CS Graduate Student Newsletter [Electronic version]
1994-11
Spetember 27, 1994
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New COSC Courses Proposed

Several new courses were recently proposed by faculty 
members.  COSC 4316 (Object-Oriented Programming) will 
replace the course with a similar title under COSC 
4397.  Dr. J. C. Huang proposed the course.  C++ and 
Smalltalk will be used in the course.  Dr. Huang 
emphasized that this is not just a C++ course.  Many 
object-oriented concepts will be included in the course.

Dr. Christoph Eick proposed a special topic course 
"COSC 6397: Evolutionary Programming and Artificial 
Life."  Math 3336 is the prerequisite.  The content of 
the course includes "evolutionary and natural 
computation centering on genetic algorithms and genetic 
programming."

Dr. Rakesh Verma proposed a new 7000-level special 
topic courses "Advanced Symbolic Computation and 
Equational Programming."  The prerequisite of this 7397 
course is COSC 6352.  This course will cover "the 
algorithmic aspects of the fundamental operations found 
in most computing."
Dr. Olin Johnson and Dr. Ridgway Scott proposed to 
joint list all numerical analysis courses with the 
Mathematics Department.  The curriculum committee 
decided to co-list the two undergraduate courses 
(COSC3361 & 3362) if some issues can be ironed out with 
the Mathematics Department.  

All of these proposed changes have to be approved by 
several committees on campus.
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Spring Qualifying Examination Results

The results of the Spring qualifying examinations are 
listed in the table below.

Spring 1994	Excl	Pass	Marg	Fail	Poor
Data Manag.	1	0	1	0	0
Prog. Lang.	0	4	2	1	0
Operat. Sys.	0	3	1	0	0
Software Eng.	1	2	0	2	0
Total	2	9	4	3	0

Three graduate students, Andrzej Cichocki, Clifton Davis, 
and Bojan Cukic, completed all the requirements and 
become Ph.D. candidates.  Congratulations!

Qualifying examinations in Numerical Analysis, Artificial 
Intelligence, Theory of Computation, and Computer 
Architecture will be offered in the Fall.  Students may 
sign up for the examinations in October.

The 94-95 qualifying examination committees are listed 
below:  AI: R. Anderson, A. Cheng, C. Eick.  Computer 
Architecture: K-H Cheng, J. C. Huang, W King.  Numerical 
Analysis: R. Anderson, O. Johnson, E. Leiss.  Theory: 
K-H Cheng, S. Huang, R. Verma.

Database Management: C. Eick, J. F. Paris, M. 
Rusinkiewicz, Operating Systems: S. Banawan, J. F. Paris, 
J. Tan.  Programming Languages: S. Huang, E. Leiss, R. 
Verma.  Software Engineering: F. Bastani, A. Cheng, J. 
C. Huang. 
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New Work-Study Student

Miss Rosalinda Fernandez replaced Miss Ericka Allen as 
the work-study assistant in the office recently.
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Graduate Student Publications

Mr. Jeng-Rung Chen's paper entitled "Predicting the 
Response Time of Real-Time Rule-Based Programs with 
Variable-Expression Assignments," co-authored with Dr. 
A. Cheng, has been accepted for publication by the 1994 
IEEE-CS Int'l Conference on Tools for Artificial 
Intelligence (ICTAI-94).  They will travel to New 
Orleans to present the paper on Nov. 6-9, 1994. 

Mr. Shengtun Li's paper "Enhancing Robust Learning in 
Multilayer Perceptrons," (co-authored with Dr. Leiss) 
has been accepted by the 6th Int'l Conference on AI and 
Expert Systems Applications.  They'll present the paper 
on Dec. 1-2, 1994, in Houston.  A related joint paper 
"Robust Learning in Feedforward Neural Networks with 
GMDP Units,"  has been accepted by the 1994 Int'l 
Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, to be held at 
the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, R.O.C. 
December 15-17, 1994.