CMPSCI 240: Reasoning About Uncertainty
Fall 2012
- Instructor: Benjamin M. Marlin
- Course Website: The course website will be hosted on the UMass
Moodle portal. Registered students can access it at: moodle.umass.edu.
- Course Description:
Development of mathematical reasoning skills for problems that involve uncertainty. Each concept will be illustrated by real-world
examples and demonstrated though in-class and homework exercises, some of which will involve Java programming. Counting and
probability -- basic counting problems, probability definitions, mean, variance, binomial distribution, Markov and Chebyshev bounds.
Probabilistic reasoning -- conditional probability and odds, Bayes' Law, Naive Bayes classifiers, Monte Carlo simulation. Markov chains,
Markov decision processes, classical game theory, introduction to information theory. This is a core course for the new CMPSCI
curriculum and may be used as a math elective for the old curriculum. Prerequisites: CMPSCI 187 (or ECE 242) and MATH 132 or
consent of instructor. 4 credits.