Welcome to the Fall 2015 web page for CS173, lecture B

To see your final exam

The final exams have been graded. If you would like to see your final exam soon (rather than later), please go to my office in Siebel on Wednesday, December 16, from 2-3 PM. The exams will not be available for viewing before then, because some other students are still taking the 173 final exams. After December 16, the next opportunity will be after the Spring semester begins. You are welcome to request a regrading - but regrading will be done after I return in mid-January.

Piazza

If you haven't enrolled in Piazza, please do. The password is almost identical to the one for the A lecture.

Lectures:

The lectures for the course (including reading assignments, presentations provided, and dates of the 8 examlets and the midterm exam) are available here.

Office hours

Professor Warnow's office hours (Siebel Center 3235)

Contacting Professor Warnow or the course staff

If you have questions, please send the question to the course staff using Piazza, so that the course staff (as a whole) can answer. Do not email any of us directly with questions. If you want a direct conversation with one of the course staff, go to office hours! Please see Lecture B Staff and Discussion Sections for information on the course staff and discussion sections. For TA and undergraduate office hours, see webpage for the CS 173 A lecture.

Textbook, Syllabus, etc.:

In large part I will rely on the material from Margaret Fleck's online textbook. However, I will not cover the number theory material, and I will present different material about trees. I will present applications of these concepts and techniques from computational molecular biology.

The main focus of the course is learning how to prove theorems, but also (of course) to read and write mathematics. Thus, these themes repeat throughout all the material presented in the course, even though the focus of the attention may seem to be on different topics. Currently, the course structure is as follows:

Two items will be available for purchase at the Union Bookstore:

The lab notebook is so that you can submit work during discussion sections, but also retain a copy for later studying. We believe this is most easily done using a carbonless duplicate lab notebook and we've selected one convenient model to put on the shelves at the Union Bookstore. However, it's ok to use other methods of quickly making a duplicate copy, such as your cell phone camera (if its pictures are good enough for you), a different model of duplicate lab notebook, loose carbonless duplicate sheets, the rest of a half-used chemistry notebook, etc. Those of you with photographic memories can simply turn in your only copy of the work. Note that the lab notebook will be graded.

Grading:

Participation in discussion and lecture section is expected. In several cases, lectures will include material that is not in the textbook or reading materials! Therefore, you are responsible for all material presented in class. If you miss class for any reason, please make a point of getting notes from another student, attend office hours, and download the class presentation (PDF). Late homeworks and quizzes are not accepted, but note that the bottom homework and quiz grades are dropped. Similarly, no retakes of examlets are permitted, but the bottom examlet grade is dropped. Make-ups for the midterm or final exam will only be permitted in the case of documented illness, or similar unavoidable problem.

Illness policy: In addition to dropping the worst homework, examlet, or reading quiz grade, I will also allow you to miss one homework, reading quiz, or examlet, due to illness - even without medical documentation (send email with an explanation to receive this exception). If you receive this exception, then your assignment grade for that category will be based on the other assignments for that category. If your illness prevents you from doing more than one assignment in a given category, then exceptions may also be granted, but documentation will be required. More generally, illness that lasts more than one week is likely to have substantial impact on your ability to do well in the class; please make arrangements to get extra help to catch up if this is the case.

Modified Grading Policy, November 12, 2015

I am modifying the grade policy to allow everyone to drop the bottom two homeworks, bottom two reading quizzes, and bottom two examlets. This policy covers everyone. So no need to request this, as it's automatic. But note, you will not be able to drop a third homework, third reading quiz, or third examlet.

Piazza

We will use Piazza primarily for urgent announcements, and so you have the ability to ask questions; see this link. The access code will be given in class.

Moodle

We will use Moodle for homework and reading quizzes. Most of the homeworks and reading quizzes will be multiple choice, but there will also be times where you need to provide a written out proof or derivation. For this, you'll have the option of typing your solution directly in the box provided, or uploading a PDF. The PDF is probably the better way to go, since you can then write mathematics using latex.

Honors

Please see the 173 B honors add-on page for assignments. Here are solutions to some of these homeworks: