Project 1 - A general-purpose distributed computing environment for DNA analysis
Target: BSc Science/BSc CSSE. This project could be taken by an individual or by a group.
Pre-requisites: good programming skills; an interest in parallel algorithm design.
Level of difficulty: high

A programmable distributed computing environment must be built. It will consist of a server capable of accepting an algorithm and a data set, and capable of partitioning the computational load into variable sized segments. Client software to request a segment (in the form of an algorithm plus data) and return the results must also be written. The server will combine the results from several clients. The system could be described as a general-purpose "SETI-at-home" system.
To a certain extent, the project can be tailored to the student's interests and abilities. Variables include taking responsibilty from the user for certain parallelisation decisions, incorporating job queueing/job scheduling capabilities into the server, increasing the range of protocols by which the server and clients can communicate, incorporating a graphical user interface, and coping with client failure.
The system will be tested and benchmarked using a practical problem from bioinformatics.


Project 2 - Optical computer simulator
Target: BSc Science/BSc CSSE
Pre-requisites: good programming skills; an interest in signal processing and computability theory.
Level of difficulty: high

A simulator is required for a theoretical model of an optical computer. This novel computer uses continuous space instead of the discrete tape cells of a Turing machine or the discrete registers of a digital electronic computer. It also has a Fourier transform as one of its primitive operations. A programming language for the computer has already been developed. An individual is required to bring the model to life by writing a simulator with which optical computer algorithms could be developed and tested. Since the computer manipulates images rather than bits, a certain level of graphics programming will be involved in this project. A very capable student could win instant international fame by developing the world's first debugger for an optical computer.


Project 3 - Compression of digital holograms for 3D TV
Target: BSc Science/BSc CSSE
Pre-requisites: an interest in signal processing or information theory/complexity theory.
Level of difficulty: high

Digital holograms could be regarded as conventional holograms (such as those on credit cards) that have been digitised and stored in a computer. They can be reconstructed optically or by computer to generate arbitrary views of an object. Digital holograms can be used for 3D (three-dimensional) television. This field is quite new, and as yet, a full suite of compression algorithms (PNG, JPEG, MPEG) for digital holograms is not available. The difficulty is that digital holograms are complex-valued images, as opposed to the real-valued images we are more familiar with, and do not compress well using conventional tools. The student is required to develop and test a series of lossless and lossy image compression algorithms for complex-valued inputs. Sample digital holograms will be provided by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Connecticut.


Project 4

Any project in the area of image processing, complexity theory, or theory of computation considered.

URL: http://www.cs.may.ie/~tnaughton
Revised: September 2001
Contact: tomn@cs.may.ie