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The Bjørner Japan Diary
Trivia & Photos: "Blow-by-Blow"
Late August 2006 - Late January 2007

Kari & Dines Bjørner

December 26, 2006


Contents

Important Message:

Late August - September, 2006

Kari in Denmark

Kari went to Denmark Thu. 24 August. She have three courses in how to make a bag according to the technique of Japanese "folding" for almost 36 ladies, 12 in each class, Sunday 27 August at the annual "get together" of the Danish Patchwork Society in the city of Roskilde, 45 kms. from our home.

Kari and Dines in Europe

Holte

Dines flew Thu. 13 Sept. to Copenhagen. Had meetings next day, Friday, at the Techn. Univ. with the dept. head - and intimated his intention to retire upon return to Denmark. Some surprise.

Vienna

Saturday Kari and Dines flew to our beloved Vienna, to stay two lovely days and nights at the comfortably central Hotel Wandl . We had a stand-up lunch at Trzezniewski (also click this!) (off Graben) and went to Perchtoldsdorf to a Heuriger where Dines' secretry, the lovely and beautiful Miss Helene Neiss works at the schrank the 17 weeks alongb the year when that heuriger is allowed to serve its own wines. In the evening we had invited and thus went out to a fancy restaurant in the 10th district of Vienna, on a 22nd floor. Next day Kari and Dines had invited and 16 of our friends from the Vienna days (1973-1975) came for lunch at Plachutta , Wollzeile. Splendid and heartwarming occasion.

Budapest

Monday an early train from Westbahnhof to Budapest. Peter Szeredi picked us up, with his son. We stayed at the very nice, central and affordable ``designer'' Hotel Parlament. Tuesday and Wednesday the Informatics Section of the Academiae Europaea - of which Dines is current chair - had organised, and Dines had done that with great organisational and indefatigable help from Peter Szeredi, the first big, open event of that section: an International Symposium on Grand Challenges in Informatics. Dines had managed to get a most gracious personal gift of US$50,000 from Charles Simonyi of Microsoftt fame and now having his own, very interesting company: Intentional Software. The gift allowed us to invite and pay for the travel and full subsistance (hotel, all meals) of more than 40 "young" researchers from 20 countries from "the former Soviet block"! An additional 40 Hungarian computer scientists attended, and all-in-all there was 140 registrations and most around 120 in the very lively audience. All were fed, wined and dined (on a ship crusing the Danube).

Symposium Speakers

Sir Tony Hoare, Jim Woodcock

Jean-Raymond Abrial, Amir Pnueli, Wolfgang Paul

Ths. Henzinger, Jozef Gruska, Krzysztof Apt

Wolfgang Reisig, Luca Cardelli, Henk Barendregt

Paul Zimmerman, Joachim von zur Gathen, Laurent Thery

You can hear and see the live presentations of the above speakers by surfing to the NIIF Video on Demand:

Yes, the event was "broadcast" live across the world: more than 35 sites in more than 20 countries with more than 350 different log-ons were recorded! Truly a great event. Peter Szeredi was a very definite part of the great success.

Hagenberg im Mühlkreis, Upper Austria

Thursday after a morning meeting of the AE Council Kari and Dines took the train to Linz: 13:10-17:52. Bruno Buchberger was there to fetch us. Next day we met the Raiffeissenbank director and his staff: to show us suitable land parcels for possible villas. Then lunch with the Mayor of Hagenberg, Herrn Fischerlehner. He later took us around the very impressive SoftwarePark: 900 professionals + 1300 BSc students at the Upper Austria University of Applied Science's IT campus in Hagenberg: The mayor had a key for all doors, see that's a real mayor! He and his wife then took us around in their car to show us the beautiful rolling hills, valleys, churches and villages around Hagenberg. In the late afternoon Dines then discussed with a group of Bruno's colleagues the possible formation of an International School for Informatics - to start October 1, 2007.

Back to Japan

We flew back together, all the way, via bus to Haneda Airport, to Kanazawa.

October 2006

Dines' Birthday in Kyoto, 3-5 Oct.

Our friends Elsa and Kaj Møller Jensen - we knew them from our five years in Macau when they lived in Hong Kong. Now they live in Canton. We visited them there in May or June 2005. Now they visited Japan and we met at the same, our favourite hotel in Kyoto, the Hyatt Regency. Kari and Dines went there the 3rd in the morning and left the 5th in the afternoon. Elsa and Kaj arrived 4th at 2 pm. We then enjoyed Kyoto and the hotel restaurants: the bar, big cigars, etc. Kari managed to scrape up some 20 more fabrics.

Dines and Kari in Tsukuba and Tokyo, 11-14 Oct.

Dines gave an invited talk at the Japan Association for Software Process Improvement in the science& technology city of Tsukuba, 45 mins. by express train from downtown Tokyo. We had a delightful country inn lunch with Dines' host here i Japan, Prof. Kokishi Futatsugi and his wife Junko. And Kari enjoyed being with Junko who is a very accomplishyed patchworker and quilter herself.

Dines in Tokyo, 19-22 Oct.

Dines gave two invited presentations at the annual conference of the Software Engineering Specialist Group of the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ).

Hong Kong and Macau, 27 Oct. - 5 Nov.

Dines went on a "longish" tour:

Hong Kong, 27 October

Flew into HKG after an overnight stay at the Narita Airport ANA hotel. Went straight from the airport to his tailor: Lee Barron to order a new winter suit and 6+1 shirts. Then from there to Macau by the Kowloon jetfoil.

Macau, 27 Oct. - 4. Nov.

Dines arrived at one of these more-or-less "disaster" hotels, the Golden Dragon at 6pm. At 7:10, 20 minujtes too early, Dines was at one of our favourite Macau restaurants, Afonso III in Rua Central. Afonso is the epitome of a patron: Always there, circling in the tiny rest., overlooking the Portuguese cooking, etc. The Janowski family were my hosts that evening. Next day sightseeing with my Danish colleague, Miss Anne Haxthausen all around Taipa and Coloane Villages with a delightful lunch at Espaco de Lisboa. Antonio Coelho, as always, took good care of us. The week, from Sunday am to Friday am went with workshops and a conference. Dines gave an invite workshop paper. So did Anne - a gret one, as also always, btw. Tuesday pm there was no event so Dines went back to HKG to fit clothes at the tailor. Otherwise, as also also ..., a wonderful week: meeting "all" the old friends, the young ladies and the scientific staff of UNU-IIST, if anything, one of Dines' great achievements - to put it very modestly (!) - always a joy to revisit and to saunder around old Macau. The Chinese have done excellently after taking over from the Portugues - who, it must be credited, made significant improvements to Macau in their last years.

Hong Kong, 4-5 Nov.

Early Sat. to HKG, checked into the Kowloon Hotel, now our favourite in HKG, just behind The Peninsula, and 4-5 mins. walk from Dines' tailor. Fetched the finished suit and seven shorts - has them put in a new, huge excellent pink suitcase, bought inside the labyrinths of Chogqing Mansions for a mere US$35, and had the tailor bring that to the hotel. Meanwhile lunch at Cesa, the Swiss rest. at The Peninsula. Looked for books at Swindon's and otherwise worked in the hotel room. At night dinner at Alain Ducasse's rest. in the Intercontinental, the former Regent, hotel. Next morning up, 7am b'fst and off to the airport and home 5th in the late evening.

November 2006 in Japan

Dines in Tokyo, 7-9 Nov.

Dines back in Tokyo Monday 8th, with JAIST colleagues for a meeting with IBM Tokyo Research Lab, people.

Kari in Yokohama, 8-11 Nov.

Kari flew off Wedn. - via Haneda and bus - to the annual quilt event: Intl. Quilt Week at Pacifico in Yokohama. Kari stayed at the Washington Hotel. Went to IQW three times: Thu., twice, and Fri., twice.

Kari and Dines on Kyushu, 11-18 Nov.

We then flew off, Dines from Komatsu, Kari from Haneda to meet in Fukuoka. Dines arriving before noon. Kari at 5:20 pm. Dines met Kari at Airport. Had already checled in at Hyatt Residential Suites in Fukuoka.

Aso Crater, Sunday 12 Nov.

Sunday a delightful young researcher, Dr. Omori, from Kyushu Univ. took Kari and Dines, by rented car, to the huge area of the Aso caldera: Aso Crater, the world's largest. An unbelievably beautiful day.

Kyushu Univ., Mon.-Wed., 13-15 Nov.

Dines held 2+2+1 75 min. lectures at the Grad. School of Info. Sci. & Elect. Eng., Kyushu University in Fukuoka. After the lectures on Monday and Tuesday Dines had some rather interesting discussions with colleagues of his host, Prof. Keihiro Araki. Maybe one of these might visit Dines in Europe next spring.

Famous Japanese P&Q Lady: Reiko Yamaguchi, Wed. 15 Nov.

