.:: AIT - MSWiNMe / Course Descriptions ::.

MS WiNMe / Course Descriptions

1. Core Courses

A301C Distributed Systems & Applications [12 units]

A distributed system is a computer system consisting of several independent computers, connected by a network, that can work together to perform a task or provide a service. Typical examples include: the World Wide Web, networked file systems, and massive multiprocessor networked computers doing scientific work or internet applications (e.g. Google). In this course we aim to provide students with a deeper understanding of designing, developing and deploying distributed systems. In particular we focus on fundamental topics such as naming, security, reliability, resource sharing, remote execution, linking to databases, creating interfaces etc. The course takes both a theoretical and practical view of distributed systems, concentrating on infrastructure software, development platforms and providing hands-on experience implementing distributed systems.

A302C Data Networks [12 units]

The rapid evolution of wireless and optical fiber communication has created almost limitless opportunities for new networks of greatly enhanced capabilities. Today’s networks already have very high capacities and numerous functionalities that continue to increase at a rapid rate while their application requirements are changing as rapidly as the technology. Networks must provide integrated service for mobile services, for high-resolution images and graphics, video, voice, and for conventional data. To understand these evolving networks we need to cover both descriptive material about the operation and limitations of current networks (the Internet, TCP/IP, ATM, 802.11 etc.) and analytical material and tools to evaluate and improve performance, and provide a deeper understanding of queuing, routing, and flow control especially for high speed networks and switches.

A303C Introduction to Security and Cryptography [12 units]

This course provides an introduction to techniques for defending in modern computer systems and computer networks from hostile attacks. Topics covered include operating system and application development security; network security, including cryptography and cryptographic protocols, firewalls and network denial-of-service attacks and defenses; user authentication technologies; advanced topics will additionally be covered as time permits. These may include: intrusion detection; techniques to provide privacy in Internet applications; and protecting digital content (music, video, software) from unintended use.

A304C Multimedia Processing [12 units]

This course focuses on multimedia (image, audio and video) representation, encoding and analysis/understanding. It follows a standards-driven approach, examining the various standards in the field (JPEG, MPEG, H.264, mp3, etc.), while introducing the necessary signal processing, statistical and pattern analysis elements necessary to do so. MATLAB will be used throughout the course to implement selected multimedia coding and analysis blocks, while 3rd-party multimedia codecs will be utilised for in-depth study of the encoding options.

A305C Linear & Nonlinear Network Optimization [12 units]

Network models are applicable for an enormous known variety of modeling, resource allocation and decision problems. This course provides a comprehensive treatment of formulating network optimization problems with linear and nonlinear objective cost functions as well as the principle methodologies and algorithms to solve them. Main algorithms for specialized network problems such as shortest path, max-flow, transportation, assignment, etc. are presented along with more advanced topics on convex separable multicommodity flow problems arising in communication contexts. Examples of practical applications range from network traffic modeling and routing for data networks to computational resource allocation for grid and cloud computing.

A306C Mini MBA [12 units]

This course presents the basic concepts of managerial economics and of business management with emphasis on business applications. The basic concepts of microeconomics are presented where an economic problem is transformed to an optimization problem whose solution has an economic interpretation. This approach will be used to answer such problems as input selection, pricing and project selection. Management functions like accounting, finance, human relations and marketing are also important since today’s web driven business environment requires an innovative approach. The importance of information and web-based systems is emphasized across management function, and new management models are presented for new types of organizations based on these technologies.

2. Elective Courses (grouped by area of specialization)

Information & Web Technology

A307E Web Programming Languages [12 units]

The WWW and the related technologies offer global access to information resources in a uniform way via user-friendly applications and thus added value to the Internet by enabling the provision of services for e-Commerce, e-Government and e-Learning. During this course you will understand different aspects of Web Programming Languages and gain practical experience. The following areas will be covered: Web Architecture and Infrastructure, Web Markup Languages, Client-side and Server-side Web Programming, Web Services. Languages will be taught and compared for their use for building web applications, including an introduction to Java, JSP, PHP, ASP and Ruby as well as frameworks for developing web applications like GWT and Spring.

