CMPSCI 311: Theory of Algorithms

David Mix Barrington

Fall, 2003

This page contains the course syllabus for CMPSCI 311. It currently only describes the first two thirds of the course.

Lecture class meetings will be MWF 10:10-11:00 in Marston 132. Discussion meetings will be Wednesday 12:20-1:10, also in Marston 132. The discussion meetings will include active assignments to be handed in and are thus required.

I am largely lecturing out of the Levitin book and thus will not be preparing separate lecture notes. The numbers for each lecture indicate which sections of Levitin will be covered in each lecture. The discussions will usually be new or different material and I will write up notes for them which will be linked from this page after the discussion session in question.

• Lecture 1, 3 September 2003 Introduction (1.1,1.2)

• No discussion, 3 September 2003

• Lecture 2, 5 September 2003 Problem Types, Data Structures (1.3,1.4)

• Lecture 3, 8 September 2003 Analysis Framework (2.1)

• Lecture 4, 10 September 2003 Asymptotic Notations, Complexity (2.2)

• Discussion 1, 10 September 2003 Induction Proofs

• Lecture 5, 12 September 2003 Timing Non-Recursive Algorithms (2.3) HW#1 due

• Lecture 6, 15 September 2003 Timing Recursive Algorithms (2.4)

• Lecture 7, 17 September 2003 Fibonacci Numbers (2.5, App. B)

• Discussion 2, 17 September 2003 Recurrences

• Lecture 8, 19 September 2003 Brute Force Algorithms (3.1-3.3) HW#2 due

• Lecture 9, 22 September 2003 Exhaustive Search (3.4)

• Lecture 10, 24 September 2003 Divide and Conquer, Mergesort (4.1)

• Discussion 3, 24 September 2003 The Master Theorem (App. B)

• Lecture 11, 26 September 2003 Divide and Conquer, Quicksort (4.2) HW#3 due

• Lecture 12, 29 September 2003 Binary Search and Trees (4.3, 4.4)

• Lecture 13, 1 October 2003 Geometric Divide and Conquer (4.6)

• Discussion 4, 1 October 2003 Multiplying Large Integers (4.5)

• First Midterm Exam, 3 October 2003 Covers Chapters 1-4

• Lecture 14, 6 October 2003 Decrease-by-one and Insertion Sort (5.1)

• Lecture 15, 8 October 2003 Depth-First and Breadth-First Search (5.2)

• Discussion 5, 8 October 2003Applications of DFS

• Lecture 16, 10 October 2003 Topological Sorting (5.3)

• No class, Columbus Day, 13 October 2003

• Lecture 17, 15 October 2003 Decrease by a Constant (5.5)

• No Discussion, 15 October 2003 (Monday schedule)

• Lecture 18, 17 October 2003 Decreasing Size by a Variable Amount (5.6)

• Lecture 19, 20 October 2003 Presorting (6.1)

• Lecture 20, 22 October 2003 Gaussian Elimination (6.2)

• Discussion 6, 22 October 2003 Generating Combinatorial Objects (5.4)

• Lecture 21, 24 October 2003 Balanced Search Trees (6.3)

• Lecture 22, 27 October 2003 Heaps and Heapsort (6.4)

• Lecture 23, 29 October 2003 Horner's Rule and Binary Exponentiation (6.5)

• Discussion 7, 29 October 2003 Counting Strings in a Language

• Lecture 24, 31 October 2003 Problem Reduction (6.6)

• Lecture 25, 3 November 2003 Improved String Matching (7.2)

• Lecture 26, 5 November 2003 Hashing (7.3)

• Discussion 8, 5 November 2003 Counting Sorts (7.1)

• Lecture 27, 7 November 2003 B-Trees (7.4)

• Second Midterm Exam, 10 November 2003 Covers Chapters 5-7

• Lecture 28, 12 November 2003 Dynamic Programming (8.1)

• Discussion 9, 12 November 2003 Min Cuts and Max Flows

• Lecture 29, 14 November 2003 Floyd and Warshall Algorithms (8.2)

• Lecture 30, 17 November 2003 Optimal Trees, Knapsacks (8.3,8.4)

• Lecture 31, 19 November 2003 Prim's Algorithm (9.1)

• Discussion 10, 19 November 2003 Finding Maximum Flows

• Lecture 32, 21 November 2003 Warshall's Algorithm (9.2)

• Lecture 33, 24 November 2003 Dijkstra's Algorithm (9.3)

• No lecture or discussion, 26 November 2003 (Day Before Thanksgiving, UMass is in session but I will be away)

• No class, 26 November 2003 (Day After Thanksgiving)

• Lecture 34, 1 December 2003 Lower Bound Arguments, Decision Trees (10.1, 10.2)

• Lecture 35, 3 December 2003 P and NP problems (10.3)

• Discussion 11, 3 December 2003 Polynomial-Time Reductions

• Lecture 36, 5 December 2003 NP-complete Problems (10.3)

• Lecture 37, 8 December 2003 More on NP-completeness

• Lecture 38, 10 December 2003 Attacks on Hard Problems (11.1,11.2)

• Discussion 12, 10 December 2003 Course Evaluations

• Lecture 39, 12 December 2003 Approximating Hard Problems (11.3)

• Final Exam, 16 December 2003 4:00-6:00 p.m., Morrill Science Center I room N329

  Last modified 13 November 2003