CS735/CS835 Literature Survey

You should investigate a topic concerning parallel and distributed computing by consulting the recent literature. You might read a single article, a collection of articles, or portions of a book. After completing your reading, you should write a short review document, which should include a complete bibliography.

The review document should be at most 5 pages in length (not counting figures or the bibliography). The document should contain both a summary component (two thirds) and an evaluative component (one third). The evaluative component is the most important from a grading perspective. If the authors were proposing a technology (programming language, hardware, etc.), describe both the strengths and weaknesses of their approach. If the authors were describing the results of an experiment, evaluate their results and their conclusions. If the authors were reporting on a case study, what conclusions can you draw from their work?

Take a stand! And then defend your stand.

You should choose a topic and identify the exact readings you will be doing by October 8. Send me e-mail to fulfill this requirement. You are encouraged to discuss possibilities with me prior to making your final selection.

An initial submission of your paper should be done no later than November 5. Hand the hard copy to me in class or have the office staff put it in my mailbox in the CS department office. (The CS department closes at 4:30pm!) Do not slide the paper under the door to my office!

I will grade and return the initial submission by November 19.

The final submission is due on December 17. Hand the hard copy to me in person or have the office staff put it in my mailbox in the CS department office. Do not slide the paper under the door to my office!

Both submissions will be equally weighted in determining your overall grade for the assignment.

Possible topics for the literature survey include (but are not limited to):

• Are Java monitors braindead? See Java Threads in the Light of occam/CSP by Peter Welch.

• Is the Java memory model braindead? See Bill Pugh's webpage on the topic.

• What is the C# language and the .Net platform? How do they compare to Java? The Microsoft and Sun webpages are good places to start researching this topic.

• What is Grid Computing? See, for example, Globus.

• What is a multithreaded architecture? See, for example, the Cray MTA-2.

• What is middleware? See, for example, CORBA.

• Investigate a parallel computing standard that emerged in the 1990s:
  • OpenMP
  • MPI 2.0
  • HPF

• Investigate an alternative programming paradigm or language, such as:
  • ZPL
  • Cilk
  • BSP

• Investigate an important parallel machine from the past, such as:
  • Illiac (University of Illinois)
  • Cray I (Cray Research Corp.)
  • Connection Machine (Thinking Machines Corp.)

• Investigate the use of internal parallelism in today's computer architectures. This is the classic computer architecture reference.

• Investigate fault-tolerant distributed computing. Chapter 9 of the course textbook contains references on the topic.

• Investigate parallel I/O systems and software.

For other ideas, consult the Historical Notes and References sections at the end of each chapter in the course textbook.

For an internet reference to parallel computing, click here or here.

Also, here is a textbook that covers both hardware and software issues.

In addition, Section 1.6 of the Quinn book (on reserve in Kingsbury library) provides a lengthy list of journals and conferences that cover parallel computing.

Comments and questions should be directed to pjh@cs.unh.edu