COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT
COURSE: CS 541(3 cr hrs)Mathematical Foundations of CS Fall, 2006
PREREQUISITES: Graduate Student status
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Shindhelm
OFFICE:TCCW 137A
Phone: 745-6247
Hours: TR 8:30:9:30;MWF 11:30-12:30 + by appointment
TEXT: Introduction to Computer Theory,by Cohen, 2nd edition,
Wiley Publishing Company
COURSE PURPOSE: This course is designed to acquaint students with basic
abstract models of computers including automata theory, and Turing machines. An
introduction to the theory of computability will also be given.
ATTENDANCE: Attendance will be taken for the first few weeks until I learn
your name. After that I will keep track of absences without calling the roll.
It is to your advantage to attend classes since those topics covered in class
are the primary ones that I consider important and I will hold you responsible
to know for exam purposes.
GRADING: Each of three hour exam grades will count 20% of the final course
grade. A comprehensive final exam will count 40%.The final course letter grade
will be assigned according to:
90-100=A 80-89=B 70-79=C 60-69=D below 60=F
NO MAKE_UP EXAMS ARE GIVEN!!! -unless a documented medical reason is given.
The following is a tentative outline of the assigned readings from the text Introduction to Computer Theory, Second edition, by Cohen
Assignment Topics Read Ch. Do Ex
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1. : Background and Introduction : 1,2 : Ch2, 1-9
2. : Recursive Defs,Regular Expressions : 3,4 : Ch4,1-6,18
3. : Finite Automata : 5 : 2-9,17-20
4. : Transition Graphs and Kleene's Thm : 6,7 :Ch6,4-12;Ch7,1-7
: Nondeterministic FA's : :8-19
5. : Regular Languages :9 :1-20
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: Exam # 1 : :
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6. :Nonregular Languages, Pumping Lemma :10 :1-9,15,16
7. :Decidability :11 :9-13
8. :Context-free Grammars :12 :1-16
9. :Grammatical Format :13 :1-11,14
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: Exam # 2 : :
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10. : Pushdown Automata (CFG=PDA) :14,15 :Ch14:1-3;Ch15:1-8
11. : Non-Context-Free languages, :16 :10-15
12. : Context-Free Languages :17 :1-3,7,8,9-12,19
13 : Decidability :18 :1,3,6-10
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: Exam # 3 : :
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14. : Turing Machines : 19 : 1-6,19
15. : Recursively Enumerable Languages : 23 : 1-12
16 : Chomsky Hierarchy : 24 :TBA
17. : Computers and Computability : 25 :1,2
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Review - if time permits
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Final Exam -
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