Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2016 Issue 1

Background Current screening for carriers of genetic diseases in oocyte donors includes the assessment of risk of transmission of inherited diseases based on personal and family history of genetic disorders. Most assisted reproduction centers also include karyotyping, mutational screening of the CFTR gene and directed the study of fragile X premutation. Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies of have allo Read More

Malaria is a major public health concern in north east India with the preponderance of drug resistance strains. Till recently partner drug for Artemisinin Combination Therapy was Sulphadoxine Pyrimethamine. The antifolate drug resistance has been associated with the mutations at dihydropteroate synthase (dhps) and dihydrofolatereductase (dhfr) gene. The study was aimed to investigate the antifolate drug resista Read More

Diabetes mellitus (DM) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) constitute a major health care challenge worldwide. We evaluated the trends and outcome of DM in patients presenting with CVD over a 22-year period in the state of Qatar. Methods We performed a descriptive retrospective chart review of all admitted CVD patients, including DM from the Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery database at the Heart Hospital Read More

The first task of tissue engineer trying to make a scaffold of a heart valve, is to adapt some model of a heart valve to establish target geometries and properties that should be recreated in artificial scaffold. The natural way to do so is to conduct literature research and find the current scientific consensus on the topic. Here the problems start, each researcher seems to have an individual opinion about optimal geometry Read More

Background The high prevalence of obesity was observed in numerous developed and developing countries. A reduce in energy expenditure due to the low physical activity level is a factor contributed to the increase in obesity. Physical inactivity is one of the ten leading risk factors for global death, and associated with the all-cause mortality. Regular physical activity lowers the risk of various types of non-communicable diseas Read More

Background Crowding in hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) is a commonly observed problem in all over the world. Although the reasons and mechanisms are different, the major factors are increasing volume of patients seeking medical care in ED services, lack of inpatient beds, and care for non-urgent conditions for patients who identify the ED as their easiest and usual site of care, notwithstanding the typical treatment o Read More

Background ITP (Immune thrombocytopenic purpura) is the most common bleeding disorder in childhood. It is usually a self-limiting disorder, and most patients recover spontaneously without serious complication. The clinical features of ITP have remained unchanged over the past few decades but there have been many recent changes in management strategies as evidenced by the new international guidelines on the Read More

Antibody Directed Enzyme Prodrug Therapy (ADEPT) is a technique used in cancer treatment, which convert a prodrug to a powerful cytotoxic drug only in the vicinity of the tumor. The technique relies on a bacterial enzyme, glucarpidase (former name: carboxypeptidase G2, CPG2). Also the glucarpidase is a very effective enzyme for detoxification of methotrexate, (MTX) which serves as an important component of various c Read More

Background Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) hold diverse clinical information about large populations. When this information is coupled with genetic data, it has the potential to make unprecedented associations between genes and diseases. The incorporation of these discoveries into healthcare practice offers the hope to improve healthcare through personalized treatments. The Qatar National Genome project aims t Read More

Introduction Replacement of damaged tissue is nowadays an aim of tissue engineering. This technique involves the use of porous or fibrous structures – the so-called scaffolds – that support the colonization with the desired cell type and which are degraded after fulfilling their temporary supporting function. Basic requirements for the prevailing materials used in this field are nontoxicity, low immunogenicity and cell-adhes Read More

Background Studies show that diabetics are in high risk for complications, hospitalization, and death from uncontrollability. Good Glycemic control is an important part of preventive services for diabetic complications. One of the most important treatment options for Diabetic patient is insulin therapy, however there is evidence of poor physician knowledge about types and modalities of insulin therapy. Lack of knowledge will in Read More

The novel Schiff bases I HAMTTSC (2-Acetyl-4-methylthiazole thiosemicarbazone), II HAPTSC(2-Acetylpyrazine thiosemicarbazone) and their complexes with Pt(II) and Pd(II): 1 [Pt(AMTTSC)Cl], 2 [Pt(AMTTSC)2], 3 [Pd(AMTTSC)Cl], 4 [Pd(AMTTSC)2], 5 [Pt(APTSC)Cl], 6 [Pt(APTSC)2], 7 [Pd(APTSC)Cl], and 8 [Pd(APTSC)2] have been synthesized, and characterized by elemental analysis and spectroscopic studies. The cryst Read More

Pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) is a common worldwide infection and a medical and social problem causing high mortality and morbidity, especially in developing countries. An expert system for diagnosis of this disease was designed based on expert's knowledge for providing decision support platform to assist fresh graduator (inexperienced) physicians, and other healthcare practitioners to arrive the final diagnosis of TB more Read More

Background and Objectives Renal cell carcinoma is the most common and lethal form of all renal cancers, and accounts for 4.1% of all cancer cases in Qatar. Mutations to Von-Hippel Lindeau (VHL) gene in renal cells activates hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) response pathway, and contributes to increased proliferation and progression to renal cell carcinoma. Hence, chemotherapeutic modalities available to treat re Read More

Purpose Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating cardiovascular disease of the pulmonary vasculature that remains poorly understood. Despite a number of available FDA approved drugs, survival remains low, reaching an estimated 5-year survival as low as 27%. This severe disease is characterized by dysfunction and eventual failure of the right ventricle (RV) of the heart. The main focus of therapeuti Read More

Background As a conventional type of communication, health education usually face several barriers that make its outcome fall short. Among many, lack of interest, distraction, and rejection are well documented barriers to engaging audience in a communication process leading to behavioral change. Despite the novel corona virus which was responsible for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) created Read More

Introduction Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common pediatric infections. UTI may be associated with bacteremia and even meningitis in small babies, warranting full septic work up including a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), especially in infants below the age of 60 days. Literature regarding the co-existence of meningitis in infants diagnosed with UTI is conflicting. It is critical to be able to correctly identify Read More

Background: Many health organizations are always highlighting the importance of health promotion, and disease prevention, due to the high incidence of chronic diseases that are spread worldwide and increasing continuously. One of the most prevalent chronic diseases is diabetes mellitus (DM). Many studies conducted in developed countries proved that lifestyle changes in patients resulted in a reduction in the pre Read More

Introduction: Doha city has a high feral cat population that is estimated to outnumber its human inhabitants by 2-3:1 with a total population of 2-3 million cats according to Qatar Cat Control Unit (QCCU). Doha had a significant rodent problem for decades as in many cities throughout the world. It was difficult to control this huge rodent number. Therefore, cats were introduced in the 1960s, but without any consideration of the po Read More

Common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract that brings discomfort to people for few days to few weeks. Although, seasonal common cold is widespread during wintertime, the disease can be contracted all year round. Initially common cold was believed to be link to exposure to cold air because of its widespread during that period; the disease has been categorized as infectious disease there after (Wi Read More

Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) represents polymer having good chemical and physical characteristics for which it is widely used in many applications, such as biomedical and food packaging industry. This polymer excels by good transparency, flexibility, low weight and cost which makes it suitable material compared to non-polymer packaging materials. However, its hydrophobicity cause many limitations for antimi Read More

Around the world as well as in Qatar, breast cancer is characterized among the highest rates of mortalities that are cancer related. Alarmingly, statistics have shown that the incidence of breast cancer is slightly higher in Qatari women than other Arab countries in the region. This evidence suggests the importance of focusing research on understanding and treatment of breast cancer in Qatar. Current treatment options for Read More

Obesity is a major public health problem which adversely impacts mortality and quality of life, also it is associated with significantly increased risk of more than 20 chronic diseases and health conditions [Thiese et al., 2015]. According to the World Health Organization, the prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled within the last 30 years, which has led to an impressive estimate of 402 million obese people worldwide. The etiology Read More

Background: Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are considered the most psychometrically robust form of clinical skills assessment in the health professions. In 2014, the College of Pharmacy at Qatar University (CoP-QU) piloted the first cumulative OSCE for graduating students in collaboration with the Supreme Council of Health and the University of Toronto. Since then, interest has grown in measuring the psych Read More

