Topics

<> pollution (3) <> PolyMUMPS (3)

Two-layer radio frequency MEMS fractal capacitors in PolyMUMPS for S-band applications

1 min read ·
Amro Elshurafa, et al., "Two-layer radio frequency MEMS fractal capacitors in PolyMUMPS for S-band applications." Micro & Nano Letters 7, (5), 2012, 419. In this Letter, the authors fabricate for the first time MEMS fractal capacitors possessing two layers and compare their performance characteristics with the conventional parallel-plate capacitor and previously reported state-of-the-art single-layer MEMS fractal capacitors. Explicitly, a capacitor with a woven structure and another with an interleaved configuration were fabricated in the standard PolyMUMPS surface micromachining process and

Low voltage RF MEMS variable capacitor with linear CV response

1 min read ·
Amro Elshurafa, et al., "Low voltage RF MEMS variable capacitor with linear CV response." Electronics letters 48 (7), 2012, 392.. An RF MEMS variable capacitor, fabricated in the PolyMUMPS process and tuned electrostatically, possessing a linear capacitance-voltage response is reported. The measured quality factor of the device was 17 at 1 GHz, while the tuning range was 1.2:1 and was achieved at an actuation DC voltage of 8 V only. Further, the linear regression coefficient was 0.98. The variable capacitor was created such that it has both vertical and horizontal capacitances present. As the

Achieving nanoscale horizontal separations in the standard 2 μm PolyMUMPS process

1 min read ·
Amro M Elshurafa, et al., "Achieving nanoscale horizontal separations in the standard 2 μm PolyMUMPS process." Applied Nanoscience 4 (2), 2014, 241. This paper shares with the research community how to achieve, effectively and easily, lateral submicron separations in the standard 2 μm PolyMUMPS process without any fabrication intervention or post-processing, based on the oxide sidewall spacer technique. Thousands of nanoseparations were created and successfully tested by visual inspection and by a simple capacitance measurement. The lateral separations attained were less than 440 nm and
<> Power (3)

Power Electronics Applications in Offshore Wind Farms

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KAUST

Advances in power electronics have enabled many renewable energy applications. Wind energy harnessing is very promising and offshore farm installations have grown considerably in the past years. In this seminar we will go through some of the fundamentals of these enabling technologies and their applications. We will also present a simple, reliable, efficient and cost-effective concept applied to parallel connection of offshore wind turbines.

The challenging path to creating fully autonomous and controllable microrobots

Prof. Néstor O. Pérez-Arancibia, Autonomous Microrobotic Systems Laboratory, University of Southern California (USC)

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KAUST

Featured Sessions
For more information please visit the website

Advances in Microelectromechanical Digital Circuit Design: Low Power Computation, Sensing and Beyond

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KAUST

Electromechanical switches were the core elements of the very first digital computers in early 20th century. While these switches were later replaced by the smaller, faster and more reliable "transistor" technology, they found a new life following the development of nanofabrication tools and Micro-electromechannical Systems (MEMS). In this seminar we will explore the most recent advances in the field of MEMS-based digital circuit and sensor design. We also examine the application of MEMS switches and resonators in building the most important blocks of a digital system, namely adders, multipliers, data converters, sequential and combinational complex logic, and discuss the future of this technology in the beyond-CMOS era.
<> power grid (3)

Probabilistic Modelling and Analysis of Power System Dynamics and Stability

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B9 L2 R2325

This presentation will demonstrate the most widely used probabilistic methods applied to power system stability analysis with their specific applications in frequency stability, small-disturbance stability, transient stability, and voltage stability.

The 2025 Iberian Blackout: Anatomy of a Grid Collapse

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B9 L2 R2322

This talk provides a data-informed timeline of the April 28 Iberian blackout, examining how system conditions and possible instabilities may have shaped the cascade of events.

Gabriel Eduardo Mejia Ruiz

Gabriel E. Mejia Ruiz received a Ph.D. (Cum Laude) degree in Electrical Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 2023. He received the M.Eng. degree (outstanding distinction) with an emphasis in electrical and electronic systems from the University of Antioquia, Colombia, in 2015. He received a B.S. degree in Control Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 2008. His background includes working as a lecturer in engineering areas. Currently, he is a researcher at the Secure Next Generation Resilient Systems Lab (SENTRY) of King Abdullah University of
<> precision agriculture (3)

Ting Li

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Environmental Science and Engineering
Ting Li is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow focusing her research on bridging the gap between complex data and real-world agricultural impact.

Abdullah Bukhamsin

Ph.D. Student (former), Bioengineering
Selected Publications: Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " In vivo dynamics of indole-and phenol-derived plant hormones: Long-term, continuous, and minimally invasive phytohormone sensor." (2025) Science Advances. Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " Accelerating adoption of species-agnostic plant sensors for precision farming." (2025) Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering. Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " Early and high-throughput plant diagnostics: strategies for disease detection." (2024) Trends in Plant Science. Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " Minimally-invasive, real-time, non-destructive, species

Abdullah Bukhamsin

Selected Publications: Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " In vivo dynamics of indole-and phenol-derived plant hormones: Long-term, continuous, and minimally invasive phytohormone sensor." (2025) Science Advances. Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " Accelerating adoption of species-agnostic plant sensors for precision farming." (2025) Nature Reviews Electrical Engineering. Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " Early and high-throughput plant diagnostics: strategies for disease detection." (2024) Trends in Plant Science. Bukhamsin, Abdullah, et al. " Minimally-invasive, real-time, non-destructive, species
<> precision medicine (3) <> privacy preserving techniques (3)

Bushra Bin Hemid

M.S. Student
MSc/PhD candidate in Artificial Intelligence at KAUST. Expertise in AI and information security. Research focuses on AI for infrared imaging, transforming sensing technologies for healthcare, agriculture, and smart infrastructure

DePIN: From Decentralization Promise to Security Reality - A Critical Dissection of Trust, Privacy, and Architectural Illusions

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B9 R2325

In this talk, we critically examine DePIN systems through the lens of two complementary studies. First, we provide a systematic analysis of the DePIN paradigm, identifying its core architectural pillars - blockchain, IoT, and tokenomics - and exposing fundamental vulnerabilities arising from operating in a zero-trust, open-participation environment.

Roberto Di Pietro

Professor, Computer Science
Professor Di Pietro is a cybersecurity expert who excels in building and leading research and innovation labs in the private sector, government and academia. He works on critical infrastructure protection, adopting an artificial intelligence-driven approach in collaboration with major stakeholders.
<> privacy-preserving AI (3) <> protein function prediction (3) <> protein structures (3)

The awesome scope of big data

2 min read ·
Sifting through huge amounts of data may bring a better understanding of whale shark social structures, protein targets for drug therapies and disease-causing genes.

