1. Dr. Anthony Tam Academic Advisor Department of Computer Science
Information Session
Dr. Anthony Tam
Academic Advisor
Department of Computer Science

2. AGENDA About Department of Computer Science What is Computer Science?
BEng(CompSc) programme
Student Life
A Taste of Computer Science
Computer Science Research

3. HKU Department of Computer Science
Formally established within the Faculty of Engineering in 1988
The youngest and fastest developing department in the Faculty
Computer studies courses were first taught in HKU in 1975
the first bachelor degree in Computer Studies was offered under the Faculty of Science in 1982
the MSc(CompSc) programme was first offered in 1991

4. What is Computer Science?
Computer Science is about:
砌機 ?
寫網頁 ?
using photoshop ?
寫 app ?
微軟證書考試 ?

5. What is Computer Science ?
Computer science is not just about programming and studying the computers, but rather it is about problem solving – the study of algorithms and information representation to make productive use of computing technologies.
Theory & Knowledge (Computing) +
Applications =
Computer Science Studies

6. Highlights of BEng(CompSc) Programme
Flexibility
Students can select electives from a wide variety of courses
Can use the credits to satisfy the minor programme or some courses under the double degree or 2nd major programme
Accreditation
The programme is accredited by the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE)
Internship
Students may spend 8-12 weeks (during summer) to 1 year of paid work experience and professional development in the industry
Final year project
Students may choose amongst research-based projects, software development projects, and industry-based projects as their Capstone Experience.
Research opportunity
Outstanding students are having the opportunities to undertake research under the University Research Fellowship Programme.

7. Computer Science Curriculum
Core fields: programming, mathematics, algorithms, data structures, database, operating systems, computer organization, networking, software engineering, and professionalism.
Selections:
artificial intelligence, computer graphics, computer vision, mobile app development, multimedia, e-commerce, computer game design, network security, etc.

8. 2013 Admissions – Important Information
JUPAS Code – JS6963
Entrance Requirements
English Language Level 3
Chinese Language Level 3
Mathematics Level 3
Liberal Studies Level 2
Two Electives Level 3
One of the electives must be Physics or Combined Science with Physics components
Mathematics (Extended Module 1 or Module 2)
Level 3
Preferred but not required
We are going to have a new set of Entrance Requirements starting from 2014 Admissions

9. Student Life

10. A taste of Computer Science
Activity – 網絡的疑惑

11. Networks are everywhere

12. Network Problems
We often need to work out the most efficient way to build the networks
Roads to connect cities
Gas pipes to houses, buildings
etc . . .

13. Network Graph houses The cost to build gas pipe between houses cities
The cost to build road to link up cities

14. Muddy City Problem Muddy City – a city that had no roads.
After raining, cars got stuck in the mud and people got their boots dirty.
The mayor decided to pave some of the streets, but didn’t want to spend more money than necessary
Careful planning
Find the best route that connects all the
houses, but uses as few paving stones as possible.

15. Minimum Spanning Tree (最小生成樹)
A subgraph that is a tree and that reaches out to all nodes of the original graph with the least total cost.
Minimum paving cost is
to use 23 paving stones.

16. Exercise

17. What strategy did you use to solve the problem?
Could your strategy be used by the computer?

18. Solution

19. What strategy can we use to solve the problem?
Kruskal's Algorithm
start with no connections
repeat
pick an unused minimum cost path
only add the path if it connects new node(s)
mark this path as used
until all of the nodes are linked

20. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

21. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

22. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

23. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

24. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

25. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

26. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

27. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

28. 5 3 4 2 3 6 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 6 4 4 3 6

29. 5 3 4 2 3 6
Done! 4 6 6 5 5 2 5 4 5 4 6 4 3 6

30. Many practical graph problems!
Shortest path problem
Traveling salesman problem
… many many …

31. Computer Science Research
is about taking advantage of fast data processing to solve problems that are otherwise infeasible

32. Research Groups & Focus
Algorithms and Bioinformatics
Algorithms: Design & Analysis of Algorithm, Scheduling, Metric Space Embedding, Data Privacy, etc.
Bioinformatics: Motif Discovery, Genome Assembly, & Alignment, etc.
Data and Software Engineering
Data Mining, Uncertainty Database, Spatial Database, Cloud Database Security, Big Data Analytics, Software Testing, etc.
HCI, Graphics and Computer Vision
Geometrical Model, Visualization, Animation, Image Processing, Computer Vision, Texture Mapping and HCI, etc.
Information Security and Forensics
Network Security, Computer Forensics, etc.
Systems and Networking
Parallel and Distributed Systems, Grid & Cluster Computing, P2P Network, Cloud Computing, etc.

35. Example: DNA Sequencing
DNA is a molecule that encodes genetic information in the form of a double helix structure.
Two strands, each is a sequence of simple units called nucleotides (A,C,T, and G; informally, known as bases).
Human DNA: about 3 billion bases long.

36. DNA Sequencing Assembly
Method: Sequencing machines chop up a DNA into small (overlapping) fragments (called reads), and obtain the sequences of the reads through bio-chemical processes.
A read consists of a few hundred bases
Given many many reads, can we merge these reads and reconstruct the original DNA sequence?

37. The Challenge
“The problem of sequence assembly can be compared to taking many copies of a book, passing them all through a shredder, and piecing the text of the book back together just by looking at the shredded pieces. Besides the obvious difficulty of this task, there are some extra practical issues: the original may have many repeated paragraphs, and some shreds may be modified during shredding to have typos. Excerpts from another book may also be added in, and some shreds may be completely unrecognizable.”
Source: Wikipedia

38. DNA Sequencing Assembly
The human DNA is very long (3,000,000,000 bases) and reads are short (a few hundred bases). The jigsaw puzzle is HUGE.
The first complete human DNA sequence was published as a result of the HUMAN GENOME PROJECT.
The project was started in 1988 and was completed in a 15- year effort.
10 years ago, it takes several weeks to sequence a human DNA for USD 100M.
In 2012, it is 1 day and USD 1,000.

39. Impacts
It opens up a whole new world of clinical diagnostics.

41. Applications on HPC Most are Scientific & Engineering applications
Graphic rendering
Simulation
Weather forecasting
Drug design
Protein structure prediction
Medical imaging (image construction)

42. The computing power that created Avatar
The cluster comprises a total of 4,000 HP blade computers (with 40,000 cores, 104 terabytes of physical memory using 10 Gb/s network).
It still needed 48 hours to render some of their graphic sequences.

43. Computer Science vs. Computer Engineering
Study the design and implementation of software
Integration of software with other disciplines
Examples: google, yahoo, stock exchange system, Octopus, wikipedia, blogging
Study the design and implementation of hardware
Integration of hardware with software
Examples: Octopus IC, Computer chip design, mobile phone design

44. Computer Science vs. Business Info Systems
Information Systems
Study the design and implementation of software
Integration of software with other disciplines
Examples: stock exchange system, e-banking, Octopus, flight schedule
Study how information systems enhance management
Integrate software technology with management
Examples: ERP system, enterprise IT policy, IT security management