Instructor: Lane A. Hemaspaandra.
Grad TA: Hecong Wang.
Course Information Document/Syllabus: Version 1.0.0
Course Announcements/Library Reserves/Etc.: Announcements (if any) mostly via Blackboard but also there may be Notes on this page in the Day-to-Day list. Reserves via the library (a few dozen books/etc. are on the list I submitted to the library); our BB site links to the library's list of those (and how to find them on the shelves or, in some cases, as an online resource).
Prerequisite: CSC 280/480.
Navigation Information:
In you group, you will master one chapter (the one that is matched above with your group) of the Hem-Ogi textbook and prepare slides for and present in class your talks/slides on that chapter for two class sessions, namely, the two class sessions matched above with your group. You do not have to cover the entire chapter (and in fact, doing so might be impossibly much). Rather, each group should choose for itself the "right" amount of material from the chapter so that you fully fill your number of lectures, and cover clearly the part of the chapter's material that you choose to cover (for example, for Chapter 2, my guess is the natural coverage would be perhaps Chapters 2.1 and 2.2... and doing all of 2.3 would be hopeless time-wise, esp. as the proof of the main result is sort of a sneaky mess, and I'm not sure if you'll have time to incorporate any of Section 2.3 in your unit coverage, but if you do, then my guess is it would just be a half-class-session covering that section's motivation, an intuitive sense of what its definitions are, and then getting up to the point of simply stating its main result; and for Chapter 3, my guess is your natural coverage likely would be Chapters 3.1 and 3.2).
You will be graded on the quality of your entire unit (and that grade will be shaped---in part by if you do the required, on-time run-through and if you send in on time and done-well the required web-page blocks, but mostly---by both the quality of the slides and the quality of the presentations, though those won't get separate grades from each other, probably). Some time after your final talk, after Hecong and I have had time to talk with each other, so perhaps that evening or a day later, via Zoom you'll meet with Hecong and me (we all should set up the appointment ahead of time) for our feedback and to get your grade.
Please, when preparing your slides/talks, note that there is an errata for the book, which can be reached via Errata link on this page. Please do look at it so that you are aware of that errata's collection of corrections to the book's text.
The details on how/what you'll hand in and do are as follows (be careful... this is a bit complex):
Please start right away, as digesting a chapter, making excellent slides, and presenting them in a clear, charismatic way to the class is a serious task. (And the talks start relatively soon, esp. for the group presenting Chapter 3; note: the order in which the chapters are scheduled took into account the degree of challenge of the chapter's material; that is why Chapter 3 is coming before Chapter 2) You are required to well BEFORE the first day of your talks ("well before" means at latest Friday for a Monday start, and at latest Monday (but be careful as that Monday is an eclipse day!) for a Wednesday start)---and you must schedule that ahead of time by agreement with the TA as to time and location (the TA may request in-person or may request by-Zoom, though I'd recommend in-person if he can get his hands on a room for the needed time)---test-run your 2-talk-sequence (all two classes' worth!), using your slides, for the TA, who will give you his feedback on things (if any) that he sees that might be improved (e.g., things that are not clear). You will NOT be directly graded on that, as it is to give you helpful feedback; but if you don't have such a session your final score will be lowered by 8 points (e.g., a 97 would turn into an 89), which is a pretty devastating lowering; and also, if you ignore problems the TA spots, that might lower the TA's assessment of the quality of your talk when you give it in class (and perhaps mine, since I too might notice the problems or notice them due to chatting with the TA after your talk about what grade it should give). (But the run-through for feedback is NOT itself graded; if it is a meltdown but you use the feedback to improve the slides and the talk a lot, and so those are great, that is totally fine; you grade for this is based on your in-class two-class talks/slides.)
I'll assign the grade (see above) largely based on your talk+slides (the ones presented in class, not the earlier version that you test-run with the TA, since as mentioned above THAT running is for him to give you constructive feedback on), but will consult with the TA when doing so to get his input as to what he thinks of them (the talk/slides you give in your two class sessions). (NOTE: it is possible that the TA, Hecong, will not be able to attend the April 10 class session, in which case he will view it via the Panopto recording.)
