KU TIMES | Issue 2

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KU TIMES

A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Issue 2 | Aug 2019

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY AND KU TIE-UP TO BOOST R&D IN CLEAN ENERGY AND ADVANCED MANUFACTURING KU CLAIMS NEW PATENT FOR MAGNETIC SEPARATION TECHNIQUE KU PROFESSOR AMONG THE TOP 1% OF CITED RESEARCHERS IN ENGINEERING WORLDWIDE

MIND-CONTROL SYSTEM FOR THE PARALYZED IMPRESSES AT COMPETITION A team of students from KU’s EBTIC has won Best Lightning Presentation at the 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference on Applied Computing 2019 for their brain wave control system using deep learning.

BREAKTHROUGHS IN NEW MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES TO HARNESS THE POWER OF THE SUN Dr. Ammar Nayfeh describes the innovative research taking place at Khalifa University to drive down costs and increase efficiency of solar cells.

DRIVING AI INNOVATION IN THE UAE NEW AI INSTITUTE LAUNCHED TO BRING UNIVERSITY’S RESEARCH IN ROBOTICS, AI, DATA SCIENCE AND ICT UNDER SINGLE UMBRELLA

THE BODY MUSEUM BY BODY WORLDS AT KHALIFA UNIVERSITY BODY WORLDS delivers a breathtaking encounter with the inner workings of the human body and shows the effects of poor health, good health, and lifestyle choices. On display at the KU Main Campus for 6 months from 11th September.

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CONTENTS 04

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE LAUNCHED TO STRENGTHEN KU’S RESEARCH CAPACITY IN AI

ABOUT KU TIMES KU TIMES IS A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED

BY THE KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT. IT AIMS TO KEEP OUR STAKEHOLDERS INFORMED AND UPDATED ABOUT KHALIFA UNIVERSITY’S LATEST BREAKTHROUGHS, CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH, COLLABORATIONS, INITIATIVES, STUDENT ACTIVITIES AND NEWS. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT AN IDEA FOR AN ARTICLE, NOMINATE STUDENTS OR OTHERS TO BE INTERVIEWED, PROVIDE SUGGESTIONS ON TOPICS YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ ABOUT, OR SIMPLY WANT TO LEAVE A COMMENT, PLEASE EMAIL US AT COMMUNICATIONS@ KU.AC.AE.

06 CHINA’S TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY TO COLLABORATE WITH KU ON INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

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HH SHEIKH ABDULLAH PRAISES KU CAPACITY BUILDING EFFORTS DURING RECENT VISIT

09 10 UAE MINISTER OF AI PRAISES KU’S RESEARCH EFFORTS

12 RAADSAT SATELLITE COMPLETES PRELIMINARY DESIGN REVIEW

MOZAMBIQUE AMBASSADOR LEARNS ABOUT KU’S PETROLEUM RESEARCH

11 UZBEKISTAN’S DEPUTY MINISTER OF INVESTMENTS AND FOREIGN TRADE DISCUSSES ACADEMIC COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITIES AT KU

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12 ASPACC TO BE HOSTED AT KU IN 2021

MSC STUDENT TRAINED ON STATE-OF-THE-ART X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

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A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

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MIND-CONTROL SYSTEM FOR THE PARALYZED IMPRESSES AT COMPETITION

19 PAPER WINS 3RD AT SPE YOUNG PROFESSIONAL CONTEST

24 PAPER ON UAE’S ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM WINS AWARD

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CANDIDATE FOR MASDAR INSTITUTE SENIOR DIRECTOR DELIVERS LECTURE ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

SPE AWARDS TWO KU PROFESSORS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

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ZAYED’S GREEN LEGACY CAMPAIGN

KU STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AT 2019 GMI SUMMIT

KU PROFESSOR TALKS CARBON TO GEOCHEMICAL SOCIETY

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KU PROFESSOR AMONG TOP 1% OF CITED RESEARCHERS IN ENGINEERING WORLDWIDE

BREAKTHROUGHS IN NEW MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES TO HARNESS THE POWER OF THE SUN

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KU PROFESSOR APPOINTED AS A VISITING SCHOLAR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

KU PROFESSOR NAMED ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

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SEAS EXTENDS LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES TO INTERN FROM SWEDEN

30 PROLIFIC PROFESSORS

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CONCENTRATING SOLAR POWER PILOT PROJECT UPDATES SHARED

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR CYBER CRISIS MANAGEMENT EXPERTISE SHARED

PORTABLE GLUCOSE SENSOR COULD IMPROVE DIABETES TREATMENT

HOW THE UAE IS SUCCEEDING IN GENERATING CHEAP SOLAR ENERGY

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KU CLAIMS NEW PATENT FOR MAGNETIC SEPARATION TECHNIQUE

THE BODY MUSEUM BY BODY WORLDS AT KHALIFA UNIVERSITY

40 24TH WORLD ENERGY CONGRESS AQDAR WORLD SUMMIT

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A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

FROM THE NEWSROOM

HI GHLI GHTS OF TH E L ATE ST IMPORTAN T A NNOU NCEMEN TS, STR ATE GIC IN ITIATIVE S, NEW PARTNERSH IPS, AN D VIP VISITS

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE LAUNCHED TO STRENGTHEN KU’S RESEARCH CAPACITY IN AI

Last month, Khalifa University launched the Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute (AI Institute) as its third flagship research institute. The AI Institute will advance academic programs in artificial intelligence (AI), provide continuous professional development to government and industry, and bring all the university’s research in robotics, AI, data science and information and communication technologies under a single umbrella.

With a funding outlay of more than AED160 million over a five-year period -- this is in addition to the AED160 million already committed to the Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC) -- the university’s total spend on AI research projects to more than AED320 million.

The official launch took place during a press conference that was addressed by Dr Arif

Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Dr. Ahmed Al Shoaibi, Senior Vice-President, Academic and Student Services, Dr Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice-President for Research and Development, Dr. Ernesto Damiani, Senior Director, AI Institute, and Dr. Lakmal Seneviratne, Associate Provost of Research & Graduate Studies and Professor of Robotics, as well as other faculty members.

Speaking at the press conference, Dr. Arif said: “Khalifa University’s AI Institute, a single umbrella that gathers activities of six research centers, reflects our commitment to research in next generation digital technologies that are priority areas for the UAE’s economy. This is the first institute in the UAE focused on AI applications and will train government and industries in AI science and applications. It will also conduct state-of-the-art research that will benefit government and industry sectors. As

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Dr. Seneviratne delivered a brief presentation on the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), which is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious AI and robotics competitions

“With US$5-million prize money, the MBZIRC’s second edition to be held in February 2020 will demonstrate our commitment to encourage innovation and nurture talent, while the launch of the Program in Artificial Intelligence will facilitate greater contribution to developing talent in this growing area of science. We believe, with the new research institute, the MBZIRC 2020 and the Program in AI, Khalifa University will continue to lead innovation in next generation technologies that bring benefits to the community,” Dr. Arif shared.

KU now has three flagship research institutes that serve as interdisciplinary research units focused on long-term strategic priorities. The AI Institute joins the Masdar Institute, focusing on sustainable energy, water and the environment, and the Petroleum Institute, focusing primarily on upstream and downstream hydrocarbon exploration and production. new intelligent system capabilities such as artificial intelligence and machine learning gather steam, Khalifa University will be at the forefront of developing new innovations from these platforms.”

The AI Institute will be headed by Senior Director Dr. Ernesto Damiani. Its core research centers are the Khalifa University Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS), the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems (C2PS), The System-on-Chip Center (SoCC), the Khalifa University-Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KU-KAIST) Joint Research Center, the Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center (HEIC), and the Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC).

Dr. Al Shoaibi presented on the new courses being offered in AI to all undergraduate, graduate and PhD science and engineering students starting from the Fall 2019 semester. KU is offering the first-of-its-kind Minor in AI program for undergraduate students, which will culminate in a final AI project directly related to students’ major studies.

Through the AI Institute, Khalifa University is positioning artificial intelligence as a central focus of its integrated academic and research activities—with good reason.

A report titled “Artificial Intelligence in the Middle East and Africa: United Arab Emirates – Outlook for 2019 and Beyond,” commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by EY, says the UAE has seen the second highest regional investment in AI over the past decade: more than US$2.15 billion, the bulk of which went towards social media and Internet of Things transactions.

