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CSE faculties awarded QU grants
Congratulations to the CSE faculties who were awarded several QU internal grants this cycle. Here is an overview of the winning projects led by our faculty members.
Project title: “Towards Robust Ethical and Pro-Social Artificial Intelligence Enabled Extended Reality (AI-XR) Metaverse Applications”
Project’s team: Dr. Junaid Qadi (CENG) (LPI), Dr. Osama Halabi (CENG), Dr. Ezieddin Elmahjub (CLAW), Dr. Abdulaziz Khalid Al-Ali (CENG), Dr. Khaled Shaban (CENG), Dr. Muhammad Bilal (UWE, UK).
Grant) category: High Impact Grant
Project abstract: These days the Metaverse—a more powerful and immersive iteration of the Internet—in which the virtual and physical world and realities will be seamlessly meshed—is fast emerging. The metaverse will be based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Extended Reality (XR) applications that leverage Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) technological developments. The metaverse, like the current Internet, will leverage information and communication technologies (ICT), but it will be qualitatively different by enabling real-life-like 3-D experiences through the incorporation of AI-XR technologies. The adoption of the vision of metaverse by numerous companies such as Facebook (now called Meta), Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, and the infusion of billions of dollars of investment, promises to be the harbinger of a great transformation. However, there are numerous open socio-technical issues that need investigation. How can we ensure that the wellbeing of the society and the human individuals improves through the development of the metaverse? How can we ensure that the virtual world is more safe, inclusive, and pro-social? In this project, we propose to study these problems as a transdisciplinary team comprising of principal investigators from the College of Engineering, College of Law, and College of Arts and Sciences at the Qatar University. The team is well-positioned to undertake this research due to their prior background in AI Ethics, AI Regulation, XR technology from complementary perspectives (engineering, socio-technical, ethical, legal, and philosophical). We will study the security and robustness of AI-XR Metaverse Applications and will develop technical, policy, and legal solutions for ensuring a Secure, Robust, and Prosocial Future for AI-XR Metaverse Applications. Through this research project, we aim to develop research linkages across QU Colleges and Centers and perform capacity building while also working on a project that has national, regional, and international significance.
Project title: “Pervasive AI-Based smart health framework over 6G Networks”
Project’s team: Dr. Amr Mohamed (CENG) (LPI), Dr. Elias Yaacoub (CENG) Dr. Abdulla Al-Ali (CENG), Dr. Nikhil Navkar (Collaborator)
Grant category: IRCC grant
Project abstract: Smart health (s-health) technologies have great potential to improve healthcare services of countless individuals. However, we need to proactively address the technical, social, and ethical challenges appearing with the deployment of such technologies, hence, the potential benefit is not hindered. The prompt evolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches, Internet of Things (IoT)-based systems, and 6G technologies is paving the road towards a plethora of s-health applications. Indeed, pervasive AI, defined as the paradigm of smartly distributing AI techniques in healthcare systems, has been envisioned to revolutionize several societal, economic, and industrial aspects of our future by enabling real-time machine-to-machine and human-to-machine interactions in the 5G era and beyond. Thus, our vision is to provide scalable and cost-effective healthcare services for the Qatari citizens without even getting to the hospital. Our project goal will be broadly to develop a pervasive AI-based s-health framework that integrates the power of AI for efficient medical data processing with 6G technologies for providing smart and policy-driven medical data management. We plan to leverage advanced AI techniques at different network’s levels, such as federated learning, and multi-agent reinforcement learning, while providing optimized medical data delivery across heterogeneous 6G network for immediate response, i.e., minimum delays, and energy efficiency. Hence, driven by dignified progress in computational and communication techniques, we believe that we can support a radical improvement in healthcare systems. Furthermore, one of our aims is to support good coordination and collaboration amongst different healthcare stakeholders and national health information systems through developing an s-health data sharing system to jointly gather, process, and analyze health-related information. Through this project, we plan to foster the collaboration with international partners in University of Guelph, in addition to the local healthcare stockholders, such as Hamad Medical Corporation. This will enable us to develop innovative techniques for diagnosis, prognosis, development of follow-up therapeutic strategies for the patients, while focusing on the health priority areas in Qatar, such as diabetes, cancer, and neurological diseases. Specifically, we plan first to design and implement a novel architecture that leverages AI approaches and 6G technologies to fulfill diverse QoS requirements of s-health applications. Then, we will leverage this architecture for developing optimized AI-based processing, event-detection, and network-aware solutions that aim to collect, process, and transfer the acquired patients’ data in an efficient and cost-effective way that allows for implementing advanced healthcare services.
