Complexity Theory Spring 2023
 

U.C.F.

Charles E. Hughes
Computer Science
College of Engineering and Computer Science
University of Central Florida


email: charles.hughes@ucf.edu

Structure: TR 0900-1015 (9:00AM-10:15AM); 28 class periods, each 75 minutes long.
Room: HEC-103 when we meet face-to-face; https:tinyurl.com/4drwcssj

Instructor: Charles Hughes; Contact: charles.hughes@ucf.edu; Use Subject COT6410
Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 10:45-12:00PM

OH Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/49sx2mde

GTA: Wei Zhang; Contact: we991015@knights.ucf.edu; Use Subject COT6410
Office Hours: Monday/Wednesday 2:30-4:00PM

OH Zoom Link: https://ucf.zoom.us/j/2408121701

Required Reading: All class notes linked from this site and available in Webcourses.
Recommended Reading:

Web Pages:
Base URL: https://www.cs.ucf.edu/courses/cot6410/Spring2023
Notes URL: Introductory Notes; Formal Language and Automata Theory; Computability Theory; Complexity Theory
2021 Videos URL: OlderVideos/

Assignments: 6 for sure and maybe a seventh; Paper + Video Presentation with Slides

Exams: Midterm and Final.

Exam Dates (Tentative): Mid Term: Tuesday, March 7 in HEC-103; Withdraw Deadline: Friday, March 24; Spring Break: March 13-19; Final: Thurs., April 27, 7:00AM-9:50AM in HEC-103.

Evaluation (Tentative):

  1. Mid Term: 125 points; Final Exam: 125 points (balance between weights will be adjusted in your favor)
  2. Assignments: 75 points;
  3. Individual Paper Reviews and Presentations: 125 points
  4. Extra -- 50 points used to increase weight of best exam,  always to your benefit
  5. Total Available: 500
  6. Grading will be  A >= 90%, B+ >= 85%, B >= 80%, C+ >= 75%, C >= 70%, D >= 50%, F < 50%; minus grades might be used.

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Weeks#1: (1/10, 1/12) -- Syllabus; About Me; Preliminaries; Introduction; Formal Languages and Automata Theory,
Videos from Last Year (2022) are here
The old videos for this week are: Preliminary.mp4, Intro.mp4, Day1.mp4, Day2.mp4
New Videos: Day1.mp4, Day2.mp4
  1. Ground rules
  2. Decision problems (HMU 1.5)
  3. Solving vs checking
  4. Procedures vs algorithms
  5. Introduction to the theory of computation
  6. Terminology, goals
  7. Overview of automata (finite, pushdown, linear bounded, Turing machines)
  8. Overview of formal languages (regular, context free, context sensitive, phrase structured)
  9. Regular Languages (Sipser 1.1; HMU 2.1, 2.2)
  10. Closure Properties of Regular Languages (Sipser 1.2; HMU 4.2)
  11. Other Formal Models for Regular Languages
  12. Review material created by Prof. Jim Rogers, Earlam College
  13. Review material from Prof. David Workman, UCF Retired

Financial Aid (Assignment#1)

Survey at Webcourses
Due: Friday, January 13 at 11:59 PM

Week#2: (1/17, 1/19) -- Formal Languages and Automata Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day3.mp4, Day4.mp4
New Videos: Day3.mp4, Day4.mp4
  1. Continue Automata/Formal Languages Review
  2. Every Regular Language is a Regular Set (Sipser 1.3; HMU 3.1-3.3)
  3. State minimization using O(| Q | 2) table. Note alphabet is constant size. (Sipser p. 327; HMU 4.4)
  4. More closure properties (Sipser 1.1; HMU 4.2-4.3)
  5. Closure under min and max and discussions of various Reaching Algorithms (Depth-First Search)
  6. Pumping Lemma for Regular Languages (Pigeon Hole Principle) (Sipser 1.4; HMU 4.1)
  7. Myhill-Nerode Theorem (implicit in HMU 4.4)
  8. Myhill-Nerode as proof of min DFA uniqueness
  9. Myhill-Nerode as a tool to show languages are not regular.


