Hiba Al Smadi

dblp:203/2757 · also Hiba Alsmadi · DBLP profile ↗
← Back
11ranked-venue papers
2as first author
7since 2021 · last 2025
0009-0002-0531-1177ORCID · corroborated

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Applied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 10 · 2 first-author · 6 since 2021Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 1 · 1 since 2021
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 Developing AI Agents for Course Planning: A Fine-Tuned LLaMA-3 Framework with Retrieval-Augmented Generation
abstract
Higher education institutions require course leaders to continuously develop and refine academic modules to align with evolving educational standards and university guidelines. This paper presents a domain-specific AI-powered assistant developed for Teesside University that leverages a fine-tuned LLaMA-3.2-3B-Instruct model integrated with Retrieval-Augmented Generation and an agentic decision-making layer. The system generates policy-compliant course content using Low-Rank Adaptation and 4-bit quantisation for efficient training on limited hardware. A hybrid retrieval system combining FAISS for dense semantic search and BM25 for lexical matching grounds responses in institutional documents. Evaluation demonstrates a perplexity of 7.38, Hits@3 of$\mathbf{1. 0 0}$, cosine similarity of$\mathbf{0. 7 5 6 5}$, and hallucination rate of 0.00. Human evaluators rated outputs with an average score of 8.25 out of 10 across relevance, fluency, completeness, and organisation metrics, confirming the system's practical utility in academic planning while ensuring alignment with educational policy.
Chede Edward Ekene, Naeimeh Nourmohammadi, Hiba Al Smadi, Ala S. Al Kafri, Gok Kandasamy
DeSE3
2025 Tactical Analysis and Opponent Strategy Prediction for Middlesbrough FC Using Machine Learning and Business Intelligence
abstract
Modern football increasingly relies on data-driven decision-making to inform tactics, selection, and in-game adjustments. This work develops a club-specific framework that couples supervised machine learning (ML) with Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards to predict match outcomes and surface opponent tendencies that coaches can act on. Using$\mathbf{1, 5 4 4}$match-level rows and 1,355 engineered features covering technical, tactical, and event metrics for Change for a Championship Football Team, we trained and compared Logistic Regression, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, XGBoost, Support Vector Machine (SVM), k-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Naïve Bayes, and an Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Models were evaluated with accuracy, precision/recall/F1, confusion matrices, ROC-AUC (one-vs-rest), and 5-fold cross-validation; SHAP values supported post-hoc explainability. A Power BI dashboard operationalizes predictions via modules for overview KPIs, match statistics, opponent strategy, possession/passing dynamics, and forecasting.
Samson Ijogho, Sumaia Elkazza, Hiba Al Smadi, Ala S. Al Kafri, Michael Lawson
DeSE3
2025 Moving Beyond Chance to Accurately Predict Football Wins with Data-Driven Insights
abstract
This study applies machine learning techniques to predict football match outcomes in the EFL (English Football League) Championship, emphasising the identification of key performance metrics that contribute to team success. Using over 4,000 team-level match records, three models, Logistic Regression (LR), Decision Tree, and Neural Network, were evaluated. LR achieved the highest accuracy (72.34), outperforming the more complex models in predicting Wins, with an F1 of 0.82 and Losses (0.79), though all models struggled with Draws. Feature importance analysis revealed that offensive metrics, such as goals from set pieces, possession phases, and attacking transitions, were the most influential predictors of success. Defensively, factors like pressure on shots and vulnerability to bypassed defenders negatively impacted outcomes. While LR offered interpretable global feature insights, it lacks the ability to explain individual team predictions, a limitation that future work could address using tree-based or attention-driven models capable of producing local, instance-level explanations. These findings reinforce the value of data-driven approaches in football analytics, offering both predictive accuracy and tactical insight.
