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education [2018/03/27 13:19] taziki |
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| ====== Education ====== | ====== Education ====== | ||
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| The lab is teaching the following courses: | The lab is teaching the following courses: | ||
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| + | * [[education/ca_2020|Concurrent Algorithms]] (theory & practice) | ||
| + | * [[education/da|Distributed Algorithms]] (theory & practice) | ||
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| - | * [[education/ca_2017|Concurrent Algorithms]] | + | The lab taught in the past the following courses: |
| - | * [[education/da|Distributed Algorithms]] | + | |
| * <html><a href="http://moodle.epfl.ch/course/view.php?id=14044">Information, Calcul et Communication</a></html> | * <html><a href="http://moodle.epfl.ch/course/view.php?id=14044">Information, Calcul et Communication</a></html> | ||
| * <html><a href="http://cowww.epfl.ch/proginfo/wwwhiver/">Introduction à la Programmation Orientée Objet</a></html> | * <html><a href="http://cowww.epfl.ch/proginfo/wwwhiver/">Introduction à la Programmation Orientée Objet</a></html> | ||
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| ===== Master Projects ===== | ===== Master Projects ===== | ||
| - | LPD offers master projects in the following areas: | + | DCL offers master projects in the following areas: |
| - | * **Dynamically Distributed Spatial Indexing**: a project here would consist in studying existing spatial index data structures and algorithms, e.g., simple grids, Quadtrees, R-Trees etc., and how they may be dynamically distributed for indexing a large number of moving objects; please contact [[mailto:benoit.garbinato@unil.ch|Benoit Garbinato]] to get more information. | + | * **[[cryptocurrencies|Cryptocurrencies]]**: We have several project openings as part of our ongoing research on designing new cryptocurrency systems. Please contact [[rachid.guerraoui@epfl.ch|Prof. Rachid Guerraoui]]. |
| + | * **On the design and implementation of scalable and secure blockchain algorithms**: Consensus has recently gained in popularity with the advent of blockchain technologies. Unfortunately, most blockchains do not scale due, in part, to their centralized (leader-based) limitation. We recently designed a promising fully decentralised (leader-less) algorithm that promises to scale to large networks. The goal of this project is to implement it in rust and compare its performance on AWS instances against a traditional leader-based alternative like BFT-Smart whose code will be provided. Contact [[https://people.epfl.ch/vincent.gramoli|Vincent Gramoli]] for more information. | ||
| - | * **Multicore computing**: a project here would consist for instance in designing and implementing efficient lock-based or lock-free shared objects; please contact [[http://tudordavid.com|Tudor David]] or [[https://people.epfl.ch/igor.zablotchi|Igor Zablotchi]] to get more information. | + | * **Making Blockchain Accountable**: Abstract: One of the key drawback of blockchain is its lack of accountability. In fact, it does not hold participants responsible for their actions. This is easy to see as a malicious or Byzantine user typically double spends in a branch of blocks that disappears from the system, hence remaining undetected. Accountability is often thought to be communication costly: to detect a malicious participants who has sent deceitful messages to different honest participants for them to disagree, one may be tempted to force each honest participant to exchange all the messages they receive and cross-check them. However, we have recently designed an algorithm that shares the same communication complexity as the current consensus algorithms of existing blockchains. The goal of this project is to make blockchains accountable by implementing this accountable consensus algorithm and comparing it on a distributed set of machines against a baseline implementation. Contact [[https://people.epfl.ch/vincent.gramoli|Vincent Gramoli]] for more information. |
| - | * **Dynamic distributed computing**: a project here would consist for instance in designing and implementing applications that would run in a simulation of a cloud with high churn, but possibly robust to arbitrary behavior of some of its components; please contact [[http://people.epfl.ch/matej.pavlovic|Matej Pavlovic]] to get more information. | + | * **GAR performances on different datasets**:Robust machine learning on textual data and content recommendation is critical for the safety of social media users (harassment, hate speech, etc.), but also for the reliability of scientific use of natural language processing such for processing computer programs, chemistry and drug discovery. Text datasets are known to have long-tailed distributions, which poses specific challenges for robustness, while content recommendation datasets may feature clusters of similar users. The goal of this project is to better understand the properties of different datasets, and what makes a gradient aggregation rule (e.g. Krum, trimmed mean...) better than another, given a specific text dataset (conversational chatbots, translation, github code etc.). Contact [[https://people.epfl.ch/le.hoang|Lê Nguyên Hoang]] for more information. |
| - | * **[[Distributed ML|Distributed Machine Learning]]** | + | * **Strategyproof collaborative filtering**:In collaborative filtering, other users' inputs are used to generalize the preferences of a given user. Such an approach has been critical to improve performance. However, it exposes each user to being manipulated by the inputs of malicious users, which is arguably currently occurring on social medias. In this theoretical project, we search for Byzantine-resilient and strategyproof learning algorithms to perform something akin to collaborative filtering. This would also have important applications for implicit voting systems on exponential-size decision sets. Contact [[https://people.epfl.ch/le.hoang|Lê Nguyên Hoang]] for more information. |
| - | * **Distributed and Fault-tolerant algorithms**: projects here would consist in designing failure detection mechanisms suited for large-scale systems, real-time systems, and systems with unreliable communication or partial synchrony. This task also involves implementing, evaluating, and simulating the performance of the developed mechanisms to verify the achievable guarantees; please contact [[http://people.epfl.ch/david.kozhaya|David Kozhaya]] to get more information. | + | * **Probabilistic Byzantine Resilience**: Development of high-performance, Byzantine-resilient distributed systems with provable probabilistic guarantees. Two options are currently available, both building on previous work on probabilistic Byzantine broadcast: (i) a theoretical project, focused the correctness of probabilistic Byzantine-tolerant distributed algorithms; (ii) a practical project, focused on numerically evaluating of our theoretical results. Please contact [[matteo.monti@epfl.ch|Matteo Monti]] to get more information. |
