Faculty of Science

Academy for Computer Science & Software

Engineering
Research Papers
New Systems Development Paradigms
IT00187
Author:
Dr. G.J. van Niekerk
Head of Department:
Prof. E.M. Ehlers
Semester 2, 2014
This assignment guide is intended to be used in conjunction with
the module-specic learner guide.
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redistributed or screened by any means electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise
without the prior written permission of the University of Johannesburg.
Introduction
The module assignments will consists of two research papers that needs to be
prepared during the course of the semester. Each paper will consist of a prac-
tical implementation, a written component and a presentation. Both
papers are individual assignments and students are not allowed to work together
or use code from the Internet, another student or any third-party source.
Libraries and frameworks for basic application plumbing (i.e. test frameworks,
GUIs, graphics, etc.) is preferred over rewriting the functionality. Students are
also encouraged to seek out forums and discussion boards on the Internet and
to discuss strategies with one another. Students are encouraged to discuss the
problem with the lecturer. Email correspondence is recommended to allow for
the quickest possible response, record keeping and to maintain the sequential
ow in the discussion.
The written component constitutes a signicant portion of the assignment. The
paper should discuss the various strategies considered, the performance of the
algorithm(s) over an extended period of time as well as information on any
existing techniques that solves the particular problem. The paper should also
discuss the eect of using dierent sets of parameters (i.e. mutation/crossover
rate, population size and tness function weightings). Aids such as diagrams,
tables and graphs are highly recommended.
The writing style of the written component needs to adhere to a formal, aca-
demic style. This guide (as well as the Learner Guide) serves as a good example
of this style of writing.
First Paper: Evolutionary Computation
Students can choose any problem of adequate complexity and then use one or
more of the techniques that falls under the domain of evolutionary computation
(Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Evolutionary Programming, Dif-
ferential Evolution, Cultural Algorithms or Co-evolution) to solve the selected
problem. A combination of techniques can also be used.
Students can also choose to focus more on the algorithm itself and develop
new and novel techniques, comparing them to existing techniques. For such
problems, smaller academic problems can be used as case studies. The focus
here will be on comparison with existing techniques and a good base/control
will be required.
Due Date
The due date for this paper is 26 August 2014.
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Topics
Following, are some examples of problems that students can consider
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:
Articial Life Simulation: Critters move about in a virtual world and
will need to evolve certain characteristics to survive. For example, blue
critters eat plants, red critters eat blue critters and every red critter that
dies sprouts several blue plants. Students can dene their own rules for
the virtual world to discover the dierent strategies that the critters will
evolve.
Evolving digital circuitry: Given a complex Boolean equation, the al-
gorithm will evolve a circuit consisting of digital gates (not/and/or/nor
and nand gates) that satises all inputs of the equation (n inputs; m out-
puts). A number of elements makes this problem rather dicult. A small
change to the circuit could have a big eect on the output, making the
tness function dicult to dene. A novel approach needs to be applied
to solve this eectively.
Graph colouring/Frequency Allocation Planning: In cellphone net-
works, adjacent cells cannot share the same frequency. Using evolutionary
techniques, frequencies can be assigned to each cell to keep similar carriers
as far away from one another as possible.
Iterated Prisoners Dilemma: Evolve strategies between prisoners to
nd the best strategy, considering techniques such as fear, greed, revenge
and altruistic behaviour. The behaviour of the prisoner could be modeled
as a articial neural network or as a set of rules combined with a prob-
abilistic component. Both the best score of an individual and the entire
population should be considered to gage the success of the technique.
Evolving music/art: Using interactive (or partly-interactive) evolution,
develop an algorithm that can evolve a simple piece of music or some other
artistic work.
Second Paper
As with the rst paper, the student must choose any problem and then solve
it using any of the techniques that fall under the eld of Swarming and Ant
Algorithms. A combination of techniques are also possible.
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Choosing one of these example problems will neither benet nor disadvantage a student
in any way
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Due Date
The due date for this article is 14 October 2014.
