CS 7840: Foundations and Applications of Information Theory (Fall 2025)
Research Project
During the latter part of this class, students will work on a research project. I recommend that you do your project alone, but you can work in a team of two in case there is an exceptionally strong argument for a joint project and you are ok with creating a join project whose level of sophistication is significantly higher than an individual project (please reach out to me first). The project is an essential part of this class and counts towards 50% of your grade.
The project focus should be inspired by the topics discussed in class, yet is flexible and allows students to explore ideas from information theory related to their PhD research.
Your project can be of theoretical or practical nature. For example, your project may involve implementing a theoretical algorithm and comparing it against a baseline. You don’t need to solve the problem entirely to do well on the project; outlining a list of attempts, partial progress, or a substantial literature survey can also result in a strong project score. A key guiding principle is that your choices or options should be well justified and show a clear structure.
Project deliverables
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P1 (Mon 10/6): Project ideas:
Please submit a few tentative ideas you are considering for the project on Piazza.
We will create a dedicated project page on Piazza. Please post your project idea as a response to that post. It is purposefully intended that everyone else can see the project ideas and our feedback (similar to the scribes). Later feedback (of the actual project proposal) will then be private.
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P2 (Thu 10/23): Project proposal:
Prepare a 1-2-page proposal that includes (i) the title of the project, (ii) a short description of the problem you propose to solve, (iii) a brief outline of how you will approach the problem, and how you will evaluate your results. Do not forget to include a list of references!
Use the 1-column ACM latex template on Overleaf for your report. It includes a number of useful packages. Use the latex commands at the end of these instructions to hide unnecessary information from the ACM template.
Submit your proposal as PDF on Canvas.
We will read your write-up and add comments and clarifying questions to specific line numbers.
Optionally, you can additionally share your document on overleaf with my Northeastern email address and I will make my comments directly into your reports (please still submit a PDF time-stamped to Canvas).
In that case, please rename your document on Overleaf to "cs7840-fa25-[YOUR NAME]-proposal-[PROJECT TITLE]".
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P3 (Thu 11/13): Intermediate report:
Build upon your proposal and the TEX template and prepare a 2-5 page document that extends your project proposal. The milestones should include (i) a more detailed description of the problem, (ii) related work, (iii) your progress and the unexpected issues you have encountered so far, and (iv) a brief plan for how you plan to continue your project.
In our updated write-up, please refer in an easy-to-distinguish way (e.g. extra paragraphs highlighted in color or bold) to my earlier comments on your initial project proposal and how you choose to address or why you prefer to ignore them.
This report is not graded, yet the more information you give us earlier, the better I can help you at a time you can still make amendments.
Again, submit your intermediate report on Canvas.
If you optionally also share your updated latex document with me on Overleaf, rename it first to
"cs7840-fa25-[YOUR NAME]-intermediatereport-[PROJECT TITLE]".
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P4 (Thu 12/4-Thu 12/11): Project presentation (20%):
The project presentation counts towards 20% of your grade. Design your presentation for approximately 10-15 min, yet add backup slides to be able to answer technical questions. The presentation is interactive, thus be prepared to answer questions during the talk, which may extend the time needed. In case you use PowerPoint, you can optionally share your PPTX presentation slides in Office 365 online with my Northeastern email until 2 days before your presentation and I will have a quick pass and add suggestions to your slides. Please use the same naming conventions for your slides as for the report: "cs7840-fa25-[YOUR NAME]-[PROJECT TITLE].pptx".
Please come with your own laptop to present. Make sure to test the setup *before* the day you present.
Please include page numbers in your presentation so I can give slide-specific questions and suggestions.
Submit your final version of your slides (optionally addressing any feedback from the presentation) to Canvas by the end of the day of your presentation.
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P5 (Thu 12/4-Thu 12/11): Final report (30%):
The final report counts towards 30% of your grade and is due on the day of *your* final presentation. It should be written like a typical research paper that we have read in class. There is no formal length requirement, but a good target would be 8-12 pages in the single column ACM format. Please make sure to address any feedback shared during the presentation and earlier reports as much as possible.
Again, please refer in an easy-to-distinguish way to my earlier comments on your project proposals and presentation and summarize how you choose to address those or why you chose to go a different route (which may well be completely legit).
And include illustrating examples and visualizations as much as possible.
Again, submit your final report on Canvas.
If you optionally also share your final document with me on Overleaf, rename it first to "cs7840-fa25-[YOUR NAME]-finalreport-[PROJECT TITLE]".
Some latex references
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If you are not familiar with LaTeX, see this old yet intuitive
LaTeX primer from 2003 or
Wikibooks.
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Most students today prefer to use Overleaf for their papers.
For those like me to who prefer to work offline, you can easily synch an overleaf project with your computer via Git.
Then MacTex helps you set up Latex on a Mac,
Miktex helps you set it up on Windows.
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I recommend using PowerPoint for your presentations.
Office 365 is available free for you at Northeastern University and allows near real-time collaboration. It also allows me as instructor to add annotations on a draft of your presentation if you decide to share it with me.
To include formulas in your slides, you can use the native Powerpoint formula editor.
Alternatively LaTeXiT:
a handy equation editor on Mac that you can use to drag or "copy and paste" the equations into your slides.
Required modifications to ACM template
Please use the following latex commands on the top of your Latex file. It hides unnecessary information from the ACM template and adds line numbers that I can refer to in my review (it also allows me to add colored comments into your document as we read your intermediate or final report in case you shared the overleaf document with me).
Please make sure to include an abstract (otherwise the line numbers on the first page may not show up).
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\documentclass[acmsmall, review=true, screen=true]{acmart}
% screen=true adds colored hyperlinks
\settopmatter{printccs=false, printacmref=false, printfolios=true}
% remove citation below abstract, "printfolios" adds page numbers
\renewcommand\footnotetextcopyrightpermission[1]{}
% removes footnote with conference information
% \acmArticle{111} % don't show black box
\fancyfoot{} % place right after "\begin{document}" to replace the footer
\thispagestyle{empty} % place right after "\maketitle"
\newcommand{\wolf}[1]{{{\color{red}{[\textbf{wg} #1]}}}} % macros that allow me to add comments
% \renewcommand{\wolf}[1]{\hspace{-1pt}} % uncomment this line to hide the red comments