Homework #1
Due February 14th, 11:59pm
Each homework submission must include:
• An archive (.zip or .gz) file of the source code containing:
o The makefile used to compile the code on Monsoon (5pts)
o All .cpp and .h files (5pts)
• A full write-up (.pdf of .doc) file containing answers to homework’s questions (5pts), including
the exact command line needed to execute every subproblem of the homework
The source code must follow the following guidelines:
• No external libraries that implement data structures discussed in class are allowed, unless
specifically stated as part of the problem definition. Standard input/output and utilities libraries
(e.g. math.h) are ok.
• All external data sources (e.g. input data) must be passed in as a command line argument (no
hardcoded paths within the source code (5pts).
• Solutions to sub-problems must be executable separately from each other. For example, via a
special flag passed as command line argument (5pts)
For this homework, you will need to use the most recent human genome assembly located on Monsoon:
/common/contrib/classroom/inf503/genomes/human.txt
• This file contains multiple scaffolds
that comprise the human genome
• The genome is in FASTA format (see
insert)
o The headers are unique and
always begin with the “>”
character. These can be
discarded for this homework.
Each line of genome file is exactly 80 characters long (plus carriage return character)
o The genomic sequences consist of the following alphabet {A, C, G, T, N}
Problem #1 (of 2): Monsoon account creation and workshop
• (25pts) Navigate to NAU’s High Performance Computing Cluster (Monsoon) account creation page
at https://in.nau.edu/hpc/obtaining-an-account/
• Complete the Self-Paced Workshop
• Obtain and submit the validation codes to self-validate your account
• Take a screenshot of the successful ‘confirm user’ command (see example below) and submit it
as part of your writeup to complete problem #1 of the assignment.
Problem #2 (of 2): basic text processing
Write code to read, store, and analyze the latest human genome assembly (found at:
/common/contrib/classroom/inf503/genomes/human.txt ). At minimum, your code must contain
(10pts):
• A character array to store the entire human genome in a single data structure
• A separate function to read the human genome file
• A function to compute the number of A, C, G, or T characters in the human genome
• Comments describing major code blocks and control structures
A. (20pts) Read in and store the human genome. There will be multiple scaffolds (each with a
separate header denoted by “>”). Concatenate the entire genome (discard headers) into a
single character array data structure. Collect the following statistics (see below) as you are
reading the file. Hint: you can keep running totals or store scaffold sizes / names in a separate
sets of arrays
• How many scaffolds were there?
• What was the longest and shortest scaffold? Provide names of scaffolds and lengths.
• What was the average scaffold length?
B. (20pts) Write a function to assess the content of the human genome – count the total number
of a given character (A, C, G, or T) in the whole genome.
• What is the ‘big O’ notation of your search (linear / quadratic / cubic / etc)?
• How long does it take (in seconds) to execute this function? Hint: You will need to use
system time within your code to get accurate time estimates.
• What was the GC content of the human genome (percent of C’s and G’s in the genome)?
