This book provides a concise and reasonably complete coverage of the background mathematics.
Relevant literature will be made available on the web whenever possible, and copies of essential papers will be distributed when web-based distribution is not possible. However, you are expected to make extensive use of supplementary references.
This class is a two unit class scheduled in a three unit time slot. Thus, instead of meeting 30 times, it will meet 20 times. There will be some gaps during the semester (dates to be determined), but we expect to finish the lectures well before the end of the semester.
I will ask for a "scribe" for each lecture. This scribe will be responsible for taking notes and then summarizing the lecture in a short HTML document. An important part of this role is to collect definitions for a glossary. Every enrolled student and auditor will be asked to serve as scribe at least once. The resulting summaries will be placed on the web.
The main required component of the course is the project. Students will be expected to give oral reports on their projects. This will occur after the 20 lectures have been completed (dates to be determined). A set of interrim reports will be required as well (a proposal, a midterm status report, and a final report). The first two will be short written summaries. The final report will be a written summary and an oral presentation.
There will be sporadic problems assigned. These are not expected to be a large burden, but rather to provide incentive to keep up with the reading.