Public Relations & Information DepartmentSultan Qaboos University

Thursday,17 January 2019 Issue #009

Let theGames Begin

Ultrasonic Vibrations Transforms Bone Drilling

Mathematical Diagnosisof Myocardial Ischemia

The Importance ofIP Education

Successful people set goals and meet them. For the individual, this can mean personal success and advancement. Dr. Belgacem Haba is one of the most successful Algerian researchers in field of electronics around the globe. He holds more than 1100 patents and is classified as one of the top 100 researchers in terms of the number of patents. Dr. Haba recently visited SQU and gave a talk on opportunities in fu-ture technologies. While talking about his successful career as an inventor and entrepreneur, Dr. Haba has mentioned that he always set a goal. “I don’t tell people about it; but I always have a ten-year plan and own strategies to carry out the plan and achieve the goal. Hence, I know where I am going to be in ten years, and I know what I need to do to get there year by year”. Dr. Haba mentioned in another interview, “I pity people who don’t have a plan, who don’t have a vision of where they are going in life. Life is full of problems. However, you have to have achieve your goal. When a problem comes along, your goal may be delayed a little bit, but you are not supposed to give it up”. At SQU, Dr. Haba underscored the importance of change in teaching methodology from the traditional instruc-tionism to developing critical and creative thinking to promote the innovative framework of our chil-dren.

Through critical and creative thinking and problem solving, ideas become reality as children create inventive solutions, illustrate their ideas, and make models of their inventions. Creative thinking lesson plans provide children with opportunities to develop and practice higher-order thinking skills. Education-alists indicate that a child’s innovative framework is strengthened when teachers bring a sense of play to the curriculum. Good teachers take offbeat approaches and make whimsical connections to the course material. Successful teachers make learning fun. To promote innovative and creative skills, teach-ers can allow children time for play with various technology-related materials, and engage in a va-riety of individual and team projects. Observational drawings develops awareness and attention to de-tail, so these exercises create greater understanding and a desire to learn more. The best teachers and parents support their children’s passions and natu-ral curiosities, and make an effort to connect what needs to be learned to satisfy that curiosity. "Imagi-nation is more important than knowledge, for imag-ination embraces the world." - Albert Einstein

Perspective

Imagination Embraces the World

Editorial SupervisionJamal Said Al-Riyami

Editor in ChiefHilal Saif Al-Badi

Senior EditorSanthosh Muthalath Kunhiveettil

EditorsNasebah Said Al MuharramiSara Mohammed Al GhailaniFatema Salim Al Ajmi

Design & LayoutAhlam Shaaban Al-WahaibiNajah Saif Al HarthiIbrahim Mohammed Al Hajri

General ServicesSalim Said Salim Al-Sadairi Khalifa Musabah Al-Salehi

PhotographyCentre for Educational Technology

C 2018 Sultan Qaboos University.

3Spotlight

Reducing the Cancer BurdenCancer is the second leading cause of death, following cardiovascular diseases, in both de-veloped and developing countries. The eighth annual meeting of the Middle Eastern Association for Cancer Research (MEACR), hosted by SQU in December 2018, discussed the latest research findings or the risk factors, preventive measures and possible treatments currently available for cancer.

Dr. Yahya Al Farsi, Department of Family Med-icine & Public Health, SQU, in his presentation on the epidemiological aspects of cancer in the Arabian countries, said that there is an epide-miological pattern of malignancies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as compared to other developed countries. A rising trend in cancer incidence is likely to continue in the GCC for years or even decades to come, unless preventive measures are taken including early diagnosis and early management. A high intake of fruits, vege-tables and nuts has been associated with reduced risk of cancer and mortality and these findings provide a basis for dietary recommendations to prevent cancer and premature mortality.

According to Dr. Al Farsi, there are several rea-sons for the rise in this deadly disease: obesity, unhealthy life style, consumption of fast food, not exercising at all or enough, smoking and genetic predisposition. The most common type of cancers that are on the rise in the Sultanate of

Oman are breast, colorectal, thyroid and lung. The role of cancer registries in cancer control is not equivocal, and recognizing this important role, the Ministry of Health in Oman has put cancer control among its highest priorities and has established a cancer registry. In addition, the Ministry of Health is providing a high standard of compressive health care to Omani residents, including public health, and primary, secondary and tertiary care services. The goal of the Ministry is to bring down the number of cancer patients by early diagnoses of all types of cancers at the earliest stage. However, there is still a need to create more platforms to educate people about the cancer disease as well as to raise awareness on leading a healthy life style.

