CSCI 4470/6470 -- Algorithms -- Fall 2009

RESOURCES

Class meetings :
- Mondays 12:20--1:10, in room 101 Dawson.
- Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30--1:45, in room 304 Forest Resources.
Office hours :
- Robert W. Robinson
  Hours : Updated list for end of semester, & by appointment, in room 423 Boyd.
- Shahab Razavi
  Tuesdays 2:00--3:30, in room 301 Boyd.
Text :
- Introduction to Algorithms, 2nd edn. by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein,
  MIT Press/McGraw-Hill Book Co., © 2001.
- General information about the text is available from the publisher.
- Thomas H. Cormen maintains a web site which shows all known errata by the printing.
- Be sure to get the second edition, not the first or third.

The website videolectures.net provides many videos of prominent scientists teaching undergrad/grad
courses at MIT and elsewhere. For instance here is a lecture by Dr. Leiserson on Dynamic Programming.

M.I.T.'s OpenCourseWare site contains useful material from the Fall 2005 offering of an algorithms course based on the class text.

WebCT has sample solutions for the Final Examination Review exercises, Parts I and II (Chs. 24--26 and 34--35.)

WebCT has the scores for HW sets 1--14, totals for HW sets 1--7 and 8--14, and sample solutions for HW sets 1--14.
Note : correction is needed on the sample solutions for HW 3; on p. 6, line -2, add
the term "+alpha*n*k" at the right end of the line.
For Exc. 15.4-1 a second solution is posted separately on WebCT;
it follows exactly the text algorithm for setting the back pointers.

WebCT also has the scores for the midterm, along with the midterm questions
(normal and alternate) and solutions for the questions.

Dr. Leamnson's essay Learning explains why the written homework sets are so important,
why it is very helpful to talk with the instructor or the TA about algorithms,
and many other useful suggestions for successful learning in the course.

Prof. Lance Fortnow's article "The Status of the P versus NP Problem" (Communications of the ACM, Sept. 2009, pp. 78--86) gives a very readable and comprehensive nontechnical account.