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.

Algorithms: A Top-Down Approach retails for US$138 / £120 (hardcover) and is also available in electronic formats. To order or know more about the book, visit http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/13069.

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About the Author

Rodney R Howell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Kansas State University, USA. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, USA in 1988. He has been a faculty member at Kansas State since that time. He has done research in Petri nets, self-stabilizing systems, and real-time scheduling theory. His research has been published in various international journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. He has taught courses in analysis of algorithm, data structures, and formal language theory, among other topics. He currently serves as his department’s Undergraduate Programs Director.

About World Scientific Publishing Co.

World Scientific Publishing is a leading international independent publisher of books and journals for the scholarly, research and professional communities. World Scientific collaborates with prestigious organisations like the Nobel Foundation and US National Academies Press to bring high quality academic and professional content to researchers and academics worldwide. The company publishes about 600 books and over 160 journals in various fields annually. To find out more about World Scientific, please visit www.worldscientific.com.

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