Computer
Science PhD Qualifying Examinations
Rules and Reading List
Revision
of December 2000
Postscript version of this document is available here
PDF version is available here
The Computer Science Ph.D. qualifying exams are given once a year,
typically in January. Next time they will be offered in January 2001.
Students must notify the departmental Coordinator of
Academic Advising (Jeanette Magee, 718-260-3210, jmagee@poly.edu) of their
intent to take the exams at least one month before the exams. There are
three exams, which must be taken at the same time on the
student's initial attempt. In general, students who do not pass all three exams will be
required to retake all three. However, in exceptional circumstances, a
student who does not pass all three exams may be required to retake only
one of them. In either case, the exams must be retaken the next time they
are offered. Students who do not pass the exams within two attempts may
not continue in the PhD program.
Only students already accepted into the Ph.D. program may take the
qualifying exams. Full-time students are expected to take the exams no
later than during their second year. Supported full-time students may
lose their support if they do not take the exams by that time.
Full-time Ph.D. students who enter the program with a Master's degree are
encouraged to take the exams during their first year if they feel they
will have sufficient preparation (between their Master's coursework, their
first-semester coursework at Poly, and their independent studying) by
January of their first year.
Part-time students should
consult the Director of Graduate Studies (Prof. Boris Aronov, 718-260-3092, aronov@ziggy.poly.edu) for an appropriate
time to take these examinations. Normally, this will be after the student has taken the
supporting courses (see below) for the examinations.
The contents of the reading
list for each exam define the required knowledge on which the respective exam is based.
While the student is advised to take the supporting courses associated with each exam, the
student should rely on the reading lists, not the actual contents of the
supporting courses, for a definition of expected knowledge. (This is for the sake of
uniformity, as students may take the supporting courses at different campuses, with
different instructors and/or different texts.)
Samples of exams given in
previous years are available from the department.
CS603 Algorithms I, CS604 Algorithms II, CS675 Theory of Computation.
Cormen, Leiserson, and
Rivest, Introduction to Algorithms, McGraw-Hill, Topics I-VI (pp. 1-629) and
Chapter 36 from Topic VII (pp. 916-963).
Prof. T. Suel, room LC231
e-mail: suel@photon.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3354
J.C. Martin, Introduction
to Languages and the Theory of Computation (second edition). Chapters 1-5, 6.1-6.4,
6.6, 8-10, 12.1-12.4, 13-15.
Prof. L. Hellerstein, room
LC234
e-mail: hstein@duke.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3689.
The exam consists of
basic material from both topics plus a choice of advanced material from either
architecture or operating systems.
Please be
advised that the reading list for this exam will be changed for the 2002 exams.
CS613 Computer Architecture I, CS614 Computer Architecture II, CS623 Operating Systems I, CS624 Operating Systems II.
Maekawa, Oldehoeft, and
Oldehoeft, Operating Systems, Advanced Concepts, Benjamin Cummings, 1987,
Chapters 1-5 and 8.
OR
Raphael A. Finkel, An
Operating Systems Vade Mecum, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 2nd Ed., 1988; the
book is freely available at:
http://www.cs.engr.uky.edu/~raphael/
or http://naxos.poly.edu/~ad/Vade.PS.
Maekawa, Oldehoeft, and
Oldehoeft, Operating Systems, Advanced Concepts, Benjamin Cummings, 1987,
Chapters 6, 7 and 9.
George Coulouris, Jean
Dollimore, and Tim Kindberg, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design, 2nd
edition, Addison-Wesley, 1994.
Prof.
A. Delis, room LC217
e-mail: ad@naxos.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3313
AND
Prof.
R. Flynn, room WC5
e-mail:flynn@west.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-2003
J. L. Hennessy and D.A.
Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Second Edition, Morgan
Kaufman Publishers Inc., 1996, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, and Appendix A.
J. L. Hennessy and D.A.
Patterson, Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, Second Edition, Morgan
Kaufman Publishers Inc., 1996, Chapters 4, 6 and Appendix B.
AND
K. Hwang, Advanced
Computer Architecture with Parallel Processing, McGraw-Hill, 1993, Chapter 2, Section
3.3, and Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Prof. N. Memon, room LC116
e-mail: memon@poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3970.
The exam consists of
five parts. All student must answer the Programming Languages part and choose TWO of the
remaining four parts.
CS637 Programming Languages, CS641 Compilers I, CS661
Artificial Intelligence I, CS606 Software Engineering
I, and CS 608 Principles of Database Systems.
Sebesta, Concepts of
Programming Languages, Addison-Wesley, 4th Ed. (1999).
Prof. P. Frankl, room LC237
e-mail: phyllis@morph.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3870
Aho, Sethi and Ullman, Compilers:
Principles, Techniques, and Tools, Addison-Wesley, 1986, Chapters 1-5.5 and 8-10.7.
Prof. B. Aronov, room LC236
e-mail: aronov@ziggy.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3092.
Primary textbook:
Russell and Norving, Artificial
Intelligence: A modern Approach, Prentice Hall, 1995. Chapters: 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11
and 24.
Supplementary textbooks:
N. J. Nilsson, Principles
of Artificial Intelligence, Tioga Publishing Company, Palo Alto, CA, 1980, Chapters 4
and 5.
Chapters 4 and 5 of the
above book supplement Chapters 7 and 9 of Russell and Norving's book.
E. Rich and K. Knight, Artificial
Intelligence, 2nd Ed., McGraw-Hill, 1991. Chapters 1-3, 5, 12, 13 and Sections
21.1-21.2.
Students can study Rich and
Knight's book instead of the primary textbook, but the primary textbook is preferred since
it gives a better explanation of the material.
Prof. E. Wong, room LC217
e-mail: wong@poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3523.
Roger S. Pressman, Software
Engineering, Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill Co., 1997, Chapters 1-9, 11, 12, 16-23.
OR
Bernd Bruegge and Allen H. Dutoit, Object-Oriented Software
Engineering, Prentice Hall, 2000, Chapters 1-7, 9-12.
Prof. G. Naumovich, room LC228
e-mail: gleb@poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3354.
Database Systems
Concepts, by A. Silberschatz, H. Korth, and S. Sudarshan, Third Edition, McGraw Hill,
1997. Chapters: 1-7, 10-16.
Prof. A. Delis, room LC217
e-mail: ad@naxos.poly.edu
tel.: 718-260-3313.
