Queens College

THEORY OF COMPUTATION
CSCI 320, section 121, class # 43144
Spring 2025
instructor: Bojana Obrenić Lectures:
COURSE PROTOCOL All lectures will be held in person, on campus. If the Col-
lege is closed on a lecture day for in-person activities,
Welcome to the course! then that lecture will be held online, and the instruc-
tions will be published in the course Announcements on
Communication and Logistics: Brightspace.
The Brightspace announcement page is the single place
where all directions and information about this class will The first lecture will explain the course protocol. While
be posted. You are required to read the Announcements you are required to study and learn all the lectures, it is
and to follow the posted instructions. essential that you learn the course protocol as soon as
possible. Your ability and readiness to follow the course
You are required to maintain your access to Brightspace protocol is a component of the technical proficiency re-
in good order throughout the semester, which includes a quired for a passing grade.
computer to download and read pdf files. You are also
required to file the correct email address as preferred in
cunyFirst.
College Resources: Requirements:
[Link] Three in-class problem-solving exams.
Office hour:
Monday 7:30–9:00 pm, SB-A326;
email to [Link]@[Link] is received only
if sent from an authentic University email account. Exam dates and times:
All exams will be held in person, on campus. The first
Classes:
two exams will be held during the regular class hours.
Monday, Wednesday, 3:10pm–4:25pm, SB-C205
The third (final) exam is scheduled by the College. Each
Calendar Reminders: exam addresses the entire material previously studied in
There will be no class on: Wednesday, January 29 the course. In other words, each exam is “cumulative.”
Wednesday, February 12
If the College is closed on an exam day for in-person ac-
Monday, February 17
tivities, then the instructor will announce due revisions
Monday, March 31
to this exam schedule on this Brightspace Announce-
Monday, April 14
ment page.
Wednesday, April 16
There will be a regular class on: Tuesday, February 18 first exam: Wednesday, March 19
Thursday, March 6 second exam: Wednesday, May 7
third (final) exam: Monday, May 19, 1:45 pm
Textbooks:
The date and time of the final exam are subject to
(1) P. Linz, S. H. Rodger: Formal Languages and Au- change by the College at all times, and always tenta-
tomata, Jones&Bartlett, 2023, ISBN 978-1284231601 tive.
Detailed instructions about the exam rules are in the
(2) J. E. Hopcroft, R. Motwani, J. D. Ullman: Introduc- Exam Protocol (page 3).
tion to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation,
Addison-Wesley, 2006, ISBN 0-321-46225-4

(3) T. A. Sudkamp: Languages and Machines: Verification of Enrollment:

An Introduction to the Theory of Computer Science, You are required to confirm your attendance in order to
Addison-Wesley, 2006, ISBN 0-321-32221-5 satisfy the College attendance requirement. You will
confirm your attendance by writing and signing your
(4) Problems in Computation Theory, by the instruc- name on one of the attendance sheets, which the in-
tor, to obtain a copy submit a request to the Printer: structor will provide in class, no later than February 10.
[Link] with the file: If you do not confirm your attendance, the College will
CSCI_320_Queens_College_2024_Summer.pdf, assign you a grade of WN. If you later find that you
available on the Brightspace Announcement page, wish to remain in the course and appeal to the College
referencing this file name, and the page count: 417. for reversal of the WN grade, the instructor need not be
able to support your appeal. If the instructor supports
Alert: if several copies of the Problem Book are bought
your appeal, then you will be assigned a grade penalty.
together (say for a group of friends) then the price per
copy is much lower than if only one copy is ordered—see
the Printer’s web page.
 Spring 2025, Bojana Obrenić: Theory of Computation, Course Protocol 2

Grading Rule: and under the conditions stated, and you acknowledge
Final grade in the course is computed as follows. the grading rules given here.
On each of the three exams, a certain number of points Your ability and readiness to follow the course protocol
is designated as full credit. Call this number f1 on the is a component of the technical proficiency required for
first exam, f2 on the second exam, and f3 on the third a passing grade.
exam. (This number may vary from exam to exam. It is
published in the Instructions on each exam.)
The total sum of points which you earn on an exam is
your plain score on that exam. Say that your plain score
is s1 points on the first exam, s2 points on the second
exam, and s3 points on the third exam. (If you do not
show up for any of the three exams, your plain score
on that exam is equal to zero points, and there are no
other consequences.) Your normalized score on each of
the three exams is:
s1 s2 s3
n1 = , n2 = , n3 =
f1 f2 f3

The total grade score for the entire course is obtained as:

Γ = 24·max (n1 , n2 ) + 28·max (n2 , n3 ) + 48·max (n3 , (0.3 · n1 + 0.7 · n2 ))

Total grade score required for an individual letter grade:

Γ 40 54 60 66 80 85 90 100
grade C C+ B− B B+ A− A A+

Observe that this grading formula allows ample flexibil-

ity, as follows.