You must also, no later than noon on the day of your talk, email to csc486staff "at" cs.rochester.edu your entire set of slides as a *pdf file*, cc'ed to every member of your group. Then, no later than the 1159PM of your *final* day of talks (that time frame is so that you have by then have incorporated any needed fixes/corrections that were mentioned to you during the talk), you should in a single email mail csc486staff, cc'ed to every member of your group, as a single PDF file your entire set of PDF files for the chapter, AND your source code (either as PowerPoint if you used PowerPoint, or if you used latex as a zip archive with ALL the source files/pictures/etc.); note that each group's two talks should look uniform within the group, e.g., you cannot have 1 of your two days be latex-based but the other be PowerPoint based; rather, all of it should look like a unified whole from a single overall PowerPoint or latex source---but of course different subparts of the group may have made different parts of the slides---the \input and \include commands are helpful for that in latex. Also, your first slide should clearly and explicitly list the names of all your group's members, and your Vorlon-or-Minbari nature, and of course what chapter you are covering. (Note: The book has an online transparencies page (it is not cheating to look at the slides there; it is cheating to plagiarize from them; it might be wise to simply not look at them until you have drafted your slides, or ever, so that you draft your own slides in your own group's voice).) Also, at the start of class on the days of each of your talks, you need to give to the TA and me your slides for the class, printed 1-up (but you may print the page 2-sided), and with page numbers, and stapled. (We likely will use those hardcopies to make notes to ourselves during your talks.)
Also, by no later than 6PM on each of of the two classes at which you speak, please (i.e., you must) email to csc486staff "at" cs.rochester.edu a suggested "web page block" for (your part of) that day, including a suggested brief title (e.g., "Chapter 3 (P-selectivity and Tournaments), Day 1") and then a text (but HTML-safe, so do not put in a greater than or a less than sign as those blow up html unless one is tricky) blurb that describes what you covered, e.g., a text block similar to what I have for each day of the course on this web page, e.g., day one of the Chapter 3 group (Vorlons) might be (if the day went very briskly and if the group was planning on spending their second class mostly on the far from easy "n bits does not suffice" part of Section 3.2, and PERHAPS a brief taste of Section 3.3 if time allowed) "Reviewed tournaments and the existence in tournaments of log-small superloser sets; P-selective sets; left cuts of real numbers; the fact that the left cut of any real number in (0,1), even an undecidable one, is P-selective, and the fact that follows from that that there are undecidable P-selective sets... so P-selective sets are, information-wise, polynomially close (per length, so to speak) to P, yet can be undecidable (or in fact even beyond the entire Kleene Hierarchy)... P-sel functions differently regarding different measures of hardness!; P/poly (small circuits); mentioned P^{SPARSE} = P/poly; P-sel \subseteq P/poly... and even P-sel \subseteq P/quadratic; P-sel \subseteq PP/linear." Caveat: As to what I will post on the web page, I might edit what you send---or write a summary myself instead.)
As to the talks, you have the entire 75-minute class session of the two sessions you were assigned to; but you should if possible try to leave at least a few minutes free at the end of each for questions, which you of course should answer expertly based on your (by then) strong familiarity with the chapter you are presenting. I am not going to, this year, make a rule that says everyone in the group has to present at least some of one of the days of your presentation; some groups in the past have done that (though it can get a bit rapid-tag-team-like as to hand-offs between speakers), but this year I am going to leave the division of focus up to you, e.g., one person might do a lot on creating the slides and might not present anything, and another who loves presenting things well might do a bit less on creating the slides but might do a substantial amount of the presenting. More generally, please work carefully with your groupmates on preparing the talk, so you ALL are involved in and aware of the whole process, and are helping each other in mastering the material of the chapter you have been assigned. In preparing the talk/slides, you may use any inanimate resource (books, papers, the internet, etc., except you should not seek help from ChatGPT or similar things in writing or even in proofreading your slides), but may not actively seek help from any human---not even me or the TA (note the slight exception below regarding the TA)---other than your groupmates (not even by posting on the web or by email asking anyone other than your groupmate questions or requests for help); your group is on point on the task of doing on its own this big task (except for the help you'll get at the run-through from the TA, which is allowed, and indeed the run-through is required).
Everyone in the group gets the same grade, except if a person skips the entire project (doesn't show up to any meetings or do any work), that person would get a 0 (if those who did show up let me know of that and if the person indeed didn't show up at all); obviously, don't let that happen... but beyond that, please pull your fair share of the weight, of course, not just because I'm asking but also in fairness to your groupmates (and to ensure that you yourself get your share of the experience/learning of mastering/preparing/presenting a body of material).
Useful Links/Info:
Some of My Favorite Bits of Science Wisdom:
Other Odds and Ends (Mostly Quotations):