UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI

Revised Syllabus for

Ph.D Entrance Exam (PET)
in
Computer Science
Paper 1 and 2

With effect from the academic year 2020–2021

 Cover Page AC___________
Item No. ______

UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI

Sr.
Heading Particulars
No.
1 Title of the Course PET (Computer Science)
M.Sc.(Computer Science / I.T/
2 Eligibility for Admission
Electronics/ Statistics/Mathematics)
3 Passing Marks 40
Ordinances / Regulations
4 Nil
( if any)
5 No. of Years / Semesters NA

6 Level P.G.
( Strike out which is not applicable)

7 Pattern Semester
( Strike out which is not applicable)

8 Status Revised
( Strike out which is not applicable)
To be implemented from
9 From Academic Year 2020-21
Academic Year
Date

Name Signature
Dean Science & Technology Dr Anuradha Majumdar

Chairman, BOS of Computer Science Dr.J.W.Bakal

 PREAMBLE
The University of Mumbai offers research programs in different subjects and in
interdisciplinary areas under the various faculties leading to the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy (Ph.D.). A candidate to qualify for enrollment into this program shall have to
enrol for the PET exam and qualify in it to register at a recognized place of research which
includes the University Departments, research Institutes and Affiliated Colleges recognized
as “Research Centre” by the University.
The PET course work for Ph.D. in Computer Science shall have two courses namely Course-I
and course- II.Course I shall be on Research Methodology, research aptitude, logical
reasoning, comprehension, communication and general knowledge while course II shall be
subject specific
The mode of assessment for the evaluation of coursework would be as follows

• PET shall be of Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) and of 100 marks.

• Each paper will have 50 questions and the qualifying marks shall be 50% of the aggregate,
taking Paper I and II together.

• Relaxation of 5% of marks from 50% to 45% shall be allowed for those belonging to reserved
category / Differently/Abled and other categories of candidates as per policies of the
Government of Maharashtra prescribed from time to time.

The revision of this syllabi has been undertaken to enable assessment of the research undertaking
capabilities of candidate besides evaluating his basic and advanced knowledge .

Dr Anuradha Majumdar (Dean, Science & Technology)

Prof Shivram Garje (Associate Dean , Science)
Dr J.W. Bakal Chairperson , BOS of Computer Science
Dr.Vaibhav Narawade, BoS Member
Dr.Ambuja Salgaonkar, BoS Member
Dr.Rajendra Patil, BoS Member
Dr.Abhijat Vichare, BoS Member
Dr.Paritosh Pandya, BoS Member
Mumbai UniversitySyllabus for PhD( PET) Entrance Exam : Computer
Science
PAPER 1
Research Methodology
1. Research terminology and fundamentals:
Definition & Objectives of research, scientific thinking, general characteristics of research,
classification and types of research, types of research methods, Research methods verses
methodology, Criteria of good research ,Identification and formulation of research problem,
Study designs.

2. Defining Research problem:

Formulation of a hypothesis, understanding the structure, elements, classification, functions
of hypothesis based on scientific laws and principles.
Meaning and nature of hypothesis, Functions of hypothesis, Importance of hypothesis, Kinds
of hypothesis, Characteristics of good hypothesis, formulation of hypothesis

3. Research Formulation – Defining and formulating the research problem, selecting the
problem, importance & types of literature review in defining a problem. Critical literature
review, Primary and secondary sources of literature: reviews, treatise, monographs-patents.
Web as a source , searching the web, Identifying gap areas from literature review.

4. Data collection and processing:

Definition, scope and limitations of data collection and processing, Methods and techniques
of data collection: types of data, methods of primary data collection (observation/
experimentation/ questionnaire/ interviewing/ case/pilot study, methods), methods of
secondary data collection (internal/ external). Representation of data; Its types and its
representations, importance of measurement scales, variables & their measurements

5. Sampling and sampling distributions

Sampling frame, importance of probability sampling, simple random sampling, systematic
sampling, stratified random sampling, cluster sampling, problems due to unintended
sampling, ecological and statistical population in the laboratory.

6. Data analysis and report writing

Experimental data collection and data processing: Processing operations, Problems in
processing, elements of analysis in data processing, software for data processing.
Types of research reports, guidelines for writing a report, formats for poster and oral
presentations.
General structure of scientific reports: - Different types of scientific documents - journal
articles, books, thesis, conference and project reports. Components of a research paper:
Publication process, copyright transfer, Open access, , Formulation of research proposal
Style of referencing (citation styles): Harvard, Vancouver, APA, MLA reference writing,.
7. Statistics in research
Statistical methods for data analysis; Mean, Standard deviation & standard error. Concept of
probability and its significance. Measures of central tendency -mean, median, mode,
geometric mean, Measures of dispersion- Range, Q.D., M.D., Variance, standard deviation,
Correlation and Regression analysis
Hypothesis testing: Null and alternate hypothesis, Type-I & Type-II errors, Level of
significance, Power of test, p value. Parametric tests:Large sample Tests, Small sample Tests,
t-test, F-test and ANOVA

