A New Course on R&D Project Management in

Computer Science and Engineering: Subjects Taught,

Rationales Behind, and Lessons Learned
Veljko Milutinović, ... Danilo Furundzic, in Advances in Computers, 2017
9 Part 8: Learn How to Write SCI Journal Papers of the Research Type
A research paper is not that easy to generate and definitely not in one semester.
Consequently, only a precise template for writing research papers is elaborated down to
details, and students are asked to bring their previously concluded research rewritten
according to the template just described. Students without previous research experience are
given an opportunity, in a follow-up research-oriented course, to do a research project and to
write a research paper from scratch.
In the course described here, one can only teach theoretical issues (see Refs. [9,10]), and one
can encourage students, for extra homework credit, to write a research paper about their
research conducted before the course started, using the formalism taught, step by step.
Therefore, homework #8 is optional, for extra classroom credit.
Foreword
Barbara Fister, in Engaging First-Year Students in Meaningful Library Research, 2012
The research paper remains the most common writing assignment on college campuses, more
popular than ever (Lunsford, 2008). In the first year, just as students are encountering the
conventions of academic writing, we also hope to ground them in the mechanics of using a
print/digital hybrid library, probably much larger than any they’ve ever used before, to make
informed choices among possible sources, and extract meaning from them in order to support
a well-organized synthesis or argument. We know they will be asked to do this in the future,
so we try to get them acculturated quickly.
The authors’ editor: working with authors to make drafts
fit for purpose
Joy Burrough-Boenisch, Valerie Matarese, in Supporting Research Writing, 2013
Copy-editing
A research paper destined for submission to a peer-reviewed journal may not require
meticulous copy-editing if the target journal offers this service routinely for accepted
manuscripts. Moreover, some authors prefer that the AE concentrate on improving language,
style and content. Not having to venture into the copy-editing part of the editing continuum
(checking that references, tables and figures are formatted correctly, for example) certainly
saves time and therefore money, and allows the AE to focus on aspects of the text that are
generally outside the copy editor’s remit. But even if copy-editing is not specifically
requested, the AE should do some formatting. The most elementary is ensuring a consistent
spelling style (either US or UK, not a mix). If the publisher’s house style is known, the AE
should ensure it is followed. And if a journal has complex instructions to authors, an AE may
help authors follow them (but since this service implies extra time, it is more likely to be
offered by an in-house AE).
Unraveling the research process: social bookmarking
and collaborative learning
Caroline Sinkinson, Alison Hicks, in The Plugged-In Professor, 2013
Instructional purpose
The research paper is a common rite of passage in the academic world. While students are
typically successful at amassing information sources, many grapple with new conventions of
academic discourse and the synthesis of these foreign concepts into their own writing.
Furthermore, research assignment guidelines that focus on the number or type of sources can
lead students to view information as an object, and to conceive of research as a bounded,
static product rather than grasping the dynamic and collaborative nature of inquiry.
Social bookmarking sites such as Diigo can help shift the focus from a final product to the
experience of inquiry, as well as repositioning research as active dialog. First, Diigo enables
the quick and easy bookmarking of the various informal conversations that lead to formal
scholarship. Students’ exposure to conversation in context (blogs, tweets, discussion) breaks
down academic barriers by helping their understanding of research as an active conversation.
This focus on the context also means that students can provide much more purposeful critical
evaluation of sources rather than following teacher-imposed criteria. Second, the
participatory nature of social bookmarking in the class Diigo library mimics the
interconnected nature of research and the social construction of knowledge. By enabling
students to work collaboratively and draw on other students’ work and expertise, research
becomes more active and meaningful. Finally, the social nature of Diigo means that students
are curating a set of topical resources within a community as one would in civic, social, or
academic environments. This provides an audience beyond the teacher, making research
activities more authentic.
Public Safety Networks: Enabling Mobility for Critical
Communications
Romain Favraud, ... Thanasis Korakis, in Wireless Public Safety Networks 2, 2016
4.7 Discussion
Some research papers provide insight into full solutions when no backhaul is available,
providing inter-eNB connectivity because of WiFi links and including D2D communications
that were not yet defined by the ProSe specifications of 3GPP studies [GOM 14]. Other
technologies are usually used to establish wireless backhaul supporting fixed LTE networks:
PTP RF or free space optics links and PTMP RF links. In the case of portable BS, satellite
backhaul links are sometimes used. However, it can be easily seen that these wireless
solutions are not adequate for the establishment of a network of BS enabling voice and data
communications in moving cell scenarios.
For instance, Table 4.4 shows the main differentiating criteria. Despite great performance,
PTP and PTMP solutions often require line-of-sight wireless connectivity with careful
network planning, which make them inapplicable to the moving cell scenarios. Satellite
backhauling, on the other hand, provides the best possible coverage but needs dedicated
tracking antennas and suffers from high cost. More importantly, it has high latency (≥200 ms)
that limits voice and data services [CAS 15]. WiFi solutions using omni-directional antennas
are promising solutions if the higher layers and protocols allow for efficient and dynamic
meshing, similar to the proposed LTE-based solutions (i.e. eUE and e2NB). However,
dedicated equipment and antennas are needed for WiFi backhauling, thus increasing the cost
of BS. In addition, commodity WiFi works on ISM bands and can thus experience a large
interference compared to the licensed bands used for LTE. To solve this problem, some
countries define their own licensed bands for the PS WiFi. Last but not least, studies on
commercial networks have shown that the WiFi latency is on average slightly higher and has
more jitter than that of LTE, although results might differ for PS networks [HUA 12] and
other studies have shown that the WiFi latency is higher than that of LTE, especially when
the traffic load and number of users increase [HUA 13]. Moreover, carrier aggregation
and full duplex communications are expected to greatly increase LTE global throughput in
such mesh topologies, although similar techniques could be used for WiFi.
 Table 4.4 . Main characteristics of base stations’ backhauling solutions

