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Doha, 30 March 2015: Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), a member of Qatar Foundation Research and Development (QF R&D) has announced the winners the 17th cycle of its Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP). Out of 126 research proposals submitted by student teams from seven universities across Qatar, 37 were awarded grants. 
This latest UREP cycle will engage a total of 147 undergraduate students and 74 faculty members. Among the 37 awarded proposals, 26 went to Qatar University, three to Texas A&M University at Qatar, and two each to Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Northwestern University in Qatar and the University of Calgary in Qatar. The two remaining grants were awarded to Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College. 
By investing in cutting-edge research, QNRF is enhancing a research culture that supports Qatar Foundation (QF) on its mission to build Qatar’s innovation and technology capacity, helping the nation develop into a hub of research excellence through QF’s science and research pillar, QF R&D.

Doha, 25 March, 2015: The winners of the inaugural Qatar Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math Fair (Qatar STEAM) are set to represent Qatar at the renowned Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) in Pittsburgh, USA, in May. 
Having been chosen from among the brightest young minds as the overall winners of the first nationwide science and research competition yesterday, eight students were awarded with Grand Awards. 
The competition was held in full support of Qatar Foundation’s mission to build and develop capacity for creativity and critical thinking through research in education and science. 
The top prize in the Grand Awards went to Ghanim AlMansouri and Hussam AitelQadi for their research project entitled “Innovative Game Software for Improving the English Language Skills of Non-Native Speakers”.
Qatar STEAM was organised by Qatar Foundation Research & Development (QF R&D), Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), a member of QF R&D, and the Supreme Education Council (SEC). The nationwide competition saw more than 160 students from 40 schools participate in the two-day fair held at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha. 

MENAFN - Gulf Times) About 2,500 undergraduate students from universities in Qatar have been supported by Qatar National Research Fund's (QNRF's) Undergraduate Research Experience Programme (UREP), a top QNRF official said yesterday. One third of the participants were Qatari. 
Speaking at the award ceremony of the seventh annual UREP competitions, Dr Abdul Sattar al-Taie, executive director, QNRF, noted, "So far we have supported about 2,500 undergraduate students since the inception of UREP in 2006. Students have participated in 761 projects during the 16 UREP cycles that have been held so far with 656 UREP projects completed in the past seven and half years."
Dr al-Taie added, "It is not only an opportunity for the budding researchers to show their potential to the public but also an occasion to get recognised for their outstanding work. In the spirit of inclusion, the UREP competition also embraces wider community outside of the academic sector to undertake research in an effort to promote Qatari youth." 

Qatar University's project on effective remediation method for desalinated water bagged the top prize at the 7th Annual Undergraduate Research Experience Program Competition held at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University.
The project accomplished by QU students Sana Khan, Maymoona Ayesh and Fatemeh Fahraei under the guidance of Dr Mohammad al Ghouti was among the top five projects that made it to the final stage of the prestigious competition.
The second prize went to a group from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) for their work titled 'Metformin improves endothelial function and protects vasculature against glucose toxicity'.
Another WCMC-Q team project titled 'Validation and Functional Characterisation of Novel Factors in Senescent 3T3-L1 Pre-adipocytes' won third prize.
Other winners were Texas A&M University at Qatar (Tamuq) at fourth place while another team of QU students took the fifth place.

Previous calculations may have overestimated the importance of HIV transmission from recently infected individuals ("acute phase infectivity") in driving HIV epidemics, according to an article published by Steve Bellan of The University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues in this week's PLOS Medicine.
The lower estimates of acute phase infectivity suggest that recently infected individuals--who have not had the chance to start antiretroviral treatment--although still more infectious on average than those in the chronic stage of infection, are not as likely to infect others as was previously thought. Transmission from individuals in the acute phase of HIV infection could therefore pose less of a threat to effectiveness of Treatment as Prevention programs, while programs aimed at early identification of HIV infection could have less of a population-level impact, than previously thought.
The authors used two approaches to estimate acute phase infectivity. The first approach used viral load trajectories and the known relationship between viral load and infectivity to estimate that additional risk of transmission during the acute phase was equivalent to 5.6 extra months of chronic-phase infectivity (5.6 excess hazard months or EHMacute). The second approach used a mathematical model to simulate HIV infection and transmission among couples in the principal prior study that directly measured acute phase infectivity, a cohort study from Rakai, Uganda. This simulation estimated EHMacute to be 8.4. Both approaches yielded EHMacute estimates well below the two most cited previous estimates of acute phase infectivity (EHMacute 31 and 141). Bellan and colleagues determined that the higher estimates in previous studies were mainly the result of unaccounted-for heterogeneity in risk among study couples, and bias due to the exclusion of serodiscordant couples who were lost to follow-up. The authors caution that, even in their updated estimates, the small number of couples in this study result in wide confidence intervals.

CARNEGIE Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) recently hosted an 'Enhancing Teaching Arabic in Qatar' workshop for 25 primary, private and independent schoolteachers in an attempt to complement their language learning pedagogy.

Led by Zeinab Ibrahim, PhD, professor of Arabic Studies at CMU-Q and a renowned sociolinguist, 'Enhancing Teaching Arabic in Qatar' introduced the teachers to the linguistic theories behind the Arabiyyatti project, which is supported by the Qatar National Research Fund's National Priorities Research Program (NPRP).
Ibrahim said Arabiyyatti aims to introduce teachers to recent best practices in teaching Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) to schoolchildren. While Arab children are able to speak their local dialect, they are often unable to communicate using Modern Standard Arabic, otherwise known as fus'ha. 
"There are common problems with teaching Arabic across the entire region, and Arabiyyatti is the result of research indicating the need to support educators by introducing them to updated teaching methods as well as recent linguistic theories that deal with language acquisition and learning. I hope the participating instructors gained value from the workshop, and that it will inspire them to use Arabiyyatti in their classrooms not only for the benefit of their 

Media scholars and industry experts will convene on February 21 for the Fresh Global Media Players conference, a one-of-a-kind symposium on the reshaping of international media and communication.
Hosted by Northwestern University in Qatar, the conference will bring together media players from around the world, researchers and executives who bring new perspectives on the revolutionary change that is taking over international news and entertainment. The conference is sponsored by the Qatar National Research Fund as part of its vision to connect researchers in Qatar to their peers and colleagues, both at home and abroad.

HAMAD Medical Corporation (HMC) hosted the first Qatar International Pain Conference at the Qatar National Convention Center recently. It brought together 500 participants from Qatar and the abroad.
The aim of the event, organised by HMC's department of anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Unit and Perioperative Medicine in collaboration with Academic Health System (AHS) and support of Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), was to share the latest knowledge about modern-day pain management. 
The event was attended by pain specialists, general physicians, medical students and delegates from academic, government and private institutions.