1 00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:04,610 Okay, good morning guys, Discrete Optimization Mail Bag Week Four. 2 00:00:04,610 --> 00:00:07,730 You won't see me today, I'm going to be truly invisible. 3 00:00:07,730 --> 00:00:11,320 I'm on the West Coast of the United States, in Seattle. 4 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:15,140 If you would see me, you know, would drop the class immediately. 5 00:00:15,140 --> 00:00:18,430 I'm so exhausted that you'd think I'm going to die and not being able to 6 00:00:18,430 --> 00:00:23,360 deliver any kind of certificate, so don't worry if you don't see me, it's just for 7 00:00:23,360 --> 00:00:27,940 your own sanity. But I can't do much not to give you these 8 00:00:27,940 --> 00:00:30,300 mailbags. So announcements, you know the mid course 9 00:00:30,300 --> 00:00:35,180 survey's finishing in a week. So please, you know, fill it in if you 10 00:00:35,180 --> 00:00:40,690 want to , we'll review the feedback that we got in next week's mailbag. 11 00:00:40,690 --> 00:00:43,570 We have already looked at some of the stuff so this, so this is quite 12 00:00:43,570 --> 00:00:46,907 interesting. We also wanted to tell you that we have 13 00:00:46,907 --> 00:00:51,170 updated the VRP grader. We, we were a little bit too tough so we 14 00:00:51,170 --> 00:00:57,010 lowered the bar for getting ten points and this is something that I'll cover a 15 00:00:57,010 --> 00:00:59,850 little bit more in detail at the end of the mailbag. 16 00:00:59,850 --> 00:01:05,250 posting your experience, so this is, this is really nice what has been happening 17 00:01:05,250 --> 00:01:09,680 and, you know, when you teach the class in a regular university so what happens 18 00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:14,450 is that a lot of the interactions in class you know, you, you have students, 19 00:01:14,450 --> 00:01:17,250 that is happening, and you have students talking about what they do. 20 00:01:17,250 --> 00:01:21,590 Other students asking questions, so the way to do this in an online class is to 21 00:01:21,590 --> 00:01:24,150 go to the forum. And so I think a lot of people have 22 00:01:24,150 --> 00:01:26,895 stepped up, have told, you know, other people what they were doing. 23 00:01:26,895 --> 00:01:31,080 you know, give some you know, insight on what works, what doesn't work. 24 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:33,620 I think that's great. People should keep doing that. 25 00:01:33,620 --> 00:01:37,870 People should ask questions. I think this is very much in the spirit 26 00:01:37,870 --> 00:01:40,760 of the class, you know. And, and once again, I want to repeat 27 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,650 that you know, the policy, the collaboration policy is very lenient. 28 00:01:43,650 --> 00:01:48,750 You can do a lot on the forum and help fellow students or ask help. 29 00:01:48,750 --> 00:01:50,690 This is a very important part of the class. 30 00:01:50,690 --> 00:01:53,384 this is a, a couple of slides on the statistics. 31 00:01:53,384 --> 00:01:57,562 So this is, these are the students who, who are active in the assignments. 32 00:01:57,562 --> 00:02:02,100 We are still, you know, above a thousand, which is, you know, or dream, you know, 33 00:02:02,100 --> 00:02:04,440 achieving a, you know, a thousand certificates. 34 00:02:04,440 --> 00:02:06,740 So, so this is great. Keep, keep working. 35 00:02:06,740 --> 00:02:09,630 Keep, keep going. This, so this is going fine. 36 00:02:09,630 --> 00:02:13,840 this is the total submission graded. Okay, and what is amazing there, you 37 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:21,300 know, can you realize we have graded 100,000 feet, 150,000 assignments at this 38 00:02:21,300 --> 00:02:23,640 point. You see the curve which is graded nicely 39 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:27,810 so this is, this is good news. The number of submissions per active 40 00:02:27,810 --> 00:02:31,420 students, it seems that, you know, people are basically submitting 20 times if hey 41 00:02:31,420 --> 00:02:34,010 are active. So this is getting, this is stability at 42 00:02:34,010 --> 00:02:36,750 a very nice point, now. That means we have a stable group of 43 00:02:36,750 --> 00:02:39,340 students there. We should keep that at that level and 44 00:02:39,340 --> 00:02:43,600 this is, this is great. on track part per active student, once 45 00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:46,390 again, nice progression, it's going up, it's going up, that's what we want. 46 00:02:46,390 --> 00:02:50,360 We want things to go up and stay going up at the same you know, rate so this is, 47 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:54,190 this is, this is good. this is an interesting slide. 48 00:02:54,190 --> 00:02:57,050 Actually this is a participation part of the assignment, so there are a couple of 49 00:02:57,050 --> 00:02:59,440 things interesting here. The TSP, we are almost there. 