Syllabus
[Note: this webpage last modified Friday, 04-Feb-2011 19:50:13 EST]
Table of Contents
General Information
Purpose and Focus of Course
Grading, Assignments, and Expectations
Office Hours
Blackboard
Academic Integrity
Special Needs
Lecture: MWF 3:00-3:50, in A008 Root Hall
First class: Wednesday August 25
Last class: Friday December 10
Office hours: Monday and Friday 11:00-12:00pm in my office, A156 Root Hall
Instructor: Jeff Kinne
Website:
http://cs.indstate.edu/~jkinne/cs620-f2010/
(or
search for Jeff Kinne on google, bing, yahoo, etc.
and find a link to the course website
from my personal webpage)
Required text: Computational Complexity: A Conceptual Perspective by Oded Goldreich. A draft of the text is available at http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~oded/cc-book.html. The section numbers and text are mostly the same in the draft as in the final version, so you can use the draft to perform the required reading if your copy of the text has not yet arrived.
I will provide copies of the assigned reading for the first few lectures if some students' textbooks have not yet arrived from being ordered online.
Prerequisite and Entrance Exam: Please read the Prerequisite and Entrance Exam webpage.
This course is an advanced course in theory of computation. In the undergraduate version of this course (CS 420/520), you learned some models that can be used for reasoning about computation (deterministic and nondeterministic finite automata, pushdown automata, context free grammars, and deterministic and nondeterministic Turing machines). In this course, we take the deterministic Turing machine as our basic model of computation. The two main questions in computer science are (i) how efficiently can I solve a given problem, and (ii) what useful things can I do with a computer.
The questions we will consider in this course are some of the most challenging open problems in computer science. For example, the P versus NP problem (one of the Clay Mathematics Institute's $1,000,000 Millennium Prize problems) asks if there are efficient solutions to so-called "NP-complete" problems like clique, vertex cover, and satisfiability. Although these questions remain open, we can make progress on understanding the problems and understanding what the computational landscape would look like depending on the solution to the problems.
In this course, we examine some of the important open problems in computer science through the lens of "computational complexity theory", taking a "high level" approach to see what can be said about the open problems. Note that this is a "proofs" rather than a "programming" course. We are interested in what can be mathematically proven. Can we prove that there does not exist any efficient algorithm that solves NP-complete problems? Other questions we will consider include the following. Is truly secure cryptography possible? Is searching for solutions more difficult than verifying the correctness of a given solution (equivalently, is finding proofs of theorems more difficult than checking a given proof)? Are quantum computers more powerful than standard computers? Can you prove your identity to your bank without revealing any information about yourself?
For a detailed list of topics that we will cover, see the Course Outline.
Grading, Assignments, and Expectations
The students of this course have the following responsibilities: read assigned pages of the book before lecture, attend lecture, complete weekly homeworks, take 3 non-cumulative exams, and complete a final project. The final grade consists of:
3 exams: 40% total, so approximately 13.3% each of the final grade. The exams will be given during the regular lecture hour. The tentative dates of the 3 exams are listed in the Course Schedule and Links, but these dates may change if needed depending on the pace of the course.
Final project: 10% of the final grade.
Weekly Homeworks: 40% total. There will be 13 weekly homeworks, with the lowest score dropped. Each of the 12 highest homework scores are thus worth approximately 3.3% of the final grade. Homeworks are handed out at the end of class on Wednesday and are due at the beginning of class the next Wednesday. LATE HOMEWORKS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.
Class Attendance: 10% total. Attendance will be taken the beginning of each class. There will be 39 attendance grades (one for each lecture except for exam days and the first day of class) and the lowest 3 scores are dropped. Each of the 36 highest attendance scores are thus worth approximately 0.28% of the final grade.
The class attendance grade serves the purpose of giving you credit for coming to class. You benefit from coming to class by seeing me present the new material, getting to ask questions, interacting with your classmates, keeping up on what is going on in the course, etc. The class attendance quiz question serves the purpose of giving you credit for coming to class, and giving you credit for doing the assigned reading. The question will often be a true/false question such as "True/False : The section we read for class today talked about ...". If you get the question correct, you get a 100% on the quiz, and if you get the question wrong you get 50% (so you still should come to class even if you have not done the assigned reading).
The weekly homework assignments are where the real learning in this course is likely to happen. The problems will be challenging and will require you show logical rigor and some mathematical creativity.
The exams will be taken in-class. The exams will not be as challenging as the homework problems in general. The exams will not be cumulative per se, but you certainly will not pass the second exam, for example if you forget everything from the first exam. Mathematics and computer science courses in general are organized so that the content in later parts of the course builds on earlier parts of the course. When each exam is closer, I will make it clear what material is covered on that exam. In particular, I will release a sample exam and list of topics covered on the exam. Because the material in this course is very much cumulative by nature, I STRONGLY encourage you to get off to a good start to the course. It can be difficult to begin the course with a poor grade and end the course with a good grade.
