From: mhmann@nyx.cs.du.edu (Me Mann)
Subject: Re: Kahaner Report: SE Asia Regional Computer Conf, Kuala Lumpur, 8/92
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Forwarded from comp.research.japan:



In article <22859@optima.cs.arizona.edu> rick@cs.arizona.edu (Rick Schlichting) writes:
>
>  [Dr. David Kahaner is a numerical analyst on sabbatical to the 
>   Office of Naval Research-Asia (ONR Asia) in Tokyo from NIST.  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 using
>   anonymous FTP from host cs.arizona.edu, directory japan/kahaner.reports.]
>
>To: Distribution
>From: 
> David K. Kahaner
> US Office of Naval Research Asia
> (From outside US):  23-17, 7-chome, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106 Japan
> (From within  US):  Unit 45002, APO AP 96337-0007
>  Tel: +81 3 3401-8924, Fax: +81 3 3403-9670
>  Email: kahaner@cs.titech.ac.jp
>Re: Southeast Asia Regional Computer Conf (SEARCC'92), Kuala Lumpur, 8/92
>11 Sept 1992
>This file is named "malaysia.92"
>
>ABSTRACT. Summary of the Southeast Asia Regional Computer Conference 
>(SEARCC'92) held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 11-14 August 1992. Also 
>general overview of the state of Malaysian information technology 
>activities.
>
>I wish to thank 
>        Dr. Tengku Mohd. Azzman Shariffadeen
>        Director General
>        Malaysian Institute of Microelectronics (MIMOS)
>        Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment
>        7th Floor, Exchange Square
>        Off Jalan Semantan
>        Damansara Heights
>        50490 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
>         Tel: +60 3-255-2700; Fax: +60 3 255-2755
>         Email: TMAS@JARING.ISM.MY
>and
>	Prof Michael J. Olan
>        Computer Science Department
>        University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse
>        131 Morris Hall
>        La Crosse, WI 54601 USA
>         Tel: (608) 785-6815; Fax: (608) 785-8221
>         Email: OLAN@CSFAC.UWLAX.EDU
>for many helpful comments, corrections and additions to this report. 
>
>  I. GENERAL COMMENTS, MALAYSIA, HISTORY & ECONOMIC SITUATION
> II. SEARCC'92
>III. SEARCC'92 EXPO
> IV. STATISTICAL INFORMATION
>  V. MEANWHILE, BACK IN SINGAPORE
> VI. CHIP SALES
>VII. SEARCC'92 PAPERS/AUTHORS
>
>I. GENERAL COMMENTS, MALAYSIA, HISTORY & ECONOMIC SITUATION------------
>
>This was my first visit to Malaysia. My impressions were very different
>from my expectations, the latter formed entirely by reading. I expected
>to see a third world country, agriculture driven, and visibly regulated
>by a strong Islamic fundamentalism. I can only report on what I did see,
>hear, and learn, which were quite different. Kuala Lumpur (KL) the
>capital, looks strikingly like its southern neighbor, Singapore, must
>have looked only a few years ago. Large residential, commercial, and
>hotel construction is everywhere. Ultramodern skyscrapers are adjacent
>to mosques, minarets, and cupolas. There are many weary structures, but
>also new department stores and slick malls.  A large horse-race track
>complex in the center of the city is about to move to the suburbs, to
>be replaced by a complex that will house the tallest building in
>Southeast Asia, over 90 stories. A telecom tower is being built jointly
>with a German construction firm at a cost of $250 Million Malaysian
>(about $100M US); over 420 meters high, this will be the third tallest
>tower in the world and the tallest in Southeast Asia. Streets and shops
>are full of people and vehicles (there is no underground Metro--one
>major difference between KL and Singapore--buses are packed). There are
>many Malaysian women wearing traditional Moslem black garments covering
>all or at least part of their faces. But many more wear bright colored
>clothing, and Western jeans, pants, and tee-shirts are everpresent.
>Stores are stocked with the usual cornucopia of Japanese electronics
>as well as clothing from famous houses around the world.  Cafes are full
>of fashionable looking people drinking cappuccino, Perrier, etc.  The
>road between the capital and the airport (about 30km) is lined with with
>multinational factories.  My taxi driver told me that the Hilton in the
>city was busy, but not as busy as the one near the airport which is more
>convenient for international business people visiting their Malaysian
>subsidiaries. (A new international airport is to be constructed about
>40km from the capital at an estimated cost of about $8B US; the old
>airport will service domestic flights. This will be Southeast Asia's
>largest airport, even larger than Singapore's, quite an accomplishment.)
>The road south from Kuala Lumpur (toward Singapore) is new, multilaned
>and spacious, although not completed all the way to the border. However,
>I am told that roads in other areas are significantly underdeveloped,
>and along with ports, energy and telecommunication systems their supply
>is outstripped by demand.  There is substantial evidence of new
>building, along with plenty of examples of agriculture, primarily rubber
>and coconut palm plantations.  The government has earmarked about $40B
>US for infrastructure, social development and defense expenditure over
>the next five years.  In most areas of economic development Malaysia
>leads Thailand, and per capita income is almost twice as high.
>
>Malaysia, formerly British ruled Malaya, became independent in 1957.
>The country is ruled by a constitutional monarch elected for a five-year
>term by the nine hereditary sultans of the traditional Malay states from
>among themselves on a rotational basis. It is composed of two large
>parts, the southern half of the Malay Peninsula which connects (through
>Thailand) to mainland Asia, and about half the large island of Borneo to
>the east.  This island also contains a large Indonesian state and the
>tiny country of Brunei. Malaysia has almost 18 million people, about 30%
>are of Chinese extraction, 9% from India or Celon (mostly Hindus), and
>most of the others Malay; almost all the latter are Moslems.  The
>country is well endowed with natural resources, including lumber, oil
>and natural gas; by Southeast Asian standards Malaysia is large and not
>heavily populated-- there is plenty of room for growth.  British
>interest was focused on tin and rubber as well as shipping (tin exports
>now run at a rate of about $300M US, about one fifth the amount obtained
>from palm oil). The city of Malacca (150km south of Kuala Lumpur) on the
>mainland's west coast was Portuguese, then Dutch, then British, and is
>at the juncture of trade routes between Europe and the Middle East. The
>adjacent Straits of Malacca are still one the world's busiest waterways.
>
>Originally Singapore was part of Malaysia (only about one half mile
>separates these two countries, the island of Singapore being at the
>southern tip of the Peninsula), but separated in 1965 after only two
>years.  The then Prime Minister of Malaysia agreed to the separation of
>Singapore because the Chief Minister of Singapore wanted certain
>freedoms that were not allowed for under the agreement on federation,
>such as education which is a federal, not a state matter.  Even today
>many Malaysians feel that Singapore is a part of Malaysia and should not
>have been allowed to separate. 
