teaching the pertinent knowledge of Electrical Engineering, and. (2) teaching the ... are found in Nuclear, Civil, or Chemical Engineering. Laboratory and design ...
Applied versus Theoretical Approaches in Undergraduate Electrical Engineering Education Sumit Ghosh, Division of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 & L. Bohmann, J. Cogdell, H. Dai, M. Etezadi, D. Hart, G. Heydt, J. Mans eld, G. Wodicka, G. Wraite, and H. Abdel-Aty-Zohdy
Abstract This paper contains a discussion and comparison of applied versus theoretical approaches to undergraduate Electrical Engineering education. The factors which in uence these approaches are identi ed. The contemporary needs of industry are also discussed. The objective of the paper is to sensitize engineers in both the educational and industrial sectors to the need for a proper mix of these to philosophical approaches.
1. Introduction Engineering educators are responsible for two major tasks: (1) teaching the pertinent knowledge of Electrical Engineering, and (2) teaching the \engineering process" which may be de ned as the ability for problem solving and independent thinking. Task one is done rather well. Although, the subject content within the Electrical Engineering curriculum continues to increase at a rapid pace, students do a very good job at keeping up. Task two can be taught through courses which are applied and design oriented. It is important to note that, as educators try to convey more and more information to their students, they should not lose sight of these two fundamental tasks. In this paper the \applied" and \theoretical" approaches to education are examined for suitability of accomplishing the cited two goals. The theoretical approach refers to emphasis on the underlying mathematics and physics of Electrical Engineering in the undergraduate curriculum. Since the curriculum is limited by time and resources, the theoretical approach may include replacements of applied courses and experiences with more specialized subjects such as advanced linear algebra, probability and statistics, solid state physics, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, the applied approach emphasizes such things as design and construction projects, experiences which involve component or system evaluation and the use of teamwork and judgement to solve signi cant problems. When applications are emphasized, there may be compromises in the presentation of the theory. It appears that overemphasis of the theory or the applications, at the expense of the other, is inadvisable.
2. The basic Electrical Engineering curriculum The core of an electrical engineer's coursework is divided into two parts, the part outside of electrical engineering, and the part within. At a recent informal poll of engineering educators, the general subject areas of Tables (1)-(2) were identi ed as essential in an Electrical Engineering curriculum.
Minimum requirement Subject areas per subject 1/2 Year Mathematics: Di erential Calculus, Integral Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Complex Numbers, Di erential Equations, Linear Algebra, Statistics, Probability 1/2 Year Sciences: Computer Science: Computer Applications, Programming Language, Algorithm Development. Physics, Mechanics, Optics, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Relativity. Engineering Science: One course outside of EE 1/2 Year Humanities and Social Studies Table 1: Core subject areas outside of Electrical Engineering
Minimum requirement Subject areas per subject 1 Year Fundamental principles Circuits Signals and systems Electromagnetics Fundamental materials Electrical properties of materials Fundamental applications Digital systems Fundamental skills Laboratory Design Table 2:
Core subject areas within Electrical Engi-
neering
It appears that in addition to a syllabus of topics to be covered, the following elements should be present: A close coordination between Mathematics and Electrical Engineering departments is needed to ensure that the mathematics covered is most important to the students. The use of new symbolicand graphicalcomputer programs may make the material easier to understand and allow it to be covered in a more ecient manner. An integration of the computer into problem solving. This includes the development of algorithms into a form by which the computer may be used for solution. Give the students an understanding of the physical world. The exact topics covered should be determined through coordination with the remainder of the curriculum. There should be a mix of topics which are duplicated in other
courses (but in greater depth) as well as topics for which this is the only exposure that the students will have. Electrical Engineering students should have exposure to other engineering disciplines. Exactly what that exposure should be may vary for di erent programs. The course may depend on the students' specialization and career goals. Traditional courses are Statics, Dynamics, and Thermodynamics. Other potentially useful courses are found in Nuclear, Civil, or Chemical Engineering.
Laboratory and design experiencesshould be spread throughout the curriculum in order for the student to become pro cient in these important areas. To keep students from thinking that the theoretical aspects of engineering never interact with the more practical aspects, \all courses" should contain theoretical as well as applied materials. Applied aspects can be introduced into theory courses by using practical example problems, case studies, demonstrations and by requiring the students to write more. Theoretical elements can be illustrated with applications areas - preferably areas which will capture the imagination of the student.