50 00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:04,010 This, you know, 1,000 mark that we want. what is also interesting is that people 51 00:03:04,010 --> 00:03:08,000 keep that fact and graph covering, there are more people acting on these 52 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:10,470 assignments. And so that means people are still 53 00:03:10,470 --> 00:03:13,040 joining the class and trying to catch up. So this is amazing. 54 00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:17,640 So that's, that's get us very excited. So, you know, you know, welcome all those 55 00:03:17,640 --> 00:03:22,430 of you who are doing that and hopefully everybody is going to basically get this 56 00:03:22,430 --> 00:03:25,060 bar full of TSP at the, at the 1,000 soon. 57 00:03:25,060 --> 00:03:31,180 we did another thing here which is basically inside the Grade tab. 58 00:03:31,180 --> 00:03:34,500 We added a plot just to stimulate everyone. 59 00:03:34,500 --> 00:03:39,170 So what you see in this plot is basically on the x-axis the points awarded over, 60 00:03:39,170 --> 00:03:44,820 you know, the points awarded and, and the total number of students on the y-axis. 61 00:03:44,820 --> 00:03:48,650 And the curve that you see is basically the progression in the points awarded 62 00:03:48,650 --> 00:03:51,630 week by week. And so the goal of course is to push this 63 00:03:51,630 --> 00:03:56,250 line, this blue line, the dark blue line. You know, up and up and up so that we 64 00:03:56,250 --> 00:03:59,430 stay above these lines. The one, two, three, four, five of the 65 00:03:59,430 --> 00:04:05,550 various, the, the various assignments. we are at the TSP now, which is probably 66 00:04:05,550 --> 00:04:10,050 the most, you know, I think we've just finished, the, the hardest part. 67 00:04:10,050 --> 00:04:13,690 Part of the class where [UNKNOWN] location is, is, is easier. 68 00:04:13,690 --> 00:04:16,920 There are some twists you know, there are some really interesting things in 69 00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:20,340 [UNKNOWN] locations. But, but it's easier from a, from a 70 00:04:20,340 --> 00:04:25,180 programming standpoint that, than that the graph coloring in and the TSB 71 00:04:25,180 --> 00:04:28,360 assignments. So in a sense I think we have this hope 72 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:32,790 that this, blue curve is going to go up and stay above threshold and, and you 73 00:04:32,790 --> 00:04:35,740 know, we need you obviously to actually fulfill that dream. 74 00:04:35,740 --> 00:04:40,270 So keep working, keep working, guys. another thing that was interesting here 75 00:04:40,270 --> 00:04:42,640 was what happened with the knapsack assignment. 76 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:46,300 You see there are this, this big jumps, that is, big, discontinuities for the 77 00:04:46,300 --> 00:04:50,260 knapsack, and that's where people got stuck and then gave up. 78 00:04:50,260 --> 00:04:54,360 And what we are, what we are not seeing, we are not seeing that now, at this point 79 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:58,260 for the rest, so this is much smoother, and hopefully that means that we will be 80 00:04:58,260 --> 00:05:01,540 able to have that curve and keep it above the 1,000 mark. 81 00:05:01,540 --> 00:05:05,850 So, you know interesting statistics. You know, we were kind of surprised to 82 00:05:05,850 --> 00:05:09,430 see that. this is the VRP assignment update that I 83 00:05:09,430 --> 00:05:13,090 mentioned to you. essentially, you know, it's telling you 84 00:05:13,090 --> 00:05:19,050 ten points, you know, the number of points that you, you would get. 85 00:05:19,050 --> 00:05:22,570 you would need before to get to get ten points and a number afterwards. 86 00:05:22,570 --> 00:05:26,680 So I think it's, it's basically it's basically lowering a little bit the 87 00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:28,790 standards. Because we were really, really demanding, 88 00:05:28,790 --> 00:05:32,680 and so everything is being re-graded. So you can, yo can look at your score now 89 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:34,990 and, and see these changes that we have done. 90 00:05:34,990 --> 00:05:40,993 it's too, it's, you know, it's, it's too very difficult to get a 10 point on this, 91 00:05:40,993 --> 00:05:46,300 on this bench mark, on this, on this assignment, but it's a little bit easier 92 00:05:46,300 --> 00:05:48,430 than it used to be. So what's next? 93 00:05:48,430 --> 00:05:50,720 I think you know, keep up the steady progress on the assignments, you know 94 00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:53,990 keep up the great work. You know put, move this curve up above 95 00:05:53,990 --> 00:05:58,010 the thresholds, and next week, one of the things we'll do is review the mid-course 96 00:05:58,010 --> 00:06:00,835 survey and tell you a little bit what the feedback is in the class. 97 00:06:00,835 --> 00:06:05,750 So keep up the amazing optimizations. I'll see you next week, and I'll be back 98 00:06:05,750 --> 00:06:08,070 in Australia. So I'll, you know, you'll see me again, 99 00:06:08,070 --> 00:06:13,310 and hopefully I'll be, you know, it's not going to be too painful to watch me. 100 00:06:13,310 --> 00:06:15,100 Okay guys. Thank you very much. 101 00:06:15,100 --> 00:06:16,690 Talk to you soon. Bye.