Qatar Foundation Annual Research Conference Proceedings Volume 2014 Issue 1

Many studies of global e-commerce have treated cultures as monolithic entities and resorted to evaluating websites against the five cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede. In this study we rely on recent research, which suggests that websites should instead be decoded as cultural resources. By deconstructing culture and studying some constituting elements of Arab culture we propose to build best practices for content generation and visual design of e-commerce websites targeted at users in Arab countries. Our first study involved examining a sample of 50 Arabic language websites with emphasis on look and feel and language use and subsequently evaluating the cultural markers on these sites. We conclude that these sites do not predominantly reflect characteristics of a high context culture considered to be representative of Arab nationalities and are rather poor imitations of their Western counterparts. In this continuing research, we first investigate figurative language use in Arabic language websites. We created two textual corpora by crawling 3022 Arabic language e-commerce websites. We then annotated one corpus for figurative language use. Initial results from analyzing the annotated corpus and cross verification with the raw textual corpus confirm a rich source of ecommerce-related figurative language use contradicting our original hypothesis. Our further efforts are focused on first building a community of Arabic language researchers, who we believe will find both the raw and annotated corpus a useful source for linguistic research and subsequently promoting the construction of an effective ontological framework for B2C Arab e-commerce. Consistent with the multimodal research methodology that forms the basis of our study, we next considered the visual modes of expression in Arabic ecommerce websites. We first studied 530 randomly selected bilingual ecommerce websites for visual metaphor usage. Of 40% of the sites which had an Arabic version of visual metaphors, none appeared to have been localized to embrace Arabic culture. Our second study involved applying attention analysis, a method that predicts areas of interest to a user, on the sample of Arabic language websites from our original study. We concluded that site designs do not seem to have given significant importance to cultural cues from the perspective of visual salience. The third study involved eye-tracking a purposively built travel site with multiple tour packages on offer. The participants, who were students of Arab and other nationalities, were required to choose from two tour options that were displayed in symmetrically placed boxes on the webpage. Analyzing the resulting scan patterns of saccades and fixations provided insights into the interplay between language and design. Regardless of language or layout orientation both Arab and non-Arab participants seem to have the same expectations related to interaction flow, indicating a cognitive dissonance between textual orientation and visual design of Arabic language e-commerce websites. Given the significant growth of e-commerce in this region we expect the results of our multi-modal study to be of interest not only to linguistic researchers but also global businesses interested in doing business in this region. This research work was supported by NPRP 5-1393-6-044 from QNRF.

The talk will be dedicated to the presentation of the research project “Language-Philology-CUlture. Arab Cultural Semantics in Transition” as well as the “Analytical Database of Arabic Poetry”. The project will introduce a new dimension into the existing research on the Arabic language and Arabic philology, which until now have been studied without any comprehensive cultural and social contextualisation. The project will focus on the process of the transmission of Arabic poetry, which provides detailed evidence of the development of Arabic philological thought and its universal significance for the theological, philosophical, historical and linguistic discourses of Arab intellectual history. The project will document the transmission of early Arabic poetry and analyse its vocabulary in a systematic way for the first time. For this purpose it will create an Analytical Database of Arabic Poetry. This publicly accessible database will represent a ground-breaking contribution to European research on the Arabic language and the Arabic philological heritage, which so far lacks even such fundamental tools as an etymological dictionary of the Arabic language or a complete dictionary of Classical Arabic. The database will implement comprehensive analytical tools and, in addition to lexical data on the vocabulary of the poetical texts, will include information on the intellectual and cultural milieu in which the texts were distributed and transmitted. This feature will make the database useful not just as an innovative lexical source, but also as a reference work for wider research on Arabic literature, history and culture. The database will complement current European initiatives on the digitisation of the earliest textual sources of the Arabic language provided by inscriptions, papyri and the text of the Qur'ān. Including references and links to the lexical resources of these projects, the Analytical Database of Arabic Poetry will serve as an integrative research platform for the history and semantics of the Arabic language—a subject indispensable for understanding the foundations of Arab culture past and present. The project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC). For more information, please visit: https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/arsem/

Economic Diversification Qatari Economy ABSTRACT One of the major issues before the oil-rich Arab Gulf States in recent decades has been the diversification of their economies from the oil to non-oil sectors. Their heavy dependence (from 70 to 90%) on the oil revenues has prompted these countries to formulate the policies so that other sources of income from the non-oil sector can be enhanced. But the question is how for Qatar States has been successful in implementing these policies? Moreover, what are the major drawbacks in the diversification their economies in the present time? In this paper, an attempt has been made to understand the rationale behind the diversification of Qatar economies dominated any single rent revenues. This has been discussed in the framework of their overall macro-economic development, taking into consideration the various factors of productions, so that a desired balanced growth can be maintained. The main focus of the paper is on the current initiatives taken these States towards the building of a non-oil economy. While highlighting the Arab Gulf State Qatar's economic diversification drive, the paper particularly point out the varying degrees of seriousness and success because as this paper concludes, this economic diversification project can not be conceived without taking into account the impact of fluctuation in oil prices in the global market as well as on the overall economic and political stability in the region.

