CS735/CS835
Introduction to Parallel and Distributed Programming
Fall 2001


Instructor: P. Hatcher
Office: Kingsbury M202
Phone: 862-2678
E-mail: pjh@cs.unh.edu
Office Hours: MWF 9-10am, MWF 11:10am-11:40am, 2:10-2:40pm, or by appointment.

The prerequisites for this course are: CS610 and either CS611 or EE612; or, consent of the instructor. Familiarity with C and C++ is also expected.

This course will explore different approaches to programming on parallel and distributed computer systems, including threads programming, message-passing programming, and remote-method invocation. Programming assignments will use Java, but no prior experience with Java is assumed. An outline of the material to be covered by this course is given here.

Grading

The course requirements and the grading weights are as follows:

The programming assignments and due dates are:

Programming assignments may be handed in late at a penalty of 5 points per day up to one week late. A program is not considered late unless turned in after 8am on the day after the due date.

The literature survey will involve the reading of an article (or collection of articles) from the current literature. Students will write a short (5 pages maximum) summary and analysis paper. You should choose your topic by October 8. There will be an initial submission of your survey on November 5. After responding to my feedback on your initial submission, a final submission will be made on December 17.

More information about the literature survey assignment is available here.

The final exam will be held during finals week: 10:30am-12:30pm, Friday, December 21. The final exam will be comprehensive. Please do not take this course if you cannot take this exam at the scheduled time.

Warning: Students are expected to do their own work on all course assignments and examinations. In particular, no collaboration is allowed with other students on the programming assignments. And, your literature survey must be your own work. Copying papers, or portions of papers, from the internet, or from other sources, will be considered plagiarism. Please read the Academic Honesty section in the Student Rights, Rules and Responsibilities handbook.

Textbooks

The textbook for this course is:

If money is tight, there is one copy of this book on reserve in the Kingsbury library.

Also on reserve is:

Additional readings will be assigned from the recent literature. See the course outline for more information.

Computer Accounts

lava.cs.unh.edu is one computing resource for this course. This machine is a four-processor Sun Sparc Ultra-4 system. Graduate students should already have accounts on lava. Undergraduate students will be given special access to lava for this course.

We will also be utilizing an experimental cluster (the Star Cluster) of Linux machines designed for parallel and distributed processing.


Last modified on October 19, 2001.

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