3. The role of design in Electrical Engineering education Most Electrical Engineering educators and practicing engineers in industry agree that for success in a highly competitive industrial world, Electrical Engineers must be \capable" designers, know how to get to the core of a problem and solve it, and competent at the \application" of their knowledge. The notion of design is understood to include the qualities of creativity [1][2], independent thinking, imagination, and an ability to identify and solve problems. Today's international industrial environment is changing at a phenomenal pace. To be an international leader, one needs to be innovative, think on one's feet, be unafraid of changes, and practice the ability to creatively integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines to solve a problem. Upon graduation, many Electrical Engineers lack the ability to visualize a problem at the system level. Christiansen [5] describes that while many undergraduates are bitter about the courses they are required to take, employers complain that the new graduates lack the ability to apply their knowledge to an engineering problem in the real world. The Electrical Engineering discipline has expanded enormously in the past decades, driven by rapid technological changes. To ensure that the students are aware of the principles of the many sub-disciplines, most EE programs have adopted a bottom-up approach. That is, students are exposed to a sequence of courses, each specialized in a narrow area, with the expectation that the student will ultimately acquire a total picture of the eld. In theory, the bottom-up approach is certainly plausible. However, in reality, many students lack the ability to visualize a system-level, top-down approach towards solving a real-world problem. That is, the individual may be conversant with the theory but be unable to see how it is applied. It is not entirely clear that a mere shift in approach, i.e. bottom-up to top-down, will solve this problem. According to Webster's dictionary [3], design is the ability to conceive and plan out an objective in the mind. While clearly a large part of design is a mental process, the EE discipline requires the inclusion of an implementation of the objective, either in the form of a prototype or a simulation. Thus, the de nition of Electrical Engineering design is usually broadened: \The design process or philosophy seeks to accomplish speci ed tasks, within a technological framework, in a creative and innovative way. The technology may change but the process still applies." There is a general belief [6] that creativity and innovation requires an individual to be rst skilled in the current mathematical and theoretical knowledge and then possess an unceasing desire to go beyond the present state of knowledge. Paraphrasing Einstein, \... The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge. If a person masters the fundamentals of his (her) subject and has learned to think and work independently, he (she) will surely nd his (her) way and besides will be better able to adapt himself (herself) to progress and changes than the person whose
training principally consists in the acquiring of detailed knowledge." Put in terms of the industrial sector seeking to hire a new graduate, \... We would prefer to hire a 3.0/4.0 grade point average graduate who is practical and possesses adequate EE basics, initiative, and creativity over a 4.0 graduate who is afraid of adjusting to changes in the workplace...". The concepts of design, creativity, and innovation elude attempts at precise de nition. While design in one scenario may consist in emulating all possible solutions to a problem and then choosing the best alternative based on speci ed criteria, in another, a high-level synthesis of low-level ideas may constitute an expression of creative engineering. The body of knowledge that constitutes the science of design [9] is still evolving. It is neither fully conceptualized nor integrated in the engineering curriculum. Educational objectives may be organized as shown in Figure 1 known as Bloom's taxonomy [8]. There is general agreement that while Electrical Engineering programs achieve the rst two layers of the pyramid, namely knowledge and comprehension, they fail to address the higher layers. In reviewing the history of Electrical Engineeringprograms, Liebman [9] notes that early engineering programs were built around large doses of handson activities and learning by doing in laboratories and in the eld. The essential objective was to instill a \feel" for how things worked. Given the overwhelming rapidity of development of new technologies, in the 1960's, educators shifted the emphasis to fundamental science and unifying principles from \cookbook" engineering. The objective was to allow students to comprehend a half-dozen di erent phenomenon through a single equation rather than through laboratory demonstrations. Abstraction and scienti c visualization rather than hands-on experimentation was the guiding philosophy. The new emphasis, while timely for that period of history, has led to the current situation. Electrical Engineering graduates, while more knowledgeable in the scienti c principles than their counterparts twenty years ago, often lack the intuitive understanding of the translation of scienti c principles into physical realities. A joke illustrates this point: \When a student was asked how to reverse the direction of rotation of a three phase 60 Hz AC induction motor, the student thought for a while and answered: I guess you have to invert the matrix." The problem is further compounded by the rapidly changing nature of US industry: a decade ago, it was considered adequate for an Electrical Engineer to possess knowledge of integrated circuit design in an electronic manufacturing company. Today's companies require their employees to be familiar with the issues of high-level language, compilers, and perhaps parallel processing in addition to being a competent integrated circuit designer. Furthermore, today, many companies would like their Electrical Engineering graduates to be able to model electromagnetic radiation from integratedcircuitdesigns along with the ability to use computeraided design tools.
