Mohamed CHERIET
Eng., Ph.D., SMIEEE
Research Activities
Prof. Cheriet has made fundamental contributions in the area of document image analysis and recognition as well in the area of cloud computing in a career that spans over two decades. His extremely high quality publications, active participation in professional activities including chairmanship of conferences and editorship of premier journals, are a testament to his leadership in the signal processing and telecom communities both in Canada and internationally.
He was Co-founder of LIVIA in 1993 and Founder of Synchromedia in 1998, which has been granted in 2005 a 3.7M from CFI to build collaborative environments in telepresence involving 5 Pan-Canadian institutions. These structural achievements lead in the subsequent years to launch a variety of major international initiatives and projects.
Prof. Cheriet made his initial scientific impact in the field of document processing. Today he is a recognized pioneer in devising document processing methods for improving form and document reading system performance. His latest important achievement in this area, when for the first time he contributed to bridging Engineering field with human sciences, was the $2.5M Major Collaborative Research Initiatives Program under SSHRC funding. Indeed, Prof. Cheriet is a co-Applicant of the project entitled «The Indian Ocean World: The Making of the First Global Economy in the Context of Human-Environment Interaction». This innovative project is a large, international and multi-disciplinary program of collaborative research that aims to examine the history of human-environment interaction in the Indian Ocean World—an arena of primary geo-political importance that includes eastern Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and emerging superpowers, China and India—from economic, scientific and social viewpoints using cutting edge technologies for document and data analysis, collaboration and communication. This project involves as much as 36 partners from 11 countries.
Prof. Cheriet also has a significant body of work in the closely aligned area of Cloud Computing and Green ICT. His leading research virtual networks and network behavioral modeling has solid theoretical underpinnings and is widely acclaimed as foundational in the virtual network field, especially when it’s question of reducing GHG foot printing. He was an investigator in the PanLab I project under the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme. The project, ended in 2007, aimed at developing a Pan-European laboratory based on the federation of distributed test laboratories and testbeds. The PanLab I project received financial support from Quebec’s Ministère du développement économique (MDEIE) under the “PSR/SIIRI Research Assistance Program, Component 3 – Support for international research and innovation initiatives” grant to develop techniques connecting the infrastructure of Synchromedia Consortium, led by Prof. Cheriet, to the European network. Following the successful of PanLab I, Prof. Cheriet was granted the PanLab II project which received support from MDEIE in 2009. The project ended in December 2011. It focuses on the orchestration of the federation of testbeds to provide testing infrastructure for organizations. More precisely, this project focuses on the efficiency of local data centers or private clouds. This project involves as much as 20 partners from 8 countries.
On another important and challenging front, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the extremely widespread use of electronic devices and telecommunications services in the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry is emerging in Canada and throughout the world. Cloud computing, based on network virtualization, has been envisioned a promising approach to reshaping future generations of networks by enabling several heterogeneous virtual networks to efficiently share the same physical infrastructure, thus increasing energy efficiency. Bringing cloud computing from the Internet domain to Next Generation Networks (NGN) in order to provide Telco cloud services will leverage the use of NGN, reduce costs and create many value-added services. It is therefore becoming critical for world-class carriers, like Bell and Telus, to adopt a cloud-based communications model.
However, unlike public Internet clouds, a Telco cloud has specific requirements, such as performance, scalability, security and isolation. The CANARIE GreenStar Network (GSN), led by Prof. Mohamed Cheriet, recently became the first network in the world to be powered entirely by renewable energy, involving international partners from Canada, USA, Europe, and China. Although it is still at the research and educational prototype stage, with nodes and generated power currently developed on a very small scale, several Canadian and international green nodes have been federated and efficiently managed by the GSN platform.
Prof. Cheriet and his team undertake currently a new industrial project that evolves from the GSN and which will address challenges in building interoperable elastic cloud services that are green and sustainable, by designing open and scalable clouds with environmental control features that optimize workload, energy consumption and GHG emissions, and by investigating the cloud’s life-cycle and its environmental impacts. Unlike most of the server-centric public cloud solutions on the Internet, the proposed cloud model will be network-centric and target the telecommunications industry. The partnership with Ericsson and Inocybe will help to systematically investigate the Telco cloud architecture, with a view to developing optimal and reliable designs for the next generation of these clouds that are green and sustainable. This will leverage Canada’s expertise as a leader in green ICT technologies, Future Internet, and the green economy.
Research Projects
-
The goal of the GreenStar Network Project is to initiate a Canadian consortium of industry, universities and government agencies with the common goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from information & communication technology (ICT) services. The expected result is the creation of tools, protocols, procedures, use cases for a growing network of ICT service providers that offers customers the lowest price and greenest services.
