CISC 621  -   Algorithms  -   Spring 2010

Instructor: Daniel Chester	TA: Michael Ralston
Office: 101G Smith Hall	Office: 103 Smith Hall
Hours: M/F 3:15 pm-4:15 pm and by appt.	Hours: M noon-1 pm, TuWTh 3:30 pm-4:30 pm
Phone: 831-1955	Phone: 831-3132
Email: User: chester Domain: cis.udel.edu	Email: User: mralston Domain: udel.edu

Textbook

Course Description

Topics (tentative, not necessarily in the order to be covered)

• Section 3.1: Asymptotic notation


• Chapter 4: Divide-and-Conquer


• Chapter 6: Heapsort


• Chapter 7: Quicksort


• Chapter 8: Sorting in Linear Time


• Chapter 9: Medians and Order Statistics


• Chapter 13: Red-Black Trees


• Chapter 17: Amortized Analysis


• Chapter 19: Fibonacci Heaps


• Chapter 21: Data Structures for Disjoint Sets


• Chapter 23: Minimum Spanning Trees


• Chapter 24: Single-Source Shortest Paths


• Chapter 15: Dynamic Programming


• Chapter 25: All-Pairs Shortest Paths


• Chapter 34: NP-Completeness


• Chapter 35: Approximation Algorithms

Grading

• individual homework assignments


• group homework assignments


• midterm (Thursday, April 8)


• final exam (Thursday, May 20, 10:30 am, 221 SMI)

The numerical scores will be combined, not the letter grades. Since the assignments and exams are not standardized, your course grade will depend not only on the weighted score you receive, but also on how your score compares with the score distribution for the whole class.

NOTE: Roll will be taken from time to time without warning. If you are absent a substantial number of times when these rolls are taken, your grade for the course could be lowered by as much as one letter grade. No make-ups allowed.

Policies

• All assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date. They must be printed, not handwritten, and give to me in class on the due data. Do not email your work to the TA or me unless I give you instructions to do so.
• Homework will be accepted at the following class period after the due date, but the score will be reduced by 10 percent of the maximum possible score. The homework will not be accepted more than one week after the due date except in extreme and verifiable circumstances.
• All work on assignments must be your own. Do not collaborate with other students or copy their work. Do not copy from a book or other source. You may consult with each other about conceptual problems, but see the TA or me for help with details or debugging. For group assignments, you will work in groups of three or four; I will assign the groups. Work together to solve each group problem assigned; don't divide the problems up and have each of you do a different problem. Each group will turn in one submission for the whole group. More details about what must be in the submission besides the problem solutions will be available shortly.

  If you get text or code from any source, including webpages on the Internet, books or other students, and present it as if it were your own, that is plagiarism. If the TA or I discover that you have plagiarized, I am obligated to report the incident to University authorities above the CIS Department. You must acknowledge and document such borrowings if you do use them. If they significantly reduce the amount of work you have to do for an assignment, you will lose points; the grade you get is for your work, not somebody else's.

• If you can't come to scheduled office hours, please send me email; I'll be happy to schedule a meeting at some other mutually-agreed upon time.