Specialization

Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Human Computer Interfaces, Entrepreneurial Research

Email

karun.verma@thapar.edu

Education
2020–2020  PostDoc., Trinity College, Dublin
Supervised Machine Learning: Classification Trees with High-Cardinality Categorical Variables
2010–2017  Ph.D., Thapar University, Patiala, A Grade
Computer Science and Engineering
2002–2004 M.E., Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, 70%
Computer Science and Engineering (IT)
1997-2001  B.Tech, Baba Banda Singh Bahdur Engineering College, Fatehgarh Sahib, 65%
Computer Science and Engineering

Ph.D. thesis
title Efficient Hidden Markov Models for Online Handwritten Gurmukhi Script Recog- nition
supervisors   Dr.  Rajendra Kumar Sharma
description Research on developing online handwriting recognition systems for some of Indian languages, like, Bangla, Hindi, Malyalam, Tamil and Telugu have been conducted by many researchers in past decade. In this thesis, we have worked for the development of online handwritten character recognition system for Punjabi language. This language is popular among the people living in Punjab, a North Indian state and also among Indians living in other parts of the world such as Australia, Canada, New  Zealand  and  USA.  Gurmukhi  is  the  script used to write this language. Some researchers, have also worked on building online handwriting recognition systems for Gurmukhi script. This thesis carries forward the work done by these researchers. An effort has also been made to improve the classification strategies for the recognition of Gurmukhi characters in an online handwritten recognition environment.

Experience
2021–2022   Associate Professor, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala
Teaching students in department of Computer Science and Engineering
2007–2021   Assistant Professor, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala
Teaching students in department of Computer Science and Engineering
 2004–2007 System Analyst, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala
Looking after IT infrastructure of School of Mathematics
2001–2002  Lecturer, Khalsa College, Ludhiana
Teaching BCA, and MCA Students

Projects  Undertaken
2011–2015 Co-PI, Prosodically Guided Phonetic Engine for Searching Speech Databases in Indian Languages, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Budget:
30.05 Lakhs, Status: Completed
Development of prosody knowledge from Punjabi language in 3 different contexts, namely, read speech, lecture mode and conversational speech.
Improve the performance of the Phonetic Engine (PE) using the knowledge at the signal, prosody and language levels.
This involves development of signal processing methods to derive robust acoustic- phonetic features, analysis of large amount of data to derive prosody and language constraints, and incorporation for these constraints at various stages of implementation of the PE.
2020–2022 Co-PI, Digital Village: A Data-Driven Approach to Precision Agriculture in Small Farms, TIET-TAU Center of Excellence for Food Security (T2CEFS), Status: Ongoing
Under this initiative TIET-TAU Center of Excellence for Food Security (T2CEFS) has been established. The various cutting edge research projects are undertaken under this Center of Excellence including Digital Village: A Data-Driven Approach to Precision Agriculture in Small Farms.
Artificial Intelligence Based Digital Village System
A Survey Mobile App to collect onsite data from the field of the farmers. Visual data of crops for weed detection and crop diseases identification. Detection of weed and crop disease detection systems
Forecasting environmental parameters. Capture and analyze remote sensing data

Administrative Experience
Vice President, Entrepreneurship Development Cell, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala
Manager, Design Lab at Venture Lab, Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala In-charge, Alumni Relations Computer Science and Engineering Department, Patiala

Publications
Goyal, K., Kumar, P., Verma, K., (2022). “AI-based fruit identification and quality detection system.” in: Multimedia Tools and Applications, pp. 1–32.
Walia, A. S., Srivastava, V., Verma, K., (2022). “Modelling of Surface Roughness and Change in Out-of-Roundness of Tool during Electrical Discharge Machining with Cermet Tool Tip Using Machine Learning.” in: Processes-22 10.2 : 252, pp. 1–32.
Arora, V., Verma, K., Leekha, R. S., Lee, K., Choi, C., Gupta, T., Bhatia, K., (2021). “Transfer Learning Model to Indicate Heart Health Status Using Phonocardiogram.” in: Processes-22 10.2 : 252, pp. 1–32.
Goyal, K., Kumar, P., Verma, K., (2021). “Food Adulteration Detection using Artificial
 Intelligence: A Systematic Review.” in: Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering
10.2 : 252, pp. 1–30.
Arora, V., Ng, E. Y.-K., Leekha, R. S.,  Verma,  K., Gupta, T., Srinivasan, K., (2020). “Health of things model for classifying human heart sound signals using co-occurrence matrix and spectrogram.” in: Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology 20.06, p. 2050040.
Mandeep, S., Verma, K., Bob, G., Ramandeep, K., (2018). “Online Handwritten Gurmukhi Character Recognition using Hybrid Feature Set.” in: International Journal of Engineering & Technology 7.4, pp. 90–95.
Verma, K., Sharma, R., (2018). “An efficient writing-zone identification technique for online handwritten Gurmukhi character recognition.” in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, India Section A: Physical Sciences 88.2, pp. 297–307.
– (2017). “Recognition of online handwritten Gurmukhi characters based on zone and stroke identification.” in: Sadhana 42.5, pp. 1–12.
Verma, K., Sharma, R. K., (2017). “Comparison of HMM-and SVM-based stroke classifiers for Gurmukhi script.” in: Neural Computing and Applications 28.1, pp. 51–63.
Sharma, R., Sharma, P., Sharma, N., Singh, H., Verma, K., Kumar, R., Kumar, R., (2013). “Development of OHWR System for Gurmukhi.” in: VishwaBharat@tdil 39.1, pp. 55–66.
Chaudhary, A., Verma, B., Gupta, S., (2012). “Prosperity, Vulnerabilities and Security Threats in WSN.” in: International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science 3.5, pp. 55–66.
Sandal, S., Verma, K., (2012b). “Power management techniques in Wireless Sensor Network.” in: International Journal of Advances in Computing and Information Technology 1.5, pp. 237– 244.
Wadhwa, D., Verma, K., (2012a). “Online handwriting recognition of hindi numerals using svm.” in: International Journal of Computer Applications 48.11, pp. 13–17.
Gupta, B., Garg, D., Verma, K., (2011a). “A Novel Approach to Mine Frequent Item Sets Using Maximal Apriori and FP-Tree Method.” in: International Journal of Advance Computing 3.2, pp. 1–7.
Kumar, T., Verma, K., (2010a). “A Theory Based on Conversion of RGB image to Gray image.” in: International Journal of Computer Applications 7.2, pp. 7–10.
Kumar, T., Verma, K., (2010b). “Soft Computing Techniques: A comparison For Face Detection.” in: PRAGYAAN: Journal of Information Technology 8.3, pp. 20–25.
Book Authored
Verma, K., Laura, A. K., (2010). Software testing and Quality Management. Thapar University, Patiala.
 

