KAUST alumna wins ADIPEC Young Engineer of the Year Award 1 min read · Sun, Mar 3 2019 Spotlight award KAUST alumna Shamael Al-Shuhail won the prestigious Abu Dhabi International Exhibition & Conference (ADIPEC) Young Engineer of the Year Award at ADIPEC 2018 held in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
EE Graduate Seminar by Dr. Islam Ashry 1 min read · Sun, Mar 3 2019 News Optical fiber sensors possess numerous advantages including immunity to electromagnetic interference, harsh environment operation, and miniature size. One attractive category of them is the distributed optical fiber sensors which can measure several parameters, such as temperature and vibration, along the entire. Such distributed optical fiber sensors are used in a myriad of important applications such as oil and gas industry, real-time structural health monitoring, and aerospace transportation, among others. In this talk, we summarize the operation principles of the optical fiber distributed
AAAS honors KAUST Professor David Keyes as elected Fellow 1 min read · Thu, Feb 28 2019 Awards Spotlight award KAUST Professor David Keyes has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society. Keyes was honored for fundamental research contributions at the interface of parallel computing and numerical analysis and his service to the mathematical sciences profession. The Fellows, announced on November 27, 2018, were recognized during the week of February 18 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., where they received an official certificate and the AAAS Fellows' gold and blue rosette pin, the colors of which
Photonics Lab Members Selected for Saudi's Delegation to the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 1 min read · Thu, Feb 28 2019 News Two Photonics Lab members, Latifah Al Maghrabi and Dr. Abderrhamen Trichili, have been selected for the Saudi delegation to the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, which will be held in Lindau, Germany. The meeting will be dedicated to physics with an emphasis on laser physics, cosmology, and gravitational waves. More than 40 Nobel Laureates from around the world have confirmed their participation.
Scanning in the Fourth Dimension 1 min read · Sun, Feb 17 2019 News visualization visual computing Three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography is a widely used technology that visualizes an object's external and internal structure by assembling a series of two-dimensional images taken sequentially across or around it. However, as anyone who has had a medical magnetic resonance imaging scan will recall, this type of 3D reconstruction requires the subject to be motionless throughout the capture process, which can take minutes. Capturing a 3D structure that changes or deforms over time is much more difficult, and existing approaches often yield reconstructions marred by image artifacts and
Tweaking tools to track tweets over time 1 min read · Sun, Feb 17 2019 News Social media data machine learning artificial intelligence Computer model learns to identify Twitter users’ evolving interests by analyzing their Tweets.
Professor Ivan Viola Joins the Visual Computing Center 1 min read · Wed, Feb 13 2019 Spotlight News visualization visual computing We are proudly announcing that Professor Ivan Viola has joined VCC as an Associate Professor of Computer Science in November, 2018. He is establishing the Nano-visualization Research Group as a part of the Visual Computing Center. Prof. Viola has a master and Ph.D. from TU Wien in Austria. He has received a series of honors and recognition for his contribution to computing visualization such as the Austrian Computer Graphics Award 2016 for the Best Technical Solution, and the 1st Place Eurographics Dirk Bartz Prize for Visual Computing in Medicine 2013. Prof. Viola was attracted to KAUST for
Robust fractional-order proportional-integral observer for synchronization of chaotic fractional-order systems 1 min read · Wed, Feb 13 2019 News chaos control system synthesis linear matrix inequalities linear systems Ibrahima N' Doye, et al., "Robust fractional-order proportional-integral observer for synchronization of chaotic fractional-order systems", IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica 6 (1), 2019, 268. Abstract: In this paper, we propose a robust fractional-order proportional-integral (FOPI) observer for the synchronization of nonlinear fractional-order chaotic systems. The convergence of the observer is proved, and sufficient conditions are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) approach by using an indirect Lyapunov method. The proposed FOPI observer is robust against Lipschitz
