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Lecture 01 Intro

This document provides information about an algorithms and data structures course taught by Srinivas Akella at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte in Fall 2010. It introduces the instructor, teaching assistant, course website, and provides an overview of topics to be covered including data structures, algorithms, algorithm design and analysis. Examples of sorting, searching and other computational problems are given. The document outlines the course philosophy, attendance policy, required textbook, homework assignments and exams.

Uploaded by

Krishna Kant
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
169 views

Lecture 01 Intro

This document provides information about an algorithms and data structures course taught by Srinivas Akella at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte in Fall 2010. It introduces the instructor, teaching assistant, course website, and provides an overview of topics to be covered including data structures, algorithms, algorithm design and analysis. Examples of sorting, searching and other computational problems are given. The document outlines the course philosophy, attendance policy, required textbook, homework assignments and exams.

Uploaded by

Krishna Kant
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ITCS-6114/8114: Algorithms

and Data Structures


Fall 2010

Srinivas Akella
Department of Computer Science
University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Acknowledgments: Richard Souvenir


Algorithms & Data Structures
ITCS 6114 / 8114
• Instructor: Srinivas Akella
– Office: 410E Woodward
– Email: sakella@uncc.edu
– Office hours: Wed 2:30-3:30 or by appointment

• TA: Ning Zhou


– Office: 401 Woodward
– Email: nzhou@uncc.edu
– Office hours: Monday 1:00-3:00pm

• Course website: www.cs.uncc.edu/~sakella/courses/ads/


• Course information via Moodle
Welcome and Administrivia
• This is a course about data
structures and algorithms

• What does that mean?


What is a data structure?
• A data structure is a representation of a
dynamic set of data items.
– Dynamic sets can grow, shrink, and otherwise
change over time.
What is an algorithm?

• An algorithm is a sequence of unambiguous


instructions for solving a problem, i.e., for
obtaining a required output for any legitimate
input in a finite amount of time.
problem

algorithm

input “computer” output


Algorithm
• Word derived from Al Khwarzimi (~780-850 AD),
Persian mathematician in Baghdad
• Books: “On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals” (Latin:
Algoritmi de numero Indorum) and
“Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala” (Latin: Liber algebrae et
almucabala)
• His book described methods to compute: add, multiply,
divide, find square roots, compute pi
• Methods were precise, unambiguous, correct, efficient
• Techniques were popularized by Leonardo Fibonacci
(1170-1250 AD) in his book “Liber abaci”
Source: Wikipedia
Greatest Common Divisor
• Euclid’s GCD algorithm (~300 BC)
• Possibly oldest algorithm

• GCD (a, b)
if b==0
return a
else return GCD (b, a mod b)
Some Well-known Computational
Problems
• Sorting* • Traveling salesman
• Searching* problem*
• Shortest paths in a • Knapsack problem*
graph* • Chess
• Minimum spanning tree* • Towers of Hanoi
• Primality testing • Program termination

• * will cover in this course

8
Two main issues related to
algorithms
• How to design algorithms

• How to analyze algorithm efficiency

9
Design of Algorithms
• Many design strategies
– We will cover the most popular strategies
used in CS.

• The idea is to determine best strategy


given a problem (type)
– A mix of art & science

10
Analysis of Algorithms
• How good is the algorithm?
– Correctness
– Time efficiency
– Space efficiency

• Does there exist a better algorithm?


– Lower bounds
– Optimality
11
Example: Fibonacci numbers

• F_0 = 0
• F_1 = 1
• F_n = F_(n-1) + F_(n-2), for n >= 2

• Write a function to compute the n-th


Fibonacci number
Fibonacci Algorithms
• Recursive version
• Complexity: ~O(1.618^n)

• Memoized version: Stores state (using an


array, or even just two variables) to
reduce time complexity
• Complexity: O(n)
Does Algorithm Efficiency Really
Matter?

Source: Programming Pearls, 2nd ed., Bentley


Why study algorithms?
• Theoretical importance

– the core of computer science

• Practical importance

– A practitioner’s toolkit of known algorithms

– Framework for designing and analyzing


algorithms for new problems
15
Data Structures & Algorithms?
• Data structures & • Data Structures
algorithms are related – array

– Algorithms need data – linked list

structures – Stack / queue


– Hashtable*
– Data Structures need
algorithms – Priority queue*
– Graph*
– Trees (BST, Red-Black)*

16
Course Information
• Syllabus can be found on course web page
and Moodle
• We will cover the highlights now
Course Philosophy
• This course will introduce topics that are at
the core of computer science
– Help you think and talk like a Computer Scientist

• Auxiliary Goals
– critical thinking
– problem solving
– creativity

18
Attendance Policy
• Attendance is not mandatory, but strongly
recommended.

• Most of the material that is presented in class can


be found in the course textbook

• You are responsible for all the material and


administrative announcements presented during
class.
19
Textbook

• The required
textbook is:
Introduction to
Algorithms, 3rd
edition, Thomas H.
Cormen, Charles E.
Leiserson, Ronald L.
Rivest, Clifford Stein,
MIT Press, 2009.

20
Homework & Exams
• Homeworks (4)
– Written answers to material covered in class
• Programming Projects (2)
– Use one of C++, Java, Python
– Must be able to read/write files
– Must write commented and documented code
• Exams (2)
Academic Integrity Policy
• All submitted solutions to homeworks and
programming projects must be your own
work.
• See syllabus for policy on discussion of
homeworks and projects
• Report any assistance you receive.
• Violations of any of the academic
integrity rules will be dealt with
harshly!
22
Ok, let’s get started…
• You own a large space telescope
• Lots of astronomers want to use it
• Each astronomer’s project pi requires use of
the telescope starting at a fixed time si (when
their grant starts) and running for li days.
• Only one project can use a telescope at a
time.
• Your goal: Justify yourself to NASA by
scheduling as many projects as possible
Formally…
• Given a set P of projects pi, each occupying
the half-open interval [si, si + li) …
• Choose a subset ¦ µ P of project for which
– No two projects intervals overlap
– The number of projects in ¦ is maximized

• This is one of many variants of scheduling or


activity selection
Suggestion #1
Suggestion #2
Suggestion #3
Common Plan
• Common themes:
– Repeatedly pick an element until no more
feasible choices remain
– Among all feasible choices, we always pick
the one that minimizes (or maximizes) some
property (job length, start time, # conflicts)
– Such algorithms are called greedy
Greedy Algorithms
• So far, greedy algorithms don’t look so
good.
• Perhaps, we’ve been using the wrong
property
Another Approach
• Intuition
– For each project pi,
define its finishing
time fi to be si + li
– Sort the projects in
increasing order of
finishing time
– Repeatedly pick
nonconflicting,
unscheduled job with
earliest finishing time
How did we do?
• Is this correct?
• Is this fast?
• Can we do better?

• By the end of the semester, we’ll be able


to answer these questions.
Quiz
• Yes, I have a short quiz for you now.
Reading
• CLRS

• Background reading: Appendices A to D,


Chapter 10

• Today’s class: Chapter 1

• Next class: Chapters 2 and 3

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