
% Andrew G. West - prop_spec.tex
% Main LaTeX file for CIS400/401 Project Proposal Specification
%
% Once built and in PDF form this document outlines the format of a project proposal. However, in raw (.tex) form, we also try to comment on some basic LaTeX technique. This is not intended to be a LaTeX tutorial, instead just (1) a use-case thereof, and (2) a template for your own writing.

	% AW - Ordinarily we'd begin by specifying some broad document properties like font-size, page-size, margins, etc. -- We have done this (and much more) for you by creating a 'style file', which the 'documentclass' command references.
\documentclass{sig-alternate}
 
	% AW - These 'usepackage' commands are a way of importing additional LaTeX styles and formattings that aren't part of the 'standard library'
\usepackage{mdwlist}
\usepackage{url}

\begin{document} 

	% AW - We setup the parameters to our title header before 'making' it.
\title{CIS400/401 Project Proposal Specification}
\subtitle{Dept. of CIS - Senior Design 2009-2010}
\numberofauthors{3}
\author{
\alignauthor Insup Lee\thanks{List your advisor (last) amongst the authors. Your advisor must also sign a hard-copy of your proposal.} \\ \email{lee@cis.upenn.edu} \\ Univ. of Pennsylvania \\ Philadelphia, PA
\alignauthor Andrew G. West \\ \email{westand@cis.upenn.edu} \\ Univ. of Pennsylvania \\ Philadelphia, PA
\alignauthor Alex Roederer \\ \email{roederer@cis.upenn.edu} \\ Univ. of Pennsylvania \\ Philadelphia, PA}
\date{}
\maketitle

	% AW - Next we write out our abstract -- generally a two paragraph maximum, executive summary of the motivation and contributions of the work.
\begin{abstract}
\textit{Abstract: The purpose of this document is three-fold. First, it describes the requirements of the project proposal. Second, it presents this information in a style your proposal should mimic. Third, by viewing the *.tex `code behind', some basic \LaTeX{} technique can be learned. Do not feel compelled to completely follow our style -- but do use it as a guide.}

\textit{Like this `report', your proposal is expected to have an abstract. An abstract is a two-paragraph maximum executive summary of your work. It should briefly outline your problem statement and its (expected) contributions.}
\end{abstract}

	% AW - Then we proceed into the body of the report itself. The effect of the 'section' command is obvious, but also notice 'label'. Its good practice to label every (sub)-section, graph, equation etc. -- this gives us a way to dynamically reference it later in the text via the 'ref' command.
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}
You should begin by introducing your topic. You should define core terminology specific to the field, introduce the problem statement, and make clear the benefits (motivate!) of resolving that problem statement. 

Let us suppose you are attempting to build a constant time integer factorization algorithm. You would want to briefly explain that factorization is the process of breaking an integer into its prime multipliers. Give a simple example. Your problem statement would conclude that factorization is an unneccesarily complex process. Finally, you would state that via your proposed system, factorization will be easy and the consequences that will have. Namely, the RSA-encryption algorithm will be broken.

	% AW - The header of this document might have been a little intimidatating to beginners. Notice once you are in the body of the document, however, LaTeX commands are minimal and 'normal text' is frequent.
\section{Related Work}
\label{sec:related_work}
Perhaps the most important section of your proposal is \textit{related work}. Here you demonstrate that you have read and understand what others in the field have done. This ensures you (1) know the state-of-the-art, (2) are not re-doing others work, and (3) you know the performance levels you must achieve to make a contribution. As you discuss each related work, make note of how each has advanced the field. More importantly, note their shortcomings -- these you will exploit to come up with a \textit{better} system. 

	% Here we see our first citations. It's just a simple command, the body of which is the keyword-label assigned to resources over in the *.bib file
This section should have in-line citations to your bibliography (really all sections should have citations, but we expect them to be most dense in this section). We are going to require that your proposal has at least $6$ references. Fortunately, \LaTeX{} makes citations easy. Your two TAs have had no difficulty, as the work of West \textit{et al.}~\cite{quantm} demonstrates. Need help with \LaTeX{}? Be sure to check out~\cite{latex_wikibook} and~\cite{ctan_pdf}, two helpful on-line resources.

