rick@cs.arizona.edu (Rick Schlichting) (12/06/90)
[Dr. David Kahaner is a numerical analyst visiting Japan for two-years
under the auspices of the Office of Naval Research-Asia (ONR/Asia).
The following is the professional opinion of David Kahaner and in no
way has the blessing of the US Government or any agency of it. All
information is dated and of limited life time. This disclaimer should
be noted on ANY attribution.]
[Copies of previous reports written by Kahaner can be obtained from
host cs.arizona.edu using anonymous FTP.]
To: Distribution.
From: David Kahaner ONR Asia [kahaner@xroads.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp]
Re: GMD Office in Tokyo
Date 7 Dec 1990
SUMMARY:
The German National Research Center for Computer Science (GMD),
Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung, has a liaison office
in Tokyo which was established about 15 years ago. It has an annual
budget of about $1.5 million US. Its basic functions are described.
German National Research Center for Computer Science
Tokyo Bureau
German Cultural Center
Akasaka 7-5-56
Minato-ku, Tokyo 107
Tel: (03) 3586-7104, Fax: (03) 3586-7187
Director: Dr. Ulrich Wattenberg (Physics)
Deputy Diretor: Dr. Eckart Bierdumpel (Economics)
Office Manager: Mr. Chris Webers (Physics)
I learned about this office, because Dr. Thomas Hagemann was on my
mailing list for reports. At that time Dr. Hagemann was at GMD in
Germany; he is now transferred to the liaison office here in Tokyo. Dr.
Hagemann has been very helpful in providing information to me and
correcting details of this report.
GMD is jointly "owned" by the Federal Republic, and the Ministries of
Science and Research of two German states. They support a collection of
labs, research institutes, computer centers, etc., at seven locations in
Germany together totaling about 1400 people (about 850 are in their main
office). Total GMD budget for 1990 is about 160M German Marks. GMD
performs research in the general area of information technology, which
includes hardware devices, applied mathematics, computer science, etc.
They are also involved in lab to industry activities and have an
Institute for Technology Transfer. I have not visited GMD, only the
Tokyo office, but brochures they provided to me mention the following
topics.
(1) Operates in the field of conflict existing between science,
manufactures, and users
(2) Make the results obtained available for new production processes,
products, and services
(3) National cooperation with industry, universities, users, as well as
international cooperation, not restricted by short-term economic
constraints and can therefore pursue long-term aims and break new
ground in research and development work even if this involves a high
risk.
GMD literature specifically points out various US universities as well as
Japan, Brazil and PR China as places where some of this international
cooperation is taking place, beside the intensive cooperation within the
European Community (ESPRIT projects, etc.). GMD also initiated the
foundation of the International Computer Science Institute (ICST, headed
by Jerome A. Feldman) at University of California, Berkeley, a basic
research institute for massively parallel systems, distributed systems,
and the foundations of informatics.
The liaison office in Tokyo has three to four professionals. At the
moment there are four, one is to rotate back to GMD February 1991. Three
have PhDs, in physics, economics, and mathematics. (The Director, Dr.
Wattenberg) was away from the office when I visited. A German speaking
Japanese administrative staff perform "research" and other tasks, and one
person is also responsible for gathering and distributing government and
other difficult to get documents relating to information technology. GMD
also has a Washington office, larger than the one in Tokyo.
The Director has been here since the office's inception, about 15 years.
The remaining professional staff come for periods of 3-5 years. Except
for the Director, all of them expect to go back to an administrative arm
of GMD.
During the first six months of a new person's tour he/she spends about
two days each week for two months each at different Japanese public
organizations affiliated with MITI, including MITI, Japan Information
Processing Developmnet Center (JIPDEC) which administers some of the MITI
projects including ICOT, at least in the initial phase, and the Database
Promotion Center (DPC). (This is permitted because the liaison office
has the official sanction of both the German and Japanese governments.)
This gives new staff an opportunity to meet many key people and get
national perspective. It is a tremendous orientation opportunity that
would have been very valuable to me (still would be, even after a year.)
This, plus the continuity provided by the Director's long tenure assures
that the staff do not step on each other's toes. The remaining three
days each week are spent sharpening language skills, and also doing
"real" work. The main focus of the office is claimed to be research in
computing, but they are also watching new releases in supercomputing,
semiconductor technology, etc., that have commercial value for their labs
back home. Although there is a science councillor in the German Embassy,
some computing related liaison functions are handled in this office.
The office subscribes to a translation service that provides timely
information about information technology news. One of the German
professionals is responsible for transmitting a weekly summary, in
German, and also providing an up to date list of meetings that have been
announced. I think that the news service would be valuable because the
compiler is a specialist who can rapidly check questionable or
uninteresting items and get additional details when necessary. I was
told that our ONR office here tried a news service in the past but it was
very expensive and not used much. Perhaps it was too general, or the
scientists were not interested. I will consider subscribing to a similar
service again to see how useful it would be to me.
A major activity of the office is planning a workshop, formally titled
"Japan-German Forum on Information Technology", held every 18 months,
alternating between Germany and Japan, with about 100 participants. Three
topics are dealt with, Microelectronics, Computers, and New Media.
The workshop is a closed shop organized at the level of the German and
Japanese Governments, and each country is responsible for supporting an
appropriate number of their researchers. A Proceedings are produced, but
are only circulated to workshop participants, in government circles, and
to certain industrial and academic research centers. The small GMD office
staff would find it difficult to distribute copies of the individual
papers to outside requestors, but attached to this report is a list of
titles from the previous workshop to illustrate the material discussed.