The project is innovative because it focuses on the relationship between networks and green datacenters in order to provide Green ICT services. Canada and Canadians will benefit by a continued growth of ICT with significantly reduced carbon footprint and an international leadership role in Green ICT. Information & Communication Technology (ICT) is increasingly being provided by datacenters as a service, including evolving forms such cloud, grid, and utility computing, storage, and networking. The urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will affect both the providers and customers of ICT services.
. -
The Indian Ocean World: The Making of the First Global Economy in the Context of Human-Environment Interaction
This innovative project is a large, international and multi-disciplinary program of collaborative research that aims to examine the history of human-environment interaction in the Indian Ocean World—an arena of primary geo-political importance that includes eastern Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and emerging superpowers, China and India—from economic, scientific and social viewpoints using cutting edge technologies for document and data analysis, collaboration and communication. This project is being funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for a period of seven years and a budget of $2.5 million.
-
Pan European Laboratory for Next Generation Networks and Services (FP6) PANLAB MDEIE The Synchomedia consortium is a partner in the European project entitled PANLAB 1 (2006-2008). This is a specific research project that is part of a larger set of European activities: The PANLAB (Pan European Laboratory) for Next Generation Networks and Services research project. This research project is part of the CELTIC (EUREKA ICT cluster for end-to-end telecommunications systems), which in turn is part of the SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAM(PF6). The PANLAB consortium includes ten (10) well-established high-tech European companies and a university, namely, Eurescom, Alcatel, Thomson, Nokia, Telefonica, France Telecom, Italtel, DIMES Association, Fraunhofer/Focus, RAD and École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS).
-
In order to assure the leading role of Europe in the area of Telecommunications, the European commission renewed its support to the PANLAB project as part of FIRE initiative (Future Internet Research and Experimentation) of the 7th European Frame Progamme (FP7). Its core mission is the implementation of the PANLAB Laboratory, which is a federation of testbeds allowing the test and the evaluation of concepts of services, technologies, solutions systems and of business models, to minimize risks related to their introduction as commercial products.
-
MDEIE Project with IMADOC, Rennes
An MDEIE (Quebec's Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade) funding was recently awarded to Prof. Cheriet as Project Leader of SynchroMedia Consortium, under a unified international research initiative.
-
Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie
An AUF funding was awarded to Prof. Cheriet as Project Leader of SynchroMedia Consortium, under a unified international research initiative. In the same line, we joined a Francophone effort supported by AUF to support eLearning or distance learning and collaborative research. Three partners are involved: ENIT from Tunis, University of Paris 5, and SynchroMedia. We contribute to this initiative with our own SynchroMedia platform and solution, including the integration of intelligent interfaces (collaborative annotation and graphical recognition and understanding). Thus, this budget and that of the current application do not overlap.
-
Canadian Foundation for Innovation Grant
A CFI grant was awarded to Prof. Cheriet as Project Leader of SynchroMedia Consortium, under a unified international research initiative. SynchroMedia is a pan-Canadian collaborative effort which is active in the emerging field of ICT technologies, and, more specifically, in Intelligent Distributed Cooperative Environments in Telepresence, which constitutes the timely Canadian high priority of increasing knowledge advances and productivity in various critical sectors, including Intelligent Interfaces (handwritten annotations, image enhancement, visualization, indexing, and retrieval), Intelligent Cooperative Systems (distributed knowledge mining and learning) for various applications: eHealth, eDiagnostics, eLearning, eDesign, etc.
-
Along with the advent of the ever-increasing cloud computing applications on Internet, WAN-based services are contributing significantly to the overall environmental footprint of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry. With an increase in traffic demand and heterogeneity of network architecture, WAN controllers are also facing challenges of interoperation, operational efficiency and quality of service. While environmental awareness is becoming a key requirement for WAN network providers, driven by forthcoming global cap and tax,hardly any experimental models or realizations of environmental awareness exist for WANtestbed so far. As a result, researchers lack resources for analyzing the ICT carbon footprint and green strategies holistically.
-
The International, multi-disciplinary project is based on the Indian Ocean World (IOW) project with cross cultural study of literary networks in a global context by integrating new image processing techniques with social network analysis. In the project, four teams are divided between humanities and engineering, from the U.S., Canada and Netherlands which they undertake the cross-cultural study of literary networks and the onset various global modernisms across China, the Middle East and Europe. This project seeks to combine image processing network science and test analysis to study cultures of literary communication within a global context.