Evaluation Synthesis
Analysis Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Figure 1: Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.
4. Models for incorporating design in an EE curriculum The purpose of design in the undergraduateElectrical Engineering curriculum is to help students build higher cognitive skills by encouraging them to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate tasks and techniques that are being taught in the class. For the implementation of the teaching of creative design, a selected number of approaches are worth highlighting and comparing: Longitudinal capstone design In this model, the \capstone" design course is implemented through a project with four members, recruited across the class line. Thus, every group consists of a senior, junior, sophomore, and a freshman. Each member looks to the upper class person for suggestions and experience as a mentor. The senior EE student is the project manager and reports to a faculty. Wherever possible, industrial representatives are involved with the projects. The advantages of this mechanism are many. First, it provides the faculty an opportunity to oversee the project over a four year period and ensure that each student learns the science of design. Second, every student is associated with a project throughout his(her) tenure as a EE student and is provided the opportunityto apply the theory that is taught in class. It must be stressed that, analogous to the notion of teams in industry, every member of a group is a responsible entity. Integrated design In this approach, the faculty inspires creativity in the students through specially formulated problems in every EE course throughout the curriculum. The philosophy of this model is that the teaching of the science of design is a continuous and embedded process. The problems may be introduced (i) while teaching, (ii) in the laboratory exercises, (iii) examination questions and short quizzes, and (iv) homework problems. Senior honors thesis The nature of the honors thesis is similar to that of a senior project with minor exceptions. First, the student must possess high grades and display enthusiasm, maturity, and commitment to the e ort which is intimately tied to the faculty member's research program. Second, a honors thesis usually requires the student to begin working in the second semester of the junior year and continue through 10 weeks in the immediate summer and two semesters of the senior year. The student must (i) address the problem along with the faculty member, (ii) implement either a prototype, often a major piece of hardware, or a simulation, often a large software system, (iii) write a semi-professional thesis with necessary experimental data, and (iv) successfully defend the thesis in the presence of a faculty committee. While not a requirement, a honors thesis may be submitted to a refereed journal or international conference for review and possible publication. Given its intensity, the optional nature of the honors thesis provides interested students an opportunity to further their creative design skills while relieving non-interested students from a mandatory project and thereby freeing valuable faculty time. Competitive design projects Extracurricular engineering experiences should be encouraged. As an example, the International Solar Car Race is a competitive design experience in which solar powered electric vehicles from several universities worldwide participate in a race. The integrated interdisciplinary design combined with the mundane tasks of fund raising are worthwhile for the participating students. The mere exposure of the students to design problems may not achieve the desired objective. Given the uniqueness of every individual, di erent students may experience di erent types of diculty even for the same problem. In this model, the faculty member needs to analyze and critique the student's design process. Such detailed analysis will help to instill in the student a very long-term appreciation for the value of creative thinking, depth of knowledge, and perseverance. Design is essentially a highly abstract procedure and it can be best taught through an actual example. Both the student and the faculty undertake an actual design process, run into diculties, synthesize poor designs initially, and then the faculty demonstrates to the student the process of nding a better solution, not necessarily the best
solution. In addition to the immediate experience, the student is allowed to be privy to the faculty member's way of thinking. The underlying philosophy of this approach is probably not too distant from those of Plato, Rousseau, and the classic gurudisciple style of education in ancient India. This model also bears strong similarity to Liebman's [9] rst paradigm of design { one that envisions design as the construction of a solution { the so-called \inspirational model." The designer ponders the problem and visualizes an innovative and inventive solution, one that is only an outline and not nal. In many design projects, students experience an initial shock when confronted with a short description of the project with minimal speci cations. The process of elaborating the project description and the visualization of the overall design requires signi cant thinking, planning, and perseverance. Conceivably, many students may \ ounder" for a while and, in reality, they do. While the symptoms of \ oundering" may vary from no work to hard but misdirected work, it is manifested through a lack of appreciable progress. The \capstone" design process must recognize the importance of \ oundering" and permit it in a controlled manner. While many students may utilize this time to develop their perseverance, a few may learn the eciency of goal-directed work, and others may gain experience from initial failure. Since the perception of failure often sti es creativity it may be important to initially permit a hardworking student to
