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.
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.
Dr. Tamer Elsayed
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.
Prof. Abdelaziz Bouras as speaker in the The Smart City Expo Doha 2022
Prof. Abdelaziz Bouras participated as speaker in the The Smart City Expo Doha 2022, organized by TASMU and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Msheireb, Doha, on 29th and 30th of March. He was one of the speakers of the panel titled “Unleashing the potential of disruptive technologies in urban management”. The panel addressed how different enabling technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing or Internet of Things, will depict the transformation of urban management in the coming years and decades. These trends point out potential gains in terms of robustness, security, flexibility, adaptability, and reliability of public infrastructures running in cities and services delivered to urban dwellers. Unleashing this potential is not only a matter of technological availability and readiness, but also a mix of factors related to project financing and management, public procurement procedures, public-private collaborations, and partnerships, etc. The panel also explored the landscape of hurdles and barriers, and how to overcome them to turn promises of disruption into reality.
In a recent study conducted by researchers at Stanford University, three faculty members from our department were featured in the list of the top 2% of the world’s most-cited scientists during 2020, in addition to the list of the top 2% of the most-cited scientists during their full academic journey. Dr. Cagatay Catal, Prof. Sumaya Al-Maadeed, and Dr. Elias Yaacubhave made it to the first list. Furthermore, Dr. Cagatay and Dr. Elias were featured in the second one.
The number of scientists from Qatar University increased by nearly 20% in the first list and by nearly 30% in the second list compared to last year. The lists included more than 100,000 researchers around the world according to Scopus database till August 1, 2021.
The inclusion of Qatar University faculty members in the list, for the second year respectively, is a clear acknowledgment of Qatar University’s success endeavor in preparing highly skilled cadres, producing high-quality research, and leading in research and education.
Qatar University Top Scholars- Selected Single Calendar Year 2020 Citation Impact Results.
Qatar University Top Scholars- Selected Career-Long Citation Impact Results
Dr. Tamer Elsayed has received a “Best Reviewer Award” at the 30th International Conference on Information on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) 2021. The award was announced during the conference that was held online last week. The award was given to 30 reviewers out of more than 1,600 reviewers, according to the General Chairs of the conference.
Three researchers from our CSE department have received awards in QU Annual Research Forum and Exhibition 2021. The event brings 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 outputs and activities.
Jayakanth Kunhoth, PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant at our department, received the Qatar University Innovation Award (Students Category) for the device: “SmartHat: An assistive system for people with visual impairments”. The project is supervised by Prof. Somaya Al Maadeed in collaboration with the other team members Nandhini Subhramanian (Research Assistant), and Mohammed Zied Chari (Consultant).
Jayakanth Kunhoth receiving QU Innovation Award 2021 (Students Category)
The device is developed as part of a collaborative research project titled “Smart assistive tools for people with visual impairments”. Visually impaired users can easily wear it on their head and utilize the device to get assistance for navigation, object recognition, obstacle detection, and text recognition especially in indoor areas. The developed system can provide real-time guidance and notification to the user.
Moreover, Nandhini Subramanian (Research Assistant), Jayakanth Kunhoth (PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant), Prof. Somaya Al Maadeed (Supervisor and Lead PI of the project), and Prof. Ahmed Bouridane (Professor at University of Sharjah, UAE) won the Best Research Poster Award (Faculty and PostDoc Category) for the poster titled “Stego-eHealth: An eHealth System for Secured Transfer of Medical Images Using Image Steganography”.
Nandhini Subramanian awarded the Best Research Poster Award 2021 (Faculty and PostDoc Category)
The work aims to secure the medical data of the patients using image steganography when transferring through untrusted channels. At the sending end, the medical images are embedded in a normal natural scene image and at the receiving end the embedded medical image is extracted for easy access. This work was part of QNRF NPRP11S-0113- 180276 project led by Prof. Somaya.
Prof. Somaya Al-Maadeed has been granted the QU Research Excellence Award in Sciences & Engineering. The awards is were presented at the Qatar University Annual Research Forum & Exhibition 2021 by Dr. Hassan Al-Derham, the president of Qatar University.
Prof. Sumaya receiving the Research Excellence Award in Sciences & Engineering
The Research Excellence Award was established to publicly recognize, encourage, and promote the sustained research of QU faculty members and researchers that has significant impact on society, industry, and related disciplines, meeting the vision and mission of the University. The award in 2021 is granted to faculty members and researchers based on their research during the past 5 years, i.e., since January 2016 to present.
