| | | Annual Report 1994 | |
The justification for UNU/IIST is its Programmatic Activities performed jointly with individuals and institutions in developing countries.
The Programmatic Activities aim at Technology Transfer to Research institutes, Universities and Industry.
The Technology Transfer focuses on Programming Methodology and the Computing Science underlying Programming Methodology.
Programming Methodology is taken in a wide sense: It covers formalisable and engineering activities starting with Application Domain and Computing Platform Modelling, goes on to Requirements Capture, and continues with the Design Calculi oriented facets of Software Development. The aim is trustworthy software, believable management, and competitive products.
UNU/IIST currently pursues the above Technology Transfer (i) with Fellow software engineers, researchers and lecturers from target institutions, (ii) already from well before any software is developed, (iii) in a `master class' atmosphere working closely and daily with its Fellows, and in carefully monitored phases.
UNU/IIST covers Research, Curriculum and Practice topics of Computing Science (formal aspects of Design Calculi), Software Engineering and, to some degree -- limited only by UNU/IIST's lack of resources -- Technology Management.
The Technology Transfer takes place through:
The purpose of UNU/IIST's joint Advanced Development Projects is (i) Training of Fellows in Macau for periods of from six to nine months, (ii) through joint prototype development of actual software, and (iii) through related, joint (applied) research.
UNU/IIST selects such projects which not only fulfils these purposes but also (iv) parallels, complements and supports UN System aims and (v) has a reasonably definite chance of leading to (improvement of a) software house industry in the target country (or countries).
UNU/IIST selects candidates for Fellowships for joint Advanced Development Projects during UNU/IIST Training (and Field Study) Workshops held at potential partner sites.
Currently UNU/IIST is engaged in the following actual R&D projects:
and is actively planning the following next R&D projects:
UNU/IIST currently believes it has to pursue planning of several possible projects in parallel: We will not be able to get financial support for all of them, but we need at least try, hoping to obtain at least one of the planned projects.
The projects are listed in order of emphasis, resources spent, likelihood of external funding, and hence priority.
The PRaCoSy, MIICI, HEMIS, KHICS/WHeCCS projects resemble each other in all requiring thorough Application and Computing Platform Modelling and in all potentially leading to Emulator Systems for respective domains.
The MIICI, HEMIS and KHICS/WHeCCS projects are all proposed to include extensive off-shore Training Workshops based on the Application Domain models (and, when relevant, Emulator Systems).
Thus UNU/IIST is currently seeking multi-vendor financial support for the HEMIS and WHeCCS projects.
Appendix B outlines a UNU/IIST proposal for how UNU/IIST would like to handle issues of Intellectual Property Rights and Commercialisation (of Software) in connection with the PRaCoSy, MIICI, HEMIS, MoTraS, KHICS and WHeCCS projects.
This has up till now been the UNU/IIST "flagship" Advanced Development and extensive Training Project.
Aims & Objectives: The longer range aim of the RaCoSy (family of) project(s), of which PRaCoSy is a first, is that railway system "heavy" developing countries become front-of-the-wave internationally competitive with respect to the use and development of railway software while at the same time relying on extensive computerisation to make domestic railways significantly more efficient thereby also allowing increased investments.
Fellowships: One Fellow arrived April 15, 1993, and has so far, courtesy of the China Railway Construction Corporation been extended till April 15, 1995. Four Fellows arrived September 20, 1993 and returned November 30, 1994. They are then scheduled to be replaced by four new Fellows for a nine month Fellowship -- expected to start around March/April 1995.5
Staffing: One Research Fellow, Mr. Søren Prehn, who arrived 1 September 1992 returned on 8 August 1994 and was replaced by a Visiting Research Fellow, Mr. Chris W. George for a 12 month PSA (Personal Service Agreement) starting 1 September 1994. UNU/IIST wishes here to thank Mr. Prehn for his outstanding service to UNU/IIST and the PRaCoSy Fellows. One Visiting Researcher, Dr. Srinivasan Parthasarathy arrived 1 October 1993 and left 30 June 1994.
