Problems for development and construction of information systems have been shifting with times. At early stage of information systems, main problem was how to newly develop large-scale systems, and the reconstruction problem followed. After that, expansion of information systems to decision-making processes has appeared. Recently enterprise application integration is strongly required and the scope of the integration is now being extended to collaboration among enterprises. Technology for development and construction has been evolving according to the shift of the problems. Database integration and software bus have played powerful roles for the expansion and integration problems, which will be extended to those on networks among enterprises. In this expansion, multi-agents technology will become important for assuring collaboration with autonomy among the participants.

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The paper first summarizes the rationale of software process and sofware process improvement (SPI). Secondly, a SPI activities map which covers activities by the Software Engineering Institute of the Carnegie Mellon University, the Software Experience Factory of the University of Maryland, the ISO/IEC SC7, the International Council on Systems Engineering and various industrial organizations is introduced. Thirdly, methodologies underlying software process measurement, such as the Goal Question Indicators and Measures Model, GQ (I) M model, are summarized. The paper is concluded by several proposals that will be expected by the author to become major breakthrough in software process improvement in the future.

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Software services, such as Web services, are emerging technologies to reuse software as services over the Internet by wrapping underlying computing models with XML, Software services are rapidly evolving and are expected to change the paradigms of both development and use of information systems. This article discusses the current status and challenges of software services technologies. We classify the software services technologies into two categories : platform and development technologies. On the platform technologies, we provide a service-oriented computing framework for publishing, finding and executing services over the Internet. The framework consists of number of technologies such as SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. Brokerage of services is discussed. On the service-oriented development technologies, we discuss two development models : business-driven and user-driven models. The software services are expected to enable more dynamic collaboration across the organizational boundaries, thus, demand us to re-think the way we organize corporation and business processes. Finally, a number of open issues are pointed out.

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Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive disease of motor nerves. The symptom is total paralysis. The authors have been developing a Communication Aids (CA). The most important part of the CA is the input device (sensor). In this paper, the authors propose the algorithm with which the sensor can detect the character on a moving syllabary the eye is focusing on, synchronized with the movement of the center of the pupil detected by neural networks. It is possible for the input device to detect the character exactly.

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As managers' interest in Information Technology (IT) investments goes on rising, their effects have severely taken into account. However, it is difficult to clarify the effects quantitatively. Therefore, it is not easy to state what the problems are when managers feel that IT investments have little effect on business. This paper proposes how to analyze factors obstructive to a value of IT by taking a quick survey of IT investments. First, a model is developed which constructs seven main factors obstructive to a value of IT from four viewpoints-information impact on business, systems' contribution on business operation, the information systems (IS) users' qualities, and support by the IS staff. The model leads to the questionnaire survey to the IS users. Statistical validity and effectiveness are demonstrated by applying to several enterprises. The proposed approach narrows down the problems in business processes and information systems. It also provides basic data for planning IT investments strategy.

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We propose a bottleneck detection method for CORBA-based distributed object systems. This method has following two features. The first one is to realize instrumentation without modifying target objects by using “interceptor” Interceptor is a function of CORBA-based distributed object systems which can intercept messages among objects. The other is to output a procedure which is executed by an end user as a sequence diagram. By using this method, we can detect performance bottlenecks from end user's viewpoints. This method can't specify a sequence uniquely in case of multiplicity of procedures on one object. In this paper, we show the multiplicity does not matter for bottleneck detection in practice.

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This paper presents new architecture for managed cyber business community platform to realize secure, fair and efficient business-to-business electronic commerce. The main features of the architecture are dynamic inter-enterprise business relationship management and service level management from the business viewpoints, which, the authors think, are the most important factors for realizing managed cyber business community platform. For the first feature, this paper presents new method that explicitly describes inter-enterprise business relationship with business level workflow and whereby dynamically controls the sharing and exchange of confidential information depending on the current status of inter-enterprise business relationships. For the second feature, business-driven and directory-based system management scheme is newly proposed, which integrates requirements and objects in a system with directory from the viewpoints of security, reliability and performance, respectively, and makes it easy to translates service level requirements from business viewpoints into information and communication level requirements. The proposed architecture has been applied to electronic business platform services called “TWX-21”, Trade Winds on Extranet in 21st century, and proved to be very useful.

