Steven Homer – författare

This book surveys theoretical computer science, presenting fundamental concepts and results. Updated and revised, the new edition includes two new chapters on nonuniform complexity, circuit complexity and parallel complexity, and randomized complexity.

This revised and extensively expanded edition of Computability and Complexity Theory comprises essential materials that are core knowledge in the theory of computation. The book is self-contained, with a preliminary chapter describing key mathematical concepts and notations.  Subsequent chapters move from the qualitative aspects of classical computability theory to the quantitative aspects of complexity theory. Dedicated chapters on undecidability, NP-completeness, and relative computability focus on the limitations of computability and the distinctions between feasible and intractable.  Substantial new content in this edition includes:

a chapter on nonuniformity studying Boolean circuits, advice classes and the important result of Karp─Lipton.a chapter studying properties of the fundamental probabilistic complexity classesa study of the alternating Turing machine and uniform circuit classes. an introduction of counting classes, proving the famous results of Valiant and Vazirani and of Todaa thorough treatment of the proof that IP is identical to PSPACE

With its accessibility and well-devised organization, this text/reference is an excellent resource and guide for those looking to develop a solid grounding in the theory of computing. Beginning graduates, advanced undergraduates, and professionals involved in theoretical computer science, complexity theory, and computability will find the book an essential andpractical learning tool.

 

Topics and features:

Concise, focused  materials cover the most fundamental concepts and results in the field of modern complexity theory, including the theory of NP-completeness, NP-hardness, the polynomial hierarchy, and complete problems for other complexity classes Contains information that otherwise exists only in research literature and presents it in a unified, simplified mannerProvides key mathematical background information, including sections on logic and number theory and algebra Supported by numerous exercises and supplementary problems for reinforcement and self-study purposes

The theory of computing provides computer science with concepts, models, and formalisms for reasoning about both the resources needed to carry out computa­ tions and the efficiency of the computations that use these resources. lt provides tools to measure the difficulty of combinatorial problems both absolutely and in comparison with other problems. Courses in this subject help students gain an­ alytic skills and enable them to recognize the limits of computation. For these reasons, a course in the theory of computing is usually required in the graduate computer science curriculum. The barder question to address is which topics such a course should cover. We believe that students should learn the fundamental models of computation, the limitations of computation, and the distinctions between feasible and intractable. In particular, the phenomena ofNP-completeness and NP-hardness have pervaded much of science and transformed computer science. One option is to survey a large nurober of theoretical subjects, typically focusing on automata and formal languages. However, these subjects are less important to theoretical computer sci­ ence, and to computer science as a whole, now than in the past. Many students have taken such a course as part of their undergraduate education. We chose not to take that route because computability and complexity theory are the subjects that we feel deeply about and that we believe are important for students to learn. Furthermore, a graduate course should be scholarly. lt is better to treat important topics thoroughly than to survey the field.

This book surveys theoretical computer science, presenting fundamental concepts and results. Updated and revised, the new edition includes two new chapters on nonuniform complexity, circuit complexity and parallel complexity, and randomized complexity.

The courses given at the 1st C.I.M.E. Summer School of 1988 dealt with the main areas on the borderline between applied logic and theoretical computer science. These courses are recorded here in five expository papers: S. Homer: The Isomorphism Conjecture and its Generalization.- A. Nerode: Some Lectures on Intuitionistic Logic.- R.A. Platek: Making Computers Safe for the World. An Introduction to Proofs of Programs. Part I. - G.E. Sacks: Prolog Programming.- A. Scedrov: A Guide to Polymorphic Types.