Conference Articles
Ghodgaonkar, A., Surana, B., Kumar, P., Verma, K., Kommanaboina, B., Shacham- Diamand, Y., (2022). “Farmers’ Survey App - An Interactive Open-Source Application for Agricultural Survey.” in: Advanced Computing. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 419–430. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Mishra, A., Singh, S., Verma, K., Bhatia, P., Ghosh, M., Shacham-Diamand, Y., (2022). “Green Energy-Based Efficient IoT Sensor Network for Small Farms.” in: International Congress of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani
 Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Springer. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 15–27. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Kaur, S., Verma, K., (2020). “Handwritten Devanagari Character Generation  Using Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network.” in: Soft Computing: Theories and Applications. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Cham: Springer, Singapore, pp. 1243–1253. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1. Singh, H., Sharma, R.  K.,  Kumar,  R.,  Verma,  K.,  Kumar,  R.,  Kumar,  M.,  (2019). “A benchmark dataset of online handwritten gurmukhi script words and numerals.” in: International Conference on Computer Vision and Image Processing. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Springer, Singapore. Cham: Springer, Singapore, pp. 457–466. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Kaur, M., Verma, K., (2016). “A novel hybrid technique for low exposure image en- hancement using sub-imge histogram equilization and artificial neural network.” in: 2016 International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies (ICICT). Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. IEEE. Cham: Springer, Singapore, pp. 1–5. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Pagare, G., Verma, K., (2015a). “Associative Memory model for distorted on-line De- vanagari character recognition.” in: 2015 Fifth International Conference on Advances in Computing and Communications (ICACC). Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. IEEE. Cham: Springer, Singapore, pp. 46–49. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Solanki, R. K., Verma, K., Kumar, R., (2015a). “Spam filtering using hybrid local-global Naive Bayes classifier.” in: 2015 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Com- munications and Informatics (ICACCI). Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. IEEE. Cham: Springer, Singapore, pp. 829–833. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Verma, K., Sharma, R. K., (2015a). “Performance analysis of zone based features for online handwritten Gurmukhi script recognition using support vector machine.” in: Progress in systems engineering. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. Cham: Springer, Cham, pp. 747–753. ISBN: 978-3- 030-95502-1.
Verma, K., Singla, I., (2014a). “Fingerprint and Minutiae Points Technique.” in: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Soft Computing for Problem Solving (SocProS 2012), December 28-30, 2012. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. Springer, New Delhi. Cham: Springer, Cham, pp. 491–499. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
Vyas, M., Verma, K., (2014a). “A comprehensive survey of handwritten character segmentation.” in: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Communications, Control and Computing Technologies. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit  Garg,  and  Suneet  Gupta.  Vol.  2.  IEEE. Cham:  Springer,  Cham, pp. 1462–1465. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
– (2014b). “A platform independent methodology for on-line handwritten character segmenta- tion.” in: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Communications, Control and Computing Technologies. Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. IEEE. Cham: Springer, Cham, pp. 1480–1483. ISBN: 978-3-030-95502-1.
 Dhaka, H., Jain, A., Verma, K., (2010a). “Impact of coordinator mobility on the through- put in a ZigBee mesh networks.” in: 2010 IEEE 2nd International Advance Computing Conference (IACC). Ed. by Deepak Garg, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Ankur Gupta, Lalit Garg, and Suneet Gupta. Vol. 2. IEEE. Cham: Springer, Cham, pp. 279–284. ISBN: 978-3- 030-95502-1.

