CSC337 Spring 2010 Syllabus

G E O R G E T O W N   C O L L E G E

CSC337 Spring 2010 Syllabus
CSC337 High Performance Computing [ https://scholar.georgetowncollege.edu ] MWF 2:00pm-2:50pm, Asher 132
Dr. Danny Thorne (dthorne0), Asher 121, 502-863-8362, http://www.georgetowncollege.edu/Departments/mpc/thorne/

Course Description An introduction to High Performance Computing. Topics include history of supercomputing, study of parallel architectures, Flynn's Taxonomy, Amdahl's law, performance analysis, shared memory paradigm versus message passing paradigm, design and implementation of parallel algorithms, scientific computing applications, scientific visualization.

Primary Text

Quinn, Parallel Programming in C with MPI and OpenMP -- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071232656/

Auxiliary References

Gropp, Lusk & Skjellum, Using MPI - 2nd Edition: Portable Parallel Programming with the Message Passing Interface -- http://www.amazon.com/Using-MPI-Programming-Engineering-Computation/dp/0262571323

Pacheco, Parallel Programming With MPI -- http://www.amazon.com/Parallel-Programming-MPI-Peter-Pacheco/dp/1558603395

Grading Categories and weightings: Homework 0.55, Exam One 0.15, Exam Two 0.15. Final 0.15. Numerical scores between 0 and 1 (0% and 100%) are computed for assignments, quizzes and exams by dividing the total number of points earned by the total number of points possible. Scores for categories are computed by averaging the individual scores in the categories. The score for each category is then weighted according to the above weights to give an overall course score between 0 and 1. The overall score for the course is then mapped to a letter grade for the course as follows:


  [0.925,1.000]-->A, 
  [0.875,0.925)-->AB, 
  [0.825,0.875)-->B, 
  [0.775,0.825)-->BC,
  [0.700,0.775)-->C,
  [0.600,0.700)-->D,
  [0.000,0.600)-->F

.

Homework There will be a mix of theory (pencil-and-paper problems) and practice (programming projects). To a degree, the balance between theory and practice can be tailored to the proclivities of the individual student. Furthermore, some assignments may potentially be done collaboratively, thus bringing a variety of strengths to bear on the problems.

Exams Tentative, approximate dates for the midterm exams are late February for Exam 1 and mid April for Exam 2. If you must miss an exam and want to make it up, arrange it with me at least a couple of days before the exam date, and provide a documented reason for missing.

The Final Exam is scheduled for Monday, May 10^th. We may have a (possibly group-based) final project instead of a pencil-and-paper final exam.

Attendance Your attendance will be monitored. There is no explicit category for attendance in the grading scheme for the course. However, missed exams and homework will affect your grade. Furthermore, attendance will flavor my decisions about borderline scores at the end of the semester.

Office Hours My office hours ( M 3:30p-4:30p, T 1:30p-2:30p, W 3:30p-4:30p, R 1:30p-2:30p ) are posted on my door and on my web page. They might change, so check my door or the web page to confirm. I am at your disposal independently of office hours. You may call ahead, make an appointment or just drop by and see if I am available. If I am unavailable due to work-related business when you drop by, I will let you know; otherwise, I am happy to see you anytime.