UNU-IIST Annual Report 2004
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UNU-IIST International Institute for Software Technology UNU-IIST Annual Report 2004 Chris George and Wendy Hoi Iok Wa March 2005 UNU-IIST Report No. 314 A UNU-IIST and UNU-IIST Reports UNU-IIST (United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology) is a Research and Training Centre of the United Nations University (UNU). It is based in Macau, and was founded in 1991. It started operations in July 1992. UNU-IIST is jointly funded by the Governor of Macau and the governments of the People’s Republic of China and Portugal through a contribution to the UNU Endownment Fund. As well as providing two-thirds of the endownment fund, the Macau authorities also supply UNU-IIST with its office premises and furniture and subsidise fellow accommodation. The mission of UNU-IIST is to assist developing countries in the application and development of software technology. UNU-IIST contributes through its programmatic activities: 1. Advanced development projects, in which software techniques supported by tools are applied, 2. Research projects, in which new techniques for software development are investigated, 3. Curriculum development projects, in which courses of software technology for universities in devel- oping countries are developed, 4. University development projects, which complement the curriculum development projects by aiming to strengthen all aspects of computer science teaching in universities in developing countries, 5. Schools and Courses, which typically teach advanced software development techniques, 6. Events, in which conferences and workshops are organised or supported by UNU-IIST, and 7. Dissemination, in which UNU-IIST regularly distributes to developing countries information on international progress of software technology. Fellows, who are young scientists and engineers from developing countries, are invited to actively partic- ipate in all these projects. By doing the projects they are trained. At present, the technical focus of UNU-IIST is on formal methods for software development. UNU-IIST is an internationally recognised center in the area of formal methods. However, no software technique is universally applicable. We are prepared to choose complementary techniques for our projects, if necessary. UNU-IIST produces a report series. Reports are either Research R , Technical T , Compendia C or Administrative A . They are records of UNU-IIST activities and research and development achievements. Many of the reports are also published in conference proceedings and journals. Please write to UNU-IIST at P.O. Box 3058, Macau or visit UNU-IIST’s home page: http://www.iist.unu.edu, if you would like to know more about UNU-IIST and its report series. Mike Reed, Director UNU-IIST International Institute for Software Technology P.O. Box 3058 Macau UNU-IIST Annual Report 2004 Chris George and Wendy Hoi Iok Wa Abstract This document covers UNU-IIST activities in 2004. It describes the implementation of UNU- IIST’s research, development, and training projects, its reports, and its publications. Copyright °c 2005 UNU-IIST Contents i Contents 1 Executive Summary 1 1.1 Projects . 1 1.2 Training . 1 1.3 Events . 2 1.4 Staff . 2 2 Status of implementation of project activities 3 2.1 Models for Internet-based programming . 3 2.2 Hardware/software codesign . 4 2.3 Formal Methods for Object and Component Systems . 4 2.4 Design techniques for real-time embedded systems . 7 2.5 Software Testing . 8 2.6 Open Source Software Development . 9 2.7 Formal methods tools and applications . 10 2.8 e-learning . 10 2.9 Research in the UN . 11 2.10 e-Macao: Development of e-Government for Macao . 12 2.11 Development of Computer Science Departments in Developing Countries . 14 2.12 IT Training Courses and Schools in Developing Countries . 16 3 Postgraduate training/teaching activities 17 3.1 Fellowships . 17 3.2 Supervisions . 18 4 Publications and dissemination 18 4.1 Publications . 18 4.1.1 UNU-IIST reports . 18 4.1.2 External Publications . 18 4.2 Tutorials . 19 4.3 Dissemination . 19 5 List of academic meetings and events 19 6 UN and host country linkages 20 6.1 Other collaborative projects . 21 7 Personnel/staffing situation 21 8 Tables of fellowships, schools and courses 22 A Fellowships 23 B Personnel 24 B.1 Staff . 24 B.2 Post-doctoral Fellows and Project Staff . 25 Report No. 314, March 2005 UNU-IIST, P.O. Box 3058, Macau Contents ii B.3 Visiting Researchers . 25 C Schools and Courses 25 C.1 Schools . 25 C.2 Courses . 27 D List of External Publications 27 References 30 Report No. 314, March 2005 UNU-IIST, P.O. Box 3058, Macau Executive Summary 1 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Projects The e-Macao project to develop a basis for e-government in Macao, and to train government staff in the relevant technologies was formally inaugurated in July 2004. The project, funded by the Macao government, lasts for two years. It is now well under way: a project manager, post-doctoral fellow and three other project staff have been appointed, a Macao e-Government survey and a global e-Government survey have been completed, and intensive training of IT staff from the Macao Government has been taking place since October 2004. The on-line repository of research materials has been established as a prototype at http:// run.iist.unu.edu. So far it only contains UNU materials; we hope soon to attract other UN agencies. We still hope to establish collaborative projects on water resource management (together with UNU-INWEH) and on the certification of open source software (with partners in Europe). UNU-IIST needs to maintain its academic excellence through research. Current key research areas are internet computing, hardware/software co-design, object-oriented and component- based development, hybrid systems, testing, open-source software, electronic government, and formal methods tools and applications. The research projects have been very active this year, demonstrated by the large number of publications: 33. We have also produced 26 technical reports. 1.2 Training UNU-IIST’s main concern is the development of software technology in developing countries, and it concentrates on capacity building through postgraduate training. Training takes three forms: fellowships at UNU-IIST (17 fellows from 8 countries started fellow- ships during 2004), fellowships for computer science lecturers and for PhD students at universities in developed countries (5 fellows from 5 countries to 4 partner universities), and schools/courses in developing countries. Schools last 2–4 weeks, have regional participation, and involve a num- ber of courses, some taught by UNU-IIST staff, some by experts from developed countries, and some by people from the host country. In 2004 UNU-IIST, together with local partners, organ- ised 5 schools in Kazakhstan, Vietnam, China (2), and Brazil, and sponsored one in Slovakia. Training courses are usually taught by UNU-IIST staff, and in 2004 we organised 7 courses in Mozambique, Argentina (2), Peru, Nigeria, India, and China. Report No. 314, March 2005 UNU-IIST, P.O. Box 3058, Macau Executive Summary 2 1.3 Events We have organised the first International Colloquium on Theoretical Aspects of Computing (IC- TAC) in Guizhou, China. The initiative aims to extend the traditional UNU-IIST training courses and schools, which may not be so attractive to young but established researchers. The colloquium includes both research oriented presentations and tutorials in order for us to reach out to meet those potential researchers from developing countries and to help them to establish links with researchers from developed countries. The response to the first such colloquium has been good, attracting some 111 papers from over 30 countries and regions, plus a number of excellent tutorials. We have already started planning the second ICTAC in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2005. UNU-IIST has also sponsored SEFM 2004 in Beijing, and offered travel scholarships for people to attend. The project “Development of Computer Science Departments in Developing Countries” sends young computer science lecturers from developing countries to partner universities in industrial countries for a semester to learn new courses and introduce them to their departments. This year, as well as surveying participants, we have organised two workshops, in Nigeria and Vietnam, to further disseminate the results and evaluate the project. 1.4 Staff Chris George has been Director a.i. since March 2003. Prof Mike Reed has accepted the position and should start at the beginning of 2005. Dr. Antonio Cerone joined UNU-IIST as a Research Fellow in February 2004. Antonio was pre- viously at the Software Verification Research Centre at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is an expert in formal methods, particularly models for concurrency and model checking. A second vacancy has been filled by the appointment of Dr. Tomasz Janowski, who was previ- ously a Research Fellow during 1995–2002. UNU-IIST has appointed its first post-doctoral fellow, Dr Adegboyega Ojo, who is working on the e-Macao project, and plans to appoint more such fellows on research projects in the near future. Report No. 314, March 2005 UNU-IIST, P.O. Box 3058, Macau Status of implementation of project activities 3 2 Status of implementation of project activities 2.1 Models for Internet-based programming Staff responsible He Jifeng Budgetary provision for 2004–5 USD 76 250 Amount expended by end 2004 USD 23 101 (30%) Project abstract Recent distributed computing projects have been designed to use the com- puters of hundreds of thousands of volunteers all over the world, via the Internet. The last ten years have seen a marked interest in Internet-based technology, spanning applications as diverse as information retrieval, intelligent user interface design, knowledge manage- ment. We aim to tackle the following features of Internet-based systems ² autonomy ² mobility ² proactivity and reactivity ² cooperation The project plans to cover the following topics 1.