The course described below is being offered as the "Topics" course
ELEN W6781 in spring '01, but it is equally applicable to IE/OR and CS,
and to a lesser extent the Business School and Statistics Dept.
It follows most naturally from undergraduate courses in the design
and analysis of algorithms (although such courses will not be needed
as prerequisites).

Course title:  Probabilistic Analysis of Combinatorial Algorithms in
               Electrical, Industrial, and Computer Engineering

Instructor:  E. G. Coffman, Jr.

Course description:
            In various guises, scheduling, packing, routing, and
allocation problems are fundamental to virtually all branches of
engineering.  Typically, since optimal solutions are out of reach,
one turns to approximate techniques.  This course investigates
such techniques in the setting of probabilistic (usually asymptotic
average-case) analysis.  Specific topics include average-case
analysis of algorithms for on-line and greedy scheduling, next-fit
and best-fit bin packing, packings in two dimensions, space filling,
the TSP problem, and vehicle routing. 

Prerequisites:  The student is expected to have a good undergraduate
probability background.