Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) is a  government  owned  autonomous university in Kochi (Cochin), Kerala, India. The CSE labs have LANs with Windows NT and GNU/Linux servers with Silicon Graphics workstations, and oracle RDBMS server with 15 clients. The department has completed projects funded by agencies like UGC, AICTE, and DST. The department has a library with around 3500 titles and a handful of leading journals.

Paper Description:

These courses provide an Ideal, theoretical computers are rather mathematical objects: they are,     equivalently, algorithms, or effective procedures, or abstract automata, or functions .Classifications of machines and languages are as follows:

The Hierarchies of computational power

Abstract-algebraic treatment of automata

Effects of making automata stochastic

Techniques for proving equivalence of automata; of minimizing automata

Techniques for inferring automata or grammars from their languages; especially when generation is stochastic

Frequently asked questions:

There are few important questions and some highlighted topics that the students need to be concerned about. Some of those are as follows:

Definitions of Non Deterministic finite automata (NDFA), Deterministic finite automata (DFA)

Write in brief the concept of basic Machine language, Properties and limitations of FSM.

Design of T.M and problem of T.M

What are the basic concepts of computability and Primitive Recursive Functions?

Paper pattern:

There are only two type of questions asked, short answer type and long questions which are of 5 and 10 marks respectively.  The test has ten questions and students have to answer only 5 out of them, but it is not as easy as it seems. For all the questions there are two question sets being made and the student has to attempt one set out of the two. The question set can contain two 10 marks question or four 5 marks questions and because of such theory type questions the paper becomes very lengthy. The exam is of 100 marks and a student is given 3 hours.

Recommended Books:

• Introduction to automata theory, language & computations by Hopcroaft & O.D.Ullman, R Mothwani
• Theory of Computer Sc. (Automata, Languages and computation) by K.L.P.Mishra &  N.Chandrasekaran, 2000, PHI
• Elements of theory of Computation by H.R. Lewis & C.H. Papaditriou, 1998, PHI