"Master Class" Training + R&D: Together with other UNU/IIST staff the above: Fellows + Staff + Visitors have worked together in a daily `Master Class' fashion: daily consultation (cum training) meetings, daily R&D. Considerable understanding of the railway problem has been rigorously recorded and some experimental software likewise developed. Issues such as geographically widely distributed Train Dispatch, the use of Running Maps for Train Traffic Rescheduling and Station Management are being R&D'ed. Thus many internal technical documents have been set up and are regularly being modified as a result of the Training + R&D.
The PRaCoSy project, on the scientific and technological side, has thus researched and developed formal models of what it means to be a railway system as well as experimentally developed software for Running Maps, including establishing rigorous relations between the stages of Application Domain Models, Computing Platform Models, Requirements Capture and actual Software.
It is expected that a number of technical reports will be ripe for submission for publication during the fall of 1994 and winter of 1994/1995.
Related Matters: Various groups within the Computer Centres of the PRC Ministry of Railways as well as the China National Railway Signal and Communications Corporation (CRSC) have expressed deep interest in the R&D so far. It is expected that the PRaCoSy project from being ("thought to be") related to the Zhengzhou-Wuhan Rail line Train Dispatch project, will be to the CRSC project for a National, Long Distance Train Dispatch Centre to be located in Peking.
It has been, and it continues to be a most rewarding activity to work with the PRC Railway Fellows on a daily basis, and see solid research and engineering results emanate as a result of the joint work.
UNU/IIST sincerely believes that the returning Fellows, if properly phased into local projects in China, can carry with them significant, front-of-the-wave technology and methodological know-how. UNU/IIST makes a continuation of its (so far 100%) funding of the PRaCoSy project conditional upon mutual planning and co-financing.
December 12-17 + 19-24, 1994 the four returning Fellows conducted together with one UNU/IIST Researcher a two week training course for some 25 Chinese railway software engineers in WuXi, see section 2.4.9. This event thus saw a first example of the spread, the amplification, of UNU/IIST's training work: train the trainers who then proceed!
Documents: We refer to the following PRaCoSy project documents: [19][20][21][22] (D. Bjørner main author), [23][24][25][26][27][28] (S. Prehn main author), [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] (S. Parthasarathy main author), [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] (Dong Yu Lin main author), [49][50][51][52][53][54] (Jin Dan Hua main author), [55][56][57][58] (Liu Xin main author), [59][60][61][62][63] (Sun Guo Qing main author), [64][65][66] (Ma Chao main author), and [67] as having been worked out during 1993-1994. We include 1993 as we did not list 1993 documents in our 1993 Annual Report.
Contributions from the DeTfoRS Research project, see below, came in the form of many discussions and [15][16][17].
This subsection reports on the planning and initial research effort of this project which still has to receive funding and attract Fellows. UNU/IIST is quite optimistic about the prospects for eventually starting a larger scale effort.
Aims & Objectives: Recognising the industrial development difficulties of developing countries, as well as the increasing reliance of manufacturing industry operations and product and process development on advanced information and communication technology, the MIICI Project aims, in collaboration with UNIDO, to investigate how information technology can be best applied to support small and mid-sized manufacturing enterprise development, and this in a way which takes as full account of social, technical, organisational, economic and environmental concerns as is today possible.
Staffing: Dr. Jan Goossenaerts of Belgium, after two years as an EU visiting scholar at University of Tokyo, is a Visiting Researcher at UNU/IIST during most of 1994.
Research + Training: The MIICI paradigm goes well beyond CAE/CAD/CAM and CIM. The project's integrated problem domain understanding has its partial background in the international IMS Project and a number of EU ESPRIT CIM R&D Projects. MIICI ambitiously aims at capturing in its enterprise and environment models not only the shop floor and design office processes within manufacturing enterprises, but also those along supply chains, marketing, sales and relations to investment capital and banks.
In its research and training activities the MIICI Project emphasises mathematical models of products, enterprises and business environments as primary tools for creating in a relatively short period lean/agile6 supply-based7 industrial systems.
Emulator (software) systems which can be derived from enterprise and environment models can be used in the training of industrial (ministry &c.) policy planners, entrepreneurs, managers, engineers and shop floor and office workers. Also they can form the basis of application software supporting industrial operations and entrepreneurial and engineering projects.
