PROBLEM SOLVING IN ALGORITHMS A RESEARCH APPROACH

This book aims to develop critical thinking skills through problem solving. Each chapter is based on published research by the author and demonstratesa detailed thinking process for a specific problem that may arise in a diverse selection of research areas such as communication, biology, data mining, computer architecture and general computer science. The author begins each chapter by describing a single problem of interest and motivations for this study before diving into formal treatments of the topic and ending with comments, suggestions and open problems for further research in the conclusion. The book is modular with self-contained chapters suitable as a reference book for researchers or as a textbook for graduate students in algorithms. The author emphasizes firm theoretical understanding of each problem with related complexities. Formal treatment of cyber security is an example of such an approach where the problem is properly defined with two computing problems from the economic perspectives of the attackers and defenders. The author first defines a cyber security model, discusses two computing solutions and analyses their complexities that turn out to be NP-complete. Approximation algorithms are then introduced. The topics selected are relevant and important for the digital transformation age which is still lacking theoretical treatments. The author has made an attempt to fill this gap and stimulate interest.