Special Topics

The following undergraduate Special Topics courses will be offered in the Spring of 2020:

CSC 5930-001: Deep Learning
T - Th 4:00 - 5:15pm Dr. Benjamin Mitchell

Prerequisite: CSC 1052

Deep Learning is the study of computational learning systems that utilize repeated composition of simple functional elements to produce complex behavior. These methods are currently state-of-the-art on a wide range of problems, and are deployed in areas like computer vision, natural language processing, audio analysis, and game AI. As a result, they have received a great deal of attention in recent years, both in academia and in industry, with companies like Google and Facebook investing heavily in this area.

This class will be a seminar style exploration of the field of deep learning, including both its historical roots and the current state of the art. Weekly assignments will consist primarily of reading selected papers from the literature and writing short responses on them, as well as participating in in-class discussions. Students will also help lead these discussions. The culmination of the semester will be writing a scientific paper (either a review paper giving a survey of the field, or a conference style paper on a student project).

CSC 5930-002: Parallel Programming - The Road to High Performance Computing
Th 3:00 - 5:45pm Dr. Michael Robson

Prerequisite: CSC 2400 or ECE 1620

Theoretical and practical models of parallel computing and their appropriate application; Flynn’s taxonomy, including shared memory (e.g. OpenMP), distributed (e.g. MPI), and GPU (e.g. CUDA) programming. Design of various parallel machines and architectures. Measures of parallel performance including speedup and scalability.

CSC 5930-003: Software Studio
M-W  3:00 - 4:15pm Prof. Kristin Obermyer

Prerequisite: CSC 1052

The art and science of creating reliable and maintainable code. Topics include: test-driven development, code quality metrics, code coverage, defensive programming, risk conscious maintenance, debugging, refactoring, professional tools, distributed version control, cultivating an expressive coding style, code review, pair programming, software craftsmanship, software experimentation and myth-busting.