Annual Report 2007-08 - FEA - American University of Beirut

Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
American University of Beirut
PO Box 11-0236
Riad El Solh 1107 2020
Beirut, Lebanon
Tel: +961-1-350000, ext. 3520
Fax: +961-1-744462
E-mail: ece@aub.edu.lb
http://www.aub.edu.lb
Department of
E l e c t r i c a l a n d
Computer Engineering
Annual
Report
2007-08
Electrical engineering
ELECTRIC CIRCUITS AND SIGNALS
Nassir H. Sabah
A Conceptual Approach for True Understanding
Solving circuit problems is less a matter of knowing what steps to
follow then why those steps are necessary. And knowing the why
stems from an in-depth undestanding of the underlying concepts and
theoretical basis of electric circuits. Electric Circuits and Signals reveals
the fundamentals of electric circuit theory, operation, and analysis,
emphasizes critical thinking and and creative problem solving, and
explicitly highlights the fundamental concepts.
American University Solve Problems with Confidence of Beirut
Don’t settle for the first solution that springs to mind. Learn to approach
any problem from various angles to find the simplest, most affective
solution. This text shows you how to intuitively derive a result based on
in-depth understanding of the concepts, allowing you to check that your
answer is on the right track.
Learn Modern Tools for Tomorrow’s Solutions
If you’re not learning the tools, you’re behind the trade. Gain hands-on
experience using Pspice with schematic Capture® along with useful
MATLAB® commands to simulate, explore, and analyze circuits for a
variety of applications.
Gain Enriching Enriching Experience with the True-to-Life Examples
See theory in action with hundreds of examples, problems, case studies,
and exercices designed to help you see through the math and into
the real world for topics ranging from the basic of dc and ac circuits
to transients, convolution, Laplace and Fourier transforms, signal
processing, and operational amplifiers.
Explore a CD-ROM Loaded with Extras
If the text doesn’t have enough to sate your curiosity, then you
can find plenty more on the companion CD-ROM. It contains
additional discussions on more advanced topics, Pspice simulations,
supplementary solved examples, Cadence OrCAD® Release 15.7 Demo
Edition, answers to problems and exercices, and appendices. Overall,
the CD adds nearly 50% more material!
Sabah
ELECTRIC CIRCUITS
AND SIGNALS
+
ELECTRIC
CIRCUITS
AND
SIGNALS
Nassir H.Sabah

Department of
E l e c t r i c a l a n d C o m p u t e r
Engineering
Annual
Report
2007‑08
American University of Beirut

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
Message from the Chair 6
The Mission 9
AUB Mission 9
FEA Mission 9
ECE Mission 10
ECE Undergraduate Programs 10
ECE Graduate Programs 10
II. Personnel
Faculty 12
Full Time Faculty 12
Part Time Faculty 14
Staff 14
Members of the External Advisory Board 14
III. Academic Programs 16
The PhD Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering 17
Teaching 20
New ECE Graduate Courses 21
Statistics 22
Summer Training 23
Final Year Projects 28
Graduate Theses 32
IV. Research
Research and Travel Grants 40
Laboratories in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department 43
MOU 47
Joint Sponsored Research, Development and Consulting 47
Exchange of Faculty, Scientists and Staff 47
PhD research at ECE 51
ICT Launch 52
V. Activities
Service 54
ECE Budgets 55
Meetings 55
Awards 57
ECE News 61

I.
Introduction

6
Message from the Chair
I hope you will find this 2007-2008 Annual Report of all of the events, new faculty
members, new initiatives, program improvements, research productivity, and ECE
student success exciting to you. It is a privilege for me to give my first report as the
new ECE Chairperson and I deeply appreciate all the help and support I have been
given by the ECE faculty, staff, and students.
During the past few years, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
started offering revised undergraduate and graduate programs, continued
developing its laboratories, addressed the issues of collaboration and academic
advising, and witnessed several exciting developments in its faculty and staff ranks.
At the undergraduate level, the Department started to offer the new ECE and
existing CCE degrees according to the new curricula that were approved in 2006.
Entering undergraduate students now take a new introduction to Electrical and
Computer Engineering course; this course introduces students to the engineering
profession and to the various areas of electrical and computer engineering at the
beginning of their academic experience. At the graduate level, the Information and
Communications Technology (ICT) Master of Engineering program, with thesis and
non-thesis options, enrolled its first group of students. Last but not least, the PhD
program in ECE was approved by the State of New York Department of Education
and five students joined the program in the fall term of AY 2007-08, and six more
students are expected to join the program in the fall term of AY 2008-09.
In the last seven years, six new laboratories were equipped, furnished, and began
operations. These are: the Signal Processing Lab, the Internetworking Lab, the
Mobile and Distributed Computing Lab, the Printed Circuit Board Production Facility
Lab, the RF and Wireless Communications Lab, and the Sun Lab. The Mobile and
Distributed Computing Lab and the RF and Wireless Communications Lab, located
on the second floor of the RGB Building, were primarily financed by the CITPER
project (EC Tempus grant JEP 31074-2003). The departmental laboratories formerly
located in Wing B have moved to the new CCC Scientific Research Building (SRB).
These labs will remain at SRB until the Ray Irani/Oxy Engineering Complex is
completed. The Power Electronics Lab will be updated and a new lab on Internet
Security will be introduced in 2009.
In the spring term of AY 2007-08, two new faculty members joined the department
as assistant professors. This will bring the total number of full-time faculty members
in the department to twenty three. Prof. Zaher Dawy received the University Award
for Excellence in Teaching, bringing the total number of faculty members in the
department who have received this award to three; this is the highest number
among all departments at the University.
1.
introduction
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at AUB is committed to
helping its students take the initial steps to prepare themselves for the challenges of
the rapidly changing fields of electrical and computer engineering. The department
strives to achieve a quality reputation at the national, regional, and international
levels.
Best Regards,
Karim Kabalan
Chairman
7

8
Diaries of a First Year:
from Schoolchildren to Engineers
Fadel Adib and Izzat El‑Hajj
(CCE, Class of 2011)
September 26, 2007
Still mesmerized with
the new life we’ve
embarked on… the
orientation was simply
spectacular, the fellow
mates we’ve met so far
are only too diverse, we
have already experienced
the enthusiasm
and anxiousness of
registration… yet we have just realized that this journey is
going to be a long one…
October 23, 2007
Three days before Math 211 Quiz I, weeks gone by, and a
panic stricken class – still taken aback by the transition –
realizes that: oh no; only two sections down and eight more to
go!!! The quiz was… an adventure, shall we say? And the first
valuable lesson for the Class of 2011…
January 30, 2008
Hectic couldn’t genuinely express our experience with the
EECE 200 Project. We’ve been up all night… or at least in the
lab all night (some were sleeping on the floor, others on their
miniature houses, others in front of their computers…), and
now we will be evaluated for what we’ve been working on
for over a month, learning the engineering process the hard
way…
June 17, 2008
Spring term went by quickly… the material got more and
more interesting, and we became more and more absorbed
into the department’s atmosphere as the first year came to a
close. Our courses challenged us and our professors pushed
us to our limits, encouraging us to analyze, research, and
think for ourselves. The transition was rough, but nevertheless
exciting, and surely a big leap from being school children to
rising engineers…
The Mission
FEA Mission
1.
introduction
The American University of Beirut (AUB) is a private, independent,
nonsectarian institution of higher learning, founded in 1866. It functions
under a charter from the State of New York and is governed by a private,
autonomous Board of Trustees. Degrees awarded by the American
University of Beirut are officially registered with the Ministry of Higher
Education in Lebanon and with the Board of Education in the State of
New York. AUB was granted institutional accreditation in June 2004 by
the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of
Colleges and Schools.
AUB Mission
The American University of Beirut (AUB) is an institution of higher
learning founded to provide excellence in education, to participate in the
advancement of knowledge through research, and to serve the peoples
of the Middle East and beyond. Chartered in New York State in 1863, the
University bases its educational philosophy, standards, and practices on the
American liberal arts model of higher education. The University believes
deeply in and encourages freedom of thought and expression and seeks to
foster tolerance and respect for diversity and dialogue. Graduates will be
individuals committed to creative and critical thinking, life-long learning,
personal integrity and civic responsibility, and leadership.
The Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (FEA) at the American University of Beirut is a leading professional school in the
Middle East. The FEA offers educational programs of the highest standards, promotes research and creative scholarly activities of
its faculty and students, and provides services to the community at large, while addressing the needs of Lebanon and the region.
The FEA undergoes continuous improvement to maintain a challenging and
intellectually stimulating environment, and prepares its students to be lifelong
learners, innovators, and professionals capable of being leaders in their chosen
careers, committed to personal integrity and civic responsibility.
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is the largest
department in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. It has twenty
three full-time faculty members and is home to about 614 undergraduate
students and more than 49 graduate students and five PhD students. The total
number of ECE alumni now exceeds 2,650. The ECE Department maintains
several specialized teaching and research laboratories. The laboratories are
used for research purposes as well as to enhance teaching through hands-on
experience in the various fields of electrical and computer engineering.
9

10
ECE Mission
The mission of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is to prepare its students in a challenging environment
for leading roles in their major fields of study. It also prepares them for life-long learning, and fosters critical and independent
thinking; innovation, ethical conduct; and effective communication. The Department promotes excellence in education and
research, and provides services to the community at large.
The ECE department offers the following degrees: Bachelor of Engineering in Computer and Communications Engineering,
Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Master of Engineering in Electrical and Computer Engineering,
and the Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering. It also offers two undergraduate minors; Information
Technology and Biomedical Engineering.
ECE Graduate Programs
ECE Undergraduate Programs
The ECE department offers the degree of Bachelor of Engineering in two majors: Computer
and Communications Engineering (CCE), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). The
department also offers two minors: Minor in Information Technology, and Minor in Biomedical
Engineering.
The ECE department offers the degree of Master of Engineering (ME) in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The department offers the following graduate programs, all leading to the Master of Engineering in Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ME in ECE) degree: ECE Thesis Program, ECE Non-Thesis Program, and Information and Communications Technology
Program.
Objectives of the ECE Department:
Excellence in education: The Department strives for excellence in education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students
receive high-quality, basic and advanced technical education in electrical and computer engineering, with emphasis placed on
critical thinking, communication skills, creativity, ethical and professional behavior, leadership, and creating life-long learners.
Excellence in research: The Department strives for excellence in research, by providing students and faculty members with
a quality research environment and adequate laboratory facilities. Faculty members in the Department attract funding and
contribute to state-of-the-art research in electrical and computer engineering. Ties with researchers at renowned industrial and
academic institutions and with professional organizations are maintained to advance the professional development of faculty
members and students.
Excellence in service: The Department strives for excellence in the services it provides to the university, to local and
international professional organizations, and to the community at large, with special consideration given to the needs of
Lebanon and the region.
Outstanding faculty and students: The Department attracts excellent students to its programs, and attracts and retains
outstanding faculty members. The Department provides a supportive environment for the development of both faculty
members and students, and encourages student-faculty interactions through curricular and extra-curricular activities.
II.
Personnel

Faculty
Full Time Faculty
Professors
Al-Alaoui, M. Adnan, PhD, Georgia
Institute of Technology; Areas of interest:
Analog and digital signal processing with
applications to filters, communications,
controls, and biomedical engineering;
pattern recognition and neural networks
with applications to character, speech,
and image recognition.
Email: adnan@aub.edu.lb
Chaaban, Farid, PhD, University of
Liverpool; Areas of interest: Design and
analysis of electric machines and drives;
energy systems and their impact on the
environment; air pollution from power
plants.
Email: fbchaban@aub.edu.lb
Chedid, Riad, PhD, University of
London; Areas of interest: Design and
analysis of electric machines and drives;
energy systems and their impact on the
environment; air pollution from power
plants.
Email: rchedid@aub.edu.lb
Hajj, Ibrahim, PhD, University of
California, Berkeley; Areas of interest:
Design and verification of VLSI circuits
and systems; design for reliability and
optimization; design automation; mixedmode
simulation; fault simulation and
testing.
Email: ihajj@aub.edu.lb
Kabalan, Karim, PhD, Syracuse University;
Areas of interest: Antenna theory;
electromagnetic field computations;
software development;telecommunication
applications.
Email: kabalan@aub.edu.lb
Karaki, Sami, PhD, University of
Manchester; Areas of interest: Renewable
energy systems modeling; generation
expansion planning and production
costing; application of neural networks,
fuzzy systems, and genetic algorithms in
energy systems.
Email: skaraki@aub.edu.lb
Kayssi, Ayman, PhD, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor; Areas of interest:
Internet technologies; information
security and trust; VLSI design, modeling
and simulation; digital system testing.
Email: ayman@aub.edu.lb
Associate Professors
Assistant Professors
Artail, Hassan, PhD, Wayne State
University; Areas of interest: Distributed
computing and clusters; high-availability,
real-time software over networked
systems; embedded systems and smart
sensors; communication protocol design;
software project management and rollout.
Email: ha27@aub.edu.lb
Abou Faycal, Ibrahim, PhD, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; Areas of
interest: Information theory; digital
communication; optical communication;
stochastic systems.
Email: ia14@aub.edu.lb
2.
personnel
Chehab, Ali, PhD, University of North
Carolina at Charlotte; Areas of interest:
VLSI VLSI Testing and Information
Security; dynamic power supply current
(iDDT) testing; development of automatic
test pattern generation (ATPG).
Email: chehab@aub.edu.lb
Dawy, Zaher, Dr. Ing., Munich University
of Technology; Areas of interest: Wireless
communications (GSM/EDGE and
UMTS); design of multihop based cellular
networks; multiple user information
theory; multimedia transmission
over IP networks; bioinformatics and
computational biology.
Email: zd03@aub.edu.lb
Mariette Awad, PhD, University of
Hajj, Hazem, PhD, University
of Wisconsin-Madison; Areas of
interest Image processing, software
engineering, process control systems,
design to wafer, yield analysis, device
Mrad, Fuad, PhD, Purdue University;
Vermont; Areas of interest: Machine
analysis, and data mining.
Diab, Hassan, PhD, University of Bath;
Areas of interest: Control; robotics;
learning, data mining, data fusion,
Email: hh83@aub.edu.lb
12 Areas of interest: Performance evaluation
industrial automation; instrumentation.
image recognition, ubiquitous
13
of parallel processing systems; application
Email: fuad@aub.edu.lb
computing, wireless and analog design,
Elhajj, Imad, PhD, Michigan State
of fuzzy methodology to performance
semiconductor technology, process and
University, Areas of interest: Computer
evaluation in parallel processing systems;
quality control.
and sensor networking, Internet security,
performance evaluation of reconfigurable
Saade, Jean, PhD, Syracuse University;
Email: ma162@aub.edu.lb
medical and health informatics, robotics
computer architectures; simulation for
Areas of interest: Communication
and automation, human machine
engineering education.
systems; fuzzy sets and logic; design of
Bazzi, Louay, PhD, Massachusetts
interfacing.
Email: diab@aub.edu.lb
intelligent systems using fuzzy logic and
Institute of Technology; Areas of interest:
Email: ie05@aub.edu.lb
other tools; optimization techniques for
Theory of error correcting codes; design
El-Hajj, Ali, Docteur Ingénieur,
intelligent and decision-making systems.
and analysis of algorithms; cryptography;
Karameh, Fadi, PhD, Massachusetts
University of Rennes I; Areas of interest:
Email: jsaade@aub.edu.lb
number theory.
Institute of Technology; Areas of interest:
Antenna theory; electromagnetic field
Email: lb13@aub.edu.lb
System identification and control,
computations; software development;
Sabah, Nassir, PhD, State University of
biological systems, neural system
telecommunication applications.
New York, Buffalo; Areas of interest:
modeling, gene expression arrays.
Email: elhajj@aub.edu.lb
Electrophysiology of nerve and muscle;
modeling of the electrical behavior of
nerve and muscle cells; modeling of the
behavior of the human neuromuscular
system.
Email: nsabah@aub.edu.lb
Email: fk14@aub.edu.lb

14
Mansour, Mohamad, PhD, University
of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; Areas
of interest: Digital IC design; VLSI for
communications, signal processing and
general purpose computing systems;
coding theory, code design on graphs,
decoding algorithms and architectures;
algorithm and architecture optimizations
for VLSI using abstract algebra.
Email: mmansour@aub.edu.lb
Saghir, Mazen, PhD, University of
Toronto; Areas of interest: Computer
architecture; optimizing compilers;
configurable computing; embedded
systems design.
Email: mazen@aub.edu.lb
Part Time Faculty
Adjunct Professor
Senior Lecturers
Khoury, Shahwan: PhD, Carnegie Institute
of Technology
Chahine, Hazem: Diploma, Loughborough College of
Technology
Hamandi, Lama, PhD, Ohio State University
Kamali, Walid: PhD, ENST
Visiting Senior Lecturer
Huijer, Ernst, PhD, University of Florida
Lecturers
Abdallah, Rima, PhD, Universite Paul Sabatier Toulouse
Droubi, Ghassan, ME, American University of Beirut
Gurunian, Mehran, ME, American University of Beirut
Meskawi, Nada, PhD, University de Paris VI
Mohtar, Taan, MS, University of Prague
Moukalled, Ali, MS, Western Michigan University
Instructors
Bou Jaoude, Mroun, ME, American University of Beirut
Kanafani, Zaher, BE, American University of Beirut
Khaddaj, Sara, ME, American University of Beirut
Nahas, Nagi, BE, American University of Beirut
Slim, Bassel, ME, American University of Beirut
Staff
ECE Administrative Assistant
Abi Shakra, Rabab
ECE Laboratories
Joujou, M. Khaled, Manager, ME, American University of Beirut
Deeb, Ghassan, Manager, ME, American University of Beirut
Abiad, Salam, Supervisor
Shihab, Fuad, Senior Technican
Members of the External
Advisory Board
The External Advisory Board (EAB) plays an important role in
advising, promoting, and supporting the ECE department. The
following is a list of the members of the EAB:
Mr. Ghassan Boulbol, LibanCables
Mr. Jalal Fawwaz, ACT
Mr. Zuheir Haddad, CCC
Mr. George Kadifa, IBM
Mr. Kamal Kalot, Tamer Freres
Dr. John Makhoul, BBN
Mr. Youssef Matar, Dar Al-Handassah (Chairman of the EAB)
Mr. Abude Omari, Pillar Invest
Mr. Abdel Raouf Rifai
Mr. Hussein Rifai, MDC
Dr. Gabriel Rebeiz, University of California, San Diego
III.
Academics