>
>There are also distinct ethnic differences between Singapore and
>Malaysia (Singapore is over 90% of Chinese extraction).  Indeed, there
>have been disputes between Malay and Chinese during the country's short
>history. The Chinese have focused on commerce and been very successful,
>the Malays have dominated agriculture and government.  Since the early
>1970s explicit government policy has favored Malays in education and
>wherever possible, jobs, in an effort to give them a fairer share of
>their own country's wealth. Coupled with Moslem religious policies, this
>has created differences between Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians,
>etc. Nevertheless, I was told repeatedly that all groups now live
>amicably.  Some Malaysian experts feel that racial tension in the US and
>England is worse than in Malaysia, and some people would even go as far
>as to say that Malaysia is a role model for racial harmony.  None of
>these people would claim that there no problems but that the problems
>are being tackled in an enlightened and fair manner.  Certainly the
>government realizes that at least in the area of industrial progress it
>must utilize all the human resources available, and a senior official
>recently pointed out that "In many developing countries, political
>stability and national unity were never emphasized...It is important
>[our] national leadership integrate political, social, and economic
>factors in the quest for modernization." The Far Eastern Economic Review
>notes that the Malaysian "government will de-emphasize its long-espoused
>goal of redistributing 30% of the nation's wealth to...Malay majority by
>a specified date... [and] will be less inclined to provide a free ride
>to [any] class."
>
>Recent growth has been very strong, averaging about 8% annually since
>1980. Unemployment is just over 4%, considered to be a full employment
>situation, but a shortfall of more than half a million workers is
>predicted by the end of the decade.  Rapid growth has generated a modest
>amount of inflation (around 4%), and the country has a weak balance of
>payments position, the latter fueled by increases in consumer spending
>and foreign investment.  The manufacturing sector claims that its labor
>pool is already short by 80,000 workers. Many foreign workers, including
>more than half a million from Indonesia are employed illegally.  At the
>same time, higher salaries and opportunities elsewhere are attracting
>skilled Malaysians to move out of the country. This is a situation that
>Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other rapidly developing countries in the
>region have also faced. However, this seems to be self correcting, as
>many of these people are returning to their homeland in senior
>positions, now that the economic outlook is brighter.
>
>As mentioned above there are many Western companies in Malaysia, and 
>investment from outside Malaysia is very strong, more than $6.5B US in
>1990, with France and Australia involved in two large refinery projects. 
>Taiwan has been Malaysia's largest investor, since 1987 almost $5B US, 
>although the rate has been reduced recently, partially because Taiwan is 
>focusing on mainland China currently, and also because a $3B US steel 
>plant project is still on hold. (There is also a political problem 
>concerning the impact of Taiwanese (Chinese) capital on the government's 
>plan to distribute national wealth more equitably--see above, but the 
>prevailing attitude is "It doesn't matter where the money comes from", or 
>more directly, "growth will take precedence over distribution". The 
>Malaysian government appears to have a pragmatic view.) While I was here 
>Motorola celebrated its 20th anniversary in Malaysia, having invested 
>more than $350M US here. At the same time the company's Malaysian 
>subsidiary has been given the task of spearheading the entry into PR 
>China.  Motorola records substantially more than $1B US in turnover at 
>four manufacturing facilities here, between 20-30% of the company's 
>global output.  
>
>Malaysia is going to spend a great deal of money developing its R&D if 
>current plans are implemented. By the year 2000, the country plans to 
>spend 2% of its GDP on R&D expenses (1.5% by 1995). Most of this increase should come 
>from the private sector whose contribution is predicted to increase 
>to about 60% of total R&D expenditures. Five priority sectors have
>been identified, biotechnolgy, automatic manufacturing, advanced
>materials, electronics, and information processing. The current budget
>allocates about $M600Malaysian ($250M US) to strengthen existing R&D
>institutions and promote joint research between private, university, and
>government institutes.
>
>Four other anecdotal examples of recent activities.
>
>(1) NEC has recently been awarded a $6.3M US  network system order.  NEC
>will deliver three 3400/65 mid-sized mainframes and more than 250
>workstations and connect them into a network linking four major customs
>office centers across Malaysia. In addition to building up a network
>infrastructure, the system is claimed to be needed to handle the
>country's expanding trade and the influx of foreign capital.  This is
>NEC's largest order to a governmental agency in Southeast Asia. NEC is
>also working to build an ISDN switch in a new international telecom
>gateway.
>
>(2) A very interesting joint Malaysian-Australian aircraft project, the
>Eagle X-TS, will be delivered this December, with about 75 aircraft to
>be built in 1993 and 450 by 1997. The Eagle X-TS is a three (sic) flying
>surface aircraft, with one large "wing" above and behind the cockpit and
>a smaller one below and just behind the single front prop. The
>Australian partner claims that this is its first project to use advanced
>composite materials technology.  The Malaysian company is a joint
>venture between the Malaysian government and Petronas, the Malaysia's
>petrochemical company.
>
>(3) Malaysia's Prime Minister will lead a trade delegation to Vietnam,
>the first ever such visit to Hanoi since Malaysia gained its
>independence in 1957.
>
>(4) There is even an automobile industry in Malaysia. With the help of the 
>Japanese, Malaysia's national car, the Proton Saga has been on sale since 
>1985, with nearly 400,000 cars sold in Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, 
>and Britain; this summer a new model was launched.
>
>During the week that SEARCC'92 was being held, Malaysia was also running
>a Congress & Seminar on Science and Technology, focused on the year
>2020, a key date in government action plans and recommendations set forth
>in R&D related policy papers. Five major topics were selected, Medicine,
>Agriculture, Social, Industry, and Strategic. The last two include the
>following. 
>     Industry:   Product, Service, Processing, Technology
>     Strategic:  Energy, Environment, Advanced materials, New techniques
>I did not participate in this meeting but was told that a report will be
>compiled and presented to the National Council for Scientific Research
>and Development (NCSRD). Interested readers can contact
>        Urusetia
>        Kongress & Seminar S&T Kebangsaan KE-6
>        d/a Kompleks PUSPATI, Bangi
>        4300 KAJANG, MALAYSIA
>         Tel: +60 3-825-0510; Fax: +60 3-825-8262
>
>See also my remarks about Singapore, Malaysia's southern neighbor, at
>the end of this report.
>
>II. SEARCC'92-----------------------------------------------------------
>
>This was the 11th annual South East Asia Regional Computer Conference,
>attended by about 650 delegates.  SEARCC is composed of computer
>professionals from eleven countries, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka,
>Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines,
>Australia, and New Zealand (NZ joined in 1991).  Its main aim has
>been to allow Information Technology (IT) professionals to meet and
>share information. SEARCC is not primarily a research conference on
>computer science, although some research activities are featured. This
>year's conference theme was "IT Building Information Infrastructure for
>National/Regional Growth." Thus the focus was on those aspects of
>computing that will have a broad impact and the importance of
>information technology in the progress and development of member
>countries. This includes many business related topics, such as
>commercial information services (Electronic Data Interchange, Open
>Systems, Value Added Networks, etc). It also includes infrastructure
>topics such as security, education, standards, policies, as well as
>general management and human resources issues. Other buzzwords were
>object oriented technology, networking, and telecommunications.  Thus
>the majority of the presentations made at the conference touched upon
>these topics and their role in human development.  (Some comments about
>the basic questions associated with this theme are detailed below.)