Week#3: (1/24, 1/26) -- Formal Languages and Automata Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day5.mp4, Day6.mp4
New Videos: Day5.mp4, Day6.mp4
  1. More Discussion of Pumping Lemma for Regular Languages (Sipser 1.4; HMU 4.1)
  2. The chosen language is
    L = { an bm | n is not equal to m}.
    This can be shown easily in an indirect manner by showing its complement is not regular. A direct approach is using right invariant equivalence classes as it is not amenable to the Pumping Lemma.
  3. Finite State Machines (Transducers): Mealy versus Moore Model (Sipser p. 87)
  4. Decision Problems for Regular Languages (HMU 3.4; HMU 4.3
  5. Introduction to Grammars (Regular and CFG mainly) (Sipser 2.1;
  6. Regular Grammars and Regular Languages (HMU p. 180)
  7. Context Free Grammars (A x where x (V ΣΣ)* ) (Sipser 2.1; HMU 5.1)
  8. Use of context free grammars in parsing and notion of Ambiguity (Sipser 2.1; HMU 5.2, 5.4)
  9. Review of reduced CFGs (HMU 7.1)
  10. Chomsky Normal Form (CNF) (Sipser 2.1; HMU 7.1)
  11. The use of CNF in the Cocke-Kasami-Younger O(N3) parsing of CFLs generated by CNFs (HMU 7.4)
  12. Pumping Lemma for CFLs (Sipser 2.3; HMU 7.2)
  13. Show L1 = { an bn cn | n > 0 } and L2 = { ww | w is in {a,b}+ } are not CFLs
  14. Non-closure of CFLs under intersection and complement (Sipser 2.3)
  15. Consider L3 = { an bn cm | n,m > 0 }, L4 = { am bn cn | n,m > 0 }, L1 = L3 ∩ L4
  16. L3 and L4 are CFLs, [ For L3 S->Sc | Tc; T->aTb | ab ], but intersection is not
  17. Consider the complement of L2
    { xy | |x| = |y| but x is not the same as y }
    can be first viewed as
    {x1 a x2 y1 b y2 | |x1|=|x2|, |y1|=|y2|} Union
      {x1 b x2 y1 a y2 | |x1|=|x2|, |y1|=|y2|}.
    But this can also be seen as
    {x1 a y1 x2 b y2 | |x1|=|x2|, |y1|=|y2|} Union
      {x1 b y1 x2 a y2 | |x1|=|x2|, |y1|=|y2|}.
    The above is easy to show as a CFL. We then union this with odd length strings and we have L2 complement.
Assignment #2

See Webcourses (Assignment # 2) for description
Sample of Similar Problems with Solutions
More Discussion of HALF
Worked out Other Samples

Due: 2/7 (Key)


Week#4: 1/31, 2/2) -- Formal Languages and Automata Theory; Computability Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day7.mp4, Day8.mp4
New Videos: Day7.mp4, Day8.mp4
  1. Pushdown Automata (Notion of Instantaneous Descriptor (ID))
  2. Top Down versus Bottom Up parsing and relation of PDAs to CFLs
  3. Decision problems for CFLs: is L(G) empty or finite/infinite are fine (Sipser 4.1; HMU 7.4)
  4. Closure of CFLs under substitution and intersection with Regular (HMU 7.3)
  5. Checking ambiguity, equality to Sigma*,  equivalence and non-empty intersection with another CFL are nasty
  6. Show L1 = { an bn cn | n i> 0 } and L2 = { ww | w is in {a,b}+ } are both CSLs
  7. Very Basic Material on Context Sensitive Grammars (CSG) and Linear Bounded Automata (LBA)
  8. Insights from intro to computability material
  9. Basic notions of computability and complexity
  10. Existence of unsolvable problems (counting and diagonalization)
  11. Solved, solvable (decidable, recursive), unsolved, unsolvable, re, non-re
  12. Hilbert's Tenth
  13. Undecidable problems made a bit more concrete
  14. Lots about problems and their complexity
  15. Halting Problem (HALT) is re, not decidable
  16. Set of algorithms (TOT) is non-re
  17. Halting Problem seen as fun
  18. Some consequences of non-re nature of algorithms


Week#5: (2/7, 2/9) -- Computability Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day9.mp4, Day10.mp4
New Videos: Day9.mp4, Day10.mp4
  1. Models of computation
  2. Systems related to FRS (Petri Nets, Vector Addition, Abelian Semi-Groups)
  3. RM simulated by Ordered FRS
  4. Primitive Recursive Functions (prf)
  5. Initial functions
  6. Closure under composition and recursion
  7. Primitive Recursive Function in detail
  8. Addition and multiplication examples
  9. Sample functions and predicates
  10. Closure under cases
  11. Bounded minimization
  12. Arithmetic functions that use bounded search
  13. Pairing functions
  14. Limitations of primitive recursive
  15. mu-recursion and the partial recursive functions
  16. Notions of instantaneous descriptions
  17. Encodings
  18. Equivalence of models
  19. TMs to Register Machines
  20. RM to Factor Replacement Systems
  21. Factor Replacement to Recursive Functions
  22. Gory details on FRS to REC
  23. Universal machines
  24. Recursive Functions to TMs
  25. Consequences of equivalence
    Assignment #3