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This paper proposes a support system for the requirement extraction from BBS(Bulletin Board System). On BBS in EC (Electronic Commerce) sites, participants who are consumers easily write frank opinions, which produce active conversation as enormous text data and include unexpected opinions and consumers' requirements. In this system, opinions on BBS are classified by topics and arranged on a 3-dimensional space so that users (product designers) can easily grasp how topics are interwoven into conversations. Furthermore, a method using the feature of the conversation structure on BBS is proposed for correcting the recognition of opinions written in colloquial style.

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We have developed an intention-transmitting system as communication aid for the bedridden. We measured single-trial MRCPs (movement-related cortical potentials), which evoked only voluntary movement. We analyzed the potentials by the multi analytical filter with haar wavelets, and then discriminated right-hand-movement or left-hand-movement. For character entry system, the intention signal moves a cursor on the virtual keyboard, and the character is entered bu waiting. As the results, intention-transmitting rate had average of approximately 70%, and input rate had average of 1.9 [character/minute].

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This paper studies on high precision oscillator using GPS. In recent years, the high stabilization of the oscillator has been requested along with high speed of mobile communication devices.
In this paper, first, we study on the relation between the number of measurement times and precision of the GPS reception signal. Because SA(Selective Availability) was canceled from May 2000, the precision of the received GPS signals is improving at present. Therefore, there is a possibility that we can decrease the integration number of measurement times. We show that integration with approximately 10³ times must he done. As a result we show that equal or superior stability is obtained at 1/10 the previous integration number of time.
Also, the GPS reception signal has the high stability for the aging characteristic. We study on improvement of aging characteristic of crystal oscillator by using estimate function. As a result, we show that the frequency change reducing method by the aging characteristic revision is effective.

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We propose a new system for generation of a personal color-illustration from a facial image. The proposed system has the following features. It is possible to generate personal color-illustrations that take after the person in the input image. The system requires a small amount of user's operation using its interactive interface to obtain some facial information. Skin area of the illustration is painted the color just like the skin of input. The illustration is deformed to have facial expression, and to exaggerate the facial features. Some accessory parts are combined with the illustration. We confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed system by user survey.

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This paper presents a fingerprint verification method based on the linear predictive coding (LPC) analysis. This method is useful for realizing on small-size hardware because the computation to extract spectrum patterns from fingerprint images consists of one-dimensional signal processings. In evaluation, the recognition rates of the methods using the LPC spectrum, LPC cepstrum, and the group delay spectrum (GDS) are compared. The results showed that the highest recognition rate is obtained for the GDS. The true acceptance rate was 97.4% under true rejection rate of 100.0%. The true acceptance rate improved to 98.5% by the DP matching with free start and end points. Furthermore, we showed that 2-bits quantization of the GDS brings no decrease of the recognition rate.

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This paper presents a new texture feature extraction method called Simple texel scale featare(STSF) based on the scale information of texels along a direction. And a new image segmentation method based on binary image processing is introduced.
The scale information of texels is extracted by comparing the gray value of two pixels. The position relation of these two pixels shows the scale feature of texels along a direction. Texel scale features can be extracted by using different position relation(distance and direction)
After obtaining texture feature images, we consider the texture image segmentation problem not a pattern classification problem but several texture edges integration problems, which are simple binary value line processing problems like Holes filling, Lines thinning and shorting. A new Cellular Neural Network(CNN) called Multi-step CNN(MSCNN) and Discrete MSCNN (DMSCNN) are proposed, some DMSCNNs are designed for these problems.