>Associated with the conference was an exhibition which drew more than
>20,000 visitors, as well as the meetings of SEARCC Regional Interest
>Groups (SRIGs). Eight SRIGs have been identified; during this conference
>papers were presented on education, standardization, and
>telecommunications as part of the SRIGs. In addition there was an
>International Computer Programming Competition for student teams from
>SEARCC member countries.  The conference was held at the World Trade
>Center in Kuala Lumpur, which is up to international standards in terms
>of all facilities. A two volume proceedings (in English) is available
>from the publisher. A list of titles and authors is attached to this
>report and I will distribute copies of selected articles to interested
>readers as time permits.
>
>    Publisher:
>        Gabungan Komputer Nasional Malaysia
>        Malaysian National Computer Confederation (MNCC)
>        46A, Jalan SS 2/66, 47300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan
>        MALAYSIA
>
>The ten countries of SEARCC have a wide ranging socio-economic structure and 
>capability (see tables below), agriculture is still a very significant 
>industry (especially with respect to the number of workers), services are 
>important, and value-added is low in most sectors. The countries all need 
>vast improvements in human development services (education, health, etc), 
>R&D is generally weak (with some exceptions) as are the telecommunication 
>and data services infrastructure (again with some exceptions). In the 
>area of IT, consumption is very low compared to the US or Japan and the 
>focus is on hardware. Most hardware is exported (86%) and the region is 
>very weak in software production and information services. 
>
>In Malaysia, the 1990 electronics industry output was $8B US, accounting 
>for 18% of the country's GDP, and 25% of its exports. This industry has 
>had a compound growth rate of 22% since 1978. The computer industry 
>forecasts sales in 1992 of $775M US, with only about one quarter in 
>software or services, the rest in hardware, with per capita consumption 
>of less than $50 US. In other words, the electronics industry in Malaysia 
>is important, but not yet as a source of IT development, primarily 
>because indigenous R&D is insufficient. 
>
>The opening SEARCC session included a keynote address by Academician
>B.L.  Sendov (Bulgaria), President of IFIP (International Federation for
>Information Processing), who discussed the somewhat enigmatic topic of
>"Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom." The main premise of the talk
>was that while computers are far superior to humans in processing data
>into information, it is still in the realm of humans to be able to
>process knowledge in a way that produces what we refer to as wisdom. The
>address was highlighted by a live videoconference between participants
>of SEARCC '92 and Professors Rubenstein and Leeburg at UCLA, organized
>by Telekom Malaysia. (This is the recently privatized telephone company
>which is now trying to develop products and services that consumers
>want. Their latest, Smartfon,  uses a direct wireless base station link
>from a subscriber's handset to the public switched telephone network
>allowing calls to be made but not received.  The motivation here is to
>duplicate the very rapid subscriber growth seen in Hong Kong and
>Singapore.) In my opinion, the primary motivation for the teleconference
>was to demonstrate the technology. For large conferences like this one,
>there is little audience interaction with the speakers--the session was
>essentially a lecture--and having an expensive video link requiring one
>group to be awake in the middle of the night appears to be overkill. A
>simple videotape would have been just as effective.  A video conference
>is most useful when the participants need to be truly interactive.
>
>The remainder of the first plenary session included talks about
>networking. The most significant fact presented was that networking
>provides the key to information sharing, and access to large
>international information networks, e.g., Internet and data bases, is
>crucial for developing countries.
>
>I found that many of the papers, not unexpectedly, were of a very
>general nature, on "soft" topics, papers describing products or soon to
>be introduced products, introductory papers, etc.  I was less interested
>in those and confine my remarks to the more technically oriented
>presentations. But to be fair, many papers were of specific interest to
>members of the audience who were working in related application areas.
>In my opinion, some of the best papers described problems and trends
>with specific countries. It is clear that all the countries in the
>region see IT as a core technology for social and economic growth and
>are working diligently to build the infrastructure to support this.
>Everyone admits that IT has the potential to enhance other industrial
>sectors, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. A key technological aspect of
>this relates to telecommunications and networking. Another aspect is
>human resources, there simply are not enough trained technicians and
>scientists and education and training are seen as important needs. In
>some ways all of SEARCC'92 was a pep-talk for IT, with numerous
>statistics cited to show its growing importance, and repeated references
>to the MITI 2000 report with extrapolations suggesting that the
>information industry could account for as much as one fifth of Japan's
>GNP by the year 2000, the labor force involved in IT will be 3-4 times
>the 1984 levels, etc. There is no doubt that IT will be one of (or maybe
>the) key industry in the next century, but I suspect that at SEARCC'92
>these kinds of papers were "preaching to the choir".
>
>One Malaysian paper is worthy of note, if only to illustrate the state
>of current thinking. Scientists from the Mechanical Engineering Dept of
>the University of Technology Malaysia presented the results of a numerical
>simulation of two dimensional air flow in a enclosure with heated walls.
>The SIMPLE (Semi Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations) method
>was used for solving the discrete equations, but the main point of their
>paper was to demonstrate the integration of various existing analysis
>tools, including a Fortran fluid flow solver, SAS for producing contour
>plots, and AutoCad for other plots. The authors conclude "We have shown
>that there is a need for an integrated engineering analysis system...
>[to] provide engineers with an effective tool to design and operate
>engineering systems... This may be accomplished by converting the data
>generated into a format that can be exported to any engineering
>package." This is true, and in the West is accepted practice within the
>engineering community.
>
>The conference Proceedings included the text of about twenty papers,
>including the one above, that were not presented at SEARCC'92.  Most of
>these were research papers and included reports on imaging systems and
>natural language processing from Malaysian scientists, an interesting
>computer graphics paper from Singapore, and a generalization of a
>encryption scheme (proposed by Davida, Wells, & Kam and known as DWKC)
>by Taiwanese scientists which replaces the Chinese remainder theorem
>with an algorithm based on Galois fields. Because these papers were not
>presented there was no mechanism to allow discussion with their authors.
>
>One afternoon track was devoted to eight research papers.  This session
>was a last minute addition, urged on the organizers by colleagues at the
>National University of Singapore (NUS). Because of scheduling, all but
>one of the speakers were from that country and, disappointingly there
>were no Malaysian speakers. In addition, the papers were not included in
>the Proceedings although one paper was made available to us on the last
>day of the conference. (Frankly, I couldn't distinguish between some of
>the better papers given in the Proceedings but not presented, and this
>set, presented but not in the Proceedings.) Most SEARCC attendees took
>the opportunity to participate in an industrial tour, but those few
>dozen who stayed were extremely surprised to discover that most of
>the research papers were of excellent quality, in fact among the most
>coherent and clearly presented work at SEARCC'92.  Several of these
>presentations were of as high a quality as those given at conferences in
>the US and served as an indication that significant research is being
>done in parts of the Southeast Asia region. For the more technically
>minded, this session was one of the highlights of the conference, and I
>expect that this component will receive expanded coverage in subsequent
>SEARCC conferences.  (Next year's SEARCC will be in Hong Kong, 5-8
>October 1993, as part of that country's week-long IT exposition.)
>Without written papers the oral presentations (20 minutes) were sketchy,
>but below a few are described.