A308E Social Networking [12 units]

Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life have taken the world by storm! Further social media is very important for jobs within the marketing and communications sector, as a skill set within other jobs, and as an industry within itself. Blogs, wikies, video podcasts, personal publishing, sharing, 2d portals are a few of the tools used practically by all professionals. Further the course will explore more esoteric aspects like analysis of existing social nets (UCINET), building applications for existing social networks via their interfaces (Facebook), and setting up one’s own blogs, sharing and social networks using free platforms (JOOMLA, Liferay etc.).

A309E Internet of Things (IOT) [12 units]

The Internet of Things refers to current attempts to translate the success of the online network effect into that of smart objects. The concept of the Internet of Things does not only provide opportunities for numerous industries and domains including building management, healthcare, traffic control and smart grid (e.g., for energy). Several complex and scalable technologies in network, middleware and presentation layers are needed for a successful implementation of the IoT and therefore development and research have to improve dramatically to fulfill these needs. Students will investigate topics such as wireless sensor network issues, the role of middleware, radio frequency identification (RFID) and sensor network technologies, as well as application areas and methods of deployment.

A310E Cloud Computing Laboratory [12 units]

Cloud computing is one of the newest technologies for internet users which is modeled after the paradigm shift towards service oriented architectures. Computing resources, the communications infrastructure, network access and the development platform as well as many primitive functions and services are abstracted into a cloud type structure allowing also ubiquitous access to newly defined services. This approach greatly simplifies and reduces cost in the development and deployment of a service thus focusing on core competences and reducing the effect of organization and infrastructure on the success of a company. There are various applications that demonstrate this paradigm but the best way to learn about this new technology is through a hands-on laboratory course on cloud computing environments that are currently deployed (Google, Amazon). Students will learn the theory and develop applications which they will deploy on the cloud.

A311E Semantic Web [12 units]

The term Semantic Web is credited to the creator of the web Tim Berners-Lee, who described it as “a web of data that can be processed directly or indirectly by machines". Web 3.0 is often interchanged with Semantic Web. Semantics means "meaning and use of data.” The Semantic Web is an activity by the WWW Consortium to create a large set of XML-based languages giving meaning to data, along with information on how various tags relate to real-world objects and concepts, so that computers can find and categorize them easily. This course covers Semantic Web technologies, including RDF and OWL, with domain-specific standards and ontologies. Representative applications of RDF, OWL, and ontologies will be discussed. It will further discuss the role of ontologies and how to develop them, the knowledge acquisition problem, techniques for scalable reasoning, integrating heterogeneous data sources, web-based agents, and issues in developing semantic-aware applications. Students will get hands-on experience with a wide range of relevant applications semantic-based media applications on the web, community-driven collective intelligence on the web, etc.

Broadband Networks

A312E Complex Networks [12 units]

This course will focus on the mathematical and statistical analysis and modeling of networked systems, such as arise in biological context, social networks, communication networks and technological systems. Both static and dynamic perspectives will be studied. Specific topics include network graph construction and relevant sampling issues, characterization of networks, community detection, network evolution, network modeling and inference. Generating functions, scale free & small world networks, their models and properties will be studied along with applications in computer networks, evolution of the web, social networking and social phenomena.

A313E Broadband Networks Laboratory [12 units]

The scope of the course is to offer a practical perspective and expose students to advanced topics in high-speed networking and internet technologies. The focus will be on both the architectural and protocol aspects underpinning the design and operation of broadband networks (both wired and wireless) and will provide broad coverage of subjects including: IP Architectures (IntServ, Diffserv), MPLS, ATM, Frame Relay, SONET/SDH, IP over WDM architectures, DSL, Wireless Mesh Networks, MIMO wireless systems, Traffic Control, QoS and Packet Switching Architectures. The goal is to provide students with an understanding of how the internet uses these underlying technologies to enable its applications and offer its services, so that students can learn about the standards, concepts, functionalities and networking issues involved. Emerging and next-generation technologies such as VoIP, Cloud Computing, and Storage Networks will be also discussed.

