NC State Scientists Develop Breakthrough Internet Protocol
Researchers in North Carolina State University’s Department of Computer Science have developed a new data transfer protocol for the Internet that makes today’s high-speed Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections seem lethargic. The protocol is named BIC-TCP, which stands for Binary Increase Congestion Transmission Control Protocol. Dr. Injong Rhee (upper left), associate professor of computer science, said BIC can achieve speeds roughly 6,000 times that of DSL and 150,000 times that of current modems. While this might translate into music downloads in the blink of an eye, the true value of such a super-powered protocol is a real eye-opener. Rhee and NC State colleagues Dr. Khaled Harfoush, assistant professor of computer science, and Lisong Xu, postdoctoral student, presented a paper on their findings in Hong Kong at Infocom 2004, the 23rd meeting of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Communications Society, on Thursday, March 11. To read more, go to http://www.ncsu.edu/news/press_releases/04_03/099.htm.

Departmental Research Grants, Gifts, and Support
Bowe Bell & Howell has donated an EMC Symmetrix, Model 3430, enterprise class disk array with approximately .5TB of disk space to the department. The gift, valued at approximately, $48,445, will be used to support research conducted by Dr. Injong Rhee, specifically in the area of testing disk-array performance.

ePartner Epic Games recently donated $15,000 to support Dr Michael Young's gaming research.

Congratulations to Dr. Laurie Williams (right) for having her proposal titled "The Test-Driven Development of Secure and Reliable Software Applications" funded for $400,000 by the National Science Foundation as a CAREER award. The award will run from April 1 of this year through February 28, 2009. Dr. Williams becomes the department's 13th NSF Career Award winner! For more information, see http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/news/awards/williams_nsf.html.

Faculty/Staff News
The department is pleased to announce the addition of Dr. Daniel Reed as an adjunct professor. See http://www-pablo.cs.uiuc.edu/People/Reed/DanReed.htm.

Congratulations to Drs. David McAllister, George Rouskas, Munindar Singh, James Lester, and Ting Yu for being chosen as recipients of the Laptops for Enhancing Teaching award. The department applauds their interest in enhancing teaching through the use of laptops. They will share the tools, methods, and strategies developed with others both within and outside the department.

Computer Science Graduate Students Garner Top ACM Prizes
Two graduate students in the department of computer science at NCSU, Nachiappan Nagappan and Xinyuan Wang, placed first and second respectively in the Association of Computing Machinery Student Research Competition, held at the ACM Conference for Computer Science Educators in Norfolk, Virginia, March 5. Nachiappan Nagappan won first place in the graduate category for his research on software reliability estimation using internal code metrics. He is advised by Dr. Laurie Williams, with funding by an IBM Eclipse Innovation Award. Xinyuan Wang won second place in the graduate category for his research on computer and network security, in particular, tracing of attackers' traffic through the Internet. He is advised by Dr. Douglas Reeves, with funding provided by ARDA. To read more, go to http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/news/awards/acm.html and http://campus.acm.org/public/membernet/storypage.March.2004.cfm?story=4.

Student Group Provides Refurbished PCs to Henderson MS
While many students headed for the beach on Spring Break, members of the computer science student organization, ACM/AITP, spent part of their break delivering 25 refurbished computers to Henderson Middle School for use in two new computer labs being set up later this spring. The organizations' officers had been preparing the computers since early this year, using machines provided by the Goodwill Foundation of North Carolina and Windows 2000 software donated by Microsoft, as well as the necessary patches and updates. While getting up early to do the mass installation on the computers “really doesn't sound like fun, knowing that the computers would see much good use was the real joy in doing all of this,” says Travis Cornwell, a computer science and statistics senior at NC State and president of ACM/AITP. To read the entire article, go to http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/news/news_item.php?id=150.

NCSU Computer Science Colloquia Series
Our readers are invited and encouraged to take advantage of the NCSU Computer Science Colloquia Series, a special forum for visiting researchers from academia and industry as well as for NCSU faculty. The research topics introduced by the speakers span all areas of computer science. We also co-host the talks in the complementary Triangle Computer Science Distinguished Lecturer Series. The seminars are open and free to the public and are always listed on our ePartners event page at http://epartners.ncsu.edu/events.html. However, access to a more thorough list of speakers, topics, and abstracts, as well as PowerPoint and RealVideo archives are located at http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/research/colloquia/index.html. If you would like to be on the distribution list to receive special notices and schedule reminders about this series, please contact Ken Tate at kmtate2@ncsu.edu.

Corporate Sponsorships Available
Budgetary constraints continue to challenge us, forcing us to constantly look for new and innovative ways to provide the highest quality educational experience possible to our students. The need for outside funding has never been greater and we hope that you will consider one of the numerous "named" sponsorship opportunities currently available through the department of computer science for the remainder of the academic year:

ACM/AITP Meetings - A complementary named sponsorship event is available to any ePartner for the ACM/AITP Meeting on April 21st at 7 pm. You simply need to provide a guest speaker and a technical topic of 30-40 minutes in length. This event is also available to non-ePartners for a sponsorship of only $250.

Spring Diploma Ceremony - Over 1500 graduates, family, friends and faculty are expected to attend this beautiful ceremony on May 15th in the Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh. Your tax-deductible contribution of $2,500 will provide you named sponsorship recognition at the event and help us cover the rising cost of facility rental, refreshments, entertainment, and publications.

Women in Computer Science - Your contribution of $1,000 or more will provide named sponsorship support for this strategic initiative designed to increase the attraction and retention rate of women in the computer science field.

New CSC "Systems" Colloquium - Named sponsorship is available for helping fund the launch of a new "systems" focused colloquium spearheaded by Dr Frank Mueller. A $5,000 contribution (in whole or smaller amounts for multiple sponsors) would help provide funding for speaker fees and travel for this new colloquium.

In most cases, your sponsorship contributions are fully tax-deductible and may qualify you for higher levels of recognition. For more information, please contact Ken Tate at 919-513-4292 or kmtate2@ncsu.edu.

'Naming Rights' Available for New Facility
The official groundbreaking ceremony for our new 100,000 sq. ft, $41M state-of-the-art teaching and research facility on Centennial Campus was held on October 24th, 2003. At that same time, we launched the official Naming Rights Campaign with opportunities ranging from $25,000 to over $1M. Premiere naming spaces include an expansive atrium and a series of terraces designed to host events of all sizes, as well as labs, classrooms, conference rooms, and faculty offices. More information is available at http://epartners.ncsu.edu/naming_rights.html, and more details will officially be released on this campaign in the coming months. If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Ken Tate at 919-513-4292 or kmtate2@ncsu.edu.

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