ICS 6A
Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
Fall 2004

Instructor

Sandy Irani, 352 Computer Science, 824-6346, irani@ics.uci.edu .

Teaching Assistants

John Augustine, CS 352, jea@ics.uci.edu .
Rajyashree Mukherjee, CSE 104B, mukherjr@ics.uci.edu .

Reader

Vidhya Balasubramanian, ICS Trailers, vbalasub@ics.uci.edu .

Class Home Page

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~irani/f04-6a/6a.html

Office Hours

Irani: MW 1:00-1:45PM, F 12:00-12:45PM, and by apppointment.
John Augustine: Tu 4-5, F 10-11
Rajyashree Mukherjee: M 10-11, Th, 11-noon
Vidhya Balasubramanian: T, W, 10-11

Course E-mail

6a-questions@ics.uci.edu

Class Times and Places

Lectures:
MWF 2:00PM-2:50PM, SSPA 1100
Discussion Sections:
TuTh 4:00-4:50PM, SH 128, Rajyashree Mukherjee
TuTh 5:00-5:50PM, ET 204, John Augustine
WF 9:00-9:50, SST 220A, John Augustine

Obtaining Assistance

The best way to get your questions answered is by coming to lecture, section or office hours and asking them there. You are encouraged to attend the office hours of either teaching assistant, regardless of who covers the discussion section that you attend. In general, when my office door is open and I'm not busy with something else, I am happy to answer short questions, so feel free to stop by during other times in the week. In addition, you can send email to 6a-questions@ics.uci.edu which will automatically forward the mail to the TAs and myself. It is generally preferable to use this email address instead of our personal addresses because you are likely to get an answer to your question faster if it is sent to all of us. If you ask a question by email which requires a lengthy response. we are likely to ask you to come in to discuss the answer in person.

There is also a noteboard where you can post questions and view questions and responses posted by other students. For now I am allowing students to post responses to the noteboard. However, I think it is important that answers or even hints to the homework not be posted before it is due. The process of struggling to get an answer to a question is very important to learning the material. Reading a big hint to a difficult problem can take away the benefit of finding the answer on your own. You can view the noteboard by starting at http://eee.uci.edu/myeee and signing in using your UCInetID. If you have not yet activated your UCInetID, you need to do so as soon as possible. You can do so at http://activate.uci.edu/activate/menu.html .

Any student who feels he or she may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss his or her specific needs. Also contact the Disability Services Center at (949) 824-7494 as soon as possible to better ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.

Announcements

Class announcements will be made in lecture and in section. Important announcements are sometimes be posted on the class web page. However, you are responsible for any announcements made in lecture. If you miss a lecture, you should get notes from a fellow student and make sure that you find out about any special announcements made in class.

Homework and quizes

On each Monday, a new homework assignment will be posted to the class web page. The new homework covers the material that presented in lecture that week. The homework is due the following Monday at noon. You should turn in your homework to the Distribution Center. (See www.ics.uci.edu/ugrad/current/distribution/index.php for information on the location and hours). The homework will be graded by Thursday morning and can be picked up in the distribution center. The purpose of section on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning is to answer any questions you may have on the graded homework in preparation for the quiz that will given on Friday afternoon in lecture. No solutions to homework or quizes are distributed. The purpose of discussion sections and office hours are to answer any questions you may have about solutions to quizes or homeworks. You are highly advised to learn the correct solution to quizes and homeworks since I will typically re-use a couple questions (perhaps with some minor modifications) from homework on quizes and will take some final exam questions from the quizes.

Absolutely no late homework assignments will be accepted. .

The weekly quiz will be given every Friday at the beginning of lecture. The quiz will be handed out at 2:00 PM, sharp and will be picked up at 2:15 PM, sharp . There will be no make-up quizes given. When we tabulate your final grade, we will drop the two lowest quiz scores and the two lowest homework scores. However, in exchange for this, we will make absolutely no allowances if you arrive at a quiz late or turn in your homework late. This holds even if you have a perfectly valid reason to miss a homework assignment or a quiz. If for some reason you fail to make it to a quiz or hand in a homework assignment, that will count as one of your dropped quizes or homework assignments, no matter how legitimate your reason is.

