CSC 2210 Automata, C o m p l e x i t y and Computability
(a) Description
The course introduces students to the concept of automata and complexity.
It sets a background for more advanced studies like compiler construction
and principles of programming languages.
(b) The aims of the course are:
• To introduce students to the concepts of complexity, automata and
computability
• To prepare students for advanced studies in compiler construction and
principle of programming languages
(c) Teaching and learning pattern Teaching will be in form of class lectures and
tutorials
(d) Indicative content
• Finite state machines and regular languages:
• Deterministic and non-deterministic machines;
• Equivalence and minimization;
• Regular expressions and regular grammars;
• Kleene’s theorem.
• Push-down automata and context free grammars;
• Normal forms of grammars; Top-down and bottom-up parsing.
• Turing machines and computability;
• Church’s thesis;
• NP-Computable problems.
(e) Assessment method
Assessment will be in terms of Assignments and tests (40%) and final written
examination (60%)
(f ) Reading list
• John E. Hopcroft, Rajeev Motwani, Jeffrey D. Ullman: Introduc- tion to
Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation; Addison Wesley, 2000.
• Daniel I. A. Cohen Introduction to Computer Theory; John Wiley and
Sons, Inc, 1996.