Information Engineering Laboratory

Information Engineering Laboratory

Hiroshi Hagiwara, Director

Ph.D, Kyoto University Faculty of Engineering in Electric Engineering

Kyoto University Faculty of Engieering, Professor
Ryukoku University Faculty of Science and Technology, Professor

Kyoto University, Professor Emeritus

Information Processing Society of Japan, Former Chairman

Member of Science Council of Japan

Information Engineeiring Laboratory in Kyoto Computer Gakuin, Director

Words for Opening the Information Engineering Lanboratory

It was about 30 years ago when a new engineering discipline called "information engineering" emerged, which was based on an integration of computer hardware technology, computer software technology, related theories and applications techniques. This information engineering has since exhibited dramatic developments, now covering a vast array of subjects many of which were unheard of in the early days.
On the theoretical side, the theory of communication, the coding theory, and the language theory contributed, either directly or indirectly, to the advancement of computer technology. On the other hand, the requirements from computer technology inspired many new developments in the theory of programs and software engineering.
On the applications side, the early developments in business data processing and scientific computation have been extended to include the pattern-recognition technology (such as character recognition and speech recognition) and langu age understanding. The technologies of voice synthesis and machine translation can now be used, though limited, in certain practical situations. The image processing technology has evolved into image understanding and image synthesis, and now heading toward the realization of computer animation and virtual reality.
The studies of problem solving systems, inference systems, expert systems, and intelligent robotics, which have traditionally been regarded as part of the artificial intelligence technology, are now being organized to form "knowledge engineering (or knowledge science)", in conjunction with the recent developments in cognitive science, behavioral science, social science, and other related fields.
The basis of all the developments listed above is the computer technology. In other words, the founding stones of information engineering consist in hardware and software technologies of computers, without which nothing could have been accomplished.
At the Information Engineering Laboratory, the first research topics to be pursued concern computer hardware and computer software technologies. On the hardware side, the emphasis will be placed on the studies of parallel processing and computer networking, which are expected to become more and more important in the coming years.
One shortcoming of the software technology is that it is not founded on any laws of nature, as is the case for electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. However, we will proceed to investigate the techniques of software development, with the aid of the theory of programs and software engineering.
We expect that the research activities of the laboratory will have a profound impact on the educational contents of the school.One example is the establishment this year of the 4-year program on information engineering, the first of its kind among technical colleges in Japan. In terms of its curriculum and teaching staff, the new program far surpasses similar information-related programs offered at many of the univ ersity-status institutions.