Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: The Research Council (TRC) on Monday announced the winners of the Annual Research Awards during the Annual Research Forum 2019 held at the Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Twelve research projects won the National Research Awards (NRA 2019) under the PhD category and Young Researcher’s category, while another six won from the Faculty Mentored Undergraduate Research Award Programme me (FURAP) category.
Under the PhD category, Dr. Said Salim Al Ismaily won under the Education and Human Resources sector for his project titled ‘Progressing from direct instruction to structured and open inquiry-based teaching in a bachelor of soil sciences programme: Experience at the National University in Oman’, while Dr. Chefi Triki won under the Information Systems and Communication Technologies sector for his project titled ‘Heuristic methods for the periodic shipper lane selection problem in transportation auctions’.
In the Cultural, Basic, and Social Sciences sector, the award went to the project of ‘New Insight into the Origin of the Red/Near-Infrared Intense Fluorescence of a Crystalline 2‑Hydroxychalcone Derivative: A Comprehensive Picture from the Excited-State Femtosecond Dynamics’ for Dr. Osama K. Abou-Zied.
For the Health and Social Service sector, ‘Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Alters Neuropilin-1, PlGF, and SNAI1 Expression Levels and Predicts Breast Cancer Patients Response’ by Dr. Noura Al Zeheimi won, while Dr. Alaa H Al Muhtaseb won the Energy and Industry sector for his project ‘Cleaner fuel production from waste Phoenix dactylifera L. kernel oil in the presence of a bimetallic catalyst: Optimisation and kinetics study.’
The award for the Environmental and Biological Resources sector was withheld this year.
For the Young Researcher’s category, Safiya Abdullah Ahmed Al Shehhi, won under the Education and Human Resources sector for her project ‘Development of curriculum-based measurements in mathematical computations for Arab-speaking fourth grade student’, while Sara Khamis Al-Ruzaiqi won under the Information Systems and Communication Technologies sector for her project titled ‘New Modification Version of Principal Component Analysis with Kinetic Correlation Matrix Using Kinetic Energy’.
In the Cultural, Basic, and Social Sciences sector, the award went to the project of ‘Professional decision-making and its relationship to internal motivation for tenth grade students in the Sultanate of Oman’ for Fatma Khalfan Al Furi.
Under the Environmental and Biological Resources sector, the award was shared between Dr. Khalifa M. Al Kindi and Ahmed Al Mayahi, for their projects; ‘Modelling spatiotemporal patterns of dubas bug infestations on date palms in northern Oman: A geographical information system case study’ and ‘Home gardening in Muscat, Oman: Gardeners’ practices, perceptions and motivations’, respectively.
For the Health and Social Service sector, ‘Delivery and Biodistribution of Traceable Polymeric Micellar Diclofenac in the Rat’ won by Hanan Mustafa Abdullah Al Lawati, while Dr. Nasser M Al Hinai won the Energy and Industry sector for his project New Approach to Alternating Thickened–Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery’.
TRC also awarded the top research projects under the Faculty Mentored Research Award Programme of TRC (FURAP). For the Education and Human Resources sector, ‘English Communication Skills for Employability: The Perspectives of Employers in Oman: An Exploratory Study’ by a team from Ibra College of Technology, while the project ‘Tour-Guide Robot for Omani Museums’ by a team from Sultan Qaboos University won under the Information Systems and Communication Technologies sector.
In the Cultural, Basic, and Social Sciences sector, ‘Socio-Economic aspects of livestock welfare in Oman: a case study on the camel breeding in North Al-Sharqiah Governorate’ prepared by a team from Ibra College of Technology. The project of ‘From Garbage to Cabbage: Utility of fish wastes for agricultural fertiliser’ by a team from Sultan Qaboos University.
For the Health and Social Service sector, ‘Are we aware how contaminated shopping carts are with Pathogenic and Drug-Resistant Bacteria?’ by a team from A’Sharqiyah University.
Under the Energy and Industry sector, the project prepared by a team from Dhofar University on ‘Sustainable Development of Renewable Energy Technology to produce clean fuel (H2) from water’.
In addition to the awards, the Annual Research Forum 2019 included organising a poster session displaying 37 posters for some of the winners form all 3 categories and the Open Research Grants (ORG) and 5 posters for student projects within the Educational Innovation Programme. There are also 3 parallel sessions about the Strategic Research Programme at the forum, titled as, ‘Economy, Development and Sustainable Environment’, ‘Governance and Institutional’ and ‘People and Society’ respectively.
