Analysis of Algorithms - CSCI 570, Fall 2011, DEN Session

Time	:	Tu/Th 11:00am - 12:20am
Location	:	OHE 136
Instructor	:	Bill Cheng (for office hours, please see instructor's web page), E-mail: <bill.cheng@usc.edu>.   (Please do not send HTML-only e-mails. They will not be read.)
TA	:	Kai Song, E-mail: <kaisong@usc.edu>, Office Hours: Tue 9am-11am in SAL 235
Grader	:	Vishnuprasad Raghavan, E-mail: <vishnupr@usc.edu>.  (The grader will hold office hours the week after the announcement of each assignment's grades.)
Midterm Exam	:	during class time, Thu, 10/27/2011 (firm)
Final Exam	:	8am-10am, Tue, 12/13/2011 in OHE 136 (firm)

Description	:	textbooks, topics covered, grading policies, additional resources, etc.
Lectures	:	slides from lectures in HTML and PDF formats
Participation	:	rules about rowcalls.
Homeworks	:	homework assignments (please also see important information about programming assignments at the bottom of this page.)
Newsgroup	:	Google Group for discussing course materials and programming assignments. (This group is by invitation only.)

• 12/5/2011: The final exam will be closed book, closed notes, and closed everything (and no "cheat sheet"). Also, no calculators, cell phones, or any electronic gadgets are allowed. Please bring a photo ID. Your ID will be collected at the beginning of the exam and will be returned to you when you turn in your exam. There will be assigned seating.

  The final exam will cover everything from slide 20 of Lecture 17 on 10/18/2011 to the last slide of Lecture 28 on 12/1/2011 [BC: fixed 12/9/2011].

  Here is a quick summary of the topics (not all topics covered are listed):

  • Divide and Conquer
    • merge sort
    • recurrence relations
    • counting inversions
    • closest pair of points
    • integer multiplication
    • matrix multiplication
    • convolution
    • FFT
  • Dynamic Programming
    • weighted interval scheduling
    • memoization vs. iteration over subproblems
    • segmented least squares
    • knapsack problem
    • RNA secondary structure
    • sequence alignment
    • sequence alignment in linear space
    • shortest paths
    • distance vector protocol
    • negative cycles in a graph
  • Network Flow
    • network flow basics
    • max-flow problem
    • Ford-Fulkerson algorithm
    • max-flows & min-cuts
    • choosing good augmenting paths
    • applications
      • bipartite matching
      • disjoint paths
      • circulation with demands
      • survey design
      • airline scheduling
      • image segmentation
      • project selection
      • baseball elimination
  • HW4
    • maze generation
    • maze solutoin
  • HW5
    • sudoku puzzle solution
    • sudoku puzzle generation

• 10/20/2011: The midterm exam will be closed book, closed notes, and closed everything (and no "cheat sheet"). Also, no calculators, cell phones, or any electronic gadgets are allowed. Please bring a photo ID. Your ID will be collected at the beginning of the exam and will be returned to you when you turn in your exam. There will be assigned seating.

  The midterm exam will cover everything from the beginning of the semester till slide 19 of Lecture 17 on 10/18/2011.

  Here is a quick summary of the topics (not all topics covered are listed):

  • Some Representative Problems
    • stable matching and the propose-and-reject (Gale-Shapley) algorithm
      • correctness (termination, perfection, stability)
      • efficient implementation
      • man-optimality
      • woman-pessimality
      • weak Pareto optimality
      • deceit
    • five representative problems
      • interval scheduling
      • weighted interval scheduling
      • bipartite matching
      • independent set
      • competitive facility location
  • Basics of Algorithm Analysis
    • running time analysis
      • polynomial running time
      • worst-case running time
      • average-case running time
    • asymptotic order of growth
      • upper bounds
      • lower bounds
      • tight bounds
    • common running time
      • O(n)
      • O(n log n)
      • O(n²)
      • O(n³)
      • O(n^k)
      • exponential time
    • priority queues
      • tournament sort
      • heap sort
        • building a heap
        • output
      • maintaining a heap
        • insertion
        • deletion
      • implementing priority queues with heaps
  • Graphs
    • representation
    • paths, connectivity, trees
    • paths, connectivity, trees
    • connected components
    • testing bipartiteness
    • directed graphs
    • directed acyclic graphs
    • topological sort
  • Greedy Algorithms
    • interval scheduling
    • schedule all intervals
    • schedule to minimize lateness
    • optimal caching
    • finding shortest path
      • Dijkstra's algorithm
    • coin changing (not covered by this exam)
    • selecting breakpoints
    • minimum spanning tree
      • cycles
      • cuts
      • cut sets
      • Kruskal algorithm
      • Prim's algorithm
      • clustering
  • HW1
    • long-hand multiplication
    • long-hand division
  • HW2
    • doubly-linked circular list
    • display
  • HW3
    • binary search tree
      • insertion
      • deletion
    • AVL tree
      • global balance vs. local balance
      • insertion
      • deletion

• 10/3/2011: A CompuerWorld article on what do companies say that they would hire: "9 hot IT skills for 2012".

• 8/28/2011: Next week's TA office hour is canceled because Kai will be out of town. He will hold extra office hours the week after, 9-11am on 9/8/2011. Sorry about the inconvenience.

• 8/10/2011:
  • To get your user ID and password for accessing protected area of this web site, please visit the request access page after the semester starts and submit the requested information. (You do not have to be registered for the course to get the password.)

  • Watch this area for important announcements.

If a student signs up late for this class, he/she is still required to turn all projects and homeworks on time or he/she will receive a score of 0 for these assignments. No exceptions!