of Contents]




[Introduction]

Since the release of ICOT Free Software (IFS) started on the 7th of August for abroad, and on the 7th of September for Japan, over 500 persons have accessed to the FTP-server machine at ICOT, and more than 2000 files have been transferred.

In this newsletter, we will briefly describe activities of ICOT and further releases of IFS from the next fiscal year.

As well known, the Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) Project started in 1982, and finished its 11 year project period at the end of fiscal 1992. To follow on activities of the FGCS Project, an FGCS Follow-on Project aiming at provision of a new infrastructure for advanced computer research will start in the next fiscal year as a two year project. Services on IFS, including support for IFS users, and registration of new software into IFS shall be continued within the framework of the FGCS Follow-on Project.



[On FGCS Follow-on Project]

As described in the above, the FGCS Follow-on Project is a two year project which runs from the beginning of fiscal 1993 till the end of fiscal 1994. A major role of the FGCS Follow-on Project is to promote a diffusion of parallel knowledge processing technologies that have been developed in the FGCS Project.

Many KL1 software aiming at provision of the new infrastructure for advanced computer research have been developed for the research on parallel knowledge processing technologies in the FGCS Project, and the major software have been released as IFS. However, a sequential inference machine, PSI, or parallel inference machine, Multi-PSI or PIM, is required to execute them. Though a "Pseudo Multi-PSI", that is a pseudo parallel system for KL1 software, have been released as IFS, a PSI-III is required to execute it. A "PDSS", that is a KL1 programming environment on UNIX machines, have also been released as IFS, there are some limits on its efficiency and functions for executing KL1 software on it. Thus, although the PDSS system is suitable for learning KL1 language, it cannot be used to execute large KL1 software released as IFS. Therefore, it is difficult to execute the KL1 software released as IFS at hand.

In the FGCS Follow-on Project, a series of KL1 programming environments including a KL1 language processor and a parallel operating system, PIMOS, shall be ported onto sequential and parallel UNIX machines so that they can be easily used at any sites. These UNIX based KL1 programming environments shall be designed to be as machine-independent as possible. They are also planned to be released as IFS.

An experimental version of the UNIX based KL1 programming environments is currently under development for evaluating an implementation scheme. Although we plan to release it as IFS in April '93, this version is for language implementation experts and is not suitable for application users since it lacks some important features for application users such as debugging aids.

The first version for application users is planned to be released in September '93. This version shall provide reasonable software development functions including debugging and performance analyses. This system shall be ten times faster than the PDSS, although it is for single processor UNIX machines.

The release of a KL1 programming environment for parallel UNIX machines is planned in the second quarter of '94. It shall be designed avoiding the use of machine-dependent functions. Various improvements are planned after these releases.

The KL1 language specification for a series of the UNIX based KL1 programming environments shall be almost compatible with the one on the PIM. Thus, to execute KL1 software in IFS on these programming environments, their main parts can be ported on these programming environments with minor modifications. Of course, some parts such as I/O parts that invoke some functions of a SIMPOS, the operating system for PSI, have to be rewritten in order to use corresponding functions of a UNIX.

Simultaneously with the development of a series of the UNIX based KL1 programming environments, research and development on the following Knowledge Programming Software shall be carried out throughout the FGCS Follow-on Project with inheriting achievements of the FGCS Project.

1) Knowledge Representation Language and Knowledge Base Management
In the area of knowledge base management, a parallel database management system, Kappa-P, employing a nested relational model shall be refined into two systems: one is a system on the UNIX based KL1 programming environments to be able to run efficiently, and the other is a system on a KL1 programming environment on the PIM to be able to handle very large-scale data.

On such database management systems, an object oriented knowledge representation language, Quixote is now being developed based on deductive logic. In this topic, a better language specification for smarter knowledge representations and a more efficient implementation shall be sought for. Through these research, a deductive object-oriented database system shall be realized and applied in various fields, such as genetic information processing and natural language processing.

