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Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Science - Subjects

SUBJECT LIST

BREAKDOWN

C++

Elements of C++: program structure, #includes, variables, strings, assignments, input and output, arithmetic and type conversion.
Use of objects member functions.
Strings. Output formatting.
Conditional statements, boolean operators, boolean variables, conditional operator, the switch statement.
Loops - while, for, and do loops. Handling filestreams for input and output, stringstreams.
Procedures and functions, parameter passing, scope and lifetimes.
Vectors
Strings as vectors of char, 2-D vectors, arrays, C strings as arrays of char, character-level I/O, some number problems.
Creating a Date class, overloading operators and friends, a double-ended vector that does bounds checking.
Dynamic data structures - pointers and linked lists, inserting and deleting nodes
Implementing a queue class with a linked list.
Recursion and binary trees, building a binary search tree, the Towers of Hanoi recursion in language.
Objects containing pointers.
Inheritance and polymorphism.
Templates header files and preprocessor commands the STL.
Function overload resolution and exception handling.

Computer Architecture

Number systems and logic, including binary conversion and arithmetic two's compliment fractions, floating point numbers, roundoff errors, memory addresses, logical and bitwise operators, truth tables Boolean identities.
CPU instructions and assembler programming, including inline assembler with C, while and for loops, arrays, subroutines, stacks, stack frames and pointers addressing, flags.
Recursive programming in assembler for the Pentium 4.
Intel Pentium memory configuration, including virtual memory, interrupts, memory hardware.
Digital logic components, including adders, latches, decoders, multiplexers, microsequencing.
CPU architecture, including microprogramming, pipelines.

Data Structures

Various data structures in psuedocode notation, including linear lists, doubly linked lists, circular lists, queues, dequeues, threaded and unthreaded binanry trees, representation of trees, binary search trees, sequential, random and indexed file organisation, dynamic hashing, b-trees.

Information Systems

Information systems overview, the design cycle, requirements and fesibility, logical data modelling, relational databases and normalisation, data flow diagrams, designing applications, interface design, rapid application development, software testing, and maintenance project lifecycle software, metrics.

Social Implications

Human rights, intellectual property, data protection act, patents and copyright.

Writing Formal & Natural

Set theory: functions, relations, restrictions, projections, and the English language.

Database Management

Networks

Physical layer: Transmission media, asynchronous communication.
Data-link layer: Packets, frames, hardware addressing, LAN and WAN technology.
Network Layer: Internetworking, IP and fragmentation, ARP, ICMP.
Transport Layer: UDP, TCP, NAT
Application Layer: Client-server interaction, DHCP, DNS, electronic mail, FTP web browsing and programming.
Network Security: Cryptography, encryption, digital signatures, firewalls, VPNs.
The next generation: Physical layer, network layer and IP6, application layer, and voice-over-ip.

Neural Networks

Supervised, unsupervised, and reinforced learning networks
McCulloch & Pitts model, mathematical formulation of the MCP neuron model
Perceptrons and learning algorithms, the sigmoid function, multilayer networks, derivation of back-propogation, multilayer perceptrons and algorithms, examples and applications of neural networks
Kohonen self organising maps and algorithms, speech recognition
Time delay neural networks

Object Oriented Programming with Java

Operating Systems

Processes and Threads: Creation and termination states, usage implementations
Interprocess communication: Race conditions, critical regions, semaphores, mutexes, monitors, dining philosophers, sleeping barber.
Scheduling: Batch interactive and real-time scheduling, policies and mechanisms.
Deadlock: Resource allocation graphs, deadlock conditions, Ostrich algorithm, deadlock prevention, recovery and avoidance, Bankers algorithm, two-phase locking.
Memory management: Basic memory management, swapping, virtual memory page replacement algorithms, design issues for paging systems, implementation issues, segmentation.
Input/Output: Principles, device controllers, DMA, interrupts, handlers, device drivers, disk hardware and arm scheduling algorithms, error handling, clocks and timers.
File Systems: Naming, access structure, implementation, allocation, directories, shared files, disk management, reliability, DOS, Unix, and Windows 2000 filesystems.
Security: The security environment, user authentication, attacks from inside the system, attacks from outside the system, protection mechanisms, trusted systems.

Software Engineering

OOA/D and the UP (Unified Process)
UML: Domain model use case diagrams system sequence diagrams (SSD) interaction diagrams collaboration diagrams design class diagrams (DCD)
Use-Case model: write requirements
Domain model: identify conceptual classes
Design model: design objects and their interactions
Design model (cont): the GRASP patterns
Design examples and Implementation model
GRASP and GoF patterns
Design examples using GRASP and GoF patterns
Architectural analysis

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Posted by Russell Carter 27 April 2008