Sheraz Aslam

• phd
• Post-doc Researcher at Cyprus University of Technology

Integrating renewable energy sources into smart grids increases supply and demand management because renewable energy sources are intermittent and variable. To overcome this type of challenge, short‐term load forecasting (STLF) is essential for managing energy, demand‐side flexibility, and the stability of smart grids with renewable energy integrat...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading global health challenge due to its high mortality rate and the complexity of early diagnosis, driven by risk factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, and irregular pulse rates. Traditional diagnostic methods often struggle with the nuanced interplay of these risk factors, making early detection...

Machine learning (ML) enables computers to learn from experience by identifying patterns and trends. Despite ML's advancements in extracting valuable data, there are instances necessitating the removal or deletion of certain data, as ML models can inadvertently memorize training data. In many cases, ML models may memorize sensitive or personal data...

Cesarean Section (C-Section) is an operation whereby a baby is brought to the world through a cut made on the abdomen and uterus. The factors that lead to C-Section includes premature rupture of the membranes, having an abnormal fetal heart rate, having previous C-Sections, or previous surgeries on the uterus, human immunodeficiency virus, having u...

The significant increase in international seaborne trade volumes over the last several years is pushing port operators to improve the efficiency of terminal processes and reduce vessel turnaround time. Toward this direction, this study investigates and solves the combined berth allocation problem (BAP) and quay crane allocation problem (QCAP) in a...

Marine transportation accounts for approximately 90% of the total trade managed in international logistics and plays a vital role in many companies’ supply chains. However, en-route factors like weather conditions or piracy incidents often delay scheduled arrivals at destination ports, leading to downstream inefficiencies. Due to the maritime indus...

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) have emerged as a significant physiological condition, being a primary contributor to mortality. Timely and precise diagnosis of heart disease is crucial to safeguard patients from additional harm. Recent studies show that the usage of data driven approaches, such as Deep Learning (DL) and Machine Learning (ML) techni...

Effective and optimal decision-making can enhance system performance, potentially leading to a positive reputation and financial gains. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is an important research topic widely applied to practical decision-making problems. Using the basic idea of symmetry to balance the arrangement where elements or features have...

Diabetes is a metabolic disease caused by the body's failure to use insulin or break down meals correctly. Every year, an alarming number of new cases of diabetes are recorded. A poor lifestyle and an unfavorable environment are the two main causes of diabetes. If it is not treated at early stages, it becomes a lifelong disease and further leads to...

Muli-Quay Combined Berth and Quay Crane Allocation using the Cuckoo Search Algorithm

Marine container terminals (MCTs) play a crucial role in intelligent maritime transportation (IMT) systems. Since the number of containers handled by MCTs has been increasing over the years, there is a need for developing effective and efficient approaches to enhance the productivity of IMT systems. The berth allocation problem (BAP) and the quay c...

This study investigates the combined berth allocation problem (BAP) and quay crane allocation problem (QCAP) while considering a multi-quay setting. First, a mixed integer linear programming mathematical model is developed based on various constraints and real port settings. Then, the multi-quay combined BAP and QCAP is solved using both the exact...

Mental illness prediction through text involves employing natural language processing (NLP) techniques and deep learning algorithms to analyze textual data for the identification of mental disorders. Therefore, machine learning and deep learning algorithms have been utilized in the existing literature for the detection of mental illness. However, c...

The maritime industry has recently seen a boom of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, which are successfully digitalizing maritime transportation. The IoT-enabled maritime transportation has led to the introduction of the Internet of Ships (IoS) paradigm, where maritime objects are interconnected with the goal of boosting the maritime industry....

Electricity theft damages power grid infrastructure and is also responsible for huge revenue losses for electric utilities. Integrating smart meters in traditional power grids enables real-time monitoring and collection of consumers’ electricity consumption (EC) data. Based on the collected data, it is possible to identify the normal and malicious...

With the increasing integration of wind energy sources into conventional power systems, the demand for reserve power has risen due to associated forecasting errors. Consequently, developing innovative operating strategies for automatic generation control (AGC) has become crucial. These strategies ensure a real-time balance between load and generati...

Maritime container terminals (MCTs) play a fundamental role in international maritime trade, handling inbound, outbound, and transshipped containers. The increasing number of ships and containers creates several challenges to MCTs, such as congestion, long waiting times before ships dock, delayed departures, and high service costs. The berth alloca...

In the public health sector and the field of medicine, the popularity of data mining and its usage in knowledge discovery and databases (KDD) are rising. The growing popularity of data mining has discovered innovative healthcare links to support decision making. For this reason, there is a great possibility to better diagnose patient’s diseases and...

