COMP3010: Algorithm Theory and Design

Daniel Sutantyo,  Department of Computing, Macquarie University

1.0 Introduction

• Introduction

• Delivery

  • ​Lectures, Workshops

• Resources

  • ​iLearn, GitHub

• Assessments

  • ​Weekly submissions, Assignments, Class Tests, Final Exam

• ​Questions?

List of things to discuss today:

1.0 - Introduction

What is this unit about?

1.0 - About

• From the handbook:

  • ​this unit covers general issues of the theory of computation and algorithm design, including computability and complexity 

• COMP3010 grew from the traditional theoretical computer science course

  • Turing Machines, Automata, Languages, Decidability

  • Past offerings of the course cover many topics:

    • Cryptography

    • Graph Theory

    • Number Theory and Computation 

    • etc (used to change depending on who the lecturer is)

  • Notorious for being the hardest computing unit (because ... math!)

What is this unit about?

1.0 - About

• My background: cryptography and number theory (i.e math), coding competitions, general problem solving

• Main goals:

  • Understand how to analyse the complexity and correctness of different algorithms

  • Get comfortable with the mathematics in algorithm analysis

  • Understand different approaches to problem solving and the theory behind them

  • Gain exposure to different kind of algorithms (i.e. learn by example)

What is this unit about?

1.0 - About

• COMP1000/115 

  • learn how to write code with no syntax errors

• COMP1010/125

  • learn how to write code to do something

• COMP2010/225

  • learn about efficient code that do something

• COMP3010

  • learn to write your own efficient code

• Complexity Analysis

  • complexity notation (\(O\), \(\Theta\), \(\Omega\))

• Correctness Analysis

  • loop invariants, induction

• Brute-Force Methods

  • search-space, permutations and combinations, recursive backtracking

• Dynamic Programming

• Greedy Algorithm

• Divide and Conquer Algorithm

  • recursion-tree, substitution method, master method

List of Topics (1st Half)

1.0 - Topic

What is this unit about?

1.0 - About

See efficient algorithms

See correct algorithms

Write efficient algorithms

Write correct algorithms

Write good algorithms

Complexity analysis

Correctness analysis

• String Algorithm

  • Huffman encoding, Edit distance

• Graph Algorithms

  • Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall 

• Miscellaneous Topic (i.e more algorithms)
• Complexity Theory
  • P vs NP
  • Reductions
  • Approximation Algorithm

List of Topics (2nd Half)

1.0 - Topic

Why P vs NP?

1.0 - Topic

Illustration by Stefan Szeider, https://www.ac.tuwien.ac.at/people/szeider/cartoon/

Why P vs NP?

1.0 - Topic

Illustration by Stefan Szeider, https://www.ac.tuwien.ac.at/people/szeider/cartoon/

Why P vs NP?

1.0 - Topic

Illustration by Stefan Szeider, https://www.ac.tuwien.ac.at/people/szeider/cartoon/

• To be able to construct a good algorithm to solve a problem

• To be able to derive the time complexity of an algorithm

• To be able to prove the correctness of an algorithm (or at least logically argue its correctness)

• To be able to communicate using a formal and precise language (e.g. mathematics)

• To have some basic understanding of the P vs NP topic

What is expected out of you?

1.0 - About

Why is this unit so hard (supposedly)?

1.0 - About

Why is this unit so hard (supposedly)?

1.0 - About

• Hype?
  • it's a hard unit, so I'm just gonna aim for a Pass
• Mathematics?
• You can't memorise it
• You can't really study for it
• Requires different way of thinking that I'm not used to
• I didn't really study for it

• Lectures are held online via zoom

  • Zoom link is on iLearn, near the top of the page

  • Lecture slots:

    • Tuesday 3-4

    • Friday 3-5

  • Most of the material for this unit will be given using video recordings that you can watch at your own pace

    • Tuesday lectures will be used to introduce the week's topic and Q&A session

    • Friday lectures will be used for assessments (e.g. class test) or if we need more time to discuss thing

Lectures

1.0 - Delivery

• Friday lecture slot:

  • You are required to make yourself available on some Fridays to sit the assessment (Week 7 and Week 13 Class Tests, plus any additional quizzes)

  • You need to lodge a special consideration request (ask.mq.edu.au) if you cannot sit the assessment on a Friday

• Otherwise, I don't expect to use the Friday lecture slot on most weeks

Lectures

1.0 - Delivery

• Workshops start in Week 2

• Not compulsory

• Workshops:

  • Mon 1-3 is on-campus

  • Tue 1-3 and Tue 5-7 are online via zoom (link is on iLearn)

  • if you were enrolled in Mon 11-1, you got moved to Tue 5-7

• Questions to be released every weekend, week n workshop will discuss week (n-1) material

• Submission questions every week, due Sunday morning 

  • first submission due this Sunday

Workshops

1.0 - Delivery

• Use the workshop to practice doing the questions and ask for help if you need any

• You are allowed, and actually encouraged, to discuss the workshop questions with your peers, even the submission question (BUT NOT ASSIGNMENTS)

  • please note who you are working with

• You need to learn the technique, not just knowing the answers

  • questions in the workshops are similar in nature to what will be asked in the exams and class tests, but don't expect to see the same question

• I may release a video solution to some questions, depending on how much time I have

Workshops

1.0 - Delivery

• Assessment Section

• Communications

  • Forum

  • Contact Teaching Staff

  • Discord (https://macs.icu)

iLearn

1.0 - Resources

GitHub

• https://github.com/sutantyo/comp3010_2020 (see Week 1 Workshop)

Textbooks

1.0 - Resources

CLRS

Skiena

• Main textbook, more theoretical

• Chapters 1-5, 15-16, 24-26, 32, 34-35

• We are going to follow the same approach for some materials (Dynamic Programming, Greedy Algorithms, Divide and Conquer)

• Easier to read, background reading

• Chapters 1, 2, 7-10

• Guide to Algorithm

Other books

1.0 - Resources

Websites

1.0 - Resources

• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/
• LeetCode, CodeChef, TopCoder
• #acm in Discord

1.0 - Assessments

• Due every Sunday morning

• The plan is to have 12 submissions, each marked out of 1 for a maximum of 10 marks total

• The marks will be aggregated, so you can get 0.5 mark 6 times and still get the full 10%

Weekly Submissions (10%)

• Four assignments, coding-based (using Java)

• Assessment may include quizzes or report-writing

  • it is not enough to just write the code --- you need to understand how the code works and explain it

  • quizzes may ask you to make small modifications on the code

Assignments (40%)

1.0 - Assessments

• Week 8 and Week 13

  • corrected to Week 8, was set at Week 7 earlier

• One-hour online quiz (may give more time due to COVID restrictions)

Class Tests (20%)

• Standard 3 hours written exam

• If the university procedure doesn't change, you will have a 6-hour window, similar to last semester

Final Exam (30%)

1.0 - Questions

Questions?