Islam Almasri

Islam Almasri obtained his Master's degree in Computer Science under the supervision of Professor Xin Gao at Structural and Functional Bioinformatics Group (SFB) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Currently, Islam is a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science program under the supervision of Prof. Nina Fedoroff. at Fedoroff Research Group. Islam is specialized in developing various software tools for solving problems in other scientific domains, including Image Processing, Medical Imaging, Chemical Networks, and Protein Structure. Selected Publications Almasri, Islam

Gian Marco Messa

Ph.D. Student, Computer Science
Gian Marco is a Ph.D. student at the Structural and Functional Bioinformatics Group (SFB) under the supervision of Professor Xin Gao at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Gian Marco, upon finishing high school in Lecce (Italy), applied to the Politecnico of Milan in the year 2009 in Physics engineering. Due to personal issues, he came back to his hometown to complete the Bachelor's Degree at the University of Salento in Biotechnology. For his master's degree, seeking innovation and cutting edge knowledge, he moved to the University of Bologna, which offered an M. Sc
<> prototyping (3)
H

Hussein Al-Shatri

I chose KAUST because of its reputation for excellence in research and its recent emphasis on applied research. With my extensive background in both academic research and industrial development, I am excited to contribute my experience and ambition. My goal is to foster new ideas and develop innovative prototypes in the field of wireless communications, which will undoubtedly enhance people's lives.

KAUST student wins global sensors and measurement systems competition

1 min read ·
KAUST master's degree student José Ilton de Oliveira Filho recently won first place at the second edition of the IEEE International Sensors and Measurement Systems Student Contest (IEEE IS&M-SC). IEEE IS&M-SC is a global competition directed at teams of advanced undergraduates, master's degree and Ph.D. students and seeks to stimulate creative ideas for sensor and measuring systems applications.

Jose Ilton De Oliveira Filho

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Electrical and Computer Engineering
José Ilton is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Electrical and Computer Engineering program, at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). José is focused on instrumentation, prototyping, and communication theory. Education and Early Career José Ilton did his bachelor’s in electrical engineering on the track of Power Systems at Federal University of Piaui with 1.5-year exchange period at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, in 2015. At King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) he did his master’s in electrical engineering on the topic of
<> publication (3) <> quantum communication (3)

Mutibah Alanazi

Mutibah’s research focuses on quantum optics, optoelectronics, and nanophononics, with an emphasis on developing scalable quantum optical technologies. During her PhD at the University of Oxford, she explored quantum coherent emission, polariton condensation, and photon bunching in low-dimensional systems. She has extensive expertise in advanced laser systems, cryogenic techniques, microcavity systems, and material modeling, contributing to several notable publications in the field of condensed matter physics. Research interests Mutibah's research focuses on developing cavity-coupled spin
PSE-AP-CEMSE-IPL-Ibtihal-Alharbi

Ibtihal Alharbi

M.S. Student, Applied Physics
Ibtihal received her bachelor's degree in 2024 in physics from Taibah university with a GPA of 4.93 / 5 , she is currently working towards a master’s degree under the supervision of Prof. Yating Wan at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Research interests Ibtihal’s research interests are in the application of integrated photonics for optical and quantum communications. Education profile B.Sc. : Taibah university 2020 - 2024

Polina Morozova

Polina received her bachelor's degree in Photonics and Optoinformatics from ITMO University with honours degree and is currently working towards a master’s degree in Applied Photonics at ITMO University. In her first grade as a graduate student, Polina studied abroad in South Korea for the spring semester. Polina is experienced in working on attacks on quantum key distribution systems, and electrodynamics traps, having worked on several projects in the field. She used to be involved in the design of a 3D model for quantum communication education stand circuits. Polina joined the Photonics
<> quantum dot lasers (3) <> Queueing theory (3)

Hesham ElSawy gains ISWCS Best Scientific Contribution Award 2017

2 min read ·
The imminent era of the smart world is foreseen to involve massively many power and computationally constraint wireless devices with sporadic traffic patterns. The surging Internet of things (IoT) and cyber physical systems (CPS) are clear examples that rely on massive wireless networks. Hence, realizing such extensive wireless connectivity is mandatory to unlock the potentials and reap the benefits of the foreseen smart era.

Li Xia

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Networking Research Lab
Li Xia was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Networking Research Lab (NETLAB) in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working with Professor Basem Shihada in his research group. Currently, Li is an Associate Professor at Tsinghua University, China. Research Interests Li's research interests included Operations research, stochastic optimization, queueing theory, Markov decision processes. Selected Publications L. Xia and B. Shihada, "Decentralized Transmission Scheduling in Energy-Critical Multi-Hop Wireless Networks", in Proc. American Control Conference, pp. 113-118

Hesham ElSawy

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Communication Theory Lab
From April 2014 to June 2018 Hesham ElSawy was a postdoctoral fellow in the Communication Theory Lab (CTL), at the Computer, Electrical, and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering division (CEMSE), King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He is now an assistant professor in King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Eastern Province, KSA Selected Publications Ph.D. Thesis H. ElSawy, “Modeling, Analysis, and Optimization of Random Wireless Networks: Stochastic Geometry Approach,” University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, March 2014. M
<> radio frequency communication (3)

KAUST scientists use new mathematical approach to protect aircraft from 5G interference

1 min read ·
Study offers first application of stochastic geometry for the safe deployment of 5G towers around runways

Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini named a Fellow of SPIE and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Photonics Society

4 min read ·
Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini earns SPIE Fellow and IEEE Distinguished Lecturer titles, highlighting his influential contributions to optical wireless communications.

Outstanding KAUST research acknowledged by leading photonics journal

2 min read ·
KAUST professors Boon Ooi and Osman Bakr and their respective research groups have recently had their collaborative research recognized by one of the major journals for optics and photonics, Light: Science & Applications (LSA). The teams’ paper— titled "High-speed color-converting photodetector with all-inorganic CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals for ultraviolet light communication—" was awarded as an “Outstanding Paper of Light: Science & Applications in 2020.”
<> reliability testing (3)

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 1

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B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 2

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B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 3

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B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.
<> renewable energy technologies (3) <> reproducibility issues (3)

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 1

-

B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 2

-

B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 3

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B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.
<> resiliency (3) <> resilient cyber-physical (3) <> risk assessment (3)

Control Theoretic Approaches to Computational Modeling and Risk Mitigation for Large Crowd Management

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KAUST

Abstract We develop a computational framework for risk mitigation in high population density events. With an increased global population, the frequency of high population density events is naturally increased. Therefore, risk-free crowd management plans are critical for efficient mobility, convenient daily life, resource management, and most importantly mitigation of any inadvertent incidents and accidents such as stampedes. The status-quo for crowd management plans is the use of human experience/expert advice. However, most often such dependency on human experience is insufficient, flawed

Flexible Multivariate, Spatial, and Causal Models for Extremes

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B4 L5 R5220

Risk assessment for natural hazards and financial extreme events requires the statistical analysis of extreme events, often beyond observed levels. The characterization and extrapolation of the probability of rare events rely on assumptions about the extremal dependence type and about the specific structure of statistical models. In this thesis, we develop models with flexible tail dependence structures, in order to provide a reliable estimation of tail characteristics and risk measures. Our novel methodologies are illustrated by a range of applications to financial, climatic, and health data.

Yan Gong

Ph.D. Student, Statistics
Yan Gong was a Ph.D. student in Statistics at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), under the supervision of Prof. Raphaël Huser. Yan successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled " Flexible Multivariate, Spatial, and Causal Models for Extremes" on March 28th, 2023; see her PhD thesis here. Her PhD committee was composed of Professors Raphaël Huser (chair), Valérie Chavez-Demoulin (external examiner from HEC Lausanne at UNIL, Switzerland), David Bolin, and Mohammed-Slim Alouini. For her next career steps, Yan has accepted a short-term postdoctoral research position at
<> RNA genes (3)

Promoters identification and analysis

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B1 L2 R2202

Promoter is a key region that is involved in differential transcription regulation of protein-coding and RNA genes. The gene-specific architecture of promoter sequences makes it extremely difficult to devise the general strategy for their computational identification.