Dr. Preeja Prabhakar, Food Science & Nutrition Department, SQU, said that between 40% and 45% of cancers are associated with preventable risk factors. “Research efforts to understand the root causes of cancer have identified specific molecular mechanisms by which these exposures modify human physiology to induce or promote cancer. The increasingly refined knowledge of these mechanisms emphasizes the need for greater efforts towards primary cancer prevention through mitigation of modifiable risk factors. Early detection of cancer may lead to decreased morbidity, improve survival and in some situa-tions, treatment may limit to surgical removal alone if identified early enough”, she noted.

4

Let theGames BeginDr. Vidya Seshan, Ms. Divya Raghavan & Dr. Judie ArulappanCollege of Nursing, SQU

Games, in any form, increase motivation through engage-ment. Hence, games are ef-fective tools for scaffolding concepts and simulating real world experience. Game play has traversed the realm of recreation and infiltrated edu-cation providing to be a useful training and motivational tool. Playing games are the first method children use to explore higher- order thinking skills associated with creating, evalu-ating, analyzing, and applying new knowledge. By introducing

games in the classroom teach-er uses pedagogical approach which results in a powerful learning experiences to higher education students. Lectures in various courses during Universi-ty education takes a lot of time of students. The teacher can make a difference by incorpo-rating games during the lecture sessions which increases student motivation, student’s partici-pation, empowers students, they learn on the go and it is an assessment opportunity for the students and the teachers.

Game based learning or gam-ifying a classroom is simple by introducing the lessons in a fun way of assignments to fit into that lessons and making stu-dents more motivated. Gamifi-cation is the use of game design and mechanics to enhance non-game contexts by increas-ing participation, engagement, loyalty and competition. These methods can include points, leaderboards, direct competi-tions and stickers or badges, and can be found in industries and, of course, education.

The most cherished moments of our life is childhood, which is tagged to all the beautiful memories and enjoyment each of us had in that period. One of the reasons why memories about childhood remains evergreen is that we all then learned by playing and interacting with our friends. The use of games in education represents a promising tool to motivate and engage students in their learning process. Research says that using games as an educational tool provides opportunities for deeper learning.

5Scope

Game based learning has been an area of interest for all ed-ucationalists. A major reform is witnessed in school based education system in last decade with the inclusion of games in daily teaching. There is a need to identify importance of game based education in university and professional education.

The use of games in education represents a promising tool to motivate and engage students in their learning process. The use of games or games ele-ments in education is not new and can be traced back to the 1960s experts pointed out that games could not only help children to master their envi-ronments but also to create the worlds of their imagination.

The new generations of young students are highly motivated, active learner, comfortable with digital technology and far ahead from adopting the tradition-al methods of teaching and learning which including, long lectures, assignments. The fast growing pace of development demands faster and much more effective learning experiences. Students now look out for more creative ways to learn concepts in shorter span of time.

The use of educational games as learning tool is a promising approach due to the games’ abilities to teach and the fact that they reinforce not only knowledge but also important skills such as problem solving, collaboration, and communica-tion. Games have remarkable motivational power; they utilize a number of mechanisms to en-courage people to engage with them, often without any re-ward, just for the joy of playing and the possibility to win.

Interest in gaming to support learning is growing not only for practical reasons but because games, by their very design, are fun; they pique interest, encourage thinking and de-

mand active involvement, all key components of motivation and teaching. There is an increasing academic interest to research the use of games in educa-tion. More conceptual research is required to fill the existing loopholes in implementing games into university education, helping researches to better analyses and compare results of the different approaches to the use of games for educational purposes. Many authors have expressed their concern regard-ing preparedness of teaching faculty to include gamification as one of their educational strategy. There is a need for a focused research strand that in-vestigates the impact of game-based learning in professional development.

Educational gamification is based on the following factors: type of application; education level; academic subject; imple-mentation; and, the purpose of gamification.

Although proper evaluation is mostly missing, the majority of the authors of the reviewed papers share the opinion that gamification has the potential to improve learning if it is well designed and used correctly. Therefore, more substantial empirical research is needed to investigate, in particular, the motivating effects of using single game elements in spe-cific educational contexts and for particular types of learners. This would inform instructors who are interested in gamifying their courses and help them in deciding what game elements to use in their specific context . Last but not least, finding and sharing of new ways of applying gamification to learning con-texts, that are not limited to ex-trinsic rewards like achievements and badges and that are more meaningful to the students is very important for increasing the application of this emerging technology in education.