16
Academic Programs
Since September 2006,
the Department has
offered the degree of
Bachelor of Engineering
in two majors: Computer
and Communications
Engineering (CCE) and
Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE).
The mission of the
undergraduate programs
is to impart a basic
understanding of electrical
and computer engineering
built on a foundation of
mathematics, physical
sciences, and technology; to expose students to practical and
major design experiences; and to provide students with a
global perspective and an awareness of their leadership role
in regional development. This preparation is augmented by
the liberal arts education offered to all undergraduates at the
American University of Beirut.
The Electrical and Computer Engineering program provides
the students with options to explore, and specialize in, one
or more areas of electrical and computer engineering. The
Computer and Communications Engineering program prepares
its graduates for careers and higher studies in information
and communication technologies. As educational objectives,
graduates of the undergraduate programs:
Possess skills and knowledge that qualify them for
professional practice in electrical and computer engineering
and for admission to reputable graduate programs.
Are capable of applying fundamental knowledge,
appropriate mathematical principles and computing
tools, critical thinking, and best practices in electrical and
computer engineering analysis and design.
Are provided with an educational foundation that fosters
creativity, team work, leadership, and communication skills,
and prepares them for life-long learning along diverse career
paths.
Have an appreciation of technical, social, economic,
environmental, ethical, and global aspects of engineering
practice.
The Department also offers the following two undergraduate
minors:
Minor in Information Technology (IT): The IT Minor is open
to all AUB students, except students majoring in Computer
and Communications Engineering, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, or Computer Science. The minor will be
indicated on the transcript of the student who completes
all the requirements. The IT minor program consists of six
courses: three core courses and three electives.
Minor in Biomedical Engineering. The Minor in Biomedical
Engineering is open to all AUB students. The minor will be
indicated on the transcript of the student who completes all
the requirements. The minor requirements are divided into
a set of core courses and a set of elective courses.
Since September 2006, three graduate programs have been
offered under the Master of Engineering in Electrical and
Computer Engineering Degree: A research-oriented thesis
program, a course-oriented non-thesis program, and a
special program focused on information and communications
technology (ICT). The ICT program is a special program in the
sense that students following the ICT curriculum will have to
complete all the requirements of a thesis program, in addition
to taking business and management courses, graduate level
lab courses, special courses given by visiting professors and
industry specialists, and completing an industrial or research
internship. Students enrolled in any of the graduate programs
should have a major area and a minor area from the following
eight ECE areas: Biomedical Engineering, Integrated Circuits
and Computer Systems, Software Systems and Networks,
Control and Intelligent Systems, Communications, Signal and
Image Processing, Energy and Power Systems, and Applied
Electromagnetics and RF Systems.
The PhD Program
in Electrical
and Computer
Engineering
Since September 2007,
The ECE department
has offered the PhD
program in Electrical and
Computer Engineering.
The program is registered
at the New York State
Department of Education
and approved by the
Lebanese Ministry of
Higher Education. Five
students joined the
program in the academic
year 2007-08 and six
students are expected
to join this program
in the fall term AY
2008-09. The ECE Graduate Committee bases its admission
recommendations on a combined score for applicants that
include GPA, GRE score, research portfolio, interview results,
and recommendations. The relative weights for the various
components are 25%, 20%, 25%, 20%, and 10%, respectively.
Mission of the PhD Program
The mission of the doctoral program is to provide high quality
education in electrical and computer engineering which
prepares students for employment and leadership roles in
academic, industrial, or research positions.
The objectives of the program are:
To provide the student with the research opportunities to
acquire a depth of knowledge in one specialization area of
electrical and computer engineering, and familiarity with
allied areas.
To provide opportunities for the doctoral student to
develop competence in performing independent research,
communicating effectively, and learning independently.
To advance the state of electrical and computer engineering
research at AUB, in Lebanon, and the region.
To advance the state of the art in electrical and computer
engineering.
3.
PhD Program Outcomes
academics
Graduates of the program are expected to have:
A breadth of knowledge in electrical and computer
engineering, and a depth of knowledge in their specific area
of research
An ability to identify and define research problems
Experience in performing research and communicating the
results effectively
Experience in doing independent academic work
A published contribution to the existing knowledge in
electrical and computer engineering
Admission Requirements
Applicants to the PhD program must hold a master’s degree in
electrical and computer engineering or in a related discipline
from AUB or another recognized institution of higher
education, with a minimum cumulative average of 85.0 over
100 or its equivalent. Admission is determined by evaluating
the following:
Transcripts of academic records from the institution(s) of
higher education attended by the applicant
Graduate Record Examination (GRE) general test scores
A written statement of purpose
Three letters of recommendations
A portfolio that includes a resume and samples of work
An interview, conducted either in person, by phone, or over
the Internet
All applicants must also satisfy the University requirements for
admission to PhD programs.
Financial Support
Applicants to this program may apply to the Financial Aid
Office for:
Fellowships to cover the full tuition and a stipend of up to
12,000 USD per year
Graduate assistantships to cover tuition
Research assistantships to provide a monthly stipend.
17

18
Course Offerings
Summer 2007
Undergraduate Courses Graduate Courses
Course # Course Name Course # Course Name
EECE 210 Electric Circuits and Electronics EECE 799 Thesis
EECE 230 Computers and Programming
EECE 290 Analog Signal Processing
EECE 320 Digital System Design
EECE 330 Data Structures and Algorithms
EECE 370 Electric Machines and Power Fund.
EECE 442 Communication Systems
EECE 500 Approved Experience
Fall 2007-2008
Undergraduate Courses Graduate Courses
Course # Course Name Course # Course Name
EECE 200 Introduction to ECE EECE 601 Biomedical Engineering I
EECE 210 Electric Circuits EECE 613 RF and Microwave Circuits for Communications
EECE 230 Introduction to Programming EECE 620 Computer Graphics
EECE 310 Electronics EECE 625 Embedded Systems Design
EECE 311 Electronic Circuits EECE 632 Cryptography and Computer Security
EECE 320 Digital Systems Design EECE 640 Wireless Communications
EECE 330 Data Structures and Algorithms EECE 641 Information Theory
EECE 370 Electromechanical Systems EECE 646 Advanced Digital and Data Communications
EECE 421 Computer Architecture EECE 653 Multimedia and Networking
EECE 442 Communications Systems EECE 654 Pervasive Computing
EECE 480 Electromagnetics EECE 660 System Analysis and Design
EECE 430 Software Engineering EECE 664 Fuzzy Sets, Logic and Applications
EECE 450 Computer Networks EECE 673 Power Electronics
EECE 460 Control Systems EECE 675 Renewable Energy
EECE 471 Fundamentals of Power Systems Analysis
EECE 474 Electric Drives
EECE 475 Industrial Electrification
EECE 501 Final Year Project
EECE 503 Audio Engineering ITEC Courses
EECE 503A Artificial Intelligence ITEC 240 Computers and Communication Systems
Laboratories Courses
EECE 200 Introduction to ECE Lab
EECE 230 Introduction to Programming Lab
EECE310L Electric Circuits Lab
EECE 330 Data Structures and Algorithms Lab
ITEC 241 Software Systems
EECE 311L Electronics Lab
EECE 430 Software Engineering Lab
EECE 442L Communications lab
EECE 460L Control Systems Lab
EECE 470L Electric Machines Lab
EECE 451L Internetworking Lab
3.
Spring 2007-2008
Undergraduate Courses Graduate Courses
Course # Course Name Course # Course Name
EECE 210 Electric Circuits EECE 602 Biomedical Engineering II
EECE 230 Introduction to Programming EECE 603 Biomedical Signal & Image Processing
EECE 290 Analog Signal Processing EECE 632 Cryptography and Computer Security
EECE 311 Electronics Circuits EECE 635 Advanced Software Engineering
academics
EECE 321 Computer Organization EECE 643 RF and Microwave Communications Systems
EECE 340 Signals and Systems EECE 644 Stochastic Processes, Detection and Estimation
EECE 380 Engineering Electromagnetics EECE 645 The UMTS Cellular Systems
EECE 421 Computer Architecture EECE 653 Multimedia and Networking
EECE 442 Communication Systems EECE 656 Mobile Ad-Hoc and Sensor Networks
EECE 450 Computer Networks EECE 661 Robotics
EECE 401 Biomedical Engineering Seminar EECE 670 Power System Planning
EECE 430 Software Engineering EECE 681 Advanced Antenna Design
EECE 431 Design and Analysis of Algorithms EECE 682
EECE 433 Database Systems EECE 691 Digital Signal Processing
EECE 460 Control Systems EECE 693 Neural Networks
EECE 476 Power System Protection and Switchgear EECE 797 Seminar
EECE 499 Undergraduate Research EECE 798 Sp. Topic: Introduction to lighting Concept
EECE 502 Final Year Project EECE 798A Sp. Topic: Software Quality Engineering
EECE 503 Sp. Topic: Audio Engineering EECE 799 Thesis
EECE 503A Sp. Topic: Artificial Intelligence EECE 799A Thesis
Laboratory Courses
EECE 230 Introduction to Programming Lab
EECE 321L Computer Organization Lab
EECE 430 Software Engineering Lab
EECE 442L Communications Lab
EECE 451L Internetworking Lab
EECE 651L Internetworking Lab
EECE 460L Control Systems Lab
EECE 461 Instrumentation Lab
EECE 470L Machines Lab
EECE 471L Power System Lab
EECE 799B Thesis
EECE 799C Thesis
EECE 799D Thesis
19

20
Teaching
This section includes the courses taught by the full-time faculty members in the department with the corresponding number of
students in each course.
Name
Teaching Courses
Summer 2007 Fall 2007-2008 Spring 2008
Abou Faycal, Ibrahim EECE 442 (13), EECE 641 (13) EECE 442 (25), EECE 644 (11)
Al-Alaoui, M. Adnan On Leave On Leave EECE 691 (5), EECE 693 (5)
Artail, Hassan EECE 230 (30) EECE 450 (30), EECE 630 (11) EECE 450 (41), EECE 656 (21)
Awad, Mariette Joined ECE in Spring 2007-08 EECE 210 two sections (51+49)
Bazzi, Louay EECE 230 (59), EECE 642 (8) EECE 230 (36), EECE 431 (9)
Chaaban, Farid EECE 370 (33) On Leave On Leave
Chedid, Riad EECE 210 (30) EECE 210 (38), EECE 480 (42) On Leave
Chehab, Ali EECE 320 (41)
Dawy, Zaher
EECE 310 (66), EECE 320 (61),
EECE 624 (19)
ECE 320 (40), EECE 640 (30), EECE
797 (18)
Diab, Hassan VP REP VP REP VP REP
El-Hajj, Ali EECE 330 (33) EECE 330 (39), EECE 635 (6)
Elhajj, Imad EECE 210 (39), EECE 655 (28)
EECE 230 (36), EECE 632 (38)
EECE 450 (27), EECE 645 (10),
EECE 797 (19)
EECE 230 (36), EECE 430 (27),
EECE 635 (2)
EECE 210 (42), EECE 461 (12),
EECE 653 (21)
Hajj, Hazem Joined ECE in Spring 2007-08 EECE 290 two sections (42+45)
Hajj, Ibrahim Dean FEA Dean FEA Dean FEA
Kabalan, Karim EECE 290 (28) EECE 210 (38), EECE 647 EECE 340 (45)
Karaki, Sami
EECE 370 two sections (57+57)
EECE 471 (30)
EECE 473 (10), EECE 670 (5)
Karameh, Fadi EECE 210 (41), EECE 663 (12) EECE 340 (24), EECE 603 (15)
Kayssi, Ayman EECE 200 (165), EECE 310 (59) EECE 311 two sections (45+45)
Mansour, Mohamad On Leave On Leave On Leave
Mrad, Fuad EECE 460 (50), EECE 660 (7) EECE 460 (11), EECE 661 (10)
Saade, Jean EECE 442 (34)
EECE 646 (14), EECE 664 (9), EECE
501 (143)
Sabah, Nassir EECE 310 (36), EECE 601 (4)
EECE 340 two sections (41+45),
EECE 502 (141)
EECE 311 (34), EECE 401 (3), EECE
602 (4)
Saghir, Mazen EECE 421 (23), EECE 625 (22) EECE 321 (45), EECE 421 (29)
3.
New ECE Graduate Courses
EECE 667 Pattern Recognition
academics
In a time of omnipresent personal computers and ubiquitous electronics
recordings, data collection rate is growing at such an overwhelming rate that
timely data analysis for the gathered information is lagging alarmingly. Because,
lying hidden in the data is usually a wealth of knowledge often not extracted, this
new graduate course focuses on recognizing patterns in data. EECE 667 provides
an overview of the theory, principles, and algorithms used in pattern recognition
to construct high performance information processing systems that learn from
experience. It discusses traditional and modern concepts for model selection and
parameter estimation in recognition, decision making, multi-agent and statistical
learning problems. Special emphasis will be given to regression, classification,
regularization, feature selection, dimensionality reduction and density estimation
in supervised, unsupervised and semi- supervised modes of learning. Students
will be assigned some typical pattern recognition problems to investigate as
projects.
EECE 683 Numerical Methods in Electromagnetics
This course will cover basic computational techniques
for numerical analysis of electromagnetic problems,
including the finite difference, finite element, and
moment methods. The course also investigates the
application of the Finite-Volume Control method in
electromagnetics. Course objectives are to ensure
that students: understand why numerical methods
are needed to solve realistic or practical problems
in electromagnetics and why this need will increase;
understand the mathematical concepts upon which
computational electromagnetics relies; can translate the
mathematical description of a solution into a computer program; can choose between the various numerical methods to use the
right method for a particular problem; and can develop a foundation level necessary for successful use of available computational
EM tools (programs such as HFSS, Momentum, and others) for research in the area of numerical and applied electromagnetics.
Course topics are: the basics of scientific computing, review of electromagnetic theory, finite difference methods, moment
methods, finite element method, in addition to advanced topics on finite volume method in electromagnetics, hybrid methods,
finite-element boundary-integral methods, and fast algorithms.
21

22
Statistics
Student Enrollment
Undergraduate Students Graduate Students
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
99
94
1st Year
(Class of 2011)
89
73
2nd Year
(Class of 2010)
64
3rd Year
(Class of 2009)
CCE ECE
68
72
55
4th Year
(Class of 2008)
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
3
10
7
0
2
1
13
11
Summer 2007 Fall 2007-08 Spring 2007-08
17
4
2
15
14
13
EE CCE EICT ECET ECEN
A total of 614 undergraduate students were enrolled in the ECE department in both majors Computer and Communications
Engineering (CCE) and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) during the academic year 2007-08.
Student Employment
The ECE department had 115 students registered in the student
work scholarship for the academic year 2007–08 (10 students
in summer, 64 students in the fall term, and 41 students in the
spring term). Student employment provides support to the faculty
members in grading homework assignments, preparing course
notes, course websites, laboratory operations, clerical work, etc. at
the rate of three to six hours per week.
Graduate Assistants
Fellowships covering tuition and stipends are available for graduate students in return for assisting faculty members in teaching
and/or research for a specified number of hours per week. Recipients are selected by the department on the basis of academic
record and departmental need. The ECE department offered 73 graduate assistantships during the academic year 2007-08.
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
13
10
29
Summer 2007 Fall 2007-08 Spring 2007-08
64
31
41
Graduate Assistants Student Employment
5
Summer Training
ECE undergraduate students
are required to do a technical
internship during the summer of
their third year. This experience
consists of an eight-week internship
with a professional organization
that provides opportunities for
training and exposure to the real
engineering world. The following
table presents a list of students
with their internship positions
during summer 2007.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Company/University Student Name Country Major
University of Toronto Rawan Abdel Khalek Canada CCE
MTC Stephany Abi Abdallah Lebanon
20
15
Schlumberger Abir Abi Ali Abou Dhabi CCE
Sting Networks Ayman Abi Haidar Sweden CCE
Food and Agriculture Organization Jad Abi Samra Italy CCE
ECole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne Joyce Abou Jaoude Switzerland CCE
Xplorium Ghady Abou Zeid Lebanon CCE
Dar Al Handasah-Shaer Anwar Abu Taha Lebanon ECE
Murex Nabih Ahmad Lebanon CCE
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Shadi Akiki USA CCE
Ericsson Hussein Al Asadi Lebanon CCE
Petrofac International Hisham Al Ashkar UAE ECE
University of California at Berkley Omar Al Ayache USA CCE
University of Santa Barbara Lara Al Deek USA CCE
Ahmadieh Contracting & Trading Co Jihad Al Zein Kuwait CCE
Prim industries SpA. Tarek Al-Hawwach Italy ECE
ZETRA Industry Sally Antoun Lebanon ECE
Murex Reda Aouad Lebanon CCE
Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal Ghadi Aoude Canada CCE
Manipal Institute of Technology Nael Aoun India ECE
Phoenix George Aoun Lebanon ECE
NATCO UK Limited Rana Lahoud UK ECE
Petrofac International Elie Aramouni UAE ECE
Veolia Waters Elias Abou Jaoude KSA ECE
3.
Lebanon Abroad
CCE
ECE
51 51
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
22
4
academics
University Company
CCE
ECE
49
62
23

24
Company/University Student Name Country Major
Tarek Attoui
California Institute of Technology Aliaa Atwi USA CCE
BT Netherlands Samer Azar Holland ECE
IASTE Wissam Baalbaki Mexico CCE
CSAIL MIT Cambridge Ibrahim Badr USA ECE
Midmac Contracting Ayman Badreddine Qatar ECE
MTC Moussa Barakat Lebanon CCE
Kharafi National Christian Bassil Abou Dhabi ECE
University of Toronto Jamal Bazzi Canada CCE
Institute of Communication & Navigation Samer Bazzi Germany CCE
CCC Ara Bissal Qatar ECE
Polytronics Milad Chalfoun Lebanon ECE
Leo Burnett Aline Chalhoub Dubai CCE
Orange Business Services Equant Fabienne Challita Lebanon CCE
IBM Razan Charafeddine Dubai CCE
FAO Nadim Cheaib Italy CCE
Saudi Oger LTD Hazem Daher KSA ECE
MAPCO Monah Dahrouj Abou Dhabi ECE
SODENA Tala Debs Paris CCE
Tetracom Hovig Denkilkian Lebanon CCE
Digipen Institute of Technology Michel Doumet USA CCE
CCC Ahmad Ebrik Dubai
BML- Istisharat Anthony Eid Lebanon CCE
Besix Construct Cyril El Adm Dubai ECE
General Electric Security Rami El Ghoussainy Lebanon CCE
Thermo LLC- Abou Dhabi Mohammad El Habbal UAE ECE
Lindenberg Ali El Hafni UAE ECE
Institute of Communication & Navigation Jad El Hage Germany CCE
MTC Khouloud El Hakim Lebanon ECE
University of Western Ontario Zouheir El Jabi UK CCE
Saudi Binladin Group Ibrahim El Kaakour KSA ECE
Institute of Communication & Navigation Malek El Khatib Germany CCE
BTC- Networks Mohammad El Matbouli Lebanon ECE
Camiant, Inc.- Marlborough Jad El Mir USA CCE
Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal Maya El Moghrabi Canada CCE
GAMCO Eric El Obeid Abou Dhabi ECE
Khorafi Mohammed Bachir El Tannir Kuwait ECE
Saudi Diyar Consultants Ahmad El Turk KSA ECE
Saudi Oger LTD Khaled El Zein KSA CCE
Company/University Student Name Country Major
BLOM Bank Youssef El Zmeter Lebanon ECE
MIT Clauda Ephrem USA CCE
Petrofac International Hadi Esper UAE ECE
Bahen Centre for Information Technology Samer Faour Canada CCE
Cisco Systems Maya Farah USA CCE
CNS Kamal Farran Lebanon CCE
CCC Moustafa Fattal KSA ECE
Arizona State University Elias Ferzli USA ECE
Ericsson Tamar Ghadban Lebanon CCE
Ericsson Ali Ghandour Lebanon CCE
Lindenberg Wissam Ghoussaini UAE CCE
Royal Institute of Technology & Sting Stephanie Habib Sweden CCE
OTIS LLC Serge Haiby Dubai ECE
Petrofac International Issa Hajir UAE CCE
Bouygues Constructions Abed El Afou Halabi Dubai ECE
NTNU- Department of Telematics Reem Hammouda Holland CCE
Petrofac International Fadi Hariz UAE ECE
Arab Business Machine Micheline Harmouche Dubai ECE
University of Toronto Reine Heloue Canada CCE
Oger Systems Samer Hijazi KSA ECE
Electronics & Computer Systems (ECS) Mohamad Hindi Sweden ECE
Mr. Akram Hourieh Firm Hani Hmedan Al Samsam Lebanon ECE
University of Berkely Tarek Ibrahim USA CCE
CCC Mohammad Ibrahim Qatar ECE
Mobinets Karim Idriss Lebanon ECE
German Aeropace Center (DLR) Hussein Helmi Jalloul Germany CCE
PWC Serouj Jamijian Dubai CCE
MTC Firas Jarrah Lebanon ECE
The CAT Group Malek Kalash Lebanon CCE
IBM Chaukat Kamareddine Germany ECE
CCC Elias Karaa Lebanon ECE
CAT Group Ziad Kassab Qatar ECE
Clemenceau- Gefinore Center Nazelie Kassabian Lebanon CCE
CCC Rami Kdouh Qatar ECE
University of Toronto Agop Koulakezian Canada CCE
Kyube- Mansourieh Camille Lahoud Lebanon CCE
The Talkies Philippe Araman Lebanon ECE
PWC Logistics Sobhi Malas Dubai CCE
Terranet Iman Mansour Lebanon ECE
3.
academics
25

