Teaching

Master Thesis in Computer Science and Software Engineering

Teaching

About

Timeline

Activity Deadline
Information session 2024-12-06 (Friday)
Kickoff meeting 2025-02-07 (Friday)
Module registration deadline 2025-02-17 (Monday)
Supervisor and topic selection 2025-02-17 (Monday)
Thesis submission (early deadline) 2025-05-20 (Tuesday)
Presentations (early deadline) 2025-06-03 (Tuesday)
Presentations (final deadline) 2025-08-18 (Monday)
Thesis submission (final deadline) 2025-08-22 (Friday)

We expect students to take the initiative and to drive the process. This in particular includes being active in finding a thesis topic and a supervisor. In general, A thesis may arise

  • from research in the instructor’s research area (research thesis),
  • from a collaboration with a company (industry thesis), or
  • from a student-driven product development idea for a start-up (start-up thesis).

How self-organized students work is part of the assessment. In terms of effort, please note that 1 CP equals ~25 hours, i.e., the module has an average workload of 750 hours.

Operating Systems

Teaching

About

  • Module: Operating Systems (CO-562)
  • Semester: Fall 2024
  • Prerequisites: Algorithms and Data Structures (CH-231)
  • Instructor: Jürgen Schönwälder
  • Office Hours: Monday, 11:15-12:30 (Research I, Room 87)
  • TA (Group A): Borsos, Matheas-Roland
  • TA (Group B): Dominguez Ham, Santiago
  • TA (Group C): Jovanoska, Dora
  • TA (Group D): Kenesbek, Serzhan
  • TA (Group E): Murza, Dmytro
  • Lecture: Tuesday, 14:15-15:30 (ICC-East Wing)
  • Tutorial: Tuesday, 15:45-17:00 (ICC-East Wing)
  • Lecture: Thursday, 15:45-17:00 (RLH-172)
  • TA Tutorial: Thursday, 19:30-20:30 (West Hall, Seminar Room 2)
  • Dec Exam: Thursday, 2024-12-12, 17:00-19:00 (ICC Eastwing + Conference Hall)
  • Dec Exam Review: Monday, 2025-01-20, 16:00-17:30 (Research I, R1-120)
  • Jan Exam: Thursday, 2025-01-30, 17:00-19:00 (ICC Eastwing)
  • Jan Exam Review: Wednesday, 2025-02-19, 13:00-14:00 (East Hall, Seminar Room 3)
  • Aug Exam: Wednesday, 2025-08-27, 17:00-19:00 (Research I, Lecture Hall)

Content and Educational Aims

This module introduces concepts and principles used by operating systems to provide programming abstractions that enable an efficient and robust execution of application programs. Students will gain an understanding of how an operating system kernel manages hardware components and how it provides abstractions such as processes, threads, virtual memory, file systems, and inter-process communication facilities. Students learn the principles of event-driven and concurrent programming and the mechanisms that are necessary to solve synchronization and coordination problems, thereby avoiding race conditions, deadlocks, and resource starvation. The Linux kernel and runtime system will be used throughout the course to illustrate how key ideas and concepts have been implemented and how application programs can use them.

Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science

Teaching

About

  • Module: Mathematical Foundations to Computer Science (CH-233)
  • Semester: Fall 2024
  • Prerequisites: None
  • Instructor: Jürgen Schönwälder
  • Office Hours: Monday, 11:15-12:30 (Research I, Room 87)
  • TA (Group A): Babayev, Gazanfar
  • TA (Group B): Borovlev, Petr
  • TA (Group C): Cprljakovic, Bogdan
  • TA (Group D): Mitov, Rumen Valentinov
  • TA (Group E): Nuredini, Kejsi
  • TA (Group F): Paniukhin, Nikita
  • TA (Group G): Valean, Andrei-Gheorghe
  • TA (Group H): Valladares, Zaara
  • Lecture: Tuesday, 11:15-12:30 (RLH-172)
  • Lecture: Friday, 08:15-09:30 (RLH-172)
  • Tutorial: Friday, 09:45-11:00 (RLH-172)
  • TA Tutorial: Wednesday, 10:00-11:00 (West Hall, Seminar Room 2)
  • TA Tutorial: Friday, 19:00-20:00 (Research II, Lecture Hall)
  • Dec Exam: Friday, 2024-12-20, 12:30-14:30 (ICC Eastwing + Conference Hall)
  • Dec Exam Review: Thursday, 2025-01-16, 13:00-14:00 (Research I, R1-120)
  • Dec Exam Review: Monday, 2025-01-20, 15:00-16:00 (Research I, R1-120)
  • Jan Exam: Wednesday, 2025-01-22, 12:30-14:30 (ICC-East Wing)
  • Jan Exam Review: Friday, 2025-02-21, 13:00-14:00 (East Hall, Seminar Room 3)

Content and Educational Aims

The module introduces students to the mathematical foundations of computer science. Students learn to reason logically and clearly. They acquire the skill to formalize arguments and to prove propositions mathematically using elementary logic. Students are also introduced to fundamental concepts of graph theory and elementary graph algorithms.

