Instructor: Srikanta Tirthapura
Email: snt@iastate.edu
Office: Room 3212, Coover Hall, Phone: (515) 294-3546
Office Hours: 2-3pm Wednesdays
| Syllabus | Course Schedule | Homeworks | Assignments |
| Textbooks | Grading | Course Policies | Links |
| Name | Topic | Presentation Date |
| Debasis Mandal | Randomized Algorithm for Minimum Spanning Tree | Dec 2 |
| Ming Jia | Randomized Computational Geometry | Dec 2 |
| Shihuan Liu | Zipf Distribution and the Internet | Dec 4 |
| Jafar Kofahi | Randomization in Software Testing | Dec 4 |
| Tung Nguyen | An application of locality-sensitive hashing in automated tracing of software documents | Dec 4 |
| Shan Zhou | Delay-Throughput Tradeoffs in MANETs | Dec 9 |
| Nam Pham | Hash Functions, Universal Hashing | Dec 9 |
| Erin Boggess | Applications of locality-sensitive hashing in sequence alignment | Dec 11 |
| Olga Nikolova | Randomized algorithms for Bayesian Network Inference | Dec 11 |
This course is an introduction to the use of probability and randomization in computing. Randomization is useful in a surprising number of applications, including network routing, computational biology, cryptography, processing massive data sets, etc. The course will begin by introducing a basic set of techniques for analyzing discrete random variables and probabilistic processes, and will demonstrate their use in a broad range of applications in computer engineering.
Tentative list of topics:
| Day | Topic | Reading/Homeworks |
| Tue, Aug 26 | Introduction, Testing Polynomial Identity | |
| Thu, Aug 28 | Basic Concepts of Probability | Chapter 1 |
| Tue, Sep 2 | Randomized Min-cut Algorithm and Analysis | Chapter 1, Homework 1 |
| Thu, Sep 4 | Discrete Random Variables, Coupon Collector's Problem | Chapter 2 |
| Tue, Sep 9 | Coupon Collector Problem | 2.4 |
| Thu, Sep 11 | Expected Runtime Analysis of Sorting | 2.5, Homework 2 |
| Tue, Sep 16 | Markov and Chebyshev's Inequality | Chapter 3 |
| Thu, Sep 18 | Randomized Algorithm for the Median | 3.4 |
| Tue, Sep 23 | Median Algorithm, Other Applications of Variance | 3.4 |
| Thu, Sep 25 | Chernoff Bounds | 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 |
| Tue, Sep 30 | Applications of Chernoff Bounds: Parameter Estimation, Quicksort Analysis | 4.2 |
| Thu, Oct 2 | Bloom Filter | Section 5.5, Homework 3 out |
| Tue, Oct 7 | Analysis of Hashing, Balls in Bins | Section 5.1, 5.2 |
| Thu, Oct 9 | Consistent Hashing, Distributed Hashing | See Links at the bottom of the page |
| Tue, Oct 14 | Markov Chains and Random Walks, Algorithm for 2-SAT | Section 7.1 |
| Thu, Oct 16 | Stationary Distribution of a Markov Chain | Sections 7.2 and 7.3 |
| Tue, Oct 21 | Webpage Ranking using Random Walks -- PageRank Algorithm | See link below. |
| Thu, Oct 23 | Data Stream Processing, Estimation of number of distinct elements. | Paper "The space complexity of approximating the frequency moments", see below. Homeworks on Pagerank and Bloom Filter |
| Tue, Oct 28 | Random Graphs -- The Erdos-Renyi model, Connectivity of Random Graphs | Handout provided in class |
| Thu, Oct 30 | Data Stream Processing, Estimation of second frequency moment. | |
| Tue, Nov 4 | Random Walk on an undirected graph -- definitions, basic results | Section 7.4 |
| Thu, Nov 6 | Cover Time of a Random Walk | Section 7.4, Homework Problem on Gossip |
| Tue, Nov 11 | Entropy and Compression | Section 9.1 -- 9.4 |
| Thu, Nov 13 | Karp-Rabin Pattern Matching Algorithm | Handouts in class |
| Tue, Nov 18 | Monte-Carlo Method, DNF Counting | Sections 10.1, 10.2 |
| Thu, Nov 20 | Poisson Distribution | Sections 5.3, 5.4 |
| Tue, Nov 25 | Thanksgiving Break | |
| Thu, Nov 27 | Thanksgiving Break | Tue, Dec 2 | Project Presentations |
| Thu, Dec 4 | Project Presentations | Tue, Dec 9 | Project Presentations |
| Thu, Dec 11 | Project Presentations | Tue, Dec 16 | Exam Week |