Issue 8 I Aug 2020
KU Alumni Advising on Sustainability at Dream Job Faculty Contributing Coronavirus Insights Through Live, Virtual Lectures Khalifa University Faculty Named Country’s Top Scientists KU APEC Director Honored as One of the 2020 Mission Innovation Champions
Khalifa University Leaps 57 Slots to be Ranked 211th Globally in QS World University Rankings 2021
Khalifa University Researchers Uncover Surprising New Results When Studying Condensation
Khalifa University Becomes First University from UAE to Reach Such A Distinctive Place Among Top Universities in QS World University Rankings
“Our work, for the first time, described formation of satellite droplets, characterized their morphologies and analyzed different roles of the cloaking film with different tools,
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Contents
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The Impact of Burnout Among Frontline Healthcare Professionals Tackling the Covid-19 Pandemic
Emirati Researcher at Khalifa University Develops Technology for ‘Artificial Soil’ Suitable for Agriculture in UAE
Khalifa University Faculty Named Country’s Top Scientists
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Khalifa University Researchers Uncover Surprising New Results When Studying Condensation
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RESPONDING TO COVID-19
Khalifa University Responding to COVID-19 with 14 Funded Research Projects
ESTABLISHES ‘COVID-19 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TASK FORCE’ TO ACCELERATE SOLUTIONS IN EPIDEMIOLOGY, DIAGNOSTICS AND MEDICAL DEVICES, AND DIGITAL TOOLS FOR MODELING AND PREDICTING SPREAD OF VIRUS
Khalifa University of Science and Technology has established a COVID-19 Research and Development (R&D) Task Force as part of its strategic approach to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. This is in response to a call for industry, government and academic sectors to mobilize efforts to mitigate and manage the spread of the novel coronavirus and to create new technologies and solutions that will bolster the world’s ability to deal with future pandemics.
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RESPONDING TO COVID-19
Under the COVID-19 R&D program, Khalifa University has launched a total of 14 research projects; five projects focused on epidemiology, six projects focused on diagnostics and medical devices, and three projects focused on digital tools for understanding, mitigating and providing resiliency against disease spread. Of the 14 projects launched, six have been developed as focused programs, each led by two faculty experts, while eight projects have been awarded as part of an open call for proposals across Khalifa University. These research projects were selected based on their technical merit, innovation, ability to deliver results within six months and alignment with the COVID-19 science and technology needs. The Task Force is mandated to oversee several initiatives including coordination of the University’s cross-sector stakeholder R&D engagements and development of an R&D program that leverages the university’s established research strengths for addressing the UAE’s priority R&D areas for COVID-19. These include epidemiology, diagnostics and medical devices, digital tools for modeling and predicting disease spread and digital tools for mitigation and resiliency measures. Dr Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice-President, Research and Development, Khalifa University, said: “From the start, Khalifa University’s response has been focused and coordinated to ensure that its resources are used efficiently to contribute science and engineering-based solutions to efforts aimed at quickly bringing the outbreak under control. The university’s measures will place its strongest research assets and ideas at the front lines in the global fight against coronavirus. Through mobilizing its R&D resources in response to COVID-19, Khalifa University is setting the perfect role for academic institutions in the region.” The projects harness the University’s core research strengths, particularly in the area of healthcare. Over the past few years, Khalifa University has established research capabilities in healthcare by launching two of the region’s leading healthcare research centers – the Healthcare Engineering Innovation Center (HEIC) and the Biotechnology
Center (BTC) – in addition to establishing a College of Medicine and Health Science (CMHS). The two research centers along with CMHS bring in-depth scientific expertise in a range of medical disciplines. They specifically provide expertise in biomedical technologies, genomics, bioinformatics and functional biology. Each center possesses state-of-the-art research facilities that are being used to advance the development of solutions for COVID-19. Consequently, researchers at HEIC have already completed the development of an emergency ventilator prototype designed with affordable, easily accessible materials and 3D printing to meet the growing regional and global ventilator caused by COVID-19. Researchers from the BTC are leveraging the center’s genomic analysis capabilities to validate the sensitivity of commercially available polymerase chain reaction (PCR) COVID-19 medical test kits. For digital tools, Khalifa University’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligent Systems Institute, which was launched in July 2019, brings together the university’s robotics, AI, data science, telecommunications and semiconductor hardware capabilities under a single umbrella to accelerate research. Through this Institute, Khalifa University is exploring the most efficient and effective ways to gather a broad spectrum of data related to COVID-19 and then use data analysis, particularly AI, and data modeling to harness actionable insights. At the same time, a cross-disciplinary team has already developed an open-source epidemiological model that can help decision makers visualize the impact of different mitigation interventions, such as universal social isolation or selective isolation of the elderly. Another research team is in the process of developing a mobile app to collect data from the smartphones of COVID-19 patients to identify whether they are at high risk of severe medical complications from the virus. With these initiatives, Khalifa University researchers continue to demonstrate the essential role of such projects in tackling the pandemic.
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RESPONDING TO COVID-19
Khalifa University Researchers Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 Levels in Municipal Sewage to Track COVID-19 Epidemic in General Population
PROMISING SCIENTIFIC PROCESS BY RESEARCHERS TO COLLECT AND ANALYZE WASTEWATER SAMPLES FOR LEVELS OF SARS-COV-2 MULTIPLE TIMES A WEEK FOR REST OF THE YEAR AND EVEN BEYOND IF REQUIRED
Khalifa University of Science and Technology announced researchers from its Center for Biotechnology (BTC) and the Center for Membranes and Advanced Water Technology (CMAT), in collaboration with other stakeholders are working together on a project for the surveillance of SARS-COV-2 viral load in municipal wastewater, as a method for early detection and tracking the spread of COVID-19 in the general population. Studies indicate that people infected with SARS-CoV-2, including asymptomatic individuals, shed virus through human waste. Since the levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater should mirror the number of detected infections in the population, testing a municipal wastewater sample will tantamount to essentially testing everyone who has contributed to that sample – in other words a way of mass testing.
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RESPONDING TO COVID-19
A project for the surveillance of SARS-COV-2 viral load in municipal wastewater
research activities at Khalifa University in order to achieve the most innovative solutions, while initiating appropriate measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this research, Khalifa University aims to establish a surveillance system for COVID-19 in municipal wastewater streams, linking it with simulation models developed for predicting and controlling the spread of the pandemic, together with the health authorities.”
The experiments have been successful, demonstrating Khalifa University’s preparedness in supporting the country’s measures against fighting COVID-19 through surveillance of the virus in wastewater. Dr Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University, said: “Thanks to the wise leadership, the UAE has always supported global-standard scientific
The project is led by Dr. Ahmed Yousef, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Shadi Hasan, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Acting Associate Dean for Student Affairs, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, and Director of Khalifa University Center for Biotechnology. Dr. Alfaro Lopes, expert in Toxicology and Epidemiology in wastewater, was also collaborating with them, along with Hussein Kannout, Research Associate in the BTC at KU. Once further studies assess the levels of SARSCoV-2 found in COVID-19 patient fecal samples, scientists will be able to construct a model that estimates the total number of symptomatic and asymptomatic people in the population based on the levels found in wastewater.
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RESPONDING TO COVID-19
EBTIC Participates in Virtual Workshop on COVID-19 Pandemic Responses Organized by BT Applied Research has designed, developed, and tested a COVID-19 transmission model based on various data points that have been collected. Using the latest predictive management techniques, this work would allow the UAE health authorities to carry out targeted investigations on specific high-risk areas, and run forecasts on likely transmission rates in future scenarios.
Researchers from Khalifa University’s Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC) participated in a virtual workshop organized and hosted by BT Applied Research’s Global Research and Innovation Program (GRIP) on COVID-19 pandemic responses on Monday, 11 May 2020. BT GRIP consists of BT research and innovation centers in collaboration with leading research institutions around the world. The event gathered distinguished researchers from across GRIP’s collaborative base to discuss and develop initiatives between global universities to tackle emerging problems in the COVID-19 pandemic, share global experiences and best practices, and to identify the key issues and potential R&D collaborations that can take place. The main focus of the talks was to understand, limit, and mitigate the pandemic and its impact on individuals, communities, and businesses. The workshop also looked KU TIMES 8
at how countries can prepare for a sustained period of disruption followed by a new “post-COVID” normal, with potential areas such as contact tracing, modeling, and the expected impacts on work, the economy, education, and travel. Dr. Ernesto Damiani, Research Professor at EBTIC, Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Institute, Director of C2PS Center, and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Khalifa University, gave a talk on a COVID-19 tracking solution he is developing, called Spatio-temporal active surveillance (PLACES). This project is one of 14 flagship initiatives of the Khalifa University COVID-19 R&D Task Force. Dr. Damiani explained the completed work, as well as the next steps the task force is working on. Dr. Dymitr Ruta, Chief Researcher at EBTIC, also discussed how the team
Other speakers at the workshop were from Monash University, Australia; Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China; Indian Institute of Science, India; University of East Anglia, UK; University of Surrey, UK; Ulster University, UK; BT Applied Research, UK; and MIT, USA. Each speaker discussed their national situation in terms of the pandemic response, as well as the current key challenges. They also presented some of the current project activities currently underway in each university. Speaking after the workshop, Dr. Nawaf Almoosa, Acting Director of EBTIC, commented, “We were delighted to take part in this extremely informative event. It was fascinating to hear from the distinguished speakers, and we’re grateful to BT for organizing it. EBTIC will participate in the followup workshops to ensure that links remain, and we are exploring collaboration opportunities.”
RESPONDING TO COVID-19
The Impact of Burnout Among Frontline Healthcare Professionals Tackling the Covid-19 Pandemic systems,” said Dr. Baltatu. “Healthcare professionals are heavily affected by this rapidly changing situation, and are also at higher risk of infection. Wuhan and other regions in China reported that staff experienced psychological burden, especially those directly engaged in the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with Covid-19.
As healthcare professionals around the world get to grips with the Covid-19 pandemic, most of the media focus and research attention centers around patient outcomes and the disease’s impact. While this research is crucial to containing the spread of the disease and saving lives, a team of researchers from Khalifa University is looking at the impact of Covid-19 on a different group: the frontline healthcare workers. Dr. Ovidiu Baltatu, Dr. Eman Alfishat, Lujain Aloum and Nnamdi Valbosco Ugwuoke, all from the KU Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, are investigating the impact of burnout on frontline workers in Abu Dhabi during the Covid-19 pandemic. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has been shown to have a strong impact on the mental health of medical and nursing staff, with professionals in Italy reporting insomnia and anxiety, with some cases progressing to alarm and panic. Physician burnout is already a significant problem in the healthcare industry and has been associated with cardiovascular risk factors. Stress and adverse psychosocial working conditions may lead to cardiovascular diseases but research about the impact of fatigue arising from overworking and stress on heart function is still limited. Additionally, work-related stress can have detrimental effects on the immune system with elevated levels of immune system health biomarkers seen in professionals under intensive and prolonged periods of stress. “The coronavirus disease pandemic has created new and unpredictable challenges for modern medicine and healthcare
“The main objective is to investigate the evolution of psychosocial, cardiovascular and immune system markers in healthcare workers with different levels of exposure to the Covid-19 pandemic,” explained Dr. Baltatu. “We’re studying the level of burnout and its relationship with cardiovascular health in frontline and second-line healthcare professionals. We also want to investigate the possible association between burnout and experience; does experience level have anything to do with how much burnout a professional experiences?” “We will measure burnout using social and physical data,” explained Dr. Baltatu. “We will also be looking at various cardiovascular biomarkers and blood immune system biomarkers.” With a team comprising investigators from Khalifa University, Zayed Military Hospital, Abu Dhabi University, Cleveland Clinic, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, Sheikh Shakboot Medical City and Mediclinic, the study will use questionnaires, heart monitoring equipment and blood tests to evaluate the link between burnout and heart and immune system biomarkers. Medicine is a stressful profession under normal circumstances, with some studies suggesting burnout affects up to 50 percent of physicians in the United States. Healthcare workers on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic are not just treating critically ill patients, but are also risking their own health. The multi-center prospective cohort study spearheaded by Khalifa University and Zayed Military Hospital hopes to identify the key markers signalling physician burnout for early intervention in frontline workers. 9 KU TIMES
RESPONDING TO COVID-19
Team of Khalifa University and International Researchers Studying How COVID-19 Virus Jumps from Animals to Humans
LED BY KHALIFA UNIVERSITY, PROJECT WILL HELP UNDERSTAND WHAT MAMMALS HAVE IN COMMON THAT FACILITATE VIRUS TO ENTER THE HOST
Khalifa University of Science and Technology announced it is leading a team of researchers to work with universities across the globe to investigate how the COVID-19 virus, usually found in animals such as bats, has made the jump to humans. This research falls under Khalifa University’s ‘COVID-19 Research and Development Task Force’ initiative, which includes multidisciplinary researchers from across the world including from the UAE, the US, China, Singapore and Australia. Collaborators from across the Middle East, North America, Europe, South East and North East Asia,
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as well as Australia will collect animal samples for the study. According to Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Director of the Center for Biotechnology (BTC) at Khalifa University and the Principal Investigator of the project, the current COVID-19 outbreak is an example of zoonosis, which refers to diseases that can be transmitted to humans from animals. The disease is caused by a coronavirus (CoV) that is believed to have originated in bats and transmitted to humans. There have been two major coronavirus outbreaks in recent history – the 2002 epidemic that was caused by the SARS-CoV,
RESPONDING TO COVID-19
a solution to this global healthcare threat. Coming under the framework of Khalifa University’s COVID-19 Research and Development Task Force, this crossborder collaboration brings together the required expertise from renowned academic institutions to directly address scientific uncertainties that surround COVID-19. We believe this research project will provide answers regarding the transmission of coronavirus between humans and animals e while also providing insights that may help limit the transmission of COVID-19.”
