88 / FIELDS OF INSTRUCTION Areas of specialization within the program in computer and information sciences cover a wide range including programming languages, database management, software engineering, computer graphics, computer vision, business information systems, operating systems, compilers, per- formance measurement, artificial intelligence, architec- ture, simulation, parallel processing, distributed comput- ing, computer communication, and theory of computation. Applications for admission must be approved by both the Department and the college in which the student wishes to enroll. Applicants should have a strong computer science background. Studentswhowish toobtain adegreefrom acollegeother than the one from which they received their undergraduate degrees and students with inadequate backgrounds in mathematics and statistics will be required to do additional remedial work specified by the Department's Graduate Coordinator and approved by the new college. The reme- dial work will generally include core requirements for the new college. All master's students must satisfy a core requirement by completing four specified graduate level courses (12 cred- its) or their approved equivalents. Students must maintain an average of at least 3.0 on the core courses with no more than one of the courses receiving a letter grade of C or C+. A grade of D or below in any core course will necessitate retaking that course. Students can select a thesis or nonthesis option for the master's degree. The thesis option requires a minimum of 30 credit hours and the nonthesis option a minimum of 33 credit hours. The thesis degree requires an additional 12 credits of course work beyond the core (six graduate level credits in CIS and six credits in some other department in the student's college), and a written thesis. A minimum of six credit hours must be taken in CIS 6971. The nonthesis option requires an additional 15 letter-graded credits of course work in CIS beyond the core and 6 letter-graded credits in some other department in the student's college. Each nonthesis master's student is required to pass a written comprehensive examination administered twice a year by the Department. Ph.D. students are required to take a minimum of 90 credit hours. Of these, at least 42 hours must be graduate level CIS course work. A minimum of 15 hours must be taken in CIS 7980. A maximum of 30 credits may be awarded toward the Ph.D. degree from an appropriate master's degree. All students must form a supervisory committee by the end of their second semester of enrollment. The Center for Information Research, the Database Sys- tems Research and Development Center, the Software Engineering Research Center, the Center for Computer Vision Research, and a number of other campus research centers provide opportunities for students enrolled in the program. In addition to graduate courses in CIS, the following courses in related areas are acceptable for graduate credit as part of the student's major: CDA 6108-Advanced ComputerArchitecture: EEL 5745C-Microcomputer Hard- ware and Software; EEL 5167- Engineering of Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits; EEL 5840-Elements of Machine Intelligence; EEL 6562-Image Processing and Computer Vision; EEL 6825-Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Sys- tems. CAP 5705-Computer Graphics (3) Prereq: COP 3530. Display device characteristics; system considerations, display algorithms. Curve and surface generation. Lighting models and image render- ing. CAP 6610-Machine Learning (3) Prereq: CAP 6635. Review of attempts, within the artificial intel igence community, to construct computer programs that learn. Statistical pattern recognition with its applications to such areas as optical character recognition. Inductive learning, automated discovery. CAP 6615-Neural Networks for Computing (3) Prereq: CAP 6652. Neural network models and algorithms. Adaptive behav- ior, associative learning, competitive dynamics and biological mechanisms. Applications include computer vision, cognitive information processing, control, and signal analysis. CAP 6627-Expert Systems (3) Prereq: CAP 6652. Production systems, meta-knowledge, heuristic discovery, indepth examina- tion of several expertsystems includingTEIRESIAS, AM, DENDRAL, MYCIN, IRIS, CASNET, INTERNIST, BACON, PROSPECTOR. CAP 6635-Artificial Intelligence Concepts (3) Prereq: COC 3110, COP 3530 or equivalent. Heuristic search, game theory, knowledge representation, logic, machine learning, Al languages and tools. Applications such as planning, natural language understanding, expert systems, and computer vision. CAP 6640-Natural Language Processing (3) Prereq: CAP 6635. Transformational grammars, syntactic and semantic parsing; con- text, context recognition, conceptual analyzers; metaphors, re- minding and memory organization, procedural semantics; natu- ral language access to databases. CAP 6651-Knowledge Representation (3) Prereq: CAP 6635. Techniques used within the field of artificial intelligence. Various forms of logic including predicate, first order, and non-mono- tonic; procedural representations; semantic networks; production systems, direct representations; frames; and scripts. CAP 6657-Computers and Vision I (3) Prereq: CAP 6635 or consent of instructor. Examination of attempts to replicate human visual abilities with computer programs. Visual perception, image formation, early processing, image algebra, and basic segmenta- tion techniques. CAP 6659-Computers and Vision 11 (3) Prereq: CAP 6657. Image understanding systems, medical and industrial applica- tions of computer vision techniques, and computer architectures for image processing and image analysis. CDA 5155-Computer Architecture Principles (3) Prereq: CDA 3101, COP 3530, and 4600. Fundamental problems of computer organization and a variety of approaches to them. Example architectures as needed, novel architectures as time permits. CDA 6104-High Performance Computer Architecture (3) Prereq: CDA 5155, COP5622. Design and evaluation of instruction-level (superscalar, superpipel ine) and task-level (fine and coarse-grained) parallel architecture. Language and operating system support instruction and task scheduling, task synchronization. CDA 6130-Comparative Computer Architecture (3) Prereq: COP 4600, EEL 3701. Computer architecture in terms of classic concepts, single and multiprocessors, networks, fault tolerance, and technology. CDA 6141-Fault-Tolerant Computing (3) Prereq: COP 5622 andCDA 5155. Fundamental concepts of reliability, redundancy, and error recovery. Algorithms and designs for fault-tolerant architecture, reliable communication, and distributed processing systems. CDA 6501-Computer Communication Networks (3) Prereq: COP 5622 and 5533. Computer network architecture, including topologies, media, switching, routing, congestion control, proto- cols, and case studies. CEN 6070-Software Testing and Verification (3) Prereq: COP 5630. Concepts, principles, and methods for software testing and verification. Topics include human and machine based testing strategies, formal proofs of correctness, and software reliability. CEN 6075-Software Specification (3) Prereq: COP 5630. Concepts, principles, and methods for practical software specifi- cation. System modeling, requirements exploration, validation and prototyping, and documentation techniques. CEN 6081-Software Engineering for Parallel and Distributed Systems (3) Prereq: COP 5630. Characteristics of software for parallel processing and distributed computing systems as well as embedded systems. Development and maintenance methodolo- gies for such software systems.