Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 22:28:49 GMT Server: NCSA/1.4.2 Content-type: text/html Master Student Comprehensive Examination Questions

M.S. Comprehensive Examination Questions

Fall 1996

The following are three pertinent areas in Computer Science. Answer the question in one of the areas, in detail, within the one hour time period of this examination.

  1. Database/Information Systems
  2. Traditionally, database systems are designed to manage structured information. Information retrieval systems, on the other hand, are intended for managing unstructured text. With the ubiquitous interest in multimedia systems and the advent of the World-wide Web (WWW or simply Web) in 1993, the distinction between database and information retrieval systems has begun to blur and has raised several challenging database issues.

    Multimedia data types include structured data, text, graphics, electronic ink, animation, images, audio, and video. In addition to large storage requirements, video and audio has temporal dimension intrinsic to the data. There is subjectivity associated with the interpretation of images by different users. User queries tend to be incomplete and imprecise.

    Web is hypermedia storage and retrieval environment where a vast collection of interconnected documents are distributed across the Internet. Thus, Web can be viewed as a large, distributed heterogeneous (or multimedia) database system. Although some useful information may exist somewhere in the Web, locating such information by a Web user often requires enormous search time and effort.

    Several database issues need to be addressed to facilitate retrieving relevant information from the Web efficiently and effectively. Discuss how you would address the following aspects:

  3. Algorithms
  4. Discuss in detail the various algorithmic analysis/complexity issues which might arise when developing software that will make extensive use of tree and graph data structures. Cite examples when helpful in your discussion.

  5. Network Systems