Dr. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar
Tenured Associate Professor, Computer Science
Area of Interest: Image Processing, Machine Learning, Deep Learning
Tel # (Off): 111-001-007   (155)
HEC approved PhD Supervisor

Dr. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar is associated with COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus since 2014. His academic achievements include multiple research productivity awards at COMSATS, fully funded research scholarship for PhD, distinction (Gold Medal) at undergraduate level and a 1-year PGD certification in Education/Teaching. His primary research areas include Computer vision, Machine Learning and Deep Learning. He has published 35+ research articles with Citation count: 950+ (Google Scholar) and cumulative Impact Factor: ~60. He has more than 11 years of professional and teaching/research experience to his credit. Many graduate and undergraduate students have completed/are conducting their thesis/project under his supervision. He always welcomes highly motivated and hardworking students for MS/PhD research. 

His personal interests include book reading, outdoor sports (especially swimming) and bike riding tourism.

Teaching Resources (Maintained after Fall 2020)

Research Profile

 

Achievements/Awards:

  • Research Productivity Award (RPA) winner for continuous 4 years 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Nominated for the years 2018, 2019, 2020 for the same, whose final decision will be made until June 2022.
  • Departmental Letter of Appreciation for Excellent performance (Semester FA20)
  • Departmental Letter of Appreciation for Supervising an award winning Project (Semester FA21)
  • Funding of 2 FYP projects under the NGIRI program of IGNITE, Government of Pakistan (Co-PI)
  • Reviewer for renowned International journals such as IJIST, Neurocomputing, IEEE Access etc. 
  • Chairman Technical Committee (IT-TC2, Programming languages, their environments & System Software
    Interface) at Pakistan Standards & Quality Control Authority, Government of Pakistan  
  • HEC, Pakistan Approved PhD Supervisor, APP_ID: 31127
    (https://www.hec.gov.pk/english/scholarshipsgrants/ASA/Pages/APS-EPORTAL.aspx)
  • Distinction (Gold-Medal) in Under-grad.
  • A 1-year PGD certification in Education/Teaching.
  • PIEAS IT & Telecom Endowment Fund Research Fellowship winner (2010-14)

 

Thesis supervision (Graduate Level): 

Supervision:

  • Segmentation of retinal blood vessels using deep learning techniques (Ms. Atifa Kalsoom, Completed)
  • Vision-Based Human Activity Recognition using Deep Learning Techniques (Mr. Noorullah Khan, Completed)
  • Multi layered rule-based technique for Explicit Aspect Extraction from Online Reviews (Mr. Mubashar Hussain FA17-RCS-030, Completed)
  • Automatic Classification of OCT images using Deep Learning Techniques (Mr. Fiaz Ansari FA18-RCS-036, Under-progress)
  • Segmentation of Brain tumor using deep learning techniques (Mr. M. Hashir Khan FA19-RCS-026, Under-progress)
  • Multi-View Model for Breast Cancer Detection Using Dual Transfer Learning (Mr. Farhan Shahid FA19-RCS-001, Under-progress)
  • Survival Prediction of Glioma Patients based on Radiomic Features (Mr. Talha Naeem, Under-progress)
  • Automated White Matter Hyper Intensities Segmentation using MR Images (Mr. Yaqeen Ali FA17-RCS-008, Under-progress)
  • Skin Lesion Segmentation and Melanoma Classification using Deep Learning Techniques (Mr. Zeeshan Asghar FA18-RCS-015, Under-progress) 
  • City-Scale Multi Camera Vehicle Re-Identification (Mr. Zain Ul Abidin SP20-RCS-030, Under-progress)

Co-supervision:

  • Human Gait Identification and Analysis based on Pose Estimation (Mr. Shahzaib Hamid, PhD, under-progress)
  • Automatic Brain Tumor Segmentation in Magnetic Resonance Images through Region-Based Approach (Mr. M. Javaid Iqbal, Completed)
  • Deception Detection using Facial Action Coding System in Videos using Deep Networks (Mr. Hammad-ud-din Ahmed, Completed)
  • A Robust Deep Networks Based Multi Camera Multi Object Tracking (Mr. Imran Zaman, Completed)
  • City-Scale Multi-Camera Vehicle Tracking Using Deep Learning (Mr. Sameed Khan, Under-progress)