Computational Analysis of Transcriptional Regulation after Single and Multiple Drug Administration.

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B3 L5 R5209

With the advances in transcriptomic analysis, the monitoring of genome-wide gene expression provides a powerful approach for determining the action of drugs. In this thesis, we analyzed the transcriptional responses of cells treated with drugs either alone or in combinations to explore their effects in two different applications: breast cancer therapy and cell conversion.

Novel computational methods for promoter identification and analysis

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B2 L5 R5209

In this dissertation, I present the methods I have developed for prediction of promoters for different organisms. Instead of focusing on the classification accuracy of the discrimination between promoter and non-promoter sequences, I predict the exact positions of the TSS inside the genomic sequences, testing every possible location. The developed methods significantly outperform the previous promoter prediction programs by considerably reducing the number of false positive predictions. Specifically, to reduce the false positive rate, the models are adaptively and iteratively trained by changing the distribution of samples in the training set based on the false positive errors made in the previous iteration. The new methods are used to gain insights into the design principles of the core promoters. Using model analysis, I have identified the most important core promoter elements and their effect on the promoter activity. I have developed a novel general approach to detect long range interactions in the input of a deep learning model, which was used to find related positions inside the promoter region. The final model was applied to the genomes of different species without a significant drop in the performance, demonstrating a high generality of the developed method.
<> Robustness (3)

Reynolds-robust preconditioners for the stationary incompressible Navier--Stokes equations

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B9 L2 R2322 H1

Building on the work of Schöberl, Olshanskii, and Benzi, in this talk we present the first preconditioner for the Newton linearization of the stationary Navier--Stokes equations in three dimensions that achieve both optimal complexity in of count and Reynolds-robustness. The exact details of the preconditioner varies with discretization, but the general theme is to combine augmented Lagrangian stabilisation, a custom multigrid prolongation operator involving local solves on coarse cells, and an additive patchwise relaxation on each level that captures the kernel of the divergence operator.

Assessing DNS Resilience and Robustness

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B4 L5 R5220.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a core protocol for the Internet. It resolves mappings between Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and their corresponding Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs). Since all Internet communications rely on it, DNS structuring should therefore be resilient and robust against failure to avoid any service interruption. While the research community and experienced practitioners have established best practices to this end, many worldwide DNS implementations are still prone to many types of configuration errors. In this talk, I discuss the adoption of these approaches in some countries. Also, a case study is presented considering domains in Saudi Arabia (.sa) that illustrates the value of measuring the DNS at this scale. The results are valuable to improve the DNS infrastructure in the kingdom. Lastly, I provide recommendations to improve DNS service resilience and robustness.

Yulian Wu

Ph.D. Student, Computer Science
Yulian Wu is a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Professor Francesco Orabona at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
<> safe autonomy (3) <> sampling (3)

Interactive High-Quality Visualization of Large-Scale Particle Data

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B2 L5 R5209

Large-scale particle data sets, such as those computed in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, are crucial to investigating important processes in physics and thermodynamics. The simulated atoms are usually visualized as hard spheres with Phong shading, where individual particles and their local density can be perceived well in close-up views. However, for large-scale simulations with 10 million particles or more, the visualization of large fields-of-view usually suffers from strong aliasing artifacts, because the mismatch between data size and output resolution leads to severe under-sampling of the geometry.

Challenges in Coral Reef Research and Conservation: Robotics and Autonomous Sampling to the Rescue?

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B18 Fellowship Hall

Featured Sessions
Abstract Coral reef ecosystems contribute ~$30 billion USD annually to the global economy and harbor 1/4 of all known marine species. However, human activities have driven the loss of 50% of the world’s reefs over the last 30 years, and 90% of remaining reefs are predicted to be threatened by 2030. Thus, there is an urgent need for human interventions to support reef resilience to warming seas, overharvesting and pollution. Various studies have documented the influence of microbial symbionts on host physiology, demonstrated that some hosts are relatively mutable in the symbionts they harbor

Stochastic Optimal Control with Exercise Rate Optimization and Markovian Projections: Pricing American Options and Importance Sampling Applications

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B5 L5 R5209

This talk begins with the problem of pricing American basket options in a multivariate setting. In high dimensions, nonlinear PDE methods for solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation become expensive due to the curse of dimensionality.
<> scientific enterprise (3)

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 1

-

B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 2

-

B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.

Reproducibility in Computer Science - Part 3

-

B9 L3 R3223

Roy Maxion will give three lectures focusing broadly on different aspects of an increasingly important topic: reproducibility. Reproducibility tests the reliability of an experimental result and is one of the foundations of the entire scientific enterprise. We often hear that certain foods are good for you, and a few years later we learn that they're not. A series of results in cancer research was examined to see if they were reproducible. A startling number of them - 47 out of 53 - were not. Matters of reproducibility are now cropping up in computer science, and given the importance of computing in the world, it's essential that our own results are reproducible -- perhaps especially the ones based on complex models or data sets, and artificial intelligence or machine learning. This lecture series will expose attendees to several issues in ensuring reproducibility, with the goal of teaching students (and others) some of the crucial aspects of making their own science reproducible. Hint: it goes much farther than merely making your data available to the public.
<> SDN (3)

Resilient Computing: when Dependability meets Cybersecurity

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B9 L2 H2 R2325

Computing and communications infrastructures have become commodities that transact huge quantities of data and are pervasively interconnected, inside countries, and worldwide. Modern societies largely depend on them.

Building SANDS at KAUST

2 min read ·
​​​​​We live in a connected world where networked systems play an increasingly important role. These systems, which are the foundational pillars of our modern digital lives, are the result of some remarkable technological advancements and progress in computer science over the past three decades.

Wiem Abderrahim

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (former), Networking Research Lab
Wiem Abderrahim was a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Prof. Mohamed-Slim Alouini and Prof. Basem Shihada at the Communication Theory Lab, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). She completed her engineering studies in telecommunications with honors at the Higher School of Communications of Tunis, Carthage University, in 2013. In 2017, she received her doctoral degree in Information and Communications Technologies from the same institution. Before joining KAUST, she worked as an adjunct professor at the Higher School of Communications of Tunis in 2017. She
<> Security and Privacy (3)

Rehana Yasmin

Rehana Yasmin is currently a Research Scientist at the CyberSaR Lab in KAUST. Before joining KAUST, she had been working as a researcher in the area of Automotive Cybersecurity and Resilience at Huawei International. Prior to above, she served as a lecturer at University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and later as an assistant professor at Mirpur University of Science and Technology, in Pakistan. She also obtained a short experience of postdoc from University of Padova, Italy. Research Interests Yasmin's research interests lie in security and privacy protocols, applied cryptography, AI for anomaly

Osama Hassan

Osama Hassan is a Master's student studying under the supervision of Prof. Mohamed-Slim Alouini in the Communications Theory Lab (CTL) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education Osama received his Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2018, with a concentration in Security and Privacy, and a certificate in Applications of Computing. Early Career At Princeton, Osama conducted research at the Houck Lab for Quantum Computing and Condensed Matter Physics, where he worked on designing and testing quantum