From the Emulator System one can derive actual Plant Operations Monitoring and Control Systems that span the spectrum outlined above. One can also derive a Process Audit System which can be used by (finance and industry) ministry and/or investment firms (banks) in following-up their financial audit of industry loans. Such as system is indispensable for country wide management of the enactment of SME8 fostering policies.
Initially four Fellows, funded by a joint UNIDO/ADB grant will visit UNU/IIST for six months starting April 1, 1995, from De la Salle University of The Philippines [69]. With the Indonesian Machine Tool Design & Development Centre: mtddc of the University of Indonesia, UNU/IIST is working on a request from UNIDO (Indonesia) for a Data Infrastructure for the Integration of Database Network sub-project [70][71].
The MIICI Project, if and when fully instantiated at UNU/IIST, should see two-three phases of four-six Fellows being 9-12 months trained in Macau, and should see actual R&D, in close joint collaboration with UNIDO and with university and industry R&D groups in (most likely) The Philippines and Indonesia. Negotiations with institutions in these countries are underway.
Documents: We refer to the following MIICI project documents: [72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][69][82][83][70][71][84] as having been worked out during 1994.
UNU/IIST has worked out two successive MaGICS proposals. These have been circulated locally.
The most recent one is about a year old. MaGICS/1 calls for a near-virtual-reality like system -- making use also of such Internet facilities as WWW, Mosaic, Hyper-G etc. -- to support citizens of and visitors (business people and tourists) to Macau in their search for information as well as in reserving travel tickets, hotel rooms, restaurant tables, concert tickets, etc., whether in Macau or off-shore (Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Lisbon, etc.). MaGICS/1's multi-media interfaces allow the user to "see" -- through animated 3D, video-clips, etc. -- the sights of Macau: Temples, churches, fortresses, gardens, shopping streets and their shops, hotels and their room, restaurant, sports and other facilities; etc.
In order for UNU/IIST to continue it needs qualified feedback, including discussions with all relevant authorities: Leal Senado, Tourism Authority, hotel and restaurant associations, etc.
As of June 1, 1994, UNU/IIST hired Mr. Alex Lai (formerly Computer Service Bureau Director of the University of Macau). One of Mr. Lai's work assignments was to pursue the MaGICS matter even more vigorously than the Director has been able to.
UNU/IIST has additionally hired, for three months, November 1, 1994 -- 31 January 1995, an expert technologist (cum scientist), Mr. Achim Schneider, The Hyper-media Unit of Auckland University, New Zealand, on the recommendation of a leading researcher in the field of Hyper-media, Prof. Hermann Maurer, Technical University of Graz, Austria. Achim Schneider (i) conducted a ten week, three hours per week Design Workshop in Macau on Hyper-media, and (ii) will help design the Architecture and the major Software Design for MaGICS/1.
A final report on a proposed MaGICS/1 system will be issued late January 1995.
UNU/IIST is somewhat embarrassed in having to report that little progress has been made in obtaining response from the local community. UNU/IIST may have to curtail all further effort on MaGICS for lack of local response. Mr. Alex Lai will return to his former position by February 1, 1995.9
This subsection reports on the continued planning of this proposed project.
Aims & Objectives: The longer range aim of the HEMIS project is to significantly support a large number of developing countries across all present UN language areas + Portuguese to significantly improve the administration of their "student population explosive" universities through the use of increasingly comprehensive computing while making them, as well as anybody else for that matter, better able to procure, install and operate as wide a variety of well-interfaced computing equipment.
Research & Training: The HEMIS project is concerned with the research of What is a University? (mathematically), with the derivation from such mathematical models of a set of Reference Handbooks to be used by university management, administrators, and end-users (researchers, lecturers, laboratory technicians and students) in phase-wise procuring, installing and using comprehensive, co-ordinated university computing at all levels, including training in their use.
The three phase HEMIS project proposal calls for three teams of seven Fellows each from seven language areas (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) in Africa, Latin America, Asia and CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States (part of the former Soviet Union) to collaborate in Macau with UNU/IIST researchers on the R&D and off-shore on the Training of some 7×40 = 280 university staff.
Proposal Phase & Funding: The HEMIS proposal, after extensive consultations between UNU/IIST and UNESCO is now being reviewed by some two dozens leading hardware and software vendors worldwide with the hope of obtaining their support.
