Workshop on the Role of Medical Librarians Held
News Round Up
How to Deal Successfully with the Instructors
Panorama
SQU Hosts International Algebra Conference
News Update
Mountain Research
at SQU
Department of Public
Relations and Information
Sultan Qaboos University
Issue 232
View Point
Information Therapy
Information therapy is the prescription of the right information, to the right
person, at the right time to help make a better health decision. This emerging
concept is expected to both revolutionize the role of information in health
care and enable the mainstream adoption of the long-promised shift to patient-centered care.
Humaid Abdullah Al Adwani
Editorial Supervision & Editor in Chief
M.K. Santhosh
Senior Editor
Ahlam Al Wahaibi
Design & Layout
Rashad Al Wahaibi
& Photography Dept., CET
Photography
A medical librarian can add major value in providing Information Therapy.
Librarians are information specialists – they know how to classify and retrieve information. Librarians will collaborate with doctors, to ensure that
patients get the information they need. Patients should treat the librarian as a
researcher on their medical team – and discuss the information they unearth
with their doctors.
Medical librarians ensure that the information that a patient or consumer
seeks will be sourced from authentic and reliable resources. They will search
every available resource as required and will contact other information professionals for additional help if required. In each of these cases, the librarians
help patients with information that they would not have easily got from their
doctors for several reasons. Providing this kind of information creates a positive virtuous cycle – and the doctor whom medical librarians help is able to
help many more patients as well.
The role of librarians is not restricted to helping only patients. Medical librarians are trained and experienced in conducting medical literature searches.
They are often asked to locate a specific medical journal article by a doctor
when he encounters a patient with a rare problem. Sadly, medical librarians
are an unappreciated and underutilised lot in many parts of the world, and
we have failed to take advantage of their unique skill sets. In fact, in countries
like the US, medical librarians accompany doctors on their rounds, so that
the medical staff can make optimal use of medical journals and databases.
Information Therapy is an integral part of the healthcare process. Doctors
may not be able to explain every single detail to their patients. Instead of
wasting time wading through information on the Internet, using a library’s
resources and a librarian’s help can make a world of a difference to patients.
The symposium on the role of medical librarians, organized by SQU in association with Royal Hospital was successful in highlighting the emerging
role of these professionals!
Horizon invites contributions from SQU members of staff and faculty. Contributions in the form of articles,
news, travelogues, stories of unique and interesting experiences, encounters, etc., are welcome. Contributions
may be edited for the sake of clarity and length. Please send your contributions to horizon@squ.edu.om preferably, as MSWord attachments. Authors will be suitably credited.
Horizon is published three times a month by the Department of Public Relations and Information,
Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 50, P.C. 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
Phone: +968 24141045
E-mail: horizon@squ.edu.om
30 January 2012 P2
Fax: +968 24413 391
Website: www.squ.edu.om
SQU Receives AMEI
Delegation
A delegation from the American Middle East Institute, United States of
America, headed by Simin Yazdgerdi Curtis, President and Founder of the
Institute visited Sultan Qaboos University recently. They were received by
Prof. Amer bin Ali al Rawas, SQU Deputy Vice Chancellor for Postgraduate
Studies & Research and other senior officials.
The American Middle East Institute (AMEI) is an independent, non-profit
organization, focused on building business, educational and cultural ties
between the United States and the Middle East. In her discussions with
SQU officials, Simin Curtis said that AMEI is uniquely positioned to promote Pittsburgh’s leading corporations and institutions in the Middle East
because of their extensive knowledge of the Middle East region and culture,
their strong corporate and government ties in the region and in the U.S., the
high-profile networking events AMEI has become known for, and the prestigious cultural and educational programs they manage and with which
businesses can associate themselves.
The delegation explored the chances of having the support of academicians
from SQU for the intensive Arabic programs offered by their institute and
other cultural and business related activities focusing on the Middle East
region. The head of the delegation evinced her interest in building partnership with SQU and Oman at large in academic, cultural and educational
arenas. “We urge young professionals and business students to do business in Oman. We would like to host Omani students for the academic programs starting in the summer this year”, Mrs. Curtis said. The SQU officials
offered all support in promoting the ties between the two organizations.