    See Webcourses (Assignment # 3) for description
    Sample of Similar Problems with Solutions

    Due: 2/14 (Key)


Week#6: (2/14, 2/16) -- Computability Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day11.mp4, Day12.mp4
New Videos: Day11.mp4, Day12.mp4

  1. The primitive recursive predicate STP and function VALUE
  2. Review Undecidability (Halting Problem, shown by diagonalization)
  3. RE sets and semidecidability
  4. Enumeration Theorem: The set of all re sets W0, W1, W2, ...
  5. The set K = { n | n is in the n-th re set } = { n | n is in Wn } is re, non-recursive
  6. The set K0 = HALT = { <n,x> | x is in the n-th re set }
  7. Alternative characterizations of re sets
  8. Parameter Theorem (aka Sm,n Theorem)
  9. Quantification and re sets
  10. Quantification and co-re sets
  11. Quantification and non-re / non-co-re sets
  12. Reduction
  13. Classic sets Halt = Ko = Lu, NON-EMPTY (Lne), EMPTY (Le)
  14. Reduction from Ko that shows undecidability of K, HasZero, IsNonEmpty
  15. Complete re set (K and K0 as examples)
  16. Note: To be re-complete a set must be re
  17. Reduction from Ko to HasIndentity, TOTAL, IsZero, IsEmpty, IsIdentity
  18. Equivalence of certain re sets (K, HasZero, IsNonEmpty, HasIndentity) to Ko
  19. Equivalence of certain non-re sets (IsZero, IsEmpty, IsIdentity) to TOTAL
  20. Reducibility and degrees (many-one, one-one, Turing)
  21. Hierarchy or RE equivalence class (m-1 and 1-1 degrees)
  22. Rice's Theorem

        Assignment #4

    See Webcourses (Assignment # 4) for description
    Sample with key
    A Tour of Undecidable Problems

        Due: 2/23 (Key)


Week#7: (2/21, 2/23) -- Computability Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day13.mp4, Day14.mp4

New Videos: Day13.mp4, Day14.mp4
  1. "Picture" proofs for Rice's Theorem
  2. Constant Time and Mortal Machines
  3. Introduction to rewriting systems (Thue, Post)
  4. Union, intersection, complement for recursive, re, and non-re sets (can be, cannot be)
  5. Rewriting systems
  6. Post Canonical Forms
  7. Thue and Semi-Thue systems (relation to group theory)
  8. Word problems (Semi-Thue and Thue) and equivalence problems (Thue)
  9. Simulating Turing Machine by Semi-Thue System
  10. Simulating Turing Machines by Thue Systems
  11. Grammars and re sets
  12. Brief introduction to Post Correspondence Systems and Relation to Semi-Thue Systems
  13. Post Correspondence Problem (in detail)
  14. Unsolvable problems related to context-free grammars/languages
  15. Ambiguity of CFGs
  16. Non-Emptiness of CFL Intersections
  17. Context-Sensitive Grammars and Unsolvability Results
  18. Valid (CSL) and Invalid Traces (CFL)
  19. Details on Valid (CSL) and Invalid Traces (CFL)
  20. Intersection of CFLs revisited
  21. Quotients of CFLs
  22. Type 0 grammars and Traces
  23. L =  Sigma*  for L a Regular or CFL
  24. L = L^2 for L a CFL
  25. Summary of Grammar Results

Top


Week#8: (2/28, 3/2) -- Review and Complexity Theory

The old videos for this week are:
Day15.mp4,  Day16.mp4
New Videos: Day15.mp4, Day16.mp4
  1. Review session and sample exams
  2. Basics of Complexity Theory
  3. Decision vs Optimization Problems (achieving a goal vs achieving min cost)
  4. Polynomial == Easy; Exponential == Hard
  5. Polynomial reducibility
  6. Verifiers versus solvers
  7. P as solvable in deterministic polynomial time
  8. NP as solvable in non-deterministic polynomial time
  9. NP as verifiable in deterministic polynomial time
  10. Concepts of NP-Complete and NP-Hard
  11. Canonical NP-Complete problem: SAT (Satisfiability)
  12. Some NP problems that do not appear to be in P: Graph Coloring, Vertex Cover, SubsetSum
  13. Million dollar question: P = NP ?
  14. Boolean expressions: Tautologies, Satisfiability, Truth Tables
  15. Axiomatic Systems for propositional logic: Substitution and modus ponens versus refutation/resolution
  16. Unsolvability of deducibility in fragments of propositional calculus