A314E Wireless Communications [12 units]

The demand for wireless products is growing at an impressive rate: cellular telephony, wireless internet access, wireless PDAs, wireless LANS, pagers, wireless cable, and the list goes on and on. This demand for newer and better products has created the need for engineers who are knowledgeable and skilled in the unique research and design issues encountered in developing wireless communications systems. In this course, we will survey wireless system design with an emphasis on what are often referred to as "physical layer" topics: cellular system techniques and capacity, radio wave propagation and coverage, modulation formats and efficiency, RF system design, signal processing and coding techniques, and multiple access techniques. Cellular telephone systems and the Global Positioning System will be used as examples to illustrate these concepts.

A315E Optical Networks [12 units]

Even though the emphasis of this course will be on optical networking technologies, the underlying fiber optic link design and the basic optical components needed for a point-to-point link will be reviewed. The basic principle of operation of optical transmitters, detectors, optical amplifiers, multiplexers, filters, couplers, and wavelength converters will be described. Knowledge of optical devices is not only necessary from a transmission system engineering viewpoint but also from the viewpoint of appreciating the limitations that these devices impose on optical networks. In the remainder of the course, the emphasis will be on describing First-Generation Optical Network Technologies such as SONET/SDH, FDDI, ATM, IP, and Second-Generation Optical Networks employing Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) Technologies. Research issues in today's and future Optical Access Networks, Photonic Packet Switching Techniques, and optical routing techniques (such as Detection Routing, Hybrid Store-and-Forward, and Wavelength Conversion) will also be highlighted. Other topics that will be (time permitting) covered include Network Control and Management and Fault/Failure Protection/Management of Optical Networks and the current deployment considerations.

AIT316E: Information Theory and Coding [12 units]

The first half of this course will introduce the basic notions of information theory, and relate it to primarily communication system concepts, with some examples of its application in other fields. Coding theory, which is the practical realization of the communication limits specified by information theory, will be covered in the second half of the course. The course will concentrate on binary coding schemes, which nonetheless are very widely used. Thus, the first half of the course comprises of the concepts of entropy, mutual information, the Asymptotic Equipartition property, applications to source coding (data compression), applications to channel capacity (channel coding), differential entropy and its application to waveform channel capacities, and a subset of advanced topics such as Kolmogorov complexity, timing (covert) communications, or rate-distortion theory, as time permits. The second half of the course comprises Hamming codes, cyclic codes (CRC and BCH codes), a brief introduction to Reed-Solomon codes, and perhaps universal codes (Lempel-Ziv coding). A class project, involving independent reading, will allow students to investigate any advanced topic related to information theory and coding.

A317E: Sensor Networks [12 units]

This course examines how to design and analyze the implementation of information processing tasks on sensor networks, including routing, service establishment, sensor tasking and control, and data storage. A special challenge is the integration of techniques from a variety of disciplines that come into play in supporting high-level sensor network information management - including signal processing, networking, energy - aware computing, distributed databases and algorithms, and embedded systems and platforms. A rudimentary knowledge of linear algebra, elementary probability and estimation theory, graph theory, networking protocols, databases, and distributed systems will be assumed.