and the 2012 MERS-CoV outbreak. All three coronaviruses share a common entry point into the cells of humans and other animals, through a receptor known as ACE2, with the assistance of another protein known as TMPRSS2. Dr. Alsafar, added: “These are what the virus sees on the surface of the cell and understanding their similarity across different animals will provide clues on how the virus is transmitted. Other international groups including researchers from other countries have already expressed interest in joining the effort on studying the human and viral elements of the disease. We cannot beat the virus without cooperation as it knows no geographical boundaries.” Originally conceived by Khalifa University faculty members, the project titled ‘The identification of conserved groves in the host cell receptors that bind and facilitate coronavirus (CoV) entry into mammalian cells’, is already under way. Leading the project will help understand what mammals have in common; from the point of view of cellular receptors that allow or facilitate the virus to enter the host. Dr. Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice-President, Research and Development, Khalifa University, said “The project to identify the cause of COVID-19 transmission from animals to humans showcases our commitment to collectively find
Dr. Alsafar leads a multidisciplinary team from Khalifa University which includes Dr. Wael Osman, Assistant Professor, Chemistry, Dr. Samuel Feng, Assistant Professor, Mathematics, and Dr. Herbert Jelinek, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering. The project collaborators include Dr. Khaled Amiri, Al Ain University, and Dr. Khaled Hazzouri, UAE University. To date, international collaborators include researchers from the University of Florida, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Murdoch University in Australia and Singapore, as well as the University of Western Australia. The team members have expertise in medicine, molecular genetics, bioinformatics, veterinary science, and epidemiology, which will be relevant to this project. These skills will be essential as the study will encompass epidemiology, comparative genome science, protein modelling and simulation to identify the traits that mammals share that allow the virus to transfer from one species to another. The molecular techniques and analytical tools for the comparative study of mammals are already well established at Khalifa University, which is pursuing related research on multiple fronts. The comparative analysis of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 genes from animals from around the globe is another example of the university’s multidisciplinary approach to problem solving. 11 KU TIMES
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Faculty Contributing Coronavirus Insights Through Live, Virtual Lectures
RESPONDING TO COVID-19
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KU-KAU Link Up to Share Resources and Promote Knowledge about the Covid-19 Pandemic Khalifa University and King Abdulaziz University delivered a joint Online Scientific Forum on “The Emerging Coronavirus Pandemic: Current Issues and Future Trajectories.� During the forum, which was held virtually on 6 May, experts from both universities will explore the medical, social and economic implications of Covid-19, and highlight key research initiatives and policy measures to mitigate its impact. KU TIMES 14
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Student and faculty, achievements, campus activities, & student activities
Five KU Faculty Visit Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant and Witness Historic Milestone providing up to 25 percent of the UAE’s electricity demand when fully operational, while preventing the release of 21 million tons of carbon emissions annually, equivalent to removing 3.2 million cars off the Nation’s roads each year. The visit was timely as it came right before the completion of Unit 1 fuel load. The Barakah Unit 1 has since commenced the start-up process following successful completion of fuel loading in March 2020. Over a number of months, power levels will safely As part of the ongoing research and education
and steadily be raised, once reaching full capacity the
partnership with Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation
unit will generate 1,400 MW of abundant baseload
(ENEC), five faculty members from the Nuclear
electricity.
Engineering Department at Khalifa University were given a unique opportunity to visit Barakah Nuclear
This milestone reflects the vote of confidence that
Energy Plant back in February.
the plant specifically, and the UAE in general, have received after a lengthy licensing process by the
During the visit, Dr. Yacine Addad, Dr. Youssef Shatilla,
UAE’s independent regulator, the Federal Authority
Dr. Akihide Hidaka, Dr. Saeed Al Ameri, and Dr. Ahmed
for Nuclear Regulation (FANR). This process is
Alkaabi witnessed firsthand the high safety standards
followed for each of the four units.
that are embedded at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant. Upon completion of its four Units, the Barakah
The KU faculty expressed their gratitude and pride in
plant will generate 5,600 MW of clean electricity,
witnessing this historic moment for the UAE.
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Aerospace Engineering Professor Elected as Royal Aeronautical Society
Dr. Kin Liao, Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Khalifa University, has recently been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), the only international professional organization dedicated to the aerospace community. “Professor Liao’s Fellow election to the global aerospace organization Royal Aeronautical Society is a testimony of his leadership within the aerospace industry, and is a great honor and recognition to the Aerospace Engineering Department at Khalifa University of having topnotch leaders within its faculty,” commented Dr. Rashid K. Abu Al-Rub, Acting Chair of the Aerospace Engineering Department at Khalifa University. With more than 25,000 members around the globe, the RAeS has a wide international network and nearly 300 industrial partners. As a fellow, Dr. Liao will have direct access to new developments in the industry and will be able to share these with KU and with his students, ensuring that knowledge sharing will not be limited to what they learn within the classroom. “First, I’d like to thank KU for its generous support for my research over the years; second, I’d like to thank my collaborators, former and current students and postdocs for their ideas and hard work. Without their contribution, this would not be possible. So the honor is also theirs. I am really delighted to be elected a FRAeS, and I also believe that, among other things, this is an international recognition of the kind of research that we are doing here at KU,” Dr. Liao said.
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DR. LIAO WITH HIS STUDENTS DURING THE SPRING SEMESTER SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT DAY.
The Society’s numerous events and information sharing will also provide access to the most current research in aerospace engineering and open opportunities for new ideas for future research. For the past few years, Dr. Liao has been working on two-dimensional (2D) materials—materials that are one- or few-atoms thick—such as graphene. Together with Dr. Abu Al-Rub and Dr. Vincent Chan, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, they have been awarded a project by ADEK to develop lightweight, highperformance electromagnetic wave shielding based on 2D materials. This kind of material may also be applied to develop functionalized coatings for high-performance filter materials to effectively trap pathogenic particles,
such as viruses, in the air to enhance the safety of air circulation in a building or an enclosed space, greatly reducing the risk of people getting infected or sick. This project is especially timely as the whole world is currently in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Liao received his BSc and MSc in Engineering Mechanics, and PhD in Materials Engineering Science from Virginia Tech. Before joining KU, he was a Lee Kuan Yew Fellow, and served Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore for 13 years. During his stay there he helped establish NTU's Bioengineering Division and served as Director of NTU's BioInformatics Research Center. 17 KU TIMES
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24 KU Undergraduates Successfully Complete Leadership Course
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The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), in collaboration with the Student Success Department (SSD), held a virtual graduation ceremony on June 1, 2020 for its first cohort of undergraduate students enrolled in a certificate course entitled “Leading with Passion and Knowledge.� Twenty-four students completed the seven-weeks hands-on course designed to develop knowledge about leadership and the skills necessary to serve as stepping stones to a successful academic and professional leadership role.
intelligences, cross-cultural leadership, conflict resolution and leading change, problem solving and transformational leadership. The modules were designed to motivate, inspire, and provide the students the tools necessary to handle change effectively, understand their strength and weakness, and improve their communication and teamwork skills in order to learn the art of leadership so that they can effectively serve others.
Dr. Ahmed Al Shoaibi, Senior Vice President of Academic and Student Services, congratulated the students on their willingness to put in the time and effort necessary to develop their leadership skills.
Students presented a range of thoughtful, engaging, and creative projects, including videos and websites, intended to help KU students and the larger community manage and deal with threat of COVID-19 and ensure the health and well-being of all.
During the course students explored a variety of themes in order to develop leadership skills. Modules included the Myers Brigs Test Indicator and Leadership, multiple
CTL and SSD intends to offer the Leading with Passion and Knowledge certificate course in the fall semester.
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Khalifa University Places 9th in 2020 Design, Build, Fly Competition
A team of 20 Aerospace and Mechanical engineering undergraduate students from Khalifa University took 9th place in this year’s DBF Competition after successfully designing, fabricating, and demonstrating the flight capabilities of an unmanned, electric powered, radio controlled aircraft. “We believe that our students have achieved a great feat by securing 9th place out of 101 participating teams worldwide. This was an extremely tough competition where top ranked schools in the world were participating. We are very thrilled and proud of the achievement made by our students and hope we will continue to improve our ranking in coming competitions,”
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shared Dr. Rehan Umer, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Umer and Dr. Rafic Ajaj, Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering, supervised the team of 20 students. The Design/Build/Fly (DBF) competition is a partnership between the AIAA Foundation, Cessna Aircraft Company, and Raytheon Missile Systems. This competition provides students an opportunity to design and build a radio controlled aircraft to perform specific missions. Khalifa University has been participating in the DBF Competition since 2012. KU faculty encourage senior
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students to participate each year, as it gives the engineering students a real-world aircraft design experience and an opportunity to validate the analytic skills they develop in the classroom. Traditionally, participants who complete an entry form and submit a report on time are invited to bring their plane to a central location for a flyoff, with winners determined by a combination of their report score and their flight score. This year, however, the fly-off was cancelled to safeguard the health of the national and international teams due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thus, the winners were selected based on the formal submitted report alone. The KU team built a total of three planes. The first plane was built to test their design to ensure the plane could fly properly. Using the lessons learned from this plane, they then built two more planes which address some of the issues they found in the first plane. Their report detailing the steps they went through to design and test the aircraft landed them in 9th place.
The 2020 KU DBF team members include MOHAMED ALHOSANI HAYAT F. ALI SALEM ALZAABI OMAR ALHASHMI NOORA ALZAABI HASSAN ELSHEIKH AHMED ALHANTOOBI REEM ALMHEIRI KHALED ALHAMMADI MAHA ALMARZOOQI MOHAMED ALBLOOSHI
“All the planes we built were part of a process of refinement to optimize the design, and if the competition were to continue as normal, we would have built a final plane that would have been optimized for the fly-off,” explained BSc in Aerospace Engineering student and team member Omar Alhashmi. “This has been a wonderful experience where we got to design and build an aircraft using the knowledge we have been acquiring. This journey will surly help shape us into the engineers we will be in the future, and we are glad to see students receiving support for such projects. I encourage all students to get involved in such activities as the knowledge and experience they reward are invaluable,” Alhashmi shared. Congratulations to the team!
ALHANOUF ESHTAIRY MOHAMED ALMAZROUEI HUSSEIN ALI SULTAN AL HASSANIEH MARYAM A. NAQI ABDULQADER ALJABERI SARA N. ALSABEEHA FILMON TSEGAY SUHAIL ALFALASI
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Advising on Sustainability at Dream Job Alumna Shefaa Mansour, Class of 2017 MSc in Water and Environmental Engineering graduate, is applying the skills and knowledge she gained as a student at Masdar Institute at Khalifa University at her dream job at Ernst & Young (EY) as a Climate Change & Sustainability Consultant. “Working at EY is an opportunity of a lifetime. I owe where I am today to Masdar Institute at Khalifa University. They put so much effort into forging strategic partnerships and relationships with organizations like EY, to give their students real-world, hands-on experiences,” Shefaa shared. For the past three years, Shefaa has worked as a consultant with EY MENA’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services Team. She helps companies understand the risks and opportunities arising from climate change and sustainability issues. Her work is especially important in light of recent climate change reports that reveal how climate change is accelerating at a faster rate than previously thought, and how critical it is to take urgent action to avert dangerous global temperature increases. “Many of the skills I gained at Masdar Institute have supported me in my career at EY. This includes research and communication skills as well as learning to work in a multi-cultural environment in a comfortable and respectable manner.