BS PT(M)P/FSO SAT WiFi eUEs e2NBs

backhauling
Frequency ISM or Licensed ISM, possibly Licensed Licensed
band licensed licensed
Link latency Very low High Low medium Low Low
medium
BS mobility No If tracking If omni- Yes Yes
antenna antennas
Cost +++ ++++ ++ ++ +
Topology Star/mesh Star Star/mesh Mesh Mesh
FSO, free space optics.

Switch Fabric Technology

Gary Lee, in Cloud Networking, 2014
Output-queued shared memory designs
Many research papers on switch fabric architectures reference an output-queued shared
memory design as the ideal architecture for high-performance switch chip implementations.
This is because each output acts like a virtual FIFO in shared memory and all inputs can
simultaneously write into this virtual FIFO without blockage as long as the memory is not
full. But due to challenging on-chip memory performance requirements, many switch chip
designers settle for the IOQ architecture as described above. One successful product line
using an output-queued shared memory design is the Intel® Ethernet switch family. Figure
3.17 is a conceptual view of the shared memory architecture.

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Figure 3.17.  Output-queued shared memory switch fabric design.

As a variable sized packet arrives, it is written as a linked list into shared memory segments.
After a forwarding decision is made, the selected egress port reads the packet out of shared
memory and sends it on its way. If a large packet arrives, the head of the packet can start
egress transmission before the tail of the packet is written into memory. This is known as cut-
through operation, which provides low-latency transmission independent of packet size. As
we mentioned in the last section, IOQ architectures can also operate in cut-through mode, but
by storing the packet only once, the output-queued shared memory architecture has lower
intrinsic latency.
The egress side of the chip provides a lot of functional flexibility when using this type of
architecture. Each egress port can independently select packets from memory for
transmission and can act like an egress scheduler. Packets can be divided into traffic classes
and a list of packets available for transmission can be provided to each egress scheduler. The
scheduler can then use mechanisms like strict priority or deficit weighted round robin to
select packets for transmission. Traffic shaping can also be applied. Multicast packets can be
stored once in shared memory and simply read from memory multiple times for transmission
to each requested egress port allowing full bandwidth multicast. Because of this simpler
design, less overall on-chip memory is required compared to the IOQ architecture.
Link-level flow control can also be easily implemented in this type of design. Figure
3.18 shows a functional view of link-level flow control in an output-queued shared memory
switch.

