The master's thesis of Karolina Bąk from our Faculty was awarded in the National Competition of the Polish Information Technology Society for the best master's theses in the field of computer science. Congratulations!

Karolina Bąk graduated in Algorithmic Computer Science in English, and prepared the distinguished thesis "Selected cryptographic schemes implemented in the blockchain system" at the Department of Fundamentals of Computer Science  under the supervision of Prof. Łukasz Krzywiecki. In her work, our graduate investigated the possibilities of blockchain technology in the implementation of cryptosystems. The thesis can be found here.

 “The work comprises the design and implementation of a distributed system based on Stamp and Extend signatures with Schnorr signatures and Pedersen obligations, in which clients communicate with the server issuing signatures via the Ethereum network using an embedded smart contract. The system was designed so that the part of the Stamp and Extend scheme which requires confidentiality was implemented outside the blockchain network, and the part that could be public, i.e. verification of the correctness of the signature, was embedded directly in the smart contract,” explains the graduate.

In her work, the graduate examined and estimated the memory- and time-complexity of the system, as well as the costs of operations in the Ethereum network.

Since 1984, the Polish Information Technology Society has been organizing a nationwide competition for the best master's theses in the field of computer science and its applications. This year marked the 40th anniversary of the competition, organized from the beginning by the Society's Lower Silesian Branch.

“52 theses from 20 universities were submitted for the competition. They were assessed by 80 reviewers and each work received at least two reviews, some works even three. The reviewers assessed the level of the submitted works to be very high – some of them emphasized that the results could be the starting point for doctoral dissertations,” said Prof. Zygmunt Mazur, chairman of the Competition Committee.

The awards ceremony took place on 22 January (Monday) between 11:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. in the H-14 building.

 “Every technical university takes pride in its computer science, as it is an absolutely necessary field of study in current research. We are proud to have a huge computer science faculty, with best students and professors. Here, at the university, I don't think we really know what computer science really is. I do know that connecting a computer to a printer is not really IT. I've done computer calculations over my entire physics career – apparently that's not computer science either. Once, when I was a dean, I asked one of our theoretical computer science PhD students about this issue. He exemplified it to me with the problem of looking for a wife, i.e. how many people you have to check before you find the right one and you shouldn't check anymore. And this is a problem in the field of IT. I think that the purpose of today's meeting is for us to find out what is important in IT today. And this is what we will learn from our awarded students,” said Prof. Arkadiusz Wójs, rector of Wrocław University of Science and Technology, during the ceremony.

The competition results were announced in the first part of the event. The second part was combined with a scientific session, during which the participants of the ceremony presented their papers.

Competition results

• The first prize, in the amount of PLN 10,000, was awarded to Szymon Tworkowski M.Sc., for his work entitled “Fine-Tuning Large Language Models for Long Context Utilization” prepared at the University of Warsaw (Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics, Institute of Computer Science). The thesis supervisor, Prof. Piotr Miłoś received a special prize of PLN 7,000.
• The second prize, in the amount of PLN 8,000, was awarded to Adam Wojciechowski M.Sc., for the work entitled “Explaining Image Classification in Natural Language” written at Poznań University of Technology (Faculty of Computer Science and Telecommunications, Institute of Computer Science; supervisor: Dr. Mateusz Lango).
• The third prize, in the amount of PLN 6,500, was awarded to Maciej Mikuła M.Sc., for his work entitled “Neural Premise Selection for Automated Theorem Proving” prepared at the University of Warsaw (Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Mechanics, Institute of Computer Science; supervisor: Prof. Marek Cygan).

Three equivalent distinctions, each worth PLN 4,500, went to:

• Karolina Bąk M.Sc. for the work entitled “Selected Cryptographic Schemes Implemented in the Blockchain System” written at Wrocław University of Science and Technology (Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Department of Fundamentals of Computer Science; supervisor: Prof. Łukasz Krzywiecki),
• Szymon Mazurek M.Sc. for the work entitled “Epilepsy Seizure Detection and Dynamic Brain Connectivity via Machine Learning” prepared at the Stanisław Staszic AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków (Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Automatics, Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering; supervisor: Prof. Maciej Malawski),
• Mateusz Woźny M.Sc. for the work entitled “Techniques for Neutralizing Clickbait Posts in Social Networks Using Natural Language Processing Methods” written at Poznań University of Technology (Faculty of Computer Science and Telecommunications, Institute of Computer Science; supervisor: Dr. Mateusz Lango).