Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2013 Issue 1

In 2002, Qatar established key elements of educational reform, known as "Education for a New Era", including curriculum standards, emphasis on student -centered classrooms where students actively engage in inquiry, problem solving, critical thinking, and extensive professional development for teachers. The present study is a part of a three year QNRF funded research project which involved two major phases. The first phase of the research project was primarily descriptive and involved a sample of 67 teachers and approximately 1150 students randomly selected from 17 independent schools. The research in this baseline phase depicted the classroom instructional strategies implemented in response to Qatari educational reform goals, and described the extent to which students in Qatari Independent elementary schools engaged in self-regulated learning. The second phase of the research which is the focus of this study used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the influence of specifically designed professional development modules, which were developed based on the initial baseline data, targeting improvement of student-centered teaching and learning in classrooms. The study sample consisted of 47 teachers and 1000 students. Overall, the results in this study suggest that the reforms related to student-centered instruction in Qatar are not fully implemented and unlikely at this point to foster student self-regulation. The implications of the study findings for the implementation of reform and professional development in Qatar were discussed.

“Think globally, act locally” is considered critical to winning consumer trust in Ecommerce. However, there is a paucity of research aimed at understanding the linguistic adaptation required for Ecommerce. Researchers claim that Arabs have an affinity for high context but low content. Our pilot study of 50 prominent Ecommerce websites of businesses based in Arab countries has revealed that the majority of sites which offer an Arabic version are literal translations that fail to capture the real meaning or richness of the Arabic language. Further, the sites studied do not significantly reflect characteristics pertaining to a higher context culture and the site designs do not demonstrate conformance to Arab cultural dimensions identified in Hofstede's model. In this extended research, we present the methodology and results from a study of 500 Arabic E-Commerce sites spanning 22 Arab countries. Our initial focus was an investigation of the use of visual metaphors and their cultural undertones. In addition to the further validation of the results of the pilot study supporting non-conformance to Hofstede's model of cultural adaptation, our study determined very low adaptation of visual metaphors that were designed to reflect the Arab culture. Since language and culture are closely related, studying metaphor usage in particular and figurative language in general, received our attention in the second part of our study. We are currently developing an Arabic language e-commerce corpus by crawling a seed repository of web sites from 22 Arabic countries; this corpus includes a set of seven domains (business types). We believe the resulting corpus will serve as a valuable resource in order to accomplish different studies in computational linguistics and language engineering experiments. Our preliminary study of the acquired data shows that figurative language use, although sparse in general, is more common in tourism domain than e-banking domain. On the other hand, we observe that selecting web sites from different Arab countries facilitates the understanding of the use of Arabic dialects in different countries. Based on our preliminary analysis of data, we find the pervasive use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), although some sparse use of dialectal features can be observed in the data-set. Our long term goal is to conduct eye-tracking studies and based on the insights gained from the prior studies, develop and communicate best practices for design firms and Arabic language translators, besides creating a repository of design and content patterns for Arabic Ecommerce websites. The ultimate objective of the research is to reduce the perceived digital gap in the Arab world and help achieve Qatar's vision of creating a knowledge-based economy and promote Arabic language in e-commerce.