Joseph Maugbe Jacob, Aliyu Abubakar, Hiba Al Smadi, Michael Lawson, Ala S. Al Kafri
DeSE3
2025 AI-Driven Feedback for Physiotherapy Assessments
abstract
Physiotherapy education often suffers from inconsistencies and delays in delivering meaningful feedback during practical assessments. This paper presents an AI-driven, keyword-based feedback generation system designed to address these limitations by producing structured, personalised, and timely feedback aligned with clinical evaluation standards. The approach builds on previous keyword-tagged natural language feedback systems and introduces a more advanced methodology through the use of Meta's Llama 4 Scout, a large-scale language model fine-tuned using Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA). A carefully preprocessed dataset of physiotherapy assessments was utilised, and the system was trained using a structured prompt framework that integrates assessment keywords and improvement cues to synthesise relevant textual responses. This methodology enables the generation of consistent feedback output across diverse clinical contexts while reducing the manual workload of educators. Qualitative evaluation by physiotherapy educators confirmed that the model maintains appropriate clinical terminology, structural consistency, and pedagogical tone, outperforming general-purpose models in domain-specific relevance. The model design emphasises scalability, efficiency, and domain alignment in physiotherapy training environments. This study contributes to the advancement of AI-assisted education tools and highlights the role of large language models in clinical training domains. While evaluation is ongoing, this work lays a robust foundation for future research in automated feedback for skill-based learning disciplines such as physiotherapy.
Hamza Sarfraz, Naeimeh Nourmohammadi, Hiba Al Smadi, Ala S. Al Kafri, Gok Kandasamy
DeSE3
2024 AI-Enabled Diagnosis of Lumbar Spinal Stenosis from Axial MR Images Using Convolutional Neural Network and Image Explainer
abstract
Lower back pain (LBP) is a global medical condition that affects more than $\mathbf{8 0 \%}$ of people at least once in their lifetime. Various abnormal conditions could cause LBP. One of these conditions is Lumbar Spinal Stenosis (LSS), which is usually a serious condition, hence the need for its prompt diagnosis. The visual assessment process of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is expensive in terms of time and effort and prone to delays. The integration of an AI-enabled system to help clinicians in diagnosing patients with LBP is expected to alleviate the burden on radiologists and foster a less time-consuming and cost-efficient diagnostic process. In this paper, a convolutional neural network (CNN) model has been built to diagnose T2-weighted (T2W) axial MRI scans. The model detects LSS in these scans and has achieved remarkable accuracy and recall of $\mathbf{9 1 \%}$ and $\mathbf{9 6 \%}$, respectively. Explainable AI (XAI) using LIME’s ImageExplainer was also implemented to ensure the model offers explainable insights. This is to ensure the model is not only accurate but also reliable.
Uthman O. Oyebanji, Ala S. Al Kafri, Hiba Al Smadi, Mohammad Alkasasbeh, Wasiq Khan
DeSE3
2024 Utilising Artificial Intelligence to Augment Physiotherapy Education: A Video-Based Analysis and Grading System for Evaluating Student Therapists' Performance
abstract
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has ushered in new opportunities for enhancing physiotherapy education. This study introduces an innovative AI-based tool that integrates computer vision and speech recognition to provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of physiotherapy students’ practical skills. Designed to surpass the limitations of traditional, subjective methods, this system analyses both physical movements and verbal interactions during exams, categorizing student performance into ‘Good’, ‘Average’, or ‘Brief’ to offer a multifaceted evaluation of their clinical abilities. The research aimed to develop and validate a system that accurately captures and analyses nuanced physical and verbal behaviours in physiotherapy practical exams. The system was trained and tested on a curated dataset of recorded sessions, where it demonstrated high precision, achieving an overall accuracy of 89% in identifying specific actions performed by students. These results underscore the system’s capability to enhance the objectivity and depth of practical assessments significantly. This study marks a significant contribution to healthcare education by showing the effectiveness of AI technologies in assessing practical and communication skills. The AI-assisted tool not only improves the educational process but also better prepares students for clinical practice. The findings suggest a model for future AI integration in professional healthcare training and assessment, highlighting the transformative potential of AI in advancing physiotherapy education.
Victor Umesiobi, Hiba Al Smadi, Victor Hammond, Gok Kandasamy, Ala S. Al Kafri
DeSE2
2024 Deep face profiler (DeFaP): Towards explicit, non-restrained, non-invasive, facial and gaze comprehension
abstract
Eye tracking and head pose estimation (HPE) have previously lacked reliability, interpretability, and comprehensibility. For instance, many works rely on traditional computer vision methods, which may not perform well in dynamic and realistic environments. Recently, a widespread trend has emerged, leveraging deep learning for HPE specifically framed as a regression task; however, considering the real-time applications, the problem could be better formulated as classification (e.g., left, centre, right head pose and gaze) using a hybrid approach. For the first time, we present a complete facial profiling approach to extract micro and macro facial movement, gaze, and eye state features, which can be used for various applications related to comprehension analysis. The multi-model approach provides discrete human-understandable head pose estimations utilising deep transfer learning, a newly introduced method of head roll calculation, gaze estimation via iris detection, and eye state estimation (i.e. , open or closed). Unlike existing works, this approach can automatically analyse the input image or video frame to produce human-understandable binary codes (e.g., eye open or close, looking left or right, etc.) for each facial component ( aka face channels). The proposed approach is validated on multiple standard datasets, indicating outperformance compared to existing methods in several aspects, including reliability, generalisation, completeness, and interpretability. This work will significantly impact several diverse domains, including psychological and cognitive tasks with a broad scope of applications, such as in police interrogations and investigations, animal behaviour, and smart applications, including driver behaviour analysis, student attention measurement, and automated camera flashes.
