Algorithm Design and Analysis

How do you optimally encode a text file? How do you find shortest paths in a map? How do you design a communication network? How do you route data in a network? What are the limits of efficient computation?

This course, part of the Computer Science Essentials for Software Development Professional Certificate program, is an introduction to design and analysis of algorithms, and answers along the way these and many other interesting computational questions.

You will learn about algorithms that operate on common data structures, for instance sorting and searching; advanced design and analysis techniques such as dynamic programming and greedy algorithms; advanced graph algorithms such as minimum spanning trees and shortest paths; NP-completeness theory; and approximation algorithms.

After completing this course you will be able to design efficient and correct algorithms using sophisticated data structures for complex computational tasks.

Week 1: Mathematical Preliminaries; Asymptotic analysis and recurrence relations; Sorting and Searching; Heaps and Binary Search Trees

Week 2: Algorithm Design Paradigms - Divide-and-Conquer algorithms, Dynamic Programming, Greedy Algorithms

Week 3: Graphs and graph traversals; minimum spanning trees; shortest paths

Week 4: Flows; NP-completeness; Approximation Algorithms