Final Pronouncement

The 15^th International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT’2014)

University of Nizwa/ Nizwa, Oman

9-11/12/2014

  Note: You can Download Arabic Version of final pronouncement.

Under the patronage of his Excellency the Secretary-General of the defense ministry Mohammad Bin Naser Al-Rasibi, the opening ceremony of the 15th International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT) was inaugurated at 10 am on Tuesday, 9th December 2014 in the presence of Prof. Ahmed Bin Khalfan Al-Rawahi/ President of Nizwa University, Prof.  Sultan Abu Orabi/ Secretary-General of the Association of Arab Universities, Prof. Mohammad Al-Haj Hassan/ Secretary-General of Colleges of Computing and Information Society, Dr. Abdullah Al-Tobi, Dean of the College of Arts and Science/ the Chairman of the Conference, Presidents of universities, Deans of Faculties of Arab Universities, a large number of guests, scientists and specialists, researchers from different Arab and foreign countries, and students from Sultanate of Oman.

The opening ceremony started with recitation of the Holy Quran, which was then followed by the following speeches:

·        Prof. Ahmed Bin Khalfan Al-Rawahi/ President of Nizwa University, delivered the first opening speech. In his speech, Prof. Al-Rawahi welcomed the guests and delegates from sisterly and friendly countries and the members of the steering committee of the conference, and he pointed out that the University hosting of the Conference coincided with the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the University, and he wished the success of the conference. Prof. Al-Rawahi talked about the importance of owning the keys of knowledge leading to the knowledge economy and the importance of the Conference to enrich scientific capacities and to stand on strengths to use in the communities development. Finally, he thanked the participants in the conference for their efforts.

·        Prof. Sultan Abu Orabi/ the Secretary General of the Association of Arab Universities then delivered the second speech.  He welcomed present guests, then spoke about the Higher Education in the Islamic history and higher education in the Arab world at the present time as well as the ways of its development and the challenges that it faces, focusing on the importance of quality in education. He explained the funding sources for scientific research in the Arabic world, and he discussed the scientists migration phenomenon. Furthermore, he elaborated to the audience about the Association' Scientific Societies, and encouraged universities to become members of both the Association of Arab universities and the Scientific Societies. Finally, he thanked the University of Nizwa for hosting the Conference, Prof. Mohammed al-Haj Hassan, the Secretary-General of the Conference, the former Secretary Generals of the Colleges of Computing and Information Society, and all the committees for their great effort that makes that current moment possible, and hoped that such efforts will always achieve great success.

·        Prof. Mohammad Al-Haj Hassan/ Secretary General of the Colleges of Computing and Information Society (CCIS) delivered the third speech. Prof. Al-Haj Hassan welcomed the guests and delegates from sisterly and friendly countries and the members of the steering committee of the conference. He talked about the history of ACIT and the reasons for its success. Then he urged the universities to join the Colleges of Computing and Information Society. Finally, he thanked the previous Secretary-Generals of the Conference for their efforts and their contribution in the development of CCIS activities, Nizwa University for warm hospitality and organization, and ACIT steering committee for their efforts that led to this moment of conference arrangement.

·        Dr. Abdullah Al-Tobi, Dean of the College of Arts and Science/ the Chairman of the Conference delivered the fourth speech. Dr. Al-Tobi welcomed the guests and the audience. He spoke about the information revolution and the importance to follow up it to face the modern life challenges and he assured that the aim of the Conference is to take benefits from the information technology, which has become an integral part of our daily life. Finally, he expressed thanks and appreciation to the Members of committees of the Conference and the subcommittees for their great effort. The opening session concluded with providing reciprocal armors honor.

The sessions lasted for three days, from Tuesday 9/12/2014 to Thursday 11/12/2014, as follows:

The First Day: Tuesday, 9/12/2014

·        08:30 - 09:30 The Registration

·        10:00 – 10:45 The Opening Ceremony

·         11:30 – 12:45 a keynote lecture by Prof.  Emad Abulrub, entitled: (Quality Assurance of Teaching and Learning of Information Technology Programs)

·        12:45 – 14:00 Lunch Break

·        14:00 – 16:00 Three Parallel Sessions:

Session I:  Software Engineering

Session II: Information Retrieval, Database and Information Systems.

Session III: IT and Society and Human Computer Interaction

The Second Day: Wednesday, 10/12/2014

·        9:00 – 10:15 A keynote lecture by Prof.Ian Akyildiz , entitled: Three Parallel Sessions: Research challenges in next generation cellular systems LTE-A and beyond.

·        10:15 – 11:00 Coffee Break

·        Three morning Parallel Sessions:

Session I: Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks and Experts Systems.

