Homepage

english only

Problem Solving in Computer Science

Summer 2007

Instructors:

Lecturer: Tom Henzinger
Assistant: Dietmar Berwanger

Schedule:

Lectures

Tuesday, 13:30-15:00, INM203
Friday, 13:30-15:00, INM203

Office hours

Thursday, 13:00 - 15:30, BC 343
Other times on request

Objectives:

The objective of the course is twofold. First, the course aims at honing the problem solving skills of young researchers in computer science. Second, the course aims at explaining the "research enterprise" in computer science to beginning doctoral students.

Syllabus:

The first part of the course focuses on four research projects in the following areas:

Formalizing design.
Web programming.
Algorithms.
Robotics.

Students will work on the projects in groups of 3-4 people. Each project will run for about 3 weeks. The second part of the course will run in parallel to the first part and discuss the following topics:

How to search the literature.
How to write a proof.
How to write a paper.
How to referee a paper.
How to give a presentation.

Prerequisites:

The course is open to doctoral students, and to masters students who plan to pursue a research career.

Grading:

Grades will be awarded on the basis of class participation (40%) and project work (15% for each project).

Scribing Schedule:

Week	Scribe
March 20, 23	Ghid Maatouk
March 27, 30	Vaibhav Rajan
April 3	Valentin Longchamp
April 17, 20	Lucian Variu
April 24, 27	Francisco Pinto
May 1, 4	Denisa Ghita
May 8, 11	Vasu Singh
May 15, 18	Stéphane Magnenat
May 22, 25	Ashutosh Gupta
May 29, June 1	Maria Mateescu
June 5, 8	Masoud Alipour
June 12, 15	Rammohan Narendula
June 19, 22	Patrick Salamin

Lecture 1 (March 13):

What is this course about?
How to write a definition.
Defining dataflow networks.
Scribe notes by Dietmar Berwanger.

Lecture 2 (March 16):

Setting up Problem 1: A reliability calculus.

Lecture 3 (March 20):

Brief progress reports.
Models of computation: synchroneous, interleaved/asynchroneous.
Component and implementation semantics.
Scribe notes by Ghid Maatouk.

Lecture 4 (March 23):

Failure models.
Scribe notes by Ghid Maatouk.
How to write a proof.

Lecture 5 (March 27):

Project discussion.

Lecture 6 (March 30):

How to write a proof (continued).
Scribe notes by Vaibhav Rajan

Lecture 7 (April 3):

How to write a proof -- Homework.
Outline of Project 2.
Scribe notes by Valentin Longchamp

Lecture 8 (April 17):

Reports on Problem 1 due.
Technical Writing.
Scribe notes by Lucian Variu

Lecture 9 (April 20):

Technical Writing (continued).
Scribe notes by Lucian Variu

Lecture 10 (April 24):

Common issues in the reports on Problem 1.
Scribe notes by Francisco Pinto

Lecture 11 (April 27):

Writing in LaTeX.
Scribe notes by Francisco Pinto

Lecture 12 (May 1):

How to write a paper.
''How to have your abstract rejected'' by Mary-Claire van Leunen and Richard Lipton.
Scribe notes by Denisa Ghita.

Lecture 13 (May 4):

Life cycle of a research article, structuring a paper.
How to How to write a good research paper by Simon Peyton Jones.
Further advices on research skills: here and here.

Lecture 14 (May 8):

Enigme des 5x5.
Setting up Project 3: Riddles & Hints.

Lecture 15 (May 11):

Project 3: Formalization of riddles with SAT and CSP.
Scribe notes by Vasu Singh

Lecture 16 (May 15):

How to write a review.
Ian Parberry's Referee's Guide.
Scribe notes by Stéphane Magnenat.

Lecture 17 (May 22):

How to give a talk.
How to give a good research talk by Simon Peyton Jones, John Launchbury, John Hughes.

Lecture 18 (May 25):

How to give a talk (continued).
Scribe notes by Ashutosh Gupta.

Lecture 19 (May 29):

Riddle contest.
Setting up Project 4: Lego NXTCruise Control.

Lecture 20 (June 1):

Talk on PDA Controllers by Alex Susu.
Robot prototypes, implementation issues.
Next week's challange: following a leader on a straight line.

Lecture 21 (June 5):

Talks: Denisa, Patrick, Ashutosh.
Giotto: A language for embedded systems design.

Lecture 22 (June 5):

Project briefing: reliability of US-readings, sensing and following when th leader turns.
Test run.

Lecture 23 (June 8):

Talks: Stéphane, Yann, Alexey.
How to Have a Bad Carreer in Research/Academia by David Patterson.

Lecture 24 (June 12):

Talks: Vaibhav, Maria, Valentin, Rammohan, Ghid.

Presentation Schedule:

Date	Speaker	Topic
June 5	Denisa Ghita	Why Can't We See the Truth?
	Ashutosh Gupta	Panchang -- The Indian Calender
	Yann Christinat	The Human Genome Project
June 12
	Alexey Gribovskiy	The Mozart Effect
	Stéphane Magnenat	Go
	Patrick Salamin	Visualisation Learning
June 15	Masoud Alipour
	Francisco Pinto	MP3 -- The Compression Format That Changed the Music World
	Maria Mateescu
	Lucian Variu	Good logos, bad logos
	Vasu Singh	Dreams
June 19	Valentin Longchamp	Swiss Ski Technique
	Rammohan Narendula	Knowledge Sharing
	Vaibhav Rajan
	Ghid Maatouk	π