| - | * **Consistency in global-scale storage systems**: We offer several projects in the context of storage systems, ranging from implementation of social applications (similar to [[http://retwis.redis.io/|Retwis]], or [[https://github.com/share/sharejs|ShareJS]]) to recommender systems, static content storage services (à la [[https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Beaver.pdf|Facebook's Haystack]]), or experimenting with well-known cloud serving benchmarks (such as [[https://github.com/brianfrankcooper/YCSB|YCSB]]); please contact [[http://people.epfl.ch/dragos-adrian.seredinschi|Adrian Seredinschi]] for further information. | ||
| - | * **Distributed database algorithms**: a project here would consist in implementing and evaluating protocols that are running in today's database systems, e.g., [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-phase_commit_protocol|2PC]], and comparing them with those protocols that can potentially be used in future database systems; please contact [[http://people.epfl.ch/jingjing.wang|Jingjing Wang]] to get more information. | + | * **Distributed computing using RDMA and/or NVRAM.** RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) allows accessing a remote machine's memory without interrupting its CPU. NVRAM is byte-addressable persistent (non-volatile) memory with access times on the same order of magnitude as traditional (volatile) RAM. These two recent technologies pose novel challenges and raise new opportunities in distributed system design and implementation. Contact [[https://people.epfl.ch/igor.zablotchi|Igor Zablotchi]] for more information. |
| + | * **Robust Distributed Machine Learning**: With the proliferation of big datasets and models, Machine Learning is becoming distributed. Following the standard parameter server model, the learning phase is taken by two categories of machines: parameter servers and workers. Any of these machines could behave arbitrarily (i.e., said Byzantine) affecting the model convergence in the learning phase. Our goal in this project is to build a system that is robust against Byzantine behavior of both parameter server and workers. Our first prototype, AggregaThor(https://mlsys.org/Conferences/2019/doc/2019/54.pdf), describes the first scalable robust Machine Learning framework. It fixed a severe vulnerability in TensorFlow and it showed how to make TensorFlow even faster, while robust. Contact [[https://people.epfl.ch/arsany.guirguis|Arsany Guirguis]] for more information. | ||
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| + | * **Consistency in global-scale storage systems**: We offer several projects in the context of storage systems, ranging from implementation of social applications (similar to [[http://retwis.redis.io/|Retwis]], or [[https://github.com/share/sharejs|ShareJS]]) to recommender systems, static content storage services (à la [[https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Beaver.pdf|Facebook's Haystack]]), or experimenting with well-known cloud serving benchmarks (such as [[https://github.com/brianfrankcooper/YCSB|YCSB]]); please contact [[http://people.epfl.ch/dragos-adrian.seredinschi|Adi Seredinschi]] or [[https://people.epfl.ch/karolos.antoniadis|Karolos Antoniadis]] for further information. | ||
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| If the subject of a Master Project interests you as a Semester Project, please contact the supervisor of the Master Project to see if it can be considered for a Semester Project. | If the subject of a Master Project interests you as a Semester Project, please contact the supervisor of the Master Project to see if it can be considered for a Semester Project. | ||
| - | EPFL I&C duration, credits and workload information are available [[http://ic.epfl.ch/page-17123.html|here]]. Don't hesitate to contact the project supervisor if you want to complete your Semester Project outside the regular semester period. | + | EPFL I&C duration, credits and workload information are available [[https://www.epfl.ch/schools/ic/education/|here]]. Don't hesitate to contact the project supervisor if you want to complete your Semester Project outside the regular semester period. |
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| + | ===== Collaborative Projects ===== | ||
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| + | The lab is also collaborating with the industry and other labs at EPFL to offer interesting student projects motivated from real-world problems. With [[http://lara.epfl.ch|LARA]] and [[interchain.io|Interchain Foundation]] we have several projects: | ||
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| + | - **[[https://dcl.epfl.ch/site/cryptocurrencies|AT2]]:** Integration of an asynchronous (consensus-less) payment system in the Cosmos Hub. | ||
| + | - **[[https://github.com/cosmos/ics/tree/master/ibc|Interblockchain Communication (IBC)]]:** Protocols description (and optional implementation) for enabling the inter-operation of independent blockchain applications. | ||
| + | - **[[http://stainless.epfl.ch|Stainless]]**: Implementation of Tendermint modules (consensus, mempool, fast sync) using Stainless and Scala. | ||
| + | - **[[https://github.com/viperproject/prusti-dev|Prusti]]:** Implementation of Tendermint modules (consensus, mempool, fast sync) using Prusti and the Rust programming language. | ||
| + | - **[[https://tendermint.com/docs/spec/reactors/mempool/functionality.html#mempool-functionality|Mempool]]** performance analysis and algorithm improvement. | ||
| + | - **Adversarial engineering:** Experimental evaluation of Tendermint in adversarial settings (e.g., in the style of [[http://jepsen.io/analyses/tendermint-0-10-2|Jepsen]]). | ||
| + | - **Testing**: Generation of tests out of specifications (TLA+ or Stainless) for the consensus module of Tendermint. | ||
| + | - **Facebook Libra comparative research**: Comparative analysis of consensus algorithms, specifically, between HotStuff (the consensus algorithm underlying [[https://cryptorating.eu/whitepapers/Libra/libra-consensus-state-machine-replication-in-the-libra-blockchain.pdf|Facebook's Libra]]) and Tendermint consensus. | ||
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| + | Contact [[adi@interchain.io|Adi Seredinschi]] (INR 327) if interested in learning more about these projects. | ||