Khaled Shaalan


I am a tenured Professor in Computer Science at the Faculty of Computers & Information (FCI), Cairo University, Egypt. I also an Honorary Fellow at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, the largest and most research active department of its kind in the UK. I hold a PhD from Cairo University jointly with the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. Cairo University has been ranked among the world's top 500 universities in 2007 for the third year running, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) Top 500 World University Rankings.

I am interested in natural language processing, in particular, Arabic language processing. Natural language processing has become increasingly important, as more and more textual information is now available at homes and businesses through the Web, Internet and Intranet services.

I have long standing expertise in Arabic natural language processing tools. I have been involved in developing set of tools at different analysis and generation levels: morphology, syntax, and (shallow) semantics. Some of these tools address another dimension of the three Arabic language varieties: Classical, Modern Standard and (Egyptian) dialect. Whereas, some others address the well-formed and ill-formed input and give detailed analysis and feedback of the user input.

Over the last 15 years, I have worked on a wide range of topics in natural language processing, including machine translation, parsing, named entity recognition, intelligent tutoring, and diacritization. Moreover, I have also worked on topics in knowledge-based systems using KADS knowledge engineering methodology, including expert systems building tools, expert systems development, and knowledge verification.

I led a diverse set of funded research projects in machine translation, named entity recognition, Intelligent Language Tutoring Systems, and expert systems.

I supervise MSc and PhD students in natural language engineering research on how to build tools and systems that can deal with Arabic language.

I publish my research in leading international journals such as IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (IEEE TKDE), Expert System with Applications (ESWA), Machine Translation, New Review of Applied Expert Systems, International Journal of Computer Processing of Oriental Languages (IJCPOL), and Software Practice and Experience (SPE). I also publish in many reputed international conferences related to artificial intelligence and language processing.

My main research activities include guest editorial, invited speaking, membership of various leading conference committees, academic reviewing, and establishing research group and center of excellence. My professional activities include project proposal reviewing, and invitation to international expert meeting. My academic administration work ranges from headship of departments to membership of various university committees and activities.

Selected Publications

 


My full refereed Publication list

Research Projects

·        Title: Arabic Lexical Error Diagnosis of Language Learners in Intelligent Language Tutoring Systems

·        Role: Principal Investigator (Feb. 2008 – April 2009)

o       Funding Source: The British University in Dubai, UAE.

o       Amount: 41,500 AED (UAE Dirham)

o               Description: The objective is to develop an automated lexical error diagnosis system, which is an integral part in the development of intelligent computer-assisted language learning system of Arabic.

o               Outcome: Analysis of common Arabic lexical errors, architecture of the proposed the Arabic Lexical Error Diagnosis System within ILTS framework, and techniques for identifying and analyzing the erroneous Arabic word.

·        Title:  Named entity recognition for Arabic (NERA)

·        Role: Principal Investigator & consultant  (Sept. 2006- August. 2007)

o       Funding Source: Faculty of Informatics, BUiD, UAE and FAST Search & Transfer Inc., Oslo Atrium, Christian Frederiks plass 6. N-0154 Oslo, Norway. (FAST is a world leading search provider company recently acquired by Microsoft©).

o       Amount: 45,000 USD

o       Description: The objective is to recognize names such as person, company and locations names from large scale documents.

o       Outcome: eleven named entity products, eight technical reports, one master thesis, two international conference publications, and one international journal publication.

·        Title: Machine Translation of Spoken Arabic into English

·        Role: Co-Principal Investigator (March 2001 - Nov. 2004)

o       Funding Source: Joint Fund, Ministry of Scientific Research, Egypt-NSF foundation (NSF Project Number:  INT-0001613 USA & US-Egypt Joint Science and Technology Board Project Number: INF4001023).

o       Amount: 50,000 USD

o       Description: This is a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the United States and Cairo University in Egypt. Dr. Lori Levin is the co-principal investigator. The objective of this project is automated computer translation of spoken Arabic into English, French, Italian, German, and Korean, and also translation from these languages into Arabic.  Translation is limited to sentences about making travel plans (for example, hotel and plane reservations).

o       Outcome: four annual progress reports, two Ph. D dissertations, and 5 international conference papers, and 1 book chapter.

