CSC 4510/6510 Automata, Fall 2024, Syllabus

Class Details

Time: TR 8.00 to 9.45 am
Location: Classroom South 428
Instructor: Dr. Raj Sunderraman
Office: 1 Park Place, Room 629
Office Hrs: TR 2.00 to 4.00
E-mail: raj at cs dot gsu dot edu
Webex: https://gsumeetings.webex.com/meet/rsunderraman

Credit Hours: 4
Prerequisites: CSC 2720 with a C or higher. Students must meet the Computer Science Major Eligibility Requirement in order to enroll in this course.

Catalog Description

Theory of computing devices and the languages they recognize. Deterministic and non-deterministic finite automata, context-free grammars, pushdown automata, Turing machines and undecidability.

Topics

Textbook: None. Notes will be provided.
  1. Regular Languages, Finite Automata
  2. Context Free Languages, Pushdown Automata
  3. Recursive and Recursively Enumerable Languages, Turing Machines
  4. Other Models of Computing - Lambda Calculus, Recursive Function Theory, Random Access Machines

Grading

The grading will be based on the following components:
  1. Several homeworks and programming assignments (40%).
  2. 3 Exams (60% - 20% each)
For 4510 Honors students and 6510 students an additional project/paper will be assigned for 10% credit and the homeworks/assignments will count for 36% and the exams will count for 54%.

The final letter grade will be determined based on the following criteria (appropriate curves will be applied):

  • A 90
  • B 80
  • C 70
  • D 60

Policy on Academic Honesty:

The academic honesty policy as described in the University Faculty Handbook as well as the Student Handbook will be strictly enforced. Please review the document Academic Honesty Policy. Other topics related to student conduct are available at https://codeofconduct.gsu.edu/.
  1. All assignments are supposed to be individual work and any collaboration or cheating would result in a zero score for the assignment.
  2. A second incident of dishonest work will result in an automatic F grade for the class.
  3. It is also the repsonsibility of each student to protect his or her work including computer files etc from being extracted by others. Computer accounts will be de-activated immediately if the student is found to have been careless in maintaining his or her files (i.e. has kept them open for others to read!). If such carelessness results in another student copying the computer files and submitting them for the assignments all students involved will automatically get a zero for the assignment.

Attendance and Class Participation

Daily attendance is strongly encouraged. Any student missing a lesson is responsible for all material assigned or covered in class during his or her absence. Other Disruptive classroom behavior will not be tolerated. See the student catalog for more information. Class participation is strongly encouraged, please ask questions, make comments.

Semester Midpoint

Last day to withdraw from a course and possibly receive a grade of W is October 15th. The withdrawal period ends at 11 p.m. on the last day to withdraw from a course.

Disclaimer

This syllabus represents a general plan for the course and deviations from this plan may be necessary during the duration of the course.