MASTER OF SCIENCE

APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE AND SOCIETY (ACS)

Updated May 12, 2020

Graduate Program Chair: S. Camorlinga; Professors: S. Liao, S. Ramanna; Associate Professors: S. Camorlinga; C. Henry
Assistant Professors: R. McFadyen; Administrative Supervisor of Grad Students: Connie Arnhold

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 Master’s 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 two years
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 Master’s 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 two years 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 after the first term from the date of registration. 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
- GACS-7206/3 ADVANCED MACHINE LEARNING

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
- GACS-7306/3 APPLIED PARALLEL PROGRAMMING
- GACS-7307/3 ADVANCED CONCEPTS IN CLOUD COMPUTING

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 AND retina, and other modalities. Multimodal biometric systems
ALGORITHMS FOR APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE that use two or more of the above characteristics are
(Le3) In this course, students will study methods for studied. This course also examines biometric system
designing efficient data structures and algorithms such as performance and the issues related to the security and
binary search trees, red-black trees, priority queues, privacy aspects of these systems.
minimum spanning trees, strongly connected components, PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
maximum flows, string matching and tree matching, bipartite Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
graphs, as well as the algorithm analysis and proof. Through
the study of these data structures and algorithms, students GACS-7202(3) GRANULAR COMPUTING:
will develop skills to solve hard problems in specialized FOUNDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS (Le3) This course
databases such as Graph databases, DNA and Deductive examines granular computing as a framework of theories,
databases. methodologies, techniques, and tools that make use of
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate information granules in the process of problem solving.
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. Granular computing has a significant impact on the design
and implementation of intelligent systems. Emphasis is
GACS-7102(3) WEB AND DOCUMENT DATABASES (Le3) placed on the study of the theory of rough and fuzzy sets.
In this course, students will gain a good understanding and Applications of these theories are also explored. This course
knowledge of research issues associated with two types and also examines social issues that arise from application of
databases. In particular, students will study basic theoretic these theories in selected domains.
issues of web and document databases: system PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
architectures, XML data storage and data compression, data Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
retrieval and twig matching, data stream system, as well as
the search engine architecture. Another specific GACS-7203(3) PATTERN RECOGNITION (Le3) This
methodology related to Graph databases will also be course gives students an overview of classification
discussed. techniques. It covers methods from linear classifiers to
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate nonparametric techniques. Feature generation, selection,
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. and extraction techniques are examined. Both supervised
and unsupervised learning methods are discussed.
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
GACS-7103(3) SEMANTIC WEB (Le3) This course Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
examines current issues related to the next generation of the
World Wide Web: the Semantic Web that is intended to GACS-7204(3) MULTIMEDIA COMPUTING AND
convert the Web into a more practical globally linked APPLICATIONS (Le3) This course provides graduate
database. Topics comprise document markup languages, students with an in-depth knowledge of various
access privileges, business rules, and processing models for computational techniques and tools used in multimedia
managing data. A typical project involves the design and research (images, videos,
implementation of an application for managing semi- speech, graphics and documents). The course covers the
structured data using XML technologies. following topics: fundamentals of multimedia signal
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate processing, multimedia compression, wireless multimedia,
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. multimedia summarization, content-based multimedia
retrieval, multimedia surveillance and security, and current
GACS-7104(3) THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SECURITY issues and trends in multimedia research. The objective of
AND PRIVACY (Le3) This course provides students an this course is to prepare students to understand the
understanding of theoretical and practical aspects of security theoretical foundation of multimedia computing, and to apply
computational tools such as Matlab, Intel OpenCV, etc., to
and privacy and opens them up to the current research
the processing and analysis of multimedia data.
challenges in this area. Topics include classical PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
cryptography, symmetric encryption, public key Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
cryptography, key distribution mechanisms, digital signature,
entity and message authentication, access control, GACS-7205(3) DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING (Le3) This
multimedia security and digital right management, secret course provides students a detailed overview of Digital
sharing, physical security, privacy preserving techniques Image Processing and its applications. Image processing
has found applications in many areas from medical imaging
such as data aggregation, perturbation, k-anonymity and l-
to computer graphics. This course covers the fundamental
diversity. concepts of visual perception and image acquisition, basic
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate techniques of image manipulation, segmentation and coding,
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. and a preliminary understanding of Computer Vision. With
successful completion of the course, students will be able to
Intelligent Systems Cluster: perform image manipulations and analysis in many different
fields.
GACS-7201(3) BIOMETRICS (Le3) Biometrics refers to the PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
automatic identification of a person based on his/her Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
physiological or behavioral characteristics. With the
increased integration of computers and Internet into our GACS-7206(3) ADVANCED MACHINE LEARNING (Le3)
everyday lives, to protect sensitive and personal data The course covers core machine algorithms, but emphasis is
becomes more important and challenging. This course placed on research-level machine learning methods and
focuses on the design of various biometric systems based theory. Algorithms for classification, clustering, regression
on fingerprints, voice, face, hand geometry, palm print, iris, and dimensionality reduction are covered. Discovering
patterns in web content, structure and usage are to be report and an oral presentation. The specific details of the
discussed. Applications of these algorithms for effectively report are determined in consultation with the project
using machine learning methods to solve real-world advisor, but must include a survey of relevant literature, a
problems are explored via the Weka machine learning description and evaluation pertinent to the student’s work,
workbench. Evaluating predictive quality of the algorithms and details of software authored by the student.
and assessing credibility of learned patterns with statistical PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
methods are covered. Studies Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate RESTRICTIONS: Open only to course-based stream students.
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. RESTRICTIONS : Students must complete two semesters in
the ACS graduate program before they can take the project
Systems Development Cluster: course.

