AITEC NEWS No.16
 |
June 24, 1998 |
Issue #16
(issued on June 11, 1998 in Japanese) |
INDEX
Introduction
As AITEC ushers in the new fiscal year, the AITEC work place for studies on
future technological trends is finding itself engaged in pursuing various
newly-emerging ideas. One of the most appealing of such ideas is that of
Digital Economy. While infiltrating Digital Economy, AITEC has come to realize
how our working milieu and social life are truly being altered daily.
For instance, new business styles like that of SOHO business or other facets
in life such as on-line shopping are increasing in popularity. Might this
change lead to a significant revolution in the structure of society,
a "second industrial revolution" of sorts? What should be thought of such
becomings?
To digress, and in changing topic, the 16th FIFA World Cup is now underway,
and the Japanese national soccer team has earned the chance to participate
for the first time ever -- as the Nation has dreamt of for such a long time.
Twenty-two Japanese players, selected out of 25 candidates just prior to
competition initiation, under the leadership of Takeshi Okada (team coach),
are representing Japan. Okada's decision to choose between the qualified and
the unqualified, assumingly, must have been quite a difficult one. However,
what deemed utmost importance for the team was apparently nothing other than
winning. Interestingly, there is rumor that purportedly, Okada limits how
much he socializes with the players, opting that excessive socialization
meddles with important decision making. I, for one, believe Okada's decision
to have been soundly made with the greatest of confidence and courage beyond
any sentimentalism. Ultimately, the result of his efforts will surface.
And whether what is hoped for or not, I sincerely hope the Japanese players
will do their best in competing in the World Cup.
I mention issues regarding the World Cup, not merely because these issues are
interesting, but because they exemplify the concept of competition. Not only
in soccer games, but in any field, to compete at the international level
requires one's best of mentality. To say one's opinion with confidence and
act with courage and responsibility play a most vital role to more intense
competitiveness throughout the world.
AITEC, in this way, promises to proceed with activities of the new fiscal year,
exerting more efforts to mature, so as to meet the needs and expectations of
our clientele.
In this issue, AITEC will present our achievements for FY 1997 and our planned
activities for FY 1998.
(Masayo Fukushima)
AITEC NEWS Headlines
1. AITEC Activity - FY 1998
As for the preliminary piece of AITEC News for FY 1998, Dr. Uchida (Director
of AITEC) addresses AITEC activity for FY 1997 and planned activity for
FY 1998.
(Akira Aiba)
(Article No. 16-1)
2. WWW Site: Results of AITEC Research Funding Program in FY97
Research Funding Policies for FY98 Available
AITEC has started releasing software and reports prepared by the AITEC
Research Funding Program in FY 1997.
In FY 1997, 22 research groups from six countries participated in the program.
For more details, please refer to the AITEC WWW site:
http://www.icot.or.jp/AITEC/FGCS/funding/itaku-H9-index-E.html
AITEC will soon start a research funding program in FY 1998. Announcement
for the program will be released soon. The contents of the research funding
program in FY 1998 will be drastically altered from those in FY 1997, since
the current phase of dissemination of FGCS technology will be completed at the
end of FY 1998.
In the edition, information on the software prepared in the program in FY 1997
is released, and the outline for the program in FY 1998 is presented.
(Akira Aiba)
(Article No.16-2)
3. ICOT OB Researchers Granted Permission
Japanese Government- Sponsored Programs (Part II)
As reported in an earlier newsletter edition (Issue 14), several research
groups including ICOT OBs, relevant manufacturer researchers, and/or relevant
foreign researchers, are making use of Japanese Government-sponsored programs.
Projects themes are based primarily upon research products of FGCS projects
and further developed products. We, at AITEC, who are disseminating FGCS
technology, are especially delighted with the success of these researchers.
We strongly hope that the success of these researchers continues and
contributes to the development of IT R&D and the IT industry.
In Issue 14, four research groups were introduced: Prof. K. Taki Group,
Prof. K. Yokota Group, Prof. T. Chikayama Group, and Prof. R. Hasegawa Group.
Since then, there has a new inclusion -- N. Oka of the Matsushita Research
Institute Tokyo, Inc.
Dr. N. Oka Group (Matsushita Research Institute Tokyo, Inc.)