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In this paper, a high speed personal identification system which is adaptable for slant faces is presented.
In the proposed method, the 25 facial images which are taken with different angles are registered in the database as reference images. The similarity of an input image is first examined between all registered images and the three facial images, which are similar to the input image, are then extracted as the candidate facial images. The isodensity maps, which is expected to have the maximum similarity to the input image, is created by the interpolation between two candidate images and the input facial image is judged identical or not with the interpolated images.
A template matching is adopted to obtain a similarity between two isodensity lines. In general, template matching requires a lot of time to obtain maximum similarity, while on the other hand it is very simple to use. To reduce the processing time for the matching efficiently, the techniques which are suited for the line pictures and the Sequential Similarity Detection Algorithm (SSDA) are adopted.
Computer simulation using 50 people shows 95.2% correct discrimination accuracy rate. In addition, processing time is reduced to approximately one twelfth. From the experimental results, the prospects of using this method are very encouraging.

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This paper proposes a new selection method of a gene from a population for reducing the number of fitness value calculations in genetic algorithms. The proposed method effectively reduces the computation time required to search for a solution to the optimization of a process involving a large number of such calculations like in robot behaviors decisions, neural network learnings, and so on. In the proposed method, the use of a special buffer for storing a gene and its associated fitness value is introduced. The gene in the buffer is used as a candidate for the solution to the optimization problem. This gene is compared with a gene selected from the population, and one of the values is used in the next generation depending upon the results of the comparison. The proportion of suitable genes in the population is increased in the possible shortest time. The convergence speed of our buffer depends on the population topology, which is introduced for choosing a gene from the population to compare with the buffer gene. Three kinds of topology are applied to our algorithm and they are compared and evaluated each other. The proposed method is applied to a robot control problem to demonstrate the validity of the technique.

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In this paper, we propose a practical and flexible method for reactive scheduling for the delivery scheduling problem where the environment changes dynamically. The method is based on the model of distributed cooperative problem solving and the method of hypothetical reasoning. In the delivery scheduling, the environmental conditions such as the traffic condition of roads, availability of the delivering vehicles and drivers, etc. change during the execution of the delivery, and the reactive and adaptive measures are required to cope with such situations. By employing the distributed cooperative problem-solving framework, and hypothetical reasoning method, we achieved an efficient and robust method for reactive scheduling for the delivery scheduling.

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Along with multiplicity of demand, many companies are advancing construction of an information system combining customer's demand information and integrating various kinds of automation elements of a production process organically that aims for profit maximization. To construct such system, at first an essential review of the work is necessary, and various kinds of software package are used effectively, to improve the efficiency of system development. However, there are few systems that are operated as an integrated management system in which an operation control system of a production site is connected with an information system of an upper management level. So, the database for theses systems should be integrated.
In the field of batch process, SP88 committee was established in ISA, in which standardization of data structures and guidelines for language that are related to the batch operation control is carried out. And, there are many software packages for the batch operation control, which are conformed to this standard, and the advanced utilization of such packages is paid attention. However, the data structure that is prescribed with SP88 is of the level of an operation control, and the date structure for a scheduling that connects with an upper management level is not mentioned so much.
This paper describes a data structure for recipe management system for batch process to integrate batch control with scheduling. At first, this paper introduces a target scheduling system, called Front-end Scheduling System, that combines batch control system with upper management level. For such scheduling system, unified recipe management system for S88 batch control system and scheduling system is proposed.

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We propose a reuse-oriented development method to improve productivity and reliability in software development. Using this method, which we call VOA (Variation Oriented Approach), developers can get well-structured system specifications. In VOA, Specifications are described a hierarchically structured fragments. Each fragment is affected by a single factor. Specifications are structured from three relations of fragments: sequence, selection and iteration. We can elaborate a framework and black box parts based on structured fragments.
This method has following effects. System users can define specification by selection of variation, thereby they can positively select reusable specification, and they can reduce cost for definition of system specification. This method can be applied not only to software reuse, but also to document reuse.
This paper also describes case study applying VOA to steel rolling plant control system.

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This paper describes the automatic generation of system descriptions for SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems. The proposed method produces various types of data and programs for SCADA systems from equipment definitions using conversion rules. At first, this method makes directed graphs, which represent connections between the equipment, from equipment definitions. System descriptions are generated using the conversion rules, by analyzing these directed graphs, and finding the groups of equipment that involve similar operations. This method can be used with various SCADA systems, and provides visual editing tools for conversion rule modification.