GACS-7301(3) IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPACT OF GACS-7306(3) APPLIED PARALLEL PROGRAMMING

PEER-TO-PEER SYSTEMS (Le3) The course is divided into (Le3) The course focuses on parallel and distributed
two parts. First half of the course examines the foundations, computing in high-performance scientific application, using
implementation, and characteristics of various peer-to-peer the parallel execution model, a generalization of the
systems (both research and production). Topics discussed traditional single threaded paradigm. The course covers
will include the formation, structure, maintenance, purpose, knowledge of multi-core processors, concurrency, parallel
and function of peer-to-peer systems, as well as their execution, latency, communication and coordination among
commonalities and differences. The second half of the processes, message passing, shared-memory models,
course examines the social issues that arise from the optimization techniques, parallel algorithms, decomposition
manner in which peer-to-peer systems are structured and strategies, system architecture, and performance analysis
used. The issues examined in this half include: copyright- and tuning. Using the language C/C++, students gain hands-
related issues such as the Napster and Grokster decisions; on experience writing scalable parallel applications for
anonymity and privacy, with respect to systems such as Tor; Graphics Processing Units.
and security-related issues. PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. RESTRICTIONS: (ineligible students): Students who have
taken ACS-4306 will not be eligible to take GACS-7306 for
GACS-7302(3) GLOBAL SOFTWARE PROJECT ACS degree credit.
MANAGEMENT (Le3) This course identifies and addresses
the social, organizational and technical issues in managing GACS-7307 ADVANCED CONCEPTS IN CLOUD
global software projects. Its topics include communications COMPUTING (Le3) This course provides extensive
and coordination in a distributed environment; critical coverage of major subjects in Cloud Computing. It gives an
success factors; global project management framework; overview of Cloud Computing and explains its main service
generic design (void of nationalities) and local design (with delivery models, deployment architectures, and key enabling
target culture); and evaluation criteria of the perceived technologies such as virtualization, parallel computing, and
effectiveness of various global project management BigData analytics. Students will acquire considerable
strategies. The course incorporates both theory and practice, knowledge in Cloud data and resource management, design
including case studies from international software patterns, security and privacy challenges and solutions, as
development companies. Students are expected to well as commercial and open-source Cloud systems. Other
participate in research to enrich the course material. topics covered include application migration to the Cloud,
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate interoperability issues, Quality of Service and Service Level
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. Agreement. Students will also gain critical research skills
by taking on a research project in Cloud Computing.
GACS-7303(3) ADVANCED TOPICS IN SOFTWARE PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE (Le3) This course Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
considers problems and issues in the development of
enterprise-level software systems. Topics may include GACS-7401(3) CURRENT TOPICS IN COMPUTING (Le3)
software architectures, model driven development, This course is a combination of readings, discussions,
development methodologies, design patterns, frameworks, hands-on projects, and oral presentations that explore
coding practices, etc. During the semester students are current topics in the field of computer science. During the
required to work on the design and/or implementation of a semester students may be required to work on the design
complex multi-tiered system. and/or implementation of systems, participate in discussions,
PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate and present seminars on chosen topics.
Program Committee Chair or Instructor. PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
GACS-7304(3) COMPUTER SYSTEMS FOR SOCIETY
(Le3) This course provides students a broad understanding GACS-7500(3) GRADUATE THESIS (P) Graduate thesis
of how the computer systems are used in various societal research. Detailed exploration of an area of Applied
domains such as human communication, education, Computer Science chosen for thesis research.
homeland security, health and medicine, government, PREREQUISITES: Consent of the Department Graduate
business, and transportation. The focus of the course is on Program Committee Chair or Instructor.
study of the frameworks, models and algorithms used in
these systems and on to expose students with the areas
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.
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 an
area of specialization and to work on a state-of-the-art
project in that area. Suitable projects may include, for
example, the implementation and evaluation of new
algorithms or the use of modern technologies for novel
applications. Completion of the course requires a written