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4 <TITLE>2016/17 MSc Projects</TITLE> |
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32 |
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33 <H2>2016/17 MSc Projects</H2> |
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34 <H4>Supervisor: Christian Urban</H4> |
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35 <H4>Email: christian dot urban at kcl dot ac dot uk, Office: Strand Building S1.27</H4> |
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36 <H4>If you are interested in a project, please send me an email and we can discuss details. Please include |
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37 a short description about your programming skills and Computer Science background in your first email. |
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38 Thanks.</H4> |
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39 |
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40 <H4>Note that besides being a lecturer at the theoretical end of Computer Science, I am also a passionate |
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41 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture)">hacker</A> … |
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42 defined as “a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and |
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43 stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum |
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44 necessary.” I am always happy to supervise like-minded students. |
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45 |
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46 <p>In 2013/14, I was nominated by the students |
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47 for the best BSc project supervisor and best MSc project supervisor awards in the NMS |
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48 faculty. Somehow I won both. In 2014/15 I was nominated again for the best MSc |
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49 project suporvisor, but did not win it. ;o)</H4> |
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50 |
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51 <ul class="striped"> |
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52 <li> <H4>[CU1] Regular Expressions, Lexing and Derivatives</H4> |
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53 |
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54 <p> |
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55 <B>Description:</b> |
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56 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression">Regular expressions</A> |
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57 are extremely useful for many text-processing tasks, such as finding patterns in texts, |
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58 lexing programs, syntax highlighting and so on. Given that regular expressions were |
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59 introduced in 1950 by <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cole_Kleene">Stephen Kleene</A>, |
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60 you might think regular expressions have since been studied and implemented to death. But you would definitely be |
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61 mistaken: in fact they are still an active research area. On the top of my head, I can give |
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62 you at least ten research papers that appeared in the last few years. |
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63 For example |
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64 <A HREF="http://www.home.hs-karlsruhe.de/~suma0002/publications/regex-parsing-derivatives.pdf">this paper</A> |
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65 about regular expression matching and derivatives was presented at the international |
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66 FLOPS'14 conference. The task in this project is to implement their results and use them for lexing.</p> |
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67 |
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68 <p>The background for this project is that some regular expressions are |
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69 “<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReDoS#Examples">evil</A>” |
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70 and can “stab you in the back” according to |
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71 this <A HREF="http://peterscott.github.io/2013/01/17/regular-expressions-will-stab-you-in-the-back/">blog post</A>. |
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72 For example, if you use in <A HREF="http://www.python.org">Python</A> or |
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73 in <A HREF="http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/">Ruby</A> (or also in a number of other mainstream programming languages) the |
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74 innocently looking regular expression <code>a?{28}a{28}</code> and match it, say, against the string |
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75 <code>aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa</code> (that is 28 <code>a</code>s), you will soon notice that your CPU usage goes to 100%. In fact, |
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76 Python and Ruby need approximately 30 seconds of hard work for matching this string. You can try it for yourself: |
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77 <A HREF="http://www.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/cgi-bin/repos.cgi/afl-material/raw-file/tip/progs/catastrophic.py">catastrophic.py</A> (Python version) and |
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78 <A HREF="http://www.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/cgi-bin/repos.cgi/afl-material/raw-file/tip/progs/catastrophic.rb">catastrophic.rb</A> |
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79 (Ruby version). Here is a similar problem in Java: <A HREF="http://www.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/cgi-bin/repos.cgi/afl-material/raw-file/tip/progs/catastrophic.rb">catastrophic.java</A> |
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80 </p> |
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81 |
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82 <p> |
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83 You can imagine an attacker |
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84 mounting a nice <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack">DoS attack</A> against |
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85 your program if it contains such an “evil” regular expression. But it can also happen by accident: |
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86 on 20 July 2016 the website <A HREF="http://stackstatus.net/post/147710624694/outage-postmortem-july-20-2016">Stack Exchange</A> |
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87 was knocked offline because of an evil regular expression. One of their engineers talks about it in this |
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88 <A HREF="https://vimeo.com/112065252">video</A>. A similar problem needed to be fixed in the |
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89 <A HREF="http://davidvgalbraith.com/how-i-fixed-atom/">Atom</A> editor. |
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90 A few implementations of regular expression matchers are almost immune from such problems. |
