Computer Science Graduate Student Newsletter

1996-03                                     March 29, 1996


Space Survivability Project Funded
A Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract has been 
awarded by the Air Force to Payload Integration Company in 
Clear Lake and to the University of Houston.  The project is 
funded for 2 years starting this Spring and the amount of the 
funding is $850,000.

Two COSC professors, Dr. Farokh Bastani and Dr. Christoph F. 
Eick, are the principal investigators on the UH portion of 
the project. The title of the project is "Space Systems 
Performance, Endurance, and Survivability."  The project 
centers on the investigation of novel fault tolerance 
strategies for handling single event upsets induced within 
computer systems that are exposed to  radiation in space.

A fundamental research goal of the project is the Phoenix 
system, a highly fault-tolerant, real-time, distributed 
operating system for payload applications. A laboratory 
(named Phoenix Lab) on the second floor of the PGH 
Building (210 & 212) will be used for the research.  

COSC to Get IBM Unix Laptop Computers
IBM donated 135 high power Unix-based laptop computers, 
valued at over $1.3 million, to the University recently.  
Based on the PowerPC architecture, the RISC System/6000 
N40 Notebook Workstation offers workstation performance 
in a portable package.

UH is distributing these computers based on proposals 
submitted by the faculty.  The department is getting at 
least 15 of these laptops thanks to the following faculty's 
effort: Dr. J.-F. Paris ("Take-Home Laptops for Special 
Case Students"), Dr. J. C. Huang ("Computer Network 
Management and Maintenance"), Dr. F. Bastani ("Enhancing 
Doctoral Student Research in Urban Institutions"), and 
Dr. S. Huang ("Data Structure and Algorithm Demonstration"). 


CS Enrollment Down in CRA Survey
The numbers of new master's and doctoral students are both 
down almost 25% in the 1995 Computing Research Association's 
annual survey.  The number of bachelor's students is up 
about 4%.

For the last three years, the production of Ph. D.'s in 
Computer Science and Computer Engineering remains stable at 
about 1,000 per year.  The numbers of BS and MS degrees 
awarded are down by about 8% and 15% from the previous year.  
The survey (http://www.cra.org) collects data from Ph. D.-
granting universities in the United States and Canada. 

At UH, COSC graduate enrollment for Fall 1995 is down about 
20% compared to 1994 enrollment data.  However, the figure 
is up slightly from 218 in Fall 1995 to 243 this Spring.  

MCS Program Approved by COSC Faculty
The Master of Computer Science degree program was formally 
approved by the Faculty in its March meeting.  Instead of 
doing a thesis, a student in the MCS program is required to 
take 36 hours of course work.  The admission requirement is 
higher than the MSCS degree.  The proposed degree is subject 
to the approval of the University and the Coordinating Board.

COSC Faculty Search Continues
The department is currently interviewing several faculty 
candidates for the two faculty positions.  Six candidates 
have been invited to visit the department between the Spring 
Break and the end of the semester.  Graduate students are 
encouraged to attend the presentation of these invited guests.

Graduate Student Publication

A paper entitled "MASSON: Discovering Commonalties of a Set 
of Objects Using Genetic Programming" co-authored by Mr. 
Tae-Wan Ryu, a COSC Ph.D. candidate, and his Dissertation 
Advisor Dr. Christoph Eick was accepted for presentation by 
the 1996 Genetic Programming Conference to be held at 
Stanford University in California, July 28-31, 1996.