Department of Computer Science | Institute of Theoretical Computer Science | Theory of Combinatorial Algorithms

Ahad N. Zehmakan

I am a PhD student in the Theory of Combinatorial Algorithms Group and I am very fortunate to be advised by Prof. Bernd Gärtner. I have a general interest in theoretical computer science, especially algorithmic graph theory, combinatorics, and parallel computing. My main focus of interest lies in the analysis of opinion formation and rumor spreading on social networks.

Papers

• "Target Set in Threshold Models"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB '19), Bratislava, Slovakia, 2019.
  
  
• "Fake news and rumors: a trigger for proliferation or fading away"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan and Serge Galam.
  Submitted, 2019.
  
  
• "Switches in Eulerian graphs"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan, Jerri Nummenpalo, Alexander Pilz, and Daniel Wolleb-Graf.
  European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB '19), Bratislava, Slovakia, 2019.
  
  
• "Phase Transition in Democratic Opinion Dynamics"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Submitted, 2019.
  
  
• "Two Phase Transitions in Two-way Bootstrap Percolation"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Submitted, 2019.
  
  
• "Tight Bounds on the Minimum Size of a Dynamic Monopoly"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  13th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '19), Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2019.
  
  
• "Dynamic Monopolies in Two-way Bootstrap Percolation"
  Clemens Jeger and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Discrete Applied Mathematics (DAM), 2019.
  
  
• "Opinion Forming in Erdős-Rényi Random Graph and Expanders"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 29th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC '18), Yilan County, Taiwan, 2018.
  Best Student Paper Award.
  
  
• "Transition Operations over Plane Trees"
  Torrie L. Nichols, Alexander Pilz, Csaba D. Toth, and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2018.
  
  
• "Majority Model on Random Regular Graphs"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2018.
  
  
• "(Biased) Majority Rule Cellular Automata"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  Submitted, 2017.
  
  
• "Color War: Cellular Automata with Majority-Rule"
  Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  11th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '17), Umeå, Sweden, 2017.
  
  
• "Bin Packing Problem: A Linear Constant-space 3/2 - Approximation Algorithm"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan and Mojtaba Eslahi-Kelorazi.
  International Journal on Computational Science and Applications (IJCSA), 2016.
  
  
• "Bin Packing Problem: Two Approximation Algorithms"
  Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  International Journal on Foundations of Computer Science and Technology (IJFCST), 2016.
  
  

Theses

• "Graph-based Outlier Detection "
  Master thesis in Computer Science, supervised by Prof. Dr. Amir Daneshgar, 2015.
  
  
• "Traffic Simulation Using Cellular Automata"
  Bachelor thesis in Computer Science, supervised by Prof. Dr. Farzad Didehvar, 2013.
  
  

Teaching

• Algorithms, Probability, and Computing, Fall 2018, ETH Zürich (Head Assistant).
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2018, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Algorithms, Probability, and Computing, Fall 2017, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2017, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Fall 2016, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics, Fall 2016, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Data Structures and Algorithms, Spring 2016, ETH Zürich.
  
  
• Language and Automata Theory, Spring 2015, Sharif University of Technology.
  
  

Supervised Theses

Please consult our guidelines if you consider writing a thesis in our group.


• "Bootstrap Percolation on Complex Networks"
  Master Thesis, Swaneet K. Sahoo, 2019.
  Supervisors: Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  
• "Threshold and Majority Rules on Tori"
  Master Thesis, Clemens Jeger, 2018.
  Supervisors: Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  
• "Color War: Majority Cellular Automata"
  Bachelor Thesis, Laurin Köhler-Schindler, 2016.
  Supervisors: Bernd Gärtner and Ahad N. Zehmakan.
  
  

Selected Talks

• "Tight Bounds on the Minimum Size of a Dynamic Monopoly"
  13th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '19), Saint Petersburg, Russia, March 2019.
  
  
• "Opinion Forming in Erdős-Rényi Random Graph and Expanders"
  The 29th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC '18), Yilan County, Taiwan, December 2018.
  
  
• "Majority Model on Random Regular Graphs"
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2018.
  
  
• "Transition Operations over Plane Trees"
  The 13th Latin American Theoretical INformatics Symposium (LATIN '18), Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2018.
  
  
• "Bootstrap Percolation"
  Mittagsseminar, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, May 2018.
  
  
• "Opinion Spreading in Random Geometry"
  Mittagsseminar, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, June 2017.
  
  
• "Color War: Cellular Automata with Majority Rule"
  11th International Conference on Language and Automata Theory and Applications (LATA '17), Umeå, Sweden, March 2017.