A318E Overlay and P2P Networks [12 units]

Overlay networks and peer-to-peer technologies have become key components for building large scale distributed systems. They provide a virtual network topology on top of the physical network, which directly interfaces to users. With the rapid advancement of Internet and computing technology, much more information and computing resources are available from clients or peers than from a limited number of centralized servers. Further, data routing can be very flexible avoiding congestion based on probed latency, thus becoming important for applications like VoIP. Overlay networks allow network developers to implement their own protocols over the internet and information recourses. This course will introduce overlay networks (structured and unstructured) and peer-to-peer systems, discuss their general properties, performance evaluation, and applications such as p3p content distribution algorithms. Further it will introduce the students to the challenges and research problems such as efficient network resource usage, security and privacy issues, resource coordination, fairness, and control of the physical network.

A319E Cognitive Radio [12 units]

Cognitive radio is an exciting modern topic in the area of wireless communication systems and networks. Motivated by the scarcity of radio spectrum, the cognitive radio paradigm examines the possibility of non-licensed radio systems co-existing with licensed ones. This course will touch upon the most important aspects of this rich topic, including: a) Regulatory aspects of cognitive radio: the battle between incumbent operators and small players and the role of regulators, b) cognitive radio transmission paradigms (Interweave transmission, Underlay transmission, Overlay transmission), c) Spectrum sensing techniques, d) Design characteristics and specifications for cognitive terminal nodes, e) Resource allocation techniques for cognitive radio, f) Protocol (MAC layer) support for cognitive radio, g) Cognitive radio in wireless standards (802.22, LTE).

New Media

A320E Multimedia and Communication Systems Design Laboratory [12 units]

This course focuses on a hands-on learning of the design of systems that can send, receive, and process digital signals and digitize information using the required digital signal processing techniques. It can be attended both as a broadband communications elective and as a new media elective. Students can focus on projects in their area of specialization, design and simulate a complete system like a digital modem, a multimedia compressor, a video streamer etc. Students get to implement several of these building blocks, as well as end-to-end systems, using the Matlab programming language, with the associated toolbox (communication, multimedia, sig proc.), as well as its Simulink design package. By the end of the class, the students will have a good understanding of the main principles of digital communications and information processing; the main impairments that practical channels exhibit; and the necessary skills for basic digital system design.

A321E Search Engines and Information Retrieval [12 units]

The course covers a broad range of advanced algorithms for analysis, description, indexing, representation, learning and classification, data management, access and visualization of content, especially multimedia in large distributed archives. It initially introduces students to information retrieval and data mining principles, search engine technologies and then proceeds further on elaborating on topics such as content-based multimedia information analysis, description, archiving, retrieval, search and presentation, as well as information extraction and knowledge discovery deploying data mining methodologies. Background know-how is needed on algebra and statistics, multimedia processing and programming skills. Students will get hands-on experience on relevant applications that they will develop in groups.

A322E Ambient Intelligence Lab [12 units]

This laboratory course will provide students with the knowledge and skills to process sensor streams, to use models for context awareness and perceptual processing and apply them to real environments for working and living. Focus will be given on intelligent application definition, design and testing. The students will gain hands-on experience on advanced tools for context modeling, and for building plug-and-play distributed applications with perceptual components. The course will take place in the Smart laboratory, a space equipped with a variety of sensors such as cameras and microphones along with significant computing power to allow processing of the sensor streams and extraction of information and context.

A323E Graphics [12 units]

This course introduces students to the vast Computer Graphic world, which plays a tremendous role in web technology, in business, in mechanical engineering, in industrial modeling, in entertainment, as well as in medical applications and many other fields. The course will cover basic 2D and 3D representations and transformations, shading, texture mapping, rendering methods. OpenGL will be used as the main vehicle into this world. Selected advanced topics will be covered in physics engines and physics engines programming. The course will have a strong laboratory component and students may enter in competitive term projects: best designs will be awarded a prize.

A324 Games and Virtual Worlds [12 units]

This course introduces students to the mechanics of creating virtual worlds and games, for social interaction, for business purposes, for gaming or for entertainment. Background in graphics and physics engine programming is needed. Students will learn to program game engines (open source like the Panda3D or commercial like the Hive3D development platform). They will also learn about game design principles such as interactivity and storytelling techniques. Throughout the course interactive and role playing games, interactive theatrical performances and virtual worlds will be explored. Further, the community and business aspect will be explored via methodologies to build your own followers and community. Students will enter completive term projects and the best system will be awarded a prize at the end of the course.

