Assignment 1A: Review of two research papers (done individually)
Elvira Lakovic
Intelligent Embedded Systems
elc10001@student.mdh.se
Read the papers carefully and write a personally written review on each paper based on the
issues below (about A4 page normal sized text per paper, 300 - 700 words). The analysis
must be expressed in your own words.
PAPER 1
Author, Title: Iain Bate and Ralf Reutemann, “Worst-Case Execution Time Analysis for
Dynamic Branch Predictors”

Is the paper well organized?
At the beginning of the paper, authors introduce the problem and area of research. The authors
explain less complex concepts first, that are needed for more complex concepts introduced later.
Conclusions and comparisons follow after description of approach used in research. Based on the
above, we can conclude that paper is well organized and presents information well.

Comment the following sections (if present):

Title,
The title of this paper is concrete and informative. Authors of the paper didn't use too
many words for the title, so we can say it is not too long. Also, it is good that they didn't
use any symbols in it.

Abstract,
Abstract of this paper is written in such manner that it really summarizes the content of
the paper. I read the abstract before and after reading the whole paper, and the authors
gave answer to the three important questions in every scientific paper:
What is the problem and scope of their research?
What approach authors used to the problem and how did they apply it?
What kind of examples did they use for research?
Abstract offers significant information for quick judgment by readers of the paper.
Readers can quickly decide if this paper is useful for their research or interesting for them
in some other way.
Authors didn't use references and acronyms in abstract, which is also good.

Introduction,
In every paper, article or book, introduction is beginning section which provides the
purpose and goals of following writing for readers. Authors of this paper fulfilled those
requirements. In the introduction, authors first introduce the problem and the scope of
research. Then they give us an overview of several different methods and introduce us to
the goal of the research. Introduction is ended by a summary of the organization of the
paper.

Main section(s),
The introduction is followed by a brief introduction to the field of research. Authors are
describing in detail the matter of area of research. In related work, they give us an
overview and detailed description of different approaches before they have started the
exploration of the area of research, which is good.
In this paper, there are several theorems which are well described. Authors gave a simple
proof, explained the strategies of proof and clearly marked with a square where it ends.
Formulas are well written. For example, the words are not used between adjacent
formulas. The paper has only figures and tables as necessary. Tables and figures are
properly labeled and under every table and figure there is a description in at least one
sentence.

Summary,
In this paper summary is not detached from conclusions section.

Conclusions,
In this section are written some general conclusions related to the approach used by the
authors. Authors give advice on what to use and why, based on their research. The
conclusions end with propositions for future work. The authors do not introduce new
ideas in conclusion, which is good, since the conclusion of each paper should be the
interpretation of the author's work.

References.
All references are appropriately referenced in text. References contain all necessary
details about journals, papers and books that have been used.

Comment on the language used in the paper.
Language used in this paper is well. They combined short and long sentences. They used
scientific language and not so called, slang. The sentences are grammatically correct and
meaningful. Their paragraphs are made of meaningfully related sentences.

General comments to the paper.
The level of detail that authors used for describing the research was, in my opinion, appropriate.
In several places authors highlighted that they omitted further explanations, because of lack of
space, which is good. Besides that, they offered a reference for readers in case they want to read
more on the subject. The authors followed, if not all, then most of the principles of writing a
scientific paper. If something is not correct or well done that reviewer hasn’t notice, it is likely
that errors are negligible.
PAPER 2
Author, Title: Norman P. Jouppi, “Improving Direct-Mapped Cache Performance by the Addition of
a Small Fully-Associative Cache and Prefetch Buffers”

Is the paper well organized?
This paper is written in such way that it follows well known template for writing a scientific
paper. It consists of several sections. On the beginning of the paper is abstract and introduction
followed by main sections in which authors provide detailed explanation about techniques and
result of testing those techniques. In the end of the paper, author provides conclusions. Based on
what is stated above, it can be concluded that paper is organized well. Also, subtitles in the paper
separate meaningfully related parts well.

Comment the following sections (if present):

Title,
Title is long but not excessively long. Authors didn’t use symbols in it, which is good, so
the title couldn’t be written with less words.

Abstract,
Abstract of this paper provides readers a brief overview of techniques presented in it. It
highlights why it is important to use described techniques or a combination.
It is important to note that authors do not introduce any new information that is nowhere
else in the paper described or presented. Readers of this abstract should have enough
information, maybe too much information for purposes of abstract, to decide whether this
paper is the subject of their interest or not.

Introduction,
Introduction was written in such form that it provides perspective of the issues or
potential losses that could happen or are already happening due to inadequate or less
effective solutions. Based on the matter stated in the introduction, reader can conclude
what are the issues in question and goals of the research. The paper is divided into
sections, and at the end of the introduction, those sections are briefly described.

Main section(s),
The authors introduce the matter in the main sections of paper. While they are explaining
the techniques which they examined, they are also explaining the test programs which
they used for testing effects of those techniques and results that were obtained.
Main sections also contain several figures and graphs. Figures are properly marked with
numbers and the author gave explanation about figures below each figure and referenced
them in text, and which is very important, he provides further explanations about them in
text of the paper as well. In my opinion, some graphs could be confusing, because they
contain excessive information. It might be better if he used colors for marking, if that was
possible, in spite of that, scientific papers should avoid using many different colors.

Summary,
In this paper summary is not detached from conclusions section.

Conclusions,
The conclusions of this study consist of comparison of tested techniques. The conclusions
of this paper also represent his small summary. The author comments on a variety of
techniques, according to their benefits and disadvantages, and even references a figure in
it. In the conclusions we do not expect any new results or new information, so figure
presented in this section can be confusing or misunderstood. It might be better if author
didn’t present new figure in this section. In the end of the conclusion, author offers
suggestions for features that are not covered with his research. It is good that he draw
conclusions based on his research instead of just summarizing the ideas presented in
paper.

References
Author put his references after all sections presented in the paper, precisely at the end of
the paper. All references are properly referenced in text, so readers can check stated facts
in the paper or read more if they are interested in matter in question. Necessary details are
provided for each reference.

Comment on the language used in the paper.
Language used in this paper is at the appropriate level for one scientific paper. As I could notice
words are spelled correctly and sentences are written meaningfully.

General comments to the paper.
Generally, manner in which this work is written is acceptable. The author has mainly followed the
principles of writing a scientific paper, but still some parts of the paper could be improved.
Although conclusions are derived upon author’s research, description of different techniques in
the conclusion is too long. Also, abstract and the first part of the conclusions are substantially
similar.