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“EY is truly an exceptional organization, especially in terms of how they are protecting their employees and their wellbeing during the coronavirus crisis,” she said. In 2018, EY sent Mansour and her colleagues on a hike to Mount Kilimanjaro. She described it as an “absolute dream and an experience of a lifetime.” This was part of a personal leadership and development exercise organized by EY in order to promote and install team building as a core principle within its people.
Among her most notable experiences at EY, is the time she visited a school for people of determination. EY provided the community of lowincome students with computers to support their education. “I considered this experience as one of my biggest accomplishments.” 23 KU TIMES
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Currently, under the supervision of Associate Professor Dr. Wael Zaki, Dr. Viet develops constitutive models — which are mathematical models that describe the mechanical properties of a material — for 3D printed shape memory alloys (SMAs). A shapememory alloy is a special kind of material that can “remember” its shape, so it can be deformed when cold, but will then return to its pre-deformed shape when heated. SMAs have numerous applications, including in medical devices like surgical tools, in aerospace components like rockets, in robotics like robot fingers, and more. Dr. Viet studies the mechanical structure of 3D printed SMAs in order to identify and analyze the influence of microscopically tiny ‘voids,’ or holes, that appear on the structure during service. These voids can pose challenges to the structural integrity of the SMAs, as the volume of the voids evolve when loads are applied on the structures. Thus finding a way to be able to model behavior of 3D printed SMAs, including void evolution, is a key aim of Dr. Viet’s research.
From PhD to Postdoc: Why a Khalifa University Alumnus Chose to Continue his Groundbreaking Research at the Country’s Top University Khalifa University’s distinguished world-renowned professors, and its deep commitment to supporting research with real-world applications, drew Dr. Nguyen Van Viet to Khalifa University in 2015. After completing his BCs degree from Vietnam and his MSc degree from Taiwan, Dr. Viet came completed KU’s PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering with a focus in Mechanical Engineering in 2019. A few months later he took up a postdoctoral position at the University, so he could continue his research in smart materials and energy harvesting. He says his decision to continue at KU post-graduation in a postdoctoral appointment was a no-brainer. “Being able to continue the research work I did as a PhD student, but at a deeper level, while further developing my research skills, accruing additional publications, and working with KU’s world-class faculty, is a unique opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up,” Dr. Viet shared. The Vietnam native credits his professors at KU for providing him with the necessary guidelines, motivation, and engineering skills needed to overcome complex challenges and successfully complete his PhD work. “The research environment at Khalifa University is like nothing else in the country. Researchers here collaborate with one another, and have access to state-of-the-art research facilities that make running large-scale experiments possible,” he said. KU TIMES 24
“During my PhD studies, I focused my research in the area of solid mechanics. Initially, I worked on mathematical modeling of nanomaterials, and the design of and mathematical modeling for sustainable energy harvesters from wind and ocean waves based on piezoelectric effect. This research was supervised by Dr. Quan Wang. Afterwards, I worked on the development of mathematical models for energy harvesting based on smart materials, such as shape memory alloy and piezoelectric materials. This research was supervised by Dr. Wael Zaki and Dr. Rehan Umer.” Dr. Viet’s research resulted in 17 original research papers in nonopen access journals in the mechanical engineering field, in which he was the first author. All were published in Q1 journals, which represent the top 25% of journals in his field. He also presented his research at international conferences in the US numerous times. “To get these works published in Q1-journals, we created novel and innovative research ideas that could be applied practically and developed into novel solutions capable of overcoming the challenges that emerged from such ideas.” While conducting his own research is his current focus, Dr. Viet is eager to encourage the next generation of scientists to pursue their research interests. He believes that it is students who will shape the world’s future, which is why he hopes to take the skills and knowledge he’s gained at KU and become a professor one day, so he can pass on the knowledge, and help nurture the learning and development of future scientists. To the current students of Khalifa University, and his own future students, he shares some words of wisdom: “Humans, especially our brains, are much more powerful than we can imagine. Our potential is unlimited. Therefore, stay motivated, hardworking, and collaborative. Push yourself to the limit, and keep asking yourself for solutions while your body is being energized – for example, while you are walking – every day. If you do, you are going to receive wonderful answers from your powerful brain.”
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
KU APEC Director Honored as One of the 2020 Mission Innovation Champions to better serve the profession and the community at large,” Dr. El-Saadany commented. Dr. El-Saadany’s work is focused on two different areas. The first is directed on the investigation on how to create seamless protocols and controllers to integrate more renewable energy to the modern smart grids while minimizing the impacts on the grid operation practices and efficiency. The second direction is to develop new mechanisms that can ensure that our smart grids are more resilient and immune to cyber-physical attacks that can hinder their safe, resilient and efficient operation. Within those two areas, Dr. El-Saadany is currently working on several projects that deal with the different operational issues focusing on renewable intermittency, system stability enhancement, hybrid AC/DC system development self-healing and restoration protocols among other important projects. Aside from these, he is also working to develop innovative AI-based techniques that assure the capability of identifying and mitigating different cyber-physical intrusion directed to several key system components such as protection systems, automatic generation control (AGC), and voltage regulators.
Dr. Ehab El-Saadany, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Advanced Power and Energy Center (APEC) at Khalifa University, has been named as one of the Mission Innovation (MI) Champions for 2020. A virtual awards ceremony for the 2nd cohort of MI Champions was held on 12 June as part of the webinar on “Promoting Clean Energy Innovation in a Post-COVID World.”
“In an energy-hungry society, the dream that we all have is to develop sustainable, clean and affordable communities where everyone can have access to cheap electricity. This ultimate goal can only be attained through devotion and collaboration of different individuals, utilities, and governmental entities,” Dr. El-Saadany commented.
Mission Innovation is a global initiative of 24 member countries and the European Commission (on behalf of the European Union) that was launched during the Paris Climate Conference in 2015. It aims to accelerate global clean energy with the objective of making clean energy widely affordable. The MI Champions program celebrates and supports exceptional researchers and innovators from member countries who are developing ways of making energy cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable. This year, 21 leaders in clean energy innovation were recognized as MI Champions.
“Being the Director of APEC at Khalifa University is already a privilege and a great recognition that is set to address the current and future energy needs. Being a Mission Innovation Champion, I’ll have a continued obligation to make this dream a reality. Starting by the continuation of my current research direction that is focusing on facilitating renewable resources integration, passing through the collaboration with different utilities and energy-centered bodies, and ending up with providing informative recommendations to governmental entities, these goals can be achieved. I will be utilizing my networking capabilities along with my advisory assignment (I’m currently the Chair of the Engineering Advisory Board for Mohamed Bin Rashid Academy of Scientist) to achieve these set of goals.
“Being chosen as one of the Mission Innovation Champions is a privilege and honor that comes as a reward to more than 420 international publications, 50 graduate student supervisions and over 19,000 citations. This award not only rewards my previous 25 years of research and innovation work, but also it will give me the opportunity to further boost my findings and research contributions
“This award will add another domain to my work allowing me to capture more interest on the vital role that renewable energy plays in shaping the future of energy systems worldwide. Also, this recognition will facilitate more international collaborations that will enrich the research environment at APEC, Khalifa University and the UAE at large.” 25 KU TIMES
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
Dr. Ernesto Damiani is Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence
Khalifa University Faculty Named Country’s Top Scientists DR. ERNESTO DAMIANI RANKED #1 SCIENTIST IN UAE, AND DR. NENAD MLADENOVIC RANKED #2 SCIENTIST IN UAE, ACCORDING TO GUIDE2RESEARCH 2020 COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ELECTRONICS RANKING
and Intelligent Systems Institute, Director of C2PS Center, and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Khalifa University. As a regional leader in artificial intelligence, Dr. Damiani focuses his research on developing solutions to global challenges using intelligent systems, AI, and information and communication technologies. In recognition of his pioneering work, he has been ranked the #1 scientist in the UAE, according to the Guide2Research Computer Science and Electronics Ranking 2020 of the Top 1000 Scientists in the field of Computer Science and Electronics. Dr. Damiani’s research interests include secure serviceoriented architectures, privacy-preserving big data analytics and cyber-physical systems security. On Scopus, he has co-authored around 600 scientific papers and many books, including Open Source Systems Security Certification.
KU TIMES 26
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
In 2008, Dr. Damiani was nominated ACM Distinguished Scientist and received the Chester-Sall Award from the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. In 2015, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation granted US100,000 for Dr. Damiani’s ‘Pay with a Selfie’ technology to be developed. Recently, Dr. Damiani has been chosen by the European Network and Information Security
KU, he taught at several universities in different countries, including France, Canada, Serbia, and the United Kingdom. Since 2012, Dr. Mladenovic has been a member of the Academia Europaea, a nongovernmental organization of scientists and scholars whose aim is to promote learning, education, and research.
Agency among the international Group of Experts for Artificial Intelligence in CyberSecurity Defense. “I welcome this ranking as a recognition of the international impact of the research in AI and cybersec done at KU. I am proud of my KU colleagues and of the students who contributed to this effort” said Dr. Damiani.
Another Khalifa University faculty has been recognized as a top scientist in the UAE. Dr. Nenad Mladenovic is the #2 top scientist in the country according to the Guide2Research 2020 Computer Science and Electronics Top Scientists Ranking. Dr. Mladenovic is currently a Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Khalifa University. Before joining
Through his work in Optimization, also known as Operations Research, Dr. Mladenovic is named as one of the top scientists in the UAE by Guide2Research. “Optimization problems are everywhere—in technology, economy, science, industry, environment, telecommunications, energy, transportation, supply chain management. They occur in private and public sectors, by individuals or by small or huge enterprises. Although they are at the first glance quite different, fortunately they usually share similar properties. In other words, a variety of problems in different areas of human activities share the similar symbolic presentation, or mathematical model. They all have decision variables, an objective function to minimize or maximize and the solution space of a huge number of solutions, where just one or just a few among them are optimal,” explained Dr. Mladenovic. According to Dr. Mladenovic, the most useful and popular search techniques in solving difficult reallife optimization problems are heuristic methods. Metaheuristics (frameworks for building heuristic) try to establish general principles and rules that should be followed when searching for better solutions to problems, he explained.
“My basic approach is to search for simpler and user-friendly principles in solving mathematically and computationally hard problems,” Dr. Mladenovic said. Using this approach, he has proposed a few general such techniques that have been well received by scientists and practitioners. The three most cited approaches that he has developed are: variable neighborhood search, formulation space search, and the less is more approach. These techniques have been used by several organizations such as Hydro-Quebec Canada, Avis Car Rentals, and Ultramar Canada. They have also been applied in addressing issues such as human nutrition in the Yugoslav army, berthing allocation in the Hong Kong harbor, and the Petro-Brazilian over rig transportation, among others. “My basic motivation in research is to provide better results with my methods than all other techniques from the literature, to as many as possible different optimization problems,” commented Dr. Mladenovic. Guide2Research was established as a platform for academics and researchers to have up-to-date information, publications, and conferences related to computer science. Its ranking of top scientists is based on a wide range of metrics such as the scientist’s number of publications indexed in DBLP, their awards and achievements, and their H-index, which measures a scholar’s productivity and how often their works have been cited. Only scientists with an H-index of at least 40 within the area of Computer Science and Electronics are included in the ranking. 27 KU TIMES
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
Two Student Teams from Khalifa University Among ‘Top 10’ in Prestigious International Engineering Competition
Two KU student teams have achieved the distinction of being among the Top 10 globally in the prestigious 2020 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Supermileage Competition, pitting against teams from top international universities and becoming the only teams from the Arab world to showcase such a stellar performance.
6TH AND 10TH RANKS IN ‘OVERALL’ CATEGORY
The engineering design goal for SAE Supermileage is to conceive, design, and fabricate a single-person, three-wheel, extremely high fuel-economy vehicle with a single cylinder engine that complies with the Supermileage specifications. On a specified route, the vehicle obtaining the highest combined kilometers-per-gallon rating, in addition to ‘design segment’ points, wins the competition.
AND 3RD PLACE IN ‘VERBAL DESIGN REPORT’ CATEGORY IN 2020 SOCIETY OF AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERS SUPERMILEAGE COMPETITION KEEP KHALIFA UNIVERSITY AHEAD OF ANY INSTITUTION FROM ARAB WORLD
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The first Khalifa University team achieved 6th rank in the Overall category and was among the Top 3 in the Verbal Design Report category, while the other team won the 10th place in the Overall category. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Collegiate Design Series had shifted the 2020 SAE Supermileage event onto a virtual platform.