After establishing the concept of algorithms, the first part covers basic elements of discrete mathematics, leading to Boolean algebra, propositional logic, and predicate logic. Students learn how to use fundamental proof techniques to prove (or disprove) simple propositions. The second part of the module introduces students to basic concepts of algebraic structures like groups, rings, and fields and different structure preserving maps (homomorphisms). Students study how these abstract concepts relate to problems in computer science. The last part of the module covers the basic elements of graph theory and the different representation of graphs. Elementary graph algorithms are introduced that have a wide range of applicability in computer science.

Student Thesis Topics (2025)

Teaching

I will supervise BSc thesis projects in Spring 2025. Since I have limited supervision capacity, I typically take the first N students following more or less a first-come, first-served strategy. I like to form clusters of students working on related topics, and I organize weekly (online) meetings with these clusters. We use a collaborative note taking tool to track progress. The work itself is taking place in two phases. In the first phase, students will dive into the state of the art of their topic, resulting in a state of the art report. I will review these reports and provide feedback. In the second phase, students focus on their own contribution, and they will finally write their thesis. The thesis naturally builds on the state of the art report and extends it with the work describing the contribution. Before submitting the thesis, students have to present and defend their work in the BSc thesis seminar. The seminar grade is given for the presentation. The thesis grade is given for the thesis report, the technical accomplishments, including the work organization (regular participation in weekly meetings and steady progress).

Operating Systems

Teaching

About

  • Module: Operating Systems (CO-562)
  • Semester: Fall 2023
  • Prerequisites: Algorithms and Data Structures (CH-231)
  • Prerequisites: Introduction to Computer Science (CH-232)
  • Instructor: Jürgen Schönwälder
  • Office Hours: Monday, 11:15-12:30 (Research I, Room 87)
  • TA (Group A): Muratovic, Haris
  • TA (Group B): Perial, Razvan Andrei
  • TA (Group C): Stefanovska, Tea
  • TA (Group D): Stratulat, Cristian-Mihai
  • Class: Tuesday, 14:15-15:30 (ICC-East Wing)
  • Class: Tuesday, 15:45-17:00 (ICC-East Wing)
  • Class: Thursday, 15:45-17:00 (RLH 172)
  • Tutorial: Thursday, 18:00-19:00 (East Hall 1)
  • 1st Module Exam: Saturday, 2023-12-16 12:30-14:30 (SCC Hall 1-2)
  • 2nd Module Exam: Monday, 2024-01-22 14:00-16:00 (ICC East Wing)
  • 3rd Module Exam: Friday, 2024-08-23 11:00-13:00 (R1-53)

Content and Educational Aims

This module introduces concepts and principles used by operating systems to provide programming abstractions that enable an efficient and robust execution of application programs. Students will gain an understanding of how an operating system kernel manages hardware components and how it provides abstractions such as processes, threads, virtual memory, file systems, and inter-process communication facilities. Students learn the principles of event-driven and concurrent programming and the mechanisms that are necessary to solve synchronization and coordination problems, thereby avoiding race conditions, deadlocks, and resource starvation. The Linux kernel and runtime system will be used throughout the course to illustrate how key ideas and concepts have been implemented and how application programs can use them.

System Security

Teaching

About

  • Course: System Security (MCSSE-CYB-02)
  • Semester: Spring 2024
  • Prerequisites: Cryptography (MCSSE-CYB-01)
  • Instructor: Jürgen Schönwälder
  • Office Hours: Monday, 11:15-12:30, R.1-87
  • Class: Wednesday, 14:15-15:30, RLH Seminar Room
  • Class: Friday, 15:45-17:00, RLH Seminar Room
  • May Exam: Tuesday, 2024-05-28 12:30-14:30 (East Hall 6)
  • Aug Exam: Thursday, 2024-08-29 11:00-13:00 (East Hall 4)

Content and Educational Aims

This module focuses on system level security aspects of computing systems. The module starts with investigating attacks on the microarchitecture of computing systems, such as attacks to gain information from side channels targeting caches. It then introduces trusted execution environments that use hardware isolation mechanisms to provide protected storage for keys and to bootstrap the integrity of bootloaders and the loaded operating systems. Students learn about the different levels of isolation that can be achieved using various types of hypervisors or sandboxing mechanisms. Techniques that can be used to protect a system against misbehaving code and malware are introduced. Students will gain knowledge how protected data storage components can be provided at the system level and how systems can offer support for collections of (distributed) authentication mechanisms. Finally, the module will discusses how authorization mechanisms are realized in the different system software components and how they can be used to define effective security policies.

