Date: 2018-03-13

A Professor of Computer Science at the Kwara State University, Malete, Kazeem Alagbe Gbolagade, has highlighted his contributions towards the realisation of Residue Number System based processors globally.

Gbolagade, who is also the Provost, College of Information and Communication Technology, explained that Residue Number System is a sub part of Computer Arithmetic, which is also a sub part of Digital Logic Design and which in turn is a sub part of Computer Architecture.

He stated these while delivering the third Inaugural Lecture of the University at the Mini Convocation Arena. The lecture was entitled: "Just for the Love of High Speed Processors."

Gbolagade said: "I have worked with a number of colleagues in the area of Moduli Selection, Reverse Conversion, Overflow detection and application of RNS, e.g., in Bioinformatics, cryptography, cloud computing, and wireless sensor networks. "At this point, I would like to briefly report some of my humble contributions regarding moduli sets with common factors. Throughout the world, few researchers have contributed to this area. They are: A.B. Premkumar, W. Wang, M.N.S. Swamy, M.O. Ahmad, Y. Wang, K. A. Gbolagade, G.R. Voicu and S.D. Cotofana. "In total, there are eight published papers available on this subject and six out of these articles were published by a Nigerian, the gentleman presenting his inaugural lecture and standing before all of you today."

Gbolagade stated that advances in Computer Architecture over the past two decades have allowed the performances of digital computer hardware to continue its exponential growth, despite increasing technological difficulty in speed improvement at the circuit level.

He said: "This phenomenon rate of growth, which is expected to continue in the near future, would not have been possible without theoretical insights, experimental researches, and tool-building efforts that have helped transform Computer Architecture from an art into one of the most quantitative branches of The Inaugural Lecturer, however, enumerated a number of challenges that preclude RNS usage in general purpose computing, including Moduli Selection, Overflow Detection, Sign Detection, Magnitude Comparison, Division and other Complex Arithmetic operations.

"While we have proffered sufficient solutions to some of the issues, some still require a lot of attention. In the next couple of years, I will be busy investigating how other RNS Challenges not covered in this presentation, will be solved," he stated.

For higher education institutions, Gbolagade recommended that the Computer Science curriculum be reviewed, especially with respect to the number of programming languages computer scientists need to learn, suggesting that the number of programming language courses can be narrowed down to either one or two. "The mode of teaching of GNS computer science courses should be revised. Computer Laboratories must be made available for teaching these courses as it must be hands on practical training. With these, the number of educated illiterates will reduce significantly," he added.

He also called for expanding support for scholarship and the introduction of rigorous performance expectations, adding that apart from the institutional TETFund support, Universities should try to create a special Fund to assist identified exceptional scholars not able to attract international/national research grants.

The Don equally recommended that "government should embark on massive sensitisation programmes such that wealthy citizens and especially the University alumni will come to the aid of our Universities through endowment, scholarships, loans, gifts, and donations as it is the case in the developed countries.

"In order for our country to achieve the desired change, University Scholars should be involved in key decision making and place them in strategic positions."

The Inaugural Lecture attracted people from all walks of life, including topnotch academics, traditional rulers, led by the Oluwo of Iwoland, His Imperial Majesty, Oba (Dr.) Abdulrosheed Adewale Akanbi, Telu 1; top security personnel; family, friends, teachers, students, and professional colleagues of the Inaugural Lecturer; and a host of others.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. AbdulRasheed Na’Allah, chaired the well-attended event.

Na'allah described the Inaugural Lecturer as a computer wizard who has done Africa proud at the global level.