>
>Three of the most interesting of the research papers were presented by 
>       Prof Hon-Wai Leong
>       Dept of Information Systems & Computer Science
>       National University of Singapore
>       Lower Kent Ridge Road
>       Singapore 0511
>        Tel: +65 772-2903; Fax: +65 779-4580
>        Email: LEONGW@ISCS.NUS.SG
>and his collaborators at NUS.  Leong whose PhD is from Illinois,
>explained that there are two main groups in his department, Algorithms,
>and VLSI Design Automation, but that there is good interaction between
>them. For example, interest in robot motion planning can be related to
>VLSI routing, which in turn relates to computational geometry. He
>described the problem of a point robot in a 2D static environment with
>obstacles and free regions (all rectangular) and only horizontal or
>vertical motion allowed. Associated with this are problems of finding
>the shortest total length path, the path with minimum number of bends,
>etc.  All of these are being studied within his group, using various
>graph, tree search and line search algorithms.  ("Geometric Algorithms
>for Rectilinear Path Problems and their Applications"). More general
>problems of finite size robots and simultaneous movement of more than
>one robot are also being examined.  Leong also described work associated
>with reconfigurable memory (RRAM) or processor arrays ("Efficient
>Algorithms for Reconfiguring VLSI/WSI RRAMs by Row/Column Deletion"). By
>introducing structural redundancy it is possible to enhance the yield
>and improve the fault tolerance of these devices.  Given one or more bad
>processors, the goal is to find a good repair solution (e.g., replace
>one processor with a spare) or decide that the available spares are not
>configured in a way that will make repair possible.  With realistic
>constraints (finite number of spares, etc.) this is known to be an
>NP-hard problem (Konig Egervary Theorem), but Leong and his group have
>developed heuristics to speed up the algorithm, developed a new test for
>irrepairability, and performed a probability analysis for perfect
>(alpha, beta) covers. He claims that their new algorithm is very
>efficient for RAMs.
>
>In a related paper ("New Results on Channel Routing"), Leong's colleague
>K.K. Lee briefly described a new channel routing algorithm for reducing
>the number of "vias" (layer changes) and space between distinct chips,
>and claimed that this was an improvement on the bubble sort router
>developed by Chaudhary and Robinson. Details are to be presented at the
>Asia Pacific Conference on Circuits and Simulation (Dec 1992).
>
>Other papers in this session include Loh Wai Lung (NUS), ("Some
>Specifications for Object-Oriented Systems"), Sally Jo Cunningham,
>Waikato U, New Zealand, ("Learning Rules by Example: Finding the Rules
>Hidden in the Data"), Hong Jun Lu ("Least Fixed Point Computation in
>Deductive Database"), K.P. Tan, NUS, and ("Pyramid Grid Sort").
>Finally, Chin Wei Ngan (NUS) presented a splendid survey (" Optimizing
>Functional Programs"), i.e., no GOTOs, no global memory, no assignment
>statements.
>
>One invited presentation to the general conference on Massively Parallel
>Computers was by
>      Prof L.M. Patnaik
>      Dept of Computer Science & Automation
>      Chairman, Microprocessor Applications Laboratory
>      Indian Institute of Science
>      Bangalore 560 012 India
>Although no fault of Patnaik's, this paper was out of place at SEARCC.
>(In addition he had dozens of slides and was only given about 25
>minutes. When combined with typical Indian rapid-fire English and no
>printed manuscript it was doubtful if many of the Malaysians were able
>to follow him.) He presented a good overview of the need for, and
>capabilities of parallel computers, their history, and described in
>detail the ICL DAP, and the Thinking Machines CM-1 and CM-2 (all
>machines that have been superseded by newer models), concluding with a
>discussion of how parallel computers can be used to simulate neural
>networks. I have remarked in other reports, that India has an active
>parallel processing research program; Patnaik's paper was an indication
>that Indian scientists are carefully monitoring developments in this
>field. 
>
>Although not really research papers, there were presentations of various
>aspects of object-oriented technology. The conclusions drawn are that
>object-oriented techniques are being applied to the analysis, design,
>and implementation of a wide variety of information system projects and
>it appears that these methods will dominate development projects for
>some time to come.
>
>It is difficult to generalize about a large conference such as this, but 
>a few points stand out. 
>
>(1) Malaysia has officially embraced Open Systems for public sector
>procurements. This means that government agencies who are planning to
>purchase computer systems, software, etc., can specify their
>requirements in terms of various IEEE, ANSI, and ISO standards for
>general principles, operating system interfaces, programming languages,
>commands, utilities, networks, device interfaces, data management,
>interchange and compression, databases, user interfaces, security and
>system development methodology. They can then expect vendors will be
>able to comply on the basis of satisfying the standards set out in
>detail in these documents. MAMPU (Malaysian Administrative Modernization
>and Management Planning Unit, the prime agency responsible for
>promotion, usage, and control of IT in the public sector) has issued a
>detailed booklet, explaining the steps that government organizations
>should follow during their procurement and requirements specifications.
>At the moment, agency participation is voluntary, and specifications are
>stated as being recommended, preferred, or optional. Nevertheless, this
>is really quite a different situation from say, Japan, where Open
>Systems have not been as healthy as their proponents would like.
>
>In general, open systems attracted a lot of attention at SEARCC '92, and
>numerous presentations addressed issues related to this topic.  Talks
>ranged from those touting the benefits of their particular open systems
>products to a panel discussion of the pros and cons on open systems.  At
>SEARCC, senior managers from both OSF (Open System Foundation) and the
>Unix community made presentations.  Their key points were that the
>Unix/OSF wars are over, and that the organizations appreciate that they
>will need to cooperate to survive in the future. (Let's hope so.) There
>were repeated comments about the relative number of MS-DOS versus Unix
>systems indicating that Unix/OSF supporters have to work together.
>While conclusions are difficult to make due to the wide variety of
>views, there is no question that open systems will play a major role in
>IT development in Southeast Asia, with several governments already
>giving their support to open systems projects. At the R&D level,
>W.Coelli (Queensland Univ) stressed that an OSF compliance test center
>was badly needed in Asia.  Further evidence of the impact of open
>systems in the region was the IT Expo held in conjunction with the
>conference. This large exhibit featured over 20 vendors taking part in
>an interoperability demonstration of their respective systems and was
>one of the most crowded exhibits.
>
>(2) Research.  The research population in Malaysia is very low, only 330 
>per million people, compared to 4500 in Japan, 3850 in the US, and 2700 
>in Germany. Opportunities and money are the best way to improve this. For 
>example, various science and technology prizes offered by the government 
>have essentially been doubled, and the National Science Award is about 
>$20K US.  Nevertheless, lack of research papers (especially from
>Malaysia) was one complaint that I had about this SEARCC.
>
>(3) Software versus hardware in Southeast Asia. This tack was hammered on 
>by Dr.Stan Shih, the founder and Chairman of Acer. This is Taiwan's largest 
>computer company (more than $1B US in sales in 1991) and the most 
>respected Asian computer maker outside Japan. Acer makes a line of PC
>and workstation products including Unix boxes, laptops, and 486s.