·        Title: Expert System Integrated with Multimedia information system for improved Grapes management (GRAPEX)

·        Role: Principal Investigator (April 1996 - March 1997)

o       Funding Source: Agricultural Technology Utilization and Transfer (ATUT), US-AID, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Egypt.

o       Amount: 50,000 LE (Egyptian Pounds)

o               Description: The objective is to develop an expert system integrated with multimedia information system that provides growers with advice and recommendations about grapes and agricultural operations, and enhances the capacity of personal working at these units and assists them in their decisions fastly and accurately.

o               Outcomet: An expert systems package for improved Grapes management (GRAPEX), a final technical report, a conference paper.

Research Activities

JOURNAL GUEST EDITOR

  • Co-Guest Editor, Special Issue on Arabic Natural Language Processing (ANLP), ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (TALIP), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), To Appear March 2010.
  • Co-Guest Editor, Special Issue on Advances in Arabic Language Processing for the International Journal on Information and Communication Technologies (IJICT), Serial Publications, To Appear June 2010.

 INVITED TALKS & SEMINARS

  • 5/5/2009: keynote speaker, “Rule-based approach in Arabic NLP: Tools, Systems and Resources”, 3rd International Conference on Arabic Language Processing, CITALA 2009, May 4th – 5th 2009, Rabat, Morocco.
  • 14/11/2006: Seminar on "Closing the Gap between English and Arabic Language Technology", University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE.
  • 12/04/2005: Seminar on "Machine Translation of noun phrases: from English to Arabic", The Arabic Computational Linguistics Research Group (ACL-RG), University of Sharjah, UAE.

 INTERNAL TALKS DURING OPEN DAYS, AT THE BRITISH UNIVERSITY IN DUBAI

  • 4/12/05: Using Computers to Process Arabic Text
  • 10/3/06: Speech-to-Speech Machine Translation (S2SMT)
  • 12/05/2006: Artificial Intelligence: What can it do for Arab farmers?

 TALKS BY ACADEMIC VISITORS HOSTED BY THE BRITISH UNIVERSITY IN DUBAI:

  • "A Financial Literacy Simulation Model using Neural Networks", Dr Hissam Tawfik, Liverpool Hope University, UK, November 2007.
  • "Older People with helpful cars: Enabling older adults to drive safely and enjoyably for longer"Dr Mary Zajicek, Oxford Brookes University, UK, March 2008.

 CONFERENCE TRACK CHAIR

  • Initiated, organized, chair of the special track on Natural Language Processing at INFOS2008, 27-29 March 2008, The 6th International Conference on Informatics and Systems, Cairo, Egypt.
  • Chair of the Technology Management track at IAMOT 2008, The 17th International Conference for the International Association of Management of Technology, April 6-10, 2008, Dubai, UAE.

 CONFERENCE STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBER

  • The 6th International Conference on Informatics and Systems, INFOS2008, 27-28 March 2008, Cairo, Egypt.

 CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE MEMBER

  • Fifth International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture (AIA'2004), IFAC/CIGR, March 8-10, 2004.
  • International Conference on Informatics and Systems (INFOS 2004), Faculty of Computers & Information, Cairo University, March 6-8, 2004.

 CONFERENCE SESSION CHAIR

  • 4th International Conference on Intelligent Information Processing (ICIIP 2006), Adelaide Australia, 20-23 September, 2006.

 CONFERENCE SESSION CO-CHAIR

  • Annual conference on Statistics, Computer Science and Operation Research, Institute of Statistical Studies & Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Dec. 2002.
  • International Conference on Informatics and Systems (INFOS 2004), Faculty of Computers & Information, Cairo University, 2004.

 PROGRAM/TECHNICAL/SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE MEMBER

  • International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Information Technology (MCIT-2010), March 2-4, 2010, College of Sciences, University of Sharjah, U.A.E.
  • CAASL:Third Workshop on Computational Approaches to Arabic Script-based Languages, which is held in conjunction with MT Summit XII, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, August 26, 2009.
  • MEDAR: 2nd International Conference on Arabic Language Resources and Tools 22-23 April 2009, Cairo, Egypt.
  • CITALA: 3rd International Conference on Arabic Language Processing, May 4th – 5th 2009, Rabat, Morocco.
  • ICMSAO: Artificial Intelligence, Neural Network & Fuzzy Systems Track (Third International Conference on Modelling, Simulation, and Applied Optimization, ICMSAO'09), the American University of Sharjah, January 20 – 22, 2009, Sharjah, UAE.
  • CAML: The 2008 International Workshop on Context-Aware Mobile Learning CAML'08 which is organized in conjunction with the IEEE/ACM Sponsored International Conference on Soft Computing as Transdisciplinary Science and Technology, to be held in Cergy-Pontoise, Paris, France on 27-31 October, 2008.
  • ANLP-ACIT: Arabic Natural Language Processing Session  (ANLP-ACIT’2008) at The 2008 International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT'2008), University of Sfax, Tunisia, December 16-18, 2008.
  • IBIMA: Special session on Arabic Information Processing at the 9th International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA) Conference, Marrakech, Morocco 4-6 January 2008.
  • RANLP: International Conference on Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing (RANLP – 2007), 27-29 September 2007, Borovets, Bulgaria
  • The IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing (ASC 2007), Palma De Mallorca, Spain, August 29-31, 2007.
  • The IASTED International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing (ASC 2006), Palma De Mallorca, Spain, August 28-30, 2006.
  • Special Session on Information Retrieval in Peer-to-Peer-Networks (IRP2P), 2nd International Computer Engineering Conference Engineering the Information Society (ICENCO'2006), IEEE, Egypt, December 26, 2006.
  • The IEEE International Workshop On Peer-to-Peer Computing and Autonomous Agents P2PAA 2006 (In conjunction with the International IEEE WI/IAT’06 Conference), Hong Kong, December 18, 2006.
  • MT Summit IX, Workshop on Machine Translation for Semitic Languages: Issues and Approaches, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A., September, 2003.

 ACADEMIC REVIEWING

Journal Reviewing

  • ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (TALIP)
  • Information Sciences: An International Journal, Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
  • The Egyptian Computer Journal, Institute of Statistical Studies & Research (ISSR), Cairo University
  • Egyptian Informatics Journal, Faculty of Computers & Information, Cairo University
  • Special issue of the International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications (IJISTA) entitled: Advances in Intelligent Systems for Applied Simulation and Prototyping.

 Conference & workshop reviewing (other than reviewing as a pc member)

  • European Modelling Symposium (EMS) 2008, Second UKSim European Symposium on Modelling and Simulation, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, England, 8th – 10th September 2008.
  • Annual conference on Statistics, Computer Science and Operation Research, Institute of Statistical Studies & Research (ISSR), Cairo University.
  • International Conference on Informatics and Systems (INFOS2004-INFOS 2008), Faculty of Computers & Information, Cairo University

 ESTABLISHING A CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE

  • I have been instrumental in the initiatives for establishing the "Arabic Language Technology Centre of Excellence (ALTCE)" centre of excellence at BUiD. The main objective of ALTCE is to: (a) develop speech and text resources for written and spoken Arabic, and (b) advance research on all aspects of Arabic language technology. My contribution was on suggesting projects for Arabic text processing.

 ESTABLISHING THE ARABIC LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH GROUP

  • I have been instrumental in the establishment of the Arabic Language Technologies Research Group. This research group aims at the following:  (a) Developing a large amount of annotated text resources for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and subsequently for Colloquial Arabic (CA), (b) Developing a set of natural language processing tools that can be used to build applications for MSA and CA, and (c) Using these resources to conduct research on issues that remained unresolved such as information extraction, machine translation, teaching Arabic for native and second language learners, and automatic diacritization of Arabic text. The scope will cover written text from either Modern Standard Arabic or Colloquial Arabic.