Week#9 (3/7, 3/9: Midterm Exam on 3/7 and then Complexity Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day20.mp4
New Videos: Day18.mp4

  1. Midterm (Tuesday, March 7 in HEC-103)
  2. Midterm Key
  3. General discussion of P, NP, NP-Complete, NP-Hard, Co-NP
  4. Analogies and breakdown of analogies between re and NP
  5. Construction that maps every problem solvable in non-deterministic polynomial time on TM to SAT
    1. Trace of NDTM that runs in nk time (two-d matrix)
    2. Four parts to associated Boolean expression
  6. Integer Linear Programming



Week#10 Spring Break



Week#11: (3/21, 3/23, (3/24 is Withdrawal Deadline)) -- Complexity Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day21.mp4, Day22.mp4
New Videos: Day21.mp4, Day22.mp4
  1. Discussion of presentations
  2. 3SAT as a third NP-Complete problem
  3. SAT is polynomial reducible to (<=P) 3SAT
  4. 3SAT <=P SubsetSum
  5. SubsetSum <=P Partition
  6. Partition equivalence to SubsetSum
  7. Reduction of 3SAT to k-Vertex Cover
  8. 3-SAT to 3-Coloring
  9. Isomophism of k-Coloring with k-Register Allocation of live variables
  10. Scheduling problems introduced 
  11. Scheduling on multiprocessor systems
  12. Scheduling problems (fixed number of processors, minimize final finishing time)
  13. N processors, M tasks, no constraints
  14. Partition and scheduling problems
  15. Greedy heuristics
  16. 2-processor scheduling -- greedy based on list, sorted long to short, sorted short to long, optimal. Tradeoffs.
  17. Precedences (lists, delays, preemption)
  18. Anomalies (reducing precedence, increasing processors, reducing times)
  19. Unit Execution Time: Trees, forest, anti forests
  20. UET: DAGs and m=2
  21. Hamiltonian Path
  22. Traveling Salesman
  23. Knapsack (relation to SubsetSum), Dynamic Programming Pseudo-polynomial Solution
  24. Bin packing (fixed capacity, minimize number of bins)
  25. Pseudo polynomial-time solution for Knapsack using dynamic programming with changed parameters,
    n*W versus 2^n but W = 2^log(W). This kind of problem is called Weak NP Complete. I'll chat about that later.
  26. You will each, individually, develop a paper and a presentation, based on an existing research paper, just as if you had to present to your peers and advisors. In addition to presenting the results and the way in which these were proven, you should comment on the paper's importance, readability, and replicability, and even its validity if you question that, just as if you were a journal or conference reviewer. Your report must be a tutorial on the topic of the paper so those with less time to delve into the paper can get a strong sense of the results and the context of those results. Specifying new open problems that you see as interesting is also a goal, but may not be attainable for some of these. The length of your paper is 6 to 12 pages double-spaced, 1" margins all around, using either Times Roman or Calibri 11 point, or Arial 10-point. The references are in addition to the narrative and appear on separate pages that do not count against the 6 to 12-page limit. Images may be used but if the total number of images exceeds a page, then all past that one-page aggregate will lead to a requirement for additional text. The presentation slides must be designed to support your 8 to 10-minute video. This means that there are likely 10 to 15 slides.
  27. Towards the end of the semester you give a presentation to a small group of other students and they to you. This will be done in a breakout Zoom session where your presentation and any questions/answers are captured. You may, if you wish, create the presentation in advance and share a video, but you need to be there to participate in the Q&A and to hear other students' presentations. To do this, I assume you all have access to a webcam and use Zoom or a similar tool that captures your slides and you in one extended screen. Let me know if you lack a webcam. Note that you will be asked to provide some brief feedback to me on the papers of your fellow students taking part in teh same breakout.
  28. I have placed about 55 sample papers at Sample Topics. You may choose from any of these except for ones that have already been taken. You may also choose your own separate from these with permission from me. In general, the minimum page length in IEEE 2-column format is 8 pages or 10 pages in single column, single-spaced layout. The prefix CLAIMED_NAME means NAME has already chosen that. Please send me an email to assure you succeed in making your "claim."
  29. Realize that many of these suggested papers will be from arXiv and, while arXiv is a fantastic source, it is not refereed so if you question the validity of some result, that is actually a reasonable outcome so long as you present their approach and your counterarguments just as if you were a reviewer.
  30. I also put out a folder that contains some examples (papers and presentations) from past semesters.

              Final Paper and PowerPoint

                   Read above and at Webcourses. Its weight is 125 points.
                   The split is nominally 75 for the paper and 50 for your presentation.

