COP-4534: Algorithm Techniques (Spring 2017)

Location: ECS 145
Time: Tuesday and Thursday 19:50 -- 21:05
Instructor: Ning Xie (office ECS 380)
    Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 18:45 -- 19:45, or by appointments
TA: Shuai Xu (username: sxu010). Office Hours: Thursday 12:00 -- 14:00 at ECS 257.

(Disclaimer: All information on this page about the course is tentative and subject to further changes.)

Syllabus

Topics:

• Mathematics Background, Algorithm Analysis
• Lists, Stacks and Queues
• Trees and Heaps
• Hashing and Disjoint Sets
• Divide and Conquer
• Sorting Algorithms
• Graphs & Graph Algorithms
• Dynamic Programming

Textbook: Mark A. Weiss, Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in Java, Third Edition (Pearson, 2012).

Reference: Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein, Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition (MIT Press, 2009).

Grading: Grading will be based on homework assignments, a midterm, and a final exam. The midterm and final exam will be in-class, and all students must attend the on campus exam. Any exceptions must be discussed with the instructor, and approved in advance. The timing will be determined in a manner that avoids conflicts with other classes. The tentative scheme for grading is:

• Homework 40%
• Midterm Exam 20%
• Final Exam 40%.

Homework Policy:

• You are allowed to form a group with no more than 3 students to work on homework together. However, you must write up each problem solution by yourself without assistance.
• Late homework will generally NOT be accepted. If there are extenuating circumstances, you should make prior arrangements with the instructor.
• Homework submissions must be uploaded to SCIS Moodle.

Assignments:

• Homework 1: due Sunday January 29, 2017.
• Homework 2: due Sunday February 19, 2017.
• Homework 3: due Sunday March 5, 2017.
• Homework 4: due Sunday April 16, 2017.

Announcements:

• January 20: Homework 1 is out, due Sunday January 29.
• February 11: Homework 2 is out, due Sunday February 19.
• February 26: Homework 3 is out, due Sunday March 5.
• March 2: The in-class midterm exam is scheduled on Thursday March 9.
• April 9: Homework 4 is out, due Sunday April 16.
• April 11: The final exam is scheduled on Tuesday April 25, 19:15 -- 21:15 at ECS 145 (normal classroom).

Schedule:

• Lecture 1 (Jan. 10): Introduction, Model and Asymptotics (Textbook chapter 2)
• Lecture 2 (Jan. 12): Math background, Ball-testing problem (Textbook section 1.2, 2.1, Reference Appendix A)
• Lecture 3 (Jan. 17): Recursion, Recurrence (Textbook section 1.3, Reference section 4.3--4.5)
• Lecture 4 (Jan. 19): More Recurrence, Divide and Conquer (Reference section 4.3--4.5)
• Lecture 5 (Jan. 24): More Divide and Conquer (Reference section 4.3-4.5)
• Lecture 6 (Jan. 26): Backtracking, Linked Lists (Textbook section 3.2)
• Lecture 7 (Jan. 31): Review of Homework 1
• Lecture 8 (Feb. 2): Stacks, Queues and Trees (Textbook section 3.6,3.7,4.1--4.3)
• Lecture 9 (Feb. 7): Binary Search Trees (Textbook section 4.3)
• Lecture 10 (Feb. 9): AVL Trees (Textbook section 4.4)
• Lecture 11 (Feb. 14): Heaps (Textbook section 6.1--6.3)
• Lecture 12 (Feb. 16): Heaps and Priority Queues (Textbook section 6.4)
• Lecture 13 (Feb. 21): Binomial Heaps (Textbook section 6.8)
• Lecture 14 (Feb. 23): Quick Sort (Textbook section 7.7)
• Lecture 15 (Feb. 28): Randomized Algorithms (Textbook section 10.4)
• Lecture 16 (Mar. 2): Sorting Lower Bound, Counting Sort (Textbook section 7.8)
• Lecture 17 (Mar. 7): Stable Sorting, Radix Sort, Bucket Sort (Textbook section 7.11)
• Lecture 18 (Mar. 9): Midterm Exam
• Lecture 19 (Mar. 21): Review of Midterm Exam
• Lecture 20 (Mar. 23): Hashing (Textbook section 5.1--5.4)
• Lecture 21 (Mar. 28): Rolling Hash (Reference section 32.2)
• Lecture 22 (Mar. 30): Graphs and Graph Algorithms (Reference section 22.1, 22.2)
• Lecture 23 (Apr. 4): BFS, Testing Bipartiteness (Reference section 22.2)
• Lecture 24 (Apr. 6): DFS, Topological Sort (Reference section 22.3, 22.4)
• Lecture 25 (Apr. 11): MST, Greedy Algorithms, Prim's Algorithm (Reference section 23.1, 23.2)
• Lecture 26 (Apr. 13): Shortest Path, Dijkstra Algorithm (Textbook section 9.3) (Reference section 23.2)
• Lecture 27 (Apr. 18): Dynamic Programming I (Textbook section 10.3)
• Lecture 28 (Apr. 20): Dynamic Programming II (Textbook section 10.3)