UMBC CMSC441, Design & Analysis of Algorithms, Spring 2011

News Archive

• [Thu May 26 21:44 2011]
  Final exam scores and letter grades have been posted on Blackboard.

• [Thu May 12 15:45 2011]
  Here are the questions we used for review: 18 Review.pdf.

• [Tue May 10 11:30 2011]
  The final exam is Tuesday May 17th 10:30am – 12:30pm. There will be 4 questions on the final exam. The topics are:
  1. recurrence relations
  2. divide and conquer
  3. dynamic programming, and
  4. greedy algorithms.

• [Tue May 10 11:30 2011]
  Second set of notes on NP-completeness: 17.2 Cooks Theorem.pdf. (Despite the title, we did not have enough time to go over the proof of Cook's Theorem.)

• [Thu May 05 14:35 2011]
  Updated syllabus.

• [Thu May 05 13:25 2011]
  Notes on NP-completeness and reductions: 17.1 Reductions.pdf.

• [Tue May 03 14:25 2011]
  Notes on flow applications and Edmonds-Karp from today: 16.2 Network Flow Applications.pdf and 16.3 Edmonds-Karp.pdf.

• [Tue May 03 00:20 2011]
  Homework 13 posted.

• [Tue May 03 00:15 2011]
  Updated 16.2 Network Flow Applications.pdf.

• [Thu Apr 28 12:10 2011]
  Notes on flow network from this week: 16.1 Flow Networks.pdf and 16.2 Network Flow Applications.pdf.

• [Tue Apr 26 20:30 2011]
  Notes on Floyd-Warshall from today: 15.4 Floyd-Warshall.pdf.

• [Tue Apr 26 16:00 2011]
  Homework 12 posted.

• [Mon Apr 25 11:55 2011]
  Office hours for Prof. Chang on Tuesday, April 26th, moved to 3pm–4pm.

• [Thu Apr 21 14:50 2011]
  Notes on Bellman-Ford from today: 15.3 Bellman-Ford.pdf.

• [Wed Apr 20 17:05 2011]
  Clarified that in Question 2 of Homework 11, α is a positive value.

• [Tue Apr 19 15:35 2011]
  Notes on shortest paths from today: 15.1 Dijkstra.pdf and 15.2 DAG Shortest Paths.pdf.

• [Tue Apr 19 15:30 2011]
  Homework 11 posted.

• [Thu Apr 14 14:45 2011]
  Notes on Disjoint Set Union from Thursday: 14 Disjoint Set Union.pdf

  Here are some notes on the amortized running time of Disjoint Set Union: dsu.pdf. The analysis is easier than the mα(n) analysis in the textbook (but only gets m lg* n).

• [Tue Apr 12 13:35 2011]
  Notes on Minimum Spanning Trees from Tuesday: 13 MST.pdf

• [Mon Apr 11 23:40 2011]
  Homework 10 posted.

• [Thu Apr 07 16:10 2011]
  Updated syllabus.

• [Thu Apr 07 14:50 2011]
  In question #3 of Homework 9, the graph does not include yourself. In particular, you do have the option of spreading the rumor by personally telling every vertex in the graph. However, the only case where this is the smallest set of people to tell is when the graph has no edges at all.

• [Thu Apr 07 14:50 2011]
  Corrected notes on depth-first search posted: 12.2 Depth-First Search.pdf.

• [Tue Apr 05 15:30 2011]
  Here are the notes I did not get to use today (Tuesday 4/5) because of projector problems: 12.2 Depth-First Search.pdf.
  We will finish up strongly-connected components on Thursday.

• [Tue Apr 05 13:50 2011]
  Homework 9 posted.

• [Thu Mar 31 13:50 2011]
  Second set of notes on Greedy Algorithms (11.2 Greedy 2.pdf) and the first set of notes on Graph Algorithms (12.1 Graph Algorithms.pdf)

• [Mon Mar 28 17:35 2011]
  Homework 8 posted.

• [Thu Mar 24 10:35 2011]
  Homework 7 extended to Thursday, March 31. All other dates remain the same. Email explanation sent.

• [Fri Mar 18 13:50 2011]
  Notes on greedy algorithms from Thursday: 11.1 Greedy 1.pdf

• [Tue Mar 15 13:50 2011]
  For Question #2 of Homework 7, duplicate songs do not count. I.e., the solution is not recording the shortest song over and over again.

• [Tue Mar 15 11:35 2011]
  Second set of dynamic programming notes for lecture on Tuesday, March 15: 10.2 Dynamic Programming 2.pdf. We did not do the beer/milk run problem in class. You can try it for practice.

• [Mon Mar 14 15:58 2011]
  Homework 7 posted.

• [Thu Mar 10 13:22 2011]
  We haven't talked about Matrix Chain Multiplication yet, so Question #1 of Homework 6 is deferred until the next homework.

• [Thu Mar 10 13:20 2011]
  Updated notes on dynamic programming to include Knapsack example: 10.1 Dynamic Programming 1.pdf

• [Tue Mar 08 13:40 2011]
  Notes on dynamic programming from Tuesday, March 8: 10.1 Dynamic Programming 1.pdf

• [Tue Mar 08 13:05 2011]
  Question #3 on Homework 6 was replaced by a different problem. On the original Investment Strategy problem, it is unclear what happens if you don't have enough money in your investment account to cover the fees. Presumably, your account is closed and you might owe some money. In any case, this makes the investment strategy depedent on the dollar amount of the investment, resulting in a poor dynamic programming problem.

• [Mon Mar 07 10:20 2011]
  Homework 6 posted.

• [Thu Mar 03 13:40 2011]
  Notes on hashing: 09.1 Hashing.pdf and 09.2 Universal Hashing.pdf

• [Mon Feb 28 20:40 2011]
  Homework 5 posted.

• [Thu Feb 24 17:50 2011]
  The crib sheet for Quiz 1 is available: crib.pdf.

• [Thu Feb 24 13:40 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Thursday, Feb 24: 01.3 Presenting Algorithms.pdf and 08 Linear-Time Selection.pdf

• [Wed Dec 31 19:00 1969]
  In Homework 4, Question #2, note that you cannot compare two jugs of the same color. You can only compare a blue jug to a red jug. You cannot compare two blue jugs or two red jugs. This is an important part of the question.

• [Tue Feb 22 06:34 2011]
  No class today, February 22, due to delayed opening (snow). The following adjustments are made on the syllabus:

  • Turn in Homework 3 on Thursday, February 24.

  • Quiz 1 postponed until Tuesday, March 1. (So, you have a chance to review your graded Homework 2.)

  • Homework 4 still due on Tuesday, March 1, but with only 2 questions.

• [Mon Feb 21 17:50 2011]
  Homework 4 posted.

• [Thu Feb 17 14:10 2011]
  Reminder: Quiz 1 is Thursday, February 24th.

• [Thu Feb 17 14:10 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Thursday, Feb 17: 07 Lower Bounds on Sorting.pdf

• [Tue Feb 15 12:48 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Tuesday, Feb 15: 06 QuickSort.pdf

• [Tue Feb 15 12:20 2011]
  On second thought, let's not do part d of the second question in Homework 3 (Median-of-3 partition). So, just do parts a, b & c.

• [Mon Feb 14 12:57 2011]
  Homework 3 posted.

• [Thu Feb 10 13:50 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Thursday, Feb 10: 05 HeapSort.pdf

• [Thu Feb 10 11:58 2011]
  Note: in Homework 2, you must show all of your work, as requested. Answers without sufficient derivation will receive little credit.

• [Thu Feb 10 11:56 2011]
  Gollum/Smeagol expresses his fondness for the Master Theorem in this YouTube video (or something like that).

• [Tue Feb 08 14:03 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Tuesday, Feb 8: 03.2 Iteration.pdf and 04.1 Master Theorem.pdf

• [Tue Feb 08 13:50 2011]
  "Always two there are... a master and an apprentice", Yoda says.

• [Tue Feb 08 09:50 2011]
  Homework 2 posted.

• [Thu Feb 03 12:55 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Thursday, Feb 3: 02.2 Summations.pdf and 03.1 Substitution.pdf

• [Tue Feb 01 12:53 2011]
  Notes from lecture on Tuesday, Feb 1: 01.1 Introduction.pdf, 01.2 Strassen.pdf, and 02.1 Logarithms.pdf.

• [Tue Feb 01 00:40 2011]
  Homework 1 posted.

• [Sun Jan 30 22:20 2011]
  Our TA has selected his office hours: Mondays & Wednesdays 4pm – 5pm in ITE334. See contacts page.

• [Fri Jan 28 00:20 2011]
  Revised syllabus posted.

• [Fri Jan 28 00:20 2011]
  Revised syllabus posted.

• [Thu Jan 27 08:00 2011]
  No class today, UMBC not open until noon. I think this is the first time I've had to revise the syllabus before classes even started! See you next Tuesday.

• [Wed Jan 26 14:20 2011]
  Keep tabs on the weather (e.g. Capital Weather Gang). We'll see what happens with the weather on the first day of class. Here's UMBC's inclement weather policy.

• [Wed Jan 26 14:15 2011]
  Course description and syllabus are available in PDF: 441description.pdf and 441syllabus.pdf. Hard copies will be distributed on the first day of class.

• [Wed Jan 26 14:00 2011]
  Note: Be aware of the schedule of in-class quizzes listed in the syllabus! Quiz 1 will take place on Thursday, February 24, 2011.

• [Wed Jan 26 13:55 2011]
  Web page up.