Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2013 Issue 1

While the Internet is continuously growing and unavoidable moving towards an ubiquitous internetworking technology, ranging from casual data exchange, home entertainment, security, military, healthcare, transportation, and business applications, to the Internet of Things (IoT) where anything can communicate anywhere, anytime, there is an increasing and urgent need to define global standards for future Internet arc Read More

A fundamental component of improving health care quality is to include the patient as a participant in achieving their health goals and making decisions about their care. While many may see clinical information systems as a way to improve communication and track health information for clinicians, the role played by personal health records (PHRs) should not be overlooked in developing a modernized Integrated Health Ma Read More

Wireless communications and sensing have become an indispensable part of our daily lives from communications, public service and safety, consumer, industry, sports, gaming and entertainment, asset and inventory management, banking to government and military operations. As communications and sensing are poised to address challenging problems to make our lives even better under environments that can po Read More

It is widely known that the state of a patient's coronary heart disease can be better assessed using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) than with more conventional angiography. Recent work has shown that segmentation and 3D reconstruction of IVUS pull-back sequence images can be used for computational fluid dynamic simulation of blood flow through the coronary arteries. This map of shear stress in the blood vessel walls ca Read More

The explosive demand for mobile data, predicted to reach a 25 to 50 times increase by 2015, along with expensive data roaming charges, and user expectation to remain continuously connected, are all creating novel challenges for service providers and researchers. A potential approach for solving these problems, is exploiting all communication interfaces available on modern mobile devices in both solitary and collaborative Read More

Machine Translation (MT) which has been championed as an effective technology for knowledge transfer from English to languages with less digital content. An example of such efforts is the automatic translation of English Wikipedia to languages with smaller collections, such as Arabic. However, MT quality is still far from ideal for many of the languages and text genres. While translating a document, many sentences are Read More

Silicon-based Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) hardware is the backbone of advanced wireless communication and sensing systems, enabling low-cost, small-size, and high-performance single-chip solution. Advanced RF wireless systems and in turn, silicon RFICs, are relevant not only to commercial and military applications, but also to national infrastructures. This importance is even more pronounced as the devel Read More

Smart phones are becoming dominant handsets that are available to wireless technology users. Wireless access to internet is also becoming the default scenario with vast majority of internet users. The increasing demand for high speed wireless internet services makes current technologies meet their limit due to channel impairments. The conventional adaptive modulation technique (CAMT) is no longer helpful due to high da Read More

Abstract Objectives in this research is to increase the accuracy of the distinction between functions of various Kulaip through a careful analysis of brain electrical signals and electrical signals are out of the brain and can be received from sensors, especially in plants and solid enlarge and stored. It is characteristic of brain signals Abbaas Electrical signals are weak force and the Pacific area affected by humans, so it is also l Read More

Concurrent multiband receivers receive and process multiple frequency bands simultaneously. They are thus capable of providing multitask or multifunction to meet consumer needs in modern wireless communications. Concurrent multiband receivers require at least some of their components to operate concurrently at different frequency bands which results in substantial reduction of cost and power dissipation. Fi Read More

Given a water-terrain area of interest (waterways, ports, etc.), this paper attempts to efficiently allocate underwater sonars to achieve a reasonable amount of coverage within a limited budget. Coverage is defined as the capability of sonars to detect threats. Though total coverage is desired, priority is given to the criticality/importance attached to the location of an area of interest on a grid-based system. Unlike other works in Read More

The presetation will overview the outcomes of the Irish Presidency of the EU Council for 2013 in addressing grand challenges for sustainable Growth with special emphasis on the digital (IT) agenda for Europe. The Irish Presidency of the EU council for 2013 made great achievements including the agreement of the 7 years EU Budget (including the budget to tackle youth unemploymen, the €70 billions Horizon 2020 p Read More

Understanding modern query languages provides key insights for the design of secure, effective and novel web applications. With the ever expanding volume of web data, two data shapes have clearly emerged as flexible ways of representing information: trees (such as most XML documents) and graphs (such as sets of RDF triples). Web applications that process, extract and filter such input data structures often re Read More

