Computer Science Graduate Student Newsletter
1995-09
August 25, 1995
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COSC Faculty: Coming and Going

Drs. Banawan and Tan left the university at the end of the
Summer. For personal reasons, Dr. Bastani is on leave, and will
be back next semester.  Dr. Rusinkiewicz is also on leave.  He
will be leading a software development effort at MCC in Austin,
and will return in two years.

Jorge Arturo Cobb joined the Department as an Assistant
Professor starting this Fall.  He has a BS degree in Computer
Science from UT-El Paso, and an MA in Computer Science from
UT-Austin.  He is finishing up his Ph.D. degree from UT-Austin
this fall.

Professor Cobb will be teaching Computer Networks this Fall. 
The research interests of Professor Cobb are: Design and
Implementation of Network Protocols, High-Speed Computer
Network, Mobile Computing, Concurrent and Distributed Computing.

Dr. Laurie Webster, manager of Electrical and Biomedical
Engineering at NASA Johnson Space Center, will teach COSC 3480
on a part-time basis.  Dr. Webster has a Ph.D. degree from the
University of Houston.  His areas of specialization are AI and
Expert Systems.

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COSC  Welcomes New Graduate Students

 About 50-60 new graduate students joined the department for the
new semester.  The department held an orientation for the new
graduate students on Friday, August 18.  About 30 students
attended the 2-hour orientation.  

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Academic Honesty Violations Reported

Several cases of academic honesty violations were uncovered at
the end of the spring semester.  Eleven students in three
courses were accused of cheating on their program assignments
and/or final examinations.  Seven students in Dr. Rusinkiewicz's
6340 class, two students from Dr. Paris's 6360 class, and two
students in an undergraduate course were reported.

Among the seven students involved in the 6340 class, two were
found innocent.  The other five were punished for cheating or
assisting other students in cheating.  The department held a
hearing and took disciplinary actions ranging from assigning an
F in the course to academic suspension for the students involved.

Hearings for the two other cases will be conducted at the
beginning of the Fall semester.

According to UH's Student Handbook, it is a violation of the
Academic Honesty Code to assist other students in examinations
and/or homework.  Students should consult the instructors or the
Graduate Advisor if they have questions about the policy. 
Copies of the Student Handbook are available from the department
office.

A faculty committee will be formed this Fall to handle honesty
violations in the future.

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Ph.D. Qualifying Examination Committees

Members of the Ph.D. qualifying committees have been revised for
1995-96.

Artificial Intelligence (COSC 6368):
   Robert Anderson, Albert Cheng, Christoph Eick

Computer Architecture (COSC 6385):
   Kam-Hoi Cheng, Jorge Cobb, Willis King

Numerical Analysis (COSC 6364):
   Robert Anderson, Olin Johnson, Lennart Johnsson

Theory of Computation (COSC 6369):
   Robert Anderson, Kam-Hoi Cheng, Rakesh Verma

Database Management (COSC 6340):
   Christoph Eick, Stephen Huang, J. F. Paris

Operating Systems (COSC 6360):
   Olin Johnson, Lennart Johnsson, J. F. Paris

Programming Languages (COSC 6361):
   Stephen Huang, Ernst Leiss, Rakesh Verma

Software Engineering (COSC 6350):
   Farokh Bastani, Albert Cheng, J. C. Huang