Computer Science BS Journal (CST370) : Week 6

 This week in CST370, we focused on advanced data structures designed to improve efficiency. We started with AVL Trees, which are self-balancing binary search trees. I learned how rotations help maintain balance after insertions and deletions, ensuring operations like search, insert, and delete stay at 

$O(\log n)$.

Next, we studied 2-3 Trees, another balanced search tree structure. Unlike binary trees, nodes can store one or two keys, which helps keep the tree perfectly balanced. This guarantees efficient operations and deepened my understanding of how balancing improves performance.

We then covered Heaps and Heapsort. A heap is a complete binary tree that satisfies the heap property (max-heap or min-heap). I learned how heaps are useful for priority queues and how Heapsort uses the heap structure to sort elements in $O(n \log n)$ time without needing extra space like merge sort.

Finally, we explored Hashing, which uses hash functions to map keys to indices in a table. Hashing provides average-case $O(1)$ search, insert, and delete operations, but I also learned about collisions and strategies like chaining or open addressing to handle them.

Overall, this week emphasized efficiency through balanced trees and fast data access methods.