big-o
Last edited: September 9, 2025Intuition:
- \(O\): \(\leq\) (function in the symbol is
- \(\theta\): \(=\)
- \(\Omega\): \(\geq\) (function in the symbol is a lower bound)
Definition Intuition:
We say \(f\qty(n) = O\qty(g\qty(n))\) such that “when \(n\) gets big enough, \(f\qty(n)\) is bounded by at most a constant multiple of \(g\qty(n)\).
Definitions:
- \(f(n) = O(g(n)) \Leftrightarrow \exists c, n_{0} > 0: \forall n > n_0, f(n) \leq c (g(n))\)
- \(f(n) = \Omega(g(n)) \implies \exists n_{0}: \forall n > n_0, f(n) \geq c (g(n))\)
- \(f(n) = \theta(g(n)) \implies \exists n_{0}: \forall n > n_0, f(n) \geq 1 (g(n)), f(n) \leq c (g(n))\)
Little ones:
cost function
Last edited: September 9, 2025a cost function \(J\) tells us how good our training is. For instance, least-squares error
additional information
gradient descent
Last edited: September 9, 2025It’s hard to make globally optimal solution, so therefore we instead make local progress.
constituents
- parameters \(\theta\)
- step size \(\alpha\)
- cost function \(J\) (and its derivative \(J’\))
requirements
let \(\theta^{(0)} = 0\) (or a random point), and then:
\begin{equation} \theta^{(t+1)} = \theta^{(t)} - \alpha J’\qty (\theta^{(t)}) \end{equation}
“update the weight by taking a step in the opposite direction of the gradient by weight”. We stop, btw, when its “good enough” because the training data noise is so much that like a little bit non-convergent optimization its fine.
Human Health Index
Last edited: September 9, 2025Lecture
insertion sort
Last edited: September 9, 2025insertion sort is an algorithm that solves the sorting problem.
constituents
a sequence of \(n\) numbers \(\{a_1, \dots a_{n}\}\), called keys
intuition
Say you have a sorted list; sticking a new element into the list doesn’t change the fact that the list is sorted.
requirements
Insertion sort provides an ordered sequence \(\{a_1’, \dots a_{n}’\}\) s.t. \(a_1’ \leq \dots \leq a_{n}’\)
void insertion_sort(int length, int *A) {
for (int j=1; j<length; j++) {
int key = A[j];
// insert the key correctly into the
// sorted sequence, when appropriate
int i = j-1;
while (i > 0 && A[i] > key) { // if things before had
// larger key
// move them
A[i+1] = A[i]; // move it down
// move our current value down
i -= 1;
}
// put our new element into the correct palace
A[i+1] = key;
}
}
This is an \(O\qty(n^{2})\) algorithm.
