Assignment 1A: Review of two research papers (done individually)
Prashanta Paudel
Masters in Software Engineering
ppl10002(at)student.mdh.se
Read the papers carefully and write a personally written review on each paper based on the issues below (about A4 page normal sized text per paper, 300 - 700 words). The analysis must be expressed in your own words.
PAPER 1
Author, Title:Iain Bate and Ralf Reutemann,Worst-Case Execution Time Analysis for Dynamic Branch Predictors
- Is the paper well organized?
The paper seems to be organized in a very well manner. The sections are clearly isolated and areas are illustrated in a very nicemanner. It follows most of the standard a good paper. As a whole, the material is logically structured. Illustrations with the figure and the necessary references are provided .Finally at the end, there is a good conclusion with futurework. A few minor things can make the paper better.
- Comment the following sections (if present):
- Title
The title enables user to instantly grab the subject matter of the paper.The title is informative with strong words. The title seems a bit technical but that is not a problem because it might be targeted to a different user group.
- Abstract
This section covers all the major problem area. The approach used and solution is described in a concise manner.Even a quite short abstract is impressive enough to summarize the whole paper. References and acronyms have been avoided.
- Introduction
In comparison of the abstract, the problem definition ismuch moreexplained. The first paragraph withoutany deviation gives us a direct explanation. At the end of the introduction, the last paragraph presents an overview of upcoming sections. But, the first sentence on this section of the paper could have been better bycondensing more information on the overall area with a powerful sentence
- Main section(s),
The main section presents a logical way of explanation with the clearly separation of topics. First and foremost paper provides clear idea on the branch prediction with references. Moving further, various related works were presented with sufficient references and their coverage on this area. Eventually, the technical information on area are presented on the sections 4 and 5.Additionally, tables and figure with information and experimental details make it clearer. Unlike the next paper related information to experiment and an extent is provided
- Summary
N/A
- Conclusions
The first line explicitly states the majorachievement of the given work. Eventually additionalconcrete results of the work are mentioned.Moving further we can realize the preferred methods over the other methods is mentioned. Limitations have been formulated with generic details.In the end, authors foresee some future work.
- References
References are provided wherevernecessary and they are provided in the standard format.
- Comment on the language used in the paper
The overall language is good. But, there are some areas of improvement. Thechoice of words is not always the best. Thereare some complex sentencesthat could have been made simpler and straight forward.
- General comments to the paper
Overall, I appreciate the knowledge base of the paper. Enough references were provided. A reader needs to have enough knowledge on the area and subject paper to understand this paper. As a whole the works extends to the previous works and further improve those areas.
- “SPEC95” used in the section 4.1 is not referenced
- Captions for the figures and tables could have more informative.
- Subscripts and superscripts can be reduced
- Few mathematical symbol( like =>) are still used which reading complex can be described in other words
PAPER 2
Author, Title:Norman P. Jouppi ,Improving Direct-Mapped Cache Performance by the Additionof a Small Fully-Associative Cache and Prefetch Buffers
- Is the paper well organized?
The page has enough materials but it seems it’s not fully organized
- Comment the following sections (if present):
- Title
Although the title of the paper is long, it gives instant idea about the overall subject matter of the paper. Due to its relatively long title, any one searching for the paper will find it difficult to find it.
- Abstract
The abstract provides a good idea with the simple explanation but lacks of basic explanation of minor ideas. Users with extensive knowledge on the area can only get the whole out of it because of technical complexity. Some acronym like MIPS is used. And the abstract is longer than the expected standard abstract.
- Introduction
The first line of the introduction was catchy .But as soon I realized that I came across some data I realized that the paper very quickly jumped into detail and also un-explained acronym were used. The next paragraphs turned into some less important text the concepts were not so powerful seemed a bit vague at this point on the paper.But the author picks up his pace back on the last paragraph to summarize the overall upcoming sections in the paper
- Main section(s)
I am impressed with the level of the organization of the paper on this section. The author has clearly separated the various sections in a well manner and is detailed with diagrams and tables. A distinct related work is not provided. The flow of information on the paper is really ordered. The author takes time to explain from smaller solution to a bigger solution making the big picture clear. Figures with comparative data have been illustrated. Data sources for the experiments are not clear or references are missing on this regard. Abbreviation (like i.e., e.g.) has been used. A lot of acronyms, were used most of them were either unexplained or not made clear.
- Summary
N/A
- Conclusions
Although a summary has not been provided, this section contains the summary as well. All the techniques in the logical order are provided with understandable details. Limitations are not explicitly mentioned author have to assume them from the first line of the last paragraph(i.e. limited to first level ).Future area work is mentioned in a good manner.
- References.
Not all references are used in the paper. References with private communication is also provided which is not a good one
- Comment on the language used in the paper.
The language used in the paper is not complicated. It’srelatively simple. Users can understand it very easily expects few terminology and few unreferenced and unexplained technical terms.
- General comments to the paper.
As mentioned earlier, the future work, related sections can be improved. References can be looked and improved a bit more along with use of abbreviations.