Seminar: Current Topics in Theoretical Computer Science / DAIS

• Course codes: B-AUK-S→ATTI-BS ·M-AuK-S-K→ATTI-MS
• External links: qis

Overview

This seminar is intended for Bachelor and Master students who are excited about theoretical computer science, including algorithms and complexity. You will learn about and present on brand-new research in the area. Moreover, you will actually get to meet international researchers in person! This is because attending all sessions of the research colloquium Discrete Algorithm Insights Seminar (DAIS) is an integral part of this seminar.

Course Staff

• Holger Dell (professor)
• Pascal Schweitzer (professor)
• Julian Brinkmann (teaching assistant)
• Tatiana Rocha Avila (teaching assistant)
• Claudia Gressler (secretary)

Organization

• First session: You will be invited by email.
• Time: During the semester, Fridays at 13h or at 14h, in-person.
• Location: Room 307, Robert-Mayer-Straße 11-15, 60325 Frankfurt am Main. Important: Several sessions will take place in Mainz or Darmstadt!

Mandatory activities

• Attendance: Attend all sessions of the seminar as well as all sessions of the research colloquium DAIS. If you cannot attend a session for an important reason (e.g., illness), you must inform us in advance.
• Short talk: At the beginning of the semester, give a short talk of at most 10 minutes on a topic of your choice, using professional slides (Google Slides, PowerPoint, Keynote, LaTeX-Beamer, …).
• Long talk: Towards the end of the semester, give a long talk of at most 30 minutes on a recent research paper, using professional slides. If you submit your draft slides at least two weeks before your long talk, you will receive feedback and can improve them before the talk.
• Report: Submit a report of 2–4 pages on the topic of your long talk two weeks after your long talk. The report should contain an outline of your talk, describe the contents of your talk, as well as formally state all references, results, definitions, and possibly proofs that were mentioned in the talk. Use this LaTeX-template (mandatory) without modifying the layout (such as margins or font sizes): github.com/goethe-tcs/note-template. If you submit in time, you will receive feedback and have another week to submit an improved version.
• Engagement: Give and receive feedback on talks and reports. Formulate and ask questions about the contents of the talks.

Topics

For the long talk, you should talk about a paper that was presented at a recent top conference in theoretical computer science, such as HALG 2024, STOC 2024, FOCS 2023, SODA 2024, or ICALP 2024. For the short talk, you can choose the same paper, a different paper, or a suitable section from a textbook in theoretical computer science (for example, consider the books Algorithms, Computational Complexity, or Parameterized Algorithms). Please send us your topic choices as soon as possible, we must approve them. If you do not send us your choices before October 31st, we will assume that you are not participating in the seminar.

Grading

Note: The grading scheme is preliminary and subject to change!

• The performance of each talk will be evaluated as satisfactory or unsatisfactory. A talk can be evaluated as unsatisfactory if the slides are severely unfinished, you are absent or too late without excuse, or you demonstrate a severe lack of understanding; in this case, you can repeat the talk at most once to try to obtain a satisfactory performance.
• The slides and the report will be evaluated as exemplary, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory. If you submit your slides and your report early enough, you will receive feedback with an initial grade, and you have the opportunity to submit an improved final version without disadvantages. If you submit after the deadline, there is no guarantee that you receive feedback.

Your final course grade is calculated as follows.