Power generation from river hydropower plants depends mainly on river flow. Water fluctuations in the river make the yield process unpredictable. To reduce these fluctuations, building a small reservoir at the river flow of the hydropower plant is recommended. Conventionally, classic single-pond models are commonly used to design run-of-river hydro...

Task scheduling algorithms are crucial for optimizing the utilization of computing resources. This work proposes a unique approach for improving task execution in real-time systems using an enhanced Round Robin scheduling algorithm variant incorporating dynamic time quantum and priority. The proposed algorithm adjusts the time slice allocated to ea...

Existing interconnected power systems (IPSs) are being overloaded by the expansion of the industrial and residential sectors together with the incorporation of renewable energy sources, which cause serious fluctuations in frequency, voltage, and tie-line power. The automatic voltage regulation (AVR) and load frequency control (LFC) loops provide hi...

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks pose an increasing threat to businesses and government agencies. They harm internet businesses, limit access to information and services, and damage corporate brands. Attackers use application layer DDoS attacks that are not easily detectable because of impersonating authentic users. In this study, we ad...

To solve problems with limited resources such as power, storage, bandwidth, and connectivity, efficient and effective data management solutions are needed. It is believed that the most successful algorithms for circumventing these constraints are those that self-organise and collaborate. To make the best use of available bandwidth, mobile ad hoc ne...

In this article, a fractional-order proportional-integral-differential (FOPID) controller and its modified structure, called a MFOPID controller, are presented. To guarantee optimal system performance, the gains of the proposed FOPID and MFOPID controllers are well-tuned, employing the Jellyfish Search Optimizer (JSO), a novel and highly effective...

Facial paralysis is a debilitating condition that weakens or damages facial muscles resulting in asymmetric or abnormal facial movements. To aid in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of facial paralysis, researchers have developed machine learning and deep learning computer-aided diagnosis systems. However, machine learning models have limitations as...

Electricity load and price data pose formidable challenges for forecasting due to their intricate characteristics, marked by high volatility and non-linearity. Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) models have emerged as promising tools for effectively predicting data exhibiting high volatility, frequent fluctuations, mean-reversion tendenci...

In the smart grid (SG), user consumption data are increasing very rapidly. Some users consume electricity legally, while others steal it. Electricity theft causes significant damage to power grids, affects power supply efficiency, and reduces utility revenues. This study helps utilities reduce the problems of electricity theft, inefficient electric...

Frequency, voltage, and power flow between different control zones in an interconnected power system are used to determine the standard quality of power. Therefore, the voltage and frequency control in an IPS is of vital importance to maintaining real and reactive power balance under varying load conditions. In this paper, a dandelion optimizer (DO...

The environment and the economy are negatively impacted by conventional energy sources, such as coal, gasoline, and other fossil fuels. Pakistan’s reliance on these resources has resulted in a catastrophic energy crisis. This has driven the government to make critical decisions such as early retail closures, power outages for the industrial sector,...

The exponential growth of the edge-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) services and its ecosystems has recently led to a new type of communication network, the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN). This standard enables low-power, long-range, and low-data-rate communications. Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is a recent standard of LPWAN that incor...

Electricity theft harms smart grids and results in huge revenue losses for electric companies. Deep learning (DL), machine learning (ML), and statistical methods have been used in recent research studies to detect anomalies and illegal patterns in electricity consumption (EC) data collected by smart meters. In this paper, we propose a hybrid DL mod...

In this paper, we address the problems of fraud and anomalies in the Bitcoin network. These are common problems in e-banking and online transactions. However, as the financial sector evolves, so do the methods for fraud and anomalies. Moreover, blockchain technology is being introduced as the most secure method integrated into finance. However, alo...

Modern power systems are largely based on renewable energy sources, especially wind power. However, wind power, due to its intermittent nature and associated forecasting errors, requires an additional amount of balancing power provided through the automatic generation control (AGC) system. In normal operation, AGC dispatch is based on the fixed par...

The exponential growth of intelligent vehicles(IVs) development has resulted in a complex network. As the number of IVs in a network increases, so does the number of connections. As a result, a great deal of data is generated. This complexity leads to insecure communication, traffic congestion, security, and privacy issues in vehicular networks (VN...

The smart energy consumption of any household, maintaining the thermal comfort level of the occupant, is of great interest. Sensors and Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based intelligent hardware setups control the home appliances intelligently and ensure smart energy consumption, considering environment parameters. However, the effects of environment-driv...

