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Winter 2012 Tech Institute
Lecture Room 3 Department of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science class web page: http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~kao/eecs336-algorithms
1.
The first class will meet on Thursday, January 5, 2012, instead of
Tuesday, January 3.
The main purpose of this course is to
learn how to formulate and solve computational problems rather than to learn
about specific problems and their solutions. Towards this objective, the
course will discuss broadly applicable concepts and techniques for
formulating algorithmic problems, designing efficient algorithms, and
analyzing their performance. Topics include greedy strategies;
divide-and-conquer strategies; dynamic programming; efficient reductions and
computational hardness; approximation algorithms; and randomized algorithms.
Ming-Yang Kao
Aleck Johnsen Office: Ford 3-227 Email: aleckjohnsen@u.northwestern.edu Office Hours: 1:00--3:00 Monday, or by appointment
1.
EECS
310 Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2.
EECS
311 Data Structures and Data Management
Your grade will be based on weekly
reading assignments (0%), eight weekly problem sets (7.5% each, 60% in
total), one midterm examination (15%), and one final examination (25%). 1.
Weekly Reading Assignments: Reading assignments will be posted on
the class web page. You are responsible for the materials that are assigned
but are not covered in detail or at all in class. Some
of such materials are covered in the prerequisites or even earlier courses. 2.
Weekly Problems Sets: Starting the first week, a problem set
will be posted on the class web page on Thursday and will be due at the start
of class on the following Thursday. You will have one week to work on each problem
set. A total of 8 problem sets will be assigned. 3.
Midterm Examination: The midterm examination will be a take-home test handed out
by email at 2:00PM on Saturday 2/4/2012 and due at the start of class 2:00PM
on Tuesday 2/7/2012. 4.
Final Examination: The final
examination will be held as scheduled by the Registrar. 5.
Without
a Dean's excuse, no late problem set will be accepted, nor will early or
make-up examinations be given. 1.
Required:
J. Kleinberg and E. Tardos. Algorithm Design. 2005,
Addison Wesley. 2.
Recommended:
T. H. Cormen, C. E. Leiserson,
R. L. Rivest, and C. Stein. Introduction to
Algorithms. 3rd Edition, 2009, MIT Press.
This schedule is subject to modification.
More details will be added as they become available. 1.
Topic
1 (1.5 meetings): Introduction (Syllabus, Chapters 1 and 2). 2.
Topic
2 (1.5 meetings): Graph Algorithms (Chapter 3). 3.
Topic
3 (3 meetings): Greedy Strategies (Chapter 4). 4.
Midterm Examination: 2:00PM Saturday
2/4/2012--2:00PM Tuesday 2/7/2012. 5.
Topic
4 (3 meetings): Divide-and-Conquer Strategies (Chapter 5). 6.
Topic
4 (3 meetings): Dynamic Programming (Chapter 6). 7.
Topic
5 (4 meetings): Introduction to Computational Hardness and Approximation
Algorithms (Chapters 8 and 11). 8.
Final Examination: The final examination will be
held as scheduled by the Registrar.
1.
Week
1. (1/5) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapter 1. o Problem
Set #1: posted
4:00PM, Thursday, 1/5/2012. 2.
Week
2. (1/10 and 1/12) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapter 2. o
Problem Set #2: posted 3:39PM, Thursday,
1/12/2012. 3.
Week
3. (1/17 and 1/19) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapter 3. o
Problem Set #3: posted 5:49PM, Thursday,
1/19/2012. 4.
Week
4. (1/24 and 1/26) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapters 3 and 4. o
Problem Set #4: posted 12:49PM, Thursday,
1/26/2012. 5.
Week
5. (1/31 and 2/2) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapter 4. o
Problem
Set: No new problem set will be assigned this week. o
Midterm Examination: The midterm examination
will be a take-home test from 2:00PM Saturday 2/4/2012 to 2:00PM Tuesday
2/7/2012. The test will be emailed to you. 6.
Week
6. (2/7 and 2/9) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapter 5. o
Problem Set #5: posted 4:04PM, Thursday,
2/9/2012. 7.
Week
7. (2/14 and 2/16) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapters 5 and 6. o
Problem Set #6: posted 3:54PM, Thursday,
2/16/2012. 8.
Week
8. (2/21 and 2/23) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapter 6. o
Problem Set #7: posted 3:54PM, Thursday,
2/23/2012. 9.
Week
9. (2/28 and 3/1) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapters 8 and 11. o Problem
Set #8: posted 3:35PM, Thursday, 3/1/2012. 10. Week 10. (3/6 and 3/8) o
Reading
Assignment: Chapters 8 and 11. o
Problem
Set: No new problem set will be assigned this week. 11. Week 11. o
Final Examination: The final examination will be
held as scheduled by the Registrar. |
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