Research Centers & Facilities

The university establishes centers of excellence and facilities to raise the research profile of the university, focus strengths in areas where there is (or the university wishes to develop) a concentration of research excellence, including areas of applied research, and to maximize external research funding. As such, they help position and promote the university's areas of research excellence and build the university's research reputation. They also serve as vehicles for engaging with other research institutions and industry and facilitate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary relationships.

Centers have the following characteristics:

1. Consistent with the strategic interests of the university
2. Central to university research strategy,
3. Aligned to the priorities of research funding entities and competitive with other bidders for that funding,
4. High quality,
5. Substantial (in both finance and research)

Centers list:

Smart City Facility. http://scf.ejust.edu.eg
Wireless Research Facility. http://wrc.ejust.edu.eg
Alexandria Regional Nano Technology Research Center.
Environmental Research Facility.
Nanomaterials Solar Energy Conversion and Catalysis Applications.
Regional Industrial Pollution and CO2 Emission Abatement Project for Arab Countries (RIPECAP). http://www.ripecap.net/
Remote Sensing Facility.
Egypt Japan African Center.
Quality Assurance Center.

The university research facilities are made to raise the research profile of the University, focus strengths in areas where there is a concentration of research excellence, including areas of applied research, and to maximize external research funding. As such they help position and promote the Universityâ€™s areas of research excellence and build the Universityâ€™s research reputation. They also serve as vehicles for engaging with other research institutions and industry and facilitate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary relationships.

Smart City Facility

http://scf.ejust.edu.eg

General Director: Dr. Ahmed El-Mahdy

Alexandria is one of the oldest cities in Egypt and the world. It is also a mega-city that suffers from common large-scale problems associated with its huge population. The Smart City Facility includes diverse/interdisciplinary research to deal with such large-scale problems to provide for overall better life quality and efficiency; the facility has therefore broad scales of research activities at diverse levels.

The levels vary from high performance hardware/software stack, cloud computing infrastructure and application development frameworks, to high level application research such as multi-agent systems, artificial intelligence, integrated simulation, and bioinformatics.

The system related research levels have the challenge of providing a sound abstraction to the much performance demanding smart city applications while providing cheap computation via cloud provisioning. Another challenge is providing for a development framework that is co-designed with the application level researchers.

The application related research levels would include applications from various domains such as traffic modeling and safety, bioinformatics, weather modeling, etc. Each of these applications has the corresponding challenge of providing sound models based on strong theoretical foundations. Such models mimic reality as accurate as possible.

High Performance Cloud Computing Group

Director: Dr. Ahmed El-Mahdy

Traditional computer facility becomes increasingly infeasible to deal with mega-city due to its prohibited cost and complexity.

The existing state-of-the art computing facilities at Alexandria needs to be improved significantly to accommodate its current and future problems.

The Smart City Facility at Egypt Japan University of Science and Technology, provides a new paradigm using cloud computing to achieve the needed high performance computing capabilities at low cost and complexity.

The facility aims to research and develop high performance cloud computing system and integrate it into a smart Alexandria city environment. Cloud computing research will serve to create modeling, simulation, and run time system for typical city problems.

One of the initial focuses of the facility is to study the traffic problems of Alexandria city and provide solutions for it. The facilities will include researchers, faculty and graduate students from both Egypt and Japan.

Bioinformatics Group

Director: Dr. Walid Gomaa

Our bioinformatics group design and implement mathematical and computational models for Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) using state of the art statistical and machine learning techniques.

Such models can be the used for biomarker discovery and identification, where biomarkers are the topological changes among the GRN of the normal state, the GRN of the cancer state, and the GRN that results as a pharmacologic response to a therapeutic intervention.

In more biological terms biomarkers can be roughly defined as the changes of the genetic interactional patterns between several states: the normal state, the disease state, and the state that results as a pharmacologic response to a therapeutic intervention. Biomarker discovery and identification is a recent evolving science that lies at the heart of the modern revolution in biology and medicine and can be used to provide innovative solutions for drug design and test.