Research projects already undertaken by the research centers now housed under the AI Institute include sentiment analysis across social media, diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease, and safe and effective genome editing. Future projects will focus on advancing intelligent systems technologies for next generation networks, big data analytics, system-on-chip solutions[ECS1] , smart transportation, and smart healthcare.

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A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

CHINA’S TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY TO COLLABORATE WITH KU ON INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

Joint Program to Focus on Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, and Associated Interdisciplinary Research in Materials and Automation In the presence of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive VicePresident of Khalifa University of Science and Technology, and Qiu Yong, President of Tsinghua University, signed a joint research cooperation agreement in China.

The joint research and innovation program aims to establish a research partnership and develop effective and long-term collaboration through interdisciplinary research and innovation.

The Khalifa University - Tsinghua University joint research and innovation program will have thrust areas in clean energy, including both low-carbon and renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing, including both additive and smart manufacturing. It will also focus on associated interdisciplinary research, particularly on materials and automation. The program is expected to enhance the ongoing industrial capacity cooperation between the UAE and China, while fostering the high-caliber human capital development in the UAE and the Arab region.

The research agreement aims to bring together multidisciplinary scientists, experienced engineers, talented students, industrial partners, and stakeholders to boost the knowledge-based economy and economic diversification of the two countries.

Earlier in December 2017, Khalifa University signed an MoU that covered research in broad engineering fields, with the initial focus on solar and nuclear energy, energy materials and storage, carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS), and water and environment. It also covered exchange of materials in education, and research, publications, academic information, visitation and exchange of faculty members, researchers and students.

Other interactions continue, reflecting the close ties between the two academic institutions. In September 2018, KU’s Dr. Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice President of Research and Development, held discussions with Dr Bin Yang, Vice President and Provost of Tsinghua University, at the Tsinghua Campus in Beijing. A joint workshop on clean energy witnessed faculty from both universities presenting their research works during the same month.

During October-December 2018, a PhD student from Tsinghua University spent a semester at KU’s Masdar City Campus. While more recently in May 2019, Dr. Bin Yang held talks with Dr. Arif during his visit to Khalifa University.

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HH SHEIKH ABDULLAH PRAISES KU CAPACITY BUILDING EFFORTS DURING RECENT VISIT

A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, visited Khalifa University, where he met KU students and members of the UAE National Service and the Al Nokhba Training Program, and learned about their innovative research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan praised KU’s efforts in the fields of science, research and technology, and the university’s human capacity development efforts, and left the students with an inspiring message of encouragement to continue to innovate and contribute to the UAE’s progress and prosperity.

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MOZAMBIQUE AMBASSADOR LEARNS ABOUT KU’S PETROLEUM RESEARCH

HE Ambassador of the Republic of Mozambique Tiago Castigo visited Khalifa University’s Petroleum Institute Campus, and learned how KU is addressing many of the challenges related to oil and gas, including enhanced oil recovery.

The Ambassador toured the ADNOC Research Innovation Center (ADRIC), a state-of-the-art research facility with 39 labs for high-impact oil and gas research that provides a platform for industrial collaborations. The Ambassador praised Khalifa University for their key role in promoting sustainable energy solutions.

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A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

HE Omar Al Olama, UAE Minister of Artificial Intelligence, with Al Nokhba National Service Associates at KU Training in Robotics Working on MBZIRC 2020 Challenges

UAE MINISTER OF AI PRAISES KU’S RESEARCH EFFORTS

HE Omar Al Olama, UAE Minister of Artificial Intelligence, visited Khalifa University, where he was briefed on the latest AI research and developments taking place at the University and learned more about KU’s state-of-the-art Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS), which conducts research on robotics for extreme environments, industrial applications and infrastructure inspection. HE Al Olama praised KU’s efforts and expressed confidence that the work being done at KU will drive excellence and leadership of AI research in the UAE.

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UZBEKISTAN’S DEPUTY MINISTER OF INVESTMENTS AND FOREIGN TRADE DISCUSSES ACADEMIC COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITIES AT KU

HE Shukhrat Vafaev, Deputy Minister of the Ministry for Investments and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan, and his delegation, which included HE Ibragimov Bakhtiyor, Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the UAE, Ergashev Ikboljon, Counselor of Uzbekistan Embassy to the UAE, and Khamidov Sarvar, Deputy Director of Department at Uzbekistan’s Ministry for Investments and Foreign Trade, visited Khalifa University’s Main Campus on 31 July, 2019.

The delegation was briefed about KU followed by discussions on areas of mutual interest, including academic and research cooperation, and graduate student recruitment for the MSc and PhD programs at KU. They also learned about some of Khalifa University’s cutting edge research activities taking place across its three flagship institutes, and discussed ways to promote knowledge exchange and establish cooperation between Uzbek universities and Khalifa University.

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ASPACC TO BE HOSTED AT KU IN 2021

Khalifa University won the bid to host the region’s major combustion conference, the 2021 Asian Pacific Combustion Conference (ASPACC), in December 2021.

Over 500 delegates will convene at Khalifa University to discuss new results, discoveries and developments in the various disciplines that constitute the field of combustion.

The conference will boost KU’s visibility in the combustion and energy conversion community.

Efficiency of combustion processes and development of new combustion methods is critical to the realization of a sustainable future.

KU will be hosting the conference in collaboration with the Saudi Arabian Section of the Combustion Institute. Dr. Hong Im of the Clean Combustion Research Center in King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is the president of this section of the institute and spearheaded KU’s proposal through the Combustion Institute committee.

RAADSAT SATELLITE COMPLETES PRELIMINARY DESIGN REVIEW RAADSat, a 3U CubeSat, being developed in Khalifa University’s YahSat Space Lab, has completed its Preliminary Design Review on Sunday, 7 July, marking an important milestone for the research satellite. The Preliminary Design Review is a process where experts review and confirm the overall architecture of the student’s CubeSat design.

In 2018, KU partnered with the UAE Space Agency to launch the UAE Mini Satellite Challenge, which aims to provide students interested in the fields of engineering, material sciences, and physical sciences, the opportunity to develop technology and experiments for the space environment. In the first edition of the competition, 21 teams participated with over 150 students involved. The payload proposed by New York University Abu Dhabi to detect terrestrial gamma ray flashes won the first prize. Now, Khalifa University and NYUAD are working together to realize RAADSat. The satellite is expected to be launched into space in early 2020.

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KAIST-KU JOINT RESEARCH CENTER LAUNCHES FROM KOREA TO BOLSTER 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION R&D Following the official launch of the Khalifa University – Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KU-KAIST) Joint Research Center (JRC) at KU’s Main Campus in April 2019, the official opening ceremony for the KAIST-KU JRC at the KAIST Daejeon campus took place on Friday, 5 July, 2019.

The KU-KAIST JRC aims to provide comprehensive support for research projects involving the development of technologies that are shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly in the areas of Smart Transportation and Smart Healthcare, across the two campuses.

Two projects linked to Smart Transportation will commence under the KU-KAIST JRC this August.

The senior delegation at the opening ceremony included Khalifa University’s Dr. Arif Al Hammadi, Executive Vice President, Dr. Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice President for Research and Development, and Dr. Daniel Choi, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and KU-KAIST JRC Co-Director, as well as KAIST’s

Dr. Shin Sung-chul, President, Dr. Hyun-wook Park, Vice President of Research, Dr. Soo Chan Chae, Vice President of External Relationship, Dr. Man Sung Im, AVP of International Collaboration, Dr. Chang-Hui Jang, Dean of KAI-NEET Educational Research Center, and Dr. Jong Hyun Kim, KU-KAIST JRC Co-Director.

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MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY

STUDE N T AN D FACULTY, ACH IE VE ME N TS, CAMPUS ACTIVITIE S, STUDE N T ACTIVITIE S

MSC STUDENT TRAINED ON STATE-OF-THE-ART X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

on the surface and quantifying their elemental compositions and chemical environment. Using photoelectron spectroscopy in catalysis, the area that Alkhoori is studying, is expected to deepen the overall understanding of the chemical behavior of a catalytic surface.

Being trained on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy will further her academic studies as a postgraduate research student at Khalifa university and enrich her knowledge in surface sciences.