Prof. Araki had organised that a very bright MSc. Thesis student, Miss Xiaojing Zhang (from China,perfect English) and his secretary Miss Kojima took Kari and Dines by taxi, one train and one more taxi out and two trains back to visit Mrs. Reiko Yamaguchi - at 534-1 Kitanomachi Imayama, Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture 830-1122, to see her phantastic production of exquisite Quilts. What an afternoon.

Nagasaki, Thu.-Fri., 16-17 Nov.

Morning train to Nagasaki. Afternoon walk around most of the old, European parts of Nagasaki, the Clover Garden, Hollander Slope, etc. Also fascinating stories told in stones and bricks and in interiors and old photos of European settlers: business folks etc.

Beppu, Fri.-Sat., 17-18 Nov.

Morning train via Fukuoka to Beppu City, the onse, i.e., the hot spa city of Japan. We stayed, all the time at the - in the local opinions of the Japanese - rather fancy Suginoi Hotel.

Kari and Dines in Tokyo, 21-22 Nov.

We went to Tokyo Tue. 21 Nov. Stayed at the Prince Hotel Roppongi (IHJ was fully booked months ahead). That evening we went to a nice Italian rest.: Bellini in walking distance from our hotel.

Wed. 22 Nov. Dines gave a talk at Tokyo University in honour of Kouichi Kishida on the occassion of his 70th anniversary. Meanwhile Kari flew to Seattle. Next morning Dines flew to Europe.

Kari in Woodinville, WA, 22 Nov. - 5 Dec.

Kari had two wonderful weeks with Jakob, Katrine, Marianne, Nikolaj and Bodil at their grand house in Woodinville. Weather was generally terrible - and thus called for indoor family life. A Christmass tree was bought and Kari revelled in observed the children decorating it.

Dines in Europe, 23 Nov. - 5. Dec.

Again Dines ``toured'' Europe:

Holte, 23-27 Nov.

Charlotte fetched Dines at the Airport and he had dinner with her, Camilla and Caroline. Next day he applied for a new passport. The old was only 28 months old, but no blank pages left for January's visas to Laos etc. Then he went to the Technical University of Denmark, to the main administration, to sign his letter of resignation to Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark - being a royally appointed professor! After meetings with head of department and department colleagues Dines went hometo sleep off the jetlag. Saturday breakfast with Danish breakfast delights at Charlotte's place. Lunch at Ulla and Jørgen, our neighbours. Sunday visits to Kari's octogonerian friend Mrs. Jytte Grindsted and Dines' 95 year old uncle Ebbe. Then back to Charlotte with the white & blue Chinese Silk Rug that Kari and Dines bought in China some 16 years ago. Dinner that evening with Dines' cousin Klaus and Anne Hendil: a great dish of delicately boiled and seasoned codfish.

Frankfurt am Main, 27-29 Nov.

Next morning, Monday, early to FaM. Worked at the hotel, in the woods near the FaM airport. And slept. All Tuesday meetings concerning evaluation of German IT&C research projects of the German Research Council, the third in two year.

Hagenberg im Mühlkreis, Upper Austria, 29 Nov. - 3. Dec.

Early Wedn. light to Linz where Ms. Betina Curtis fetched Dines at the airport. Stayed in HiM till Sunday 6:10 am. Discussed plans for the International School for Informatics at HiM: see ISI Flyer [Draft] and ISI Poster [Draft]. This is a project with Prof. Bruno Buchberger. More on this as from February 2007. Then try this URL: ISI: International School for Informatics.

Prague, 3-5 Dec.

Early morning train: 6:44-10:57 to Prague. Met at station by the Penicka family. Well installed in Dines' favourite Prague hotel, Hotel Pariz. Lunch with the Penicka family at a nice fish restaurant: Rby Trh. In the evening Dines saw and heard La Traviata at the Czech National Theatre: 1st balcony, 1st row, centre seat #16! Marvellous. This is Europe! Monday morning stroll, as on Sunday afternoon, around Prague, taking loads of photos. Monday afternoon at 2 pm: Martin Penicka's successful PhD defence. And in the evening Dines saw and heard Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre, Parterre, 2nd row seat #2, in the left side: Also great: ``The Theatre where Amadeus Mozart himself conducted the world premiere of his Don Giovanni in 1787 '' .

Holte, 5 Dec.

7am flight to Copenhagen. Taxi via Virum Police Office to fetch new passport to Fredsvej. Repacking suitcases and off to the airport again. Then nice and comfortable business class to Tokyo.

December

Kari and Dines in Tokyo, 6-7 Dec.

Dines flew into Tokyo at 9:20 am and Kari at 3:15 pm. Dines had then checked into our favorite (academic club) hotel International House of Japan. When Kari arrived in the lobby shortly after 6:20 pm Dines was ready with a Gin Tonic.