Secure and Dependable Systems

Teaching

About

  • Course: Secure and Dependable Systems (CO-566)
  • Semester: Spring 2024
  • Prerequisites: Operating Systems (CO-562)
  • Instructor: Jürgen Schönwälder
  • Office Hours: Monday, 11:15-12:30, R.1-87
  • TA: Perial, Razvan Andrei
  • TA: Stefanovska, Tea
  • Class: Tuesday, 15:45-17:00, Lecture Hall Research I
  • Class: Thursday, 15:45-17:00, Lecture Hall Research I
  • 1st Module Exam: Tuesday, 2024-05-28 16:00-18:00 (ICC West Wing)
  • 2nd Module Exam: Thursday, 2024-08-29 14:00-16:00 (R1-53)

Content and Educational Aims

This module introduces students to the fundamentals of computer security and techniques used to build and analyze dependable systems. This is an important topic given that computer systems are increasingly embedded in everyday objects (such as light bulbs) and taking over important control functions (such as driving cars). Furthermore, computer systems control complex communication systems that form critical infrastructure of the modern globalized world. Proper protection of information requires an applied understanding of cryptography and how cryptographic primitives are used to secure data and information exchanges. The aim of this module is to make students aware of what types of security vulnerabilities may arise in computing systems and how to prevent, identify, and fix them.

Bachelor Thesis and Seminar in Computer Science

Teaching

About

Timeline

Activity Deadline
Kickoff meeting 2024-02-05 (Monday)
Supervisor and topic selection 2024-02-15 (Thursday)
Presentations 2024-05-13 (Monday)
Presentations 2024-05-14 (Tuesday)
Presentations 2024-05-15 (Wednesday)
Thesis submission 2024-05-20 (Monday)
Presentations (extension) 2024-06-26 (Wednesday)
Thesis submission (extension) 2024-06-30 (Sunday)
Presentations (exceptional extension) 2024-08-19 (Monday)
Thesis submission (exceptional extension) 2024-08-22 (Thursday)

We expect students to take the initiative and to drive the process. How self-organized students work is part of the assessment. In terms of effort, please note that 1 CP equals ~25 hours, i.e., the module has an average workload of 375 hours.

Master Thesis in Computer Science and Software Engineering

Teaching

About

Timeline

Activity Deadline
Kickoff meeting 2024-02-05 (Monday)
Supervisor and topic selection 2024-02-15 (Thursday)
Presentations 2024-05-13 (Monday)
Presentations 2024-05-14 (Tuesday)
Presentations 2024-05-15 (Wednesday)
Thesis submission 2024-05-20 (Monday)
Presentations (extension) 2024-06-26 (Wednesday)
Thesis submission (extension) 2024-06-30 (Sunday)
Presentations (exceptional extension) 2024-08-19 (Monday)
Thesis submission (exceptional extension) 2024-08-22 (Thursday)

We expect students to take the initiative and to drive the process. How self-organized students work is part of the assessment. In terms of effort, please note that 1 CP equals ~25 hours, i.e., the module has an average workload of 750 hours.

Student Thesis Topics (2024)

Teaching

I will supervise BSc thesis projects in Spring 2024. Since I have limited supervision capacity, I typically take the first N students following more or less a first-come, first-served strategy. I like to form clusters of students working on related topics, and I organize weekly (online) meetings with these clusters. We use a collaborative note taking tool to track progress. The work itself is taking place in two phases. In the first phase, students will dive into the state of the art of their topic, resulting in a state of the art report. I will review these reports and provide feedback. In the second phase, students focus on their own contribution, and they will finally write their thesis. The thesis naturally builds on the state of the art report and extends it with the work describing the contribution. Before submitting the thesis, students have to present and defend their work in the BSc thesis seminar. The seminar grade is given for the presentation. The thesis grade is given for the thesis report, the technical accomplishments, including the work organization (regular participation in weekly meetings and steady progress).