Life and Death Computing

Course learning objectives

At the completion of the course, students will have added to their ability to identify, analyze and solve problems in a range of areas of biomedical computing, including:

• distinguish between modular and non-modular designs with respect to biomedical software
• identify properties of software that may enhance or detract from effective use
• identify issues that should be addressed in designing network based medical applications and network protocols for medical data
• distinguish between software correctness, safety and quality in a biomedical context
• explain why biomedical software safety must be considered in context with the hardware and user environment
• explain how not understanding the algorithm(s) a medical program uses can lead to serious consequences
• analyze a biomedical programming problem and give reasons for using or not using particular programming languages, software environments or methodologies
• identify potential areas in a biomedical computer program where speed and/or memory usage could be an important issue, and describe how you would determine it.

In addition, students will have gained basic skills with programming in Common Lisp. At the end of the course, students will be able to perform the following representative tasks, illustrating a solid basic knowledge of core programming concepts:

• Write small Common Lisp programs (100--200 lines of code).
• Write functions in the Common Lisp programming language, that illustrate the following techniques:
  • conditional expressions,
  • recursion, with lists and trees,
  • iteration,
  • the use of auxiliary or helper functions,
  • the use of arrays,
  • the use of user defined structured types.
• Write functions that implement basic algorithms for sorting, searching.
• Given a list of expressions or function definitions in Common Lisp, identify which ones cause side effects and which do not.
• Given a computational problem, state whether it is preferable to solve it using lists or arrays, and give at least one reason to support the choice.
• Given a small function definition (10 to 20 lines of code), determine if it is syntactically correct.
• Given a statement of an algorithm for a simple computation, or an implementation in code, determine whether it will terminate on all valid inputs.
• Utilize in their programs elements of the Common Lisp Object System.