>Shih's strategy for economic success is to move away from hardware into
>software. He pointed out that for the past ten years developing Asian
>countries have concentrated heavily on the development of PC- related
>hardware, to the extent that this part of the world is now one of the
>world's leading PC hardware manufacturing centers. But intense
>competition among PC hardware manufactures will reduce profit margins
>and the future lies in the development of value-added software,
>primarily in an open system environment. He detailed several specific
>steps.
>
> (a) Develop highly focused and niche products first, such as firmware
>bundled products (to take advantage of existing hardware expertise)
>concentrating on the regional markets in Asia and use the PC marketing
>channels already operational for exporting software. Regional market
>penetration can occur by forming strategic alliances with multinational
>companies. Shih feels that Asics are a very specific new opportunity in
>the software business, and he noted that Taiwan's Computer and
>Communication Laboratories of the Industrial Technology Research
>Institute (ITRI) is in a consortium with Sun, and the Taiwanese
>companies Tatung, Acer, Twinhead, and Mitac for R&D in Asic, SPARC
>workstations, and controllers for video graphics, peripheral buses, and
>DRAMs.
>
> (b) Cultivate software experts by training more people. Enlist
>government support in training personnel from academic or industry in
>the development of highly specialized products. Establish software
>development centers in countries with existing software manpower to make
>use of the experience gained from their past achievements. Promote the
>domestic software industry. Shih comments that in Taiwan there is a
>target of $6B US in software production revenue by the year 2000, and
>that a software industrial park will be established to accelerate the
>development of the country's local industry and create a world-class
>brand name. (Under Taiwan's recent National Development Plan, the
>country's IT industry has secured $18B US in funds directed towards
>speeding up technology development, increasing R&D projects, and
>improving manufacturing capabilities of computer makers.)
>
> (c) Attract well known software houses for local investment, by offering 
>incentives to attract companies to invest locally. Shih believes that 
>transfer of development technology from these companies would push 
>software produced in Asia forward to world-class standards sooner than by 
>continuing to produce software independently.  
>
> (d) Other strategies include joint ventures, strengthening intellectual 
>property rights laws and enforcing copyright protection.  
>
>Shih concluded by summarizing that 
>* Asia's new opportunities are in the software business
>* Asia's future is in Open systems
> "Most importantly, is the formulation of long-term development
>strategies, creative and customer-driven marketing, product quality
>improvement, strong product support, and continuous product research and
>development that will make a world-class competitor."  In my opinion,
>this kind of philosophy has no relation to what one normally associates
>with Asian software. If it is implemented, watch out Microsoft!
>
>In terms of vision and philosophy, I was very impressed with remarks by
>MIMOS's Dr. Tengku Mohd. Azzman Shariffadeen (address given above).
>He pointed out (again) that most SEARCC members are weak in the R&D.
>Malaysia in particular is strong in the electronics industry, but not in
>R&D.  Dr. Azzman commented that the conference theme leads to the
>questions of what R&D programs have the potential to lead to a better
>information infrastructure (hence to growth), how do we conduct these
>programs, and how should regional opportunities for collaborative R&D
>best be exploited? His list of strategies sounded surprisingly like
>Shih's-- collabortive R&D, strategic alliances, competition with
>cooperation, need for standards (OSF), intellectual property rights,
>regional products, intra-regional flow of skilled personnel, computer
>networks for information flow. He also mentioned very briefly several
>specific Malaysian R&D programs including
>
>  Computers in education
>  Joint Advanced Research and Internetworking Project (JARING)
>  Rural telecommunication
>  Natural language processing
>  SCADA
>  Machine intelligence
>
>Some additional details about JARING and machine translation projects
>are included below. SCADA stands for supervisory control and data
>acquisition system.  The first version of this product was installed to
>minitor and control a set of (electric) power substations in a portion
>of Malaysia, but other applications are now being developed.  Azzman
>made one final point worth noting because it may conflict with others'
>opinions. He pointed out that the IT industry, in Southeast Asia, may
>not be important for its own sake, but mostly for the opportunities that
>exist to apply IT to enhance growth in other sectors of the economy. Key
>technologies seen to be associated with IT are Telecommunications,
>Client/Server Cooperative Processing, Multi-media and Human Computer
>Interface, Object oriented processing, and CASE (Computer Aided System
>Engineering).
>
>Finally, Azzman placed emphasis on the potential for IT to enhance human
>development, and the importance of people.  This point was highlighted
>not only by him, but numerous times at this conference, "invest in
>technologies that invest in people", "emphasize user training", etc.
>
>JARING is a new project to establish an integrated nationwide data
>communication network based on recognized international standards.
>Other goals are to stimulate R&D, and provide a platform to study and
>evaluate data communication technology. Plans are to provide common
>network services (electronic mail, bulletin board, FTP, and remote
>login). Users and researchers will define their needs, basic technology
>is to be provided by equipment and telecommunication service suppliers,
>and MIMOS will match these two, e.g., provide the administration and
>oversight. For further information either contact Azzman or send email
>to JARING@RANGKOM.MY.
>
>III. SEARCC'92 EXPO----------------------------------------------------
>
>More than fifty organizations were represented at the heavily attended
>exposition that accompanied SEARCC'92.  These were mostly vendors
>demonstrating Open System applications and PC/WS commercial hardware
>products. The PC clone business is slow, and several vendors were
>offering almost "fire-sale" prices for 386 and 486 systems, even
>throwing in a computer table or other encouragement.  (Malaysia is
>primarily an assembler of PCs, but there is one large manufacturer of
>PCs which designs and manufacutures them locally--Micro Computer System.
>This company recently won two large orders to supply Unisys as well as
>the Olympia group of Germany.)
>
>One exhibit that was particularly interesting presented the work at CICC
>(Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization).  This is
>a nonprofit organization founded about ten years ago by the Ministry of
>International Trade and Industry (MITI) of Japan. Its purpose is to
>implement cooperative activities promoting computerization in developing
>countries. These involve
>	Education & training for trainees from abroad to develop
>           software instructors, engineers, and microcomputer engineers
>        Technical guidance and consultation by dispatching experts abroad
>        Information services such as local seminars, promotional 
>           materials, texts, movies, etc.
>        Studies of computerization, information systems, current status,
>           policies, problems, cooperative studies on machine translation
>        Information exchange, invitations for people exchange, international
>           conferences, communication links with international organizations.
>More than 50 Japanese companies participate and there are activities in
>almost twenty countries. Education is a major part of CICC efforts,
>especially conferences and training. Conference examples are
>"International Conference for Computerization '91" (Tokyo), "Fifth Asian
>Forum for Standardization of Information Technology" (Tokyo), "Sixth
>Asian Forum for Standardization of Information Technology" (Malaysia),
>various two country computerization cooperation conferences (Egypt-Japan,
>Saudi Arabia-Japan, Malaysia-Japan, Sri Lanka-Japan, etc), Computer
>Aided Instruction Workshops in China, Thailand, Philippines and
>Malaysia.  CICC supports SEARCC conferences, computerization essay
>contests, gathers statistics of computer utilization and penetration,
>and conducts surveys on IT standardization. Training activities
>typically involve a large number of countries with a few (rarely more
>than half dozen) students from each country. Training can be in the home
>country or in Japan.
