Brown CS 242

Probabilistic Graphical Models, Fall 2014.

Homework Assignments

For questions about homework assignments, please post to the course discussion group, come to our office hours, or contact the course staff via e-mail: cs242tas@lists.cs.YOU-KNOW-WHERE.edu.

Grading & Logistics

Five equally weighted homework assignments will account for 60% of your overall grade. Assignments are distributed two weeks before their due date. Homeworks will involve a combination of mathematical derivations, algorithm design, programming, and real data analysis. Support code will be provided in Matlab, which you are encouraged (but not required) to use when implementing your solutions.

Signup
You will need a CS department computer account to submit your answers and access homework solutions. If this is your first CS course, email the course TA for help. To submit your answers from outside the CIT building, you will need to remotely login via ssh or VPN. The Sunlab consultants can help with configuration.
Solve
Type your answers in LaTeX, numbered by question and part as in the assignment. Be sure to include your full name and your CS account username at the top of the first page. Compile your document into a pdf. LaTeX editing can be easiest with specialized editors like Texmaker or Kile (available on department workstations). All of your answers should be in a single pdf; include result plots via the LaTeX figure environment. It is acceptable to submit scans of handwritten answers for mathematical derivations or problems which require you to draw graphical models, but they must be neat and legible. Please be clear, and make it easy for the graders to check your work and give partial credit!
Collaborate?
You may work on homework problems in groups, and discuss your work with each other. However, each student must program and write up their solutions independently. Include the names of any collaborators on the front page of your homework solutions. You may not directly copy solutions from other students, or from materials distributed in previous versions of this or other courses.
Review & Submit
Change to the directory (cd) your work is in. When you list files (ls), the only file should be hw.pdf, as well as your (probably Matlab) source code. The code doesn't need to be extensively documented, but it should be readably commented, and we may run it. Only source code may be submitted as separate files; experimental plots and results must be included as figures in your main solution pdf.
From the directory containing your solutions, execute /course/cs242/bin/cs242_handin hw?, replacing ? by the appropriate homework number. This has been tested to work but if it doesn't for any reason, e-mail your solutions to the course staff with a full description of the problem, including any warning messages.
Late Submissions
Homework assignments are due at midnight on the due date, and worth a maximum of 100 points. Your answers may be submitted up to 5 days late; after this point, solutions will be distributed and handins will no longer be accepted. You may submit up to two late assignments without penalty. For each subsequent late assignment, 10 points will be deducted from the overall score. Exceptions to this policy are only given in unusual circumstances, and any extensions must be requested in advance by e-mail to the instructor.