26
Company/University Student Name Country Major
University of Waterloo Hrag Margossian Canada ECE
IT.CAL Elie Matta France ECE
JCC (Jeddah Cable Company) Omar Monajjed KSA ECE
KTH & Sting Networks Ayman Mukaddam Sweden CCE
ABB (Asean Brown Boveri) Marwan Nadda Switzerland CCE
ABB/ AG Patrick Nadim Germany ECE
University of Waterloo Rostom Ohannessian Canada CCE
University of California at Berkley Nahi Ojeil USA CCE
Prima Industry Amira Panayoti Italy CCE
TARGET Engineering Construction Co Manar Rabbani UAE ECE
Bank Audi Lama Saab Lebanon CCE
ABB Switzerland Ltd. Power Systems Rami Saade Switzerland ECE
TU Braunschweig Tania Safar Germany CCE
Institute of Communication & Navigation Malak Safieddine Germany CCE
Saudi Oger LTD Rayyan Saklawi KSA ECE
Philips Medical Systems Marie Joe Salloum France ECE
MIT Samir Salman USA CCE
Kharafi National Ragheed Santina Kuwait ECE
Kharafi National Georges Saroufim Abou Dhabi ECE
University of Belgrade IAESTE Mohammed Ali Seblani Serbia CCE
EVI Audio Telex El Emir Fouad Shehab Germany CCE
Dar Al Handasah- Shaer Ahmad Sidawi Lebanon CCE
General Elactric International Operation Rania Skayneh Dubai CCE
MDS Holdings Faissal Sleiman Lebanon CCE
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Sami Smaili USA ECE
Casamed- Airport Road Dar Al Handasah Assil Smeismeh Lebanon ECE
CCC Hussein Tarhini Qatar ECE
University of Wales Sarah Thoubian UK CCE
Schlumberger Hani Tohme Kuwait ECE
CNS- AUB Ramzi Touma Lebanon ECE
IAESTE- Cyprus Ward Wehbeh Cyprus ECE
Lindenberg Paul Yaacoub UAE CCE
S & AS Co Ltd Farah Yahya Lebanon CCE
Saudi Oger LTD Wissam Yassine KSA ECE
LBC International- MAN entreprise Christian Habib Qatar ECE
What no other place could offer…
Lian Kanj (PHD Student)
As soon as I got my
Master of Engineering
in Computer and
Communications
Engineering degree
from AUB on June
30, 2007, I began to
seriously ask myself
“Where should I do
my PhD studies?”
Shall I do it in Europe,
wait and apply to
universities in the
United States, or stay at AUB? In September 2007, I was happy
to learn that I had been accepted to the PhD program in the
ECE department at AUB from among a very competitive group
of applicants. Considering the pros and cons of all my available
opportunities, I was confused in making a decision, but finally
I chose AUB still asking myself the important question “Am I
making the right decision?”
In September 2007, I started my PhD studies with three
other candidates as the first group of students in the newly
introduced PhD program. Having done my master’s degree
at AUB, the environment was very familiar to me as I knew
most of the professors, staff, and graduate students. The main
difference that I have felt is in my perspective. I have always
been a dedicated and serious student in my work; however, I
realized a spontaneous difference in my attitude towards my
courses, research, and everything else that I had to do. I feel
more independent and I feel that I have the ability to guide
my own academic track, under the supervision of my great
and supporting adviser Prof. Zaher Dawy and with the advice
of our caring chairperson Prof. Karim Kabalan. During the last
3.
academics
fall, spring, and summer semesters, I took courses that were of
great value to me, and I cannot forget the enthusiasm of most
of the professors who also had a different perspective and high
expectations of the PhD students.
During the last academic year, I also had the chance to attend
my first international conference, the International Conference
on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON 2008), held from
June 22 to 26, 2008 in Athens, Greece where I gave my
first international talk. It was a great experience where I had
the opportunity to meet researchers from universities and
companies located in forty different countries. An interesting
part was that I was the only participant from Lebanon, and
I remember clearly when one of the Greek organizers told
me that he did not know that anyone did research in optical
communications at AUB. He was happy about this because
the best students that he gets at his institute are from AUB. It
was really a pleasure for me to be AUB’s first representative at
this conference. I felt that I had contributed, though on a small
scale, in achieving one of the aims of the PhD program which
is to contribute to the international recognition of AUB.
Having obtained the Schengen visa to attend the conference,
the way was paved for me to visit my loving and caring
brother, Emad, in Italy where I spent an unforgettable week
and visited Milan, Rome, Florence, and Venice.
There is still a lot to do and to plan. However, I feel that I can
now confidently give an answer to the question that I asked
ten months ago and say “yes, I made the right decision.” I
enjoy what I am doing and there is nothing else that I would
prefer to do more. I believe in what Abraham Lincoln said,
“The best way to predict your future is to create it,” by proper
planning and hard working.
27

28
Final Year Projects
ECE undergraduate students are required to work in groups on final year projects (FYPs) during their fourth year. The FYP is a
substantial piece of work that will require creative activity and original thinking. In general, the objectives of the final year project
are to:
Allow students to demonstrate a wide range of the skills learned at the FEA during their course of study by asking them to
deliver a product that has passed through the design, analysis, testing, and evaluation stages.
Encourage multidisciplinary research through the integration of material learned in a number of courses.
Allow students to develop problem solving, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation skills.
Encourage teamwork.
Improve students’ communication skills through writing two professional reports (at the end of the fall and spring terms),
producing a professional poster (only at the end of the spring term), and giving two presentations on their work (at the end of
the fall and spring terms).
The following table presents the list of final year projects with corresponding groups of students and advisers during the
academic year 2007–08.
Final Year Project Title Student’s Names Supervisor
Preregistration system
Nurse E-Assessment system
Automated determination of skin lesion removal regions
Peer-to-peer SSL tunneling
A parameterizable SIMD unit generator for soft processor cores
High performance computing on the IBM cell/BE
Voice-over-IP client on an FPGA
Hardware implementation of a hybrid bluetooth/ wifi wireless
interface
Omar El-Moghrabi
Samer Hijazi
Kamal Farran
Christian Habib
Teddy Zeeny
Rana Lahoud
Mohammad El Habbal
Maya El Moghrabi
Omar Monajjed
Reda Aouad
Aline Chalhoub
Tala Debs
Farah B. Yahya
Lama Saab
Rami El Ghoussainy
Chaukat Kamareddine
Faissal Sleiman
Abir Abi Ali
Samer Bazzi
Mohammed Ali Seblani
Jamal Bazzi
Anwar Abu Taha
Fouad Shehab
Mohammad El Matbouli
Ali El Hajj
Ali El Hajj
Ayman Kayssi
Ayman Kayssi
Mazen Saghir
Mazen Saghir
Mazen Saghir
Mazen Saghir
Final Year Project Title Student’s Names Supervisor
Dynamically reconfigurable cache memory for the Xilinx microblaze
Design of intelligent controllers based on knowledge transfer between
robots
Intelligent adaptation of soft handoff thresholds in cellular networks
using CDMA
Design of optimum or near optimum source codes
Network coding for multimedia applications over wireless networks
Sensor based context aware application for mobile devices
Energy profiling of GPRS applications on mobile devices
Voice over wireless
AUH lab samples tracking
SIP peer-to-peer application
Mobile robot for mines detection using a vibrometer and navigated
wirelessly through a PC
Computer vision based automatic sorting system for apple fruits
3.
Khouloud El- Hakim
Elias Ferzli
Rawan Abdel Khalek
Reine Heloue
Ragheed Santina
Ahmad Ebrik
Gharib Nehme
Wissam Baalabaki
Jihad Al Zein
Karim Idriss
Razan Charafeddine
Rania Skayneh
Tarek Attoui
Samir Salman
Nahi Ojeil
Aliaa Atwi
Hussein Jalloul
Sami Smaili
Hussein Al-Asadi
Ali Ghandour
Moussa Barakat
Ramzi Touma
Ayman Mukaddam
Samer Faour
Malek Kalash
Mohammad El Tannir
Omar Al-Ayache
Ghadi Abou Zeid
Fabienne Challita
Reem Hammouda
Ziad Kassab
Hadi El Amine
Ghassan Khaled
Hussein Tarhini
Monah Dahrouj
Ayman Badreddine
Ahmad El Turk
Moustafa Fattal
academics
Mazen Saghir
Jean Saade
Jean Saade
Jean Saade
Zaher Dawy
Zaher Dawy
Imad El Hajj
Zaher Dawy
Imad Elhajj
Imad Elhajj
Imad Elhajj
Fouad Mrad
Daniel Asmar
Fouad Mrad
29

30
Final Year Project Title Student’s Names Supervisor
Automated ceramic production inspection
Floating wireless oil sensor
Wifi-Bot: a wireless LAN enabled robot
E manufacturing predictive maintenance system
Music classification, identification, and interpretation (dancing robot)
Navigation through a 3D world using sensors
Brain-controlled interactive TV
Information sharing in VANETS for increased safety and distributed file
sharing
Distributed file sharing in mobile ad-hoc networks
Implementation of hybrid Bluetooth-Wifi mobile node
(DBS-IC) Data Building System for Intermittent Connectivity under
PARANETS
Study of RFID application in the supply chain management
Iman Mansour
Ali El Hafni
Tarek Al-Hawwach
Milad Chalfoun
Hovig Denkilkian
Rostom Ohannessian
Agop Koulakezian
Manar Rabbani
Sally Antoun
Hadi Esper
Assil Smeismeh
Wissam Yassine
Rayyan Saklawi
Jad Abi Samra
Anthony Eid
Paul Yaccoub
Michel Doumet
Carl hage Youssef
Philippe Araman
Amira Panayoti
Joyce Abou Jaoude
Nazelie Kassabian
Shadi Akiki
Tarek Ibrahim
Malek El Khatib
Tania Safar
Malak Safieddine
Ghadi Aoude
Wissam Ghoussaini
Elie El Ters
Ghaith Jarrar
Nabih Ahmad
Khaled El Zein
Issa Hajir
Lara Al Deek
Sarah Thoubian
Serouj Jamijian
Jad Haddad
Elia Abou Chedid
Eric El Obeid
Christian Bassil
Fouad Mrad
Ali Chehab
Imad Elhajj
Ali Chehab
Ali Chehab
Fouad Mrad
Louay Bazzi
Louay Bazzi
Fadi Karameh
Hassan Artail
Hassan Artail
Hassan Artail
Hassan Artail
Walid Kamali
3.
academics
Final Year Project Title Student’s Names
Jad El Mir
Supervisor
Pointing devices using accelerator technology and RF or IF
communication system
Maya Farah
Serge Haiby
Elias Zard Abou Jaoude
Walid Kamali
Mazen Saghir
Implementation of digital video streaming system
Micheline Harmouche
George Patrick Aoun
Patrick Nadim
Walid Kamali
Study of interference in cable TV distribution systems
Nael Aoun
Marie Joe Salloum
Walid Kamali
A stock market software package with information theory optimization
techniques
The design and implementation of an EMS for a hybrid renewable
energy system
Photovoltaic cell simulation
An intelligent whiteboard for circuit analyses
Grounding of neutral points in electrical systems
Power boss controller for induction motors
Induction motor cages under disturbances
Sting Bluetooth Control via Metorola Headset on Windows
Sting net-analysis tool for VOIP
Nadim Cheaib
Zouheir El-Jabi
Soubhi Malas
Abed Halabi
Hisham Al-Ashkar
Elie Aramouni
Fadi Hariz
Ward Wehbeh
Ara Bissal
Hrag Margossian
Jad El- Hage
Camille Lahoud
Hani Tohme
Georges Saroufim
Cyril El Adm
Youseff El Zmeter
Elias Karaa
Rami Kdouh
Ibrahim El Kaakour
Firas Jarrah
Mohammad Ibrahim
Rami Saade
Marwan Nadda
Elie matta
Samer Azar
Clauda Ephrem
Stephany Abi Abdallah
Ayman Abi Haider
Tamar Ghadban
Stephanie Habib
Mohamad Hindi
I. Abou Faycal
Sami Karaki
Sami Karaki
Sami Karaki
Hazem Chahine
Hazem Chahine
Hazem Chahine
Karim Kabalan
Karim Kabalan
31

32
Graduate Theses
Master of Engineering Thesis
Al Halabi, Fahim: Implementation of an ad hoc Network
Utilizing the LIME Tuple Space Framework on Mobile
Devices, October 2007, supervised by Prof. Hassan Artail
Al Kamal, Ismail: Reconfigurable Hardware System for Policy
based Web Security, June 2008, supervised by Prof. M.
Adnan Al-Alaoui
Al Kassem, Ibrahim: Blue HRT: Hybrid Ring Tree Scattern
Formation in Bluetooth Networks, October 2007,
supervised by Prof. Zaher Dawy
Bazzi, Ali: Maximum Power Point Tracking of Multiple
Photovoltaic Cells, October 2007, supervised by Prof. Sami
Karaki
Fadlallah, Bilal: Representing and Matching Multi-Object Images
with Holes using Concavity Trees, June 2008, Supervised by
Prof. M. Adnan Al-Alaoui.
Ghandour, Ali: Genetic Mapping using Linear Least Square
Estimation, October 2007, supervised by Prof. Zaher Dawy
Haidar, Batoul: Grid Computing Host Protection, June 2008,
supervised by Prof. Ali Chahab.
Khoury, Layla: Implementing and Evaluating an Authentication
Mechanism and Key Agreement Protocol for SIP that Uses
Identity-based Cryptography, October 2007, supervised by
Prof. Ali Chehab.
Kobrosly, Mohammad: Design and Analysis of Energy
Management Tool for Renewable Energy Conversion
System, October 2007, supervised by Prof. Riad Chedid
Slim, Abbas: Speaker Recognition using Neural Networks,
October 2007, supervised by Prof. M. Adnan Al Alaoui.
Tawk, Youssef: A Modified Bowtie Antenna for Wi-Fi and Wi-
Max Applications, October 2007, supervised by Prof. Karim
Kabalan
Master of Engineering Thesis in
Progress
Abou Charanek, Elias: Selective Encryption for Voice over IP,
supervised by Prof. Imad Elhajj
Abul Hoda, Abdallah: (TRUMA-DB) TRUsted Mobile Ad-hoc
Database, supervised by Prof. Hassan Artail
Ahmad, Oussama: Hybrid Geographic-Proactive Routing
Protocol, supervised by Prof. Hassan Artail.
Al Rifai, Farah: Maximum Power Point Tracking of Photovoltic
Cells, supervised by Prof. Riad Chedid
Alwani, Imad: Software Reliability in Web Development: A
Feedback Control Approach, supervised by Prof. Hassan Artail
Amro, Amina: Sector Based Probabilistic localization for
Wireless Sensor Network, supervised by Prof. Imad Elhajj.
Asad, Baslan: Artificial Vision System for Visually Impaired
People, supervised by Prof. M. Adnan Al-Alaoui
Atallah, Adham: E- Manufacturing: A Predictive Maintenance
Application, supervised by Prof. Fuad Mrad
Chamoun, Youssef: Multi-level Application Layer Security
Framework for Ad-Hoc Networks, supervised by Prof.
Ayman Kayssi
Daou, Hoda: RFID Security Protocols, supervised by Prof.
Ayman Kayssi
Deghaili, Rima: Trust-Privacy Tradeoffs in Distributed
Computing, supervised by Prof. Ali Chehab
Eid, Rola: Iris Recognition Systems, supervised by Prof. M.
Adnan Al Alaoui.
El Halabi, Moustafa: Design of Digital Radio Broadcast
Systems Based on Signal Quality Assessment in Different
Geographical Regions, supervised by Prof. Jean Saade
Faddoul, Ronalde: On the Relation of DNA Repair and the
Genetic Code, supervised by Prof. Zaher Dawy
Fares, Dima: Design and Implementation of an Energy
Management System, supervised by Prof. Sami Karaki
Hamade, Haitham: Web Base Collaborative CAD, supervised by
Prof. Ali Chehab
Hamade, Samer: A Quantitative Evaluation of Reconfigurable
Co-Processor Architectures for Soft CPU Cores, supervised
by Prof. Mazen Saghir
Harb, Naim: FPGA Based Accelerator for Haplotype Inference,
supervised by Profs. Mazen Saghir and Zaher Dawy
Kamaleddine, Issam: Adaptive Antennas for Wireless
Communication, supervised by Prof. Karim Kabalan
Khattar, Manar: Interactive Shortcuts Impact on Businesses:
Widgets Challenges and Solutions, supervised by Prof. Karim
Kabalan
Khawam, Sami: Performance Evolution of a Raptor-Enabled
Transport Protocol over Networking Applications, supervised
by Prof. Mohamad Mansour
Makhoul, Marilise: A Dynamically Reconfigurable Cache
Architecture for Soft Processor Cores, supervised by Prof.
Mazen Saghir
Mansour, Wissam: Load Adaptive IEEE 802.15.4 medium Access
Control, supervised by Prof. Imad Elhajj
Nahas, Nagi: Algorithms for the Comparison of Unord4ered
Labeled Trees, supervised by Prof. Louay Bazzi
Nehme, Manal: Improvement and Evaluation of CRUST,
supervised by Prof. Hassan Artail
Ramadan, Ali: Reconfigurable U-KOCH Microstrip Antenna,
supervised by Prof. Karim Kabalan
Saab, Solaph: Secure Coverage for Wireless Sensor Networks,
supervised by Prof. Ayman Kayssi
Salloum, Hussein: Design and Optimization of a Small Power
Permanent Magnet Generator, supervised by Prof. Farid
Chaaban
Tabbarah, Tammam: Role of Burst Firing Cortical Cells in Neural
Synchronization and Coding, supervised by Prof. Fadi
Karameh
Tobji, Roger: VPN Protocol Performance Evaluation of Cell
Processor Versus Networking Processors, supervised by
Profs. Mazen Saghir and Imad Elhajj
Yazbeck, George: A Novel Reconfigurable Microstrip Antenna
Based on Fractal Geometry, supervised by Prof. Karim
Kabalan
Youssef Al Cheikhani, Samer: Video Coding for Infrastructure
Controlled P2P Networks, supervised by Prof. Zaher Dawy
3.
academics
Graduate Non‑Thesis Program
Sakkal, Fehmi: Major area: Software Systems and Networks,
Minor area: Control and Intelligent Systems, February 2008,
supervised by Prof. Ayman Kayssi
Soghomonian, Vicken: Major area: Communications, Minor
area: Software Systems and Networks, June 2008,
supervised by Prof. Ali Chehab
Kabbara, Bader: Major area: Communications, Minor area:
Control and Intelligent Systems, Supervised by Prof. Mazen
Saghir
Khayyat, Marc: Major area: Software Systems and Networks,
Minor area: Communications, Supervised by Prof. Hassan
Artail
33

