The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted all spheres of life, including the workforce in various domains and industries. While the Covid-19 pandemic is about to drive organizational and societal shifts, it is imperative for organizations and decision-makers to analyze trends towards a changing workforce.
The Research Center for Digital Supply Chain and Operations Management has a unique research theme, Future of Work in the Digital Economy, which aims at developing a job analysis framework. The research seeks to help decision-makers understand which jobs and skill-sets will be impacted by the advent of Covid-19.
Led by Dr. Mohammed Omar, Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Director of Research Center for Digital Supply Chain and Operations Management, the project team involves a graduate student of Engineering Systems and Management, Himanshu Upadhyay, and co-supervised by Dr. Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Dr. Maher Maalouf, Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Dr. Siddiq Anwar, Consultant Physician at SEHA and Adjunct Associate Professor at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences. The team uses data analytics, visualization techniques and machine learning algorithms to evaluate the job analysis framework in the healthcare industry. Preliminary results of the research show that the use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and telemedicine, will be trending in healthcare. The findings can guide policy-makers to make organizational shifts towards digital health and match demand with the required skill-set in a proactive manner.
The link for the job analysis framework can be found here.
Dr. Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been appointed as Editor at PloS Digital Health, a new open science journal dedicated to accelerating trusted, boundary-breaking research that uses digital tools, technology and data science to advance every aspect of healthcare.
The Editorial Board is comprised of experts from all over the world with field experience that spans the breadth of the journal’s scope. The journal brings together research from engineers, clinicians, and researchers as well as social scientists and industry leaders to advance healthcare technologies and decision-making tools, or broaden accessible, effective care options for diverse communities around the world.
The journal works alongside the community of leaders to shape how Open Science transforms the future of research communication in the field. Through practices like sharing preprints, open data and open code, PLOS Digital Health empowers researchers to ensure progress in this rapidly changing field is discoverable, reproducible and immediately accessible to all.
A paper by senior undergraduate students from the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Khalifa University has won first place in the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Europe, Middle East, And Africa Region (EMEA) Students Competition 2020!
The ASQ EMEA Students Competition highlights the region’s undergraduate and graduate students’ efforts and contribution to improve local service quality, which in return improves quality of life for all.
A total of five teams made it to the final rounds. The KU team was represented by Maha Al Dhaheri, Mariam Ramadan, Afra Al Mheiri, and Maryam Al Shehhi, and was supervised by Dr. Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Dr. Saed Amer, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
Their paper, titled “Reducing Patient Discharge Time using Applied Statistical Techniques,” summarized their senior design project, which leveraged quality tools and methods to improve the patient discharge process for an inpatient clinic of a local hospital in Abu Dhabi.
Read full story here: https://www.ku.ac.ae/khalifa-university-wins-the-asq-emea-students-competition-2020
A paper written by two Khalifa University graduates, Dr. Abdulla Al Shimmari, PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering, and Dr. Armin Alibasic, PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering, was recognized by the Federal Authority of Human Resources (FAHR) with the H.H. Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Award for Best Research in Human Resources – 2019. The award is given to academic research papers related to human resource capital in the UAE that provide innovative suggestions and initiatives that can be adopted and applied in the country.
Dr. Al Shimmari and Dr. Alibasic’s paper, titled “Analyzing the UAE and GCC Job Market Reliability for a Transition from an Oil/Gas-based Energy Economy toward a Renewable Energy Economy,” aims to provide guidance for decision makers, employers, managers, and firms to utilize a standardized dataset of skills and attributes of different occupations to help them access information related to requirements and needs of emerging job markets. The paper was based on the research project “The Economic Impact of Advanced Technology and Automation on the Oil and Gas Sector”, which was conducted collaboratively with MIT.
Read full story here: https://www.ku.ac.ae/phd-graduates-receive-best-research-recognition-from-the-federal-authority-of-human-resources
A paper by senior students from the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Khalifa University has won first place in the IEOM Capstone Student Design Project Competition that was part of the 2020 International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM).
The team was represented by Maha Al Dhaheri, Mariam Ramadan, Afra Al Mheiri, and Maryam Al Shehhi, and was supervised by Dr. Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Dr. Saed Amer, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
Their paper, titled “Improving Patient Discharge Process,” showcases their design project, which aims to improve the patient discharge process for an inpatient clinic of a local hospital in Abu Dhabi. Leveraging industrial and systems engineering principles, the students proposed a simulation-based approach to streamline the patient discharge process and consequently improve the patients’ experience.
The IEOM Society International is a non-profit organization that provides academics, researchers, scientists, and practitioners a platform and forum to exchange ideas and provide insights on the latest developments and advancements in the fields of Industrial Engineering and Operations Management.
The Research Center for Digital Supply Chain and Operations Management (DSOM) successfully hosted the 8th International Conference on Variable Neighborhood Search (ICVNS) in March 2021, providing a stimulating environment for dozens of researchers from different fields to share and discuss their knowledge, expertise and ideas related to the VNS Metaheuristic and its applications.
