INTRODUCTION TO AUTOMATA THEORY AND

LANGUAGES
NMCA-214

Theory Subject
No practical session
100 marks
6 lectures in week
Total 60 lectures

Books and Authors

Books

Authors

Publisher

Comer

Pearson Education, 4th Ed.

Stallings W

Pearson Education, 2003,

7th Ed

Tanenbaum

Prentice-Hall, 2004, 4th Ed.

Introduction to Automata theory,

Languages and Computation
Introduction to languages and the
theory of computation

Computer Networks

Practical application of Automata

Theory
Here are some practical, fairly complicated, practical problems that are
approached via language theory.

You want to spot duplicate occurrences of a phrase in a document and delete the
second occurrence. In essence, you want to substitute a sequence in a language.
Does a program contain an assertion violation?

Does a device driver respect certain protocols when interacting with the kernel?
The behaviour of a program is a set of executions; in other words, a language.
The correctness property is another language. The program correctness problem
amounts to a language inclusion check.

Practical application of Automata

Theory
Can your software be stuck in an infinite loop? Does a
distributed algorithm contain a livelock? We need
languages over infinite words, but the language inclusion
view still applies.
You want to build a sanitizer to detect malicious Javascript
entered into a web application. The set of malicious strings
is a language. The set of strings entered into the forms in
another language. You want to determine if the
intersection of these languages is non-empty.
Run-time monitoring of reactive and mission-critical
systems. You want to design a software monitor that
oversees the operation of your chemical process or track
updates to a financial database. These are at heart
language inclusion and intersection problems.

Practical application of Automata

Theory
Pattern recognition with its numerous applications. You want to detect
patterns in genomic data, in text, in a series of bug reports. These are
problems where we are given words from an unknown language and have
to guess the language. These are language inference problems.
Given a set of XML documents, you want to reverse engineer a schema
that applies to these documents. XML documents can be idealised a trees.
A schema is then a specification of a tree language and the schema
inference problem is a language inference problem over tree languages.
Many applications require automated arithmetic reasoning. Suppose we
fix a logical theory such as Presburger arithmetic, in which we have the
natural numbers, addition and the less-than predicate. A formula with n
variables represents a set of n-dimensional vectors. A vector is a sequence
of digits and can be encoded as a word. A predicate is then a set of words;
a language. Logical operations such as conjunction, disjunction and
negation become intersection, union and complement of languages
(existential quantification is a kind of projection).

 There are several reasons to study of

automata and complexity is an important part
of the core of computer science.
1. Introduction to Finite Automata
2. Structural Representation
3. Automata and Complexity

Introduction to Finite Automata

Finite Automata are a useful model for many important kinds of hardware
and software

Software for designing and checking the behavior of digital circuits

The Le i al a al zer of a t pi al o piler , that is , the o piler
component that breaks the

input text into logical units, such as identifiers, keywords, and

punctuation.

Software for scanning large bodies of text, such as collections of Web

pages, to find

occurrences of words, phrases, or other patterns.

Software for verifying systems of all types that have a finite number of
distinct states, such as

communications protocols or protocols for secure exchange of

information.

Structural Representations:

There are two important notations there are not

automation-like, but play an important role in the
study of automata and their applications
1. Grammars are useful models when software
that processes data with a recursive structure.
2. Regular Expressions are denoted the structure
of data, especially text strings.

Automata and Complexity

Automata are essential for the study of the limits of computation.

There are two important issues.

. What a a o puter do at all? This stud is alled decidability , a d

the problems that can

e sol ed
o puter are alled decidable. .

. What a a o puter do effi ie tl ? This stud is alled i tra ta ilit ,

and the problems that

can be solved by a computer using no more time than some slowly

growing function of the

size of the i put are alled tractable. Ofte , e all pol o ial
fu tio s to e slo l

gro i g , hile fu tio s that gro s faster tha a pol o ial are
deemed to grow too fast.