Steering Committee

Dr. Hisham El-Shishiny, IBM, Egypt
Dr. Ahmed El-Mahdy, Director of Smart City Facility, E-JUST, Egypt
Dr. Noha Adly, Deputy Head, ICT Sector, Bibliotheca of Alexandria and Professor at Computer and Systems Engineering Department, Alexandria University, Egypt
Dr. Kazunori Ueda, Waseda University, Japan
Dr. Hironori Kasahara, Director of Advanced Multicore Processor Research Institute, Waseda University.
Dr. Walid Gomaa, Assistant Professor, E-JUST, Egypt.
Dr. Keiji Kimura, Associate Professor, Waseda University, Japan.
Dr. Wada Yasutaka, Assistant Professor, Waseda University, Japan.
Dr. Noha Yousry, Alexandria University, Egypt.

Alexandria Regional Nano Technology Research Center

Directed by: Dr. Ahmed Abd El-Moneim

It works in complete cooperation with Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center in Cairo.
It performs joint research activities utilizing the financial and human resources of both the Regional Nanotechnology Research Center in Alexandria and the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center in Cairo.
It prepares Egyptian Researchers in the fields of advanced technology in general and in Nanotechnology in particular.
It links the scientific research with industry through partnerships, transfer and implementation of advanced technology.
The following document in Arabic is the memorandum of understanding between the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center in Cairo and Regional Nanotechnology Research Center in Alexandria.

Environmental Research Facility

General Director: Dr. Ahmed Tawfik

Water pollution Unit:

The scarcity of clean water is a global issue.

An increasing population combined with pollution of water resources leads to the need for sustainable use of water.

The integrated water management of river basins from upstream to the coast is crucial for the sustainability of water resources along the river.

Human activities change constantly the land use and eventually pollute this precious source of water.

On the top of that, recent reports on climate change predictions state that some regions might experience intense sporadic floods while others may become even drier within this century.

Under these scenarios, proper and timely decision is necessary such as mitigation and adaptation plans.

Innovative Waste Water Treatment :

Our strategies to overcome the water scarcity problem are innovative technologies for treatment of domestic, industrial and drainage waste water for reuse.

The big challenge here is to match the quality of the treated waste water with the quality needs of water users and to develop new tailor made waste water treatment technologies to improve the match.

Moreover, use of solar energy for desalination and disinfection is a big challenge.

Microfluidic Lift Force Sieving for Reduction of TSS in Waste water or in Product

Process to reduce total suspended solid (TSS) costs expensive, in case small solids are (completely or nearly) neutrally-buoyant to waste water.

To the solid with small density difference to its medium, applicable conventional devices such as hydro cyclones consume huge energy to generate sufficient centrifugal force.

Although membrane treatment can be applicable to any, completely neutrally-buoyant solids as well as nearly neutrally buoyant solids, it regularly requires replace of expensive membrane due to fouling degradation.

Our own development based on microfluidics enables solid separation and classification regardless of density difference between solids and liquids with much higher energy efficiency, viz., with much lower cost.

Lift force, which becomes significant in micro channel would play a role of sieve, which separates particle by size not by weight.

The methodology can be applicable to solid separation and classification both in waste water and in product.

Hydrogen production from Waste Material (WASTE TO ENERGY)

Access to sufficient energy is a key prerequisite for any industrial society.

Nowadays, fossil fuels are the dominant energy source.

They have however, a number of drawbacks, such as gaseous emissions (CO2, NOx, SO2) and depletion.

Energy savings and the use of renewable energy are sustainable ways to overcome these critical problems.

Our contribution lies in the development of low cost biological hydrogen production technologies from residual biomass (agricultural wastes and municipal solid wastes) and industrial waste water.