Dines in Tokyo, 10-12 Dec.

Again a meeting at the JAIST Tokyo Tamachi Campus. So again a two night stay at IHJ. All this flying!

Last Days in Our Apartment

So Kari and Dines spent the days betwen Dec. 13 and Dec. 21 preparing for our leaving Japan. Many, in fact 7 (seven) forms were signed Tuesday Dec. 19 at JAIST on the matter of resignation - the staff were extremely courteous and helpful. Movers came Monday Dec. 25 to pack around 15 boxes with books, fabrics, bric-a-brac, more-or-less antique imari porcelain, files, etc. We packed 10 suitcases ourselves: clothes, shoes, etc.

Christmas 2006

We moved out of the apartment Tuesday noon, Dec. 26. Christmas was otherwsie "celebrated" by eating out at several of our local, ordinary but good restaurants.

Late December 2006 - Late January 2007: Singapore etc.

  • 27 December: Komatsu - Narita, ANA 3118 IBEX, 08:25 - 09:35
  • 27 December: Narita - Singapore, SQ637, 11:30 - 18:00
  • 27-29 December: Hotel Shangri-La
  • 29 Dec. - 23. Jan.: Kent Vale Apartments1
  • 23 January 2007: Singapore - Narita, SQ12, 09:40 - 17:05
  • 23 January 2007: Narita - Komatsu, ANA 3119 IBEX, 19:30 - 20:50

Singapore, 27.12.06-4.1.07

Dines to give six lectures at NUS School of Computing - hosted by Prof. Jin Song Dong:

  1. 9 January 2007:

    Domain Engineering

    Before software can be designed we must understand its requirements - that is well known. But before requirements can be formulated we must understand the application domain - that is less well appreciated.

    In this seminar I shall outline what is meant by a domain, by a domain description (i.e., a domain model), and what I mean by domain engineering: the construction, with stakeholders of a domain description: from identification of domain stakeholders via domain knowledge acquisition and analysis, to domain modelling, and model verification and validation. The emphasis of the presentation will be on principles and techniques of domain description: from rough sketches of business processese to narratives and formal models of domain facets: the intrinsics, support technologies, management & organisation, rules & regulations, scripts and human behaviour. The seminar starts with a simole, small example of a domain model (of transportation networks) and some ontological remarks on description concerning atomic and composite entities (and their mereology), functions, events and behaviours.

  2. 10 January 2007:

    Documents: A Domain Analysis

    We narrate and formalise an answer to the retoric question: "What is a Document?". Document operations include create, edit, read, copy, calculate, and shred (trash). Documents contain text (which we do not consider!), have authors, and possess various notions of location, time and (hence) traceability. The audience is warned: Our presentation is of that of a domain of documents - of what it is possible to speak of wrt. documents, there is no reference to or assumption of computing or communicaton !

    The aim of the seminar is to illustrate a simple example of domain modelling. The objective of the seminar is to eventually arrive at a sound theory of documents underlying any electronic document system.

  3. 11 January 2007:

    A Family of License Languages: Work in progress

    DRM: Digital rights management "is in": IPod and all that! In this colloquium (reporting of work in progress) we will first recount a simple (electronic music etc.) license language and its formal semantics. Then we will do two things: generalise the notion of a license and "spread" it to cover language for hospitalisation and for public government - adminstration around documents.

    The presentation is discursive and suggestive.

  4. 17 January 2007:

    Verified Software for Ubuiquitous Computing - a project proposal

    We present a considerably extended and generalised version of Tony Hoare's 'Ideal of Correct Software': VSTTE: Verified Software, Theories, Technques and Experiments. We focus on a case study, an experiment (the E in VSTTE), the development of software for computing systems for the automated highway. If we are to fully trust such computing systems then it is our claim that we must first develop domain descriptions (informal and formal) of what a transportation network and what transport is, then create a domain theory around such domain models, then "derive" functional requirements from the (possibly commensurate) domain descriptions, then relate these requirements to interface and machine requirements as well as to the domain models. Finally we can then develope the software, as for the previous phases, in stages and steps, and prove propeties (incl. of refinement). The assertions (of Tony Hoare's conception of VSTTE) now, it is conjectured, reflect all three aspects: Domain (D), Requirements (R), and Software (S), and according to the dogma: D,S |= R - to verify that S is correct wrt. R we must record assumptions about D.