UNU/IIST has, so far, had little response to this proposal.
Due to the continued need for the planned results of HEMIS, and the interest in HEMIS shown by UNESCO, UNU/IIST instead now plans to work out a more detailed design proposal (at own expense) for which it needs further, close co-operation with the Division of Higher Education of UNESCO, Paris.
This subsection reports on the continued planning of this proposed project.
Aims & Objectives: MoTraS aims at R&D + Training: (i) R&D of proper internal and exchangeable computer representations of full traditional Mongolian script, (ii) R&D of proper internal and exchangeable computer representation of combinations of scripts representing all four writing directions, (iii) prototype development (using state-of-the-art high quality software development methods) of software for the editing, search and formatting of texts that cover all writing directions, and (iv) training of Mongolian and other Fellows from developing countries having special script requirements -- especially as they relate to computing.
Staffing: Dr. Oliver Corff, presently at the Free University, Berlin, FRG, is on occasional SSA's (Special Service Agreements) and is building up an impressive interface to potential donors, interested collaboration partners in Europe and Asia, as well as to UNESCO.
Funding: The funding situation is as yet unclear. Various avenues are at present being pursued.
Misc.: MoTraS is being presented around Europe during September-October by Dr. Corff.
The ADG for Communication, Information and Informatics of UNESCO, Dr. Yushkiavitskaus, is very much interested in MoTraS and UNU/IIST will try reformulate the project to also fall more in line with the UNESCO Programme on Memory of the World.
This subsection reports on the continued planning of these proposed projects.
WHeCCS is the more general project. KHICS is a specialisation of WHeCCS. Generally UNU/IIST is seeking to obtain the WHeCCS project, but is alternatively pursuing the KHICS project should the former be late in coming or not materialise (at all). (The WHeCCS project might not materialise.)
The KHICS/WHeCCS project deliverables are proposed to be: (i) a set of mathematical models of What is a Hospital, respectively What is a Health Care System; (ii) a corresponding (i.e. carefully correlated) set of informal narratives in seven languages: the six UN languages + Portuguese; (iii) a Hospital, respectively a Health Care System Emulator (software system) that can be used as the basis for (a) Training, (b) Experiments, and (c) actual Management etc. of Hospitals, respectively Health Care Systems; and (iv) Training of both Software Engineers and Hospital/Health Care System Administrators etc. in the use of the KHICS/WHeCCS/ results. KHICS/WHeCCS should lead to significantly improved abilities of Hospital, respectively Health Care System officials to procure, install and operate relevant computing equipment: economically and efficiently.
Proposal Phase & Funding: The WHeCCS proposal is being reviewed by the WHO Collaborating Centres of Informatics. It is being proposed by UNU/IIST that a "formula" of financial support much like that for HEMIS be attempted. Funding for the alternative KHICS project is sought from K... and a vendor to be designated.
Misc.:
UNU/IIST has proposed, to a suitable vendor, a PC-based system for teaching the laws of programs and programming -- in a style reminiscent of how physics, biology, etc. is taught. No emphasis on actually teaching or learning programming skills. Instead emphasis on which are the laws of programming and computing: whether functional, logic, parallel, imperative or algebraic programming etc. The MacSchubert proposal is new, and shall cater for an open-ended variety of educational theories as well as for arbitrary combinations of teaching and learning, preparing class material and homework, that is: for arbitrary combinations of the four agents: the subject, the teacher, the student and the computer.10
The purpose of UNU/IIST's research activities is (i) Training of Fellows from developing countries in research techniques, through (ii) front-of-the-wave research studies that (iii) support UNU/IIST's Training Workshops and Advanced Development Projects. It is also a major aim (iv) to internationalise research from developing countries.
UNU/IIST selects candidates for its Research Training programming through nurturing close relations with a number of university computer science department and academy research institute groups in developing countries. Actual candidates are selected from young, oftentimes Ph.D. students met at these places during UNU/IIST Training Workshops.
DeTfoRS (Design Techniques for Real Time Systems) is a 2-year (1993-1994) joint project between the Chinese 863 Hi-Tech Programme and UNU/IIST.
