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Ahmad Lotfi

Ahmad Lotfi

Professor and Head of Department

Computer Science

Role

Ahmad Lotfi is a Professor of Computational Intelligence and Head of Department of Computer Science at Nottingham Trent University, where he is also leading Computational Intelligence and Applications (CIA) research group. He is also a Visiting Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.

Career overview

Professor Ahmad Lotfi received his BSc. and MTech. in control systems from Isfahan University of Technology, Iran and Indian Institute of Technology, India respectively. He received his PhD degree in Learning Fuzzy Systems from University of Queensland, Australia in 1995.

Professor Ahmad Lotfi joined Nottingham Trent University in December 2000 as a lecturer and was promoted to a Reader and Professor in 2011 and 2015 respectively. He has acted as the Postgraduate Research Tutor for SST from 2007 until 2019. He also leads the Computational Intelligence and Applications research group.

More information about Professor Lotfi's research and teachings are available from his personal page (https://lotfi.uk), Linkedin or Twitter (@ProfAhmadLotfi).

Research areas

Professor Ahmad Lotfi's research interest is mainly in the area of computational intelligence, ambient intelligence, robotics and machine learning. Specific areas of interest include learning fuzzy systems, evolutionary fuzzy systems, neuro computing, data mining, sensors network, smart homes, intelligent environments and intelligent mobile robot navigation strategies.

His works have been recognised internationally for significant contributions to the application of computational intelligence techniques in condition monitoring, control systems and intelligent environments. My strong communications and decision-making skills with a “make-it-happen” capability have helped me to meet targeted research objectives. Furthermore, my extensive background in the supervision and teaching of undergraduate and research students and the development of research programs in the theory and application of computational intelligence has helped me to contribute to the field of research.

His current research focuses on the identification of progressive changes in behaviour of elderly people suffering from Dementia or any other cognitive impairments. Accurate identification of progressive changes through utilisation of unobtrusive sensor network and/or robotics platform will enable carers (formal and informal) to intervene when deemed necessary.

Opportunities to carry out postgraduate research towards an MPhil /PhD exist in all of the areas identified above. Further information may be obtained from the NTU Doctoral School.

External activity

  • Keynote speaker at the 16th International Conference on  Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, July 2023.
  • Workshop Chair,  Human Behaviour Monitoring, Interpretation and Understanding (NOTION),  Corfu, July 2023
  • The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Funding Committee member in  Systems Engineering Innovation hubs for Multiple long-term Conditions (SEISMIC), 2023.
  • Chair of the Programme Committee, The PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA) conference, Corfu, 29 June -2 July 2021.
  • Honorary Co-Chair, The 5th International Conference of Reliable Information and Communication Technology 2020 (IRICT2020)
  • Member of the advisory committee, International Symposium on Community-centric Systems (CcS 2020), Tokyo, Japan, September 23-26, 2020.
  • Proposal Evaluator and Panel Member for Horizon 2020; SCI-PM-15-2017: Personalised coaching for well-being and care of people as they age.
  • Member of EPSRC Peer Review College (2016)
  • Expert Evaluator for EU Framework Research Programmes, Decrease of cognitive decline, malnutrition and sedentariness by elderly empowerment in lifestyle management and social inclusion, 2014.
  • Member of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS), Emergent Technologies Technical Committee (ETTC). The committee identifies, promotes, and nurtures new and emergent approaches, concepts, and areas that relate or are within the scope of the CIS.
  • Chair of the organising committee, UKCI2018, Nottingham, 5-7 September 2018.
  • Chair of the Smart Industry Workshop 2019, Nottingham, 9-11 January 2019.
  • Member of the organising committee and programme chair, UKRAS19: Robotics and Autonomous Systems Conference, Loughborough, Jan 24th 2019.
  • Details of my research publications are available from my Google Scholar profile (‪‪Ahmad Lotfi‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬).

Journal Editor

  • Member of the editorial board and Associate Editor, Soft Computing (Springer) [IF:1.3] [2012 – Present]
  • Member of the editorial board, Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments [IF: 1.1][2013 – Present]
  • Editorial Board of International Journal of Computational Intelligence.

Research Students Supervision and Examination

  • PhD supervision of 20 PhD students to successful completion. There are currently 8 PhD students under supervision.
  • Acted as the PhD external examiner for 15 and internal examiner for over 10 candidates.
  • More details about my research students are available from this personal page.

