Completed my thesis under the supervision of Félix Balado Pumariño and moderation of Shen Wang and Damian Dalton, over the course of two modules totalling 15 ECTS due to University College Dublin (UCD)’s new Final Year Project (FYP) structure: FYP Foundations (COMP30900) at 5 ECTS and FYP Design and Implementation (COMP30910) at 10 ECTS. My thesis is titled "Finding the Minimum Number of Sudoku Clues Through Information Theory" and focussed on deriving an information theoretic explanation for the results at the state-of-the-art (SOTA) of the Minimum Sudoku Clue Problem (MSCP). That explanation would then be used to lay the foundation for improvements beyond the SOTA of the MSCP.

Deliverables

• FYP Foundations (COMP30090): Submitted two deliverables as part of requirements consisting of a 28-page foundations report and 10-minute presentation which both summarized my plan of action and were presented to both moderators.

• FYP Design and Implementation (COMP30910): Submitted 39-page thesis to examiners for review.

Outputs

• Historical survey of Sudoku and MSCP from origins to SOTA.

• Analytical proof of capacity of N-ary erasure communication channels for Sudoku codes.

• Laid groundwork for potential advancements in error-free communication across the channel.

• Information-Theoretic rates of 4x4, 9x9, 16x16 and 25x25 Sudoku grids.

• Identified avenues of future research to build on thesis.

Outcomes

• I was awarded the Franz Geiselbrechtinger Medal 2019/2020 for having the best thesis in my graduating cohort.