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91 For example, <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A> can deal with strings of up to 4,300 <code>a</code>s in less than a second. But if you scale |
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92 the regular expression and string further to, say, 4,600 <code>a</code>s, then you get a <code>StackOverflowError</code> |
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93 potentially crashing your program. Moreover (beside the "minor" problem of being painfully slow) according to this |
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94 <A HREF="http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Regex_Posix">report</A> |
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95 nearly all regular expression matchers using the POSIX rules are actually buggy. |
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96 </p> |
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97 |
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98 <p> |
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99 On a rainy afternoon, I implemented |
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100 <A HREF="http://www.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/cgi-bin/repos.cgi/afl-material/raw-file/tip/progs/re3.scala">this</A> |
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101 regular expression matcher in Scala. It is not as fast as the official one in Scala, but |
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102 it can match up to 11,000 <code>a</code>s in less than 5 seconds without raising any exception |
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103 (remember Python and Ruby both need nearly 30 seconds to process 28(!) <code>a</code>s, and Scala's |
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104 official matcher maxes out at 4,600 <code>a</code>s). My matcher is approximately |
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105 85 lines of code and based on the concept of |
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106 <A HREF="http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2293">derivatives of regular expressions</A>. |
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107 These derivatives were introduced in 1964 by <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Brzozowski_(computer_scientist)"> |
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108 Janusz Brzozowski</A>, but according to this |
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109 <A HREF="https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/sao/documents/jfp09.pdf">paper</A> had been lost in the “sands of time”. |
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110 The advantage of derivatives is that they side-step completely the usual |
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111 <A HREF="http://hackingoff.com/compilers/regular-expression-to-nfa-dfa">translations</A> of regular expressions |
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112 into NFAs or DFAs, which can introduce the exponential behaviour exhibited by the regular |
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113 expression matchers in Python and Ruby. |
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114 </p> |
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115 |
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116 <p> |
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117 Now the authors from the |
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118 <A HREF="http://www.home.hs-karlsruhe.de/~suma0002/publications/regex-parsing-derivatives.pdf">FLOPS'14-paper</A> mentioned |
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119 above claim they are even faster than me and can deal with even more features of regular expressions |
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120 (for example subexpression matching, which my rainy-afternoon matcher cannot). I am sure they thought |
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121 about the problem much longer than a single afternoon. The task |
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122 in this project is to find out how good they actually are by implementing the results from their paper. |
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123 Their approach to regular expression matching is also based on the concept of derivatives. |
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124 I used derivatives very successfully once for something completely different in a |
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125 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/Publications/rexp.pdf">paper</A> |
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126 about the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myhill–Nerode_theorem">Myhill-Nerode theorem</A>. |
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127 So I know they are worth their money. Still, it would be interesting to actually compare their results |
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128 with my simple rainy-afternoon matcher and potentially “blow away” the regular expression matchers |
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129 in Python, Ruby and Java (and possibly in Scala too). The application would be to implement a fast lexer for |
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130 programming languages. |
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131 </p> |
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132 |
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133 <p> |
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134 <B>Literature:</B> |
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135 The place to start with this project is obviously this |
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136 <A HREF="http://www.home.hs-karlsruhe.de/~suma0002/publications/regex-parsing-derivatives.pdf">paper</A> |
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137 and this <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/Publications/posix.pdf">one</A>. |
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138 Traditional methods for regular expression matching are explained |
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139 in the Wikipedia articles |
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140 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFA_minimization">here</A> and |
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141 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerset_construction">here</A>. |
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142 The authoritative <A HREF="http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/ialc.html">book</A> |
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143 on automata and regular expressions is by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullmann (available in the library). |
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144 There is also an online course about this topic by Ullman at |
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145 <A HREF="https://www.coursera.org/course/automata">Coursera</A>, though IMHO not |
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146 done with love. |
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147 Finally, there are millions of other pointers about regular expression |
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148 matching on the Web. I found the chapter on Lexing in this |
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149 <A HREF="http://www.diku.dk/~torbenm/Basics/">online book</A> very helpful. |