Projects Supervision (Undergrad level):

  • Laptop Body Damages Detection using AI (FA21: Departmental Award-winning industry project)
  • Defect Analysis of Laptop Keyboards using Intelligent Techniques (FA21: industry project)
  • Damage Analysis of a Laptop Screen in Power-off State (FA21: Industry Project)
  • Computer Vision-Based Data Acquisition System for Retail Intelligence (SP21)
  • Human activity recognition for musculoskeletal accidents at workplace (SP21)
  • Fashion Recommendation Assistant (FA20)
  • Vehicle Metadata Generation (FA20)
  • Cricket Analytics (FA20)
  • Smart Environment for Industry 4.0 (SP20)
  • Towards adaptation of industry 4.0 standards in Quality Inspection of Packaging materials (SP20)
  • Beautify – an application for human photo beauty aesthetics (FA19)
  • RATES – Reading Assistant for Transcripts with Enhanced Searching (FA19)
  • HEART – Health Education Augmented Reality Trainer (FA19)
  • Indoor Navigation and Localization for Cognitive Robots (SP19)
  • Residentia online (SP19)
  • 10+ other FYPs before SP19

Courses Taught (Semester-wise)

  • Programming Fundamentals        F14, F15, S17, S18, F18, F19, S20, S21, F21, S22
  • Computer Vision/DIP                    S16, F20
  • Object Oriented programming     S15, F15, F17, S19
  • Data Structures and Algorithms   S16, F16, F20
  • Machine Learning                         S20, S21
  • Pattern Recognition                      S18, F19, F20, F21

 

Publications:

