COMS10007 Algorithms - 2018/2019 (TB2)

News:

08.02.2019 Solutions to worksheet 1 are now online. We will discuss the 2D peak finding algorithm at a later stage in class (no solution for this exercise is provided yet). I created two solution sheets: One with additional explanations, and one without. Solutions - long Solutions - short
05.02.2019 Worksheet 1 is now available online. Solutions will be provided soon. Please make use of the Drop-in sessions, Piazza, and my office hours to discuss the exercises and/or get help.
28.01.2019 You can enroll at our discussion board using the link: COMS10007 - Piazza
28.01.2019 Welcome to COMS10007!

Teaching Staff:

Unit Director: Christian Konrad
TAs: Thomas Delaney, Igor Dolecki, Nazaal Ibrahim, David Manda, Perla Jazmin Mayo Diaz de Leon, Matthew Owusu, Theano Xirouchaki

Teaching Units:

Lectures (21x): Mondays 10-11am, Tuesdays 2-3pm, Room PHYS BLDG G42 POWELL, Instructor: Dr. Christian Konrad
Exercise classes/in-class test (5x): Tuesdays 2-3pm (every fortnight), Room MVB 1.11
Drop-in Sessions: Thursdays 5-6pm in 3.44MVB in weeks 13-15, 17, 19-24, and Fridays 1-2pm in 3.44MVB in weeks 13-17, 19-23

Assessment:

Exam: Counts 90% towards your final grade
One in-class test (on March 12th), counts 10% towards your final grade
You pass the course if your final grade is at least 40%

Textbook/Course Material:
Most of the lectures will be taught using slides. Slides will be made available online (below on this webpage) soon after the lecture. An excellent and more detailed coverage of many of the topics (however not all of them) treated in this course is given in:

"Introduction to Algorithms", Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein, 3rd edition, The MIT press, 2009 .

I highly recommend this textbook. It is the standard textbook for basic algorithms courses and is based on the material taught at MIT. It will be useful for all algorithms courses at the University of Bristol (2nd year Data Structures and Algorithms, 3rd year Advanced Algorithms).

Office Hours:

Christian Konrad (MVB 3.06): Tuesdays, 4pm-5pm

Questions?

Consult the excellent recommended textbook
Come to our drop-in sessions
Use the course page on Piazza for asking questions and discussions: https://piazza.com/bristol.ac.uk/spring2019/coms10007
Come to my office hours

Schedule

Week	Day	Date	Topics	Slides
13	Mon	28-Jan	Introduction, peak finding	PDF
	Tue	29-Jan	O-notation	PDF
			Remarks: Throughout this course, log(n) denotes the binary logarithm, i.e., log(n) = log₂(n). In the slides used in the lecture the derivative of log(n) was wrongly computed with 1/n, while it should of course be 1/(n ln(2)), with ln(n) being the logarithm to base e. I corrected this in the slides.
14	Mon	04-Feb	Theta, Omega, RAM Model	PDF
	Tue	05-Feb	Linear and binary search, proofs by induction	PDF
	Tue	05-Feb	Exercise class 1	Worksheet 1
			Remarks: Exercises on O-notation, Omega, and Theta can all be solved by finding constants c,n₀ such that the definition of Big-O (resp. Theta, Omega) is fulfilled. Recall that any constants that fulfill the respective definition are fine, i.e., you do not need to find the smallest ones. Solutions will be provided soon.	Sol. - long Sol. - short
15	Mon	11-Feb	Loop invariants, insertion sort	PDF
	Tue	12-Feb	Pre-lecture slides
16	Mon	18-Feb
	Tue	19-Feb
	Tue	19-Feb	Exercise class
17	Mon	25-Feb
	Tue	26-Feb
			Reading Week
18	Mon	11-Mar
	Tue	12-Mar
	Tue	12-Mar	In-class Test
19	Mon	18-Mar
	Tue	19-Mar
20	Mon	25-Mar
	Tue	26-Mar
	Tue	26-Mar	Exercise class
21	Mon	01-Apr
	Tue	02-Apr
			Easter Break
22	Mon	29-Apr
	Tue	30-Apr
	Tue	30-Apr	Exercise class
23	Mon	06-May	Bank Holiday Monday - no lecture
	Tue	07-May