All of the readings are from the text Pseudorandomness.
Date |
Title |
Reading/Reference |
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Jan 27 |
No class - Winter Storm Juno |
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Jan 29 |
Introduction (Course overview)
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Ch. 1 | ||
The Power of Randomness
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Ch. 2 |
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Feb 3 |
Randomized Algorithms and Complexity
Classes |
Sec. 2.1-2.3.1 |
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Problem Set 1 (due 2/13) |
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Feb 5 |
Sampling and Approximation Problems |
Sec. 2.3.2-2.4 |
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Basic Derandomization Techniques |
Ch. 3 |
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Feb 10 |
No class - Winter Storm Marcus |
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Feb 12 |
Enumeration, Nonuniformity, Nondeterminism |
Sec. 3.1-3.3 |
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Problem Set 2 (due 2/27) |
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Feb 17 |
Conditional Expectations, Pairwise Independence |
Sec. 3.4-3.5 |
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Expander Graphs |
Ch. 4 |
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Feb 19 |
Measures of Expansion, Existence |
Sec. 4.1 |
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MON Feb 23 |
Add/Drop Date |
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Feb 24 |
Random Walks on Expanders, Algebraic Constructions |
Sec. 4.2-4.3.1 |
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Feb 26 |
Explicit Constructions, USTCONN in L |
Sec. 4.3.2-4.4 |
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Problem Set 3 (due 3/13) |
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List-Decodable Codes |
Ch. 5 |
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Mar 3 |
Definition & Existence |
Sec. 5.0-5.1.2 |
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Mar 5 |
Explicit Codes, List Decoding Reed-Solomon and Parvaresh-Vardy Codes |
Sec. 5.1.3-5.2.3 |
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Mar 10 |
Folded Reed-Solomon Codes, List Decoding View of Samplers & Extractors |
Sec. 5.2.4-5.3 |
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Mar 12 |
Expanders from Parvaresh-Vardy Codes |
Sec. 5.4 |
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Problem Set 4 (due 4/3) |
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Mar 17 & 19 |
No Class (Spring Break) |
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Randomness Extractors |
Ch. 6 |
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Mar 24 |
Definition & Existence |
Sec. 6.1 |
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Mar 26 |
Connections to Other Pseudorandom Objects, Block Sources |
Sec. 6.2-6.3.2 |
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Mar 31 |
Condensers, Constructing Extractors |
Sec. 6.3.3-6.5 |
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Pseudorandom Generators |
Ch. 7 | |||
Apr 2 |
Motivation & Definition, Cryptographic PRGs |
Sec. 7.1-7.2 |
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Problem Set 5 (due 4/17) |
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Apr 7 |
Spillover on defs of PRGs, Cryptographic PRGs, PRFs |
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Apr 9 |
Hybrid Arguments, Average-Case Hardness |
Sec. 7.3-7.4.1 |
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Apr 14 |
The Nisan-Wigderson Generator |
Sec. 7.4.2-7.4.3 |
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Apr 16 |
Worst-case/Average-case Connections & Locally Decodable Codes |
Sec. 7.5 |
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Problem Set 6 (due 5/1) |
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Apr 21 |
Local List Decoding & PRGs from Worst-Case Hardness |
Sec. 7.6 |
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Conclusions and Beyond |
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Apr 23 |
Connections to other Pseudorandom Objects |
Sec. 7.7 |
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Apr 28 |
The Unified Theory of Pseudorandomness |
Sec 8.1 |
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Apr 30 |
Survey of other Topics in Pseudorandomness |
Sec. 8.2 |
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Take-home Final (due 5/13) |
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May 5 |
Pseudorandomness for Space-Bounded Computation |
Saks survey, Sec. 4.3 |