| | | Annual Report 1998 | Contents | |
On 19 May 1998, UNU/IIST, CICA (Chengdu Institute for Computer Applications) and GNU (Guangzhou Normal University) signed a joint Memorandum of Understanding for the establishment of a Laboratory for Information Technology. This MoU effectively brings in GNU as the third partner of the Joint Laboratory for Automated Reasoning and Programming which had already been set up by CICA and UNU/IIST.
On 26 June, Ministry of Education of China and UNU/IIST signed a Memorandum of Understanding for jointly organising UNU/IIST activities in Chinese universities, so that UNU/IIST efforts in China are balanced and have the broadest impact and replication.
On 22 October, the National University of Natural Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and UNU/IIST signed a Memorandum of Understanding concerning the organization of courses by UNU/IIST for the IT faculty.
On 27 November, the Beijing Institute for Information and Control (BICC) and UNU/IIST signed an MoU for training BICC staff to apply formal techniques in designing Safety Critical software systems.
As UNU/IIST has trained many Fellows and since some of the seconding institutions in developing countries have taken up UNU/IIST's research agenda, UNU/IIST intends to conduct off-shore research. That is, UNU/IIST supports former Fellows to organise research groups in their home countries to undertake research in UNU/IIST's areas. UNU/IIST subsidises their research resources, up to a maximum of US$2,500 annually for a group of 2-5 persons. In this way, UNU/IIST is able to provide further training for its former Fellows, and also conduct technical dissemination to a wider number of scientists through its trained Fellows. Two project agreements have been signed with Nanjing University and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
The offshore project on model checking for real-time and hybrid systems with Nanjing University has progressed well. The project has been led by Dr. Li Xuandong, a former UNU/IIST Fellow, and the team has about 8 researchers. Three of the members, Mr Zheng Tao, Mr. Zhao Jianhua, and Mr. Hou Jianmin have been or are being trained at UNU/IIST.
With the seed money provided by UNU/IIST, the research group has successfully obtained a grant of RMB 100,000 for 3 years from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
During the period of September 1997 to September 1998, the group has written 10 papers, 3 of which have been presented at international conferences. Hou Jianmin is currently completing his PhD thesis which has mostly been based on his work on this project.
A set of tools on model checking has been developed on UNIX SUN work stations. The tools can verify reachability and linear duration invariant properties. Some techniques for reducing state space have also been implemented. The tools have been successfully used on a couple of bench mark case studies.
The offshore project on "Semantics and Verification of Real-Time Programs using Duration Calculus: Theory and Practice" is a two-year joint research program between the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, and UNU/IIST.
The project involves collaboration between some of the leading researchers in India in the area of Formal Methods and is led by Dr. Paritosh Pandya, a former visiting researcher at UNU/IIST.
The project addresses the formalisation of advanced computing paradigms such as synchronous programming (statecharts, ESTEREL) and the development of automata-theoretic model-checking techniques for Duration Calculus. At the same time, the project also addresses deeply theoretical issues like expressiveness, decidability and complexity of interval and duration based reasoning.
Since its inception in February, 1998, the project has led to several results including a significant enhancement of the decidable fragment of Duration Calculus which enables, for the first time, many of the existing case studies (mine-pump, lift, railway crossing) to be automatically verified.
The on-going work in the project includes the semantics of Esterel and a foundational investigation into automata-theoretic decision procedures for phase-based temporal logics which can break the non-elementary decidability barrier for such logics.
In addition, UNU/IIST and the Faculty of Philosophy of Utrecht University are cooperating in providing research training at the postgraduate level in Utrecht to:
All three persons have been offered a UNU/IIST fellowship at Utrecht University. Ms Edith Chipo Kanjo and Ms Yuan Zhaorui start their fellowships in January 1999 and Mr Mushtaq Ahmad, because of his work commitments, is expected to start in the second half of 1999.
The research undertaken during their fellowships will focus on specification and validation techniques in software development in telecommunications. Their specific research topics will be decided once they arrive at Utrecht University.
The Faculty of Philosophy has agreed to grant one fellowship extension of 12 to 16 months to the fellow showing the most promising initial results. In addition, a fellowship extension of 10 months will be granted by the Utrecht Scholarship programme of Utrecht University to Ms. Edith Chipo Kanjo from the University of Malawi.
Dissemination is one of UNU/IIST's key activities. Although many developing countries have increased access to international literature through information technology, such access is still, by and large, expensive. The aim of UNU/IIST's dissemination is therefore to distribute new research and development techniques and results in software technology to selected targets in developing countries and countries in transition. Since UNU/IIST, in its Research and Advanced Development Projects, uses front-of-the-wave techniques and pursues further development (i.e. research) of these techniques, the dissemination activity focuses primarily on propagating the techniques and results that directly relate to UNU/IIST's Research and Advanced Development Agenda. In parallel, through its training activities, and also through institutional agreements with specific institutions, UNU/IIST provides access to literature (reports, papers) and free software. UNU/IIST has defined a list of target institutions, which includes 10 institutions in China, 30 institutions in Asian countries other than China, 6 institutions in South America and in Africa, and 2 institutions in Eastern Europe. Institutions from developing countries are added to the list if their research and training interests match the areas that are covered by UNU/IIST's programme. UNU/IIST sends to its targeted institutions a quarterly selection of up-to-date information on international literature, free software and technical reports, both from UNU/IIST itself and from partner institutions, together with instructions on how to procure such publications. More specifically, each institution receives:
UNU/IIST also continues to assist a small number of MOU partners in building up a core library of reference books, monographs and journals.
| | | Annual Report 1998 | Contents | |