Aims: Basically the research project aims at investigating formal techniques for the development of real time systems such that these techniques share an unified foundation. At the same time, it will promote researches on formal methods in developing countries. DeTfoRS has also built connections to the EU ESPRIT ProCoS II (via ESPRIT Exploratory Activity KIT010, which provides some 44,000 ECU funding overall of which some 24,000 have been spent in 1994 by UNU/IIST.
Research & Training: The DeTfoRS project has investigated Duration Calculus based formal techniques in depth and achieved impressive results on various aspects of Real Time System Design, including specification, refinement, scheduling and dependability etc. Fifteen UNU/IIST reports (including draft versions) have been produced and so far eight of them have appeared or will appear in international journal and symposium proceedings. The DeTfoRS working group has also given presentations on IFIP TC2 WG2.3 Seminar and at a IEEE Hong Kong Seminar.
Besides professional UNU/IIST staff, the DeTfoRS project has involved 2 visiting researchers (6+1 months) and 8 fellows (16+13+9+9+7+6+3+6 months) from P.R. China, Indonesia and Vietnam. They constitute the DeTfoRS working group.
The DeTfoRS project has now been reformulated from real time systems to real time Hybrid Systems (See section 2.2.3).
Funding: UNU/IIST has covered all expenses of visiting researchers and fellows in Macau. Chinese 863 Hi-Tech Programme has supported RMB 1 million for research at respective sites in China. UNU/IIST has requested accounts on the spending of these RMB 1 million, but so far in vain.
Documents: We refer to the following DeTfoRS project documents: [9][2][10][3][11][15][16][17][12][4][5][6][7][13][14][8] as having been worked out during 1994.
Dr. Wong Wai has established a Laboratory for Automated Reasoning.
The aims of the laboratory are to archive a well chosen collection of state-of-the-art automated reasoning systems, to evaluate such systems, to support the research and training activities both within UNU/IIST and off-shore courses, and to disseminate them through UNU/IIST's network of contacts.
At this first stage, three systems have been obtained, namely HOL, BM: Boyer-Moore and Isabelle. The first two have be built and installed. Several programming systems have also be obtained and installed to support these systems. They are AKCL, GCL, SML/NJ.
A series of lectures on the HOL theorem prover have been given at UNU/IIST. A set of lecture notes has been prepared. These can be used as the base for future( off-shore) courses.
To secure that our research continues to be relevant to applications, DeTfoRS is smoothly deepening its research objects from real time systems to Hybrid Systems where discrete and continuous computations co-exist and interacting with one another.
Typical Hybrid Systems are software embedded systems, process control systems and many computer based control systems.
Three DeTfoRS papers have been organised as the first session on Hybrid Systems at the International Symposium on Formal Techniques in Real Time and Fault Tolerant Systems to be held late September 1994 in Germany. Prof. Zhou Chaochen has also been invited by the Symposium to give an invited tutorial on Hybrid Systems. ESPRIT Exploratory Activity KIT010 will support four Chinese fellows and Prof. Zhou to participate in this symposium.
One visiting control theoretician, Prof. Chen Zongji of Beijing University of Aero- and Astronautics, was invited to UNU/IIST for one month (June 1994).
With CICA/AS, Academia Sinica's Chengdu Institute of Computer Applications, represented by Profs. Zhang JingZhong and Yang Lu, UNU/IIST is presently working out a joint research proposal that will build on the work of Profs. Zhang Jing-Zhong, Chou Shang-Ching, and Gao Xiao-Shan, on the Automatic Presentation of Human-readable Proofs in Geometry. The idea is to extract programs from these proofs and compose these programs into useful programs, for example for robot manipulation.
This research effort, if realized, will include the establishment of a UNU/IIST Network Node at CICA/AS in the form of a Laboratory for Automated Reasoning and Programs.
UNU/IIST selects sites for its (one-) two-three week off shore Training Workshops (i) so as to eventually cover a widening circle of developing countries, (ii) with a view towards "button-holing" (i.e. selecting) potential candidates for Fellowships at UNU/IIST in Macau for joint Research or for joint Advanced Development Projects.