Our Social Responsibility
as Engineers
Ayman Itani (ECE Alumni)
During our path through
college and the different
rooms, courses,
professors, and teaching
methodologies ...the focus
is almost always on the
technology itself. What
are these formulas we are
having such a hard time
memorizing? What are
their ramifications? What
does it actually mean
when a variable changes and affects other variables? I never
took the time to think much about it. My grades were good.
I felt overall I was understanding the courses I was taking.
So why bother, right? Not until I took an interdisciplinary
elective course called “Digital Rules” within the Department
of Architecture and Design did I realize the importance of design phase. Eventually, we graduate and are hit hard by the
34 our engineering discipline. The course was a joint offering realities of work. Employers in general focus on getting things
IV.
between AUB and MIT, and discussed the effect of technology
on our day-to-day lives. It was the only course that invited
me to pause and think about the effect of technology on
us and how integral it is to our day-to-day proceedings. It
helped me appreciate the role we play as engineers - making
the world a better place for all. There is not much point to
all our hard work and the tedious hours spent learning if our
acquired knowledge and experience cannot be put to good
use in the overall scheme of things. It turned my attention
to the fact that we have a social responsibility to make sure
that our efforts are channeled towards the best interest of the
user, and have an uplifting constructive effect on the user’s
day-to-day life. Many of our friends and family members are
struggling with concepts of the Internet, social networking,
documents, presentations, instant messaging, concepts we
are highly familiar with and use easily. Albert Einstein once
said: “You do not really understand something unless you can
explain it to your grandmother.”.I invite you to help others
by sharing the skills you are picking up day-to-day. I am not
talking about the transistor starting to change state at 0.65V
and by 0.75V becoming fully saturated. I have something more
practical in mind. Are you enjoying Facebook? Share your
joy by helping out a non-technical friend or relative join and
use it. Is there a news site that you rely on, especially during
Lebanon’s troubled political times, and it has allowed you to
know if family and friends are safe? Are you taking advantage
of Google Docs or other Google Apps? Flickr? Twitter? Second
Life?... On one hand, you contribute to the tech-life of all by
sharing your growing knowledge and providing him/her with
tools to help along the way. On the other hand, you get to
understand the limitations of average users when it comes to
using technology in their day-to-day lives. Inevitably, the next
project you embark on will have you thinking about the user
and how he/she might use it, even as early as in the initial
done within budget at the expense of sacrificing some features
and intuitive interfaces. We need to play a role in balancing
user feature requests within the project time and budget
constraints. Make sure that the work you get involved in
always considers the end user. Always ask yourself questions
such as: Who is my user? How will he/she use it? Why will the
user choose my product and not another? What incremental
change(s) will be done in how they conduct their lives?
Overall, it is a way of thinking that is gradually acquired and
benefits you, the shareholders, the user, and society. I leave
you with the following quote by the engineer John Fowler:
“Engineers ... are not mere technicians and should not approve
or lend their name to any project that does not promise to be
beneficent to man and the advancement of civilization.”
Research

36
Books
N.H. Sabah, Electric
Circuits and Signals,
Boca Raton, Fl, CRC
Press, 2008
Journal Papers (sorted by Dates)
M. Awad, X. Jiang and Y. Motai,
“Incremental Framework of Support
Vector Machine for Distributed
Vision Sensors”, EURASIP Journal on
Applied Signal Processing, Volume 7,
Issue 1, pp: 222 – 232, July 2007.
H. Mangassarian and H. Artail, “A
General Framework for Subjective
Information Extraction from
Unstructured English Text”, Data &
Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 62, No.
2, pp. 352-367, August 2007.
H. Safa, H. Artail, H. Hamze, and
K. Mershad, “A collaborative
service discovery and service
sharing framework for mobile ad
hoc networks”, Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, Vol. 4672, pp.
151-160, September 2007.
S. Hanna, A. Chehab, A. Kayssi, and H.
Artail, “Lighter Weight Mobile Agent
System”, International Journal on
Computers and Their Applications,
Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 170-186,
September 2007.
H. Hajj, “Intel’s AMT enables rapid
processing and Info-turn for Intel’s
DFM Test Chip Vehicle”, SPIE
Photomask, September, 2007.
H. Weerasinghe, I. H. Elhajj, A.
Krsteva,and M. Abou Najm, “Data
Centric Adaptive In-Network
Aggregation Wireless Sensor
Networks”, IEEE/ASME International
Conference on Advanced Intelligent
Mechatronics, Switzerland,
September 2007.
A. Tajeddine, A. Kayssi, A. Chehab,
and H. Artail, “PATROL – A
Comprehensive Reptaion-Based Trust
Model”, The International Journal
of Internet Technology and Secured
Transactions, Vol. 1, No. 1-2, pp.
108-131, October 2007.
J. Moyne, H. Hajj, K. Beatty and R.
Lewandowski “SEMI E133—The
Process Control System Standard:
Deriving a Software Interoperability
Standard for Advanced Process
Control in Semiconductor
Manufacturing”, IEEE Transactions
on Semiconductor Manufacturing:
Special Issue on Advanced Process
Control, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 408-
420, November 2007.
A. Bzeih, S. Abou Shahine, K.Y. Kabalan,
A. El-Hajj, and A. Chehab, “An
Improved Broadband E-Patch
Microstrip Antenna for Wireless
Communications”, Radio Science,
Vol. 42, No. 6, pp. 1-12, November
2007.
R. Hamade, H. Artail, and M. Jaber,
“Evaluating the Learning Process
of Mechanical CAD Students”,
Computers & Education, Vol. 49, No.
3, pp. 640-661, November 2007.
J. Weindl, P. Hanus, Z. Dawy, J. Zech,
J. Hagenauer, and J. C. Mueller,
“Modeling DNA-binding of
Escherichia Coli Sigma70 Exhibits
a Characteristic Energy Landscape
around Strong Promoters,” Nucleic
Acids Research, Nucleic Acids
Research, Vol. 35, No.20, pp. 7003-
7010, November 2007
S. Majzoub, and H. Diab, “Instruction-
Set extension for cryptographic
applications on reconfigurable
platform,” Special Issue on Advances
in Circuits and Systems for Large
Scale Integration, in The Journal of
Circuits, Systems, and Computers
(JCSC), Vol. 16, No. 6, pp. 911-927,
December 2007.
P. Hanus, B. Goebel, J. Dingel, J. Weindl,
J. Zech, Z. Dawy, J. Hagenauer,
and J. C. Mueller, “Information and
Communication Theory in Molecular
Biology,” Archiv f¨ur Elektrotechnik,
Volume 90, Number 2, pp. 161-173,
December 2007.
J. Costantine, K.Y. Kabalan, A. El-Hajj,
and M. Rammal, “New Multi-
Wide-Band Design for a Microstrip
Patch Antenna, IEEE Antennas and
Propagations magazine, Vol. 49, No.
6, pp. 181-86, December 2007.
Z. Dawy, P. Hanus, J. Weindl, J. Dingel,
and F. Morcos, “On Genomic Coding
Theory,“ European Transaction on
Telecommunications, Volume 18,
Issue 8, pp. 873-879, December
2007.
R. Hamade and H. Artail, “A study of
the influence of technical attributes
of beginner CAD users on their
performance”, Computer-Aided
Design, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 262–272,
February 2008.
F. B. Chaaban, N. Saliba, A. Dandashle,
and J. H. Dennis, Assessing the risk
of exposure to PCBs among the
employees of the power sector,
World Resources Review, Vol.20,
No.2, pp: 237-246, February 2008.
M. Eid, H. Artail, A. Kayssi and A.
Chehab, “LAMAIDS: A Lightweight
Adaptive Mobile Agent-based
Intrusion Detection System”,
International Journal of Network
Security, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 145-157,
March 2008.
M. Awad and Y. Motai, “Dynamic
Classification for Video Stream using
Support Vector Machine”, Journal
on Applied Soft Computing, online
version, April 2008.
H. Artail, “A methodology for combining
development and research in
teaching undergraduate software
engineering”, International Journal of
Engineering Education, Vol. 24, No.
3, May 2008.
M. A. Al-Alaoui, “Al-Alaoui Operator and
the New Transformation Polynomials
for Discretization of Analogue
Systems“, Electrical Engineering,
Springer Berlin/Heidelberg, Vol. 90,
Number 6, pp. 455-467, June 2008.
Conference Papers (sorted by Dates)
H. Artail, F. Mrad, and M. Mortada,
“A case study on the applicability
of software reliability models to a
telecommunication software”, 2nd
International Conference on Software
and Data Technologies (ICSOFT
2007), Barcelona, Spain, July 2007.
H. Artail, H. Safa, H. Hamze, and K.
Mershad, “A Cluster Based Service
Discovery Model for Mobile Ad hoc
Networks”, 3rd IEEE International
Conference on Wireless and Mobile
Computing, Networking and
Communications (WiMob’2007),
New York, NY, August, 2007.
R. Moussali, N. Ghanem, and M.A.R.
Saghir , “Microarchitectural
Enhancements for Configurable
Multithreaded Soft Processors”, the
17th IEEE International Conference
on Field Programmable Logic and
Applications (FPL 2007), Amsterdam,
Netherland, August, 2007.
H. Artail, H. Safa, R. ElZinnar, and H.
Hamze, “A Distributed Database
Framework from Mobile Databases
in MANETs”, 3rd IEEE International
Conference on Wireless and Mobile
Computing, Networking and
Communications (WiMob’2007),
New York, NY, August, 2007.
M.A. Al-Alaoui, M. I. Ohannessian, G.
F. Choueiter,C. Akl, T. T. Avakian,
I. Al-Kamal, and R. Ferzli,”A Pilot
Project: From Illiteracy to Computer
Literacy: Teaching and Learning Using
Information Technology,” ICL 2007,
Villach, Austria, September, 2007.
4.
W. Saad, S. Sharafeddine, and Z. Dawy,
“A Micro-Economics Approach for
Scheduling in CDMA Networks with
End-to-End QoS Guarantees,” in 18th
IEEE International Symposium on
Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio
Communications (PIMRC 2007),
Athens, Greece, September, 2007.
W. Itani, A. Kayssi, and A. Chehab,
“An Efficient and Scalable Security
Protocol for Protecting Fixed-Content
Objects in Content Addressable
Storage Architectures”, 3rd Workshop
on the Value of Security through
Collaboration (SECOVAL), Nice,
France, September, 2007.
L. Bazzi, “Polylogarithmic independence
can fool DNF formulas”, 48th Annual
IEEE Symposium on Foundations of
Computer Science (FOCS 2007),
Providence, RI, October, 2007.
R. Moussali, N. Ghanem, and M.A.R.
Saghir, “Supporting Multithreading in
Configurable Soft Processor Cores”,
the 2007 International Conference
on Compilers, Architecture, and
Synthesis for Embedded Systems
(CASES 2007), Salzburg, Austria,
September, 2007.
Z. Radwan, C. Gaspard, A. Kayssi, and
A. Chehab, “XPRIDE: Policy-Driven
Web Services Security Based on XML
Content”, the 50th IEEE GLOBECOM
Conference, Washington, DC,
November, 2007.
F. Mrad, M. Hakeem (S), C. Antonios
(S), “Demand-based Control of
Variable Speed Pumps in Multi-Zone
HVAC,” IEEE Industrial Applications
and Control Systems Societies Joint
Seminar, Madrid, Spain, November
2007.
J. Costantine, K. Y. Kabalan, A. El Hajj
, and C. G. Christodoulou, “New
Multi-Wide-Band Design for a
Microstrip Patch Antenna”, 2nd
European Conference on Antennas
and Propagation (EUCAP 2007), UK,
November, 2007.
research
F. Bitar, N. Madi, E. Ramly, M. Saghir,
and F. Karameh, “A Portable
MIDI Controller Using EMG-
Based Individual Finger Motion
Classification”, the 2007 IEEE
Biomedical Circuits and Systems
Conference (BioCAS 2007), Montreal,
Canada, November, 2007.
N. Karameh, ”Modeling the role of
cortical layer pyramidal cells in
integrating first and higher order
thalamocortical network activity
in the rat somatosensory cortex”,
Society for Neuroscience Annual
Meeting 2007, San Diego, USA,
November 2007.
R. Ferzli and M. A. Al-Alaoui,
“Subsampling Image Compression
Using Al-Alaoui Backpropagation
Algorithm”, 14th IEEE International
Conference on Electronics, Circuits
and Systems, Marrakech, Morocco,
December, 2007.
A. Chehab, A. Kayssi and A. Ghandour,
“Transient Current Testing of Gate-
Oxide Shorts in CMOS”, International
Design and Test Workshop (IDT),
Cairo, Egypt, December, 2007.
M. Al-Husseini, E. Yaacoub, K.Y. Kabalan,
and A. El-Hajj, “Pattern Synthesis
with Uniform Circular Arrays for
Intercell Interference Reduction”, 5th
International Conference on Electrical
and Electronics Engineering (ELECO
2007), Bursa, Turkey, December,
2007.
M Al-Husseini, K.Y. Kabalan, and A. El-
Hajj, “A Pattern Synthesis Method
for Planar Arrays with Independent
Control of Sidelobe Level and
Beamwidth In Two Principal Planes”,
5th International Conference on
Electrical and Electronics Engineering
(ELECO 2007), Bursa, Turkey,
December, 2007.
Al-Kamal, and M. A. Al-Alaoui, “Online
Machine Vision Inspection System for
Detecting Coating Defects in Metal
Lids”, International Multi Conference
of Engineers and Computer Scientists
200, Hong Kong, March, 2008.
37

38
H. Artail, J. El-Hage, R. Aouad, K.
Fawaz, “ASKME: Adaptive and Selfevolving
Knowledge-base for Mobile
Environments” 6th International
Conference on Informatics and
Systems, Cairo, Egypt, March 2008.
S. Sharafeddine, Z. Dawy, and A.
Beainy, “Network Provisioning
over IP Networks with Call Admission
Control Schemes”, ACS/
IEEE International Conference on
Computer Systems and Applications
(AICCSA 2008), Doha, Qatar, March/
April 2008.
M. A. Al-Alaoui, L. Al-Kanj, J. Azar, and
E. Yaacoub “Speech Recognition
using Artificial Neural Networks
and Hidden Markov Models”, The
3rd International Conference on
Interactive Mobile and Computer
Aided Learning (ICML 2008),
Amman, Jordan, April, 2008.
M. A. Al-Alaoui, M. A. Abou Harb, Z.
Abou Chahine, and E. Yaacoub “A
New Approach for Arabic Offline
Handwriting Recognition”, The
3rd International Conference on
Interactive Mobile and Computer
Aided Learning (ICML 2008),
Proceedings of IMCL 2008, Amman,
Jordan, April, 2008.
S. Shaker, J.J. Saade, D. Asmar, “Person-
Following Using Fuzzy Inference”,
Recent Advances in Systems,
Communications & Computers,
WSEAS Conferences, Hangzhou,
China, April, 2008.
J.J. Saade, H.A. Ramadan, “Fuzzy
Inference-Based Control Approach
for Thermal-Visual Comfort and Air
Quality in Indoor Environments”,
8th WSEAS Int’l Conference on
Robotics, Control and Manufacturing
Technology, Hangzhou, China, April,
2008.
E. Yaacoub and Z. Dawy, “Advanced
Antenna Configurations for the
Downlink of Multihop Based Cellular
Networks”, IEEE International
Conference in Communications (ICC
2008), Beijing, China, May 2008.
F. B. Chaaban, R. Chedid, and R. Abu
Izzedin, “Electromagnetic fields
from power lines, current- related
measurements and safety guidelines,
3rd International Symposium on
Environment, Athens, Greece, May,
2008.
M.K. Joujou, F. Mrad, A. Smaili,
“Experimental Fuzzy Logic Active
Vibration Control,” 5th International
Symposium on Mechatronics and its
Applications, Amman Jordan, May
2008.
A. Awad, S. Abou Chahine, Z. Osman,
and K.Y. Kabalan, “Investigation
on H-tree Multiband Prefractal
Antenna”, 6th International
Conference on Computing,
Communications and Control
Technologies (CCCT 2008), Orlando,
USA, June 2008.
Electric Circuits
and Signals a
Textbook by N.
Sabah
This introductory level textbook is intended
for a two-course sequence on electric
circuits, as well as the Circuits and Signals
course CE-CSG described in the Body
of Knowledge of the IEEE/ACM. It differs
significantly from comparable textbooks in its
approach, organization, and content.
4.
Electrical engineering
ELECTRIC CIRCUITS AND SIGNALS
Nassir H. Sabah
A Conceptual Approach for True Understanding
Solving circuit problems is less a matter of knowing what steps to
follow then why those steps are necessary. And knowing the why
stems from an in-depth undestanding of the underlying concepts and
theoretical basis of electric circuits. Electric Circuits and Signals reveals
the fundamentals of electric circuit theory, operation, and analysis,
emphasizes critical thinking and and creative problem solving, and
explicitly highlights the fundamental concepts.
Solve Problems with Confidence
Don’t settle for the first solution that springs to mind. Learn to approach
any problem from various angles to find the simplest, most affective
solution. This text shows you how to intuitively derive a result based on
in-depth understanding of the concepts, allowing you to check that your
answer is on the right track.
Learn Modern Tools for Tomorrow’s Solutions
If you’re not learning the tools, you’re behind the trade. Gain hands-on
experience using Pspice with schematic Capture® along with useful
MATLAB® commands to simulate, explore, and analyze circuits for a
variety of applications.
Gain Enriching Enriching Experience with the True-to-Life Examples
See theory in action with hundreds of examples, problems, case studies,
and exercices designed to help you see through the math and into
the real world for topics ranging from the basic of dc and ac circuits
to transients, convolution, Laplace and Fourier transforms, signal
processing, and operational amplifiers.
Explore a CD-ROM Loaded with Extras
If the text doesn’t have enough to sate your curiosity, then you
can find plenty more on the companion CD-ROM. It contains
additional discussions on more advanced topics, Pspice simulations,
supplementary solved examples, Cadence OrCAD® Release 15.7 Demo
Edition, answers to problems and exercices, and appendices. Overall,
the CD adds nearly 50% more material!
Sabah
ELECTRIC CIRCUITS
AND SIGNALS
research
The book strongly emphasizes fundamentals, through in-depth explanations of the basics of circuit theory, the
‘why’ of circuit analysis methods, and the meaning, significance, and interrelations of the concepts involved. The
main concepts are explicitly highlighted for special emphasis. Creative problem solving is stressed, in contrast
to problem solving based on following routine methods and set procedures. The underlying educational premise
is that insight into fundamentals and the pursuit of creative problem solving are hallmarks of quality engineering
education and become integral to the mind-set of a true engineering professional, as opposed to factual
knowledge, which is liable to be forgotten or become obsolete.
The book’s organization is somewhat unconventional. Basic circuit analysis is introduced for the dc state,
followed by the sinusoidal steady state, which is logically extended to include responses to periodic inputs and
frequency response. Time-domain analysis then follows, covering impulse and step responses of first-order and
second-order circuits and convolution. Discussion of basic electric circuits is concluded with two-port circuits
and the Laplace transform. The signals part of the book is limited to continuous signals and comprises the Fourier
transform, basic signal-processing operations, and signal processing using operational amplifiers. The last chapter
is on electric circuit analogs of some nonelectrical systems. Some of the teaching material is original, developed
by the author, and is being published for the first time.
PSpice simulations are presented in some detail and are integrated within the discussion. MATLAB commands
applicable to circuit analysis are used extensively.
A companion CD to the book includes considerable supplementary material and examples that extend and enrich
the main text. A Solutions Manual is available with its own companion CD having classroom presentations in the
form of a Microsoft Word file for each chapter. The files contain bulleted text with figures and are intended for
projection in the classroom by instructors and used as a basis for explaining the chapter material.
+
ELECTRIC
CIRCUITS
AND
SIGNALS
Nassir H.Sabah
39

