Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2011 Issue 1

Abstract Background: Body core temperature fluctuates during the day following a sinusoidal variation with a maximum acrophase in the late afternoon. This circadian rhythm is mainly endogenous but it can be influenced by environmental factors such as work and social and physical activities. Objectives: 1) To verify if aluminum shift-workers would present different core temperatures at different times of the day (i.e. Read More

Abstract Background: Schoolchildren must practice healthy diet as well as active lifestyle to support their physical growth and development. Previous studies have shown that intermittent fasting can affect dietary intake, sleep duration and circadian patterns among adults, but there is a lack of related literature in schoolchildren. Purpose: The aim of this study was to objectively assess the effect of Ramadan fasting on phy Read More

Abstract Background: Exercise-induced hyperthermia is associated with a decrease in force production capacity during brief (<5 seconds) and sustained (>10 seconds) maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC). A reduction in central nervous system drive to exercising muscles is suggested to mediate this decrement to prevent thermal injury. Until recently, the influence of exercise modality on neuromuscular func Read More

Abstract Sleep spindles, along with K-complexes are hallmarks of stage 2 non rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep EEG. Sleep spindles are of significant interest because they are associated with phenomena such as ‘stability’ of sleep, updating of knowledge with new memories, processing of sensorimotor and mnemonic information. Therefore, accurately marking their presence in sleep recordings is essential. Accurate ide Read More

Abstract Intorduction: Posaconazole (PZ), an antifungal prophylactic therapy in hematologic cancer patients, was added to Al-Amal Hospital formulary in 2010. The objectives of this study are: 1. To identify the practice guidelines and pharmacokinetics information regarding PZ use in Qatar and worldwide. 2. To conduct a drug use evaluation (DUE) report at Al-Amal Hospital. Methods: Literature review was conducted t Read More

Abstract Background: Despite the efficacy of IM in treating CML, high degree of resistance has already been noted. AGP may reduce drug efficacy through its ability to interact with IM. Objectives: Could the level of AGP be correlated with CML resistance/response to treatment and if it could be employed as a biological marker for CML resistance. Methods: 25 CML patients were investigated for AGP level, serum samples were an Read More

Abstract Back ground and Objectives: Vitamin D deficiency is very common in pregnant women and the current guidelines for vitamin D intake during pregnancy of 200-400 IU has been challenged recently .We conducted this study to determine the prevalence of Vitamin D deficiency among pregnant women and to evaluate the safety weekly oral 50,000 IU vitamin D supplementation for the mother and the newborn. Read More

Abstract Background: Vitamin B12 (vit B12) deficiency is one of the major causes of megaloblastic anaemia and should be avoided as early as possible since a supplementation of mother and child can prevent neurological symptoms of the baby. Furthermore, the neurological symptoms of affected children are (partially) reversible. Elevated methylmalonic acid in urine and homocysteine (Hcy) in plasma are sensitive indicato Read More

Abstract Background: Although open Ramsted's pyloromyotomy is the gold standard for the surgical management of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, laparoscopic pyloromyotomy has been found highly successful. Various factors, however, can affect the outcomes of surgical interventions in these patients. We observed a relationship between the number of ports used and outcome in patients undergoing lapar Read More

Abstract Population aging is a worldwide phenomenon, but its impact on Qatar is unique. The proposed system aims at comprehensive and integrated vital signs (ECG, Saturation of Arterial Oxygen (SpO2), BP and Heart rate (HR)) monitoring using a wearable sensor platform without professional involvements or interfering the elderly's everyday activities. A novel wireless physiological sensor node with single highly-int Read More

Abstract Background: X-linked diseases are single gene disorders that are due to the presence of mutations in genes that reside on the X chromosome. X-linked recessive disorders are predicted from the family structure, where only boys are affected and there is no father to son transmission of the mutant allele. Heterozygous females are usually non-symptomatic carriers but can manifest a milder form of the dis Read More

Abstract Background: Autosomal recessive diseases are considered as a major group of single-gene disorders among Arab population. We have recruited a family with three siblings with a mental retardation (MR) syndrome who were born to consanguineous Qatari parents. The clinical problems comprised significant mental retardation, microsomia, signs of skeletal dysplasia, and thoracolumbar kyphosis. The oldest pati Read More