ounder and fail. Thereafter, the faculty must help the student progress, encouraging him(her) along the way and demonstrating with objectivity that failure is an important ingredient of creativity. Fear of failure will only cause an individual to tread on well-known routes, sti ing imaginative solutions. The need for the design process to intercept prolonged \ oundering" in a timely manner and to address it, is a real challenge to the faculty. The use of \program evaluation and review technique (PERT)" [10] based project planners is recommended. Wilcox [4] provides a good reference to several case studies in the context of teaching design. To ensure that important elements of the design process are touched upon in a capstone design experience, Tables (3) and (4) may be helpful during both the implementation and evaluation stages. (I)
Understanding of the design process (a) Establishing the customer needs and desires (b) Developing specifications (c) Examining alternatives (d) Selecting an approach (e) Designing tests of performance (f) Identifying milestones (II) Project planning and management Time management Resource management (III) Written and verbal communication skills (IV) System level visualization (V) Modeling skills (VI) Construction and computer simulation skills (VII) Testing skills
Table 3: Objectives of Design Projects. (I) (II)
Ethical Issues Safety Issues (a) Manufacturing (b) User (c) Environmental (III) Ecological Considerations (IV) Economics Issues (V) Design for Manufacture (VI) Reliability (a) Electronic (b) Thermal (c) Fault Tolerance (V) Evolution of the product design
Table 4: Additional Issues in the Teaching of the Science of Design.
5. Industrial role in the undergraduate curriculum One of the primary goals of the university as viewed by industry is to produce an engineer with not only a strong theoretical
background but also strong practical problem solving skills. In many undergraduate Electrical Engineering curricula today, a majority of attention has been devoted to theory while practical problem solving has had less emphasis. Since the universities are producing a product for industry, namely graduated engineers, it would only make sense that industry should play a key role in determining this product's nal form. Industry needs to be brought into the loop of educating undergraduate engineers. Some of the answers may lie in encouraging and allowing industry to play an active role in the formation of the undergraduate curriculum, educating faculty about the practical problems encountered in industry, and making cooperative education a signi cant part of the undergraduate experience. Why has practical problem solving taken a back seat in undergraduate electrical engineering? If a faculty member has a limited exposure to an industrial setting, the result may be a lack of sensitivity to practical problems encountered in industry. Also, a professor may be more interested in building a sound theoretical background for the student with the thought that the applied side will be learned in industry. Therefore, the practical issues involved in applying theory to real world problems sometimes are compromised. When faculty members do stress practical problems, it is often on their own accord, rather than a course syllabus requirement. As a result, the student engineer receives a mixed signal on the importance of an engineering awareness of these issues. It is importantto introducethe undergraduateengineer to problem solving and the issues of cost, reliability, safety, legal and patent issues, and resource limits as early as possible. It is even more important to make sure that these issues are discussed in the curriculum to insure that awareness does not fade. Many undergraduate curricula o er a freshman engineering design course to introduce these issues to the student engineer. Unfortunately, these courses are often not taken seriously by the students or the faculty perhaps because they do not t the image of a \real" Electrical Engineering course. It may prove bene cial to require participation in these design courses and consequently, to expend more energy and time into their development. Also, in order to reinforce the material taught in these design courses the faculty has to make a concerted e ort to develop these problem solving skills and awareness of issues throughout all upper level Electrical Engineering courses. To integrate the applied side of engineering into the undergraduate curriculum, programs should be developed that open the doors of communication between industry and academia. To increase faculty awareness of practical problems, industry could organize and sponsor faculty workshops. There are institutional and infrastructure problems in this regard: the industrial sector is frequently pressed to get their job done and allocation of valuable resources to interface with universities is often at a low priority. At the university, the recommendations of industry are often relegated to low priority because the university has its own agenda and pressures. There are solutions to these diculties: funding agencies might insist on industrial cooperation before making grants; both the university and industry might organize workshops so that the academics get to know the practicing engineers; professional societies might insist on adequate representation from both the educational and industrial sectors on all committees and working groups. Interaction fostered in these ways could bring industrial problems to the classroom, industrially sponsored senior design projects, and a better appreciation by industry and universities in knowing each others limitations and needs. Most universities already o er some programs formulated around the idea known as the cooperative(co-op) educationand the summer intern program. Typically in such programs, the student has several industrial assignments throughout his(her) undergraduate career working three to six months full-time for a company in a related engineering eld. This program helps to introduce the applied engineering experience to the student early in the curriculum. It gives the student the opportunity to work with other engineers, possibly in other disciplines, teaching the student team concepts. The student may be placed on a project with an engineer who acts as a mentor and introduces the student to the problem solving steps and methods used to obtain a practical and safe solution. A student with multiple sessions or summer jobs in a variety of areas would have the exposure to make a more informed decision as to interest areas and curriculum choices. Also, a completed project or a job well done can certainly build con dence and self-esteem while giving
the student a sense of how engineering is practiced. Resources and the balance of theory and applications It is well known that although engineering is based on science and mathematical concepts, it goes beyond these areas towards applications, design, and implementation of the theoretical concepts. However, fundamental theoretical concepts are a must, particularly in undergraduate engineering education, in order to produce engineers that are capable of adapting to the vast advances and progress in the Electrical Engineering eld rather than become limited-professional-life engineers. Resources usually restrain educational activities in ways that in uence the balance between theoretical basics and practical applications. Most of the resources that are addressed in this article are heavily a ected by the political decisions made at the federal, state, university, school, and department levels. Unfortunately, some of these decisions only address short-term gains rather than the long-range and sound planning. The main resource limitations are: Faculty allocations and interest Faculty interests and allocations vary considerably depending on the mission of an Electrical Engineering department. In major research institutions, the research culture strongly in uences the theory/applications mix. Academic institutions, with few exceptions, have rewarded faculty for success in research as indicated by research dollars, technical articles and publications, and graduate student throughput. Thus, faculty may emphasize theory in undergraduate education since a broader theoretical foundation is required for graduate education and senior electives become gateways to graduate specializations. Although most faculty are interested in the practical applications of their research results, it is not easy to produce applied material for undergraduate teaching. Possible solutions to the limited faculty resources for teaching practical engineering concepts are to (1) encourage sabbatical leaves in industry, (2) increase faculty enhancement summer programs, and (3) alter and improve the reward mechanisms in academia. Time demands Time demands on students and that available for instruction favors theory over applications. Since an undergraduate degree typically requires a xed number of semesters hours and the total weekly obligation of the student is about three times the semesters hours, we can see an inherent trade o . Application courses, primarily design and laboratory courses, are notorious consumers of student time, and hence an honest valuation of the application courses would eat up a large fraction of the total semester hours in the program. Increasing the time available for instruction from four to ve years (124 credits to 136 credits) might be highly valued for expected long-range educational quality returns. Even though the total cost of the program would be more, it may be an economically wise decision when comparedto graduatingengineers with four years educationand then requiring two-to-three years of expensive rotational assignments within industry before those engineers could be charged with real life engineering applications. Capital funds and facilities Limited nancial resources also favor theory over application. Laboratories are important context for applying theory, and hence the cost of small sections (low student/faculty ratio), laboratory equipment, and technical sta upgrading inevitably favor relatively large theory classes, requiring primarily textbooks and chalk Even non-laboratory applications courses require upto-date literature, and material maintained at departmental expense. Alternative solutions to the limited funds and facilities include: (1) strong cooperative collaboration with industry, (2) coordinated government/state/local e orts regarding modernization of labs and facilities, (3) involving more undergraduate students in research laboratories.
