Xtreme Theory
VCSG-709/VCSS-590
Spring 2004

Instructors

Edith Hemaspaandra (eh)
Christopher M. Homan (cmh)
Stanislaw P. Radziszowski (spr)
Ankur M. Teredesai (amt)

Lectures

Tuesday/Thursday 2-4pm, rooms Tue 9-3129, Thu 8-2305
last class only (week 11), 5/18, room 70-3560, 12:30pm - 2:30pm

Contents

This course provides a fast-paced, informal look at current trends in the theory of computing. Each two-hour lecture will be dedicated to a different topic and will explore some of the theory as well as practical applications.

Past and forthcoming topics:

1. Folkman numbers, spr, 3/9
2. Primes are in P-time, homework, spr, 3/11
3. Computational Issues in Decision Tree Learning, Homework, amt, 3/16
4. Small-world phenomena: slides for Milgram, Watts, and homework. Slides for Kleinberg, cmh, 3/18. My paper on small-world networks.
5. Quantum cryptography, homework, quantum computing papers, eh, 3/23
6. Computer methods in the quest for combinatorial designs, homework (ps | pdf | dvi), spr 3/25
7. Link structure of the WWW, cmh, 3/30
8. Computational Learning Theory, homework due 4/8, amt, 4/1
9. First hour: student presentations topics review
   Second hour: Search for the 2-(22,8,4) designs, homework, spr, 4/6
10. Visual cryptography, homework, eh, 4/8
11. Making Sense from Time Series Data, homework, amt, 4/13
12. Exploiting Link Structure, cmh, 4/15
    • Paper by Kleinberg
    • Paper by Brin and Page
    • A series of stories on NPR on search engines
13. Ramsey Numbers, homework (due Monday 4/26), spr, 4/20
14. Cellular Automata Based Stream Ciphers, homework, guest lecturer ark, 4/22
15. Dan Bress, Oliver Kikic, Computational Models in Ad Hoc Networks, Tue 4/27, 2pm
    Second hour: Privacy Preserving Data Mining , homework, amt, 4/27 3pm
16. Sequential dynamical systems, homework, cmh, with guest lecturer Mayur Thakur, 4/29
    
17. Zero knowledge, homework, eh, 5/4.
18. First hour: Computing cliques (slides by D.L. Kreher), homework, spr, 5/6
    Second hour: Computational politics, apportionment cartoon, a really good paper by someone you know that, among other things, explains Dodgson elections, homework cmh, 5/6
19. student presentations, 5/11
20. student presentations, 5/13
21. student presentations, 5/18, room 70-3560, 12:30pm - 2:30pm

Other future topics may include:

• Theory Disasters
• Folding Theory
• Kolmogorov Complexity
• Information Theory
• Coding Theory
• Very-Very Advanced Data Structures
• Integer Lattice Theory

Grading

Homeworks: ugrads 80%, grads 70%. Each class, the instructor presenting the topic of the day will assign homework. The homework is due by the start of class exactly 1 week after it is assigned. The best EIGHT homework grades will be averaged together to determine your final homework grade. Note that most weeks there will be two homework assignments but that it is unnecessary to do every homework assignment, so there is a CHOICE.

Group presentation: ugrads 20%, grads 15%. Students, working in groups of three, will choose one topic and present a one hour talk on this topic. Topic and groups should be approved by the instructors. Attendance of all students is required during presentations.

Term paper, only graduate students, 15%. Each graduate student will write a term paper on one topic of his or her choosing and as approved by the instructors.

Links to the undergraduate (590) and graduate (709) versions of formal syllabus.