Sponsors and collaborators

Current and recent research is being conducted with the collaboration, funding and/or support of:

Recent research funding includes:

  • Integrated Therapeutic Digital Display System (10004608) Funded by Innovate UK (£204,289)[2021-2024]
  • Community-centric system for elderly care and information support (IEC\R3\170114) Funded by The Royal Society - (£12,000)[2018-2020]
  • TekChef (74559-501461)(£276,910) funded by Innovate UK [2017-2018]  (Principal Investigator)
  • iCarer (AAL-2012-5-239) (£254,624 [€318,281]) funded jointly by Innovate UK and EPSRC [2013-2016] (Principal Investigator)
  • Nottingham City Homes (SKTP-100712) (£48,450) funded by Technology Strategy Board [2012-2013] (Principal Investigator)

Publications

BIRD, J.J., NASER, A. and LOTFI, A., 2023. Writer-independent signature verification; evaluation of robotic and generative adversarial attacks. Information Sciences, 633, pp. 170-181. ISSN 0020-0255

PANDYA, B., POURABDOLLAH, A. and LOTFI, A., 2022. A comparative study of stand-alone and cloud-based fuzzy logic systems for human fall detection. International Journal of Fuzzy Systems. ISSN 1562-2479

FABIETTI, M., MAHMUD, M., LOTFI, A. and KAISER, M.S., 2022. ABOT: an open-source online benchmarking tool for machine learning-based artefact detection and removal methods from neuronal signals. Brain Informatics, 9: 19. ISSN 2198-4018

NASER, A., LOTFI, A., MWANJE, M.D. and ZHONG, J., 2022. Privacy-preserving, thermal vision with human in the loop fall detection alert system. IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems. ISSN 2168-2291

ZHONG, J., LI, J., LOTFI, A., LIANG, P. and YANG, C., 2022. An incremental cross-modal transfer learning method for gesture interaction. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 155: 104181. ISSN 0921-8890

AFZALOV, A., LOTFI, A., INDEN, B. and AYDIN, M.E., 2022. A strategy-based algorithm for moving targets in an environment with multiple agents. SN Computer Science, 3 (6): 435. ISSN 2661-8907

NASER, A., LOTFI, A. and ZHONG, J., 2022. Calibration of low-resolution thermal imaging for human monitoring applications. IEEE Sensors Letters. ISSN 2475-1472

NASER, A., LOTFI, A. and ZHONG, J., 2022. Multiple thermal sensor array fusion towards enabling privacy-preserving human monitoring applications. IEEE Internet of Things Journal. ISSN 2327-4662

FABIETTI, M., MAHMUD, M. and LOTFI, A., 2022. Channel-independent recreation of artefactual signals in chronically recorded local field potentials using machine learning. Brain Informatics, 9: 1 (2022). ISSN 2198-4018

ALMAHADIN, G., LOTFI, A., CARTHY, M.M. and BREEDON, P., 2021. Enhanced Parkinson's disease tremor severity classification by combining signal processing with resampling techniques. SN Computer Science, 3 (1): 63. ISSN 2661-8907

ALMAHADIN, G., LOTFI, A., MCCARTHY, M. and BREEDON, P., 2021. Task-oriented intelligent solution to measure Parkinson’s disease tremor severity. Journal of Healthcare Engineering, 2021: 9624386. ISSN 2040-2295

NASER, A., LOTFI, A. and ZHONG, J., 2021. Towards human distance estimation using a thermal sensor array. Neural Computing and Applications. ISSN 0941-0643

YAHAYA, S.W., LOTFI, A. and MAHMUD, M., 2021. Detecting anomaly and its sources in activities of daily living. SN Computer Science, 2 (1): 14. ISSN 2661-8907

HOWEDI, A., LOTFI, A. and POURABDOLLAH, A., 2020. Employing entropy measures to identify visitors in multi-occupancy environments. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. ISSN 1868-5137

ORTEGA ANDEREZ, D., LOTFI, A. and POURABDOLLAH, A., 2020. A deep learning based wearable system for food and drink intake recognition. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. ISSN 1868-5137

NASER, A., LOTFI, A. and ZHONG, J., 2020. Adaptive thermal sensor array placement for human segmentation and occupancy estimation. IEEE Sensors Journal. ISSN 1530-437X

ALZUBAIDI, A., TEPPER, J. and LOTFI, A., 2020. A novel deep mining model for effective knowledge discovery from omics data. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, 104: 101821. ISSN 0933-3657

ALRAWAHI, A.S., LEE, K. and LOTFI, A., 2019. A multiobjective QoS model for trading Cloud of Things resources. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Volume: 6 , Issue: 6 (IF: 9.5)

YAHAYA, S.W., LOTFI, A. and MAHMUD, M., 2019. A consensus novelty detection ensemble approach for anomaly detection in activities of daily living. Applied Soft Computing, 83: 105613. (IF: 4.9)

ORTEGA ANDEREZ, D., LOTFI, A. and POURABDOLLAH, A., 2019. Eating and drinking gesture spotting and recognition using a novel adaptive segmentation technique and a gesture discrepancy measure. Expert Systems with Applications.  (IF: 4.3)

See all of Ahmad Lotfi's publications...

Press expertise

Professor Lotfi is able to talk to the press regarding the following:

  • Assistive technology
  • Smart devices
  • Smart city
  • Robotics
  • Assistive robots
  • Ambient assisted living
  • Dementia and assistive technologies
  • Intelligent environments
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Computational intelligence
  • Machine learning