1. Yang Cai COMP 360: Algorithm Design Lecture 1 www.cs.mcgill.ca/~cai
Winter 2015
Yang Cai

2. Administrivia
Textbook: Algorithm Design by Jon Kleinberg and Eva Tardos
Prerequisite: Comp 251 and one of Math 240/Math 235/Math 363
TA: TBA
Office Hours: Thur 3pm – 4:30 pm, MC 324

3. Administrivia Attendance/Evaluation: Everybody is welcome
Requirements, if registered for credit):
Solve problem sets: 5 problems sets, one week to solve. (25%)
Collaboration allowed, must list your collaborators (a group of at most 3).
If obtain a solution through research (e.g. on the web), must acknowledge the source.
Midterm. (25%)
Final. (50%)

4. Course Outline Cryptography: RSA Network Flow Linear Programming
Max Flow Min Cut Theorem
Algorithm for Max Flow
Applications: Bipartite Matching, Vertex Cover …
Linear Programming
(Weak and Strong) Duality, Complementary Slackness
Algorithms for solving LPs (Simplex, Ellipsoid)
Application of LPs
NP and NP-completeness
Reductions
NP-completeness and proof of Cook’s Theorem

5. Course Outline Heuristics Approximation Algorithms
Backtracking: Hamiltonian Cycle, Satisfiability
Branch and Bound
Local Search
Approximation Algorithms
Vertex Cover, Traveling Salesman…
Randomized Algorithms
Minimum Cut
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), Simulated Annealing
Other topics we may cover
Online Algorithms
Fixed-Parameter Tractability
Complexity: PSPACE, EXP