Research Booklet 07-08

SchoolofElectricalEngineeringand
ComputerScience
20072008
NUSTSEECSplacesahighpremiumonqualityresearchasagatewaytonewhorizonsof
scientificknowledgeanddiscovery.Forthispurpose,differentresearchgroupshavebeen
formedwhichnotablyincludetheonesdetailedinthisbook.

Acentreofexcellenceforqualityeducationandresearch
NUSTSEECSRESEARCHBOOKLET200708
TableofContents:
1. SEECSDistributed&GridComputingGroup(Page2)
2. MuhaqiqCentreforMeasurementandAnalysisoftheGlobalGridandInternet
EndtoEndPerformanceMAGGIE(Page9)
3. SEECSOpenMobileSquadSOMS(Page15)
4. ReconfigurableComputingResearchGroup(Page21)
5. RawNetworkDataCollectionandClassification(Page22)
6. NUSTSEECSNetworksResearchGroup(Page23)
7. NanotechnologyResearchGroup(Page33)
8. Wireless,Internet&SecurityResearchWISNET(Page36)
9. NextGenerationCommunicationTechnologiesResearchGroup(Page52)
10. CenterforHighPerformanceScientificComputing(Page54)
11. GroupforResearchinASICandFPGAGRAF(Page57)
12. CryptographicHardwareandEmbeddedSystemsCHES(Page61)
13. VisionImaging&SignalProcessingResearchGroupVISPro(Page65)
14. DataEngineeringforLargeScaleApplicationsResearchGroupDELSA(Page68)
15. SemanticSystemsResearchGroupSSRG(Page74)
16. PTCL,NUSTCenterofExcellenceforIPTechnologies(Page82)
17. ResearchGroupforOffGridEnergyResourcingROGER(Page84)
SEECSDistributed&GridComputingGroup
Theme
Research in distributed computing problems and infrastructure, in particular
related to grid computing, distributed data mining, web services, handheld devices
anddistributeddatabases&storage.
Objectives
The objectives of the group are two fold: firstly, carry out advanced research in
distributedcomputingsoftware,infrastructureandtools;andsecondly,toestablish
collaborationswithinternationalresearchinstitutesofreputeinthisarea,toenable
transferofknowledgeandtechnologytoSEECSandPakistan.
Applicationdomain
HighSpeedDataTransfer&DistributedNetworkStorage
ProjectincollaborationwithCaltech(USA)isunderway,enablinghigh
speed data transfer to manage terabyte to petabyte of scientific data
transfers worldwide from European Centre for Nuclear Research
(CERN),Geneva.(2007now)

PeertoPeerComputing
This project involves development of a PeertoPeer application
developmentframeworkandsetofAPI,toolsandutilities(2008now)
Gridcomputing
Projects in this direction include Gridenabled Knowledge Management
System(20012002),DistributedAgentsforMobileandDynamicServices
(20022003),HeterogeneousRelationalDatabasesforGridEnvironments
(20042005), Gridenabled analysis on Handheld Devices (20032004)
and Gridenabled Analysis Environment (20042005), DIANA Grid
Scheduler(20052007)andGridenabledDataMining(2006now)
DistributedOperatingSystems
The main project being undertaken in this area is PhantomOS (2005
2008)
WebServices
Projects in this area include JClarens (20032005) and its many
associatedservices.
GroupMembers
DrArshadAli
PhDElectricalEngineering
Optoelectronics,Distributed
computing,Network
Monitoring
arshad.ali@niit.edu.pk
TahirAzim
MSComputerScience
PhdStudentatStanford
University
Distributedcomputing,Web
2.0andsensornetworks
tazim@niit.edu.pk
FaisalKhan
BachelorsinInformation
Technology
MSStudentatWisconsin
Madison
Webservicesanddistributed
computing
faisal_ieee@yahoo.co.uk
KamranSoomro
BESoftwareEngineering
Distributedoperatingsystems
soomro@gmail.com
BadarAhmed
TechnologyDistributed
computing,PeertoPeer
Systems
FarooqAhmed
Technology(Ongoing)
Distributedcomputing,Peer
toPeerSystems
5
Publications
ArshadAli,RichardMcClatchey,AshiqAnjum,IrfanHabib,KamranSoomro,"FromGrid
Middleware to Grid Operating System", International Conference on Grid and
CooperativeComputing2006,GCC2006.
Irfan Habib, Kamran Soomro, Ashiq Anjum, Richard McClatchey, Arshad Ali, Peter
Bloodsworth,"PhantomOS:ANextGenerationGridOperatingSystem",UKeScienceAll
HandsMeeting2007(AHM07),Nottingham,UK,September2007
Arshad Ali, Ashiq Anjum, Julian Bunn, Faisal Khan, Richard Mcclatchey, Harvey
Newman, Conrad Steenberg, Michael Thomas, Ian Willers. A Multi Interface Grid
Discovery System.. 7th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Grid Computing,
September2006.
AssociatedLabs
CaltechLabSEECS
ResearchProjects
EnablingHighSpeedDataTransferAndDistributedStorageinHighEnergyPhysics
KamranSoomro,FaisalKhan,BadarAhmed
TouristBasedPeertoPeerServicesFramework
FaisalKhan,BadarAhmed
PhantomOS
IrfanHabib(UWE/CERN),ShuaibKhan,UsmanAjmal,KamranSoomro
SuperpeerDiscoveryService
Mudassir,Shoaib,AmmarahKahlon
GridDataMining
SherozAftab,SaeedAkhter,MominaWaqar,OmarMukhtar
CMSMirrorServer
FaisalKhan,KamranSoomro.
InternationalCollaboration
SEECS Distributed & Grid Computing Group has international collaborations with UWE,
CERNandCaltech.
Currentprojects
a) Enabling High Speed Data Transfer & Distributed Storage in High Energy
Physics
Introduction
The aim of this project is to meet the computing needs of the Large Hadron Collider
(LHC)atEuropeanCentreforNuclearResearch(CERN),Geneva.
6
Problemstatement
To enable highspeed data transmission and distributed storage of large amounts of
data.
Motivation
The extraordinarily large amounts of data that will be produced by the LHC has
createdaneedtodeveloptoolsthatcanmanageitandmakeitavailableforPhysicists
touse.
Progress
Tools for highspeed data transfer and distributed storage have already been
developed. Their integration with the data flow management tools in use by the US
CMScollaborationisunderway.
Results
Data transfer speeds of 110 Gbps have been demonstrated in collaboration with
Caltechusingthetoolsdeveloped.
Futuredirections
We hope to integrate the tools with the data flow and job submission management
(PhEDEx)systeminusebytheUSCMScollaboration.
b)TouristBasedPeertoPeerServicesFramework
Introduction
Peertopeer(P2P)networksworkbybuildinganoverlaynetworkontopofexisting
physical infrastructure of networks. This project uses a recent P2P overlay routing
algorithm, Tourist. Tourist promises great improvements over existing overlay
routingalgorithmsandthushasbeentheroutingalgorithmofchoiceinthisproject.
Problemstatement
The aim of this project is to develop a framework for PeertoPeer application
development which is lightweight, extendable and portable to resource constrained
devices.
Motivation
ToenabletheapplicationdeveloperstoharnessthepowerofPeertopeercomputing
inaneasytousemanner
Progress
Most of the modules for this system have been built. However, the system is in a
prototype phase, and needs substantial amount of work to make it useful in real
worldapplications.TheframeworkimplementationisinC++,alongwithaJavabased
P2Pvisualizationtool.
Results
Theframeworkisworkingwellupuntila100peersystem,&mostofitsfunctionsof
routing&messagedeliveryareworkingwell.Thereareseriousscalabilityissuesright
nowintheframework,whichneedsfixing.
7
Futuredirections
Thefutureworkinvolvesmanytasksincludingmemoryperformanceanalysis,which
would minimize some of the scalability issues. Secondly, there is need for
comprehensive performance evaluation of the framework, which includes collecting
testresultsforroutingefficiency,selfadaptivitytesting,includingleveldistribution.
Also some additional features need to be added to the framework like periodic
refreshing of routing table. Also there are many other areas of research that are
possible,oncetheframeworkiscomplete.
Thisframeworkwouldactasasoftwareplatformwhichwouldallowlotsofdifferent
researchonP2Pcomputing,its behaviorpatternsandwouldallowimprovementsto
existing algorithms and techniques. Techniques like locality aware routing and peer
lifespan based routing need to be explored which increases the routing efficiency of
overlaynetworks.
c)PhantomOS
Introduction
The aim of PhantomOS (internal development name is GridOS) is to target those
barrierstoadoptioninuserorientedfields.PhantomOSisanoperatingsystemwhich
aims to migrate Grid computing from the Middleware to the operating system level.
With this we will target the mostprofound technical barriers tothe adoption of Grid
computing and make it relevant to the daytoday user. We believe this proposed
transition to a Grid operating system will drive more pervasive Grid computing
researchandapplicationdevelopmentanddeploymentinfuture.
Members
IrfanHabib(UWE/CERN),ShuaibKhan,UsmanAjmal,KamranSoomro
Problemstatement
To create a system that can provide operating systemlevel support for Grid
applications.
Motivation
Grid computing has made substantial advances during the last decade. Various
developments have contributed to this, which include the advancements in high
speed networking technologies and the adoption of standardized Grid Middleware
(Globus, gLite, UNICORE etc). There are, however, significant barriers to the more
pervasive adoption of Grid computing in other fields, most notably daytoday user
computing environments. We believe these barriers can be broken if we provide
operatingsystemlevelsupportforGridenvironments.
Progress
Most of the modules for this system have been built. However, the system is in a
prototype phase, and needs substantial amount of work to make it useful in real
worldapplications.
8
Results
Results from the prototypes developed so far show that a Gridenabled operating
systemcansignificantlyimproveontheperformanceofGridapplications.
Futuredirections
We are aiming in two main directions. Firstly, we want to complete the current
prototype into a production phase. Secondly, we are hoping to convert the existing
prototype to use virtual machine migration capabilities to make the system more
usefulforthescientificcommunity.
d)CMSMirrorServer
Introduction
'CMSMirrorServer'isanintegratedtooltoletscientistsdownloaddistributedphysics
datasets by resolving their locations using official CMS catalogs Data Bookkeeping
System (DBS) and Data Location Service (DLS). The mirror server work is part of
larger project that aims at integrating official CMS data management tools with
Ultralight's[4]highspeeddatatransferutilities.
Members
FaisalKhan,KamranSoomro
Motivation
One significant task which physics community wants to achieve is to gain access to
their desired data before everyone else. Currently they use official storage
management/transfertoolsprovidedbyCMScollaboration.Followingthisapproach
they will have to compete in terms of resources with other peers looking for similar
kind of data. We suggest that the more effective way of doing this is by using the
specially written software which the scientists could tweak easily based on his
requirementsandpriorities.
Progress&Results
Itsfirstversioniscompleteincludingitsintegrationwithourhighspeeddatatransfer
toolscalledFDT(FastDataTransfer).
FutureDirection
WeneedtoupdatetheexistingversioninordertoincorporatechangestoDBS/DLS.
PastProjects
GridenabledKnowledgeManagementSystem(20012002)
DistributedAgentsforMobileandDynamicServices(20022003)
HeterogeneousRelationalDatabasesforGridEnvironments(20042005)
GridenabledanalysisonHandheldDevices(20032004)
GridenabledAnalysisEnvironment(20042005)
JClarens(20032005)anditsmanyassociatedservices
9
ContractsandGrantsObtained
A grant worth $100,000 was received from the US State Department/Ministry of Science
andTechnologyPakistanin200405.
10
Muhaqiq
CentreforMeasurementandAnalysisoftheGlobalGridand
InternetEndtoEndPerformance(MAGGIE)
Theme
Measurement and Analysis of the Global Grid and Internet EndtoEnd Performance is a
collaborativeresearchinitiativebytheStanfordLinearAcceleratorCenter(SLAC)USAand
NUSTSEECS, Pakistan. It involves students, faculty and professionals from both sides
workingonvariousdevelopmentandresearchissuesrelatedtoComputerNetworkEndto
EndPerformanceMonitoringandEvaluation.
Objectives
The growth of the Internet has fostered intellectual and economic growth of both
developedanddevelopingcountries.Fundamentaltothisistheoperationandmaintenance
of the underlying Internet technologies to keep the network functioning. Our ambitions
include (but are not limited to) enable Pakistan's advanced education and research
facilities to better understand and utilize network connections. We believe that to
efficiently manage any network one needs to be able to measure it. Our efforts include
measuring and understanding current and longterm performance, identifying and
reportingproblemsbothendtoendandwithinthenetworkitself,andprovidingforecasts
ofbothlongandneartermperformance.Inthiscontextoureffortscanbesummarizedas:
Conduct research, development, and evaluation of computer network endtoend
performancemeasurementtoolsandtechniques.
Developanalyticalprocedurestoderivereliableresultsfromtheperformancestatistics
gathered.
Support collaborative research projects by measuring the network performance of the
platformusedforcommunication.
Produce computer network experts capable of doing development for innovative and
largescalecomputernetworkapplications.
ApplicationDomain
Internet Performance Measurement, Internet Communications, Computer Network
PerformanceMeasurement,NetworkEventDetectionandDiagnosis,NetworkPerformance
ForecastingandDistributedSystems.
CurrentGroupMembers
ArshadAli,CoPI,Ph.D.,arshad.ali@niit.edu.pk
LesCottrell,CoPI,Ph.D.,cottrell@slac.stanford.edu
UmarKalim,Coordinator&Supervisor,MS,umar.kalim@niit.edu.pk
FidaHussain,ResearchAssistant,MS,fida.hussain@niit.edu.pk
ShahryarKhan,ResearchAssistant,BS,shahryar2001@gmail.com
QasimBilalLone,ResearchAssistant,BS,37bilal@niit.edu.pk
FahadAhmadSatti,ResearchAssistant,BS,45fahad@niit.edu.pk
11
Publications
Les Cottrell, Umar Kalim, A case study of the regional and worldwide connectivity of
Sub Saharan Africa, 2009, will be published at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(SLAC),2009.
LesCottrell,UmarKalim,"NetworkMonitoringReportforInternationalCommitteefor
Future Accelerators (ICFA) Standing Committee on InterRegional Connectivity (SCIC)
2009",preparedforICFASCIC2009.
Umar Kalim, A case study of the regional and worldwide connectivity of East Asia,
2008, published at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), 2008, available online
https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/East+Asia+Case+Study.
Fida Hussain, Umar Kalim, Noman Latif, Syed Ali Khayam, A DecisionTheoretic
Approach to Detect Anomalies in Internet Paths, submitted to 28th Conference on
ComputerCommunications(INFOCOM)2009.
Les Cottrell, Qasim Bilal, A case study of the effects of the fibre outage through the
Mediterranean in January 2008, published at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(SLAC), 2008, available online [https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/
display/IEPM/Effects+of+Fibre+Outage+through+Mediterranean].
Les Cottrell, Qasim Bilal, Jared Greeno, "Network Monitoring Report for International
Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA) Standing Committee on InterRegional
Connectivity(SCIC)2008",preparedforICFASCIC2008.
Shahryar Khan, Les Cottrell, Umar Kalim, Arshad Ali, Quantifying the Digital Divide: A
Scientific Overview of Network Connectivity and Grid Infrastructure in South Asian
Countries,intheproc.ofCHEP2007.
Les Cottrell, Shahryar Khan, International Committee for Future Accelerators
Standing Committee for InterRegional Connectivity (ICFASCIC) Network Monitoring
Report2007.
"Quantifying and Mapping the Digital Divide from an Internet Point of View", accepted
for publication in Proc of 4th International Conference on Bridging the Digital Divide
AsianAppliedComputingConference(AACC2007)
Aziz A. Rehmatullah, R. Les Cottrell, Jerrod D. Williams, Arshad Ali Quantifying the
Digital Divide: A Scientific Overview of the Connectivity of South Asian and African
CountriesCHEP06,Bombay,India
R. L. Cottrell, M. Chhaparia, F. Haro, F. Nazir, M. Evaluation of Techniques to Detect
Significant Network Performance Problems using Endtoend Active Network
Measurements,Standford,NOMS2006,April2006.
Fareena Saqib, Umar Kalim, Arshad Ali, Network Weather Forecasting in Gird
systems,inproc.ofHONET2006.
AsifKhan,ArshadAli,MoMon:singleended,plugnplayGridMonitoringtoolinproc.
ofGridNets2006.
Talks
Les Cottrell, Umar Kalim, African Cyberinfrastructures at the European
Geosciences Union General Assembly 2009 session in Vienna, Austria 1924 April,
2009.
AssociatedLabs
ResearchLab,SEECS,NUST
12
ResearchProjects
Projecttitle DetectionofAnomaliesinInternetPaths 1
Team
members
FidaHussain(RA),UmarKalim,NomanLatif(BIT6)
Supervisedby Dr.AliKhayam,Dr.LesCottrell,Dr.ArshadAli
Startedin Spring2008
Currentstatus Inprogress
Reference https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Decision+The
oretic+Approach
Projecttitle TULIP:TrilaterationUtilityforLocatingIPhosts 2
Team
members
QasimBilalLone(BIT4),ShahryarKhan(BIT4),FaranJaved(BIT
5)
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,EjazAhmed,UmarKalim
Startedin Fall2004
Currentstatus Inprogress
Reference http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wanmon/tulip/
Projecttitle Traceanal:Tracerouteanalysis 3
Team
members
QasimBilal(BIT4)
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,ConnieLogg
Startedin Early2005
Currentstatus CompletedinFall2008
Reference http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/iepm
bw.slac.stanford.edu/tracesummaries/today.html
Projecttitle EndtoEndPerformanceMonitoring 4
Team
members
FahadAhmedSatti
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,UmarKalim
Reference http://maggie2.niit.edu.pk/wiki/index.php/EPM
Projecttitle Federation:SmokePing,PingERIntegration 5
Team
members
AsmaShamshad(BIT4)andShahryarKhan
Reference https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/PingER+Smo
keping+Integration
Projecttitle PingERMetricsMotionCharts 6
Team
members
UmarKalim
13
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell
Startedin Fall2008
Reference http://wwwiepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/pingermetrics
motionchart.html
Projecttitle PingERMetricsIntensityMaps 7
Team
members
UmarKalim
Startedin Fall2008
Reference http://wwwiepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/intensity
maps/pingermetricsintensitymap.html
Projecttitle PingERSitesGoogleMap 8
Team
members
ShahryarKhan,QasimBilalLone
Reference http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wan
mon/viper/tulipmap.htm
Projecttitle ViPER:VisualizationforPingER 9
Team
members
ShahryarKhan(BIT4)
Currentstatus CompletedinSpring2007
Reference http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wanmon/viper/
Projecttitle NWF:NetworkWeatherForecasting(usingARMA/ARIMA) 10
Team
members
FareenaSaqib(BIT4)
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,Mr.UmarKalim
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/nwf_projectdesc.html
Projecttitle Topological Analysis and Network Performance