 DISSERTATION EXTERNAL EXAMINER (Not under my supervision)

  • M.Sc., Computer Science Department, Helwan University, Egypt, M. Osman Seleem, Bi-Directional Machine Translation with Performance Evaluation, July 2004.

 DISSERTATION INTERNAL EXAMINER (Not under my supervision)

  • M.Sc. in Information Technology Management, Faculty of Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, Charu Verma, The Effects of Organization Culture on Risk management during Software Development, September 2009.
  • M.Sc. in Information Technology Management, Faculty of Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, Osama Abushaban, Managing Business Intelligence challenges within the Telecommunication Industry, June 2009.
  • M.Sc. in Project Management, Faculty of Engineering, The British University in Dubai, UAE, Mohamed Rashid Bin Taliah, Overview of Information and Computer Technology Ethics in the United Arab Emirates June 2009.
  • M.Sc. in Information Technology, Faculty of Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, Fouad Zablith, Arguments on the Semantic Web, Dec. 2006.

Professional Activities

·       Invited expert for the International Expert Group Meeting on "Cyber Network for Learning Languages", organized by UNESCO and the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, 26-27 March, 2009, Beijing, China. I was member in all sessions of this meeting and also a moderator for Session 3 "Options and Feasibility of a Cyber Network." The meeting gathered 20 experts from all regions of the world working in the filed of Computer Assisted Language Learning. The objectives of the meeting were to (i) share knowledge and experiences on national, regional and international developments in this area, including existing initiatives and online platforms, (ii) define a common vision for the "Cyber Network for Learning Languages", and (iii) prepare the plan for future action. The meeting ended up with a proposal and recommendations for the "Cyber Network for Learning Languages" which will be discussed by UNESCO for approval.

·       Reviewer: ITAC (Information Technology Academic Collaboration) program projects, Egypt. Projects that aims to promote Industry/Universities collaboration through linking academic research with industry and market needs. For more information see Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA).

·       Reviewer: “Qatar National Research Fund” (QNRF) National Priorities Research Program. Reviewer for QNRF projects for the Arab Expatriate Scientists-Fast Track Launch Projects (AES-FTLP).

·       Judge: 3rd Software Development Trade Show, Organized by Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD), 22/4/09.

Supervision

PhD THESES

  • Haitham Mohamed Abo Bakr, Building Algorithms and Databases for Arabic Linguistic Analysis, Computer and Control Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Egypt, June 2009.
  • Ahmed Farouk Ahmed, Understanding of Spoken Arabic, Computer Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, January 2009.
  • Mohammed Sayed Kayed, Information Extraction from Semi-Structured Web Pages, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Beni-Sweef University, Egypt, August 2007.
  • Mohammed Yehia Hassan, Extracting Ontology from Different Sources, Computer Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, July 2007.
  • Mohamed Osama Abo Khozium, Intelligent information system for jamming and anti-jamming applications of electromagnetic spectrum, Information Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, 2005.
  • Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim, A Model and supporting Mechanism for Student and Item Evaluation in Distance Learning-based Environment, Information Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, 2005.
  • Suzanne Soliman Shafic, A Tool for Knowledge Discovery in Life Assurance, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2003.
  • Hussien Aly Kamel Rady, An Authoring Shell for Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2001.