Automata theory and formal languages are the

base of
current compilers,
regular expressions,
parsers,
web-scrappers,
natural language processing (NLP),
state machines based on markov chains

Syllabus

UNIT 1:Basic concepts of Automata Theory 11L

UNIT 2: Regular Expressions and Languages 10L
UNIT 3: Non-Regular Grammars 24L
UNIT 4: Turing Machines 8 L
UNIT 5: Undecidability 7L

Unit 1:Basic concepts of Automata

Theory

Alphabets, Strings and Languages,

Deterministic FiniteAutomata (DFA)
Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFA),
Language of DFA and NFA.
NFA ith -transitions,
Language ofNFA with -transitions
Equivalence of NFA and DFA.

UNIT 2: Regular Expression

Regular Expressions and Languages: Introduction, Definition of regular
expression,
Klee sTheore ,
Equivalence of regular expression and Finite Automata,
Pumping Lemma for regular
Languages, Closure properties of Regular Languages,
Decision properties of Regular Languages,
Finite Automata with Output: Moore and Mealy Machine,
Equivalence of Moore and Mealy Machines.

Unit 3: Non-Regular Grammars

Non-Regular Grammars: Definition of Grammar, Classification of
Grammars,
Chomosky's Hierarchy.
Context Free Grammars (CFG) and Context Free Languages (CFL)
Derivation trees,
Ambiguous Grammars,
Simplification of Grammars,
Normal forms of CFGs: CNF and GNF,
Closure properties of CFLs,
Decision Properties of CFLs,
Pumping lemma for CFLs. Push Down
Automata (PDA): Definition and Description,
Language of PDA and its applications.

Unit 4:Turing Machines

Turing Machines: Introduction,

Basic Features of a Turing Machine,
Language of a Turing Machine,
Variants of Turing Machine:
Multitapes,
Nondeterministic Turing Machine,
Universal Turing Machine.

Turing Machine as Computer of Integer functions,

Halting problem of Turing Machine,
Church-TuringThesis.

Unit 5:Undecidability

Undecidability: Introduction
Undecidable problems about Turing Machines,
Rice's Theorem,
Post'sCorrespondence problem (PCP)
Modified PCP
Tractable and Intractable Problems:
P and NP, NPComplete Problems,

Introduction to recursive function theory.

Advantage of Data Communication

and Computer Network

Communication
Data sharing
Instant and multiple accesses
Video conferencing
Internet Service
Broad casting
Photographs and large files
Saves Cost
Remote access and login
Reliable
Data transmission

Syllabus
Unit I (17 Sessions) Fundamentals of Communication System :
17 L
Unit II (08 Sessions) LAN topologies: 8 L
Unit III (07 Sessions) Networks and accessories:7 L
Unit IV (10 Sessions) OSI Model: 10 L
Unit V (13 Sessions) Mobile Communication: 13 L
Lectures = L

 Unit I (08 Sessions) Fundamentals of

Communication System
Communication Links,
Communication System Formats
Character Codes,
Digital Data Rates;
Asynchronous and Synchronous Data
Types of signals: AM; FM; PM; PCM; PDM;TDMA;
FDMA; SDMA; CDMA; ASK; FSK;
Error detection and correction codes; Hamming codes.

Unit II (08 Sessions) LAN topologies

Workstation; Server;
Cables;
Types of Ethernet;
Broadband and base-band;
Optical Fibers;
Network Interface Card.

Unit III (08 Sessions) Networks and

accessories:

LAN, MAN, WAN;

Hub; Bridges;
Switches; Routers;
Gateways Cell Relay;
Frame Relay; ISDN; B-ISDN

 Unit IV (08 Sessions) OSI Model; Broadcasting;

Multicasting
Point-to-point communication;
IP Addressing,
Concepts of Port; Socket;
ATM; Tunneling;
Virtual Private Network
Network Operating systems: Unix; Linux; Windows.

Unit V (08 Sessions) Mobile

Communication:
Applications of Mobile Communication; Wireless
Communication:
Bandwidth,
Transmission Impairment,
Interference,
Terrestrial Microwave, Broadcast Radio, Infrared
& Light Waves,
Mobile Internet & WML: Mobile IP,
Wireless TCP& UDP, WAP, WML

History of Data Communication

Transistor developed by Bell Labs (which is
now ???) 1947
Hush-a-Phone Case
Carterphone case
MCI and Long Distance
Creatio of et orks LANs a d WANs
Data Link Protocols
Microcomputers