91.304 - Foundations of Computer Science - Spring 2008
Dr. Haim Levkowitz
Associate Professor of Computer Science
University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA

Course Outline (tentative)

Week

Date

Reading

Topics

1

29 Jan 2008 (Tu)

1.2-1.4

Introduction and administrative trivia

31 Jan 2008 (Th)

1.4, 1.5. 2.2

Formal proofs; inductive proofs; central concepts of automata theory; informal picture of finite automata; deterministic finite automata

2

5 Feb 2008 (Tu)

2.3-2.4

Nondeterministic finite automata; an application: text search

7 Feb 2008 (Th)

2.5

NFA with epsilon-transitions

3

12 Feb 2008 (Tu)

3.1-3.2

Regular expressions, languages, and DFAs; regular expressions

14 Feb 2008 (Th)

3.3-3.4

Applications of regular expressions; algebraic properties of regular expressions

4

19 Feb 2008 (Tu)

Monday Schedule. No class.

21 Feb 2008 (Th)

4.1

Proving languages not to be regular; pumping lemma for regular expressions

5

26 Feb 2008 (Tu)

4.2

Closure properties of regular languages; decision properties of regular languages;

28 Feb 2008 (Th)

4.4

Equivalence and minimization of DFAs;

6

4 Mar 2008 (Tu)

Quiz 1 (everything so far)

6 Mar 2008 (Th)

5.1-5.2

Context-free grammars and languages; parse trees and ambiguity

7

11 Mar 2008 (Tu)

5.3-5.4

Applications of context-free grammars

13 Mar 2008 (Th)

6.1-6.2

Pushdown automata; the language of a PDA

18, 20 Mar 2008

Spring Break. No classes.

8

25 Mar 2008 (Tu)

6.3-6.4

Equivalence of PDAs and CFGs; deterministic pushdown automata

27 Mar 2008 (Th)

7.1-7.2

Normal forms for context-free grammars; the pumping lemma for context-free languages

9

1 Apr 2008 (Tu)

7.3-7.4

Closure properties of context-free languages; decision properties of CFLs

3 Apr 2008 (Th)

8.1-8.2

Introduction to Turing machine; problems that computers cannot solve; Turing machines

10

8 Apr 2008 (Tu)

8.3-8.4

Programming techniques for Turing machines; extensions to the basic Turing machines

10 Apr 2008 (Th)

Quiz 2 (everything since Quiz 1)

11

15 Apr 2008 (Tu)

8.5-8.6

Restricted Turing machines; Turing machines and computers

17 Apr 2008 (Th)

9

Undecideability

12

22 Apr 2008 (Tu)

9.1-9.2

A language that is not recursively enumerable; an undecidable problem that is r.e.

24 Apr 2008 (Th)

9.2

A language that is not recursively enumerable; an undecidable problem that is r.e.

13

29 Apr 2008 (Tu)

9.3

Undecidable problems about Turing machines;

1 May 2008 (Th)

9.4

Other undecidable problems, The classes P and NP

14

6 May 2008 (Tu)

9.5

Rice’s theorem.

8 May 2008 (Th)

9.5

Post’s Correspondence Problem

15

13 May 2008 (Tu)

Review

Review

15 May 2008 (Th)

Reading Day

16

TBA

Location TBA

Final exam (everything)


Back to syllabus
Last updated: Tuesday, 29-Jan-2008 15:43:44 EST
© Dr. Haim Levkowitz (haim@cs.uml.edu)