The faculty associated with USF’s Center for Communications and Signal Processing are specialists and conduct research on digital communications, networking, hardware/software, VLSI design, image processing, digital video, and signal processing. In particular, the Center focuses on broadband networks, networking theory, and high-speed applications. The network data gathered will be used to research scheduling and multiplexing of the meritorious applications for maximizing throughput and minimizing delay/jitter and packet loss and for modeling traffic streams. Other issues, such as routing, multicasting, congestion control, QoS issues, and security, will also be studied. Most importantly, the data generated on the Abilene network will be used for both (networking) instruction and research at the University of South Florida. Interaction with other universities on networking research will be a part of this plan. The faculty members associated with the Center are: V. K. Jain, Ph.D.; G. Lachs, Ph.D.; A. D. Snider, Ph.D.; R. Sankar, Ph.D.; P. G. Flikkema, Ph.D.; K. Christensen, Ph.D.; N. Ranganathan, Ph.D.; H. A. Nienhaus; D. King, Ph.D.

On a periodic basis, the project will be evaluated by a committee comprised of the Applications Project Directors, the Network Management Staff, and the Project Principal Investigators relative to the following issues:

1. How well are the Meritorious Research Applications benefiting from the Abilene connectivity and this project?
2. How does the data benefit the network operation?
3. How well are the other research and educational applications benefiting from the Abilene connectivity?
4. How can network research be furthered to make the project a national model?