This work was made possible by NPRP grant 5-1393-6-044 from the Qatar National Research Fund (A member of the Qatar Foundation).The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Citizenship and integration in the understanding of the contemporary Dawa المواطنة والاندماج في فقه الدعوة المعاصرة تعتبر الدعوة الإسلامية -بمفهوم نشر المبادئ وإصلاح المجتمعات- عِلما قائما بذاته. يقوم الأكاديميون المتخصصون فيه بوضع القواعد والأسس والنظريات التي تعمل على ضمان جودة الأداء الدعوي وفاعليته، واستمرارية تطويره- على قاعدة الركائز الشرعية الثابتة- بما يناسب التطورات والأحداث المعاصرة. ومن هذا المنطلق كان لزاما أن يكون للدعوة فهمها، وتحليلها، وتوصياتها، ودوافعها تجاه الموضوعات المطروحة على ساحة الفكر الإسلامي المعاصر، خاصة الموضوعات التي تمس حركة الدعوة، وتؤثر على عملية انتشارها بشكل مباشر، كموضوع المواطنة والاندماج. سواء كان ذلك في محيط المجتمعات الإسلامية التي تقتضي من الدعاة واجب الإصلاح والإرشاد، أو كان ذلك في مجتمعات غير المسلمين التي يهاجر أو ينتقل إليه أتباع هذه الدعوة. فتاريخ الدعوة يبين أن من أهم أسباب انتشارها واتساع رقعتها كان لحركة الدعاة وانتقالهم إلى أوطان العالم واندماجهم البناء مع شعوبها، فمنهم من استوطن، وجعل هذه البلاد مقاما له حتى الممات، ومن خلال مكارم أخلاقهم، ونبل تعاملهم، وصدق انتمائهم، سرت روح الدعوة، وتحقق أثرها الفعال في شعوب هذه الأوطان؛ فانتقل كثير منهم إلى الإسلام على نفس المنوال الذي من خلاله وصلتهم رسالته. ومنهم من قرر التعايش والانتماء إلى هذه الشعوب لحينٍ، استطاعوا من خلاله تأدية واجب الدعوة في المواطنين، وتحميلهم مهمة البلاغ والبيان. ولم تكن هذه المواطنة أو الاندماج إلا وفق غاية معلومة، وفقه واضح، ومصالح منشودة، وأهداف مرسومة. والدعوة في العصر الحاضر لا يمكن لها أن تقوم بواجب الإصلاح وتطوير المجتمعات، أو أن تحقق الانتشار المرجو في ربوع الأرض، والتأثير الفاعل في الأمم والشعوب المتعطشة لروح الإسلام وجوهره، إلا إذا ما استعاد أفرادها فقه المواطنة المصحوب بدافع الدعوة، وروح الانتماء، وحققوا الاندماج الإنساني العام المصحوب بصالح البشرية ونهضة المجتمعات. إذ لا يمكن تبليغ الدعوة، وتحقيق أهدافها في إصلاح الأرض وعمارتها، ودعاتها في معزل وانكماش عن الواقع، لا يحيطون بظروفه ولا يدركون معالمه، أو وهم يرون أنفسهم غير الناس، فليس عليهم ما على الناس، وليس لكل الناس ما لهم. إنما لابد من إيجاد قواسم التواصل واللقاء بين الدعوة ومدعويها، على اختلاف المشارب والأماكن والأزمان، وأقل ذلك الشعور الدافئ بالمواطنة الكاملة بأرض الدعوة، والرغبة الصادقة في الاندماج مع المدعوين. وهذه الدراسة تهدف إلى وضع فقه دعوي يتناول ماهية وأهمية المواطنة والاندماج في الدعوة المعاصرة، وذلك من خلال دراسة التاريخ والواقع، كما تنشد وضع الضوابط والقواعد الدعوية التي تبنى عليها المواطنة الصالحة والاندماج المثمر، وبيان صفات الدعاة وخصائصهم عند القيام بواجب المواطنة، أو أخذ الخطى نحو الاندماج المؤثر. وعلى هذا يأمل الباحث أن تأتي خطة الدراسة كالآتي: تمهيد ومقدمة المبحث الأول: المقصود بالمواطنة والاندماج في فقه الدعوة المبحث الثاني: أهمية تحقيق المواطنة والاندماج في فقه الدعوة المبحث الثالث: مواصفات المواطنة والاندماج في فقه الدعوة المبحث الرابع: ضوابط وآداب المواطنة في فقه الدعوة النتائج والتوصيات

