MASTER OF SCIENCE

APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (ACS)

Updated September 9, 2016

Graduate Program Chair: Y. Chen; Professors: S. Liao, S. Ramanna; Associate Professors: P. Atrey; S. Camorlinga; C.
Henry Assistant Professors: R. McFadyen

DEGREES/PROGRAMS OFFERED M.Sc.

The department offers a Master's program at the graduate level in Applied Computer Science and Society with a focus on
issues of technology and ethical/human/social aspects of computing. We offer courses in three core clusters that represent
frontiers of the discipline. These are: i) Information Representation, ii) Search and Management, Intelligent Systems, and iii)
Systems Development.

AREAS OF RESEARCH
The research interests of our faculty include: algorithms and complexity, computational intelligence, computer vision, data
warehousing, distributed systems, health information systems, web and document databases, granular computing, image
processing, pattern recognition, software engineering, security and privacy, machine learning, multimedia computing, and
wireless communication. Information about specific research topics can be found on the faculty web pages http://
www.acs.uwinnipeg.ca
We offer both thesis-based and course programs. Our thesis-based program is designed to provide an excellent basis for
a Ph.D. in computer science or other related fields. Our graduates in the course-based program are well-qualified for employment
in industry, the public-sector, and academia.

REQUIREMENTS FOR A M.Sc. IN

APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
(Thesis-Based)
ADMISSION REQUIREMENT
Students may be admitted to the thesis-based Masters program if they hold an Honours or 4-year Bachelor of Science degree in
Applied Computer Science, Computer Science and/or Engineering, Mathematics or equivalent and if they present a suitable
selection of courses. A student must have a supervisor selection prior to admission.

Minimum entry requirement: overall GPA of 3.0.

English requirement: A minimum TOEFL score of 550 (paper-based), 213 (computer-based), 80 (Internet-based) or
International English Language Testing System IELTS (6.5) is needed. The test should have been taken within a year of
the date a completed application is filed.

Students can also be admitted to the Master's program upon successful completion of a University of Winnipeg designed pre-
Master's program which consists of a set of upper-level undergraduate courses. Please contact the Department for details.

APPLICATION DEADLINES
The Department allows students to begin their program in September or January. For admission for each of these start dates,
Canadian/U.S. students should send their applications with complete supporting documentation to the Office of Graduate Studies
no less than three (3) months before the intended start date. All other students should send their applications with complete
supporting documentation no later than six months (6) before the intended start date. Application form can be downloaded from
http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/grad-studies-programs

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
Students are required to take a minimum of 12 credit hours from the list of Applied Computer Science Graduate courses, plus
GACS-7500 Graduate Thesis. Students are required to write a thesis and successfully defend their thesis in an open oral
defense in the presence of a thesis committee. Students must select their courses in consultation with their thesis supervisor.

SECOND LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT: None

EXPECTED TIME TO GRADUATE: 2 years
MAXIMUM TIME REQUIRED TO GRADUATE: 5 years

REQUIRED COURSES
- Minimum 12 credits from the Applied Computer Science Graduate courses
- GACS-7500 GRADUATE THESIS
 REQUIREMENTS FOR A M.Sc. IN
APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
(Course-Based)
ADMISSION REQUIREMENT

Students may be admitted to the course-based Masters program if they hold an Honours or 4-year Bachelor of Science degree in
Applied Computer Science, Computer Science and/or Engineering, Mathematics or equivalent and if they present a suitable
selection of courses.

Minimum entry requirement: overall GPA of 3.0 in all computing , mathematics and statistics courses.
English requirement: A minimum TOEFL score of 550 (paper-based), 213 (computer-based), 80 (Internet-based) or
International English Language Testing System IELTS (6.5) is needed.
The test should have been taken within a year of the date a completed application is filed.

APPLICATION DEADLINES
The Department allows students to begin their program in September or January. For admission for each of these start dates,
Canadian/U.S. students should send their applications with complete supporting documentation to the Office of Graduate Studies
no less than three (3) months before the intended start date. All other students should send their applications with complete
supporting documentation no later than six months (6) before the intended start date. Application form can be downloaded from
http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/grad-studies-programs

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS

Students are required to take

- a minimum of 21 credit hours of GACS-7xxx/3 courses (excluding GACS-7500 thesis course)
- a minimum of 9 credit hours of ACS-4xxx/3 courses

SECOND LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT: None

EXPECTED TIME TO GRADUATE: 2 years
MAXIMUM TIME REQUIRED TO GRADUATE: 5 years

SWITCHING from Course-based Program to Thesis-based Program:

Students may switch from course-based to thesis-based at any time during the program provided a thesis supervisor is willing to
accept them. The department is not responsible for finding thesis supervisors.