What defines a good resource? Wikipedia is \textbf{NOT} a good resource. We would like to see references from academic journals/conferences (ACM, IEEE, etc.). We realize not everyone is doing pure research and for students with `implementation' projects such sources may be rare. No matter the case, your sources need to be reputable. You will later be asked to produce an \textit{annotated bibliography} where you defend the quality of your resources.

Let us return to your factorization proposal. You should put out the earliest related work; na\"{i}ve methods like trial divison and the Sieve of Eratosthenes, but state they are of no modern relevance. Then discuss modern methods like the Quadratic Sieve\footnote{This was the topic of one TAs undergraduate thesis, and the only reason this particular example was chosen.} and General Number Field Sieve. Note the humongous time and memory bounds of these algorithms. But wait! You are going to propose a better way $\ldots$

\section{Project Proposal}
\label{sec:project_proposal}
Now is the time to introduce your proposed project in all of its glory. Admittedly, this is not the easiest since you probably have not done much actual research yet. Even so, setting and realizing realistic research goals is an important skill. Begin by summarizing what you are going to do and the expected benefit it will bring.

\subsection{Anticipated Approach}
\label{subsec:approach}
Having summarized \textit{what} you are going to do, its time to describe \textit{how} you plan to do it. Our factorization example does not work so well here (its likely impossible to realize) -- so let us suppose you are going to create a service that takes a cell-phone picture of a building and returns via text-message, the name of that building\footnote{Do not use this idea -- someone did it last year.}. 

In this case you might want to talk about establishing a server to receive pictures via MMS. Once the picture is received, you will run an edge extraction algorithm over it. Then, similarity between the submitted picture and those stored (and tagged) in a MySQL database will be computing using algorithm $XYZ$. Finally, the tag of the most similar image will be returned to the user. Do not bore the reader with trivial details, but give them an overview; a block-flow diagram may prove extremely helpful.

Also note where you anticipate having \underline{novel} difficulty. Maybe you have never setup a MySQL database or even used SQL before at all -- yes, that is a challenge -- but not one reader's care about. More novel would be the fact that many buildings on Penn's campus look similar and your classifier may be inaccurate in such instances.

\subsection{Evaluation Criteria}
\label{subsec:eval_criteria}
Suppose you have implemented your approach, and it is functioning. Now how are you going to convince readers your approach is better than what exists? In the factorization example, you could just compare run-times between algorithms run on the same input. The image recognition example might use a percentage of accurate classifications. Other fields may have established testing benchmarks.

No matter the case, you need to prove you have contributed to the field. This will be easier for some than others. In particular, those with `sensory' projects involving visual or sonic elements need to think this point through -- objectivity measures are always better than subjective ones.

\section{Research Timeline}
\label{sec:research_timeline}
Finally, we would like you to speculate about the pace of your research progress. This section need not be lengthy, we would just like you to specify some milestones so we can gauge your progress during our intermediate interviews. Let us follow through with our image recognition example:

	% The 'itemize' environment shown here, and its friend 'enumerate' (shown below), are used to create indented\bulleted\outline style lists.
\begin{itemize*}
	\item {\sc already completed}: Preliminary reading. Began implementation of image-recognition algorithm.\vspace{3pt}
	\item {\sc prior-to thanksgiving} : Photograph buildings for DB. Make algorithm more efficient, tune parameters.\vspace{3pt}
	\item {\sc prior-to christmas} : Create server-MMS interface. Expand tagged DB collection.\vspace{3pt}
	\item {\sc completion tasks} : Verify implementation is bug-free. Conduct accuracy testing. Complete write-up.\vspace{3pt}
	\item {\sc if there's time} : Investigate image pre-processing techniques to improve accuracy.
\end{itemize*}

	% AW: We next move onto the bibliography.
\bibliographystyle{plain} % Please do not change the bib-style
\bibliography{prop_spec}  % Just the *.BIB filename

	% AW: Here is a dirty hack. We insert so much vertical space that the appendices, which want to begin in the left colum underneath "references", are pushed over to the right-hand column. If we looked hard enough, there is probably a command to do exactly this (and wouldn't need tweaked after edits).
\vspace{150pt}