From: Information Technology Promotion Agency
Title: Multistrategy Learning and Emergent Computation in Realistic
Applications
Term: FY 1997 - FY 1998
(Article No.16-3)
As far as what AITEC knows, five research groups have been granted approval
for Japanese Government-sponsored programs.
In the article, Dr. Oka will introduce his projects.
(Edited by Akira Aiba)
4. AITEC FY 1997 Research Reports Released
The AITEC project reports for FY 1997 have been released. Some of these are
planned for release on the AITEC WWW Site. For inquires, please contact us by
e-mail.
- Reports on dissemination and further development of FGCS
(Department of FGCS)
- Research Report on How to Create and Share New Generation
Intelligent Software Resources
-
Report on AITEC Research Funding Program FY 1997
Abstructs of intelligent software developed in the contract
researches
- Reports on Future Technology Studies
(Department of Future Technology Studies)
H9-1, H9-7 and H9-8 will be introduced on the AITEC WWW Site (in Japanese).
(Shunichi Uchida)
(No Reference Articles)
Articles in This Issue
1. ACTIVITY PLAN FOR FY 1998 - S. Uchida, Director
Time flies. It has already been two months since FY 1998 started. At AITEC,
we have just finished wrapping up last year's projects and are working on the
start-up of new projects this fiscal year. There are several reasons why
AITEC has been much busier at the start of FY 1998 than usual.
First of all, the project for FGCS dissemination will be finished at the end
of FY 1998. From this, we plan to change the objective of the project from
improvement/extension of IFS, by conducting contract research with
universities so as to update the already-existing software and documentation
to be improved.
Secondly, as the project finishes, the department of FGCS will close at the
end of FY 1998. Staff members are now discussing future plans for the project
after closing. AITEC would like to seek the kind assistance of researchers
who have taken part in the project in the past, for future activities of the
project.
Another reason contributing to our busy state is that of the well-known KLIC
programming contest. We are modifying and enhancing this contest so as to
include more participants -- from beginners to the experienced.
The "extended-IFS," developed at several universities in FY 1997, will be
introduced via the web (WWW). Recently, the scale of parallel servers has
been extending; and as it spreads, this attributes for increase in
accessibility to KLIC (parallel language processing) and other IFS sites.
AITEC has presented research reports on software R&D systems at universities
in Japan and on results in comparison with those of the U.S. systems, through
our three-year open and competitive R&D of extended IFS. Activities related
to the department of FGCS have been mentioned above.
As for the project of future technology studies, a symposium on super-compiler
technology will be held at the end of June, as part of its research project at
Waseda University. AITEC is working as the secretariat.
Additionally, the two-year research on how to make revolutionary change on
the system and rules of IT R&D has been completed. Reports will be released,
in which our recommendation is included on the solution of problems from upper
level(start-up of R&D) to lower level(commercialization in markets), by
comparison with U.S. IT R&D systems and rules.
We have also carried out a questionnaire survey with 240 software firms, in
order to clarify problems within the software industry in Japan.(Cooperation
of JISA and JPSA was much appreciated.) Survey results and recommendations
are included in this year's report. For FY 1998, based on survey results and
reports, we are planning to proceed with research for development of the IT
Industry, strategies and important R&D agenda.
Recently, the U.S. announced the concept of Digital Economy as a vision of
the future IT society. It is predicted that to bring social revolution,
a so-called "the second industrial revolution" will come. AITEC hopes to
research such new social impacts produced from various sorts of information
technology and its application.
Above, points were noted in regard to our achievement in FY 1997 and planning
for FY 1998. Aforementioned major reports can be found on the AITEC WWW Site
(in Japanese). AITEC is striving to carry out unique activities as always;
we wish to extend our gratitude to all relevant parties for cooperation and
participation.
(Shunichi Uchida)
2. WWW Site: Results of AITEC Research Funding Program
in FY97, Research Funding Policies for FY98 Available
AITEC is now releasing research results, including software and final
reports of its research funding program that were carried out in FY 1997.
For the FY 1997 program, we received 37 proposals from 35 researchers
from six countries. The program was quite competitive. Finally, 22 projects
from six countries, including three continuing projects from FY 1996, were
adopted as shown on our web site:
http://www.icot.or.jp/AITEC/ FGCS/funding/itaku-H9-index-E.html
The phase of dissemination of FGCS technology will be shifted to a new one
from FY 1999, and the AITEC research funding program will not be carried out
in FY 1999. With the shift of phase, the Department of FGCS Technology,
Department of AITEC taking charge of the research funding program will be
dissolved at the end of FY 1998. From that point, it is expected that software
still be released by JIPDEC (Japan Information Processing Development Center).
