National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences February 2015 Newsletter Vol: 6 Issue: 6 President announces posthumous honor for Agha Hasan Abedi of United Bank (the third largest bank in the Lucknow University. He is remembered in country), and Bank of Credit and Commerce Pakistan for supporting leading health and International (BCCI), the only global bank educational institutions like FAST-NU, GIKI to have been founded in Pakistan. and SIUT. The announcement was made by President He patronized FAST with a donation of Mamnoon Hussain’s office on February 9, Rs. 100 million, to promote education in 2015, saying that the award will be officially computer science. FAST founded National made during a ceremony on March 23. University of Computer and Emerging “The late Agha Hasan Abedi was a famous Sciences, which is now the first multi-campus banker and he backed many literary and university of Pakistan. It has five campuses educational institutions in Pakistan and situated in Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, The government of Pakistan has announced other third world countries.” Lahore and Chiniot-Faisalabad. to bestow the Sitara-e-Imtiaz on Agha Hasan Born in India’s UP state in 1922, Agha Hasan Agha Hasan Abedi died on August 6, 1995 at Abedi. He was patron of FAST, founder CEO Abedi earned a Master degree in English from the age of 74. Landmark Achievement FAST-NU QEC achieves category X in HEC ranking building of QEC teams, faculty development QEC FAST-NU, has contributed twice on quality assurance, development of best as technical reviewer for the prestigious practices database, periodic publicity of Quality World magazine, the membership QEC activities for general public awareness publication of Chartered Quality Institute through various mediums, and other efforts UK, with readership of more than 30000 per for standardization. month globally. HEC has already appreciated the FAST- Management and QEC teams of all FAST-NU Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) NU QEC efforts on various platforms campuses are committed to bring all the obtains the score of 72.31 out of 100 points, specifically during its PhD review visit academic programs at FAST-NU in the loop placing it in category X, in Higher Education conducted in Islamabad Campus in of HEC quality assurance cycle aligned with Commission’s (HEC) annual ranking of November, 2014. The commission has also QEC yearly activity calendar to achieve the QECs for year 2014. The score obtained in honored FAST-NU QEC on conducting highest “W category” in HEC ranking of year 2014 has been increased by 32.61 points one-day training workshops on “six sigma in QECs for year 2015. as compared to the year 2013 HEC ranking. higher education” for directors of QECs of This substantial increase in the points scored other public and private sector universities has been achieved through rigorous focus in of Pakistan. all campuses on quality assurance parameters INQAAHE which is a global body for prescribed by HEC. promoting quality in higher education has The pertinent quality centered parameters of also recognized quality assurance activities HEC ranking include academic programs’ of FAST-NU QEC multiple times by giving self-assessment, active contribution of QEC due coverage in its high circulating news on scholarly platforms at national and bulletins for the months of September and international levels, participation in HEC December 2014. quality assurance forums, periodic capacity In addition, Mr. Farrukh Idrees, Manager Educational trip to steel manufacturing industries The FAST Association of Civil to observe the procedure of scrap Engineers (FACE) at Lahore campus metal melting and molding into steel recently arranged an educational rods. The unit engineer explained the trip to two steel industries including process and five key sections of the Model Steel and Black Gold Steel. factory were shown to the students. Students from 11th, 12th, 13th and Later the students visited Model 14th batch of Civil Engineering Steel. The students were shown the department were amongst the melting chamber of scrap at above participants. 1000°C temperature. The visit The purpose of the trip was to was very helpful for students in accustom students to the steel understanding the process of steel manufacturing process from the manufacturing and gaining practical raw material. In the first part of the and in-depth knowledge of overall trip, the students visited Black Gold operations of steel industry. Research paper published in IEEE journal A research Lahore has been published in the IEEE dimensions of hyper- paper written journals. The university categorizes it as the cubic constellation by Muhammad first ever Gold journal publication of Lahore (HCC) and Ahmad Raza and campus. observations. For Dr. Arshad Hussain In this paper, the authors have derived higher dimensions titled “Cramer- analytical expression for the Cramer-Rao corresponding Rao Bound for lower bound (CRLB) on the variance of CRLB is large but SNR Estimation unbiased non-data-aided (NDA) signal to it gets reduced of Hyper-Cubic