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SMART-ICS core knowledge and skills chart

Core Knowledge and Skills
ICS 6DDiscrete Mathematics for Computer Science

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Sections:
Catalog Description   |   Course Prerequisites   |   Restrictions   |   Prerequisite Skills and Concepts   |   Minimum Knowledge and Skills
ICS 6D
Catalog Description
Covers essential tools from discrete mathematics used in computer science with an emphasis on the process of abstracting computational problems and analyzing them mathematically. Topics include: combinatorics, mathematical induction, elementary probability, and asymptotic analysis.
ICS 6D
Course Prerequisites

High school mathematics through trigonometry.

ICS 6D
Restrictions

ICS 6D
Knowledge Prerequisites: Skills and Concepts

ICS 6D
Minimum Knowledge and Skills
Logic
  • Mastery:
    • Understand and apply logical connectives, and operators
    • Construct truth tables
    • Determine whether Boolean expressions are logically equivalent using truth tables
    • Construct proofs of logical equivalences of Boolean expressions using truth tables
  • Proficiency:
    • Convert from Boolean expressions to English sentences
    • Convert from English sentences to Boolean expressions
    • Determine whether Boolean expressions are logically equivalent using logical identities
    • Construct proofs of logical equivalences of Boolean expressions using logical identities
Sets
  • Mastery:
    • Understand and apply set operations, Venn diagrams
    • Understand and apply computer representations of sets
    • Construct proofs of set identities using membership functions
  • Proficiency:
    • Construct proofs of set identities using set operations, identities
Sequences and sums
  • Mastery:
    • Understand and apply the definition of sigma notation
    • Convert to and from sigma notation
    • Evaluate terms of a geometric series
    • Compute the sum of a geometric series
Combinatorics
  • Mastery:
    • Understand and apply basic counting principles: sum rule, product rule, inclusion-exclusion, pigeonhole principle
    • Understand and apply formulas for counting permutations and combinations of distinguishable objects without repetitions
    • Understand and apply basic formulas involving binomial coefficients and Pascal's triangle
    • Understand and apply formulas for counting permutations and combinations of distinguishable objects with repetitions allowed
    • Understand and apply formulas for counting permutations with indistinguishable objects
  • Exposure:
    • Apply definitions and basic formulas involving binomial coefficients to derive more complicated identities (e.g., Vandermonde's identity)
    • Understand and apply generalized inclusion-exclusion principle
Probability
  • Mastery:
    • Understand and apply basic concepts from probability: Sample spaces, combinations of events, computing simple probabilities
    • Understand and apply conditional probability, independence
    • Understand and apply definition of random variables, expectations
  • Proficiency:
    • Understand and apply definition of Bernoulli trials, binomial distribution
  • Exposure:
    • Understand concept of average-case computational complexity
    • Understand, apply, and compute variance, standard deviations
Proof techniques and methods
  • Mastery:
    • Understand the difference between direct proofs, indirect proofs, and proofs by contradiction, and construct simple examples of each
    • Understand and apply principle of mathematical induction; construct proofs by induction
  • Exposure:
    • Understand and construct nonconstructive existence proofs
Recursion and recurrences
  • Mastery:
    • Understand and construct recursive definitions
    • Understand and construct recurrence relations
    • Solve simple recurrence relations
  • Proficiency:
    • Solve linear recurrence relations
    • Solve divide-and-conquer recurrences
  • Exposure:
    • Understand and apply generating functions    
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