Abstract Prevalence rate of autism-spectrum disorders (ASD) in Qatar is uncertain, and speculation that their incidence is increasing continues to cause concern. Although the apparent increased prevalence of autism may reflect improved detection and recognition of autism and its variants. No comprehensive survey has been done to estimate the prevalence of autism in Qatar. The target population for this study is children Read More

Abstract Background: The number of genes identified to be responsible for autosomal dominant genetic conditions far exceeds those identified for autosomal recessive conditions. This is expected because autosomal recessive disorders are rare and a single large family or a large number of smaller families are needed for gene mapping and identification. However, this hurdle can be overcome by homozygosity mapping utilizi Read More

Abstract In Qatar, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity. Cardiovascular diseases can be prevented and controlled by modifying lifestyle risk behaviours such as physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and smoking. Obesity as the result of physical inactivity and unhealthy diet raises the risk of heart diseases. Studies show that 62.6% of Qatari women were overweight and the prevalence of o Read More

Abstract Background: Genetic and environmental factors are highly related with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Our objective was to explore whether some genetic variants such as rs12255372, rs7903146 of TCF7L2 gene are significantly associated with the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus among Arabian population. Methods: A case control study was designed for such genetic association study. Read More

Abstract Background: Caring for a child diagnosed with autism is strongly linked to maternal caregiving burden. It forces family members to modify their daily lives to suit their different reality and it imposes social, psychological, and economical hardships. No previous research has assessed the burden associated with caring for a child with autism on the lives of caregivers in Qatar or the Gulf country region. Objective: To assess t Read More

Abstract Background: Pineal hormone melatonin (MEL) is a versatile molecule with diverse physiological roles ranging from circadian entrainment to anti-cancer effects. Clinical trials indicated that a co-application of cisplatin and melatonin improved the 1-year survival rate. Also, Futugami (2001) claimed melatonin enhances the sensitivity of an ovarian cancer cell line to cisplatin. Objective: Here we study the anti-cancer eff Read More

Abstract This study was carried out to examine the difference between the respiratory volumes in athlete and non-athlete adolescent females, how does exercise affect the respiratory volumes and how could the effects of exercise on the respiratory system affect the heart rate? Introduction: The respiratory and circulatory systems are the most important systems in the body as they involve vital organs (lungs and heart). They Read More

Abstract The coagulation/fibrinolytic system controls the intravascular fibrin homeostasis; in addition to participating in a wide variety of physio-pathological processes. The components of the system have an influence on tumor metastasis, growth and invasion. This is a result of their involvement in tumor matrix construction, angiogenesis and cell migration. Thrombosis of unexplained etiology among healthy and canc Read More

Abstract Perfusion-decellularized native lungs seeded with human BJ RNA-induced pluripotent stem (BJ-RiPS) and umbilical vein endothelial cells failed to regenerate functional lung tissue as quantified by immunohistochemistry (no detection of TTF1,CC10,and Pro-SPB), gene expression (non-significant differences in lung-specific gene expression as compared to cells cultured under standard conditions), and in vitro lung gas ex Read More

Abstract The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) is increasing rapidly worldwide with figures being projected to reach 700 million and 366 million by 2030 respectively, according to the recent reports by the World Health Organization 2010 and the International Diabetes Federation 2010. T2D development has been shown to be driven by both environmental and genetic factors. Consanguinity among Middle-Eastern Read More

Abstract Chronic stress is a leading risk factor for heart diseases, diabetes, asthma and depression. However, physicians find it difficult to continuously track a person's stress levels throughout the day, as current techniques of electrocardiogram and blood pressure monitoring are not practical. There is thus a critical need for a non-invasive, ambulatory device to track physiological stress over extended periods of time. Read More

Abstract Three-dimensional (3D) videos are getting quite popular, and equipment for recording and processing them are becoming affordable. Creating 3D videos is expensive. Thus, protecting 3D videos against illegal copying is an important problem. We present a novel system for finding 3D video copies. Our system also identifies the location of the copied part in the reference video. The system can be used, for example, Read More

