There are many computational problems in our real life that are computable within a reasonable amount of time using a reasonable computing device. For this type of problems, we seek algorithms that can deterministically search for optimal solutions in reasonable time. On the other hand, there are problems that are hard, if not impossible, to compute, or complex enough to the extent that deterministic methods take too long to find solutions- even approximate solutions. Some of these problems are ill-conditioned, in the sense that a small change in the independent variables (inputs) causes...

Engineers encounter data in many of their tasks. Whether the sources of this data may be experiments, databases, computer files, or the Internet, there is a dire need for effective methods to model and analyze the data and extract useful knowledge and information from it. This course aims to provide engineering graduate students with essential knowledge of data representation, grouping, mining and knowledge discovery.