40
Research and Travel
Grants
October 2007–September 2008
M.A. Al‑Alaoui
Novel Approach to Fractional Poles and Zeros with
Applications to PID Control, URB Grant, AUB, amount:
$4,325, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present
a paper at the International Conference on Interactive
Computer Aided Learning, Villach, Austria, September
2008.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the 14th International Conference on Electronics,
Circuits, and Systems, Marrakeh, Morocco, December
2007.
H.A. Artail
Forming a Distributed Database from Standalone Mobile
Database in Mobile ad hoc Networks, URB Grant, AUB,
amount: $5600, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
Interoperability Framework for a Mobile ad hoc Network
formed by Heterogeneous Devices, Lebanese National
Council for Scientific Research, amount: $4,667, October 1,
2007-September 30, 2008.
Long-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, Conduct
research on Vehicular Networking Systems, Research
Laboratory, University of Michigan, Dearborn, August 10,
2007 – September 11, 2007.
L. Bazzi
Limited Independence Versus Weight Probability, URB
Grant, AUB, amount: $6,100, October 1, 2007-September
30, 2008.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the 48th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations
of Computer Science (FOCS 2007), October 2007.
R. Chedid
Modeling and Assessment of Electromagnetic Fields from
High-Voltage Power Lines, URB Grant, AUB, amount:
$4,825, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008 (with Prof.
Farid Chaaban).
Optimal Engineering Design for Dependable Water and
Power Generation in Remote Areas Using Renewable
Energies and Intelligent Automation (OPEN-GAIN),
University of Mannheim/Commission of European
Communities, amount: € 160,885, January 1,
2007-December 31, 2009 (with Profs. S. Karaki and K.Y.
Kabalan).
A. Chehab
Testing Nanometer-Technology CMOS in the Presence of
Leakage and Process Variations, URB Grant, AUB, amount:
$8,425, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008 (with Prof.
A. Kayssi).
IEEE Foundation. Problem Solving Web Forum, IEEE
Foundation, amount:
$20,000, March 2008 - March 2009. (with Profs. Imad
Elhajj and Ayman Kayssi).
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the International Design and Test Workshop (IDT),
December 16-18, 2007, Cairo, Egypt.
Z. Dawy
Infrastructure Controlled Peer-to-Peer Networks: Design
Challenges and Performance Gains, URB Grant, AUB,
amount: $6,100, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
FPGA-Based Accelerator for Haplotype Interface with
Applications to Lebanese Genomic Data Sets, Lebanese
National Council for Scientific Research, amount: $4,200,
December 1, 2006 – December 31, 2008 (joint work with
Prof. Mazen Saghir and Prof. Rami Mahfouz).
A. El‑Hajj
Modified Bowtie Antenna for Wi-Fi and WiMAX
Applications, URB Grant, AUB, amount: $4,325, October 1,
2007-September 30, 2008.
Short-term faculty development grant, Present a paper
at the 5th International Conference on Electrical and
Electronics Engineering (ELECO 2007), December 2007,
Bursa, Turkey.
I. Elhajj
Design and Implementation of an Autonomous Multi-
Sensory Intervention Device, URB Grant, AUB, amount:
$6,600, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
A Prototype for Increasing the Accuracy of Stomach
Calibration in Sleeve Gastrectomy Surge, Lebanese National
Council for Scientific Research, amount: $6,333, December
31, 2007 – December 31, 2008.
IEEE/A Website for Literature Review Dissemination, IEEE
Robotics and Automation Society, amount: $2,900, August
1, 2007 - November 30, 2007.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the 2007 IEEE/ASME International Conference on
Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Zurich, Switzerland,
September, 2007.
K. Kabalan
Using Genetic Algorithms and Simulated Annealing in the
Pattern Synthesis of Antenna Arrays Leading to Controllable
Decaying Sidelobes and Adjustable Beamwidth, URB Grant,
AUB, amount: $5,325, October 1, 2007-September 30,
2008.
Short-term faculty development grant, Present a paper
at the 5th International Conference on Electrical and
Electronics Engineering (ELECO 2007), December 2007,
Bursa, Turkey.
S. Karaki
Electromagnetic Field Calculation using the Boundary
Segment Multipole Method, URB Grant, AUB, amount:
$4,325, October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
F. Karameh
I nformation Theoretic Modeling of Information Flow in
Cortical Neuronal Systems: Information Content in Brain
Electric Field Potentials, URB Grant, AUB, amount: $10,000,
October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the 2007 Annual Meeting of Micro Science, San
Diego, USA, November 2007.
A. Kayssi
Development of a Service Science Management and
Engineering (SSME) Track in ECE Graduate Program,
IBM Middle East FZ, amount: $15,000, December 20,
2006-until completion of work (with Profs. Ali El-Hajj and F.
Mrad).
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the DTIS Conference, Rabat, Morocco, September
2007.
4.
research
Policy-Driven Security Protocol, Lebanese National Council
for Scientific Research, Amount: $ 8,667, December 2006
- December 2007, (with Profs. Ali Chehab and Ramzi
Haraty).
M. Mansour
Raptor Codes: Hardware-Oriented Code Construction
and Decoder Design, URB Grant, AUB, amount: $6,600,
October 1, 2007-September 30, 2008.
F. Mrad
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the International Software and Data Technologies,
Barcelona, Spain, July 2007.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present a
paper at the International Seminar for Advanced Control
Applications, Madrid, Spain, November 2007.
Control Engineering for Economic Planning, Lebanese
National Council for Scientific Research, amount: $5,333,
December 31, 2007 – May 31, 2008.
Technology Literacy for Transparency and Accountability
(TLTA), USAID-Mideast, amount: $50,000, November
2007- June 2008 (with Profs. A. Kayssi, I. Elhajj, A. Chehab,
M. Saghir, Z. Dawy, S. Karaki, and H. Artail.
M. Saghir
Characterizing Datapath Components of Configurable Soft
Processors, URB Grant, AUB, amount: $6,100, October 1,
2007-September 30, 2008.
FPGA-Based Accelerator for Haplotype Interface with
Applications to Lebanese Genomic Data Sets, Lebanese
National Council for Scientific Research, amount: 6,333,
December 1, 2006 – December 31, 2008.
RFU-Enhanced Synergetic Processor Units for the Cell
Architecture, IBM Middle East FZ, amount: $10,000,
December 20, 2006-until completion of work.
Short-term Faculty Development, URB Grant, present
a paper at the International IEEE/ACM Conference on
Compilers, Architectures, and Synthesis of Embedded
Systems (CASES 2007), Salzburg, Austria, September 2007.
41

42
Visit of Dr. Raad Raad
Dr. Raad Raad graduated from the University of Wollongong,
Australia in 1997 with a Bachelor of Engineering (Hon 1)
in 1997. He went on to complete his PhD thesis entitled
“Neuro-Fuzzy Logic Admission Control in Cellular Mobile
Networks” in 2006. Dr. Raad has over five years of industrial
research experience and another five years of experience in
academic research. Dr. Raad is the author of five United States
patent filings of which three have been granted and over fifty
refereed publications and technical reports. His expertise is
in wireless communications with a focus on Medium Access
Control (MAC) and bandwidth management protocols for
wireless networks. Dr. Raad has led and collaborated on
significant projects in the areas of sensor networks, IEEE
802.11, IEEE 802.15.3, MeshLAN, RFIDs and cellular networks.
The technical areas that he covered during the numerous
projects include admission control, bandwidth management,
low power MAC protocols and routing protocols.
From 2001 to 2004, Dr. Raad worked for Motorola Research
Labs in Sydney, Australia and reached the position of Staff
Research Engineer. Since 2004, Dr. Raad has worked at the
University of Wollongong, Australia. His initial appointment
was as a Senior Research Fellow and more recently he
has taken up a position as Senior Lecturer in the School of
Electrical, Computer, and Telecommunications Engineering.
From 2004 to 2006, his research focus was primarily on
industrial projects and he worked on a large industrial research
contract with Motorola in the United States to develop
medium access control and QoS solutions for a multi-hop IEEE
802.15.3 Home networks. His current research focus is on
RFIDs, Delay Tolerant Networking and Transport Control in
wireless sensor networks.
In early 2008 Dr. Raad launched a joint venture called
RaadTech Consulting (www.raadtech.com). RaadTech is an IT
&T company that provides IPR capture tools, contract R&D,
software development and specialized training courses.
Laboratories in
the Electrical
and Computer
Engineering
Department
Introduction
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
(ECE) is the largest department in the faculty of Engineering
and Architecture (FEA). The Department offers the degrees
of Bachelor of Engineering in two majors: Electrical
and Computer Engineering (ECE) and Computer and
Communications Engineering (CCE); the Master of Engineering
in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ME in CCE) with
4.
research
Developing the Middle East’s
Future Technical Elite
ECE Labs
either the ECE Thesis option, ECE Non-Thesis option, or
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Thesis
option; and the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in
Electrical and Computer Engineering. The Department has
about 600 undergraduate students and 70 graduate students.
The undergraduate ECE program is very flexible in terms
of areas of specialization and elective courses, and the
undergraduate CCE program continues to be the most popular
program in engineering at AUB. Students accepted into either
the ECE or the CCE undergraduate programs can complete
their studies in eleven terms distributed over four calendar
years,
The courses taught in the Electrical and Computer Engineering
field are reinforced by application of concepts learned in the
ECE laboratories in different fields. Most of the existing ECE
laboratories are in the CCC_SRB building, and in the Raymond
Ghosn Building. The CCC_SRB building is temporary and
will soon be replaced by the Irani Oxy Engineering Building.
The new building will provide space to house all the FEA labs
that exist now in SRB and other buildings, and additional new
laboratories.
Existing Laboratory
Facilities
Circuits and Analog Electronics
Laboratory
In the Electronics Laboratory, first and second year students
carry out experiments in circuits and electronics featuring
diode and transistor circuits, amplifiers, op-amps, wave
generators, and digital electronics. Projects in third year
courses and during the final year are also built and tested in
this lab. Equipment includes oscilloscopes, digital multimeters,
function generators, power supplies, and frequency
43

44
counters. Furthermore, components are available to build
circuits ranging from a simple diode rectifier to complete
microprocessor based systems.
Digital Systems Laboratory
In the Digital Systems Laboratory, students use digital
integrated circuits, microprocessors, and FPGAs to build a
variety of circuits and systems. The lab experiments enhance
the students’ knowledge in hardware description languages,
computer architecture, assembly language, as well as I/O
interfacing techniques. The lab is equipped with twelve
computers as well as Xilinx and Altera FPGA boards and
microprocessor programmers.
Signal and Image Processing
Laboratory
In this laboratory, students carry out experiments in digital
signal, image, and speech processing. Equipment includes
DSP kits provided by Texas Instruments, audio synthesizers,
computers and multimedia accessories. The laboratory
recently was equipped with state of the art audio equipment
that allowed the offering of an elective course in audio
engineering.
Communications Laboratory
In the Communications Laboratory, students carry out
experiments in analog and digital modulation techniques. The
laboratory is equipped with reconfigurable arbitrary generators
and data acquisition boards that allow the generation
and demodulation of any type of signal. These boards are
controlled by a dedicated processor and specialized software.
Sun Laboratory
A new add-on to the existing computing facilities in the ECE
department is the Sun Laboratory. It consists of ten Sun-Blade
150 machines and ten Sun-Blade 1500 machines. In addition
to these workstations, the lab has a quad-processor Sun-Fire
440 server. The Sun computational grid is accessible from any
terminal and runs a number of simulation software.
Internetworking Laboratory
The Internet Laboratory is equipped with state of the art
hardware and software that can be used to build local-area
and wide-area computer networks. The lab has six complete
stations each equipped with four Dell Power Edge 650 servers
as well as four Cisco routers and four 3Com hubs. Students
use this lab to develop their skills in networking, router and
server configurations, and internet protocols. The lab is also
used for conducting research in this field.
Robotics and Instrumentation
Laboratory
In this laboratory, students learn the fundamentals of
instrumentation and robotics. New sensors both wired and
wireless have been acquired for the laboratory. In the robotics
lab, five mobile robots with full wireless control have been
added to the two already existing manipulators. Several
courses and research projects in instrumentation and telerobotics
are taught in this lab. The lab is also used for research
in advanced control algorithms, robotics, and instrumentation
Control Systems Laboratory
In this laboratory students learn the fundamentals of control
theory. The lab has been lately upgraded with eight state of
the art control stations. This lab is also used for research
in advanced control algorithms, and industrial and building
automation.
Biomedical Engineering
Laboratory
The newly established laboratory is utilized to conduct
EEG measurements. The data is collected then utilized to
understand the relationship between the measured voltages
and the brain activity. The equipment in the laboratory is
state of the art and utilizes the active probe technology. This
year the lab is going to acquire an addition to the existing
4.
research
measuring system. This addition will allow researchers to
measure electrical activity of the mussels EMG.
RF Systems and Wireless
Communications Laboratory
The RF lab is equipped with the several network analyzers,
spectrum analyzers, RF signal generators, and power meters.
It is utilized by students to design, build, and test RF filters,
power amplifiers, and antennas. The laboratory uses several
design and verification software tools to simulate the design
before actual implementation. The laboratory is used to teach
the latest technologies in wireless communication. Students
in the lab design networks using industry grade network
planning tools and then use drive test equipment to validate
and test cellular networks. This facility is also used for research
in radio frequency circuits and systems, and in wireless
communications.
Mobile and Distributed Computing
Laboratory
The laboratory consists of ten high end workstations along
with two quad processor IBM servers. These computers are
used to simulate databases and their applications. The lab
is also equipped with more than 24 PDAs. They are used to
conduct experiments on pervasive computing theories.
Power Systems Laboratory
Students learn, in the Power Systems Laboratory, about
the characteristic data of transmission lines, voltage drop
and power losses, the steady state operation of a generator
connected to a large electric system, and the stability limits of
electric power systems. The laboratory has hardware system
models and features software programs to carry out steady
state and fault analysis of electrical power systems based on
geographic information systems (GIS).
45

