Lecture 16

Learning objectives

After this class, you should be able to:

1. Given a set of characters and their frequencies, construct a Huffman tree and determine the Huffman code for each character.
2. Prove the correctness of the Huffman code construction algorithm.

Reading assignment

1. CLR: Section 16.3.
2. Read article cited at: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9344740 on improving the efficiency of genetic code through Huffman coding.

Exercises and review questions

• Questions on current lecture's material
  1. Exercise 16.3-2.
  2. Exercise 16.3-3.
  3. (Post your answer in the discussion board) What are the frequencies of different amino acids in proteins? Find a Huffman code for amino acids with these frequencies.

• Questions on next lecture's material
  1. None.