Welcome to the Spring 2017 homepage for CMPSCI 240: Reasoning About Uncertainty.
- Instructors:
- Andrew McGregor (Email: mcgregor at cs)
- Office hours: 3-4pm Wednesday (CS 334) or by appointment.
- TA:
- Raj Maity (Email: rajkmaity at cs) and Emma Tosch (Email: etosch at cs).
- Office hours: 4-5pm Monday (Raj, LGRT T220), 2-3pm Friday (Emma, 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, Piazza, and in-class quizzes.
- Homework (20%): Weekly online quiz (in Moodle) and homework.
- Midterm 1 (15%): Focus on Part I of the course.
- Midterm 2 (15%): Focus on Part II of the course.
- Midterm 3 (15%): Focus on Part III of the course.
- Final (25%): Covers all lectures.
- Homeworks, Exams, Material:
- Exams:
- Midterm 1: 7pm, Thursday 16th Feb, Integrated Sciences Building 135.
- Midterm 2: 7pm, Thursday 9th March, Goessmann 20 and 64.
- Midterm 3: 7pm, Wednesday 19th April, Integrated Sciences Building 135.
- Final: Tuesday 9th May, 1-3, Thompson Hall room 104.
- Homework: (Links are live until homework is posted)
- 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).
Part 1: Basic Probability Lec 1 24 Jan Preliminaries, Sets, Probability 1-9 [BT] 25 Jan [No Discussion] Lec 2 26 Jan Basic properties of probability 10-22 [BT] Lec 3 31 Jan Conditional probability 22-28 [BT] Disc 1 1 Feb Discussion Simpson's Paradox Lec 4 2 Feb Sequential experiments 22-28 [BT] Lec 5 7 Feb The total probability theorem and Bayes rule, Independence 28-38 [BT] Disc 2 8 Feb Discussion: Monty Hall Monty Hall Problem - 9 Feb [Snow Day] Lec 6 14 Feb Independent trials and Basic Counting 39-51 [BT] Disc Revision 15 Feb Discussion: Exam Review First Revision Handout Lec 7 16 Feb More Advanced Counting 39-51 [BT] Part II: Random Variables Lec 8 21 Feb Random variables and binomial distribution pp.72-81 [BT] Disc 3 22 Feb Discussion Lec 9 23 Feb Functions of Random Variables pp.72-81 [BT] Lec 10 28 Feb Functions of Random Variables pp. 81-92 [BT] Disc 4 1 Mar Discussion Lec 11 2 Mar Variance and Tail Bounds pp. 264-270 [BT] Lec 12 7 Mar Chebyshev Bound, Multiple Random Variables pp. 264-270 [BT], pp. 92-115 [BT] Chebyshev Video Disc 5, Revision 8 Mar Discussion: Exam Review Second Revision Handout Lec 13 9 Mar Covariance, Correlation and Causation pp. 217-221 [BT]. An entire website devoted to spurious correlations and more information about coupon collecting Coupon Collecting. Part III: Applications to Markov Chains, Bayesian Networks, NBC, Hashing Lec 14 21 Mar Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Disc 6 22 Mar Discussion Lec 15 23 Mar Markov Chains pp. 340-362 [BT] Lec 16 28 Mar Spam Filtering and Naive Bayes Classification Naive Bayes Disc 7 29 Mar Discussion Lec 17 30 Mar Bayesian Networks Bayesian Networks Lec 18 4 Mar Bayesian Networks and Balls into Bins (Coupon Collecting Revisited and Birthday Paradox) Bayesian Networks Disc 8 5 Apr Discussion Lec 19 6 Apr More Balls into Bins: Load Balancing Balls into Bins Lec 20 11 Apr Randomized Algorithms and Data Streams Disc 9 12 Apr Discussion Lec 21 13 Apr Game Theory 18 Apr [Monday Schedule] Disc Revision 19 Apr Discussion: Exam Review Third Revision Handout Part IV: Applications to Game Theory and Information Theory Lec 22 20 Apr Game Theory Lec 23 25 Apr Information Theory Disc Revision 26 Apr Discussion: Exam Review Fourth Revision Handout Lec 24 27 Apr Information Theory 2 May [No class]