American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Description of organization
AUB is one of the leading hospital universities in the Middle East and has one of the most advanced not-for-profit teaching hospitals in the region, the AUB Medical Centre (AUBMC). The key objectives and competencies of the AUB Computer Engineering Group are building data repositories using clouds with security features; data privacy, patient data acquisition from AUBMC, secure data sharing and transfer, data and network security, RFIDs, dedicated core processors; while AUBMC aims to provide excellent, comprehensive health services to the people in the region as well enhancing academic curriculum and research in medical domain.
Previous experience
AUB has vast experience in international cooperation and joint grant management with external funding. The University currently is partner with over 40 international research centers and universities. In addition, the University has established 60 local and international cooperation agreements in the form of Memorandums of Understanding (MODs) and partnership agreements between its departments and other research institutions in Lebanon, the Middle East, Europe and the United States of America. AUB has managed and been awarded grants through various international schemes of funding including the European Commission through the 6th and 7th Framework Programs (FP6 and FP7), the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window, the Tempus Program, and other European programs such as the MENA Swedish Research Link Program, and the Mediterranean Sea Basin Program.
Profile of staff members
Ali Chehab and Ayman Kayssi are professors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at AUB. They head a research group in the area of Networking and Security. They conduct research in information security, cloud computing, wireless security, multimedia security, networking, and mobile computing. They each published more than 100 papers in international conferences and journals.
Youssef Comair is a world renowned neurosurgeon. He is the chief of Division of Neurosurgery at AUBMC. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. His research interests include NMR Spectroscopy characterization of seizure foci, non-invasive, functional mapping techniques, new techniques for the surgical treatment of intractable epilepsy, and molecular biology of brain tumors. He delivered 85 invited talks and he is the author of 2 books, 14 book chapters, 62 publications, and has received numerous awards.
Webpage
Five recent publications relevant to the project
1) Wassim Itani, Ayman Kayssi, and Ali Chehab, "Security and Privacy in Body Sensor Networks: Challenges, Solutions and Research Directions", in E-Healthcare Systems and Wireless Communications: Current and Future Challenges, edited by Prof. Mohamed K. Watfa, IGI Global, ISBN13: 9781613501238, pp. 100-127, October 2011.
2) Wassim Itani, Ali Chehab and Ayman Kayssi, "Energy-Efficient Platform-as-a-Service Security Provisioning in the Cloud", International Conference on Energy Aware Computing (ICEAC), November 30–December 2, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey.
3) Wassim Itani, Ayman Kayssi, and Ali Chehab, "PLEDGE: A Policy-Based Security Protocol For Protecting Content Addressable Storage Architectures", International Journal of Network Security & Its Applications (IJNSA), Vol. 2, No. 1, pp 98-115, January 2010.
4) Wassim Itani, Ayman Kayssi, and Ali Chehab, "Privacy as a Service: Privacy-Aware Data Storage and Processing in Cloud Computing Architectures", IEEE International Conference on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, Chengdu, China, December 12–14, 2009.
5) Wassim Itani, Ayman Kayssi, and Ali Chehab, "Smart Encryption Channels for Securing Virtual Machine-Based Networked Applications", Journal of Security and Communication Networks, vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 507-518, November/December 2009.