Algorithms are described in a C-like language, with correctness proofs and complexity analysis, to make them ready to implement. The book will be an important resource for students and researchers in theoretical computer science, computational linguistics, computational biology, and software engineering.

    Providing exercises to help students learn the properties of algorithms, this text places a greater emphasis on abstract data types, modular programming, object-oriented programming and C++ classes.

    It is suitable for anyone with some basic programming concepts. It covers graph properties and types, graph search, directed graphs, minimal spanning trees, shortest paths, and networks.

    Because of this, the design of algorithms for solving hard problems is the core of current algorithmic research from the theoretical point of view as well as from the practical point of view. There are many general text books on algorithmics, and several specialized books devoted to particular approaches such as local search, randomization, approximation algorithms, or heuristics. But there is no textbook that focuses on the design of algorithms for hard computing tasks, and that systematically explains, combines, and compares the main possibilities for attacking hard algorithmic problems. As this topic is fundamental for computer science, this book tries to close this gap. Another motivation, and probably the main reason for writing this book, is connected to education. The considered area has developed very dynami cally in recent years and the research on this topic discovered several profound results, new concepts, and new methods. Some of the achieved contributions are so fundamental that one can speak about paradigms which should be in cluded in the education of every computer science student. Unfortunately, this is very far from reality. This is because these paradigms are not sufficiently known in the computer science community, and so they are insufficiently com municated to students and practitioners."