Nifty Applications in Discrete Mathematics

Nifty Applications in Discrete Mathematics

Bill Marion, Doug Baldwin, Susanna Epp, Peter Henderson
June 7-11, 2004
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN

Registration: $250.00

5/10/04 REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED

Have you ever struggled to come up with applications in a discrete mathematics course which demonstrate to your students the relevance of what seems like a rather disparate collection of topics to their study of material in computer science (and, yes, even excite them too!)? Then, this workshop is for you.

The workshop will provide participants with an in-depth look at a number of problems and applications that arise in a typical discrete math course (sequence) which is designed to meet the needs of computer science majors. The problems and their solutions will be treated from both a mathematical and a computational perspective. Representative problems will be selected from the following domains: encryption algorithms, finite-state automata and Turing machines, analysis of algorithms, algorithm correctness, Boolean algebra and logic circuits, graph algorithms, data base systems, functional and logic programming, and computer graphics.

As a pre-workshop activity, participants will be given a collection of possible problems to be discussed during the workshop, assigned some readings on each of the problems and asked to choose which ones they would like to see in more detail. At the workshop, for each of the applications chosen, the presenters will provide background information and the participants will work in teams to develop solutions to a carefully chosen set of exercises. Participants will return to their institutions prepared to implement the materials developed. As follow-up, participants will be asked to contribute their own examples and applications to an on-going, on-line repository developed by the workshop leaders.

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