Journal Papers:
1. Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Sana Yasin, Umar Draz, Tariq Ali, Shafiq Hussain, Sarah Bukhari, Abdullah Saeed Alwadie, Saifur Rahman, Adam Glowacz and Faisal Althobiani (2021), "Role of Hybrid Deep Neural Networks (HDNNs), Computed Tomography, and Chest X-rays for the Detection of COVID-19", International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, pp: 3056, Vol: 18, Issue: 6, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18063056, Impact Factor: 3.39    (External URL)
2. Rathore, S., Singh, A., Bilello, M., Niazi, T., Iftikhar, M. A., Rathore, B., & Chaddad, A. (2020), "Multimodal Ensemble-Based Segmentation of White Matter Lesions and Analysis of Their Differential Characteristics across Major Brain Regions. ", Applied Sciences, pp: 1903, Vol: 10, Issue: 6, Impact Factor: 2.217    (External URL)
3. Rathore, S., Niazi, T., Iftikhar, M. A., & Chaddad, A. (2020). (2020), "Glioma Grading via Analysis of Digital Pathology Images Using Machine Learning", Cancers, pp: 578, Vol: 12, Issue: 3, Impact Factor: 6.2    (External URL)
4. Rathore, S., Iftikhar, M. A., Chaddad, A., Niazi, T., Karasic, T., & Bilello, M. (2019), "Segmentation and Grade Prediction of Colon Cancer Digital Pathology Images Across Multiple Institutions ", Cancers, pp: 1700, Vol: 11, Issue: 11, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers11111700, Impact Factor: 6.2    (External URL)
5. Khan, K. B., Khaliq, A. A., Jalil, A., Iftikhar, M. A., Ullah, N., Aziz, M. W., ... & Shahid, M. (2019), "A review of retinal blood vessels extraction techniques: challenges, taxonomy, and future trends", Pattern Analysis and Applications, pp: 767-802, Vol: 22, Issue: 3, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-018-0754-8, Impact Factor: 1.281  Abstract  (External URL)
6. Adnan Idris, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Ziaur Rehman (2019), "Intelligent Churn Prediction for Telecom using GP-AdaBoost Learning and PSO undersampling", Cluster Computing, pp: 7241-7255, Vol: 22, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-017-1154-3, Impact Factor: 1.6  Abstract  (External URL)
7. Feng, L., Ali, A., Liaqat, H. B., Iftikhar, M. A., Bashir, A. K., & Pack, S. (2019), "Stochastic game-based dynamic information delivery system for wireless cooperative networks", Future Generation Computer Systems, pp: 277-291, Vol: 95, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2019.01.011, Impact Factor: 5.77  Abstract  (External URL)
8. Hussain, L., Ali, A., Rathore, S., Saeed, S., Idris, A., Usman, M. U., ... & Suh, D. Y. (2019), "Applying Bayesian network approach to determine the association between morphological features extracted from prostate cancer images.", IEEE Access, pp: 1586-1601, Vol: 7, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2886644, Impact Factor: 3.56    (External URL)
9. Yousra Asim, Basit Raza, Ahmad Kamran Malik, Saima Rathore, Lal Hussain, Mohammad Aksam Iftikhar (2018), "A multi-modal, multi-atlas-based approach for Alzheimer detection via machine learning", International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, pp: 113-123, Vol: 28, Issue: 2, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ima.22263, Impact Factor: 1.139  Abstract  (External URL)
10. Rathore, S., Habes, M., Iftikhar, M. A., Shacklett, A., & Davatzikos, C. (2017), "A review on neuroimaging-based classification studies and associated feature extraction methods for Alzheimer's disease and its prodromal stages.", NeuroImage, pp: 530-548, Vol: 155, Impact Factor: 5.836  Abstract  (External URL)
11. Rathore, Saima, and Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar (2016), "CBISC: A Novel Approach for Colon Biopsy Image Segmentation and Classification", Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, pp: 5061-5076, Vol: 41, Issue: 12, Impact Factor: 0.865    (External URL)
12. Ahmad Ali, Abdul Jalil, Jianwei Niu , Xiaoke Zhao, Saima Rathore, Javed Ahmed, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar (2016), "Visual object tracking - Classical and Contemporary Approaches", Frontiers of Computer Science, pp: 167-188, Vol: 10, Issue: 1, Impact Factor: 1.039    (External URL)
13. Ahmad Ali, Abdul Jalil, Javed Ahmed, Muhammad Aksam Iftikar, Mutawarra Hussain (2015), "Correlation, Kalman filter and adaptive fast mean shift based heuristic approach for robust visual tracking", Signal, Image, and Video Processing, pp: 1567-1585, Vol: 9, Issue: 7, Impact Factor: 1.102    (External URL)
14. Saima Rathore, Mutawarra Hussain, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Abdul Jalil (2015), "Novel structural descriptors for automated colon cancer detection and grading", Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, pp: 92-108, Vol: 121, Issue: 2, Impact Factor: 2.50    (External URL)
15. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Abdul Jalil, Saima Rathore, Mutawarra Hussain, Ahmad Ali (2014), "An extended non-local means algorithm: application to brain MRI", International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, pp: 293–305, Vol: 24, Issue: 4, Impact Factor: 1.139    (External URL)
16. Saima Rathore, Mutawarra Hussain, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Abdul Jalil (2014), "Ensemble classification of colon biopsy images based on information rich hybrid features", Computers in Biology and Medicine, pp: 76-92, Vol: 47, Issue: 1, Impact Factor: 1.836    (External URL)
17. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Abdul Jalil, Saima Rathore, Mutawarra Hussain (2014), "Robust brain MRI denoising and segmentation using enhanced Non-local means algorithm", International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, pp: 52-66, Vol: 24, Issue: 1, Impact Factor: 1.139    (External URL)
