Lab 01: Python Dictionary - Storing Disease Information

🎯 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lab, you will be able to:

• Create and manipulate Python dictionaries
• Access, add, and modify dictionary values
• Create a list of dictionaries
• Loop through dictionaries to display data

⏰ Time Allocation (3 hours)

Activity	Duration
🎯 Lecture & Slides	30 min
📖 Tutorial Notebook	60 min
☕ Break	15 min
✍️ Exercise Notebook	45 min
📤 Submit & Auto-grade	15 min
💬 Q&A	15 min

📁 Files in This Lab

template-lab01-dictionary/
├── README.md                    # This file
├── slides/
│   └── Lab01_Slides.tex        # Lecture slides (LaTeX Beamer)
├── tutorial/
│   └── Lab01_Tutorial.ipynb    # Learn step-by-step
├── exercise/
│   └── Lab01_Exercise.ipynb    # Complete the exercises
├── data/
│   └── diseases.md             # Sample disease data
└── tests/
    └── test_lab01.py           # Auto-grading tests

🚀 Getting Started

Step 1: Open Tutorial Notebook

Start with tutorial/Lab01_Tutorial.ipynb to learn the concepts.

Step 2: Complete Exercises

After finishing the tutorial, open exercise/Lab01_Exercise.ipynb and complete all 5 exercises.

Step 3: Submit Your Work

git add .
git commit -m "Complete Lab 01"
git push

Step 4: Check Your Score

Go to the Actions tab in your GitHub repository to see your auto-grading results.

📚 Key Concepts

What is a Dictionary?

A dictionary stores data as key-value pairs, like a real dictionary where:

• Key = the word you look up
• Value = the definition

# Example: Disease information
disease = {
    "name": "Rubella",           # key: "name", value: "Rubella"
    "symptoms": "fever, rash",   # key: "symptoms", value: "fever, rash"
    "treatment": "rest"          # key: "treatment", value: "rest"
}

Why Use Dictionaries in RAG Systems?

In RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) systems, we store documents as dictionaries:

• Easy to organize metadata
• Fast lookup by key
• Flexible structure for different document types

🏆 Grading

Exercise	Points
Exercise 1: Create a dictionary	20
Exercise 2: Add a new key	20
Exercise 3: Access values	20
Exercise 4: Create list of dictionaries	20
Exercise 5: Loop through data	20
Total	100

💡 Tips

• Read the tutorial carefully before starting exercises
• Test your code by running each cell
• Check the expected output format
• Don't hesitate to ask for help!

📖 Reference

• Python Dictionary Documentation
• Disease data from: Generic-RAG/md_corpus/

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Course: CSI403 - Full Stack Program Development
Lab: 01 - Python Dictionary