-
Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the extremely widespread use of electronic devices and telecommunications services in the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry is emerging in Canada and throughout the world. Cloud computing, based on virtualization, has been envisioned as a promising approach to reshaping future generations of networks by enabling several tenants to efficiently share the same physical infrastructure, thus increasing energy efficiency. Bringing cloud computing from the Internet domain to Next Generation Networks (NGN) in order to provide Telco cloud services will leverage the use of NGN, reduce costs and create many value-added services. It is therefore becoming critical for world-class carriers, like Bell and Telus, to adopt a cloud-based communications model.
-
The Sustainable Smart ÉTS Residence (Star ÉTS) project is aimed at building a platform for supporting the research program of the Canada Research Chair (CRC) Tier 1 on Sustainable Smart Eco-Cloud held by Professor Mohamed Cheriet. A new class of smart grids and smart city applications will be developed on the platform, as a result of the Chair program, for the first green digital university campus in Canada; more specifically, to orchestrate a student residence, and ultimately the campus, with the help of cloud-based services, like virtual Internet Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), smart meters, and Web services. This can be viewed, albeit on a much smaller scale, as a smart city, like Austin, Québec, to which StarÉTS will be linked through a gigabit connection over the Reseau d’Informations Scientifiques du Québec (RISQ) network. Austin is the first city in Canada, to adopt carbon-neutral digital development, in an effort to become an international centre for innovative green technologies.
Partners
Research Support
Awarded Active
-
2020-05 2013-05
-
Canada Research Chair on Sustainable Smart Eco-Cloud - Research Chair
Principal Applicant
Funding Sources: Canada Research Chair (CRC)- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
-
-
2019-04 2013-04
-
Centre interdisciplinaire sur l'opérationnalisation du développement durable (CIROD) - Grant
Co-Applicant
Funding Sources: Centre d'excellence Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT)
-
-
2018-06 2013-06
-
Sustainable Smart ÉTS Residence testbed - Grant
Principal Applicant
Funding Sources: Canada Research Chair -Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
-
-
2017-04 2010-04
-
The Indian Ocean World: The Making of the First Global Economy in the Context of Human-Environment Interaction - Grant
Co-investigator
Funding Sources: Strategic Program, Major Collaborative Research Initiative Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)
Canada Research Chair (CRC) Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Synchromedia, McGill, ETS, Victoria, Western Ontario, Western Australian Museum, etc.
-
-
2015-09 2012-09
-
Integrated tracing, profiling and debugging for tuning large heterogeneous clusters - Grant
Co-investigator
Funding Sources: SCRD Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS)
CRD PROMPT-Québec-CRD Ericsson Research Canada
CRD Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)-CRD Revolution Linux
-
-
2015-09 2012-04
-
Sustainable and Green Telco Cloud - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: SCRD-EcoloTIC Ericsson Research Canada
CDR-EcoloTIC Inocybe Technologies Inc.
CRD Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)-CRD Revolution Linux
-
-
2015-04 2013-04
-
Enabling Telco Cloud’s Small Cell service in Sustainable Smart ÉTS Residence - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: RFP Ericsson Research Canada
-
-
2014-03 2009-04
-
Digital access and transcription of historical and complex document images - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: Subvention à la découverte Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
>
-
-
2013-09 2011-09
-
ÉTS Chair on Green Cloud Computing and Intelligent Applications - Research Chair
Principal Applicant
Funding Sources: SInstitutional Chair École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS)
-
Awarded Completed
-
2012-03 2009-01
-
Green Star Network - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: SGreen IT Program CANARIE Inc (Ottawa, ON)
-
-
2011-12 2008-06
-
Panlab II, Pan European Laboratory for Next Generation of Networks and Services - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: SPSR-SIIRI Ministère du développement économique, de l'innovation et de l'exportation (MDEIE)
-
-
2011-08 2008-09
-
ICIOS: Interface de communication intelligente orientée stylo pour le soutien du travail collaboratif - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: PSR-SIIRI volet international Ministère du développement économique, de l'innovation et de l'exportation (MDEIE)
-
-
2010-09 2009-09
-
IGreen ICT Consortium - Grant
Co-investigator
Funding Sources: Canada-California Strategic Innovation Partnership Ministère du développement économique, de l'innovation et de l'exportation (MDEIE)
-
-
2010-05 2008-05
-
Pérennisation de l'initiation d'une co-diplômation de formation à la recherche en Traitement de l'Information et Vivant - Grant
Co-investigator
Funding Sources: PCSI Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF)
-
-
2010-04 2005-04
-
Synchromédia : Un laboratoire expérimental pour le soutien de travail collaboratif - Grant
Principal Investigator
Funding Sources: Fonds d'innovation Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)
-