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150 Test cases for “<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReDoS#Examples">evil</A>” |
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151 regular expressions can be obtained from <A HREF="http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Regex_Posix">here</A>. |
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152 </p> |
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153 |
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154 <p> |
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155 <B>Skills:</B> |
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156 This is a project for a student with an interest in theory and with |
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157 good programming skills. The project can be easily implemented |
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158 in functional languages like |
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159 <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A>, |
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160 <A HREF="http://fsharp.org">F#</A>, |
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161 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_ML">ML</A>, |
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162 <A HREF="http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell">Haskell</A>, etc. Python and other non-functional languages |
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163 can be also used, but seem much less convenient. If you attend my Compilers and Formal Languages |
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164 module, that would obviously give you a head-start with this project. |
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165 </p> |
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166 |
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167 <li> <H4>[CU2] A Compiler for a small Programming Language</H4> |
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168 |
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169 <p> |
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170 <b>Description:</b> |
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171 Compilers translate high-level programs that humans can read and write into |
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172 efficient machine code that can be run on a CPU or virtual machine. |
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173 A compiler for a simple functional language generating X86 code is described |
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174 <A HREF="https://github.com/chameco/Shade">here</A>. |
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175 I recently implemented a very simple compiler for an even simpler functional |
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176 programming language following this |
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177 <A HREF="https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~dpw/papers/tal-toplas.pdf">paper</A> |
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178 (also described <A HREF="https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~dpw/papers/tal-tr.pdf">here</A>). |
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179 My code, written in <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A>, of this compiler is |
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180 <A HREF="http://www.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/compiler.scala">here</A>. |
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181 The compiler can deal with simple programs involving natural numbers, such |
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182 as Fibonacci numbers or factorial (but it can be easily extended - that is not the point). |
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183 </p> |
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184 |
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185 <p> |
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186 While the hard work has been done (understanding the two papers above), |
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187 my compiler only produces some idealised machine code. For example I |
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188 assume there are infinitely many registers. The goal of this |
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189 project is to generate machine code that is more realistic and can |
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190 run on a CPU, like X86, or run on a virtual machine, say the JVM. |
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191 This gives probably a speedup of thousand times in comparison to |
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192 my naive machine code and virtual machine. The project |
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193 requires to dig into the literature about real CPUs and generating |
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194 real machine code. |
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195 </p> |
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196 <p> |
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197 An alternative is to not generate machine code, but build a compiler that compiles to |
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198 <A HREF="http://www.w3schools.com/js/">JavaScript</A>. This is the language that is supported by most |
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199 browsers and therefore is a favourite |
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200 vehicle for Web-programming. Some call it <B>the</B> scripting language of the Web. |
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201 Unfortunately, JavaScript is also probably one of the worst |
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202 languages to program in (being designed and released in a hurry). <B>But</B> it can be used as a convenient target |
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203 for translating programs from other languages. In particular there are two |
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204 very optimised subsets of JavaScript that can be used for this purpose: |
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205 one is <A HREF="http://asmjs.org">asm.js</A> and the other is |
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206 <A HREF="https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki">emscripten</A>. |
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207 There is a <A HREF="http://kripken.github.io/emscripten-site/docs/getting_started/Tutorial.html">tutorial</A> for emscripten |
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208 and an impressive <A HREF="https://youtu.be/c2uNDlP4RiE">demo</A> which runs the |
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209 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine">Unreal Engine 3</A> |
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210 in a browser with spectacular speed. This was achieved by compiling the |
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211 C-code of the Unreal Engine to the LLVM intermediate language and then translating the LLVM |
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212 code to JavaScript. |
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213 </p> |
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214 |
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215 <p> |
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216 <B>Literature:</B> |