>
>CICC's main cooperative research activity is a machine translation
>system for Asian languages (currently Chinese, Thai, Indonesian,
>Malaysian, and Japanese). This work has been in progress since 1987 and
>will run through 1993. In Japan it involves researchers at ETL, CICC's
>Machine Translation System Laboratory, the Japan Electronic Dictionary
>Research Inst, and various computer manufacturers and software houses.
>Each of the four other countries also has a research institute associated
>with the project. CICC has contributed over $3M US toward the project.
>The main approach is to pre-edit text to make it easier to translate,
>followed by morphological, syntactic, and semantic analysis, and
>eventually conversion into interlingua using the rules of sentence
>analysis grammar. In other words an intermediate language is used as the
>pivot for translation. From this and by use of the dictionary, sentences
>are generated in the target language. Main applications are to translate
>technical documents at high speed. In Malaysia, this project is being
>conducted jointly at three universities, Univ Technology Malaysia, Univ
>Sains Malaysia, and Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.  (Prof Henk Schotel,
>University of Nijmegen [HSCHOTEL@KUNRC1.URC.KUN.NL], visited Sains
>Malaysia on Penang Island recently, and "was amazed of the numbers of
>PCs and Macintoshes available for student and staff - there are hundreds
>of them. Now the first SUN work stations have arrived. They are quite
>advanced users of the hardware. I visited PTMK (Projek Terjemahan
>Malalui Komputer) that aims at translating Malay into English. The
>project leader, Prof Zaharin [ZARIN@CS.USM.MY] is also the head of the
>whole Computer Science department and very internationally oriented.")
>On a related topic, S.Nirenburg (CMU) gave an invited paper on software
>tools developed at CMU for machine-aided translation, implying that,
>given the state of current technology, humans still need to be in the
>translation loop.
>
>CICC has a number of publications. Three of the more interesting are the
>following.
>
>  * "CICC News". Appears several times each year contains details of
>CICC activities, brief summaries of conferences, training schedules, and
>a calendar of computer related conferences in the region.
>  * "Continuing Progress of Computerization in Japan '91-92". Describes
>the computer industry in Japan, and the present status of the Japanese
>software industry, trends in information service and IT in Japan, and
>two "new" developments, (a) ICOT, (b) a project to integrate and
>computerize health and welfare activities, allowing single source
>management throughout the country.
>  * "Textbook: 6th Asian Forum for Standardization of IT". Proceedings
>of a conference of the same name held 10 August 1992 in Kuala Lumpur.
>While focused on Open Systems, this document is still very interesting,
>especially as it contains site reports from Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan,
>China, Philippines, Korea, Singapore, and Thailand.
>
>  Contact:
>	CICC
>        Mita Mori Bldg, No. 43
>        13-16, Mita 3-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, JAPAN
>         Tel: +81 3-3457-0941; Fax: +81 3-3457-0944
>
>
>IV. STATISTICAL INFORMATION---------------------------------------------
>
>Figures in the tables below were extracted from IT Asia, February 1992,
>which in turn extracted them from an ASOCIO report (Asia Oceanic
>Computer Industry Association) presented at the end of 1991. Some of the
>data were obtained from Taiwan's Institute for the Information Industry
>(III).
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                  Information Technology Consumption
>
>                      Information                           Percapita % of
>Country/   Hardware    Services    Total   Pop    Consump     Information
>Region     $US M       $US M       $US M   Mil   $US          Services
>
>ASIA*     9,058      4,908        14,860  165.3   89         33
>  (excl. Japan, China)
>Japan    37,308     37,000        74,308  123.5  602         50
>US       91,209    100,000       191,209  249.2  767         52
>
> Note: ASIA    Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, New Zealand, Hong Kong,
>               Singapore, Malaysia
>
>     Source:
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                  Information Technology Hardware Production
>
>Country/   Exports   IT Production   IT Exports   IT Prod/  IT Exports/
> Region   $US M     $US M            $US M        GNP (%)  Total Exports (%) 
>
>Australia  46.9     900            572            0.3            1.2
>China      57       892            200            0.2            0.4
>Hong Kong  82.5   2,928          2,770            4.2            3.3
>India      18       952            222            0.3            1.2
>Korea      65     3,409          2,420            1.4            3.7
>Malaysia   28.8   1,315          1,280            3.1            4.4
>Singapore  52.7   6,380          6,305           17.1           12
>Taiwan     67.2   6,149          5,873            3.8            8.7
>Thailand   23.1   1,190          1,150            1.5            5
>ASIA Tot  441.2  24,115         20,792            1.4            4.7
>
>Japan     287.2  44,683         20,790            1.5            7.2
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                       Miscellaneous Statistics
>
>           AUST   INDIA   INDON   MALAYS  PHIL   SING  THAI  JAPAN   USA
>
>Pop M      16.8   832.5   178.2   17.4    60.0   2.7    55.4  123.1  248.8
> mid-89
>
>GNP percap 14,360  340    500    2,160    710   10,450  1,220  23,810  20,910
> (US$) 1989
>
>World Bank   HI    LI      LI     LMI     LoerMI  HI   LoerMI  HI     HI
> Economic Category
>(LI: Low Income, LMI: Low Mid Income, LoerMI: Lower Mid Inc, HI: High Income)
>
>Distribution of GDP, 1989 (%)
>  Agric    4     30       23     20.4      24    0      15     3       2
>  Indus   32     29       37      n.a      33   37      38    41      29
>  Serv    64     41       39     42.1      43   63      47    56      69
>  Manuf   15     18       17     25.1      22   26      21    30      17
>
>Average Annual Growth Rate 1980-89 (%)
>  Agric  3.0    2.9       3.2     3.9     2.0  -5.7     4.1   0.4    3.2
>  Indus  3.0    6.9       5.5     6.5    -0.8   5.0     8.1   5.2    2.9
>  Serv   3.6    6.5       6.6     3.9     1.2   7.0     7.4   3.2    3.3
>  Manuf  1.7    7.3      12.7     8.0     0.5   5.9     8.1   6.7    3.8
>
>Labor Force 1988-90 (% of total pop)
>        63.8   37.9      39.0    40.5    36.0  48.6    55.7  51.7   49.9
>
>Women in Labor Force 1988-90  (% of total Labor force)  
>        41.4   25.6      39.9    31.1    37.0  39.0    46.9  40.6   45.2
>
>Combined primary & secondary school enrollment ratio (1988-89)
> (% of age group enrolled in primary & secondary education)
>         n.a   67.0      83      77      97.0  87      58     n.a    n.a
>
>Adult Literacy Rate 1990
>        99.0   48.2      77.0    78.4    90.0  n.a     93     99.0   99.0
>
>R&D Expenditure (%) GDP 1989
>        n.a    n.a       n.a      0.2     n.a  0.89   0.21     2.9    2.8
>                                                              (1988)
>Education Expenditure as % of GNP 1989
>         5.7   3.2       0.9      5.6     2.9   3.6    3.2     n.a    1.8
>       (1986)
>
>Life expectancy at birth (years) 1990
>        76.5  59.1      61.5     70.1    64.2  74.0   66.1     78.6  75.9
>
>Pop. with access to Health Services (%) 1988-90
>        n.a   n.a       80        n.a     n.a  100    70        n.a   n.a
>
>Pop. with access to safe water (%) 1988-90
>        n.a   75        28         51      86   n.a   81        n.a   n.a
>                               ('85-'87)
>Scientists & Technicians per 1000 people (1985-89)
>        50.0  3.6       13        6.9     n.a  23.6  1.2        110    55
>                               ('70-'87)
>Radios per 1000 people (1988-89)
>       1,262   78      144        428      136  306  182        895  2,122
>
>TVs per 1000 people (1988-89)
>         484   27       55        144       41  372  109        610    814
>
>Circulation of newspapers per 1000 people (1988-89)
>         252   28       21         87       56  289   87('83)   566    259
>
>Telephone Subscribers per 100 people (1983)  
>        55.0    1      0.4         6.6       4  34('89) 4       55.5  78.9
>
>Human Development Index 1992
>       0.971  0.297   0.491      0.789    0.600 0.848 0.689    0.981  0.976
>
>Real GDP per capita (Purchasing Power Parity Dollars) 1989
>      15,266    910  2,034       5,649    2,269 15,108 3,569  14,311  20,998
>
>
>V. MEANWHILE, BACK IN SINGAPORE------------------------------------------
>
>Malaysia is trying to copy those aspects of Singapore's development that
>seem appropriate. There is no doubt that this little country has been a
>tremendous success, and is an inspiration to other countries in the
>region.  Even during the current recession its economy has expanded at a
>real rate of 5% during the first half of 1992, and unemployment is 2%.