News Update
Salford Delegation at SQU
A delegation from Salford University, UK, headed by its Vice Chancellor Prof. Martin Hall, visited Sultan Qaboos University recently and
held discussions with SQU officials on the possibility of partnership
between the two institutions. The Salford delegation was received by
Dr. Said bin Ali al Yahyaee, SQU Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Community Service, and Deans of various colleges of
the university.
Prof. Martin Hull congratulated the administrators of SQU for what
the university has achieved in terms of teaching, research and other
fields within a short time span of 25 years. “Salford University, with
the presence of 30,000 students, offers an exceptional learning environment for students, with strong opportunities in research, innovation,
enterprise and employer and community engagement. Salford University has a strong base in science and technology, medicine, nursing
and allied health, environmental planning and digital media” he said.
Commenting on collaboration with SQU, he said that all the above
mentioned areas in addition to Arabic translation and interpretation
could be considered. “We would like to develop our strength in our
Islamic banking and finance programs with the support of SQU. We
are keen to establish long term partnership with SQU in as many as
areas as possible”, Prof. Hall added.
Dr. Said al Yahaee said that collaboration could be activated through a
bottom up approach starting from individual researchers in both universities in terms of joint research.
SQU Hosts International Algebra Conference
pology and graphs, etc.). Other topics in ring and module theory are
also covered.
Addressing the participants, Dr. Saif bin Nasser al Bahry, Dean of the
College of Science, said that the conference was a good opportunity
for researchers at SQU to interact with the international scientific community.
The opening ceremony of the eleventh “International conference on the
Theory of Radicals, Rings and Modules” organized by the Department
of Mathematics & Statistics at SQU was held recently under the patronage of Prof. Amer bin Ali al Rawas, SQU Deputy Vice Chancellor for
Postgraduate Studies & Research.
These conferences take place every three years. The first was in Eger
(Hungary) in 1982. The main topic of the conference is on the theory of
radicals, related topics and its applications in all the diverse branches
of mathematics where it has had an impact but may be known under
different names (eg. torsion theories in modules; connectedness in to-
In his opening remarks, Prof. Stefan Veldsman, Chairman of the Conference Organizing Committee, said that the conference was important
for two reasons: this is for the first time that a Middle East country
is hosting an edition of this conference series. It also coincided with
the 25th anniversary of Sultan Qaboos University. He mentioned that
this conference coincided with the year in which Richard Wiegandt
(Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary), probably the most active
contributor to the theory of radicals, turns 80. To celebrate this happy
occasion, he gave one of the invited talks and Laci Marki (Hungarian
Academy of Sciences) gave an overview of Richard Wiegandt’s work.
The conference program consisted of invited plenary lectures and
contributed talks. Around 40 participants from different countries attended the event.
30 January 2012 P3
Insight
Mountain Research at SQU
The Centre for environmental Studies & Research (CESAR) at Sultan Qaboos University is the
focal point of mountain research in Oman which has been acclaimed by international environment and research bodies for its outstanding contributions for the last decade in the areas of
protecting mountain ecosystems and supporting research initiatives in this field. This article
outlines the major mountain research projects taken up in Oman.
Healthy mountain forests are crucial to the ecological health of the world. They protect watersheds that supply freshwater to more than half the world’s people. They also are the home
of untold wildlife, provide food and fodder for mountain people and are important sources of
timber and non-wood products. Yet in many parts of the world mountain forests are under
threat as never before and deforestation in tropical mountain forests continues at an astounding rate. Protecting these forests and making sure they are carefully managed is an important
step towards sustainable mountain development.
