Dr. Imtiaz Ahmad Taj

PROFILE SUMMARY

Imtiaz Ahmad Taj is serving as Professor and Dean Faculty of Engineering. He did his Masters and PhD in Electronics and Information Engineering from Hokkaido University Japan, in 1998 and 2001, respectively. During his studies, he was awarded “Outstanding Young Researcher” award by IEICE Japan. He has vast Research and Development (R&D) experience in the fields of Computer Vision, AI, and Machine Learning systems both in Academia and Industry. At CUST, he is supervising the Vision and Pattern Recognition Systems (VisPRS) research group. 11 PhD and a number of Master’s students have graduated under his supervision, who are serving nationally and internationally at leading positions in academia and industry. Moreover, as Principal Investigator, he has successfully completed and delivered a number of funded R&D projects worth more than 47 million Rupees in the areas like real-time vision-based navigation, biometrics identification systems, and image/video processing hardware accelerators. In recognition of his research achievements, he was also awarded “CUST Research Excellence Award 2022”. As an academician, he served in the capacity of HoD and Dean for over 12 years, during which he was instrumental in designing and implementing Outcome Based Education (OBE) system at CUST.

QUALIFICATION
PhD	Electronics and Information Engineering	Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan	2001
MS	Electronics and Information Engineering	Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan	1998
BS	Electrical Engineering	University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar	1993

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Professor	Capital University of Science and Technology (CUST), Islamabad	Since – 2015
Professor	Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad	2007 – 2015

MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
Dean	Faculty of Engineering, Capital University of Science and Technology (CUST), Islamabad	Since – 2015
HoD	Faculty of Engineering, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad	2011 – 2015

MEMBERSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL BODIES
SIEEE	Sr. Member Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers IEEE Membership No: 80200127
PEC	Pakistan Engineering Council, Reg No. Elect/11315

INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCE
Sr. Member Tech	Center for Advanced Research in Engineering (CARE)	2001 – 2006
Member Tech	Communication Enabling Technologies, Islamabad	2001 – 2005
Junior Engineer	Engineers International Pvt Ltd	1994 – 1995

RESEARCH AREAS / INTERESTS
1.	Real time implementation of image registration algorithms
2.	Super resolution imaging
3.	Biometrics including fingerprint, face and iris recognition
4.	Signature verification

RESEARCH SUPERVISION
1.	PhD	Efficient Framework for Macroblock Prediction and Parallel Task Assignment in Video Coding
2.	PhD	3d Face Recognition Based on Pose and Expression Invariant Alignment
3.	PhD	Fast Video Encoding using Spatio-Temporal Features and Ensemble Classification
4.	PhD	Fingerprint Distortion Removal and Enhancement by Effective Use of Contextual Filtering
5.	PhD	A Combination of Linear and Quadratic TimeFrequency Techniques for Time-Varying Signals
6.	PhD	Cross-term Suppression in Wigner Distribution
7.	PhD	Towards Facial Asymmetry Based Face Recognition
8.	MS	Automatic Diagnostic System (ADS) Based on ECG Signal Analysis and Classification.
9.	MS	Cancer Diagnosis base on pattern classification of Microarray Gene Profiling (MGeP) Data.
10.	MS	Polar Binary Encoding of Iris Texture for Real Time Personal Identification.
11.	MS	Acoustic Context Recognition Using Image Processing Techniques on Time-frequency Images.
12.	MS	Robust Vision Based Target Tracking for Fast Moving Object.
13.	MS	Robust Iris Recognition Based on Efficient Local Binarization for Feature Extraction
14.	MS	Robust Palmprint Recognition by Edge Matching Using Oriented Hausdorff Similarity

