Seminar (Combinatorial) Algorithms, Spring 2014

Next year: Thursdays, February 5, 2015 — May 7, 2015; 9:15-11:00; Room TBA, Snellius.
Subject: TBA. Perhaps: Knuth, Volume 4, Fascicle 6A: Section 7.2.2.2.

Contents | Schedule | Participants | Deliverables | References

The Seminar (Combinatorial) Algorithms is intended for Master students in Computer Science. Lectures are in English.
The seminar is organised by dr. H.J. (Hendrik Jan) Hoogeboom and dr. W.A. (Walter) Kosters.

Dates: Thursday mornings, 9:15-11:00 hours; February 6, 2014 — May 8, 2014. Room 405, Snellius.

This year's book is D.P. Williamson and D.B. Shmoys, The design of approximation algorithms, Cambridge University Press, 2011, link:

"Interesting discrete optimization problems are everywhere, from traditional operations research planning problems, such as scheduling, facility location, and network design, to computer science problems in databases, to advertising issues in viral marketing. Yet most interesting discrete optimization problems are NP-hard. Thus unless P = NP, there are no efficient algorithms to find optimal solutions to such problems. This book shows how to design approximation algorithms: efficient algorithms that find provably near-optimal solutions."

In the first half of the semester every student presents a part from the book above. After that students should study recent literature (or later chapters of the book) and present their results. And maybe do some programming ...
Meetings are on a weekly basis. Students can also suggest neighbouring subjects. For a somewhat more detailed list, see below.
Credit points: 6 ECTS. There is no written exam.

Prerequisites: Algorithms, Complexity, Datastructures (all at bachelor's level, see for instance the Dutch course pages Datastructures and Complexity).

Students should register in advance, in December 2013, by personal visit to the organizers. The number of participants is at most 10 (approximately :).

Contents

Students are supposed to present and discuss chapters of the book, and papers, during class. The setup depends on the number of participants.
Subjects are presented by the students in two one hour lectures (i.e., twice 40 minutes); more precisely, every student takes care of one (academic) hour lecture twice. Next to the oral presentations (using PDF or PowerPoint slides, with the additional help of the blackboard) ± ten page self-contained essays on the subject must be written (in LaTeX; in English). See here for a template. Deadline: one month after the presentation.
Essays should be improved until students and organizers agree on the contents. Students must be present during all sessions, and are supposed to actively take part in the presentations, e.g., ask questions. Immediately after each lecture there is a short discussion between students and organizers, where the presentation is evaluated. The first and second meetings are used to make a proper schedule. Every student is supposed to choose and present two subjects, one in the first half and one in the second half of the seminar.
Students should use their own laptop for the presentations. It is wise to also have the slides for the presentation on a memory-stick. A beamer is always available.

Grading The final grade is composed of the four Ps: presentation (2x), paper (2x), participation (including presence) and peer review OR programming.

Schedule

• Thursday February 6, 2014, 9:15, room 405: Introduction.
• February 13: questions, answers, final schedule.

   
  ========== 1st half: ==============

• February 20: Section 1.2 & 1.3 (Joost), Section 1.4 & 1.5 (Jordi).
• February 27: Section 1.6 (Mark), Section 1.7 (Bart).
• March 6: Section 2.1 & 2.2 (Michiel), Section 2.3 (Pepijn).
• March 13: Section 2.4 (Lai-yee), Section 2.5 (Mathé).
• March 20: Section 2.7 (Ruud).
• March 27: deliberations.

   
  ========== 2nd half: ==============

• April 3: Section 3.1 (Joost), Section 2.6 (Jordi).
• April 10, 9:45 uur: Section 5.1 & 5.2 (Mark).
• April 17: Section 4.1 (Michiel), Section 9.1 (Pepijn).
• April 24: Section 5.10 & 5.11/12 (Mathé), Section 9.2 (Ruud).
• May 1: Section 16.1 (Bart), Section 7.2 (Lai-yee).
• May 8: skipped.

Participants

Deliverables

References

1. ...

December 26, 2014 — http://www.liacs.leidenuniv.nl/~kosterswa/semalg/index.html