General Information

Lecture: 229 NH, 2:30am - 3:50pm, Mon. and Wed.
Instructor: Dr. Jeff Lei , ylei@cse.uta.edu, 340 NH, 817.272.2341
Office Hours: 12:20pm - 2:20pm
TA: Wenhua Wang, 4:00pm - 5:30pm, Tue. & Thu., NH 239, x5134, wenhua.wang@mavs.uta.edu
Class Communication: consoft@listserv.uta.edu

Prerequisite

Basic understanding about software engineering and operating systems. Moderate proficiency in Java programming.

Course Description

Recent years have seen a proliferation of concurrent software systems. Allowing multiple threads/processes to execute simultaneously increases resource utilization and leads to improved computing efficiency. However, concurrent software systems are inherently nondeterministic. As a result, it is notoriously difficult to build these systems and ensure their correctness.

The focus of this course is on the construction of concurrent software systems with high assurance. The topics covered by this course can be divided into two parts. The first part highlights basic concepts, principles, and techniques that are underlying the design, development, debugging, and testing of concurrent software systems. The second part provides an introduction to formal methods in modeling, specification and verification of concurrent software systems.

Lecture notes will be posted below as they become available.

8/25/08: Administration
8/27/08: Introduction
9/1/08: Labor Day
9/3/08: Java Threads
9/8/08: The CS Problem
9/15/08: Replay Shared Variables
9/17/08: Semaphore and Lock
9/22/08: Continue on Semaphore and Lock
9/24/08: Continue on Semaphore and Lock
9/29/08: Replay Semaphore and Lock
10/1/08: Monitor

Textbook

Richard H. Carver and Kuo-Chung Tai, Modern Multithreading, John Wiley & Sons, 2005, ISBN: 0-471-72504-8

References

Gregory R. Andrews, Multithreaded, Parallel, and Distributed Programming, Addison-Wesley, 2000, ISBN: 0-201-35752-6.
Robin Milner, Communication and Concurrency, Prentice Hall, 1989, ISBN: 0-13-115007-3

Grading

Tentatively, the final grade will be determined according to the following percentages:

Homework Assignments - 20%
Quizzes - 20%
Midterm Exam - 30%
Final Exam - 30%

Assignments

You are encouraged to discuss assignments with your classmates but are not allowed to copy solutions from or share with others. Late assignments are acceptable before solutions are posted or explained in class, with 10% deduction for every 24 hours. Less than 24 will be rounded to 24.

Assignments will be posted in this section as they become available.

9/10/08: Exercises 2.1, 2.3, 2.5, 2.13 (a) (b) (c) (d). Due date: 9/24/08 (by the beginning of class)
9/24/08: Exercise 3.5, 3.6, 3.10, 3.12. Due Date: 10/8/08 (by the beginning of class)

Resources

9/7/08: Textbook Companion Website
9/7/08: The WWW Virtual Library: Concurrent Systems

Student Equality

Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with verifiable disabilities. In order to take advantage of these accommodations, students must register with Office for Students with Disabilities, Box 19355, Lower Level, University Center, 817.272.3364. More information on University policy on student equality can be found at http://www.uta.edu/disability/.