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
R. F. Masood, I. A. Taj, M. B. Khan, M. A. Qureshi, and T. Hassan, “Deep Learning based Vertebral Body Segmentation with Extraction of Spinal Measurements and Disorder Disease Classification,” Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, vol. 71, p. 103230, 2022.
M. Shafiq, I. A. Taj, M. Ghafoor, S. A. Tariq, A. Abbas, and A. Y. Zomaya, “Accelerating fingerprint identification using FPGA for large- scale applications,” Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, 2020
M. Ghafoor, S. A. Tariq, I. Taj, N. Jafri, and T. Zia, “Robust palm print identification using eﬀicient enhancement and two-stage matching technique,” IET Image Processing, vol. 14, no. 11, pp. 2333–2342, 2020
M. Tahir, I. A. Taj, P. A. Assuncao, and M. Asif, “Low complexity high eﬀiciency coding of light fields using ensemble classifiers,” Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, vol. 66, p. 102742, 2020
M. Tahir, I. A. Taj, P. A. Assuncao, and M. Asif, “Fast video encoding based on random forests,” Journal of Real-Time Image Processing, pp. 1-21, 2019
M. Tahir, I. A. Taj, P. A. Assuncao, and M. Asif, “Low complexity high efficiency coding of light fields using ensemble classifiers,” Journal of Visual Communication and Image Representation, vol. 66, p. 102742, 2019
N. I. Ratyal, I. A. Taj, M. Sajid, N. Ali, A. Mahmood, and S. Razzaq,“Three¬dimensional face recognition using variance-based registration and subject-specific descriptors,” International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, vol. 16, no. 3, p. 1729881419851716, 2019
N. Ratyal, I. A. Taj, M. Sajid, A. Mahmood, S. Razzaq, S. H. Dar, N. Ali, M. Usman, M. J. A. Baig, and U. Mussadiq, “Deeply learned pose invariant image analysis with applications in 3d face recognition,” Mathematical Problems in Engineering, vol. 2019, 2019
T. Zia, M. Ghafoor, S. A. Tariq, and I. A. Taj, “Robust fingerprint classification with bayesian convolutional networks,” IET Image Processing, vol. 13, no. 8, pp. 1280-1288, 2019
M. Sajid, Imtiaz A. Taj, Usama I. Bajwa, and Naeem I. Ratyal, “Facial Asymmetry based Age Group Estimation: Role in Recognizing Age-Separated Face Images”, Journal of Forensic Sciences, DOI: 10.1111/1556-4029.13798, April 2018.
Naeem I. Ratyal, Imtiaz A. Taj, Usama I. Bajwa , and M. Sajid, “3D Face Recognition using Variance based Registration and Subject Specific Descriptors”, submitted to International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems.
Naeem I. Ratyal, Imtiaz A. Taj, Usama I. Bajwa , and M. Sajid, “Pose and Expression Invariant Alignment based Multi-View 3D Face Recognition”, Accepted in KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems, to be published, April 2018.
Muhammad Asif, Imtiaz A Taj, Syed M Ziauddin, Maaz Bin Ahmad, Muhammad Tahir, “An efficient framework for prediction parameters selection in advanced video coding”, IEEE Access, DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2816852, March 2018
Mubeen Ghafoor, Shahzaib Iqbal, Syed Ali Tariq, Imtiaz A. Taj, Noman M. Jafri, “Efficient Fingerprint Matching Using Graphical Processing Unit”, IET Image Processing, DOI: 10.1049/iet-ipr.2016.1021, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 274, February 2018.
Syed Ali Tariq, Shahzaib Iqbal, Mubeen Ghafoor, Imtiaz A. Taj, Noman M. Jafri, Saad Razzaq, Tehseen Zia, “Massively parallel palmprint identification system using GPU”, Cluster Computing (Springer), DOI 10.1007/s10586-017-1121-z, published online in September 2017.
