Everything you need to know to design, analyze, and understand algorithms

As society attempts to solve more and more problems computationally, the need for efficient algorithms to solve these problems continues to grow. Just as importantly, to be able to apply or adapt existing algorithms to solve specific problems, computing professionals need to be able to understand why these algorithms solve the given problems correctly and efficiently.

In Algorithms: A Top-Down Approach, theoretical computer scientist Dr. Rodney R. Howell provides a rigorous framework for tackling the daunting challenges of designing correct and efficient algorithms. This book gives the reader a uniform approach to the design, analysis, optimization, and verification of algorithms. This approach also provides essential tools for understanding algorithms and their associated data structures.

This book is motivated in part by Dr. Howell's belief that people do not fully understand an algorithm until they are able to prove its correctness. For this reason, the early part of the book lays a careful foundation of techniques for proving algorithm correctness. However, rather than providing tedious correctness proofs for all of the algorithms discussed, it instead presents all algorithms in a top-down way so as to facilitate a correctness proof. With a foundational understanding of the mechanics of proving correctness, readers are equipped to gain a thorough understanding of an algorithm presented in a top-down way. Equipped with this understanding, they can then apply the design, analysis, and optimization techniques presented in the remainder of the book.

The book is intended for use in an advanced undergraduate or introductory graduate course on algorithm design and analysis. Readers are expected to have enough experience in writing programs to be able to understand algorithms presented in a pseudo language. Though calculus and number theory are used occasionally, background in these fields of study is not assumed.

Through this book, Dr. Howell equips his readers with the skills necessary to understand, design, and analyze efficient algorithms. These skills will enhance the abilities of professional programmers and software engineers to develop correct and efficient software applications.

More information:
Rodney R Howell, Algorithms, (2022). DOI: 10.1142/13069

Provided by World Scientific Publishing