Master's in Computer Science - How to choose the program that is right for you?

Master’s in Computer Science is one of the most promising degree programs that prepare you for an exciting career in the field of computer science and technology. There is a continuing high growth in the computer industry with the technology advancements and the improvements in efficiency brought about in every sphere due to computer science. As a result it has become a highly attractive programs for career aspirants having a background in math and science. Once you have decided upon the basic choice of degree, you need to look at the various options that are available in the field of Computer Science. There are a variety of good programs with focus on different areas such as Information Technology, Systems management, Network management, Accounting management, computer security systems management, project management, communications, database, and Internet computing. It is important to pursue your Master’s in Computer Science in such a program that is most appropriate to your requirements. The following factors should be considered while deciding upon your choice of the program in computer science. Personal Aptitude: The most critical factor in making a choice of the right program for you is your personal interest, inclination and aptitude for the program. It is so important because you are most likely to spend the rest of your life in that field, and make a mark for yourself in that career. Unless the area interests you at a personal level, you may never be able to perform up to your best capability levels. Therefore consider your personal choices carefully. Growth opportunities: The kind of program that you choose is also influenced by the amount of growth and expansion that is taking place in that field. It should be a growing field, and not an area where the technology is becoming obsolete or the market is shrinking and moving on to newer technologies. Technical background: The choice of Master's in Computer Science program will also depend upon your previous educational background and any technical experience in the field. It is useful to build your strengths in areas where you already have a basic foundation ready. That will give you a head start over other candidates, and that lead can keep you ahead when the time comes to hunt for jobs. Industry demand: The program that you choose should also be such that there is a demand within various industries for that area. It must not have very narrow or confined requirement, as that will restrict your choices of industries where you can work.

How to Select a Project

Projects are undertaken to produce a product or a service for various reasons. This includes factors like market share, financial benefits, return on investment, customer retention and loyalty, and public perceptions. Organizations might receive several projects at a time. They have to select the best among the received projects request. They make decisions based on the best information they have about a particular project at a given point of time when selecting the project. Performing cost-benefit analysis while selecting a project would help them. Why? Let us discuss now.

In simple terms, in cost benefit analysis, organizations compare the financial benefits to the company of performing the project to the cost of implementing the project. In other words, organizations compare the cost of implementing projects including the cost to produce the product or service, marketing cost and ongoing operational costs etc to the financial benefits to the company when making a decision. For example, let's say a company is considering developing a business intelligence software product that will allow companies to predict customer buying pattern. Some of the costs they will take into account are:

(a) The costs to develop the software such as programmer costs, hardware costs, testing costs, etc,

(b) Marketing costs such as advertising, traveling costs to perform demos at potential customer sites, etc

(c) Ongoing costs such as having a customer support staff available during business hours to assist customers with product questions and problems.

Let's say the cost to produce this software, marketing cost plus the ongoing support costs is $10 million. Initial projections look like the demand for this product is high. Over a two-year period, projected revenue is $20 million. Taking only the financial information into account, the benefits outweigh the costs of this project. This project should receive a go recommendation. If a company receives more projects similar to the one we described, they can prioritize the projects based on the benefits.

I would like to highlight three major benefits of using this approach while selecting a project. The first and most important benefit is that the project will be approved and funded easily as the stakeholders can see the projected financial benefits of the project. The second is that since the projected cost of the project in hand, organizations can frequently measure the actual cost and compare it with the projected cost to see the real picture of expenses at any given point of time. This is kind of reality check organizations can perform to see the progress of the project. Third is that since the projected benefits of the project in hand, sharing the information to all stakeholders involved in the project and with the teams who will be doing the project would create some sort of empowerment which is really good for the organization from an alignment perspective. Few may wonder how this could be applicable for the projects which organizations perform to meet the legal guidelines & improvement projects. In both cases lose of not doing a project can be the considered as the benefits of doing the project. In summary selecting projects based on cost benefits would help organizations in several ways.

RESEARCH FIELDS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE HIGHLY NEEDED