Momna Asghar , Irfan Arshad, Imtiaz A. Taj , Gulistan Raja, and Ahmad Khalil Khan, “Palm and finger segmentation of high resolution images using hand shape and texture”, Proceedings of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences: Pakistan Academy of Sciences A. Physical and Computational Sciences, ISSN: 2518-4245 (print), 2518-4253 (online), Vol.53, No.4, pp. 401–416, December 2016.
M. Asif, Imtiaz A. Taj, SM Ziauddin, MB Ahmad, M Tahir, “An efficient inter prediction mode selection scheme for advanced video coding based on motion homogeneity and residual complexity”, IEEJ Transaction on Electrical and Electronic Engineering, DOI: 10.1002/tee.22301,Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 760-767, November 2016.
Mubeen Ghafoor, Imtiaz A. Taj, Noman M. Jafri, “Fingerprint Frequency Normalization and Enhancement using 2-D STFT Analysis”, IET Computer Vision, available online DOI: 10.1049/iet-cvi.2016.0005, Vol. 10, No.8, pp. 806-816, December 2016.
M. Sajid, Imtiaz A. Taj, Usama I. Bajwa, and Naeem I. Ratyal, “The Role of Facial Asymmetry towards Recognizing Age-Separated Face Images”, accepted in Computers & Electrical Engineering (Elsevier), DOI: 10.1016/j.compeleceng.2016.01.001, Vol. 54, pp. 255-270, August 2016.
M Asif, Imtiaz A. Taj, SM Ziauddin, MB Ahmad, M Tahir, “A Hybrid Scheme Based on Pipelining and Multitasking in Mobile Application Processors for Advanced Video Coding”, Scientific Programming, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, Volume 2015, Article ID 197843, http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/197843, November 2015.
Naeem I. Ratyal, Imtiaz A. Taj, Usama I. Bajwa , and M. Sajid, “3D face recognition based on pose and expression invariant alignment”, Computers & Electrical Engineering (Elsevier), Volume 46, Pages 241-255, doi:10.1016/j.compeleceng.2015.06.007, August 2015.
Mubeen Ghafoor, Imtiaz A. Taj, Waqas Ahmad, Noman M. Jafri, “Efficient 2-fold contextual filtering approach for fingerprint enhancement”, IET Image Processing, Vol.8, No.7, doi: 10.1049/iet-ipr.2013.0528, pp. 417-425, July 2014.
Usama I. Bajwa, Imtiaz A. Taj, M. W. Anwar, Xuan Wang, “A Multifaceted Independent Performance Analysis of Facial Subspace Recognition Algorithms”, PLoS ONE, Vol. 8, No. 2, e56510, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056510, Feb. 2013..
Muhammad Ajab, Imtiaz A. Taj, Imran Shafi, Srdjan Stankovic, “A new form of Gabor Wigner Transform by adaptive thresholding in Gabor Transform and Wigner Distribution and the power of signal synthesis techniques to enhance the strengths of GWT”, Metrology and Measurement Systems (M&MS), ISSN 0860-8229, Vol. 20, No.1, pp. 99-106, Jan. 2013.
Usama I. Bajwa, Imtiaz A. Taj, M. W. Anwar, “A unified classifier for robust face recognition based on combining multiple subspace algorithms”, Optics Communications (Elsevier), Vol.285, No. 21-22, pp.4324-4332, October 2012.
Muhammad Ajab, Imtiaz A. Taj, Nabeel A Khan, “Comparative Analysis of Variants of GWT for Cross-Terms Reduction”, Metrology and Measurement Systems (M&MS), ISSN 0860-8229, Vol.11, No.3, pp. 499-508, September 2012.
Qadeer Ahmed, Aamer I. Bhatti, Imtiaz A. Taj and K. Ahmed, “Hidden Markov Model based Diagnosis and Prognosis of SI Engine Intake Manifold Leakage”, International Journal of Innovative Computing Information and Control (IJICIC), Vol. 8, No. 7(A), pp. 4661-4674, July 2012.