Visualization
11
Team
members
AsifKhan(BIT4)
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.YeeTingLee,UmarKalim
14
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/topoanalysis_projectdesc.html
Projecttitle AMPPingERIntegration 12
Team
members
Mr.AbdullahJan
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,JerrodWilliams,UmarKalim
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/pingerampint_projectdesc.html
Projecttitle AnomalyDetectionUsingPrincipalComponentAnalysis 13
Team
members
AdnanIqbal(Ph.D.student)
Currentstatus HaltedworksinceFall2007
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/netandet_projectdesc.html
Projecttitle PingERVisualization 14
Team
members
RabailJaved(BIT5)
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,EjazAhmed,UmarKalim
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/newwebsite/
pingervisualization_projectdesc.html
Projecttitle PingERExecutivePlots 15
Team
members
AkbarMehdi
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/pingerexecplot_projectdesc.html
http://wwwiepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/prmout/
Projecttitle PingERManagement 16
Team
members
Mr.WaqarAli
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,JerrodWilliams,UmarKalim
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/pingermanagement_projectdesc.html
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/cgiwrap/downsites.cgi
Projecttitle Evaluation of Techniques to Detect Significant Network

Performance Problems using EndtoEnd Active Network
Measurement
17
15
Team
members
FawadNazir
Reference http://maggie.niit.edu.pk/documents/fawadnazir.pdf
Projecttitle NWF:NetworkWeatherForecasting(usingHoltsWinter) 18
Team
members
AsherShoukat
Supervisedby Dr.ArshadAli,Dr.LesCottrell,EjazAhmed
GrantsObtained
1.Title:NetworkPerformanceMonitoringforPERN
FundingBody:HigherEducationCommission(HEC)
ApprovedFunding:36.853MillionRupees
Duration:Jan2008toJuly2010.
Executing Body: National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), School of
ElectricalEngineeringandComputerSciences(SEECS)
16
SEECSOpenMobileSquadSOMS
Theme
Open.Mobile.Free.
SEECSOpenMobileSquad(SOMS)wascreatedinJanuary2009byDr.ArshadAli.SOMSis
established for creating a Linux mobile
developmentcultureinSEECSandbehavingas
a hub for other Pakistani universities in this
regard. In the initial run, the Openmokos
Smartphones are sponsored by SEECS. The
devicesprovidestudentsagoldenopportunity;
to play/unlock the completely documented
mobiledevice.
Open: Opening up the formerlyclosed mobile
world
Mobile: Mobile devices are the future of
communication
Free:100%FreeSoftwarefromdriverthrough
UI
Objectives
The main objective ofthe group is to develop an understanding in the new emergingfield
of open mobile development. The group will explore and do experimenting with multiple
open mobile platforms and frameworks; existing in the mobile ecosystem. The group
providesanopportunitytohaveahandsonexperienceinthestateoftheartwirelessand
mobile technologies. The group will also prepare students with a kind of skill set so they
can compete in global competitions and challenges organized by Google and Intel every
yearwiththeirprojectswhichwilladdvaluetotheexistingsystem.
UnderstandingOpenmobiletechnology
Gettinghandsonexperience
Hackingmobile
Buildingmobilefromscratch
Applicationdomain
Linuxmobileapplicationdevelopment
Linuxmobileplatformsandframeworks
MobileOS
MobileComputing
Mobilecommunicationtechnologies
Wirelesscommunicationtechnologies
Linuxdevicedrivers
Gadgetsinterfacingwithsmartphones
OpenSourceinMobiles
17
GroupMembers
Dr.ArshadAli
PhD,USA
arshad.ali@niit.edu.pk
Dr.FauzanMirza
PhD,UK
fauzan.mirza@niit.edu.pk
Dr.AliKhayyam
PhD,USA
ali.khayyam@niit.edu.pk
SyedAliHaider
MSc,UK
ali.haider@niit.edu.pk
Students
Mr.MQasimAli
Mr.AsadRehman
Mr.SalamnMajeed
Mrs.IqraArshad
Mr.KhuramShahzad
Mr.UsamaShahid
Mr.WahibulHaq
Mr.RajaEhtisham
Mr.FahadAbid
Mr.RobertMehfooz
Mr.OmerFarooqKhan
Mr.SibguatUllah
18
Organizationofconferencesandworkshops
Openmobileseminar
OpenmokoanIntroduction
OpenmokoSupportedframeworks
QtopiasQTC++GUIApplicationframework
EclipseSWTLibrary
AssociatedLabs
3GandCommunicationlab
ResearchProjects
FundedProjects
MobilehandheldcomputingdeviceslikePDAs,SmartphonesandTabletPCsarebecoming
morepopular,andmajorplayersinthemarketofdesktopcomputingarenowfocusingon
this fastest growing emerging market. With the popularity growth, security threats like
viruses,trojans,worms,bacteria,spam,andothermalwarearebecomingaseriousconcern
inthesedevicesaswell.Asaresult,securityissuesofmobilecomputingareattractingthe
attentionofalargenumberofresearchersbothinindustryandacademia.
Unconventional techniques of Computational Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence and
Artificial Immune Systems should be explored to build an optimized and light weight
security system. The proposed secure kernel framework will provide adequate security
against malware threats and Denial of Service attacks (DoS) on network interfaces
(GSM/GPRSandWLAN)ofthemobiledevices.
The project aims to develop secure kernel framework that enable selfmonitoring, and
consequently selfhealing operation for an operating system of mobile devices. This is
expectedtoproduceafullyfunctionalSecureLinuxKernelthatwillberunontabletPCs/
smartphones. The developed framework will be fully aware of system conditions and
resource usage and will schedule different threads intelligently based on each
thread/process behavior, thus providing a truly secure computing experience in which
malwarethatmanagestoescapedetectionbyintrusiondetectionsystemsgetsthwartedin
thescheduler.
Theprojectwillalsoresultinsoftwarethatwillutilize(ArtificialImmuneSystem)AISand
(Intrusion Detection System) IDS for detecting potentially dangerous programs and files.
This software will be installable on smartphones. The software will emphasize minimum
userinterventionwhileensuringsystemsecurity.
Thekeybenefitsofthisprojectaregivenbelow:
19
This project will provide a selfaware, selfmonitoring, selfprotecting
comprehensive kernel framework that will secure mobile computing devices from
viruses,trojans,worms,bacteria,spam,andothersecuritythreats.
This framework will also provide a reliable and scalable detection and protection
from denial of service attacks (DoS) on network interfaces like GSM/GPRS and
WLAN.
AUniquefeatureofthishostsecuritysolutionisthatitwillalsoprovidethenetwork
security.Allthehoststhatwillusesecurekernelframeworkwillnotletthemalware
to execute and propagate. So network will also become secure from malware
securitythreats.
Thetechniquesandmethodologiesdevelopedduringthisprojectareexpectedto
attractseveralenterprisesandmobileOSdevelopingcompaniestoinvestin
startupsandtheycanusetheproductasanimportantframeworkforfurther
development.
ProjectDirector:Dr.MuddassarFarooq
NationalUniversityofComputerandEnergingSciences(FASTNU),Islamabad
muddassar.farooq@cs.unidortmund.de
JointProjectDirector:Dr.SyedAliKhayam
NUSTSchoolofElectricalEngineeringandComputerSciences,Islamabad
khayam@niit.edu.pk
BrainstormedProjects
a) ControllingrobotswithFreerunner
The lego robots that are available in SEECS have Bluetooth dongles built in, so we can
use openmoko freerunnerto control the actions of therobots by using the concepts of
telemetry.ItslikerobotsinterfacingwithopenmokousingBluetoothprotocol.
b) USBcamerainterfacingopenmoko
Openmokos freerunner dont have a builtin camera but it has USB host port which
allowsdeveloperstointerfaceanyUSBdevicewithit.
c) OpenGSMradio
ThatideaislittletrickyandhaveadirectimpactonthebusinessmodelofGSMcellular
providers. The idea is to configure the device in such a way that GSM module of the
devices can make communication with other devices GSM module in a peer to peer
fashionratherthenroutingthecallfromtheBS.
d) Smartphonevirtualization
NowacoupleofvendorshavecreatedSmartphoneswithprocessorspeeds500MHzor
soandmultipleframeworksexistintheFOSS(FreeopenSource Software)community.
20
ThereisaneedtousetheconceptofvirtualizationwhereaSmartphonecanhavedual
OS.
e) Adhocwirelessnetwork
Areas when struck by any natural or force disasters; like earthquakes which destroys
the existing cellular system. Due to this reason different rescue operations cant be
carried out efficiently and effectively. In this scenario, the Smartphone carrying by the
rescue guys will establish an ad hoc network using builtin wifi module; which will
extenduptothetimetheyfindsomenodeinthecellularnetworkrange.
f) EmbeddingRFIDcardinFreerunner
The worlds first open and usercustomizable mobile phone is open both in terms of
hardwareandsoftware.Thisprovidesdeveloperstotesttheirhackingcapabilitiesand
tweaktheirphonesthewaytheylikeorrightlysaidimagined. ThePCBcircuitfilesare
available form openmoko.org. Openmokos first product was developed their own
developersnamedNEO1973whichwasjustasimplemobilebutlateronwhentheFOSS
community catches their idea, they start embedding different technologies like
Bluetooth,WIFI,GPSandaccelerometers.Nowthesimpleneoisnowturnedouttobea
SmartphonebutcouplesofthingsarestillmissinglikeRFIDandCamera.
g) Integrationofmicroprojectorswithopenmokohardware
Afterreviewingtheevolutionprocessofmobilephonesitisverymuchclearthatevery
technology wants to sink into the small little fellow of everyone the mobile phone.
Different companies are looking towards creating microprojectors like the 3M's
MM200. If we get that gadget interfacing openmoko with this will be great and who
knowsopenmokogetsthatprojectsandreleasetheirnewdeviceswithmiroprojectors
buildin.
h) HomogeneousCrossplatformframework
The year 2008 was considered to be year for mobile Linux because of the fact that a
coupleofframeworkswerepoppedupinthesameyear.Differentvendorslaunchtheir
ownframeworksaslistedhereunder:
QtopiaPhoneEditionforTrolltechGreenPhone
OpenmokosFOSFreerunnerOS
OpenmokosOm2007.2andOm2008.9forNeo1973andFreerunner
GooglesAndroidforgphone
JavalinuxmobileplatformJavaFX
IntelsMaemoHildonarchitectureforUMPCUltraMobilePC
LinuxfoundationsMobilinforMIDsMobileInternetDevices
21
LinuxGNOMEmobilearchitecture
Azingomobileframework
MontaVistaLinux
UbuntuMobile
LiPsapplicationarchiteture
Accessshikerapplicationandsomeothersdue
Due to this the market is no so much fragmented that he need of homogenous cross
platformframeworkisrequired.
OpenLab
CommunicatingwithOpenmokosOpenLabinTaiwan
Mokoversity
The mokoversity (http://mokoversity.org/) provides summer internship opportunity
andtheonlyorganizationwhichiscreated,fundedandsponsoredbyOpenmokoInc.for
the involvement of openmoko with academic institutions. They conduct trainings and
workshops on openmoko products and related technologies. We are trying to make
effortstogetbenefitfromtheirresources.
Contractsandgrants
PKR14.99millionfromICTR&DFundfortheprojecttitled:AnIntelligentSecureKernel
forNextGenerationMobileComputingDevices
22
ReconfigurableComputingResearchGroup
Theme
To do research and development of product using this new computing paradigm so as to
adaptthehardwareduringruntimeby"loading"anewcircuitonthereconfigurablefabric
Objectives
Adaptiveimplementationsofcommunicationcodinginreconfigurablehardware
Adaptivesystemsonachip
ReconfigurableArchitectures
NetworksApplications
Applicationdomain
Satellitecommunications
Cryptography
Signalprocessing
Imageandvideoprocessing
Intelligentsensorsandmeasurementsystems
Softwareradio
GroupMembers
NasirMahmood
MS,China
EmbeddedSystemsDesign,
Reconfigurablecomputing
925190852113,
92513215160554,
nasir@niit.edu.pk
Dr.RehanHafiz
PhD,UK
ImageProcessingandDSP
05190852105,03315189556,
mramzan@niit.edu.pk
MuhammadRamzan
MS,Australia
CommunicationandDSP
05190852113,03005260446,
mramzan@niit.edu.pk
ArshadNazir
MS,NUSTPk
Telecommunication
0515590546,03005527590,
arshad.nazir@niit.edu.pk
MuhammadAliAwan
MS,Sweden
ASICandEmbeddedSystem
0966714411,03455127323
23
RawNetworkDataCollectionandClassification
Introduction
Network traffic patterns have changed significantly with the introduction of tripleplay
services,makingtheearliertrafficclassificationsobsolete,hencegivingrisetotheneedfor
reclassificationofnetworkdata.Thisisusefulbothfortheindustry,formakingintelligent
business decisions as well as testing purposes, and for basic networking research for
workloadgenerationinsimulationsandcharacterizationofnetworktrafficpatterns.Huge
amountofdataneedstobecollected,storedandanalyzedfrom variousdeviceswithinthe
networkforthispurpose.Thisisnotrivialtaskastheamountofrawdatapassingthrough
a single edge/core node in todays highspeed networks can easily reach petabytes,
requiring sophisticated procedures for storage and later analysis and classification of the
data.
Objectives
Various techniques will be studied for the offline storage of data in a distributed manner.
Toolswillalsobedevelopedthatcananalyzeandhelpinclassifyingthedata.
Details
Students: AdeelMuhammadMalik
UsamaQayyum
Advisor: Dr.KhurramAziz
CoAdvisor: Dr.KhalidLatif
InternationalCoadvisor:Dr.AbdulWaheed,CiscoSystems,USA
24
NUSTSEECSNetworksResearchGroup
Theme
NUSTSEECSNetworkResearchGroup(NNRG)wasestablishedin1999byDr.S.M.Hassan
Zaidi.NNRGpromoteseducation,researchandoutreachinthefieldofcomputernetworks,
andultrahighspeeddatacommunicationsincludingphotonics/wirelesscommunications.
Objectives
NRG promotes education, research and outreach in the field of ultrahigh speed data
communications. Faculty members and students work in synergy to explore the problems
in the application areas like Passive Optical Networks, Switching in Optical Networks,
Radiooverfiber, Bandwidth Allocation in Passive Optical Networks. Its mission is to
prepare the nextgeneration ofresearchers and developers in theseareas byinvestigating
challenging and highimpact research projects. It aims to represent a complementary mix
ofboththeoreticalandappliedexperimentalresearch.
Applicationdomain
OpticalNetworks
PassiveOpticalNetworks
OpticalBurstSwitchingNetworks
Radiooverfiber
IPv6overfiber
GroupMembers
Dr.SMHZaidi(GroupChair)
Qualification:PhD.,USA
Areaofresearch:Optical
Networking
+92(0)5190852003,
drzaidi@niit.edu.pk
EngrMohammadRamzan
Qualification:MS.Australia
Areaofresearch:Radiooverfiber
+92(0)5190852113,
mramzan@niit.edu.pk
Dr.KhurramAziz
Qualification:PhD.,Austria
Areaofspecialization:
PerformanceEvaluationofFinite
QueueingSystems.
CommunicationNetworks.
+92(0)5190852261,
khurram.aziz@niit.edu.pk
Mr.MoinudDin
Qualification:MS
Areaofresearch:Probabilityand
statisticalmethods
moindin@niit.edu.pk
25
SyedAliHaider
Qualification:MSc.,UK
Areaofresearch:Optical
Networks,WirelessNetworks
+92(0)5190852267,
ali.haider@niit.edu.pk
Ms.SaveraTanvir
Qualification:MS,USA
Areaofresearch:OpticalNetworks
+92(0)5190852183,
savera.tanvir@niit.edu.pk
Publicationsduringperiod200708
Haider Raza, Muhammad Ramzan, S M H Zaidi, SOA based all optical frequency
upconversion enabling multiband service for optical wireless access network,
HONET,Pennang,Nov2008Malaysia.
Savera Tanwir, Lina Battestilli, Harry G. Perros and Gigi KarmousEdwards,

