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)
-
November 2-6: Tuesday 1-3 and Thursday 1-2
-
November 9-13: No office hours
-
All subsequent weeks (except Thanksgiving holiday): Tuesdays 1-3
-
No office hours after December 11, 2015.
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:
- Logic (2 lectures)
- Sets (2 lectures)
- Functions (1 lecture)
- Relations (1 lecture)
- Proof techniques (4 lectures)
- Combinatorial counting (1 lecture)
- Problems and algorithms (1 lecture)
- Big-oh and running time analysis (1 lecture)
- Graphs and trees (6 lectures)
- NP, P, and NP-hard (1 lecture)
- Dealing with NP-hard problems (3 lectures)
- Countability and uncountability (1 lecture)
Two items will be available for purchase at the Union Bookstore:
- Discussion packet: $4.75, required
- Duplicate lab notebook: about $15, recommended
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.
- Lab notebook (for discussion section): 5 pts
- Homework: 9 pts (due Mondays at 10PM on moodle, bottom homework dropped)
- Reading quizzes: 5 pts (due Wednesdays at 10PM on moodle, bottom quiz dropped)
- Examlets: 21 pts (8 exams in class, 3 pts each, worst examlet dropped)
- Midterm (October 6, in class): 20 pts
- Final exam (December 11, 8-11 AM): 40 pts
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: