Algorithms
TTIC 31010 and CMSC 37000-1

Instructor: Julia Chuzhoy.
Grader: Behnam Tavakoli.
Lecture: TueThu 8:50-10:10, at TTI-C conference room 530.
There is no tutorial.

Office hour: Thu 10:20-11:20 (If you are planning to come to office hours, please email Julia beforehand.)
Mailing List: if you would like to receive course related announcements, please subscribe to the mailing list here.

Algorithms - Winter 2013
A sample exam
Homework Assignments

Quiz Statistics

Course description:

This is a graduate level course on algorithms, with the emphasis on computational problems that are central to both theory and practice, and on developing techniques for the design and the rigorous analysis of algorithms and data structures for such problems.

List of topics:

  • Greedy algorithms
  • Dynamic programming
  • Amortized analysis
  • Max flow, min cut
  • Linear Programming
  • Randomized algorithms and probabilistic analysis
  • NP-hardness
  • Approximation algorithms
  • Advanced data structures

Text:

The main text is Algorithm Design by Kleinberg and Tardos, but not all the course material is covered by the book.

Prerequisites

We will assume that the students are familiar with the following topics, usually covered in undergraduate algorithms courses: time and memory complexity analysis; sorting and searching; basic data structures: linked lists, trees, balanced trees, heaps; algorithmic paradigms: greedy methods, divide and conquer; basic graph and network algorithms: BFS, DFS, MST, shortest path algorithms, max flow. This is roughly equivalent to chapters 1-16 and 22-26 of CLRS, excluding the starred sections, or the material covered by the University of Chicago course CMSC 27200.

Course requirements:

There will be 4 closed-book quizzes, and one final exam. The grade is computed as follows: Final exam: 40%; Quizzes: 60%. Only the best 3 out of 4 quizzes will count towards the grade. Quiz dates (tentative):
  • Jan 29
  • Feb 12
  • Feb 26
  • Mar 12

Final exam: Thursday, March 21, 8-10am

We will also distribute sets of practice problems. They do not count towards the final grade, and are intended to help you prepare for the quizzes. Solving them is strongly recommended.

Homework Assignments

  • Homework set 1. Posted: Jan 15.
  • Homework set 2. Posted: Jan 31.
  • Homework set 3. Posted: Feb 13.
  • Homework set 4. Posted: Feb 27.