Algorithms Case Studies & Practical Application 2

Question 1

A GPS navigation app must find the shortest path between two cities on a weighted road network. Which algorithm is the most practical choice?

Accepted Answer

Dijkstra's algorithm

Answer

Dijkstra's algorithm efficiently finds shortest paths in graphs with non-negative edge weights, making it the standard choice for road networks.

Question 2

An e-commerce platform needs to recommend products by finding items most similar to what a user viewed, using cosine similarity across millions of items. What algorithmic approach reduces lookup time?

Accepted Answer

Locality-Sensitive Hashing (LSH)

Answer

LSH approximates nearest-neighbor search in high-dimensional spaces, dramatically reducing the number of comparisons needed.

Question 3

A hospital scheduling system assigns surgeries to operating rooms to minimize idle time. This is an instance of which classical problem?

Accepted Answer

Job Scheduling / Interval Scheduling

Answer

Minimizing idle time in room assignments is a classic interval scheduling or job-shop scheduling problem.

Question 4

A compiler needs to detect circular dependencies among modules. Which algorithm is best suited for this?

Accepted Answer

Topological sort with cycle detection (DFS)

Answer

DFS-based topological sort detects back edges that indicate cycles, making it ideal for finding circular dependencies in a directed graph.

Question 5

A social network wants to find communities (clusters of highly connected users). Which algorithmic technique is commonly applied?

Accepted Answer

Community detection via modularity optimization or Louvain algorithm

Answer

Community detection algorithms like Louvain partition graphs into clusters by maximizing modularity, capturing densely connected groups.

Algorithms Practice Test

Algorithms Practice Test

Algorithms Case Studies & Practical Application 2