COMP 610 Data Structures & Algorithms

Syllabus –Spring 2009

Professor: John Noga (jnoga@csun.edu) (x6480)
Lectures: EN3508 - R 19:00-21:45
Office Hours: JD 4429 - TR 12:30-13:15 & 18:00-18:45, W 12:00-13:00
Text: Computational Complexity - Papadimitriou
LMS: moodle.csun.edu

Course Objectives: Understanding the fundamental limitations of computation. Topics include: Turing Machines, decidability, complexity classes (P, NP, coNP, L, NL), reductions, and approximability.

Tentative Schedule:

T (class meets once per week)
Jan 20: Intro / Preliminaries (start TM?) (Ch 1, 2.1)
Jan 27: Turing Machines (Ch 2)
Feb 3: Decidability (Ch 3)
Feb 10:SAT and Hierarchy Results (Ch 4.1-2,7)
Feb 17: Reductions (Ch 8)
Feb 24: Reductions (Ch 8)
Mar 3: NP/NP-completeness (Ch 9)
Mar 10: NP/NP-completeness (Ch 9) & Catch Up and Review
Mar 17: Midterm Exam & coNP (Ch 10)
Mar 24: Randomized Algorithms
Mar 31: Chavez Holiday
Apr 7:  Spring Break
Apr 14: Approximation Algorithms (Ch 13)
Apr 21: Online Algorithms
Apr 28:Parallel Algorithms (Ch 15)
May 5: L / NL (Ch 16) & Catch Up and Review
May 12: Final 20:00-22:00
  
Grading:
Your grade will be based upon your scores on: 1 project (20%), 1 midterm exam (20%), homework assignments (25%), and 1 final exam (35%). Homework will be submitted electronically in a pdf file. Late homework will not be accepted. Your combined percentage can be converted to a grade using the values from the table (which may be slightly reduced at the professor's discretion).
 

A  92%
A-  90%
B+  88%
B  82%
B-  80%
C+  78%
C  72%
C-  70%
D+  68%
D 62%
D- 60%

F  0%

 

Academic Dishonesty: The typical penalty for any form of academic dishonesty is an F for the course and being reported to the Vice President for Student Affairs. Note that facilitating the academic dishonesty of others is a form of academic dishonesty. Note all homework assignments and exams are assigned to individuals. Students may discuss homework problems. Students may explain what needs to done and suggest methods to accomplish the tasks. However, submitting work which is identical or nearly identical is cheating. Submitting work done by others or a solution you do not understand is cheating. What you submit should reflect your understanding of the material. Further details can be found in the CSUN Catalog. If there is any doubt as to what constitutes academic dishonesty ask the professor.