OBJECTIVES

The goal of the term paper is to conduct an in-depth study of a particular topic under the broad area of data structures and algorithms and present the topic in a cohesive manner. A paper should be written summarizing the findings.

DEADLINE

SELECTION OF A TOPIC

You can select a topic to write the paper in one of the following

two ways.

a) Without Instructor's Approval: You do not require an approval of the

instructor if you select one of the following topics.

 -- Coalesced Hashing

 -- Cuckoo Hashing

 -- Hopscotch Hashing

 -- Perfect Hashing

 -- Robin Hood Hashing

If you want to explore one of the above topics, at first please make sure

to clearly understand the concepts presented in the video on hashing part

2 which discusses separate chaining.

b) With Instructor's Approval: You can select pretty much any topic under

the broad area of data structures and algorithms for your term paper.

Please e-mail at least two research articles as PDF attachments (not

weblink) on the topic for approval.

FINDING INFORMATION

For most topics, google and google scholar searches will result in

sufficient amount of original information. Adding 'PDF' or '+PDF"

to the searches might be helpful.  Electronic databases such as IEEE

Xplore and ACM Digital Library when accessed through OU Kresge Library

will provide additional information if necessary. Sometime PDF books,

lecture slides, Wikipedia entries, and youtube videos might be helpful

but please be selective.

WHAT TO INCLUDE

You can think the topic you select is a problem, and you want to present

its solution.  The topic should be presented in a manner so that anyone

with an undergraduate level background in data structures and algorithms

can understand it.  If your paper is on a topic in hashing, please

directly present your selected topic; general information on hashing

and hash function should be avoided.

Your paper may include a general description of the problem and its

importance, solution to the problem with small easy to understand

examples, any special cases, limitations, applications, summary of

complexity analysis, important results and findings in that particular

area, anything you feel important and especially interesting, a list of

references, etc.

Please make sure to put your name on the first page of the paper.

PAPER FORMAT

The paper should be at least three pages in length when list of references

is excluded.  There should be at least two pages equivalent area for text

and the rest can be used for figures, graphs, diagrams, etc.  Format of

the paper: two-column, 5/16" separation between columns, 1/2" margin,

single spaced lines, 10 point times roman font.  In-text citation

is required.  Although MLA citation style is perfectly acceptable,

the course encourages the use of IEEE citation style which is used in

numerous technical literature in computing discipline.

WHAT TO SUBMIT

You will submit following two files:

a) Your paper as a PDF file. Please rename the file with your last name

(for example Einstein) and only few words from your topic. An example

file name can be:

    Einstein--Robin_Hood_Hashing.pdf

b) A zip file containing all the references used. Example file name:

    Einstein--References.zip

Please make sure to rename each of the files for references with only

few meaningful words.

SOME INTERESTING PAPERS

They are posted in Moodle.