Wasiq Khan, Luke K. Topham, Hiba Al Smadi, Ala S. Al Kafri, Hoshang Kolivand
Expert Syst. Appl.3
2019 An Insight into ICP Monitoring of Patients with Hydrocephalus using Data Science Approach
abstract
Intracranial pressure (ICP) could be an indicator of a neurological disorder known as hydrocephalus, which is currently managed by shunting procedure. This paper investigates the current advances of shunting valves and provides an overview of ICP readings interpretation from a medical point of view with reference to Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, UK. Moreover, this paper helps to express ICP readings using advanced data science approach and prepares for implementing intelligent approaches as an alternative pathway to improve the use of ICP within the current medical system. It is assumed that this paper would help specialists and non-specialists in an informative way to comprehend ICP readings. It also allows combining ICP reading with other parameters to derive a proper action with respect to patients with hydrocephalus.
Hiba Al Smadi, Ahmed J. Aljaaf, Abir Jaafar Hussain, Jamila Mustafina, Rawaa Al-Jumeily, Thar Baker, Conor Mallucci
AICCSA1
2018 The Development of an Arches Resource Model for Recording Radiocarbon Information
abstract
Data and databases play an important role in managing heritage resources. Arches software is being used to design and build a prototype radiocarbon date database or model in order to improve the way in which disparate radiocarbon datasets are stored and shared. The database is one of many resource models designed within an Arches framework. The model complies with the Council of Museums Conceptual Reference Model, which is an international standard for the recording of heritage data. Arches is web-based, meaning that the radiocarbon database will be fully accessible online for data entry, querying and report production. The resource model will provide the next generation standard for managing radiocarbon datasets and linking them with other forms of heritage data in a highly structured and coherent manner.
Hiba Al Smadi, Fiona J. Petcher, Dhiya Al-Jumeily, Abir Jaafar Hussain, Carl Chalmers, Richard P. Jennings
DeSE1
2017 Detecting the Disc Herniation in Segmented Lumbar Spine MR Image Using Centroid Distance Function
abstract
Disc herniation is considered as the main cause for lower back pain (LBP), a health issue that affects a very high proportion of the UK population and is costing the UK government over £1.3 million per day in health care cost. Currently, the process to diagnose the cause of LBP involves a visual examination of a large number of Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) but this process is both expensive in terms time and effort. Automatic detection of the lumbar disc herniation will reduce the time to diagnose and detect the cause of LBP by the orthopedist. There has been very limited progress towards automatic detection of disc herniation and all of the proposed techniques still require substantial manual intervention in many of the stages. Our analysis of the problem suggests that using the axial view of the MRI could potentially improve the outcome as opposed to the sagittal view used by these techniques. In this paper, we propose using the Centroid Distance Function as a shape feature of a segmented disc MRI taken from the axial view. Visual observation of the feature indicates that the feature could be used as a suitable indicator of the presence of herniation in the lumbar disc
Ala S. Al Kafri, Sud Sudirman, Abir Jaafar Hussain, Paul Fergus, Dhiya Al-Jumeily, Hiba Al Smadi, Mohammed Khalaf 0001, Mohammed Al-Jumaily, Wasfi Al-Rashdan, Mohammad Bashtawi
DeSE6
2017 Lumbar Spine Discs Labeling Using Axial View MRI Based on the Pixels Coordinate and Gray Level Features
Ala S. Al Kafri, Sud Sudirman, Abir Jaafar Hussain, Paul Fergus, Dhiya Al-Jumeily, Hiba Al Smadi, Mohammed Khalaf 0001, Mohammed Al-Jumaily, Wasfi Al-Rashdan, Mohammad Bashtawi, Jamila Mustafina
ICIC (3)6