Abstract Mobile devices such as smart-phones and tablets are becoming ubiquitous, with ever increasing communication capabilities. In situations where the necessary infrastructure is unavailable, costly, or overloaded, opportunistically connecting theses devices becomes a challenging area of research. Data is disseminated using nodes that store-carry-and-forward messages across the network. In such networks, node coopera Read More

Abstract Qatar is accumulating substantial local expertise in biomedical data analytics. In particular, QCRI is forming a scientific computing multidisciplinary group with a particular interest in machine learning, statistical modeling and bioinformatics. We are now in a strong position to address the computational needs of biomedical researchers in Qatar, and to prepare a new generation of scientists with a multidisciplin Read More

Abstract In this research, we propose novel techniques to improve automatic speech recognition (ASR) and statistical machine translation (SMT) for dialectal Arabic. Since dialectal Arabic speech resources are very sparse, we describe how existing Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) speech data can be applied to dialectal Arabic acoustic modeling. Our assumption is that MSA is always a second language for all Arabic speakers, and in Read More

Abstract It is often a problem for a physically challenged person to perform a simple routine task such as eating, moving around, and picking up things on a shelf. Usually, these tasks require assistance from a capable person. However, this total or partial reliance on others for daily routines may be bothersome to the physically challenged and diminishes their self-esteem. Moreover, getting around in a wheel chair, for examp Read More

Abstract The proliferation of wireless technologies and inexpensive network-cameras has enabled low-cost and quick deployment of cameras for several surveillance applications, such as traffic monitoring and border control. Smart Camera Networks (SCNs) are networks of cameras that self configure and adapt to improve their operation and reduce the demand on human operators. However, SCNs are constrained by the abi Read More

Abstract Hala is a bi-lingual (Arabic and English) robot receptionist located at Carnegie Mellon in Qatar. Hala is presented to users as a 3-D animated face on a screen. Users type to her, and she replies in speech synced with realistic facial expressions. However there are two existing problems with the robot. First, Hala's animation engine does not fully adhere to existing research on face dynamics, which makes it diffic Read More

Abstract While weighted features are known in information retrieval (IR) systems to be used for increasing recall during the document selection step, conceptual methods helped for finding good features. Starting from the features of a sample of Arabic news belonging to k different financial categories, and using the support vector model (SVM), k(k-1) classifiers are generated using one-against-one classification. A new docu Read More

Abstract The scarcity of the radio resources and variable channel quality cause many challenges to the resource management for future all-IP wireless communications. One technique to guarantee a certain level of quality of service (QoS) is call admission control (CAC). Briefly, CAC is a mechanism which decides whether a new call could be admitted or rejected depending on its impacts on the current calls’ QoS. Convent Read More

Abstract Assuming that the IEEE802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are based on a radio/infrared link, they are more sensitive to the channel variations and connection ruptures. Therefore the support for multimedia applications over WLANs becomes non-convenient due to the compliance failure in term of link rate and transmission delay performance. We studied link adaptation facets and the Quality of Service Read More

Abstract Modern communication systems apply channel-aware adaptive transmission techniques and dynamic resource allocation in order to exploit the peak conditions of the fading wireless links and to enable significant performance gains. However, conveying the channel state information among the users’ mobile terminals into the access points of the network consumes a significant portion of the scarce air-lin Read More

Abstract Rapid advances in robotic surgical devices have put significant pressure on physicians to learn new procedures using newer and sophisticated instruments. This in turn has increased the demand for effective and practical training methods using these technologies, and has motivated the development of surgical simulators that promise to provide practical, safe, and cost-effective environments for practicing Read More

Abstract Background: Force plates have been used in sports biomechanics since the 1960's. However, extracting useful information related to performance from curve analysis is a complicated process. It requires a combined knowledge in signal processing (filtering), mechanical equations, testing protocols, biomechanics, and discrete mathematical analysis to properly process the data. Objectives: The aim is to provide a pr Read More

Abstract Data outsourcing is a growing business. Cloud computing developments such as Amazon Relational Database Service promise further reduced cost. However, use of such a service can be constrained by privacy laws, requiring specialized service agreements and data protection that could reduce economies of scale and dramatically increase costs. We propose a private data outsourcing approach where the link b Read More

