Welcome to the Spring 2014 homepage for CMPSCI 240: Reasoning About Uncertainty.
- Instructor:
- Andrew McGregor. Email: mcgregor at cs.
- Office hours: 1:30-2:30 Wednesday or by appointment. My office is 334 in the computer science department.
- TA:
- Vineet Kumar. Email: vineet at cs. CT Siddharth. Email: siddct@cs.umass.edu
- Office hours: 11-12 Monday (Sid, LGRT 220), 2-3 Thursday (Vineet, LGRT 220) and by appointment.
- Textbook:
The textbooks will be
- Required: Introduction to Probability, 2nd Edition by Dimitri P. Bertsekas and John N. Tsitsiklis.
- Useful: Introduction to Probability by Charles M. Grinstead and J. Laurie Snell. See here for solution of the odd numbered exercises.
- Grade Brakedown:
- Participation (10%): Discussion section activities and in-class quizzes.
- Homework (20%): Weekly multiple-choice quiz (in Moodle) and six sets of written homework problems.
- Midterm 1 (15%): Focuses on lectures 1-7.
- Midterm 2 (15%): Focuses on lectures 8-14.
- Midterm 3 (15%): Focuses on lectures 15-20.
- Final (25%): Covers all lectures.
- Homeworks, Exams, Material:
- Exams:
- Midterm 1: February 19th, 7-9pm in THOM 102. Focus on lectures 1-7 and pp. 1-51 [BT]. Exam and Solutions.
- Midterm 2: March 13th, 7-9pm in THOM 102. Focus on lectures 8-14 and pp. 71-118, 217-221, 264-270 [BT]. Exam and Solutions.
- Midterm 3: April 16th, 7-9pm in THOM 102. Focus on lectures 15-20. Exam and Solutions.
- Final: Friday 2nd May, 4pm in THOM 104. Covers entire course.
- Homework:
- HW 1: Due 2/13 (Posted 2/4)
- HW 2: Due 3/11 (Posted 2/28)
- HW Extra Credit: Due 4/3 (Posted 3/22)
- HW 3: Due 4/15 (Posted 4/3)
- HW 4: Due 4/29 (Posted 4/22)
- Practice Exams: First Midterm (Solutions), Second Midterm (Solutions), Third Midterm (Solutions), and Final (Solutions)
- Mathematics Cheat Sheet
- Exams:
- Schedule and Slides: Here's an approximate schedule for the course. Note that this'll be updated as we go along depending on our progress and, hopefully, we'll get to squeeze in a couple of extra topcs. I'll add slides after each class (some links will be dead until the slides are added).
Date Topic Reading and Background Lec 1 21 Jan Preliminaries, Sets, Probability 1-9 [BT] Lec 2 23 Jan Basic properties of probability 10-22 [BT] Lec 3 28 Jan Conditional probability 22-28 [BT] Disc 1 29 Jan Discussion Simpson's Paradox Lec 4 30 Jan Sequential experiments 28-34 [BT] Lec 5 4 Feb The total probability theorem and Bayes rule 34-41 [BT] - 5 Feb [Snow Day] Lec 6 6 Feb Independent trials and Basic Counting 42-51 [BT] Lec 7 11 Feb More Advanced Counting 42-51 [BT] Disc 2 12 Feb Discussion: Monty Hall Monty Hall Problem - 13 Feb [Snow Day] - 18 Feb [Monday Schedule] Disc 3 19 Feb Discussion: Exam Review First Revision Handout Lec 8 20 Feb Random variables and binomial distribution pp.72-81 [BT] Lec 9 25 Feb Geometric and Poisson Randon Variables pp. 72-81 [BT] Disc 4 26 Feb Discussion: Lec 10 27 Feb Functions of Random Variables pp. 81-92 [BT] Lec 11 4 Mar Variance and Tail Bounds pp. 264-270 [BT] Disc 5 5 Mar Discussion: Lec 12 6 Mar Chebyshev Bound pp. 264-270 [BT], Chebyshev Video Lec 13 11 Mar Multiple Random Variables pp. 92-115 [BT] Disc 6 12 Mar Discussion: Exam Review Second Revision Handout Lec 14 13 Mar Covariance, Correlation and Causation pp. 217-221 [BT] Lec 15 25 Mar Coupon Collecting Coupon Collecting Disc 7 26 Mar Discussion: Lec 16 27 Mar Balls and Bins Birthday Problem Lec 17 1 Apr Spam Filtering and Naive Bayes Classification Disc 8 2 Apr Discussion: Lec 18 3 Apr Bayesian Networks Lec 19 8 Apr Bayesian Networks Disc 9 9 Apr Discussion: Lec 20 10 Apr Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Lec 21 15 Apr Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Disc 10 16 Apr Discussion: Exam Review Third Revision Handout Lec 22 17 Apr Game Theory Lec 23 22 Apr More Game Theory - 23 Apr [Monday Schedule] Lec 24 24 Apr Information Theory Lec 25 29 Apr Information Theory Disc 12 30 Apr Discussion: Exam Review Fourth Revision Handout