18. Mehdi Hassan, Asmatullah Chaudhry, Asifullah Khan, M. Aksam Iftikhar (2014), "Robust information gain based fuzzy c-means clustering and classification of carotid artery ultrasound images", Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, pp: 593-609, Vol: 113, Issue: 2, Impact Factor: 2.50    (External URL)
19. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Abdul Jalil, Saima Rathore, Ahmad Ali, Mutawarra Hussain (2013), "Brain MRI denoizing and segmentation based on improved adaptive nonlocal means", International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology, pp: 235-248, Vol: 23, Issue: 3, Impact Factor: 1.139    (External URL)
20. Aksam M. Iftikhar, Aslam Muhammad, Saqib Ubaid, Martinez-Enriquez A. M. (2011), "A Weighted Usability Measure for E-learning Systems", Journal of American Science, pp: 680-686, Vol: 7, Issue: 2    (External URL)
Conference Papers:
1. Shahid, M. A., Iftikhar, M. A., Gondal, Z. A., Adnan, M., & Rathore, S. (2018) "Object Size Measurement through Images: An Application to Measuring Human Foot Size", International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT)   
2. Ayesha Hoor, Javaria Ikhlaq, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Maham Alvi (2017) "Blood Cells Counting and Segmentation using Image Processing Techniques", In: Khan F., Jan M., Alam M. (eds) Applications of Intelligent Technologies in Healthcare. EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing.    
3. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mehdi Hassan, Hani Alquhayz (2016) "A colon cancer grade prediction model using texture and statistical features, SMOTE and mRMR", IEEE INMIC 2016    (External URL)
4. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Adnan Idris (2016) "An ensemble classification approach for automated diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment", IEEE ICOSST 2016    (External URL)
5. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mehdi Hassan (2016) "Ensemble sparse classification of colon cancer", IEEE FIT 2017    (External URL)
6. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mutawarra Hussain (2014) "A novel approach for automatic gene selection and classification of gene based colon cancer datasets", IEEE 10th International Conference on Emerging Technologies, pp: 42-47    (External URL)
7. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mutawarra Hussain (2014) "A novel approach for automatic gene selection and classification of gene based colon cancer datasets", IEEE 10th International Conference on Emerging Technologies, pp: 42-47    (External URL)
8. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mutawarra Hussain, Abdul Jalil (2013) "A novel clustering approach for colon biopsy images", IEEE 11th International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT’13), pp: 25-30   
9. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mutawarra Hussain, Abdul Jalil (2013) "Classification of colon biopsy images based on novel structural features", IEEE 9th International Conference on Emerging Technologies (ICET’13), pp: 1-6   
10. Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Saima Rathore, Abdul Jalil, Mutawarra Hussain (2013) "ExNLM: A novel extension to non-local means for robust de-noising of brain MRI", IEEE 16th International Multitopic Conference (INMIC’13), pp: 195-200   
11. Kashif Amanullah, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar (2013) "Information Search for Children using Faceted Navigation", IEEE 7th International Conference on Open-source Systems and Technologies, pp: 1-6   
12. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mutawarra Hussain, Abdul Jalil (2013) "Literature Survey on Life-Cycle of Liver Segmentation Techniques", International Conference on Sensing for Industrial, Control, Communication and Security Technologies (ICSICCST’13), pp: 85-90   
13. Mehdi Hassan, Asmatullah Chaudhry, Asifullah Khan, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Jin Young Kim (2013) "Medical Image Segmentation Employing Information Gain and Fuzzy C-Means Algorithm", IEEE 7th international conference on open-source systems and technologies, pp: 95-100   
14. Saima Rathore, Aksam Iftikhar, Ahmed Ali, Mutawarra Hussain, Abdul Jalil (2012) "Capture Largest Included Circuit: An Approach for Counting Red Blood Cells", Springer Emerging Trends and Applications in Information Communication Technologies, pp: 373-384   
15. Aksam Iftikhar, Saima Rathore, Abdul Jalil (2012) "Parameter Optimization for Non-local De-noising using Elite GA", IEEE 15th International Multitopic Conference (INMIC’12) , pp: 194-199   
16. Saima Rathore, Muhammad Aksam Iftikhar, Mutawarra Hussain, Abdul Jalil (2011) "Texture Analysis for Liver Segmentation and Classification: a Survey", IEEE 9th International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT’11) , pp: 121-126   

Qualification

PhD Computer Science (Image Processing)
Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan
Dec 2010 to Nov 2014
   
MSc. Computer Science
University of Engineering and Techology, Lahore, Pakistan
Sep 2007 to Dec 2010
   
BS (Hons.) Computer Engineering
University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Sep 2003 to Jul 2007
   

Experience

Tenured Associate Professor
COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus
Jul 2023 to Date
   
Assistant Professor
Comsats Institute of Information Technology, Lahore
Nov 2014 to Jun 2023
   
Lecturer
Comsat Institute of Information Technology, Lahore
Aug 2014 to Oct 2014
   
Software Engineer
University of Gujrat, Gujrat
Jun 2008 to Dec 2010
   
Lecturer
University of Gujrat, Gujrat
Jun 2008 to Dec 2010
   
Research Assistant
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore
Aug 2007 to Jun 2008
   
Teaching Assistant
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Lahore
Jun 2007 to Jul 2007
   
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