The final project will be discussed further after the first exam. Students will be asked to choose either (1) a recent research paper from a theory of computing conference or journal, or (2) a topic from a textbook that we have not covered. The student will learn the material and present it to the class.
Expectations. My expectation is that an average student will spend 6-12 hours outside of class each week to complete their coursework for this class. Some students may spend less time than this, and some students may spend more. This is a challenging course, but the rewards are great as well. This is truly fascinating material. If you begin your homework assignments early and do the required reading, you should be able to succeed in this course without too much stress.
Classroom conduct. You may not use cell phones, iPods/music players, etc. during class. You should be civil and respectful to both the instructor and your classmates, and you should arrive to class a few minutes before the scheduled lecture so you are ready for lecture to begin on time. All laptops MUST BE CLOSED and all computer screens of the computers in the classroom MUST BE TURNED OFF. Although some students may want to take notes on their computer, this is very distracting to some (including myself), and I believe the harm of taking notes on a laptop outweighs the benefit.
Grade cutoffs
I will make no promise ahead of time what the exact cutoff will be in terms of the number of points to achieve an A+, A, A-, etc. These will depend on how the course goes. I will use the guidelines below in assigning letter grades. I will assign letter grades to weekly homework assignments, exams, and the final project. You can keep track of how you are doing in the course with the blackboard site. The blackboard site will contain all of your grades, and it will be updated after each homework with "what your grade would be if the semester ended today".
A+/A Superior work: mastery of concepts well above basic expectations. Problems are solved with correct proofs that are written in a very logical manner, with no unproved assumptions.
A-/B+ Excellent work: mastery of concepts above basic expectations. Problems are solved with correct proofs but may have minor errors such as unproven assumptions, proofs may be slightly unreadable.
B/B- Good work: mastery of concepts at the basic level of expectations. Problems solutions are mostly correct, there may be mistakes and the proofs may be somewhat unreadable, but the student has the basic idea and has shown insight into the problem.
C+/C/C- Adequate work: mastery of concepts near but not quite at the basic level of expectations. Problem solutions are not correct, and the proofs may not be readable. But the student has shown some insight into the problem.
D+/D/D- Poor work: mastery of concepts clearly well below the basic level of expectations. Problem solutions are not correct and may not make much sense.
F Failing work: very little mastery of any concepts demonstrated. Problem solutions are completely incorrect, and very little effort has been shown in attempting to solve the problems.
I will hold office hours in the my office A156 classroom on Monday and Friday from 11:00-12:00pm. You can come to office hours to ask for help in understanding the assigned reading, lectures, for hints in getting started with the homework, advice in studying for the exam, etc.
Important Note. If you wait until the last minute to begin your homework assignments, you likely will not succeed in this course. This is a "deep thinking" course. It takes "time on the calendar" in addition to "time on the clock" to solve the homework problems. I suggest you look at the problems as soon as possible after they are handed out and think about them for a while. After you have exhausted your efforts, you can set them aside and come back to them in another day or so. Then repeat this process. If you come to office hours and have not thought about the homework problems at all, I can be of little assistance to you. If you come with meaningful questions and have thought about the problems, I will be better able to help you. I will not be available the day before a homework assignment is due. If you wait until the last minute to start the homework, you will be on your own. Working on the homework problems will be much less stressful if you start early!
If you wish to speak with me (asking for help, etc.) outside of office hours, you can email me to set up an appointment.
The course has a blackboard site. Click here to go to blackboard. You should see CS 620 listed under your courses for the Fall 2010 term. The blackboard site is used only for viewing your grades. All course content, schedule, etc. is kept on the instructor's webpage (which you are currently viewing).
Please follow these guidelines to avoid problems with academic misconduct in this course:
- Weekly Homeworks: You may discuss the homework problems with classmates. However, you should write up the solutions yourself and should fully understand what you are writing. You should not search the Internet for solutions to the problems. If you are having problems with the homework, contact the instructor for help.
- Exams: This should be clear - no cheating during exams. The exams will be closed-book, closed-notes, no computer, and no calculator.
We point out that if cheating is observed, the university's policy on Academic Integrity requires the instructor to notify the department chair and either an associate dean or academic integrity coordinator. They may then recommend additional penalties beyond what the instructor has chosen. We point out that these can be very serious consequences, so please refrain from cheating. See the Student Code of Conduct and Academic Integrity Resources for more information.
Please ask the instructor if you have doubts about what is considered cheating in this course.
If you have special needs for the classroom environment, homeworks, or exams, please inform the instructor during the first week of classes. If you have any such needs, you should go to the Student Academic Services Center to coordinate this. See Student Academic Services Center - Disabled Student Services for more information.