Project title: “Bypassing Intrusion detection systems using Generative Adversarial Networks”
Project’s team: Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Ali (QU-KINDI/GENG) (LPI), Dr. Abdelhak Belhi (Joaan bin Jassim Academy for Defense Studies, Ministry of Defense), Dr. Abdelaziz Bouras (GENG), Dr. Sandy Rahme (QU-KINDI)
Grant category: Collaborative grant
Project abstract: In this project, the goal is to investigate the ability to automatically bypass network intrusion detection systems and firewalls using generative models placed in a reinforcement learning setup. The overall idea consists of leveraging recent advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence to validate the claim that bypassing security appliances in networks can be automated and made easier. The current state of the art suggests that using generative models for network packet crafting has great potential when it comes to the quality of the generated packets; thus, motivating us to direct the packet generation towards the specific goal of the project.
Project title: “Intelligibility Assessment of Dysarthria using Vocal Information and Machine Learning for Healthcare Application”
Project’s team: Dr. Sumaya Al-Maadeed(GENG) (LPI), Dr. Moutaz Saleh (CENG), Dr. Abdulnaser Fakhrou (CEDU), with collaboration with VIT University, India.
Grant category: International Research Collaboration Co-Fund
Project abstract: Speech disorders related to neurological problems affect the person’s ability to communicate through speech. Dysarthria is a speech problem caused by muscle weakness, resulting in slurred, slow, and incomprehensible speaking. Automatic dysarthria intelligibility assessment from speech can be a useful clinical tool in the treatment of dysarthria. Cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Autism spectrum disorder are dysarthric severe speech disorders. In the project, we aim to develop a tool to detect the early stage of dysarthric disorders. In the first part of the work, we mainly concentrate on feature extraction using the glottal excitation source, spectral and prosodic features of verbal and non-verbal vocalizations. In the second part of the work, we aim to use machine learning algorithms to detect the stage of the particular speech disorder. Further, by using the proposed feature extraction process and machine learning algorithms we aim build a cost effective tool to detect the early stage and severe speech disorder. Later, we aim to deploy the developed tool in healthcare centers to detect the early stage of Dysarthric and other speech disorders. Prior to develop the tool, we aim to collect voice samples from the dysarthric person.
CSE Team Wins Best UREP 2022 Presentation
A CSE team of undergraduate students, supervised by our faculty member Dr. Noora Fetais, won the Best Presentation award in the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP) competition, which was held on 18th of October 2022. The winning project is titled “Intelligent and Immersive Cultural Game using Virtual Reality” and the team consists of the students Yahia Boray, Hesham Zaky, and Omar Osman.
UREP is one of the main programs offered by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) and designed to fulfil its aims in developing research infrastructure in Qatar by establishing the basis of scientific research at the undergraduate level. UREP provides a great opportunity for undergraduate students to experience scientific research and to engage in the various processes to build skills essential for the professional development of the students.
The developed game aims to preserve and spread cultural practices. It introduces new gaming mechanics, allowing user interaction with virtual game objects using hand gestures. The user’s objective is to hunt prey in their natural habitat which means that the player will physically change his location to hunt a specific prey using his falcon to mimic how the falcon hunts for its’ prey in the real world. This interaction with the real world, along with the incorporation of realistic graphics and mixed reality features, enhances the user’s experience and helps in preserving cultural practices.
Previous work tried to achieve the same goal by different approaches that led to different user segments and different usability cases. One major limitation in that work was the accessibility due to the use of specialized hardware. The hardware is accessible to only a small segment of users, and due to the challenges forced by the COVID19 situation reusing the hardware is prohibited in conferences or exhibitions.
As a result, not many will have access to the developed solution. The new implementation was designed to work on both Android and IOS to have a social interaction between the largest possible numbers of players. Other features that could also contribute to the goal of the project include building a virtual museum and displaying real falcons using the capabilities mixed reality has to offer.
Congratulations to the winning team!
CSE Faculty Members and Students Awarded in QU Annual Research Forum 2022
Faculty members and students from CSE department have received awards in QU Annual Research Forum and Exhibition 2022. The event brought together students, researchers and academics from the University’s colleges, research centers and institutions, in addition to partners and stakeholders, to assess, review, and discuss QU’s research outcomes and activities.
A team from faculty members and post docs from College of Engineering including Dr. Osama Halabi was awarded the Best Poster in Information and Communications Technologies discipline for Faculty and Postdoc category. The project is titled “The Development of Emerging Virtual Reality (VR) System for Analyzing Pedestrian Safety Perception on Road Infrastructure”.
Our students Somaya Eltanbouly, Muraam Abdel-Ghani, and Hoda Helmy won the Best Poster Award in Information and Communications Technologies discipline for Undergraduate Students category. The project is titled “Assistive Telexistence System Using Motion Blending”, and supervised by Dr. Osama Halabi and Dr. Mohammed Al-Sada.
Our CSE graduate student Najmath Ottakath won the Best Poster in FIFA World Cup Related Research discipline for graduate students category with a project titled “Fan Rage Detection and Alert System in Football Stadiums Using Multi-surveillance System”. The project is supervised by Dr. Sumaya Al Maadeed.