Juexiao Zhou

Ph.D. Student, Computer Science
<> semantic analysis (3) <> Semantic similarity (3)

Bio2Vec: Smart analytics infrastructure for the life sciences

Smart analytics infrastructure on biological knowledge graphs; extends Bio2RDF, develops semantic analytics methods that became OPA2Vec / OWL2Vec. Period: 2018–2020 Funding KAUST Competitive Research Grant — Grant ID: URF/1/3454-01-01 (PI) — USD 113,250 Team Robert Hoehndorf — PI (KAUST (Professor of Computer Science)) Xin Gao — CoI (KAUST (CBRC)) Michel Dumontier — CoI (Maastricht University) Jens Lehmann — CoI (Amazon (formerly TU Dresden)) Mona Alshahrani — PhD (alumnus) (Jubail University College (Assistant Professor)) Maxat Kulmanov — PhD (alumnus) (KAUST (Research Scientist)) Sumyyah

CompleX: Variant Prioritization in Complex Disease

Semantic methods for prioritising causative variants in complex (polygenic / oligogenic) disease using phenotype ontologies and gene network embeddings. Period: 2019–2021 Funding KAUST Competitive Research Grant — Grant ID: URF/1/3790-01-01 (PI) — USD 240,000 Team Robert Hoehndorf — PI (KAUST (Professor of Computer Science)) Paul N Schofield — CoI (University of Cambridge) Georgios V Gkoutos — CoI (University of Birmingham) Imane Boudellioua — PhD (alumnus) (King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Assistant Professor)) Mona Alshahrani — PhD (alumnus) (Jubail University College
crg explainable ml ontologies

Towards sound, complete, and explainable machine learning with biomedical ontologies (CRG11)

Faithful, complete, and explainable machine-learning methods on biomedical ontologies. Grant URF/1/5041-01-01 activated Apr 2023. Period: 2023–2026 Funding KAUST Competitive Research Grant (CRG11) — Grant ID: URF/1/5041-01-01 (PI) Team Robert Hoehndorf — PI (KAUST (Professor of Computer Science)) Fernando Zhapa-Camacho — PhD (alumnus), Postdoc (KAUST) Mahdi Bu Ali — MSc (alumnus) Tengwei Song — Postdoc (KAUST) Software AbermOWL — Cloud-based federated reasoning system combining AberOWL with mOWL for symbolic + approximate neuro-symbolic reasoning over SROIQ(D). https://github.com/bio-ontology
<> semiconductor optoelectronic devices (3)
optoelectronic device can adapt to light

Artificial neurons enable neuromorphic computing with light

1 min read ·
An adaptive capacitor that can sense and learn through optical stimuli enables learning and recognition tasks.

Yasser Khan

Yasser obtained a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering under the supervision of Professor Boon Ooi at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He worked on his master's thesis, "Energy harvesting in random medium" at Oxford University under the supervision of James Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. (Oxford), Prof. Boon Ooi (KAUST), and Prof. Andrea Fratalocchi (KAUST). He graduated Summa Cum Laude in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas in Spring 2010. Previously, Yasser has worked as a graduate student researcher at the Center for Advanced Molecular

Mohammed Zahed Mustafa Khan

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Photonics Laboratory
Mohammed Zahed Mustafa Khan worked as a Post-Doctoral fellow at the Photonics lab after receiving his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Boon Ooi from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Mohammed received his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia, in 2004, and Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication from Osmania University, India, in 2001. Mohammed is currently an Assistant Professor at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
<> Sensor array processing (3)

Sensing, Localization, and Communications to Enable Future IoT Systems

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KAUST

In this talk, Tareq will present his research contributions and future directions to advance some critical IoT-enabling technologies: sensing, localization, and communications. He will demonstrate how we take advantage of structure in sensed-data and sensor arrays. This structure can help mitigate sensing uncertainties, improve localization accuracy, and enhance the performance of communication systems, all while reducing the computational overhead. The Internet of Things (IoT) has ushered a new era in many fields including retail, medicine, agriculture, and the automotive industry. In fact, it is projected that by 2025, one trillion IoT devices will be deployed worldwide: the equivalent of 1000 devices per person. To reach such a scale, major advancements are needed in various IoT-enabling technologies.

Professor Tareq Al-Naffouri Colloquium

1 min read ·
On March 12th, Professor Tareq Al-Naffouri delivered an online public colloquium titled, "Sensing, Localization, and Communications to Enable Future IoT Systems". The abstract of the article can be found here

Ismail Ben Atitallah

Ismail Ben Atitallah was a ​MS Thesis Student at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
<> sensors fabrication (3) <> signal analysis (3) <> Signal Applications (3) <> Smart sensors (3) <> Social Network Analysis (3)

KAUST Research Workshop on Optimization and Big Data

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B19 L3 H2

The age of "big data" is here: data of unprecedented sizes is becoming ubiquitous, which brings new challenges and new opportunities. With this comes the need to solve optimization problems of unprecedented sizes.

Efficiency Assessment of Approximated Spatial Predictions for Large Datasets

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KAUST

Our suggested criteria are more useful for the determination of tuning parameters for sophisticated approximation methods of spatial model fitting. To illustrate this, we investigate the trade-off between the execution time, estimation accuracy, and prediction efficiency for the TLR method with intensive simulation studies and suggest proper settings of the TLR tuning parameters.

Critical Phenomena in Financial Markets and Social Networks

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B9 L2 R2322

Analogies between financial markets and critical phenomena have long been observed empirically. So far, no convincing theory has emerged that can explain these empirical observations. Here, we take a step towards such a theory by modeling financial markets as a lattice gas.
<> software/hardware co-design (3) <> Sop (3) <> Spatial epidemiology (3) <> Spatial Mode Multiplexing (3)

Post-doctoral research fellow Dr. Abderrahmen Trichili participation in the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (#LINO19)

2 min read ·
Meeting Nobel laureates The 2019 event provided an opportunity for science's next generation to interact with 39 Nobel laureates, including Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou, 2018 laureates in physics. Among the 580 young scientists from 89 countries in attendance were four young researchers from the University: postdoctoral fellow Abderrahmen Trichili; KAUST Ph.D. graduate Ibrahim Dursun; and students Abdullah Almansouri (Ph.D. student) and Latifah Al Maghrabi (M.S. student). Participants took part in lectures, forum-style talks, science walks, dinner events and open exchanges. The

Dmitrii Briantcev

Dmitrii is an MS/Ph.D. student in the Communication Theory Lab (CTL) under the supervision of Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Dmitrii obtained his bachelor degree in Radiophysics from Saint Petersburg State University (SPbSU) in 2018. He participated in KAUSTs “Photonics summer camp” program before becoming a KAUST student in 2018. Research Interest Dmitrii is focusing in the area of optical communication, free space communication, and numerical modeling. He is currently working on the development of OAM

Abderrahmen Trichili

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Education and Early Career Abderrahmen Trichili received his diplôme National d'Ingénieur in wireless networks and communications, and PhD degree in Information and Communication Technology from the Engineering School of Communication of Tunis (Tunisia) in 2013 and 2017, respectively. During his doctoral study, he received a mobility fellowship from the University of Padova (Italy), where he spent one year at the Information Engineering Department (DEI). In February 2018, he joined KAUST University as a Postdoctoral Fellow at CEMSE. Research Interest Trichili's current areas of interest
<> spatial modulation (3)

