CS 341H  Automata Theory-Honors
Elaine Rich
Spring, 2008

Classes:

There is one section of this class this semester:

     

Unique  

Time  

Room          

Final Exam

     

55630  

T,Th 11:00-12:15    

PAI 3.14

Saturday, May 10, 2:00-5:00, PAI 3.14

Textbook

I have written a text book for this class, Automata, Computability and Complexity: Theory and Applications.  Prentice-Hall, 2008.  It should be available at the Coop or online from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

 

There is a website that goes along with the book.  It is organized into pages that correspond to the chapters of the book.  On those pages, you will find links to many other useful sites.

If you would like another book as a supplementary text, I recommend Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Michael Sipser. Brooks/Cole, 1996.

Staff

 

 

 

Office

Office Hours

 

Elaine Rich              

ear@cs.utexas.edu              

TAY 3.126       

W 2:30 – 4:15

 

Qiang Zhang

qzhang@cs.utexas.edu                

 

By appointment

Regular study sessions led by the ACM

On Monday evenings, the ACM will lead study sessions in Tay 3.128 from 6:00 to 8:00. The sessions will probably start on January 28. These sessions will be run by students who have taken CS 341 in the past and actually liked it. If you're having any difficulty at all working on the problems on your own, make sure to come to these sessions.

Grading

I think we all wish that we could have courses without grades. You hate worrying about grades. I hate having to assign grades. But grades are essential to insuring that your degree has the value it deserves. So we have to have a grading system and that system has to have three essential properties:

  • It has to motivate everyone to learn as much as possible.
  • It has to be fair to everyone in the class.
  • It has to be a true measure of how much each student knows about the class material.

For this class, I will assign grades using the following formula:

  • Midterm Exams: 38%
  • Final Exam: 35%
  • Homeworks: 15%
  • Take home quizzes: 7%
  • Class participation, effort, and, in exceptional cases, substantial improvement over the course of the semester: 5%

If you believe that we have made a mistake in grading any of your work, you have a week from the time it was returned to submit to us a written description of the problem. After that week, no grading issues will be revisited.

Exams

There will be two midterm exams and a final. All exams are open book, meaning you may bring the textbook (or one other book) to the exam. But you may not bring other things (e.g., homework answers, old exams).

The two midterm exams will be given on Tuesday evenings from 7:00-9:00. Students with a conflict at this time should inform the instructor at least two weeks before the exam. Arrangements for a makeup the following Wednesday morning will be made. The exam schedule is as follows:

 

Room     

Tuesday, Feb. 19   

BUR 116

Tuesday, March 25     

BUR 116

Homeworks

The only way to learn the material in this class is to practice. It's like learning to play the piano. You can't learn much just by watching someone else. You actually have to do it yourself. You should plan to spend at least five hours every week working problems. Most weeks there will be a homework assignment that you will be asked to turn in.  The homework assignments will be handed out in class.

I will bring homework answers to class and hand them out then. I will take the extras and put them in the rack outside my office door, although there may be a delay in this since the nonhonors version of 341 will have some of the same problems but they’ll be a bit behind us.  Homeworks will not be accepted once the answers have been distributed.

See the class policy on academic integrity for the rules on working with other people on homework assignments. The rules described there will be strictly enforced. If you copy answers from anyone (and this includes copying my answers as handed out in previous semesters), you will fail the class.

Class Attendance and Quizzes

Most of the material that will be covered in class is in the book. However, we will use the class time to clarify issues and to work additional problems. It is important that you come.

To encourage class attendance, there will be take-home quizzes handed out during class. There will be about 10 of them during the semester. To get a copy of the quiz, you must be in class. None will be handed out later, nor will they be available on the web. You may not make copies of the quiz; only originals will be accepted. Quizzes must be handed in at the class following the one at which they were handed out. Each student must hand in his or her own quiz. No make ups will be allowed. We will drop one quiz score so you can miss one without any penalty.

Students with Disabilities

Any student with a documented disability (physical or cognitive) who requires academic accommodations should contact the Services for Students with Disabilities area of the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259 (voice) or 471-4641 (TTY for users who are deaf or hard of hearing) as soon as possible to request an official letter outlning authorized accommodations.

Academic Integrity

You should read carefully the class policy on academic integrity. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated and will result in a failing grade in the class.

Additional Class Policies

You should read CS Department Code of Conduct. The policies described there will be followed in this class.