"Dynamic Scheduling of Network Resources with Advanced Reservations in Optical
Grid",ACMJournalofNetworkManagement,2008
Fatima Yousaf, Savera Tanwir, SMH Zaidi, Light Path Provisioning using
Connection Holding Time and Flexible Window, International Conference on
TelecommunicationsandNetworking(TeNe08)
Asim Shafique, Savera Tanwir,Kanwar Saad and S.M.H Zaidi, QoS in Mode0 of
BimodalburstSwitching,HONET2008,Penang,Malaysia
FarazArshad,SarfrazRasheedRamay,SaveraTanwir,LinaBattestilli,S.M.HZaidi,
Advance Reservation and Dynamic Scheduling of Point to Multipoint Lightpaths,
HONET2008,Penang,Malaysia
L.Battestilli,A.Hutanu,G.KarmousEdwards,D.Katz,J.MacLaren,J.Mambretti,H.
Moore, SJ Park, H. Perros, S. Sundar, S. Tanwir, S. Thorpe, and Y. Xin, EnLIGHTened
Computing: An architecture for coallocating network, compute, and other grid
resourcesforhighendapplications,HONET2007,Dubai.
Waqas Ayub, M Ramzan, Syed Ali Haider, Syed Zaidi, RadioOverFiber (RoF)
architecture integrating broadband wireline and wireless services, HONET, Malaysia,
1820November2008
Faaiz Hussain, Ali Haider, MoinudDin, S. M. Hassan Zaidi, Effecctive contention

resolution scheme to achieve minimum burst loss in OBS Network, 4th International
Symposium on High Capacity Optical Networks and Enabling Technologies (HONET),
Dubai,1820November2007
Muhammad Kamran, Dr. S. M. H. Zaidi, Muhammad Ramzan ,Dynamic Bandwidth

Allocation Algorithms in TDM Ethernet Passive Optical Networks:A Review, ICOCN
2007,Islamabad
26
Mansoor Gul Toor, Dr S.M.H Zaidi, Kamran Hussain Zaidi, Dynamic Bandwidth
Allocation in WDM Ethernet Passive Optical Networks: A Review, ICOCN 2007,
Islamabad
Ammar Rafiq, Muhammad Ramzan, S. M. H. Zaidi, Comparative Analysis of scheduling

frameworksforefficientwavelengthutilizationinWDMEPON,ICEE2007,UETLahore
Organizationofconferencesandworkshopsin200708
NationalConferencesandWorkshops
OneDayWorkshoponNanophotonicsanditsApplicationsinHighSpeed
Networks,05June2008,SEECS
InternationalConferencesandWorkshops
InternationalSymposiumonHighCapacityOpticalNetworksandEnabling
Technologies(HONET08),1820Nov2008,Penang,Malaysia
CoorganizedbyNUSTSEECSandUNCC
Labsassociatedwithyourresearchgroup
PTCL/NUST/CISCOResearchLab
Researchprojects
CurrentProjects
A.) DYNAMICBANDWIDTHALLOCATIONALGORITHMINTDMPASSIVEOPTICALNETWORKS
Introduction: Ethernet passive optical networks (EPON) are an emerging access