Figure 3.18.  Output-queued shared memory switch link-level flow control.

Even though the frames are only stored once, the ingress and egress ports each have a
different perspective on how the frames are stored.
From the ingress perspective, the frames are identified as different traffic classes and then
associated with virtual shared memory partitions. These partitions are not physical, but can be
virtually sized based on traffic requirements. For example, priority 1 traffic can be assigned
to one virtual memory partition and priority 2 traffic to another. Each virtual partition can
have a separate watermark that, when exceeded, triggers a link-level priority-based flow
control message to the upstream link partner. This can easily be scaled to more than two
priorities, but we are limiting this example to 2 for clarity.
From the egress perspective, frames are identified as different traffic classes per egress port.
As mentioned earlier, each egress port can act as a scheduler providing strict priorities,
minimum bandwidth guarantees, and/or traffic shaping. This scheduler also can receive
priority-based link-level flow control messages from the downstream link partner and react to
them by not scheduling priorities that are currently under flow control. Mechanisms can also
be developed to send this virtual egress queue fill level information upstream to the source of
the traffic where virtual output queues could be implemented to minimize HoL blocking in
multistage fabric designs.
Writing a research paper
Teresa S. Welsh, Melissa S. Wright, in Information Literacy in the Digital Age, 2010
Research paper format
The research paper format varies according to the discipline and the professor’s instructions,
but below is one example of the required format for an analytical paper.
[Research paper title page format: an appropriate title for the paper should be centered with
major words capitalized.]
Research Paper Title
 Student Name
 E-mail address
 Course Number
 Date
[Research paper body format: distinguish between topic headings and subtopics/subheadings;
for example, center main topics or headings, left-align subtopics/subheadings.]
Introduction
Background information about the topic of the study and importance of the study. (The
importance of the study may come at the beginning or the end of the introduction section.)
Purpose of the study
Clear, concise and focused purpose of the study: the problem statement including sub-
problems.
Research questions or hypotheses
Clearly state the specific research questions or hypotheses. Choose one but not both. Use the
present tense and number appropriately: R1, R2, etc. for research questions; H1, H2, etc, for
hypotheses.
Definitions
List relevant terms or acronyms and their definitions. Properly cite the source(s) of the
definitions.
Limitations and delimitations of the study
State what is included in the study and what is excluded from the study.
Assumptions
State the assumptions embedded in the research design.
Importance of the study
End the introduction section with a statement about the importance of the study unless this is
addressed in the introductory paragraphs.
Literature review
The literature review paints the background for the research, creating a frame of reference
and context. Research builds upon previous research so it is important to recognize and credit
previous studies that are similar in topic and methodology.
Use subtopics if appropriate. Some topics have a previous body of research that is related to
the topic and methodology but students may find research related to the topic and other
studies that use the same or similar methodology but few or no previous studies that use the
same methodology to study the same topic. In this instance, it is appropriate to have a
subtopic on studies related to the subject or topic of the study and another subtopic related to
studies that use the same methodology as this study on similar topics.
Subtopics should follow a logical flow. For instance, when reviewing the studies that use a
particular methodology, it would be useful to put them in chronological order within that
subtopic to indicate a progression of the research that leads up to this research.
Each review of a scholarly study should include a summary of the methodology and results. It
should be clear to the reader how each study reviewed is related to this study. End with a
concluding paragraph about how this study is similar to or different from the studies
reviewed.
Methodology
Begin the methodology section with a description of the methodology used in this study.
Include details of data sources, how appropriate data are identified, and data collection
procedures (detailed enough so that it could be replicated by others). State how data are
compiled and analyzed, including software used such as Word tables or Excel. (For
a research proposal, the methodology should be written in the future tense; for a
final research report, the methodology should be changed to the past tense).
Results
Restate each research question or hypothesis (these may be used as subheadings), then the
results of the data analysis. Research questions are answered or addressed; hypotheses are
tested and supported or not supported by the data (do not use the word ‘prove’). It is desirable
to use tables (data in columns and rows) and figures (charts, graphs, images) to illustrate data