>Inflation since 1974 has averaged less than 4% (US average during this
>same period was about 6.5%) and this year it should be about 2.5%, about
>one third of the average wage increase; 1991 per capita gross domestic
>product (GDP) was $20,400US, compared to $14,900US in 1984 (this
>corresponds to a gross national product (GNP) of $13,271US in 1991.  The
>future also looks very bright, even if it is not guaranteed.  Economists
>have predicted that Singapore is very likely to be among the 20 richest
>countries in the 21st century.  To do that it has to continue to focus
>on people and seven major industries: microelectronics, biotechnology,
>new materials, civilian aviation, telecommunications, robots & machine
>tools, computers & software.  Success will occur if other countries in
>the region allow it to become the headquarters city for the region, and
>at the same time are themselves moderately successful.
>
>Thus regional efforts need to be enhanced, and competition between
>countries in the region, while continuing at one level need to be
>friendly, not adversaries. Singapore needs to have a strategy, and if
>anything, the country is good at high level coordinated planning. Often
>less developed countries can offer substantial perks such as cash or tax
>incentives to attract suitable investments. Countries like Singapore on
>the other hand, need to have a sufficiently pro-business environment to
>generate higher rates of return than less developed countries. An
>economic panel has been formed in Singapore, and they have identified a
>number of strategic thrusts (these are very general including enhancing
>human resources, promoting national teamwork, becoming internationally
>oriented, etc).
>
>Singapore's government has a very definite slant to economic
>development, and this was spelled out recently by the Prime Minister,
>Mr. Chok Tong GOH. "It is Singapore versus other countries," "Singapore
>versus the rest of the world". In other words, Team-Singapore, placed
>between Hong Kong's every man for himself, and New Zealand's state
>welfare approach. (New Zealand is singled out as a case of what not to
>do; a country that was fifth richest in 1966 and is now 19th, while
>Singapore has gone from 33rd to 18th during that same period. Goh's
>explanation: New Zealand's ranking fell because its welfare subsidies
>increased the dependency of the people and sapped their competitive
>drive.) Mr. Goh emphasizes that the key is giving people incentives to
>strive, i.e., good pay and light taxes. (The beginning tax rate is 3%,
>compared to 15% and 30% in Japan and Sweden, respectively; half of
>Singapore's taxpayers, about 500,000, pay about $100US or less in
>taxes.) Another aspect of Goh's plan is to make Singaporeans asset
>owning.  Currently only 14% of adults own shares in publicly-listed
>companies (compare with 21% in UK, and 27% in Japan), and Goh hopes to
>increase that to 30%. The government plans to sell shares in Singapore
>Telecom at a discount next year, and also plans to sell shares in the
>Mass Rapid Transit, Port of Singapore, and a new company formed to run
>the country's electricity and gas departments.
>
>There are some worrisome signs however, and it is doubtful if Singapore
>will reach its target of achieving Switzerland's 1984 percapita income
>($31,800US) by 1999. This would require seven percent real economic
>growth for the remainder of the decade; this is unlikely to occur, and
>the days of double digit growth are also probably over. Pressure from
>below (other developing countries), as well as above (the North American
>Free Trade Area, European common market), will make growth more
>difficult. Goh comments, "we have to make the effort and not take the
>route of some other countries which tried to avoid this arduous climb
>upward. We don't promise a good life without you making the effort".
>But, "I can promise to make every Singaporean who completes 10-12 years
>of education, middle-class and asset-owning."
>
>
>VI. CHIP SALES--------------------------------------------------------
>Comments from key Asean computer experts about the need to move from
>hardware to software should not obscure the fact that demand for
>semiconductor chips in Asia-Pacific is still very strong. Estimates are
>that chip sales will be over $9B US, up over 20% in the region in 1992,
>excluding Japan, will be about $11B US in 1993, and $17B US by 1996.
>This year's current sales are equal to those in Europe and are expected
>to be greater within a year or so.  Most of the chips are bought from
>outside the region as the indigenous industry is not large enough to
>satisfy demand. (US companies such as TI, HP, Motorola, etc., are
>rapidly setting up chip-making facilities in Taiwan, Singapore and other
>countries.) Chips that are now made locally are mostly memory chips for
>PCs and most of these are exported. Korean and Taiwanese companies have
>a particularly hard time; for example Korea exports 90% of the chips it
>produces and has to import almost as many of other kinds ($5.7 versus
>$4.8B US).  Samsung, for example, sold 93% of last year's semiconductor
>output to the export market, 5% to its affiliated companies, leaving
>very few to support production needed for company products (Samsung
>supplies 14% and 9% of the global market microwave ovens and
>videocassette players). Thus a natural conclusion is to expect a large
>ramp up in local manufacture of chips for inclusion in products produced
>locally. (Statistics are from Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 Sept
>1992.)