Nabeel A. Khan, Imtiaz A. Taj and M. N. Jaffri, “Cross-term Elimination in Wigner Distribution based on 2D Signal Processing Techniques”, Signal Processing (Elsevier), Vol. 91, Issue 3, pp. 590-599, March 2011.
Usama I. Bajwa, Imtiaz A. Taj and Zeeshan E. Bhatti, “A Comprehensive Comparative Analysis of Performance of Laplacianfaces and Eigenfaces for Face Recognition”, The Imaging Science Journal, Vol. 59, No.1, pp. 32-40, Feb. 2011.
M. Talal Ibrahim, M. A. Khan, K. S. Alimgeer, M. K Khan, Imtiaz A. Taj and L. Guan, “Velocity and Pressure-based Partitions of Horizontal and Vertical Trajectories for On-line Signature Verification Pattern Recognition”, Pattern Recognition (Elsevier), Volume 43 Issue 8, pp. 2817-2832, August 2010.
I. Sajid, M.M. Ahmed and Imtiaz A. Taj, “Time Efficient Face Recognition Using Stable Gram-Schmidt Orthonormalization”, International Journal of Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern, Vol. 2, No.1, March, 2009.
Imtiaz A. Taj, Ping Xie, Kojiro Koyanagi, and Teruhito Mishima, “Photorefractive Four-Wave Mixing Switches Utilizing Pockels Effect—Longitudinal and Lateral Switches”, Optical Review (Japan), Vol. 11, No. 5, pp. 332-336 (October 2004).
T. Mishima, Ping Xie, K. Koyanagi and Imtiaz. A. Taj, “Demonstration of fast switching of photorefractive four-wave mixing via Pockels effect”, Optics Comm. (Netherlands), Vol.225, Issue.1-3, pp. 211-214, (September 15, 2003).
Imtiaz. A. Taj, Ping Xie and T. Mishima, “Effect of relative phase of grating components on the temporal behaviour of photorefractive four-wave mixing”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B (U.S.A.), Vol.18, No.10, pp.1490-1496, (October 2001).
Ping Xie, Imtiaz. A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Reducing fluctuation of signal intensity in optical wave-mixing”, IEEE J. of Quant. Elect. (U.S.A.), Vol.37, No.5, pp.664-671, (May 2001).
Ping Xie, Imtiaz. A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Suppressing the fluctuation of photorefractive output”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, (U.S.A.), Vol.18, No.4, pp.492-496, (April 2001).
Ping Xie, Imtiaz. A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Effect of thermal noise on temporal behaviour of photorefractive effect”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, (U.S.A.) Vol.18, No.4, pp.479-484, (April 2001).
Imtiaz. A. Taj, Ping Xie and T. Mishima, “Fast switching of photo refractive output by applied electric field”, Optics Communications (Netherlands), Vol.187, No.1-3, pp. 7-15, (January, 2001).
Imtiaz. A. Taj, Ping Xie and T. Mishima, “Anomalous temporal behaviour of photorefractive wave mixing owing to existence of positive and negative charge carriers”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B (U.S.A.), Vol.17, No.10, pp.1740-1748, (2000).
Imtiaz. A. Taj and T. Mishima, “A simplified numerical solution and steady state performance of orthogonally polarized four-wave mixing in PR medium”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B (U.S.A.), Vol.16, No.6, pp.924-931, (1999).
Imtiaz. A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Orthogonally polarized FWM involving two non-coupling waves in PR medium”, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B (U.S.A.), Vol.15, No.7, pp.2132-2142, (1998).
Imtiaz A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Relative phase between two components of index grating of orthogonally polarized pump FWM in BaTiO3 crystal”, The Trans. of IEICE C-I (Japan), Vol. J81-C-I, No.6, pp. 376-378, (June 1998).