MEFV Gene Mutation Detection In Arabic Patients With Familial Mediterranean Fever Rowaida Taha1, Suheil Ayesh2, Abdulghani Kohilan1, Vasiliki Chini1, Marios Kambouris 1,3, Hatem El-Shanti 1,4 1Shafallah Medical Genetics Center, Doha, Qatar, 2Gene Medical Labs, Gaza, Palestinian Territory, 3Yale University School of Medicine, Genetics, New Haven CT, USA, 4University of Iowa, Pediatrics, Iowa City, IA, USA Auto-inflammatory diseases are characterized by inflammation in the absence of high-titer autoantibodies or antigen-specific T cells. Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is the archetypal hereditary autosomal recessive periodic fever syndrome and auto-inflammatory disease characterized by recurrent self-limiting episodes of fever and painful polyserositis. It is most often found in families of Mediterranean ancestry, especially non-Ashkenazi Jews, Armenians, Turks, and Arabs. The offending MEFV gene localizes at Hsa 16p, encodes the pyrin or marenostrin protein, it is highly polymorphic with multiple disease causing mutations and normal polymorphisms. In Arabic FMF patients the spectrum and distribution of MEFV mutations are distinctive and the portion of unidentified mutations [50%] is the highest amongst the groups commonly affected by FMF. The MEFV genomic region in 100 hundred Palestinian patients with clear FMF symptomatology consistent with the clinical diagnostic criteria and with only one identified pathogenic mutation was screened to identify the second pathogenic mutation as well as coding and non-coding variations, large duplications or deletions and intronic variations. Mutation analyses involved sequencing of exons and splice sites, sequencing putative regulatory regions by using Long range PCR, Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA) to detect large deletions or duplications, and sequencing of the entire genomic region of MEFV. No second pathogenic mutation was identified in any of the samples by sequencing MEFV exons and splice sites, as well as putative regulatory regions. MLPA did not detect any large MEFV genomic deletions or duplications. Twenty different rare intronic variants (each identified in 1-3 patients) and were not present in about 700 ethnically matched control chromosomes. The biological significance of these variations could not be determined. There is strong evidence of preferential amplification of one allele over the other due to extensive polymorphism within the genomic sequence that would account for the lack of detection of the second pathogenic mutation. Alternatively, the effects of modifier genes or other loci that influence the clinical picture of FMF in Arabic populations can not be excluded. The comprehensive identification of MEFV mutant alleles among FMF patients is essential for the efficient examination of specific genotype - phenotype correlation patterns and for development of molecular tools to support the clinical diagnosis.

Background: The Qatar Whale Shark Research Project is a collaboration of government, industry and academia founded in 2010 to investigate anecdotal reports by Maersk Oil platform workers of large numbers of whale sharks seen in the Al Shaheen Oil field, Qatar. Methods: Photo-ID records have been collected from 2011 to present. Satellite-linked and acoustic tags have both been deployed, and biochemical 'biological tags' are being collected through tissue sampling. Plankton samples and environmental information are routinely being recorded. Fixed-station platform observations are being reported daily by gas industry workers to establish seasonality and sighting trends. Results: Aggregations of 100+ whale sharks have been regularly reported in offshore Qatari waters between May and September. Molecular barcoding of plankton samples has shown that the sharks are feeding specifically on tuna spawn from the species Euthynnus affinis. The tuna are thought to gather and spawn in the area due to both the unintentional protection offered by oil and gas platforms and the artificial habitat created by the structures. Preliminary satellite and acoustic tagging results indicates that the sharks aggregate during the summer months and disperse in the winter, in conjunction with the tuna. None of the satellite-tagged sharks have left the Arabian Gulf, although photo-ID has matched sharks between Qatar and the Strait of Hormuz and northern Gulf of Oman. During the 2012 season, 226 left-side shark identities were recorded, with 24% of sexed sharks (n = 144) identified as female and 76% being male. Mean estimated length was 6.88 ± 1.37 m (n = 156; range 4-10 m). Conclusion: The Al Shaheen Oil Field off Qatar is host to a globally significant aggregation of whale sharks, driven by the presence of high densities of E. affinis tuna spawn. Preliminary tracking data suggests that the sharks stay in the Arabian Gulf throughout the year.