By: Dr. B. S Choudri (Senior Researcher, CESAR)
Sultan Qaboos University and Mountain Research
SQU is a regional knowledge development and learning institution for the
MENA (Middle East and North African) countries and is the focal point for
collaborative research and capacity building activities in Sultanate of Oman
and in the region. At present, the regional report on MENA Mountains to
Rio + 20, the next major summit on environment in 2012 is prepared at SQU
under the aegis of Mountain Partnership Secretariat, FAO, Rome and Swiss
Development Corporation (SDC), Switzerland. SQU is the only participant
that represented the entire AGCC region in the recently concluded international mountain conference in Lucerne, Switzerland where strategies for
mountain development initiatives to be presented in Rio +20 was discussed.
Following are some major projects undertaken by SQU on Mountains in the
Sultanate.
Al Jabal Al Akhdar Initiative
Al Jabal Al Akhdar Initiative (Prof. Reginald Victor and Team, 2004-2008)
was a strategic research project that addressed a major issue of wise natural resource utilization and sustainable development, under the guiding
principles of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP)
Oman. The project was funded by the research grants given to SQU by His
Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Al Said for the year 2004. The work commenced
in September 2004 and concluded in April 2008. Since this project is one of
the pioneering, multidisciplinary research project that addressed a major
environmental issue of conservation and sustainable development in the
Sultanate and in Sultan Qaboos University, CESAR celebrated its conclusion at an international conference on mountain research. A recent book
published by FAO on “Highlands and Drylands, Mountains, a Source of
Resilience in Arid Regions” credits this project as a reference for multidisciplinary projects conducted in similar environments.
Feasibility Study of Fog Water Collection in Al-Kareef Season in Dhofar
Each summer between June and September, the Dhofar region in the Sultanate of Oman is subjected to a high incidence of fog. Generally, fog occurs on
20 to 25% of days during the year. This study (done by Dr. Sabah Suleiman
and team, 2007) investigated the fog water potential of the area. The ion concentrations at the Dhofar site were studied and found to meet World Health
Organization drinking water standards. Water from the three fog collectors
was found to be of good quality. Since fog water collection rates are dependent upon meteorological variables, the impact of the various meteorological parameters on collection rates was also investigated in this project. The
results indicated a significant linear association between the collected fog
30 January 2012 P4
water and the wind speed and rainfall. It was found that fog water collection rates increased with increasing wind speed and rainfall, but this relationship was not seen with temperature, relative humidity, or pressure.
Jabal Akhdar Rose Water Production Projects
Research on “Jabal Akhdar Rose Water Production” (Dr. Msafiri Mbaga,
2005) indicates that there is a potential for Oman to produce rose oil is much
more valuable than rose water currently produced in Jabal Akhdar. The
price of one kilogram of rose oil in the world market is around 7000 Euros.
The Ministry of Agriculture through the Agricultural and Fisheries Development Fund (AFDF) has shown interest to fund a study to explore the possibility to expand rose production in order to produce rose oil.
Distribution and Ecological Status of “Olea europaea L” Woodlands
In this project carried out by (Mr. Butheina Al-Jamei and Prof. Reginald Victor, 2005), the distribution of the wild olive, Olea europaea on the western
region of the Jebel Akhdar Mountain was studied. The distribution started
at an altitude of 1465 msl in the form of isolated and scattered trees. Cohesive woodlands localized at different altitudes. Four such zones at different
altitudes were studied in detail. These were Al Shayf, Sayih Qatnah, Hail El
Mispit and Al Graier. Health status of trees in the four zones was assessed.
Most trees in the four populations were in poor and moderate health, except
in Sayih Qatnah where a high number of trees were in a good condition. The
assumed potential reproductive capacity of the populations in the different
zones varied and Hail El Mispit had the highest percentage of trees that
are capable of reproducing. It was found that there were no relationships
between woodland characteristics, soil texture and soil particle size or soil
chemistry.
Inviting Public Participation
The Centre for Environmental Studies & Research at SQU is soliciting the
public on rendering support to its initiatives in protecting the mountain ecosystems in the country and the region at large. The other goals of the centre
include creating awareness among public and educating them. CESAR is
looking forward to volunteers from different parts of the country to help
in its research and extension activities through the involvement of schools
and field visits.