SWITCHING from Thesis-based to Course-based Program:

Students may switch from thesis-based to course-based program within the first four months from the date of registration. After
the first four months, a switch can be made only with the written approval of their thesis Supervisor and the Graduate Program
Committee Chair.

Applied Computer Science Department Courses

Information Representation, Search and Management Cluster:

- GACS-7101/3 ADVANCED DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS FOR APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE
- GACS-7102/3 WEB AND DOCUMENT DATABASES
- GACS-7103/3 SEMANTIC WEB
- GACS-7104/3 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SECURITY AND PRIVACY

Intelligent Systems Cluster:

- GACS-7201/3 BIOMETRICS
- GACS-7202/3 GRANULAR COMPUTING: FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS
- GACS-7203/3 PATTERN RECOGNITION
- GACS-7204/3 MULTIMEDIA COMPUTING AND APPLICATIONS
- GACS-7205/3 DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING

Systems Development Cluster:

- GACS-7301/3 IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT OF PEER-TO-PEER SYSTEMS
- GACS-7302/3 GLOBAL SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
- GACS-7303/3 ADVANCED TOPICS IN SOFTWARE DESIGN AND
ARCHITECTURE
- GACS-7304/3 COMPUTER SYSTEMS FOR SOCIETY
- GACS-7305/3 GRADUATE PROJECT
Topics:
- GACS-7401/3 CURRENT TOPICS IN COMPUTING

Thesis - GACS-7500 GRADUATE THESIS

 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Information Representation, Search and Management Cluster:

