COM555-COM655 Theory of Computation

Contents of the Course, Access to Course Materials and

Assessment/Evaluation Tools

Assoc Prof Dr Melike Şah Direkoğlu

 Contents
• Course Objectives

• Contents of the Course

• How to Access Course Materials

• Information about Assessment Tools and

Criteria
 Course Objectives
• To study the theory of computation and its concepts
• To learn automata theory (deterministic, nondeterministic),
regular expressions, computability theory and complexity
theory (Classes P, NP and NP-Completeness)
• To understand how to design finite automata (both
deterministic and nondeterministic)
• To learn the principles of Turing machines, Church-Turing
thesis, decidability and reducibility
• To understand time space complexity classes (P, NP, NP-
Complete) of decidable problems.
 Contents of the Course
Week Topics
1 Introduction to the theory of computation. Basic concepts
Mathematical notions, basic concepts; Set Theory, Graph Theory,
2
Functions and Relations
3 Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA)
4 Designing DFA
5 Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFA), Designing NFA
6 Converting NFA to Equivalent DFA
Regular Languages, Regular Operations, Regular Expressions and Proofs
7 with NFA
9 Regular Expressions, Converting Regular Expression to Equivalent NFA
10 Turing Machines (TMs), Turing Machine Variants; Multitape TMs,
Nondeterministic TMs, Enumerators
11 Algorithms, Hilbert’s Theorem, Church-Turing Thesis
12 Computational Complexity; Space Complexity, Time Complexity
13 Time Complexity; Class P, Class NP and NP Completeness
14 Analyzing Time Complexity of Algorithms using TMs
 How to Access Course Materials
• All lecture notes and video lectures will be
available through uzem portal.
• Every week, there will be a face-to-
face/synchronous online lecture (using Google
Meet) on Friday Tuesday between 11.00-13.00,
where you can ask your questions. Attendance
is mandatory. Before the lecture, watch the
designated video lectures of the week.
 Course Assessment Tools
• All the exams will be electronic either through
uzem portal or Google Meet.
• There are two Assignments/homeworks (dates
will be announced), a midterm and a final
exam. You have to provide your answer sheets
through uzem portal. Google Meet might be
open during the online exams.
 Assessment Criteria
2 Assignments/Homeworks %20*
Midterm Exam %40*
Final Exam %40*
* All of the assessments will be online
through uzem portal and/or Google  
Meet!
 Wish you success in the course!

For your course related questions, contact to

melike.sah@neu.edu.tr