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News Round Up
GCC Medical Students
Meet in Oman
The 8th International Scientific Conference for Medical Students of the
GCC Countries was held at SQU under the patronage of HE Dr. Ahmed
bin Mohammed al Saidi, the Minister of Health. In his speech, Dr. Yahya
Al-Farsi, the Dean of the College of Medicine and Health Science at SQU,
thanked the University for supporting the conference and the organizing committees for organizing this grand event. He also gave a unique
descriptive futuristic look of 50 years into the future of medicine in an
interesting way. After the speech, a group of medical students performed
a poetic play on medical education that ended with a note of hope and
enthusiasm. The play included a video clip that showed the history of the
conference since it first started in 2003 in Bahrain.
Mohammad Al Ghafri, Chairman of the organizing committee of the conference gave a short speech the end of the opening ceremony. He said that
the College of Medicine & SQU were looking forward to host this prestigious event and hence they could arrange it in a much better way. After the
ceremony, the chief guest opened the official exhibition of the conference.
The exhibition included several pavilions of medical institutes and universities from all GCC countries, in which the students of each institute
introduced their institutions.
The Minister congratulated medical students at SQU for organizing an excellent conference. He said that the conference is important as it discusses
the diseases prevalent in the GCC countries. He wished all participating
students a bright future to service their societies. The first keynote address
was given by Prof. Dr. Zakia al Lamki from the Child Health Department
of the College of Medicine & Health Sciences, on the topic “Child Health
Services in Oman: A Story of Success”. The five day conference included
8 keynote presentations, 186 working papers, 52 workshops on different
topics in medicine. Around 1200 students from 40 universities and medical colleges form the GCC countries participated in the event.
Workshop on the Role of
Medical Librarians Held
The Department of Information Studies, Sultan Qaboos University and
the Association of Special Libraries-GCC branch, in cooperation with
the Library of the Royal Hospital, organized a symposium entitled
“Bridging the gap between healthcare professionals and knowledge: the
unspoken medical librarian role” on Wednesday, 18 January. The opening ceremony of the two day symposium was held at SQU under the
patronage of HE Dr. Darwish bin Saif al Moharby, Undersecretary for
Administrative & Financial Affairs at the Ministry of Health.
The symposium gathered around 150 delegates comprising international and local exhibiters, librarians, physicians, hospital administrators,
medical students, nurses and other supporting staff. The event demonstrated opportunities for affiliated healthcare professionals along with
medical and health information to share ideas, hear from experts and
see the latest products and a chance to socialize.
The symposium sessions focused on different basic themes including
the role of librarians and information professionals within healthcare
context and their effect in clinical decision making; the level of medical professional’s information and computer literacy and the delivery of
health services; and, electronic collection development healthcare and
medicine e-libraries.
Three workshops “Medical information retrieval skills: basic and advanced techniques”, “The value of evidence”, and “How to prepare a
research paper to publish it present and reference citation” were also
held on the sidelines of the symposium. By attending the symposium
and the workshops, the participants could improve their research skills
through learning how to work on preparing, presenting citation and
publishing scientific research papers; to select and search the most appropriate sources of medical information; and gain hands on searching
for evidence based information.
SQU Group Returns After Performing Umrah
Commenting on the trip this year, Sultan Al Saadi, Head of the Cultural and Social Activities Section of the Department of Public Relations
said that the idea of ​​organizing an annual trip to the Holy Land and to
perform Umrah is widely welcomed by the staff and the academics of
the university, due to the good care received by the participants, and to
the full program of visits, meetings, and religious guidance.
The staff members of SQU and their families who particpated in the annual
Umrah trip organized by the Department of Public Relations & Information
returned last week. The participants in this trip concluded their journey by
performing Umrah and visiting the landmarks in Mecca, as they visited
Mina, Arafat and Jabel Al Rahma. Moreover, they had been introduced to
Jabel Al Noor, where Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him) received
the first message of Islam in the cave of Hira.