Power grids play an important role in modern societies by providing an uninterrupted energy supply and have become a key driving force behind the growth of the world’s economies [...]

Non-technical losses (NTLs) are one of the major causes of revenue losses for electric utilities. In the literature, various machine learning (ML)/deep learning (DL) approaches are employed to detect NTLs. The existing studies are mostly concerned with tuning the hyperparameters of ML/DL methods for efficient detection of NTL, i.e., electricity the...

Berth allocation is one of the most important optimization problems in container terminals at ports worldwide. From both the port operator's and the shipping lines' point of view, minimizing the time a vessel spends at berth and minimizing the total cost of berth operations are considered fundamental objectives with respect to terminal operations....

Randomization is a technique used in algorithms as a strategy that uses a random source as part of its logic. It is used in traditional algorithms to reduce time or space complexity. Many efforts have been made to increase the precision of convolutional neural networks (CNN) in various application domains, but less has been done to minimize the com...

The number of microgrids within a smart distribution grid can be raised in the future. Microgrid-based distribution network reconfiguration is analyzed in this research by taking demand response programs and power-sharing into account to optimize costs and reduce power losses. The suggested method determined the ideal distribution network configura...

Electricity theft is one of the challenging problems in smart grids. The power utilities around the globe face huge economic loss due to ET. The traditional electricity theft detection (ETD) models confront several challenges, such as highly imbalance distribution of electricity consumption data, curse of dimensionality and inevitable effects of no...

The enhancement of Robustness (R) has gained significant importance in Scale-Free Networks (SFNs) over the past few years. SFNs are resilient to Random Attacks (RAs). However, these networks are prone to Malicious Attacks (MAs). This study aims to construct a robust network against MAs. An Intelligent Rewiring (INTR) mechanism is proposed to optimi...

Proper utilization of port resources and efficient berth planning play a crucial role in minimizing port congestion and overall handling costs. Therefore, this study focuses on efficient berth planning in maritime container terminals composed of multiple quays. In particular, this study addresses the Multi-Quay Berth Allocation Problem (MQ-BAP), wh...

Substantial information related to human cerebral conditions can be decoded through various noninvasive evaluating techniques like fMRI. Exploration of the neuronal activity of the human brain can divulge the thoughts of a person like what the subject is perceiving, thinking, or visualizing. Furthermore, deep learning techniques can be used to deco...

Abstract]{Renewable Energy Resources (RERs) motivate electricity users to reduce their energy bills by taking benefit of self-generated green energy. Different studies have already pointed out that because of the absence of proper technical support and awareness, the energy users were not able to sufficiently take paybacks from the RERs. However, w...

Road safety, optimized traffic management, and passenger comfort have always been the primary goals of the vehicle networking research community. Advances in computer and communication technology have made the dream of modern intelligent vehicles a reality through the use of smart sensors, cameras, networking devices, and storage capabilities. Auto...

The interconnection of renewable energy systems, which are complex nonlinear systems, often results in power fluctuations in the interconnection line and high system frequency due to insufficient damping in extreme and dynamic loading situations. To solve this problem, load frequency control ensures nominal operating frequency and orderly fluctuati...

In this paper, a heuristic scheme based on the hybridization of Bernstein Polynomials (BPs) and nature-inspired optimization techniques is presented to achieve the numerical solution of Nonlinear Optimal Control Problems (NOCPs) efficiently. The solution of NOCP is approximated by the linear combination of BPs with unknown coefficients. The unknown...

A smart city model views the city as a complex adaptive system consisting of services, resources, and citizens that learn through interaction and change in both the spatial and temporal domains. The characteristics of dynamic evolution and complexity are key issues for megacity planners and require a new systematic and modeling approach. Multiscale...

Automatic Generation Control (AGC) delivers a high quality electrical energy to energy consumers using efficient and intelligent control systems ensuring nominal operating frequency and organized tie-line power deviation. Subsequently, for the AGC analysis of a two-area interconnected hydro-gas-thermal-wind generating unit, a novel Fractional Order...

The slower than expected adoption rate of blockchain technology has highlighted that there are barriers due to the diversity of its applications and its users. To overcome this limitation and take full advantage of the novel technology, researchers from academia as well as industry are dedicated to find different solutions, where two blockchains ca...

The optimal planning of grid-connected microgrids (MGs) has been extensively studied in recent years. While most of the previous studies have used fixed or time-of-use (TOU) prices for the optimal sizing of MGs, this work introduces real-time pricing (RTP) for implementing a demand response (DR) program according to the national grid prices of Iran...