CONFERENCE PUBLICATIONS
Naeem I. Ratyal, Imtiaz A. Taj, Usama I. Bajwa, M.Sajid, M. Jabbar A. Baig and Faisal M. Butt, “3D Face Recognition based on Region Ensemble and Hybrid Features”, Proceedings of 2016 International Conference on Computing, Electronic and Electrical Engineering (ICE Cube), pp.294-300, IEEEXplore, April 11-12, 2016.
Muhammad Asif, Imtiaz A. Taj, Maaz Bin Ahmed, SM Ziauddin and M. Tahir, “An efficient scheme for intra-prediction block size and mode selection in advanced video coding”, in Proceedings of 13th International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT 2015), IEEExplore December 2015.
Muhammad Zeeshan Baig , Yasir Mehmood , Ehtasham Javed and Imtiaz A. Taj, “Exploiting GPU Parallel Processing for AFIS Performance Improvement”, Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Engineering & Emerging Technologies (ICEET), Superior University, Lahore, PK, March, 2015.
Muhammad Asif, Saqib Majeed, Imtiaz A. Taj, Maaz Bin Ahmed, SM Ziauddin, “Exploiting MB level parallelism in H. 264/AVC encoder for multi-core platform”, Proceedings of 2014 IEEE/ACS 11th International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA), Doha, Pages 125-130, DOI: 10.1109/AICCSA.2014.7073188, November 2014.
Shaista Kanwal, Imtiaz A. Taj and Arifa Farooq, “A Novel Classification Technique for Cancer Diagnostics based on Microarray Gene Expression Profiling (MGEP)”, In Proceedings of 2012 International Conference on Emerging Technologies ICET, IEEExplore, page 119-124, (October 2012).
Waqas Ahmed, Imtiaz A. Taj, Mubeen Ghafoor and Khurram Shehzad, “Polar Binary Encoding of Iris Texture for real-time personal identification” in Proceedings of 2012 International Conference on Emerging Technologies ICET, IEEExplore, page 380-385, (October 2012).
Mian Mehmood Ali, Mubeen Ghafoor, Imtiaz A. Taj, Khizer Hayat, “Palm-print Recognition using Oriented Hausdorff Distance Transform”, presented in Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT 2011), proceedings in IEEExplore, December 2011.
Mubeen Ghafoor, Usama I. Bajwa, Imtiaz A. Taj, “Fuel Nozzle Spray Pattern Classifier”, presented in Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT 2011), proceedings in IEEExplore, December 2011.
Muhammad Asif, Masood Farooq and Imtiaz A. Taj, “Optimized Implementation of Motion Compensation for H.264 Decoder”, 5th International Conference on Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology (ICCIT2010) in Seoul Korea, available at IEEExplore, Conference Proceedings ISBN: 978-1-4244-8567-3, pp. 216-221, Dec. 2010.
Nabeel A. Khan, Imtiaz A. Taj and M. N. Jaffri, “Instantaneous Frequency Estimation using Fractional Fourier Transform and Wigner Distribution”, ICSAP pp.319-321, 2010 International Conference on Signal Acquisition and Processing, 2010.
Duratulain Mirza, Imtiaz A. Taj, Ayesha Khalid, “A Robust Eyelid and Eyelash Removal Method and a Local Binarization based Feature Extraction Technique for Iris Recognition”, Proceedings of 2009 IEEE 13th International Multitopic Conference (INMIC 2009), pp. 311-316.
Zeeshan E. Bhatti, Usama I. Bajwa, Imtiaz .A. Taj, “Introducing Set of Internal Parameters for Laplacian Faces to Enhance Performance under Varying Conditions”, Proceedings of 2009 IEEE 13th International Multitopic Conference (INMIC 2009), pp. 279-283.
R. Ali Mehmood, Imtiaz A. Taj, “Applying centroid based adjustment to kernel based object tracking for improving localization”, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies, 2009. (ICICT ’09). pp. 209 – 214.
Rizwan R Sheikh, Imtiaz A. Taj, “Cardiac disorder diagnosis based on ECG segments analysis and classification”, Proceedings of IEEE Third International Conference on Electrical Engineering 2009, ICEE 2009, Lahore, pp. 1-6, 2009
