Honours

Course Co-ordinator: Prof George Wells

Project Co-ordinator: Dr Karen Bradshaw

The Honours Degree will benefit your career because:

• The Honours level is the international standard for a first degree.  For international mobility, and entrance into postgraduate courses at foreign universities, the honours degree is a minimum requirement.
• Professional Status (registration with professional bodies, bidding for government consulting contracts, etc.) requires a 4 year qualification.  
• The Rhodes degree is an advanced, marketable qualification, recognised internationally. The course provides improved employment prospects (not only now, but later on in your career), and opens up increased opportunities for entrepreneurial prospects.
• It is the degree which provides entry into research and development.
• It allows specialisation not possible in general undergraduate degrees, and satisfies love of the subject.

Summary of Honours Courses

All students who have not completed their undergraduate degree through Rhodes University are advised to discuss their module choices , in terms of what knowedge is assumed, with the relevant module lecturers at the beginning of the year.

Research (Project) Management Course (Dr Karen Bradshaw)

Objectives:
This course addresses the issue of the management of the honours project. It covers the entire life cycle of the project from its inception (literature survey & project proposal) to its completion (presentation & assessment).

Contents:
This module is compulsory, is assessed throughout the year and examined in the final project report.

Image Processing (Mr James Connan)

Objectives:
To introduce students to image processing. This module covers aspects of image generation and manipulation, but focusses on the extraction of information from images.  The concepts covered are relevant to computer vision and image manipulation.

Contents:
Topics covered include:

• Basic concepts such as image file formats, scalingand rotation.
• Colour manipulation such as grey scaling and colour models.
• Image segmentation using background subtraction, edge detection, filters, etc.
• Image processing techniques such as Hierarchical Chamfer Distance Transforms, AdaBoost, Histograms and CAMShift.
• Taking a look at current developments in the field and directions for possible research.  

Prerequisites:
Enthusiasm and the ability to think outside of the box.  Any language that has a wrapper for OpenCV should be usable.

Computer Security (Prof Barry Irwin)

Objectives:
To enable students to gain a better understanding of the importance of Security within Information Technology and to provide insight into the effects of security on Information Systems. Some emphasis will be placed on the importance of holistic integration of security practices into Information Technology as a whole.

Contents:
The following components relating to Information Security are explored:

• Cryptography
• Security Architectures and Models
• Application Development and Secure programming
• Systems Security
• Operations Security
• Security Management
• Distributed Systems
• Physical Security
• Disaster Recover and Business Continuity Planning
• Network and Telecommunications Security
• Forensics and Investigation

Prerequisites:
Students should be familiar with programming constructs such as those covered in CSc201/CSc202 and a good understanding of Computer Networks and Operating Systems as covered in CSc302.

Distributed and Parallel Processing (Prof George Wells)

Objectives:

To present students with an overview of distributed computing, parallel programming, and the relationship between them.  Practical sessions are based on distributed message passing tools.

Contents:

• Message passing and rendezvous based systems, languages, and middleware (Occam, Ada, CSP, Corba, and Linda)
• Message passing and synchronization schemes.
• Distributed systems:  fully distributed processing networks, comparisons with other architectures.
• Designing distributed systems:  designing networks and communicating processes, choosing the grain of parallelism, load balancing.
• A theory of parallel processing: the CSP meta-language, specifying parallel systems, proving safety (such as the absence of deadlock) and fundamental laws.
• Experimental systems which hold promise for the future.

Artificial Intelligence (Prof Denis Riordan)

This course provides an introduction to artificial intelligence for undergraduate students in Computer Science and Information Systems. It covers knowledge based systems, artificial neural networks, evolutional computation, case based reasoning, fuzzy systems and hybrid systems. Small, well-chosen case studies prepare students to apply these techniques to problems that they will encounter as professionals in the field.

Prerequisites: None

Advanced Architecture (Prof Philip Machanick)

Objectives:
Computer architecture is a fast-moving field driven by underlying technology trends. This course aims to equip students with the quantitative and research skills to understand those trends and to be an active player in the field either as a researcher, or as an informed adopter of new technologies.

Topics include:

• quantitative methods of system design and evaluation
• industry trends and how to use knowledge of trends
• design principles including instruction-level parallelism, memory hierarchy, and balancing competing design objectives including cost, speed and energy use
• overall system design considerations including role of I/O, limits to parallelism and influence of competing trends

Prerequisites:

• undergraduate computer architecture or organization course (e.g. Csc201 Architecture)
• programming in C or C++ (as in CSc202 OOP in C++)
• familiarity with UNIX-style programming tools (as in CSc202)

Audio Networks (Prof Richard Foss)

There has been a move towards the use of networking technologies in the professional and consumer audio industries. This has been motivated largely by the better control, configuration, and reduced cabling that results from the use of network technology. However the transmission of audio over digital networks presents problems that are not evident with typical data transmission. This course will provide an understanding of these problems and their resolution with current technology.

Objectives:

• Understanding the innovative concepts and technologies used to solve demanding problems in audio networks.
• Gaining familiarity with the XMOS multi-processor architecture, currently being utilised in Ethernet AVB audio network devices

Contents:

• An introduction to audio networking issues – determinism, synchronization, latency
• An introduction to Ethernet AVB (Audio Video Bridge) networking
• An introduction to the XMOS multiprocessor architecture
• Study: the XMOS open-source implementation of Ethernet AVB
• An introduction to the XFN protocol that enables connection management and control of audio networks.  
• Study: integration of XFN control into an XMOS Ethernet AVB device

Prerequisites:

• Basic knowledge of computer networking and TCP/IP
• Previous exposure to C

Real Time Multimedia (Prof Alfredo Terzoli)

Objectives:
To offer a practical introduction to real-time multimedia in IP networks as well as to the construction of integrated services in a converged environment (fixed/mobile telcos and the Internet). The module will introduce protocols for the establishment of multimedia sessions and the delivery of real-time data. It will also present architectures supporting the deployment of integrated services.

Content:

• Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
• Transmission of real-time multimedia using RTP/RTCP
• Softswitches:  Asterisk and Mobicents
• Multimedia service creation in converged networks

Prerequisites:
A working knowledge of TCP/Networks is required.

Computer Hardware Interfacing (Mr Anthony Sullivan)

This is an electronics orientated course, and is presented in the Department of Physics and Electronics.

Objectives:
To provide the student with a hands on knowledge of hardware interfacing using a microcontroller enviroment.

Contents:
Assembly level programming of the Atmel 8-bit RISC architecture and associated common peripheral interfaces. A strong emphasis is placed on the differences to ‘normal’ computer programming such as no scheduling or other OS provided crutches. Practical exposure to system design of fundamental hardware interfaces.

Prerequisites:
Physics 1E2 or equivalent electronics experience.

The course is taught via the investigation of peripherals available on the development board, how they can be made to interact and produce a desired outcome. Short tasks will be set for investigation after each lecture (not all of these are for assessment purposes). The main assessment (besides the theory examination) is a practical assignment that effectively combines elements from each of the tasks to work together to produce a stated goal.

PLEASE NOTE THERE IS A 6 PERSON LIMIT ON THIS MODULE