Estimating High-Resolution Red Sea Surface Temperature Hotspots, Using a Low-Rank Semiparametric Spatial Model

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KAUST

In this work, we estimate extreme sea surface temperature (SST) hotspots, i.e., high threshold exceedance regions, for the Red Sea, a vital region of high biodiversity. We analyze high-resolution satellite-derived SST data comprising daily measurements at 16703 grid cells across the Red Sea over the period 1985–2015. We propose a semiparametric Bayesian spatial mixed-effects linear model with a flexible mean structure to capture spatially-varying trend and seasonality, while the residual spatial variability is modeled through a Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) of low-rank spatial Student-t processes (LTPs). By specifying cluster-specific parameters for each LTP mixture component, the bulk of the SST residuals influence tail inference and hotspot estimation only moderately. Our proposed model has a nonstationary mean, covariance and tail dependence, and posterior inference can be drawn efficiently through Gibbs sampling. In our application, we show that the proposed method outperforms some natural parametric and semiparametric alternatives.

Shuaishuai Guo

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Shuaishuai Guo is a Postdoctoral Fellow with Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working with Professor Mohamed-Slim Alumni in the Communication Theory Laboratory. Education and Early Career Shuaishuai Guo received the B.E and Ph.D. degrees in communication and information systems from the School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, China, in 2011 and 2017, respectively. During 2016-2017, he visited the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) as a visiting scholar

Hui Zhao

Hui Zhao is an MS/Ph.D. student in the Communication Theory Lab (CTL) under the supervision of Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Hui Zhao obtained his bachelor degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Southwest University (SWU) in 2016. Research Interest Hui Zhao is focusing in the area of performance analysis of wireless communication, optimization about power allocation, stochastic geometry, spatial modulation. Education Profile MS in Electrical Engineering, Kind Abdullah University of Science and
<> Sports (3) <> Statistical computing (3) <> Statistical Modelling (3) <> Structural equation models (3) <> supercomputers (3) <> thin-film transistors (3) <> tracking (3)

Pointing and Trajectory Tracking Control for Optical Wireless Communication

Ibrahima N’Doye, Research Scientist, Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), CEMSE, KAUST

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KAUST

In this talk, I will present our recent works on reducing the beam pointing error for improved free-space optical communication (FSO) link performance. Specifically, I will discuss a robust control strategy that reduces the beam alignment error under controlled weak turbulence conditions for FSO systems. Then, I will discuss localization and tracking control of a mobile target ship with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in underwater environment. The framework is designed using a hybrid acoustic-optical underwater communication to drive the AUV to the maximum achievable data rate angle. The acoustic link is used for non-line-of-sight localization, and the optical link is for line-of-sight transmission. I will conclude the talk by providing recent results on estimating the alignment angle through a novel estimation-based reference trajectory control algorithm for an LED-based optical communication model.

Tareq Al-Naffouri

Professor Al-Naffouri's research focuses on designing and analyzing wireless communication systems, particularly spectrum sharing, cognitive radio, energy efficiency and security within the context of advanced technologies like 5G.

Rui Li

Rui Li is an Electrical Engineering Ph.D. candidate in the Computational Imaging Group (VCCIMAGING) under the supervision of Professor Wolfgang Heidrich at the Visual Computing Center (VCC) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Rui Li obtained bachelor of engineering degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Xidian University in China in 2013. After that in 2016, he received his master degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Science and Technology of China in 2016. Rui started his career life as a Research Assistant at State
<> Training (3) <> TU Ilmenau (3)

Exact Backstepping Control for Systems in Pure Feedback Form

Prof. Johann Reger, Computer Science and Automation Faculty, TU Ilmenau, Germany

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KAUST

Traditional backstepping approaches may struggle to asymptotically stabilize systems in pure feedback form, due to its inherent implicit equations. Approximation based designs only have a limited domain of validity and turn out sensitive to model uncertainty and disturbances. We propose a new design that circumvents the necessity of solving implicit algebraic equations by introducing new state variables. Additional augmentations to the backstepping Lyapunov design lead to explicit expressions for the associated differential equations. The result is a dynamic state feedback, capable of asymptotically stabilizing the origin of a general class of nonlinear systems, based on just standard assumptions.

Part 1 - Introduction to backstepping control

Prof. Johann Reger, Computer Science and Automation Faculty, TU Ilmenau, Germany.

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KAUST

Backstepping is a widely applicable control technique based on Lyapunov theory that under rather mild assumptions leads to families of control laws for a large class of nonlinear systems. Focusing on systems of ordinary differential equations, we introduce the basic concept (integrator backstepping), generalize it, among others, to systems in strict feedback form and pure feedback form, which all enjoy an inherent controllability property, captured in the system structure. The course ends with extending the setting to the adaptive backstepping case, resorting to the certainty equivalence principle and Barbalat's lemma. The course is furnished by a series of exercises to let the students gather experience on tailored examples.

Part 2 - Introduction to backstepping control

Prof. Johann Reger, Computer Science and Automation Faculty, TU Ilmenau, Germany.

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KAUST

Backstepping is a widely applicable control technique based on Lyapunov theory that under rather mild assumptions leads to families of control laws for a large class of nonlinear systems. Focusing on systems of ordinary differential equations, we introduce the basic concept (integrator backstepping), generalize it, among others, to systems in strict feedback form and pure feedback form, which all enjoy an inherent controllability property, captured in the system structure. The course ends with extending the setting to the adaptive backstepping case, resorting to the certainty equivalence principle and Barbalat's lemma. The course is furnished by a series of exercises to let the students gather experience on tailored examples.
<> Ultra-massive MIMO systems (3)

Analysis and Optimization of Massive MIMO Systems via Random Matrix Theory Approaches

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B1 L3 R3119

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a key enabling technology to achieve the required spectral and energy efficiency of the next generation of wireless networks. By endowing the base station (BS) with hundreds of antennas and relying on spatial multiplexing, massive MIMO allows impressive advantages in many fronts. To reduce this promising technology to reality, thorough performance analysis has to be conducted. Along this line, this work is focused on the convenient high-dimensionality of massive MIMO’s corresponding model. Indeed, the large number of antennas allows us to harness asymptotic results from Random Matrix Theory to provide accurate approximations of the main performance metrics. The derivations yield simple closed-form expressions that can be easily interpreted and manipulated in contrast to their alternative random equivalents. Accordingly, in this dissertation, we investigate massive MIMO in different contexts.

