BBM 202 - Algorithms (Spring 2014)

Lectures: Tue 13:00-13:45@D4, Thu 09:00-10:45@D2 (Section 2)
Practicum (BBM204): Fri 13:00-14:45 @D3 (Sections 4-5)

“It has often been said that a person does not really understand something until he teaches it to someone else. Actually a person does not really understand something until he can teach it to a computer, i.e. express it as an algorithm The attempt to formalise things as algorithms lead to a much deeper understanding than if we simply try to comprehend things in the traditional way.”
~Donald E. Knuth, in American Mathematical Monthly (1974)

Instructor: Erkut Erdem

erkut-at-cs-hacettepe.edu.tr
114
+90 312 297 7500, 149

Course Description

The subject matter of this course concerns fundamental algorithms in computer science. The course is structured around key topics including analysis of algorithms, sorting, searching, graph algorithms, string processing, dynamic programming, combinatorial search and NP-completeness.

The goal of this course is to teach student how to develop algorithms in order to solve the complex problems in the most efficient way. The students are expected to develop a foundational understanding and knowledge of key concepts that underly important algorithms in use on computers today. The students will also be expected to gain hand-on experience via a set of programming assignments supplied in the complementary BBM 204 Software Practicum.

Textbook

Algorithms, 4th Edition, R. Sedgewick and K. Wayne, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2011

Grading

56% Three Midterm Exams (12+32+12%)
40% Final Exam
4% Class participation

Schedule (Tentative)

Week	Date	Topic	From the book	Notes
1	Feb 18	Introduction		Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Feb 20	Analysis of Algorithms	1.4	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
2	Feb 25	Elementary Sorting Algorithms	2.1	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Feb 27	Mergesort	2.2	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
3	Mar 4	Quicksort	2.3	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Mar 6	Priority Queues and Heapsort	2.4	PA1 out Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
4	Mar 11	Elementary Search Algorithms	3.1	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Mar 13	Binary Search Trees	3.2	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
5	Mar 18	1st Midterm Exam		Questions: (pdf)
	Mar 20	Balanced Trees	3.3	PA1 due, PA2 out Slides: (pdf, 4pp) Demos: Kd tree
6	Mar 25	Hashing	3.4	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Mar 27	Search Applications	3.5	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
7	Apr 1	Undirected Graphs	4.1	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Apr 3	Directed Graphs	4.2	PA2 due Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
8	Apr 8	Review
	Apr 10	2nd Midterm Exam		Questions: (pdf)
9	Apr 15	Minimum Spanning Trees	4.3	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Apr 17	Shortest Path	4.4	PA3 out (sample I/O) Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
10	Apr 22	String Sorts	5.1	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	Apr 24	Tries	5.2	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
11	Apr 29	Substring Search	5.3	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	May 1	No class (Worker's Day)		PA3 due
12	May 6	3rd Midterm Exam		Questions: (pdf)
	May 8	Regular Expressions	5.4	PA4 out (sample I/O) Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
13	May 13	Data Compression	5.5	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	May 15	Reductions	6.5	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
14	May 20	Intractability	6.6	Slides: (pdf, 4pp)
	May 22	Advanced topics		PA4 due

Communication:

The course webpage will be updated regularly throughout the semester with lecture notes, programming and reading assignments and important deadlines. All other course related communications will be carried out through Piazza. Please enroll it by following the link https://piazza.com/hacettepe.edu.tr/spring2014/bbm202

Policies:

Attendance to lectures is required. You are responsible for all material presented in lecture. Some of the course material might not be covered in the textbook.

All work on assignments must be done individually unless stated otherwise. You are encouraged to discuss with your classmates about the given assignments, but these discussions should be carried out in an abstract way. That is, discussions related to a particular solution to a specific problem (either in actual code or in the pseudocode) will not be tolerated.

In short, turning in someone else’s work, in whole or in part, as your own will be considered as a violation of academic integrity. Please note that the former condition also holds for the material found on the web as everything on the web has been written by someone else.