46
Electric Machines Laboratory
In the Electric Machines Laboratory, students study magnetic
circuits and transformers, dc and ac machines, stepper
motors, induction motors, and solid-state drives of small
power motors. This laboratory is being upgraded this year
with a number of new research setups with sophisticated
measuring devises.
Power Electronics and Drives
Laboratory
This lab is used to teach and conduct research in low speed
drives and power electronics. This laboratory is being
upgraded this year, along with the Machines lab, to house a
number of new research setups with sophisticated measuring
devises. These setups will allow the students to conduct
advanced research in power electronics and drive applications.
Printed Circuit Board Production
Facility
This facility is equipped with all the tools necessary to produce
single and double sided printed circuit boards using throughhole
technology. It is primarily used for prototyping purposes.
Students undergo training in this lab on all the processes and
steps involved in the design and fabrication of the boards; at
a later stage they can utilize this facility to produce their own
designs.
Multi‑Core Programming
Laboratory
The laboratory can accommodate up to twenty people at a
time. The laboratory is used to teach students the techniques
of writing software programs that take full advantage of the
arising multi-core processor technology. The techniques
learned allow the students to run simulation software much
faster and more efficiently. The hardware in the laboratory
consists of two Intel 2U Server with Xeon Quad Core
2.33GHz, seven Intel PC with Xeon Quad core 2.66GHz, and
eight Intel PC with Xeon Duo Core 2.66GHz, mini-tower.
New Laboratories
Antenna Measurement Laboratory
This laboratory, which will be established in the academic
year 2008-09, will be used to simulate, fabricate, and measure
the properties of different types of antennas. It will use
high end software to simulate the antennas and plot their
characteristics. Once the researchers obtain the desired
response, they will be able to accurately machine their design.
The last stage of the design process is to accurately measure
the achieved response.
Network Security Laboratory
This laboratory will also be established in the academic year
2008-09 and will house an independent fully functional
network that will consists of ten user nodes along with four
servers running different applications and operating systems.
The laboratory will also have a number of layer three switches
and hardware firewalls to allow students to experiment with
different layers of the physical network.
Industrial Automation Laboratory
This laboratory will be established in the academic year 2008-
09 and will include five Omron PLC stations with a sixth
station for the instructor teaching the lab. Each station will be
equipped with a state of the art PLC, touch screen and PC for
programming. The laboratory will also have servo drives and
motors, Variable Speed Drives, and different kind of sensors
used in industrial automation to allow students to experiment
and learn about this important topic.
MOU
The ongoing collaborative research
efforts between Le Laboratoire
Dispositifs et Instrumentation
Optoélectroniques et Microondes
(DIOM), University of Jean Monnet,
Saint Etienne, France and the
Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering (ECE) of
the American University of Beirut,
Beirut, Lebanon
The American University of Beirut
(AUB) and University of Jean
Monnet (UJM), St. Etienne, France
agree to sign a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) for academic
cooperation in areas of mutual
interest.
Objectives
The goal of this cooperation is to foster collaboration
and to facilitate advancement of knowledge on the basis
of reciprocity, best effort, mutual benefit, and frequent
interactions. AUB and UJM agree:
a) to jointly propose and engage in research or training
programs sponsored by funding agencies, and to invite
each other’s faculty to participate therein,
4.
research
b) to exchange, on a reciprocal basis, students at the
undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels for limited
periods of time for the purpose of education and /or
research.
AUB and UJM agree that detailed terms and conditions
that guide each activity identified above will be separately
determined and agreed upon by the two institutions. These
terms shall include a technical description of proposed activity,
financial arrangements, and person(s) responsible for its
implementation, etc.
Joint Sponsored Research,
Development and Consulting
AUB and UJM agree to help identify and invite faculty
members from the other institution to participate in research
and/or development programs already sponsored by
external funding agencies. The terms and conditions for such
participation will be worked by mutual agreement between
the faculty member(s) and the institution extending such an
invitation.
When a faculty member visits the other institution on
invitation or as part of such joint research project, then such a
visit will be classified as such, and handled as per rules of the
individual institution.
Exchange of Faculty,
Scientists and Staff
AUB and UJM agree to encourage collaboration between
faculty and scientists from the two institutions. Specifically,
the institutions will encourage members of their faculty
to undertake short visits to, or take up fixed-term visiting
assignments at, each other’s institution during vacation
periods or sabbatical leave. The terms and conditions for
each visit or an assignment, including those concerning
stipend, travel, and housing, will be worked out between the
concerned faculty member and the institution extending an
invitation.
Notwithstanding the above, AUB and UJM will examine ways
to identify financial resources to fund international travel by
their faculty/scientists/students.
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48
Student Exchange
AUB and UJM agree that student exchange will be guided
by principles listed below. A home institution refers to the
institution where a student is a full-time student, and from
where he/she is expected to graduate. A host institution refers
to an institution that receives a student for a brief period of
time to undertake a pre-determined programme of study or
research.
Exchange students will be selected by mutual agreement
between the home institution and the host institution.
An exchange student will continue to be treated as full-time
student at his/her home institution.
An exchange student will be considered as full-time
“exchange” student at the host institution.
His/her program of study at the host institution will be
determined by mutual consultation between his/her
academic advisor at the home institution and his/her
“interim” academic advisor identified by the host institution.
The host institution will evaluate an exchange student’s
performance in each course or module, award a letter grade
or marks, and issue a letter to that effect.
The home institution may award to the exchange student
credits earned at a host institution, but only after the home
institution has established correspondence between courses
taken at the host institution vis-a-vis those offered at the
home institution.
If an exchange student has undertaken research, then
the host institution will evaluate the exchange student’s
performance in the research, and issue a letter to that effect,
together with a technical “report” of the research carried
out,
If an exchange student has undertaken research, then
the home institution will take note of the performance
evaluation and the technical report, and take steps in
accordance with its own procedures.
As a host institution, AUB and UJM will make every effort to
arrange for subsidized housing for exchange students.
AUB and UJM will examine ways to identify financial
resources to fund, accommodation, food, and international
travel by students.
The exchange students will pay tuition and other fees at
their home institution.
Joint Conferences, Workshops and Short-term Courses
AUB and UJM agree to help identify and invite faculty
members from the other institution to participate in
conferences, workshops and short-term courses. The terms
and conditions for such participation will be worked out by
mutual agreement between the invited faculty member(s) and
the institution extending such an invitation.
When a faculty member visits the other institution on
invitation or as part of such joint activity, then such a visit will
be classified as such, and handled as per rules of individual
institution.
Intellectual Property
AUB and UJM agree to respect each other’s rights to
intellectual property. Further, the intellectual property rights
that arise as a result of any collaborative research or activity
under this MoU will be worked out on a case-by-case basis,
and will be consistent with the officially laid down IPR policies
of the two institutions.
Co‑ordination
Each institution shall appoint one member of its teaching/
research faculty to coordinate the program on its behalf.
Tenure and Termination:
This MoU will take effect from the date it is signed by
representatives of the two institutions. It will remain valid
for five years, and may be continued thereafter after suitable
review and agreement.
Either institution may terminate the MoU by giving written
notice to the other institution six months in advance. Once
terminated, neither AUB nor UJM will be responsible for any
losses, financial or otherwise, which the other institutions may
suffer. However, AUB and UJM will ensure that all activities in
progress are allowed to be completed successfully.
Third Year Summer
Internship at
the University of
Waterloo
Hrag Margossian
As part of a graduation requirement by the ECE department,
I worked at the University of Waterloo for a period of two
months, in the power research group headed by Professor
Magdy Salama who was my internship supervisor. I was
assigned to two tasks there; the first was of a literature review
nature and the second was more technical in the university HV
lab.
The first two weeks I worked with Ahmed Bayoumi, a PhD
candidate at the University of Waterloo, who was working
on enhancing the condition monitoring techniques for high
voltage equipment like circuit breakers for his PhD thesis.
I prepared a professional report for him on the different
techniques available today and the advantages/disadvantages
of each one and possible windows for improvement that
he would use as a reference. The report was also added to
Professor Salama’s archive for later use.
For my second assignment
I worked with Dr. Samy
Ghania, the supervisor of
the HV lab as well as two
other students, one doing
his masters in mechanical
engineering at UW and
the other an exchange
student from Germany,
working for a diploma in
sensors engineering. The
purpose of the project was
to increase the efficiency
of regenerative breaking
in motors used in hybrid
electric cars. The motor
and the different parts
making up the “car” are
shown in the figure, the
balancing of the load as
well as the other parts
4.
research
making up the mechanical aspects of the project were carried
out by the mechanical engineering student. The other student
added sensors to the different parts of the motor (to measure
torque, voltage variation, speed, pressure, vibrations, ect).
As for the drive of the motor, I worked with Dr. Samy on the
boards that were available but defective. The figures show the
two boards that we worked on:
49

50
I first fixed the first board (checked for components that
weren’t working and then changed them) and tried it, but
it didn’t work (a couple of components exploded) and we
assumed that the ratings of the different parts were not
sufficient (we did not have the datasheet and could not find
it over the internet). We then used the second board, that did
not work because it had an on board protection system that
was blocking its action, Dr. Samy thus asked me to remove
the protection system and prepare a circuit that would directly
feed the board with the PWM and thus everything before
the opto-couplers should be removed. I prepared the system
shown in figures. This time we actually got an output that was
ok. We tried the motor but it moved very slowly and its motion
was not continuous (it stopped and moved) this was because
the output of the inverter board was not really a sine wave and
the error was significant. This last experiment was already in
the final days that the German exchange student and I were
going to be in Canada so we gave up and Dr. Samy ordered a
new inverter board as well as a DSP so that he would be able
to finish the project later.
The internship helped me both on a personal and a
professional level. It made me learn to be more responsible,
punctual, and organized. It also allowed me to put my
knowledge of power electronics that I had acquired at AUB
to use. Finally, it gave me the confidence and initiative to
pursue graduate studies in the same field of electric power
engineering.
PhD research at ECE
Mohammed Husseini, who will be working under the
supervision of Professor Karim Kabalan, is enrolled in AUB’s
PhD program in electrical and computer engineering.
“The purpose of my research,” explains Husseini, “is to design
low-cost easy-to-fabricate antennas for use in wireless and
other applications and to make sure these antennas operate as
dictated by the application.”
In addition to its relevance for wireless communication
systems, Husseini’s research also has potential medical
applications as well – in breast cancer detection for example.
“In this case,” says Husseini, “an antenna sends a well-shaped
pulse over a short distance.” How the body reacts to this
“well-shaped pulse” is key to detecting breast cancer. The
healthy body cells reflect the pulse in a certain way whereas
cancerous cells will reflect the pulse in a different way.
Husseini is intrigued by the challenge of relating his research
to the needs of industry. “Every application comes with its
own set of requirements. You need to understand these
requirements and the needs of the market in order to conduct
research that will result in products with real-life uses.” As a
result of the significant investments that have been made in
the AUB engineering laboratories in recent years, Husseini –
and others conducting research in this field – are now able to
fabricate and test some types of antennas they are researching
at AUB. However, more equipment is needed to deal with
the more sophisticated designs which are currently sent for
fabrication in Europe and the United States.
4.
research
Husseini is one of four PhD students in electrical and
computer engineering this year. Karim Kabalan, chair of
the department and Husseini’s advisor, says that the goal
of the department is to provide high quality education in
electrical and computer engineering that prepares students
for employment and leadership roles in academic, industrial,
or research positions. “When students leave here with
a PhD,” he explains, “we expect them to have a depth of
knowledge in their specific area of research, experience in
doing independent research and communicating the results
effectively, and have made a published contribution to the
existing knowledge in electrical and computer engineering.”
Since completing his BE and ME at AUB, Mohammed Husseini
has been working as a research assistant for Professors Karim
Kabalan and Ali El Hajj both in the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering. Although he has only been a PhD
student since fall 2007, he has already a published having
authored more than ten journal articles and many conference
papers.
51

52
ICT Launch
Siemens Supports new Master’s
Degree Program at the American
University of Beirut
06 / 2008 SiemensWelt Teams & Menschen
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40 Jahre
Belgien
Wouters, Frans 2008-07-08
Deutschland
Amberg
Laubmann, Robert 2008-07-29
Weiss, Erika 2008-07-09
Bad Neustadt an der Saale
Baumeister, Heribert 2008-07-29
Hahner, Siglinde 2008-07-08
Berlin
Drakulic, Dragica 2008-07-10
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Braunschweig
Klems, Hans-Joachim 2008-07-01
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Essen
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Frankfurt am Main
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Feldmann, Norbert 2008-07-03
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Hamburg
Fick, Peter 2008-07-15
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Hannover
Plaschke, Bernd 2008-07-08
Karlsruhe
Heck, Rudolf 2008-07-01
Schumacher, Gerhard 2008-07-09
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Löffelmann, Stefan 2008-07-05
Mahler, Edgar 2008-07-01
Medal Wetzel, Andreas 2008-07-19
Moser, Thomas 2008-07-01
Müller, Bernd 2008-07-01
Orlowsky, Alexander 2008-07-29
Petersen, Jörg 2008-07-02
Pfadenhauer, Thomas 2008-07-04
Rausendorf, Siegmar 2008-07-01
Rusznak, Peter 2008-07-09
Sander, Ralf 2008-07-01
Sauerwein, Reinhard 2008-07-01
Schilke, Birgit 2008-07-04
Schmidt, Stefan 2008-07-27
Schmitz, Norbert 2008-07-15
Schott, Franko 2008-07-01
Spey, Norbert 2008-07-24
Stenmans, Ludger 2008-07-02
Tiefel, Andre 2008-07-05
Vittinghoff, Doris-Maria 2008-07-01
Weschta, Alois 2008-07-26
Wiedmann, Norbert 2008-07-01
Witsch, Susanne 2008-07-01
Essen
Bucksteegen, Ulrich 2008-07-01
Karow, Dieter 2008-07-01
Forchheim
Hentschel, Dietmar 2008-07-15
Michael, Manfred 2008-07-01
Frankfurt am Main
Brinkmann, Werner 2008-07-01
Eisenhofer, Bernd 2008-07-04
Holley, Wolfgang 2008-07-04
Klees, Armin 2008-07-08
Storm, Annegret 2008-07-01
Fürth
Engelhardt, Anton 2008-07-01
Scherer, Wolfgang 2008-07-18
Görlitz
Jurk, Regina 2008-07-01
Hamburg
Harder, Carsten 2008-07-03
Karlsruhe
Blockus, Rolf 2008-07-12
Harder, Karl 2008-07-01
Junker, Gerhard 2008-07-15
Just, Peggy 2008-07-06
Landis, Thomas 2008-07-20
Meinzer, Karlheinz 2008-07-03
Niederer, Luzia 2008-07-01
Rauland, Friedel 2008-07-01
Kemnath
Köferl, Marianne 2008-07-13
Sauter, Rolf 2008-07-15
Schindler, Edgar 2008-07-18
Köln
Althoff, Wolfgang 2008-07-04
Eggers, Hans-Joachim 2008-07-27
Matern, Bruno 2008-07-01
Piwek, Johannes 2008-07-01
Rammisch, Klaus 2008-07-02
Schovenberg, Wolfgang 2008-07-01
Schreier, Christine 2008-07-25
Thomas, Manuela 2008-07-18
Konstanz
Dallinger, Martha 2008-07-25
Pretzel, Hermann 2008-07-01
Laatzen
Hübner, Klaus 2008-07-01
Wiebring, Holger 2008-07-01
Mannheim
Biegel, Armin 2008-07-17
Stark, Wolfgang 2008-07-01
Mülheim an der Ruhr
Giersiepen, Achim 2008-07-01
Vitek, Roman 2008-07-11
München
Bauer, Hans-Jürgen 2008-07-01
Benz, Ralf 2008-07-01
Burger, Manfred 2008-07-01
Christeiner, Irene 2008-07-01
Creutzburg, Werner 2008-07-01
Hebeda, Peter 2008-07-03
Hengster, Georg 2008-07-18
Heusler, Jürgen 2008-07-01
Höfner, Monika 2008-07-16
Höh, Thomas 2008-07-01
Jennrich, Stefan 2008-07-05
Köpl, Bernhard 2008-07-01
Lotze, Wolfgang 2008-07-01
Martin, Wolfgang 2008-07-01
Meier, Herbert 2008-07-15
Mühl, Johann 2008-07-11
Münnicke, Thomas 2008-07-05
Neumeier, Ulrich 2008-07-27
Sill, Gert-Dietmar 2008-07-01
Münster
Dücker, Wolfgang 2008-07-01
Nürnberg
Adamek, Burkhard 2008-07-01
Baier, Peter 2008-07-31
Empen, Oswald 2008-07-02
Gottschalk, Gerhard 2008-07-04
Griebel, Wilhelm 2008-07-23
Kiefel, Margrit 2008-07-18
Kulzinger, Jürgen 2008-07-26
Sachs, Bernd 2008-07-01
Schauer, Manfred 2008-07-12
Stöcklein, Konrad 2008-07-19
Paderborn
Brocke, Rudolf 2008-07-01
Friedrichs, Donat 2008-07-01
Geilert, Alfred-Heinz 2008-07-01
Niemeier, Hubert 2008-07-01
Smigaj, Klaus 2008-07-01
Regensburg
Becker, Friedrich 2008-07-02
Birkl, Ludwig 2008-07-14
Hoch, Peter 2008-07-24
Stuttgart
Abele, Uwe 2008-07-02
Egyed, Miklos 2008-07-01
Schneider, Jürgen 2008-07-01
Würzburg
Barthelmes, Udo 2008-07-01
Frankreich
Steinmetz, Marie-Claire 2008-07-22
Großbritannien
Higham, Neil 2008-07-25
Hornsby, Raymond 2008-07-25
Husband, Gary 2008-07-04
O‘Kane, Mike 2008-07-04
Pratchett, Geoff 2008-07-15
Smithson, David 2008-07-01
Stretton, June 2008-07-04
Tennant, Maria 2008-07-18
Indien
Datta, Abhijit 2008-07-15
Gulhar, H. K. 2008-07-21
Jadaye, Sadanand Gajanan 2008-07-01
Johnson, Usha 2008-07-01
Raghavan, Dhandapany 2008-07-01
Vasudevan, Kayarat 2008-07-06
Mexiko
Guzman, Martin 2008-07-25
Herrera, Gabriela Margarita 2008-07-13
Jiménez, Maria Teresa 2008-07-21
Österreich
Cech, Heinz 2008-07-01
Felgenhauer, Diethard 2008-07-04
Hörbinger, Erich 2008-07-11
Kappel, Bernhard 2008-07-02
Maier, Gerlinde 2008-07-18
Schloegelhofer, Wolfgang 2008-07-13
Strasser, Helmut 2008-07-01
Trenker, Richard 2008-07-18
Schweiz
Morach, Peter 2008-07-17
Türkei
Buyurman, Dursun 2008-07-25
Özcömert, Ahmet Rafet 2008-07-01
Yelken, Hayrettin 2008-07-01
Yilmaz, Mustafa 2008-07-18
USA
Austin, Eustace C 2008-07-08
Beatrice, D Chris 2008-07-12
Caschera, Joseph A 2008-07-11
Hewitt, Patricia K 2008-07-18
Jimison, Thomas M 2008-07-18
Lawrence, Jay R 2008-07-18
Liston Jr, James Joseph 2008-07-31
McFarland, Judith L 2008-07-18
Peck, David R 2008-07-05
Quirarte, Esther 2008-07-11
Slyman, Thomas R 2008-07-11
Tordilla, Edgar 2008-07-24
Winton, Randy A 2008-07-20
Spotlight: Der SiemensWelt-Fotowettbewerb
Hoch hinaus am Hochhaus
Lan Zhu arbeitet bei Siemens Program
and System Engineering in Nanking
als Software-Techniker
Das Changfa Trade Center liegt im
Stadtzentrum von Nanking, der
Hauptstadt der Provinz Jiangsu im
Osten Chinas. Siemens nahm eine
Ausstellung in der Zehn-Millionen-
Metropole zum Anlass, um an den
beiden 130 Meter hohen Türmen
des Gebäudes den Unternehmensschriftzug
mittels einer besonderen
Lichttechnik zu präsentieren. Dafür
wurde die komplette Außenfassade
des Gebäudes genutzt. Die Gegebenheiten
erforderten allerdings eine
ungewohnte vertikale Darstellung
des Schriftzugs, was Siemens-Mitarbeiter
Lan Zhu so sehr beeindruckte,
dass er sie für uns fotografiert hat.
Der SiemensWelt-Fotowettbewerb: Mitmachen und gewinnen!
Sie haben aus Ihrem Berufs- oder Privatleben ein Foto, das einen besonders originellen Bezug zu Siemens zeigt? Dann schicken
Sie es uns doch zusammen mit einem kurzen Erläuterungstext sowie Ihrem Porträt einschließlich Tätigkeitsangabe an folgende
Adresse: siemenswelt.cc@siemens.com! Die Redaktion wählt für jedes Heft das beste Foto zur Veröffentlichung aus und prämiert
dieses mit 100 Euro.
Generation21
There’s a good reason why many people
think of the Lebanese capital of
Beirut when they think of education:
Beirut is home to the American University
of Beirut (AUB). Siemens provided
support to the internationally
renowned university in its four-year
project to develop a new degree program.
Lebanon, one of the smaller countries
in the Middle East, is particularly
international in its orientation. Of its
3.8 million inhabitants, more than
100,000 work in the Gulf region, one
of the world’s most dynamic markets,
and one that offers special growth opportunities
to Siemens in particular.
The AUB, with its long
history and strong tradition,
gives Lebanon a
world-renowned educational
institution.
Together with the
Technical University of
Munich (TUM) and the
University of Southampton,
Siemens participated
in the European
Union’s Tempus Project.
The objective was to establish
a new master’s
degree program in electrical
engineering at the
UAB and equip the university
with a cuttingedge
laboratory. At the
same time, all of the parties
involved in the project
felt it was important
to promote international
student exchanges.
A recent ceremony in
Beirut marked the successful
completion of
nearly four years of hard
work. Aref Asoufi, representing
the Lebanese
Education Ministry, con-
gratulated the sponsors
on what he termed a professionally
and efficient-
Hitting the books in Beirut
Siemens supports new master‘s degree program at the American University of Beirut
ly completed project. He emphasized,
“In today’s globalized world, political
decision-makers view education as a
more important lever for change than
ever before.”
Education without borders
Frank Stefan Becker took part in the
festivities as a representative of Generation21,
Siemens’ global education
and training program. He underscored
an issue that is particularly im-
The AUB in Beirut has an international focus and now offers a
new master’s program in electrical engineering
portant from an industry perspective:
“Studying abroad is useful for more
than just improving your foreign language
skills. The main benefit is gaining
insight into a new culture and
relativizing your own perspective on
the world.” Becker feels AUB can be
the ideal place to learn more about a
culture with enormous potential.
Johanna Weindl, a TUM student who
studied abroad in Lebanon, concurs
with this assessment. “My months at
AUB were unforgettable. They were
very valuable, and not just from an
academic perspective – they really
made Lebanon and the Middle East
come alive for me.”
A model project
The project grew out of
strong Lebanese support
for the Englishlanguage
Master of
Science in Communications
Engineering program
that TUM has offered
in Munich for
many years, with support
from Siemens. Professor
Zaher Dawy from
the AUB, who also received
his degree there,
was one of the initiators
of the project. It was
lauded as an example of
Best Practice at a German
Academic Exchange
Service meeting in February
2006. When it
came time to equip the
laboratory, there was a
silver lining for
Siemens: not only was
Fujitsu-Siemens chosen
to supply the computer
equipment, but Siemens
also later won a larger
AUB follow-up contract.
AW
V.
Activities

54
Service
Ibarahim Abou Faycal
Member, ECE Undergraduate and ABET Committee
M. Adnan Al‑Alaoui
Member, University Senate
Chairman, IEEE Lebanon Section Member, Technical
Committee, Interactive Mobile and Computer
Literacy (IMCL 2007)
Member, Program Committee for the 2nd International
Conference on Interactive Mobile and
Computer Aided Learning, Amman, Jordan, 18-20 April 2007.
Hassan Artail
Chairman, FEA Faculty Research Committee
Member, FEA Strategic Planning Committee
Member, ECE Departmental Recruiting Committee
Member, University Web Oversight Committee
Mariette Awad
Member, ECE Undergraduate and ABET Committee
Louay Bazzi
Member, ECE Undergraduate and ABET Committee
Ali Chehab
Member, ad-hoc Committee on Publicity and Information
Member, ad-hoc Committee on ECE Graduate Curriculum
Member, Admissions Committee
Member, Teaching Excellence Award Committee
Member, Disciplinary Committee
Zaher Dawy
Member, Academic and Curriculum Committee
Member, FEA Student Affairs Committee
Member, FEA Student Conference Committee
Vice Chair of the IEEE Communication Society Chapter in
Lebanon
Counselor: IEEE Student Branch at AUB
Member of the Lebanese Order of Engineers
Reviewer for various IEEE and international journals and
conferences
Guest Editor: EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal
Processing, Special Issue on
Multihop-Based Cellular Networks
TPC Member: IEEE WiMob 2008
TPC Member: ACS/IEEE AICSSA 2008
TPC Member: IEEE WCNC 2008 Phy/MAC Track
TPC Member: IEEE ICC 2008 Wireless Communications
Symposium
TPC Member: IEEE WCNC 2007 Phy/MAC Track
Ali El‑Hajj
Chairman, ECE Recruiting Committee
Member, University Financial Aid Committee
Member, Assessment of Student Learning, AUB Accreditation
Task Team,
Member, Advisory Committee,
Member, University Academic Committee,
Adviser for 42 students
Member, International Program Committee, IASTED
International Conference on Webbased Education (WBE 2008),
Innsbruck, Austria, March 17-19, 2008
Member, Program Committee, the 2007 International
Conference on Computer
Engineering & Systems (ICCES’07), November 27-29, 2007,
Cairo, Egypt
Member, Editorial Board, Spreadsheets in Education
Imad Elhajj
Chairman, FEA Library Committee
Member, ECE Recruitment Committee
Hazem Hajj
Member, ECE Graduate Committee
Karim Kabalan
Member, Board of Graduate Studies
Member, FEA Academic and Development Committee
Member, FEA Administrative Committee
Member, Strategic and Planning Committee
Member, Physical Space Committee
Chairman, Accreditation Committee
Chairman, ECE Undergraduate and ABET Committee
Chairman, ECE Graduate Committee
Member of the International Program Committee, IASTED
International Conference on
Applied Simulation and Modeling (ASM 2008), Corfu, Greece,
June 23-25, 2008
Sami Karaki
Member, ECE Undergraduate and ABET Committee
Fadi Karameh
Member, University Student Affairs Committee
Member, FEA Student Conference Committee
Member, FEA Teaching Effectiveness Committee
Member, ECE Graduate Committee
Ayman Kayssi
Member, FEA Admission Committee
Member, FEA Physical Space Committee
Fuad Mrad
Chairman, University IT Committee (Oct 2007 - Feb 2008)
Member, FEA Advisory Committee
Member of the Founding Team for the AUB Industrial
Technology Initiative
Member of the Club Advisor: Freedom Club.
Invited Speaker, 6th Annual ASEE Global Colloquium on
Engineering Education,
Istanbul, Turkey, October, 2007.
Jean Saade
Member, Department Recruitment Committee
Coordinator of the Final Year Project
Mazen Saghir
Member, ECE Graduate Committee
Consultancy Work
Imad El‑Hajj
Presentation at the ELCIM activity for local industry
Farid Chaaban
REP Activity – Dean of the College of Engineering, Dhofar
University, Salalah, Oman.
Zaher Dawy
Professional training of telecom engineers, Ericsson
Communications Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon.
Ayman Kayssi
REP Activity – Develop undergraduate engineering curricula for
the Prince Fahad Bin Sultan University in Tabuk, KSA.
Fuad Mrad
Develop a reliable process and criteria for evaluating and
granting industrial production Excellence Awards for the
Lebanese Industrial Sector by the ELCIM (European Lebanese
Center for Industrial Modernization)
5.
ECE Budgets
General Supplies: 9500 USD
Student Work Scholarship: 15000 USD
Minor Equipment: 18900 USD
Major Budget: 64000 USD
ASHA Grants: 120000 USD
Meetings
ECE Meetings
activities
July 23, 2007: Announcements: The two new faculty members
will join in spring 2008 term; Lab Engineer Position; Mr.
Ghassan Deeb accepted position and will start August 15,
2007; 7 PhD applicants have been recommended. FEA
Dean will partially fund applicants and they are expected to
be partially funded by faculty members.
Senior Lecturer Appointment: Dr. Lama Hamandi and Dr.
Walid Kamali from part time to full time senior lecturers.
October 11, 2008: Enrollment numbers in the Department
were presented and discussed.
Profs. Saade and Dawy were appointed as final year project
coordinator and seminar coordinator, respectively.
A common final exam in multi-section courses was
recommended.
EECE200 was made a pre-requisite or co-requisite for
EECE310.
November 15, 2007: Announcement from the Dean: Dr.
George Kadifa donated $50,000 to support the PhD
program in ECE.
Announcements: Prof. Mansour extension of leave request
for the spring 2008 term has been approved.
Recommendation for alumni award was made
The proposal for requesting a position for an academic
advisor was approved.
January 15, 2008: Announcements: 2 PhD students were
accepted into the program. 18 MS applicants for spring
2008. 11 accepted, 3 accepted on probation, 4 rejected.
16 transfer applicants into the undergraduate program
were considered by the ECE Undergraduate and ABET
55

56
Committee: Only 1 applicant was accepted. Profs. Karem
Sakallah and Fadi Kurdahi have accepted their nominations
to the FEA Distinguished Alumnus Award. Prof. Raad
Raad request for a short visit was approved. ICT opening
ceremony: Monday January 28, 2008 at 4:00 pm, Bathish
Auditorium, West Hall.
EECE 311 Electronic Circuits was approved
February 21, 2008: Announcements: Prof. Raad Raad is visiting
the ECE department.
Updates on faculty applicants
March 13, 2008: Approval of the revised version of the PhD
program to be submitted to the Ministry of Education and
Higher Education of Lebanese Government for degree
approvals.
Introduction of EECE 481, as a second course in
Electromagnetics, as an elective for ECE and CCE students.
Updates on faculty applicants.
Announcements: Dr. Awad assumed secretary
responsibilities from Dr. Elhajj. Dr. Kabalan to recommend
class size of 80 based on current figures for graduating class:
ECE: 78, CCE: 88.
April 10, 2008: Approval of two new graduate courses: EECE
667: Pattern Recognition, and EECE 683: Numerical
methods in Electromagnetics
Approval of changes in existing courses: EECE 640 L,
changes in catalogue description to reflect current offerings;
and EECE 645: The UMTS Cellular System
Recommendation for promotion to lecturer.
May 15, 2008: Recommendation on faculty applicants.
Recommendation for full-time Instructor position.
June 19, 2008: Announcements: Dr. Haitham Akkary
accepted an Assistant Professor position in the ECE
department. He will be joining in fall 2008. 83 MS
applicants: 43 accepted, 2 AUB on probation, 22 waiting,
15 rejected, 1 prospective. 9 PhD applicants: 2 rejected, 4
accepted, 3 incomplete.
Changes to admission form: The admission form states:
“Electrical and Computer Engineering” or “Computer and
Communications Engineering” (BEN-EECE)
Creative Achievement Award: ECE award; one project by
Maya El-Moghrabi (CCE), Mohammad El-Habbal (ECE), and
Omar Monajjed (ECE) (Automated Device for Removing
Skin Lesion) .
June 23, 2008: Special meeting: Voting of degrees
Seminars
The ECE Department routinely holds seminars during the
semester to expose students to professional and research
projects of interest to electrical and computer engineers.
Speakers at these seminars include professional engineers and
researchers. The ECE department organized nineteen technical
seminars during the academic year 2007-08.
Broadband Wireless Access Using Mobile WiMAX, Dr.
Louay Jalloul,
October 3, 2007
Research in Antenna Design and Analysis, Mr. Mohamed
Husseini, PhD Student, AUB,
October 25, 2007
Data Compression and Human Migration, Dr. Zaher Dawy,
ECE Department, AUB,
November 8, 2007
Electronic Manufacturing in Lebanon - A Lost Opportunity,
Mr. Ziad Boustany,
November 14, 2007
UWB and Millimeter-Wave Wireless Personal Area
Networks: A System Overview, Dr. Walid Ali Ahmad,
November 29, 2007.
Small Hydropower and its Potential in Lebanon, Dr. Omar
Mardam-Bey, ARISE Founder and President,
December 13, 2007.
A Journey through the Acoustic Wavelength, Mr. Fouad
Bechwati, PhD student, Salford University,
January 3, 2008.
The Great Transformation Affecting Humanity, Dr. Hassan
Charif, Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research,
January 17, 2008.
Designing High-Performance Soft Processor Cores:
Experiences and Future Challenges, Prof. Mazen Saghir, ECE
Department, AUB,
February 28, 2008.
RFID Enhanced Wireless Sensor Networks, Dr. Raad Raad,
University of Wollongong, Australia,
March 6, 2008.
Robots and Sensors Serving Humans and the Environment,
Prof. Imad Elhajj, ECE Department, AUB,
March 13, 2008.
Checkpoint Processing and Recovery: A High Performance
Substrate for Large Scale Speculative Execution, Dr.
Haitham Akkary, Intel Corporation,
March 27, 2008.
Security of Watermarking Schemes Against Sensitivity
Attacks, Ms. Maha El Choubassi, PhD student, University of
Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC),
April 1, 2008.
Direct receivers for LMDS and UHF RFID systems, Dr. Sara
Abou Chkra, Lebanese Canadian University,
April 3, 2008.
Environmental Monitoring through Wireless Sensor
Networks, Dr. Raja Jurdak, PRISM Laboratory and the
Adaptive Information Cluster at University College Dublin,
April 17, 2008.
An Integrated Power Electronics Module for Distributed
Resources with Energy Storage, Hassan Nikkhajoei,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA,
April 22, 2008.
Medical X-rays Systems: From Principles to Implementation
into Hospitals (ELH), - Dr. Mohamad Nasreddine, Lebanese
National Council for Scientific Research,
April 22, 2008.
Program Analysis with Logic Solvers, Dr. Fadi zaraket, IBM
Corporation, Austin, Texas USA,
May 8, 2008.
DNA Nanotechnology, Prof. Colin Smith, AUB,
May 15, 2008.
Awards
Distinguished Alumni
Awards
Dr. Karem A. Sakallah
Karem A. Sakallah received the BE degree in electrical
engineering from the American University of Beirut, Beirut,
Lebanon, in 1975, and the MS EE and PhD degrees in electrical
and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, PA, in 1977 and 1981, respectively.
In 1981, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the
Department of Electrical Engineering at Carnegie
Mellon University. From 1982 to 1988, he was with the
Semiconductor Engineering Computer-Aided Design Group
at Digital Equipment Corporation in Hudson, MA, where he
headed the Analysis and Simulation Advanced Development
Team. Since September 1988, he has been with the University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as a Professor of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science. He has authored or co-authored
more than two hundred papers and has presented seminars
5.
activities
and tutorials at many professional meetings and various
industrial sites. His current research interests include the area
of computer-aided design with emphasis on logic and layout
synthesis, Boolean satisfiability, discrete optimization, and
hardware and software verification.
Since 2006, Dr. Sakallah has been a member of an advisory
board for the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and
Community Development. He is currently on sabbatical leave
at Carnegie Mellon University’s Qatar campus with a mission
to help the Qatar Foundation establish Al-Khwarizmi Institute
for Computer and Information Science and Engineering.
Dr. Sakallah was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions
on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and
Systems from 1995 to 1997 and has served on the program
committees of the International Conference on Computer-
Aided Design, Design Automation Conference, and the
International Conference of Computer Design. He is currently
an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computers. He
is a fellow of the IEEE and a member of the ACM and Sigma Xi.
Dr. Fadi Kurdahi
Fadi Kurdahi received his BE in EE from AUB in 1981 and
his MS and PhD from the University of Southern California
in 1982 and 1987, respectively. Since then, he has been a
faculty member at the Departments of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, and Information and Computer Science at UCI,
where he conducts research in the areas of computer aided
design of VLSI circuits, high-level synthesis, and design
methodology of large scale systems, and serves as the
Associate Director for the Center for Embedded Computer
Systems (CECS), one of the epicenters of embedded systems
research worldwide. From 2000 to 2002 he was on leave from
UCI as founder and CTO of Morpho Technologies, a startup
company specializing in reconfigurable computing platform
support for wireless systems. Morpho Technologies was listed
as one of the top sixty emerging startups by EE Magazine in
2005.
An IEEE Fellow, Professor Kurdahi has published more than
120 papers in his areas of research. He received the Best
Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on VLSI in 2002,
the Best Paper Award in 2006 at ISQED, and three other
distinguished paper awards at DAC, EuroDAC and ASP-DAC.
He was Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and
Systems II 1993-1995, Area Editor in IEEE Design and Test for
reconfigurable computing, and guest editor of several journal
special issues. He served as program chair, general chair, or
on program committees of numerous workshops, symposia,
and conferences in the area of CAD, VLSI, reconfigurable
computing and system design.
57