GACS-7101(3) ADVANCED DATA STRUCTURES data becomes more important and challenging. This
AND ALGORITHMS FOR APPLIED COMPUTER course focuses on the design of various biometric
SCIENCE (Le3) In this course, students will study systems based on fingerprints, voice, face, hand
methods for designing efficient data structures and geometry, palm print, iris, retina, and other modalities.
algorithms such as binary search trees, red-black trees, Multimodal biometric systems that use two or more of
priority queues, minimum spanning trees, strongly the above characteristics are studied. This course also
connected components, maximum flows, string examines biometric system performance and the issues
matching and tree matching, bipartite graphs, as well as related to the security and privacy aspects of these
the algorithm analysis and proof. Through the study of systems.
these data structures and algorithms, students will PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
develop skills to solve hard problems in specialized Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
databases such as Graph databases, DNA and
Deductive databases. GACS-7202(3) GRANULAR COMPUTING:
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS (Le3) This
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. course examines granular computing as a framework of
theories, methodologies, techniques, and tools that
GACS-7102(3) WEB AND DOCUMENT DATABASES make use of information granules in the process of
(Le3) In this course, students will gain a good problem solving. Granular computing has a significant
understanding and knowledge of research issues impact on the design and implementation of intelligent
associated with two types and databases. In particular, systems. Emphasis is placed on the study of the theory
students will study basic theoretic issues of web and of rough and fuzzy sets. Applications of these theories
document databases: system architectures, XML data are also explored. This course also examines social
storage and data compression, data retrieval and twig issues that arise from application of these theories in
matching, data stream system, as well as the search selected domains.
engine architecture. Another specific methodology PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
related to Graph databases will also be discussed. Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. GACS-7203(3) PATTERN RECOGNITION (Le3) This
course gives students an overview of classification
techniques. It covers methods from linear classifiers to
GACS-7103(3) SEMANTIC WEB (Le3) This course nonparametric techniques. Feature generation,
examines current issues related to the next generation selection, and extraction techniques are examined.
of the World Wide Web: the Semantic Web that is Both supervised and unsupervised learning methods
intended to convert the Web into a more practical are discussed.
globally linked database. Topics comprise document PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
markup languages, access privileges, business rules, Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
and processing models for managing data. A typical
project involves the design and implementation of an GACS-7204(3) MULTIMEDIA COMPUTING AND
application for managing semi-structured data using APPLICATIONS (Le3)
XML technologies. This course provides graduate students with an in-
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate depth knowledge of various computational techniques
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. and tools used in multimedia research (images, videos,
speech, graphics and documents). The course covers
GACS-7104(3) THEORY AND PRACTICE OF the following topics: fundamentals of multimedia signal
SECURITY AND PRIVACY (Le3) This course provides processing, multimedia compression, wireless
students an understanding of theoretical and practical multimedia, multimedia summarization, content-based
multimedia retrieval, multimedia surveillance and
aspects of security and privacy and opens them up to
security, and current issues and trends in multimedia
the current research challenges in this area. Topics research. The objective of this course is to prepare
include classical cryptography, symmetric encryption, students to understand the theoretical foundation of
public key cryptography, key distribution mechanisms, multimedia computing, and to apply computational tools
digital signature, entity and message authentication, such as Matlab, Intel OpenCV, etc., to the processing
access control, multimedia security and digital right and analysis of multimedia data.
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
management, secret sharing, physical security, privacy
Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
preserving techniques such as data aggregation,
perturbation, k-anonymity and l-diversity. GACS-7205(3) DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING (Le3)
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate This course provides students a detailed overview of
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. Digital Image Processing and its applications. Image
processing has found applications in many areas from
Intelligent Systems Cluster: medical imaging to computer graphics. This course
covers the fundamental concepts of visual perception
GACS-7201(3) BIOMETRICS (Le3) Biometrics refers and image acquisition, basic techniques of image
to the automatic identification of a person based on manipulation, segmentation and coding, and a
his/her physiological or behavioral characteristics. With preliminary understanding of Computer Vision. With
the increased integration of computers and Internet into successful completion of the course, students will be
our everyday lives, to protect sensitive and personal
able to perform image manipulations and analysis in PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
many different fields. Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. GACS-7305(6) GRADUATE PROJECT (P)
The intent of this course is to allow a student to choose
Systems Development Cluster: an area of specialization and to work on a state-of-the-
art project in that area. Suitable projects may include,
GACS-7301(3) IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT OF for example, the implementation and evaluation of new
PEER-TO-PEER SYSTEMS (Le3) The course is algorithms or the use of modern technologies for novel
divided into two parts. First half of the course examines applications. Completion of the course requires a
the foundations, implementation, and characteristics of written report and an oral presentation. The specific
various peer-to-peer systems (both research and details of the report are determined in consultation with
production). Topics discussed will include the formation, the project advisor, but must include a survey of
structure, maintenance, purpose, and function of peer- relevant literature, a description and evaluation
to-peer systems, as well as their commonalities and pertinent to the students work, and details of software
differences. The second half of the course examines authored by the student.
the social issues that arise from the manner in which PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
peer-to-peer systems are structured and used. The Studies Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
issues examined in this half include: copyright-related RESTRICTIONS: Open only to course-based stream
issues such as the Napster and Grokster decisions; students.
anonymity and privacy, with respect to systems such as RESTRICTIONS : Students must complete two semesters
Tor; and security-related issues. in the ACS graduate program before they can take the
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate project course.
Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
GACS-7401(3) CURRENT TOPICS IN COMPUTING
GACS-7302(3) GLOBAL SOFTWARE PROJECT (Le3) This course is a combination of readings,
MANAGEMENT (Le3) This course identifies and discussions, hands-on projects, and oral presentations
addresses the social, organizational and technical that explore current topics in the field of computer
issues in managing global software projects. Its topics science. During the semester students may be
include communications and coordination in a required to work on the design and/or implementation of
distributed environment; critical success factors; global systems, participate in discussions, and present
project management framework; generic design (void of seminars on chosen topics.
nationalities) and local design (with target culture); and PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
evaluation criteria of the perceived effectiveness of Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
various global project management strategies. The
course incorporates both theory and practice, including GACS-7500(3) GRADUATE THESIS (P) Graduate
case studies from international software development thesis research. Detailed exploration of an area of
companies. Students are expected to participate in Applied Computer Science chosen for thesis research.
research to enrich the course material. PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
EXPERIMENTAL COURSE
GACS-7303(3) ADVANCED TOPICS IN SOFTWARE
DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE (Le3) This course GACS-7306(3) APPLIED PARALLEL
considers problems and issues in the development of PROGRAMMING (Le3) The course focuses on
enterprise-level software systems. Topics may include parallel and distributed computing in high-performance
software architectures, model driven development, scientific application, using the parallel execution
development methodologies, design patterns, model, a generalization of the traditional single
frameworks, coding practices, etc. During the semester threaded paradigm. The course covers knowledge of
students are required to work on the design and/or multi-core processors, concurrency, parallel execution,
implementation of a complex multi-tiered system. latency, communication and coordination among
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate processes, message passing, shared-memory models,
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. optimization techniques, parallel algorithms,
decomposition strategies, system architecture, and
GACS-7304(3) COMPUTER SYSTEMS FOR performance analysis and tuning. Using the language
SOCIETY (Le3) This course provides students a broad C/C++, students gain hands-on experience writing
understanding of how the computer systems are used scalable parallel applications for Graphics Processing
in various societal domains such as human Units.
communication, education, homeland security, health PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
and medicine, government, business, and Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
transportation. The focus of the course is on study of RESTRICTIONS: (ineligible students): Students who have
the frameworks, models and algorithms used in these taken ACS-4306 will not be eligible to take GACS-7306
systems and on to expose students with the areas for ACS degree credit.
where improvement can be done. Students are required
to undertake a course-end project to identify the
potential research problems in a particular application
area and investigate their innovative scientific solutions
in order to have a greater impact on society.