Ikram Boukhedimi

Ikram Boukhedimi was born in Blida, Algeria. She received an Electrical Engineering degree from the Ecole Polytechnique d'Alger, Algeria, in 2013 and an M.S. in Mathematics, Control and Electrical Engineering from Universite de Poitiers, France in 2014. and she earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in June 2019, Saudi Arabia in Professor Mohamed Slim Alouini’s Communication Theory Lab in Electrical Engineering research group. Her research interests include random matrix theory approaches applied to wireless communication systems

Alice Faisal

Visiting Student (former), Electrical and Computer Engineering
Visiting Student at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), chair of IEEE women in engineering affinity group at Effat University student branch.
<> Ultra-wideband communication (3)

Tarig Ballal Khidir Ahmed

Research Scientist (former), Electrical and Computer Engineering
Research Scientist Laboratory for Nanomedicine, Computational Bioscience Research Center King Abdullah University of Science and Technology | KAUST

Mohammad Tamim Alkhodary

Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. Postdoctoral Fellow at École de technologie supérieure, Montreal, QC, Canada

Mohamed Saadeldin

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sensors
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sensors Lab at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Assistant Professor, University College Dublin .
<> underwater sensor (3) <> underwater sensor platform (3) <> Université de Montréal (3)

Part 3: Variational structures and Fourier approximation techniques for mean-field game systems

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B1 L3 R3119

Mean-field game (MFG) systems of partial differential equations (PDE) arise in modeling huge populations of indistinguishable rational agents that play non-cooperative differential games. Mathematically, an MFG system comprises of a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman PDE coupled with a Kolmogorov-Fokker-Planck PDE in a highly nonlinear fashion. Hence, theoretical and numerical treatments of MFG systems are highly challenging problems.

Part 1: Variational structures and Fourier approximation techniques for mean-field game systems

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B1 L3 R3119

Mean-field game (MFG) systems of partial differential equations (PDE) arise in modeling huge populations of indistinguishable rational agents that play non-cooperative differential games. Mathematically, an MFG system comprises of a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman PDE coupled with a Kolmogorov-Fokker-Planck PDE in a highly nonlinear fashion. Hence, theoretical and numerical treatments of MFG systems are highly challenging problems. Day 1: I will show how to transform suitable mean-field game (MFG) systems into infinite-dimensional convex optimization problems. Furthermore, I will present Uzawa’s algorithm and augmented Lagrangian approach for solving convex optimization problems. Finally, I will demonstrate how to apply these methods to approximate solutions of corresponding MFG systems.

Part 2: Variational structures and Fourier approximation techniques for mean-field game systems

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B1 L3 R3119

Mean-field game (MFG) systems of partial differential equations (PDE) arise in modeling huge populations of indistinguishable rational agents that play non-cooperative differential games. Mathematically, an MFG system comprises of a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman PDE coupled with a Kolmogorov-Fokker-Planck PDE in a highly nonlinear fashion. Hence, theoretical and numerical treatments of MFG systems are highly challenging problems. Day 2: I will present new Fourier approximation techniques for nonlocal MFG systems and discuss how these techniques fit the variational framework presented on Day 1. Then I will introduce the Chambolle-Pock primal-dual hybrid gradient optimization method and apply a variant of this method to approximate nonlocal MFG models via Fourier approximation techniques above.
<> University of Minnesota (3)

The Evolution of Machine Learning

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B4 B5 A0215

This talk presents an overview of recent methodological advances in developing item-based nearest-neighbor-based recommender systems that have substantially improved their performance. Biography George Karypis is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and an ADC Chair of Digital Technology at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research interests span the areas of data mining, high performance computing, information retrieval, collaborative filtering, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, and scientific computing. His research has

Interesting Problems in Estimation and Control on Smart Road Vehicles

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B1 L2 R4214

A number of exciting vehicle automation and active safety systems are being developed by research groups around the world. This talk focuses on novel sensors, estimation algorithms and control systems that can fill critical gaps in the automation technologies under development. The first part of this seminar describes interesting sensing and estimation solutions that can significantly improve the effectiveness of active safety systems. The second part of the seminar describes the development of a new class of narrow commuter vehicles designed to address traffic congestion, improve highway mobility and provide very high fuel economy. The final part of the seminar describes the development of a smart bicycle with instrumentation that can track trajectories of nearby vehicles on the road and provide warnings to the motorist, if a potential car-bicycle collision is detected.

PREMA: Principled Tensor Data Recovery from Multiple Aggregated Views

Faisal M. Almutairi, Ph.D. Candidate, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota

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B1 L4 R4214

The proposed method, called PREMA, leverages low-rank tensor factorization tools to provide recovery guarantees under certain conditions. PREMA is flexible in the sense that it can perform the disaggregation task on data that have missing entries, i.e., partially observed. The proposed method considers challenging scenarios: i) the available views of the data are aggregated in two dimensions, i.e., double aggregation, and ii) the aggregation patterns are unknown. Experiments on real data from different domains, i.e., sales data from retail companies, crime counts, and weather observations, are presented to showcase the effectiveness of PREMA.
<> Unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs enabled wireless networks (3)

Deploying UAVs to support rural networks

1 min read ·
Although ubiquitous connectivity is one of the main goals for 5G and beyond networks, the low expected profit prevents telecommunication providers from investing in sparsely populated areas. Hence, cost efficient alternatives such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)-mounted base stations are required for extending the cellular infrastructure to these regions. In this work, a new stochastic geometry-based model has been implemented to show the coverage spatial variation among urban, suburban, and exurban settlements. Based on this, the numerical results have quantified the improvements that even

Osama Bushnaq

Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

Kihong Park

Senior Research Scientist, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Kihong Park is a Senior Research Scientist at Electrical Engineering Program, Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working with Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini in the Communication Theory Laboratory (CTL). Education and Early Career He received Joint M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in the School of Electrical Engineering, Korea University, Korea in 2011. He was a visiting student in Texas A&M University at Qatar for one year in 2008-2009. He joined KAUST as a Postdoctoral Fellow in April, 2011. Since
<> UV Communications (3)

What’s the Story with UAV Cellular Communications?

Prof. Giovanni Geraci, Assistant Professor, University Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain

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KAUST

What will it take for UAVs—and the associated ecosystem—to take off? Arguably, ubiquitous high-capacity links paired with hyper-reliable command and control all along. And indeed, meeting these aspirations may entail a full-blown mobile network support. While the understanding of UAV cellular communications has been advancing, many fundamental challenges remain to be addressed, with new applications demanding original solutions. In this talk, we blend academic and industrial views, navigating from 4G to 6G UAV use cases, requirements, and enabling technologies

KAUST Discovery - Unleashing ultraviolet brings visible improvement

1 min read ·
High-speed communication systems based on ultraviolet radiation are now in sight.

Jiusi Zhou

Jiusi Zhou is a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Mohamed-Slim Alouini at the Communication Theory Lab (CTL) in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Jiusi Zhou obtained his Bachelor of Engineering from Communication and Information Engineering Department, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, Sichuan, P. R. China in 2018. Before formally joining KAUST, he worked as a internship student at CTL in KAUST during Aug 2017 to Jan 2018. Research Interest Jiusi is familiar with Ultraviolet Communication
<> Virtual Element Method (3)

C1-Conforming Virtual Element Method (VEM) for Optimal Control of Oseen Equations with a Stream-Function Formulation

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B1 L3 R3426

This talk presents a C¹-conforming Virtual Element Method for the optimal control of generalized Oseen equations, detailing its discretization strategies, theoretical error estimates, and numerical validation on polygonal meshes.