The aim of UNU/IIST's Training Workshops is also to present front-of-the-wave computing science research and programming methodological, design calculi-oriented theories and techniques. UNU/IIST Training Workshops are always co-organised, through a careful process with academy research institute, university computer science department (or centre), and/or leading IT industry sites -- such which hopefully will become future, long range collaborators. These help UNU/IIST select candidates for the Training Workshop and otherwise provide local logistics support.
UNU/IIST thanks these sites: (i) The DPRK State Commission of Science and Technology, Pyongyang, (ii) The De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines, Manila, (iii) and the University of Indonesia, for their superb support.
This Seminar opened 1994. Five internationally known scientists11 in addition to senior UNU/IIST staff each gave eight 45 minute lectures over two weeks to 51 participants from China (20), Hong Kong (8), India (4), Indonesia (2), Japan (2), D.P.R. of Korea (2), Macau (6), Malaysia (2), The Philippines (1), Thailand (2), USA (1), and Vietnam (1). (All UNU/IIST Fellows and two Visiting Scientists are included in the above count.)
UNU/IIST sponsored this Seminar: hosted the five lecturers and 23 of the participants.
Approximately 35 students have participated in a 14-week M.Sc. course on Formal Programming Techniques lectured by UNU/IIST. The course included 12 three-hour lectures, two three-hour laboratory work sessions and a closing examination. Four kinds of formal semantics of programs have been introduced: Operational, Denotational, Axiomatic and Algebraic Semantics, and two formal system models, Automata & StateCharts and Petri Net,
The Director, joint with Prof. Wang JuAn, University of Macau, Faculty of Science & Technology guided three B.Sc. students through a four month thesis project (Feb.-June 1994).
The Director lectured five days, three 60 minute lectures per day, May 9-13, to an audience of more than 120 people (all lectures, every day!). The topic was: Formal Specification of Software and of Application Domains.
The lectures were organised by the DPRK State Commission for Science and Technology and featured participants from eight different institutions -- the major universities, information technology research institutes and commercial software houses.
(In addition to the lectures the Director spent afternoons visiting most of these major institutions.
Lecturers: Prof. Zhou Chaochen, Mr. Søren Prehn
Topics: Duration Calculus; Formal Specification using RAISE
Venue: University of the Philippines, Diliman campus, Manila.
Local organisers: De La Salle University, Manila
Participants: 22: computer science lecturing staff and M.Sc. students from De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines
Lecturers: Prof. Zhou Chaochen, Mr. Søren Prehn
Topics: Duration Calculus; Formal Specification using RAISE
Venue: Pau Ilmu Komputer, University of Indonesia
Local organisers: Pau Ilmu Komputer, University of Indonesia, Depok, Jakarta
Participants: 24: computer science lecturing staff and M.Sc. students from Pau Ilmu Komputer (15) and software engineers from local industry (9).
Events are short-term `happenings': two-three day seminars or workshops, panels or task forces -- each arranged to deal with a specific topic.
Targets of UNU/IIST events go beyond research scientists, university lecturers, Ph.D. students and leading edge industrial software engineers -- for which UNU/IIST's Research, Training Workshops and Advanced Development Projects are primarily arranged -- to include also software technology, development and research managers, university curriculum staff, and industry association and ministry policy planners.
Aims and objectives of UNU/IIST Events is awareness and preparation for joint (primarily Advanced Development) Projects or support for local policy actions, oftentimes in collaboration with UN System agencies (UNIDO, UNESCO, etc.).
A DeTfoRS Macau workshop was held in order to review progress and plans.
The workshop was co-chaired by Prof. Li Wei (Chinese 863 Hi-Tech Programme Committee) and Prof. Dines Bjørner. The additional participants were from DeTfoRS partners -- BUA&A: Beijing University of Aero- & Astronautics (2), CIT: Changsha Institute of Technology (2), Nanjing University (1), SJTU: Shanghai JiaoTong University (2) and UNU/IIST(2).
Three external observers from Chinese SSTCC, France (ENS: Ecole Normale Superieure) and USA also attended the workshop. After eight presentations, the workshop featured extensive technical discussion. and a one day administrative session. The attendees concluded that the achievements of DeTfoRS were quite impressive, and agreed to broaden the application domain to Hybrid Systems.