Introduction: Noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) or Diabetes Type 2 is a major health challenge worldwide. In 2014 the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the percentage of adults with fasting glucose ≥ 7.0 mmol/L accounts for 9% globally. Moreover, the highest percentage was in the Eastern Mediterranean Region with 26.8 ± 0.4%. Type 2 diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder associated with Read More

Background: Low power biomedical implants usually harvest energy from a small inductor coil or optical energy sources. Those sources can supply very limited amount of energy to the target system because of poor power transfer efficiency and size limitation. Thus, we have to supply as much as energy directly to the load, without wasting energy from auxiliary devices from electrical driving. To save the energy dissipated as he Read More

Background: HEV is the etiologic agent of acute hepatitis E. Although HEV usually causes a self-limiting infection, the disease may develop into a chronic or fulminant form of Hepatitis. Sporadic HEV infections spread in several developed countries; however, outbreaks usually occur in regions where sanitation is low, in particular, in developing countries where water flooding frequently occurs. In addition, religious background, li Read More

Microsatellites are segments of the DNA comprised of repeated sequences of 4 to 8-base pair units that are found throughout the genome of eukaryotes. Most microsatellites are located at non-coding regions of the genome and consequently mutations in the microsatellite regions are often not causatives of disease. This allows these regions to be highly polymorphic in a population and gives a signature DNA marker for Read More

Introduction: Breast cancer has been ranked first as the most prevalent type of cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women worldwide. Letrozole (LTZ), an aromatase inhibitor, has been shown to be an effective and relatively safe agent for the treatment of hormonally-positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women. However, the drug suffers from poor water solubility and rapid metabolis Read More

Background: Progression of the heart to failure is primarily caused due to significant remodeling of both the extracellular matrix (ECM) and subcellular organelles, a hallmark of cardiac hypertrophy (CH). Uncontrolled ECM remodeling occurs as a result of the activation and increased proteolytic activities of proteases such as Cathepsin B (Cat B) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) (1, 2). Previous studies have sugg Read More

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are still the number one cause of morbidity and mortality both in Qatar and worldwide. A major risk factor of CVDs is atherosclerosis, the hardening of blood vessels caused by decreased diameter and formation of plaque. A key player in atherosclerosis prognosis is the switch of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) phenotype from their undifferentiated state to a synthetic one. The synthetic state Read More

Background & Aim: People with diabetes carry a 25% lifetime risk of foot ulceration. It is well-established that high plantar pressures increase the risk of developing foot ulcers, and that managing peak pressure is an important strategy in reducing such risk. This study tested a novel smart insole system designed to reduce ulceration risk by alerting patients using a smartwatch when their plantar pressure was too high. The Read More

Pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide and is highly therapy-resistant, e.g. toward the standard chemotherapy gemcitabine. Glucocorticoids like dexamethasone (DEX) are often co-medicated to reduce inflammation and side effects of tumor growth and therapy. Our group showed DEX to be a potent stimulator of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), cancer progression Read More

Background: In Qatar and GCC countries, palm trees are considered as a symbol of culture due the great number of palm trees. Qatar classified as the third country import the dates for consumption among the world, it produces around 16,500 tons of dates every year mostly for local consumption. Though the high production and consumption of dates in GCC countries, there are no enough studies and investigations of Read More

Objectives: HER2 status of breast carcinoma is a powerful prognostic and predictive biomarker-particularly in the metastatic setting. Limited data is available regarding assessment of HER2 on cell block preparations (CBP). The primary objective of this study was to assess correlation between HER2 results obtained via immunohistochemistry (IHC) and fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) in cases of metastatic breast carcino Read More

Globally, gender based violence effects one out of every three women. Recently, the alarming rise in reported cases of domestic violence in Qatar has led to a national call to find an effective way to deal with the issue. This paper documents the efforts of a group of Qatar University students to do just that: draft legislation to criminalize domestic violence. The research project involves eight Qatar University male and female und Read More

PAC system is extending increasingly from the now well-established radiology applications into a hospital-wide PACS. New challenges are accompanying its spread into other clinical fields. With awareness of the importance of PAC systems among various medical experts, this system has been enhanced through the PAC system's pipeline, and simplification of image display for analysis via an interaction with the user. G Read More