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217 There is a lot of literature about compilers |
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218 (for example <A HREF="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/papers/cwc.html">this book</A> - |
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219 I can lend you my copy for the duration of the project, or this |
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220 <A HREF="http://www.diku.dk/~torbenm/Basics/">online book</A>). A very good overview article |
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221 about implementing compilers by |
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222 <A HREF="http://tratt.net/laurie/">Laurie Tratt</A> is |
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223 <A HREF="http://tratt.net/laurie/tech_articles/articles/how_difficult_is_it_to_write_a_compiler">here</A>. |
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224 An online book about the Art of Assembly Language is |
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225 <A HREF="http://flint.cs.yale.edu/cs422/doc/art-of-asm/pdf/">here</A>. |
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226 An introduction into x86 machine code is <A HREF="http://ianseyler.github.com/easy_x86-64/">here</A>. |
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227 Intel's official manual for the x86 instruction is |
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228 <A HREF="http://download.intel.com/design/intarch/manuals/24319101.pdf">here</A>. |
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229 Two assemblers for the JVM are described <A HREF="http://jasmin.sourceforge.net">here</A> |
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230 <A HREF="https://github.com/Storyyeller/Krakatau">here</A>. |
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231 An interesting twist of this project is to not generate code for a CPU, but |
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232 for the intermediate language of the <A HREF="http://llvm.org">LLVM</A> compiler |
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233 (also described <A HREF="http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html">here</A>). If you want to see |
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234 what machine code looks like you can compile your C-program using gcc -S. |
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235 </p> |
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236 <p> |
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237 If JavaScript is chosen as a target instead, then there are plenty of <A HREF="http://www.w3schools.com/js/">tutorials</A> on the Web. |
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238 <A HREF="http://jsbooks.revolunet.com">Here</A> is a list of free books on JavaScript. |
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239 A project from which you can draw inspiration is this |
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240 <A HREF="http://jlongster.com/Outlet--My-Lisp-to-Javascript-Experiment">Lisp-to-JavaScript</A> |
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241 translator. <A HREF="https://bitbucket.org/ktg/parenjs/overview">Here</A> is another such project. |
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242 And <A HREF="https://github.com/viclib/liscript">another</A> in less than 100 lines of code. |
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243 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoffeeScript">Coffeescript</A> is a similar project |
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244 except that it is already quite <A HREF="http://coffeescript.org">mature</A>. And finally not to |
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245 forget <A HREF="http://www.typescriptlang.org">TypeScript</A> developed by Microsoft. The main |
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246 difference between these projects and this one is that they translate into relatively high-level |
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247 JavaScript code; none of them use the much lower levels <A HREF="http://asmjs.org">asm.js</A> and |
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248 <A HREF="https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/wiki">emscripten</A>. |
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249 </p> |
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250 <p> |
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251 <B>Skills:</B> |
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252 This is a project for a student with a deep interest in programming languages and |
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253 compilers. Since my compiler is implemented in <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A>, |
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254 it would make sense to continue this project in this language. I can be |
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255 of help with questions and books about <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A>. |
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256 But if Scala is a problem, my code can also be translated quickly into any other functional |
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257 language. |
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258 </p> |
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259 |
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260 <p> |
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261 <B>PS:</B> Compiler projects consistently received high marks in the past. |
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262 I have suprvised five so far and none of them received a mark below 70% - one even was awarded a prize. |
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263 </p> |
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264 |
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265 <li> <H4>[CU3] Slide-Making in the Web-Age</H4> |
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266 |
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267 <p> |
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268 The standard technology for writing scientific papers in Computer Science is to use |
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269 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX">LaTeX</A>, a document preparation |
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270 system originally implemented by <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth">Donald Knuth</A> |
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271 and <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lamport">Leslie Lamport</A>. |
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272 LaTeX produces very pleasantly looking documents, can deal nicely with mathematical |
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273 formulas and is very flexible. If you are interested, <A HREF="http://openwetware.org/wiki/Word_vs._LaTeX">here</A> |
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274 is a side-by-side comparison between Word and LaTeX (which LaTeX “wins” with 18 out of 21 points). |
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275 Computer scientists not only use LaTeX for documents, |
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276 but also for slides (really, nobody who wants to be cool uses Keynote or Powerpoint). |
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277 </p> |
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278 |
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279 <p> |