A partial planning meeting was held with two visitors from the Shanghai Municipal Government (SMG). The SMG seems interested in supporting the Shanghai Railway Administration (SRA) in establishing a PRC Railway Software House (PRaCoSH). (Two of the 20.9.93-30.9.94 PRaCoSy Fellows come from the SRA.) The meeting was rather unilateral: UNU/IIST and its PRaCoSy Fellows did most of the presentation, including presentation of rationale for and possible Business Plan and Organisational Structure for PRaCoSH.
A successful workshop was held at the Free University, Berlin, with participants from Germany, England, and Mongolia -- concerning special computing input and internal representation (UNICODE) problems of Mongolian (and other) Traditional Script(s).
A training workshop (Information Technology for Manufacturing Enterprise Development in the Philippines (27-29 June)) and subsequent planning meeting for a MIICI Philippines Project (30 June - 1 July) were held in De La Salle University, Manila.
About 20 persons from university, government and industry participated in the training workshop. Prof. K. Nishigaya (UNIDO ) gave the keynote speech about "Human Resource Development for Industry", three Philippine experts introduced several aspects of the industrial development problems (with emphasis on small and mid-sized enterprises) in the Philippines, and UNU/IIST introduced the MIICI modelling framework and strategy, and gave a mostly informal survey of the project's problem domain. The training workshop was concluded with a round table discussion among the participants.
The planning meeting for a MIICI Philippines Project was attended by about ten participants. Various aspects of a possible MIICI Philippines Project were discussed and it was agreed to undertake a project formulation mission. Local participants were from UNDP, UNIDO, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology, Department of Foreign Affairs and several universities.
Lecturers: Mr. Søren Prehn, Mr. Dong Yulin
Topics: Formal techniques in software development, illustrated by the development of the PRaCoSy prototype running map editor.
Venue: Northern University of Communication, Beijing, PRC.
Local organisers: Ministry of Railways, PRC.
Participants: 15: software engineers from the Signal and Communications Corporation (12) and the Computer Centre of the Zhengzhou-Wuhan railway administration (3)
Another MIICI field study workshop was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 14-16 September, 1994. It followed a one day high level planning seminar, September 13.
Altogether more than 30 persons from university, government and industry participated in these two events.
UNU/IIST is now preparing documents proposing joint UNIDO/Indonesia and UNU/IIST actions. These concern the establishment of MIICI-derived SME Data Infrastructures [70].
Approximately 35 participants from University of Macau and from the public and private sector of Macau followed the Fall Computer Science course given at UNU/IIST on behalf of the UoM/FS&T Software Engineering Programme.
This design workshop involves a number of industrial and institutional participants from Macau together with UNU/IIST staff in the domain analysis, requirements capture and (initially) prototype (demo) development of a hyper-media systems for Macau, especially for its citizen and visitor information and command needs.
Four returning PRaCoSy Fellows and one Visiting Research Fellow from UNU/IIST conducted a three week workshop for some 25 participants from Chinese Railway Systems on the results of the PRaCoSy project, including a one week training course in the use for formal methods in domain analysis, requirements capture and software development.
The listings below record 1-2 hour seminars:
(This entry is doubled below: item 4(a))
-- see also 2(b) above.
The last four presentations (b-c-d-e) will be repeated in the fall:
Oxford University: 2.00pm, Tuesday 27th September 1994; Room 347 (third floor), Oxford University Computing Laboratory, Programming Research Group, Wolfson Building, Parks Road, Oxford
The Technical University of Denmark: 1:30pm, Tuesday 4th October, 1994; Department of Computing Science, Building 344, room 211,
Presentations (b, [2]), (d, [3]) and (e, [11]) will be presented at:
It is in this way that UNU/IIST is achieving one of its many operational objectives: internationalisation of research done by scientists in Developing Countries.
Five PRaCoSy Fellows together with UNU/IIST researchers lectured on Railway Systems Software and discussed possible collaboration between five Hong Kong institutions: HK University, Chinese University of HK, HK Baptist University, Tuen Muen Technical College, and the Hong Kong MTRC (Mass Transit Railway Corp.) at an all day joint workshop organised by Karl Leung, HK University and HK Polytechnic University.
All below presentations on: Introduction to formal methods, in particular RAISE, and its applications in the PRaCoSy project and in the People's Republic of China:
In November 1993 UNU/IIST organized and absolved what we consider quite a successful event: UCiST: University Curricula in Software Technology (See Annual Report, 1993).