6

Bone drilling is an intrinsic part of many surgical procedures in orthopedics and orthodontics for implantation and repair. In minimally-invasive surgery (MIS) procedures, controlled re-section of bone is important for prevention of damage to the bone and delicate tissues surrounding it. Ultrasonic Cutting of bones is a feasible alternative to conventional cutting for min-imally invasive surgery due to its high precision, safety and efficiency. The experimental work with ultrasonic bone drill-ing carried out by a research team at SQU, has demonstrated lower cutting energy and temperature compared to conven-tional drilling.

Ultrasonic Vibrations Transforms Bone DrillingDr. Khurshid AlamCollege of Engineering, SQU

7Vista

Drilling of bone with conven-tional drills is known for defi-ciencies including lack of cutting precision, large cutting force, elevated temperatures in the cut site, fracture in the bone, and high risk of trauma to the surrounding tissues. This may cause intraoperative and post-operative complications, and can seriously affect osseointe-gration surrounding the hole leading to delay in postopera-tive healing. The design, devel-opment and implementation of technologically advanced bone surgical tools, particularly for orthopaedic and craniotomy, are essential for safe and effi-cient cutting of bone. Alternate drilling techniques (water jet and laser) are so far not rec-ommended for cutting of bone due to high cost, large size and issues related to health and safety.

One of the novel cutting tech-niques, known as ultrasonic cut-ting (UC) or vibrational cutting, consists of superimposing high frequency vibrations (10 kHz to 50 kHz) on the tool in the cutting direction. UC has been recently introduced as a feasi-ble alternative to conventional cutting for MIS due to its high precision, safety and efficiency. Our group’s experimental work with ultrasonic bone drilling has demonstrated lower cutting energy and temperature com-pared to conventional drilling. Cutting assisted by micro-vibra-tions superimposed on the tool can minimize the loss of viable bone and does not provoke any visible injury to the adjacent soft tissues and other delicate struc-tures such as nerves and vessels. Our recent experiments have found that drilling with con-trolled frequency of vibration (up to 20 kHz) induces less dam-age to the viable osteocyte cells. The bone-tool interaction and its analysis in terms of various ultrasonic and cutting parame-ters have not been explored by academia or industries devel-

oping surgical tools. In order to introduce this novel technique into orthopaedic, dental, and nuero surgeries, dedicated and compliable bone cutting tools are to be developed, evaluated and made available to surgeons and technicians in surgical clinics.

Dr. Khurshid Alam, the princi-pal investigator of this research project, started experiments using microvibrations in bone drilling, in state-of-the-art lab dedicated for design, devel-opment and testing of inno-vative ultrasonic cutting tools at Loughborough University UK in 2008. However, he was unable to explore several ben-efits of the technique during short period dedicated for PhD studies. A multidisciplinary research project was therefore initiated at Sultan Qaboos University involving specialists in mechanics of materials, control systems, health sciences and manufacturers of bone surgical tools. Target was investigation of biological response of bone cells to ultrasonic vibration, and damage evaluation and cracking of bone. A smaller scale proto-type has been developed at SQU which will enable the drill bit to vibrate at required frequen-cy and amplitude of vibration. After testing the prototype in the lab, a prototype similar to hand held surgical drill with mechanism to produce ultrason-ic vibrations will be developed and tested by surgeons and technicians at SQU Hospital for assessment, improvement and commercialization. Fur-ther research on the topic will be based on the exchange of fundamental knowledge and technical concepts through col-laboration and targeted second-ments of research staff via local and international collaboration of academia, hospitals, health-care institutions and surgical industry.

The outcomes of this research

study will promote healthier and more sustainable multi-disciplinary research activities in Oman. The multidisciplinary nature of this project will bring together researchers from various engineering disciplines, surgical clinics, departments of health sciences and surgi-cal industries with the aim to design and develop tools with advanced mechanism for safe and efficient cutting procedures. Development of novel surgical tools can initiate new business opportunities in the Sultanate. This research may also impact other industries in the Sultanate where power ultrasonic can be used in diverse manufacturing applications such as the cut-ting of food items, textiles and ceramics products. Research activities will help in building a platform that will impart theo-retical transfer of knowledge to industry and novel conceptual design to academia. The project will help in establishing a long-term collaboration between engineers, materials scientists, medical specialists and surgical industry at local and interna-tional levels. The innovative na-ture of the project can also help in developing new postgraduate programs in future.

The research team consists of Dr. Khurshid Alam (College of Engineering), Dr. Muhammad Shafiq (College of Engineering), Dr. Ahmed Al-Ghaithi (SQUH), Dr. Sayyad Zahid Qamar (Col-lege of Engineering), Dr. Ashraf Saleem (College of Engineer-ing), Dr. Asim Qureshi (Depart-ment of Pathology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences), and Badar Al Sumri (SQUH). In addition, Prof. Vadim Sil-berschmidt (Wolfson School of Electrical, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, UK) and Dr. Mushtaq Khan (School of Mechanical and Manufactur-ing Engineering, NUST, Pakistan) are associating with this project.