network technology that provides a lowcost method of deploying optical access
linesbetweenacarrierscentraloffice(CO)andacustomersite.InTDMEPONthere
is a single channel shared by all the users using TDM approach. Downstream: The
traffic is broadcasted to all the ONUs over the shared wavelength channel.
Upstream: The common wavelength channel is shared among ONUs by time slot
allocation.
27
Objectives:
InthisprojectweproposetoenhancetheQoSbasedbandwidthallocationalgorithm
(NonLinearPredictorbasedDynamicBandwidthAllocation)tosolvethelastmile
accessbottleneckforPassiveOpticalNetworks
Details:
Student:UsmanKhalidMufti
Advisor:Mr.AliHaider
CoAdvisor:Dr.S.M.H.Zaidi
InternationalCoadvisor:Dr.YasinARaja,UNCC,USA
B.) QOSINBIMODALBURSTSWITCHING
Introduction
OBSisaswitchingtechnique.ItisbetweenOPS&OCS.Inthiscontrolplaneanddata
planeareseprate.Controlpacketisprocessedinelectricaldomainwhereasdata
bursttravelsalloptically.InnovativeOBSbasedschedulingalgorithmhavingzero
burstlossandlowoverheadisBimodalBurstSwitching(BBS).BBShastwomodes
Mode0(fortheedgenodehavingsmalldistancefromthecore).
Mode1.(fortheedgenodehavinglargedistancefromthecore)
28
Objectives:
ToimplementQoSinBBS
Details:
Students:TalhaImranandM.UsmanAfzal
Advisor:SaveraTanwir
CoAdvisor:DrS.M.HZaidi
InternationalCoAdvisor:Dr.HarryPerros,NorthCarolinaStateUniversity,USA
C.) WIRELESSOPTICALBROADBANDACCESSNETWORK(WOBAN)
Introduction:
Quadplay, bandwidth intensive applications and entertainment are demanding
for more sophisticated, resilient, power efficient as well as high data rate
networks at lower costs. Hybrid Fiber Radio (HFR) networks are potential
solutions to the current requirements. Wireless Optical Broadband Network
(WOBAN) is one such HFR architecture with high capacity fiber backhaul and
wireless mesh at frontend to provide mobility with higher data rates. WOBAN
hasitsrootsinNetworkingAspectsofwirelessopticalconvergednetwork.
29
Objectives:
ProposeandsimulateanimprovedarchitectureofWOBANalongwithmoreefficient
algorithmforwirelessroutinginWOBAN
Details:
Student:MuhammadArshad
Advisor:Dr.SMHZaidi
CoAdvisor:MissSaverTanwir
InternationalCoadvisor:DrBiswanathMukherjee,UCDavis,USA
E.) RESILIENCYINWOBAN
Introduction:
Hybrid Wireless Optical Broadband Access Network (WOBAN) is an integration of
wireless and optical networks. The Optical Network(PON) provides the high
bandwidthwhereastheWirelessNetworkprovidestheenduserwithmobilityand
flexibility. The head end of PON is connected to the Control Station while the tail
end is terminated at wireless gateway routers. The wireless part of WOBAN is a
mesh of routers which provide connectivity to the end user through multiple hops.
The objective of providing Resiliency to WOBAN is to provide the end user the
degraded service instead of no service because WOBAN can experience multiple
failuresduetoitshybridarchitecture.
30
Objectives:
ToimprovetheperformanceofWOBANarchitecturebymakingitresilientagainst
networkfailure.
Thefailurescenariosmaybegatewayfailure,ONUfailure,and/orOLTfailure.
Details:
Student:AqeelAhmadQureshi
Advisor:Dr.S.M.H.Zaidi
CoAdvisor:Mr.MuhammadRamzan
F.) DYNAMICOPTICALCIRCUITSWITCHING
Introduction:
Because of bandwidthhungry applications our networks particularly longhaul,
Telecom, Backbone mesh networks require high capacity and novel switching
methods.
As compared to OPS and OBS, DOCS architecture supports setting up large
bandwidthpipesondemand,fastreconfigurability,andstrictserviceguaranteesto
allowthesetypeofbandwidthrequests.
DOCS architecture employs small and cheap dynamic circuit switches that require
no perpacket processing or buffering, require about 90% less hardware, much
higherswitchingcapacity,andcostaboutfourtimeslessthan anequivalentpacket
switch.
31
Objectives:
Improve or propose a new algorithm for efficient resource utilization of optical
networksusingdynamicopticalcircuitswitching.
Details:
Student:AliMunir
Advisor:Dr.S.M.HassanZaidi
CoAdvisor:MsSaveraTanwir
G.) PERFORMANCEEVALUATIONOFFLOWTRANSFERMODE
Introduction:
Allpacket networks are more suited to data transfers where variable delay, jitter
andoutoforderpacketarrivalcanbetolerated.Increasingpeertopeermultimedia
traffic however, has different needs that cannot be fully satisfied by packetized
communication. Optical burst switching was a step in that direction, as it created
endtoend flows with constant delay. At the same time, tunneling bypassing
techniques like MPLS emerged that reduced the packet processing at intermediate
nodes.Abetterwaytousetunnelbypassisbyusingswitchedtransmissionsystems
like SDH/SONET, OTN and WDM. Flow Transfer Mode (FTM) is a generalization of
OBS whereby circuit, burst and packetswitching can be realized by one single
universal method. They form flows of different lengths in time and are created by
onesinglecontrolunittransmittedinadvance.Schedulingcontroloccursatlayer2
or 3 in order to initialize data flows, while actual flow transfer happens at layer 1.
32
Flows can be ultrashort in case of a single packet, or ultralong for packetized or
plainpayloadtransmissionofawholevideosession.
Objectives:
ThisprojectaimstoevaluatetheperformanceofFTMandcompareitwithOBSand
packetized data transmission for various types of data flows, using various
analyticalmodelsaswellassimulation.
Details:
Student:MuhammadImran
Advisor:Dr.KhurramAziz
CoAdvisor:Dr.S.M.H.Zaidi
InternationalCoadvisor:Dr.HarmenR.vanAs,ViennaUniversityofTechnology,
Austria
PastProjects
NUSTSurvivableEthernetPassiveOpticalNetwork(EPON)basedOptical
AccessNetworkwithTriplePlaySupport
InternationalCoAdvisor:Dr.YasinARaja,UniversityofNorthCarolina,USA
MSThesis
DynamicBandwidthManagementforhybridTDM/WDMEPONs
MSThesis
PerformanceAnalysisofOpticalBurstSwitching(OBS)Networks
InternationalCoAdvisor:Dr.HarryGPerros,NorthCarolinaStateUniversity,
USA
UGThesis
FULLDUPLEXWDMCOMPATIBLERADIOOVERFIBERSYSTEM
ARCHITECTURE
MSThesis
33
TimeQuantumbasedOnlineScheduler(TQOS)
InternationalCoAdvisor:Dr.NasirGhani,MaxicoStateUniversity,Mexico
MSThesis
NationalCollaboration
CurrentProjects
PastProjects
Partiallyonlinedynamicbandwidthallocation(DBA)algorithmforHybrid
TDM/WDMEPON
WavelengthAssignmentUsingClosestWavelengthTuning
DynamicRoutingthroughSpontaneousResourceReservation
MinimizingtheEffectofimprecisenetworkstateinformationthroughthe
reductioninCommunicationandStorageOverheads
MitigatingeffectsofDenialofService(DoS)AttacksonECommerceSitesand
Networks
TCPSYNFloodSensorforInternetBackbone
EnterpriseApplicationSecurityFramework
DesignandImplementationofSecuritymechanismforNUSTIntranet
PerformanceEvaluationandEnhancementofMobileAdhocRoutingProtocols
PerformanceEvaluationofTCPinMobileAdhocNetworks
BandwidthconstrainedQoSroutingwithmobilitymanagementinadhoc
networks
NetworkTrafficGenerator
DesignandImplementationofIntranetforNUSTanditsconstituentcolleges
AutomationofNetworkLabs
BuildingandPerformanceEvaluationofanMPLSDomain
ImplementationandAnalysisofAmelioratedCellsinFramesArchitecture
MitigatingDenialofServiceAttacksusingDynamicIngressFilteringMechanism
RoutingandWavelengthAssignmentalgorithmsinIPoverDWDMNetworks
IndustrialLinkages
NayatelPvt.Limited
MCNC,NorthCarolina,USA
34
NanotechnologyResearchGroup
Theme
Toovercomethenationalneedsandinitiaterealresearchintheemergingtechnology
Objectives
The main objective of this Research Group is to carry out intensive research in the
followingareas
Synthesisandcharacterizationofnanostructuresandthinfilmsbyutilizingsimpleand
environmentallyfriendlytechniques.
Synthesisofnanoparticlesandthinfilmswhichwillbecapabletopurifywater
andenvironmentuponirradiationwithvisiblelight.
Explorationofphysicalpropertiesofnanoparticlesandtheirapplicationstonovel
electronicandphotonicdevicestechnology
ApplicationDomain
WaterPurification
SolarCellDevelopment
ElectronicDevices
GroupMembers
Mr.RuhUllah
MS(Microelectronic/
nanotechnology),Thailand
MSc(Physics)Pakistan
Synthesis and applications on
nanoparticles
ruhullah@niit.edu.pk
Dr.N.D.Gohar
PhDelectricalEngineering
VLSI(CAD)
ndgohar@niit.edu.pk
Mr.AbrarMohammadButt
MS (Material Science) TU Delft
Holland
PhysicsandChemistryofMaterials
abrar@niit.edu.pk
Ms.ShamaRehman
M.Phil(Physics)QAUPakistan
SynthesisofNanomaterials
shama.rehman@niit.edu.pk
Publication
Ruh Ullah, Joydeep Dutta, Photodegradation of Organic Dyes With Manganese Doped
ZnO Nanoparticles Journal of Hazardous Materials, 156 (2008)194200 [Impact
Factor:2.337JCR2007
Ruh Ullah and Dr. Joydeep Dutta, Photocatalytic activities of ZnO nanoparticles
synthesizedbywetchemicaltechniques,ProceedingsofIEE,InternationalConference
on Emerging Technologies Peshawar, November 2006 (ICET 2006 Peshawar), Page
353358.
35
Ruh Ullah, and Joydeep Dutta, Photocatalysis with Mndoped ZnO nanoparticles
(Presentedatnano2006internationalConference,Bangalore,India
Ruh Ullah and Joydeep Dutta Synthesis and Optical Properties of Transition Metal
Doped ZnO Nanoparticles Proceedings of IEE, International Conference on Emerging
TechnologiesIslamabadNovember2007(ICET2007Islamabad),Page305311
Ruh Ullah, Sunandan Baruah, Faizur Rafique Rahman, and Joydeep Dutta "ZnO
nanoparticles and Nanowires semiconductor doping, a way towards visible light
photocatalysis", ISNEPP 2007, International Symposium on Nanotechnology in
Environmental Protection and Pollution, 1113 December 2007, The Bahia Mar Beach
Resort and Yachting Hotel, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, (Asia Pacific Nanotechnology
Forum)
A. M. Butt, Ruh Ullah, N. D. Gohar, and S. Rehman Mechanisms Influencing Photo
InducedReactivityinTitaniumDioxide",manuscriptinsubmission
S. Rehman, Ruh Ullah, N. D. Gohar, and A. M. Butt, Advancements in Visible Light
Photocatalysis",manuscriptinsubmissiontoAppliedCatalysis(B)Environmental.
AssociatedLabs
ElectronicsLab
NanoTechnologiesLab
QuideAzamUniversityIslamabad
PeshawaruniversityPeshawar
GhulamIshaqKhanInstituteofEngineeringSciencesandTechnologyTopy
PakistanCouncilofResearchinWaterResourcesIslamabad
ResearchProjects
CurrentProjects
a)DesignandDevelopmentofWaterPurificationTechnologiesusing
Nanotechnology
Introduction
Nanotech waterpurification technologies include photocatalytic materials, where
water passing through a nanomaterial is also subjected to ultraviolet light, leading
tothedestructionofcontaminantssuchaspesticides,industrialsolventsandgerms.
Since Fujishima & Honda obtained H2 by decomposition of H2O using TiO2 as a
photocatalyst in the 1970s, the techniques has attracted substantial attention as a
potential process for photoelectrochemical energy production and photocatalytic
removal of various organic and inorganic venoms from air and water. The basic
principle of semiconductor photocatalysis involves the migration of photo
generated electrons and holes to exposed surfaces where they can react with
adsorbed reactants (O2 and H2O) as redox sources, leading to the production of
high oxidant reagent (Hydroxyl radical and supperoxide ) and subsequently the
decomposition of pollutants. Photocatalysis can be extended by using various
techniquesthatenableceramic/othermembranestophotoplateheavymetalsonto
a counter electrode making this process favorable for remediating mixed waste
36
streams, naturally polluted water. Compared with other water purification
technologies, photocatalysis has excellent capability of removal of volatile organic
compounds and inorganic compounds, chemical stability, is not toxic, and is
applicable in air and environment purification as well. In recent years, researchers
and engineers have paid special attention to nanosized ZnO/TiO2, using as a
photocatalystwhichhasseveraladvantagescomparedtothebulkmaterial.
Members
Mr.RuhUllah(PI)
Dr.N.D.Gohar(CoPI)
Ms.ShamaRehman
ProblemStatement
Photocatalysisviametaloxidesemiconductor(suchasTiO2andZnO)and
UV/visiblelighthasbeenusedforlasttwodecadesaspurificationtool.Self
cleaning through super hydrophilicity and decomposition of volatile organic
compoundsintocarbondioxide,waterandmineralsaltareitstwoprecious
practical applications. This research will based upon the decomposition of
volatile organic compounds and inorganic compounds along with bacteria
killingviaphotocatalytictechniquesfromdrinkingwaterusingvisiblelightas
energysource.Uptillnowphotocatalysistechniqueshavebeencommercialized(e.g.
Self cleaning window glass, in/outdoor environment purification etc...) that make
useTiO2nanoparticlescoatedonsurfacesandirradiatedwithUVlight.Solar
spectrum on the earth surface has only 5% to 7% of the UV light while the
remaining spectrum has 46% of visible light and 47% infrared radiation. This
smalleramountofUVlightinthesolarspectrumhas lessenedthepractical
utilization of photocatalysis for purification of water and environment. We will
develop a techniques with which semiconductor photocatalyst be able to
generateelectronholepairuponexposingonlyto visiblelightandcan
subsequentlydecomposevolatile organiccompoundsandmightalsobecapableto
destroybacteriafromdirkingwater.
ProgressandResult
The project has been successfully approved for funding worth Rupees 7.294 M by
MinistryofScienceandTechnologyPakistan.Intellectualworkiscontinuesincethe
date of submission, while experimental work has been recently started at
InstituteofEnvironmentalScienceandEngineering(IESE)NUST.
FutureDirections
The project may be extended for bacteria disinfection and solar cell
development.
GrantsObtained
FundingworthRupees7.294MfromMinistryofScienceandTechnologyPakistan.
37
Wireless,Internet&SecurityResearch(WISNET)
Researchgroupname
Wireless,Internet&SecurityResearch(WISNET)Group
Researchgrouptheme
Wireless,Internet&SecurityResearch(WISNET)Labwasestablishedin2007byDr.Syed
Ali Khayam. The key intent behind the conception of this research group was to produce
internationalquality research work on cuttingedge problems. We have been working in
the areas of Wireless Networks, Multimedia Communications, Network and Information
Security,andNetworkPerformanceAnalysis.
Objectives
Toresearchcuttingedgeproblemsinthreemainfocusareas:1)wirelessnetworks;2)
Internetworking;and3)Informationandnetworksecurity.
Totrainandproducehighqualitygraduateandundergraduatestudentswithexpertise
intheabovefocusareas.
Toworkincollaborationwithindustryonstateoftheartpracticalproblems.
Applicationdomain
WirelessandWiredNetworks
IntrusionDetection
MultimediaCommunications
InformationSecurity
GroupMembers
o Dr.SyedAliKhayam
Ph.D.ElectricalEngineering,Michigan
StateUniversity,USA
Wireless Networks, Network Security,
Performance Evaluation of Network
Architectures and Protocols, Analytical
Modeling of Complex Networking
Phenomena
khayam@niit.edu.pk
o AliSajjad
MSComputerEngineering
KyungHeeUniversity,SouthKorea
ali.sajjad@niit.edu.pk
o Dr.FauzanMirza
Ph.D.InformationSecurity,Royal
Holloway,UniversityofLondon,UK
Cryptology,especiallyDesignandCrypt
Analysis of Symmetric Key Ciphers,
Malicious Software Analysis, Software
Copy Protection and Digital
Watermarking, Network Security,
DigitalForensicsandInvestigation
fauzan@niit.edu.pk
o AdnanIqbal
Ph.D.student
Wirelesschannelmodeling,Biterror
rateestimation,ReliabilityonMAC
layer
adnan@niit.edu.pk
38
o HassaanKhaliq
Ph.Dstudent
Wirelesschannelmodeling&
Hierarchicalclusteringalgorithmsin
wirelessSensornetworks
hassaan.qureshi.1@city.ac.uk
o AyeshaBinteAshfaq
Ph.Dstudent
NetworkbasedAnomalyDetection
ayesha.binte.ashfaq@gmail.com
o JunaidJameelAhmed
MSstudent
Wirelessmultimedia,WirelessSensor
networks&WirelessChannelModeling
junaidfcs@yahoo.com
o M.QasimAli
MSstudent
mohdqasimali@gmail.com
o SyedFidaHussainGillani
MSstudent
Internetpaths
fida.hussain@niit.edu.pk
o SyedMasoodAli
MSstudent
InternetBandwidthChangeDetection
&OptimizationofStreaming
Applications
jeogilani@gmail.com
o MariaJosephRobert
ResearchAssistant
mariajr165@yahoo.com
o SajjadRizvi
ResearchAssistant
sajjad.rizvi5@gmail.com
o YousraJaved
ResearchAssistant
WebbasedMalwareDetection
yusra_jav@yahoo.com
o MobinJaved
ResearchAssistant
InformationHiding
mubeen_javed@yahoo.com
SyedAliKhayamandHayderRadha,"MaximumLikelihoodHeaderEstimation:ACross
Layer Methodology for Wireless Multimedia," IEEE Transactions on Wireless
Communications,vol.6,no.11,pp.39463954,November2007
Syed Ali Khayam, Hayder Radha, Selin Aviyente, and John R. Deller, Jr., "Markov and
MultifractalWaveletModelsforWirelessMACtoMACChannels,"ElsevierPerformance
Evaluation,vol.64,no.4,pp.298314,May2007.
Syed Ali Khayam, Shirish Karande, Muhammad Usman Ilyas, and Hayder Radha,
"Header Detection to Improve Multimedia Quality over Wireless Networks," IEEE
TransactionsonMultimedia,vol.9,no.2,pp.377385,February2007.
39
Ayesha Binte Ashfaq, Maria Joseph Robert, Asma Mumtaz, Muhammad Qasim Ali, Ali
Sajjad, and Syed Ali Khayam, "A Comparative Analysis of Anomaly Detectors under
PortscanAttacks,"RecentAdvancesinIntrusionDetection(RAID),September2008.
Muhammad Saleem , Syed Ali Khayam, and Mudassar Farooq, "Formal Modeling of
BeeAdhoc: A BioInspired Mobile Ad Hoc Network Routing Protocol,"International
Conference on Ant Colony Optimization and Swarm Intelligence (ANTS) , September
2008.
M. Zubair Shafiq , Syed Ali Khayam, and Mudassar Farooq, "Embedded Malware
DetectionusingMarkov ngrams,"ConferenceonDetectionofIntrusionsandMalware&
VulnerabilityAssessment(DIMVA),July2008.
Muhammad Saleem , Syed Ali Khayam, and Mudassar Farooq, "A Formal Performance
Modeling Framework for Bioinspired Ad Hoc Routing Protocols,"ACM Genetic and
EvolutionaryComputingConference(GECCO),July2008.
M. Zubair Shafiq, Syed Ali Khayam, and Mudassar Farooq, "Improving Accuracy of
ImmuneInspired Malware Detectors using Intelligent Features,"ACM Genetic and
EvolutionaryComputingConference(GECCO),July2008.
Adnan Iqbal and Syed Ali Khayam, "Improving WSN Simulation and Analysis Accuracy
Using TwoTier Channel Models,"IEEE International Conference on Communications
(ICC),May2008.
Adnan Iqbal, M. Khurram Shahzad, and Syed Ali Khayam, "SRVF: An EnergyEfficient
Link Layer Protocol for Reliable Transmission over Wireless Sensor Networks," IEEE
InternationalConferenceonCommunications(ICC),May2008.
Sohraab Soltani, Syed Ali Khayam, and Hayder Radha, "Detecting Malware Outbreaks
using a Statistical Model of Blackhole Traffic,"IEEE International Conference on
Communications(ICC),May2008.
Syed Ali Khayam, Hayder Radha, and Dmitri Loguinov, "Worm Detection at Network
Endpoints using InformationTheoretic Traffic Perturbations,"IEEE International
ConferenceonCommunications(ICC),May2008.
Waqas Bukhari and Syed Ali Khayam, "Equitable MAC Layer Performance Comparison
of Cooperative Diversity Protocols for Wireless Networks,"IEEE Sarnoff Symposium,
April2008.
M. Zubair Shafiq, Mudassar Farooq, and Syed Ali Khayam, "A Comparative Study of
Fuzzy Inference Systems, Neural Networks and Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference
Systems for Portscan Detection,"European Workshop on the Application of Nature
inspired Techniques to Telecommunication Networks and other Connected Systems
(EvoCOMNET),March2008.
40
Syed Ali Khayam and Hayder Radha, "Comparison of Multimedia Transport Schemes
over Markovian Wireless Channels," Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and
Computers,November2007.
Syed Ali Khayam and Hayder Radha, "Using SessionKeystroke Mutual Information to
Detect SelfPropagating Malicious Codes," IEEE International Conference on
Communications(ICC),June2007.
Syed Ali Khayam and Hayder Radha, "On the Impact of Ignoring Markovian Channel
Memory on the Analysis of Wireless Systems," IEEE International Conference on
Communications(ICC),June2007.
Shirish Karande, Syed Ali Khayam, Yongju Cho, Kiran Misra, Hayder Radha, JaeGon
Kim, and JinWoo Hong, "On Channel State Inference and Prediction using Observable
Variables in 802.11b Networks," IEEE International Conference on Communications
(ICC),June2007.
Yongju Cho, Syed Ali Khayam, and Hayder Radha, "A MultiTier Model for BER
Prediction over Wireless Residual Channels," International Conference on Information
SciencesandSystems(CISS),March2007.
AssociatedLabs
WAVESLabatMichiganStateUniversity,EastLansing,USA
InternetLabatAJOUUniversity,SuwonSouthKorea
InformationSecurityResearchGroup(ISRG)atNUSTSEECS
CenterforAppliedNetworkResearch(CANR)atNUSTSEECS
CenterforHighPerformanceScientificComputing(CHSPC)atNUSTSEECS
NextGenerationIntelligentNetworksResearchCenter,Pakistan
Researchprojects
Currentprojects
a.) HYBRIDANDADAPTIVEERRORRECOVERYPROTOCOLFORIP
MULTIMEDIASTREAMING
ProjectfundedbyNokiaResearch,China.
Introduction
Under this project, we are developing an adaptive protocol for a generic IP video
streamingapplicationthatiscrossingheterogeneouswired/wirelesssegments.Under
such heterogeneous setting, it is anticipated that (virtually) each (or a majority of)
received packet(s) will suffer from a certain degree of bitlevel errors. We refer to
these bitlevel errors as the error process of the IP video streaming application.
41
Handling the erroneous IP video packets that are corrupted by a timevarying error
process using an adaptive protocol is a focal objective of the proposed project. A
hybrid of two competing approaches, namely retransmissions and forward error
correction (FEC), will be considered in support of the adaptive protocol. One or a
hybridofthesetwoapproacheswillbeselectedbytheadaptiveprotocolinresponse
to the underlying error process. The proposed protocol will act as a transport
mechanismanddecisionlogicfortheRTPlayer.Thetransportmechanismwillensure
timelydeliverybychoosingtheappropriateerrorrecoverystrategybasedoninferred
error behavior, RTPs RTT (Round Trip Time) estimates, and application QoS
requirements. The proposed protocol will adaptively choose appropriate parameters
for the two error recovery schemes using error behavior (rate, burstiness, etc.,) and
QoSconstraints(latency,datarate,bandwidth,etc.)
Members
Dr.SyedAliKhayam
Dr.ArshadAli
HassanAqeel
AdnanIqbal
JunaidJameelAhmed
MaryamHafeez
ProblemStatement
Todevelopandevaluatearobust,errorresilientadaptiveprotocolformultimedia
streaming
Motivation
After the unprecedented success of IP networks, most emerging access and edge
networks are migrating to an IPbased protocol stack irrespective of the underlying
physical media. Moreover, integrated voice, video and data services on a unified IP
based platform are being supported in emerging networks. Support for multiple
services on different physical media places complex requirements on the design of
multimedia applications with stringent QoS constraints. To simultaneously cater for
contentandmediumheterogeneityonemergingIPnetworks,weneedadaptiveerror
recoveryandrepairscemesthatcanseamlesslydetectandadapttodifferentphysical
mediaandapplicationQoS.
Progress
Wehavecollectedresidualbiterrortracesof802.15.4and802.11networks.These
tracesarepubliclyavailableatCRAWDADwebsite.PreliminaryAnalysisofdataishas
beencarriedoutandstatisticalmodelsarederivedusingthisanalysis.Thesemodels
arealsomappedtoalgorithmdesignandadaptivecodingtechniquesarebeing
formulated.
42
Results
TheproposedschemeofBERestimationunderthisprojectisprovedtobebetterthan
anyexitingschemesandtheseresultsaresummarizedintheTableI.
FutureDirections
Weaimtoevaluatetheproposedprotocolonalargesetoftraffictraces.
b.) ENERGYEFFICIENTVIDEOCOMPRESSIONFORWIRELESSSENSOR
NETWORKS
ProjectfundedbyNokiaResearch,China.
Introduction
Wireless video sensor networks are anticipated to be deployed for monitoring of
remote geographical areas. In order to save energy during bit
transmissions/receptions over a video sensor network, the captured video content
needs to be encoded before being transmitted to the base station. However, video
encodingisaninherentlycomplexoperationthatcancauseamajorenergydrainat
energyconstrained sensors. Thus a systematic evaluation of different video
encoding options is required to enable a designer to choose the most energy
efficientcompressiontechniqueforagivenvideosensingapplicationscenario.
Members
SyedAliKhayam
HassanAqeelKhan
JunaidJameelAhmad
ProblemStatement
Under this project, we are designing video compression algorithms for wireless
sensornetworksthatcanbeusedtomonitorinaccessiblegeographicregions.While
TABLEI:BERESTIMATIONERRORAVERAGEDOVERATLEAST5TRACESPERSETUP,
EACHTRACECONTAINED1MILLIONPACKETS
Scheme Setup1 Setup2 Setup3
PartialFEC 0.0001 0.0007 0.0005
TraditionalFEC 0.0173 0.0513 0.0363
SNR 0.0091 0.025 0.014
RedundantData 0.254 0.242 0.251
Pilot
Interleaved
0.013 0.0186 0.167
43
energyefficiency is a fundamental constraint for any wireless sensor network, it
becomesmorecriticalinthevideosensingapplicationsbecauseofthenatureofthe
captured content (video) and the harsh natural conditions that are generally
observedinadisasterstruckarea.Videoprocessingisinherentlycomputationand
bandwidthintensive and therefore consumes a significant portion of the sensors,
limited, energy resources due to excessive computations and bit transmission. We
aredevelopinglowcomplexityandbandwidthefficientvideoprocessingandcoding
algorithms that can be deployed on sensor motes without consuming significant
computational or transmission energy. These algorithms should also be able to
adaptto the different weather conditions. All the algorithms proposed inthiswork
will be deployed on a wireless sensor network testbed and will be tested under
realisticphysicalconditions.
Motivation
Due to limited energy resources at sensor motes, the most fundamental constraint
onanyWSNapplicationorprotocolisenergyefficiency.Twomainsourcesofenergy
drain in a sensor mote are local computations and bit transmissions/receptions.
Video transmission incurs both types of energy depletion as video content is
bandwidthintensive (requiring significant bit transmissions/receptions) and video
compression is an inherently complex operation (requiring significant local
computations). In this context, video communication over WSNs presents an
interestingcomplexitycompressiontradeoff.Ontheonehand,invideosensorsthe
idea of performing a high degree of compression to reduce the number of bit
transmissions/receptions seems appealing. On the other hand, use of a complex
compressiontechniquewillresultinaconsiderableincreaseinthenumberoflocal
computations at the sensor. A systematic comparison/investigation of the
computational/transmission energy depletion of these different video coding
alternatives on actual sensors motes is required to study the complexity
compressiontradeoffforwirelesssensornetworks.
Progress
Inthisproject,wehaveevaluatedtheenergyconsumptionsofthreevideocoding
alternativesforwirelesssensornetworks.Thesethreevideocodingalternatives
include:
1) ChangeDetectedPredictiveVideoCoding(PVC)
2) PredictiveVideoCodingwithoutChangeDetection
3) DistributedVideoCoding(DVC).
For all of these three video coding paradigms, we separately evaluated the energy
consumptionsforboththevideoencodingcomputationsandvideotransmission.All
evaluation is performed over the Stargate sensor platform mounted with TelosB,
MICA and MICAz transceivers. Furthermore, based on our evaluation, we have
identified the main energy consuming blocks in the encoding schemes of PVC and
DVCparadigmsandproposedenergysavingmodificationstotheseblocks.Wehave
44
shownthatbyemployingtheproposedmodifications,significantenergysavingscan
be realized for the encoding schemes of both PVC and DVC paradigms. In addition,
for all the video encoding configurations evaluated in this project, our results
revealedthecounterintuitiveandimportantfindingthatthemajorsourceofenergy
draininWSNsislocalcomputationsperformedforvideocompressionandnotvideo
transmission. The findings of this work are submitted for publications in the form
followingpapers:
Junaid Jameel Ahmad, Hassan Aqeel Khan, and Syed Ali Khayam, "Energy
Efficient Video Compression for Wireless Sensor Networks, submitted to
the43
rd
IEEEConferenceonInformationSciencesandSystems(CISS),2009
Junaid Jameel Ahmad, Hassan Aqeel Khan, and Syed Ali Khayam,
Performance Evaluation of Compression Schemes for Wireless Video
SensorNetworkssubmittedtotheElsevierPerformanceEvaluationJournal
(PEVA),2009
Results
Throughout this project, we presented our results keeping the following questions
in mind: 1) Which video encoding options (inter/intra/DVC video coding
with/withoutchangedetection)providebetterenergyefficiency?
2) How much energy efficiency is provided by these different video encoding
options?
3)Whatistheimpactofdifferentvideocharacteristics(mobility,frequencycontent)
onenergyefficiency?
4)Doeschangedetectionhelpinimprovingenergyefficiency?
5) In what proportion do changedetection, local computations for encoding, and
bitstransmissionscontributetotheoverallenergydepletionatthesensors?
EnergyEfficiencyofPredicativeVideoCoding
The energy consumptions of changedetected and non changedetected Predictive Video
Codingareevaluatedin
Figure 1. Note that, for both of these changedetected and non changedetection
cases,intercodingalwaysconsumehigheramountsofenergythanintracoding.We
can also observe that, for both inter and intra coding of video sequences without
priorchangedetectionconsumeslessenergyascomparedtochangedetectionPVC.
Furthermore, we proposed to use MJPEG2K based intra coding than H.264 based
intra coding. From Figure 2, we can clearly see that, MJPEG2K based intra coding
achievessignificantenergysavingsincomparisontoH.264intracoding.
45
780.000
790.000
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870.000
880.000
Mobile Carphone Foreman
E
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(
m
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Bayesian LCDA Non CD
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(
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Bayesian LCDA Non CD
(a)Interencoding (b)Intraencoding
Figure1:Totalenergydepletionofchangedetectionandnonchange
detected(CD)predictivevideocoding
0.000
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80.000
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H.264 Intra
MJ PEG2K Intra
Figure2:DistributionofenergiesforMJPEG2Kintracoding
Figure 3 displays the proportion in which encoding computations and bit
transmissions contribute to the overall energy depletion for MJPEG2K based
intracoding.Wecanseeherethatagain,onaverage,thecomputationalenergy
depletion constitutes the major portion (72.85%) of the total energy
consumptionascomparedtothebittransmissionenergy(27.15%),andisthus
the dominating factor in determining the overall energy consumption in a
videosensornetwork.
46
72.85%
27.15%
Computations Transmissions
Figure3:DistributionofenergiesforMJPEG2Kintracoding.
EnergyEfficiencyofDistributedVideoCoding
FortheDVCparadigm,ourevaluationresultsshowthatthePRISMencoderdepletes
more energy than the WynerZiv encoder. Next, we also proposed complexity
reducingmodificationstobothoftheseDVCencoders.Figure4(a)and(b)showthe
totalenergydepletionsofourmodifiedversionsofPRISMandWynerZivencoders
against the original PRISM and WynerZiv encoders, respectively. From both of
these plots, we can see that the proposed modifications significantly reduce the
overallenergydepletion.
0.000
10.000
20.000
30.000
40.000
50.000
60.000
70.000
80.000
E
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(
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)
PRI SM
PRI SM*
0.000
5.000
10.000
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45.000
GOP =2 GOP =4 GOP =8 GOP =2 GOP =4 GOP =8
Key FramesasH.264 I ntra Key FramesasMJPEG2K I ntra
E
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Y

