New Course Announcement: CMPS 290S, Advanced Topics in Computer Systems

Instructor:	Dr. Scott A. Brandt
Days:		T,Th 2:00-3:45
Location:	Porter 250
Call Number: 	37228
Prerequisites:	CMPS 221 is a formal prerequisite for this course, but
		interested students with CMPS 111 or the equivalent
		will be admitted by permission of the instructor.

A graduate seminar on current research topics in computer systems.
Topics vary from year to year depending on the current research of the
instructor(s) and the interests of the students.  This year the course
will be taught by Dr. Scott Brandt and will cover real-time, soft
real-time systems, and quality of service systems.

As desktop computers experience dramatic increases in computational
power and communication speed, it is becoming possible to run many
applications that have in the past been feasible only on dedicated
systems. In particular, high throughput applications such as video
display and processing, audio playback, real-time hardware control,
internet telephony, video conferencing, virtual reality, telerobotics,
video games, and other multimedia applications, are now feasible on
desktop computers communicating over standard internet connections.
However, the standard operating systems and network protocols used in
these systems do not provide any performance guarantees.  As these
applications become more common resource conflicts arise among
competing applications.  Furthermore, as people begin to rely on these
applications for everyday tasks, the ability to provide predictable
performance becomes a significant issue.  This course will examine all
of the above through readings from current journals and conference
proceedings with some background material from books. Students will be
assigned readings and will give presentations on the material, with
some lectures by the instructor.  A typical class period will have one
or more students giving presentations on an assigned reading, followed 
by a discussion of the technical details, relevance, and importance of
the material presented.  The course will include a final research
project that could be a paper on the material covered during the
quarter or a project related to the material covered.