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280 Although used widely, LaTeX seems nowadays a bit dated for producing |
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281 slides. Unlike documents, which are typically “static” and published in a book or journal, |
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282 slides often contain changing contents that might first only be partially visible and |
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283 only later be revealed as the “story” of a talk or lecture demands. |
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284 Also slides often contain animated algorithms where each state in the |
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285 calculation is best explained by highlighting the changing data. |
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286 </p> |
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287 |
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288 <p> |
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289 It seems HTML and JavaScript are much better suited for generating |
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290 such animated slides. This <A HREF="http://www.impressivewebs.com/html-slidedeck-toolkits/">page</A> |
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291 links to slide-generating programs using this combination of technologies. |
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292 However, the problem with all of these project is that they depend heavily on the users being |
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293 able to write JavaScript, CCS or HTML...not something one would like to depend on given that |
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294 “normal” users likely only have a LaTeX background. The aim of this project is to invent a |
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295 very simple language that is inspired by LaTeX and then generate from code written in this language |
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296 slides that can be displayed in a web-browser. An example would be the |
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297 <A HREF="https://www.madoko.net">Madoko</A> project. |
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298 </p> |
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299 |
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300 <p> |
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301 This sounds complicated, but there is already some help available: |
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302 <A HREF="http://www.mathjax.org">Mathjax</A> is a JavaScript library that can |
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303 be used to display mathematical text, for example |
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304 |
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305 <blockquote> |
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306 <p>When \(a \ne 0\), there are two solutions to \(ax^2 + bx + c = 0\) and they are |
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307 \(x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}\).</p> |
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308 </blockquote> |
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309 |
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310 by writing code in the familiar LaTeX-way. This can be reused. |
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311 Another such library is <A HREF="http://khan.github.io/KaTeX/">KaTeX</A>. |
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312 There are also plenty of JavaScript |
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313 libraries for graphical animations (for example |
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314 <A HREF="http://raphaeljs.com">Raphael</A>, |
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315 <A HREF="http://svgjs.com">SVG.JS</A>, |
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316 <A HREF="http://bonsaijs.org">Bonsaijs</A>, |
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317 <A HREF="http://jsxgraph.uni-bayreuth.de/wp/">JSXGraph</A>). The inspiration for how the user should be able to write |
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318 slides could come from the LaTeX packages <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamer_(LaTeX)">Beamer</A> |
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319 and <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGF/TikZ">PGF/TikZ</A>. A slide-making project from which |
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320 inspiration can be drawn is <A HREF="http://maciejczyzewski.me/hyhyhy/">hyhyhy</A>. |
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321 </p> |
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322 |
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323 <p> |
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324 <B>Skills:</B> |
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325 This is a project that requires good knowledge of JavaScript. You need to be able to |
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326 parse a language and translate it to a suitable part of JavaScript using |
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327 appropriate libraries. Tutorials for JavaScript are <A HREF="http://www.w3schools.com/js/">here</A>. |
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328 A parser generator for JavaScript is <A HREF="http://pegjs.majda.cz">here</A>. There are probably also |
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329 others. If you want to avoid JavaScript there are a number of alternatives: for example the |
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330 <A HREF="http://elm-lang.org">Elm</A> |
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331 language has been especially designed for implementing with ease interactive animations, which would be |
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332 very convenient for this project. A nice slide making project done by a previous student is |
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333 <A HREF=" http://www.markslides.org/src/markslides.html">MarkSlides</A> by Oleksandr Cherednychenko. |
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334 </p> |
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335 |
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336 <li> <H4>[CU4] An Online Student Voting System</H4> |
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337 |
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338 <p> |
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339 <B>Description:</B> |
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340 One of the more annoying aspects of giving a lecture is to ask a question |
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341 to the students and no matter how easy the question is to not |
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342 receive any answer. The online course system |
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343 <A HREF="http://www.udacity.com">Udacity</A>, in contrast, made an art out of |
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344 asking questions during lectures (see for example the |
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345 <A HREF="http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs253/CourseRev/apr2012">Web Application Engineering</A> |
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346 course CS253). |
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347 The lecturer there gives multiple-choice questions as part of the lecture and the students need to |