(
m
J
)
Mobile
Carphone
Foreman
(a)PRISMcodingvsPRISM*coding. (b)H.264basedWynerZivcodingvsMJPEG2K
basedWynerZivcoding
Figure4:TotalenergydepletionsofOriginalandImprovedDVCencoders.
Figure 5 (a) and (b) show the energy depletion proportions for PRISM*,
MJPEG2KbasedWynerZivencodersrespectively(GOP=2).Itisquiteobvious
that DVC encoders also tend to follow the same trend in terms of energy
depletion i.e. most of the energy depletion results due to encoding
computations,thecontributionfrombittransmissionsisminorincomparison.
47
89.98%
10.02%
75.02%
24.98%
(a)PRISM*
(b)MJPEG2KbasedWynerZivcodingwith
GOP2
Figure5:DistributionofenergiesforImprovedDVC
FutureDirections
In future, we will be working to deploy our wireless sensor network testbed in
different types of environment and will enhance it to detect and adapt to its
surroundings. In particular, the algorithms should operate under different weather
(sunshine,rain,snowetc.)andlightingconditions
i. NationalCollaboration
1. Currentprojects
A.) DESIGN&DEVELOPMENTOFANOPENSOURCEENTERPRISENETWORK
SECURITYSOLUTION
ProjectfundedbyPakistanNationalICTR&DFund.
Introduction
SincetheCodeRedwormof2001,malwareattackshaveemergedasoneofthemost
prevalentandpotentthreatstonetworkandhostsecurity(From2006to2007,the
totalnumberofmaliciouscodeattacksreportedbySymantecshowedaphenomenal
increase of 468%). Many networkbased anomaly detection systems (ADSs) have
been proposed in the past few years to detect novel network attacks. Since
malicious portscans are the vehicle used by malware and other automated tools to
locate and compromise vulnerable hosts, some of these anomaly detectors are
designedspecificallyforportscandetection,whileotherdetectorsaremoregeneral
purpose and detect any anomalous traffic trend. Most of the networkbased
anomaly detectors model and leverage deeprooted statistical properties of benign
traffic to detect anomalous behavior. A variety of theoretical frameworks including
48
stochastic, machine learning, informationtheoretic and signal processing
frameworkshave been used to develop robust models of normal behavior and/or
to detect/flag deviations from that model. However, very little effort has been
expended into comparative evaluation of these recent ADSs for the portscan
detectionproblem.
Such a comparative evaluation would enable us to identify the strengths and

weaknesses in the current security solutions and would assist us in the
developmentofarobustsystemthatcanprovidehighdetection ratesaccompanied
bylowfalsealarms.
Members
Dr.SyedAliKhayam
Mr.AliSajjad
AyeshaBinteAshfaq
MariaJosephRobert
AsmaMumtaz
MuhammadQasimAli
ProblemStatement
To perform a comprehensive comparative performance evaluation of prominent
anomalydetectionsystems,soastoprovideabroadbasisforfuturebenchmarking
Motivation
Since the seminal 1998/1999 DARPA evaluations of intrusion detection systems,
network attacks have evolved considerably. In particular, after the CodeRed worm
of 2001, the volume and sophistication of selfpropagating malicious code threats
have been increasing at an alarming rate. Many anomaly detectors had been
proposed,especiallyinthepastfewyears,tocombatthenewandemergingnetwork
attacks. At the time, it was important to evaluate existing anomaly detectors to
determineandlearnfromtheirstrengthsandshortcomings.
Progress
Significant milestones have been achieved with ADS prototypes developed and
tested leading to a publication in one of the worlds best security conferences
RAID2008.
Results
Ourresultsshowthatsomeoftheevaluatedanomalydetectorsprovidereasonable
accuracy with low detection delay. However, these detectors do not provide
sustained accuracy on both the datasets. Our results show that some of the
evaluatedanomalydetectorsprovidereasonableaccuracywithlowdetectiondelay.
However,thesedetectorsdonotprovidesustainedaccuracyonboththedatasets.
49
Figure6:ROcAnalysisofADSsonEndpointdataset
Figure7:ROCAnalysisofADSsonRouterbaseddataset
FutureDirections
Currentlyweareworkingonportingthebestperforminganomalydetectionsystem,
withproposedchangesincorporated,onmulticoresystems.
B.) NETWORKEMBEDDEDSECURITYUSINGINNETWORKPACKETMARKING
ProjectfundedbyPakistanNationalICTR&DFund.
Introduction
Over the last few years, the phrase The Internet is Broken has been repeatedly
usedtohighlightthecurrentInternetsinabilitytocombatnetworkattacks,suchas
selfpropagatingmalwareanddistributeddenialofserviceattacks.Whilethejuryis
out on whether this phrase is appropriate or hyperbolic, security professionals
widely agree that the original Internetdesign with a trusteverybody approach is
nave and needs at the very least to be reconsidered or to be scrapped altogether.
Moreover, there is widespread consensus that in the nextgeneration Internet the
50
entire burden of security cannot be assigned to the endpoints and edge networks,
andthatsomenotionofsecurityneedstobeembeddedintothenetworkcore.
Theprimaryobjectivesofthisprojectare:
(a) The development of theoreticallysound, practical and scalable security

based packet marking methods, including securityinduced packet marking
atwirespeedswithinthecorenetwork.
(b) The development of robust strategies for the discarding (or more generally
handling) of securitymarked malicious packets while ensuring stability,
fairnessandconvergenceobjectivesforbenignandlegitimateflows.
Members
Dr.SyedAliKhayam
Dr.FauzanMirza
Irfanulhaq
SardarAli
NaurinRamay
AnamSarfraz
ProblemStatement
Underthisproject,wewillinvestigateanetworkembeddedsecurityframework,in
which the endpoints, the edge networks and the network core act in a coordinated
andpracticalmannertodefeathighratetrafficattacks.Theobjectiveofthisproject
istoindigenouslyresearchastateoftheartnetworksecuritysolutioninPakistan.
Motivation
Successful completion of this project can result in the proposed solution being
incorporated into the next generation Internet design thereby resulting in
significantresearchcredibilityandwealthgenerationforPakistan.
ProjectswithIndustry
DesignandDevelopmentofanEnterpriseAnomalyDetectionSolution
Overthelastdecade,systemsecuritythreatshaveevolvedfromhumanintrudersto
sophisticatedmalware.Withtheevolutionoftheseattackmethodologies,thefieldof
intrusion detection has inevitably evolved with detection of malicious network
attacksbecomingitsmainfocus.Basedontheresultsofresearchinthisarea,there
is widespread agreement in the security community that network anomaly
detectors, which detect zeroday attacks by flagging deviations from a model of
51
benign behavior, are the most robust and scalable method of detecting network
wideanomalies.
Despitethisconsensus,anomalybasedIntrusionDetectionSystems(IDSs)havenot
received widespread deployment. The problem with contemporary anomaly
detectors is that they are inaccurate (low detection rates and/or high false alarm
rates), incur unreasonable detection delays and require human intervention. While
aplethoraofIDSshavebeenproposedinresearchpublicationsandpatents,mostof
these IDSs are unable to achieve productquality accuracy and detection delays.
Moreover they require human intervention to combat with the inherently varying
natureoftrafficcharacteristics.
Under this project, we research and develop an accurate and realtime enterprise
intrusiondetectionandpreventionsolutiontodetectzerodaynetworkattacks.This
solution will consist of two main components: a passive anomaly detector and an
activeanomalydetector.(Apotentialdeploymentstrategyfortheproposedsolution
is shown in Figure 8) The active anomaly detector will preemptively and quickly
detect Internetscale and targeted threats and will also facilitate attack forensics.
Theanomalydetectorwillevaluateexistingandnewtrafficfeaturesofincomingand
outgoingtrafficforrealtimeattackcharacterization.Thesefeatureswillbeusedfor
attack detection in novel informationtheoretic, statistical, and machine learning
frameworks. The second component of the proposed solution, the passive anomaly
detector, will be designed to capture incoming traffic that is bound for inactive IP
addressesandportsinsideanenterprisenetwork.Thepassivedetectorwilldevelop
a baseline model of misconfigured incoming network traffic. Deviations from this
modelwillbeusedtodetectmalicioustrafficpatterns.
Figure8:Anexampletopologyfortheproposedanomalydetector
Patentfiled/approved
1. PatentsFiledinUSPTO
a. Patent1:HeaderEstimationtoImproveMultimediaQualityover
WirelessNetworks
52
b. Patent2:OnChannelStateInferenceandPredictionusingObservable
Variablesin802.11bNetworks
2. PatentsFiledinIPOPakistan
a. Patent1:AMethodForEmbeddedMalwareDetection
b. Patent2:DetectionofTrafficAnomaliesinaComputerNetwork
Contractsandgrantsobtained
WonthefollowingR&DfundingfromtheICT:
Rs. 6.148 Million for the project Design & Development Of An OpenSource
EnterpriseNetworkSecuritySolution
Rs.8.88MillionfortheprojectNetworkEmbeddedSecurityusingInNetwork
PacketMarking
WISNEThasalsowonR&DfundingfromtheNokiaResearchCenter,China:
10,000fortheprojectsHybridAndAdaptiveErrorRecoveryProtocolForIP
MultimediaStreamingandEnergyEfficientVideoCompressionForWireless
SensorNetworks
53
NextGenerationCommunicationTechnologiesResearchGroup
Theme
Theaimofthisgroupistoexploreandexploittheresearchpotentialinthefieldofnext
generationcommunicationandcontributeusefullytotheongoingstandardizationofthese
technologies
Objectives
Toinvestigatetheissuesatthephysical,MAC,networkandapplicationlayerforthe
nextgenerationcommunicationtechnology
Toaddresstheaspectsofsignalprocessinginvolved
Toproducequalitypublicationsasanoutcomeofresearch
Toestablishindustryacademialinkagesandresearchcollaborations
Applicationdomain
WirelessCommunication
MobileCommunication
SatelliteCommunication
CommunicationNetworks
GroupMembers
DrKhurramAziz www.niit.edu.pk/~khurram.aziz
Ms.KhalidaNoori www.niit.edu.pk/~khalida.noori
MsMadeehaOwais www.niit.edu.pk/~madeeha.owais
MsAyeshaBintSaleem www.niit.edu.pk/~ayesha.saleem
JournalPublications
Khalida Noori, S A Haider (2007),A layered structure MIMO OFDM system with
channel equalization, Journal of Digital Information Management, vol. 5, No. 6,
December2007.
S A Haider, Khalida Noori (2007), Adaptive turbo coded OFDM, Journal of Digital
InformationManagement,vol.5,No.6,December2007.
ConferenceProceedings
Khalida Noori, S A Haider (2007), Comparison of coded and uncoded vertical and
horizontal layered structure MIMO OFDM system Proceeding of 9th International
ConferenceonAdvanceCommunicationTechnology.
54
Khalida Noori, S A Haider (2007), Channel equalization of MIMO OFDM system
using RLS algorithm, Proceeding of 3rd International Conference on Wireless
Communication,NetworkingandMobileComputing.
S A Haider, Khalida Noori, Shoab Ahmed Khan (2007), Performance improvement
ofLayeredMIMOOFDMsystemusingturbocodesProceedingof3rdInternational
ConferenceonWirelessCommunication,NetworkingandMobileComputing.
Khalida Noori, S A Haider, Shoab Ahmed Khan (2008), An Efficient estimation
algorithm for MIMO OFDM system using Turbo Codes, Springer book Novel
Algorithms and Techniques In Telecommunications, Automation and Industrial
Electronics,ISBNno9781402087363,pp405408.
M Talha,J Ahmed, K Noori, S A Hiader (2008), Bit error rate comparison of MC
CDMA and OFDM system Proceeding of International conference on computer
sciencesandinformationtechnology.
Khalida Noori, S A Haider, Shoab Ahmed Khan (2008), An Efficient estimation
algorithm for MIMO OFDM system using Turbo Codes, Proceeding of 4th
InternationalJointConferencesonComputer,InformationandSystemSciencesand
Engineering.
ResearchProjects
CurrentProjects
DesignAnalysisandSimulationofIDMA
DesignanddevelopmentofAutomaticFrequencyPlanningTool
ApplicationoflayeredstructurestoMCCDMA
PastProjects
CombinationofMIMOwithMCCDMA
AdaptiveOFDMSystem
MIMOOFDMSystem
PerformanceAnalaysisofOFDMSystembyusingFECTechniques
ComparisonofDSCDMAandMCCDMA
ProjectswithIndustry
CurrentProjects
DesignanddevelopmentofAutomaticFrequencyPlanningTool
55
CenterforHighPerformanceScientificComputing
Theme
Toconductresearchinparallelcomputingparadigmsandapplications
Groupobjectives
Supportcuttingedgescientificandengineeringprojects
Conduct research, development, and evaluation of parallel programming languages,
libraries,paradigms
Produce HPC experts capable of doing development for innovative science and
engineering
ApplicationDomain
ParallelComputing,HighPerformanceComputing,GridComputing,ComputationalScience,
ComputationalAstrophysics
GroupMembers
1. AamirShafi,Grouplead,Ph.D.,aamir.shafi@niit.edu.pk
2. SaminKhaliq,Researcher,Masters,samin.khaliq@niit.edu.pk
3. HammadSiddiqi,Researcher,Masters,hammad.siddiqi@niit.edu.pk
4. UmarButt,SuncertifiedSystemAdministrator,Mastersumar.butt@niit.edu.pk
5. AftabHussain,ResearchAssistant,aftab.husain@niit.edu.pk
6. AmmarAhmadAwan,ResearchAssistant,45ammar@niit.edu.pk
7. JawadManzoor,ResearchAssistant,jawad.manzoor@niit.edu.pk
8. FaisalZahid,BIT7Student,faisal.zahid@niit.edu.pk
9. AhmedAliGul,BIT7Student,ahmad.gul@niit.edu.pk
10. ZafarGillani,BIT7Student,zafar.hussan@niit.edu.pk
11. KamranHameed,BIT7Student,kamran.hamid@niit.edu.pk
12. MuhammadWakeel,MastersStudent,muhammad.wakeel@niit.edu.pk
Publications
1. AamirShafi,BryanCarpenter,MarkBaker,andAftabHussain,A ComparativeStudyof
Java and C Performance in Two Large Scale Parallel Applications, To appear in
ConcurrencyandComputation:PracticeandExperience,2009
2. K.Chanchio,C.Leangsuksun,H.Ong,V.Ratanasamoot,andA.Shafi,AnEfficientVirtual
Machine Checkpointing Mechanism for Hypervisorbased HPC System, High
AvailabilityandPerformanceComputingWorkshop,DenverUSA,2008.
3. Aamir Shafi, Aftab Hussain, and Jamil Raza, A Parallel Implementation of the Finite
DomainTimeDifferenceAlgorithmusingMPJExpressJavaWorkshopatthe22ndIEEE
InternationalParallelandDistributedProcessingSymposium,MiamiFloridaUSA,April
2008.
56
4. Mark Baker, Bryan Carpenter, and Aamir Shafi, A Buffering Layer to Support Derived
Types and Proprietary Networks for Java HPC, Scalable Computing: Practice and
Experience,pp343358,8(4),ISSN18951767,December2007.
OrganizationofConferencesandWorkshop
1. Workshop on How to Build and Configure Supercomputers, 21st Jan 22nd Jan,
2008
2. Workshop on Solaris 10 Intermediate System Administration Training, 19th Feb
23rdFeb,2008
3. Workshop on Shell Scripting using Korn Shell, 9th June 13th June, For Teradata
GlobalConsultingPakistan,2008
4. WorkshoponScientificComputingusingGPUs,7thAug8thAug,2008
5. Workshop on Shell Scripting using Korn Shell, 18th August 22nd August, For
TeradataGlobalConsultingPakistan,2008
6. Workshop on Solaris 10 System Administration Part 1, 13th Oct to 17th Oct, For
NokiaSiemensNetwork(NSN)Engineers,2008
7. Workshop on Solaris 10 Intermediate System Administration Part 2, 27th Oct to
31stOct,ForNokiaSiemensNetwork(NSN)Engineers,2008
LabsAssociated
HighPerformanceScientificComputingLab
ResearchProjects/Grants
1.Title:CollaborativeMulticoreProgrammingUsingScientificJavaMessaging
FundingBody:BritishCouncil
Role:PrincipalInvestigator.
ApprovedFunding:40,000
Duration:September2008toAugust2010.
ExecutingBody:NationalUniversityofSciencesandTechnology(NUST)
2.Title:EstablishmentofGridNodeatSEECS
FundingBody:HigherEducationCommission(HEC)
Role:ProjectDirector.
ApprovedFunding:34.82MillionRs.
Duration:Jan2006toDecember2008.
3.Title:HighPerformanceComputingResearchandDevelopment
FundingBody:NationalUniversityofSciencesandTechnology(NUST)
Role:PrincipalInvestigator.
ApprovedFunding:2.0MillionRs.
Duration:August2007toJune2009
57
4. Title: Capacity Building of Lady Health Workers in Rural Mardan, NWFP through the
useofICTbasedTelehealthcare
Funding Body: Higher Education Commission and the US State Department under the
PakUSAidScienceandTechnologyProgramme2008
Role:CoPrincipalInvestigator
ApprovedFunding:$225,452.85
Duration:September2008toAugust2010
58
GroupforResearchinASICandFPGA(GRAF)
Theme
TheaimofGRAFistodevelopanenvironmentforresearchinFPGAs,FPGABasedSystem
Design and SoC/SoPC. The group conducts research in many aspects of FPGAs including
FPGA architecture exploration, high level design tools, reconfigurable computer
architectures, and applications of FPGAs and reconfigurable hardware in a number of
domainssuchasVideoandImageProcessing,DSPandCommunicationSystemEngineering
and NetworksonChip. We are also keen in collaborative research with companies and
academic groups who share common interest in stateoftheart research in the area of
digitalintegratedcircuits.
Objectives
Providestudentstheopportunitytoworkinadvancedtechnologicaldomain.
Developlinkageswithindustryandtoprovidethemwiththehighlymotivated
hardwareengineerswithdiversetechnicalexperience
DesignefficientandreliableFPGAbasedsystems
ProvidehighlyinnovativeandCosteffectiveFPGAbasedsolutionstothelocalindustry
ApplicationDomain
FPGAandASICDesign
GroupMembers
Dr.N.D.Gohar
PrincipalInvestigator
Professor,HoDCSE
PhD,ICSTM,UK
ndgohar@niit.edu.pk
Mr.JamshaidSarwarMalik
VisitingFaculty
MS,KTH,Sweden
Joint PhD student at NUST & KTH
workingonSoftwareDefinedRadio
jamshaid47@yahoo.com
Wg.Cdr.(R)NasirMehmood
AssistantProfessor
MS(BUAA),China
Joint PhD student at NUST & KTH
nasirm15@gmail.com
Mr.BilalSaqib
Lecturer
MSc,UoH,UK
bilal.saqib@niit.edu.pk
MsSabaZia
ResearchAssistant
BICSE,SEECS,PK
MS (Telecom)EE Student at NUST
saba.zia@niit.edu.pk
MrFayyazRasool
LabTechnician
DAE,PBTE,PK
fayyaz.rasool@niit.edu.pk
Mr.RizwanAshraf
LabAttendent
DAE,Electronics,PK
rizwan.ashraf11@yahoo.com
59
Students
Shahnawaz
MuhammadUzair
YasirHabib
FarrukhHijaz
SyedAamerHussain
SaadAftab
Publications
1. Shafqaat A., N. D. Gohar, Atif K., A Dynamic Congestion Control Mechanism for Real
Time Streams over RTP, Proceedings of IEEE 9th Int. Conference on Advance
Communication Technologies, Pheonix Parks, Republic of Korea, Volume: 2, pp 961966,
Feb.2007.
2.Asma Latif, N. D. Gohar, Signal Properties of Hybrid LFSK Modulated MQAM (HQFM)
OFDM Transceiver International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, Vol.
07No.11,ISSN17387906,pp7276,November2007
3. Asma Latif, N. D. Gohar, On the PAPR Reduction Properties of Hybrid QAMFSK
(HQFM) OFDM Transceiver International Journal of Applied Sciences , ISSN 18125654,
pp10611066,2008
4. Khurram Shahazad, N. D. Gohar, Arshad Ali ESTP: An Energyefficient time
synchronization protocol on wireless Sensor Networks accepted for proceeding at 22nd
IEEEAINA2008InternationalConference.
5. Asma Latif, N. D. Gohar "A Hybrid MQAMLFSK (HQFM) OFDM Transceiver" has been
acceptedinInternationalJournalofCommunicationSystems.
OrganizationofConferencesandWorkshop
OnedayworkshoponPCBDesignUsingOrCADheldon16
th
January,2008atSeminar
Hall,SEECSRawalpindi.
Three day workshop on RF ASIC Design held on January 57, 2009 at CEFAR Lab,
SEECSIslamabad
AssociatedLabsAssociated
CEFARLab
Hardware
W2012100MHzOscilloscope
GWInstek(modelGLA1132)
Spartan3StarterKit
2x Virtex4 (ML
401)EvaluationPlatformKIT
2x Virtex4 (ML
403)EvaluationPlatformKIT
Xilinx VirtexII Evaluation
board
4xXessXstendKIT
60
8xXessXSA200Board
2xXessXSA3S1000Board
8x Nextek Trainig Kit 200k
FROMII
1553BusCable
PCMCIA1553card
4xMILSTD1553BusCoupler
ProtoTypeBoard1553
Interfacecard1553
1553Transformer
GPRSModem
GARMIN10xkit
2x Microcontroller Based
Trainer
2xDigitalMultimeter
ICprogrammer
RFIDreader
Software
Simulation: ModelSim XE III
v6.3c
Simulation: ModelSim XE III
v6.2g
Synthesis:ISEDesignSuite8.2
Synthesis:XilinxISEv9.1i
Synthesis: ISE Design Suite
10.1
ChipScopepro9.2i
AccelwareDSPIPToolkits
PlanAhead Design Analysis
Tool
PCBDesign:OrCAD9.2
ResearchProjects
CurrentProjects
a) Software Defined Radio Development using a NetworkOnChip based