What is impressive about this list is that the level of papers allows
most of them to be of direct interest to not only researchers but to
those one step removed. As those of us who attend conferences know,
carefully written survey papers are very rare.
The office also organizes most scientific visits for GMD staff and also
of others from the German research community. The professional staff
attend many meetings, participate in lab visits, write reports, etc.,
very much like I do. To the best of my knowledge their reports are only
distributed internally.
The office is housed in the German cultural center. GMD pay no rent for
most of their space, but one overflow office is required and is
expensive. The office has an internal computer network so that staff can
communicate, print, etc. The office manager backs up files each week.
They also have available electronic mail in three separate forms, (1) a
commercial local line to a service that allows them to contact GMD
directly, (2) a commercial mail service, and (3) an x-400 mail service at
a local commercial computer that is also connected to GMD. Their news
translation services are sent to them electronically by (2) above.
Current plans are to become a node on the rapidly growing Japanese
equivalent of Internet. To maintain this requires a high level of
sophistication. Luckily, each of the professionals is interested in
computing and so they are willing and eager to take on this
responsibility. (An equivalent activity in my office could be done but
might be difficult because of the wide range of computer interests and
expertise within the scientific staff.)
The GMD offices are attractive although not extravagant, looking more or
less like those in the US Embassy. Because they are in the cultural
center, and open to everyone, they have a very benign feeling. This is
helped by being next door to the equivalent of the German NSF, which is
responsible for more general scientific exchanges. Overall the offices
give a very positive impression, in a country where these things count
for more than they do in the U.S.
The acting Director informed me that a very rough estimate for their
annual budget is $1.5 million US. For comparison, I am told that the
equivalent ONR Asia budget is about $1.0 million US, although I am sure
that an accurate comparison would require much more care.
Some the professionals have children of school age and this causes
serious logistical problems. The only German school is in an expensive
area of Tokyo, but will move out to Yokahama next year. This requires a
long commute, but seems to be necessary as this is the only school that
will prepare the children for the German exam system. If school were not
a problem, housing could be found nearby, much as for U.S. Embassy staff.
This office impressed and surprised me, particularly the level of
commitment with which a government lab is going after scientific
information, research, and commercial opportunities. There are aspects of
its operation that we should study carefully. This would be a worthwhile
and easily arranged place for Western scientists to visit.
What follows is a summary of papers and speeches from the Germany-Japan
Forum on Information Technology 1990. The list below gives titles only
and should be thought of as providing a sense of level and composition of
the program. A star (*) after a title indicates that the paper was from a
Japanese participant. The Forum was organized over a five day period as
follows.
Two keynote speeches.
Three parallel workshops on New Media, Computers, and Semiconductors.
Two plenary sessions on Research Cooperation, and Workshop Summaries.
Technical visits.
Keynote Speeches.
Computation in Neural Nets
Recent Trends in Optical Fiber Communications Research: Increasing
Resemblance with Radio Communications (*)
New Media Workshop
Three Dimensional Imaging and Television
State of the Art in Japan (*)
State of the Art in Germany
Two-Channel 3D-TV Using Polarizing Glasses, with demo
3D Display System with Motion Parallax and its Visual Effects (*)
Discussion about steps towards collaboration
Application of Neural Computing to Speech Recognition
State of the Art in Germany
A Neural Network Model Extracting Features from Speech Signals (*)
Speech and Neural Networks
Computer Workshop
Neurocomputing, Theoretical Models, Applications to Optimization and
Learning Problems, Pattern Recognition
Pattern Recognition with Dynamical Neural Nets
Character Recognition with Artificial Neural Networks (*)
Relation between the Approaches in Pattern Recognition and Neural Net
Computations
Mobile Robot Control by Neural Networks (*)
Biological and Artificial Neural Networks for Motor Control
Man Machine Communication Interfaces
Standards, Applications and Perspectives
Outline of FRIEND'21 Project (*)
Object-Oriented User Interfaces with Standard Functions
Approach to Continuous Speech Recognition using Time-Delay Neural
Networks and Learning Vector Quantization (*)
Discussion about steps towards collaboration
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
State of the Art in Germany
A Future Flexible Transport Network Based on ATM Techniques (*)
Discussion about steps towards collaboration
Intelligent Picture Coding
Intelligent Image Coding for Future Human Communication Systems (*)
Object-Oriented Analysis-Synthesis Coding of Moving Pictures
Discussion about steps towards collaboration
Semiconductor Workshop
Contamination Control
The Impact of Impurities in Chemicals on the Performance of DRAM's
In Situ Characterization Si MBE by Microprobe RHEED (*)
Depth Profile Analysis by Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry
Contamination Control in VLSI Wafer Processing (*)
Present States and Future Needs of Impurity Analysis in Silicon Wafer
Processing
Mesoscopic Systems
Individual Interface Defects and Noise in Sub-mu MOSFETs
Mesoscopic Electronics (*)
Two-Dimensional Mesoscopic Systems of Compound Semiconductors
Atomic Layer Epitaxy by Chloride Gas Sources (*)
Nanolithography Principles for Mesoscopic Systems
Discussion
Neural Networks
Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks in CMOS Technology
Neural Devices and Networks (*)
Hardware Implementation of Artificial Neural Networks
Optical Neural Computing (*)
Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic
Fully Digital Neuro-Chip (*)
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