School of Computing

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Syllabus for Ph.D. Entrance Test
Operating System

Main functions of operating system, Multiprogramming Multiprocessing and Multitasking. Memory

Management: Virtual memory, paging, fragmentation. Concurrent Processing: Mutual exclusion.
Critical regions, lock and unlock. Scheduling: CPU scheduling, I/O scheduling, Resource scheduling.
Scheduling algorithms. Banker’s algorithm for deadlock handling.

Compiler Design

Compiler structure, compiler construction tools, compilation phases, Context free grammars. Lexical
analysis ; Parsing and parse trees. Representation of parse (derivation) trees as rightmost and leftmost
derivations. Bottom up parser – shift – reduce, operator precedence, and LR; Topdown parsers – left
recursion and its removal. Recursive descent parser, Predictive parser, Intermediate code generation,
Code generation, Code optimization

Data Structures and Algorithm

Review of Abstract Data Types: Arrays, Polynomial, Sparse Matrices, Strings, Stacks & Queues,
Multiple Stacks & Queues; Trees-Binary Trees - Binary Search Trees, AVL Trees - B-Trees;
Selection Trees; Graphs: Elementary Graph Operations - Minimum Cost spanning Trees - Shortest
Paths &Transitive Closure. Sorting: - Insertion Sort - Quick Sort -Merge Sort - Heap Sort ; Hashing-
Static Hashing - Dynamic Hashing, Heap structures - Min-Max Heaps
DBMS
ER diagrams, Data Models. Design of Relational Database, Normalization, INF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF
and 4NF. Limitations of the normal forms. SQL and QBE, query Processing and Optimization.
Centralized and Distributed Database Security, Oriented Database Management Systems An
overview of commercially available database Management systems

Computer Networks
Computer Networks & Data Communication: Channel capacity. Transmission media twisted pair,
coaxial cables, fibre-optic cables, wireless transmission–radio, unit multiplexing, switching,
narrowband ISDN, broadband ISDN, ATM. High speed LANS Cellular Radio; Analog and Digital
Transmission, Asynchronous and Synchronous Transmission media, Multiplexing and Concentration,
Switching techniques, Polling; Topologies, Networking Devices, OSI Reference Model: Protocols for
– Data link layer Network layer, and Transport layer; TCP/IP protocols, Network security, Network
administration.

Software Engineering
Requirement and feasibility analysis, data flow diagrams, process specifications, input/output design,
process life cycle, planning and managing the project, design, coding, testing, implementation,
maintenance. Personal Software Process. Team Software Process. Usability. Agile Methods. Process
Models- Iterative, Scrum, XP, and Evo. Advanced UML, Petri net. Domain specific modeling.
Systems Modeling Language. Meta modeling. Software architecture and design patterns. Software
metrics. Software reliability.

Digital Logic and Microprocessors

Logic functions, Minimization, Design and synthesis of combinational and sequential circuits;
Number representation and computer arithmetic (fixed and floating point). Introduction to 16-bit
microprocessors, 8086-- architecture, Segments, Flags, Instruction set; 80286-- register set, Data
types, Memory segmentation with descriptor tables including LDT and GDT, Paging including
address translation, Page level protection, MMU cache, Virtual memory, Paging and segmentation,
Multitasking with TSS, Context switching, Task scheduling, Extension and I/O permission,
Managing interrupts with IDT, Gates and exception handlers; Technical overview (only features) of
the Pentium architecture including Pentium-Pro, Core-2-duo, Concepts of RISC, RISC vs. CISC
architecture of SUN SPARC.

Mathematics
Probability: Conditional Probability; Mean, Median, Mode and Standard Deviation; Random
Variables; Distributions; uniform, normal, exponential, Poisson, Binomial.
Set Theory & Algebra: Sets; Relations; Functions; Groups; Partial Orders; Lattice; Boolean
Algebra.
Combinatorics: Permutations; Combinations; Counting; Summation; generating functions;
recurrence relations; asymptotics.
Graph Theory: Connectivity; spanning trees; Cut vertices & edges; covering; matching; independent
sets; Colouring; Planarity; Isomorphism.