Scientific literacy is a key objective for the educational systems of Qatar and the Middle East. Baseline findings are presented from a large scale, intervention study of how Qatari preparatory school students learn to read scientific material in Arabic and English. Results suggest that reading difficulties for both Arabic and English relate in part to an overemphasis on sentence-level meaning and reading aloud at the expense of other skills including locating key information, passage comprehension, and inferencing. Increased attention to strategic learning practices are suggested as a solution. To gain a comprehensive view of how science reading is learned, baseline data collection focused on the reading task as operationalized in school texts, student reading abilities and practices, and how reading is incorporated into classroom learning. With the cooperation of the Supreme Education Council, data was collected in a stratified sample of 12 Qatari Independent Schools (6 male, 6 female with balanced representation from cohorts 2, 4, and 6 of the Era of Educational Reform). Reading materials sampled included the grade 7 and 8 Arabic-language science textbooks, grade 7 and 8 scientific English textbooks, grade 7 and 8 English textbooks, and texts from the English-language Science Related Reading program. A paper-based instrument was used to measure comprehension of topically-related Arabic and English reading passages and to inventory reading strategy use (N=1035). This was complemented by think-aloud verbal protocol data collected from high and low ability students reading the passages from the written instrument (N=45). Classroom observations of both science and scientific English classes (N=24) were conducted. Finally an online survey about strategy awareness was administered to science, scientific English, and English teachers from each school (N=100). Findings with respect to student reading ability for both Arabic and English confirm results from the OECD's 2006 and 2009 Performance for International Student Assessment (PISA), which indicated clear weaknesses in Qatari students' ability to understand science material presented via a reading passage. Triangulation of classroom observations, verbal protocol data showing what students do when they read, and the kinds of exercises associated with reading passages in textbooks suggests that performance difficulties may be linked to a lack of practice in strategic behaviors. Current common practice emphasizes reading aloud in class and answering questions that require exact repetition of a portion of text. When students are asked to explain what they are thinking as they read, they primarily report the text itself with some checks on whether they understand the meaning of individual sentences. There is little opportunity in class for students to connect readings to other material, make inferences about implications, or paraphrase at the level of a passage; and there is little evidence that students do these things when reading. These findings suggest that a great challenge for human capacity building in scientific domains is teaching students how to learn science through reading. Future phases of the research therefore will focus on a teacher development program that can be implemented across Qatari schools.

This work sets out to find a theoretical framework for animal welfare that harmonizes Western philosophy and ideas with Islamic philosophy and Arab culture. The objective is to provide an effective platform for the lunching of legal instruments and educational programs for the humane treatment of animals in Qatar and in the GCC. The Western theories evaluated include those of J.S. Mill and Emmanuel Kant, which place animal welfare as an assessory of human life and freedom. These theories underpin the human rights and sustainable development approaches to environmental protection. We argue that both human rights and sustainable development frameworks are too deeply steeped in anthropology and the satisfaction of human needs and desires with limited emphasis on animals and the inanimate ecosystem on their own merits. Islam prohibits cruelty against animals. Both the Quran and Sunnah referred to the humane treatment of the animals. In the Quran, God said in The Bee surah:] (4) “and the grazing livestock He has created for you; in them is warmth and [numerous] benefits, … (6) And they carry your loads to a land you could not have reached except with difficulty to yourselves. Indeed, your Lord is Kind and Merciful. (7) And [He created] the horses, mules and donkeys for you to ride and [as] adornment”. We argue that the Western and Islamic principles can be harmonized to serve as the foundation for animal welfare law and education in Qatar. We place the theoretical framework within international law as well as the comparative laws on animal welfare in selected countries. In international law, we look at the sources of international law as outlined in the ICJ Statute, particularly Custom and General Principles of law. A crucial aspect of this work is the mapping of the theoretical principles to the law and then to the practice in Qatar to establish consistency or gaps and suggest ways of improving the welfare of animals in Qatar. Based on our visits, pictures and findings A Summary of our recommendations are; 1- For Zoos; Animals such as lions and tigers are not used to the temperature here, the new zoo need years to finish, so there must be an arrangement to return the animals to their original countries or to other zoos. The new zoo must have a lot of trees to reduce the temperature. 2. For Veterinary Clinics; because the place is hired, it's not ideal for a complete veterinary center. We recommend that they get new premises or improve on the existing ones in order to have bigger capacity for animals. 3. For Animal Shops at Souq Waqif; we recommend shades for animals on display. Where animals are kept indoors, there must be working air-condition facilities. The sale of colored animals must be restricted. 4. For the Animal Welfare Department; We recommend bigger sized room for surgeries and also for animals that are on admission. The cages which are used are rusty and need to be replaced.