1. automatic make-up: The terms in the total grade

score are calculated by selecting the higher of two
score options, derived from different exams.
2. extra credit on each exam: Exam scores above the
full-credit mark contribute to the final score, since
si > fi is possible, thereby yielding ni > 1.

Note:
If you are unable to take an exam, or you have taken it
and received an unsatisfactory grade, you cannot take a
make-up exam, but the automatic make-up (explained
in the grading formula above) will apply in all such cases,
and no alternative examination time will be available to
individual students for any examination in this course,
regardless of the reasons for non-attendance.
If you believe that a grading error has occurred on any of
your exams, please send an email memo (from your offi-
cial University email account) to the instructor. In this
memo, state exactly the following: your full name, stu-
dent ID, course, exam date, and clarify where you believe
the grading error is. Please note that such a request for
re-grading may lead (and in the case of the final exam
always leads) to a re-grading of the entire exam, which
in turn may result in a grade lower than the original.
By registering for this section and staying in the course,
you agree to take all the examinations at the times stated
 Spring 2025, Bojana Obrenić: Theory of Computation, Course Protocol 3

Queens College exam paper, for the duration of the exam, and to
THEORY OF COMPUTATION show it to the exam proctor when requested.
CSCI 320, section 121, class # 43144
Spring 2025 7. You are not allowed to ask the proctor for
instructor: Bojana Obrenić any assistance, advice, or clarification about the
EXAM PROTOCOL content of your exam. If you discover an error in
an exam question, provide a correction in your an-
All exams in this class will be held in-person, on campus. swer space, and your correction will be graded for
See the Course Protocol for all details, and follow the extra credit, along with your solution. If you are
convinced that an exam question is incorrect so
class announcements for all necessary revisions, as they
become mandated by the College. that it cannot be solved after reasonable correc-
tions, explain it in your answer space, and your
explanation will be graded.
Rules of the Exam Room:
Rules of the Exam Paper:
1. You are required at all times to follow all College
campus-access protocols that are in effect on 1. Your name has to be written clearly, as it ap-
the exam day. pears on the class roster, on each page of the
2. All exams are closed-book exams, which you may exam paper during the first five minutes of the
solve by yourself on your own only, without giving test—there is a penalty of at least 1 point for each
any help, advice or information about exams to missing name.
others, and without receiving any help or advice 2. Answers have to be written only in the space
from any source. Any violation of this rule makes marked “Answer: ” that follows the statement
the violator liable to any and all applicable penal-
of the problem (unless stated otherwise).
ties, including expulsion from the School.
3. Your handwriting must be legible, so as to leave
3. In the exam, it is forbidden to have any ma-
no ambiguity whatsoever as to what exactly you
terial except pencils (pens) and erasers, and your have written.
Queens College photo ID card. Forbidden is all
type of paper, whether printed, written, or clean. 4. Any problem to which you give two or more (dif-
In particular, bringing any electronic device, or ferent) answers receives the grade of zero auto-
any component of an electronic device, is a direct matically, even if one of the answers is (completely)
violation of the exam protocol. Forbidden are all correct.
computers, calculators, phones, smart eye glasses,
all audio or video equipment, all electronic com- 5. Any irrelevant content written in the answer space
ponents (including disconnected wires and broken is incorrect. In emphasis, if you provide irrele-
parts). Forbidden are all clocks and watches (re- vant content in addition to a completely correct
gardless of type), bags, boxes, purses, and contain- answer, you will receive much less than the full
ers of any type (including wearable). Please note credit for that problem, because your solution failed
that having any of these items in the exam room to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant.
is a direct violation of the exam protocol, even if 6. If you have written something into the answer space
you do not use the item at all. If you cannot avoid
by mistake, strike it out completely or erase
bringing forbidden items into the exam room, then
it and it will not be graded.
you are required to turn off all such items (if pos-
sible) and put them into one non-transparent 7. Sketches, practice, preliminary calculations, aban-
bag, which must be kept evidently closed doned attempts, and such, should never be writ-
and out of your reach for the duration of the ten in the answer space, but may be written on
exam. the (empty) back of the problem pages, the
content of which will not be graded.
4. You are required to follow the directions of
the exam proctor about the place where you sit,
identification and authentication, receiving and hand-
ing back your exam paper, leaving the exam room,
and any other matters that may arise during the
exam.
5. Once you leave the exam room, you cannot come
back to the exam.
6. You are required to keep your Queens College
photo ID card on your desktop, next to your
 Spring 2025, Bojana Obrenić: Theory of Computation, Course Protocol 4