Air Quality Research Unit (AQRU)

Director: Tarek Naser

AQRU will support local, regional and international efforts to characterize air pollutant emissions, compile emissions inventories, forecast emission trends, and improve urban air quality in both Africa and Middle East regions.

Our mission is to facilitate researches and projects on the scientific, engineering, health, and social aspects of atmospheric pollutants.

We are addressing various research topics concerning atmospheric environment.

Researches span both gaseous and particulate forms of air pollution, and employ theoretical, numerical, experimental, and policy approaches. The research issues can be as follows, atmospheric chemistry and circulation, characteristics, dispersion and simulation of atmospheric pollutants, green house gases, atmospheric aerosols, motor vehicle emissions, renewable energy and Bio fuels, global climate change, environmental and health impact assessment of air pollution, urban air quality (for both ambient and indoor environments) and emission source characterization

Nanomaterials Solar Energy Conversion and Catalysis Applications

(Fabrication, Characterization and Standardization).

Directed by: Dr. Mona Baker and Dr. Ahmed Abd El-Moneim

Nanotechnology enables the design of new materials such as semiconductors quantum dots, metal-semiconductor nanocomposite and organic –inorganic hybrid, which open up new ways for designing high efficiency energy conversion devices. The unique electronic and optical properties of such materials made them wonderful candidate as light harvesting materials for fabrication of solar thermal, PV devices and Photocatalysis for hydrogen production and waste water treatment.
This new facility is established for fabrication and standardization of PV devices, testing the photoelectric and photothermal properties of the materials, and examine the efficiency of the solar energy either into heat, electricity or chemical energy (fuel cells or hydrogen production).

Remote Sensing Facility

Directed by: Zen Kawasaki, Principle Investigator: Ahmed Allam.

Remote Sensing Facility aims to be one of the centers of excellence in E-JUST and Egypt. For this objective the followings are its activity:

Designing innovative remote sensing techniques.
Manufacturing novel remote sensing equipments.
Conducting observations both on the ground and from the space.
Accumulating knowledge of earth environment to be the data center.
Collaborating with the domestic and foreign related institutes.

The final goal of this facility is to be the gateway for all African continents from the aspect of the sustainable development of our planet earth by means of remote sensing.

Egypt Japan African Center at E-JUST

Directed by: Prof. Dr. Samir Helal.

The E-JUST African Center was established in recognition of the dynamic African region's growing importance to Egypt and Japan interests. The center will seek fund to support the study of African graduate (Master) students at E-JUST in the areas of great importance to Africa, such as :Renewable Energy, Water Resources, Water Desalination, Urban Development, Infrastructure Engineering, Management and Leadership, and other fields of Interest to African Nations.
The center is established by E-JUST to serve the academic and research needs for such proposed cooperation.

Quality Assurance Center at E-JUST

Directed by: Prof. Ismail Ibrahim

To achieve quality teaching and research activities, E-JUST is implementing an internal quality assurance system through its quality assurance center. The center represents the body which will manage the quality activities in the university departments and units.
In general, the center is aiming at achieving the highest level of quality intended in all university activities through the following:

Provision of continuous awareness for all partners in education, research, services and administration about quality concepts and practices.
Development of leadership for coordination and monitoring of quality affaires in university schools, departments and units.
Assessment of education and research activities through evaluation of performance indicators and achievements (contributors are: faculty members, research students, undergraduate students, graduates, research project partners).
Provision of technical support and consultation for concerned partners and units in the university to accomplish their duties better.
Design and prepare templates for programs and courses and some assessment sheets.
Documentation of QA center activities and establishing database and files for programs and courses for both graduate and undergraduate. These documents represent some of the accreditation requirements.
Preparation of the university to apply for accreditation.
Preparation of the university schools to apply for accreditation.
Preparation of some programs for accreditation in case of the school has some other programs which are not ready for application.
Continuous improvement and revisions of QA center activities as well as university activities.