Matthias Mueller Wins the Innovation Award 1 min read · Tue, Feb 12 2019 Awards Spotlight student award Poster Competition Matthias Mueller, a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering, who works in the Image and Video Understanding lab (IVUL) under the supervision of Professor Bernard Ghanem, was awarded the Innovation Award at the WEP Library E-Poster Competition on the poster "Driving Policy Transfer via Modularity and Abstraction". The competition was held at the campus library as part of the Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) 2019 that took place in KAUST from the 13 th until 24 th of January, 2019. The winners received their awards at the Final Gala that was held to celebrate the end of the tenth annual Winter
Professor Helmut Pottmann Returns to Visual Computing Center 1 min read · Tue, Feb 12 2019 Spotlight News The Visual Computing Center would like to welcome back Professor Helmut Pottmann who recently rejoined the center in October 2018. Helmut Pottmann is a professor of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (AMCS) at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and Principal Investigator of the Geometry and Computational Design group (GCD). He was the Founding Director of the Geometric Modeling and Scientific Visualization Center, which is now the Visual Computing Center, from April 2009 to December 2013. Professor Pottmann shared these words on returning back to KAUST: "After
EE Graduate Seminar: Self-Assembled AlGaInN Axial-Nanowires on Unconventional Substrates 1 min read · Sun, Feb 10 2019 News Group-III nitrides (AlGaInN) feature direct bandgaps covering a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum, making them suitable for solid-state lighting, chemical/biological sensing, water splitting, medical diagnostics, and optical communication. These nanowires defy the conventional crystal/epitaxial growth requirements of lattice-, thermal and crystal-structure-matching, as the nanostructures can be grown strain- and defect-free on various unconventional substrates, such as silicon and metals. The combinatorial choice of composition, layer-structure arrangement and materials (metal
Marine sensor gets to grips with salt 1 min read · Sun, Feb 3 2019 News electrical engineering marine science sensors Laser-induced graphene formation creates tailor-made sensors for monitoring ocean creatures and ecosystems.
KAUST Associate Professor Taous-Meriem Laleg-Kirati finalist at Leadership Excellence for Women Awards & Symposium 1 min read · Wed, Jan 30 2019 Spotlight News modeling numerical analysis Taous-Meriem Laleg-Kirati, KAUST associate professor of electrical engineering in the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division, was selected as one of three finalists in the academic of distinction category at the recent Leadership Excellence for Women Awards & Symposium (LEWAS) in Bahrain.
Adel is invited to give a talk in EECVC on "Optimization meets Deep Learning" 1 min read · Tue, Jan 22 2019 News Deep learning optimization EECVC Adel is invited to give a talk in EECVC on "Optimization meets Deep Learning". It is a 45 minutes talk scheduled on the 6th of July 2019.
A broader bandwidth for electrical devices 1 min read · Tue, Jan 22 2019 News A simple fractional-order capacitor has been developed by a team from KAUST. Made from a single component, this device expands the range of frequencies that can be achieved by these devices, making them better at energy storage. Traditional analogue components are resistors, capacitors, and inductors. More recently, fractional-order components have gained attention due to their unconventional properties that enable increased flexibility. For example, fractional-order capacitors can temporarily store the signal in a manner that is similar to the behavior of neurons, thus imitating the
Raphaël Huser’s article among the top downloaded articles in Springer’s Environmental Sciences Journals 1 min read · Tue, Jan 22 2019 News INLA statistics xstat research highlights Luigi Lombardo, Thomas Opitz, and Raphaël Huser’s article “Point process-based modeling of multiple debris flow landslides using INLA: an application to the 2009 Messina disaster”, published in the scientific journal Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA), in July 2018, is among the top downloaded articles in Springer’s Environmental Sciences Journals for the year 2018. Huser is an Assistant Professor of statistics in the CEMSE division and principal investigator of the Extreme Statistics (extSTAT) Research Group at KAUST.
3D-printed cube dials into energy harvesting 1 min read · Sun, Jan 13 2019 News electrical engineering sensors IoT Ambient energy emitted by cellular phones and modems can be captured and converted into electricity using unusually shaped technology.