Electronic noses (EN) or machine olfaction are systems used for the detection and identification of odorous compounds and gas mixtures. The accuracy of such systems is as important as the processing time. Therefore, the choice of the algorithm and the implementation platform are both crucial. In this abstract, a design and implementation of a gas identification system on the Zynq platform which shows promising results Read More

1. Introduction Machine translation (MT) became widely used by translation companies to reduce their costs and improve their speed. Therefore, the demand for quick and accurate machine translations is growing. Machine translation (MT) systems often produce incorrect output with many grammatical and lexical choice errors. Correcting machine-produced translation errors, or MT Post-Editing (PE) can be done automatical Read More

The idea of the simultaneous transmission and reception of data using the same frequency is a potential candidate to be deployed in the next generation wireless communications standard 5G. The In-Band Full-Duplex (IBFD) concept permits to theoretically double the spectral efficiency as well as to reduce the medium access control (MAC) signaling which will improve the overall throughput of a wireless network. However, I Read More

Limitations on the wireless communication resources (i.e., time and frequency) introduces the need for another domain that can help communication systems to match the increasing demand on high data transfer rates and quality of service (QoS). By using multiple antennas. Besides, the widespread use of wireless technology and its ease of access makes the privacy of the information, transferred over the wi Read More

Since the Internet of Things (IoT) will be entwined with everything we use in our daily life, the consequence of security flaws escalates. Smart objects will govern most of the home appliances and car engines yielding potential disaster scenarios. In this context, successful attacks could lead to chaos and scary scenarios (www.darkreading.com). Unprotected personal information may expose sensitive and embarrassing data t Read More

In the digital era, India's national security has extricably been linked with its cyber security. However, although India has digitalized its governance, economy and daily life on an industrial scale, it has never paid adequate attention to adopt a programme side-by-side to securitize its digitalization plan. Resultantly, not only India's cyber space but also its physical spheres have been exposed and facing constant attacks from its rivals Read More

Online Social Networks become the medium for a plethora of applications such as targeted advertising and recommendation services, collaborative filtering, behavior modeling and pre- diction, analysis and identification of aggressive behavior, bullying and stalking, cultural trend monitoring, epidemic studies, crowd mood reading and tracking, revelation of terrorist net- works, even political deliberation. They mainly aim to pr Read More

Background and Objectives: As English is a stress-timed language, lexical stress plays an important role in the perception and processing of speech by native speakers. Incorrect stress placement can reduce the intelligibility of the speaker and their ability to communicate more effectively. The accurate identification of lexical stress patterns is thus a key assessment tool of the speaker's pronunciation in applications such as seco Read More

1. Introduction Artificial Intelligence or A.I attempts to understand intelligent entities, and strives to build ones. And it is obvious that computers with human-level intelligence (or more) would have huge impact in our everyday lives and the future. A student in physics might reasonably feel that all the good ideas have already been taken by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and the rest, and that it takes many years of study before one can Read More

I. Abstract: Smart cities are collecting and producing massive amount of data from various data sources such as local weather stations, LIDAR data, mobile phones sensors, Internet of Things (iOT) etc. To use such large volume of data for potential daily computing benets, it is important to store and analyse such amount of urban data using handy computing resources and al-gorithms. However, this can be problematic due to ma Read More

We would like to propose a panel which discusses this paper but includes special guests from the International and Qatar Humanitarian community to talk about the future of humanitarian research in the MENA region. Abstract: In the new era of data abundance, procedures for crisis and disaster response have changed. As relief forces struggle with assistance on the ground, digital humanitarians step in to provide a collec Read More

Quinones are oxidants; colorants; electrophiles and involved in the electron transfer process of important biological functions such as photosynthesis, respiration, phosphorylation etc. In earth, photosynthesis is the main biological process which converts solar energy into chemical energy. By producing oxygen and assimilating carbon dioxide, it supports the existence of virtually all higher life forms. It is driven by tw Read More