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “It is truly an honor for Khalifa University to take part in the SAE Supermileage international competition, a tough international challenge in which most of the highly-ranked international universities participate with their teams every year. It is also a privilege for our university that the two teams have remained ahead of any other academic institution from the Arab world in engineering excellence. Such top performance in an international competition was possible only because of our faculty experts who steered the students, continuously honing their innovation skills, and encouraging them. Congratulations to members of both the teams and all who supported them for this proud moment.” The first team included Abdulla A. Alameri, Abdulla F. Alrahma, Fares H. Alawwa, Karim Ahmad Younes, Khadeeja K. Aljaberi, Maryam A. Naqi, Mohammed A. Albastaki, Nawar F. Allabban, Shama Almazrouei, Suhail A. Alamri, and Sultan Al Hassanieh. The second team members include Abdulla Alhammadi, Adonay Iker, Dhabia Alhammadi, Fatema Alzaabi, Kenan AlAqeel, Maryam Anuaimi, Natnael Haile, Saif El-Khasawneh, and Sumaya Alhebsi. Both teams were assisted by Dr. Bashar El-Khasawneh, Associate Professor, and Dr. Andreas Schiffer, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Reyad El-Khazali, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Dr. Ramzy Obaid, Adjunct Professor from King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. Halcon System, a defense technology company owned by Abu Dhabi-based Yas Holding Group, has been the sole sponsor of
Khalifa University SAE Supermileage team for the last three years. Team members admitted that the most challenging part of the virtual event was the fact that they had to convince the judges with their work and the functionality of the vehicle, without exhibiting an actual prototype. Yet, the team did a good job in presenting the validity of their models through demonstrating their deep understanding of all the aspects of the project and showing different kinds of analyses and simulations, starting from the fundamental ones right up to the more advanced. Abdulla A. Alameri said: “The team was ecstatic when we realized that Khalifa University is the only Arab university among the Top 10. We worked very long and very hard for this, and in the end, our hard work paid off. Knowing that our efforts placed Khalifa University’s and the UAE’s name amongst some of the best, highest ranked universities in the world is a huge honor to every single team member, and we couldn’t be prouder of our achievement.” Saif said: “As a team making it into the top 10, communication was key, and most importantly, we valued each opinion and idea from all team members equally. This allowed us to progress as a team with fluidity.” Last year, the Khalifa University student team had won 8th place in the SAE Supermileage Competition. The SAE Competition rules stipulate that the vehicle must be fabricated by the team members without direct involvement from professional engineers, faculty and technical staff in the college/school or professionals in the automotive/motorsports community. 29 KU TIMES
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
KU Participates in Online Meeting in Support of UN SecretaryGeneral’s Call for Action on SDGs Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, was
The two-day online conference, opened by UN Secretary-General
among the participants of an online meeting organized by
AntĂłnio Guterres, was to support the decade of action on
the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN),
SDGs. The meeting discussed the role of universities in actively
a global network of universities committed in supporting
supporting the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and the
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were
Paris Agreement, namely, incorporating the SDGs into university
adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a
curricula and operations, conducting SDG research, and facilitating
universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet,
evidence-based stakeholder dialogues on SDG implementation.
and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity
Such conferences strengthen partnerships between the UN and
by 2030. The meeting was attended by presidents of
universities around the world, as well as recognize their expertise
universities from all over the world.
and key role in global thought leadership.
KU TIMES 30
MY CAMPUS, MY COMMUNITY
Center for Teaching and Learning Expands Access to Courses to KU Community with EdX
Through a partnership EdX, the Center for Teaching and Learning has offered more than 500 members of the KU community, including faculty, students, and staff, the opportunity to enhance their skills during these challenging times.
Python: from Linear Models to Deep Learning.
Members of the KU community enrolled in over 400 wide-ranging courses related to education, leadership, medicine, public speaking, etc. The top three courses with the highest enrollment were: CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python, CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science, and Machine Learning with
“This is a very valuable initiative. It is extremely useful for our current COVID-19 modelling work,” as one of our engineering faculty, said.
Many of them agreed that the experience was an invaluable learning opportunity.
A PhD student in Biomedical engineering also found the Edx courses very helpful, stating:
“The courses I selected will help me learn new skills based on computer simulation and modelling… a great knowledge to use in my project.” She continued, “With the deadlines, workshops, and exercises, I feel like I am at the university. I do not feel behind anymore.” The Center for Teaching and Learning is committed to supporting members of the KU community as they seek ways to develop themselves further. CTL hopes to offer additional learning opportunities in the near future. 31 KU TIMES
RESEARCH CENTER UPDATES APEC Hosts Online-Seminar on High-Power Electromagnetics
The Technology Innovation Institute through its Directed Energy Research Center and Khalifa University through its Advanced Power and Energy Center organized a two-day online-seminar on highpower electromagnetics. Twelve leading international scientists presented their research to around 280 participants from all over the world. The seminar is the first of a series of four seminars preparing for the ASIAEM 2021 which is scheduled to be hosted and organized in Abu Dhabi.
KU TIMES 32
RESEARCH CENTER UPDATES
33 KU TIMES
FROM THE NEWSROOM
Khalifa University Ranks 15th Worldwide and Top in Arab World in 2021 QS Top 50 Under 50 Rankings
Highlights of the latest important announcements, strategic initiatives, new partnerships, and VIP visits
Khalifa University has been ranked 15th in the 2021 QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) Top 50 Under 50 rankings. Khalifa University is also ahead of any other institution in the Arab world to achieve this remarkable distinction in the QS ranking. The QS Top 50 Under 50 listing highlights the world’s top 50 universities established within the last 50 years, based on the most recent edition of the QS World University Rankings. The exclusive QS table for the world’s younger academic institutions aims to recognize a university’s reputation, resources, and worldclass outcomes that are typically built over time. Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice-President, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, said: “Another honor has come our way as Khalifa University has become the only institution to stay ahead of other universities in the Arab world with this distinction in the QS Top 50 Under 50 rankings. We are ranked 15th among the top universities in the world, which reflects our steady progress and the sincere efforts of our faculty, staff and students, especially in the research and academic arena. We believe our global recognitions and achievements are in line with our mission to be at the forefront in contributing to the UAE’s knowledge economy drive.” Only recently, Khalifa University was ranked 211 in the QS World University Rankings 2021, a massive jump of 57 notches, reiterating the university’s increasingly impactful status as a research-based institution, leading in the creation of knowledge and human capital. Khalifa University is already ranked top in the UAE and 114th globally in ‘Engineering’ subject in the US News & World Report’s, 2020 Best Global Universities rankings that was published in November 2019. The university is also ranked second in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and among the top 200 globally in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2020 by Subject: Engineering and Technology.
KU TIMES 34
FROM THE NEWSROOM
35 KU TIMES
FROM THE NEWSROOM
Emirati Researcher at Khalifa University Develops Technology for ‘Artificial Soil’ Suitable for Agriculture in UAE
Khalifa University has announced promising
CUSTOMIZABLE METHOD ALLOWS FARMERS TO HAVE RIGHT TYPE OF ARTIFICIAL SOIL TO GROW DIFFERENT CROPS
patent application has been filed in this regard to
KU TIMES 36
results and findings on its research to develop ‘artificial soil’ with the necessary ingredients and properties required for the growth of plant and vegetation, thus paving the way for the agriculture sector to grow further in the UAE. A provisional ensure further development of the research work and potential commercialization.
FROM THE NEWSROOM
The patent, developed by Khalifa University’s
country’s agriculture sector but may also benefit
Dr. Saeed Alhassan Alkhazraji, Associate
those countries with arid regions that lack a
Professor, Chemical Engineering, and Kevin
suitable farming environment.”
Halique, a researcher in Dr. Alkhazraji’s’ team, describes a method to prepare customizable
Out of the three ecological areas in the UAE’s
soil that resembles fertile soils in Thailand and
topography – northeastern mountain, desert
Ukraine and allows users to grow different crops
and marine coastal regions – the desert takes
based on their need.
up nearly 80%, virtually restricting agricultural activities to a relatively smaller area. The
Explaining further, Dr. Alkhazraji said: “We have
artificial soil, if approved, can support agriculture
developed a method that will allow us to make
in the country by creating the right conditions for
artificial soil using abundantly available non-
growing plants and crops.
fertile sand here in the UAE. Thus the soil is tailored to any specific texture and porosity to
The UAE has already initiated several measures
emulate some of the well-known fertile soils;
to tackle challenges to farming, especially
such as the Thailand soil which has great alluvial
through sustainable agriculture. Currently,
deposits or the Ukraine black soil, the grassland
according to government estimates, the
soil that is used extensively for growing cereals
UAE’s agriculture sector faces scarcity of
or for raising livestock.”
water resources and arable land, soil salinity, challenging environmental conditions, high
Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive Vice
production costs, agricultural pests and post-
of President at Khalifa University, said: “The
harvest losses.
artificial soil developed by our faculty reflects our commitment to focus on research that
Dr. Alkhazraji was the first recipient of
remains relevant to the region and drive
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Medal of
innovation in areas that benefit not only the
Scientific Excellence in 2017. He is also two
UAE and the region but the entire world. The
times recipient of Sheikh Rashid Award for
UAE recently established the Emirates Food
Scientific Achievement (2008 and 2012) and
Security Council to coordinate and lead the
the first-runner up for the Bayer Fellowship
implementation of the country’s National Food
for excellence in graduate studies from the
Security Strategy, which specifically aims to
Department of Macromolecular Science and
implement resilient agricultural practices that
Engineering at Case Western Reserve University
increase productivity and production, while
(2011). His other research works focus on
ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient
materials for different applications including
food all year round. We believe this type of
water harvesting, water remediation, energy
research will help and support not only the
storage, hydrogen production and catalysis.
37 KU TIMES
FROM THE NEWSROOM
First-Ever Annual Ankabut Users’ ‘Virtual’ Meeting at Khalifa University Focused on Role of Cloud-Based Technologies in Education
THE 16TH ANNUAL ONLINE EVENT INCLUDED INTERNATIONAL ‘SPECIAL INTERNET GROUP MEETING’; AROUND 500 DELEGATES FROM HIGHER EDUCATION COMMUNITY AND OVER 50 POST-SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS EXPECTED TO ATTEND
Ankabut – the Emirates Advanced National Research and Education Network – organized the first-ever virtual meeting of users’ to emphasize the expanding role of cloud-based services in educational technology. The one-day annual ‘Ankabut Users’ Virtual Meeting 2020 – Transform with Ankabut Cloud’ was streamed live on 18 May 2020. The conference
KU TIMES 38
FROM THE NEWSROOM
virtually gathered around 500 delegates, primarily from the UAE higher education community and over 100 organizations, including over 50 different post-secondary institutions. This year’s conference included an international ‘Special Internet Group Meeting’. Moreover, recorded sessions of the entire proceedings were made available to access for a month on the event web page. The event introduced many specialized sessions aiming at showcasing Ankabut’s various services and its partnerships with several vendors along with Ankabut’s role using the Cloud-based technologies to support online and digital learning in both schools and higher education institutions. Dr. Arif Sultan Al Hammadi, Executive VicePresident, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, welcomed the gathering, while the keynote, titled ‘Unlock the Full Potential of Digital Learning’, was delivered by Berj Akian, CEO, ClassLink. Top officials from Huawei, Ankabut’s strategic partner, HPE, the platinum sponsor, and Microsoft also addressed the virtual gathering. Tony Austwick, Director, Software2, Ankabut’s Virtual Users Meeting’s supporter sponsor, spoke on ‘Academic Software Virtualization and Khalifa University Use – Case Study’, while Asif Rashid, Azure Specialist (Education Industry), Microsoft UAE, highlighted ‘Remote Learning during COVID-19’. Moreover, Huawei participated in two sessions of the event. Ashraf Esmat Mahmoud Khalil, Senior Solution Architect, Technical Manager, Huawei, spoke about ‘Cloud and Big Data in Education’, and the session titled
‘ Discovering Wi-Fi 6 powered by Huawei Technologies’ was delivered by Mohamed Mamdouh Elsabagh, IP Solution Manager for Education Sector, Huawei. Fahem Al-Nuaimi, Chief Executive Officer, Ankabut, said: “The Annual Ankabut Users’ Virtual Meeting 2020 highlighted innovation in educational technology based on experience, to reflect on and share lessons from stakeholders. We streamed this annual event online in order to showcase the integral role of cloud technology in education. We also gathered the most knowledgeable researchers from all over the world, as well as leaders in innovative educational technologies to explore the challenges and future opportunities. In addition to government entities and senior officials, as well as corporations who are involved in higher education, the meeting gathered multiple groups who share a common interest in educational technology. Stakeholders from higher education participated in the technical sessions on cutting edge issues related to the industry. Other notable speakers who interacted with Ankabut users include Ezzeldin Hussein, Team Lead, System Engineer, North Africa, Levant and Egypt (NALE) Region, VMware, who spoke about ‘Higher Education IT Solutions to Accelerate Your Digital Transformation’, and Morad Hussam, Chief Technology Officer, HPE, who covered ‘Digital transformation in the education sector’. Schneider Electric is a gold sponsor for the event, which is also supported by Software2.