A325E Immersive Audio [12 units]

This course peers into the development cycle of internet applications and games through the eyes of an audio professional. Students will become competent in one of the most underused tool in the internet arsenal, the power of audio. This course will run through the game audio development process from start to finish. Students will work with current development and audio production tools to realize audio designs. Sound recording, digital audio processing, music, sound effects, and dialog production will be covered as well as content authoring, audio implementation, and asset management as it pertains to the needs of the interconnected world. Emphasis will be put on the pre-processing of audio. As a final project, students will work toward achieving a complete audio package for a virtual game project or an interactive networked system.

Security & Trust

A326E Engineering Practice and Ethics [12 units]

This course addresses issues arising from the professional responsibilities of engineers and applied scientists, especially in the area of electrical and computer engineering. Ethical conflicts arise in situations where responsibilities have to be fulfilled but we lack the moral skills for fulfilling them. Ambiguity leads to problems whereas clarity and precision lead to solutions. Safety issues, copyright, research integrity, social obligations arising from engineering practice, workplace rights and responsibilities are a few of the topics covered. Additional information about dealing with the ethical challenges of social networks and media is also presented.

A327E Security in Networked Systems [12 units]

Some of today's most damaging attacks on computer systems involve the exploitation of network infrastructure, either as the target of attack or as a vehicle to advance attacks on end systems. This course provides an in-depth study of network attack techniques and methods to defend against them. Topics include firewalls and virtual private networks; network intrusion detection; denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks; DoS and DDoS detection and reaction; worm and virus propagation; tracing the source of attacks; traffic analysis; techniques for hiding the source or destination of network traffic; secure routing protocols; protocol scrubbing; and advanced techniques for reacting to network attacks.

A328E Managing the ICT Security Function [12 units]

Securing information is a huge challenge that continues to grow more critical as business or personal interactions become increasingly dependent upon the exchange of electronic information. ICT security has managed to get a tremendous amount of attention in the past years, even getting into the headlines of mainstream media. However, despite this increased awareness for proper security, we see more security incidents taking place, and those incidents are becoming more expensive. The aim of this course is to provide a thorough understanding of the issues associated with the design, provision and management of security services for modern communication and information systems. You will learn the different aspects of information and network security and you will be able to speak about a multitude of security attacks and the defensive strategies used to combat them.

A329E Privacy & Trust [12 units]

Our everyday lives are transformed by a host of new and fast-pacing trends: pervasively easy digital communications, globalization of economies and institutions, and digitization of critical infrastructures. People and institutions today become easy prey of identity theft, confidence trickery, social engineering, pretexting, diversion theft, and other modern techniques of fraud over the internet, b2b and social networks. These are facilitated by technology and the attacker often neither meets the victims nor uses technical cracking techniques. Thus we are forced to deal with the security and privacy implications of our modern ways. This course will help students understand the history of society's approach to privacy and security law, policy and norms. We will review the fundamental policy and legislative frameworks that guide EU and global approaches to privacy and security and debate the sufficiency of these frameworks. We will also discuss ways to protect your identity and maintain your image on social networks, blogs and other social media. We will further discuss how new social networks like Facebook affect privacy and personal security, and existing laws.

Students' Views

"AIT was a perfect place that has the atmosphere one needs, where I spent most of my time and staff were really helpful and approachable. You can ask anyone for help and they’ll do all they can to help. It’s been an amazing experience where I’ve worked closely with experts who helped me to broaden my knowledge and be exposed to the areas of research and information technology industry. I knew that having such an experience would then help me to be able to go on and focus on an area that really interests me."

Ali Al-Othman, MSITT 2007 (Jordan)

MSITT