Dave Toth, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department
Merrimack College

E-mail: david.toth@merrimack.edu
Instant Messenger: TothAtMerrimack
Office: Mendel Hall 251
Phone: 978-837-3405 (ext 3405 from on campus)

Spring 2010 Schedule

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7:30-8:00 AM	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep
8:00-8:30 AM	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep
8:30-9:00 AM	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep	Prep
9:00-9:30 AM	Operating Systems	Algorithms	Operating Systems	Algorithms	Operating Systems
9:30-10:00 AM	Operating Systems	Algorithms	Operating Systems	Algorithms	Operating Systems
10:00-10:30 AM	Operating Systems	Algorithms	HCI	Algorithms
10:30-11:00 AM	Operating Systems	Algorithms	HCI	Algorithms
11:00-11:30 AM	HCI	Office Hour	HCI		HCI
11:30-Noon	HCI	Office Hour	HCI		HCI
Noon-12:30 PM	Office Hour		Office Hour
12:30-1:00 PM	Office Hour		Office Hour		Office Hour
1:00-1:30 PM	CS Dept Meeting				Office Hour
1:30-2:00 PM	CS Dept Meeting				Office Hour
2:00-2:30 PM	Research	Computer Science I		Computer Science I	Office Hour
2:30-3:00 PM	Research	Computer Science I		Computer Science I
3:00-3:30 PM	Research	Computer Science I		Computer Science I
3:30-4:00 PM	Research	Computer Science I		Computer Science I
4:00-4:30 PM	Office Hour	Faculty Senate	Office Hour	Office Hour
4:30-5:00 PM	Office Hour	Faculty Senate	Office Hour

* Additional office hours by appointment.

Courses Taught: (all course web pages are on Blackboard)

Spring 2010 - Coming Soon to a Classroom Near You!

CSC 1610 - Computer Science I
CSC 3320 - Operating Systems
CSC 3500 - Human Computer Interaction
CSC 3710 - Analysis of Algorithms

Fall 2009

CSC 1510 Introduction to Information Technology (3 Sections: A, B & D)
CSC 4805 Directed Study: Compute Cluster Construction
CSC 4805 Directed Study: Advanced Operating Systems

Spring 2009

CSC 3320 - Operating Systems
CSC 3710 - Analysis of Algorithms
CSC 4905 - Special Topics: Parallel Computing

Fall 2008

CSC 1510 Introduction to Information Technology (2 Sections: B & C)
CSC 3810 Database Principles

Education:

Ph.D. Computer Science. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. May, 2008.
M.S. Computer Science. Worcester Polytechnic Institute. February, 2005.
B.A. Mathematics. Connecticut College. May, 1999.

Research Interests:

My research interests are in two related areas: Parallel & Distributed Computing and Computational Science. Parallel & Distributed Computing allow us to make significant progress on computationally intensive applications and solve problems that would otherwise not be solvable. Within Parallel & Distributed Computing, my focus has been on Volunteer Computing. Computational Science provides applications that need the compute power that is only attainable with Parallel & Distributed Computing. Computational scientists model phenomena from the real world and simulate how they behave over time, allowing us to gain a deeper understanding of how these phenomena behave under certain conditions. Computational Science involves computationally intensive research from many disciplines, including Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and others. For more information on Computational Science, visit the National Computational Science Institute's web page.

Volunteer computing systems use idle time on computers that people volunteer to perform some task. Tasks that require huge amounts of computational power to accomplish and can be split up into many small independent subtasks are the best tasks for public-resource computing. Volunteer computing is used to make progress in the medical field, searching for cures to diseases, such as cancer. It is also used to make progress in many other scientific areas, mathematics, and other disciplines. My dissertation research, which was advised by Professor David Finkel, focused on ways to increase the productivity of volunteer computing projects. This involved analyzing alternatives to design decisions made in volunteer computing projects. I used simulations to determine which methods of implementing portions of volunteer computing projects would lead to increased productivity. I have some other ideas that I'll be pursuing in the upcoming years. Come by or send me an e-mail if you're interested in discussing them. Interested in participating? Go to one of these web sites to get more information or to download a client to start participating. It's impossible to list every project and keep this list updated, so this list is by no means comprehensive (but somebody else maintains a much more comprehensive list).

