College of Information Technology Records a Distinguished Scientific Presence and a Strong Academic Impact at the International NTICT’25 Conference
Duhaa Fadill Abbas
Within the framework of its active scientific engagement and qualitative contribution to international academic forums, the College of Information Technology recorded a distinguished scientific imprint at the 9th International Conference on Recent Trends in Information and Communication Technology Applications (NTICT’25). The conference was organized by the University of Information and Communications Technology in cooperation with Al-Zahraa University (Peace Be Upon Her) for Women in Karbala, under the sponsorship of the international publishing house Springer, and was held on 17–18 December 2025, with wide participation from academic and research elites from inside and outside Iraq.
The participation of the College of Information Technology reaffirmed its pioneering role in supporting scientific research and contributing effectively to international scientific events, through the active involvement of its faculty members and researchers in organizational committees and scientific sessions, as well as through the presentation of high-quality research papers reflecting the college’s advanced academic standing.
The conference witnessed a prominent organizational role by the college’s faculty members, as Professor Dr. Safaa Ubaid Mahdi, faculty member in the Department of Cybersecurity, participated as a member of the conference’s Organizing Committee, contributing significantly to the success of its activities and scientific management. In addition, Professor Dr. Ahmed Habib Al-Azzawi, faculty member in the Department of Software Engineering, chaired the first scientific session of the conference’s first day, entitled AI and Machine Learning, which addressed the latest research developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
At the level of research contributions, Assistant Professor Dr. Amir Kazem Hadi, faculty member in the Department of Information Networks, presented a research paper entitled“Large Language Models and Hybrid Prompt Engineering for Secure Processing in Cloud Environments”during the first session of the second day. The study proposed innovative solutions to enhance data security in cloud computing environments by leveraging advanced artificial intelligence models.
Moreover, Professor Dr. Israa Hadi Ali and PhD candidate Zainab Adnan Jawad from the Department of Software Engineering presented a distinguished research paper entitled“MSAD-Swin UNETR: A Hybrid Transformer–CNN Model with a Multi-Scale Attention Decoder for Accurate 3D Medical Image Segmentation”,which was delivered during the first session of the conference’s first day. The research highlighted an advanced framework for three-dimensional medical image segmentation that integrates convolutional neural networks with Transformer-based architectures, achieving superior performance in accurately delineating anatomical boundaries. These results support the clinical applicability of artificial intelligence techniques in diagnosis and treatment planning.
In the same context, Assistant Professor Dr. Sura Zaki Naji, Head of the Department of Software Engineering, together with PhD candidate Sura Ibrahim Mohammed, presented a research paper entitled“Node-Level Graph Attention with Thresholding Policies for Link Prediction”within the first session of the second day under the Multidisciplinary Tracks. The study addressed complex challenges in gene regulatory networks by proposing a framework based on Graph Attention Networks (GAT), contributing to improved accuracy in predicting regulatory links and enabling the discovery of new biologically meaningful relationships with high reliability.
These distinguished scientific contributions reflect the high academic caliber of the College of Information Technology and its influential role in producing rigorous scientific knowledge and strengthening its presence in international conferences. Such achievements further consolidate the college’s academic reputation and support its continued advancement in the fields of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, and information and communication technologies.