We survey the classical multi-armed bandit problem and discuss several variations such as the problem of stochastic search in a forest and the union branching bandit problem.
A typical problem in network design is to find a subgraph H of a given graph G such that H satisfies some connectivity requirements and has minimum cost.
Cryptographic primitives often define controlled access to (learning and influencing) information, permitting some kind of access while denying others.
I shall describe two approaches to the study of self-assembly. The first approach involves experiments with DNA molecules. We use DNA like a construction material --- akin to the uses of brick, cement, glass, etc. --- to form nanostructures.
We will study computations performed with limited memory. This will bring us into contact with several ideas in the area of randomness and computation. We will illustrate these ideas using the following toy example.