 MSc THESES

  • Tarek Ahmed Fouad, Towards Speech Recognition for Spontaneously Spoken Egyptian Arabic, M. Sc., Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, August 2009.
  • Marwa Magdy, Development of Intelligent Tutoring System for Distance Learning Environment, Computer Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, July, 2009.
  • Hikmat Duweik, Development of Intelligent Language Tutoring System for Distance Learning Environment, Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE , Nov., 2008.
  • Mostafa Ezzat, Components Composition Analysis for Natural Language Processing, Computer Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, May, 2008.
  • Eman Othman, Towards a Modern Arabic Text Machine Translation System: from Arabic to English, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, December 2007.
  • Sakeer PV, Distributed and Flexible Workflow Coordination Using defeasible Logic Programming, Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, December 2007.
  • Hafsa Raza, Person and Location entity recognition for Arabic (PLERA), Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, June 2007.
  • Muna Al Sayegh, Enhancing NLTK for Arabic natural language processing, Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, June 2007.
  • Areej Yaseen, An Automated Essays Grading System (AEGS), Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, June 2007.
  • Ali Mirza, Speech-to-Speech Example-Based Machine Translation: English-to-Arabic, Informatics, The British University in Dubai, UAE, 2006.
  • Ashraf Mohamed Hendam, An English-Arabic bi-directional machine translation agent in the domain of agricultural, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2006.
  • Ahmed Ragab, An Arabic to English Syntax-based Statistical Machine Translation System, Computer Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, 2005.
  • Mohammed Said, An Information Extraction Agent, Computer Science Dept., Faculty of Computers and Information, Cairo University, Egypt, 2005.
  • Mohammed  Rizk,  An Expert System for the Best Weight Distribution on Ferryboats, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2005.
  • Mona Ahmed El-Badry Abo-El-Alla, Agent Approach for knowledge Base Systems, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2002.
  • Ahmed Farouk Ahmed, Developing an Arabic Parser in a Multilingual Machine Translation System, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2000.
  • Ehab Ahmed Elshimy, Pandora++:  Concurrent Object-Oriented Logic Programming Language, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2000.
  • Mohammed Eid El-Sedeek, Learning from Analogical Examples, Computer and Information Sciences Dept., Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR), Cairo University, Egypt, 2000.
  • Abir Rabie Zaki Amer, Forecasting Agricultural and Economical Applications using Neural Networks, Computer Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt, 1999.

Teaching and Training

TEACHING

  • Taught the following courses for MSc: Artificial Intelligence Techniques, Web Design Project, and Knowledge Management.
  • Taught the following courses for master preparatory year: Advanced Operating Systems and Compilers Design.
  • Taught the following courses for postgraduate diploma: Information Systems, Systems Analysis and Design, Operating Systems, Concept of Programming Languages.
  • Taught the following courses for undergraduate level: File structures, Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, Natural Language Processing, and Knowledge-Based Systems, Internet and multimedia.

TRAINING

  • Taught training courses at Institute of Statistical Studies and Research (ISSR) for different programming languages.
  • Shared in coordinating and teaching "introduction of expert systems" & "intermediate expert systems" courses at CLAES.
  • Shared in coordinating, preparing course material, and teaching in "The Program of a Regional Short-term Training course on Utilization of Expert Systems in Agricultural Research and Production". CLAES and International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) organize the course.

Administration

  • Head of Operations and Information Department, National Center for Examination and Educational Evaluation (NCEEE), Egypt. Led a team for developing education software for building an item (question) bank and item evaluation in distance learning-based environment.
  • Head of Department of Training, Evaluating, and Updating Expert Systems (TEUES) at Central Lab. for Agricultural Expert Systems (CLAES), Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Egypt. Developed expert systems evaluation methodology. Led a team for evaluating expert systems for the agriculture sector in Egypt.
  • At the British University in Dubai, UAE, I served as Program Coordinator for Information Technology Management, Admission Tutor, Dissertation Coordinator, Examination Coordinator, and Personal Tutor.
  • Served on various university committees at The British University in Dubai, UAE, and Faculty of Computers & Information, Cairo University, Egypt.
  • Student Camps Assistant Leader, Future leaders Camps (undergraduate), Cairo University (from 2000 to 2003). Leadership development in a one-week summer camp that includes 100 (male and female) students from different undergraduate majors at Cairo University.

Contact Information

Phone:  +20 (2) 2361 1477
Fax:    +20 (2) 2761 7628
Net:    shaalan AT mail DOT claes DOT sci DOT eg (anti-spam notation)
Web:    http://www.claes.sci.eg/claes/staff/shaalan.html
Personal Website: http://sites.google.com/site/khaledshaalan 
 

Postal address:

Dept. of Computer Science,
Faculty of Compters & Information
5 Ahmed Zewel St., Orman, Dokki, Giza,
12613 Egypt

Khaled Shaalan's Full CV

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Last update: 10/2009