Sara Alkhoori, MSc student in the Mechanical Engineering Program, spent two weeks in June undergoing surface analysis training using the state-of-art x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy at the University of Surrey in the UK. Alkhoori gained critical hands-on experience while visiting the Surface Analysis Laboratory at Surrey and engaging with the experts in surface science, including Dr. Mark Baker, Reader in Surface Science and Engineering, and Dr. Steve Hinder, Research Scientist.

Photoelectron spectroscopy is a sophisticated technique used to analyze the surface chemistry of a material by identifying the elements

“The experience at Surrey gave me more confidence and helped me better understand where I stand in terms of research. If I ever have the chance to visit other universities in the future for research purposes, I will definitely go for it,” Alkhoori said.

Alkhoori works under the supervision of Dr. Kyriaki Polychronopoulou, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of KU’s Center for Catalysis and Separation (CeCaS).

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MIND-CONTROL SYSTEM FOR THE PARALYZED IMPRESSES AT COMPETITION A student design project from Alanud Almemari, Safa Alkatheeri and Hamda Altamimi was awarded Best Lightning Presentation for their Brain Wave Control System Using Deep Learning. Supervised by Dr. Kin Poon, Dr. Gabriele Gianini and Dr. Nawaf Almoosa from EBTIC, the project was one of 15 presented to conference participants and a judging panel.

The students faced stiff competition against augmented reality projects, secure voting systems and medical platforms but ultimately won first place at the 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference on Applied Computing (URC) at Zayed University, Dubai.

EBTIC Senior Design Project has won Best Lightning Presentation at the 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference on Applied Computing 2019

The URC aims to provide a forum for undergraduate students to present their ideas and interact with other young researchers from educational institutions in the UAE, other GCC countries, and the rest of the Arab world, as well as expert faculty and leaders from the IT industry. The forum offers three types of submissions—live demonstration of a finished application, system or tool, lightning presentations in which students are given up to seven minutes to present their research projects, and poster presentations.

“I think our project stood out for the judges because using the brain to control the movements of a device can be so beneficial to someone with complete paralysis,” said Dr. Poon.

Photo Caption: Data Acquisition and Processing Flowchart

Paralysis is a serious medical condition threatening the livelihoods of approximately 5.4 million people around the world. For those suffering from full body paralysis, even controlling a wheelchair with a joystick is an impossible task to perform, severely limiting independence. The only way to overcome this is through Electroencephalogram (EEG) brain wave signals, which the students use to control a device’s movements based on deep learning techniques.

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“Paralysis is a loss of muscle function and one of the ways to overcome such a problem is to make good use of the Electroencephalogram brain wave signal to control the movements of a wheelchair, for example,” explained Dr. Poon.

“Our project has developed a prototype for controlling the movements of a toy car using EEG signals based on a deep learning technique.”

EEG represents the electrical activities of the brain and are captured when an individual starts thinking or physically moves a part of the body to perform a specific action. These signals can be extracted using an EEG headset comprising multiple dry electrodes. They are then analyzed using deep learning algorithms that consist of multi-layered Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In this project, the ANNs used are Convolutional Neural Network (CNNs), a class of neural networks often used in image recognition because of their excellent compatibility with the processing of image pixel data.

“Our project also stood out because deep learning is one of the hot topics in artificial intelligence research,” added Dr. Kin. “There are many successful applications such as data analysis and image recognition based on deep learning.

To see how it can also be applied to recognize brain wave signals to perform certain tasks is a fascinating research area.”

The analysis involves converting the EEG signals into wavelets—frequencies which vary with time—which are then used to train the CNN. The computer distinguishes and learns the different commands intended by the signals as the person concentrates on thinking about moving a device to different locations. These commands are recorded multiple times until the CNN can use them to control the movements of a toy car in the testing prototype.

“For the time being, this prototype can only control some basic movements of a toy car,” said Dr. Poon. “We would like to extend the recognition engine to perform simple communication to express someone’s needs with paralysis.”

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CANDIDATE FOR MASDAR INSTITUTE SENIOR DIRECTOR DELIVERS LECTURE ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

Dr. Samuel Mao, prospective senior director of Masdar Institute, gave a lecture on KU Main Campus, discussing the route from innovation to commercialization for sustainable energy technologies

Providing an overview of the sustainable energy technology program Dr. Mao has been leading over the past ten years, the prospective senior director of Masdar Institute lectured university staff and students in attendance about the path towards an effective high-tech research, development and commercialization program, and his ambitions for the Institute and Khalifa University at large.

After receiving his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 2000, Dr. Mao established the Institute of New Energy and began helping to commercialize sustainable energy technology.

His lecture covered the research of solar-driven photocatalytic hydrogen with record-breaking efficiency, the development of the most-advanced combinatorial high throughput energy material discovery technology, and the commercialization of the world’s first lithium battery-powered heavy-duty hybrid electric truck.

Ending his lecture, Dr. Mao faced questions from the audience pertaining to his research, professional background, and ambitions for Masdar Institute. His main focus would be to ensure the efforts and innovations of staff and researchers at the university can be optimally commercialized.

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SPE AWARDS TWO KU PROFESSORS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

DR. HADI BELHAJ

Dr. Hadi Belhaj, Professor of Petroleum Engineering, and Dr. Hadi Belhaj, Associate Professor of Petroleum Engineering, have been selected by the Middle East and North Africa Region of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE-MENA) to receive awards for their contributions to the petroleum industry on a regional scale.

DR. JOHN WILLIAMS

Dr. John Williams was awarded the Regional Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty 2019, and Dr. Belhaj was awarded the Middle East and North Africa Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award for 2019.

These awards acknowledge their outstanding contributions, service, and leadership in Petroleum Engineering.

Announced at the 2019 SPE Abu Dhabi Gala Event, held on Wednesday 19 June, the award will be given to the faculty at the SPE Middle East Regional Award Ceremony on Tuesday, 17 September, 2019. Their work and accomplishments make us proud and inspire us all to keep up the good work!

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KU PROFESSOR APPOINTED AS A VISITING SCHOLAR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO Dr. Brendon Cannon, Assistant Professor, Institute of International and Civil Security (IICS), was selected as Project Professor and Visiting Scholar by the University of Tokyo. Dr. Cannon spent the month of June in Tokyo conducting over 40 interviews related to his research on Japan’s

Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision for the Western Indian Ocean region as well as Japan’s evolving security and technology-related defense strategies. In addition, he was honored with invitations to present some of his current and previous research at the Sasakawa

KU PROFESSOR NAMED ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING Dr. Emad W. Al Shalabi, Assistant Professor of Petroleum, was granted a seat on the editorial board of the renowned Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering (JPSE). The JPSE is a Q1 journal with an impact factor of 2.886, ranking it in the top 25% of journals in the field of petroleum science.

Dr. Al Shalabi’s new role will include maintaining and developing the journal’s profile and reputation through close study of the journal’s published content, while striving to ensure that the journal’s aims, scope, and content respond to any changes of direction in the field of study to incorporate newly-emerging work. In his new role, Dr. Al Shalabi will learn invaluable skills and gain exposure to the rigors of publishing in scientific journals – a skill that will certainly benefit Khalifa University and help to raise the number of published papers in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Peace Foundation (SPF), the Japan External Trade Organization – Institute of Developing Economies (JETRO-IDE) and the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST).

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PAPER WINS 3RD AT SPE YOUNG PROFESSIONAL CONTEST Abhijith Suboyin, a Research Associate in the Petroleum Engineering Department, has won 3rd place at the 10th Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Abu Dhabi Young Professionals Paper Contest.

Bringing together talented young professionals from industry and academia in the region to share their knowledge, ideas, expertise, innovations and case studies in the various disciplines of Petroleum Engineering, the contest is an opportunity to highlight expertise and academic success with peers.

SPE’s Young Professional programs are for members of the society under the age of 36 and at this year’s event under the Abu Dhabi SPE section in June, Abhijith was one of the finalists shortlisted to present. His investigation, “A Novel Operational Optimization Workflow and Quantitative Characterization of Hydraulic Fracture Propagation for Middle Eastern Shale Gas Reservoirs,” was part of his research conducted within KU on unconventional resources, their challenges, and opportunities for the Middle Eastern region.

It also highlighted the need for techniques to optimize water consumption in water-scarce regions.