Centers and Facilities
V. P. Message Vision Advisory Board Centers and Facilities Faculty Expertise Published Papers Memorandums Research Documents Research News Patents by Faculty Adjunct Faculty Funding Opportunities Recent Grants Library	Research Centers & Facilities The university establishes centers of excellence and facilities to raise the research profile of the university, focus strengths in areas where there is (or the university wishes to develop) a concentration of research excellence, including areas of applied research, and to maximize external research funding. As such, they help position and promote the university's areas of research excellence and build the university's research reputation. They also serve as vehicles for engaging with other research institutions and industry and facilitate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary relationships. Centers have the following characteristics: 1. Consistent with the strategic interests of the university 2. Central to university research strategy, 3. Aligned to the priorities of research funding entities and competitive with other bidders for that funding, 4. High quality, 5. Substantial (in both finance and research) Centers list: Smart City Facility. http://scf.ejust.edu.eg Wireless Research Facility. http://wrc.ejust.edu.eg Alexandria Regional Nano Technology Research Center. Environmental Research Facility. Nanomaterials Solar Energy Conversion and Catalysis Applications. Regional Industrial Pollution and CO2 Emission Abatement Project for Arab Countries (RIPECAP). http://www.ripecap.net/ Remote Sensing Facility. Egypt Japan African Center. Quality Assurance Center. The university research facilities are made to raise the research profile of the University, focus strengths in areas where there is a concentration of research excellence, including areas of applied research, and to maximize external research funding. As such they help position and promote the Universityâ€™s areas of research excellence and build the Universityâ€™s research reputation. They also serve as vehicles for engaging with other research institutions and industry and facilitate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary relationships. Smart City Facility http://scf.ejust.edu.eg General Director: Dr. Ahmed El-Mahdy Alexandria is one of the oldest cities in Egypt and the world. It is also a mega-city that suffers from common large-scale problems associated with its huge population. The Smart City Facility includes diverse/interdisciplinary research to deal with such large-scale problems to provide for overall better life quality and efficiency; the facility has therefore broad scales of research activities at diverse levels. The levels vary from high performance hardware/software stack, cloud computing infrastructure and application development frameworks, to high level application research such as multi-agent systems, artificial intelligence, integrated simulation, and bioinformatics. The system related research levels have the challenge of providing a sound abstraction to the much performance demanding smart city applications while providing cheap computation via cloud provisioning. Another challenge is providing for a development framework that is co-designed with the application level researchers. The application related research levels would include applications from various domains such as traffic modeling and safety, bioinformatics, weather modeling, etc. Each of these applications has the corresponding challenge of providing sound models based on strong theoretical foundations. Such models mimic reality as accurate as possible. High Performance Cloud Computing Group Director: Dr. Ahmed El-Mahdy Traditional computer facility becomes increasingly infeasible to deal with mega-city due to its prohibited cost and complexity. The existing state-of-the art computing facilities at Alexandria needs to be improved significantly to accommodate its current and future problems. The Smart City Facility at Egypt Japan University of Science and Technology, provides a new paradigm using cloud computing to achieve the needed high performance computing capabilities at low cost and complexity. The facility aims to research and develop high performance cloud computing system and integrate it into a smart Alexandria city environment. Cloud computing research will serve to create modeling, simulation, and run time system for typical city problems. One of the initial focuses of the facility is to study the traffic problems of Alexandria city and provide solutions for it. The facilities will include researchers, faculty and graduate students from both Egypt and Japan. Bioinformatics Group Director: Dr. Walid Gomaa Our bioinformatics group design and implement mathematical and computational models for Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) using state of the art statistical and machine learning techniques. Such models can be the used for biomarker discovery and identification, where biomarkers are the topological