RapidPrototypingPlatform
SoftwareDefinedRadioisatechnologythatisstillinastateofinfancy.Theproject
focuses on developing a Scalable, Flexible and Modular Radio Systems
Experimentation and Prototyping Platform (REXAPP) based on NOC (developed at
KTH, Sweden), to provide basic foundation for SDR digital processinga step
forward in the development of future wireless communication systems. Major
objectiveoftheproposedprojectistoenable,enhanceandexpeditedevelopmentof
SDR targeting 4G technologies and beyond. For this purpose a Network on Chip
based generic baseband processing and MAC layer processing platform will be
developed.
NationalCollaboration/IndigenousatCEFAR
CurrentProjects
a)FPGABasedPortableSpectrumAnalyzer
FPGA based Spectrum Analyzer will be a signal analysis gadget with the maximum
input signal frequency of 100 MHz. The offshoots of the project include Vibration
Spectrum analysis in mechanical Testing; Video Spectrum Analysis for various
defense and commercial applications; Spectral analysis of defense communications
byIntelagenciesandLabusagebyvariousuniversitiesanddevelopers.Theproject
isexpectedtobecompletedbyMarch,2009.
61
b)FPGABasedDigitalSignageSystem
FPGABasedDigitalSignageSystemwillbeconnectedtotheinternetusingFPGAto
receivedataandcontrolsettings.Dependingonthetypeofdata,itisstoredineither
SDRAMorFlashmemory.Thesystemthenaccessesthisdata,decodesanddisplays
it onto an LCD/TFT monitor. The project is expected to be completed by March,
2009.
PastProjects
a)FPGABasedMILSTD1553 RemoteTerminal(RT)/BusController(BC)/Bus
Monitor(MT)
FPGA based MILSTD1553 RT / BC / MT implements the MILSTD1553 protocol
on FPGA and allows the system to be configured as RT, BC or MT. This protocol is
widely used in avionics especially the modern day fighter aircrafts like F16 and
Mirage. The system then accesses this data, decodes and displays it onto an
LCD/TFTmonitor.TheprojectisexpectedtobecompletedbyMarch,2009.
ProjectswiththeIndustry
FPGABasedMILSTD1553remoteterminal/buscontroller/busmonitor
FPGABasedPortableSpectrumAnalyzer
ContractsandGrantsObtained
Won Rs. 26.91 Million Funding from ICT R&D Fund for a Project Software Defined
Radio Development using a NetworkOnChip based Rapid Prototyping Platform vide
referenceno.ICTRDF/AN/2007/45dated6March2008.
Won Rs. 4.23 Million Funding from HEC under its UniversityIndustry Technology
Support Program (UITSP) for a Project MilStd1553 FPGA Based Remote Terminal /
Bus Controller / Bus Monitor vide reference no. 133/ILSUITSP/HEC/2006 dated 14
July2006.
62
CryptographicHardwareandEmbeddedSystems(CHES)
Theme
ThegroupforResearchinCryptographicHardwareandEmbeddedSystems(CHES)mainly
focus in designing secure and highly optimized coprocessors for varied security
applications in hardware. The optimization process may include low power optimization
due to mobile devices, low area optimization due to constrained environments (RFIDs,
Smart Card), high speed optimization due to speed critical applications (Satellite
communications)andoptimizationsforsecurityduetoleakageofinformation.Thegroup
also investigates both the theory and application of security attacks (interruption,
interception, modification and fabrication etc.), security services (authentication, data
confidentiality, data integrity, access control and nonrepudiation), security Mechanisms
(Encipherment,digitalsignature,notarization,trafficpadding,authenticationexchangeetc)
and cryptology in context of enterprisescale and distributed systems. The main research
themesare:
InformationSecurity
Lowpower&highspeedEmbeddedSystems
Objectives
The overall objective ofthis group is to promote research in areas of information security
andembeddedsystems.Thustocontributeinbuildingknowledgebaseinordertoproduce
skilled manpower to meet current security needs. And also to prepare students willing to
pursuetheirpostgraduatestudiesintheseareas.
ApplicationDomain
Computer,Network&CommunicationSecurity
SecurityinConstrainedEnvironments(smartcards,RFIDs,ecommerce)
Cryptology(Securityalgorithms,securityprotocols,securityattacks)
OptimizedCoprocessorsforCommunicationSystems
FPGAsbasedSystemDesign(lowarea,lowpower,highspeed)
Digitalwatermarking
GroupMembers
Dr.NazarAbbasSaqib
PrincipalInvestigator
PhD,CINVESTAVIPN,Mexico
nazar@niit.edu.pk
Mr.RehanAhmed
Lecturer
MS(inprogress),TUM,Germany
mr.rehan.ahmed@gmail.com
Mr.A.DUsamaBinNajam
ResearchAssistant
MSinCommunicationSystem
EngineeringSEECSNUSTPakistan
usamanajam@gmail.com
MsFreehaAzmat
ResearchAssistant
CryptographicHardware
63
46freeha@niit.edu.pk
MrKashifSharif
ResearchAssistant
AreaofResearch:RFIDSecurity
Kashif.sharif@yahoo.com
MrAleemparacha
ResearchAssistant
AreaofResearch:Remote
metering
aleemismail@hotmail.com
MrManzoorAhmed
ResearchAssistant
AreaofResearch:Reducing
ChannelzappingdelayinIPTV
manzoor505@yahoo.com
Students
ImadudDin(MSIT7):workingonEndtoEndpacketDynamics
AbidHussain(MSIT8):workingonWirelessSecurity
Azfar(MSIT8):workingonRFIDSecurity
Nauman(MSIS):workingonRFIDSecurity
BilalMajid(BICSE3):WorkingonDisastermanagement
ZuhaibNaseer(BICSE3):WorkingonDisastermanagement
Publications
Francisco RodrguezHenrquez, Guillermo MoralesLuna, Nazar A. Saqib and Nareli
CruzCorts,"AParallelVersionoftheItohTsujiiMultiplicativeInversionAlgorithm",
International Workshop on Applied Reconfigurable Computing ARC 2007, Lecture
NotesinComputerScience,RodeJaneiro,Brazil2007
OrganizationofConferencesandWorkshops
Mr.JahangirKhan,WhizzSiliconInc,USA
o Topic:TrendsandTechnologiesinhighspeedcommunication
o Dated:Nov25,2008
Dr.PeterPalensky,UniversityofPretoria,SouthAfrica
o Topic:"Applicationofindustrialinformaticstoelectricalenergynetworks
o Dated:Dec15,2008
Dr.ZiaKhan,SynopsysUSA
o Topic:TheRoleofEDAinChipDesign
o Dated:Dec20,2008
AssociatedLab
CentreofExcellenceforFPGAs/ASICResearch(CEFAR)
64
Hardware
W2012100MHzOscilloscope
GWInstek(modelGLA1132)
Spartan3StarterKit
2x Virtex4 (ML401)Evaluation
PlatformKIT
2x Virtex4 (ML403)Evaluation
PlatformKIT
XilinxVirtexIIEvaluationboard
4xXessXstendKIT
8xXessXSA200Board
2xXessXSA3S1000Board
8xNextekTrainigKit200kFROMII
1553BusCable
PCMCIA1553card
4xMILSTD1553BusCoupler
ProtoTypeBoard1553
Interfacecard1553
1553Transformer
GPRSModem
GARMIN10xkit
2xMicrocontrollerBasedTrainer
2xDigitalMultimeter
ICprogrammer
RFIDreader
Software
Simulation:ModelSimXEIIIv6.3c
Simulation:ModelSimXEIIIv6.2g
Synthesis:XilinxISEv9.1i
ChipScopepro9.2i
AccelwareDSPIPToolkits
PlanAheadDesignAnalysisTool
PCBDesign:OrCAD9.2
ResearchProjects
a.) Design and Verification of LowPower, HighSpeed IP Suite for Universal

