CS109: Introduction to Probability for Computer Scientists Spring 2011-2012

Staff Email: cs109@cs.stanford.edu

• If you believe there was an error in grading your midterm, we will be accepting midterm re-grade requests until Wednesday, May 23rd. To request a re-grade, please write a short description of what you believe the grading error was and submit the write-up along with your midterm in class to Mehran. We reserve the right to re-grade the entire exam to make sure that there are no other grading issues with the exam.

• If you did not pick up your graded midterm after class on Monday (May 14th), you can pick it up in the box labelled Graded CS109 Problem Sets by the handout bins in the Gates building.

• The CS109 Midterms have been graded and will be returned after class on Monday, May 14th. The statistics of the midterm (out of 120 points) are:
  • Median = 85 (70.8%)
  • Mean = 83.7 (69.8%)
  • Std. Dev. = 19.57
  • Max = 118

  A histogram of the midterm scores is available here.

• Statistics on Problem Set #1 are:
  • Median = 93.5
  • Mean = 88.5
  • Std. Dev. = 18.9

• Statistics on Problem Set #2 are:
  • Median = 93
  • Mean = 87.7
  • Std. Dev. = 15.6

• Statistics on Problem Set #3 are:
  • Median = 95
  • Mean = 90.6
  • Std. Dev. = 13.4

• Cameron's office hours this week will not be held on Friday (due to a conflict with midterm grading). Instead, Cameron will be hold office hours from 4pm-6pm on Thursday, May 10th and 4:30-6:30pm on Sunday, May 13th. Both these office hours will be in Gates B26B.
• Reminder: The CS109 Midterm is scheduled for Tuesday, May 8th from 7pm-9pm in NVIDIA Auditorium.

  The midterm exam will be open book (Ross textbook only) and open notes, but closed computer/calculator. The midterm will cover material covered through May 2nd.

• A handout covering problems that the TAs went over at the midterm review session on Sunday, May 6th is available here.

• A midterm review session has been scheduled for Sunday, May 6th 7pm-9pm in Hewlett 201.
  Please note that the review session will not be videotaped.
• The CS109 Midterm is scheduled for Tuesday, May 8th from 7pm-9pm in NVIDIA Auditorium.

  The midterm exam will be open book (Ross textbook only) and open notes, but closed computer/calculator. The midterm will cover material covered through May 2nd.

• The CS109 Midterm is scheduled for May 8th from 7pm-9pm. If you have a conflict with the midterm time, please email Mehran before 5pm on Wednesday, May 2nd to let him know about the conflict. In your email, also list all the times you would be available to take an alternate midterm exam during the week of May 7-12. We'll schedule an alternate midterm time based on the availability constraints of everyone with a conflict with the regular time.
• As unanimously voted on in class on Wednesday (April 25), the class agreed that Problem Set #3 could be turned in a maximum of 2 days late (i.e., May 7th is the last day we will accept late Problem Set #3 submissions). This will allow us to distribute solutions to Problem Set #3 on May 7th, so that you will have them available before the midterm exam.

• John Rothfels will be holding additional office hours this week. The additional hours are Tuesday (April 24) and Thursday (April 26) from 4pm-6pm. The office hours will be held in Gates B26A (from 4pm-5pm) and Gates B24A (from 5pm-6pm).

• Problem Set #1 will be returned in class on Friday, April 20th. If you did not get your problem set in class, you can pick it up by the handout bins on the first floor of the Gates building in a box labeled Graded CS109 Problem Sets.

  Please note that there is a one week turn-around time for grading problem sets, so it you turned in your problem set late, it will be graded a week after the date you turned it in.

• Mehran's office hours this week (on April 18th) are moved 1 hour earlier, so they will be from 1:15pm-3:15pm (not 2:15-4:15pm). This move is just for this week (due to an unmoveable conflicting meeting).
• Just for fun, here is a link to an article that discusses the statistical distribution of the propensity to engage in the seven deadly sins across the US. Will the wonders of probability never cease.... Thanks to Peter Johnson for finding and sharing this link!

• Unless you are an SCPD student, please do NOT email your assignments. We've had numerous issues in the past with assignments being sent in unreadable formats, files being corrupted in email, attachments being forgotten, bounced emails or emails not being received by the staff (sent to the wrong address), etc. All non-SCPD students should turn in hardcopies of their assigments either in class or at Mehran's office (you can slide it under the door if he's not in).
• SCPD students can either send their assignments via the SCPD courier or email a PDF file to cs109@cs.stanford.edu.

• If you are interested in writing-up your problem sets using the LaTex system (this is purely optional), there is a short intoduction to LaTex available as a PDF document, and you can also obtain the original LaTex file that was used to generate that PDF (so you can see an example of LaTex source).

  If you are thinking of writing your solutions for the Problem Sets in LaTex, you might find it useful to start with this LaTex template file for Problem sets.

• Welcome to CS109!
• The first class is Monday, April 2nd, 11:00am-12:15pm in NVIDIA Auditorium.
• Please watch this web site for important class announcements or assignment errata.
• You might also be interested in the one unit course CS109L: Statistical Programming with R Laboratory.

• Handouts from class will be available on the handouts page. Any hardcopies remaining after class will be available in the handout bins on the first floor of the Gates building.
• Staff office hours and locations will be posted on the Course Staff page.

• The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled New Hiring Formula Values Math Pros talking about how employers are seeking computer scientists with training in statistics and probability. CS109 is specifically mentioned in the article.
• An article from the New York Times discusses the increasing importance of statistics in computing. The article is entitled For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics.