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Exam Sampler
Exam Sampler II
Exam Sampler III

Check your grades on Eagle

Meets: TTh 10:30-11:30  Main117

Prerequisites: CS 2200 
Credits: 3 
Instructor: Prof. Dan Watson 
Email: dan.watson@usu.edu 
Phone: 435-797-2440
Office: Old Main 402b 
Office Hours: TTh 9:30-10:30, 3-4 

Course Website:  http://www.cs.usu.edu/~watson/cs5500

Course Description: Examines basic techniques for designing parallel algorithms, such as balanced trees, pointer jumping, partitioning, pipelining, accelerated cascading, list ranking, and tree contraction.  Consideration of classis parallel algorithms in graphs, merging, sorting, planar geometry, string matching, and randomized techniques.  Prerequisite: CS2200.  (3cr)

Course Objectives: 

How to contact me: Please come to my office hours if you have any question or need to talk to me. My office hours are posted outside my door for your convenience.  Feel free to ask short questions via email, but I may not respond if I am swamped. 

Attendance: Attendance will not be recorded, and by itself does not have an impact on grades. Students are responsible for any material presented or announcements made in class.  If you miss a class, please talk to someone else to find out what you missed.

Course Handouts: Class notes, program assignments, and special announcements will be made available on the course website. 

Exams: There are three one-hour exams. Each exam emphasizes material covered in class since the previous exam; however, because the material for each exam builds on previous material, each exam can be considered comprehensive. Even for exams, students are responsible for material covered in prerequisite courses. See the course calendar for evening exam times. The last exam is given during the time period set aside for the final exam, but emphasizes material covered since the previous exam. Do not ask to take the final exam early or late. 

Make-up Exams: I don't like them. If, for some exceedingly extenuating circumstance, you cannot attend an exam, notify me IN ADVANCE if at all possible. The instructor reserves the right to deny giving make-up exams. Make-up exams are typically more challenging than the normally scheduled exam. 

Submitting Homework: Because electrons are easy to recycle, all homework will be submitted via http://eagle.cs.usu.edu. 

Regrading: If you feel that an assignment or exam of yours has been graded incorrectly, submit a concise written summary of your concern to the instructor. Indicate specifically why you believe your work was graded incorrectly. Requests of the form "I feel I deserve more points" will be rejected almost instantaneously. 

Topic List: 
Parallel Computers
Embarrassingly Parallel Computations
Partitioning and Divide-and-Conquer Strategies
Pipelined Computations
Synchronous Computations
Load Balancing and Termination Detection
Programming with Shared Memory
Sorting Algorithms
Numerical Algorithms
Image Processing
Searching and Optimization
MPI

Tentative Class Calendar:

Exam dates are Feb 15, Mar 22, and May 3.  For all other important dates in the class, see the class calendar at http://www.cs.usu.edu/~watson/calendar.htm .

Points: 
exam 1 - 100 points 
exam 2 - 100 points 
exam 3 - 100 points 
hmwrk  - 100 points  
total:     400 points 

Grading: 
360-400 points - A 
320-359 points - B 
280-319 points - C 
200-279 points - D 
000-249 points - F 

Academic Dishonesty: This course adheres to the cheating policy for courses in the Department of Computer Science. Cheating on assignments or exams in any form will not be tolerated. Negative point values, failure in the course, and academic expulsion are possible consequences of academic dishonesty. 

Extra Credit: No extra credit is available. Don't ask. 

Grading: Each student determines her or his own grade by their performance on assignments and exams. A final grade of 90% or better guarantees a final grade of A. A final grade of 80%-90% guarantees a final grade of B, etc. 

Incompletes: According to university policy, incompletes are not to be given for poor performance. There will be no incompletes given except for conditions beyond the student's control. Such conditions have to have written documentation. The term "conditions beyond the student's control" includes (1) incapacitating illnesses that prevent a student from attending classes for a period of at least two weeks; (2) a death in the immediate family; (3) financial responsibilities requiring a student to alter course schedule to secure employment; (4) change in work schedule as required by an employer; or (5) other emergencies of this nature. When an incomplete is given, it is anticipated that the remaining work will be finished within two or three weeks. If the course must be retaken to make up the work, an incomplete is not appropriate. There are provisions in case of emergency to permit a student to withdraw (grade of W) from a course after the regular drop period when it is not feasible to give an I.

ADA Statement: Students with physical, sensory, emotional or medical impairments may be eligible for reasonable accommodations in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. All accommodations are coordinated through the Disability Resource Center (DRC) in Room 101 of the University Inn, 797-2444 voice, 797-0740 TTY, or toll free at 1-800-259-2966. Please contact the DRC as early in the semester as possible. Alternate format materials (Braille, large print or digital) are available with advance notice.

Late Adds: The last day to add this class is January 28. Attending this class beyond that date without being officially registered will not be approved by the Dean's Office. Students must be officially registered for this class. No assignments or tests of any kind will be graded for students whose names do not appear on the class list.

Drop Dates: Here are some important drop dates: 

For problems or questions regarding this site contact the class Web Lackey.
Last updated: January 07, 2008.