SerialBus(USB3.0)
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is used to connect all sorts of devices and is the most
successful computer standard in history with billions of units shipped. Current
solutions,basedonUSB2.0,supporttransferratesupto480Mb/sbutthatratewill
soonincreasetenfoldto4.8Gb/swiththeintroductionofUSB3.0enabledproducts.
It has been planned to develop a suite of low power, configurable and high speed
USB3.0IPcoresincludingIPsforUSB3.0hostcontroller,USB3.0devicecontroller
andUSB3.0supportfunctionstomeettheneedsofthis"poisedtoexplode"market.
(Proposalsubmittedforfunding)
NationalCollaboration/IndigenousatCEFAR
a.) RemoteMetering(proposedprojectwithSNGPL)
The old gas meter has a very simple mechanical system that consists of few gears,
somerubbertubesandsomeplasticmadehandsthatmovelikea cycletomovethe
gearswhengaspassesthrough.Fortheautomatedgasreadingmechanismweneed
asystemthatshouldgiveasdigitalreadingonthegasmeter,showinghowmuchgas
65
is used at the end of the month. We suggest an automated meter reading at a
centralizedlocationandfoolprooffromanykindoftampering.
b.) AProgrammableMultichannelBEU(BulkEncryptionUnit)inFPGAs
BEUisaproductthatisusedforencryptingmorethanonecommunicationchannel
simultaneously. The objective of BEU(Bulk Encryption Unit) is to design a
customized secure communication solution for government, military and civil
applications. BEU is a holistic solution which includes cryptographic algorithm
design, key management, access control ,tamper proofing customers requirement,
support of encrypting 4 communication channel at least and to break monopoly of
existingvendorsbyprovidingcustomeraccesstochangeencryptionalgorithm.This
producthasapplicationsinboththegovernmentaswellaspublicsectors.
PastProjects
a. GSMInterceptor
IthasbeenproposedtodesignanddevelopaGSMmonitoringsystemwhichcanbe
widely used by security agencies for monitoring and surveillance of subversive
activities. A GSM Monitoring System is comprised of a GSM Receiver and a
Deciphering Unit for real time deciphering of A5/1 or A5/2 algorithms. The real
issue in developing GSM Monitoring System is instant breaking of A5/1 and A5/2
algorithms. However, technologies to break such algorithms are not readily
available in open market and foreign commercial implementations are extremely
expensive(intheorderofhundredsofthousandsUSDperunit).Themajorfocusof
this research project is to develop a system to decipher A5/1 and A5/2 GSM
communication.
b. AMicrocontrollerbasedGPRSEnabledRFIDSystem
Many Applications require wireless communication between RFID Reader and
Backend Computer System, However applications currently in use are using Wired
CommunicationbetweenRFIDReaderandBackendComputerSystem. Sothisproject
solves two things: A product which Receives data from RFID Reader, Operates a
MobileDeviceSendsdatatobackendSystemthroughMobileDevice.Asoftwareutility
whichreceivesdatafromMobileDeviceStorestheDataintoDatabase.
ProjectswiththeIndustry
AProgrammableMultichannelBEU(BulkEncryptionUnit)inFPGAs.
DesignandVerificationofLowPower,HighSpeedIPSuiteforUniversalSerialBus
(USB3.0)
ContractsandGrantsObtained:
Rs. 1.983 Million (NUST Seed Money) for a Project A Programmable Multichannel BEU
(BulkEncryptionUnit)inFPGAs
66
VisionImaging&SignalProcessingResearchGroupVISPro
Theme
VISProaimsatinnovativeandleadingresearchanddevelopmentprojectsinthefieldsof
Vision,ImagingandDigitalSignalProcessing
Applicationdomain
Computer/MachineVision
DigitalImage&SignalProcessing
Digitalsystemdesignforalgorithms
GroupMembers
Dr.RehanHafiz
PhD(EE)
Vision/ImageProcessing,Algorithms
03315189556,rehan.hafiz@niit.edu.pk
Dr.JunaidQadir(Broadcast/NetworkTechnologies)
Dr.ZiaulQayyum(ArtificialIntelligence)
Mr.HabeelAhmed(Controls)
Mr.MuhammadBilal(ComputerizedTomography)
Mr.KamranHussainZaidi(CommunicationSystems)
Mr.NasirMahmood
Mr.OwaisAhmedMalik(NeuralNetworks,Algorithms)
Mr.ImranKhan(ImageProcessing&ComputerVision)
Publications
R.HafizandK.B.Ozanyan,Opticalabsorptionmeasurementsinparticlecontaining
ambientsusinggatedratiometricdetection."IEEESensorsJournal,(2008)
R.HafizandK.B.Ozanyan,DemodulationusingDigitallyBalancedDetection,IEEE
Sensors2008conference,Italy.
R.HafizandK.B.Ozanyan,Digitallybalanceddetectionforopticaltomography."
Americaninstituteofphysics,ReviewofScientificInstruments,Volume78,Issue10,pp.
1031011031019(2007)
R.HafizandK.B.Ozanyan,DigitalBalancedDetectionforFastOpticalCTinFluidised
Beds.WorldCongressonIndustrialProcessTomography(2007)
AssociatedLab
EmbeddedSystemsResearchLab/VISProLAB
67
ResearchProjects
1) InternationalCollaboration
a. MANUProjectincollaborationwithTechionicsUSA
i. Theme:Aninnovativeresearcheffortfortrackingobjectsfordigital
entertainmentindustry.
ii. Students:MohammadAbbas,JuzerAbbas(BICSE3)
iii. Dr.RehanHafiz,Dr.JunaidQadir,ImranKhan,Mr.MaajidMaqbool
2) ProjectonproposalsubmittedtoICTR&DFund
a. MultiViewImaging
i. Theme:PanoramicviewgenerationforMultiViewimaging&View
interpolationforMultiViewImaging
ii. ICTproposalsubmittedincollaborationwithEpicTechnologies.
Status:UnderReview
iii. MultiViewImaging(MVI)systemsarefindingincreasedusageina
widerangeofnextgenerationmultimediaapplications.Ratherthan
recordingasinglevideofromasingleview;MVIsystemsrelyon
acquiringmultiplevideosofthesameobjectfrommultipleviews
(angles).Thisincreasedvisualinformationoftheobjectbeingfilmed
canthenbeusedtoachieveinterestingresults,suchasImmersiveTV
applications.Theresearchaimstoinvestigatepanoramicview
generationandviewinterpolationforgenerationof"wideangle
views"and"freeviewpointTV"toimmersetheviewerintothe
multimediacontents.
iv. Students:AhmedTalha,MuhammedUsman,Najeeb(BEE2)
v. Dr.RehanHafiz,MrOwaisMalik
3) OtherProjects/FYPs
a. Aautomatedvehiclenumberplatetrackingsystemfortrafficcontrol
i. Inthisprojectasystemwillbedesignedthatrespondstotheeventof
avehiclebreakingaredlightatatrafficjunction.Thesystemwillbe
capableofrecordingtheviolatorslicensePlatenumberinthe
centralizeddatabase.
ii. Students:AsraMasood,AyeshaMushtaq,DamiyaAamir(BEE2)
iii. Dr.RehanHafiz,MissSaminKhaliq
b. CART
i. Computercontrolled2AxisvectorgRaphicpainTingsystem(C
ART)isaproposedsystemthatiscapableoftranslatingimagesona
computertophysicalimagesonanyrealsurfaceoracanvas.
ii. AsharRasul,AhmedRaza,AnsarMoughisUdDin(BEE2)
iii. Mr.SyedKamranZaidiandDr.RehanHafiz
68
c. ComputerizedTomography
i. DevelopmentofatestbedforComputerizedtomographythatwill
provideaprimaryplatformforanalyzingimagereconstruction
techniquesforbothhardfieldandsoftfieldtomography.
ii. Students:AsimRehman,HassanNasir(BEE2)
iii. Mr.MuhammadBilal,Dr.RehanHafiz
d. Automatedfirenotificationandcontrolsystem
i. Students:SalmanAhmedSaadAhmed(BEE2)
ii. Mr.HabeelAhmedandDr.RehanHafiz
69
DataEngineeringforLargeScaleApplications(DELSA)ResearchGroup
Theme
Extracting and integrating data among autonomous, distributed, heterogeneous data
sources
Objective
DELSA research group explores heterogeneity especially semantic heterogeneity in data
sources, and interoperable systems in scientific and business domains. The group aims at
broadeningthefocusofdataengineeringtechniquesbeyondtheirtraditionalscope.
ApplicationDomain
The DELSA research group focuses on semantic heterogeneity in integrating autonomous,
distributedandheterogeneousdatasourcesinbusiness,academia,health,agriculture,and
biomedicine. Moreover the group has interest in data warehousing, view materialization,
OLAP, multiple query optimization, semantic Web, ontology engineering and E
technologies.
GroupMembers
Dr. Sharifullah Khan, Associate
Professor
PhD
Specialization: Databases, Query
ProcessingandDataIntegration
drsharif@niit.edu.pk
05190852153
Dr. Khalid Latif, Assistant

Professor
PhD
Specialization: Semantic Web,
Ontology Engineering,Information
Retrieval
khalid.latif@niit.edu.pk
05190852173
Dr. Zia Qayyum, Assistant

Professor
PhD
Specialization: Knowledge
Management,ArtificialIntelligence
zia.qayyum@niit.edu.pk
05190852173
Mr. Owais Malik, Assistant

Professor
MS
Specialization: Knowledge
Management,ArtificialIntelligence
owais.malik@niit.edu.pk
05190852159
Mr. Aatif Kamal, Assistant

Professor
MS(IT)
Specialization: Distributed
Computing, P2P Systems and
Databases
aatif.kamal@niit.edu.pk
Mr.MuhammadBilal,Lecturer
MS(IT)
Relevant Source Selection in Data
IntegrationSystem
muhammad.bilal@niit.edu.pk
Mr. Azhar Maqsood, Assistant

Professor
MS(IT),DatabasesandDataMining
azhar.maqsood@niit.edu.pk
70
Mr.WarisAli
PhDStudent
Query Expansion in Data
IntegrationSystem
waris.ali@niit.edu.pk
Ms.AmmaraAslam
MS(IT)Student
Query Rewriting in Data
IntegrationSystem
ammara.aslam@niit.edu.pk
Mr.IqbalQasim
MS(IT)Student
OntologyMapping
Mapping Generation between
differentOntologies
iqbal.qasim@niit.edu.pk
Mr.AsadMasood
MS(IT)Student
Crawler for Information Retrieval
System
asad.masood@niit.edu.pk
Mr.NabeelAhmedAwan
MS(IT)Student
Crawler for Information Retrieval
System
nabeel.ahmed@niit.edu.pk
Ms.IrumFatima
MS(IT)Student
SemanticAnnotation
irum.fatima@niit.edu.pk
Mr.MuhammadSufyan
MS(IT)Student
Bridging Heterogeneous
Ontologies
muhammad.sufyan@niit.edu.pk
MsAnilaSaharButt
MS(IT)Student
Main Memory Object Oriented
OntologyManagementSystems
Anila.sahar@niit.edu.pk
Yasirkhan
MS(IT)Student
StructuredInformationExtraction
Yasir.khan@niit.edu.pk
WajahatAliKhan
MS(IT)Student
Semantic Process Interoperability
HL7v3
Wajahat.alikhan@niit.edu.pk
SaulehaJavedDurrani
Main Memory Object Oriented
OntologyManagementSystems
Sauleha.javed@niit.edu.pk
UmarHyatKhan
MS(IT)Student
Ontology Driven Recommender
Systems
Umar.hyat@niit.edu.pk
MuhammadMudassar
MS(IT)Student
Ontology Driven Recommender
Systems
Muhammad.mudassir@niit.edu.pk
AssociatedLabs
DataEngineeringResearchLab
71
ResearchProjects
1. Integrating Data Sources on the Internet: Hundreds of data sources are
publiclyavailableontheInternet.Thesedatasourcesmaintaincloselyrelateddata,but
the decentralized, autonomous and heterogeneous nature of the data have made very
difficult its accessibility and integration by scientists for innovative synthesis. A real
challenge is to locate and select relevant and quality data and to integrate them. The
project is concerned with locating and selecting sources that are relevant to the given
user query and integrating them to answer the query. Its salient feature is quality
driven semantic similarity matching. The similarity between the user query and data
sources is acquired through the domain ontology and source models. In this research
domain,currentlyweworkonthefollowingmainthemes:
a) OntologyReasoninginQueryExpansion
b) OntologydrivenQueryRewriting
c) MappingSourceDescriptionsintoDomainOntology
d) GenerationandStorageofContextAwareMetadataforDigitalDocuments
e) SemanticIndexingofDataSourcesandDigitalDocuments
f) ExtendingmediationarchitecturetoP2Pdataintegrationarchitecture
g) IntelligentIndexinginP2PDataIntegration
2. DynamOnt Collaborative Ontology Development: Common understanding is

a decisive factor in the collaboration of distributed knowledge communities. A
systematic approach to gain this common understanding is the dynamic creation of
ontologies,leadingtoamoreefficientuseofsharedinformationresources.Atpresent,
the creation of highquality ontologies is a very time consuming and expensive task.
Therefore, such ontologies are available only for few thematic fields. What is still
missingisamethodologysupportedbytools,whichwouldenabledomainexperts(who
are not ontology building experts) to create ontologies on the fly, yet based on sound
principles, created in short time. "Dynamic" means that these ontologies can then be
extended and refined over time, can evolve to become more axiomatised, and can be
personalised and localised by individuals or groups without losing touch with the
community'spreferredinterpretation.
Project:DynamOnt,InstituteofSoftwareTechnology,ViennaUniversityofTechnology,
Wien,AUSTRIA.
Project: Grid GenoMedicine (GGM), Institute de Researche en Informatique de
Toulouse(IRIT),UniversitePaulSabatier,Toulouse,France.
Project:HealthEChild,UniversityofWestEngland(UWE),Bristol,UK.
72
Publications
KhalidLatifandRudolfMayer.SkyMetaphorVisualisationforSelfOrganisingMaps.In
Proceedings7thInternationalConferenceonKnowledgeManagement(IKNOW),Graz,
Austria,September2007.
Khalid Latif, Edgar Weippl and A Min Tjoa. Question Driven Semantics Interpretation
for Collaborative Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Reuse. In Proceedings IEEE
International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI), Las Vegas, USA,
August2007.
Shuaib Karim, Khalid Latif, and A Min Tjoa. Providing Universal Accessibility using
Connecting Ontologies: A Holistic Approach. In Proceedings of 12th International
Conference on Human Computer Interaction (HCII), vol. 4556 of LNCS, Beijing, China,
July2007.Springer.
S. Khan. Data Acquisition from Semantically Heterogeneous Data Sources, In the
proceedingsoftheWorkshopDataWarehousingandDataMining,Islamabad,Pakistan,
February2007.
W.AliandS.Khan.GlobalQueryGenerationoverDiverseDataSourcesUsingOntology.In
the proceedings of First national conference on Information and Communication
Technologies(NCICT2007),Bannu,Pakistan,June9,2007.
K. Sonia and S. Khan. Building Local Ontology from Database Relations in Data
Integration. In the proceedings of IEEE 3
rd
international conference on Emerging
Technology(ICET2007),November1213,2007.Islamabad,Pakistan.
M. Bilal and S. Khan. OntologyDriven Relevance Reasoning in Data Integration
Techniques. In the proceedings of 5th international workshop on the Frontiers of
InformationTechnology(FIT2007),Islamabad,Pakistan,December1718,2007.
J.Mustafa,S.KhanandK.Latif.IntelligentInformationalRetrieval.InProceedingsof1st
National Conference on Security, Computing, & Communication, May 2008, Kohat,
NWFP,Pakistan.
K. Sonia and S. Khan. Transforming Relational Model to Source Ontology for Data
Integration.InProceedingsof4
th
IEEEInternationalConferenceonIntelligentSystems
(IS'08),September2008,Bulgaria.
J. Mustafa, S. Khan and K. Latif. Ontology Based Semantic Information Retrieval. In
Proceedings of 4
th
IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Systems (IS'08),
September2008,Bulgaria.
M. Bilal and S. Khan. Ontology Driven Relevance Reasoning Architecture for Data
Integration Techniques. In Proceedings of 4
th
IEEE International Conference on
IntelligentSystems(IS'08),September2008,Bulgaria.
K.SoniaandS.Khan.R2OTransformationSystem:RelationtoOntologyTransformation
for Scalable Data Integration. In Proceedings of the 12
th
International Database
Engineering & Applications Symposium (IDEAS'08), Pages: 291295 September 2008,
Coimbra,Portugal.
J. Mustafa, S. Khan and K. Latif, Intelligent Informational Retrieval. In Proceedings of
1st National Conference on Security, Computing, & Communication, May 2008, Kohat,
NWFP,Pakistan
73
A.M.Khattak,K.Latif,S.KhanandN.Ahmed,OntologyRecoveryandVisualization,In
the proceedings of 4th International Conference on Next Generation Web Services and
Practices,KoreaOctober2008.
I.Qasim,S.KhanandK.Latif,SemanticMappingbetweenGlobalandSourceOntologies
for Scalable Data Integration System, In the proceedings of 2nd International
ConferenceonInformationandCommunicationTechnologies(ICICT),Bannu2008.
A. Aslam and S. Khan, Semantic Based Query Rewriting in Data Integration, In the
proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication
Technologies(ICICT),Bannu2008.
A.M. Khattak, K. Latif, S. Khan and N. Ahmed, Managing Change History in Web
Ontologies, In the proceedings of 4th International Conference on Semantic,
KnowledgeandGrid,Beijing,December2008.
W. Ali and S. Khan, Ontology Driven Query Expansion in Data Integration, In the
proceedingsof4thInternationalConferenceonSemantic,KnowledgeandGrid,Beijing,
December2008.
N.Ahmed,S.Khan,K.LatifandA.M.Khattak,ExtractingSemanticAnnotationandtheir
Correlation with Document, In the proceedings of 4th IEEE International Conference
onInformationandCommunicationTechnologies,Rawalpindi,October2008.
A. Aslam, S. Khan and K. Latif, Semantic Based Query Rewriting in Distributed
Systems, In the proceedings of 4th IEEE International Conference on Information and
CommunicationTechnologies,Rawalpindi,October2008.
A. Latif, M. Y. Javed, S. Khan, SemiAutomated Approach for Converting ERD to Semi
Star Schema, In the proceedings of 4th IEEE International Conference on Information
andCommunicationTechnologies,Rawalpindi,October2008.
A.M. Khattak, J. Mustafa, N. Ahmed, K. Latif and S. Khan, Intelligent Search in Digital
Documents, In the proceedings of 2008 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conferences on
WebIntelligence,December2008.
M.SafyanandS.Khan;BridgingHierarchicalOntologiesforInteroperabilityandQuery
Reformulation, In the proceedings of 2008 International Conference on Advanced
Computer Theory and Engineering (ICACTE 2008), Phuket Island, Thailand, December
2008.
M.A.Owais,M.A.Ahmed,DynamicSimilarityMetricUsingFuzzyPredicatesforCase
Based Planning.International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzzinessand Knowledgebased
Systems.AcceptedinSept.2008.
PastProjects
1. Ontologydriven Relevance Reasoning for Source Selection in Data
Integration: Data sources are integrated for knowledge discovery. Online data
sourcesjoinandleaveintegrationsystemsarbitrarilybecausetheyareautonomous.
All available data sources may not contribute to a user query result necessarily.
Therefore, executing a user query against all the data sources consumes resources
and makes the query expensive. Relevant data sources should be selected through
relevancereasoning.Existingtechniquestakecomparativelymoretimeinrelevance
reasoning as the number of sources increase and lack semantics to sort out fine
grained semantic heterogeneities. This project extends these techniques by
including (a): bitmap index for efficient reasoning and (b): semantics to sort out
74
finegrained semantic heterogeneities. This improves query response time as well
asprecisionandrecalloftheintegrationsystems.(Completedin2008)
2. Transforming Database Relations to Source Ontology in Data