Background Hundreds of thousands of rare Arabic manuscripts are available in Qatar. A rich archival heritage of Islamic world and Qatar are preserved in the Qatar National Library (QNL). A number of international projects have been carried out in different parts of the world to digitize Arabic manuscripts, for example by the World Digital Library in cooperation with several international bodies, such as UNESCO, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and King-Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Still, the above engines do not have the ability or interface to find words inside the image of a manuscript. Our indexing system was implemented on different Arabic manuscripts datasets including samples from the QNL. Objectives The goal of this research project is to be able to query for words in images of any manuscripts database, and point out the word location in the images and the equivalent text. It shows the results of the query to the user who can then view the text in our interactive website. As demonstrated in Figure 1, the website interface is aiding the users to find their query easily. Methods Through our project, we designed and implemented a novel indexing system. In that work, we present an algorithm for automatic segmentation of manuscripts. The segmented page is then manually annotated to correct mistakes in segmentation. During the correction phase information about the image is extracted and stored in a database. This extracted information is then indexed and the users can use our search interface to easily find words in any ancient manuscripts that have been added to the system. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first word search system for manuscripts that use text queries to highlight the search terms in the manuscript image. Results The focal challenge in this project is the segmentation of handwritten Arabic manuscripts to index the word by word. Therefore, manually correction of the automatic segmentation of the manuscript was added to get 100% segmentation rate. This paper discuss a robotic method indexing Arabic manuscripts that has not been developed previously for handwritten manuscripts: providing an interactive website for the word search engine, to index, store, and provide users with searching and highlighting capability in the document image. Conclusions We considered the need for converting the words available in handwritten documents into electronic data with the goal of enabling it to become searchable online. A system prototype applying the proposed and described approach is being developed and experimentally tested, to fully demonstrate the capabilities of the website on Arabic manuscripts. An overview of the initial experimental studies is presented. We expect the proposed word retrieval system to take the search in manuscripts to a new level.

Throughout the world, many urban designers and architects have been working toward the protection, preservation and enhancement of urban heritage in order to increase its usefulness as well as preserve the cities' cultural identities. Indeed, heritage conservation has become the central activity of planning and urban design. Urban heritage is under growing pressure in many areas of the world including Doha. In fact, Doha hosts a rich vernacular architecture, including a number of major historic sites and monuments. The architectural richness of urban heritage in Doha is clearly displayed in the defensive towers, mosques, palaces, houses and Souk Waqif. In many areas of the world, including Doha, heritage areas and monuments with their physical, aesthetical, cultural, and socio-economic aspects, have started to be preserved, revitalized, maintained but rarely integrated within a strategic planning and design process. Heritage resources in Doha should be protected and enhanced so that people will be encouraged to visit and use them for promoting national and international heritage tourism. This paper summarizes the outcomes of UREP project related to the Doha cultural heritage. The project attempted to examine and evaluate the Doha urban heritage with respect to aesthetical, cultural, social, economic and environmental considerations. This research provided a detailed research work, by identifying and providing better appreciation of urban heritage. The basic purpose of this UREP project was to study in detail the planning and management process of urban heritage in Doha. This study had three major objectives to achieve: *To develop feasible means for conservation, planning and management of historic areas in Doha. *To identify and describe the significance as well as the constraints facing urban heritage in Doha. *To promote appreciation and better understanding among the general public toward special consideration of heritage resources and values within a modern development process. An empirical approach was needed and revealed vital to this project in order to collect the necessary information so that objective observations and evaluation could be established. Therefore it was necessary to identify the significance of old Doha and identify constraints and stresses which hindered its appropriate rehabilitation. The research was strategic in the sense that it intended to comprehensively evaluate and compare the current situation of heritage sites in Doha. The study was also important in promoting development of a network system and understanding among many researchers and professionals dealing with heritage conservation. The network system tool of this proposal would also support the work of relevant government and private organizations such as heritage and conservation departments, regional and municipal planning authorities and many heritage interests and research centers.