Postdoc Carolina Euan received Sylvia Esterby Presentation Award from TIES 1 min read · Tue, Jan 8 2019 News award statistics Carolina Euán, a postdoctoral fellow in KAUST Associate Professor Ying Sun's Environmental Statistics research group, recently received the Sylvia Esterby Presentation Award from the International Environmentrics Society (TIES) at the 28th Annual TIES Conference 2018 held from July 16 to 21, 2018, in Guanajuato, Mexico. Euán won the award for her talk entitled "Bernoulli Vector Autoregressive Model with Applications to Spatio-temporal Drought Events in Mexico."
Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control Lab prepares robots to have swarm intelligence 1 min read · Mon, Jan 7 2019 News game theory swarm robotics The KAUST Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control (RISC) lab takes a "think globally, act locally" approach in swarm robotics. The RISC lab develops methodologies to deploy robots to work together to achieve collaborative tasks in missions involving crucial time-sensitive tasks, such as team search and rescue, patrolling for safety and environmental monitoring. To address these applications, the RISC lab develops algorithms to enable robots to operate with limited or even no human supervision. "We want to move away from the low-level remotely operated model to more of a high-level human
Visualization of brain structures helps to model function 1 min read · Thu, Jan 3 2019 News bioscience Computer simulations and virtual reality are used by KAUST researchers and collaborators in France to visualize the energetic coupling between neurons and astrocytes and to improve understanding of brain metabolism. The human brain uses more energy than any other organ, accounting for around 20 percent of all glucose-derived energy. Neurons can’t meet their own energy requirements: they depend on supporting glial cells and the neurovascular system to supply various forms of sugar fuel. However, it is still unclear how this neuro-glio-vasculature network manages the brain’s energy demands
KAUST students participate in Europe’s leading hackathon event 1 min read · Thu, Jan 3 2019 Awards Torsten Hädrich and Yan Gong, two KAUST Ph.D. students from the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division, recently represented KAUST at the 48-hour international hackathon event Junction 2018. The event, which is Europe's most prestigious annual hackathon, brought computer and data scientists to Helsinki, Finland, from November 23 to 25, 2018, with the goal of addressing real-world computational issues while inspiring the next generation of technological leaders. Around 1,000 participants—including developers, designers and other "tech-heads" from 105
Lighting the way to the underwater Internet of things 1 min read · Wed, Jan 2 2019 News underwater sensor platform electrical engineering communications An optical system for monitoring underwater sensor positions could enable large networks of devices to be deployed for ocean measurements.
Magneto-Acoustic Resonator for Aquatic Animal Tracking 1 min read · Tue, Jan 1 2019 News acoustic noise Biosensors acoustic pulses acoustic signal processing acoustic signal detection Abdullah S. Almansouri, et al., "Magneto-Acoustic Resonator for Aquatic Animal Tracking" IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 55 (2), 2019, 1. Over the past three decades, passive acoustic telemetry has significantly helped marine scientist to study and understand the spatial ecology, migratory behaviors, and mortality rates of aquatic animals. A popular telemetry system consists of two components: an acoustic transmitter tag attached to an aquatic animal and powered by a small battery, and a stationary station that receives the acoustic signals from the tagged animal and determines its location
KAUST faculty members receive the King Prize for Honoring Inventors and the Gifted 1 min read · Mon, Dec 31 2018 Spotlight antenna arrays award KAUST Professors Atif Shamim and Osman Bakr received the Custodian of the King Prize for Honoring Inventors and the Gifted, which was organized by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).
Paper sensors remove the sting of diabetic testing 1 min read · Thu, Dec 20 2018 News bioscience health monitoring sensors diabetes Inkjet-printed device helps monitor a patient’s blood sugar levels without painful needles.
One switch to rule them all 1 min read · Sun, Dec 16 2018 News Radio-frequency switches Modules stimuli Inkjet-printed switches make multiple frequency bands easier and cheaper to manage in wireless devices.
Students Peng Zhong and Rustam Bekishev get their MS degree 1 min read · Fri, Dec 14 2018 News statistics On December 14, 2018, KAUST welcomed 243 graduates at the University’s ninth Commencement ceremony. Among them, students Rustam Bekishev and Peng Zhong, who is now a Ph.D. student In Statistics in our group, got their MS degree. Congratulations!
