CS174 Course Description

Welcome to CS174! This course covers combinatorics and probabilistic methods and their applications in computer science. The course content is roughly divided into thirds. The first third is probabilistic and counting techniques. The second third is applications in algorithms and computer systems. The final third is applications to the management of information, including cryptography, security and digital cash. The detailed syllabus is here.

There will be two midterms and a final, along with weekly homeworks. The prerequisites are CS170 and Math55. If you haven't taken these courses recently or if you have substituted some other course(s), make sure you are up to speed on basic probability theory. Things move quickly after the first lecture.

Administrative Details

Lecture: TuTh 12:30-2 in 306 Soda, CCN 24995
Section 101: W 9-10 in 71 Evans, CCN 24998
Section 102: W 10-11 in 70 Evans, CCN 25001
Section 103: W 3-4 in 289 Cory, CCN 25004
Prerequisites: Math 55, CS170
Credit: 4 units

Sections will not meet in the first week.

Instructor: John Canny, jfc@cs.berkeley.edu, 529 Soda, 642-9955
Office hours: Weds 2-3, Thurs 2-3
TA: David Gibson, dag@cs.berkeley.edu, 581 Soda, 643-5425: Office hours: TBA

Course Secretary: Winnie Wang, catwoman@cs.berkeley.edu, 719 Soda Hall, 642-9575

Grading

First midterm 15%
Second midterm 15%
Final 30%
Weekly Homeworks 40%

Letter Grades:

Score Over	0%	35%	40%	45%	50%	55%	60%	65%	70%	75%	80%	85%	90%
Grade	F	D-	D	D+	C-	C	C+	B-	B	B+	A-	A	A+

Late Policy
20% off the value of a homework for each day late. Your lowest homework score will be dropped. Homeworks are to be handed in in class, or in the TA's mailbox or class mailbox by 5pm on the due date.

Course Text:
"Randomized Algorithms" by Rajeev Motwani and Prabhakar Raghavan, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1995.

Recommended:
"Digital Cash" by Peter Wayner, Academic Press, London, 2^nd Ed. 1997.
This book includes material for the last 6 lectures in chapters 2 and 3. The description there is not very detailed and will be supplemented by information from lectures. Nevertheless this is a very interesting and useful book to have.

Lecture Summaries:
In addition to the texts, there will be summaries of all the lectures online in HTML or pdf.

Class Home Page:
Is http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs174

Newsgroup:
The newsgroup is an important tool for staying in touch with the class and getting help from the TA or instructor or from other students. You should set up a newsreader (Netscape works fine) to the campus news server agate.berkeley.edu and select the newsgroup ucb.class.cs174. You must be connected to the campus network directly or to a campus dialup line to access the course newsgroups. Click here if you are.