Traditional buildings in Qatar and the Gulf countries, in general, are parts and components of a series of Islamic building styles, which, indubitably have adopted some of the construction and architectural styles left by preceding civilizations. Compared to other areas of the Islamic world, there appears to be very little and scarce research about the traditional architecture of Qatar. It can be argued that Qatar's architecture is not representative of the whole of the Gulf, but it is believed that it provides a reasonable place to look at if for no other reason than that it might be later compared with the architecture of other areas of the MENA region. It is also important to document what is still there - and what can be remembered - as there is now a tremendous threat of disappearance of what is left from the Qatari traditional architecture. Rostron notes this in his work on Qatar changes and development; “Although the transformations accomplished in Qatar since 1995 are quite revolutionary in essence, they have been carried out as cautiously as possible, given the country's less than progressive character” (Rostron, 2009, P. 221). This paper presents major findings and outcomes of investigative archival retrieval and fieldworks as part of a research project (UREP# 10-068-6-007) funded by the Qatar National Research Funds (QNRF) under its Undergraduate Research Experience Program UREP.

This paper presents mobile software that supports users in experiencing the Qatari nation's literary heritage as they explore the nation of Qatar. Literary tourism is 'motivated by interest in an author, a literary creation or setting, or the literary heritage of a destination' [1]—the tourism of locations and places mentioned within a piece of literature, pertaining to the history of a place, or birthplace or place of inspiration for the authors or story characters. Places may range from the general geographical setting of a story, down to a specific location that a character visits. Such tours allow visitors to Qatar to experience its stories and literary heritage, and the related physical locations. Our software augments a mobile user's experience of a literary work by providing relevant sections of a story as the user travels through locations mentioned in the text [2,3]. Each location has associated images, description and story excerpts. The software is multi-language and so the story can be presented in both its original language and in translation. The users can experience stories by reading the text or by listening to audio. For this prototype, we based the stories on contemporary works set in Doha (see attached screenshot showing locations from "Qatari Voices" [4]). However, the project is also open to a variety of literary forms, such as oral history and folkstories. Furthermore, we have experience in using the software for intertwining stories with location-based information about surrounding architecture and works of art. The application is intended both for tourists to experience Qatar's literature as they visit the streets of Doha, and also as a means for Qataris to connect with their literary heritage. Our prototype has been implemented and evaluated on both iPhone and Android smartphones [3,5,6]. The software can also be used for location-aware functions, such as "stories set in this area". Based on the user's interest, a travel route is suggested such that chapter-based stories can be accessed in the right sequence, but it is also possible to skip locations and to listen to a story arc not on location. We explored the use of our prototype in the context of stories, public events, and single-user guided literary tours. Users reported that they enjoyed using the location-triggered functions that allowed them access to stories they would have missed otherwise. 1. Smith, M., MacLeod, N., & Robertson, M. (2010). Key Concepts in Tourist Studies. London, England: SAGE Publications Ltd. 2. Kerry Arts (2013) A Mobile Application for Touring Locations in Literature, Student Project Report, University of Waikato, 2013 3. Annika Hinze, David Bainbridge (2013). Tipple: location-triggered mobile access to a digital library for audio books. JCDL 2013: 171-180 4. Carol Henderson, Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar (2010). Qatari Voices. Doha, Qatar: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing 5. Annika Hinze, David Bainbridge (2012). Listen to Tipple: Creating a Mobile Digital Library with Location-Triggered Audio Books. TPDL 2012: 51-56 6. Annika Hinze, Xin Gao, David Bainbridge (2006). The TIP/Greenstone Bridge: A Service for Mobile Location-Based Access to Digital Libraries. ECDL 2006: 99-110

The importance of family businesses has been increasingly acknowledged in the academic literature. In recent times, Qatar is witnessing a big boost in education and women in particular have shown keen interest as corroborated by the increase in the number of registration in the Universities. But even after acquiring degrees at par with the males in the family, in general, women still encounter serious challenges in family businesses and they are traditionally found to be not participating in core activities of the business. The aim of the project was to study issues related to women in family businesses in Qatar. The project studied role of women in the family in business activities; entrepreneurial growth among women in the family; and the role of women in building goodwill for family business by participating in community and social issues.