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KU STUDENTS LEARN ABOUT FUTURE OF MANUFACTURING AT 2019 GMI SUMMIT

Seven KU Emirati students attended the 2nd Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit (GMIS) in Russia from 9-11 July, 2019. They heard from visionary world leaders, expert industry CEOs, groundbreaking researchers and specialist academics and learned how the R&D of 4th Industrial Revolution technologies are reshaping the future of manufacturing.

The particpating students were Sara Abdulla Ahmad Bahlooq, Zayed Faisal Ebrahim Alhosani, Amal Abdulla Alkindi, Hasan Nasser

Ahmed Saleh Al Hammami, Shorouq Ali Ahmed Aldhanhani, Khawlah Jumah Alabdouli and Yaqoob Ali Al Shamsi.

While attending the world’s preeminent manufacturing summit, they met with UAE Minister of Energy and Industry, HE Suhail Al Mazrouei. HE Al Mazrouei urged the students to intensify their efforts and determination and have selfconfidence, reminding them that the 4th Industrial Revolution will be successful because of their contributions.

“Through GMIS activities and talks, I met many new people who have the knowledge and experience related to the modern industry globally, which motivates me to be part of global efforts to enhance ideas and technologies in different ways,” shared Shorouq Ali Ahmed Aldhanhani, postgraduate student in the Engineering Systems & Management Program.

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ZAYED’S GREEN LEGACY CAMPAIGN Khalifa University hosted the ‘Zayed’s Green Legacy Campaign’ on Wednesday, 3 July at its Main Campus. The campaign was held as part of the Daejayon Eco-Exchange Competition – a national competition organized

by Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi and Daejayon, a nonprofit organization in South Korea, aimed at increasing environmental awareness among university students. During the event, KU students and faculty learned about the importance of the UAE’s biodiversity, the various approaches the country is taking to preserve the habitats of endangered species, and several ways people can help maintain the country’s rich biodiversity, such as by reducing the use of fertilizers, reducing consumption, recycling and reusing.

The Daejayon Eco-Exchange Competition invites 10 teams to complete nine missions, most of which involve carrying out activities aimed at increasing environmental awareness. The teams are evaluated based on their reports, due upon completion of each mission. The winning UAE team will travel to South Korea from 22 to 27 September 2019.

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KU PROFESSOR TALKS CARBON TO GEOCHEMICAL SOCIETY

Dr. Aisha Al Suwaidi with Prof. Miguel Mancenido sampling rocks in The Neuquén Basin, Argentina, to understand the Southern Hemisphere record of the Early Jurassic Period (around 183 million years ago)

Dr. Aisha Al Suwaidi, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at KU, discussed her on-going research in the area of carbon cycle science in an interview for Geochemical Society’s “Meet the Scientist” June 2019 segment. The Geochemical Society is a nonprofit scientific society that encourages the application of geochemistry to improve public understanding of the Earth and solar system.

Each month, Geochemical Society highlights international scientists who are making important scientific contributions to the geochemical community.

Dr. Al Suwaidi studies how the carbon cycle has changed through the Mesozoic Era (about 250 to 66 million years ago), to better understand how long it takes the Earth to recover from carbon cycle perturbations, mass extinctions and anoxia in the oceans associated with large igneous province activity hundreds of millions of years ago.

Read the whole interview here: https://www.geochemsoc.org/ news/2019/06/19/meet-scientistaisha-al-suwaidi

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SEAS EXTENDS LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES TO INTERN FROM SWEDEN In July, Khalifa University’s Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC) -- one of KU’s 18 specialized research centers -hosted biotechnology undergraduate student Patricia Salén from Umeå University, Sweden, for a summer internship. During her 4-week learning experience, Salén assisted Dr. Alejandro Rios, Director of the SBRC, and Research Engineer Jose Gonzalez, in numerous activities related to the center’s flagship project, the Seawater Energy and Agriculture System (SEAS), which is the world’s first research facility to grow both food and fuel using desert lands irrigated by seawater. Salén analyzed water quality, extracted Salicornia oil, and pre-assessed the RSB Principles and Criteria, which describe how to produce biomass, biofuels and biomaterials in an environmentally, socially and economically responsible way. She also worked with Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and his team to experiment the effects of algae micro culture.

“During my invaluable experience at Khalifa University, I had a month-long opportunity to learn and become inspired by the projects and the people at Khalifa University’s Masdar Institute. As a first-year Biotechnology student, it has been extremely motivating to understand all the great and innovative ways to work within my field of choice.¨ - Patricia Salén

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PAPER ON UAE’S ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM WINS AWARD

including CEOs and founders of SMEs, incubators, and government authorities, to understand how they enable and support entrepreneurs and tech startups, and to learn their opinions about the gaps and opportunities in the UAE’s ecosystem. They also conducted surveys to quantify the availability and importance of key ecosystem support elements, such as the funding, accessible markets, and the legal framework.

A ‘UAE Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Framework’ designed

by KU students to Enhance the country’s Innovation Index Won Best Paper Award at ICOM 2019 A team of KU graduate students from the Engineering Systems and Management (ESM) Program won Best Paper Award at the 4th International Conference on Organization and Management (ICOM 2019), held from 12-13 June in Abu Dhabi, for their paper on the strengths and weaknesses of the UAE’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The paper, titled “Examining the Framework of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Case Study on the United Arab Emirates,” examines the UAE’s current entrepreneurial ecosystem model, its gaps and opportunities, with a particular focus on the domains of the ecosystem that startups find pivotal to their growth and success. It won Best Paper in the conference’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management Track.

“We were motivated to study this topic because of the lack of academic studies and up-to-date literature on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the UAE, especially considering that it is evolving at an extremely rapid pace,” said Aamna Aljarwan, one of the paper’s authors and a Spring 2019 graduate. Co-authors include fellow ESM graduate students Bushra Alyas Yahya and Bashayer Mohamed Almarzooqi. The paper was written

as part of a team research paper for ESMA 607 Management and Entrepreneurship for Engineers, a graduate level course taught

by Dr. Toufic Mezher, Professor of Engineering Systems and Management.

The UAE is committed to transforming into one of the world’s most innovative nations by 2021.

The KU paper is an important step towards assessing what needs to be further improved to help the country achieve its ambitious goal.

The ultimate aim of the paper was to design a framework that could be used as a tool to help policymakers, academics, researchers and industry leaders further enhance the UAE’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and raise the country’s innovation index, which would in turn attract more global startups to establish operations in the UAE. The students interviewed ten key ecosystem players from across the public-private sector,

They then compiled their data and developed a ‘triple helix model’ to describe their findings on the interactions between academia, industry, and government. The triple helix model studies innovation at a national level and can be used as a tool to foster economic and social development.

“We used the triple helix model as a base and integrated it with our framework to study the entrepreneurial ecosystem at a national level,” Aljarwan explained.

The result was an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Framework that clearly identifies the UAE’s key players, important support elements, the relationships between them, and which support elements are strong and weak.

Aljarwan and her team found that the government is the strongest key player in the ecosystem and the main driver of the current entrepreneurial movement. The government mandates strategies to the private sector and academia, such as the UAE’s National Innovation Strategy and Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, which in turn creates a kind of reliance on the government to initiate the growth in the ecosystem.

The students identified some of the ecosystem’s strongest support

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elements as the infrastructure, the legal framework, national and international networks and relations, an accessible market, and incubation and acceleration programs. Some of the ecosystem’s weakest support elements identified by the students include the investment culture, a lack of angel investors due to the risk-averse investment culture, the predominant social culture and mindset, and research and development.

“It is predicted that once the ecosystem grows, it will start to decentralize and become autonomous, where it does not rely on mandates and incentives any longer,” Aljarwan explained.

“Once a large batch of entrepreneurs succeeds, it will create enough competition to drive the industry to innovate and collaborate with academia.

Moreover, successful entrepreneurs will then become investors and motivators to encourage the younger batches to follow the same path. This will also make a paradigm shift in the culture and mindset to become more tolerant of risk and acceptant of failure.”

The team made numerous recommendations to improve the UAE’s startup ecosystem. On the government side, they recommend that governments incentivize the private sector to work with academia by building non-profit shared labs. They also recommend that the government reduce the legal setup costs for startups with innovative ideas, incentivize private companies to allocate a percentage of their procurement from startups,

and reduce the cost universities and startups pay for filing novel intellectual property (IP). They also advise that more technology equity funds, which are funds solely dedicated to investing in specific technologies, should be established.

