Department Seminars
Academic Year (2017-2018)
- Apr 16, 2018: Seminar by Mr. Humoud Al Jalahma, Head of the Health Informatics Unit at the Dasman Diabetes Institute (Title: Steps in the Right Direction: Dasman’s Health Informatics Journey)
- Mar 26, 2018: Seminar by Prof. Kassem A. Saleh (Title: Risk Management for Successful Software Development Projects)
- Mar 5, 2018: Seminar by Ms. Shorouq AlHjab (Title: GIS in Kuwait: Applications and Career Opportunities)
- Feb 19, 2018: Seminar by Prof. Joseph Turner (Title: ABET Changes for Computing Programs)
- Feb 12, 2018: Seminar by Prof. Muhammad Sarfraz (Title: Shadows, Imaging & Real Life)
- Dec 18, 2017: Seminar by Dr. Shaikha Alduaij (Title: Data Mining Approach to Compare Privacy Policies)
- Nov 20, 2017: Seminar by Prof. Kassem A. Saleh (Title: Protecting Human Research Participants Three basic ethical principles)
- Oct 23, 2017: Seminar by Prof. Muhammad Sarfraz (Title: Kuwait University & Funding Research)
Seminar Abstracts
Steps in the Right Direction: Dasman’s Health Informatics Journey
Mr. Humoud Al Jalahma
Implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is nowadays becoming a key component of any modern healthcare system and is shaping up a significant trend worldwide. Due to its implications on health care organizations worldwide, this digital surge is a technological advancement that has gained the attention of stakeholders in the industry, both large and small. Kuwait is a relatively advanced country when it comes to the use of information technology in the Middle East. With ambitions to improve the healthcare system via the use of healthcare IT, including an advanced e-health infrastructure, many initiatives have been taken in Kuwait. In this discussion, I shed some light on some of the most promising initiatives taken by DDI to provide a model for healthcare IT in Kuwait.
Risk Management for Successful Software Development Projects
Prof. Kassem A. Saleh
Risk Management is a discipline whose main goals include the identification and assess-ment of risks, the recommendation of appropriate risk response strategies, and the continuous mon-itoring and control of risks. Studies have shown that the lack of or inadequacy of proper and effec-tive risk planning and management is one of the main reasons for failed and challenged projects. Risk management professionals are needed to perform well-defined risk management activities in both predictive and agile software development environments. In this talk we present an overview of the risk management processes and we highlight the risk management domains defined by the project management institute.
Openware and Kuwait GIS User Group (KGUG)
Ms. Shorouq AlHjab
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are prevalent in the business world today with a myriad of applications in various industries including healthcare, urban planning, transportation, and logistics. In this talk, Ms. AlHjab will overview GIS and talk about how it is applied and used in the State of Kuwait. She will also talk about jobs related to this field and how graduates can prepare for a career in GIS.
ABET Changes for Computing Programs
Prof. Joseph Turner
The ABET Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) has adopted changes to the General and Program Criteria for the accreditation of computing programs, to be effective for all CAC accreditation reviews beginning in 2019, and optional for use in 2018. Additionally, there currently are pilot reviews underway using proposed new program criteria for cybersecurity programs.
This seminar will review the new changes and their implications, with an emphasis on discussion and questions by the audience.
Shadows, Imaging & Real Life
Prof. Muhammad Sarfraz
Shadows in images are useful for various real applications. Shadow detection and removal processes have become an urgent need of time due to their progressive needs and importance. There are some applications which exploit the shadows to estimate buildings heights in aerial images. But, for applications that are used for change detection in urban areas, shadows may sometimes cause in wrong results. Shadows in images can be the main factors for incorrect image segmentation and loss of information for many image processing applications, especially those used for object recognition in computer vision and artificial intelligence fields. Shadow detection is the first step before the removal process. Many methods, in the current literature, have been presented for shadow detection in images based on different classes of features.
This presentation aims to highlight some existing shadow detection methods based on different techniques: pixel intensity values, chromaticity, object geometrical properties, and illumination direction of the light source. The talk is going to focus on interdisciplinary approaches and affiliate research in the area. Shadow detection and removal are the main areas to focus in this talk. It aims to provide the audience with a variety of techniques, applications and examples necessary for various real life problems. The major goal of the talk is to stimulate views and provide a source where researchers and practitioners can find the latest developments in the field.
The presentation would evaluate different methods by introducing the features used, summarizing algorithm work, and showing the experimental results. The talk would also highlight the weaknesses and strengths for each method. Strengths will guide researchers to the proper use of each method on the suitable application. On the other hand, weak points will give them the opportunity for further study and improvement, or developing alternative approaches for any of those methods.
Data Mining Approach to Compare Privacy Policies
Dr. Shaikha Alduaij
Although privacy policies are used to explain what information are collected, who will access it, and for what purpose, existing research shows that users often do not read privacy policies or they find them difficult to understand which may lead them not to make the right decisions regarding securing their privacy. Some studies have proposed tools to enhance the effectiveness of privacy policies and thus facilitate decision making, whereas others have introduced visualization models to increase privacy usability and effectiveness. Despite all of this, there has been relatively little work done on providing a comparison model to assist users when comparing the privacy practices of different companies in an effort to make informed decisions. In this study, we first analyze users’ awareness of privacy policies and the privacy practices. Next, we use text mining techniques to extract information users care about. We then develop a comparison tool to show the extracted information side by side. We conduct a survey to validate our comparison tool and gather users’ privacy preferences. We also propose a data mining based method to rank privacy policies. The ranking approach relies on pairwise preferences given by users, which are often reliable.
Protecting Human Research Participants Three basic ethical principles
Prof. Kassem A. Saleh
Conducting research on humans requires a thorough understanding of the ethical re-quirements and obligations that govern such research. In this talk, we present the ethical principles and guidelines, and the regulations for the protection of human subjects of research as defined by the US National Institute of Health. Research in human health and nutrition, information sciences, environmental health and social sciences may need to conform to these ethical principles to protect both the researcher and the participants. The three principles of Respect, Beneficence and Justice are discussed in details to understand the risks and obligations involved.
Kuwait University & Funding Research
Prof. Muhammad Sarfraz
In a University environment, it is one of the fundamental requirements to set the momentum of its academic community for scientific innovation and creativity. Such a momentum is possible to achieve through greater provisions, benefits and resources as stimulants for high quality research. Fortunately, Kuwait University has successful well-established Research Support System which assists its faculties to avail funds under any of the established grant support categories. This can be done by submitting well defined, original and scientifically sound proposals in basic and applied sciences, and in arts and humanities. This talk is dedicated to enlighten on the KU Research Support System together with highlighting major issues and guidelines to write a great and successful research proposal.