UMBC CMSC451, Automata Theory & Formal Languages, Spring 2007


Course Syllabus

We will follow the textbook Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation (second edition) by Hopcroft, Motwani and Ullman. The following schedule outlines the material to be covered during the semester and specifies the corresponding sections in the textbook.

Date Topic Quizzes Reading Homework
Assign Due
Tue 01/30 Proofs, Strings & Languages   1.1-1.5 HW1  
Thu 02/01 Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA)   2.1-2.2    
Tue 02/06 Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFA)   2.3.1-2.3.4 HW2 HW1
Thu 02/08 Equivalence of DFAs & NFAs   2.3.4-2.3.6, 2.5    
Tue 02/13 Regular Expressions   3.1-3.3 HW3 HW2
Thu 02/15 Regular Language Pumping Lemma   4.1    
Tue 02/20 Regular Language Closure Properties   4.2 HW4 HW3
Thu 02/22 Regular Language Decision Properties Quiz 1 4.3    
Tue 02/27 DFA Minimization   4.4 HW5 HW4
Thu 03/01 Context-free Grammars (CFG)   5.1    
Tue 03/06 Parse Trees   5.2 HW6 HW5
Thu 03/08 Ambiguity Quiz 2 5.4    
Tue 03/13 Pushdown Automata (PDA)   6.1-6.2   HW6
Thu 03/15 PDAs for CFGs   6.3.1    
Tue 03/20 Spring Break
Thu 03/22 Spring Break
Tue 03/27 CFGs for PDAs   6.3.2 HW7  
Thu 03/29 Chomsky Normal Form   7.1    
Tue 04/03 Context-free Pumping Lemma   7.2 HW8 HW7
Thu 04/05 Context-free Closure Properties Quiz 3 7.3    
Tue 04/10 Context-free Decision Properties   7.4 HW9 HW8
Thu 04/12 Turing Machines I   8.1-8.2    
Tue 04/17 Turing Machines II   8.3-8.4 HW10 HW9
Thu 04/19 Turing Machines III Quiz 4 8.5-8.6    
Tue 04/24 Undecidability I   9.1 HW11 HW10
Thu 04/26 Undecidability II   9.2    
Tue 05/01 Reductions   9.3 HW12 HW11
Thu 05/03 Undecidability III   9.4-9.5    
Tue 05/08 P vs NP   10.1 HW13 HW12
Thu 05/10 NP-completeness I Quiz 5 10.2    
Tue 05/15 NP-completeness II   10.3-10.4   HW13
Thu 05/17 Final Exam 1:00pm - 3:00pm



Last Modified: 24 Jan 2007 21:38:46 EST by Richard Chang
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