Congratulation to all of our winners!
CSE Faculty Receives QU 2021-2022 Outstanding Faculty Service Award
Dr. Noora Fetais
Our faculty member, Dr. Noora Fetais, was awarded the Qatar University Outstanding Faculty Service award for AY 2021-2022. The award is established to honor and recognize faculty members who have demonstrated excellence in service to QU and the community at large.
The faculty service is a cornerstone of faculty duties at QU and represents one of the pillars of QU strategic plan. The type and scope of university services is clearly defined in QU Mission and Key Performance areas, where the university has pledged to address relevant local and regional challenges, advance knowledge, and contribute actively to the needs and aspirations of society. Recognizing the importance of outstanding faculty services and its significance in meeting the University’s mission, the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs instituted Qatar University Outstanding Faculty Service Award. Congratulations Dr. Noora for the award!
CSE Faculty Awarded NPRP-C Grant from QNRF
A major cluster grant titled “The Future of Digital Citizenship in Qatar: A Socio-Technical Approach” from the Qatar National Research Fund (QRNF) was awarded to HBKU, Qatar University, and many other partners to lead a multi-entity, interdisciplinary project on digital citizenship in the Arab region.
The $3.8m four-year grant was awarded under QRNF’s National Priorities Research Program-Cluster (NPRP-C) and enables collaboration between 10 entities from academia and industry.
Dr. Raian Ali, Professor in Information and Computing Technology at HBKU, will lead the cluster as program director with six projects that will focus on building an observatory for trends and common topics on social media, web-based tools, educational materials, and research into digital literacy and well-being, gender equity, social inclusion, behavior-based approaches to security and safety, detecting and limiting propaganda and other areas.
Qatar University is leading two projects by Dr. Khaled Khan and Dr. Osama Halabi from the Computer Science and Engineering Department, College of Engineering.
The project led by Dr. Khaled Khan is titled ”Security and Safety as a Behavior”. It is a collaborative project between Qatar University, HBKU, and Bournemouth University. The project will research a behavior-based approach to security and safety. Investigate hacking and social engineering techniques that are successful in the Arab world and propose socio-technical approaches to enhance resilience to manipulators online and encourage reporting. The solutions are based on the approaches of behavior rehearsal, simulation, and social norms.
The project is led by Dr. Osama Halabi is titled “GESI by Design”. It is a collaborative project between Qatar University and HBKU. The project will study how to mitigate issues related to Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in social media in Qatar and the Arab world and increase awareness of them. The team will use digital nudging techniques based on annotation and a bespoke set of reactions and emojis and devise tools to facilitate a structured dialogue. The aim is to encourage a more civilized and inclusive language and interaction.
The cluster is supported by a wide range of key stakeholders in Qatar including the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Qatar National Library, Msheireb Museums, Qatar Finance Centre, and Fadaat Media, who will provide facilities and enrich the knowledge transfer.
CSE Faculty Awarded 2 NPRP-S Grants from QNRF
Our CSE department was awarded 2 National Priorities Research Project-Standard (NPRP-S) grants from Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) in their 14th cycle. This cycle was so competitive that Qatar University was awarded only 14 projects; 5 of which are awarded to the College of Engineering. The two awarded projects are led by Dr. Tamer Elsayed and Dr. Abdulla Al-Ali.
The project led by Dr. Abdulla Al-Ali is titled “Defense Against Hardware Intrinsic Attacks in Resource-Constrained COTS based Traditional and Futuristic Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT).” It is a collaborative grant between QU and Tennessee Tech University in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, Qatar. The PIs from QU are Dr. Abdelkarim Erradi and Dr. Uvais Qidwai, while the Tennessee Tech University PIs are Dr. Syed Rafay Hasan, Dr. Tarek Elfouly and Dr. Terry Guo. The project revolves around three main objects: (a) The development of hardware intrinsic security mechanisms for Resource Constrained (RC) Commercial off the shelf (COTS) based traditional IoT systems, (b) Investigating the vulnerability of hardware intrinsic security mechanisms for RC-COTS based futuristic AIoT system, and (c) developing a testbed implementation to examine real world scenarios to make the proposed work technology ready.
The project led by Dr. Tamer Elsayed is titled “Dimension-Specific Automated Scoring of Arabic Language Writing Proficiency“. The project’s team is entirely based in Qatar, having Dr. Houda Bouamor from CMU-Q and Dr. Walid Massoud from QU, with complementary expertise in Arabic natural language processing, information retrieval, applied machine learning, and psychometrics and standardized testing. The goal of the project is to build an automated scoring system for the quality of students’ writing abilities (on different aspects) in standard Arabic exams (similar to IELTS or TOEFL English exams). The proposed system, which is potentially the first of its kind in the Arab region, will potentially help in assessing the students’ writing proficiency in Arabic exams offered at QU as well as several high schools at Qatar Foundation. The project is funded for 3 years.