Computer Science

Operating systems (OSes) such as Linux and Windows abstract bare-metal hardware and provide a more manageable virtual computer. The history of OS is old, and the modern, commercial OS consists of many fundamental concepts and implementation technologies. This course aims to educate on the basic concepts and implementation technologies of conventional OSes and deepen an understanding of their internal structure, particularly the internal structure of Linux and Windows. If time permits, cutting-edge operating systems and techniques will also be introduced. Along with the constant change in computer usage, the functions required in the OS constantly change, thus the study of OS provides hot research topics. 

This course covers the fundamentals of game development in a multi-platform (consoles, PC, Web, and mobile devices) environment. The course focuses on development of 3D games, covering all aspects of game development: the game loop, math, physics, audio, graphics, input, animations, particle systems, and artificial intelligence. This course has a strong programming content, required for laboratories and assignments. The practical aspects are taught using a popular game development platform. 

This course provides individual research training for students in the Junior Year Engineering Program through the experience of belonging to a specific laboratory at Tohoku University. Students are assigned to a laboratory with the consent of the faculty member in charge. They participate in various group activities, including seminars, for the purposes of training in research methods and developing teamwork skills. The specific topic studied depends on the instructor in charge of the laboratory to which each student is assigned. The methods of assessment vary with the student's project and laboratory instructor. Students submit an abstract concerning the results of their individual research each semester and present the results near the end of this program.

This course offers an introduction to cryptography. Topics include: mathematical foundations of cryptography; classic cryptography; symmetric encryption; key distribution and asymmetric encryption; hash functions, MAC, and authenticated encryption; digital signatures schemes; public key infrastructure; user authentication.

This course is an introduction to blockchain systems and distributed ledgers, the relevant cryptographic tools and smart contracts programming.

This course is an introduction to the theoretical concepts required for subsequent computer science courses. However, the course also provides a stand-alone introduction for students interested in the theory of computation and its links with logic and language theory. The first part of the course focuses on mathematical logic and the second part addresses the fundamentals of computation, automata, and language theory.

This course examines the methods and techniques to efficiently explore and analyze large data collections. Students will learn how to ingest, combine and summarize data from a variety of data models which are typically encountered in data science projects, such as relational, semi-structured, time series, geospatial, image, text. As well as reinforcing their programming skills through experience with relevant Python libraries, this course will also introduce students to the concept of declarative data processing with SQL, and to analyze data in relational databases. Students will be given data sets from, eg. , social media, transport, health and social sciences, and be taught basic explorative data analysis and mining techniques in the context of small use cases. The course will further give students an understanding of the challenges involved with analyzing large data volumes, such as the idea to partition and distribute data and computation among multiple computers for processing of 'Big Data'.

Students gain an overview of the fundamental technologies of the World Wide Web (WWW) and their applications. They study the functionality of the WWW as an overlay network of the Internet and examine the underlying communication infrastructure and protocols. Students also study the different generations of the WWW and the current as well as the future development. They learn to semantically structure, design and link web content, to create dynamic web sites, and to program server-side applications and how to connect them with the front-end via interfaces. Course content includes foundations (the main parts of the WWW and its evolution over the past decades), web pages (the structure and design of web content with HTML and CSS), web applications (an overview of JavaScript, the DOM and AJAX ), architecture and communication (the foundations of the OSI model with the consideration of the IP, TCP and UDP protocol as well as the explanation of the REST architectural style), server-side applications (creation of back-end applications with Node.js), selected APIs and frameworks.

The course introduces fundamental concepts in designing and implementing computer communication networks. The course covers topics such as network architecture, applications, security, and mobility, with examples primarily from the Internet protocol suite. 
Written assignments, programming assignments, and hands-on lab (that can be done on any Internet-connected PC) will be part of the course.