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We develop a car type preference model based on a detailed database on sales and characteristics of cars in 1990's. The model enables us to analyze the CO₂ reduction effects of green taxation of car possession. Green taxation can be the effective method with a small tax burden and a revenue-neutral taxation. Comparing the several taxation methods, the most effective way is to add (reduce) a proportional figure to the fuel consumption per distance to (from) the present possession tax. The CO₂ reduction is approximately six percent per year in the flow base, while it decreases to five percent per year considering into account the feedback on the increase of running distance. The less effective but more practical method is to classify cars according to the size and apply the green taxes for each class of size. In this case, the classification by the displacement is more effective than by car weight. And CO₂ reduction in the city area is larger than the rural area since the green taxation increases the running distance of the small size car, the ratio of which is lower in the city area.

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In order to achieve high performance of parallel programs executed on a SIMD parallel computer, it is necessary to speed up the execution of scalar operations as well as array operations. A scalar processor, which is one of the main component of a SIMD parallel computer, has an important role for not only executing scalar operations but also controlling execution of parallel programs and array operations.
In this paper, we propose a way to realize a high-speed scalar processor using general-purpose microprocessor and the methodology to execute the parallel programs efficiently. By adapting these methods, we show that we can achieve both high performance of scalar operations and improvement of total performance, and can keep future expandability of a SIMD parallel computer.

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After the emergence of the RSA encryption in which the difficulty of the prime factorization was used for in the security technology of the Internet, the difficulty of the prime factorization has been greatly concerned with the safety of the security. In order to speed up the prime factorization by using elliptic curve method, we carried out distributed parallel processing with 50 PC units connected to a network. We developed the distributed parallel calculation of the prime factorization in the elliptic curve method to adapt it to object-shared space (tuple space) which works on the server, and performed the distributed parallel processing with worker-master pattern. The experimental result of the system indicates that the speed of the prime factorization of long composite integers increases with increasing PC units and the calculation time of prime factorization mainly depends on the size of prime factors.

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In global optimization, there is a method using discretized chaos map of continuous gradient model by Euler method. On the other hand, another method is suggested that enables to escape from local minima by permitting some degrees of increase. In this paper, we suggest a new hybrid method of combining these methods, which make it possible to find the global minimum with a higher rate and more efficiently.
The essence of discretized chaos mapping lies in containing nonlinear elements which bounds the trajectory in the constraint domain. Applying the chaotic annealing method which decreases bifurcation parameter stabilizes the trajectory and leads it to local minima, while there is a difficulty in choosing appropriate annealing parameters. On the other hand, increase accepting method are essentially used in combinatorial optimization. Because it generates a new candidate from finite sets, it is inefficient to use for continuous optimization. In our hybrid approach, however, a new candidate is generated by the chaos mapping with chaotic annealing, then accepting method judges if it is chosen as a new solution.
In this paper, we introduce two types of discretized chaos mapping models first. Next, we show the concept of the chaotic annealing and the hybrid type of algorithm. The efficiency is tested by numerical simulation, and it is concluded that the hybrid type is applicable to both chaotic models and any problem independently.

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All optical clock extraction from NRZ optical signals is presented. Optical Exclusive OR gate is realized by interference of optical signals that are transmitted along fast and slow axes of a polarization maintaining fiber. Completeness of the recovered clock is confirmed by error free transmissions at 20 Gbit/s through a 200-km optical line.

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In this letter, a new impulse detector is proposed in order to realize a switching median filter, which can remove salt-pepper impulse noise while preserving details. In the detector, a pixel pattern on the window is classified into some cluster by using the self-organizing maps, and then a difference between the central pixel value and a median of the window is calculated. Finally, the detection is achieved by comparing the difference with a threshold value, which is assigned to a cluster. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is better than a conventional algorithm and is particularly effective for the cases where the images are highly corrupted.

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