    The seminar is informal (no formalisations, no proofs!), discursive, and is aimed at interaction with the audience. The seminar has as its objective to try enlist NUS scientists in the worldwide VSTTE effort.

  5. 18 January 2007:

    The Triptych Process Model: Process Assessment and Improvement

    In the (typically US-oriented) SE industry community the notion of Software Process is still a "hot topic" - and with it the notion of software process improvement - say as related to Watts Humphrey's CMM: Capability Maturity Model.

    In this seminar I will first outline the Triptych notion of Sofware Engineering as progressing from domain engineering through requirements engineering to software design. An emphasis of the talk will be on the (enormous variety of) documents produced in a software development (also) based on the Triptych approach - and of the documents having pragmatics, syntax and semantics - that is, with some documents being necessarily informal (i.e., not subject to calculations), but with others being "computable", i.e., formal. Then we shall explain the notion of software processes in the light of this - the Triptych - notion of software development. Finally, in some 10 steps, we shall speculate about process assessment and improvement issues.

    The aim of this seminar is both to highlight the Triptych approach to informal and formal SE and to bring Triptych issues of formal SE to bear on industrial concerns of software quality management.

  6. 19 January 2007:

    Security Rules: Examples and Thoughts on Modelling

    ISO has 'standardise' a set of Codes of Practice for IT Management. In this colloquium we suggest how one might formally answer the (retoric) question: What is IT Security. Industry leaders like IBM and CISCO offer customers "gadgets" and software/computing & commu- nication systems to improve cusotmers' IT security. But how can we "measure" what level of security one offering presents over another?

    I shall illustrate some of the ISO codes of practice for IT management. I shall then try unfolrd a model of the "thinhs" being security managed and/or prone to security breaks. Finally I shall speculate on how one might develop instantiations, for specific customers, of the ISO Codes of Practice for IT Security.

    Thus the talk is of work-in-progress. It invites the audience to join this research.

Luang Prabang, 4-8 January

  • 4 January: SINGAPORE - BANGKOK: 0810 - 0930, TG 402
  • 4 January: BANGKOK - LUANG PRABANG: 1240 - 1440, PG 945

  • Hotel Maison Souvannaphoum

  • 8 January: LUANG PRABANG - BANGKOK: 1230 - 1415, PG 942
  • 8 January: BANGKOK - SINGAPORE : 1635 - 1955, TG 409

Singapore, 8-12 Jan.

Ho Chi Min City (Saigon), 12-15 January

Singapore, 15-23 Jan.

A Year in Japan

In Memory of Three Great Men

The year 2006 sadly saw the passing away of three of our dearest friends:

  • Søren Prehn, a student of Dines', a founding member of the Dansk Datamatik Center (DDC, 1980-1989), the core inspirator of the CHILL and Ada projects at DDC, the core initiator of the RAISE project, a founding member of the scientific staff of UNU-IIST, and much much more. Søren passed away in April at the young age of 51. He will be remembered by all of us - for times to come.
  • Cai Kindberg, in his early 80s, early August. Cai was Dines' first real boss. Cai founded the IBM Nordic Labs. in Stockholm in 1961. Cai lived, since 1964 in Saratoga, Calif., with Alice. Cai became one of Dines' mentors - probably not even knowing it. Cai was a man for all seasons. Our thoughts are with Alice.
  • Ivan Bach of Budapest, Hungary. We have known Ivan since 1978. All there is to say here was expressed in an e-mail 25 Dec.:

    • A great man has passed away. And while he was here he blessed us so much. We shall miss him so much. And we shall thank our Lord that He gave us Ivan. His love for music, his love for his chosen profession, his love for children and grandchildren, his ability to tell a story - a real narrator - all of that to us was a great gift. We enjoyed sitting in his company, listening to music, following the score, drinking a little passover slivovits, hearing about Szeged, about life in the past - but the present was where we all were and he enjoyed that present and gave so much of it to us.

      God bless Ivan.

      Ivan Bach, April 2006

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latex2html -split 0 -toc_depth 6 5-diary

scp 5-diary/*.* bjorner@www.jaist.ac.jp:/home/bjorner/public_html/diary/5-diary/.

About this document ...

The Bjørner Japan Diary
Trivia & Photos: "Blow-by-Blow"
Late August 2006 - Late January 2007

This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 2002-2-1 (1.71)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, Ross Moore, Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

The command line arguments were:
latex2html -split 0 -toc_depth 6 5-diary

The translation was initiated by Dines Bjorner on 2006-12-26


Footnotes

...http://www.nus.edu.sg/oed/services/housing/information.html 1
See bottom two photos

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Dines Bjorner 2006-12-26