The programme at UBT enshirenes the common core of computer science and engeneering disciplines but its areas of specialisation reflect the local context, induststry trends and the interests expressed by staff and students.
SOFTWARE SYSTEMS ENGENEERING
WEB PROGRAMMING
The course is concerned with elicitation, analysis, specification and validation of advanced software requirements as well as the management of requirements during the whole life cycle of complex software products. It is widely acknolwledged among researchers and industru practicioners that software projcts are critically vulnerable when the requirements related activities are poorly performed. The software requirements express the needs and constraints placed on a software product that contribute to the solving complex solutions to some real-world problems.
The graduate course provides an advanced understanding and discussion of the following topics: product and process requirements, functional and non-functional properties, emergent properties, quantifiable requirements, requirements process and actors, requirements elicitation, conception and modelling, architectural design requirements, requirements formal analysis. The second part of the course discusses advanced issues in requirements specification, validation, practical consideration and requirements tools.
DATABASE SYSTEMS
Many applications require access to very large amounts of data. These applications often require reliability (data must not be lost even in the presence of hardware failures), and the ability to retrieve and process the data very efficiently.The subject will cover the technologies used in advanced database systems. Topics covered will include: high performance database systems. Performance and reliability, transaction processing, recovery, map reduce models, and indexing of both structured and unstructured data. The subject will also cover additional topics such as: uncertain data; Xquery; the Semantic Web and the Resource Description Framework; dataspaces and data provenance; datacentres; and data archiving.
DATA SCIENCE
Data analytics is becoming an increasingly important part of contemporary decision-making and strategic analysis. This is equally true in both public and private sector organizations. Sound knowledge of the basic statistical approaches to summarize and analyse data are becoming an important set of managerial skills.
This course is an introductory course on the basics of data analysis and analytics. These include basic data management, methods to summarize data effectively, and regression modelling and analysis. An emphasis will be placed on how such analyses can help guide effective decision-making. The course will also involve a significant amount of hands-on data analysis using the public domain software “R”, and one of the aims of the course is introduce participants to this leading software environment. Participants will have to employ the methods and models covered in the course to solve problems in cases drawn from the contemporary business and public policy environment, and recommend appropriate decisions
COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING
This subject provides an analysis and design of telecommunication signals and systems, in the presence of uncertainty. The emphasis is on understanding the basic concepts that underpin both analog and digital formats. The material covered is crucial to understanding how modern wired and wireless communication systems work at the physical layer.
Topics to be covered include:
MULTIMEDIA AND VISUALISATION
This subject introduces the technologies of computer graphics and human-computer interaction along with the biological, psychological and social aspects of human perception and action that inform the application of those technologies. The emphasis is on 2D and 3D computer graphics and the geometric modelling techniques used for representing and interacting with objects in dynamic scenes. Techniques considered include transformation geometry, illumination models and the real-time rendering (shading) models. The subject is centred on developing Apps for tablet computers based on natural user interfaces (NUIs), a term used by developers of human-machine interfaces that effectively become invisible to their users through successive learned interactions. Technologies likely to be considered are: virtual reality, computer games, augmented reality, tele-presence, or other modalities such as interaction through the sense of touch, audio or image processing and analysis. This subject supports course-level objectives by allowing students to develop analytical skills to understand the complexity of developing real-world computer graphics and interaction applications.
HEALTH INFORMATICS
Health and biomedical informatics is the body of knowledge that concerns the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of information in, about and for human health, and the design and management of related information systems to advance the understanding and practice of healthcare, public health and biomedical research. The subject introduces the field of health and biomedical informatics and provides students with the advanced knowledge and skills to for those interested to pursue a career path on health informatics. In recent years the collection, storage and usage of electronic health (ehealth) and biomedical data has exponentially grown. Increases in the complexity and comprehensiveness of health and biomedical information systems have driven growth in demand for a specialised workforce.Careers in health informatics and ehealth could involve developing systems, analysing data, conducting research and applying health information systems in clinical practice, biomedical research, public health as well as in the ehealth sector of IT industry.This kind of work involves a specialist workforce and is also of importance to health professionals (nurses, doctors, allied health, pharmacy, public health, etc), health managers and policy makers.