On the academic side, they recommend that universities establish on-campus incubators and accelerators, and better connect students to startups for internships. They also suggest that more academic institutions establish permanent acceleration programs for senior design projects to encourage students to continue working on their ideas after graduation.

As a startup founder herself, Aljarwan is experiencing firsthand the pros and cons of starting a company in the UAE. Aljarwan founded GrowthPass, a marketplace for discovering and listing self and career growth events, workshops, and classes.

“The platform aims to encourage lifelong learning and to help people upskill their soft skills to complement their hard or technical skills. In this day and age, recruiters don’t only look at one’s technical

skills, but they also look at their soft skills and mindset and the kind of value they bring to their teams,” Aljarwan said.

She was inspired to develop GrowthPass after trying to find soft skill training and development opportunities that were aligned with her interests, and available at a convenient location. She immediately realized there was a need for a better, more effective way to find career-growth events.

Now, GrowthPass is receiving support from one of the UAE’s wellregarded startup incubator program, Sheraa. Aljarwan is set to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) within the next month or so.

“Although the government and other key players continue to support the ecosystem, the success of any startup lies in the hands of its founders first and on the ecosystem second. Now that I have a better understanding of our ecosystem’s gaps and opportunities, I’ve been able to navigate around them and leverage on what is available”.

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

EXPERT INSI GHTS FROM KU’S WOR L DCLAS S FACU LTY

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BREAKTHROUGHS IN NEW MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES TO HARNESS THE POWER OF THE SUN Dr. Ammar Nayfeh describes the innovative research taking place at Khalifa University to drive down costs and increase efficiency of solar cells

becomes responsible for delivering a large and exponentially growing fraction of the world’s energy needs, improving efficiency even further is critical.

While harnessing the power of the sun is nothing new – Alexandre Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect in 1839 whereby electricity is generated from sunlight – finding increasingly better ways to convert an ever larger share of sunlight into electricity has become arguably one of the most important research challenges of our time.

Solar power presents a problem of two halves: getting high-efficiency cells but at a low cost. Khalifa University, through its flagship research institute Masdar Institute, has long been at the forefront of research into solar technology and its projects have been solving this problem.

When first discovered, photovoltaic power was very inefficient. Even when the first commercial solar photovoltaic panel was unveiled in 1954, it converted just 6 percent of the energy from sunlight to electricity.

The first solar panels used selenium, but researchers in the 1950s realized that semiconducting materials like silicon were more efficient. The only problem? Silicon solar cells were expensive to produce—and the 6 percent efficiency rate was achieved with a silicon solar cell.

We have made significant progress over the past 50 years. Today, the most efficient solar panel on the market has an efficiency rating of 22.2 percent. But as solar power

As Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Khalifa University, I lead on a number of projects aimed at advancing new materials and devices to improve solar cell efficiencies.

One such project was the result of a collaboration between Khalifa University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). We developed an innovative multi-junction solar cell that leverages a unique ‘step-cell’ design approach and low-cost silicon using gallium arsenide phosphidebased materials. The new step-cell combines two different layers of sunlight-absorbing material to harvest a broader range of the sun’s energy and

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benefits from a novel, low-cost manufacturing process.

Former Khalifa University PhD Student and now professor at University of Dubai, Dr. Sabina Abdul Hadi, provided the foundational research for this stepcell as part of her doctoral thesis.

She realized that when the top gallium arsenide phosphide layer completely covered the bottom silicon layer, the lower energy photos were absorbed by the silicon germanium—the substrate on which the gallium arsenide phosphide is grown—thus limiting solar cell efficiency. By etching away the top layer and exposing some of the silicon layer, she was able to increase the efficiency and add a new degree of freedom in the design.

The step cell design allows for cheaper fabrication and, while there is still a lot of research and development that needs to be undertaken prior to commercialization, innovations like this are an exciting part of a rapidly growing research area and industry.

In traditional silicon-based PV cells, only some of the sun’s wavelengths from the visible light spectrum are absorbed and converted into electricity. Much of the research being done by me and my research group is focused on exploring how to use advanced materials to access the full spectrum of solar energy.

For example, the use of silicon and gold nanomaterials on solar cells was investigated with two KU MSc graduates, Kazi Islam and Farsad Chowdhury.

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We demonstrated that by using nanomaterials on the surface of solar cells, we can enhance the solar cells’ light trapping properties.

The nanoparticles increase a solar cell’s ability to absorb sunlight by increasing the amount of surface scattering or by having the ability to absorb photons and re-emit them at a lower energy the solar cell can use.

In another project with Dr. Nazek El Etab, PhD graduate from KU and current Postdoc at KAUST in Saudi Arabia, we used atomic layer deposition (ALD) – an advanced method of coating a material by depositing it in thin films, one atomic layer at a time – to grow zirconium dioxide and zinc oxide nanomaterials.

We layered the nanomaterials on a solar cell to enhance efficiency.

With former Khalifa University PhD student Dr. Aaesha Alnuaimi, currently Head of Solar Research at Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), we fabricated graphenesilicon solar cells by introducing a thin layer of a high dielectric constant material, which is an insulator that becomes polarized when an electric field is applied, also using the ALD method. The efficiency of the graphene-silicon solar cells quadrupled with the interlayer relative to the same cells without the interlayer.

Developing new methods to make high-efficient solar cells affordable is a major focus of my research.

I worked with Dr. Ghada Dushaq, PhD graduate from KU and current Postdoc at New York University Abu Dhabi, to develop a low temperature germanium growth method for gallium arsenide using plasmaenhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). Germanium provides a crystal lattice compatible with that of gallium arsenide and so the germanium layer can be used as

the bottom cell in a multi junction solar cell, or as a virtual substrate on which to grow gallium arsenide.

Gallium arsenide is a semiconductor material that allows more efficient photon absorption and high output power density than most materials. In a current collaboration with Stanford University, we recently demonstrated an important breakthrough in the growth of gallium arsenide directly on a low-temperature germanium layer.

More recently, Khadija Jumaa, a 2019 KU MSc graduate, presented a paper at the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) conference in Chicago in June 2019 on the most efficient way to grow amorphous silicon, which are used in thin-film silicon solar cells, using a PECVD growth method. In this work, she studied how different temperatures affect the growth of amorphous silicon using PECVD, and determined the optimal temperature required to grow amorphous silicon, which will contribute towards finding even cheaper and more sustainable ways to develop amorphous silicon for lowercost solar cells.

All this advanced material based solar research work leverages the outstanding clean room and testing facility we have in the UAE at the Khalifa University Masdar Institute campus.

As the team from Khalifa University works towards developing new materials and devices for highefficiency solar panels to global energy production, it is inspiring and encouraging to know that research like this in the UAE can lead to an avalanche of improvements down the line, creating potential for a technological leap in the industry, at a time when the world is looking to renewable energy to power an increasingly energy-hungry planet.

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Khalifa University Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Eiyad Abu-Nada, is rated among the top 1% of researchers worldwide for citations of published research in the field of Engineering between 2006 and 2016 – a great achievement in the scientific community.

During his academic career, Dr. AbuNada has published more than 80 journal papers and averaged 47.71 citations per publication as listed on Clarivate Analytics - a leading online resource for scientific publications. Most of his published journal papers appeared in the top prestigious Q1 journals in the Web of Science database. Dr. Abu-Nada has also published numerous conference papers in international conferences.

“I have always been driven by my work to discover something new, it excites me. Now I feel more enthusiastic to continue doing great work,” Dr. Abu-Nada remarked. “I remain humbled by how little we understand, and how much more there is to know. I try to impart that curiosity on my students each semester, hoping that they can one day contribute to science, and explore something new. That would make me proud.”

KU PROFESSOR AMONG TOP 1% OF CITED RESEARCHERS IN ENGINEERING WORLDWIDE

Dr. Eiyad Abu-Nada has published more than 80 journal papers and averaged 47.71 citations per publication according to Clarivate Analytics - a leading online resource for scientific publications

Besides quietly digging away at the complexity of nature in search of its secrets, Dr. Abu-Nada has also been teaching Mechanical Engineering at KU since 2013. Though primarily devoted to the study of heat transfer and fluid dynamics at the nanoscale – the investigation of the properties and interaction of fluids with particles at the nanoscale – his published papers span various sciences, such as thermal sciences, energy, biophysics, and microfluidics.

