CSE 105: Intro. to Theory of Computation, Winter 2010

Section ID: 672141.
Course Webpage: http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/classes/wi10/cse105/

Course Description: This course introduces the basic, formal ideas underlying the notion of computation. Syllabus: finite automata, regular expressions, context-free grammars, pushdown automata, Turing machines, decidability, undecidability, the halting problem, Turing reductions, map reductions, introduction to computational complexity.

Textbook: Sipser, Introduction to the Theory of Computation, 2nd edition.
(The first edition is not very different from the second and should be mostly usable as a substitute.)

Announcements: Course announcements will be made through this course web page. (Announcements are in reverse chronological order, most recent announcement on top.) You are responsible for checking the webpage regularly for announcements.

Course Schedule

Day Time Room
Lectures Tuesday, Thursday 11:00am-12:20pm WLH 2204
Discussion Monday 10:00am-10:50am Solis 110
Discussion Monday 11:00am-11:50am Solis 110
Midterm Exam Tuesday February 9 11:00am-12:20pm WLH 2204
Final Exam Thursday March 18 11:30am-2:30pm WLH 2204
The syllabus will be covered in roughly the same order as presented in the textbook. Here are some pointers to specific sections covererd so far. At the end of each chapter you can find several exercises and problems that are an excellent complement to the reading and homework assignments given in class. You can work on those problems on your own, as the relevant material is covered in class, and if you have any question, bring them to class, discussion or office hours, or post them on the discussion board. The more problems you solve, the better you will be prepared for the midterm and final exam.

Staff

Name Office Hours Room Email
Instructor Daniele Micciancio Monday 3:00pm-4:00pm EBU-3b (CSE) 4214 dmiccian(at)ucsd.edu (*)
TA Alexander Tsiatas Wednesday 11:15am-1:15pm EBU3b (CSE) B240A atsiatas(at)cs.ucsd.edu (*)

(*) Important: Email should be used only for questions that require individual attention (e.g., exam regrades, etc.). For technical questions (e.g., about homeworks, material presented in class, etc.) you should use the QuickTopic discussion board located at Discuss CSE105WI10 so that everybody can benefit from the answer. All course related emails sent to the intructor or TA should include the string CSE105 in the subject line (anywhere, possibly within a more descriptive message). Also, your email messages should be in plain text format and include valid sender and return addresses. Non comforming emails risk to be automatically deleted by the spam filtering programs and are likely to never reach the instructor/TA.

Course requirements and policies

Class members are expected to do all of the following in order to satisfactorily pass this class:

Homework assignments will use JFLAP, a java package for experimenting with automata and formal languages.

Midterm is scheduled during regular lecture hours on Tuesday February 9, and everybody is expected to attend. There will be no make up midterm or final. Not showing up to either exam will count as 0 grade, unless your absence is due to a demonstrated personal health problem at the time. Each homework accounts for 8% of the course grade (with the lowest grade dropped, for a total of 40%), the midterm will contribute another 30%, and the final exam will give the remaining 30%. Both the midterm and the final exam will be closed books, closed notes. You can take 1 double sided sheet of notes to each exam, but the notes must be your own.

Grades will be available through GradeSource. If you are enrolled in the class you should have received an email from gradesource with instructions and a secret number to access your grades.

Grades will NOT be assigned on a curve. You will receive a grade based on your own performance. If everybody does well, everybody will get an A! Final grades will be based roughly on the following scale: 50-55% (D), 55-70% (C), 70-85% (B), 85-100% (A), with (+) and (-) assigned to the instructor discretion. This includes, but is not limited to improvement over the quarter, class participation, and natural "breaks" in the distribution of scores.

Academic honesty: All students are expected to be familiar with and abide by the rules of UCSD Policy on Integrity of Scholarship as described in the UCSD General Catalog. In case of cheating, such policy will be enforced. This means an F grade in the course, and action by the Dean of your college (probation or suspension from UCSD). In particular, you are encouraged to form study groups, but no form of collaboration is allowed in the solution of the homeworks, midterm and final exams. Also, you should not use any external resource (e.g., the Internet, Google, etc.) when working on the homeworks. (Of course, using such resources as a study tool is fine, but if anything you find using such resources end up being directly useful for the solution of a homework, you should clearly acknowledge the use of the resource on your solutions to avoid academic dishonesty charges.)

Regrade requests on any assignment or exam are only accepted within a week after the graded object has been returned. Do not modify your solutions after they are returned to you. If you alter your solutions, you loose any right to request a regrade of that exam. Modifying the exam and then bringing it back to ask for a regrade will be treated as a violation of academic honesty rules, and so prosecuted.