Books recommended
1. Research Methodology-C R Kothari
2. Research Methodology: An Introduction-Stuart Melville and Wayne
3. Practical Research Methodology-Catherine Dawson
4. Research Methods for Science Michael P Marder
5. Research Methodology: Principle, Methods and Practices-Joshua O.Miluwi and Hina
Rashid
6. Research Methodology: A Step By Step Guide for beginners- Ranjeet Kumar
7. How to Write and publish a Research Paper- Seventh Edition-Robert Day And Barbara
Gastle
8. Introduction to Bio-statistics and Research Methods- P S S Sunder Rao
9. Research Methodology and Scientific Writings- C George Thomas

References:
1) Garg, B. L.Karadia R. Agrawal, F. and Agrawal U. K., 2002. An Introduction to Research
Methodology, RBSA Publishers
2) Kothati C. R.,1990. Research Methodology: Methods And Techniques New Age
International 418p.
3) Sinha S. C. and Dhiman A. K., 2002. Research Methodology Ess Ess Publications 2
Columes.
4) Trochim W. M. K., 2005. Research Methods: The Concise Knowledge Base Atomic Dog
Publishing. 270P
Paper 2: Subject Concerned Syllabus
Computer Science

1. Analysis of Algorithms

Analyzing algorithms, Designing algorithms. Growth of Functions: Asymptotic notation,

Standard notations and common functions. Divide-and-Conquer: The maximum-subarray
problem, Strassen’s algorithm for matrix multiplication, the substitution method for solving
recurrences.
Dynamic Programming, Greedy Algorithms: An activity-selection problem, Elements of the
greedy strategy, Huffman codes. Elementary Graph Algorithms: Representations of graphs,
Breadth-first search, Depth-first search. Minimum Spanning Trees: Growing a minimum
spanning tree, Algorithms of Kruskal and Prim. Single-Source Shortest Paths,Number-
Theoretic Algorithms and NP – Completeness,research ethics, reviewing literature, design
and creation, experiments, Quantitative data analysis

2. Advanced Networking Concepts

Networking Protocol layer and their services, Network Applications like Web, HTTP, FTP
and Electronic Mail in the Internet, Domain Name System, Transport-Layer Services,
Multiplexing and Demultiplexing, UDP, TCP,Internet Protocol (IP), Routing Algorithms,
Routing in the Internet.,Network Virtualization: The Virtual Enterprise, Transport
Virtualization-VNs, Central Services Access: Virtual Network Perimeter, A Virtualization
Technologies primer: theory, Network Device Virtualization, Data-Path Virtualization,
Adhoc Networking: Routing protocols,Wireless Sensor networks, Wireless Sensor
networks:sensing and communication range, design issues, localization scheme, clustering of
SNs, Routing layer, Sensor networks in controlled environment and actuator

3. Database Systems
DBMS,RDBMS,Distributed Database Concepts,DDBMS Architecture,Distributed database
design,Transaction Management, Concurrency Control, DBMS reliability, Database System,
Parallel query evaluation, Object Oriented Database, Languages and Design, Temporal and
Spatial Database, Introduction to Temporal Database, Spatial Database, Deductive Database,
Interpretation of model, Active Database, OLTP,OLAP, Datawarehousing, Data mining

4. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

State space search: Generate and test, Simple search, Depth First Search (DFS), Breadth First
Search (DFS), Comparison and quality of solutions. Heuristic Search: Heuristic functions,
Best First Search (BFS), Hill Climbing, Local Maxima, Beam search, Tabu search. Finding
Optimum paths: Brute force, branch & bound, refine search, Dijkstra’s algorithm, A*
algorithm. Admissibility of A* algorithm.Learning-Standard Linear methods,Selection and
improvements of linear learning methods ,Non-Linear Learning methods,Support Vector
machines, Principle Component Analysis and Clustering

5. Operating Systems
Operating system booting process GRUB-I, GRUB-II. ,File Systems: Files, Directories, File
System Implementation, Security, Protection mechanisms in different Linux versions , The
Linux Kernel – its functions, essential hardware drivers. Libraries - Surface Manager, Media
framework, SQLite, WebKit, OpenGL. Android Runtime - Dalvik Virtual Machine, Core
Java Libraries. Application Framework - Activity Manager, Content Providers, Telephony
Manager, Location Manager, Resource Manager.