Session II: Networks, Grid and Cloud Computing, and GI

Session III: Algorithms and Computer Simulation

·        13:00 – 14:00 Lunch Break

·        14:00 – 16:00 Two afternoon Parallel Tutorials:

Tutorial I: Introduction to (-1+j) Base-Binary Number System

Tutorial II: Traffic Engineering Challenges for Software Defined Networks.

The Third Day: Thursday, 11/12/2014

·        9:00 – 10:15 A keynote lecture by Prof. Alan Marshall entitled: Public Access Wireless Networks

·        10:15 – 11:00 Coffee Break

·        11:00 – 13:00 :Two Parallel Sessions:

Session I: Information Security and Invited Paper

Session II: Arabic Language Processing

·        14:00 Lunch Break.

·        14:00 – 15:00 Closing ceremony, Where Prof. Mohammad Haj Hassan, Secretary-General of the Conference and Dr. Abdullah Al Tobi, President of the conference Exchanged  brief thanks words, then the Secretary-General Prof. Mohamed Al-Haj Hassan honored: Prof. Ahmed Bin Khalfan Al rawahi, Dr. Abdullah bin Saif Al Tobi and Prof. Khalid Khanfar, by presenting CCIS and ACIT Armors for each one. In closing, the most important parts of final pronouncement were presented on PowerPoint by the final pronouncement drafting committee.

Participating Countries

The number of scientific research papers registered in the conference is (42), out of (111) articles submitted by researches to the conference. The published papers came from 21 Arab and Foreign countries: Oman, Sudan, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, India, Pakistan, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada and New Zealand.

·        In summary, the number of papers submitted is 111, the number of accepted papers is 55 (of 49.5% of acceptance), and the number of registered papers is 42.

Other Meetings on the Sidelines of the Conference

Firstly: The Meeting of the General Committee for the Colleges of Computing and Information Society

The General Committee held its eighth meeting on the sidelines of the conference at 10:00 am on Monday, 8/12/2014 under the chairmanship of Prof. Mohammad Al-Haj Hassan, the Secretary-General of (the Colleges of Computing and Information Society (CCIS)) in the presence of Prof. Sultan Abu Orabi/ the Secretary General of the Association of Arab Universities and 42 Deans from various Arab Universities. During the meeting Prof. Al-Haj Hassan welcomed the attendees, and focused in his speech that the collective efforts and works led to all CCIS achievements in its general activities, and ACIT in particular, aim to enrich the cooperation and exchange of experiences between the universities of the Arab countries. He also thanked the previous Secretary Generals as well as University of Nizwa, and all who contributed to the preparation of this conference. The agenda of the meeting included:

1.      Ratification of the agenda.

2.      Viewing Previous Minutes of meeting and Ratification it.

3.      Viewing the financial and administrative report and Ratification it.

4.      Discussion of transforming the International Arab Conference on Information Technology (ACIT) to (Congress), to include the International Arab Conference of Electronic Technology (IACeT).

5.      Review the society activities situations (ACIT, IACeT, ITSAF, IAJIT, IAJeT).

6.      Canceling CCIS branches and retain its General Secretariat headquarter based on the Executive Committee's decision.

7.      Moving all CCIS branches activities to the General Secretariat permanent headquarters.

8.      CCIS Bylaw and its amendments.

9.      Applying accreditation standards for information technology disciplines, and following up Information Technology colleges in Arab Universities accreditation from Council on Accreditation of Quality/ the Association of Arab Universities In coordination with CCIS.

10. Following up the proposals for the new plan for the years 2014-2018.

11. Electronic registration for membership (organizations, individuals).

12. Any other items.

Among the most prominent of the things that were agreed upon:

1.      Assigning the executive committee to find new Permanent headquarters for IACeT Conference.

2.      Confirming the cancellation of CCIS branches and retain its General Secretariat headquarter based on the Executive Committee's decision.

3.      Cancellation of all amendments to the statute that has been proposed before.

Secondly: The Meeting of the Executive Committee of 2013 - 2015 of the Colleges of Computing and Information Society

The executive committee of the 2013-2015 cycle of the Colleges of Computing and Information society held its third meeting on the sidelines of the conference at 02:00 pm on Monday, 9/12/2014 under the chairmanship of Prof. Mohammad Al-Haj Hassan, the Secretary-General of CCIS.

Among the most prominent of the things that have been discussed:

1.      Ratification of the agenda.

2.      Viewing Previous Minutes of meeting, doing some modifications on it and Ratification.

3.      Discussion the Bylaw and emphasizing on what was agreed in the Meeting of the General Committee for the Colleges of Computing and Information Society.