UNU/IIST currently is planning the following events:
UNU/IIST has discussed, in January and March 1994, with a group of Japanese colleagues, the possibility of arranging and funding (from Japan) a successor, more focused, UCiST'95 Event.
UNU/IIST has discussed with UNIDO and with another group of Japanese colleagues (mainly industry and industry association people) to organise a Workshop on Accreditation and Certification. Both software houses and university curricula can be accredited, and both software and software engineers can be certified. WAC2'95 wishes to explore (some or all of) the issues related to accreditation and certification in the light of Software technology in the Far East, South East and South Asia.
With IDRC, UNU/IIST is currently planning a three-four week workshop on policy planning, domain analytical, training, use, and software technological issues related to Decision Support Systems based on Geo- and Demographic Information Systems and to be used for planning, effecting, monitoring and controlling Environmentally Sustainable Development.
This, by-invitation only, workshop is expected to review the state-of-the-art with respect to current use and currently available technology, as well as analyse possible future GIS-DIS/DSS/ESD developments, including preparing for their deployment. 30-35 invitees and guests are planned to come from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America.
The event is scheduled for January 1996.
The purpose of UNU/IIST Dissemination is increased awareness and information service for intellectually isolated groups.
UNU/IIST, for financial reasons, has delayed its dissemination plans.
With the hiring of additional staff UNU/IIST is now ready to effect these plans.
They call for:
The regular, 1/2 yearly mailing of a UNU/IIST NewsLetter to known institutions and individuals -- with whom UNU/IIST already has contact -- in mostly developing countries. The UNU/IIST NewsLetter will additionally be broadcasted via UN System channels. Included in the UNU/IIST NewsLetter will be a list of UNU/IIST reports and public (free) domain software. Reports and software can then be ordered from UNU/IIST.
The distribution to a known set of institutions, some 188 in mainly industrialised countries from which UNU/IIST regularly receives free reports, and so far some 80 in mainly developing countries, mostly such which are already known to UNU/IIST.
The distribution, on request, of free, public domain software, from UNIX for PC's, via GNU, Free Software Foundation software, to Tools that support Design Calculi-oriented software development, Hypermedia/Hypertext (Hyper/G), etc.
The issue of UNU/IIST, with its strong reliance on and commitment
to Internet (E-Mail, ftp, WWW, Hyper-G, Mosaic, NetScape, etc.),
"pushing" the
broader use of Internet in Macau has been taken up already
June 23, 1993 with the Macau Foundation.
The idea is to have one 64KByte/Sec. line to a major
gateway, for example in the US or Europe serve Macau's Scientific
and Educational community, including
UNU/IIST. Existence of such a well-serviced connection -- set up
for example in collaboration between the Macau Foundation,
CTM (The Macau `Telecom'), University of Macau
and UNU/IIST -- should further Macau's road to Science &
Technology, and thus attract,
it is believed, international investment and make international
corporations now dependent on Internet more interested in setting
up shop in Macau.
UNU/IIST has written detailed proposals for the Macau Foundation
and has also discussed the matter with CTM which has expressed interest.
Progress is slow.
The UNU/IIST Director spent time evaluating various lengthy
proposals for World Bank + Indonesian Ministry of Education
(DGHE: Directorate General of Higher Education: HE = Universities) Centre
Grants under the World Bank URGE (University Research and Graduate
Education) Programme, and spent one week, at World Bank expense,
late July on site
visits and plenum evaluation sessions.
In addition to the two previous Indonesia visits by UNU/IIST staff,
this evaluation exercise has brought UNU/IIST in further contact
with relevant UNU/IIST targets in Indonesia.
UNU/IIST has become an electronic repository, browsing and
distribution hub for the Journal of Universal
Computer Science. Preparations have been made.
The first test issue has been so available since November 1994.
The system will formally start up in January 1995.
2.7 Miscellaneous Other Matters
2.7.1 The MacauNet
2.7.2 Indonesian Ministry of Education & The World Bank
2.7.3 JUCS: Journal of Universal Computer Science
info@iist.unu.edu, March 1995
Annual Report 1994