Signals over Gaussian noise ratio (SNR) estimates of the hyper- considerably as number of observations Channel” has been published in a very high cubic modulated signals. Underlying channel is increased. However at high SNR the reputed and prestigious IEEE journal “IEEE is assumed to be additive white Gaussian behavior is reversed. Communication Letters”. noise (AWGN) channel. Asymptote of the The asymptote of published DA-CRLB for This journal has the Impact Factor of 1.463, CRLB for higher SNR case is also derived in multi-order square-QAM is compared with the Eigen Factor 0.01882, and the Article closed form. the asymptote of NDA-CRLB for the HCC, Influence Score 0.568. This is the first time It has been shown that in low SNR region and it is shown that at high SNR both depict that the research work done in FAST-NU the CRLB changes significantly for different same behavior. Papers accepted for publication Achievement The faculty and management of FAST-NU Lahore campus Two research articles by Mr. journal has a quality percentage congratulate Dr. S. M. Sajid and his students on their Mubashir Qayyum, Assistant score of 98.6 percent. According academic achievements and acceptance of two major Professor and Ph.D scholar at to Thomson Reuters, PLOS ONE Journal articles. is ranked at 4th position with Peshawar campus, under the Dr. Sajid and his students received acceptance for two major respect to Eigen Factor score, and supervision of Dr. Hamid Khan journal articles, one at the top-notch American journal is among the top 10 journals with have been accepted for publication JOCN and another at Journal of Radio-Engineering. These respect to number of citations. in ISI indexed journals. A paper papers had been in reviews for more than a year. They are titled “Modeling and Analysis The second article, titled “Analysis expecting three major journal papers to be published during of Unsteady Axisymmetric of Unsteady Axisymmetric 2015, which have been accepted, and have been authored Squeezing Fluid Flow through Squeezing Fluid Flow with Slip and by the Electrical Engineering department of FAST-NU Porous Medium Channel with no-Slip Boundaries using OHAM”, Lahore campus without the involvement of foreign authors Slip Boundary” has been accepted has been accepted for publication or collaborators. Moreover, the foreign review reports by PLOS ONE journal having in Mathematical Problems in for the first ever doctoral thesis in Electrical Engineering Impact Factor 3.534. PLOS ONE Engineering (MPE) having Impact department have also been received with minor suggestions. falls under the Gold category. This Factor 1.082. 2 QEC holds capacity building session for universities workshop was highly appreciated by the quality assurance activities of FAST-NU. participant universities and HEC. This also highlights FAST-NU for its quality HEC recognized FAST-NU’s remarkable centered approach in education. This contribution in December edition of its achievement is credited to the collective monthly news bulletin “News and Views”. work of the management and QEC teams The visibility and recognition by the at Islamabad, Karachi, Chiniot-Faisalabad, country’s top body in higher education is Lahore and Peshawar campuses of a great testimony and acknowledgment of FAST-NU. Quality Enhancement Cell at FAST- NU conducted a Higher Education Commission (HEC) sponsored workshop on “Six Sigma in Higher Education” for the directors of QECs of 15 W category private sector universities of Pakistan in 9th QEC Progress Review meeting held in HEC headquarters from December 23 to 24, 2014. The workshop was attended by QEC directors from GIKI, SZABIST, IoBM, Zia Uddin University, Indus, Riphah International, ISRA, Faisalabad University, and other universities. The quality of the HEC Best Teacher Award for our faculty member Dr. Muhammad Hanif, Associate Professor, FAST School of Management Islamabad, has won the Higher Education Commission (HEC) University Best Teacher Award in a ceremony held at HEC headquarters on December 23, 2014. This award is given for two academic years 2012 and 2013. Under the Best University Teacher Award, outstanding university teachers are conferred upon an award with cash prize of Rs 100,000 and a certificate for their outstanding performance during the award year. To make process more transparent and efficient, the criterion to judge performance of teachers has been revised. The teachers are judged: 5 percent for their qualification, 50 percent for teaching, 30 percent for research, and 15 percent for co- curricular activities. We congratulate Dr. Hanif on winning this prestigious award. with SAP – UAP. FAST-NU has plans to use SAP in Computer Science and Business Management courses in Training all its campuses. Currently, SAP is a part of curriculum in an industrial course “Enterprise Information System” Program being offered in Islamabad campus. Dr. Ejaz Ahmed, FAST-NU is the pioneer university of Pakistan offering Assistant Professor Computer Science, Islamabad SAP training to its students under SAP University campus, will assist FAST-NU faculty and students in Alliance Program.