30 January 2012 P6
This is the fifth trip organized by Public Relations & Information Department to visit the holy places in Saudi Arabia, in which about 161
people including staff, academics and their families participated. This
year the particpants visited Medina and its Islamic landmarks and visited the grave of the Prophet (Peace be upon Him). This trip is one of
the activities organized by the Cultural and Social activities Section of
the Public Relations and Information Department. This is in addition
to the annual recreational trips to Musandam and Sharquia Sands.
Translated by: Nasebah Al Muharrami
Panorama
How to Deal Successfully
with the Instructors
By: Rihab Al-Maqrashi
For many of us, dealing with a scholarly or well-educated person would
clearly require ‘respect’. However, many of us do not know what is behind
respect. In our daily lives, we encounter a variety of people with different
educational degrees. Let us focus on instructors who are holding MAs and
PhDs, and how to deal with them. Keep in mind that this is a special treatment; it is like an encounter between a king and his consultants.
First, arrange an appointment, in which you specify the
time and place that are convenient for both you and the instructor. Please try to be punctual. Second, knock at his/her
door three times (one after one) gently. If he /she responds
positively, then enter. If he/she responds negatively, then
he/she must be busy or is simply not there. Try your best
not to knock on their door too loudly; this is disturbing.
Third, when you enter the office, greet him\her for 50
seconds or less. DON’T forget to keep your face cheerful
and smiling. Even if you dislike that instructor very much,
please free your heart from any grudge and keep smiling
–even if you have to fake it. A smile carries a lot of meaning. Fourth, ask him/her if it’s already possible to sit down.
DON’T sit until you are told to do so. Fifth, reveal the purpose of your visit; he\she may have forgotten. Before that,
it is advisable to say: “Excuse me doctor/prof, may I have a
couple of minutes of your time.” If you are answered ‘yes’,
go ahead and talk; if ‘no’, gently say “Thank you, I will
come another time” and leave.
After you finish, politely stand up, quietly pick up your
things back. Sixth, thank him\her for his great help, even if
it did not assist you that much. If you want to sound more
polite, say something like “Have a good day” or “Enjoy the
rest of the day” or “Have nice weekend”, if it is Wednesday. Seventh, leave and leave the door as it was when you
first entered. If you forget how it was, ask the instructor if
he/she would like the door to be open or closed. Finally,
DON’T forget to take all your things with you. You don’t
want to disturb the instructor again because you forget
your handbag or your notebook.
After these steps, we come to the six taboos ... Wow! First,
NEVER chew gum while talking; it indicates impoliteness.
Second, NEVER sit with your legs crossed. Third, NEVER
interrupt; let him/her complete his/her point; and then
comment on what you have heard. Fourth, NEVER point
at them. In many cultures, it is considered loutish. Fifth, try
not to eat or drink in their office, unless you will bring them
something! It’s preferable that you don’t take in any food
or drinks; there is a possibility you may fall down and spoil
their papers. Sixth, NEVER raise your voice. Talk with your
normal tone. They will hear clearly enough.
Indeed, these rules are HIGHLY important. Let them know
how polite you are and how wonderful are our Islamic instructions. Keep in mind that doing this does not help you
to get an “A”, but guarantees respect, care, and knowledge.
We know that there are always black spots in every field.
There are cruel, inconsiderate, and impatient teachers, yet
let us teach them how to be a humble nice and polite person. Never treat bad people the way they are because then
you’ll drop to the same level as them.
As it is well known, our unconscious brains do not deal
with the words “never”, “not”, and “no”. They only deal
with positive sentences. Hence, please try to understand
what I’m try to say.
To conclude, make sure you start by a GOOD impression.
Maintain the GOOD impression, and leave an EXCELLENT impression at the end of the visit. Besides, it is recommended that you listen more and talk less to gain people’s attention, respect and love.
30 January 2012 P7
Straight Talk
Prof. Govindarajan
Ramaswamy
Govindarajan Ramaswamy is Professor and Chairman of the
Supercomputer Education & Research Centre (SERC) at the
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India. He spent a
few days in SQU recently, working on the university’s proposal
to establish a High Performance Computing Centre (HPC Centre). During his visit, Prof. Ramaswami was entrusted with the
tasks of evaluating the existing HPC facility, and developing
a proposal for the new HPC centre including staffing requirements, budget details and future space requirements. Excerpts
from his conversation with Horizon:
Horizon: Could you explain the term High-performance computing (HPC)?
