UMBC CMSC451, Automata Theory & Formal Languages, Spring 2007

News Archive

• [Thu May 31 21:04 2007]
  Students' final exam score and final letter grade have been posted to the course website on Blackboard.

• [Tue May 15 15:37 2007]
  There has been a small change in plans for the Final Exam, in light of the students' performance on Quiz 5.

  The Final Exam will have 6 questions instead of 7. In place of Questions 6 and 7 below, there will be a question on constructing a TM for a given language using an "operational" description, where you describe the head movements of the TM. (For example, you can just say "move the tape head right until a blank is encountered.")

  Questions 1-5 will remain the same.

  In addition to the 6 Final Exam questions, on Thursday you will be given the opportunity to redo Quiz 5. The two questions will be of the same format as the Quiz 5 just handed back. Your Quiz 5 score will be the higher of the original Quiz 5 and the "do over" Quiz 5.

  You'll have two hours to do both the Final Exam and the "do over" Quiz 5. If you are satisfied with your Quiz 5 score, you can leave the Quiz 5 questions blank and the devote the entire 2 hours to the Final Exam.

• [Thu May 10 15:33 2007]
  The final will have 7 questions, very similar to the quiz questions:

  1. Build a DFA or NFA

  2. Use the pumping lemma for regular languages to prove a language is not regular

  3. Produce a context-free grammar for a given language. Briefly justify/comment your grammar.

  4. Build a PDA for a given language.

  5. Use the pumping lemma for context-free languages to show a given language is not context-free.

  6. Determine whether languages are decidable, r.e. or not r.e. No justification needed.

  7. Prove that a given language is undecidable.

  The text of the pumping lemmas for regular languages and context-free languages will be given on the exam.

• [Sun May 06 23:55 2007]
  Homework 13 (due May 15th) has been posted.

• [Tue May 01 07:22 2007]
  Homework 12 has been posted.

• [Mon Apr 30 23:05 2007]
  Prof. Chang's office hours on Tuesday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 8 will be 3:30-4:30pm (instead of 2:30-4:00pm).

• [Tue Apr 24 12:35 2007]
  Homework 11 has been posted.

• [Tue Apr 24 12:26 2007]
  Prof. Chang will not hold office hours on Thursday, April 26.

• [Tue Apr 17 09:09 2007]
  Homework 10 has been posted.

• [Tue Apr 10 12:12 2007]
  Homework 9 has been posted.

• [Tue Apr 03 08:15 2007]
  Prof. Chang's office hours will be shortened today. He will be in his office 2:30-3:15pm instead of 2:30-4:00pm.

• [Mon Apr 02 23:27 2007]
  Homework 8 has been posted.

• [Mon Mar 26 12:04 2007]
  Homework 7 has been posted.

• [Thu Mar 22 11:32 2007]
  Our TA, Don Dimitroff, will not be holding his regular office hours on Monday 3/26 and Wednesday 3/28. If you need to see him about something, please make arrangements by email

• [Tue Mar 06 12:04 2007]
  Homework 6 has been posted.

• [Mon Feb 26 11:30 2007]
  Homework 5 has been posted.

• [Mon Feb 19 15:37 2007]
  Homework 4 has been posted.

• [Tue Feb 13 09:24 2007]
  Homework 3 has been posted.

• [Tue Feb 06 06:21 2007]
  Homework 2 has been posted.

• [Fri Jan 26 15:35 2007]
  Our TA Don Dimitroff's office hours have been pushed back 30 minutes. See the contacts page.

• [Tue Jan 30 01:41 2007]
  Homework 1 has been posted.

• [Fri Jan 26 15:35 2007]
  The contacts page has been updated with our TA Don Dimitroff's office hours.

• [Wed Jan 24 21:30 2007]
  The course description and syllabus are available in PDF: description.pdf and syllabus.pdf. Hard copies will also be distributed in the first day of class.

• [Wed Jan 24 20:55 2007]
  Note: Be aware of the schedule of in-class quizzes listed in the syllabus! The first quiz is on Thursday, February 22.

• [Wed Jan 24 20:55 2007]
  Web page up.