Previous Offering: Summer Semester 2022-23

• Number of Students: 44 (27 for credit) 

• Average Rating by the Students: 5.0/5.0

• Highest student ratings among all CSE courses at HKUST

Previous Offering: Spring Semester 2022-23

• Number of Students: 109 (89 for credit) 

• Most popular CSE elective course

• Average Rating by the Students: 4.82/5.0

First Offering: 

• Number of Students: 149 (125 for credit) 

• Most popular CSE elective course

• Average Rating by the Students: 4.90/5.0

• Highest student ratings among all CSE courses at HKUST

Covered topics:

• Hash Functions and Public-key Cryptography

• The Double-spending Problem

• Bitcoin and Proof-of-Work (PoW)

• Proof-of-stake and other alternatives to PoW

• Programmable Blockchains

• Introduction to Ethereum and Solidity

• Implementing Smart Contracts

• Commitment Schemes

• Auctions and Escrows

• Re-entrancy and Out-of-gas Vulnerabilities

• Incentivization Bugs

Previous Offering: 

• Number of Students: 39

• Average Rating by the Students: 4.58/5.0

• Hardest CSE PG course according to student surveys

Covered topics:

• Amortized Analysis

  • Splay Trees

  • Disjoint Sets

  • Minimum Spanning Trees

  • Binomial and Fibonacci Heaps

• Randomized Algorithms

  • QuickSort, QuickSelect, MinCut, Max-3-SAT, LazySelect

  • Randomized Complexity Classes

  • Markov, Chebyshev and Chernoff Bounds

  • The Probabilistic Method

  • Treaps and Skip Lists

  • Polynomial Identity Testing

• Parameterized Algorithms

  • Branching and Color Coding

  • Kernelization and Iterative Compression

  • XP and FPT

  • Treewidth and Pathwidth

  • Algebraic Parameterized Algorithms

• Approximation Algorithms

  • Register Allocation, Knapsack, Bin Packing, Makespan Minimization

  • LP-based Approximation

  • DNF Counting and Counting Perfect Bipartite Matchings

  • Markov Chains

Previous Offering: 

• Number of Students: 16 

• Average Rating by the Students: 4.71/5.0 

Covered topics:

• Operational, Denotational and Axiomatic Semantics

• Infinite-duration Two-player Games on Graphs (with Omega-regular objectives)

• Automata on Infinite Words

• Linear Temporal Logic

• Termination Analysis