CSCI3160 Design and Analysis of Algorithms (2025 Fall)

Course Instructor: Time and Venues:
Session Time Venue
Lectures Session 1 Wednesday 11:30AM - 1:15PM William M.W. Mong Engineering Building (ERB) LT
Session 2 Thursday 1:30PM - 2:15PM Lady Shaw Building (LSB) LT1
Tutorials T01 Thursday 9:30AM - 10:15AM William M.W. Mong Engineering Building (ERB) 407
T02 Thursday 10:30AM - 11:15AM Lady Shaw Building (LSB) C4
T03 Thursday 4:30PM - 5:15PM Y. C. Liang Hall (LHC) 104
T04 Thursday 5:30PM - 6:15PM William M.W. Mong Engineering Building (ERB) 803
Teaching Assistants:
Name Office Hour Room Email Responsible SID Range
Xingyu CUI Mon. 10:30am - 11:30am SHB 913 xycui24 [at] cse.cuhk.edu.hk 1155149086 - 1155194108
Ziqing GUO Wed. 10:30am - 11:30am SHB 1004 zqguo25 [at] cse.cuhk.edu.hk 1155194640 - 1155211089
Chenya SUN Mon. 2:30pm - 3:30pm SHB 1004 cysun25 [at] cse.cuhk.edu.hk 1155211107 - 1155211884
Sipeng SUN Wed. 3:30pm - 4:30pm SHB 121 1155231337 [at] link.cuhk.edu.hk 1155211893 - 1155212667
Zhenxuan XIE Fri. 2:30pm - 3:30pm SHB 913 zxxie24 [at] cse.cuhk.edu.hk 1155212674 - 1155213782
Wenhui ZHANG Tue. 10:30am - 11:30am SHB 1004 whzhang25 [at] cse.cuhk.edu.hk 1155213808 - 1155256232

Grading Scheme


Please refer to pages 4 through 6 of the Logistics slides. The following presents the regular and special exercises mentioned therein: Solutions to Quiz/Exam: Quiz-1, Midterm, Quiz-2, Quiz-3,

Textbooks


  • [CLRS]Introduction to Algorithms (4th edition), by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein.
    (E-book version available through this link from CUHK library (login required using your CUHK account)
  • [DPV]Algorithms, by Sanjoy Dasgupta, Christos Papadimitriou, and Umesh Vazirani

Weekly Schedule


Acknowledgement: The slides herein are primarily based on materials prepared by Prof. Yufei Tao (please refer to Prof. Tao's version from 2024 Fall for the original content). Some modifications have been made to better align with this year's teaching progress, incorporating student feedback, in-class interactions, and my own teaching style and research perspective.