Queens College 14. finite automata

THEORY OF COMPUTATION Sudkamp: 5.1–5.6, 6.1–6.4;
CSCI 320, section 121, class # 43144 Hopcroft et al.: 2.1–2.5, 3.2, 4.2.1;
Spring 2025 Linz at al.: 2.1–2.4, 3.2–3.3, 4.1;
instructor: Bojana Obrenić
15. pumping lemma for regular languages
TOPICS Sudkamp: 6.5, 6.6;
Hopcroft et al.: 4.1; Linz at al.: 4.3;
1. preliminaries: predicates, sets, quantified formulae 16. pumping lemma for context-free languages; closure
Sudkamp: 1.1; properties of context-free languages; introduction
Hopcroft et al.: 1.1, 1.2, 1,3; Linz at al.: 1.1; to reductions
2. preliminaries: products, relations, functions (in- Sudkamp: 7.4;
jective and surjective), induction and recursion; Hopcroft et al.: 7.2, 7.3.4; Linz at al.: 8.2;
alphabets and strings
17. Turing machines, elementary constructions, halt-
Sudkamp: 1.2, 1.3, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 2.1, 2.2;
ing, acceptance
Hopcroft et al.: 1.1–1.6; Linz at al.: 1.1;
Sudkamp: 8.1, 8.2, 8.3;
3. cardinalities, set N Hopcroft et al.: 8.2, 8.3; Linz at al.: 9.1–9.3;
S,∞countable and uncountable
sets, ℵ0 , counting k=1 N k
18. recursive and recursively enumerable languages; vari-
Sudkamp: 1.4;
ants, simulations
4. diagonalization proof that |{f : N → {0, 1}}| > ℵ0 ; Sudkamp: 8.4, 8.5, 8.6;
partial functions Hopcroft et al.: 8.2–8.4, 8.5.1;
Sudkamp: 1.5; Linz at al.: 10.1–10.4, 11.1;
Hopcroft et al.: 9.1.3; Linz at al.: 11.1;
19. variants, simulations, universal Turing machine,
5. regular operations, regular expressions non-determinism; halting problem
Sudkamp: 2.3; Sudkamp: 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 11.5, 12.1;
Hopcroft et al.: 3.1, 3.4; Linz at al.: 1.2, 3.1; Hopcroft et al.: 8.2–8.6, 9.1, 9.2; Linz at al.: 11.1;

6. regular expressions 20. halting problem, reductions, Rice’s theorem

Linz at al.: 3.1; Sudkamp: 2.3; Sudkamp: 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4;
Hopcroft et al.: 3.1, 3.4; Linz at al.: 3.1; Hopcroft et al.: 8.1, 9.1–9.3;
Linz at al.: 12.1–12.2;
7. context-free grammars and languages
Sudkamp: 3.1, 3.4; 21. Rice’s theorem; algorithms, unsolvable problems
Hopcroft et al.: 5.1; Linz at al.: 1.2, 5.1; Sudkamp: 12.4; 6.6, 12.6, 12.7;
Hopcroft et al.: 4.3, 4.4, 7.4, 9.3–9.5;
8. context-free grammars; closure properties Linz at al.: 12.1–12.2;
Sudkamp: 3.1, 3.4;
Hopcroft et al.: 5.1; Linz at al.: 8.2 22. algorithms and unsolvable problems
Sudkamp: 6.6, 12.6, 12.7;
9. context-free grammars
Hopcroft et al.: 4.3, 4.4, 7.4, 9.4, 9.5;
Sudkamp: 3.1, 3.4; 7.5;
Linz at al.: 11.1, 12.1–12.3;
Hopcroft et al.: 5.1; Linz at al.: 5.1, 8.2;
23. algorithms and unsolvable problems
10. deterministic finite automata
Sudkamp: 6.6, 12.6, 12.7;
Sudkamp: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3;
Hopcroft et al.: 4.3, 4.4, 7.4, 9.4, 9.5
Hopcroft et al.: 2.1, 2.2; Linz at al.: 2.1;
Linz at al.: 11.1, 12.1–12.4;
11. non-deterministic finite automata
24. push-down automata
Sudkamp: 5.4, 5.5, 5.6;
Sudkamp: 7.1;
Hopcroft et al.: 2.3, 2.5; Linz at al.: 2.1–2.2;
Hopcroft et al.: 6.1, 6.2; Linz at al.: 7.1;
12. Kleene’s theorem (I); closure properties of regular
25. push-down automata, simulations
languages; introduction to simulations
Sudkamp: 7.1, 7.2;
Sudkamp: 6.1, 6.4;
Hopcroft et al.: 6.1, 6.2; Linz at al.: 7.1;
Hopcroft et al.: 3.2, 4.2.1; Linz at al.: 2.1–2.3, 3.2;
13. Kleene’s theorem (II); regular grammars and finite 26. push-down automata, closure properties of context-
automata free languages, simulations
Sudkamp: 3.3, 5.1–5.6, 6.1–6.4; Sudkamp: 7.1 – 7.5;
Hopcroft et al.: 2.1–2.5, 3.2, 4.2.1; Hopcroft et al.: 6.1 – 6.4; Linz at al.: 7.1;
Linz at al.: 2.1–2.4, 3.2–3.3, 4.1;