In collaboration with Qatar Museums and Qatar Foundation, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern art introduces its long-term project, Mathaf Encyclopedia of Modern Art and the Arab World (MEMAAW) to provide a major resource on Arab artists and their histories. Initiated by H.E. Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, as part of the development of Mathaf and knowledge around its collection, the research team at Mathaf, UCLQ and VCUQ commissions scholars and independent researchers to write encyclopedia entries/biographies, under the direction of Professor Nada Shabout, consulting Director of Research at Mathaf. The Encyclopedia has been in production since late 2013 has been online as a Beta Version since July 2014: www.encyclopedia.mathaf.org. The Encyclopedia launched with an initial 30 biographies, but will hopefully evolve in phases to include all artists from Mathaf's collection and beyond. The bilingual Encyclopedia is a free online scholarly comprehensive resource that provides basic facts and in depth information on modern art of the Arab world. The Encyclopedia aims to standardize the data on Arab artists and to encourage multiple perspectives on modernism in the Arab world while providing a comprehensive view on its development. Artists from the Gulf, in particular Qatar, remain largely outside of the academic realm. It is hoped that the project will align Qatari artists with other artists from the Arab world and encourage a better understanding of their development and contributions. Given today's interest in Arab art, the users of the MEMAAW will be art historians, researchers, scholars, university students, art professionals and translators seeking information on Arab modern artists, their styles, techniques, artwork, contributions, concepts, terminologies found in the Arabic art glossary, as well as areas of specialization related to modern art in the Arab world and modernism in general. All peer-reviewed and translated entries are original and provide comprehensive documentation on Modern artists of the Arab world by academics and scholars in the field. Entries also include artists' signatures for reference and authentication as well as artists' photos, artwork images, and audio-visual material. The Encyclopedia is a work in progress and will continue to develop to include all artists from Mathaf's permanent collection, and in subsequent phases will include Arab artists beyond the collection, as well as historically contextualizing and thematic essays on their work. The Encyclopedia also provides a resource for Arab art glossary and is a platform that supports knowledge exchange and network between researchers and scholars around the world. The website also provided rights and reproduction services to access images of artworks. It is anticipated that scholars and educators will be encouraged to use artworks in research, presentation and publication, thus promoting the Qatar Museums collection and code of ethics.

Qatar's growth, in terms of economic and political influence, is documented extensively in the literature and part of the country's long-term strategy for future development involves a growing events' industry. Having previously hosted the Asian Games and been awarded the rights to hold the 2022 FIFA World Cup the country is also host to numerous artistic, music, political and business events. In addition to host city destination promotion, and tourism development related impacts, leveraging of events' hosting for social behaviour change purposes has recently been utilised by the events' industry/host governments and is reported in the academic literature. The study presented here is stage one of a three partite project funded by the National Priorities Research Programme. It sought to identify the organisations that make up the events' industry in Qatar with the view to evaluate event managers': perceptions of the context of ‘green’ and ‘active’ living promotion in the country, internally and externally available resources to this effect, extent of pro behaviour change message promotion during events, main influencers for pro ‘green’ and active’ living issues and perceived effectiveness of such efforts. Stage one of the study also sought to capture managers’ perceived anticipations of changes in light of preparations for hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the extent to which managers envisage utilising the momentum from such a mega event to further promote ‘green’ and ‘active’ living messages to staff, event attendees and other external stakeholders. Following a literature review of event leveraging and the context of event hosting and promotion of ‘green’ and ‘active’ living in Qatar the study employed a questionnaire survey to capture the event’s industry demography. In the absence of a representative body/federation, of which events' organisations are members, and given that many event management tasks are performed in-house by departments of bigger organisations, the researchers developed a database of event management contacts (N=135). All of these were asked to fill in an Arabic or English language version of a 16 point questionnaire, and twenty-eight managers responded. The findings support the literature as regards the context of Qatar in terms of ‘green’ and ‘active’ living promotion efforts and also show evidence of expectations of mega event leveraging for behaviour change. Notwithstanding the limitations of the small sample size and descriptive nature of this first stage of the research the paper makes a methodological contribution with the development of the research instrument for assessing organisational behaviour change messaging in the events' industry. It also offers a snapshot of managers’ views of Qatar’s context as regards ‘green’ and ‘active’ living promotion related capabilities, key influencers and anticipated developments in light of the preparations for hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup-Qatar.