	% AW: We then use appendices to share some additional information with you, though you won't need appendices in your own proposal.
\appendix
\section{Other Specifics}
\label{app:other_specifics}
Your proposal need not have appendices like this section and the next, but we still have critical info to share:

	% The usage of 'enumerate' (similar to 'itemize') we talked about above
	%
	% You may also notice we have many 'vspace' commands lying around. These create 'vertical space' and are a way to force LaTeX to cooperate, sometimes. Don't get too involved with using them initially, though, because adding or deleting a single line of task can dramatically change how LaTeX chooses to format, page, and space the document
\begin{enumerate*}
	\item {\sc proposal length}: We require that your proposal be 4--5 pages in length, bibliography included. Be careful, \LaTeX{} and our style-file in particular are \textit{extremely} space efficient. An 9-page MS-Word document could easily become a 5-page \LaTeX{} one.\vspace{5pt}
	\item {\sc plagarism}: \textbf{DO NOT} plagarize. If you are caught, you will fail the class (\textit{i.e.}, not graduate), or worse. 
\end{enumerate*}

\section{\LaTeX{} Examples}
\label{app:latex_examples}

	% This paragraph makes use of dynamic references. Remember how we've been 'label'-ing everything; sections, etc? Using 'ref' we can reference them. Add a new figure/section at the beginning? This technique automatically re-numbers when you build, so you don't have to make static changes.
At this point, the proposal specification is complete. From here on out, we are just going to show off some commonly used \LaTeX{} technique. Be sure to look at the `code behind' and see Tab.~\ref{tab:some_table}, Eqn.~\ref{eqn:some_equation} and Fig.~\ref{fig:some_graph} for the output!

	% AW - Math is obviously one of LaTeX's strengths. Math can be typeset in-line, or off-set in equation 'environments' like this. You'll need to look up symbols on an as-needed basis, but I'll assure you -- they are ALL there.
\begin{equation}
M(p) = \int^\infty_0 (1+\alpha x)^{-\gamma}x^{p-1}dx
\label{eqn:some_equation}
\end{equation}

	% AW - We next encounter tables and figures (images). Big things like these are known as 'floats' in LaTeX because their position is not fixed. Notice that '[htb!]' follows the start of each environment. We are telling LaTeX that we'd like to put the table/fig 'h' - HERE, precisely where it follows in the narrative. If LaTeX determines it doesn't look good here, 't' tells LaTeX we'd like it at the top of this column, and if that doesn't work, use 'b', the bottom of the column. Other options are available. LaTeX shifts floats around to ensure images don't end up on page/column boundaries, which would result in a waste of space for text.

	% AW - We insert a table into the document. Notice the '| c | c | c |' argument provided to the tabular environment. This says we want three columns, all with center-alignment, with vertical bars between them. In the body of argument, an ampersand '&' separates cells, and a double forward-slash '\\' is used to create new lines. Otherwise, commands should be self explanatory.
\begin{table}[htb!]
	\begin{center}
  \begin{tabular}{| c | c | c |}
    \hline
    \textbf{User Type} & \textbf{Cleanup\%} & \textbf{Honesty\%} \\ \hline
    Good & 90-100\% & 100\% \\ \hline
    Purely Malicous & 0-10\% & 0\% \\ \hline
		Malicious Provider & 0-10\% & 100\% \\ \hline
		Feedback Malicous & 90-100\% & 0\% \\ \hline
		Disguised Malicous & 50-100\% & 50-100\% \\ \hline
		Sybil Attacker & 0-10\% & Irrelevant \\ \hline
  \end{tabular}
	\caption{Example Table}
  \label{tab:some_table}
	\vspace{-10pt}
	\end{center}
\end{table}

	% AW - We insert a graph/figure into the document. This is a pretty straightforward process once you get the image into a file format that LaTeX plays nice with. Then we just scale it as a % of the column width.
\begin{figure}[htb!]
	\begin{center}
		\includegraphics[width=0.75\linewidth]{some_graph}
	\end{center}
	\vspace{-12pt}
	\caption{Example Figure/Graph}
	\label{fig:some_graph}
\end{figure}

\end{document} 