Recent developments in wireless communications and the emergence of high data rate services have consumed almost all the accessible spectrum making it a very scarce radio resource. Spectrum from very low frequencies to several GHz range has been either dedicated to a particular service or licensed to its providers. It is very difficult to find sufficient bandwidth for new technologies and services within accessible spectrum ra Read More

Spectral efficiency of a communication system refers to the information rate that the system can transmit reliably over the available bandwidth (spectrum) of the communication channel. Enhancing the spectral efficiency is without doubt a major objective for the designers of next generation wireless systems. It is evident that the telecommunications industry is rapidly growing due to the high demands for ubiquitous connectivi Read More

The traditional cycle in the simulation of the electron avalanches and any scientific simulation is to prepare input, execute a simulation, and to visualize the results as a post-processing step. Usually, such simulations are long running and computationally intensive. It is not unusual for a simulation to keep running for several days or even weeks. If the experiment leads to the conclusion that there is incorrect logic in the a Read More

The automated and simultaneous extraction of multiple phase distributions and their derivatives continue to pose major challenges. A possible reason is the lack of proper data processing concepts to support the multiple wave mixing that needs to be introduced to make the configuration at a time sensitive to multiple phase components and yet be able to decrypt each component of the phase efficiently and robustly, in abse Read More

Fault diagnosis (FD) has received much attention for complex modern automatic systems such as car, aircraft, rockets, unmanned vehicles, and so on since 1970s. In the FD research field, the diagnostic systems are often designed separately from the control algorithms, although it is highly desirable that both the control and diagnostic modules are integrated into one system module. Hence, the problem of simultaneous faul Read More

Automatic text correction has been attracting research attention for English and some other western languages. Applications for automatic text correction vary from improving language learning for humans and reducing noise in text input to natural language processing tools to correcting machine translation output for grammatical and lexical choice errors. Despite the recent focus on some Arabic language technologies, Read More

The Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) has emerged as a promising tool for charged particle detection. It is being developed as a candidate detection system for muon particles for the future upgrade of Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It consists of a thin polymer foil, metal coated on each side and pierced by a high density of holes (see figure). The potential difference between the ele Read More

Quantum imaging can be defined as an area of quantum optics that investigates the ultimate performance limits of optical imaging allowed by the quantum nature of light. Quantum Imaging techniques possess a high potential for improving the performance in recording, storage, and readout of optical images beyond the limits set by the standard quantum level of fluctuations known as the shot noise. This talk aims at giving an Read More

Social Media Networks (SMNs) are collaborative tools used in an increasing rate in many business and industrial environments. These are often used in parallel with dedicated Collaborative Technologies (CTs) which are specifically designed to handle dedicated tasks. Within this research project the specific area of supply chain management is the focus of investigation. Two case studies where CTs are already extensively e Read More

The city of Doha has witnessed a rapid change in its demographics over the past decade. The city has been thoroughly modernized, a massive change in its inhabitants culture and behavior has occurred and the need to re-develop its infrastructure has arose creating multiple mega construction projects such as the New Doha International Airport, the Doha Metro Network, and the Lusail City. A mega-project such as t Read More

In a growing market with demanding consumers, the retail industry needs decision support tools that reflect emerging practices and integrate key decisions cutting across several of its departments (e.g. marketing and operations). The current tools may not be adequate to sufficiently tackle this kind of integration complexity in relation to pricing in order to satisfy the retailing experience of the customers. Of course, it has to be u Read More

Efficient and accurate numerical solving of partial differential equations (PDE) is essential for many problems in science and engineering. In this paper we discuss spectral symplectic methods with different numerical accuracy on example of Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation (NLSE), which can be taken as a model for versatile kinds of conservative systems. First, second and fourth order approximation have been observed and r Read More

Surface Properties Of Poly(Imide-Co-Siloxane) Block Copolymers Aigor Novák, A,Banton Popelka, Cpetr Sysel, A,D Igor Krupa, Aivan Chodák, Amarian Valentin, Ajozef Prachár, Evladimír Vanko Apolymer Institute, Slovak Academy Of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia Bcenter For Advanced Materials, Quatar University, Doha, Quatar Cdepartment Of Polymers, Institute Of Chemical Technology, Faculty Of Chemical Technology Read More

