Announcements

Welcome to Spring 2008 91.304 Foundations of Computer Science announcements page. Visit this page regularly to find out about homework assignments, exams, and other topics of interest.

• Monday, 12 May 2008: Here are some (partial) solutions for a few questions some of you asked for help with. These are hand-written, and should serve as hints rather than be considered as complete. 4.4.1, p. 165; 4.7, p. 168; 6.3.2, p.251.
• Thursday, 1 May 2008:
  1. As announced in class, on our last day, Tuesday, 13 May 2008, we'll watch "Decoding Nazi Secrets", a Nova documentary about the WW II efforts to decipher Germany's secret communications and how this affected the outcome of the war.
  2. I have assigned Gradiance exercises for Ch. 8, Turing Machines, which you can complete by Tuesday, 13 May 2008.
• Tuesday, 15 April 2008:
  1. as promised in class today, I have reopened ALL previous assignments until 30 April 2008. My goal is that you do as many of the problems as possible; this would have the double benefit of improving both your knowledge and your grade. If you repeat multiple times, please record the iteration in which you scored the highest; Gradiance reports your last score, so you'd want to let me know if you had gotten a higher one (or just go through it again and replicate your top score.
  2. In addition, I have opened new assignments, which are now due for 6 May 2008. This is in anticipation for materials that we will be covering over the coming classes, so don't be alarmed if it looks strange, we'll get there soon.
• Monday, 14 April, 2008:   The Final Exam will take place on Monday, 19 May 2008, 8:00-11:00 am (location TBA).
• Sunday, 13 April, 2008:  Grades and letter grade estimates, as of today.
  
• Wednesday, 9 April 2008: I have opened the Chapter 06 -- Pushdown Automata assignment so you can get some practice with PDA questions before tomorrow's quiz.
• Thursday, 3 April 2008: Just a reminder that we will hold Quiz 2 next Thursday (10 April). The Quiz will cover all material since Quiz 1 through Section 6.2.
• Thursday, 27 March 2008: Four assignments on Gradiance (Chapter 05: CFG's; Chapter 05: CFG's --- Additional Questions; Chapter 05: CFG's --- Proofs; Chapter 05: Parse Trees; Chapter 05: Parse Trees --- Additional Questions) are due Thursday, 4 April 2008 at at 02:59 am (will show Wednesday, 3 April 2008 23:59 PST).
• Monday, 10 March 2008:
  1. I have assigned additional assignments on Gradiance (Chapter 04: Minimization of DFAs, and Chapter 04: Regular Languages ), due on 25 March 2008, at 7:00 pm.
  2. here are your grades so far. The estimated letter grades are just that, an estimate. The "raw" grades were calculated with 25% for each of hw1 and hw2 and 50% for exam1. The "normalized" grades are normalized against the highest "raw" grade. Obviously, as the semester progresses, more assignments are assigned and graded, and the remaining exams (second quiz plus final) are graded, both the weight distributions and the grades are likely to change. Perhaps this should (also) serve as a reminder for those who have had low assignments grades to do more and better on the assignments -- a fairly easy task.
     
     

     	midterm grades
     grade dist ID	estimated	normalized	raw	hw1 (DM)	hw2 (DFA)	exam 1
     303	B-	53	44	18	0	38
     304	B	68	57	14	0	74
     305	A-	86	72	18	3	85
     326	A-	87	72	14	11	74
     327	B+	83	69	18	11	57
     340	A	100	83	18	15	74
     356	B+	82	68	18	7	66
     374	C	42	35	0	0	70
     406	A-	89	74	18	15	56
     408	A-	87	73	18	15	53
     max		100	83	18	15	85
     min		42	35	0	0	38
     median		85	70	18	9	68
     average		78	65	15	8	65
     stdev		18	15	6	7	14

• Thursday, 28 February 2008: Here are your grades for hw1 and hw2. You should have -- in your @student.uml.edu address -- a message with your grade dist ID.
  
  

  grade dist ID	hw1 (DM)	hw2 (DFA)
  303	18	N
  304	14	N
  305	18	3
  326	14	11
  327	18	11
  340	18	15
  356	18	7
  374
  406	18	15
  408	18	15

• Tuesday, 26 February 2008:
  1. Don't forget: next Tuesday (4 Mar) is our first quiz; it will cover everything we will have completed by this Thursday class, with an emphasis through the end of Chapter 3.
  2. Four assignments on Gradiance (Chapter 02: Epsilon-NFA's; Chapter 02: Nondeterministic Finite Automata; Chapter 03, 04: Regular Expressions --- Basics; and Chapter 03: Regular Expressions --- Algebra and FA Equivalence) are now due Wednesday, 5 Mar 2008 at 02:59 am (will show Tuesday, 4 Mar 2008 23:59 PST). While you have until after Tuesday's quiz, the main reason for this assignment is to prepare yourselves for the quiz, so I strongly recommend that you complete as much of it as you can before Tuesday at 1:00!
  Wednesday, 20 February 2008:
  1. If you borrowed a textbook from me, please return it at your earliest convenience. Thanks.
• Sunday, 10 February 2008:
  1. Second assignment is due Monday, 18 Feb 2008 at 02:59 am (will show Sunday, 17 Feb 2008 23:59 PST).
• Wednesday, 6 February 2008:
  1. First assignment's due date as been moved to Sunday night.
• Tuesday, 29 January 2008:
  1. First homework assignment, Discrete Math, is now available. Go to http://www.aw.com/gradiance (register, if you haven't, yet, using the text registration key and class token EF40C8C1), then click "Homework" and answer the problems on line. If you make (a) mistake(s) you can try again. The assignment will be available until Wednesday, 06 Feb 2008 at 02:59 am (will show Tuesday, 05 Feb 2008 23:59 PST).
• Thursday, 24 January 2008:
  1. Go to http://www.aw.com/gradiance to register with gradiance. Your copy of the text book includes a registration key. The class token is EF40C8C1.

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Important dates