Table of Contents
Algorithms, Fall 2025
This course provides an introduction to the design and analysis of computer algorithms, with a particular emphasis on the use of principles of mathematical induction in designing algorithms. Its goal is to acquaint the students with basic computer algorithms and their design principles and to cultivate the students' ability in designing and analyzing algorithms independently.
Announcements
- 09/16: old exams.
- 09/16: HW#3 due on 09/23.
- 09/16: notes/slides for Analysis of Algorithms available.
- 09/09: HW#2 due on 09/16 by 1:20PM.
- 09/09: notes/slides for Mathematical Induction revised.
- 09/02: HW#1 due on 09/09.
- 08/18: the 2024 edition of this course.
- 08/18: this wiki site created to complement the NTU COOL site for this course.
Instructor
Yih-Kuen Tsay (蔡益坤), NTU IM Dept.,
3366-1189, Xtsay@ntu.edu.twX
(between the enclosing pair of X's).
Lectures
Tuesday 2:20~5:20PM, Room 305, Management Building 2.
TA
sessions will be scheduled prior to some of the class meetings between 1:20
and 2:10PM; see the course schedule below.
Office Hours
Tuesday 1:30~2:00PM, Wednesday 1:30~2:00PM, or by appointment, Room 1108, Management Building 2.
TAs
Ling-Hsuan Chen (陳琳瑄), Xd13725001@ntu.edu.twX (between the enclosing pair of X's).
Min Lai (賴旻), Xr14921055@ntu.edu.twX (between the enclosing pair of X's)
Textbooks
- [M] Introduction to Algorithms - A Creative Approach, U. Manber, Addison-Wesley, 1989. (Four copies of this book have been put on reserve at NTU Library in the 3F-Course Reserves area 教師指定參考書區 under 演算法(BM-4). Additionally, ten copies are available for loan; please contact one of the TAs.)
- [C] Introduction to Algorithms, Fourth Edition, T.H. Cormen, C.E. Leiserson, R.L. Rivest, and C. Stein, MIT Press, 2022. (開發圖書代理; one copy of this book has been put on reserve at NTU Library in the 3F-Course Reserves area 教師指定參考書區 under (FF-9).)
Syllabus/Schedule (with links to notes/slides)
We will try to cover most of Manber's book plus supplementary material, including a few chapters of the book by Cormen et al. (Note: a TA session will precede a class meeting whose date is marked with an *. There are six TA sessions on 09/16, 09/30, 10/14, 11/04, 11/25, and 12/09.)
- Data Structures: A Supplement [M: Ch. 4; C: Ch. 6,13,19] (.5 week: 09/30a*) [notes, slides, Building an AVL Tree (Illustration)]
- Searching and Sorting [M: Ch. 6; C: Ch. 6,7,8,9] (1.5 weeks: 09/30b, 10/07) [notes, slides, Heapsort (Illustration), Bottom-Up Heap Building (Illustration)]
- String Processing [M: Ch. 6; C: Ch. 32] (1 week: 10/14*) [notes, slides, Construction of a Huffman Tree (Illustration)]
- Midterm (2025/10/21)
- Graph Algorithms: Basic [M: Ch. 7; C: Ch. 20,21,22,23] (2 weeks: 10/28, 11/04*) [notes, slides, Dijkstra's Algorithm (Illustration), Prim's Algorithm (Illustration)]
- Graph Algorithms: Advanced [M: Ch. 7; C: Ch. 20,24,25] (2 weeks: 11/11, 11/18) [notes, slides, Computing SCCs (Illustration)]
- Final (2025/12/16)
Grading
Homework/Quizzes 20%, Participation 10%, Midterm 35%, Final 35%.
References
- Mathematical Induction (a Wikipedia page)
- Structural Induction (a Wikipedia page)
- MIT OpenCourseWare: Introduction to Algorithms
- Stanford Coursera: Algorithms
- What is an Algorithm? (M.Y. Vardi, Communications of the ACM, Volume 55 Issue 3, March 2012)
- The P versus NP Problem (Stephen Cook)
- The website of ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest)