Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Volume 2013 Issue 1

Museums are increasingly placing digital images of portions of their collections online. Weblogs of visits to these online 'digital museums' can then analysed to give the collection curators a sense of what portions of the digital collections are attracting the greatest degree of interest (as coarsely measured by 'hits' on images). Some sites support commenting by viewers, and these comments also can be useful in gaining insight into the interests of the viewers [1] and can be 'mined' to suggest additional useful metadata for the collection [2]. However, these digital museums generally include only a small fraction of the items on display in the physical museum. We propose a method for uncovering visitor interest across the entire physical museum's display, by 'mining' a public repository of personal photographs for photos taken during visits to the museum. The visitors can be assumed to take photos of those museum exhibits that has the highest personal impact on them—for example, if they find the item to be interesting, shocking, entertaining, or so forth. In this case study we examine photos of visits to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, as uploaded to Flickr. Specifically, we select a sample of 500 photos tagged with "Qatar Islamic Museum" (the keywords that appear to be most common for this museum). From that sample we manually categorized the images to be either photos of the museum itself, or photos of item(s) in the collection. For each of these base categories, we further downloaded and analysed the metadata applied by the photographer to the image, Comments that other Flickr users added, and the number of times that the image was Favorited by Flickr users. The photographs of collection items were further manually manually grouped and characterized by item type (eg, Ceramics, Tapestries, etc.). Where possible, multiple images of the same object were identified. These results of the manual analysis support an insight into the visitor experience to the Museum of Islamic Art. We also present a prototype of a 'control panel' for the Museum that will allow the Museum's curators to automate the process of downloading photos of the Museum and its collection, together with the Flickr metadata accessible through the Flickr API (Comments, Favorite counts, etc). This data is then displayed in an Excel spreadsheet together with the original photo, and macros support the curator in analysing the data. We argue that this system will support the curators in seeing the Museum from a visitor's point of view—to gain insights into what they enjoyed, valued, and connected with most strongly. [1] Cunningham, S.J., and Mahoui, M. 2013. Interacting with and through a digital library collection: Commenting behaviour in Flickr's The Commons. Proceedings of JCDL 2013, 23 - 26. [2] Momeni, El., Tao, K., Haslhofer, B., and Houben, G-J. 2013. Identification of useful user comments in social media: A case study on Flickr Commons. Proceedings of JCDL 2013, 4 - 12.

In this interactive poster (a set of public web demos) we present insights into the socio-cultural activity in Qatar as seen on Twitter. Our starting point is the identification of around 70,000 active Twitter users that are, either permanently or temporarily, based in Qatar. This identification is done using a number of features such as (i) the self-stated location, (ii) the geo-tagged position of tweets from geo-enabled mobile devices, and (iii) a large amount of interest (= following) in local Twitter accounts such as @dohanews (“Doha News”), or @qatarevents (“I love Qatar”). Comparing to estimates from the Arab Social Media Report compiled by the Dubai School of Government we are confident that our sample includes the majority of active Twitter users in Qatar. For this user population we regularly obtain all their public tweets using the public Twitter API and annotate them with geographic co-ordinates (if the tweets comes from a mobile device) and with the language used. Language detection is performed using state-of-the-art libraries which work well for most cases but still fail for the comparatively small number of Tweets in Arabizi or other transliterated languages. The first demo visualizes the variation in language usage in different parts of Qatar in general and Doha in specific. Whereas English dominates in West Bay, Arabic dominates in less urban areas and Tagalog, the main Philippine language, is very prominent in the Industrial Area. This simple analysis already illustrates potential applications for more systematic social science studies. The second demo visualizes the “pulse of the city” and allows the user to select a day of the week, time of the day and language of interest. Areas that are more or less active than expected are highlighted which provides insights into where people live, work or are actives on weekends. For the last demo, we manually compiled topical lists of words related to topics such as traffic, sports, shopping, religious activities and references, family and friends, and work. These lists are translated to English, Arabic and Tagalog, the main languages in our data set. The user then has the option to see areas with an increased activity either in time (e.g. mosques for religion) or in space (e.g. Aspire for sports). We believe that this exploratory, interactive study shows promising potential for large scale demographic studies as well as for survey-type analysis to get insights into the worries and concerns of large parts of the populations. Though the Twitter population is clearly not a representative sample of the offline population, a bias could potentially be corrected by weighting different members in the sample differently. For example, older users or Indian workers, two groups that are underrepresented in our current data, could be given additional weight. We hope that our interactive presentation will initiate conversations and spark new ideas on how to use Social Media for social science research.

Traditionally countries looked at measuring well-being in terms of income growth. But size and growth of GDP reflects aggregate economic performance and is not necessarily a good measure of individual or national well-being ― low income groups may not always benefit ― and increasing GDP growth is unsustainable if depleting the natural resource base. International policy focus now shifting to measuring well-being of individuals and nations and quality of lives of individuals and populations. New and innovative methods to monitor well-being and happiness are being devised by international agencies, some countries, as well as NGOs and private sector. National well-being is now being understood and measured through many dimensions of people's lives, attitudes and aspirations using traditional and non-traditional data sources. The paper will provide a background on the evolving international focus on measures of well-being, including the approaches of UNDP, Stiglitz, government of the UK, Legatum Institute, OECD, BCG and Gallup/Silatech, and make the case for developing a well-being index for Qatar. It will touch on Qatar's new Social Prosperity Index and present the methodology and results of new measures of well-being for Qatar in the domains of health, education and environment

Many regions in the Middle East are currently implementing bilingual-type programmes in their national education. The abundance of initiatives in the region (e.g. Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain) suggest that this represents more than just a quantitative increase of second language provision in schools. This marks a shift from bilingual education being for the elite only towards encapsulating forms of bilingual education within public education. However, with the lack of formal documents and super-national language policies formulated to state the goals, policies and guidance for language education in the states (such as The European Commission's White Paper on Education and Training, 1995, or the Plurilingualism Promotion Plan issued by the Andalusian government in 2005) presents a caveat increased by the scarcity of research to surround these bilingual practices before and after the national changes in education and the language-in-education issues. Documenting this change is informative for the educational sector internationally especially with the interest in educational exportation in recent years. This study sought to gain an insight into the policy and practice of language-in-education in the Qatari educational system by exploring and describing the organisation and implementation of bilingual education in Qatar. It focused on the bilingual programmes offered to Qatari students and Arabic speaking children at international and independent primary schools in the unique linguistic and socio-economic context of Qatar, where Modern Standard Arabic, English and the Qatari dialect are spoken. Following a case study approach, I attempted to determine how bilingual education was conceived and carried out in international and independent schools by investigating various aspects of their bilingual and biliteracy practices. I concentrated on arrangements for the allocation, distribution, and separation of two languages (Arabic and English) with respect to fourth grade children. In addition to observing the bilingual methods and biliteracy approaches used in the classroom, and interviewing the teachers, I examined secondary data drawn from a database.The analysis of the two cases examined revealed various differences across two types of schools within a small country such as Qatar. Following a thematic approach the results are discussed within two corollaries: curricular organization and classroom praxis. Findings reveal that the international school followed a partial immersion type of bilingual education while the independent school followed a CLIL-type of bilingual education. The findings also reveal interesting results of the prominent use of IRF type of exchanges in both L1 and L2 classes. The flexible language use and purposive code-switching were discussed and documented as significant contributions to key concerns in contemporary bilingual education. As a whole the two case studies, supported by some statistical descriptions, reflected an instance of the official bilingual education context in Qatar.

In multilingual context of the present Iran, recent years have witnessed a significant tendency among families in indigenous communities to undermine the mother tongue and speak the official language of Persian to young children. Therefore, the present study aimed at finding out the main reasons for language shift from native to official among Dehloran families in Ilam, Iran. A questionnaire consisted of 46 items to identify the main reasons for language shift was distributed among 206 participants to reflect their views on the basis of a five-point Likert scale from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. Results indicated that the majority of people related language shift to reasons such as the belief in better understanding of educational materials in school as well as achieving fluency in Persian, the role of Persian as the lingua franca of all Iranian ethnics, and the use of Persian in expanded domains. Moreover, the participants believed that the language shift is not confined to a particular social class but is pervasive among all members of the society.

D-Loop of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is widely used to investigate the chicken populations history, origin, migration or evolution. No previous genetic data is available on the chicken from the Arabian Peninsula. In this study, a 420 bp fragment of D-Loop of Mitochondrial (mtDNA) was used to estimate the genetic diversity and origins of local chickens in Arabian Peninsula (including the isle of Socotra) and Somalia. From 207 sequences (175 from the current study and 32 from GenBank), we retrieved a total of 27 haplotypes with an average haplotype diversity of 0.7588 (±0.0300). From 5 chicken populations in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Socotra Island and Somalia, we revealed 3 distinct clades; clade E, a likely Indian subcontinent origin as the commonest clade in Oman, Saudi Arabia and Socotra Island; clade C, a Southeast Asia origin appeared mainly in Somalia and clade A, Southeast and/or East Asia origin appeared in few individuals. We attributed the wide presence of clade E to the seafaring trade and migration routes around Indian Ocean that has linked Arabian Peninsula with Indus Valley (center of origin). The results of Mantel test indicated that the relationship between chickens of clade E in India, Arabia, Northeast Africa, East Africa and Southeast Africa is subjected to Isolation by Distance. Our findings can provide other evidences to the role of Arabian Peninsula in the ancient historical maritime and terrestrial contacts between Asia and Africa, and indicated the presence of large maternal genetic diversity in the region, which could potentially support genetic improvement programs.

Entrepreneurial Learning in a Multi-generational Family Business: Evidence from Nigeria Abstract Although a long-standing phenomenon, family business as an economic and social phenomenon has started to receive greater attention and focus from the academic research body, mainly due to the widespread of this type of businesses worldwide and their impact on economy. The subject of entrepreneurship has long been studied and the family business is considered to be the dominant form of organization in the world (Hoy and Sharma, 2012), there have still been calls for more research and studies that connects entrepreneurship and family systems (family and business) (Aldrich and Cli, 2003). Entrepreneurial learning is understood as how people acquire knowledge and enact new behaviours in the process of recognizing and acting on opportunities and of organizing and managing ventures (Rea & Carswell, 2000). Learning is an integral part of the entrepreneurial process in which human and social aspects hold as much importance as economic factors. Although entrepreneurship is an on-going process, the entrepreneur is considered central to the process as his/her entrepreneurial activities enable the existing/new organization to come into existence or correspond to the venture requirements. In family business, family members have to assume the role of innovator, manager, business owner, staff and so on, at various stages of the business and each role requires unique set of skills whose possession and application translate into a unique learning exercise. Accordingly, early participation in the day-to-day practice of the business develops a strong identification of family members with the business, a sense of ownership and a responsibility for the business preparing them not only to be fit to run a certain type of business but also to be able to identify and capitalize on opportunities (entrepreneurial learning). The paper draws on an empirical study of three generations in two family businesses through in-depth interviews, observations and organizational records. Six individual interviews were undertaken with non-family members and members of the family who had taken over or were working in the business. Data analysis was carried out via a qualitative data analysis software - NVivo - comparing both within-case and across-case analyses. The paper suggests that in family businesses, there is asymmetry between the participation of the three generations; and that entrepreneurial learning varies relatively in the first, second and third generations. Similarly, the founding generation participated through collaboration, expertise and communication while subsequent generations participated through apprenticeship, communication and new resources (especially human and social capital resources). Multi-generational entrepreneurial learning in family systems depended on the ability to replicate and transform practice, and this plays an important role in the generative capacity of a family business. We anticipate that our findings will add credence to theory (better understanding of entrepreneurial learning in a developing country), practice (useful information for family business owners) and education (development and enhancement of the curriculum on family business).

This QNRF-funded project features a cross-national investigation of the influence of higher education development and science capacity-building on scientific knowledge production. Measuring science on the basis of published papers in selected STEM disciplines, we identify factors behind national differences and global similarities. How does variation in national models and strategies to develop higher education and research universities explain long-term cross-national trajectories in science productivity over the 20th century? Observing unprecedented growth in scientific knowledge productivity, we selected six national cases that represent three phases of higher education development and science-based societies: a major European precursor model (Germany), American broad institutionalization of the currently dominant model, and, finally, Asian (Japan, China, Taiwan) and Middle Eastern (Qatar) innovators seeking to learn from the best. The enormous potential of a knowledge economy and society depends on continued production of scientific knowledge, but also its specification and enhanced quality. Even though scientists globally add to the world's store of scientific knowledge, there are significant cross-national differences in relative contribution. While global production grows substantially, a few nations still produce the overwhelming majority of new science. For example, the U.S. leads the world in research, producing 21% of all research papers (2004-2008). Together with China (10%), UK (7%), Japan (6%) and Germany (6%), these five countries contribute 60% of all publications globally (UKRS 2011). Our preliminary research suggests that differences in key aspects of institutional models of higher education development and science capacity-building are associated with cross-national differences in scientific knowledge production over time. We use mixed methods to analyze the institutional model of higher education development and science capacity-building in these nations over time. Our main measure is the number of published papers in journals, relying on a unique dataset from Thomson Reuters' Web of Science (1900-2011). Examining trends in journal publications in selected STEM disciplines, we analyze how universities, investments in higher education and science, international collaborations, and scientific networks have changed to create the conditions for the "knowledge society". Mainly, this poster presentation explains the influential German institutional model of the research university, which enjoyed preeminent status in modern science's early institutionalization. Placing primacy on autonomous science and valorizing the unity of teaching and research, this type of university continues to dominate German higher education. Yet massive tertiary educational expansion, the rise of extra-university research institutes, and establishment of praxis-oriented universities of applied sciences challenge the foundational principle, threaten this globally popular model, and reduce university-based research capacity in Germany. Nevertheless, Germany's dual pillars of mass universities and prestigious independent research institutes continue to boast one of the largest national scientific outputs globally. With an annual R&D investment of 2.84% GDP (2011), Germany has among the highest levels of science investment in Europe. Measured in publications, Germany still competes at the very top. While still a model for other countries, other top science countries today rely on their universities more in producing competitive science than does Germany. UK Royal Society (2011): Knowledge, Networks and Nations: Global Collaborations in the 21st Century. London

Languages are passed down through generations from parents to children by communication. Yet linguists find that languages (and varieties of languages) change over time - but at different rates. This study mainly aims at investigating semantic and word changes that took place in the Qatari colloquial Arabic over a period of thirty years. The research began by interviewing forty Qatari locals. The participants came from two age groups: (18-24 years) and (55-61 years) - this is to document change over time. The interview examined the presence of semantic changes in the Qatari colloquial Arabic. The linguistic variable in this study was a list of forty-five dialectical terms and expressions that were commonly used by adults 30 years ago. The second part of the research method included investigating the origin of each term from Kitab al-'Ayn (the first dictionary of the Arabic language) and Lisan Al Arab to confirm that they come from Arabic. The results of the research vary. The majority of the lexical items under investigation presented some form of change over the two generations; they showed phonetic, semantic as well as other types of change. There was also evidence of terms that were borrowed from languages such as Farsi, English and Urdo and incorporated into the Qatari local dialect, after undergoing phonetic change. Languages change for a variety of reasons. History reveals many examples of dialect change fuelled by migration/movement, colonization and economic growth. One finding of this research is that the vocabulary an individual uses nowadays is a social marker of age. An example of this includes the word ?????? )?ambalou?), meaning ambulance. This lexical item was borrowed from English before going through a phonological change, and users of this term tend to be from an older generation. The changes happening to the Qatari colloquial Arabic is an undocumented phenomenon. The study increases the awareness about the development of the language in the country and is a research platform for further investigation in the field.