39 KU TIMES
FROM THE NEWSROOM
KU TIMES 40
FROM THE NEWSROOM
Khalifa University Leaps 57 Slots to be Ranked 211th Globally in QS World University Rankings 2021 KHALIFA UNIVERSITY BECOMES FIRST UNIVERSITY FROM UAE TO REACH SUCH A DISTINCTIVE PLACE AMONG TOP UNIVERSITIES IN QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS
Khalifa University of Science and
continuous pursuit to be among the
Technology leapt higher by 57 slots, to
best international universities. He also
be ranked 211 in the QS (Quacquarelli
said that this achievement reflects the
Symonds) World University Rankings
great efforts of the University’s faculty,
2021, the world’s most-consulted
staff and students in the academic and
source of comparative information about
research fields.
university performance. Khalifa University was ranked ‘very high’ With the new rankings, Khalifa
in the ‘Research output’ category in the
University has become the only
QS World University Rankings, which
university from the UAE to be placed
this year features 1,029 of the most
among the top 250 universities in the
prestigious universities in the world. The
world, according to QS World University
University is also placed in the #151-
Rankings 2021.
200 band in the ‘QS World University by Subject Ranking: Mechanical
His Highness Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed
Engineering’.
Al Nahyan, Member of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and
The QS World University Rankings
Chairman of Khalifa University Board of
assess each academic institution on six
Trustees, said that this new achievement
metrics, including its reputation amongst
is evidence to the tangible results driven
academics and employers. The criteria
by the vision of the wise leadership
include Academic reputation (40%),
in supporting and developing Khalifa
Employer reputation (10%), Faculty/
University.
Student Ratio (20%), Citations per faculty (20%), and International faculty ratio/
His Highness Sheikh Hamed highlighted
International student ratio (5% each).
the role that Khalifa University plays in supporting the knowledge economy
Khalifa University is already ranked
in the UAE by providing adequate
top in the UAE and 114th globally in
human capital that leads the industries
‘Engineering’ subject in the US News
and enhances the country’s global
& World Report’s, 2020 Best Global
competitiveness.
Universities rankings that was published in November 2019. The university is
He added that the status Khalifa
also ranked second in the Middle East
University has achieved, by becoming
and North Africa (MENA) region and
the first university in the UAE to be
among the top 200 globally in the Times
ranked 211 among the top universities
Higher Education (THE) World University
in the world in the QS World University
Rankings 2020 by Subject: Engineering
Rankings 2021, confirms the University’s
and Technology.
41 KU TIMES
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Expert insights from KU’s worldclass faculty
PROLIFIC PROFESSORS Books and Book Chapters TITLE Anatomy of the Terrorist Organization that Kidnapped Silvia Romano (Anatomia Dell’organizzazione Terroristica Che Ha Rapito Silvia Romano)
E-BOOK PUBLISHER Rivista di Politica KU AUTHOR Brendon Cannon, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences SUMMARY The terrorist organization al-Shabaab has demonstrated a growing operational capacity to prosecute deadly attacks. Based in Somalia, its trans-border attacks over the years have mainly focused on Kenya. This article explains the many reasons behind this choice and reflects on the increasing centrality of non-state armed actors in the dynamics of global security. KU TIMES 42
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
TITLE: Security in the Gulf: Local Militaries before British Withdrawal PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press KU AUTHOR: Dr. Ash Rossiter, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences SUMMARY: The British Empire employed a diverse range of strategies to establish and then maintain control over its overseas territories in the Middle East. This new interpretation of how Britain maintained order, protected its interests and carried out its defence obligations in the Gulf in the decades before its withdrawal from the region in 1971 looks at how the British government increasingly sought to achieve security with great economy of force by building up local militaries instead of deploying costly military forces from the home country. Benefitting from the extensive use of recently declassified British Government archival documents and India Office records, this highly original narrative weighs the successes and failures of Britain’s use of ‘indirect rule’ among the small states of Eastern Arabia, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the seven Trucial States and Oman. Drawing important lessons for scholars and policymakers about the limitations of trying to outsource security to local partners, Security in the Gulf is a remarkable study of the deployment of British colonial policy in the Middle East before 1971.
TITLE Nanomaterials-Based Charge Trapping Memory Devices PUBLISHER Elsevier KU AUTHOR Dr. Ammar Nayfeh, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science SUMMARY Rising consumer demand for low power consumption electronics has generated a need for scalable and reliable memory devices with low power consumption. At present, scaling memory devices and lowering their power consumption is becoming more difficult due to unresolved challenges, such as short channel effect, Drain Induced Barrier Lowering (DIBL), and sub-surface punch-through effect, all of which cause high leakage currents. As a result, the introduction of different memory architectures or materials is crucial. 43 KU TIMES
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
TITLE Conflict and Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific: New Geopolitical Realities PUBLISHER Routledge KU AUTHOR Dr. Ash Rossiter & Dr. Brendon J. Cannon, Assistant Professors of Humanities and Social Sciences SUMMARY This book explores the most important strategic questions about the emerging Indo-Pacific region by offering an incisive analysis on the current and future patterns of competition and cooperation of key nations in the region. Examining emerging policies of cooperation and conflict adopted by Indo-Pacific states in response to a rising China, the book offers insights into the evolving Indo-Pacific visions and strategies being developed in Japan, India, Australia and the US in reaction to shifting geopolitical realities. The book provides evidence of geopolitical advances in what some see as a spatially coherent maritime zone stretching from the eastern Pacific to the western Indian Ocean, including small island states and countries that line its littoral. It also analyzes the development and operationalization of Indo-Pacific policies and strategies of various key nations. Contributors provide both macro and micro perspectives to this critically significant topic, offering insights into the grand strategies of great powers as well as case studies ranging from the Philippines to the Maldives to Kenya. The book suggests that new rivalries, shifting alliances and economic ebbs and flows in the Indo-Pacific will generate new geopolitical realities and shape much else beyond in the twenty-first century. A timely contribution to the rapidly expanding policy and scholarly discussions about what is likely to be the defining region for international politics for coming generations, the book will be of interest to policymakers as well as students and academics in the fields of International Relations, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Diplomacy and International Law, East and South Asian Studies, East African Studies, Middle East Studies, and Australian Studies.
CHAPTER TITLE: Happiness, Spirituality and Sustainable Development BOOK: Conversations on Utopia: Cultural and Communication Practices PUBLISHER: Peter Lang KU AUTHOR: Dr. Gina Poncini, Associate Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences
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Published Papers TITLE 01
Condensation of Satellite Droplets on Lubricant-Cloaked Droplets JOURNAL ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces KU AUTHORS Qiaoyu Ge, PhD student of Mechanical Engineering; Aikifa Raza, Post Doctoral Fellow of Mechancal Engineering; Hongxia Li, Post Doctoral Fellow of Mechanical Engineering; and Dr. TieJun Zhang, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
02
TITLE Green Chemistry Based Fabrication of Holey Graphene Electrodes for High-performance Supercapacitors JOURNAL ScienceDirect KU AUTHORS Abishek Chandrakant Lokhande, Post Doctoral Fellow of Physics; Satish Teotia, Post Doctoral Fellow of Physics; Dr. Issam Qattan, Associate Professor of Physics; Dr. Dalaver Anjum, Assistant Professor of Physics; Dr. Kin Liao, Professor of Aerospace Engineering; and Dr. Shashikant Patole, Assistant Professor of Physics
03
TITLE Managing and Preparing for Emerging Infectious Diseases: Avoiding a Catastrophe JOURNAL Academy of Management Perspectives KU AUTHORS Dr. Vijay Pereira, Associate Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences
45 KU TIMES
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04
TITLE Early Islamic Tarjamah (Translation) and al-Muthaqafah (Acculturation) and Its Position in Human Civilization JOURNAL The Journal of Rotterdam of Islamic Social Sciences KU AUTHORS Dr. Labeeb Bsoul, Associate Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences
05
TITLE Altruism as a Pathway to Unethical Action JOURNAL International Journal of Ethics and Systems KU AUTHORS Dr. Michael Babula
06
TITLE Digital Inequalities in European Post-Soviet States JOURNAL Internet in Russia: A Study of the Runet and Its Impact on Social Life KU AUTHORS Dr. Glenn Muschert, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences
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07
TITLE The Epitranscriptome Landscape of Small RNAs in Stem Cells JOURNAL Stem Cells KU AUTHORS James Mcelhinney, Post Doctoral Fellow of Biomedical Engineering; Dr. Ayesha Almarzooqi, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering; and Dr. Abdulrahim Sajini, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
08
TITLE On the Colloidal and Chemical Stability of Solar Nanofluids: From Nanoscale Interactions to Recent Advances JOURNAL Physics Reports KU AUTHORS Omar Z. Sharaf, Post-Doctoral Fellow of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Eiyad Abu-Nada, Professor of Mechanical Engineering
09
TITLE Show of Strength: The Remarkable Rise of the UAE Armed Forces JOURNAL The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research KU AUTHORS Dr. Athol Yates, Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences
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10
TITLE A 28-GHz Cascode Inverse Class-D Power Amplifier Utilizing Pulse Injection in 22nm FDSOI JOURNAL IEEE Xplore KU AUTHORS Dr. Hani Saleh, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Dr. Mihai Sanduleanu, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
11
TITLE Design of Sub-Nanochannels between Graphene Oxide Sheets via Crown Ether Intercalation to Selectively Regulate Cation Permeation JOURNAL Advanced Materials Interfaces KU AUTHORS Dr. Lourdes Vega, Director of the RICH Center and Professor of Chemical Engineering
12
TITLE Geophysical Imaging of Ophiolite Structure in the United Arab Emirates JOURNAL Nature Communication KU AUTHORS Dr. Mohammed Ali, Professor of Earth Science
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13
TITLE Charging and Discharging Characteristics of a Single Gold Nanoparticle Embedded in Al2O3 Thin Films JOURNAL Applied Physics Letters KU AUTHORS Ayman Rezk, Post Doctoral Fellow of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Yawar Abbas, Post Doctoral Fellow of Physics; Dr. Irfan Saadat, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Dr. Ammar Nayfeh, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Dr. Moh’d Rezeq, Professor of Physics
14
TITLE Chalcopyrite Based Carbon Composite Electrodes for High Performance Symmetric Supercapacitor JOURNAL Chemical Engineering Journal KU AUTHORS A.C. Lokhande, Post Doctoral Fellow of Physics; Satish Teotia, Post Doctoral Fellow of Physics; Dr. Issam Qattan, Associate Professor of Physics; and Dr. Shashikant Patole, Assistant Professor of Physics
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15
TITLE NeuroMem: Analog Graphene-Based Resistive Memory for Artificial Neural Networks JOURNAL Nature KU AUTHORS Heba Abunahla, Research Scientist, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Yasmin Halawani, Post Doctoral Fellow of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Anas AlAzzam, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering; and Dr. Baker Mohammad, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
16
TITLE Genetic Diversity and Low Stratification of the Population of the United Arab Emirates JOURNAL Frontiers in Genetics KU AUTHORS Dr. Guan Tay, Consultant for the Biotechnology Center; Dr. Andreas Henschel, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Gihan Daw El Bait, Post Doctoral Fellow of Biomedical Engineering; and Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Director of the KU Biotechnology Center
17
TITLE Association Between Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus & TCF7L2 Gene Variants in the Emirati Population: Genetics of Diabetes in the United Arab Emirates JOURNAL American Journal of Human Biology KU AUTHORS Sarah Chehadeh, Lab Engineer of the Biotechnology Center; Dr. Guan Tay, Consultant for the Biotechnology Center; and Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Director of the KU Biotechnology Center
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18
TITLE Genetics of Type 2 Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease and Their Associations With Twelve Cardiometabolic Traits in the United Arab Emirates Population JOURNAL ScienceDirect KU AUTHORS Dr. Wael Osman, Assistant Professor of Chemistry; Dr. Guan Tay, Consultant for the Biotechnology Center; and Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Director of the KU Biotechnology Center
19
TITLE Clinical Correlations and Genetic Associations of Metabolic Syndrome in the United Arab Emirates JOURNAL ScienceDirect KU AUTHORS Saad Mahmud Khan, Biotechnology Center; Dr. Wael Osman, Assistant Professor of Chemistry; Dr. Herbert Jelinek, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Dr. Guan Tay, Consultant for the Biotechnology Center; and Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Director of the KU Biotechnology Center
20
TITLE River Basin Salinization as a Form of Aridity JOURNAL PNAS KU AUTHORS Saverio Perri, Post Doctoral Fellow of Civil Infrastructure and Environmental Engineering; Dr. Prashanth R. Marpu, Associate Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering; and Dr. Annalisa Molini, Associate Professor of Civil Infrastructure and Environmental Engineering
51 KU TIMES
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21
TITLE Superlattice Nonlinearities for Gigahertz-Terahertz Generation in Harmonic Multipliers JOURNAL Nanophotonics KU AUTHORS Dr. Mauro Pereira, Department Chair and Professor of Physics
22
TITLE A Moment Problem in a Weighted L2 Space on the Real Line JOURNAL Journal of Classical Analysis KU AUTHORS Dr. Elias Zikkos, Senior Lecturer, Preparatory Program
23
TITLE Applying the Chemical-Reaction Definition of Mass Action to Infectious Disease Modeling JOURNAL Mathematics in Applied Sciences and Engineering KU AUTHORS Dr. Mo’tassem Al-arydah, Assistant Professor of Mathematics
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24
TITLE Computational Study of the Unimolecular and Bimolecular Decomposition Mechanisms of Propylamine JOURNAL Scientific Reports (Nature Research) KU AUTHORS Dr. Mutasem Sinnokrot, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry
Patent Issued TITLE Reservoir Temperature Determination KU INVENTORS Mauro Fernandes Pereira, Professor and Chair of Physics KU AUTHORS Dr. Mutasem Sinnokrot, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry WO2019180486A1, Priority 2018-03-20, Filed 2018-03-20, Published 2019-09-26.
