CSE 652 - Algorithms Seminar

This reading group provides a meeting place for Stony Brook faculty, postdocs, and students interested in the analysis of algorithms. (see the recent participant list). We meet once a week, with one of three different missions:

• Paper presentations -- This is fairly informal, with one person (i.e. student) responsible each time for leading the discussions. Nobody will have to lead for more than one paper per semester.
• Open Problem Bull Sessions -- where we pose and attack accessible research problems. A good time is had by all.
• Road Trips -- to the special computational geometry or theory days at NYU, Columbia, and the like.

Since Spring 2006, the algorithms seminar is being lead by Jie Gao. See her page for the latest schedule and reading lists.

Incomplete paper presentation schedules from past semesters remain available along with top secret notes from our open problem sessions. The fraction of sessions dedicated to unsolved problems vs. papers will depend upon general interest.

You can get one credit for participating by simply registering for CSE 652. You will be required to present one paper, and attend on a somewhat regular basis. If you don't register, you will get coerced into presenting one paper and attending on a somewhat regular basis. The choice is yours.

Since the group will be somewhat informal, the choice of topics or papers will depend upon the current interest of its members. I propose that we focus more on problem sessions than papers this semester. I also hope to see more continuity between problem sessions, so we continue to work between sessions to make progress. I also want to increase the percentage of ``theory papers'' vs. ``applications papers'' that are presented over recent years, to get us back to the core technologies we have evolved from.

My intention is to alternate between a variety of topics in algorithms this semester. Most of the papers will be from fairly recent conferences, particularly SODA, SOCG, FOCS, and STOC. We lean towards a grab bag of topics, particularly string algorithms / computational biology, and graph algorithms, to supplement our usual assortment of computational geometry.

If you are interested in one of these topics, why don't you volunteer to present it?