HO 1 CSC 354S SYSTEMS MODELLING AND DISCRETE SIMULATION SPRING 1997 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Instructor: Professor G.S. Graham (gsg@cdf) Professor G.S. Graham (gsg@credit) Pratt 396A (through the door marked 394) Room 4003 978-6321 828-5341 Office Hours: Thursdays 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. OH: M and W, 2:10 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. Secretary: Joan Allen (joan@cs), Pratt 398 Sec.: Ruby Mack (rmack@credit), Rm. 4037 Lectures: Thursdays, 7:10 p.m. - 9 p.m., GB 120 M and W, 12:10 p.m. - 1 p.m., 3101N Teaching Assistants/Tutorials: Andria Hunter (at354hun@cdf) Andria Hunter (et354tut@credit) Yasser Rasheed (at354ras@cdf) TBA Thursdays, 6:10 p.m. - 7 p.m., GB 120 Thursdays, 3:10 p.m. - 4 p.m., 3101N Required Text: Discrete-Event System Simulation, 2/e J. Banks, J.L. Carson II, and G. Nelson Prentice-Hall (1996) ISBN 0-13-217449-9 Marks Allocation: 3 problem sets 45% 1 midterm 15% 1 final exam 40% Problem Sets: # out / in weight ps1 wk3 / wk6 9 ps2 wk6 / wk9 18 ps3 wk9 / wk12 18 Computer-based parts of assignments must be submitted electronically by 2 p.m. on the Thursday of the associated week. All assignments will have "silent running" imposed at 4 p.m. on the Wednesday of the associated week. Midterm: The midterm is on Thursday, February 27 in the tutorial time slot; Erindale and St. George will have different midterms. It will be closed book, with a 1-page fact sheet allowed, and will be 50 minutes long. It will cover everything up to the end of Week 6. Drop Date: The drop date is Friday, March 7. By then, you will have received back the markings of ps1 and the midterm, constituting about 24% of the final mark. Keeping Your Nose Clean: Near the beginning of the course, you will be asked to sign (one time) a pledge sheet, affirming that you as an individual are aware of the course details and of the evils of plagiarism and cheating (see below). You don't sign -- we don't mark. For each problem set submission, you will sign an "equality" form, stating that each team member contributed to the final solution in a roughly equal manner. Signing such a form will mean that each team member gets the same mark on the assignment. Failure to sign such a form will result in the instructor determining how marks should be allocated. Policy on Cheating/Plagiarism: Don't. The policy of your faculty will be in effect. Comment on Plagiarism: For our purposes, plagiarism is the representation of someone else's work as your own. It should be considered a serious academic offence. Even if you take someone else's ideas and present them in your own words without attribution, this is plagiarism. If you require help, see your instructor or teaching assistant; he or she will not give you a complete solution to the assignment but may give you suggestions to help you understand the problem better. Feel free to discuss an assignment in general terms with others, but take no written notes. "Study groups" are often a useful method to improve your (and others') problem-solving techniques; use such groups wisely. There should be no detailed discussions of specific solution strategies or specific control and data structures. If you have understood the general ideas, you should be able to solve the problem on your own and the solution can be considered as your solution. If you do use algorithms from another source, for example the course text, specify in your solution exactly what part is from the other source. Credit the source, author and page number. Never provide another person with solutions. Do not leave your work unattended. Retain all copies (electronic and hard-copy) of your work until your mark can be considered to be final. Policy on Lateness: Each workload unit will have a due date, time, and place. A handin that does not satisfy these criteria will be considered late and will receive a mark of 0. Exceptional circumstances should be discussed with the instructor (not the TA). Policy on Re-marking: Simple questions (e.g., wrong addition of marks) should be discussed with the TA. Simple queries asking for clarification (e.g., "I can't read what you have written on my assignment") should also go the TA first. Requests for re-marking any part of an assignment must be directed first to the instructor. A request must be in written form. Re-marking may involve the entire piece of the work, and may raise or lower the mark. The deadline for making a request for re-marking will typically be 1 week after the marked assignment is available for hand-back. New for 97: Teams of 1 have been used previously. That is changing to teams of 2 - the same grouping for all 3 assignments. This is needed to handle the large enrollment (on St. George) and the inability to secure additional TA funding due to cutbacks. You are free to choose your own teams; they should definitely be formed by week 3, when the first assignment is handed out. Alert the instructor via e-mail near the end of week 2 if you do not have a full team complement. Alert the instructor as soon as you know your team has suffered a dropout. The TAs are being managed differently on St. George. This year, there only 2 tutorial rooms (instead of 3), although we still have 3 TAs (I hope). You will be assigned a tutorial room in the first class, but the TA standing in front of you in that room may change from week to week. CSIM, the simulation software package used in CSC 354S, is being upgraded to version 18 on CDF at the beginning of term. Version 18 cannot be installed at Erindale because it is not compatible with SunOS. Erindale students will receive CDF accounts and should do computer-based work on CDF (e.g., home directories, e-mail address, newsgroup interaction, assignments using version 18). Newsgroup: The newsgroup for this course is ut.cdf.csc354h . Use it wisely. There is a great danger of a low signal-to-noise ratio in its content. Read before you post. Think before you post. For example, I do not want to see two similar questions on the newsgroup from team members. A TA will respond in a timely manner to clearly stated questions. The use of a threaded news reader may be appropriate. Overall Goals: The stimulation of simulation as an interesting topic; a healthy scepticism about modelling and simulation results 3