changes among the GRN of the normal state, the GRN of the cancer state, and the GRN that results as a pharmacologic response to a therapeutic intervention. In more biological terms biomarkers can be roughly defined as the changes of the genetic interactional patterns between several states: the normal state, the disease state, and the state that results as a pharmacologic response to a therapeutic intervention. Biomarker discovery and identification is a recent evolving science that lies at the heart of the modern revolution in biology and medicine and can be used to provide innovative solutions for drug design and test. Steering Committee Dr. Hisham El-Shishiny, IBM, Egypt Dr. Ahmed El-Mahdy, Director of Smart City Facility, E-JUST, Egypt Dr. Noha Adly, Deputy Head, ICT Sector, Bibliotheca of Alexandria and Professor at Computer and Systems Engineering Department, Alexandria University, Egypt Dr. Kazunori Ueda, Waseda University, Japan Dr. Hironori Kasahara, Director of Advanced Multicore Processor Research Institute, Waseda University. Dr. Walid Gomaa, Assistant Professor, E-JUST, Egypt. Dr. Keiji Kimura, Associate Professor, Waseda University, Japan. Dr. Wada Yasutaka, Assistant Professor, Waseda University, Japan. Dr. Noha Yousry, Alexandria University, Egypt. Alexandria Regional Nano Technology Research Center Directed by: Dr. Ahmed Abd El-Moneim It works in complete cooperation with Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center in Cairo. It performs joint research activities utilizing the financial and human resources of both the Regional Nanotechnology Research Center in Alexandria and the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center in Cairo. It prepares Egyptian Researchers in the fields of advanced technology in general and in Nanotechnology in particular. It links the scientific research with industry through partnerships, transfer and implementation of advanced technology. The following document in Arabic is the memorandum of understanding between the Egypt Nanotechnology Research Center in Cairo and Regional Nanotechnology Research Center in Alexandria. Environmental Research Facility General Director: Dr. Ahmed Tawfik Water pollution Unit: The scarcity of clean water is a global issue. An increasing population combined with pollution of water resources leads to the need for sustainable use of water. The integrated water management of river basins from upstream to the coast is crucial for the sustainability of water resources along the river. Human activities change constantly the land use and eventually pollute this precious source of water. On the top of that, recent reports on climate change predictions state that some regions might experience intense sporadic floods while others may become even drier within this century. Under these scenarios, proper and timely decision is necessary such as mitigation and adaptation plans. Innovative Waste Water Treatment : Our strategies to overcome the water scarcity problem are innovative technologies for treatment of domestic, industrial and drainage waste water for reuse. The big challenge here is to match the quality of the treated waste water with the quality needs of water users and to develop new tailor made waste water treatment technologies to improve the match. Moreover, use of solar energy for desalination and disinfection is a big challenge. Microfluidic Lift Force Sieving for Reduction of TSS in Waste water or in Product Process to reduce total suspended solid (TSS) costs expensive, in case small solids are (completely or nearly) neutrally-buoyant to waste water. To the solid with small density difference to its medium, applicable conventional devices such as hydro cyclones consume huge energy to generate sufficient centrifugal force. Although membrane treatment can be applicable to any, completely neutrally-buoyant solids as well as nearly neutrally buoyant solids, it regularly requires replace of expensive membrane due to fouling degradation. Our own development based on microfluidics enables solid separation and classification regardless of density difference between solids and liquids with much higher energy efficiency, viz., with much lower cost. Lift force, which becomes significant in micro channel would play a role of sieve, which separates particle by size not by weight. The methodology can be applicable to solid separation and classification both in waste water and in product. Hydrogen production from Waste Material (WASTE TO ENERGY) Access to sufficient energy is a key prerequisite for any industrial society. Nowadays, fossil fuels are the dominant energy source. They have however, a number of drawbacks, such as gaseous emissions (CO2, NOx, SO2) and depletion. Energy savings and the use of renewable energy are sustainable ways to overcome these critical problems. Our contribution lies in the development of low cost biological hydrogen production technologies from residual biomass (agricultural wastes and municipal solid wastes) and industrial waste water. Air