CS 520 Computer Science Foundations - Syllabus

Term and Credits

Spring 2018-2019
3 Credits

Room and Time

Wednesday 6:00pm-8:50pm 3675 Market Street Room 1052

Videos lectures will be provided for online section.

Instructor

Mark Boady
Electronic Mail Address: mwb33@drexel.edu
Office: 3675 Market Street Room 1058
Extention: 215-895-2347
Office Hours: Tuesday 3-4PM, Wednesay 2-4PM Thursday 3-4PM

Teaching Assistant(s)

Joel Pepper
Electronic Mail Address: jcp353@drexel.edu
Office: Drexel CLC (Room 1066 First Floor 3675 Market Street)
Office Hours:See CLC Website
https://www.cs.drexel.edu/clc

Lupe Fernandez-Nunez
Electronic Mail Address: gf347@drexel.edu
Office: Drexel CLC (Room 1066 First Floor 3675 Market Street)
Office Hours:See CLC Website
https://www.cs.drexel.edu/clc

Course Description

Survey of basic mathematics concepts needed for the study of computer science at the graduate level: induction, iteration, recursion; analysis of program running time; graphs and trees; predicate logic; regular expressions, Context Free Grammars, and Turing Machines.

Course Objective and Goals

1. Learn to analyze the running time of iterative and recursive algorithms.
2. Learn to prove properties of algorithms and data structures using induction.
3. Gain familiarity with basic data structures and algorithms related to them, such as trees and graphs.
4. Learn the limits and applications of regular expressions, context free grammars, and turing machines.
5. Learn relationships between languages and automata.
6. Learn to use logic to prove properties of algorithms.

Audience and Purpose within Plan of Study

This course is for graduate students with little or no prior knowledge of data structures and algorithms. It serves to give such students a firm foundation for future graduate study, and it is a requirement of the Computer Science Minor and Computer Science Post Bachelor Certificate degree programs.

Prerequisites
None

What Students Should Know Prior to this Course

1. Basic Computer Usage Skills.
2. Some experience with programming is recommended but not required.
3. The following concepts from mathematics will be important in class. You can review the below links for more information.
   1. Summation Notation
   2. Exponents
   3. Logarithms
   4. Polynomial Expressions
   5. Recursive Formulas

What Students will be able to do upon Successfully Completing this Course:

1. Students will be able to analyze algorithms.
2. Students will understand a set of fundamental algorithms and how to apply them.
3. Students will be able to prove properties of algorithms using induction, proof by contradiction, and predicate logic.
4. Students will be able to apply regular expressions and context free grammars to parse strings.
5. Students will be able to determine the applications and limits of data structures, algorithms, and languages.

Textbook

We will use only free/library resources for this class.

Book of Proof (Second Edition)
Richard Hammack
Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9894721-0-4
Hardcover: ISBN 978-0-9894721-1-1
Available for Free online at: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/

Introduction to Theory of Computation
Anil Maheshwari and Michiel Smid
Available for Free online at: http://cglab.ca/~michiel/TheoryOfComputation/

Supplemental Texts

If you want a textbook about the Algorithms we will be studying, I recommend this one. It is not required. I just think its a great resource.

Algorithms (4th Edition)
Robert Sedgewick, Kevin Wayne
ISBN-10: 032157351X
ISBN-13: 860-1400041420
See it on Amazon

Course Material

Lectures

• Recorded videos will be posted for each lecture in echo360 on learning.drexel.edu
• Each Class period will have live lectures and a lab.

Labs

• Students will work alone or in Pairs to complete labs

Homeworks

• Homeworks will be completed in a custom autograder
• Homeworks may be submitted an unlimited number of times until the due dates.

Discussions

• Class Discussion Questions will be posted in Slack.
• You must participate in discussions to earn participation credit.

Midterm/Final Exam

• Tests will be completed through learning.drexel.edu.
• Tests will be posted online for approximately one week.
• A test will have a fixed time limit.
• The answers much be submitted during the time limit.
• The test may be started at any point during the week.

Slack Channel

• This term, we will be using a Slack channel instead of a discussion board.
• You must sign up using a Drexel Email Address.
• https://join.slack.com/t/drexelcs520fall2019/signup

Late Submissions

• Each student has two "late passes".
• A student may exchange one of their late passes for an one day extention on any assignment.
• Contact the TA/Professor to request one of your late passes be used.
• You may use both late passes of the same assignment to get a 2 day extention.

Special Circumstances

• If you have a documented reason why you cannot submit an assignment by the deadline, a special exception may be made. The Professor may also wave the late submission penalty for documented special exceptions.

Course Policies

Academic Honesty Policy

The CCI Academic Honesty policy is in effect for this course. Please see the policy at http://drexel.edu/cci/resources/current-students/undergraduate/policies/cs-academic-integrity/.

Academic Honesty Violations will be reported to the University. Punishment will be determined by the severity of the incident. Punishments include, but are not limited to,

• Failing grade for class
• Deduction of one letter grade
• Zero on Assignment/Exam Violation took place on

Grading and Policies

• In Class Labs 20%
• Participation 10%
• Homeworks 15%
• Midterm Exam 25%
• Final Exam 30%

Final grades will be determined by your total points weighted according to this distribution. Grades may be curved but are generally computed via the formula below. It may be modified at the instructor's sole discretion, but letter grades will generally not be lower than those shown here.

• [100-97]A+
• (97-93] A
• (93-90]A-
• (90-87]B+
• (87-83] B
• (83-80]B-
• [80-77]C+
• (77-73] C
• (73-70]C-
• (70-67]D+
• (67-60]D
• (60-0]F

Computer/Software Help
iCommons: http://drexel.edu/cci/about/our-facilities/rush-building/iCommons/

University Policies
In addition to the course policies listed on this syllabus, course assignments or course website, the following University policies are in effect:

• Academic Honesty: http://www.drexel.edu/provost/policies/academic_dishonesty.asp
• Judicial Affairs Academic Integrity: http://drexel.edu/studentlife/community_standards/facultystaff/integrity/
• Official Final Exam Schedule: http://www.drexel.edu/registrar/scheduling/exams/
• Students with Disability Statement: http://drexel.edu/oed/disabilityResources/overview/
• Course Drop Policy: http://www.drexel.edu/provost/policies/course_drop.asp
• The instructor may, at his/her/their discretion, change any part of the course during the term, including assignments, grade brakdowns, due-dates, and the schedule. Such changes will be communicated to students via the course web site Announcements page. This page should be checked regularly and frequently for such changes and announcements. Other announcements, although rare, may include class cancellations and other urgent announcements.
• Drexel Student Learning Priorities: http://www.drexel.edu/provost/irae/assessment/outcomes/dslp/

Topics

1. Graphs
2. Searching
3. Sorting
4. Proof Methods
5. Computational Models: DFA, CFG, Turing Machines

Tentative Course Schedule

Please see the appropriate assignment webpages for a detailed description of course deliverables.