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After earning his BSc and MSc in Mechanical Engineering from Jordan, Dr. Abu-Nada moved to the states and completed his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from New Mexico State University in 2001. He began establishing the groundwork for his research which gained him momentum and valuable experience. In 2010, Dr. AbuNada received a fellowship at the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Also, he received other significant awards at the regional level such as the Abdul-Hameed Shoman Award in Jordan and the Arab Fund award from Kuwait.

“I was able to work with great researchers and very professional people. I learned from, and was motivated by their fundamental understanding of the underlying physics of engineering problems and inspired by their scientific ethics. Collaboration is key to expanding one’s understanding and learning new things,” said Dr. Abu-Nada as he reflected on his early career. “I was put onto a narrow research track that remains a focal point of my research. More importantly, I was exposed to rigorous scientific exploration and science for the sake of science: not chasing dreams, but rather, chasing the truth.”

Dr. Abu-Nada’s specialized research focus has won him over 4,000 citations on Web of Science – an online resource for scientific publications – and an h-index of 27. A researcher’s h-index is a

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measurement of the productivity and impact of their research.

Dr. Abu-Nada’s research has steadily pushed the limits of our collective knowledge on topics like heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids, dissipative particle dynamics and convective heat transfer, carving out a niche for himself. Among his most cited published papers is the “Numerical study of natural convection in partially heated rectangular enclosures filled with nanofluids.”

In it, Dr. Abu-Nada describes the factors that impact heat transfer in base fluids through using different fluids and nanoparticles. Besides cataloguing results from different variables, the study is considered unique because he and his team laid the groundwork for mathematical modeling of heat transfer at the nanoscale.

Dr. Abu-Nada spent considerable efforts in pushing the limits of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), a technique used for simulating the interactions of fluids and particles in order to better understand and improve energy transfer in thermal fluid systems. DPD has potential applications in emerging energy technologies, such as solar energy and steam power plants, where efficiencies and improvements are key elements in enhancing performance.

“DPD is my passion. I am keen to get back into the type of work I was doing early in my career with the

experience and understanding I now have,” Dr. Abu-Nada commented about his future plans. “I began my career with biofluids and its study has always held a special place in my heart. I want to apply the tools I have acquired throughout my career to the study of blood flow, its physical properties, and red blood cell aggregation. I’m also interested in collaborating on research that examines renewable energies more closely.”

Dr. Abu-Nada advises students and aspiring researchers: “Participate in conferences where you can interact with experts, visit big labs, and be inspired. Aim high, have high standards, have a plan to only target the big journals for your publications. If you get turned down, take their feedback, revise, and resubmit. Collaborate and interact with peers and colleagues, give and take input and criticism. Learn from others’ experiences and work.”

“I am very grateful for the support I have received from family, friends, and my teachers, those who inspired me and those who mentored me. Khalifa University has been instrumental in my research, providing me access to the cutting edge tools I need, helping me to attend conferences, and supporting the researchers with funding and initiatives. I also want to say thank you to my peers, Professors, the Department Chair, Deans, Provost, and University Leadership for their support.”

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PROLIFIC PROFESSORS

Dr. Ibrahim Elfadel

Dr. Kevin Dean

A paper written by Dr. Shahzad Muzaffar, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Dr. Ibrahim (Abe) Elfadel, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, for the 25th IEEE International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration, VLSI-SoC 2017, that was held in Abu Dhabi in August 2017, has been published in a book titled VLSI-SoC: Opportunities and Challenges Beyond the Internet of Things. The paper is titled “Pulsed Decimal Encoding for IoT Single-Channel Dynamic Signaling.” Dr. Elfadel co-edited the book, which includes 11 chapters based on expanded versions of 11 papers selected out of the 33 full papers presented at the conference. The papers cover a wide range of topics in VLSI technology and advanced research. They address the latest scientific and industrial results and developments as well as future trends in the field of Systemon-Chip (SoC) Design.

Dr. Elfadel also co-edited a second book published earlier this year by MDPI Books, titled “MEMS Accelerometers.” The book explores the steady progress that has been made in the area of micro-electromechnical accelerometers for high-performance and high-sensitivity applications, while highlighting the challenges that still need to be tackled by researchers and engineers to fully realize monolithic, multi-axis, motion sensing units, such as chip-scale integration, scaling, and reliability.

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Dr. Kevin Dean, Associate Professor of Physics, has published a paper entitled “Pythagorean triangles analysis of the conical pendulum based on lengths, forces and times, to obtain equations for the principal physical parameters” in the Institute of Physics journal Physics Education. The paper demonstrates that conical pendulum physical parameters are calculable just from only the mass, length, and period of the pendulum, as well as local gravitational acceleration.

Dr. Mark Wyatt

Dr. Mark Wyatt, Associate Professor of English, recently celebrated several publications, including a chapter in a prestigious book, and articles in highly ranked international journals. These publications relate to his longstanding research interests in language teacher psychology, English language teacher education, the mentoring of practitioner research in language teachers, and project-based learning within the university. He contributed a book chapter, titled ‘Teacher motivation: the missing ingredient in teacher education’, which he co-authored with Dr. Martin Lamb from the University of Leeds in the UK, in The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education. He also published an article titled ‘English language teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs for grammar instruction: implications for teacher educators’, in the Q1 Language Learning Journal, which he co-authored with Dr. Kenan Dikilitaş from the University of Stavanger in Norway.

With Dr. Roger Nunn from the American University of Sharjah, Dr. Wyatt recently published ‘Tracing the growth of a community of practice centered on holistic project-based learning in communication at an engineering university in the United Arab Emirates: Insights from a socially-situated teacher cognition perspective’, in the journal Forum: Qualitative Social Research (FQS).

And finally, Dr. Wyatt published ‘Review of “teaching in low resource classrooms: voices of experience” and “a handbook for exploratory action research”’ in the Q1 journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching.

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INNOVATION FORWARD

CU T TI NG-EDGE R E SE ARCH AN D BREAKTHROUGH S

CONCENTRATING SOLAR POWER PILOT PROJECT UPDATES SHARED

Dr. Nicolas Calvet, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Chair of the Masdar Institute Solar Platform (MISP), highlights R&D progress of solar thermal energy systems coming out of the MISP at major CSP conference in Dubai

Dr. Nicolas Calvet was invited to share updates on the UAE’s first solar platform dedicated to research and development of concentrating solar power (CSP) and thermal energy storage (TES) technologies – the Masdar Institute Solar Platform (MISP) – at the 4th annual CSP Focus MENA conference, which was held in Dubai from 26-27 June 2019.

MISP was inaugurated in 2015 in recognition of the increasingly important role CSP will play in achieving the UAE’s renewable energy target of generating 24% of its energy mix from renewable sources by 2021.

With its one-of-a-kind 100 kW beam-down solar concentrator facility, the MISP aims to provide local and international research institutes and solar companies the opportunity to research, test, and validate new CSP components and TES

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pilots that have either been completed or are ongoing at the MISP, including projects with EnergyNest, MIT and Wahaj Investment.

systems capable of withstanding the UAE’s harsh desert climate in order to increase the implementation and utilization of CSP in the UAE and wider world.

“At 7.3c$/kWh, CSP is now competitive with conventional fossil fuel based power production in the UAE,” Dr. Calvet shared, citing figures from a recent IRENA report. “Major CSP projects like the Gemasolar in Spain and Shams 1 in the UAE have been instrumental to demonstrating that CSP can deliver affordable, reliable, dispatchable and carbon-free energy.”

Dr. Calvet shared a number of the innovative CSP-related collaborative research projects and

Working with EnergyNest, a Norwegian thermal storage technology developer, Dr. Calvet’s team tested a special blend of concrete to store thermal energy in a smart modular configuration. They developed a system to enable storage of thermal energy up to 400°C, making it the first high-temperature thermal energy storage demonstration system in the Middle East.

Another TES prototype system validated at the MISP was developed through a collaboration with MIT. The system, called Concentrated Solar Power On Demand Demonstration (CSPonD Demo) came online in June 2017. The innovative prototype directly absorbs and stores thermal energy in the form of molten salts in a single-tank system, which considerably simplifies its operation

compared to the conventional two-tank molten salt technology commonly used today.