analysis. Each table or figure should be appropriately titled and numbered and referenced in
the text (‘see Table 1’). Tables or figures longer than three-quarters of a page may be placed
at the end of the paper as an appendix and referenced appropriately in the text (‘see
Appendix’). If the study is a survey, include the survey instrument as an appendix. Number
appendices if there is more than one (‘see Appendix 1’). Data in tables or figures may be
single-spaced or 1½ spaced. Journal or book titles in tables or figures should be italicized or
underlined just as in the text.
Discussion
Summarize and discuss the research results. Compare the results with the results of previous
studies reviewed in the literature review. Discuss possible general conclusions (using
cautious language) that may be drawn from the study results. End with a concluding
paragraph that suggests further research related to this study.
Bibliography (or References or Works cited)
List citations of works referenced in the paper in chronological order by author. Use the
required citation style (or the style of your choice if permitted) and be consistent.
Theoretical Research
Thomas W. Edgar, David O. Manz, in Research Methods for Cyber Security, 2017
Proofs and Theorems
A theoretical research paper’s results are the proofs and theorems generated. You should not
document every proof; only highlight significant or interesting proofs as theorems. If it is
necessary to build up a theorem then you need to specify any necessary lemmata. Often the
contribution is the development and explanation of the theory. However, sometimes a theory
can be exercised to produce or highlight results that are worth sharing with the wider
audience. Often this is in the form of a model or simulation; see Chapter 8, Using Simulation
for Research, for further details.
In the results section of your paper, explain what you found after you performed your
analysis. Creating tables to show results is an efficient and effective method. You can also
show pictures of interesting results, that is if a data anomaly occurred or to display the
distributions of the data samples. Regardless of whether or not you are generating datasets,
you should make sure and explain the impact, implications, and reach of the theoretical
research. Are there any limitations of scope, impact, applicability, and so on.
Lessons learned from nearly 200 cases of KM journeys
by Hong Kong and Asian Enterprises
E. Tsui, in Successes and Failures of Knowledge Management, 2016
Factors for sustaining the use of knowledge management systems that differ from
factors that affect adoption
KM books and research papers cover extensively the topic of knowledge management
systems (KMS) adoption and the factors that influence users to take up and start using a KM
system. While knowing these factors are no doubt very useful for planning and the
deployment of a KM system, it is even more important to know the factors that lead users to
continue their use of the KM system in a sustained way. Our own research, as well as the
knowledge gained from working with these 200 projects, leads us to believe that the two sets
of factors (ie, for preadoption and postadoption) are different; for example, peer influence,
demonstrated usefulness, personal experience, and personalization are among factors that
make users continue their use of KM systems in a sustained way.
Writing and Publishing a Research Paper
I. Scott MacKenzie, in Human-computer Interaction, 2013
8.2.3 Keywords
Keywords are used for database indexing and searching. They allow others who are interested
in the work to find it. Keywords are chosen by the author. They identify the subject matter
and the scope of the work. For the backdrop paper in Figure 8.1, the keywords are “Eyes-free,
text entry, touchscreen, finger input, gestural input, Graffiti, auditory display, error
correction, mobile computing.”
Since 1998, research papers published in ACM conference
proceedings or journals are required to also include indexing and
retrieval information according to the ACM’s Computing
Classification System (CCS). As the ACM notes, “This is beneficial
to you because accurate categorization provides the reader with
quick content reference, facilitating the search for related literature,
as well as searches for your work in ACM’s Digital Library and other
online resources.”3 In applying the CCS, research papers include
“Categories and Subject Descriptors” and “General Terms.” (For
conference submissions, the general terms are optional.) The
descriptors and terms are provided by the ACM, not the author.
Since the CCS spans all of computer science, the choices are
numerous. The descriptors and terms for the backdrop paper
in Figure 8.1 are shown in Figure 8.2. The terms are taken from the
ACM’s CCS, which is available online (see URL in footnote). The
formatting shown in the figure (e.g., brackets, bold, italics) is
required and must be strictly followed. Although choosing
descriptors and terms is a challenge, there is an easy way. Just find
a paper on the same or similar topic in the same proceedings or
journal as the paper in preparation and mimic that paper’s
descriptors and terms. In fact, the ACM recommends this (see URL
in footnote). Of course, care is warranted in the event of an
inappropriate descriptor in a published paper.