Since the department of FGCS Technology will be dissolved at the end of
the fiscal year and the release of the software will be continued from that
point, AITEC would like to put the focus of this fiscal year's research
funding program on the brushup of developed software by the AITEC research
funding programs to improve accessibility. The brushup includes: improvement
of user-interface, operation manuals, examples and explanation of algorithms
used in the software.
Proposals that will improve functions of the software using new ideas
are also welcome. Even in such cases, nonetheless, brushup is required.
As described in above, since research carried out in FY 1998 is not R&D from
scratch and the Department of FGCS Technology will be dissolved at the end of
the fiscal year, we would like to set the deadline to the end of January 1999,
to be able to release resulting software up to the end of the fiscal year.
Several sorts of software produced by the AITEC research funding program in
FY 1997 have not yet been released yet. We are still working on preliminary
processes for its release. One major reason for this is that of the issue
regarding the environment. As AITEC does not possess all of the environments
used to develop software in various research laboratories, checking the
software by running it is difficult. Further, some researchers wish to improve
software by using newer ideas, a natural tendency of researchers; and hence,
submitting is often delayed. Obviously, AITEC opts to submit the better
software.
However, in FY 1998, this can not be done due to the above-mentioned reason.
If possible, it would be impossible to release research results during this
fiscal year.
AITEC is indebted to the cooperation of those pertinent to this situation.
We are looking forward to coming proposals.
(Akira Aiba)
3. Success of ICOT OBs & Relevant Researchers in Recent
Government-Sponsored Programs (Part 2)
As mentioned in Issue 14, the Ministry of Education, Science,
Sports and Culture along with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry
(MITI) and other relevant agencies have currently started more R&D funding
programs. While such an open and competitive funding program had been
continued for years in Europe, this sort of program just recently became
popular in Japan.
Though the AITEC funding program does not maintain a large budget, it is
aiming at an open and competitive funding program system. In the future, such
funding systems will effectively work for the improvement of R&D systems in
Japan.
In this edition, AITEC is introducing another project by Dr. Oka (who
researched at ICOT from Matsushita Research Institute Tokyo, Inc., Japan),
who received permission for a Japanese Government-sponsored program. For
reference, the Prof. K. Taki Group(Kobe Univ.); Prof. K. Yokota Group
(Okayama Prefectural Univ.); Prof. T. Chikayama Group (Univ. of Tokyo);
Prof. R. Hasegawa Group (Kyushu Univ.) were also introduced in Issue 14.
--Project of the Dr. N. Oka Group(Matsushita Research Institute Tokyo,
Inc., Japan)
- Theme: Multistrategy Learning and Emergent Computation in Realistic
Applications
- Research Members: N.Oka (Matsushita Research Institute Tokyo,Inc., Japan);
T.Terano(Univ. of Tsukuba); M. Numao(Tokyo Institute of Technology);
Y. Nakagawa and T. Mori(Yokohama National Univ.);
H. Yoshimura(Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.)
- Term: FY 1996 - FY 1997
- Outline:
-
We have developed multistrategy learning and evolutionary computation
techniques for advanced AI applications: 1) design constraint and
design procedure acquisition for printed circuit board (PCB)
configuration design systems, and 2) interactive tools for multimedia
authoring such as image retrieval and combination, and automatic
hypertext generation. Currently we are developing a PCB CAD system
and a designer support system both for practical use. Please see the
URL below for related information:
http://www.mrit.co.jp/proj/muse/index-e.html
(Edited by Akira Aiba)
Message From the Editorial Desk
Please contact us with any news that we can present in AITEC NEWS,
including your activities, research, achievements, etc. If you wish to reach
us concerning subscription to AITEC NEWS, please let us know by e-mail:
aitec-news@icot.or.jp
We look forward to hearing about any new developments from you for the next
issue of AITEC NEWS.
**********************************************************************
A I T E C N E W S Issue #16
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: June 11, 1998 (Japanese Version)
June 24, 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
TEL: +81-3-3456-3191 FAX: +81-3-3455-4877
E-mail: aitec-news@icot.or.jp
http://www.icot.or.jp
**********************************************************************
www-admin@icot.or.jp
AITEC NEWS Home
AITEC Homepage