The third project Dr. Calvet presented is one that is currently under construction at the MISP – the Wahaj Solar Concentrator. Designed and developed by UAE-based Wahaj Investment, Dr. Calvet’s team will help validate the unique metallic reflector based Fresnel lens 10-meter concentrator, which reaches theoretical temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius.

“These projects and others at the MISP intend to lead to the creation of nextgeneration CSP and TES technologies that are more affordable and efficient, which will make thermal solar energy an increasingly viable option for solar power generation in the UAE and around the world,” Dr. Calvet said.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR CYBER CRISIS MANAGEMENT EXPERTISE SHARED Khalifa University’s Dr. Ernesto Damiani Discusses the Need to Leverage AI and Big Data Analytics to Prevent Cyberattacks As a regional expert in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), Khalifa University’s Dr. Ernesto Damiani, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of KU’s Center on Cyber Physical Systems (C2PS) and Senior Director of KU’s recently launched Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute, was invited to the European Agency for Network and Information Security’s (ENISA) high-level meeting in Athens in June to discuss the pressing issue of cyber crisis management.

ENISA is the EU agency tasked with establishing a high level of network and information security within the European Union. The meeting in Athens convened AI experts from around the globe to share and debate the best practices for preventing and managing cyber-attacks.

“When a security crisis takes place in the physical world some things are certain, like who is threatening you, how and (most of the time) why. This is not the case for cyber-crises, as the hand pointing the gun at you is hidden in the Dark Net and the gun itself may have been planted in your network years before. AI has become crucial for cyber-security,” explained Dr. Damiani.

A good example of a hidden cybergun is EternalRocks, a computer worm that infects Microsoft Windows machines, which was originally developed by the United States’

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National Security Agency (NSA).

Once installed on the victim’s machine through a phishing email, EternalRocks’ small infecting module (or carrier) installs Tor, the notorious private network that conceals Internet traffic, to access its hidden servers.

The carrier uses Tor to connect to a remote server and downloads an entire Trojan horse that allows the remote attacker to control the victim’s machine and the networks it is connected to.

Unlike ransomware such as WannaCry, which infected 230,000 computers in May 2017, EternalRocks does no immediate harm to its hosts.

“It just hides on a disk, renaming itself to escape detection, and then stays dormant for months, even for years, until the time comes for a “soft” attack aimed at collecting and stealing information or for a generalized attack to clog the victim’s network,” said Dr. Damiani.

“Soft” attacks are especially dangerous because they can subtly impair a country’s key industries and markets, steal relevant information and weaken defenses, while going completely unnoticed.

Traditional security measures, like cyber-walls, are useless once EternalRocks “sleepers” are installed inside a system’s defense perimeter.

Sleeper modules generate traffic at random intervals, waiting for network activity bursts to hide their footprints.

This makes traditional attacks identification techniques based on fixed traffic patterns almost useless against sleepers.

However, some AI models, like Recursive Neural Networks (RNNs), can be equipped with long-term memory to find, remember and link to each other statistically rare events taking place on smartphones, computers and other devices, as well as on the network connecting them.

RNNs are trained to match these sequences to “attack graphs”, i.e.

event connections that correspond to an attack.

Dr. Damiani and a team of KU researchers from the Center on Cyber-Physical Systems, the Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC), in collaboration with other UAE-based stakeholders in the telecommunication domain, are developing an AI model that will be able to identify suspicious activities trying to escape detection. The team is automating the set-up and deployment of Big Data pipelines that ingest streams of events (like smart phones’ data connections start and end, use of apps, hand-overs from one cell to the other) coming from largescale mobile network environments comprising millions of smartphones and other devices. These streams are collected using a technique based on a multiple-SIM probe developed by C2PS in collaboration with Purdue University’s CERIAS center, and then fed into the AI models that identifies suspicious activities.

Cyberattacks are the fastest growing crime in the US, according to a report released last year by Cybersecurity Ventures, and they are increasing in size, sophistication and cost.

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that cybercrime will cost the world US$6 trillion annually by 2021.

Using data analytics and AI to prevent cyber threats is critical for achieving information security and better cyber resilience. This capability is critical as we shift from merely reacting to incidents to predicting, understanding and responding to complex events.

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PORTABLE GLUCOSE SENSOR COULD IMPROVE DIABETES TREATMENT Researchers at Khalifa University’s System-on-Chip Center file patent for a novel low-cost glucose sensor that can measure glucose at neutral pH conditions, resulting in a lowercost and more compact device

The World Health Organization estimates that over 382 million people worldwide have diabetes, a metabolic disorder affecting blood sugar levels. The underlying cause of diabetes varies by type but each type can lead to excess sugar in the blood, which could cause serious health problems. For all patients, blood sugar monitoring plays a role in treatment.

A research group led by Dr. Heba Abunahla, Postdoctoral Fellow of Electrical Computer Engineering at KU’s System on Chip Center (SoCC), has developed a novel low-cost non-enzymatic glucose sensor for adults. While glucose sensors are not revolutionary in themselves,

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the distinguishing property of this sensor is its ability to measure glucose at neutral pH conditions.

The sensor is the result of a cooperative effort with faculty from the departments of Chemistry (Dr. Maguy Abi Jaoude), Mechanical Engineering (Dr. Anas Alazzam), and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Dr. Mahmoud Al-Qutayri and Dr. Baker Mohammad).

“Our solution is unique because it can work at pH 7. In all the previous literature on available copper oxidebased sensors, the human fluid that was tested needed to be diluted to pH 13 for the glucose sensing device to respond,” said Dr. Abunahla.

“Showing that we can still sense the glucose and distinguish the added concentration at neutral pH means that we can directly measure the glucose concentration for human fluid without dilution.”

While human blood is usually slightly alkaline and varies between 7.35 and 7.45, achieving glucose sensing at a neutral pH is essential to improving the sensitivity of the detection unit, with accuracy improving especially at diabetic glucose levels. This also means the device can be more compact and cost-effective as any dilution step is eliminated.

Continuous monitoring of glucose levels in people with diabetes is essential to managing the disease and avoiding the complications that can be associated with poorlymanaged treatment. Diabetes is predicted to become the seventh deadliest disease by 2030 and involves either a deficiency in the production of insulin or the body’s inability to use its available insulin to process glucose.

Long-term complications of diabetes develop gradually, and the less controlled a person’s blood sugar levels are, the higher the risk of complications. Eventually, diabetes complications may be disabling or even life-threatening, as excess sugar can—for example—injure the walls of the capillaries nourishing the nerves, damage the glomeruli blood vessel clusters in the kidneys, and affect the blood vessels of the retina, potentially leading to blindness.

Glucose measuring devices are therefore crucial for patients and clinicians.

Sensors available on the market can be divided into two main types: enzymatic and non-enzymatic.

Enzyme-based sensors use glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) or glucose oxidase (GOx), which interact with glucose molecules, resulting in an electrical response that can be correlated to the concentration of glucose.

“Although enzymatic glucose sensors are widely used, their short-term stability is affected by operating temperature, pH level, and humidity. They are also expensive to manufacture,” explained Dr. Abunahla. “This is why nonenzymatic glucose (NEG) sensors are being developed.”

Unlike traditional enzyme-based sensors, NEG sensors allow glucose to be oxidized directly on the surface of the sensor, without the need of glucose dehydrogenase or glucose oxidase. Atoms at the surface act as electrocatalysts, resulting in high stability, repeatability, and costeffective fabrication.

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“Different materials have been used to develop NEG sensors, and although each material has its own advantages and limitations, metals and metal oxides have attracted the most attention,” said Dr. Abunahla.

“This is because of our well-developed understanding of the electrocatalytic mechanism of glucose oxidation in such structures.”

Among the metal oxide materials used, copper oxide (CuO) is considered one of the best for NEG sensing due to its natural abundance, low production cost, high stability, and appropriate redox potential.

“Our glucose sensor structure is based on copper oxide and is capable of differentiating dissolved glucose levels in a liquid sample from as low as 2.2mM (millimolar) when the liquid sample is at neutral pH,” explained Dr. Abunahla.

The ability to operate at neutral pH facilitates the device’s integration with other blood substance sensors and is advantageous for the development of future lab-onchip structures for real-time health monitoring.