KAUST Ph.D. student Matthias Mueller wins award for drone research 1 min read · Thu, Dec 13 2018 Awards Spotlight UAV KAUST Ph.D. student Matthias Mueller, who works in the Image and Video Understanding Lab under the supervision of KAUST Associate Professor Bernard Ghanem, won the Best Paper/Presentation Award at the 2nd International Workshop on Computer Vision for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs are commonly known as drones. The workshop was held in September 2018 in Germany in the post-proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Computer Vision workshops. Müller's paper entitled "Teaching UAVs to Race: End to End Regression of Agile Controls in Simulation" outlines the research of Müller and his
Brighter blue lights for faster communication 1 min read · Tue, Dec 11 2018 News electrical engineering communications High-performance blue-light-emitting diodes could boost white-light, high-speed data transmission.
Dr Sandeep's review on OFET is out 1 min read · Sat, Dec 8 2018 News Sandeep Transistors OFET We are excited to share our review on Organic Field Effect Transistors sensing platforms. This is Dr Sandeep's first paper with the group and more to come soon. Organic field effect transistors (OFETs) have been the focus of sensing application research over the last two decades. The challenges and possible future directions of OFET arrays in embedded sensing platforms are presented. More details at: Sandeep G.Surya, Harshil N.Raval, Rafiq Ahmad, PrashantSonar, Khaled N.Salama, V.Ramgopal Rao, Organic field effect transistors (OFETs) in environmental sensing and health monitoring: A review
Chasing spatial patterns 1 min read · Sun, Dec 2 2018 News climate science A more accurate way of resolving spatial patterns in weather could lead to better predictions of climate change.
PepPrint’s 3D bioprinting technology showcased at Asbar World Forum 2018 1 min read · Wed, Nov 28 2018 News 3D bioprinting The Asbar World Forum 2018, held in Riyadh, was a meeting that focused on understanding issues associated with transitioning Saudi Arabia's oil-based economy to a knowledge-based one. The aim was to find ways to manage and execute strategies to achieve the objectives of Vision 2030.
Nanovisualization Research Group is hiring 1 min read · Wed, Nov 21 2018 News visual computing visualization Nanovisualization Research Group is hiring scientific staff on the levels of Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Graduate Student. Follow the links to apply for the respective position: Research Scientist position Postdoctoral Fellow Graduate Student
Next generation algorithm advances machine learning of powerful supercomputers 1 min read · Tue, Nov 13 2018 News supercomputing A multi-disciplinary team of international researchers from KAUST and Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) in collaboration with U.S. supercomputer company Cray Inc. successfully implemented a new algorithm to efficiently harness the computational power of the fastest supercomputers in the world. "Software integration is ultimately the icing on the cake for advanced computational projects. Thanks to Cray's support, our algorithms are now deployed on all Cray supercomputers, including KAUST's Shaheen II supercomputer, as well as half of the top 10 fastest supercomputers in the world
KAUST Associate Professor Xiangliang Zhang talks about artificial intelligence 1 min read · Mon, Nov 12 2018 News artificial intelligence Xiangliang Zhang, associate professor of computer science in the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division, recently gave an invited Early Career Spotlight Talk at the 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 23rd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-ECAI-18) 2018. During the event—which was held in Stockholm, Sweden, from July 13 to 19—Zhang and 21 international peers presented on all areas of artificial intelligence (AI).
2018 Workshop on Statistics and Data Science 1 min read · Sat, Nov 10 2018 News statistics data analysis The Statistics Program at KAUST is proud to host the 2018 Workshop on Statistics and Data Science. This workshop gathers the leading experts on statistical data science to discuss the current needs, challenges and opportunities of modeling massive and high dimensional data, predicting complex biological and physical processes. The workshop will run from November 12-14. Talks and posters presentations will take place in Auditorium 0215 (between Buildings 4 & 5). Details on the workshop (speakers, abstracts and schedule) can be found here.
The Indian summer monsoon keeps the Arabian Peninsula hot and dry 1 min read · Wed, Nov 7 2018 News climate science modeling Modeling shows that the Indian summer monsoon can trigger heatwaves and sandstorms on the Arabian Peninsula.