8

Dr. Narasimman SundararajanDepartment of Earth Science, SQU

Mathematical Diagnosis of Myocardial Ischemia

The main function of heart is to pump blood throughout the body to deliver oxygen and nutrient de-mands of body’s tissues as well as to remove carbon dioxide. Electrocardiography (ECG) is the process of recording the electrical activity of the heart over a period using electrodes placed over the skin. A 12 lead ECG is made up of three standard limb leads (I, II and III), three augmented limb leads (aVR, aVL and aVF) and six precordial leads (V1-V6). The 12-lead ECG provides spatial information about heart’s electrical activity for the heart muscle to contract in three approximately orthogonal directions (Left-Right, Superior-Inferior & Anterior-Posterior). The overall magnitude of heart’s electrical poten-tial is measured from 12 different angles ("leads") and is recorded over a period usually 10 seconds. A normal ECG is one with a regular sinus rhythm between 60 and 100 beats per minute (82 bpm for women & 72 for men). Sometimes ECG abnormalities are a normal variation of a heart's rhythm, which does not affect one’s health. Other times, an abnormal ECG can signal a medical emergency, such as a myocardial infarction (heart attack) or a dangerous arrhythmia. Although, a normal healthy person can record an abnormal ECG or vice versa, ECG remains as a primary tool for the investigation of health of a heart.

9In focus

Three major waves of electric signals on an ECG are P, QRS and T of which each one shows a different part of the heartbeat. The first wave is called P wave, which records the electrical ac-tivity of the heart's two upper chambers (atria). The second and largest wave, the QRS, records the electrical activity of the heart's two lower chambers (ventricles). The third wave is T that records heart’s return to resting state. From the shape and size of these waves, their duration and the rate and regularity of beating, a physician decides the health of heart and its rhythm. ECG signals are characterized by a cyclic occurrence of patterns like QRS, P and T waves with different frequency. Further, an ECG is used to classify patients into one of three groups viz. those with ST segment elevation, those with ST segment de-pression, and those with a so-called non-diagnos-tic or normal ECG. A normal ECG does not rule out acute myocardial infarction. Both elevation and depression of ST-segment in an ECG indicate the onset of ischemia. A single ST deviation can be defined as the absolute amplitude change of greater than 0.1mV between ST and PR points. ST point is identified as the point between ST segment and T wave. PR point is identified as the point between PQ segment and QRS. The chest leads (V1-V6, the last six leads) are usually a com-posite picture of ischemia and hence the eleva-tion of ST segment is typically observed in V1-V4.

Myocardial ischemia is considered to be a major cause of cardiac dysfunction, and a basis for the occurrence of myocardial infarction (death of heart cells) and dangerous arrhythmias (loss of

heart beat rhythm). It occurs when blood flow to heart muscle decreases by

a partial or complete blockage of heart’s arteries (coronary arteries) and thereby reduces heart’s oxy-

gen supply. A complete block-age of a coronary artery

may either lead

to a sudden heart attack or cause serious abnor-mal heart rhythms. This phenomenon is manifest-ed in the ECG by an ST depression or elevation. The diagnosis of myocardial infarction requires two out of three components such as history, ECG, and enzymes. If ischemia is severe or lasts too long, it can cause myocardial infarction (a massive heart attack) and can lead to heart tissue death (necrosis). The main difference is that ischemia leads to reversible damage, whereas an infarct leads to irreversible damage.

Despite several mathematical and statistical tools including Fourier analysis, artificial neural net-work (ANN) etc. are being increasingly applied to bring out many medical outcomes, an ac-curate estimation of onset and offset of P,QRS & T waves is feasible in wavelet domain. This is because the elegant Wavelet transform (WT) ensures good time resolution and poor frequen-cy resolution at high frequencies (QRS) and good frequency resolution and poor time resolution at low frequencies as ECG signals are characterized by high frequency for short durations and low frequency (P & T waves) for long durations. Fur-ther, this tool (WT) is noise proof in ECG segmen-tation and hence appropriate for ST-T segment extraction.

The Wavelet analysis carried out indicates the ST deviation of a single cycle in every lead of 12 lead ECGs of known cases of Normal, Diabetic, Hyper-tensive and acute Ischemic patients. It is observed that an ischemic patient with a known history of acute ischemia has the highest ST deviation (> 0.1 mv) in the chest leads (V1-V4), followed diabetic ECG in V1-V3 and in hypertensive ECG in V2 & V4, which are considerably greater than the threshold value. This may suggest that Wavelet analysis of ECGs brings out early stage of myocar-dial ischemia by means of ST elevation or depres-sion particularly in unconfirmed ECGs.

