CSC 400 Graduate Problem Seminar: Assignments

First, internalize the problem...
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The assignments will be posted here after the day's class,
along with the due date.
Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date.
In general, no credit will be allowed for for late assignments.
Turn what you have in in for partial credit.
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For any assignment, I expect a well organized
report-style writeup that describes in detail what you did, why you did it,
and what the results were. This includes negative results.
Scratch work and computer code, if requested should be appended to the main
writeup with appropriate pointers.
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Attribute ANY work that is not your own, including software off the
web, text cribbed from other sources, etc.
You are encouraged to look for resources, but not to the extent that
it negates the point of the assignment.
This is sometimes a fine line, especially in programming assignments.
I will try to be specific as to what I expect you to write
as a minimum. If in doubt, ask.
In any case, use of UN-attributed material is plagiarism, and a violation
of the University's academic honesty policy.
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You are encouraged to discuss general techniques and specific approaches
to general problems with your fellow students, or anyone else.
Unless specifically directed in an assignment, however, you are not to
share code you have written, or your written solutions to specific
problems.
Friday, September 2, 2005
- Class activity: Introductory material, Survey forms.
- Assignment: Create your department web page and put a picture of
yourself on it. You are responsible for finding out how to do this.
Try asking other students, staff about web pages, Marty, vision
students about pics).
Make a version of your picture that is 128 pixels high in jpg format
and copy it to /u/nelson/pics/faces/csc_400_fall_2005 under the name
first_last_128.jpg (e.g. bob_smith_128.jpg).
The directory should be writeable.
Due: Wednesday, September 7, 2005.
Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Friday, September 9, 2005
- Class activity: Presentation of estimation problem solutions.
- Assignment:
ITRG Miniproposals
Due: Friday, September 16, 2005.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
- Class activity: Prof Chen Ding talks about the department.
Friday, September 16, 2005
- Class activity: Presentation of estimation problem solutions cont.
- Assignment: Prepare 5 minute talk on your
ITRG Miniproposals
Due: Wednesday, September 21, 2005.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
- Class activity: ITRG proposal presentations. 5 MINUTES!!
At the end of class, turn in your selection of the top 3 proposals
(not including your own), ranked 1-3.
- Assignment: Hook your ITRG proposal to your web page.
Due: 1 hour after class ends.
- Assignment: Read and review all proposals assigned to your
ITRG panel group.
The proposals should be posted on the proposer's web site by one hour
after class. Send them email reminders or pester them in person if they
have not got a web site up yet. This is known as social pressure.
Bring your reviews with you to class on Friday (Sept. 23), one signed,
and one unsigned copy (this will be returned to the proposal writer).
Due: Friday, Sept 23, 2005.
Friday, September 23, 2005
- Class activity: ITRG Panels.
Make sure you turn in your reviews (one signed and one blank copy),
your panel rankings, and your panel summaries to me by the end of the day
(or Monday morning at the latest).
- Assignment: Find (on the web or elsewhere), read, and understand
the entire Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998
(Final Joint version of House Resolution 2281, also known as Public
Law 105-304). This is not a short document, so you should get busy over
the weekend.
Then prepare reports (written and for presentation) as specified in
DMCA Issues Research
Due: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 (presentation and written report)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
- Class activity: DMCA presentations and discussion.
- In preparation for an assignment to be given on Friday, find out
what you can about the crypt function (used for password encryption on
unix/linux). The assignment will involve a password cracking competition
where use of parallel computing resources may be to your advantage
(and there may be competition for these resources).
Friday, September 30, 2005
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
- Class activity: Password cracking presentations and discussion.
- Assignment: Individual project proposal.
You should, by now, have identified a potential 400 project and advisor.
Write up the proposed project in a sort document; a couple of pages should
be sufficient at this point. However, you should put down specific goals that
are reasonable to accomplish in the time permitted, and discuss how you
will evaluate the outcome of your project.
As mentioned in class, survey papers are not acceptable, nor are
overly broad areas such as "look at new approaches to resolving P !=? NP"
or "software cache coherance in shared memory multiprocessors".
We will have project proposal presentations beginning next Wednesday,
so be prepared.
Friday, October 7, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
- Class activity:
Presentation of initial individual project proposals.
We will not get through them all, as I want there to be time for discussion,
but we will make a start.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
- Class activity:
Presentation of initial individual project proposals cont.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
- Class activity:
Team-building exercise.
- Assignment: Look at the preliminary description for the proposed
Parallel jigsaw puzzle solving
project, and come to class next Wednesday
prepared to participate in a discussion of the project design: potential
issues, modifications, strategies, adequacy of resources, etc.
Friday, October 22, 2004
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