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348 click on the appropriate answer. This works very well in the online world. |
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349 For “real-world” lectures, the department has some |
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350 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_response">clickers</A> |
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351 (these are little devices which form a part of an audience response systems). However, |
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352 they are a logistic nightmare for the lecturer: they need to be distributed |
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353 during the lecture and collected at the end. Nowadays, where students |
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354 come with their own laptop or smartphone to lectures, this can |
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355 be improved. |
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356 </p> |
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357 |
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358 <p> |
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359 The task of this project is to implement an online student |
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360 polling system. The lecturer should be able to prepare |
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361 questions beforehand (encoded as some web-form) and be able to |
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362 show them during the lecture. The students |
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363 can give their answers by clicking on the corresponding webpage. |
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364 The lecturer can then collect the responses online and evaluate them |
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365 immediately. Such a system is sometimes called |
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366 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_response#Smartphone_.2F_HTTP_voting">HTML voting</A>. |
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367 There are a number of commercial |
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368 solutions for this problem, but they are not easy to use (in addition |
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369 to being ridiculously expensive). A good student can easily improve upon |
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370 what they provide. |
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371 </p> |
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372 |
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373 <p> |
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374 The problem of student polling is not as hard as |
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375 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting">electronic voting</A>, |
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376 which essentially is still an unsolved problem in Computer Science. The |
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377 students only need to be prevented from answering question more than once thus skewing |
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378 any statistics. Unlike electronic voting, no audit trail needs to be kept |
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379 for student polling. Restricting the number of answers can probably be solved |
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380 by setting appropriate cookies on the students |
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381 computers or smart phones. |
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382 </p> |
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383 |
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384 <p> |
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385 <B>Literature:</B> |
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386 The project requires fluency in a web-programming language (for example |
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387 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript">JavaScript</A>, |
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388 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(programming_language)">Go</A>, |
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389 <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A>). However JavaScript with |
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390 the <A HREF="http://nodejs.org">Node.js</A> extension seems to be best suited for the job. |
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391 <A HREF="http://www.nodebeginner.org">Here</A> is a tutorial on Node.js for beginners. |
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392 For web-programming the |
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393 <A HREF="http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/cs253/CourseRev/apr2012">Web Application Engineering</A> |
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394 course at <A HREF="http://www.udacity.com">Udacity</A> is a good starting point |
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395 to be aware of the issues involved. This course uses <A HREF="http://www.python.org">Python</A>. |
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396 To evaluate the answers from the students, Google's |
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397 <A HREF="https://developers.google.com/chart/image/docs/making_charts">Chart Tools</A> |
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398 might be useful, which is also described in this |
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399 <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZtgT4jgnE8">youtube</A> video. |
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400 </p> |
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401 |
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402 <p> |
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403 <B>Skills:</B> |
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404 In order to provide convenience for the lecturer, this project needs very good web-programming skills. A |
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405 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture)">hacker mentality</A> |
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406 (see above) is probably also very beneficial: web-programming is an area that only emerged recently and |
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407 many tools still lack maturity. You probably have to experiment a lot with several different |
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408 languages and tools. |
|
409 </p> |
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410 |
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411 <li> <H4>[CU5] Raspberry Pi's and Arduinos</H4> |
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412 |
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413 <p> |
|
414 <B>Description:</B> |
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415 This project is for true hackers! <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi">Raspberry Pi's</A> |
|
416 are small Linux computers the size of a credit-card and only cost £26 (see picture on the left below). They were introduced |
|
417 in 2012 and people went crazy...well some of them. There is a |
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418 <A HREF="https://plus.google.com/communities/113390432655174294208?hl=en">Google+</A> community about Raspberry Pi's that has more |