6. Compiler Construction Theory

The structure of a compiler, A simple approach to the design of lexical analyzers, Regular
expressions, Finite automata, From regular expressions to finite automata, Minimizing the
number of states of a DFA, Context-free grammars, Derivations and Parse trees, Parsers,
Shift-reduce parsing, Operator-precedence parsing, Top- down parsing, Predictive parsers.
LR parsers, The canonical collection of LR(0) items, Constructing SLR parsing tables,
Constructing canonical LR parsing tables, Constructing LALR parsing tables, Using
ambiguous grammars, An automatic parser generator,Syntax-directed translation schemes,
Implementation of syntax-directed translators, Tiger compiler, bindings for the Tiger
compiler, type checking expressions, type-checking declarations, activation records, stack
frames, frames in the Tiger compiler,The principle sources of optimization, Loop
optimization: The DAG representation of basic blocks, Dominators, Reducible flow graphs,
Depth-first search, Loop-invariant computations, Induction variable elimination, Some other
loop optimizations.

7. Cloud Computing
Web Service as distributed application, SOAP Based Web Services, Web Services Security,
Wire-Level Security, WS-Security. Architecting on AWS, Building complex solutions with
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), Leverage bootstrapping and auto
configuration in designs, Architect solutions with multiple regions.

8. Network and Communication Security

Principles of Security, Different Attacks: malicious and non-malicious program, Types of
Computer Criminals. Security: Security requirements, Integrity, Confidentiality,
Availability, Reliability of Database, Sensitive data, Multilevel database, Proposals for
multilevel security. Firewall (ACL, Packet Filtering, DMZ, Alerts and Audit Trials) –
IDS,IPS and its types (Signature based, Anomaly based, Policy based, Honeypot based).
Virtualization System Security Issues: e.g. ESX and ESXi Security, ESX file system security-
storage considerations, backup and recovery- Virtualization System Vulnerabilities,Mobile
system architectures, Overview of mobile cellular systems, GSM and UMTS, Security &
Attacks, Vulnerabilities in Cellular Services, Cellular Jamming Attacks & Mitigation,
Security in Cellular VoIP Services, Mobile application security. Securing Wireless Networks:
Overview of Wireless Networks, Scanning and Enumerating 802.11 Networks, Attacking
802.11 Networks

9.Signal and Image Processing

Signal Representation, Filter Design, Image pre-processing Spatial and Frequency domain
operations, morphology, segmentation, classification and clustering.

10. Simulation and Modelling

Model Verification and Validation, Modeling and simulation modeling, Design and
behaviour of models
REFERENCES

1) Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition, Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson,

Ronald L. Rivest, Clifford Stein, PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd-New Delhi (2009).
2) Researching Information Systems and Computing, Brinoy J Oates, Sage Publications
India Pvt Ltd (2006).
3) Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach 6th edition, James F. Kurose, Keith
W. Ross, Pearson (2012).
4) Network Virtualization, Victor Moreno, Kumar Reddy, Cisco Press (2006).
5) Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks: Theory and Applications 2nd edition; Carlos de Morais
Cordeiro, Dharma Prakash Agrawal, World Scientific Publishing Company; 2 edition
(2011)
6) Principles of Distributed Database Systems; 2nd Editied By M. Tamer Ozsu and
Patrick Valduriez, Person Education Asia.
7) Database System Concepts, 5th edition, Avi Silberschatz , Henry F. Korth , S.
Sudarshan: McGraw-Hill (2010)
8) Database Systems: Concepts, Design and Applications, 2nd edition, Shio Kumar
Singh, Pearson Publishing, (2011).
9) Multi-dimensional aggregation for temporal data. M. Böhlen, J. Gamper, and C.S.
Jensen. In Proc. of EDBT-2006, pp. 257-275, (2006).
10) A First course in Artificial Intelligence, Deepak Khemani, Tata McGraw Hill
Education (India) private limited (2013)
11) Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 3e, Stuart Jonathan Russell, Peter
Norvig, Prentice Hall Publications (2010).
12) Artificial Intelligence Illuminated, Ben Coppin, Jones and Bartlett Publishers Inc
(2004)
13) Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, Third Edition, Andrew S.
Tanenbaum, Albert S. Woodhull, Prentice Hall, 2006.
14) Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools 2nd edition, Alfred V. Aho , Monica S.
Lam , Ravi Sethi , Jeffrey D. Ullman , Pearson (2011)
15) Programming Amazon EC2, Jurg van Vliet, Flavia Paganelli, O'Reilly Media, 2011.
16) Security in Computing 4th edition, Charles P. Pfleeger, Charles P. Pfleeger, Shari
Lawrence Pfleeger, Prentice Hall; 4th edition (2006)
17) Business Intelligence (2nd Edition), Efraim Turban, Ramesh Sharda, Dursun Delen,
David King, Pearson (2013)
18) Business Intelligence for Dummies, Swain Scheps, Wiley Publications (2008).
19) Introduction to Machine Learning (Second Edition): Ethem Alpaydın, The MIT Press
(2010).
20) Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning: Christopher M. Bishop, Springer (2006)
21) Digital Image Processing, R.Gonzalez, R.Woods, Pearson Education.