Shahid Hussain Bokhari
Encyclopedia
Shahid H. Bokhari is a highly cited Pakistan
i researcher in the field of parallel
and distributed computing
. He is a fellow
of both IEEE and ACM
. Bokhari's ACM Fellow citation states that he received the award for his "research contributions to automatic load balancing and partitioning of distributed processes", while his IEEE Fellow award recognizes his "contributions to the mapping problem in parallel and distributed computing".
At the time of his retirement in 2005, Bokhari was the only IEEE/ACM Fellow and the only Pakistani ISI Highly Cited Researcher resident in Pakistan. Bokhari's resignation led to a letter-writing campaign by several of his former students who were dismayed at what they claimed to be mismanagement at the state-run Pakistani universities.
Shahid Bokhari received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore in 1974.
He then received his M.S.
and Ph.D.
in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts
, Amherst
in 1976 and 1978, respectively.
He was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan from 1980 to 2005 where he held the position of a Professor. He also served as Director of the Computer Systems Laboratory, Communications Laboratory and the Postgraduate Program at the Department of Electrical Engineering as well as the Directorate of Research Extension & Advisory Services of the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. He purportedly tendered his resignation from the Department of Electrical Engineering University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore over a dispute with the administration, notably the Vice-Chancellor Lt. Gen. (retd.) M. Akram and the Chairman of Department of Electrical Engineering Prof. M. Saleem Mian, and dissatisfaction with the policies of the country's Higher Education Commission
(HEC). Bokhari maintains he did not resign under protest for not being appointed Chairman of Department, although his critics claim otherwise.
Bokhari has been associated with the Institute for Computer Applications in Science & Engineering (ICASE) at NASA
Langley Research Center
in Hampton
, Virginia
, where he spent a total of about seven years as a visiting scientist or consultant over the period 1978-1998.
Other institutions that he has been associated with as a researcher include the University of Colorado
(USA), Stuttgart
University (Germany), University of Vienna
(Austria), and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan.
and bioinformatics
. He is, particularly, interested in parallel algorithms for DNA
alignment and assembly.
One of Bokhari's most-cited research publication: "On the Mapping Problem" (1981) concerns the assignment of subtasks for distributed computation to processors in such a way that the subtasks that communicate with each other are, to the extent possible, assigned to the processors that are adjacent to each other within the communication network. His paper relates this problem to more abstract graph-theoretical problems, in particular, graph isomorphism
. He also relates the problem to the representation of sparse linear systems
as band matrices
with low bandwidth, and to the quadratic assignment problem
. This is the work for which Bokhari was cited in his IEEE Fellow award.
Several other highly-cited papers of Bokhari concern the partitioning and load balancing
problems in distributed computing, the topic mentioned in his ACM Fellow award citation. As with the Mapping Problem, this concerns assignment of tasks to processors, but in a more general setting in which a processor may handle multiple tasks; the problem is to perform this assignment in such a way that heavily-communicating pairs of tasks are assigned to the same processor, while keeping the amount of work assigned to processors relatively even.
Bokhari's research with Marsha Berger (Berger and Bokhari 1987) concerns versions of the partitioning problem in which different tasks may have greatly differing workloads; he gives as an application the distributed solution of nonlinear partial differential equations. The technique introduced in this paper, recursive coordinate bisection, repeatedly divides the geometric problem domain along coordinate axes into two subdomains of equal workload until the number of subdomains formed equals the number of processors. However, as Simon writes, although this method is conceptually very simple it tends to produce long and thin or even disconnected subdomains. A later refinement of this technique, parametric binary dissection (Bokhari, Crockett, and Nicol 1993) combines shape information with load balancing in its partitioning decisions in an attempt to mitigate this problem. Another of Bokhari's papers (Bokhari 1988), his third most-highly cited, provides an algorithm that optimally solves the partitioning problem for several broad classes of distributed algorithm.
41 citations.
245 citations.
73 citations.
61 citations.
298 citations.
140 citations.
49 citations.
49 citations.
A longer list of his publications is available from the DBLP Bibliography Server. Citation counts are derived from a Google Scholar search.
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i researcher in the field of parallel
Parallel computing
Parallel computing is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously, operating on the principle that large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which are then solved concurrently . There are several different forms of parallel computing: bit-level,...
and distributed computing
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
. He is a fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of both IEEE and ACM
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
. Bokhari's ACM Fellow citation states that he received the award for his "research contributions to automatic load balancing and partitioning of distributed processes", while his IEEE Fellow award recognizes his "contributions to the mapping problem in parallel and distributed computing".
At the time of his retirement in 2005, Bokhari was the only IEEE/ACM Fellow and the only Pakistani ISI Highly Cited Researcher resident in Pakistan. Bokhari's resignation led to a letter-writing campaign by several of his former students who were dismayed at what they claimed to be mismanagement at the state-run Pakistani universities.
