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Syllabus PDF

This syllabus provides information for Comp Sci 212, a computer science course taught at Northwestern University during winter quarter 2020. The course will be taught by instructor Shravas Rao on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 4-4:50pm in room Tech M345. There will also be optional discussion sections on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-5:50pm in room Tech L251. The course covers topics in proofs, counting, combinatorics, probability, graph theory, number theory, and miscellaneous concepts. Students will complete weekly problem sets, a midterm exam on February 10th, and a final exam on March 17th from 12-2pm. Problem

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79 views4 pages

Syllabus PDF

This syllabus provides information for Comp Sci 212, a computer science course taught at Northwestern University during winter quarter 2020. The course will be taught by instructor Shravas Rao on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 4-4:50pm in room Tech M345. There will also be optional discussion sections on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5-5:50pm in room Tech L251. The course covers topics in proofs, counting, combinatorics, probability, graph theory, number theory, and miscellaneous concepts. Students will complete weekly problem sets, a midterm exam on February 10th, and a final exam on March 17th from 12-2pm. Problem

Uploaded by

Gàmēx Gàlàn
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Comp Sci 212 January 6, 2020

Northwestern, Winter 2020 Syllabus Instructor: Shravas Rao

Course Information:
Location: Tech M345
Time: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 4-4:50pm
Discussions (Optional): Tech L251
Time: Wednesday, Thursday, 5-5:50pm

Course Staff and Information:


Instructor: Shravas Rao, [email protected]
Office hours: Monday, 1-1:50pm (Mudd 3536), Wednesday 3pm-3:50pm (Mudd 3303), Friday,
3pm-3:50pm (Mudd 3532)
Teaching Assistant: Yiding Feng, [email protected]
Office hours: Sunday 4pm-6pm (Tech L221)
Teaching Assistant: Paula Koyongo, [email protected]
Office hours: Tuesday 5-6pm (Mudd 3108), Friday 5-6pm (Mudd 3532)
Peer Mentors: Joo Seung Lee, [email protected]; Rikki Pan,
[email protected]; Tianfu Wang, [email protected]
Office hours: Monday 12pm-1pm (Mudd 3536), 3pm-4pm (Mudd 3534), Tuesday 4pm-5pm (Mudd
3108)

Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes


In this course, students should develop mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills associated
with writing proofs (further detailed in the Part I objectives). Students should also be exposed to
a wide variety of mathematical concepts that are used in the Computer Science discipline, which
may include concepts drawn from the areas of Number Theory, Graph Theory, Combinatorics, and
Probability. Potential objectives in these areas are listed in Parts II-IV.

Part I: Proofs, and Mathematical Preliminaries

1. Introduction to Logic, Proofs.


2. Principle of Mathematical Induction, Strong Induction.

Part II: Counting, Combinatorics, Probability

1. Counting, Mapping, Functions, Bijection, Inclusion-Exclusion formula.


2. Pigeonhole principle, Generalized Pigeonhole.
3. Permutations and Combinations. Picking with repetition, without repetition.
4. Binomial formula, Pascal Triangle, Generating functions.
5. Introduction to Probability: Random Events, Conditional Probabilities, Independence,
Bayes Rule.
6. Random variables, Expectation, Variance of random variables.
Comp Sci 212 January 6, 2020
Northwestern, Winter 2020 Syllabus Instructor: Shravas Rao

7. Markov’s inequality. Chebychev inequality.


8. Deviation from the mean, Statistical significance.
Part III: Graph Theory
1. Introduction to graphs, Properties of graphs.
2. Connectivity, Connected components, Distances.
3. Trees, Cycles, Spanning Trees.
4. Planarity, Graph Coloring, Bipartite graphs.
5. Matchings, Hall’s theorem, Stable marriage.
6. Linear Algebra: Adjacency matrix, Edge-vertex matrix. Relating graph properties.
Eigenvalues, Eigenvectors.
7. Independent set, Vertex cover, Network Flows, Cuts.
8. Linear Programming, Duality.
Part IV: Number Theory & Miscellaneous
1. Prime numbers, Divisibility, Factoring.
2. Modular arithmetic, groups.
3. Cryptography, Computational Complexity.
4. Turing Machines, Reductions, NP-hardness.

Textbook
There is no required textbook for this course. The following textbook is suggested reference book:
Mathematics for Computer Science by Lehman, Leighton, and Meyer (e-book:http://www.seas.
harvard.edu/courses/cs20/MIT6_042Notes.pdf)

Discussion Sections
There will be two discussion sections a week, each covering the same material. Attendance is
recommended but not required.

Assignments
There will be one problem set per week except on weeks with exams and the first week of courses.
Assignments should be submitted on Canvas in pdf format. It is recommended that you use LaTeX.
The lowest homework grade will be dropped. However, late homework will not be accepted except
in extreme circumstances. It is recommended that you submit a first draft in advance to avoid
technical delays.
Some assignments may have optional problems. These problems will not contribute to or affect
your grade.
Important: On canvas there will be a separate assignment for each problem, to make grading go
more smoothly. You must submit the appropriate problem to the appropriate assignment. An easy
but recommended approach is to submit one pdf containing all solutions to all assignments.
Comp Sci 212 January 6, 2020
Northwestern, Winter 2020 Syllabus Instructor: Shravas Rao

Collaboration: You are allowed to collaborate, but only in disjoint groups of three. You can
change groups from week to week. You must include your collaborators on the assignment.
All members of the group must write solutions individually, in their own words, and submit
their own assignment. Examples of things not allowed include, but are not limited to, the following.

• Copying or directly referring to the final submission of past or present students.

• Copying or directly referring to solutions from the internet.

• Providing your final submission of homework assignments to other students.

• Publically distributing, including uploading to the internet, homework solutions. This in-
cludes websites like CourseHero and Chegg.

If you are looking for a group to collaborate with, you can use the Search for Teammates tool on
piazza.

Academic Integrity: Failure to properly cite external sources such as websites for homework
assignments is a violation of academic integrity and will be dealt with accordingly. Further, you
may not share written work, or get help from anyone besides staff, collaborators, or refer to solutions
from the web or previous versions of the course.

Solutions: Solutions to homework assignments will be discussed in the discussion sessions and
posted outside the instructor’s door in Mudd 3217 for at least 2 weeks. Solutions will not be posted
to Canvas.

Exams
There will be one midterm in class on February 10, 2020. The final will be on March 17, 2020 from
12pm-2pm.

Grades
Problem sets will make up 40% of the course grade, the midterm 25% and the final 35%. The
overall difficulty of the problem sets, midterm, and final will be taken into account when assigning
grades. Participation in lectures and discussion sessions and upward trends will also be taken into
account.

Attendance
Class attendance is recommended, but not required.
Comp Sci 212 January 6, 2020
Northwestern, Winter 2020 Syllabus Instructor: Shravas Rao

Academic Integrity
A primer on the academic integrity policy at Northwestern can be found here: https://www.
northwestern.edu/provost/policies/academic-integrity/ Violations of academic integrity in
this course will be punished by receiving zero credit on the affected assignments, disqualification
from bonus credit for the remainder of the course, and/or other sanctions listed in Section I.D of
“Academic Integrity: A Basic Guide”, subject to the severity of the offense.

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