The last component of your grade will be a very short web-based questionnaire on the reading material consisting of three simple questions. You can find the questionnaire by starting at http://eee.uci.edu/myeee and signing in using your UCInetID. Each questionnaire will be named after the date that it is due. The questionnaire must be completed by 11:00AM on Wednesday morning and covers the reading that I will cover in lecture that week. The questionnaire is worth a very small component of your grade. (The total from all of them will count towards 2% of your final grade). My goal is simply to impress upon you that I expect you to do the reading for the week before lecture. Ideally, it will be completed before Monday's lecture. There will also be a question or two with a place for short answers. These will not be counted for a grade but will help give me an idea of what you are understanding and what concepts I need to spend more time on in lecture. Since this is the first time I am using this system and we are likely to encounter a few glitches, I will not count the first one towards your grade.

Grading

The quizes and homework assignments will be graded by the TAs. The quizes will be graded in their entirety. However, since there are so many of you, only few of the problems on the homework assignments will be graded. You will not know which particular problems will be graded before you hand in your assignment.

If you believe that there has a been a mistake in grading a homework assignment, quiz or exam, you can request that a question be regraded. This request must be made within a week of the assignment being handed back. We also ask that when you request a regrade that you provide three things on a separate sheet of paper: (1) list of the problem(s) you want graded, (2) the reason(s) for the regrade, and (3) a signed statement that you have not altered your answers you are submitting for regrading.

Academic Honesty

All work done on quizes and finals should be your own work. Cheating on any kind of in class examination will be taken very seriously. Any such incident will result in a letter describing the incident which is placed in your file on campus. Depending on the severity of the incident, the resulting grade can range from an F on the particular examination to an automatic F in the course. Very severe incidents of academic dishonesty can result in suspension or expulsion from the university. You are encouraged to read the Information and Computer Science Cheating Policy which is located at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ucounsel/continuing_students/cheat.html.

I do encourage you to work with your fellow students on the homework assignments since I think a lot of learning takes place when you work together. However, when you sit down to write up your solutions, you should do that alone. This helps you make sure that you understand the solution for yourself.

Text

There is one required text for the course:

You are expected to have done the reading for the week before the first lecture of the week. Lecture time will be most productive if it is used to reinforce material that you have already seen.

Course Grades

The grading criteria for the course is shown below. The two lowest quiz scores and the two lowest homework scores will be dropped in determining the final grade.

Schedule

Week Dates Assignment Sample Quiz Reading
Week 1 Sept 27-Oct1 HW1 Quiz 1 Logic (1.1-1.4); sets (1.6)
Week 2 Oct 4-8 HW2 Quiz 2 Set operations (1.7); counting basics (4.1, 4.2)
Week 3 Oct 11-15 HW3 Quiz 3 Permutations and combinations (4.3 -- 4.5)
Week 4 Oct 18-22 HW4 Sample Midterm Probability (5.1-5.2)
Probablity Notes
Week 5 Oct 25-29 HW5 - Probability, cont. (5.3)
Week 6 Nov 1-5 HW6 - Methods of proof (1.5,3.1)
MIDTERM, Wed Nov 3, in lecture
Week 7 Nov 8-12 HW7 Quiz 5 Sequences and summations (3.2)
Mathematical Induction (3.3)
Week 8 Nov 15-19 HW8 Quiz 6 Recursive definitions (3.4);
Background reading: Recursive algorithms (3.5);
Recurrence relations (6.1, begin 6.2);
Week 9 Nov 22-26 HW9 Quiz 7 Section 6.2, cont.
Begin Section 6.3
Friday: Thanksgiving break.
Week 10 Nov 29 - Dec 3 Recommended Problems - Review of logarithms (A.1);
Section 6.3, cont.
Finals Week Dec 6-10 - Sample Final FINAL EXAM, Friday December 10, 1:30PM--3:30PM, SSPA 1100.