CS 6363.005.19S — Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms

Instructor:

Teaching Assistant:

Administrivia:

Announcements

• May 30: Homework and exam solutions have been removed in case we reuse anything in future semesters.
  
  Thanks again, and have a good summer!
• May 14: Final exam and final letter grades are now available on eLearning and Orion. We'll keep solutions for the homework and exams up until around the end of the month.
  
  Thank you all for a great semester!
• May 10: Final exam problems and solutions are now available.
• May 8: The final exam is tomorrow from 11:00am to 1:45pm in our normal room. Also, if you have not yet done so, please take a few minutes to evaluate the course! You can access evaluations through CourseBook or https://eval.utdallas.edu. These evaluations are anonymous and they provide me with valuable feedback I can use to improve this and other courses I teach.
  
  Thank you!
• May 4: Homework 5 solutions are now available.
  
  Next Thursday, May 9th, we will hold the final exam from 11:00am to 1:45pm in our normal lecture room. The exam will be structured similarly to the midterms (except longer to fit the allotted time). The exam could cover anything we've seen this semester except for matroids, but there will likely be a slight emphasis on flows and NP-hardness. Kyle will hold extra office hours from 2pm to 3pm both Tuesday and Wednesday (in addition to his normal Monday office hours).
• May 1: Tomorrow, May 2nd, we will hold the second of the two practice half QE exams. Please attend if you plan to take the QE or want some more practice for the regular class final. In the case that there aren't enough physical copies available, the practice exam should be viewable on eLearning after 10am.
• April 29: Tomorrow, April 30th, we will hold the first of two practice (half) QE exams. If you're planning to take the QE or if you'd like some extra practice before the final, we strongly recommend you attend. Please provide your own paper for your answers, and feel free to take a copy of the practice QE with you after you're done taking it. In the case that there aren't enough physical copies available, the practice exam should be viewable on eLearning after 10am.
• April 23: Midterm 2 has been graded. Grades and statistics are available on eLearning.
  
  Because Kyle will be out of town next week, he's holding an extra office hour today Tuesday, April 23rd, from 2pm–3pm.
• April 18: Midterm 2 solutions are now available.
• April 17: Homework 5 has been released. It is due on eLearning on April 30th.
  
  As mentioned earlier in the semester, Kyle is attending a workshop during the last week of class meaning he'll be gone during the April 30 and May 2 class periods. He'll hold an extra office hour on Tuesday, April 23rd from 2pm–3pm. Also, he'll prepare some practice half-QEs to take during the normal class periods that week.
• April 11: Homework 4 solutions are now available.
• Midterm 2 will be held from 10:00am to 11:15am in our normal room ECSS 2.410 on Tuesday, April 16th. It will be closed book and notes with no calculators. Anything covered in lecture so far except matroids, flows, and cuts are fair game, but emphasis will be placed on greedy algorithms, other graph algorithms, and dynamic programming on trees and DAGs. The previous Thursday, April 11st, we will hold a review session where you are strongly encouraged to bring any questions you have about course material, homework problems, other relevant problems from either text, etc.
• March 27: Homework 4 has been released. It is due on eLearning on April 9th. So we can discuss the solutions during the Midterm 2 review, the grace period ends at 10am April 11th.
  
  Also, Kyle needs to move some office hours a bit to account for unexpected meetings taking place over the next few weeks. His office hours for Thursday, March 28th; Thursday, April 4th; and Monday, April 8th will run from 12:30pm to 1:30pm. Sorry about the inconvenience, and feel free to send Kyle an email if you need to schedule an appointment for another time.
• March 24: Kyle needs to cancel his Monday March 25th office hour. Instead, he'll hold one this Tuesday March 26th from 2–3pm.
• March 21: Homework 3 solutions are now available.
• March 11: Kyle will be out of town, so our TA Jiashuai Lu will be holding a guest lecture on matroids this Thursday, March 14th.
  
  Because he will have to cancel the one on Thursday, Kyle will hold an extra office hour this Tuesday, March 12th from 2:00pm–3:00pm.
• March 4: Midterm 1 has been graded. Grades and statistics are available on eLearning. You can find solutions here.
• February 28: Homework 3 has been released. It is due on eLearning on March 14th.
  
  Also, on Thursday, March 14th, your TA Jiashuai Lu will be holding a guest lecture on matroids. The material will not appear on any exams, but we may include a matroid question on your next homework assignment.
• February 21: Homework 2 solutions are now available.
  
  If you have any questions about the solutions or anything else you'd like to ask before the first midterm, please be sure to come to office hours today or Monday or send an email for an appointment.
• February 11: Homework 1 solutions are now available.
  
  Midterm 1 will be held from 10:00am to 11:15am in our normal room ECSS 2.410 on Tuesday, February 26th. It will be closed book and notes with no calculators and will cover lecture material and algorithm design ability pertaining to running time analysis and recurrence solving, divide-and-conquer, and dynamic programming. The previous Thursday, February 21st, we will hold a review session where you are strongly encouraged to bring any questions you have about course material, homework problems, other relevant problems from either text, etc.
  
  That said, we're going to have to amend the grace period policy so we can discuss Homework 2 during the review session. If you miss a homework deadline on Tuesday (including the one for Homework 2), then you'll have until 10:00am on the following Thursday to do your late submission. If your schedule really relies on submitting Homework 2 during those last 14 hours on Thursday, please let Kyle know ASAP and maybe we can work something out.
• January 23: Homework 2 has been released. It is due on eLearning on February 19th.
• February 4: We have three announcements/reminders.
  
  First, Homework 1 is due tomorrow, January 5th on eLearning.
  
  Second, Jiashuai Lu will be serving as the TA for this course! He is in charge of grading homework and will hold office hours every Wednesday from 3:00pm to 5:00pm in ECSS 2.104A1.
  
  Finally, we have a date confirmed for the final exam (the one for the whole class, not the QE). It will be held Thursday, May 9th from 11:00am to 1:45pm in our regular room ECSS 2.410.
• January 23: Homework 1 has been released. It is due on eLearning on February 5th. If you'd like to typeset your solutions using LaTeX, you can find a template here.
  
  Problem 3 and the running time analysis for Problem 5 likely requires material we'll cover tomorrow (Thursday, January 24th), but feel free to get started thinking about things now!
• January 17: I fixed the links to the prerequisite form and instructions on eLearning. Sorry about the error.
  
  Also, in lecture today I mentioned some useful algebraic facts about asymptotics. They can be found in Section 3 of my lecture notes on the subject. The "boilerplate" for induction I mentioned can be found in Section 2 of Erickson I.
• January 15: The CS department requires everybody to fill out forms verifying they have taken the necessary prerequisites for their individual classes. Please fill out the prerequisite form using a digital signature (instructions) and submit it in the Prerequesite Form assignment on eLearning. If you're unable to do a digital signature for any reason, then please print the completed form, sign it, scan it, and upload it to the assignment. Please do this by next Tuesday, January 22nd.
  
  You must have completed CS 5333 (Discrete Structures) and CS 5343 (Algorithm Analysis and Data Structures) or their equivalents to take this course.
• January 11: Welcome to CS 6363: Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms. This website will be the main source for the schedule including suggested readings and homework assignments.
  
  Stay tuned!

Schedule and Homework