This study aims to investigate the perception of bullying amongst Qataris and Arabic speakers in Qatar by covering several areas (1) to what extent is the term "tanamour" used amongst Arabic speakers to refer to bullying and how far is it promoted; (2) attempts to identify which other words might be used to explain bullying in the country; (3) To what extent are people aware of distinguishing bullying from incidents according to the criteria of imbalance of power, intention, and repetition. Three scenarios were presented orally which contained incidents of bullying or aggression. The first scenario described intentional and repeated direct bullying (a boy continuously having his chocolate stolen at school). The second related a case of intentional and repeated cyberbullying (two boys continuously spread rumours about their classmate). The final scenario was not a case of bullying but rather, a one-off incident where a boy hits their classmate. Participants were asked to describe how they saw these incidents so that the terms used could be recorded (part A). This phase allowed people to describe events in their own words freely without prompting. In the second phase, participants were asked to select from a previously determined list, the most appropriate word they felt described the three scenarios already given and were presented via a laptop. The list contained commonly used terms for bullying behaviours in Arabic. However, if participants felt none of the words adequately described the behaviours, they were encouraged to use their own. Participants were not informed directly that the meetings would be about bullying but rather 'behaviours they may encounter in daily life'. They were also told that there were no 'correct answers' and to just state their opinion as they wished (including saying nothing or ending participation if they wanted). Two researchers were present at every meeting except one where it was appropriate for a female only. All sessions were recorded except one where participants found it inappropriate. Focus groups included 36 participants and took place either in participant's homes or places of work, and took 20-60 minutes long depending on group number and length of discussion. The study took place amongst families, friends and social workers in Qatar where 36% of the sample were Qataris and the rest were from other different Arabic speaking countries such as Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Bahrain, Jordan, Somalia and Iraq. Even though this is a preliminary study, the findings indicate that there is some diversity due to the differences in cultures as there is considerable confusion with regards to the terminology used to describe bullying in Arabic. With respect to the aims of the study it has been unequivocally demonstrated that 'tanamor' is not widely used in Qatar and that when it is, it is often misused. There isn't a clear word emerged that has any equivalence to bullying in English. It is clear that there is a tremendous amount of work to be done to qualify both a term and concept behind this damaging behaviour in the Middle-East.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) a member of Qatar Foundation Doha, Qatar, National Priority Research Programs grant (NPRP 5- 1134-3-240) funded to Dr. Muthanna Samara. We also would like to thank the teachers and head teachers in Qatar who were kind enough to provide us with information and advice.

Qatar is experiencing rapid economic and population growth, which has resulted in new challenges. According to Qatar's national vision, sustainable development is one of the key factors to bridge the gap between current and future generations and includes a variety of development routes, including the development of both innovative technologies as well as cultural institutions. The deterioration of cultural heritage objects is one of the most critical problems for fields in the humanities and social sciences. Preserving cultural artifacts is crucial to understand the past of a nation as it provides us a unique window into the history and culture of that nation. The preservation and restoration of cultural heritage objects which are in danger of being lost from a variety of factors including environmental degradation adds to the overall value of the global human culture and keeps it alive for future generations. Our research focuses developing materials that can be used to support cultural institutions in Qatar while also supporting the development of innovative technologies. In addition to supporting the preservation and conservation of cultural institutions and their collections in Qatar, this research also opened doors to the development of cutting edge technology in Qatar with applications. Nanotechnology offers a cost-effective and nondestructive method to treat cultural heritage artifacts. We present the microwave-assisted synthesis and characterization of alkaline nanomaterials for the preservation of cultural heritage. Calcium and barium hydroxide nanomaterials suspended in aqueous as well as alcoholic medium were applied on different samples to check their effectiveness. The effect of treatment was measured using pH value and alkaline reserve test. The alkaline reserve test results indicate improvement in the alkaline buffer with significant reduction in acidity of the papers and improvement in pH value of the surfaces. Ethanol was found as best solvent on the basis of suspension of nanoparticles, pH value and ease of application through spray gun. Accelerated ageing test revealed that the reinforcement effect of these nanomaterials persisted throughout the ageing. All the results converged in individuating these nanometric particles as an innovative, completely compatible, and efficient material for the consolidation of old and new paper surfaces.

Despite the dramatic recent growth of international migration wherein increasing numbers of households in the developing world have members working in other countries, there has been little research into the effectiveness of financial literacy on the saving and spending habits of migrants to the Gulf states. While much has been said in policy circles about the need to provide financial education to migrant individuals and families to help them make informed decisions about money matters, little evidence exists on the impact of such services in developing countries. In order to address some of these shortcomings, this research project has two interrelated objectives. The first objective is to design a financial literacy curriculum aimed at migrant households. The curriculum aims to encourage (temporary) migrants and their households back home to develop and work towards long-term and sound financial planning. The curriculum covers a variety of pertinent topics such as savings, budgeting, managing debt, and investing. The second objective is to produce a set of instructional videos on financial education using the contents of the curriculum. These are to be widely disseminated to low income bracket migrant populations in Qatar through DVDs and online videos. These videos are designed to overcome the limitation of relying on a limited pool of qualified teachers to deliver the curriculum's content as well as logistic challenges in hosting multiple classroom sessions. To our knowledge, this is the first set of instructional videos that have been developed for a Qatar-based migrant community to aid with the management of money matters. In the future, we plan to study the impact of these educational videos on migrants in Qatar to see how much of a positive effect the material has had on their lives and financial habits.