58
Dean’s Award for Creative
Achievement
The award consists of a certificate in testimony of creative
achievement as well as inscription of the recipient’s name
on a special board places in the Dean’s reception room or
in another appropriate location. A student who receives the
award three times will be presented with a $500 prize.
Number of Awards
One award may be presented yearly, depending on
eligibility, to a student in each of the following programs:
architecture, graphic design, civil engineering, computer
and communications engineering, electrical and computer
engineering, and mechanical engineering.
Eligibility
Undergraduate students from all classes in the Faculty
of Engineering and Architecture who have demonstrated
creativity in their approach to academic work as applied to
projects, problem solving, laboratory and shop work, etc. are
eligible without restriction. Recipient of the Dean’s Award for
Creative Achievement should have presented a paper at the
FEA Student Conference.
Nomination and Selection
Procedure
Faculty members shall submit to the Chairman of the
Department concerned, as soon as possible after the final
examinations of the Spring Semester, the names of candidates
for the award with justification and supporting material.
Selection of the candidate for each program shall be made by
the respective department and communicated to the Dean for
voting by the Faculty at the time of voting of degrees at the
end of the academic year.
Award Recipients of the Academic
Year 2007‑2008
ECE: Mohammad El Habbal (CCE), Maya El Moghrabi (CCE),
Omar Monajjed (ECE); Automated determination of skin lesion
removal regions
CCE: Milad Chalfoun (ECE), Hovig Denkilkian (CCE), Rostom
Ohannessian (CCE), Agop Koulakezian (CCE); Floating
wireless oil sensor
Distinguished Graduate
Award
The Distinguished Graduate Award will be given to the
graduating senior student who demonstrates high academic
achievement, outstanding character, and contribution to the
Department. The award will consist of an engraved shield and
a certificate signed by the Chairman and the Dean
Number of Awards
One award may be presented yearly, depending on
eligibility, to a student in each of the following programs:
architecture, graphic design, civil engineering, computer and
communications engineering, electrical engineering, and
mechanical engineering.
Academic performance
The candidate for the award should have been placed on the
Dean’s Honor List for terms VII, VIII, X and XI and should
have been nominated for graduation with distinction or high
distinction.
Character
The nomination brief for the student should include a section
addressing the student’s character and should include
examples that demonstrate it vis-à-vis his/her classmates and
teachers. Emphasis should be given to evidence of exemplary,
ethical and responsible conduct inside and outside the
classroom setting.
Contribution to the Department
The nomination brief should address and evaluate the
contributions that the student made to the learning
environment in his/her classes and to the Department as a
whole. This section should include supporting examples. The
successful candidate for the award should acquire the vote
of at least two thirds of the voting faculty members in the
Department.
Nomination and Selection
Procedures
The candidates should be nominated by at least three faculty
members. The nomination should come in the form of a
brief that addresses academic performance, character, and
contribution to the department
Award Recipients of the Academic
Year 2007‑2008
ECE: Hrag Margossian;
CCE: Agop Koulakezian
Penrose Awards
Description
In 1955 Mrs. Stephen Penrose initiated the Penrose Award
in honor of her late husband, President Penrose. This award
is made on the basis of the best combination of scholarship,
character, leadership and contribution to the University as a
whole. The award consists of engraving the recipient’s name
on a plaque which is kept on display in the Jafet Library
Nomination and Selection
Procedures
Each member of the faculty is entitled to nominate one
student. The nominee for the Penrose Award must have
attained a cumulative average of not less than 75 based on
terms VI, VII, VIII, and X for Engineering students, and terms
VIII, X, XI, and XIII for Architecture students and have not
repeated any of the above-mentioned terms.
Upon receiving the nominations made by the individual faculty
members, the Students Affairs Committee will study and
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appraise each nominee, and will then prepare a selected list
of three names, or a list of all nominated if less than three, for
presentation to the faculty for final action.
A faculty meeting will be called and the list mentioned in ‘2’
above will be distributed. Final voting and selection, by the
“Voting Faculty” will be made at this meeting. The name of the
nominee who obtains a simple majority of the votes will be
transmitted to the Board of Academic Deans for final approval.
The above actions of the faculty will be final and will not be
subject to any subsequent considerations.
Award Recipients of the Academic
Year 2007‑2008
Hani Tohmeh
Abdul Hadi Debs Award
Abdul Hadi Debs Foundation established a new award at
the American University of Beirut which will be offered to
graduating students who excel in their studies. This award
will be made equally to three students in the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, and
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture according to the
following restrictions:
It is an annual award to graduating students, preferably at the
graduate level.
Students in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Faculty of
Agricultural and Food Sciences, and Faculty of Engineering and
Architecture may benefit from this award.
Each Faculty will nominate one candidate with outstanding
academic record, and who demonstrated research capabilities
through a paper, project, or thesis deemed by the Faculty
worthy of publication.
The recipients will receive equally a cash award depending on
the amount generated by the endowment.
The maximum amount of each award shall not exceed $1,000.
Any balance in the fund will be added to the principal of the
endowment
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Award Recipients of the Academic
Year 2007‑08
Mr. Yosef Taouk
IEEE Student Branch at AUB:
2007‑08 Activities
This year, the IEEE Student Branch at AUB has organized
several activities for its members the students of the ECE
department.
The 2007-08 executive board was formed by:
President: Jad El Mir, Vice-President: Nadim Cheaib, Secretary:
Youssef El Zmeter, Treasurer: Sami Khawaja, WIE Coordinator:
Stephany Abi Abdallah, and Graduate Representative: Manar
Khattar.
The Executive Committee also included a counselor, Prof.
Zaher Dawy, who participated in most of its meetings and
activities, and was always ready to guide the management of
the student branch.
After the request of the ECE department, the IEEE Student
Branch participated in the orientation program of new
students to help in registration, selection of courses and all
the procedures that sound complicated at first. It did so by
setting up a desk at the entrance of the Bechtel Building where
some IEEE members (3rd and 4th year) were ready to answer
questions.
Before launching our registration week, we presented a lecture
about IEEE to the students taking the EECE 200 course. This
year, 222 students registered as members of the IEEE Student
Branch.
Our aim this year was to increase the technical activities
organized by the IEEE at AUB and make the students more
interested in participating in such activities. This is why we
tried to diversify the subjects of our seminars in a way to meet
the taste of most of our members.
On December 13, in collaboration with the ECE department,
we invited Dr. Omar Mardam-Bey, a pioneer in the field of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, to give a seminar entitled
“Introduction to small hydropower generation and potential
in Lebanon.” Many graduate and undergraduate students
attended the seminar.
In collaboration with JCI Lebanon, we decided to give a series
of self development seminars to the FEA students at AUB. The
first seminar was about the art of leadership, “Leadership: An
Art in Itself…” and took place in the Faculty on February 27,
2008. As for the second, it took place on April 2, 2008, and
was about body language,“Bodies Do Not Lie”. Both seminars
were given by the National Secretary General Rania Haddad.
The objective of this series of seminars was to provide
engineering students with non-technical skills that will help
them to become better leaders in their communities.
The IEEE Student Branch also took part of the organization
of many other seminars involving leadership and
entrepreneurship. For example, we helped organize the
Berytech-BADER seminar entitled “From Idea to Startup.”
Many students attended this seminar and participated in the
discussion with Berytech and BADER representatives. This
event took place on March 18 in the Engineering Lecture Hall.
In order to increase the cooperation between the different IEEE
Student Branches in Lebanon, we participated in many joint
activities that were held at various universities in Lebanon.
Accordingly, we took part of the IEEE LCW2008 which is a
conference on communications organized every year by the
Communications Chapter in Lebanon. It was held this year
at the Beirut Arab University and was a huge success. In
addition, we participated in the organization of the first WIE
national workshop that was held at Notre-Dame University
and attended by more than 150 students and professionals. It
was a very interesting workshop and it should be noted that
AUB students participated actively in the discussions with the
speakers.
For the first time in its history, the IEEE Student Branch
decided to participate in the IEEE Xtreme Programming
Contest. This competition involves all student branches in the
world. The AUB Student Branch participated with three teams
(each with three students) and one of the teams placed in the
top 25 teams in the world! The contest consisted of solving
tough programming problems during 24 hours. The Executive
Committee was responsible for the whole management (food,
venue, coordination with the administration) and cooperated
with the IEEE GOLD Committee in Lebanon for proctoring
issues.
In addition to all of the above listed events, the IEEE Student
Branch at AUB organized many social activities. At the
beginning of the fall term, it collaborated with the SME and
ASME to organize the Annual Engineering Iftar. The Iftar took
place at Le Meridien Commodore on October 8, 2007. It was
a memorable event that gathered around 250 students and
faculty members.
By the end of the fall semester and before students took off for
the Christmas vacation, the IEEE Student Branch collaborated
with the Engineering Student Society and organized a Karaoke
Christmas Dinner. The event was held on December 18, 2007
at Al-Yarz Country Club. The IEEE took care of all the logistics
as well as the decoration of the engineering entrance. The
event was a success where students sang and danced all night
and got to win some nice prizes due to the tombola drawing.
Finally, the most important social event that the IEEE took part
in organizing was the Engineering Gala Dinner. For the first
time, the SRC and the Mechanical Engineering societies and
the IEEE organized a common gala dinner for the occasion of
the graduation of the Class of 2008. The dinner was held at the
Movenpick Hotel on June 23, 2008. The organizing committee
including IEEE Student Branch Committee members took care
of all of the organization: the venue, the food, the decoration,
the souvenirs……. It is important to mention that the event
would not have been so successful without the generous
contributions of our sponsors. We had Nokia-Siemens
Networks MEA and HARB Electrics as our gold sponsors,
Ewaseet.com, The Federal Bank of Lebanon, Computel, the
FEA and the FEA SRC as our silver sponsors and Cyril Sweett
as our bronze sponsor. The night was an unforgettable night
which started with speeches by the Dean of the FEA, Ibrahim
Hajj and representatives of the students. Following this we
had a farewell video viewing and the distribution of awards
to some unique students of the Class of 2008. Finally, the
stand-up comedian Nemer Bou Nassar added a fun spirit to
the dinner. Every student and professor received a souvenir
booklet which included pictures, information, and comments
about the graduating students. The event gathered more
than 260 students and faculty members who enjoyed and
celebrated their graduation.
In conclusion, we would like to thank every person who
collaborated with the IEEE Student Branch Executive
Committee to make the events more and more successful.
ECE News
Intel donates equipment
to establish multi‑core
programming laboratory
Intel Corporation has donated a multi-core computer lab to
AUB, and that the lab will be housed in the FEA for use by
the AUB community for teaching and research purposes. The
state-of-the art lab workstations and servers have already
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been installed and the necessary software tools will be up and
running soon. Intel also plans to hold an intensive, 2.5-day
training workshop for all interested faculty and staff members.
The training will cover multi-core processor architectures, the
Intel compiler, performance monitoring and tuning tools, and
parallel programming libraries and techniques.
The Information and
Communications Technology
(ICT) program was launched
on the 28th of January
2008
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
AUB has started a new master’s program in information and
communication technology in response to regional and global
market needs.
The new program, which leads to a Masters of Engineering
degree, was developed with a 494,000.00 Euro grant from
the European Union’s TEMPUS program in collaboration
with Technische Universitat Munchen in Germany (TUM),
University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, and
Siemens AG in Germany. It was launched in a ceremony on
Monday, January 28 at 4pm in the Faculty of Engineering and
Architecture lecture hall. Attending the event were a number
of students and faculty members in addition to the German
Ambassador Hansjorg Haber.
“In today’s globalized world, internationalization is very
important, and what better place to achieve this than at the
American University of Beirut, which is a true crossroads
between East and West,” said Frank Stefan Becker, senior
coordinator for the Generation21 education program at
Siemens which links with universities to exchange technical
know-how and academic training.
“Going abroad is not just about learning a new language,” he
added. “It’s about being exposed to a new culture and learning
to look at things from a different point of view. This opens up
your mind and broadens your view of the world.”
The new program, which gives students the opportunity to
study or train abroad, will feature both research and practical
training components and will include business courses, handson
lab training, and special block courses offered by industry
specialists and guest professors. Students will also be required
to do an internship as part of the program, to supplement their
experience with practical training within the industry they are
interested in.
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FEA Dean Ibrahim Hajj welcomed guests, and expressed his
happiness for the success of the program, congratulating
everyone on their success and determination despite the
turmoil in the country.
Representing Education Minister Mohammed Qabbani was
Aref Asoufi, who congratulated AUB for having been selected
by TEMPUS to establish the program.
“Your project has been run with professionalism, efficiency,
and effectiveness, despite the unstable situation in the
country,” he said. “Today, more than ever, in a globalized
world of economy, policymakers are increasingly looking to
higher education to help in the process of change. This will
certainly require programs that are responsive, visionary, and
dynamic.”
Asoufi also noted that the ministry was in the process of
reforming the education sector so that it would respond to
market needs and meet high quality standards. The Tempusfunded
master’s program can lead the way, he added.
TUM Professor Joachim Hagenauer, who is the grant holder of
the project, said that the new program is the result of efforts
made over nearly four years. He added that the project is likely
to bring more diversity to the AUB student body, as attested
by the four German exchange students who joined AUB in the
past two years, despite the ongoing political problems.
“It is clear that tremendous efforts will have to be made before
Lebanon and the region can enjoy peace,” he concluded. “It’s
up to you, young people to make that change.”
The chair of the ECE department, Prof Karim Kabalan, outlined
the program requirements, noting that it was devised after
consulting with regional ICT companies and surveying their
needs. Moreover, universities with leading ICT programs
were also reviewed. That’s why the program has a business
management component as well as a research and practical
training/internship component. “The program focuses on the
academic, professional, practical, and communication skills of
students,” he said.
Graduate student Osama Ahmed, who is already enrolled in
the ICT master’s program, shared his view of the program
with the audience. “This is an essential program for anyone
interested in this field,” he said, praising AUB and TUM for
their joint efforts in devising the program.
At the end of the event, Professor Hagenauer was honored
with a statuette for his dedication and efforts in establishing
the program. Engineering Professor Zaher Dawy, who is also
one of the main coordinators for the project that established
the master’s program, presented the statue to Hagenauer.
The Industrial Technology
Initiative (ITI) was
launched on the16th of
November 2007
At a time when political discord and national instability
are prompting young people to lose faith in their country
and leave for greener pastures, AUB started an Industrial
Technology Initiative (ITI) with the aim of bridging the gap
between the academic and industrial sectors, with the hope
that this will increase innovation, productivity, and job
opportunities, thus wooing young talent to stay in Lebanon.
The initiative, which was made possible through a partnership
with the National Council of Scientific Research (NCSR), the
Association of Lebanese Industrialists (LIRA), Arab Research
Institute in Science, and Engineering (ARISE), as well as
technology suppliers, such as National Instruments and
Omron, was launched at a workshop grouping industrialists,
academics, and technology suppliers in College Hall B-1 on
November 16.
“The relationship between educational systems and economic
development has been proven,” said Fuad Mrad, a professor
of electrical and computer engineering at AUB, and the driving
force behind the initiative, which also includes a team of eight
other engineering professors from AUB.
“In Lebanon, we have invested heavily in education, but
unfortunately, have not been able to capitalize on this
investment,” added Prof. Mrad. “We are in fact good at
exporting our educated and skilled people.”
Enter the Industrial Technology Initiative, which aims to
establish a framework to support local and regional industry
through applied research, consulting services, and training
programs. ITI will harness technologies and deploy knowledge
for enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises.
The Lebanese industrial sector is primarily comprised of
small to medium-sized technologies, which have proven
to be a source of entrepreneurship and a core of economic
growth, noted Mrad. But in order to enhance their competitive
edge in a region filled with cheap labor, they need to keep
on upgrading their production process through the latest
technologies. “The benefits of technology in enterprises
include increased savings in total costs of operations and
productivity, as well as the efficient production of quality
goods that can compete internationally, thus reaching
wider markets much faster,” said Prof. Mrad. Moreover,
students will learn a lot from their hands-on experience in
creating technological solutions for real-life problems in local
industries.
This marriage between technology, industries, and academia
was considered a “win-win-win” situation by participants at
the launch workshop. Indeed, according to Victor Mieres,
National Instruments’ Vice President for Asia and the Rest of
World, technology suppliers cannot do anything without the
industrialists who need that technology and who also need
the academics and researchers to understand and adapt the
technology to their needs. “It is a true pleasure to be here with
you today,” said Mieres, at the ITI launch.
Mieres came to AUB also to launch the Virtual Instrumentation
Center of Excellence, which is equipped with National
Instrument technology. The center will provide students and
faculty with the tech tools to apply and design engineering
concepts. For instance, a software called LabVIEW allows
engineers who might not be as well-versed in computer
programming to create their own programs by using images or
drawings instead of computer codes.
“This initiative is very important to help move the industry
to high value-added production and services by increasing
the input of local knowledge,” said Hassan Shareef, from the
NCSR.
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Dean Ibrahim Hajj
congratulated everyone on this bold move, thanking all those
involved in its success.
“There is no question that the industrial sector is one of the
main driving forces of the Lebanese economic growth,” said
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President of the Industrialists Association Fadi Abboud in a
written statement, read by Nabil Gemayel. “Thus, Lebanon
has to set up an advanced and developed industrial sector
to absorb local demand, attract investments, and increase
exports.”
Abboud added that the new initiative will provide the
“technical know-how and the laboratory services to improve
the local manufacturing sector’s competitiveness and growth.”
Gemayel added that there is a great need to invest in design
and innovation because both enhance productivity, while
making better use of space, and creating a more marketable
product.
Abdul Hamid Hallab, special advisor to AUB President John
Waterbury and one of the founders of the Regional External
Programs (REP) at AUB, said that the REP helps coordinate the
work of AUB Faculties beyond the campus and will be pleased
to coordinate any training activities needed by the industry.
“Technology is not a magic wand that can solve all the
problems facing local industry,” said Prof. Mrad, as he
wrapped up his presentation. “Competitors are using
technology, can we afford not to?”
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Congratulations
Congratulations to Prof. Ernst
Hujier on the birth of his
grandson Daniel Ernst Shehade.
Dany was born on May 12, 2008.
Congratulations to Prof. Imad
El-hajj on the birth of his adorable
son Charbel John. Charbel John
was born on April 3, 2008 at
CMC.
Congratulations to Prof. Sami Karaki on his marriage to Miss.
Jeanne D’arc Moussa. They celebrated their wedding on
September 9, 2007 at the Metropolitan Grand Hotel
Congratulations to Prof. Zaher Dawy for winning AUB 2008
Teaching Excellence Award: In an event that has become
an annual tradition at AUB, assistant professor of electrical
and computer engineering Zaher Dawy was awarded the
Teaching Excellence Award 2008.The Teaching Excellence
Award is comprised of a $5,000 grant to be spent on academic
research. The recipients are expected to “volunteer in teaching
and learning activities on campus and contribute, at least
once, to the AUB Teaching Excellence website.” The criteria
to qualify for the award include teaching for more than six
semesters, and maintaining a record of high-quality teaching,
based on evidence of
continued outstanding
contributions to the
academic development
of students or the
introduction of
innovative techniques
to enhance student
learning. During the
ceremony Provost
Heath referred to
assistant Professor
Zaher Dawy as
someone who
“provides a rare example of an educator who simultaneously
demonstrates excellence at the many scales demanded of
his profession, from preparing a historical side note to an
exam question to establishing a new graduate program in
collaboration with an overseas university. “That Dr. Dawy has
managed to demonstrate these qualities while introducing five
new courses, an entirely new graduate program, re-tooling
teaching laboratories, supervising 15 final year projects, 12
master’s students, and two doctoral students in the past five
years testifies to his great energy and love for the profession.
He is highly deserving of the teaching award,” he added.
Congratulations to
Mrs. Rabab Abi Shakra
for her promotion to
Administrative assistant
on February 2008.
New faces
New faculty
Dr. Hazem Hajj graduated from the American University of
Beirut in 1987 with distinction. He received his PhD from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996, at which time
he joined Intel Logic Technology Development. He received
several teaching awards at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. He has led research and development for several
new initiatives at Intel. These include Intel’s APC systems,
station controllers, Manufacturing Technician User Interface,
Real-time End of Line Yield Analysis, Advanced Device
Analysis, and Engineering Analysis Framework. His research
interests include image processing, software engineering,
process control systems, design to wafer, yield analysis, device
analysis, and data mining.
Dr. Mariette Awad graduated from the American University
of Beirut in 1997 with a bachelor in Electrical Engineering
and pursued her MS at University of New York (SUNY-
Binghamton) in the image processing and pattern recognition
areas. In 2001, she joined IBM - System and Technology
group in Vermont as a wireless product engineer. Over the
years, her technical leadership and innovation spirit has
earned her management recognition, several business awards
and multiple patents. In 2007, she received her PhD from
University of Vermont for her research on dynamic machine
learning. Her research interests include: machine learning,
data mining, data fusion, ubiquitous computing, wireless and
analog design, semiconductor technology and manufacturing,
image recognition and quality control.
Miss. Sara Khaddaj received her BE and ME degree in Electrical
and Computer Engineering from the American University of
Beirut (AUB) in 2005 and 2007 respectively with distinction.
She received the Dean’s Creative Achievement Award for her
undergraduate final project. She has been a lab instructor in
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the
AUB since September 2007, where she has taught Introduction
to Engineering Lab, Digital Electronics Lab, and Computer
Organization Lab. Her main research interests include
bioengineering, information theory and neuroscience, system
identification, and digital and image processing.
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Mr. Ghassan Deeb received his BE in Computer and
Communication Engineering in 1994 from the American
University of Beirut, and an ME in 1998 from the same
University in Electronic Devices and Systems. He worked
between 1995 and 2007 as a technical manager in the
fields of Security (JVC CCTV, S2 Access Control), fire
protection (Simplex and Ansul), and controls and building
automation (Siemens). He is currently lab manager for the
Instrumentation, Control, Robotics, Power Electronics and
Systems, and Machines and Drives Labs in the Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department.
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