Parallel multilevel solvers for virtual element discretizations of saddle point problems

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B1 L3 R3119

In this seminar, we will present our work on Virtual Element Method (VEM) approximations. The Virtual Element Method is a recent numerical technique for solving partial differential equations on computational grids constituted by polygonal or polyhedral elements of very general shape. This work aims to develop effective linear solvers for general order VEM approximations of three-dimensional scalar elliptic equations in mixed form and Stokes equations. To this end, we consider block algebraic multigrid preconditioners and balancing domain decomposition by constraints (BDDC) preconditioners. The latter allows us to use conjugate gradient iterations, albeit the algebraic linear systems arising from the discretization of the differential problems are indefinite, ill-conditioned, and of saddle point nature.

Virtual Element Approximation of Eigenvalue Problems

Prof. Francesca Gardini, Università di Pavia

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B1 L3 R3119

We will discuss the solution of eigenvalue problems associated with partial differential equations (PDE)s that can be written in the generalised form Ax = λMx, where the matrices A and/or M may depend on a scalar parameter. Parameter dependent matrices occur frequently when stabilised formulations are used for the numerical approximation of PDEs. With the help of classical numerical examples we will show that the presence of one (or both) parameters can produce unexpected results.
<> Virtualized Network Function (3)

Enabling Seamless Connectivity via Virtualization Technologies in 6G Integrated Networks

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B1 R4214

This thesis investigates how integrated networks powered by such technologies can be designed and optimized to enable seamless connectivity.

Network Function Virtualization: What, Why and How?

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B1 L3 R3119

The European Telecom Standards Institute (ETSI) introduced the concept of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) with the aim of efficient network architecture and network system operation. In traditional networks, network functions are implemented in dedicated physical machines which are designed for single functionalities. Network services have been provided by connecting these physical machines, so the network architecture has been highly rigid and hard to change. NFV environment provides a more flexible and scalable network configuration and implementation through the softwarization of physical network functions. Network functions are transformed to Virtual Machines (VMs) so that Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) can be implemented in commodity servers built for common uses, including public clouds.

Sahar Ammar

Sahar Ammar’s research focuses on network slicing in integrated terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks.
<> visible light communication systems (3) <> vlc (3)

Visible light communication

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B9 H1

The wireless communication technology has been evolved from 1G to 5G networks. The next 6G era will bring about higher demands for bandwidth and speed. Visible light communication (VLC) shows great potential in providing high speed and secure communication link by utilizing the unregulated visible light spectrum to carry the data. In this seminar, the overview of VLC will be presented first. The devices and components developed for VLC network will then be reviewed and discussed in details. I will also briefly talk about the application of underwater communication application by using visible light at the end of the seminar.

Visible Light Communications Technology and Machine Learning - 2021-02-12

Dr. Paul Anthony Haigh, Newcastle University, United Kingdom and Dr. Bo Tan, Tampere University, Finland

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KAUST

vlc

In this webinar we will give an overview of several key technologies related to our special issues in Frontiers of Communications and Networks; (1) visible light communications (VLC) and (2) applications of machine learning in optical and wireless communication systems.

Probabilistic shaping based spatial modulation for spectral-efficient visible light communication

1 min read ·

6G vlc

Visible light communication (VLC) is a promising technology for 6th-generation (6G) networks because of its attractive feature such as a wide unlicensed spectrum. However, the modulation bandwidth of lens of commercially available light-emitting diode (LEDs), which are used in optical wireless data links, is limited. Therefore, in order to improve spectral-efficiency of VLC systems, a novel adaptive coded spatial modulation (SM) scheme with probabilistic shaping (PS) has been proposed. The authors also designed an algorithm to compute the capacity-achieving distribution of the proposed scheme
<> waves (3) <> wide bandgap semiconductor (3)

Ultra-Wide Bandgap Semiconductors for Future of Moore’s Law

-
This colloquium will discuss the latest material, device and high density IC research based on ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors for the future of Moore’s Law at the Advanced Semiconductor Laboratory (ASL) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Xiaohang Li

Professor Li is a leading scholar in the research of (ultra)wide bandgap semiconductors and high density stacked transistor IC that are bringing revolutionary impacts on the optoelectronic and electronic industries.

Kuang-Hui Li

Kuang-Hui Li joined Photonics Laboratory at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in the Fall of 2018. He obtained two bachelor degrees (2011) in Electro-Physics and Applied-Math from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Research Interest Kuang's research interests include Semiconductor epitaxy by MBE, MOCVD, and PLD, Material characterization, e.g. HRXRD, TEM/STEM, RBS, Nanofabrication processes, Semiconductor optoelectronics devices (LED, Photodetector, Laser). His current research focuses on III-oxide material and heterostructures for device applications such as UV
<> Wireless communication theory (3)

Rawan Alghamdi

Rawan’s research interests mainly focus on wireless communication theory and networks, next-generation communication systems, optimization in sensor networks, waveform design, and optical communication. Selected Publications R. Alghamdi, H. Dahrouj, T. Y. Al-Naffouri and M-S. Alouini, " Equitable 6G Access Service via Cloud-Enabled HAPS for Optimizing Hybrid Air-Ground Networks," in IEEE Transaction on Communication, vol. 72, no. 5, May 2024. R. Alghamdi, H. Dahrouj, T. Y. Al-Naffouri and M-S. Alouini, " Toward Immersive Underwater Cloud-Enabled Networks: Prospects and Challenges," in IEEE

Malek Khammassi

Malek is an MS/PhD student in the Communication Theory Lab (CTL) under the supervision of Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career Malek started her undergraduate studies with two preparatory years in mathematics and physics at the Preparatory Institute for Engineering Studies of Tunis. Then, she successfully graduated among the top 2% in the National Competition to Enter Engineering Schools in Tunisia. Malek obtained her bachelor's degree in Polytechnic Engineering from Tunisia Polytechnic School in 2020. During

Ammar Zafar

Introduction Ammar Zafar is a Lecturer at Southern Cross University, Queensland, Australia after graduation of a Ph.D. degree from KAUST in November 2014. Education and Early Career Zafar obtained his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan (October 2003 – May 2007) followed by M.S degree. In 2010, he joined King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia as a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering. Research Interests Zafar's research focuses on the following areas Cooperative
<> wireless communications network (3) <> wireless communications. (3) <> wireless connectivity (3)

6G Summit on Connecting the Unconnected

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B19 L3 H1

The role of Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) in bringing about a revolution in almost all aspects of human life needs no introduction. As the standardization of the fifth generation (5G) of wireless communication systems (WCSs) has been completed, 6G is expected to be the next focus in wireless communication and networking and aim to provide new superior communication services to meet the future hyper-connectivity demands in the 2030s. With this background, this Summit aims to go over the recently proposed solutions not only to connect the unconnected/under-connected but also to super-connect the connected.

Teamwork pays off at startup Insyab

2 min read ·
Insyab, a technology startup specializing in smart solutions allowing robots and drones to collaborate on the execution of common tasks, resulted from three years of its founders' dedicated research at KAUST.

Communicating in extreme environments

2 min read ·
Inequalities in global internet access reinforce differences in information and technology availability on country and local scales, compounding economic, political, and social inequality. The worst-hit places are rural and remote areas, where access is most limited. With this in mind, the Science Technology and Innovation unit at The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICT) organized an event entitled Workshop on Communication in Extreme Environments for Science and Sustainable Development. The event brought together researchers and practitioners to explore this topic
<> WirelessTech (3) <> xstat research highlights (3)

How extreme weather exacerbates air pollution

1 min read ·
Simultaneously modeling of air pollutants and weather under extreme conditions highlights the potential for serious health risks.