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Cutting-edge research and breakthroughs
How Does Culture Influence the Transition to Low-Carbon Energy? While climate change and carbon emission reductions are strong elements of global discourse today, attempts by cities, states and nations to switch to low-carbon energy technologies and practices are often hindered by cultural influences. In a paper published in Nature Sustainability in May 2020, Dr. Steve Griffiths, Senior VP Research and Development and Professor of Practices at Khalifa University, and Dr. Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex School of Business, Management, and Economics, propose a framework for assessing the influence of culture on the adoption of low-carbon technologies and behavioral practices. They asked how insights about cultural influences can guide energy planners and policymakers who are trying to stimulate transitions, particularly at a time of rapid technological change. The paper specifically explores the cultural dimensions of four broad specific sustainability cases.
The authors propose a framework that relates modest and substantial changes in practices to incremental and radical technology innovations in order to investigate the range of influences that culture can have on efforts toward low-carbon transitions. The specific cases considered within this framework were the adoption of ridesharing, alongside automated vehicles, eco-driving, and whole-house retrofits.
“Culture can complicate, or catalyze, efforts to promote more efficient, more sustainable, and often more affordable forms of mobility, as well as energy use in homes and buildings,” said Dr. Griffiths. “We looked at the evidence on low-carbon energy transitions and culture, leveraging data from energy and transport studies, as well as anthropology, area studies, political science, psychology and sociology.”
“Although we treat our cases as distinct, there are factors that can connect them,” explained Dr. Griffiths. “This includes spillovers and social influence—adopters influencing non-adopters—and households that may adopt multiple innovations. Although we show that culture can affect the uptake of technology and that culture can mediate how technologies are designed, technology itself can also alter cultural attributes and cultural attributes can affect how technology is used.”
Using this approach, the authors explored how the cultural dynamics of low-carbon transitions are shaped not only by user practices, but also by the technologies and environments that coexist and co-evolve with practices.
Perhaps the most obvious culturally-influenced behavior is driving. Eco-driving can be categorized into three types: strategic decisions such as vehicle selection, tactical decisions such as route planning, and operational decisions such as driving style.
“This is particularly important when we consider radical technical innovations, such as autonomous vehicles, where the machine or technology itself takes on culturally determined behaviors,” explained Dr. Sovacool.
“Culture has a significant positive relationship with eco-driving,” said Dr. Griffiths. “For instance, one study of the early adopters of the Toyota Prius found that owners were willing to pay a premium price for a non-luxury vehicle because it symbolized
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a green identity. Adopting a Prius allowed an owner to brand him or herself as a ‘prosocial’ individual. Follow-up work has confirmed that ‘eco cars’ have status and symbolic value across diverse contexts, and often marks the adopter as someone who is educated, informed, healthy, and environmentally focused.” The authors also investigated the opposing side, finding that behaviors known as ‘aggressive driving’ have significant negative implications on energy use and run counter to eco-driving as a cultural norm. They noted that aggressive elements of driving may prevail in any location with strong cultures of masculinity, strength or aggression, with many studies suggesting drivers speed due to strong social pressure from peers. At the opposite end of the scale from ecodriving, automated vehicles require a radical change in practice and very advanced technology to implement. The authors make clear that there are multiple sustainability benefits to automated vehicle adoption, but note there are various cultural factors that impact their adoption and their safety. “The software in an automated vehicle contains artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms that enable the vehicle to make real-time decisions based on the information it receives from sensors that perceive the environment around them,” explained Dr. Sovacool. “These algorithms are ‘trained’ to recognize and interpret this environment and then take actions that are ‘appropriate’ based on context. However, this training can result in unintended biases that are difficult to remedy and ultimately reflect varying degrees of racial, gender, or religious discrimination.” Research shows that automated vehicles trained using machine-learning techniques are likely to have biases in detecting pedestrians based on skin tone, with better recognition performance for people with lighter skin tones, and pattern of dress, with
better recognition performance for those in ‘Western’ clothing. Such machine biases can result in pedestrian injuries and even fatalities. Other, albeit less dangerous, cultural differences affect the proliferation of ridesharing apps, particularly in the Middle East. Despite Uber dominating the Western market, it has not managed to translate its services to the local context, with local ridehailing companies growing into major businesses thanks to their cultural awareness. In Saudi Arabia, Careem tailored its approach to the market by training drivers to follow cultural norms about not conversing with female passengers, which allowed them to tap into the large female population. Conversely, the norm across the Gulf Cooperation Council countries is private car ownership, with 97 percent of residents travelling predominantly by private car. A key aspect of the individualistic car ownership culture is the expression of class and wealth, which is a known cultural counter to the adoption of ridesharing. “Rather than perhaps promoting Western or imported technologies for a particular region, programs could incentivize more locally designed, culturally acceptable, appropriate technology,” said Dr. Griffiths. “This preference for appropriate technology could push for technology that is designed, manufactured, and owned by stakeholders who better comprehend the cultural dynamics of the customers they are supposed to serve.” Whole-house retrofits are recognized by the authors as a departure from the mobility theme but represent a case where entirely new configurations of technology are required but only modest changes in practice are needed. Whole-house retrofits focus on redesigning homes, especially for heating or cooling, to reduce their energy demand and to be more energy-efficient.
This is often accomplished through the integration of multiple technologies, including fabric insulation, energyefficient lighting, improved windows, and even integration with renewable energy. “Australia has been credited for having a national ‘love affair’ with retrofits due to a ‘renovation culture’ that prioritizes style and aesthetics,” said Dr. Sovacool. “Many homes have implemented retrofits such as small-scale rooftop solar panels because they are seen as more modern, and overall more beautiful. Additionally, the property becomes more valuable. These positive cultural dynamics contrast with the negative dynamics apparent in Ireland, England and Japan, where retrofits are often abandoned or discouraged due to notions of aesthetics and cultural heritage standing in the way of retrofits.” The authors stressed that policy interventions related to cultural awareness about sustainability are important, with a cultural perspective needed for sustainability transitions. “Low-carbon energy transitions are not only based on techno-economic dimensions and considerations,” said Dr. Griffiths. “Rather, they are shaped— in positive and negative ways— significantly by culture. Of particular importance, researchers in recent years have come to understand the critical importance of adopting social science perspectives in both energy and artificial intelligence research. Now is the time to leverage this clarity and bring together interdisciplinary research efforts to ensure that lowcarbon transitions are helped, and not hindered, by the embodiment of culture as we seek to decarbonize our future homes, communities and countries.” 55 KU TIMES
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Uncovering New Insights into Topological Insulators
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A new group of advanced materials known as ‘topological insulators,’ which conduct dissipationless electricity – electricity in which no energy is lost – on the edge of their surfaces, are being eyed as potential replacements to semiconductors for their ability to make computer processing faster, and for use in thermoelectric applications due to their ability to convert heat to electricity in a unique way.
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Before engineers can begin designing new, high-
The research team discovered that by using NMR,
efficient electronic and energy components that
they can detect and even manipulate the virtual
use topological insulators, however, scientists must
quasiparticles.
learn much more about their properties – at the quantum level.
In ARPES, high energy photons (a beam of light) are shined on the topological insulator. If
Now, a collaborative team of researchers from Khalifa University, Stockholm University, the Korea Basic Science Institute, the National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, and the Josef Stefan Institute in Lubljana, have uncovered a new way to study and investigate the quantum properties of topological insulators using a novel technique that relies on Nuclear Magnetic
the energy of the photons is high enough, then electrons are knocked out the sample which can be detected. From this, information about the structure of the sample is obtained. In NMR, a large magnetic field is applied to the topological insulator. Then a high frequency radio wave is applied to the material at different frequencies. Some frequencies will interact
Resonance (NMR). Their work was published
with the material more than others, which gives
earlier this month in the prestigious journal Nature
information as to the state of the material.
Communication. The NMR technique can conduct simultaneous “Until now, surface electrons in topological
probing of the bulk topological insulator, where
insulators were only observed using Angle Resolved
conduction does not happen, and its edge electron
Photoemission Spectroscopy (ARPES),” explained
states, where conduction is taking place. Using
Dr. Yasser AlWahedi, Assistant Professor of
NMR, the research team successfully measured
Chemical Engineering and Dr. Saeed Alhassan,
the electrons’ spin and orbital magnetic
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and
susceptibilities in a topological insulator made of
Acting Senior Director of the Petroleum Institute,
a compound called bismuth telluride.
the two researchers from KU who co-authored the paper. “However, ARPES cannot see how the electrons penetrate into the bulk interior of the topological materials, nor see their surface-level electron excited states in the form of virtual quasiparticles. Knowing how these interactions work is important
Their discovery could help engineers speed up the development of useful applications of topological insulators, such as for use in quantum computers. Topological insulators’ ability to conduct electricity even when its surface is nicked, or disturbed in any way, makes them excellent candidates for use in quantum computing – a type of computing wherein the data being processed is
to understanding the material’s quantum
so delicate that interaction with the environment
topological properties.”
can destroy it.
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Communicating with the Mind: Senior Design Project Developed to Help Disabled People Express Their Thoughts TO SUPPORT PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM PARALYSIS, UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AT KHALIFA UNIVERSITY HAVE EXPLORED HOW TO TRANSLATE BRAIN WAVES INTO SPEECH BY USING AI, SPECIFICALLY DEEP LEARNING TECHNIQUES.
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 speaking is an impossible task to perform, severely limiting independence. One way to overcome this inability to communicate is by tapping into a person’s brain wave signals and translating those signals into speech. Undergraduate students at Khalifa University have explored how to translate brain waves into speech by using AI, specifically deep learning techniques. Students in the Khalifa University Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, developed an electroencephalogram (EEG) control system for disabled people to communicate with others as their Senior Design Project. The students, Ahmed Alkhateri, Mohamed Alnuaimi, Saif Alshehhi and Ahmed Alzaabi, are supervised by Dr. Kin Poon, Chief Researcher at Emirates ICT Innovation Center (EBTIC), and Dr. Leontios Hadjileontiadis, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and also Acting Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
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“Every day is a challenge for patients that suffer from full-body paralysis and we hope this project will ease their lives,” explained Alzaabi. “Our project uses EEG signals to implement a brain-computer interface (BCI) to help paralyzed patients communicate with other people freely.”
the person wearing the headset is presented with a grid of letters (in Fig. 3). The grid flashes at random and a specific wave form called the P300 is recorded by the headset when the letter desired by the wearer is illuminated. A P300 shows a peak compared to baseline EEG signals and occurs approximately 300 milliseconds after the presentation of an infrequent stimulus—in this case, the flashing grid. “Through our research, we quickly found that this idea has already been implemented, so we questioned how we could improve on it,” explained Alnuaimi. “We plan to improve by implementing a unique interface that will be more user-friendly when using the Arabic alphabet rather than English and also provide a predicted words functionality.”