In this paper, Face recognition in unconstrained illumination conditions is investigated. A two manifold contribution is proposed: 1) Firstly, Three sate of the art algorithms, namely Multiblock local Binary pattern (MBLBP), Histogram of Gabor Phase Patterns (HGPP) and Local Gabor binary pattern histogram sequence (LGBPHS) are challenged against The IRIS-M3 multispectral face data base. 2) Secondly, The Performance of the th Read More

The World Cup is the most widely viewed sporting event. The total attendance is in the hundreds of thousands. The first-ever World Cup in an Arab nation will be hosted by Qatar in 2022. As the country prepares for this event, the current paper proposes telepresence robots for the World Cup. Telepresence robots refer to robots that allow a person to work remotely in another place as he or she is physically present there. For su Read More

Word segmentation is a necessary step for natural language processing applications, such as machine translation and parsing. In this research we focus on Arabic word segmentation to study its impact on Arabic to English translation. There are accurate word segmentation systems for Arabic, such as MADA (Habash, 2007). However, such systems usually need manually-built data and rules of the Arabic language. In this work, w Read More

Health care systems in countries around the world are focused on improving the health of their populations. Many countries face common challenges related to capturing, structuring, sharing and acting upon various sources of information in service of this goal. Information science, in combination with information and communications technologies (ICT) such as online communities and cloud-based services, can be use Read More

Abstract. The concept of a fault has been introduced in the context of a comprehensive study of system dependability, and is defined as a feature of the system that causes it to fail with respect to its specification. In this paper, we argue that this definition does not enable us to localize a fault, nor to count faults, nor to define fault density. We argue that rather than defining a fault, we ought to focus on defining faulty programs Read More

The production of aluminum products, like other metallurgical industries, comprehends of a large variety of material processing steps. These processes require a multitude of material handling operations, buffers and transports to interconnect single process steps within aluminum smelters or downstream manufacturing plants like rolling mills or extrusion plants. On the one hand, the electrolysis process as the core Read More

We have developed a linear programming formulation to describe Qatar steel manufacturing supply chain from suppliers to consumers. The purpose of the model is to provide answers regarding the optimal amount of raw materials to be requested from suppliers, the optimal amount of finished products to be delivered to each customer and the optimal inventory level of raw materials. The model is validated and solved u Read More

Multiphase production metering - Benefits from an Industrial Data Validation and Reconciliation approach Simon Manson, Mohamed Haouche, Pascal Cheneviere and Philippe Julien TOTAL Research Center-Qatar at QSTP - DOHA, Qatar Contact: simon.manson@total.com Context and objectives TOTAL E&P QATAR (TEPQ) is the Operator of AL-Khaleej offshore Oil field under Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with Qat Read More

In support of Qatar's National Road Safety Strategy and under the umbrella of the National Traffic Safety Committee, Qatar Petroleum's Research and Technology Department in cooperation with Williams Advanced Engineering has undertaken a study of the state of tyre safety in the country. This study has reviewed the regulatory and legislative frameworks governing tyre usage in the country, as well as collected data on how Read More

Reasoning in propositional logic is a key element in software engineering; it is applied in different domains, e.g: specification validation, code checking, theorem proving, etc. Since reasoning is a basic component in the analysis and verification of different critical systems, significant efforts have been dedicated to improve its efficiency in terms of time complexity, correctness and generalization to new problems support (e.g. Read More

The main focus of the study was to find out the level of awareness about effectiveness of ICT mediated extension service in disseminating farm information to the farmers. The factors influencing awareness of the farmers and the problems faced by the farmers in getting farm information were also explored. Data were collected from a sample of 100 farmers out of 700. A structured interview schedule and check list were u Read More