  31.           Due: 4/21

    Assignment #5

            See Webcourses (Assignment # 5) for description
            Sample with Key

  32.  Due: 4/4 (Key)


Week#12: (3/28 (laryngitis day), 3/30) -- Complexity Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day23.mp4, Day24.mp4
New Videos: Day23/24.mp4

  1. Tiling the plane and Bounded Tiling
  2. Bounded PCP
  3. Co-NP
  4. Reduction techniques
  5. P = co-P ; P contained in intersection of NP and co-NP
  6. NP-Hard
  7. QSAT as an example of NP-Hard, possibly not NP
  8. NP-Hard problems are in general functional not necessarily decision problems
  9. NP-Complete are decision problems as they are in NP
  10. NP-Easy -- these are problems that are polynomial when using an NP oracle
  11. NP-Equivalent is the class of NP-Easy and NP-Hard problems
  12. Optimization versions of SubsetSum and K-Color
  13. Validity of SubsetSum optimization reduction to SubsetSum Decision Problem Oracle

            Assignment #6

                 See Webcourses (Assignment # 6) for description
                 Sample with Key

            Due: 4/18 (Key)


Week#13: (4/4, 4/6) -- Complexity Theory

The old videos for this week are:  Day25.mp4, Day26.mp4
New Videos: Day25.mp4, Day26.mp4
  1. 2SAT (linear time complexity)
  2. Uniform Min-1 is NP Equivalent
  3. Triangle Strip versus Triangle List
  4. Weakly versus Strongly NP-Hard/NP-Complete
  5. PSPACE, NPSPACE, CO-PSPACE, PSPACE-COMPLETE
  6. EXPSPACE, EXPTIME, NEXPTIME
  7. ATM (Alternating NDTM)
  8. QSAT, Petri Nets, Presburger
  9. Why does PSPACE = NPSPACE? Key is Savitch's Theorem
  10. PSPACE-Complete problems (CSL membership, QSAT, does some regular expression represent Sigma* )
  11. FP is functional equivalent to P; R(x,y) in FP if can provide value y for input x via deterministic polynomial time algorithm
  12. FNP is functional equivalent to NP; R(x,y) in FNP if can verify any pair (x,y) via deterministic polynomial time algorithm
  13. TFNP is the subset of FNP where a solution always exists, i.e., there is a y for each x such that R(x,y).
  14. Factoring is in TFNP, but is it in FP?
  15. P = (NP intersect Co-NP) is interesting analogue to intersection of RE and co-RE but may not hold here
  16. It appears that TFNP does not have any complete problems!!!
  17. Khot's Conjecture and its implications
  18. Post's Tag Systems -- deterministic with just one rule per letter in alphabet; first letter determines action; always delete the same number of characters from from prefix and add associated right hand side of rule as postfix.

Week#14: (4/11, 4/13) More Computability Notes

The old videos for this week are:  Day27.mp4, Day28.mp4
New Videos: Day27.mp4, Day28.mp7

  1. Cleanups (topics that were left hanging earlier)
  2. Evolving Final Exam Topics
  3. Initial Final Exam Topics
  4. More stuff for final
  5. 2019Sample Final Exam (Key)
  6. 2020Sample Final Exam (Key)
  7. Exam Review (emphasis on Formal Languages and Computability topics)

  Uo

Week#15: (4/18, 4/20)

The old videos for this week are:  Day29.mp4
New Videos: Day29.mp4

  1. Exam Review (emphasis on complexity topics and sample exam questions)
  2. On 4/20 we will have the breakout sessions in which you give your presentations and hear those of a few of your fellow students (typically five per breakout room). These will be set up prior to the 20th.
  3. Rules of the game and group composition for Breakout Rooms on the 20th
  4. Breakout Room Videos
  5. The paper and presentation video are due on Friday, 4/21 at 11:59 PM

            Assignment #7

                 Turn in your discussion of someone's or several someone's presentation(s)

            Due: 4/23

  Uo

Week#16:  (4/25 -- Review Session; 4/27 -- Final Exam in HEC-103)

  1. If requested, I will run a help session on Tuesday, 4/25 at 9:00 AM. This will probably be an online only session
  2. All Project Videos, Papers, and Presentations are Due on Friday, 4/21 by 11:59 PM
  3. The discussions about someone else's topic is due on Sunday, 4/23 by 11:59 PM
  4. Final Exam is Thursday April 27; 7:00AM to 9:50AM. It is in HEC-101

  Uo


© UCF (Charles E. Hughes)  -- Last Modified 4/24/2023