EEG represents the electrical activities of the brain with the signals captured when an individual starts thinking whilst wearing an EEG headset, which comprises multiple dry electrodes. The captured signals are then analyzed using deep learning algorithms called multi-layered Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In this project, the ANNs used are Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), a class of neural networks often used in image recognition because of their excellent compatibility with the processing of image pixel data. For the CNN to process the data, the information extracted using the headset (in Fig. 1) is first converted into an image. EEG signals present particular wave forms (in Fig. 2) when recorded, which can be converted into a spectrogram. In this project,
The students designed a grid where every second one of the rows or columns flashes randomly. When the row or column containing the desired letter is illuminated, the P300 signal is generated. The rows and columns continue to flash until the second desired letter with the second P300 signal is generated. In this way, the algorithm can begin predicting the desired word. The signals are converted into a spectrogram, with one spectrogram formed every second, and these images are then fed into the CNN, which can process the data it receives and determine the letter selected by the user. “One of the main requirements of this project is to have the system work in real-time,” explained Alshehhi.
“Once a letter is chosen, the program suggests some words that fit the chosen letters to ease the completion of the desired word.” Deep learning is one of the hot topics in artificial intelligence research because it has many successful applications. Its application in recognizing brain wave signals is an up-and-coming area of research, but not without its difficulties. “The main limitation we faced is the data size. In order to get more accurate results, we need to train the algorithm with more data,” explained Alkhateri. “For a CNN to work at an acceptable accuracy, a lot of data is required to train the system, which is time consuming. Furthermore, the device we are using has an accuracy rate of 65 percent, which, while good for its price, is still a limiting factor. Other minor limitations include the sample size we used and the processing power we have access to.” “There are things we can do to further enhance this project,” added Alkhateri, who hopes to pursue his MSc with KU to further develop the project. “We could use a cloud service with better computational power to reduce processing time and improve performance. Users can create their own profiles online, find all their previous data and add predicted words to suit their use cases. We could also improve the interface by allowing users to customize the interface to their needs.”
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Using Blockchain to Build Trust and Security in Crowdsourcing Apps like Uber
Mobile applications like Uber require a ‘crowdsourcing’ framework to pair people who need rides with available drivers, and collect a host of valuable data to evaluate users and update their reputations in the system, and to facilitate payment sharing among these users. Crowdsensing is a type of crowdsourcing – a model that distributes work across a ‘crowd,’ or group of people, for a common goal – that involves using the crowd to collect and share sensing data i.e. temperature, using the rich sensing capabilities of the crowds’ mobile phones or smart devices. “Crowdsourcing frameworks, such as Uber and Amazon Mechanical Turk (or MTurk, a crowdsourcing marketplace that allows independent workers to bid for small tasks), collect data from workers’ devices to fulfill tasks. The objective of the crowdsourcing framework is to facilitate completing tasks with the best possible quality while motivating users to frequently engage with the platform,” Maha Kadadha explained. Kadadha is a PhD student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Khalifa University who is developing a decentralized crowdsensing framework with blockchain technology, called SenseChain, to make crowdsensing apps like Uber resilient against ‘misbehaving’ users and platforms. “Typically, a trusted centralized platform governs the crowdsensing activity and manages multiple requesters (that is, the people seeking rides in Uber or distributing jobs in MTurk), with multiple workers (which would be the Uber drivers and the people bidding for jobs in MTurk),” explained Kadadha. “The centralized platform holds users’ information, collects tasks, selects workers, evaluates their submissions, and shares their payments.” However, there are important limitations to the security of these centralized platforms. Security can be compromised by passive or active misbehavior, with passive misbehavior involving an attempt from an external entity to collect unauthorized information without affecting the execution of the platform, and active misbehavior involving intentional attempts to harm other members in the framework. Active misbehavior may manifest as workers compromising the quality of completed tasks by intentionally submitting incorrect data and biasing the evaluation, or committing to a
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task but never completing it. In MTurk, for example, a worker could submit multiple solutions to the same task using different identities to bias the correctness of his solution and increase his payments. Misbehaving requesters can also engage in malicious activities, but usually face far fewer penalization consequences enforced by the platform. These requesters can issue redundant tasks to occupy workers’ time and reduce availability for other requesters, and they could also cancel their tasks after a worker has completed it to avoid paying them. The platform itself could also misbehave. Platforms can favor some workers over others, alter information to reduce reputations, and impact payments by altering submitted solutions and their evaluations. This is because the execution process of a centralized platform is hidden from users. To overcome these misbehaving problems, Kadadha proposed using a decentralized crowdsensing framework. Distributed frameworks have been previously proposed for data analysis, task selection, and sensing group formation. “While distributed frameworks, which share the framework across the crowd, have performed well, the trust issue remains unsolved as the frameworks are assumed to be trusted, which is not always the case.” To provide reliability and trust, Kadadha and her team developed SenseChain, a blockchain-based decentralized crowdsensing framework to overcome the need for a trusted centralized platform by using Ethereum – an open source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system that uses smart contracts – as its underlying infrastructure. SenseChain brings together requesters and workers in a collaborative sensing platform that does not require pre-established trust between parties. The framework runs the centralized functions in a decentralized manner, while the blockchain—a distributed immutable ledge of transactions organized as blocks and maintained by the users—allows for traceability, accountability, and date transparency. Privacy and user security are also maintained as users use their own generated public and private keys, from which their Ethereum addresses are derived.
SenseChain uses smart contracts to replace the centralized platform for registering users and maintaining their information reliably, collecting and publishing tasks, selecting workers in an unbiased manner, and transparently evaluating solutions and sharing proportional payments with workers. “In SenseChain, users create their own accounts and Ethereum addresses without relying on a trusted third party to maintain them,” said Kadadha. “Then, their Ethereum addresses are used to interact with other members in the framework. The addresses, types and reputations are maintained and updated by one smart contract for reliability. Requesters create tasks by adding them to another smart contract which is then responsible for collecting reservations from workers, determining their Quality of Information (QoI) to accept their reservations, and evaluating solutions to calculate accepted workers’ payments. This evaluation is executed by miners, making it immune to manipulation from both the requesters and the platform. The consensus of miners ensures the trust in the outcome of the evaluation. “Security is inherent in SenseChain from the underlying Ethereum blockchain and its deployed mechanisms. Centralized crowdsensing frameworks typically suffer from identity privacy issues, problems with trusted execution, and a lack of dual feedback. In SenseChain, the reputations of both the requesters and the workers are provided to implement a dual feedback mechanism so both have prior knowledge of each other’s reliability before committing to a task or accepting a worker. Additionally, the use of Ethereum addresses means users’ identities are protected and can be neither exploited nor exposed, and smart contracts handle the execution of each task’s evaluation, preventing any bias.” To measure this framework’s feasibility, the team looked at the cost of deploying it, where cost is measured in two ways: the cost of each functionality, and the cost endured by each user. “When comparing SenseChain to a centralized system, we noted that its performance is similar in terms of the quality of selected workers, distance travelled, task completion duration, and submitted solution quality,” said Kadadha. “In addition, the low deployment cost of the framework affirms the viability of blockchain-based crowdsensing frameworks.”
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From Unsustainable to Sustainable: Turning a Harmful By-product of Fossil Fuels into Clean Energy
A continued reliance on fossil fuels for energy production is not sustainable, particularly as energy demand continues to rise in parallel to the industrialization of developing countries and world population growth. Not only does reliance on the combustion of fossil fuels result in greenhouse gas emissions detrimental to the environment, it also creates energy security challenges given that oil, coal, and natural gas are geographically concentrated and subject to volatile prices. Imagine being able to use noxious Hydrogen sulphide (H2S), a waste material widely found in the UAE oil and gas industry, to generate energy in a clean, sustainable way. A recent Khalifa University PhD graduate, advised by Dr. Giovanni Palmisano and co-advised by Dr. Khalid Al-Ali, investigated this question, researching the best way to produce hydrogen from hydrogen sulphide. By freeing hydrogen—a zero-emissions fuel source—from hydrogen sulphide, the toxic gas becomes harmless and the liberated hydrogen can be used in fuel cells or power plants to generate clean electricity. But separating hydrogen is not easy—it requires a lot of energy and expensive materials. Existing separation techniques that use catalysts are expensive and limited. Many face challenges with the catalysts’ tendency to become deactivated, rendering the catalyst unable to carry out the required reactions. The PhD graduate Habeebllah Oladipo, developed a model to predict the deactivation of a titanium dioxide catalyst and to select the proper operational conditions to avoid this. Oladipo successfully defended his thesis earlier this month and saw his work published in the journal Applied Catalysis B: Environmental. “The current dependence on fossil fuel has led to a huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions,” explained Oladipo. “With the projected increase in world energy
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demand, alternative energy sources need to be found. Sustainable hydrogen production could be an ideal replacement thanks to its high energy value and environmentally friendly by-products from combustion or use in fuel cells.” Significant research into powering the world with hydrogen is underway. In particular, research into photocatalysis, a process that involves accelerating a chemical reaction using a zap of light and a catalyst, is being conducted to find the most efficient way to split hydrogen from compounds like water and hydrogen sulphide. In a typical photocatalytic process, a semiconductor-based photocatalyst is irradiated with a specific wavelength of light with energy greater than its bandgap energy, and electrons and holes are generated, triggering a redox reaction – the reaction that liberates hydrogen. Practical applications of photocatalysis were made possible through the discovery of water electrolysis (the splitting of water) by means of titanium dioxide (TiO2). TiO2 is a highly-stable and non-toxic metal oxide, and can be used in electrochemical photolysis of water when connected with platinum electrodes. Ultraviolet light is absorbed by the former, with electrons migrating from the TiO2 conduction band to the platinum cathode, with hydrogen production occurring at the cathode. “Compared to other photocatalysts, TiO2 offers a great range of benefits, such as chemical inertness, photostability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of preparation,” explained Oladipo. TiO2 photocatalysts produce hydrogen cleanly and efficiently, as an alternative to hydrogen production from natural gas reforming and gasification. This process can be made even more efficient, however, by incorporating a noble metal to increase photoactivity.
“The quick recombination of the photogenerated carriers poses a challenge for hydrogen generation,” explained Oladipo. “One technique to circumvent this is to decorate titanium dioxide with noble metal nanoparticles such as platinum and gold. Firstly, noble metals drive electrons away from holes by serving as an electron sink, thus minimizing electron-hole recombination. Secondly, they create Schottky barriers, enabling the efficient trapping of the photogenerated electrons available for the reduction of photo-adsorbed reactants to hydrogen.” “The most common technique employed in the industry for hydrogen sulphide removal from a natural gas stream is scrubbing with an alkaline solution,” explained Oladipo. “My research studied the photocatalytic production of hydrogen following the absorption of hydrogen sulphide in sodium hydroxide aqueous solutions.” Oladipo’s research showed that under certain reaction conditions, photocatalytic hydrogen generation from hydrogen sulphide can be run consistently without significant loss of activity when using a novel platinumdecorated catalyst layered with TiO2. The results showed that hydrogen production increased linearly with the concentration of bisulfide ionic species until it reached a critical value, after which it declined to negligible levels. This was found to be caused by competition for active site between sulphide and bisulfide ions. Furthermore, reusing the catalyst means this process is more sustainable than previous methods. Multiple tests were conducted, with the research concluding that the reaction mechanism primarily involves sulphide ions, which will allow for further optimization of reaction conditions and the future development of pilot reactors for the photocatalytic production of hydrogen from hydrogen sulphide gas.
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Khalifa University Researchers Uncover Surprising New Results When Studying Condensation From rain falling from clouds to dew forming on leaves, condensation is a natural and common occurrence. While most people wouldn’t give it another thought beyond putting a coaster under a glass of cold water, research into the mechanism of condensation formation and how this can be optimized for industrial purposes is gaining traction. In a paper published in the Journal of American Chemical Society —ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, the research team led by Dr. TieJun Zhang, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, discovered a previously unobserved condensation phenomenon of satellite droplet formation on lubricant-cloaked water droplets using environmental scanning electron microscopy. This was a surprising result as one of the cloaking lubricants used were previously found to eliminate cloaking during water condensation. The team comprising of Dr. Zhang, Qiaoyu Ge, Khalifa University PhD student and lead author of the paper, Postdoctoral Fellows Aikifa Raza and Hongxia Li, and Dr. Soumyadip Sett and Dr. Nenad Miljkovic from the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), investigated how infusing lubricants into condensation KU TIMES 64
surfaces affects condensation performance, throwing considerable light on cloaked condensate droplet dynamics. “Condensation is a phenomenon commonly found in many natural and industrial processes, including atmospheric dew formation, power generation, natural gas processing, water harvesting, and refrigeration,” explained Dr. Zhang. “Depending on the surface tension of the condensate and the surface energy of the surface, two distinct condensation mechanisms can occur: either dropwise or filmwise condensation.” Condensation is a crucial component of distillation, an important laboratory and industrial chemistry application used to separate and purify liquids. In dropwise condensation, the condensed vapor forms droplets on a surface instead of a continuous film. The small droplets that form at the nucleation sites on the surface grow as a result of continued condensation, coalescing into large droplets. Once large enough, the drops fall. Filmwise condensation, on the other hand, tends to wet the surface, forming a liquid film. As more vapor condenses, the thickness of the film increases in the flow direction as the liquid flows down the cooling surface under the action of gravity.
