Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 22:28:49 GMT
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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.
- Database/Information Systems
- 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:
a. Data modeling to incorporate rich image semantics and temporal
dimension in audio and video data.
b. Query language to accommodate incomplete and imprecise queries.
c. Query processing algorithms to incorporate user subjectivity in
the interpretation of image contents.
d. Network issues including navigation strategies and protocols to
provide data distribution/location transparency.
- Algorithms
- 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.
- Network Systems
a. What will be the role of the internet in the next ten years?
b. Discuss the qualities of two internet providers, Microsoft
Explorer and Netscape Navigator, that make them different from one another.
c. Discuss the advantages of object-oriented programming style over
other programming styles.
d. "Personal Computing" has grown in an alarming scale within the
past decade. Discuss the different uses and new markets for "personal
computing" and the directions it will take in the next ten years.
e. Computer viruses and security are issues that worry organizations
having networked computer systems. Discuss what you think might be
possible solutions for these problems.