>
>VII. SEARCC'92 PAPERS/AUTHORS-------------------------------------------
>
>People Factor in Building IT Infrastructure
>     Dr. Chan Teng Heng, Malaysia
>
>IT Education/Training in Software Engineering in Singapore
>     Vincent Chew Chang Kang, Singapore
>
>IT Needs in Human Resource Management Training
>     Aurora C. Barcelona, Malaysia
>
>A Cost Benefit Analysis of Telecommuting in Singapore
>     Dr. Yap Chee Sing, Singapore
>
>Thaicom System - Thailand's First Communications Satellites
>     Wichian Mektrakarn, Thailand
>
>Telecommunications in Support of National Information Infrastructures: New
>Beginnings
>     John A. Gilbert, Canada
>
>Computer and Telecommunications Trends Affecting South-Est Asia
>     Dr. A. Ronald Elliot, Canada
>
>On The Approaches to Setting Up Regional and Nationwide Data Networks in "The
>New Russia"
>     Prof. Igor A. Mizin, Hong Kong
>
>Implementing Distributed Database
>     Jamaluddin Idin, Malaysia
>
>Natural Language Database Feedback
>     Chan Hock Chuan, Singapore
>
>Future Proof DBMS Applications
>     Kevin Steer, Malaysia
>
>TP1: The Fact and the Myth
>     Norman Revell, United Kingdom
>
>Utility Information System: Graphic Data Manipulation
>     Azizah Abdul Manaf, Malaysia
>
>Planning for Strategic Information Systems in the 1990s
>     Dr. Wei Kwok Kee, Singapore
>
>GISTNIC (General Information Service Terminal - National Informatics Centre)
>     C.S.R. Prabhu, India
>
>Strategic Information Systems Planning and Development
>Case study: The Ministry of Land and Co-operative Development of Malaysia
>     Wardah Zainal Abidin, Malaysia
>
>Ensuring the Pay-off Strategies for Realization of Benefits from Information
>Technology
>     Jeffrey Soar, Australia
>
>Economic Restructuring - Software Implications for Hong Kong
>     Dr. Donald F. Taylor, Hong Kong
>
>Object Modelling in Policy Planning and Plan Implementation: The Sri Lanka
>Case
>     Dr. Maya Sittampalam Rainford, Sri Lanka
>
>IT and Business Strategy
>     Prof. Dipak Khakhar, Sweden
>
>Object-Oriented Programming in Existing Languages
>     Prof. Peter Juliff, Australia
>
>Object-Oriented Database Systems: The Next Generation DBMS
>     Dr. Angela Goh, Singapore
>
>An Object-Oriented User Interface for ECAD Systems
>     Rosli Ibrahim, Malaysia
>
>Records Management - The Missing Link of Information Management Technology
>     Graham Dudley, Australia
>
>Probabilistic and Semantic Based Retrieval in Hypertext
>     Dr. Sulaiman Al-Hawamdeh, Singapore
>
>Core Competence and Keiretsus: An Information Management Model for SEARCC
>     Lahmann Hans Peter, New Zealand
>
>Computer Supported Collaborative Research in Computing: The RMIT Experience
>within the Sunrise Research Lab
>     Angela Scollary, Australia
>
>Structured Modelling
>     John Fisher, New Zealand
>
>Group Decision Support Systems
>     Dr. K. S. Raman, Singapore
>
>Integration of Expert Systems and Decision Support System in Financial
>Analysis
>     Noraniah Mohd Yassin
>
>An Approach to The Development of A Decision Support Systems Tool
>     Md. Mahbubur Rahim, Malaysia
>
>Law Solicits the Silicon Chip: From Odd Bedfellows to Creative Honeymooners
>     David Parker, Australia
>
>Increasing Industrial Efficiency and Productivity Through Computerized
>Maintenance Management System
>     Wan Abdul Rahman Wan Harun, Malaysia
>
>Troubleshooting as Game Playing
>     Ting Kai Ming, Australia
>
>Productivity Breakthrough Using Simultaneous Engineering
>     Philipp Schaumann, Singapore
>
>ICHT: An Intelligent Referral System for Primary Child Health Care
>     Prof. H. N. Mahabala, India
>
>Current and Future Trends in Development Expert Systems
>     Dr. Nor Adnan Yahaya, Malaysia
>
>Alpha and Omega: An AI Research Perspective
>     Dr. Yeap Wai Kiang, New Zealand
>
>The Unix EDI Server Advantage
>     Morris Rozario, Malaysia
>
>Standards for Source Code Metrics
>     Abdul Azim Ghani, United Kingdom
>
>Client-Server Works
>     Ernesto R. Del Rosario, Philippines
>
>An Alternative Approach to Build Low Cost TCP/IP-Based Wide Area Network in
>Indonesia
>     Onno W. Purbo, Indonesia
>
>A Quantitative Measurement of Testing Methodologies
>     Dr. Chi-Ming Chung, Taiwan
>
>Managing Change in the Implementation of Systems: Why the Role of the
>Technical Writer should not be Ignored
>     Julie Fisher, Australia
>
>The Design and Implementation of Crosspuz: A Teaching Aid
>     Vijendren Muthutamby, Malaysia
>
>Vocabpo - A Teaching Tool for the Pre-schools
>     Ow Siew Hock, Malaysia
>
>The Design Issues on the Interaction with Multiple-Criteria Decision Support
>System
>     Hidayat B. Hussain, Malaysia
>
>Information Delivery in Executive Information Systems
>     Raveentheran Suntheralingam, Malaysia
>
>An Alternative Approach to Control Software Prototyping
>     Mahd Hasan Selamat, Malaysia
>
>Document Imaging and Text Retrieval
>     Suliman Al-Hawamdeh, Singapore
>
>IT Education - Necessary Changes for Continued Growth and Development
>     Peter Shackleton, Australia
>
>A Doubly Modular Hashing Scheme for Letter-Oriented Keywords
>     Chin-Chen Chang, Taiwan
>
>Algorithm for an Efficient Calculation of the 3D Projection Matrix
>     Wieslaw L. Nowinski, Singapore
>
>Computer Usage in Canadian & HongKong Business: A Look at Personnel Management
>     Maris G. Martisons, Hong Kong
>
>IT for Human Resource Development & Economy Management - Options for
>Bangladesh Computer Council
>     M. Azizur Rahman, Bangladesh
>
>Digital Image Acquisition with OCD Video Camera
>     Azumi Hassan, Malaysia
>
>Information System for Land Management: Approaches, Issues and Problems of
>Developing Countries
>     Noordin Ahmad, Malaysia
>
>A New Technique for Quick Recognition of Aircraft
>     Yah-Bin-Sim, U.S.A.
>
>Creative Programming: Towards an Integrated Engineering Analysis System
>     Hayati Abdulah, Malaysia
>
>Controlling Changing Technology
>     John A. Debrincat, Australia
>
>Guidelines for Expert Systems Development
>     Michael J. Olan, U.S.A.
>
>Intelligent Vehicle-Highway System, The Transportation of the Future: A State-
>of-the-Art Report
>     Shakor B. Badaruddin, U.S.A.
>
>The Challenge of Business Integration
>     Andrew Tan, Malaysia
>
>The Case Study Research Methodology: An Example in Information Systems
>     Guy G. Gable, Singapore
>
>Computer Animation of Sign Language from Chinese Sentence Input
>     Horace IP, Hong Kong
>
>Applications & Restrictions of Coordination in Natural Language Processing
>     Ruslan Mitkov, Malaysia
>
>Managing Resources in a Dataflow Computer
>     Teo Yong Meng, Singapore
>
>------------------------------END OF REPORT------------------------------