I. Sajid, M. M. Ahmed, Imtiaz A. Taj, M. Humayun, and F. Hameed, “Design of High Performance FPGA Based Face Recognition System”, PIERS Proceedings, Cambridge, USA, pp. 504-510, July 2008.
I. Sajid, M. M. Ahmed, Imtiaz A. Taj, “Design and Implementation of a Face Recognition System Using Fast PCA ”in proceedings of International Symposium on Computer Science and its Applications, 2008. CSA ’08, IEEExplore, pp. 126–130, October 2008.
M. Talal Ibrahim, M. Aurangzeb Khan, Imtiaz A. Taj, “Creation and Selection of Most Stable Discriminating Features for On-Line Signature Verification”, IEEE International Conference on Machine Vision (ICMV) Islamabad, pp: 97-102, 2007.
M. Talal Ibrahim, Imtiaz A. Taj, Imran Ahmed, “A new Algorithm for Image Classification and Retrieval based on combination of Principal Component Analysis and Cross Correlation”, published in 2006 Workshop on Multiscale Biological Imaging, Data Mining & Informatics Santa Barbara, CA, USA, pp: 62-63, Sept 7-8, 2006.
M. Talal Ibrahim, Imtiaz A. Taj, M. Khalid Khan, M. Aurangzeb Khan, “Fingerprint Image Enhancement using Decimation Free Directional Adaptive Mean Filtering”, 5th IEEE Indian Conference on Computer Vision, Graphics and Image Processing, India, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), Vol. 4338, pp. 950–961,ISBN: 3-540-68301-1, 2006.
Zulfiqar Ali, Sibtul Hussain and Imtiaz A. Taj, “Kernel based Robust Object Tracking using Model Updates and Gaussian Pyramids”, IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies ICET 2005 Proceedings, page 144-150 (September 2005).
Naveed Bin Rais, M. Shehzad Hanif, and Imtiaz A. Taj, “Adaptive Thresholding Technique for Document Image Analysis”, IEEE International Multi-topic Conference proceedings (INMIC), December 2004, page 61-66.
M. Ali Tahir, Asim Munawar, Imtiaz A. Taj, “Efficient Use of Multipliers in Microprocessor Implementation of Hamming Distance for Binary Sequence Correlation”, INCC (IEEE), June 2004, Lahore, Pakistan.
T. Mishima, K. Koyanagi, Ping Xie and Imtiaz. A. Taj, “Demonstration of fast switching of photorefractive four-wave mixing by Pockels effect”, Conference Proceedings of 2002 IEEE/LEOS Annual Meeting (Scotland), Volume 2, pp.387-388, (10-14 November 2002).
Ping Xie, Imtiaz. A. Taj, K. Koyanagi and T. Mishima, “Suppressing temporal fluctuation of photorefractive output by illumination of an incoherent beam”, presented in Conference on Optoelectronic and Microelectronic Materials & Devices (COMMAD) 2000 (Australia) in December 2000.
Imtiaz. A. Taj, Ping Xie, K. Koyanagi and T. Mishima, “Free-space optical switching of photorefractive output by moderate electric fields”, presented in Conference on Optoelectronic and Microelectronic Materials & Devices (COMMAD) 2000 (Australia) in December 2000.
Ping Xie, Imtiaz. A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Physical origin of temporal fluctuation in photorefractive effect”, Presented in Optics Japan 2000 (Kitami Japan), 8aF21, (October 2000).
Imtiaz. A. Taj, Ping Xie and T. Mishima, “Multiple time constants in temporal behaviour of photorefractive wave mixing”, Presented in Optics Japan 2000 (Kitami Japan), 8aF21, (October 2000).
Imtiaz A. Taj and T. Mishima, “3-D calculations of coupling coefficient including the elasto-optic properties of BaTiO3 crystal”, Technical report of IEICE (Japan), OPE 98-152, pp.43-48, CiNii ID: 9000004960981, (Feb. 1999).
Imtiaz A. Taj and T. Mishima, “Controlling the direction of grating vector in cross-polarized FWM under phase matching condition”, 1997 IEICE General Conference, Kansai Univ., Suita, Japan, CiNii ID: 9000004915827, (March 1997).

Our Team

PROFILE SUMMARY

Other Members