CCOM 3030 - Fundamental Structures of Computer Science - Summer 2017

Institution

University of Puerto Rico
Rio Piedras Campus
College of Natural Sciences
Department of Computer Science

Professor

Field Value
Name Humberto Ortiz-Zuazaga
Office NCL A-159
Laboratory NCL A-158
Telephone 787-764-0000 x88363
email humberto.ortiz@upr.edu
Web page http://ccom.uprrp.edu/~humberto/
Office hours M-F 2:00-3:00 PM
or by appointment

Description

This course is designed for students who attend their first semester in the Computer Science or Mathematics program. It provides a panoramic view of the Computer Science through a specific area (e.g. data bases, operating systems, networks, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics). It presents a foundation that allows to appreciate the relevance as well as the interrelation among different subjects of Computer Science. It provides an introduction to skills related to problem solving.

Content

  • History of computers and their impact in society
  • Numeric systems
  • Boolean algebra and logic circuits
  • Data representation
  • Introduction to computer systems
  • Algorithms and programming
  • Student reports on a topic of Computer Science

Objectives

  • Understand how computers can be used to solve problems and tasks
  • Understand the fundamentals of computer systems
  • Prepare an oral and written presentation about a topic in Computer Science
  • Write algorithms using different techniques, as flowcharts, pseudocodes and a high level language
  • Formulate problems and present solutions to them
  • Understand how different areas of Computer Science relate to each other to create solutions to problems
  • Use control structures of a programming language to code algorithms

Course Schedule

M-F 9:00 AM - 11:50 AM

Instructional resources

http://nand2tetris.org/

Textbook

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles. Noam Nisan, Shimon Schocken. The MIT Press. 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0262640688 ISBN-10: 0262640686 https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/elements-computing-systems

Software

All class projects can be completed with open source software, the book software available from http://nand2tetris.org/software.php, and python, available from https://www.python.org/.

Evaluation

Students work will be evaluated on a 100% basis with the standard curve.

  • Participation in class, 25% final grade
  • Assignments, 25% final grade
  • Technical report, 25% final grade
  • Poster or presentation, 25% final grade

Reasonable accomodations for students

Students with disabilities properly registered with the Office of Affairs for Persons with Disabilities Oficina de Asuntos para la Persona con Impedimento (O.A.P.I.) should notify the professor at the start of the semester. The professor will make reasonable accommodations to support the student, in consultation with OAPI.

Academic integrity

The University of Puerto Rico promotes the highest standards of academic and scientific integrity. Article 6.2 of the UPR Student Bylaws (Certification JS 13 2009–2010) states that “academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to: fraudulent actions, obtaining grades or academic degrees using false or fraudulent simulations, copying totally or partially academic work from another person, plagiarizing totally or partially the work of another person, copying totally or partially responses from another person to examination questions, making another person to take any test, oral or written examination on his/hers behalf, as well as assisting or facilitating any person to incur in the aforementioned conduct”. Fraudulent conduct refers to “behavior with the intent to defraud, including but not limited to, malicious alteration or falsification of grades, records, identification cards or other official documents of the UPR or any other institution.” Any of these actions shall be subject to disciplinary sanctions in accordance with the disciplinary procedure, as stated in the existing UPR Student Bylaws.

DISCLAIMER: The above statement is an English translation, prepared at the Deanship of Academic Affairs of the Medical Sciences Campus, of certain parts of Article 6.2 of the UPR Student Bylaws “Reglamento General de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Puerto Rico”, (Certificación JS 13 2009-2010). It is in no way intended to be a legal substitute for the original document, written in Spanish.

References

  1. G. Anderson, D. Ferro & R. Hilton. Connecting with Computer Science, Thomson, 2010.
  2. J. G. Brooksshear. Computer Science: An Overview (12 Edition), Addison Wesley, 2014.
  3. N. Dale & J. Lewis. Computer Science Illuminated, Jones and Bartlett, 2012.
  4. Behrouz Forouzan, Firouz Mosharraf, Foundations of Computer Science, 2013.
  5. M. Guzdial, Introduction to Computing and Programming in Python (3rd Edition), Prentice Hall, 2012.
  6. Vahid. Digital Design with RTL Design, VHDL, and Verilog. Wiley. 2010
  7. G. M. Schneider & J. L. Gersting. Invitation to Computer Science, Thomson, 2012.
  8. L. Torres, Asistencia tecnológica: una posibilidad real, Isla Negra, 2002
  9. Revistas especializadas como las publicadas por la ACM y la IEEE.
  10. Denning, Peter J. Is computer science science?. Communications of the ACM 48.4 (2005): 27­31.
  11. Colección de Referencias de Ciencia de Cómputos. http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/