Ideas for IT University projects and theses

See also the Check list for projects.

Possible projects

• Computations on GPGPUs (graphics cards) Modern graphics cards are ultrafast computers, also called GPGPUs (general-purpose graphics processing units). They can perform certains computations 10 to 300 times faster than a typical CPU. Programming them requires special techniques and libraries (Nvidia CUDA, OpenCL, or similar). In this project, you must implement some numeric computations, typically linear algebra, measure their performance, and tune them for optimal speed.
• Test Suite for Scala Compiler or Standard Libraries The Scala team is somewhat lacking in test cases for the Scala compiler and standard libraries, especially the collections classes. Decide on a particular area (such as collections classes), write a comprehensive collection of tests, and work with the Scala developers at EPFL and Typesafe to get them included in the Scala source code. You'll have a chance to learn about higher-kinded generics, property-based testing a la Quickcheck, and advanced object-oriented and functional programming, in addition to building your skills in collaborating with a geographically distributed development team.
• Parallelization of spreadsheet computations Investigate parallelization of heavy spreadsheet computations, such as scientific or financial simulations. In particular, exploit multicore servers through the .NET 4.0 Task Parallel Library and the spreadsheet implementation described in (Sestoft 2012). This can be done on a scale from simple-minded (one task "future" per cell that needs to be computed) to very sophisticated (use the support graph structure in ITU-TR-2011-142) to statically parallelize independent computations.
  An alternative is to use general-purpose graphics processors (GPGPU). One may use Nvidia CUDA, OpenCL, the Accelerator v2 framework from Microsoft Research, GPU.NET or similar. In any case, GPGPU-based parallel programming has recently become far more practical thanks to much improved libraries.
• Proof of snapshot tree correctness in separation logic We have four different implementations of snapshotable search trees (as in the C5 collection library). The goal of this thesis project is to prove all of them correct with respect to the same interface specification, written in separation logic. This thesis project is closely tied to the Tomeso research project (Lars Birkedal, Peter Sestoft and others).
• Code contracts for the C5 collection library Code Contracts and PEX are new tools from Microsoft Research for design by contract: specification and checking of preconditions, postconditions and invariants in C# code, as well as automated development of unit test cases. The tools support efficient creation of correct and robust software and are likely to be extremely important in the future. In this project you learn about the concepts and the tools through developing code contracts for the C5 collection library for .NET, an implementation of advanced data structures in C#. This project is related to the Tomeso project.
• Web browser cookies and privacy Since 25 May 2011 new European rules for user tracking on websites have been in force, also in Denmark, but there is much confusion over what owners of websites should do to follow these rules. This project would combine investigation and interpretation of the rules (eg. how do other European countries implement them) with technical and empirical studies of current use of cookies (eg. borger.dk, dr.dk, google.dk), how content management system providers (eg. Sitecore) and other third parties (eg. Google Analytics) choose to implement (or not) the rules, and much more. Also, it may be interesting to study to what extent web users understand the technical, legal and privacy problems involved. (Possible external co-supervisor Mikael Hertig).
• Visualization of large RNA molecules Creating a fast, user-friendly program for visualization of large RNA secondary structures. Performance (ability to handle large amounts of data) and user-friendliness are equally important. There is a possibility for interdisciplinary cooperation with biologists to solve this real-world problem in a way that is practically useful for them. More details of basic requirements and intial ideas for extensions can be found here.
• Code generation in a framework for computer games A computer games company in Copenhagen has developed a framework that allows automatic generation of parts of computer games from specifications (models) written by the game developer. The framework is based on C#, .Net and Visual Studio. The company is interested in student projects to further elaborate and investigate this technology. For more details, contact me, and we will set up a meeting with the company.
• Collaborative spreadsheets Use Silverlight or AJAX or Google Web Toolkit or Java to design and develop a collaborative spreadsheet that can be run from the desktop or in a browser.
• Lokaleplanlægningssystem Systemet skal kunne administrere auditorier og øvelokaler for en større læreanstalt, der har fast ugeskema i undervisningsperioderne. Skal ikke nødvendigvis automatisk producere en `optimal' plan, men skal give god støtte til manuel flytten rundt, påpege konflikter, gøre det nemt at vurdere eller afprøve alternative allokeringer. Der er mange udfordringer i dette projekt, ikke mindst analyse af behov, og design og realisering af en rigtig god brugergrænseflade til visualisering af lokalebehov og lokalebookinger. Det er nødvendigt at have fremragende evner inden for brugergrænsefladedesign såvel som programmering med Java Swing, Javascript, SVG, Windows Forms eller Windows Presentation Foundation, samt god forståelse af databasedesign.
• Code duplication discovery in Microsoft Dynamics AX applications Investigate the syntax of X++, which is the internal language of Microsoft Dynamics AX, and create a new parser front-end (using Coco/R and C#) for the advanced code duplication discovery tool developed by Michael Schou Christensen. Then experimentally validate the resulting duplication discovery tool on substantial code samples provided by Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen under a non-disclosure agreement. There is considerable scope for extension of this project, such as development of tools for subsequent refactoring, and tools for visualization of clones.
• Visualization of code duplication In a 2007 MSc project, Michael Schou Christensen has developed a very fast tool to discover duplicated or near-duplicated code in large C# code bases. The same technology may be used for other languages and possibly even on metadata in a software system. Also, there are unsolved challenges in visualising or summarizing analysis results that involve thousands of source files and millions of source code lines. Possible collaboration with Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen.
• Generation of specialized collection libraries The C5 generic collection library is a comprehensive library for C#/.Net 2.0 that provides very rich functionality such as sublist views, update events, hash-indexed lists, persistent trees, cached hashcodes and much more. One drawback of this rich functionality is that user programs pay (in terms of memory requirements) also for the advanced features that they do not use. The purpose of this project is to investigate the automatic generation/selection of only the relevant components (classes, methods and fields) for any particular use of the library, to minimize memory consumption and make the library as fast as possible.
• Applications of run-time code generation in Java or C#. The Java or JVM platform from Sun Microsystems/Oracle and the C# or Common Language Runtime/.Net platform from Microsoft provide good support for generation and fast execution of bytecode by a running program. This opens new implementation possibilities for serialization/deserialization, communication protocols, encryption, image transformation and image analysis algorithms.
• Web-based user interface for RNA alignment editor SARSE is an interactive editor for RNA alignments. The user interface is written in Java but it uses a large number of external applications written in C. The goal of this project is to make a web-based version of SARSE, where the clients run the user interface in a web browser, and the external applications run on a server, so no setup is required on the client side. The project may involve some changes to the user interface, but chiefly it requires you to design, implement, test and document the communication protocol between the client and server, and the server setup. This setup should support an extensible set of external programs.
• Projekter der involverer bioinformatik
  For eksempel: Grafisk brugergrænseflade til RNA db tools. Ønskelig forudsætning: biologisk baggrund og et bioinformatikkursus ved KVL, KU eller DTU. I samarbejde med Jan Gorodkin, KVL, og Bjarne Knudsen, Florida.