This paper presents a design for a control system that will ensure the stability and proper operation of a mobile four-wheeled robot. As a result of the nonlinear dynamics, structural and parametric uncertainty of this robot, various control approaches are used to achieve stability and proper performance and minimize modeling errors and uncertainti...

The full text of this preprint has been withdrawn by the authors due to author disagreement with the posting of the preprint. Therefore, the authors do not wish this work to be cited as a reference. Questions should be directed to the corresponding author.

The slower than expected adoption rate of blockchain technology has highlighted thatthere are barriers due to the diversity of its applications and its users. To overcome this limitationand take full advantage of the novel technology, researchers from academia as well as industryare dedicated to find different solutions, where two blockchains can i...

Day-ahead electricity price forecasting plays a critical role in balancing energy consumption and generation, optimizing the decisions of electricity market participants, formulating energy trading strategies, and dispatching independent system operators. Despite the fact that much research on price forecasting has been published in recent years, i...

Megacities are complex systems facing the challenges of overpopulation, poor urban design and planning, poor mobility and public transport, poor governance, climate change issues, poor sewerage and water infrastructure, waste and health issues, and unemployment. Smart cities have emerged to address these challenges by making the best use of space a...

Over the last couple of decades, demand for seaborne containerized trade has increased significantly and it is expected to continue growing over the coming years. As an important node in the maritime industry, a maritime container terminal (MCT) should be able to tackle the growing demand for sea trade. Due to the increased number of ships that can...

Automatic generation control (AGC) is primarily responsible for ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of an electric power system. The main goal of AGC is to keep the operating frequency under prescribed limits and maintain the interchange power at the intended level. Therefore, an AGC system must be supplemented with modern and intelligent c...

Computer-Aided diagnosis (CAD) is a widely used technique to detect and diagnose diseases like tumors, cancers, edemas, etc. Several critical retinal diseases like diabetic retinopathy (DR), hypertensive retinopathy (HR), Macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa (RP) are mainly analyzed based on the observation of fundus images. The raw fundus im...

Microgrids have recently emerged as a building block for smart grids combining distributed renewable energy sources (RESs), energy storage devices, and load management methodologies. The intermittent nature of RESs brings several challenges to the smart microgrids, such as reliability, power quality, and balance between supply and demand. Thus, for...

Based on energy demand, consumers can be broadly categorized into low energy consumers (LECs) and high energy consumers (HECs). HECs use heavy load appliances, e.g., electric heaters and air conditioners, and LECs do not use heavy load appliances. Thus, HECs demand more energy compared to LECs. The usage of high energy consumption appliances by HEC...

IoT devices are found in various parts of the smart grid, such as smart appliances, smart meters, and substations. These IoT devices generate petabytes of data, which are known to be one of the most scalable properties of a smart grid. Without smart grid analytics, it is difficult to make efficient use of data and to make sustainable decisions rela...

Maritime stakeholders are continuously collecting large volumes of heterogeneous spatiotemporal data from various sources, for example, sensor data, AIS data, traffic data, port call data, and environmental monitoring data. The maritime data value chain defines the series of the four key activities needed to appropriately manage this data, namely d...

Cloud computing is the de facto platform for deploying resource- and data-intensive real-time applications due to the collaboration of large scale resources operating in cross-administrative domains. For example, real-time systems are generated by smart devices (e.g., sensors in smart homes that monitor surroundings in real-time, security cameras t...

During the past few years, use of e-commerce has grown to a large scale. Due to which, the use of credit card has also been increased. Many people now use credit cards for online shopping, e-billing, and other online payments. This frequent use of credit cards is pushing the organizations and banks to implement credit card fraud detection systems t...

Among several approaches to privacy-preserving cryptographic schemes, we have concentrated on noise-free homomorphic encryption. It is a symmetric key encryption that supports homomorphic operations on encrypted data. We present a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) scheme based on sedenion algebra over finite Zn rings. The innovation of the scheme...

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide noteworthy advantages over conventional methods for various real-time applications, i.e., healthcare, temperature sensing, smart homes, homeland security, and environmental monitoring. However, limited resources, short life-time network constraints, and security vulnerabilities are the challenging issues in t...

Conventional RSA algorithm, being a basis for several proposed cryptosystems, has remarkable security laps with respect to confidentiality and integrity over the internet which can be compromised by state-of-the-art attacks, especially, for different types of data generation, transmission, and analysis by IoT applications. This security threat hind...