Prof. Ramaswamy: High Performance Computing is the use of
parallel processing for running advanced application programs efficiently, reliably and
quickly. The term applies especially to systems that function above a teraflop or 10
raised to 12 floating-point operations per second, in today’s context. The most common users of HPC systems are scientific research institutions, engineers and academic institutions.
Horizon: What is the purpose your visit to SQU?
Prof. Ramaswamy: My mission is basically
to evaluate the HPC requirements of researchers at SQU and suggest the kind of equipment that the university
should purchase in order to support the science research community. As you know,
IISc is one of the best HPC research centres in the Asia-Pacific region and we have a
history of running this centre for around 45 years. I have been heading the SERC for
the last 7 years. I have been asked to provide inputs to the HPCF management team
at SQU on setting up a sound HPC centre in this university.
Horizon: How would you evaluate the existing HPC facility at SQU?
Prof. Ramaswamy: Currently the HPC facility at this university
is very
small with a capacity of 112 core processors. This is a very small system when you
compare the facilities in many other leading universities across the world. I would
say that the research group is also very small at this point of time. In my opinion, a
good start towards establishing a sound HPC system would be is to initially invest
a fairly large amount which would gradually trigger more usage and keep the system going forward. Taking the case of IISc as an example, we have four to five systems with capacities starting from I trillion (1 million multiplied by 1 million) floating point operations per second. The performance of these machines at IISc ranges
upto 22 teraflops. The highest performing machine in our centre has 8192 processing
cores. We have also systems capable of 1 to 2 teraflops of computing with 256 cores.
At the lower end we have several the systems with a capacity of 256 gigabytes each.
These systems are acquired over a period of time (5 – 8 years); one cannot invest in a
computing system all at one time.
Horizon:
Why periodic investments are essential for maintaining a good HPC
facility?
Prof. Ramaswamy:
I would say that for any computing centre, the growth
results from periodic investments and upgradations. This is how it has to go. After
the initial investments, we should wait for another 2 or 3 years to do an additional investment. The systems become obsolete in about 6 years. Thus a useful model to look
at will be investing every two years and decommissioning the old machines once in
every 5 to 6 years. This will help you be in a cycle where you have a full range of latest to old equipment. A sustained support of 10 years is required for any HPC facility
before you could actually see the output coming through. Researchers should slowly
start using the facility, feel the importance of it and make use of the advantages.
Horizon:
How would a sound HPC facility impact on the research profile of a
university?
Prof. Ramaswamy:
As I told you, IISc has invested heavily on HPC during
the last 25 years or more. I assert that it has directly impacted the research, particularly those involving computational aspects, going on at our institute. The applications
of HPC cuts across all disciplines in science and engineering. If you have larger and
greater computing systems, the granularity of the applications can be viewed with a
better resolution. Our experience proves that a sound computational systems would
definitely have a positive effect on the research output of any research organization.
Horizon:
What are the major components of an HPC facility that need sustained
support over a period of time?
Prof. Ramaswamy: There are three major components. In terms of hardware it is, computation, storage and visualization. Once you have large computational facility, you will gradually start generating huge amounts of data which will
require storage facilities. For example, climate modelling and genome sequencing
using supercomputers will produce large amounts of date over a period of time.
The case of computational biology and computational physics, etc are not different.
Once you have large amounts of date, you must obviously be working on these
data which calls for scientific visualization. The visualization component comes in
the later stages of computing facility. Support should be given to all these components for smooth functioning and utilization of the facility. Software packages (both
systems software and applications packages) and support staff (for maintaining/
administering the systems as well as to provide support for users to parallelize their
applications) are the other two components that are also required for the effective
deployment of the HPC facility. It is important that all of these three components
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the HPC facility to be effectively utilized by the
researchers of SQU.