University of California San Diego

Delivery Problem

This course is part of Introduction to Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science Specialization

Taught in English

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Course

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals

4.7

(365 reviews)

Beginner level
No prior experience required
13 hours (approximately)
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace

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Assessments

8 quizzes

Course

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals

4.7

(365 reviews)

Beginner level
No prior experience required
13 hours (approximately)
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace

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This course is part of the Introduction to Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science Specialization
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There are 3 modules in this course

We start this module with the definition of mathematical model of the delivery problem — the classical traveling salesman problem (usually abbreviated as TSP). We'll then review just a few of its many applications: from straightforward ones (delivering goods, planning a trip) to less obvious ones (data storage and compression, genome assembly). After that, we will together take the first steps in implementing programs for TSP.

What's included

4 videos1 reading5 quizzes2 ungraded labs

We'll see two general techniques applied to the traveling salesman problem. The first one, branch and bound, is a classical approach in combinatorial optimization that is used for various problems. It can be seen as an improvement of the brute force search: we try to construct a permutation piece by piece, but at each step we check whether it still makes sense to continue constructing the permutation (if it doesn't, we just cut off the current branch). The second one, dynamic programming, is arguably the most popular algorithmic technique. It solves a problem by going through a collection of smaller subproblems.

What's included

4 videos2 quizzes1 ungraded lab

As we've seen in the previous modules, solving the traveling salesman problem exactly is hard. In fact, we don't even expect an efficient solution in the nearest future. For this reason, it makes sense to ask: is it possible to find efficiently a solution that is probably suboptimal, but at the same time is close to optimal? It turns out that the answer is yes! We'll learn two algorithms. The first one guarantees to find quickly a solution which is at most twice longer than the optimal one. The second algorithms does not have such guarantees, but it is known to work pretty well in practice.

What's included

2 videos1 quiz1 ungraded lab

Instructor

Instructor ratings
4.6 (26 ratings)
Alexander S. Kulikov
University of California San Diego
13 Courses775,361 learners

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Recommended if you're interested in Algorithms

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4.7

365 reviews

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New to Algorithms? Start here.

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