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419 than 197k of followers. It is hard to keep up with what people do with these small computers. The possibilities |
|
420 seem to be limitless. The main resource for Raspberry Pi's is <A HREF="http://www.raspberrypi.org">here</A>. |
|
421 There are <A HREF="https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/">magazines</A> dedicated to them and tons of |
|
422 <A HREF="http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=39">books</A> (not to mention |
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423 floods of <A HREF="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=raspberry+pi">online</A> material, |
|
424 such as the <A HREF="https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi-issues/Projects_Book_v1.pdf">RPi projects book</A>). |
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425 Google just released a |
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426 <A HREF="http://googlecreativelab.github.io/coder/">framework</A> |
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427 for web-programming on Raspberry Pi's truning them into webservers. |
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428 </p> |
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429 |
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430 <p> |
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431 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino">Arduinos</A> are slightly older (from 2005) but still very cool (see picture on the right below). They |
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432 are small single-board micro-controllers that can talk to various external gadgets (sensors, motors, etc). Since Arduinos |
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433 are open-software and open-hardware there are many clones and add-on boards. Like for the Raspberry Pi, there |
|
434 is a lot of material <A HREF="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=arduino">available</A> about Arduinos. |
|
435 The main reference is <A HREF="http://www.arduino.cc">here</A>. Like the Raspberry Pi's, the good thing about |
|
436 Arduinos is that they can be powered with simple AA-batteries. |
|
437 </p> |
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438 |
|
439 <p> |
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440 I have two such Raspberry Pi's including wifi-connectors and two <A HREF="http://www.raspberrypi.org/camera">cameras<A>. |
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441 I also have two <A HREF="http://www.freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Store/Introducing-the-Freakduino-Chibi-An-Arduino-based-Board-For-Wireless-Sensor-Networking.html">Freakduino Boards</A> that are Arduinos extended with wireless communication. I can lend them to responsible |
|
442 students for one or two projects. However, the aim is to first come up with an idea for a project. Popular projects are |
|
443 automated temperature sensors, network servers, robots, web-cams (<A HREF="http://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/electronics/shard-rain-cam/">here</A> |
|
444 is a <A HREF="http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3547">web-cam</A> directed at the Shard that can |
|
445 <A HREF="http://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/software/shard-rain-cam-quantifying-cloudy/">tell</A> |
|
446 you whether it is raining or cloudy). There are plenty more ideas listed |
|
447 <A HREF="http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=15">here</A> for Raspberry Pi's and |
|
448 <A HREF="http://playground.arduino.cc/projects/ideas">here</A> for Arduinos. |
|
449 </p> |
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450 |
|
451 <p> |
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452 There are essentially two kinds of projects: One is purely software-based. Software projects for Raspberry Pi's are often |
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453 written in <A HREF="http://www.python.org">Python</A>, but since these are Linux-capable computers any other |
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454 language would do as well. You can also write your own operating system as done |
|
455 <A HREF="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/">here</A>. For example the students |
|
456 <A HREF="http://www.recantha.co.uk/blog/?p=4918">here</A> developed their own bare-metal OS and then implemented |
|
457 a chess-program on top of it (have a look at their very impressive |
|
458 <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-03bouPsfEQ&feature=player_embedded">youtube</A> video). |
|
459 The other kind of project is a combination of hardware and software; usually attaching some sensors |
|
460 or motors to the Raspberry Pi or Arduino. This might require some soldering or what is called |
|
461 a <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard">bread-board</A>. But be careful before choosing a project |
|
462 involving new hardware: these devices |
|
463 can be destroyed (if “Vin connected to GND” or “drawing more than 30mA from a GPIO” |
|
464 does not make sense to you, you should probably stay away from such a project). |
|
465 </p> |
|
466 |
|
467 <p> |
|
468 <center> |
|
469 <img style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: -webkit-zoom-in; |
|
470 "src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/RaspberryPi.jpg" width="313" height="209"> |
|
471 |
|
472 <img style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: -webkit-zoom-in; |
|
473 "src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Arduino_Uno_-_R3.jpg" width="240" height="209"> |
|
474 </center> |
|
475 </p> |
|
476 |
|
477 <p> |
|
478 <B>Skills:</B> |
|
479 Well, you must be a hacker; happy to make things. Your desk might look like the photo below on the left. |
|
480 The photo below on the righ shows an earlier student project which connects wirelessly a wearable Arduino (packaged |
|
481 in a "self-3d-printed" watch) to a Raspberry Pi seen in the background. The Arduino in the forground takes meaurements of |
|
482 heart rate and body temperature; the Raspberry Pi collects this data and makes it accessible via a simple |
|
483 web-service. |
|
484 <center> |
|
485 <img style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: -webkit-zoom-in; |
|
486 "src="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/rpi-photo.jpg" width="209" height="313"> |
|
487 |
|
488 <img style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: -webkit-zoom-in; |
|
489 "src="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/rpi-watch.jpg" width="450" height="254"> |
|
490 </center> |
|
491 </p> |
|
492 |
|
493 <li> <H4>[CU6] An Infrastructure for Displaying and Animating Code in a Web-Browser</H4> |
|
494 |
|
495 <p> |
|
496 <B>Description:</B> |
|
497 The project aim is to implement an infrastructure for displaying and |
|
498 animating code in a web-browser. The infrastructure should be agnostic |
|
499 with respect to the programming language, but should be configurable. |
|
500 I envisage something smaller than the projects |
|
501 <A HREF="http://www.pythontutor.com">here</A> (for Python), |
|
502 <A HREF="http://ideone.com">here</A> (for Java), |
|
503 <A HREF="http://codepad.org">here</A> (for multiple languages), |
|
504 <A HREF="http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_intro">here</A> (for HTML) |
|
505 <A HREF="http://repl.it/languages/JavaScript">here</A> (for JavaScript), |
|
506 and <A HREF="http://www.scala-tour.com/#/welcome">here</A> (for Scala). |
|