1. Synthesis of Low Voltage Low Power Dual-VT Static CMOS Circuits
2. A Web-Based Course Management Tool
3. Image Retrieval using Wavelet Based Texture Features
4. Characteristics Of Weighted Feature Vector In Content-Based Image Retrieval Applications
5. A framework for web-enabled distributed GIS
6. Energy Aware Logic Synthesis for VLSI Circuits
7. Synthesis of Low Power High Performance Dual-VT PTL Circuits
8. Segmentation using Saturation Thresholding and its Application in Content-based Retrieval of Images
9. Synthesis of Low Voltage Energy Constraint Static CMOS Circuits
10. Trails of the Killer Tsunami: A preliminary assessment using satellite remote sensing technique
11. An architecture for web-based delivery of software as a service
12. Coordinated problem solving through resource sharing in a distributed environment
13. Fractal Image Compression: a randomized approach
14. P^3- A Power-Aware Polling Scheme with Priority for Bluetooth
15. Traffic Engineering in a typical academic network
16. Application of 2D-Fuzzy Gabor Filters for Change Detection in SAR Image
17. A New Approach to Timing Analysis using Event Propagation and Temporal Logic
18. VLSI Architecture for Three Step Search Algorithm using Multi-Resolution
19. Human color perception in the HSV space and its application in histogram generation for image retrieval
20. How similar are Eucldean distance measure and cosine angle distance measure for nearest neighbor queries?
21. Particle Swarm Optimization for Modeling and Parameter Extraction of On-Chip Spiral Inductors for RFICs
22. Synthesis of Dual-VT Dynamic CMOS Circuits
23. Privacy Protection in Association Rule Mining
24. A Connection Graph based Variable Wire Width Approach to Analog Routing
25. A Flow-based Scheduling Algorithm for Bluetooth Ad-hoc Networks
26. Color-Texture Feature Extraction using Soft Decision from the HSV Color Space
27. Data Mining in the Soft Computing Paradigm
28. Histogram Generation from the HSV Color Space
29. Task Assignment with Imprecise Information for Real-Time Operation in a Supply Chain,
30. Logic Styles for Low Power High Performance
31. Performance enhancement of a contract net protocol based system through Instance based learning
32. A Soft-decision Histogram from the HSV color space for video Shot Detection
33. Dynamic Topology Construction in Bluetooth Scatternets
34. Speeding up Web Access using Weighted Association Rules
35. Synthesis of High Performance Low Power PTL Circuits
36. Genetic Algorithms for High-Level Synthesis in VLSI Design
37. Designing caching strategies for common NFS workloads
38. A Color-texture Histogram from the HSV Color Space for Video Shot Detection
39. Motion Estimation using Multi-Resolution based on Haar Wavelet Transformation
40. A framework for automatic identification of the best checkpoint and recovery protocol
41. Object Level Frame Comparison for Video Shot Detection
42. A Web-based Automatic Evaluation System
43. MWPS – a user friendly software for micro watershed characterization and prioritization
44. A Buffer-occupancy Optimizing Scheduling Algorithm for Bluetooth Ad-hoc Networks
45. A novel technique for color image compression
46. Online transcoding of news pages for handheld devices
Web-based Course management and Web Services

How to Secure Our Credit Card

This is the age of plastic money. It's not uncommon for the typical consumer in the western world to go weeks at a time without ever handling a coin or bill. Everything we need is available to us with the simple "swik-swik' sound of a credit card sliding through a reader. Supplies for the office, flowers for the wife, meals and drinks out, and an endless supply of useful products available for sale through the Internet can all be bought with naught a cent to be seen.

The big question is: "How safe is all this plastic?"

Cash has its obvious benefits. When you buy a sandwich for Rs.300 and you hand the cashier a Rs.50 bill, you know you haven't been ripped off when he hands you Rs.250 right then and there. But when you hand your card to a waitress at the local chain restaurant, how do you know she hasn't taken a moment to sneak into the office and copy your card number and signature? You don't, and the implications of this question are having a serious effect on credit card companies and the merchants they do business with.

In response to these issues, the big credit card companies have developed more secure ways to do business. MasterCard International and Visa got together and came up with a set of guidelines called the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. This is a list of 12 guidelines that imposes strict regulations on all transactions taking place between the card company and the merchants it trades with. While these standards have been in place since 2005, merchants are taking some time to catch up to them. However, in the past year there has been marked improvement, and both credit card companies have stepped up their tactics to the point where merchants may be experiencing losses of service if they do not fall in line soon. (You can read the 12 guidelines and the details of this plan on the homepages of Visa or MasterCard.)

Discover Card has responded to the pressure for more secure methods with it's own program. They call it the Secure Online Account Number program. Anytime you use your Discover card to purchase a product online, their program will generate a random account number to "stand-in" for the one on your card. You then send this number to the merchant in place of the real number. When the number is verified with Discover Card, it will link to your account and the purchase is charged to you. The benefit of this system is that the merchant never sees your true account number. Only you and Discover Card have access to it. Once the transaction is completed the randomly generated account number is no longer valid, so any attempts to use it result in denial.

A security method that online merchants are employing is the requirement of a shipping address that matches the billing address on your credit card. This is to guard against thieves who may steal your account number but will have no access to your billing address. This way, if your card is stolen, it can only be used to make purchases that will ship to your address. Any prospective thieves will have to pick up their orders from your mailbox, not something the average anonymity-seeking thief will want to do.

There are also third party systems in place for ensuring online credit card security. VeriSign's SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology is the leader in the field. VeriSign will give each merchant it conducts business with 2 "keys" (like coding alphabets), a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information, and the private key is used to decipher it. VeriSign's technology now offers this encryption in 128- to 256-bit encryption, which provides a nearly un-guessable number of possible combinations of codes.