Lecturer
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Sayan Bhattachaya and Parinya Chalermsook
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Time |
Monday 16-18, first meeting 14 October, 2013
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Syllabus
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PDF
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Announcements |
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(NEW) The note for Lecture 9 has been posted.
- (NEW) The solution for Homework 3 has been posted.
- A note for lecture 8 is up! This note contains a bit more than what I actually taught though.
- Assignment 3 is posted!!! Warning: It's a long assignment!
- Solutions for Homework 1 and 2 have been posted!!!
- A supplementary note for lecture 6 is up!
- Slides for Lecture 5 are up!
- Problem set 2 is up!!! Due 9 December in class.
- The note for lecture 3 is up!
- The first problem set is posted. Due 18 November (in class)!
- If you take this course for credit, please send me (Parinya) an e-mail with your name ASAP.
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Room |
024 in the MPI building (E1 4)
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Prerequisites |
Basic knowledge of discrete mathematics and algorithms.
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Content
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The course intends to cover some standard techniques, applied to central problems, in approximation algorithms. Here is the list of tentative topics.
- Basic Combinatorial Techniques
- LP Rounding: Routing Problems, Flow and Cut Problems, Network Design Problems
- Metric and Cuts
- Primal-Dual Method: Steiner Network and Cut Problems
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Preliminary
Schedule
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No. |
Date
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Lecturer |
Topic
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Content
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Supplementary Notes
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0 |
14 October
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Sayan
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Introduction
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1 |
21 October
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Sayan
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Set Cover
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Chapter 1
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2 |
28 October |
Sayan
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Set Cover (cont.) |
Chapter 1
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3 |
4 November |
Parinya
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Combinatorial Techniques: Greedy |
WS 2.2, 2.3, 8.1 and Edge Disjoint Paths (see the note)
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Lecture 3
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4 |
11 November |
Parinya
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Combinatorial Techniques: Local Search, DP |
WS 2.6, 3.1 and Max Cut Local Search
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5 |
18 November |
Parinya
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DP (cont) and LP Rounding |
WS 3.2, 3.3, and 4.1 |
Lecture 5 |
6 |
25 November |
Parinya
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LP Rounding (cont) |
WS 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3
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Lecture 6
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7 |
2 December |
Parinya
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LP Rounding (cont) |
WS 4.5, 5.8, |
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8 |
9 December |
Parinya
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Chernoff Bounds and Randomized LP Rounding |
WS 5.10, 5.11, 6.1, and 6.2
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Lecture 8 |
9 |
16 December |
Parinya
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Metric method and Multicut |
See the note
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Lecture 9
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10 |
6 January |
Sayan
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Primal-Dual Method |
Chapter 7
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11 |
13 January |
Sayan
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Primal-Dual Method |
Chapter 7
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12 |
20 January |
Sayan
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Local Search |
Chapter 9 |
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13 |
27 January |
Sayan
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Recap |
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Grading |
The grades are based on homework and a final exam.
- The final exam will be held on February 17
- You have to get at least 50% of the homework for the
admission to the final exam.
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Homework |
There will be 4 problem sets. Each problem set has 2-5 questions.
- Problem Set 1 [pdf] -- Solution: [pdf]
( Due: 18 November, 2013 )
- Problem Set 2 [pdf] -- Solution: [pdf]
( Due: 9 December, 2013 )
- Problem Set 3 [pdf] -- Solution: [pdf]
( Due: 13 January, 2014 )
- Problem Set 4 [pdf]
( Due: 27 January, 2014 )
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Main References |
- A book by Shmoys and Wiliamson (link)
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