Student Thesis
Chandna, S., Verma, K., Kumar, R., (2019). “Performance Evaluation in Education System using Sprint Decision Tree classification Algorithm.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Menroy, P., Verma, K., (2019). “Study of Smile Detection Methods.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Sharma, S., Srivastava, V., Verma, K., (2019). “Shrinkage Measurement of Nylon as a Build Material in 3-D Printing By Machine Learning.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Kaur, S., Verma, K., (2018). “Devanagari and Gurmukhi Handwritten Character Generation using Generative Adversarial Networks.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Mathur, T., Satapathy, L. M. B., Verma, K., (2018). “IP Collateral Management API Development and Validation System.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Mittal, S., Verma, K., Kumar, R., (2017). “Handwritten Punjabi Character Recognition using Convolutional Neural Networks.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Taneja, P., Verma, K., (2017). “Text Generation Using Different Recurrent Neural Networks.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala. Thakur, A., Verma, K., (2017). “Speech Recognition of Punjabi Numerals Using Con- volutional Neural Networks (CNNs).” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Gupta, A., Verma, K., (2016). “LBG Method and Vector Quantization for Recognition of Punjabi Handwritten Strokes in Hidden Markov Models.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Kaleka, N. K.,  Verma,  K., (2016). “Segmentation of la¯-consonant and dula´wa¯-consonant combination strokes in online handwritten Gurmukhi script recognition.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Kaur, M., Verma, K., Tekchandani, R., (2016). “Novel hybrid method for the enhance- ment of low exposure images.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Shouan, N., Verma, K., (2016). “Segmentation of Tippi+ Consonant and Hoda+ Consonant combination strokes in online Handwritten Gurmukhi Script Recognition.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Verma, R. K., Verma, K., (2016). “Segmentation of Cehari+ Consonant combination strokes in online Handwritten Gurmukhi Script Recognition.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Pagare, G., Verma, K., (2015b). “Devanagari Character Segmentation and Recognition.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
 Solanki, R. K., Verma, K., Kumar, R., (2015b). “Spam Filtering using Local-global Bayesian Classifier.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Yadav, P., Verma, K., (2015b). “Word Recommendation System for Devanagari Script.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Mittal, S., Verma, K., (2014b). “Speaker Independent Isolated word speech to text conversion using HTK.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Shama, Verma, K., (2014b). “Sign language recognition using SVM.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Singh, G., Verma, K., (2014b). “A Novel Features Based Automated Gurmukhi Text Summarization System.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Vyas, M., Verma, K., (2014c). “Universal Graphical User Interface for Online Hand- written Character Recognition.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Shagun, Verma, K., Kumar, R., (2013c). “HMM-based isolated and connected word speaker independent speech recognition using different acoustic models.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Singh, M., Verma, K., (2013c). “Text to Speech Synthesis for numerals into Punjabi language.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala. Singla, I., Verma, K., (2013c). “A Novel Approach to Fingerprint Identification.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Sandal, S., Verma, K., (2012a). “Comparison of Energy Efficient Routing Protocols in Mobile Adhoc Networks.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Tewari, P., Verma, K., (2012a). “Use of Dominant Point Detection Feature for Recogni- tion of Online Handwritten Devanagari Script.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Wadhwa, D., Verma, K., (2012b). “Recognition of Online Handwritten Devanagari Nu- merals using Support Vector Machine.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Bansal, A., Bhatia, R., Verma, K., (2011b). “Automated Test Case Generation for Poly- morphic Call-Sites.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Goyal, D., Verma, K., Bhatia, R., (2011b). “A Novel Approach of Forward Dynamic Slicing.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Gupta, B., Verma, K., Garg, D., (2011b). “A Better Approach to Mine Frequent Itemsets Using Apriori and FP-Tree Approach.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Jain, P., Bhatia, R., Verma,  K.,  (2011b).  “A  Novel  Approach  of  Dynamic  Slicing and Debugging of Object Oriented Programs.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Kumar, T., Verma, K., (2010a). “Analysis of Soft computing Techniques for face Detection.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
 Singh, K. V., Verma, K., (2010a). “Applications of Neural Networks in Fingerprint Identification.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala. Garg, N., Verma, K., (2009a). “Handwritten Gurumukhi character recognition using neural networks.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Jain, C., Sharma, R., Verma, K., (2009a). “Simulation based Avalanche Prediction Model using Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Kotalwar, B. R., Verma, K., (2009a). “Implementation of Sesame Tool for Semantic Web Search Engine Swoogle.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Kumar, P., Verma, K., (2009a). “Use of Fuzzy Set and Neural Network to Extract Fin- gerprint Minutiae Points and Location.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Sharma, D., Verma, K., (2009a). “Recognition of Handwritten Devanagari Script Using Soft Computing.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.
Singh, H., Sharma, R. K., Verma, K., (2007a). “Use of Zernike Moments in Handwritten Character Recognition.” Master’s Thesis. Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala.

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Soci- eties
Professional Member of Association of Computing Machinery,USA