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“Filmwise condensation is much easier to achieve for a variety of working fluids due to the relatively high surface energy of solid surfaces,” explained Ge. “However, dropwise condensation is preferable for more applications owing to its higher heat transfer performance.” Heat transfer in dropwise condensation is up to ten times greater than in filmwise condensation, as a large area of solid surface is directly exposed to the vapor for dropwise. In many chemical and industrial applications, dropwise condensation is preferred and chemicals are used to ensure that dropwise condensation takes place. Extensive studies have been conducted to encourage or ‘promote’ dropwise condensation by surface modification, including hydrophobic (water repelling) coatings and microor nano-texturing. For liquids with low surface tension, such as natural gas and refrigerants, hydrophobic coatings (which are water repelling) and texturing are not effective due to the nonpolar nature of both the coating and the fluid, resulting in film formation. To enable dropwise condensation of these low surface tension fluids, researchers have been investigating lubricant-infused surfaces (LISs) to take advantage of the low surface tension of the infusing lubricant. “Although the low surface tension of the lubricant helps to achieve dropwise condensation, it also causes problems of cloaking at the condensate-vapor interface,” explained Dr. Miljkovic at UIUC. “The lubricant can spread on the condensate droplet, thereby encapsulating it and forming a thin cloaking layer, which adds heat and mass transfer resistance and hinders growth of the droplet.” LISs reduce the overall thermal resistance during condensation when compared to superhydrophobic surfaces without the lubricant. Rapid droplet shedding, as droplets become large enough to fall, allows fresh nucleation sites to be continuously replenished, thereby enhancing the rate of condensation and heat transfer performance. “We conducted experiments of water vapor condensation on nanotextured superhydrophobic copper surfaces, which were infused with different types of lubricants,” said Ge. “We demonstrated that some of these lubricants, although used as non-cloaking lubricants in prior literature, in fact cloak water droplets.”
Cloaking of condensate droplets leads to additional thermal resistance, inhibiting droplet growth as the vapor comes into contact with the lubricant layer instead of the liquid condensate. However, despite the reduction in heat transfer performance, the formation of satellite droplets provides larger surface area for the vapor to condense. “Our work, for the first time, described formation of satellite droplets, characterized their morphologies and analyzed different roles of the cloaking film with different tools,” explained Ge. “The presence of satellite droplets on the cloaked lubricant layer indicates additional nucleation sites for vapor to condense. This provides an opportunity for enhancing the condensation rate and can in turn lead to significant heat transfer gains. At the macroscopic scale, the presence of the cloaking film played an important role in mobilizing water droplets without any external forces.” “Despite the observations in environmental scanning electron microscopy, we also confirmed presence of the nano-scale cloaking lubricant film on the water droplets with a novel characterization approach based on Raman spectroscopy,” explained Dr. Raza. “The cloaking lubricant acts as an additional surface for vapor to condense, leading to the formation of satellite droplets. Again, this increases the overall surface area, meaning more condensation. “We have made significant research progress and multiple joint publications with the UIUC team are on the way. It’s exciting when experimental data and in-depth analysis sheds light on previous findings. Without the great research infrastructure at Khalifa University, we wouldn’t be able to make this happen.” “This is a remarkable achievement,” said Dr. Dalal Najib and Daniel Placht from the US National Academy of Sciences, one of the research supporters. “It is rewarding to see Dr. Zhang and Dr. Miljkovic leverage the Arab-American Frontiers program to establish joint research activities between their respective groups and produce tangible research results. The ultimate goal of the Frontiers program is to foster this type of high quality research collaboration between US and Arab institutions.” 65 KU TIMES
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Novel Ultrathin Solar Absorber Coatings Could Offer Highest Efficiency Yet When Used in High Temperatures
Solar panel efficiency usually concerns how much of the sunlight hitting the panel is converted into electricity, but the temperature of the panel in direct sunlight on a hot summer day can significantly impact its performance. Unlike solar panels, however, solar thermal collectors (solar absorbers) which collect heat by absorbing sunlight, need to reach high temperatures to perform their intended functions. Solar absorbers need to withstand very high temperatures for use in applications such as power generation. Unlike traditional solar panels, solar absorbers are specifically designed to withstand high operating temperatures. To enable the solar collectors to produce as much thermal
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energy as possible, absorber coatings are used. These coatings also need to withstand high temperatures, particularly for use in applications like concentrated solar power, as higher-temperature solar heat results in higher power generation efficiency. Now, a new coating has been developed by a team of researchers at Khalifa University, led by Dr. Tiejun Zhang, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, that works in very high temperatures up to 1050°K or 776°C. “The more efficient the absorber coating is, the greater the solar collector’s output. Highly efficient solarthermal energy conversion requires absorbers that can
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harness the full spectrum of sunlight, emit minimal heat, and maintain structural stability at high operating temperatures,” explained Dr. Zhang. “Our team has fabricated a new refractory nanocomposite which works in very high temperatures, making it suitable for applications here on Earth and also in space.” Dr. Zhang and his team shared the development and efficiency of their solar absorber nanocomposite in a paper recently published in Advanced Optical Materials and a patent has also been filed for the new technology. The team comprised Dr. Aikifa Raza, Research Scientist, Afra Alketbi, PhD student, Dr. Rajakumar Devarapalli and Dr. Hongzia Li, both Postdoctoral Fellows, from the Khalifa University Department of Mechanical Engineering. Funding support was provided by the Alibaba Cloud-Khalifa University Joint Innovation Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence for Clean Energy and the Abu Dhabi Award for Research Excellence. For industrial and commercial scale applications, increased operating temperatures are necessary to lower the cost of electricity when using concentrated solar energy. As such, operating temperatures in excess of 600°C are desirable for state-of-the-art systems.
Dr. Zhang’s team has developed an ultrathin nanocomposite solar absorber using amorphous silicon carbide containing tungsten nanoclusters, which offers ‘ultrabroadband omnidirectional light absorption properties.’ Despite being less than 100 nanometers thick, this material can absorb nearly all the light in the ultraviolet to visible range from sunlight, absorbing 95.45 percent of the solar energy that hits it. “Compared to traditional designs, we have developed a cost-effective absorber coating with a pair of silicon carbide-tungsten degradation-resistant nanocomposites,” explained Dr. Raza. “Here, the key point is to capture sunlight as efficiently as possible, meaning you have to do two things that compete with each other: first, absorb as much energy from the sun as possible, but secondly, not re-radiate that energy. Our ultrathin absorber demonstrates 95.45 percent absorption of the total incoming solar energy with thermal emission loss below 5 percent at ambient temperature.” “Its superior thermal stability, oxidation resistance, and outstanding solar absorptance make this coating unprecedented compared to existing coatings,” added Dr. Zhang.
Thermal stability at high operating temperatures is one of the most important criteria for solar absorber coatings but it is not the only concern. The coatings must allow the absorbers to absorb as much of the solar spectrum as possible while limiting oxidation, a chemical reaction that degrades the coating.
Besides concentrated solar power generation, the highperformance solar absorber can also be integrated into other solar thermal systems, such as solar water heaters, solar thermal photovoltaics and solar thermochemical catalysis. Additionally, nanomaterials can offer significant cost savings, especially when scaled up in industrial settings, while also saving weight for applications related to spacecraft.
Commonly used solar absorber coatings are made from various composite materials, including cermets (materials composed of ceramic and metal), but their use in real-life applications has been impeded by their intense fabrication requirements, limited oxidation tolerance and high-infrared emissivity (their tendency to emit infrared light instead of absorbing it).
“I am proud of this work, as the entire research, from conceptual design, numerical simulation, and nanofabrication to device characterization was completed locally at Khalifa University,” said Alketbi. “I believe this work can motivate other students to innovate in the field of solar energy and sustainable development which is so relevant to our region.”
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Uncovering the Obesity Gene in Emiratis
The UAE ranks among the highest nations in the world for obesity. The obesity rate among Emiratis is particularly high, with a recent study finding nearly 70 percent of Emirati men under 30 to be obese. Researchers at Khalifa University are exploring a way to stop the high rate of obesity among Emiratis, by looking directly at the genes that may be causing it, and finding a way to ‘switch them off.’ Dr. Abdulrahim Sajini, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Habiba Alsafar, Associate Professor of Genetics and Molecular Biology and Director of the KU Center for Biotechnology (BTC), and PhD student Sarah Azzam are investigating the way Emirati-specific RNA may
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code for obesity and how this can be mitigated.
rise to most if not all types of cells in a human, like
They are creating a model that will help identify
neurons, muscles and skin,” explained Azzam. “The
RNA modifications that cause the over-production
idea of the project is to reprogram obesity-specific
of the cells that store fat (adipocytes).
somatic cells into iPS cells and remodel adipogenesis in the lab using Emirati genetic backgrounds.”
RNA is responsible for coding, decoding, regulating and expressing the genes held within DNA.
With these cells, Dr. Sajini and Azzam can study
Recently, it was discovered that RNA interacts with
various ways they could remodel adipogenesis
various modifiers within the body’s cells that can
in people susceptible to obesity. Once it is
affect whether a gene is expressed or not. This
established that a phenotype—the set of observable
is known as the ‘epitranscriptome,’ which can be
characteristics of an individual—can be associated
thought of as an extra layer of instructions for the
directly with RNA modifications, the challenge is in
RNA.
understanding which of the modified sites underlies the phenotype.
Research into how the epitranscriptome affects and influences the way genes are expressed has
But there are tens of thousands of methylated sites
been gaining traction. This influence is particularly
in the human transcriptome – the areas that indicate
important in adipogenesis—the production of fat
that a gene is expressed and active, or silent and
cells—where different types of adipocytes can
inactive – and deciphering which of them is causally
be produced according to cell-type specific gene
linked to a phenotype is an immense challenge.
expression. Therefore, transcription factors are crucial for adipogenesis, making it a target for
The epitranscriptome has ‘writers’ and ‘erasers’ that
Dr. Sajini’s research.
mark RNA, with ‘readers’ translating these marks into a variety of functions. Small molecules are small
Their research involves using somatic cells—
chemical entities that bind to their recognition sites
any biological cell of a living organism other
on proteins to block the activity of that protein.
than reproductive cells—and converting them to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. iPS cells can
“We hope that small molecules could be engineered
be derived directly from adult tissues, meaning
to mitigate the risk of obesity among Emirati people,”
they can be made in a patient-matched manner,
said Dr. Sajini. “So far, we have been successful in
with each individual able to access unlimited
reprogramming somatic cells into iPS cells. We now
supplies.
need to decode the epitranscriptome role in obesity.”
“We’re looking at contributing towards better
This pioneering research project will help
understanding the genetic cause of obesity, via
advance current understanding of the role of
reprogramming Emirati-specific cells into iPS cells
the epitranscriptome in obesity, and may bring
for disease modelling. Human iPS cells are similar
researchers a step closer towards finding the ‘fat’
to embryonic stem cells in that they can give
cure in Emiratis. 69 KU TIMES
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The highly-ranked Khalifa University offers fully accredited degrees to all nationalities through its 3 academic colleges, 13 bachelor’s, 16 master’s and 2 PhD programs, offering plenty of opportunities for students to explore theirdegrees intereststoand learn from The highly-ranked Khalifa University offers fully accredited all nationalities award-winning teachers. through its 3 academic colleges, 13 bachelor’s, 16 master’s and 2 PhD programs, offering plenty of opportunities for students to explore their interests and learn from As Abu Dhabi’s research-intensive university, Khalifa University gives students a award-winning teachers. chance to study in-depth with expert faculty and researchers on the leading-edge of discovery in science, engineering, and medicine to solve real-world problems. As Abu Dhabi’s research-intensive university, Khalifa University gives students Our a students develop cleaner energy,faculty find new to produce sustainably,of chance tohelp study in-depth with expert andways researchers on water the leading-edge create smarter diagnostic tools, and better waysreal-world to use AI to make data discovery in science, engineering, anddiscover medicine to solve problems. Our insightful. students help develop cleaner energy, find new ways to produce water sustainably, create smarter diagnostic tools, and discover better ways to use AI to make data Study beside our award-winning faculty and help deliver real solutions, transform insightful. lives, and change the world. Study beside our award-winning faculty and help deliver real solutions, transform lives, and change the world.
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