4.      CCIS General Committee plan for the years 2014-2018 and approving it after some reviews.

5.      Mechanisms to follow up and assess the scientific CCIS activities.

6.      Encouraging universities to become a member in CCIS.

7.      The date and venue for the second meeting of the executive committee of the 2013-2015 cycle of the Colleges of Computing and Information Society and they agreed to make some consultations by the Secretary-General with member universities and inform the Committee members of the date of the next meeting as soon as possible.

Thirdly: The Meeting of ACIT Steering Committee

ACIT Steering Committee held its 15th meeting on the sidelines of the conference at 11:45 on Wednesday 10/12/2014, under the chairmanship of Prof. Mohammad Al-Haj Hassan, the Secretary-General of ACIT and in the presence of 19 members of the committee. The Secretary General commended the continuing efforts of the members of the steering committee of the conference. During this meeting the following items were discussed:

1.    Ratification of the agenda.

2.    Viewing Previous Minutes of meeting and Ratification it

3.    Viewing the financial and administrative report and Ratification it functioning of the Conference.

4.    Considering the formation of the steering committee of ACIT.

5.    Discussion the hosting of the fifteenth session of ACIT (ACIT'2015).

6.    The formation of a committee to draft the final statement of the session ACIT'2014.

7.    A preliminary assessment of the session ACIT'2014 and proposing suggestions about the next session.

8.    Any Other items.

All the meeting's items were discussed except number 7.

The most prominent issues that have been agreed:

1.      Loss of Committee's membership for Isra University and dropping Prof. Ayman Nsour membership due to his absence from two consecutive meeting.

2.      Add the University of Nizwa as a member represented by Dr. Abdullah bin Saif Al Tobi/Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

3.      Choosing Helwan University/ Egypt to host the 16th session of the international Arab Conference on information technology (ACIT ' 2015).

4.      Forming a committee to draft the final pronouncement.

The meeting ended at 1: 30 pm. Then a second meeting of the Committee held on the same day between 9:30-11:30 pm, and was devoted to the discussion of agenda item 8, and a further discussion about ACIT’2015 hosting, the most prominent results of the second meeting:

1.      Request from the General Secretariat to work on the statistical analysis of the Conference since its establishment till now, in terms of participation, attendance and the number of accepted research and other statistical information.

2.      Request from the General Secretariat to follow up the issue of ACIT'2015 hosting.

The conference conclusions:

1.      The participants agreed that the conference organization and management were Distinctive.

2.      The participants agreed that the Reception and hospitality were Distinctive.

3.      The ratio of the research papers acceptance in the current session reached 49.5%, which is good and some participants considered it fairly high.

4.      This session distinguished by special keynote speakers.

The Recommendations of the Conference:

As mentioned during the presentation of conference program above, important topics have been presented by 3 keynote speakers, in addition to many scientific papers from researchers in different areas of information technology, distributed over eight sessions. The following recommendations have been taken:

1.      Considering the possibility of publishing the outstanding research papers of the conference in the International Arab Journal of Information Technology (IAJIT).

2.      Consider providing incentive awards for the best three research papers at the upcoming conferences.

3.      Choosing variety of subjects on one hand, and ensuring general topics on the other hand, for the keynote speeches at the upcoming conferences.

4.      Developing specialized workshops for students during the period of the conference supervised by the participants of the conference.

5.      The necessity of continuing the Tutorials sessions at the conference that provide the researchers several scientific and educational skills.

6.       Stimulating of the idea of panel sessions in topics related to information technology in the host country, and to give priority to the situation in that country.

The participants in the conference expressed their thanks to : Prof. Ahmed Bin Khalfan Al-Rawahi/ President of Nizwa University, Dr. Abdullah Al-Tobi, Dean of the College of Arts and Science/the President of the Conference, and Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Conference dr. Mahmoud Jassem, and Vice Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Conference dr. Alaa al-Janabi, and the heads and members of the organizing committees for their contribution to the success of this outstanding conference.

At the end of the conference, the ACIT secretary General, on his behalf and on behalf of all the participants in the conference, raised a telegram of thanks and appreciation to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. He also provided thanks letters and appreciation to each of: Prof. Sultan Abu Orabi/ the Secretary General of the Association of Arab Universities  on his participation in this Conference, the President of the University of Nizwa Prof. Ahmed Bin Khalfan Al-Rawahi for hosting the Conference, as well as for each of Dr. Abdullah Al-Tobi, Dr. Mahmoud Jasim, Dr. Alaa al-Janabi, and Mr. Fouad Elwan, for their great efforts in preparation and organization of the conference which led to the conference success,  and for good accommodation and Generous hospitality for participants.

The Preparation Committee of the

Final Pronouncement of ACIT2014

Prof. Osama Badawi

Dr. Mohammad Hassan

Mr. Fouad Elwan

University of Nizwa, Nizwa, Sultanate of Oman

Thursday, December 11, 2014