Archive of Old Announcements

Important announcements related to the course will be posted in the class CMSC 754 home page. Old announcements will be moved here.

Sat, May 19:

Final grades are ready and can be viewed from the Grades page. Sorry that this took longer than expected. (I finished the grading late on Wednesday, but had to fly to Hong Kong on Thursday morning.)
The final exam was quite challenging (in my opinion). There were no "give-away" problems, and a few of the problems involved either applying some insight or a new algorithmic technique. Under the circumstances, I was quite pleased overall with how well people did.
I will not be back in town until July 11. If you have any questions about your exam, I'll be happy to look at it after I return.
I really enjoyed teaching the class, and I wish you all have a fun and relaxing summer.

Tue, May 8:

I'll hold office hours tomorrow (Wed, May 10) at 4:00pm. I will also be in the office and available most of the morning (until 11:00) if there are any questions.

Mon, May 7:

A couple of alert students spotted typos in Problem 4 and Problem 5(a) on Homework 5. In problem 4 the supremum is missing in the equation that defines discrepancy. In Problem 5(a) the set P should be the union of P1 and P2, not their intersection.

Fri, May 4:

The online course evaluations are now available. Please take a moment to fill it out. (You have until May 11.) Teaching is very important to me, and the information I obtain from these evaluations is very important in helping me improve the quality of the course. Your written comments about what you liked in the course and what elements should be improved are particularly valuable. Note that I do not see the results until after the semester is over.

Mon, Apr 30:

Sorry for the late notice. I have decided that, since not everyone may have seen the announcement below, I should extend the deadline for Homework 4 for 48 hours, until Thursday at the start of class. Homework 5 will still be due May 10.

Mon, Apr 30:

An alert student observed that it may be a lot harder than I thought to obtain an O(n^2 log n) for Problem (3d) on the homework, the helicopter problem. For this reason, I will give full credit to any solution running in O(n^3 log n) time. Please pass the word to your fellow classmates.

Tue, Apr 17:

I'll hold office hours Wed, Apr 18, from 3-4pm. Please feel free to stop by if you have a question.

Sun, Apr 15:

I have uploaded a new version of Homework 3 to the Handouts page. I fixed a minor typo in Problem 3. The significant changes are to the Challenge Problem. After discovering that my initial solution was in error, I have broken up part (b) into three parts. You may solve any or all of them.

Wed, Apr 11:

An alert student spotted a typo in Problem 5 on Homework 3. Please download the updated version.

Wed, Apr 4:

I have posted the midterm and solutions on the Handouts page. Because of their sensitive nature, I will be removing the solutions soon, so please download them now, if you are interested in a copy.

Sun, Mar 25:

Solutions to the practice problems are now posted on the Handouts page. I have also placed a copy of the book Algorithmic Geometry by J.-D. Boissonnat and M. Yvinec on reserve in our departmental library.

Thu, Mar 15:

I have posted some sample problems to help prepare you for the midterm exam. They can be found on the class Handouts page. Solutions will be posted soon.

Sun, Mar 4:

The description of Problem 3 on Homework 2 has been updated to provide a somewhat clearer definition of the orientation of a simple polygon.

Thu, Mar 1:

Homework 2 is not available on the class Handouts page.

Wed, Feb 28:

The midterm exam will be Thu, Mar 29, in class. The exam will be closed book, closed notes, but with one sheet of notes (front and back). I will distribute some practice problems before Spring break, and part of class on Tue, Mar 27 will be a review session.

Mon, Feb 26:

Homework 1 has been graded and will be handed back in class this Tuesday. Your grades can be viewed on the Department's online grading system. (Click on the Grades tab above.)

Sat, Feb 10:

A preliminary copy of Homework 1 has been posted to the Handouts Page. It is due Thu, Feb 22.

Mon, Jan 29:

I will be out of town this Thursday, Feb 1 (Sorry!) Prof. Bill Gasarch has kindly agreed to present a lecture on some complexity issues in computational geometry.

Sat, Feb 17:

An alert student spotted a typo on Problem 2 on Homework 1. This regards the complexity of k-Sum. The updated version is now on the Handouts Page.