BOINC - From Dr. David Anderson at U.C. Berkeley, the BOINC client is the most flexible volunteer computing client. It lets you choose to have your computer participate in one or more of many projects, ranging from the well-known SETI@home to cancer research and about 20 (as of April 2008) other scientific and mathematical research projects.
Folding@home - From Vijay Pande at Stanford University, Folding@home analyzes how proteins in the human body fold and searches for cures to diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer. You can even download a client for your Sony PlayStation3, as well as your PC or MAC!
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) - From George Woltman, this project searches for Mersenne primes. If you're lucky enough, you may even win some money if your computer finds a a very large Mersenne prime number.

Refereed Publications:

"Improving the Productivity of Volunteer Computing by Using the Most Effective Task Retrieval Policies", David Toth and David Finkel, Journal of Grid Computing, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2009, ISSN 1570-7873, pp. 519-535. DOI 10.1007/s10723-009-9133-4

"The Impact of Multi-Core Architectures on Task Retrieval Policies for Volunteer Computing", David Toth, Proceedings of The 20th IASTED International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems - PDCS 2008, November 16-18, 2008, pp. 330-335, Orlando, Florida, USA. slides

Increasing the Amount of Work Completed by Volunteer Computing Projects with Task Distribution Policies", David Toth and David Finkel, Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Desktop Grids and Volunteer Computing Systems - PCGrid 2008, April 18, 2008, Miami, Florida, USA. slides

"Volunteer Computing with Video Game Consoles", David Toth, Proceedings of the 6th WSEAS International Conference on Software Engineering, Parallel and Distributed Systems - SEPADS 2007, February 16-19, 2007, Corfu, Greece. slides

"Characterizing Resource Availability for Volunteer Computing and its Impact on Task Distribution Methods", David Toth and David Finkel, Proceedings of the 6th WSEAS International Conference on Software Engineering, Parallel and Distributed Systems - SEPADS 2007, February 16-19, 2007, Corfu, Greece. slides Computer Availability Data

"SLINC: A Framework for Volunteer Computing", James Baldassari, David Finkel, and David Toth, to be published in Proceedings of the 18th IASTED International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems - PDCS 2006, November 13-15, 2006, Dallas, Texas, USA.

"A Comparison of Techniques for Distributing File-Based Tasks for Public-Resource Computing", David Toth and David Finkel, Proceedings of The 17th IASTED International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems - PDCS 2005, November 14-16, 2005, pp. 398-403, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. slides

"Evolving Gaits for the Lynxmotion HexapodII Robot", David Toth and Gary Parker, Proceedings of the 7th World Multiconference on System, Cybernetics, and Informatics, July 2003 (pp. 229-234).

Other Publications:

Ph.D. Dissertation: "Improving the Productivity of Volunteer Computing", David Toth, March, 2008.

M.S. Thesis: "The Byzantine Agreement Protocol Applied to Security, David Toth, Februrary, 2005.

Professional Activities/Honors:

Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE).
Member of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the computer science honor society.
Sun Microsystems Achievement Awards, September & November 2000 for filed patent application.

Fellowships and Grants:

Received full funding for 3 people to attend the SC Education Program (November 13-18, 2009, Portland, OR)
Received partial funding to attend the Summer 2009 SC Education Program workshop Introduction to Computational Thinking (August 2009, Fayetteville, AR)
Received full funding from the organizing committee through an NSF grant to attend the workshop on Data-Intensive Scalable Computing in Education (DISC 2008) (July 2008, Seattle, WA)
Received full funding from the Computing Research Association (CRA) to attend the CRA Academic Careers Conference (February 2008, Washington D.C.)
GAANN Fellowship 2006
WPI Robert Goddard Fellowship 2003