An article detailing the 2021 conference is included in the September 2021 issue of the IFORS Newsletter, which can be downloaded here. The International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) is a 60-year old organization composed of 50 national societies.
Khalifa University’s Dr. Nenad Mladenovic has been ranked as the #2 top scientist in the country according to the Guide2Research 2020 Computer Science and Electronics Top Scientists Ranking.
Dr. Mladenovic is currently a Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Khalifa University. Before joining KU, he taught at several universities in different countries, including France, Canada, Serbia, and the United Kingdom. Since 2012, Dr. Mladenovic has been a member of the Academia Europaea, a non-governmental organization of scientists and scholars whose aim is to promote learning, education, and research.
Through his work in Optimization, also known as Operations Research, Dr. Mladenovic is named as one of the top scientists in the UAE by Guide2Research.
“Optimization problems are everywhere—in technology, economy, science, industry, environment, telecommunications, energy, transportation, supply chain management. They occur in private and public sectors, by individuals or by small or huge enterprises. Although they are at the first glance quite different, fortunately they usually share similar properties. In other words, a variety of problems in different areas of human activities share the similar symbolic presentation, or mathematical model. They all have decision variables, an objective function to minimize or maximize and the solution space of a huge number of solutions, where just one or just a few among them are optimal,” explained Dr. Mladenovic.
Read full story here: https://www.ku.ac.ae/ku-professor-recognized-as-one-of-the-top-scientists-in-the-uae
To combat the proliferation of deepfake videos on the internet, Dr. Khaled Salah, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with Haya Raed, as part of her MSc thesis work, investigated the use of blockchain and smart contracts for her MEng in Computer and Electrical Engineering.
The paper for this research was published in April 2019 in IEEE Access and is currently ranked within the top 50 most popular papers published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), with 4,074 views, increasing exponentially every month.
Read full story here: https://www.ku.ac.ae/combating-deepfake-videos-using-blockchain-and-smart-contracts
In early February, Dr. Maher Maalouf, Dr. Andrei Sleptchenko, and Dr. Andreas Henschel of Khalifa University’s Digital Supply Chain and Operations Management (DSO) Center visited the Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT) in Greece. The HIT is part of the Center for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), a non-profit organization and one of the leading research centers in Greece. CERTH reports directly to the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of the Greek Ministry of Development and Investments and is also listed among the top 20 EU research institutions that have the highest participation in competitive research grants.
The KU delegation was welcomed by HIT Director Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris and HIT Deputy Director and Research Director for Infrastructure, Networks, Mobility, and Logistics Dr. Georgia Aifadopoulou. They also met with Aristos Halatsis (Project Manager), Josep Maria Salanova Grau (Researcher), Elpida Xenou (Logistics Expert/ Project Manager), Ioanis Malidis (Researcher), and Pavlos Spanidis (Software Engineer).
HIT’s key research areas focus on clean vehicle technologies, road safety, and employability of transport sector professionals. During the visit, the KU delegation toured the facilities and discussed potential collaborations between KU and HIT such as joint project proposals, research visits, and exchange of data and technologies. The collaborations are expected to be mutually beneficial and will strengthen DSOs breadth and depth of expertise.
Faculty from KU’s Research Center on Digital Supply Chain and Operations Management (DSO) have returned from a visit to the Netherlands where they met with experts from industry and academia to learn about the country’s logistics industry.
From 28 – 30 October, Assistant Professors of Industrial and Systems Engineering Dr. Andrei Sleptchenko and Dr. Heungjo An met with representatives from TKI-Dinalog (Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics), a Dutch-based logistics and supply chain company; faculty and students from Erasmus University Rotterdam; and professionals from Fokker Services, an independent aerospace service provider.
The visit centered around potential collaboration opportunities with the DSO Center, which has set a major focus on digitalizing and optimizing areas like maritime logistics and production lines.
Read full story here: https://www.ku.ac.ae/kus-center-on-digital-supply-chain-and-operations-builds-connections-and-knowledge-in-logistics
KU’s Dr. Khaled Salah, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. Raja Jayaraman, Associate Professor of Industrial Systems and Engineering, have returned from a visit to the Arizona State University’s Blockchain Research Lab, where they met with faculty, students, and business executives to discuss potential areas for Blockchain-related research collaboration between Khalifa University’s Digital Supply Chain and Operation Management (DSO) Research Center and ASU’s Blockchain Research Lab.
Dr. Salah and Dr. Jayaraman toured the ASU Blockchain Research Lab and learned about the Lab’s ongoing research projects in the areas of Blockchain-enabled supply chain management, Blockchain-based energy trading, and BAAS (Blockchain as a Service) IoT solutions.
Read full story here: https://www.ku.ac.ae/visit-to-arizona-state-university-cements-collaboration-opportunities-for-blockchain-research