Biography
A biography of Bokhari can be found at the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Ohio State University, where Dr. Bokhari has been a visiting researcher.Shahid Bokhari received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
from the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore in 1974.
He then received his M.S.
Master of Science
A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...
and Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
, Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
in 1976 and 1978, respectively.
He was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan from 1980 to 2005 where he held the position of a Professor. He also served as Director of the Computer Systems Laboratory, Communications Laboratory and the Postgraduate Program at the Department of Electrical Engineering as well as the Directorate of Research Extension & Advisory Services of the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. He purportedly tendered his resignation from the Department of Electrical Engineering University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore over a dispute with the administration, notably the Vice-Chancellor Lt. Gen. (retd.) M. Akram and the Chairman of Department of Electrical Engineering Prof. M. Saleem Mian, and dissatisfaction with the policies of the country's Higher Education Commission
Higher Education Commission
The Higher Education Commission , formerly the University Grant Commission, is the primary regulator of higher education in Pakistan. It also facilitated the development of higher educational system in Pakistan. Its main purpose was to upgrade universities in Pakistan to be centres of education,...
(HEC). Bokhari maintains he did not resign under protest for not being appointed Chairman of Department, although his critics claim otherwise.
Bokhari has been associated with the Institute for Computer Applications in Science & Engineering (ICASE) at NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...
in Hampton
Hampton, Virginia
Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, where he spent a total of about seven years as a visiting scientist or consultant over the period 1978-1998.
Other institutions that he has been associated with as a researcher include the University of Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
(USA), Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
University (Germany), University of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(Austria), and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan.
Research interests
Bokhari's research interests include parallel and distributed computing, applied to computational biologyComputational biology
Computational biology involves the development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social systems...
and bioinformatics
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
. He is, particularly, interested in parallel algorithms for DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
alignment and assembly.
One of Bokhari's most-cited research publication: "On the Mapping Problem" (1981) concerns the assignment of subtasks for distributed computation to processors in such a way that the subtasks that communicate with each other are, to the extent possible, assigned to the processors that are adjacent to each other within the communication network. His paper relates this problem to more abstract graph-theoretical problems, in particular, graph isomorphism
Graph isomorphism
In graph theory, an isomorphism of graphs G and H is a bijection between the vertex sets of G and H f \colon V \to V \,\!such that any two vertices u and v of G are adjacent in G if and only if ƒ and ƒ are adjacent in H...
. He also relates the problem to the representation of sparse linear systems
Sparse matrix
In the subfield of numerical analysis, a sparse matrix is a matrix populated primarily with zeros . The term itself was coined by Harry M. Markowitz....
as band matrices
Band matrix
In mathematics, particularly matrix theory, a band matrix is a sparse matrix whose non-zero entries are confined to a diagonal band, comprising the main diagonal and zero or more diagonals on either side.-Matrix bandwidth:...
with low bandwidth, and to the quadratic assignment problem
Quadratic assignment problem
The quadratic assignment problem is one of fundamental combinatorial optimization problems in the branch of optimization or operations research in mathematics, from the category of the facilities location problems....
. This is the work for which Bokhari was cited in his IEEE Fellow award.
Several other highly-cited papers of Bokhari concern the partitioning and load balancing
Load balancing (computing)
Load balancing is a computer networking methodology to distribute workload across multiple computers or a computer cluster, network links, central processing units, disk drives, or other resources, to achieve optimal resource utilization, maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid...
problems in distributed computing, the topic mentioned in his ACM Fellow award citation. As with the Mapping Problem, this concerns assignment of tasks to processors, but in a more general setting in which a processor may handle multiple tasks; the problem is to perform this assignment in such a way that heavily-communicating pairs of tasks are assigned to the same processor, while keeping the amount of work assigned to processors relatively even.
Bokhari's research with Marsha Berger (Berger and Bokhari 1987) concerns versions of the partitioning problem in which different tasks may have greatly differing workloads; he gives as an application the distributed solution of nonlinear partial differential equations. The technique introduced in this paper, recursive coordinate bisection, repeatedly divides the geometric problem domain along coordinate axes into two subdomains of equal workload until the number of subdomains formed equals the number of processors. However, as Simon writes, although this method is conceptually very simple it tends to produce long and thin or even disconnected subdomains. A later refinement of this technique, parametric binary dissection (Bokhari, Crockett, and Nicol 1993) combines shape information with load balancing in its partitioning decisions in an attempt to mitigate this problem. Another of Bokhari's papers (Bokhari 1988), his third most-highly cited, provides an algorithm that optimally solves the partitioning problem for several broad classes of distributed algorithm.
Papers
45 citations.41 citations.
245 citations.
73 citations.
61 citations.
298 citations.
140 citations.
49 citations.
49 citations.
A longer list of his publications is available from the DBLP Bibliography Server. Citation counts are derived from a Google Scholar search.
External links
- Shahid Hussain Bokhari at Facebook