2) High-level inference including constraint logic programming andtheorem proving
In the area of constraint logic programming, a parallel constraint logic programming language, GDCC has been developed. It shall be refined with respect to its language specification and implementation methods in the FGCS Follow-on Project. Furthermore, applications of the language shall be investigated, and some theoretical research is planned to be made.

As for a model generation theorem prover, MGTP, its efficiency and functions shall be further improved so that the full capability of the PIM can be utilized. A design of a new programming language is planned to use the MGTP as its high-level inference engine.

3) Novel applications of knowledge processing including genetic information processing and legal reasoning
In genetic information processing, there are three major topics: The first one is to analyze DNA sequences and protein sequences, the second one is to investigate higher order structures of proteins, and the third one is to integrate various databases for biological information. In the analysis of sequences, we have started analyzing practical data that are available in public databases. In the investigation of higher order structures of proteins, we shall tackle the problem of predicting higher order structures of the proteins by categorizing the proteins with biological database. As for the integration of databases, we plan to use the knowledge representation language, Quixote to describe biological knowledge intending to evaluate its descriptive power.

In legal reasoning, we plan to analyze reasoning of lawyers in trials consisting of various reasoning such as deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and analogical reasoning to construct a model for legal reasoning. Further more, we aim at developing the basic technologies to construct a legal reasoning system.

Many KL1 software that shall be developed through these research activities are also planned to be released free of charge as IFS.

Using the UNIX based KL1 programming environments, porting of KL1 software in IFS onto UNIX machines shall be made more straightforwardly. Thus, you can easily use parallel knowledge processing technologies that have been developed in the FGCS Project at hand.

For the FGCS Follow-on Project, we have organized an International Relations & Public Relations Group (IR&PR-G) to support IFS, international collaborative research, and publicity activities. The group so far consists of four ICOT members: Dr. Uchida, Dr. Aiba, Mr. Narita, and Ms. Namikoshi. For comments and getting information on the FGCS Follow-on Project, please access to

irpr@icot.or.jp

by e-mail.

We plan to inform various activities of the FGCS Follow-on Project in future issues of the ICOT Free Software Newsletter.



[On User's Group]

Anyone interested in organizing a user's group to carry out research on particular software of IFS for purposes of revision or improvement is invited to contact the IFS-desk via e-mail to the address at the end of this newsletter.

Some of your proposal shall be informed by the next volume of the newsletter and reactions to your proposal shall also be forwarded to you.

If you desire, we can store your revised program on the FTP server at ICOT if the revised program is useful for other users.



[Address of AI Language Research Institute]

The address of AI Language Research Institute (AIR) is as follows. To contact AIR on Common ESP, please use the following address. 

        Research Management Department
        AI Language Research Institute, Ltd.

        c/o Computer & Information Systems Laboratory
        Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
        1-1, Ofuna 5-chome, Kamakura
        Kanagawa 247 Japan

        e-mail: cesp-request@air.co.jp
        FAX:    +81-467-48-4847



[Contacts]

For information on IFS, please access

ifs@icot.or.jp

by e-mail. If you receive a paper edition of this newsletter, please let us know your e-mail address and we shall send you its electronic edition. If you cannot use an e-mail facility, please contact the address below.

A list of IFS was published in "ICOT Free Software Catalogue" which was distributed at the International Conference on Fifth Generation Computer Systems 1992, held at the beginning of June, 1992. If you do not have a copy of this list, please supply the IFS desk with your physical mail address and a copy shall be mailed to you.

If there is anyone in your neighborhood who is interested in IFS, please let us know the name and both the e-mail and the physical mail addresses so that we can send newsletters and the catalogue. 


        ICOT Free Software desk

        Institute for New Generation Computer Technology
        21st Floor, Mita Kokusai Bldg.
        4-28, Mita 1-chome
        Minato-ku, Tokyo 108
        Japan

        FAX:   +81-3-3456-1618

www-admin@icot.or.jp