Quality Research Unit (AQRU) Director: Tarek Naser AQRU will support local, regional and international efforts to characterize air pollutant emissions, compile emissions inventories, forecast emission trends, and improve urban air quality in both Africa and Middle East regions. Our mission is to facilitate researches and projects on the scientific, engineering, health, and social aspects of atmospheric pollutants. We are addressing various research topics concerning atmospheric environment. Researches span both gaseous and particulate forms of air pollution, and employ theoretical, numerical, experimental, and policy approaches. The research issues can be as follows, atmospheric chemistry and circulation, characteristics, dispersion and simulation of atmospheric pollutants, green house gases, atmospheric aerosols, motor vehicle emissions, renewable energy and Bio fuels, global climate change, environmental and health impact assessment of air pollution, urban air quality (for both ambient and indoor environments) and emission source characterization Nanomaterials Solar Energy Conversion and Catalysis Applications (Fabrication, Characterization and Standardization). Directed by: Dr. Mona Baker and Dr. Ahmed Abd El-Moneim Nanotechnology enables the design of new materials such as semiconductors quantum dots, metal-semiconductor nanocomposite and organic –inorganic hybrid, which open up new ways for designing high efficiency energy conversion devices. The unique electronic and optical properties of such materials made them wonderful candidate as light harvesting materials for fabrication of solar thermal, PV devices and Photocatalysis for hydrogen production and waste water treatment. This new facility is established for fabrication and standardization of PV devices, testing the photoelectric and photothermal properties of the materials, and examine the efficiency of the solar energy either into heat, electricity or chemical energy (fuel cells or hydrogen production). Remote Sensing Facility Directed by: Zen Kawasaki, Principle Investigator: Ahmed Allam. Remote Sensing Facility aims to be one of the centers of excellence in E-JUST and Egypt. For this objective the followings are its activity: Designing innovative remote sensing techniques. Manufacturing novel remote sensing equipments. Conducting observations both on the ground and from the space. Accumulating knowledge of earth environment to be the data center. Collaborating with the domestic and foreign related institutes. The final goal of this facility is to be the gateway for all African continents from the aspect of the sustainable development of our planet earth by means of remote sensing. Egypt Japan African Center at E-JUST Directed by: Prof. Dr. Samir Helal. The E-JUST African Center was established in recognition of the dynamic African region's growing importance to Egypt and Japan interests. The center will seek fund to support the study of African graduate (Master) students at E-JUST in the areas of great importance to Africa, such as :Renewable Energy, Water Resources, Water Desalination, Urban Development, Infrastructure Engineering, Management and Leadership, and other fields of Interest to African Nations. The center is established by E-JUST to serve the academic and research needs for such proposed cooperation. Quality Assurance Center at E-JUST Directed by: Prof. Ismail Ibrahim To achieve quality teaching and research activities, E-JUST is implementing an internal quality assurance system through its quality assurance center. The center represents the body which will manage the quality activities in the university departments and units. In general, the center is aiming at achieving the highest level of quality intended in all university activities through the following: Provision of continuous awareness for all partners in education, research, services and administration about quality concepts and practices. Development of leadership for coordination and monitoring of quality affaires in university schools, departments and units. Assessment of education and research activities through evaluation of performance indicators and achievements (contributors are: faculty members, research students, undergraduate students, graduates, research project partners). Provision of technical support and consultation for concerned partners and units in the university to accomplish their duties better. Design and prepare templates for programs and courses and some assessment sheets. Documentation of QA center activities and establishing database and files for programs and courses for both graduate and undergraduate. These documents represent some of the accreditation requirements. Preparation of the university to apply for accreditation. Preparation of the university schools to apply for accreditation. Preparation of some programs for accreditation in case of the school has some other programs which are not ready for application. Continuous improvement and revisions of QA center activities as well as university activities.