Computer Science Graduate Student Newsletter

Number: 1995-12                           October 28, 1995

Dr. Johnsson Gets ARP Grant

Advanced Rsearch/Technology Programs (ARP/ATP) are competitive
grants awarded by the State for the universities in Texas.  Dr.
Lennart Johnsson is among the winners in the latest competition.
 The title of his research project is "Efficient Network
Routing."  The $285,500 award is the largest one among the 38
grants awarded to UH researchers.  Professor Johnsson joined the
department early this year from Harvard University. 

Dr. Ridgway Scott, Professor of Mathematics and Computer
Science, also recieved an ARP/ATP award.


COSC Graduate Enrollment Down

The Fall 1995 enrollment of Computer Science students dropped by
about 6.5% compared to last Fall.  The largest drop was in the
graduate enrollment, from 267 to 218 (an 18% drop).  Fifty-five,
or about 20%, of the graduate students are working toward their
Ph. D. degrees.

The drop in enrollment reflected the same trend across the
College.  The College has a drop of 16% in its graduate students
from last year.  

The enrollment data released by the College of Natural Sciences
and Mathematics also indicated that more than 34% of the
graduate students in the College are majoring in Computer
Science.  Undergraduate students majoring in Computer Science
went up by 1.7% over the same period of time.


Two New Graduate Courses Proposed

The department curriculum committee recently approved two new
graduate courses: COSC 6367 (Evolutionary Programming) and COSC
7397 (Advanced Computer Networks).   COSC 6367 was taught as
6397 in the past by Dr. Christoph Eick.  

The 7000 level special topic courses in Networks was proposed by
Professor Jorge Cobb.  The course will be an "In-depth study of
research areas in computer networks including protocol
specification, testing and verification, resource reservation
for guaranteed quality of service, transport of audio and video,
mobile computing and network security", according to the course
description.  

The two courses will have to be approved by the appropriate
Committees at the College and University level.


New Lecturer in COSC

Mr. Walter Colquitt joined the department as a lecturer this
semester.  He is teaching COSC 4351 (Software Engineering) and
COSC 2410 (Computer Organization and Programming).  Colquitt's
education is in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Meteorology
with an interest in Mechanical Engineering. His Math degree is
from the University of New Mexico followed by USAF assignments
in Japan and Southeast Asia. His industrial experience includes
working for NASA contractors and as an independent consultant. 
He also worked for Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC ) in
the Woodlands prior to forming his own consulting company.


QE Sign Up Deadline: Nov. 22

November 22 is the last day for students to sign up for Ph. D.
qualifying examinations.  Students can withdraw from the test
until December 1.  Four areas are included in this semester's
examination: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Architecture,
Numerical Analysis, Theory of Computation.



Graduate Student Publication

A paper entitled "Timing Analysis of OPS5 Expert Systems"
co-authored by Hsiu-yen Tsai, a COSC graduate student, and his
advisor Dr. Albert Cheng has been accepted for publication in an
upcoming issue of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.