Raphaël Huser’s article among the top downloaded articles in Springer’s Environmental Sciences Journals

1 min read ·
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.

Advanced Spatial Modeling with Stochastic Partial Differential Equations Using R and INLA book

1 min read ·
Modeling spatial and spatio-temporal continuous processes is an important and challenging problem in spatial statistics. Advanced Spatial Modeling with Stochastic Partial Differential Equations Using R and INLA describes in detail the stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) approach for modeling continuous spatial processes with a Matérn covariance, which has been implemented using the integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) in the R-INLA package. Key concepts about modeling spatial processes and the SPDE approach are explained with examples using simulated data and real
<> 2D and 3D multiscroll chaos (2)

Fully Digital 1-D, 2-D and 3-D Multiscroll Chaos as Hardware Pseudo Random Number Generators

1 min read ·
Abhinav Mansingka, et al., "Fully digital 1-D, 2-D and 3-D multiscroll chaos as hardware pseudo random number generators." In 2012 IEEE 55th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 2012, 1180. This paper introduces the first fully digital implementation of 1-D, 2-D and 3-D multiscroll chaos using the sawtooth nonlinearity in a 3rd order ODE with the Euler approximation. Systems indicate chaotic behaviour through phase space boundedness and positive Lyapunov exponent. Low-significance bits form a PRNG and pass all tests in the NIST SP. 800-22 suite without post

Secure Ds-CDMA spreading codes using fully digital multidimensional multiscroll chaos

1 min read ·
Abhinav S. Mansingka, et al., "Secure Ds-CDMA spreading codes using fully digital multidimensional multiscroll chaos." In 2013 IEEE 56th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), 2013, 1334. This paper introduces a generalized fully digital hardware implementation of 1-D, 2-D and 3-D multiscroll chaos through sawtooth nonlinearities in a 3rd order ODE with the Euler approximation, wherein low-significance bits pass all NIST SP. 800-22 tests. The low-significance bits show good performance as spreading code for multiple-access DS-CDMA in AWGN and multipath environments
<> 2D materials characterization (2) <> 3D design (2) <> 3D electrodes (2) <> 3D graphics (2)

Web-based 3D Visualization

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B9 L2 H2 H2

In this seminar I will present how to create 3D computer graphics and visualization systems for the web, using WebAssmbly and WebGPU language specifications, which are new, bleeding-edge technologies. Previously, accelerated graphics on the web was based on JavaScript libraries, which is still very popular, but they do not offer detailed memory management and code optimization, necessary for systems requiring high memory load and high computational demands. WebAssembly and WebGPU can be compiled from the C++ or Rust code, which also allows the deployment of the same codebase either for web or for the desktop-based applications.

Marco Agus

Marco Agus was a Research Engineer in the High Performance Visualization Group (HPV) working with Professor Markus Hadwiger at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career He obtained his master degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Cagliari in Italy in 1999. He has a Ph. D. in Mechanical Design from the University of Cagliari. Before joining KAUST, Marco was a researcher at Visualization and Virtual Reality Group in the Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia (CRS4) in Italy. After that in 2007, he moved to
<> 3D microstructures (2) <> 3D Shape Creation (2)

Mohamed Ibrahim

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Computer Science
Mohamed Ibrahim is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in High-Performance Visualization Group (VCCVIS) working with Prof. Markus Hadwiger at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Education and Early Career He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the American University in Cairo (AUC) in 2010. Later on, he obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Science from KAUST in 2012. He graduated from KAUST with a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2019. Research Interest Mohamed Ibrahim's research is concerned with Large-Scale data visualization. He's especially interested

Ibraheem Alhashim

Ibraheem Alhashim is a Remote Researcher working with Professor Peter Wonka. Education and Early Career Ibraheem Alhashim completed his B.Sc. with honors in Computer Science at the Portland State University in 2008, followed by his M.Sc. in Computer Science in 2011 under the supervision of Prof. Hao Zhang and his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Hao Zhang and Prof. Ghassan Hamarneh at Simon Fraser University in Canada. During both his Master and Ph.D., Alhashim was working at the GrUVi Lab at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Dr. Alhashim joined KAUST in 2017
<> 4D seismic (2) <> 5th generation cellular (2) <> academic convocation (2) <> accelerators (2) <> Acoustic sensing and communications (2) <> acoustic signal processing (2) <> acoustic-elastic metamaterials (2) <> Adaptive communication systems (2) <> adaptive methods (2) <> Advanced Perception (2) <> Advanced Sensing (2) <> Aeronautical Sciences (2)

Recent Progress in Aeronautical Sciences: Exquisite Stability of Insect Flight and a New Theory of Lift

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B2 L5 R5220

In this talk, I will present a special variational principle that we revived from the history of analytical mechanics: Hertz’ principle of least curvature. Using this principle, we developed a general (dynamical) closure condition that is, unlike the Kutta condition, derived from first principles. In contrast to the classical theory, the proposed variational theory is not confined to sharp-edged airfoils, i.e., it allows, for the first time, theoretical computation of lift over arbitrarily smooth shapes, thereby generalizing the century-old lift theory of Kutta and Zhukovsky. Moreover, the new variational condition reduces to the Kutta condition in the special case of a sharp-edged airfoil, which challenges the widely accepted concept regarding the viscous nature of the Kutta condition. We also generalized this variational principle to Navier-Stokes’, thereby discovering the fundamental quantity that Nature minimizes in every incompressible flow.

Mathematical Control Theory in Aeronautical Engineering: Boosted Maneuverability in Stall and Unconventional Stability of Insect Flight

Haithem Taha, Visiting Professor, Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering, KAUST

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B9 L2 H2

The great Russian Mathematician Vladimir Arnold once said, “Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap”. In this talk, I will present two modern applications in aeronautical engineering where simple, but rigorous, mathematical control theory led to game-changing results exploiting nonlinearities and time-variation rather than obviating them.
<> aerospace software engineering (2)

Eric Feron's world: A short introduction

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B3 L5 R5209

Over the past 30 years, my research has focused on problems involving aerospace information systems, give or take a couple of exceptions - I also seem to like things with wheels-. In the talk, I will introduce and discuss a few research topics that, I believe, best describe the kind of research I like to perform. The topics will include things as diverse as drones, airports, and the hunt for Lyapunov functions. I will also introduce an educational initiative focusing on systematically restoring "the sense of touch" in all Engineering disciplines, and which I would like to experiment with as part of the courses I will be in charge of at KAUST.

12 April 2020 International Day of Human Space Flight

3 min read ·
Rocket Scientists @KAUST Which is your main ongoing RESEARCH in the aerospace and space flight sectors? I study high pressure flames and high speed combustion. Both are simplified versions of what’s happening in rocket engines and other propulsion systems. Prof. Deanna Lacoste I work in high pressure combustion, just what is needed in a rocket engine or other propulsion device. Prof. William Roberts Two keywords here: "turbulence" and "computational aerodynamics". In my group we conduct research in simulating turbulent flows over airfoils, wings and other aerodynamic shapes to better
<> Affective Captioning (2) <> agricultural productivity (2) <> AI accelerator (2) <> AI agents (2) <> AI4Science (2) <> air pollution (2) <> algorithmics (2) <> AlN epitaxy (2)