Welcome to the Spring 2016 homepage for CMPSCI 240: Reasoning About Uncertainty.
- Instructors:
- Andrew McGregor (Email: mcgregor at cs) and Barna Saha (Email: barna at cs) .
- Office hours: 3-4pm Tuesday (Andrew, CS 334) or 1:30-2:30 Friday (Barna, CS 322), or by appointment.
- TA:
- Shaylyn Adams (Email: sadams at cs) and Chenyun Wu (Email: chenyun at cs).
- Office hours: 11-12 Monday (Shaylyn, LGRT 220), 3-4pm Wednesday (Chenyun, LGRT T220) 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.
- Useful: Introduction to Probability, Statistics, and Random Processes by Hossein Pishro-Nik.
- Grade Brakedown:
- Participation (10%): Discussion section activities and in-class quizzes.
- Homework (20%): Weekly online quiz (in Moodle), homework, and programming.
- 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: 7pm, Wednesday 17th Feb, Thompson Hall Room 104. Focus on lectures 1-8 and pp. 1-51 [BT].
- Midterm 2: 7pm, Wednesday 9th March, GOES 20 and GSMN 64. Focus on lectures 9-15 and pp. 71-118, 217-221, 264-270 [BT].
- Midterm 3: 7pm, Thursday 14th April, Thompson Hall Room 104. Focus on lectures 16-21.
- Final: Thursday 5, 1-3, Thompson Hall room 106. Covers entire course.
- Homework:
- 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 19 Jan Preliminaries, Sets, Probability 1-9 [BT] Lec 2 21 Jan Basic properties of probability 10-22 [BT] Lec 3 26 Jan Conditional probability 22-28 [BT] Disc 1 27 Jan Discussion Quiz, Simpson's Paradox Lec 4 28 Jan Sequential experiments 22-28 [BT] Lec 5 2 Feb The total probability theorem and Bayes rule 34-41 [BT] Disc 2 3 Feb Discussion: Monty Hall Monty Hall Problem Lec 6 4 Feb The total probability theorem and Bayes rule 34-41 [BT] Lec 7 9 Feb Independent trials and Basic Counting 42-51 [BT] Disc 3 10 Feb Discussion Lec 8 11 Feb More Advanced Counting 42-51 [BT] - 16 Feb [Monday Schedule] Disc 4 17 Feb Discussion: Exam Review First Revision Handout Lec 9 18 Feb Random variables and binomial distribution pp.72-81 [BT] Lec 10 23 Feb Functions of Random Variables pp. 81-92 [BT] Disc 5 24 Feb Discussion Lec 11 25 Feb Functions of Random Variables pp. 81-92 [BT] Lec 12 1 Mar Variance and Tail Bounds pp. 264-270 [BT] Disc 6 2 Mar Discussion Lec 13 3 Mar Chebyshev Bound, Multiple Random Variables pp. 264-270 [BT], pp. 92-115 [BT] Chebyshev Video Lec 14 8 Mar Covariance, Correlation and Causation pp. 217-221 [BT]. An entire website devoted to spurious corrleations and more information about coupon collecting Coupon Collecting. Disc - 9 Mar Discussion: Exam Review Second Revision Handout Lec 15 10 Mar Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Lec 16 22 Mar Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Disc 7 23 Mar Discussion Lec 17 24 Mar Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Lec 18 29 Mar Bayesian Networks Bayesian Networks Disc 8 30 Mar Discussion Lec 19 31 Mar Bayesian network Bayesian Networks Lec 20 5 Apr Spam Filtering and Naive Bayes Classification Naive Bayes Disc 9 6 Apr Discussion Lec 21 7 Apr Hash Functions and Load Balancing Balls into Bins Lec 22 12 Apr Randomized Algorithms and Data Streams Disc - 13 Apr Discussion: Exam Review Third Revision Handout 14 Apr Exam review Lec 23 19 Apr Game Theory - 20 Apr [Monday Schedule] Lec 24 21 Apr Information Theory Lec 25 26 Apr Information theory + some puzzles Disc - 27 Apr Discussion: Exam Review Fourth Revision Handout