The glucose sensor structure developed by the Khalifa University team is known as MOMSense and can be integrated into a microfluidic platform—a microscale device that includes a system of micro-channels—that serves as a miniature lab-on-chip. It is also cheap to mass produce using a wafer-style fabrication process.

Each device comprises a CuO layer sandwiched by a pair of first and second platinum (Pt) electrodes.

The CuO surface extends around and below the metal electrodes and rests on a substrate layer, which can be any suitable inert structural layer, such as, but not limited to, glass. The sensor was fabricated in the cleanroom on the Main Campus,

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Envisioned block diagram of the lab-on-chip system for glucose sensing. the room having been established

by Dr Alazzam, one of the project’s collaborators.

“Our tests have demonstrated that the novel planar Pt/CuO/Pt structure enables the non-enzymatic sensing mechanism at neutral pH. The MOMSense device exhibits a synergistic role for the interfaces between the Pt electrodes and the CuO surface to both act as electrocatalysts and also facilitate the glucose oxidation needed for glucose detection in the absence of glucose dehydrogenase or glucose oxidase,” said Dr. Abunahla.

“The Pt electrodes enable the glucose oxidation to take place in a neutral solution and the MOMSense device is in line with the requirements for a viable non-enzymatic glucose sensor in terms of sensitivity, stability, accuracy, ease of fabrication and ability to meet the International Organization for Standardization standards.

“The vision for this sensor is to be part of a wearable or handheld glucose system that can periodically test the concentration of glucose in a person’s blood. Its unique ability to measure glucose at neutral pH conditions makes it a low-cost and more compact device, for which we have filed a patent to bring smaller and cheaper medical devices to diabetes patients.”

HOW THE UAE IS SUCCEEDING IN GENERATING CHEAP SOLAR ENERGY Khalifa University’s Dr. Matteo Chiesa, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and PhD student Harry Apostoleris, reveal how large solar plants in the UAE can sell unsubsidized electricity for under 3c/kWh and still turn a profit When the Noor Abu Dhabi solar power plant was switched on in June, it became the cheapest operational solar plant in the world, and the third time within two years that the UAE has broken the record for cheap solar.

At 2.94 US cents per kilowatthour, Noor demonstrates that large-scale renewable energy can compete with fossil fuels, which today typically cost in the range of 4-6 US cents per kWh. The significant cost decline in solar power has been driven primarily by technological innovation, but also innovation in project structuring and financing; a critical finding which was reported by Khalifa University’s Dr. Matteo Chiesa, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and PhD

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A KHALIFA UNIVERSITY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

The project developers were also able to get large loans at low interest rates alongside major investments from state-backed companies, representing a true innovation in the financing and project structuring.

A follow-up paper, published in the proceeding of the 46th IEEE Photovoltaics Specialist’s Conference, and presented at the conference meeting in Chicago last month, focused on the financing packages that were given to the UAE’s solar projects. student Harry Apostoleris in a paper published last year in the journal Nature Energy.

“We studied the different cost components of the Masdar/EDFdeveloped Mohammed Bin Rashid Solar Park Phase 3 project, which will sell electricity for 2.99¢/kWh, and other large solar projects in the UAE and began to understand, piece by piece, how each of these cost components were reduced to the point that the electricity generated by these plants could be sold for under 3¢/kWh,” Apostoleris explained.

The UAE is the first country to breach the 3 ¢/kWh barrier. Many people assumed that the government put in large hidden subsidies to make the cost so low. In the US, Europe and other places, solar energy has historically been subsidized, either by a feed-in tariff or by tax incentives.

But in these large UAE solar plants, the electricity is unsubsidized.

“We found that many factors played a small, but important role in bringing costs down. For example, the UAE’s utility companies signed long 25-years or more contracts to buy electricity from these solar power plants, which gives the developers more time to pay off the initial investment. The UAE was one of the first countries to make 25-year

contracts standard for solar power plants, instead of the 15-20 year contracts more commonly seen in the past,” Apostoleris said.

The study also reports that certain costs, like construction and maintenance labor, are lower in the UAE than in European or US markets, where most cost studies are done.

The plants also have a unique hybrid ownership structure – they are partly owned by the companies that built them, and partly by the utility – which allows some costs to be shared between the project developer and the utility company.

The two factors that reportedly had the biggest impact on driving costs down were the cost of solar panels and costs related to financing.

Thanks to mass production, a solar panel that would have cost US$500 at the beginning of this decade now costs less than US$100.

Furthermore, the market has been flooded by massive manufacturing companies producing new solar panels as fast as they can.

“Developers in the UAE were able to take advantage of this buyer’s market to purchase huge amounts of hardware very cheaply, which greatly reduces the cost of building the plant,” Apostoleris said.

“We developed a cost model to demonstrate that, under the given financing terms, the projects are profitable even when selling electricity for less than 3¢/kWh,” Apostoleris explained.

In the paper, the researchers suggest ways that other countries can follow the lead of the UAE by developing programs to support low-cost financing of large renewable energy projects.

“Many countries have the capability to issue large state-backed loans to project developers or making direct investments in well-designed solar projects. Our aim in these two papers is both to show people how the UAE was able to produce the world’s cheapest unsubsidized solar energy, and to suggest ways that other countries can learn from our experience to support the continued expansion of solar energy,” Dr. Chiesa remarked.

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KU CLAIMS NEW PATENT FOR MAGNETIC SEPARATION TECHNIQUE

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A patent for a novel technique that leverages magnets and membranes to purify chemical compounds from mixtures has been awarded to Khalifa University by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

“The new technique could help reduce the energy footprint of industrial chemical separation technologies, enhance productivity and global competitiveness of key UAE industries, and contribute to the country’s energy-efficiency

goals,” said Dr. Georgios Karanikolos, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and member of the Center for Catalysis and Separation (CeCaS), who led the research.

The patent titled, “Membrane gas separation under magnetic field” involves a team of researchers from Khalifa University and the Demokritos National Research Center of Greece, and was published earlier this year (WO/2019/012317).

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MARK YOUR CALENDAR

LEA RN ABO UT UPCOMIN G EV ENTS AT KU

THE BODY MUSEUM BY BODY WORLDS AT KHALIFA UNIVERSITY

The world-famous exhibition of the human body, Body Worlds, developed by Dr. Gunther Von Hagen, will be on display for the first time in the Arab world at Khalifa University’s Main Campus for six months from 11 September 2019 to 11 March 2020. The Body Worlds will be part of KU’s medical museum, The Body Museum, to open its doors on 11 September, which aims to promote the science and history of medicine.

BODY WORLDS delivers a breathtaking encounter with the inner workings of the human body and shows the effects of poor health, good health, and lifestyle choices. In addition to showcasing the wonders of human development, the 100+ preserved human specimens – including whole-body plastinates – demonstrate the complexity, resilience and vulnerability of the human body in distress, disease and optimal health. All are invited to explore the world beneath our skin!

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24TH WORLD ENERGY CONGRESS The 24th edition of the World Energy Congress will be held from 9-12 September 2019 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre. Held every three years and positioned as the flagship event of the World Energy Council, the Congress is the longest-running and most influential energy event in the world, covering all aspects of the energy sector around the world.

The 24th World Energy Congress aims to bring together international energy stakeholders, including governments, private and state corporations, academia and media. With over 10,000 participants expected, the Congress will attract over 250 star speakers, 50 ministers, 500 CEOs, and 500 members from the media.

Khalifa University will showcase some of its key energy-related research projects at the event.

AQDAR WORLD SUMMIT The 3rd Aqdar World Summit will be held in Moscow from 29 August to 1 September 2019. The summit’s theme is “Global Empowerment of Communities: Experiences & Lessons Learned”. It will be held in conjunction with Moscow Global Forum City for Education – a forum dedicated to bringing together leading academics, researchers, scholars and educators.

Aqdar World Summit is a high-profile international event that brings into focus global humanitarian issues and strategies for sustainable development, while garnering supporting and awareness for initiatives that enhance human potential around the developing world.

The summit will offer specialized workshops and forums on scientific topics. The event also hosts an exhibition for institutions and organizations to showcase their “green” services – services that benefit individuals as well as the community and environment.

Aqdar World Summit is organized by Khalifa Empowerment Program “Aqdar” in cooperation with INDEX Conferences & Exhibitions and in partnership with the United Nations and a number of local, regional, and international entities.

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