507 </p> |
|
508 |
|
509 <p> |
|
510 The tasks in this project are being able (1) to lex and parse languages and (2) to write an interpreter. |
|
511 The goal is to implement this as much as possible in a language-agnostic fashion. |
|
512 </p> |
|
513 |
|
514 <p> |
|
515 <B>Skills:</B> |
|
516 Good skills in lexing and language parsing, as well as being fluent with web programming (for |
|
517 example JavaScript). |
|
518 </p> |
|
519 |
|
520 |
|
521 <li> <H4>[CU7] Implementation of a Distributed Clock-Synchronisation Algorithm developed at NASA</H4> |
|
522 |
|
523 <p> |
|
524 <B>Description:</B> |
|
525 There are many algorithms for synchronising clocks. This |
|
526 <A HREF="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120000054_2011025573.pdf">paper</A> |
|
527 describes a new algorithm for clocks that communicate by exchanging |
|
528 messages and thereby reach a state in which (within some bound) all clocks are synchronised. |
|
529 A slightly longer and more detailed paper about the algorithm is |
|
530 <A HREF="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110020812">here</A>. |
|
531 The point of this project is to implement this algorithm and simulate networks of clocks. |
|
532 </p> |
|
533 |
|
534 <p> |
|
535 <B>Literature:</B> |
|
536 There is a wide range of literature on clock synchronisation algorithms. |
|
537 Some pointers are given in this |
|
538 <A HREF="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120000054_2011025573.pdf">paper</A>, |
|
539 which describes the algorithm to be implemented in this project. Pointers |
|
540 are given also <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_synchronization">here</A>. |
|
541 </p> |
|
542 |
|
543 <p> |
|
544 <B>Skills:</B> |
|
545 In order to implement a simulation of a network of clocks, you need to tackle |
|
546 concurrency. You can do this for example in the programming language |
|
547 <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/">Scala</A> with the help of the |
|
548 <A HREF="http://akka.io">Akka</a> library. This library enables you to send messages |
|
549 between different <I>actors</I>. <A HREF="http://www.scala-lang.org/node/242">Here</A> |
|
550 are some examples that explain how to implement exchanging messages between actors. |
|
551 </p> |
|
552 |
|
553 <li> <H4>[CU8] Proving the Correctness of Programs</H4> |
|
554 |
|
555 <p> |
|
556 I am one of the main developers of the interactive theorem prover |
|
557 <A HREF="http://isabelle.in.tum.de">Isabelle</A>. This theorem prover |
|
558 has been used to establish the correctness of some quite large |
|
559 programs (for example an <A HREF="http://ertos.nicta.com.au/research/l4.verified/">operating system</A>). |
|
560 Together with colleagues from Nanjing, I used this theorem prover to establish the correctness of a |
|
561 scheduling algorithm, called |
|
562 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_inheritance">Priority Inheritance</A>, |
|
563 for real-time operating systems. This scheduling algorithm is part of the operating |
|
564 system that drives, for example, the |
|
565 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover">Mars rovers</A>. |
|
566 Actually, the very first Mars rover mission in 1997 did not have this |
|
567 algorithm switched on and it almost caused a catastrophic mission failure (see |
|
568 this youtube video <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyx7kARrGeM">here</A> |
|
569 for an explanation what happened). |
|
570 We were able to prove the correctness of this algorithm, but were also able to |
|
571 establish the correctness of some optimisations in this |
|
572 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/Publications/pip.pdf">paper</A>. |
|
573 </p> |
|
574 |
|
575 <p>On a much smaller scale, there are a few small programs and underlying algorithms where it |
|
576 is not really understood whether they always compute a correct result (for example the |
|
577 regular expression matcher by Sulzmann and Lu in project [CU1]). The aim of this |
|
578 project is to completely specify an algorithm in Isabelle and then prove it correct (that is, |
|
579 it always computes the correct result). |
|
580 </p> |
|
581 |
|
582 <p> |
|
583 <B>Skills:</B> |
|
584 This project is for a very good student with a knack for theoretical things and formal reasoning. |
|
585 </p> |
|
586 |
|
587 <li> <H4>[CU9] Anything Security Related that is Interesting</H4> |
|
588 |
|
589 <p> |
|
590 If you have your own project that is related to security (must be |
|
591 something interesting), please propose it. We can then have a look |
|
592 whether it would be suitable for a project. |
|
593 </p> |
|
594 |
|
595 <li> <H4>[CU10] Anything Interesting in the Areas</H4> |
|
596 |
|
597 <p> |
|
598 <ul> |
|
599 <li><A HREF="http://elm-lang.org">Elm</A> (a reactive functional language for animating webpages; have a look at the cool examples, or <A HREF="http://pragmaticstudio.com/blog/2014/12/19/getting-started-with-elm">here</A> for an introduction) |
|
600 <li><A HREF="http://www.smlserver.org/smltojs/">SMLtoJS</A> (a ML compiler to JavaScript; or anything else related to |
|
601 sane languages that compile to JavaScript) |
|
602 <li>Any statistical data related to Bitcoins (in the spirit of this |
|
603 <A HREF="http://people.csail.mit.edu/spillai/data/papers/bitcoin-transaction-graph-analysis.pdf">paper</A> or |
|
604 this <A HREF="https://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf">one</A>; this will probably require some extensive C knowledge or any |
|
605 other heavy-duty programming language) |
|
606 <li>Anything related to programming languages and formal methods (like |
|
607 <A HREF="http://matt.might.net/articles/intro-static-analysis/">static program analysis</A>) |
|
608 <li>Anything related to low-cost, hands-on hardware like Raspberry Pi, Arduino, |
|
609 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubieboard">Cubieboard</A> |
|
610 <li>Anything related to unikernel operating systems, like |
|
611 <A HREF="http://www.xenproject.org">Xen</A> or |
|
612 <A HREF="http://www.openmirage.org">Mirage OS</A> |
|
613 <li>Any kind of applied hacking, for example the Arduino-based keylogger described |
|
614 <A HREF="http://samy.pl/keysweeper/">here</A> |
|
615 <li>Anything related to code books, like this |
|
616 <A HREF="http://www.joelotter.com/kajero/">one</A> |
|
617 </ul> |
|
618 </p> |
|
619 |
|
620 |
|
621 <li> <H4>Earlier Projects</H4> |
|
622 |
|
623 I am also open to project suggestions from you. You might find some inspiration from my earlier projects: |
|
624 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/bsc-projects-12.html">BSc 2012/13</A>, |
|
625 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/msc-projects-12.html">MSc 2012/13</A>, |
|
626 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/bsc-projects-13.html">BSc 2013/14</A>, |
|
627 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/msc-projects-13.html">MSc 2013/14</A>, |
|
628 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/bsc-projects-14.html">BSc 2014/15</A>, |
|
629 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/msc-projects-14.html">MSc 2014/15</A>, |
|
630 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/bsc-projects-15.html">BSc 2015/16</A>, |
|
631 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/msc-projects-15.html">MSc 2015/16</A>, |
|
632 <A HREF="http://www.inf.kcl.ac.uk/staff/urbanc/bsc-projects-16.html">BSc 2016/17</A> |
|
633 </ul> |
|
634 </TD> |
|
635 </TR> |
|
636 </TABLE> |
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637 |
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638 <P> |
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