CS 838 Pervasive Parallelism Fall 2005 Section 3 Instructor Mark D. Hill URL: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/cs838/Fall2005/

Project

Weight: 40%

Schedule

• Proposal: Hardcopy in instructor's mailbox by 12:00 Noon Thu Oct 20 (or before)
• Preliminary Talks: In Lecture Wed Nov 16 and Fri Nov 18
• Final Talks: In Lecture Mon Dec 12 and Wed Dec 14
  and at an extra class Tue Dec 13 5:15-6:30pm (in our regular lecture room)
• Project Report: Hardcopy in instructor's mailbox, 8:59 AM Tue Dec 20

The project will have you do original research in parallel computing (hardware, software, theory, or combination). You should work in groups of two. With my permission, project groups of three or one are permissible. You will be graded on how well you define your problem, survey previous work, design and conduct experiments, and present your results. The goal to shoot for a conference paper, like the ones in your reader. Since time is limited, however, the above goal is hard to reach, and I will reward those that aim high even if they do not completely succeed. The key is insuring that some aspects of your work are completely done; it is very hard to grade a project where the simulator did not quite work.

Meet with Me

Your group should talk with me prior to your proposal to flush out ideas.

Proposal

Proposals should be about two pages long. They should include:

• A description of your topic,
• A statement of why you think the topic is interesting or important,
• A description of the methods you will use to evaluate your ideas, and
• References to at least three papers you have obtained.

I will meet with all groups to discuss your proposal.

Preliminary Talk

Groups will present a 15-minute-ish talk using up to SEVEN slides:

1. Title slide
2. Problem the project addresses & why it is important
3. Methods & how you break down the problem is facilitate progress
4. Preliminary results (1-2 slides)
5. Future plans (1-2 slides)

Please, practice your talk to make it better and see how long it is. Have a plan for what slides to skip if you get behind. Please see my Oral Presentation Advice, including David Patterson's How to Give a Bad Talk and K. Compton and M.L.Chang's Terrible Presentations (...and how to not give one).

Final Talks

We will divide up the last few lectures into 25-minute-ish conference-style talks. Depending on class size, some talk may be scheduled at alternative times. All group members should deliver part of the talk. The talk should give highlights of the final report, including the problem, motivation, results, conclusions, and possible future work. Time limits will be enforced to let everyone present.

Project Report

Reports should consist of an abstract, body and optional appendices, much like a conference paper. The abstract should summarize the contributions of the report in one or two paragraphs. The length of the body should be the equivalent of 20-25 pages at double-spaced 10-point. Additional supporting material of any length can be put in appendices. I will read the body and only skim appendices. See your reader for examples.

Topics

You are encouraged to come up with your own topic. Ideally, the topic will be related to your current research interests.