The goal of this work is to explore the role of technology tools in enhancing the teaching and learning processes for English as a foreign or second language. Literacy is a crucial skill that is often linked to quality of life. However, access to literacy is not universal. Therefore, the significance of this research is its potential impact on the global challenge of improving child and adult literacy rates. Today's globalized world often de Read More

In recent years face recognition has received substantial attention from both research communities and the market, but still remained very challenging in real applications. A lot of face recognition algorithms, along with their modifications, have been developed during the past decades. A number of typical algorithms are presented, being categorized into appearance based and model-based schemes. In this paper we wil Read More

Humanitarian Computing Library

Over 70,000 historical books exist in Qatar's Heritage books collection that forms an invaluable part of the Arabic Heritage. The digitization of these books will help to improve accessibility to these texts while ensuring their preservation. The aim of this project is to explore Optical Character Recognition (OCR) techniques for digitizing historical Arabic texts. In this project, the techniques for improving the OCR pipeline were ex Read More

SPEAKER RECOGNITION USING MULTIMODAL NEURAL NETWORKS AND WAVELET ANALYSIS

The current fast track urban growth is an important characteristic of the emerging city of Doha. However, very few studies have addressed several important growth aspects, including the examination of the way in which the inhabitants comprehend and react to their built environment and the resulting spatial experience. The availability of attractive open spaces is an essential feature of a liveable urban environment, for the inh Read More

As in many parts of the world, the tertiary education sector in Qatar is growing rapidly, viewed as key to national development on the path to the “knowledge society”. The states of the Islamic world, with a significant but long-obscured past of scientific achievement, are witnessing a contemporary renaissance. The establishment of international offshore, satellite or branch campuses in the Arabian Gulf region emphas Read More

Since 2008, the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) and the University of Birmingham have collaborated on a cutting-edge research programme called the Qatar National Historic Environment Record (QNHER). This has made a significant contribution to our understanding of Qatar's diverse cultural heritage resource. Commencing with the analysis of terrestrial and marine remotely sensed data, the project expanded to unde Read More

This paper explores the emergent themes from the first stage of our cross cultural research (UK and Qatar) into pregnancy and pregnancy loss. This paper presents a culturally grounded representation of pregnancy and the experience of pregnant women in Qatar. In order to understand the experience of miscarriage in Qatar, it is necessary to first develop an ethnotheory of pregnancy. This research uses the approach and m Read More

A series of archaeological sites in Qatar have been attesting multifaceted aspects of the society and daily life practices in the eve of oil industry, particularly in the period from the 17th to the mid-20th century. The archaeological walled town of Al-Zubarah, for instance, has been excavated, first in the early 1980s by a Qatari mission, and since 2010 by the University of Copenhagen, in partnership with Qatar Museum Authorit Read More

Background: 50% of those who had ever used an on-line life satisfaction measurement tool were considered optimally satisfied about their lives. Categorization into age, sex, country of origin and religion did not seem to affect the results of the on-line database for life satisfaction scores. In Gaza, Palestine, most of the public believed that being a female doctor would kill any form of life enjoyment and it is a common belief h Read More

ملخص بحث تعاطي المواد الطيارة البروفيسور العياشي عنصر وآخرون يتمثل الهدف الرئيسي لهذه الدراسة في التعرف على مدى انتشار تعاطي المواد الطيارة أو "المستنشقات" بين المراهقين في دولة قطر. ويتفرع عن هذا الهدف الرئيسي مجموعة من الأهداف الفرعية. وقد انطلقت الدراسة من مجموعة من التساؤلات الرئيسية مثل: ما هي الخصائص الديموغرافية والاجتماعية لمتعاطي المواد الطيارة. ما الذي أوصلهم إلى تعاطي هذه المواد الطيارة. أين ومتي يتعاطون هذه المواد. ما هي شدة الإقبال عليها، وما طول ف Read More

Over the past years, significant and rapid changes in many aspects of society and the world have led countries such as Qatar and others in the Gulf Region to reform their national education systems, focusing on the integration of standards, assessment, and accountability. One of the key elements in most of these reforms is the professional development as a central feature of such educational improvement initiatives for t Read More