Week Date Lecture Topics and Slides Supplementary Reading Tutorial Topics and Slides
Week 1 2025-09-03 Logistics, the RAM model, Efficiency Measurement Goemans' notes on Chernoff Bounds Growth of Functions
2025-09-04 Three Basic Techniques None
Week 2 2025-09-10 Divide and Conquer (before Matrix Multiplication) Section 2.3 of [DPV] Exercises on the Three Basic Techniques
2025-09-11 Divide and Conquer (Matrix Multiplication) Sections 4.1 to 4.5 of [CLRS]
Week 3 2025-09-17 Fast Fourier Transform Section 2.6 of [DPV] Divide and Conquer
2025-09-18 Greedy 1: Activity Selection Section 15.1 of [CLRS]
Week 4 2025-09-24 Lecture cancelled due to Typhoon Ragasa N.A. Tutorials cancelled to match the pace of lectures
2025-09-25 Greedy 2: Minimum Spanning Trees Section 5.1 of [DPV]
Week 5 2025-10-01 Lecture cancelled due to National Day N.A. Implementation of Prim's Algorithm
2025-10-02 Quiz 1 (1:30 - 1:50 pm); Minimum Spanning Trees (cont'd) Section 5.1 of [DPV]
Week 6 2025-10-08 Greedy 3: Huffman Codes, DP 1: Pitfall of Recursion, DP 2: Rod Cutting Section 15.3 and 14.1 of [CLRS] Kruskal's Algorithm
2025-10-09 DP 3: Longest Increasing Subsequence Section 6.2 of [DPV]
Week 7 2025-10-15 DP 4: Edit Distance, Graph 1: Bridging DP and Graphs Sections 6.1, 6.3 of [DPV] DP: Piggyback, Dependency, and Space
2025-10-16 Graph 2: White Path and Strongly Connected Components Sections 20.3, 20.5 of [CLRS]
Week 8 2025-10-22 Midterm N.A. Matrix-Chain Multiplication
2025-10-23 Midterm review, DP 5: Optimal Binary Search Tree Section 14.5 of [CLRS]
Week 9 2025-10-29 Lecture cancelled due to Chung Yeung Festival N.A. SCC: Further Insights
2025-10-30 Graph 2: White Path and Strongly Connected Components (cont'd) Sections 20.3, 20.5 of [CLRS]
Week 10 2025-11-05 Graph 3: Dijkstra, Graph 4: Bellman-Ford, Graph 5: Johnson Sections 22.2, 22.3, 22.1, 23.3 of [CLRS] Tutorials cancelled due to the 95th Congregation
2025-11-06 Lecture cancelled due to the 95th Congregation N.A.
Week 11 2025-11-12 Quiz 2 (11:30 - 11:50 am); Approximation Algorithm 1: Intro, Vertex Cover, and MAX-3SAT Sections 35.1, 35.4 of [CLRS] (you can ignore linear programming) Floyd-Warshall
2025-11-13 Approximation Algorithm 2: Traveling Salesman Section 35.2 of [CLRS]
Week 12 2025-11-19 Approximation Algorithm 3: Set Cover and Hitting Set Section 35.3 of [CLRS] Bellman-Ford: Negative Cycles
2025-11-20 Approximation Algorithm 3: Set Cover and Hitting Set (cont'd) N.A.
Week 13 2025-11-26 Approximation Algorithm 3: Set Cover and Hitting Set (cont'd), Approximation Algorithm 4: k-center Section 35.3 of [CLRS] Reductions for Proving NP-Hardness
2025-11-27 Quiz 3 (1:30 - 1:50 pm); Approximation Algorithm 4: k-center (cont'd) N.A.

Additional Information


Course Description: In this course, we will (i) introduce provably efficient algorithms for solving a set of classic problems that are frequently encountered in practice, (ii) extract from those algorithms the generic techniques that can be deployed to solve many other problems with strong performance guarantees, and (iii) study NP-hard/complete problems (that is, problems of which no polynomial time algorithms are known) and their approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems.

Make-up Quiz/Exam Policy: You may apply for a make-up quiz/exam if all of the following conditions are met:

  • You must provide a valid justification along with supporting documentation. For example, in the case of illness, a doctor's note clearly stating your condition is required.
  • You must email the instructor at least 4 hours before the start of the lecture in which the quiz is administered.
Genuine emergency cases will be handled separately and typically require valid justification along with supporting documentation.

Classes During Adverse Weather: Summer (i.e. May – Oct.) is the typhoon/adverse weather season in Hong Kong. It is likely that some classes will be affected. We will follow the University's official policy on adverse weather. For details, please refer to the relevant section in the Undergraduate Student Handbook: General Arrangements for Classes and Examinations on Approach of Typhoons and Rainstorms.

Students with Special Educational Needs (SEN): CUHK is committed to promoting equal opportunities in academic pursuits for all students. To support full-time students with special educational needs (SEN) in fully participating in campus life and enhancing their learning experience, the SEN Service (SENS) provides tailored support based on individual needs. These may include learning aids and equipment, special arrangements for classes or examinations, accessible facilities, and assistance with hostel visits and accommodations.

Students who require these services should first register with the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) and undergo an assessment by the SEN team. If a student is identified as needing SEN support, the recommended academic accommodations will be communicated to the SEN coordinator of the relevant teaching unit, who will then inform the course instructor accordingly. If you have completed the registration and assessment process with the SEN team at OSA, please email the course instructor to discuss arrangements that best accommodate your needs.

Use of AI tools: This course follows "Approach 2 – Use only with prior permission" according to the University's policy on the use of AI tools. In particular, the use of AI tools is prohibited in all assessment-related components (including quizzes, the midterm, and the final exam). However, students are permitted to use AI tools for non-assessed learning activities, such as practicing exercise problems that do not count toward the final grade.