CS573 - Graduate Algorithms

CS573 - Graduate Algorithms - Fall 2012

Course Policy

Prerequisite

Students are assumed to have working knowledge of the material taught in CS 225 and CS 373. This is not the same as merely having passed; hence Homework Zero. If you are an under- graduate and you have not taken these courses, you need Sariel's permission to enroll.

Course Work

Grades will be based on 6-10 homeworks (15%) (dropping the lowest), one in-class midterm (30%), and a final exam (50%), there might be quizzes (5%), otherwise their weight would be assigned to the homeworks. All major grades (i.e., midterm, final, and homeworks overall grade) in the course would be normalized to the scale between 0..100. Extra credit would be given for pointing out errors in the class notes and similar stuff.

Textbooks:

Textbooks are ridiculously overpriced and none of them are recommended or required for this class

CS 573 lecture notes from previous semesters are available online through the course web page. The lecture notes will be updated (and new notes will be added) online as the course progresses. Jeff Erickson also have excellent set of class notes on similar topics.
Algorithms, by Sanjoy Dasgupta, Christos Papadimitriou, and Umesh Vazirani (McGraw- Hill, 2006).
This book is available online for free - it is a decent book - if you want a ref book to have around. (Again, this book is not required.)
If you feel a need for other books (because of religious or other considerations), any of the Harry Potter books would be a good reference, but they cover only parts of the stuff covered in the lectures. Some other books that might be useful:
1. Algorithm Design by Jon Kleinberg and Eva Tardos (Addison-Wesley, 2005). Not recommended and not required.
2. Thomas H. Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein. Introduction to Algorithms, 2nd Ed. MIT Press/McGraw Hill, 2001. Not recommended and not required.

Academic Honesty:

Cheating of any form or magnitude would be handled with the utmost severity and might result in an 'F' grade in the course, or a zero grade in the homework or exam involved. Drop the class before you cheat - do not cheat!

Last modified: Sun Aug 26 12:30:04 CDT 2012