Dr. Masao Kato has been with Fuji Xerox since 1993, when he assumed responsibility for technology and product development. As chairman of Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory since 1997, his role has centered on the cooperative relationship between Xerox and its Japanese subsidiary, Fuji Xerox. Prior to coming to Xerox Dr. Kato was with NTT Research Laboratory for 35 years, rising to Senior Vice President responsible for R & D strategy and management.
Masao Kato's Plenary address at HICSS-34 on the "The Future of Industrial Research" will discuss the rapidly changing nature of industrial research, based on developments since a panel discussion between leading industry executives meeting at Harvard Business School in 1993. With the recent radical pace of Internet growth, research laboratories must now play a key role in formulating corporate strategies for spin-offs, mergers, and acquisitions. At the same time, borders that have traditionally distinguished major industry sectors are dissolving, especially in telecommunications, broadcasting, computers, and home electronics. Today no particular industry sector has an exclusive claim to information handling and distribution.
Dr. William Clancey is a research scientist at the Institute for Human-Machine Cognition at the University of West Florida, who is on leave to the NASA/Ames Research Center as Chief Scientist of its Human-Centered Computing (Computational Sciences Division). Previously he was with the Institute for Research on Learning in Menlo Park, California from its founding in 1988 until 1997. Dr. Clancey's research on artificial intelligence has been influential in the design of expert systems and instructional programs, and his most recent book presents a specification for a "process memory" that bridges descriptive cognitive models and neurophysiological theories. His current research on Mars can be found at www.arctic-mars.org and at www.marssociety.org.
"Mars to Earth: How We Shall Use FMARS to Prepare for Mars Surface Operations" is the title of Dr. Clancey's Plenary address. In July 2000, the Mars Society constructed a simulated Mars habitat at Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic near the Haughton impact crater, 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle. How can we exploit this research station (FMARS) to prepare for living and working on Mars? Is there a principled way of "analyzing away" the environmental and logistic differences between Devon Island and Mars, to produce data that will be valid on Mars?
Dr. Clancey reviews the motivation for working in the arctic, plus the activities and results of the past three field seasons of the Haughton-Mars Project. He emphasizes the interests of computer scientists, focusing on representational tools (such as data-logging devices), the communications and computing infrastructure (especially between remote sites and base camp), and prototype telescience devices (such as "robot geologists"). Extensive photographs, video, and time-lapse photography illustrate his ethnographic approach to studying a modern field expedition. Mapping this data onto the constraints of Mars surface operations, he demonstrate a requirements analysis that comprehensively relates the total system of facilities, organization, procedures, and technologies.
Based on this experience, Dr. Clancey's work provides a framework for characterizing similarities and differences between Devon and Mars and a strategy for defining experimental protocols using FMARS. A distinction is drawn between high-fidelity characteristics that are inherent or can be easily imposed (e.g., authentic geology investigation) and characteristics that require more planning and may be imposed in more limited experimental phases (e.g., wearing realistic gloves). For example, how is a geologist's observation, interpretation, and memory changed if drawing on site is not possible, but restricted to annotating photographs after returning to base camp? Ethnographic studies and modeling of practices establish a baseline of how people normally work. Behaviors that will be impossible or severely constrained on Mars can then be identified and their effect articulated, providing requirements for new tools and processes.
For more information you may visit the following sites home.att.net/~WJClancey, www.arctic-mars.org, www.marssociety.org