Abstract Inspired by the success and the increasing prevalence of MapReduce, this work proposes a novel MapReduce task scheduler. MapReduce is by far one of the most successful realizations of large-scale, data-intensive, cloud computing platforms. As compared to traditional programming models, MapReduce automatically and efficiently parallelizes computation by running multiple Map and/or Reduce tasks over distributed Read More

Abstract Modern societies rely on software applications for performing many critical tasks. As this trend is increasing, so it is the necessity to develop cost-effective methods of writing software that ensure that essential safety and security requirements are met. In this context, dependent type theories are recently gaining adoption as a valid tool for performing formal verification of software. The focus of this work is Coq, a Read More

Abstract Usability and usefulness have made the spreadsheet one of the most successful computing applications of all times: millions rely on it every day for anything from typing grocery lists to developing multimillion dollar budgets. One thing spreadsheets are not very good at is manipulating symbolic data and helping users make decisions based on them. By tapping into recent research in logic programming, dat Read More

Abstract We have permanently deployed Hala; the world first's English and Arabic Robot Receptionist for 500+ days in an uncontrolled multi-cultural/multi-lingual environment within Carnegie Mellon Qatar. Hala serves as a research testbed for studying the influence of socio-cultural norms and the nature of interactions during human-robot interaction within a multicultural, yet primarily ethnic Arab, setting. Hala, as a Read More

Abstract Recent advances in computer hardware and signal processing have made possible the use of EEG signals or “brain waves” for communication between humans and computers. Locked-in patients have now a way to communicate with the outside world, but even with the last modern techniques, such systems still suffer communication rates on the order of 2-3 tasks/minute. In addition, existing systems are not Read More

Abstract Although various access control models have been proposed, access control configurations are error prone. There is no assurance of the correctness of access control configurations. When we find errors in an access control configuration, we take immediate actions to repair the configuration. The repairing is difficult, largely because arbitrary changes to the configuration may result in no less threat than errors do Read More

Abstract Keyphrase extraction is a process by which the set of words or phrases that best describe a document is specified. The phrases could be extracted from the document words itself, or they could be external and specified from an ontology for a given domain. Extracting keyphrases from documents is critical for many applications such as information retrieval, document summarization or clustering. Many keyphrase Read More

Abstract In the recent years, several mathematical concepts were successfully explored in computer science domain, as basis for finding original solutions for complex problems related to knowledge engineering, data mining, information retrieval, etc. Thus, Relational Algebra (RA) and Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) may be considered as useful mathematical foundations that unified data and knowledge in information retrieval Read More

Abstract The exponential growth of financial news coming from different sources makes getting effective benefit from them very hard. Business decision makers who reply to these news, are unable to follow them accurately in real time. They need always to be alerted immediately for any potential financial events that may affect their businesses whenever they occur. Many important news can simply be embedded into tho Read More

Abstract The Cognitive Dimensions of Notations are a heuristic framework created by Thomas Green for analysing the usability of notational systems. Microsoft used this framework as a vocabulary for evaluating the usability of their C# and .NET development tools. In this research we used this framework to compare the evaluation of the Constraint Diagrams and the evaluation of the Natural Language by running a us Read More

Abstract Over the past several years ORC processes have become very promising for power production from low grade heat sources: solar, biomass, geothermal and waste heat. The key challenge in the design process is the selection of an appropriate working fluid. A large number of authors used pure components as working fluid, and assess ORC performance. ORC systems that use single working fluid component ha Read More

Abstract Major challenges towards the development of next generation 4G wireless networks include fulfilling the foreseeable increase in power demand of future mobile terminals (MTs) in addition to meeting the high throughput and low latency requirements of emerging multimedia services. Studies show that the high-energy consumption of battery operated MTs will be one of the main limiting factors for future wirel Read More

Abstract Hierarchical structures are found in many natural and man-made materials [1]. This structural hierarchy play an important role in determining the overall mechanical behavior of the structure. It has been suggested that increasing the hierarchical level of a structure will result in a better performing structure [2]. Besides, honeycombs are well known structures for lightweight and high strength applications [3]. In t Read More