Sara Althubaiti defends her Master's thesis 1 min read · Tue, Nov 6 2018 News cancer driver mutation bioinformatics text mining machine learning Sara Althubaiti, a student under the supervision of Assistant Professor Robert Hoehndorf, defended her Master's thesis on November 5, 2018.
New stats apps show a virtual reality 1 min read · Mon, Nov 5 2018 News virtual reality statistics Harnessing the power of virtual reality will help to visualize data and improve statistical models.
Azza Althagafi defends her Master's thesis 1 min read · Fri, Nov 2 2018 News bioinformatics artificial intelligence genomics Azza Althagafi, a student under the supervision of Assistant Professor Robert Hoehndorf, defended her Master's thesis on November 1, 2018.
Making collective sense of brainwaves 1 min read · Wed, Oct 31 2018 News neuroscience data A new statistical tool for collectively analyzing large sets of brainwaves promises to accelerate neurofunctional research.
Teaching algorithms to see 1 min read · Tue, Oct 30 2018 News UAV visual computing Four hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Other than using text to search the title, description or tags associated with a video, video content search is limited. In addition to helping users find content more quickly and accurately, the ability to search video content is of paramount importance to video platforms and advertisers. Last year, YouTube was embroiled in controversy after rolling video ads for Coca-Cola and Amazon, among others, were shown before racist and extremist content. Advertising content is a major revenue stream for video platforms like YouTube
Solving the grandest of challenges 1 min read · Tue, Oct 30 2018 News energy nuclear fission ITER KAUST Around the world, scientists, researchers and engineers seek to develop sustainable alternatives to the burning of fossil fuels. Some explore the kinetic energy of wind, gravity or water. Others capture excited electrons using photosensitive materials. William Tang, a principal research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University, wants to power the world using the chemical reaction that stars run on—nuclear fusion—and he believes deep learning is a key.
Ammar Alqatari wins first place in KGSP Poster Competition 1 min read · Mon, Oct 29 2018 News KGSP Poster Competition Ammar Alqatari, a KAUST Gifted Student Program (KGSP) student who interned with Associate Professor Xin Gao in the summer of 2018, has won first place in the KGSP Poster Competition held on August 28, 2018. His poster, entitled "Convolutional Sequence to Sequence Learning to Improve Nanopore Basecalling Efficiency ", is based on his work with Professor Gao about creating a deep learning model that can accurately and efficiently decode ultra-long DNA sequences from raw Nanopore signals. Watch Ammar talk about his experience as a visiting student in CBRC:
Meshari Alazmi defends his Ph.D. thesis 1 min read · Wed, Oct 24 2018 News machine learning bioinformatics structural biology systems biology Meshari Alazmi, a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Associate Professor Xin Gao, defended his Ph.D. dissertation on October 24, 2018.
Polymers offer a better view 1 min read · Wed, Oct 24 2018 News visual computing Imaging Computer science A window opens for analyzing the distribution of small molecules in biological and medical tissue samples.
KAUST team finds solution to staff transfers at the Saudi Ministry of Health 1 min read · Thu, Oct 18 2018 News company employee transfer system A team of KAUST scientists from the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) division worked to design an enhanced transfer system for the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) to help find solutions for employee localization.
Stimulating deeper insights into brain function 1 min read · Thu, Oct 18 2018 News neuroscience statistics Modeling changes in brain activity over time provides deeper insights into learning and behavioral responses.
Aerial Path Planning for Urban Scene Reconstruction: A Continuous Optimization Method and Benchmark 1 min read · Tue, Oct 16 2018 News optimization urban planning Small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are ideal capturing devices for high-resolution urban 3D reconstructions using multi-view stereo. Nevertheless, practical considerations such as safety usually mean that access to the scan target is often only available for a short amount of time, especially in urban environments. It, therefore, becomes crucial to perform both view and path planning to minimize flight time while ensuring complete and accurate reconstructions. In this work, we address the challenge of automatic view and path planning for UAV-based aerial imaging with the goal of urban