Topics
Following, are some examples of problems that students can consider:
Knapsack Problem: A number of variants to the classical knapsack
problem have been dened and Swarming Algorithms are well suited to
solve the problem, provided that the parameters are well chosen.
Dynamic Trac Routing: Trac routing on telecommunication, com-
puter and transport networks are often very dynamic, with good routes
becoming congested quickly and previously expensive routes becoming
good candidates. Using a swarming technique, favourable routes can be
determined quickly in these dynamic environments.
Clustering: Grouping similar concepts with similar traits together is an
important, yet hard problem to solve. Some examples include: identifying
groups of houses according to their house type, value and geographical
location; classication of plants and animals given their features; nd-
ing groups of customers with similar behaviour given a large database of
customer data containing their properties and past buying records.
Optimal Racing Lines: Race-cars needs to choose optimal lines around
corners to minimise lap times. Given a track, nd the optimal lines a car
needs to follow. A simplistic physics model needs to be developed here as
well.
Assignment Layout
Each assignment consists of an actual implementation (i.e. the model), a write
up (the paper) as well a presentation:
Programming Component
The programming component makes up 40% of the assignment mark.
The programming component of the paper will have to be demonstrated practi-
cally and the student must be able to answer questions about the solution that is
presented. Any 3
rd
generation language may be used. Languages such as Java,
Scala, C, C++ and C# are recommended. Students are encouraged to avoid
scripting and other basic languages.
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Students should supply their own test cases to demonstrate the algorithm during
the presentation. Poorly selected test cases (such as trivial problems, i.e. 5-city
TSP) will obviously impact the mark negatively.
Written Component
The paper makes up 50% of the assignment mark.
A research paper needs to be prepared that explains all aspects of the prob-
lem and the algorithm and should be a minimum of 10 pages and a maximum
of 15. Each paper should reference at least 5 sources (of which at least three
should be actual articles, books or journals) Students will be penalised for de-
viations.
All papers need to follow the template as provided in both Microsoft Word and
L
A
T
E
X format. These can be downloaded from Eve.
Presentation
The presentation (including slides, aids, questions answered, etc) makes up 10%
of the assignment mark.
Both articles will have to be presented in the form of a mock conference to fellow
students. The format of these presentations will mimic that of a research confer-
ence or symposium. Each student will be allocated 15 minutes
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for presentation
and 5 minutes for questions. It is important that students attend these sessions
as the work presented is fully examinable and case studies in the semester
test and nal exam will be drawn from the work done by students.
Submission
Each student will also need to prepare the following:
A hard-copy
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must be made available to each student and lecturer.
A soft-copy submitted to Eve. These will also be made available to stu-
dents for studying purposes.
For nal submission, all soft copies needs to be in PDF. Microsoft Word
or any other propriety format will be rejected outright.
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The actual time will vary depending on time available and the size of the class.
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Hard-copies needs to be properly bounded. Unbounded loose pieces of paper do not
constitute a research paper.
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Please upload only one single document/artefact if you have multiple
parts of a document, merge them together into an archive (please use zip
or gzip for this purpose).
Kindly use the following naming convention:
SURNAME_INITIALS_STUDENTNUMBER_D<DELIVERABLE>
For example, Timothy John Berners-Lee with student number 20080001
will name his rst paper Berners-Lee_TJ_20080001_D01.pdf and his
second Berners-Lee_TJ_20080001_D02.pdf.
Mark allocation
The mark allocation for both assignments is as follows:
Paper 50%
Content 40%
Grammar, spelling and layout 10%
Implementation (the model)
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40%
Complexity, originality and novelty 15%
Correct paradigm for selected problem 10%
Implementation 10%
Code niceness 5%
Presentation 10%
Content of presentation, adherence to time 5%
Questions answered 5%
Total 100%
Each assignment will count 25% towards the semester mark and therefore
50% overall. Kindly note that failure to submit assignments will disadvantage
a student considerably and he/she will most probably not receive exam
admittance. Also, please discuss any diculties you are having well in advance
to avoid disappointment.
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A student will only be awarded the marks for the practical component if he/she can
answer questions about the implementation satisfactory.
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