10

Mr. Sherif Saadallah is the Executive Director of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Academy. Mr. Saadallah previously served as a diplomat with the Minis-try of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and worked in the Perma-nent Mission of Egypt in Geneva. He is seconded from the Egyptian Foreign Service and holds the title of Ambassa-dor in his national service. He graduated from the Amer-ican University in Cairo, Egypt, and studied at the Diplo-matic Institute for International Studies in Cairo and at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes Études Internationales in Geneva.

The Importance of IP Education

Phot

o co

urte

sy o

f WIP

O/E

mm

anue

l Ber

rod

11Face to Face

Could you give an outline of the WIPO Academy and its mission?

The WIPO Academy is the core entity at WIPO for human ca-pacity building and is the global center for IP education and training. No other institution offers the breadth of IP cours-es, the focus of resources on training for government officials from developing countries, least developed countries and coun-tries in transition, the diversity of languages that courses are offered in or the global reach of WIPO Academy.

The WIPO Academy was estab-lished in 1998 with a mandate to build human capacity in IP. Since its establishment over half a million participants have bene-fitted from the WIPO Academy’s courses. The Academy contin-ues to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to IP education focus-ing on its links with trade, inno-vation, health, applied sciences, information technology and the creative industries. The IP Summer Schools or-ganized by the WIPO Acad-emy help university students and young professionals to acquire a deeper knowledge of IP. Could you explain?

Through its IP Summer Schools, joint Master’s programs and support to universities, dis-tance learning courses and professional development training, the WIPO Academy offers opportunities to enhance IP knowledge and skills at all levels of education and training. The IP Summer Schools are an important component of this. Every year, the WIPO Academy collaborates with IP Offices and some of the top universities around the world to offer WIPO Summer School programs. These programs are designed to demonstrate the essential role that IP plays in promoting

innovation and creativity. They focus in particular on the corre-lation between IP and numerous public policy areas such as IP and public health, food security and climate change, to mention a few. The Summer Schools are targeted at young profession-als working in both the public and private sector, in the legal profession and to undergradu-ate and postgraduate students seeking to deepen their knowl-edge of IP. In many instances, participants in WIPO Summer Schools are motivated to take this learning further and to complete a Master’s degree in IP or other postgraduate studies related to IP.

Could you say a few words about the cooperation be-tween WIPO Academy and the Sultanate? I would like to pay special tribute to the Government of the Sultanate of Oman and their forward looking approach to IP education and training in particular in the context of the National Innovation Strategy. Over the past 18 months, we have been engaged in discus-sions with the Ministry of Com-merce and Industry, the Minis-try of Education, the Ministry of Manpower, The Research Council and a range of other stakeholders. The objective of these discussions has been to develop and agree on a national IP Education and Training Plan for the Sultanate of Oman. This is the first time that WIPO has engaged in such a holistic ap-proach to help meet the IP ed-ucation and training needs of a WIPO Member State. We hope to soon conclude a partnership agreement that will enable us to begin implementation of the rage of activities envisaged in the National Innovation Strate-gy. In your view, how important is the Intellectual Property

(IP) system for countries like the Sultanate of Oman? In what way does IP systems enable innovation and crea-tivity for the benefit of all?

As is widely recognized, the processes around innovation and creativity involve interaction between several policy areas as well as the engagement of a broad range of stakeholders from both the public and pri-vate sectors. The WIPO Global Innovation Index, co-published by WIPO, Cornell University, and INSEAD, recognizes this and provides a detailed quantitative tool that helps global decision makers to better understand how to stimulate the innovative activity that drives econom-ic and human development. The GII takes a broad view of innovation, ranking 126 econ-omies based on 80 indicators, which include categories such as the political environment, education, infrastructure and business sophistication. The GII also includes important data on IP, but it also goes beyond traditional measures of innova-tion to incorporate indicators on aspects such as mobile-ap-plication creation, education spending, levels of research and development and scientific and technical publications.

The GII has been instrumental in the Sultanate of Oman in supporting the development of the Oman National Innova-tion Strategy aimed at creating an enabling environment for research and innovation. WIPO enjoys an excellent cooperation with the Sultanate of Oman in all IP and innovation-related fields, culminated by the Official visit of the Director General of WIPO, Mr. Francis Gurry, to the Sultanate of Oman on 6 and 7 March, 2018 which opened bright perspectives for this bilat-eral cooperation.