6. Observations and recommendations Basic science and applications technology are recognized as critical elements in the emergence of a global international economy [1]. Shorter time horizons between concept and application calls for more iterative relationships between fundamental research and technology. Hence, an increased need of collaborative relationships among academia/industry/and government is mandated. On the other hand, the United States federal government has been keeping an almost unchanging distribution in their support among basic research 70 - 753 - 5relatively less funding emphasizing engineering and applied sciences as compared to the basic sciences. On the bright side, the major recommendations from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology [12], recommends moving people between industry and university, reemphasizing teaching, and adapting quickly and responsibly to a constrained resource environment. \Our universities have arrived at a stage of maturity burdened by too many tasks ... and too great a confusion of expectations, by the consequences and distortions of excessive growth, ... and by the illusion that comprehensiveness is necessary for institutional distinction," as suggested by Dr. Hanna Gray, President of the University of Chicago, in her 1992 keynote address to the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. The need for creativity, problem solving ability, and imagination are fundamental to the success of current and future Electrical Engineering graduates. Given that the primary responsibility for sustaining the industrial infrastructure of this nation rests squarely on engineers, an overwhelming number of whom hold accredited bachelors degrees, undergraduate programs deserve the undivided attention of the faculty. For many Electrical Engineering graduates entering into the industrial workplace at age 22, their four years of training must sustain them for as much as the subsequent 40 years of their career. Since technology will inevitably change, at least once if not more during their career, their fundamental training must be strong enough to render them life-long learners. Many universities and technical colleges are no longer able to provide adequate laboratories and hands on experiments necessary for their graduates to be ready for direct and productive interaction with the global industrial market. The key reasons include (1) limited resources due to a lack of long-rangeforesight of college administrators in concert with adequate coordinated local, state, and federal government support, and (2) faculty reward mechanisms that favor highly specialized research over both teaching and solving industrialproblems to help place engineering education in the forefront in order to drive the economy using advanced technology. Research faculty should make and maintain contacts with industry through summer and sabbatical appointments in design and manufacturing. More undergraduate students should be welcomed into academic research groups to assist in programming or equipment design and construction, producing the happy combination of practical experience with enticing exposure to the research dimension of graduate study. Faculty should lobby for an increased importance of teaching in promotional decisions. On the other hand, schools that emphasize undergraduate teaching are somewhat immune to these pressures, and consequently may maintain more emphasis on applications, thereby ful lling an important mission within the educational community. Also, industry appears to be taking up some of the educational slack through cooperative education and extended training and mentoring programs for their new employees.
Acknowledgement The remarks presented in this paper are the outgrowth of a workshop held at Turkey Run State Park, Indiana in March 1993. The authors would like to acknowledge the input of the following workshop attendees: S. Abraham, F. Brockhurst, G. Burkhart, E. Carlen, C. David, B. Evans, A. Goel, M. Harwood, B. Howard, J. Jun, M. Kara, C. Kraft, M. Krishnam, J. Lindenlaub, J. McClellan, J. Mottley, P. Nicastri, M. Rashid, J. Reising, D. Rohlfs, M. Simmons, D. Voltmer, and M. Yoder.
References [1] C. A. Thomas, \Creativity in Science, Eight Annual Arthur Dehon Little Memorial Lecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology," MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, April 1955. [2] R. Kay, \Managing creativity in science and Hi-Tech," Springer-Verlag, New York, 1990. [3] Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, MerriamWebster Inc., Boston, Massachusetts, 1985. [4] A. D. Wilcox, \EngineeringDesign For Electrical Engineers," Prentice Hall, Englewood Cli s, New Jersey, 1990. [5] D. Christiansen, \New curricula," IEEE Spectrum Editorial, Vol. 29, No. 7, p. 25, July 1992. [6] S. Ghosh, \An exercise in inducing creativity in undergraduate engineering students through challenging examinations and open-ended design problems," IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 113-119, February 1993. [7] S. Ratnajeevan and H. Hoole, \Engineering Education, design, and senior projects," IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 193-198, May 1991. [8] L. C. Jacobs and C. I. Chase, \Developing and Using Tests E ectively: A Guide for Faculty," San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992. [9] J. C. Liebman, \Designing the design engineer," Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering, Vol. 115, No. 3, July 1989. [10] J. M. Amos and B. R. Sarchet, \Management for Engineers," Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1981. [11] \In the National Interest, The Federal Government and Research-Intensive Universities," Federal Coordinating Council for Sciences, Engineering, and Technology, Ad Hoc Working Group on Research-Intensive Universities and Federal Government, Washington, DC, December 1992. [12] \Renewing The Promise: Research-Intensive Universities and the Nation," President's Council Of Advisors On Science and Technology, Washington, DC, December 1992.
SUMIT GHOSH Sumit Ghosh received the B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1980. He received the M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Computer Systems Laboratory of the electrical engineering department at Stanford University in 1981 and 1984. He then served as a Principal Investigator - Member of Technical Sta at Bell Laboratories Research, Holmdel, New Jersey. Since January 1, 1989 he has been with the Division of Engineering at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island as an Assistant Professor. His research interests include asynchronous distributed decision-making algorithms for military command and control, integration of geographically-dispersed databases, integration of patient medical records, approximate reasoning for self-healing broadband-ISDN network control, behavior simulation, fault simulation, test generation, distributed real-time payments processing, railway networks, intelligent vehicle highway system, inventory management, and hardware description languages/environments for distributed execution on parallel processors. Additional interests include dynamic debugging environments for distributed algorithms executing on looselycoupled parallel processors and adaptive, recon gurable machine architectures.