Integration: Scalable and flexible data integration of autonomous and distributed
datasourcesrequirestorepresentthesourcesdescriptionsintoaconceptualmodel
i.e., ontology to make the sources interoperable. Sources metadata are either
incompleteornotavailable.Theessentialmetadataofthesourcescanbeextracted
from the database relations. Extracting the metadata from database relations and
transforming them into source ontology is tedious and error prone task. The
contribution of this project is a methodology for: (a) extracting metadata from
source relations, and (b) transforming the extracted metadata to ontology. The
evaluation shows the transformation is total and injective. Consequently, it is
informationcapacitypreserving.(Completedin2008)
3. Semantic Driven Information Retrieval in Digital Documents: Retrieving

requiredinformationindigitaldocumentsisdifficultduetosemanticheterogeneity.
Keywordbased Semantic similarity helps in handling the issue by improving the
recall of the information; however, it cannot improve the precision of the
information. In order to improve the precision, we adopt thematic semantic
similarity approach for information retrieval. RDF triples are employed instead of
keywords in maintaining sources metadata and formulating user queries for
capturing the context of the keywords. This improves the information precision.
(Completedin2008)
4. OntologydrivenQueryExpansion:Semanticqueriesaregeneratedwiththe
support of a semantic model (i.e. domain ontology) through utilizing relationships
betweentheexistingconceptsindatasources.Thisresearchexpandstheusergiven
queries by through hierarchical relationships in ontology to transform them into
semantic queries. They provide transparent access to data sources. It is evident
from the evaluation of results that recall is improved. Hence information loss is
minimized.(Completedin2007)
75
SemanticSystemsResearchGroupSSRG
Theme
To carry out research in semantic based system in the areas of Web Application Security,
Health Systems Interoperability. The group has interest in high performance computing
andstoragesystemsaswell.
Objectives
Preparestudentsforconductingresearchinawaytoapplyinrealenvironment.
ApplicationDomain
Semanticsinhealthinformatics
DTS
WebApplicationSecurity
GridComputing
GroupMembers
Dr.HafizFarooqAhmad
AssociateProfessor
SarmadSadiq
PhDStudent
Mr.MuhammadAfzal
MS(IT)Student
HL7BasedHealthcareLaboratory
MessagesInteroperabilitySolution
(HLHLMIS)
muhammad.afzal@niit.edu.pk
Mr.MaqboolHussain
MS(IT)Student
WebServicebasedHL7Solutionfor
HealthcareLaboratoryDomain
maqbool.hussain@niit.edu.pk
ShaguftaUmer
MS(IT)Student
DynamicMappingSolutionofHL7
Version3toDatabase
shagufta.umer@niit.edu.pk
SomiaRazzaq
MS(IT)Student
DesigningFrameworkbasedonHL7Web
ServiceSecurityProfile
somia.razzaq@niit.edu.pk
MehtabAlamKhurshid
MS(IT)Student
ServiceOrientedArchitecturefor
HL7Version3
mehtab.alam@niit.edu.pk
WajahatAliKhan
MS(IT)Student
HL7ProcessInteroperabilitySolution
throughontologies
wajahat.alikhan@niit.edu.pk
YasirMehmood
MS(SoftwareEngineering)Student
AnalysisandExtensionofHL7Java
SIGAPI
yasir.mehmood@niit.edu.pk
SidraAftab
MS(IT)Student
IHEFrameworkPropositiontoHL7
LaboratoryDomain
sidraaftaab@gmail.com
76
AbdulRazzaq
MS(IT)Student
WebApplicationSecurityDesign
anddevelopmentofOntologybased
solutionforWebApplicationattacks
abdul.razzaq@niit.edu.pk
MuhammadAliHur
MS(IT)Student
WebApplicationSecurityDevelopmentand
designingtheSystemArchitectureto
providethesemanticsolutionforWeb
Security
ali.hur@niit.edu.pk
NasirHaider
MS(IT)Student
PositiveSecurityModel(whitelist
approach)forWebSecurity
nasir.haider@niit.edu.pk
MuddassarMasood
MS(IT)Student
Ontologydesignforapplicationlayer
attacks
muddassar.masood@niit.edu.pk
MuzzamilNoor
MS(IT)Student
DeploymentissuesrelatedtoWeb
Securitygateway
Intikhab,Huma,Nauvera,Sana
BS(SE)Student(MCS)
AutomaticRuleGenerationusingOntology
forApplicationlevelIntrusionDetection
System
sana.ijaz11@yahoo.com
FauziaNaureen
MS(IT)Student
Ethicalhackingforvulnerabilities
analysisofWebapplication
fauzia.naureen@gmail.com
Publications
Muhammad Afzal, Maqbool Hussain, Hafiz Farooq Ahmad and Arshad Ali Design and
Implementation of Open Source HL7 Version 3 for eHealth Services, Proceedings of
9thInternationalHL7InteroperabilityConference(IHIC),2008,Greece.
MaqboolHussain,MuhammadAfzal,ArshadAli,HafizFarooqAhmadandNaeemKhalid
Healthcare Applications Interoperabilitythrough Implementationof HL7 Web Service
BasicProfile6
th
ITNGConference,USA.
Abdul Razzaq, Ali Hur, Nasir Haider, Hafiz Farooq Ahmad Context Based Application
Level Intrusion Detection System by using Bayesian Filter, 5
th
International
SymposiumonHighCapacityOpticalNetwork&EnablingTechnologies(HONET),2008.
Malaysia.
AbdulRazzaq,AliHur,HafizFarooqAhmad,NasirHaiderOntologyBasedApplication
Level Intrusion Detection System by using Bayesian Filter 6
th
ITNG Conference, USA.
(Accepted)
AssociatedLabs
DTSLab
77
ResearchProjects
Currentprojects
a.) HealthLifeHorizon:DesignandImplementationofOpenSourceHL7
SystemforEHealthServices
Introduction
Tocarryoutresearchinhealthinformationsystemsbydesigninganddeveloping
opensourcesoftwaresystemsasprovisionofconceptofHL7Version3inorderto
achieve semantic interoperability. The purpose is to train human resource and
coordinate health informatics professionals in Pakistan to connect with
internationalcommunity.
Members
Dr.HafizFarooqAhmad(PI)
Dr.ArshadAli(CoPI)
Mr.MajidMaqbool(BusinessCoordinator)
Mr.NaeemKhalid(Research&DevelopmentCoordinator)
Mr.MaqboolHussain(TeamLead)
Mr.MuhammadAfzal(TeamLead)
Mr.BilalRizvi(QaulityAssuranceEngineer)
Ms.ShaguftaUmer
Ms.SomiaRazzaq
Ms.MehtabAlamKhurshid
Mr.WajahatAliKhan
Mr.YasirMehmood
Ms.SidraAftab
ProblemStatement
Semanticinteroperabilityisabigchallengeforhealthcareinformationsystemsto
integrate their data. Health Level Seven (HL7) is the world most accepted and
leading standard which aims to resolve message exchanging and interoperability
issueofhealthcareinformationsystems.
Motivation
In the information age, communities are reshaping themselves to be knowledge
based societies. Information technology is playing key role in this dynamic
transitional period for health related services. It is one of the most important
78
disciplines that have great capacity to exploit information technology in its
differentdomainslikepatientadministration,laboratory,pharmacy,etc.
Computerized Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) has been developed to
process and manage data within the boundaries of an organization, hospital or
clinical laboratory. But that is not the end. World is becoming a global village
where every industry (including healthcare) needs to make their information
systemsinteroperablewitheach otherinordertoexchangeand sharethedata.A
number of adhoc ways have been used e.g. telephonic, mailing, emailing or
messenger services to achieve the interoperability job. But problems with all of
thesemethodsareinefficiency,inconsistencyandchancesoferrors.Accordingtoa
studymadein2005,everyyearatleast98,000Americansdieandmillionsmore
are injured as a result of medical errors. This is the situation of a developed
country.ThesituationofdevelopingcountrieslikePakistanisevenworse,butwe
neverknowexacthumanlosses.Theexpertsproposedsolutiontothisproblemis
to bring standards into the healthinformation exchange. According to another
study,standardizedinformationexchangewouldsavetheUSnation$86.8Billion
each year. It was the motivating factor for some volunteers in US to lay
foundation for an organization namely Health Level Seven (HL7). To serve the
communitytoitsbest,itisneededtoprovideHL7version3solutionthatwillnot
onlybecosteffectivebutalsointhereachofwholecommunity.
ProgressandResults
The intention of Health Life Horizon Project is to develop an open source tool to
facilitate healthcare organization in deploying HL7 V3 compliant interfaces for
their required messages. The tool will include HL7 V3 message
parsing/generation component, V2 to V3 convertor component, generic database
mapping component and transportation component. It is currently in inception
phase and initially we are interested to develop HL7 based open source system
justforlaboratorydomainbyautomatingtheirmessagesliketestordersandtest
results shared among branches of a single lab or cross labs. The architecture has
beenproposedandisprovidedasfollowing:
79
Figure1:ProposedArchitectureforHLHsystem
i. FutureDirectionsandConclusion
HL7 V3 has achieved semantic interoperability using conventional concepts
definition for different vocabularies. We aim to provide the community with
semanticbased HL7 solution using ontologies: a true semantics. Another
important future direction of this project is the integration of SOA to HL7. We
envisionthatoursystemwillgetglobalrecognitionintermsofcosteffectiveness,
worldfirstsemanticHL7solutionusingontologyforthevocabulariesandservice
orientatedHL7.
b.) AparadigmShiftinWebApplicationSecurity
Introduction
The aim ofthis project isto provide aneffective and open source semantic based
intrusion detection system at application layer of OSI model. Application layer is
more exposed and prone to attacks. The exponentially increasing cyber threats
withtheexpansionofWebapplicationshavebecomethebiggest securityconcern
for ebusiness and information sharing communities. Existing security
mechanisms are ineffective to provide complete security solution. The proposed
80
intelligent intrusion detection system (IDS), base on ontology that can be refined
andexpandedovertime.Systemsemanticallyanalyzesthepayloadtounderstand
the contextual nature of attack and is capable of detecting complex and zero day
Web application attacks that easily eludes packet level inspection. The system is
efficientbyanalyzingthespecifiedportionofhttprequestwhereattackispossible
and thus provides significant search space reduction with low false positive rate.
The System also generates the rules automatically through inference upon attack
vector(input)andknowledgebase.
Members
Dr.HafizFarooqAhmad(PI)
Dr.FuzanMirza(CoPI)
AbdulRazzaq(TeamLead)
AliHur(TeamLead)
Mr.NasirHaider
Mr.MuddassarMasood
Mr.MazzamilNoor
Ms.FauziaNaureen
Mr.Intikhab
Ms.Sana
Ms.Nauvera
Ms.Huma
ProblemStatement
Semantic based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a biggest challenge and need
of the day for ebusiness and Defense based organizations to keep the secret
informationawayfromthehackersreach.AnIntelligentmechanismisrequiredto
analyze the user input semantically for understanding the context of input.
Ontology base IDS is novel and unique idea, no such commercial product yet
availableglobally.
Motivation
A security assessment by the Application Defense Center, which included more
than 250 Web applications from ecommerce, online banking, enterprise
collaboration,andsupplychainmanagementsites,concludedthatatleast92%of
Web applications are vulnerable to some form of attack. Another survey found
that about 75% of allattacksagainst Web serverstarget Webbased applications.
WebapplicationattacksespeciallySQLinjectionandcrosssitescriptingaretwoof
themostcommonsecurityvulnerabilitiesthatplaguewebapplicationsnowadays.
On April 24, 2008 hundreds of thousands of Microsoft Web Servers hacked,
including several at the United Nations and in the U.K. government through
exploitation the vulnerabilities of IIS. According to The National Vulnerability
81
Database (NVD) there are over 18,500 vulnerabilities in the web based
applications which include 2,147crosssite scripting (XSS), 2,757 buffer overflow
and1,600SQLinjectionvulnerabilities.
There is a need to design and implement a semantic base Intrusion Detection
Systemwhichcanmitigatetheapplicationlayerattackseffectivelyandefficiently.
TheSystemisontologybasedthatunderstandthecontextualnatureofpayloadof
http request. Ontology base IDS is novel and unique idea, no such commercial
product yet available globally. System also automatically generates the rules for
effective defense against application attacks by developing the semantic rule
engine.
ProgressandResults
ThepurposeofParadigmShiftinWebApplicationSecurityProjectistodevelopan
opensourcetooltofacilitateebusinessandinformationsharingcommunitiesfor
securingtheirresources. The prototype of the system has been implementedand
evaluated by using the Paros tool. The results obtained were highly encouraging
and almost detect the 99% web application attacks. The architecture has been
proposedasshowninfig1.
Figure1:SystemArchitecture
Systemhavingfollowingcomponents:
1. HttpExtractor
2. HttpParser
3. CacheController
4. Analyzer
5. RuleEngine
6. Knowledgebase
7. InferenceEngine
8. OntologyManager
82
9. AdminConsole
10. LoggingModule
FutureDirectionsandConclusion
ExpandingtheScopeofSystemtodetectmoreclassesofattacks.
Whitelistapproachcanbeusedtoimprovethedefaultallowapproachfor
webapplicationstoreduceattackthreatssignificantly.
UseofForensicstechniquestodetectthelocationsofhackers.
ContractsandGrantsobtained
WehaveobtainedfundsfortheHealthLifeHorizonProjectfromICTR&DFundPakistanof
themassRs.14.42million.
83
PTCL,NUSTCenterofExcellenceforIPTechnologies
The Center of Excellence for IP Technologies, jointly managed by PTCL, NUST and Cisco
Systems in collaboration, is currently operational at the NUST campus in Islamabad. The
centerbringstooneforumtheexpertiseofglobalnetworkingmarketleaderCisco,thetop
ranked Pakistani engineering university, NUST (ranked 376 worldwide in the THES
universityranking),andthebiggesttelecomserviceproviderinPakistan,PTCL.
The center aims to strengthen industryacademia linkages and promote international
collaboration,andhasbroadlytwogoals:
o To provide a worldclass research and development (R&D) facility where Pakistani

researchers will work, in collaboration with Cisco and PTCL engineers, on significant
contemporaryIPtechnologyproblems;
o To provide a diagnostic and training facility to PTCL and Cisco, in particular, and to
thelocalnetworkingindustryingeneral.
While the research workforce for the center will be provided by NUST, the thematic
directionsofresearchareaswouldbedecidedbyNUST,PTCLandCiscoincollaboration.By
involving the leading market vendor (Cisco), and leading national telecom service
providers (PTCL), the center of excellence is wellpositioned to tackle significant IP
technologyproblemsandtocreatenewproducts/services.
Activities
a) The center organized an ``IP technology networking workshop'' that was jointly
conducted by NUSTSEECS, Islamabad, and KICSUET, Lahore. The workshop, funded by
NationalICTR&Dfund,wassuccessfulingettinglocalresearchers,activeintheareaofIP
technology, to brainstorm and develop abstract future research proposals. The following
areaswereidentifiedduringtheworkshopasfuturecoreresearchareasforthecenter:
o Networksecurity
o Nextgenerationnetworks
o Routingandswitchingissues
o Networkperformanceevaluation
b) A virtual online forum gathering together Pakistani researchers active in the area of IP
technology research was created for the ``IP technology workshop''. The yahoogroup
servesasaninterfacebetweenresearchersactiveinoursubjectarea,andcanbeaccessed
athttp://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/pakiptechnology/.
84
CurrentProjects:
1)ContextawareIPTVservices
2)Routingincognitiveradionetworks
GroupMembers:
DrJunaidQadir
DrAdeelBaig
DrAnjumNaveed
ResearchStudents:
MuhammadUsman,NabeelurRehman,MuhammadZeeshan
85
ResearchGroupforOffGridEnergyResourcingROGER
Theme
Creationofoffgridenergyresourcesforalternativeenergyproduction
Applicationdomain
Solarenergyresearch
Fuelcells
Powerloadmanagementandsolutions
GroupMembers
Mr.HabeelAhmad+92519241800,+923345147601,habeel.ahmad@niit.edu.pk
Mr.SaleemIftikhar
ShamaRehman
Othermembersinvolvedingroupprojects:
Dr.RichardWills(UniversityofSouthampton,UK)
Mr.MajidMaqbool
Mr.RuhullahKhan
AssociatedLabs
ControlSystemsLab
NanotechnologyResearchLab
ResearchProjects
I. InternationalCollaboration
RankinEngineBasedPowerGenerator
Theme:Anendeavortoutilizealternativeenergyresourcesforelectricity
generationforlightloadapplications.
SaleemIftikhar,HabeelAhmad,AbrarMButt,MajidMaqbool
II. Otherprojects/FYPs
DevelopmentofNanoPhotocatalystsforphotosplittingofwater
Productionofcleanfuelsbeingthemainobjectivethroughthis
technique.
RuhullahKhan,ShamaRehman,AbrarMButt
Optimizationofefficiencyofsolarcells
Students:WaseemArshadandHarisZafar
RuhullahKhan,AbrarMButt
86
Developmentofcontrolsystemforsolarreflectors
Theprojectaimstodesignasystemforoptimizingtheefficiencyof
solarheatinglensesthroughelectroniccontrolandpositioningasa
functionofincidentradiation.
Students:M.AzfarK.Durrani,UtaibaQ.Dar
Mr.HabeelAhmad,Mr.SaleemIftikhar,AbrarMButt

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SchoolofElectricalEngineeringand

Projecttitle Topological Analysis and Network Performance

Projecttitle Evaluation of Techniques to Detect Significant Network

Savera Tanwir, Lina Battestilli, Harry G. Perros and Gigi KarmousEdwards,

Faaiz Hussain, Ali Haider, MoinudDin, S. M. Hassan Zaidi, Effecctive contention

Muhammad Kamran, Dr. S. M. H. Zaidi, Muhammad Ramzan ,Dynamic Bandwidth

Ammar Rafiq, Muhammad Ramzan, S. M. H. Zaidi, Comparative Analysis of scheduling

Introduction: Ethernet passive optical networks (EPON) are an emerging access

Such a comparative evaluation would enable us to identify the strengths and

(a) The development of theoreticallysound, practical and scalable security

a) Software Defined Radio Development using a NetworkOnChip based

a.) Design and Verification of LowPower, HighSpeed IP Suite for Universal

Dr. Khalid Latif, Assistant

Dr. Zia Qayyum, Assistant

Mr. Owais Malik, Assistant

Mr. Aatif Kamal, Assistant

Mr. Azhar Maqsood, Assistant

2. DynamOnt Collaborative Ontology Development: Common understanding is

2. Transforming Database Relations to Source Ontology in Data

3. Semantic Driven Information Retrieval in Digital Documents: Retrieving

o To provide a worldclass research and development (R&D) facility where Pakistani

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