CACS FACULTY AND THEIR RESEARCH INTERESTS

Dr. T. R. N. RAO

trao@cacs.louisiana.edu

Z. L. Loflin Chair Professor, Computer Science. B.S., Andhra U. Waltair, India, l952; D.I.I.Sc., Indian Inst. of Sci., Bangalore, India, l955; M.S.E., U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, l961; Ph.D., Elec. Eng., U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, l964.

One of the research projects of Dr. Rao is ``Generalized Hamming Weights of Algebraic-Geometric Codes and Asymptotically Good Algebraic-Geometric Codes'' supported by the National Science Foundation. The project aims are to construct asymptotically good improved AG codes and improved AG codes that exceed the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for some special finite fields. This research also includes developing a simple and efficient method to determine a lower bound of the generalized Hamming weights of AG codes, such that the method can also be

used to determine the weight hierarchy of a special class of AG codes. In Algebraic-Geometric codes, Dr. Rao and Dr. Feng developed a novel decoding procedure. This procedure can decode algebraic-geometric codes up to the designed minimum distance with complexity of O(n ^7/3). From this decoding procedure the designed minimum distance can be derived without Reimann-Roch theorem.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Dr. Rao received Fellow of ACM

Award in 1996, Fellow of IEEE Award in 1984, the first ACM Lecturer of the Year Award for 1992, and was inducted into the ACM Distinguished Lecturer Hall of Fame in 1993. He also received (jointly with Dr. G. L. Feng) the 1994 Best Paper of the Year Award from the IEEE Information Theory Society. His other awards include Fulbright Fellow (1986-87) and (1993-94), UL Lafayette Distinguished Professor (1984), and SIGMA XI Outstanding Researcher of UL Lafayette Chapter (1984).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

T.R.N. Rao and E. Fujiwara, Error Control Coding for Computer Systems, graduate level text and research reference, 600 pages, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989.
T.R.N. Rao, Error Control Coding for Arithmetic Processors, a graduate level text and research reference, 234 pages, Academic Press, New York & London, 1974.
T.R.N. Rao, H.F. Mattson, and T. Mora (Editors), Lecture Notes in Computer Science - Volume 539, Applied Algebra, Algebraic Algorithms and Error-Correcting Codes, 1991.
X.W. Wu, G.L. Feng, and T.R.N. Rao, "New Double-Byte Error-Correcting Codes for Memory Systems," to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
G.L.Feng, T.R.N. Rao, Gene A. Berg, and Junmei Zhu, "Generalized Bezout's Theorem and its Applications in Coding Theory," to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, November 1997.
G.L.Feng, S. Xiao, X. Shi, and T.R.N. Rao, "A Generalization of the Single b-Bit Byte Error Correcting and Double Bit Error Detecting Codes for High- Speed Memory Systems," IEEE Transactions on Computers, pp. 508-511, April 1996.
G.L.Feng and T.R.N. Rao, "Improved Geometric Goppa Codes, Part I: Basic Theory," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 41, No. 6, pp. 1678-1693, November 1995.
T.R.N. Rao, G.L. Feng, and M.S. Kolluru, "Design of Self-Checking Processors using Efficient Berger Check Prediction Logic," in Foundations of Dependable Computing, Vol. III-System Implementation, Gary Koob and Clifford G. Lau (editors), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994.
G.L. Feng, V.K. Wei, T.R.N. Rao, and K.K. Tzeng, "Simplified Understanding and Efficient Decoding of a Class of Algebraic-Geometric Codes," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 981-1002, July 1994.
G.L. Feng and T.R.N. Rao, "A Simple Approach for Construction of Algebraic Geometric Codes from Affine Plane Curves," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 1003-1012, July 1994.
G.L. Feng and T.R.N. Rao, "Error Correcting Codes over Z₂^m for Algorithm-Based Fault Tolerance," IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 43, No. 3, March 1994.