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A Review of The Miyawaki Method: Key Findings and Recommendations
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (page 7)This brief outlines the primary conclusions of a bibliographic review that provided a comprehensive overview of relevant research regarding the Miyawaki method and the benefits over the traditional reforestation techniques, identifying gaps in the literature that could inform future research and implementation
Appraisal of Home-Based Primary Care Services Provided by Select Primary Healthcare Centers in Lebanon: A Mixed-Methods Approach
No full textIntroduction: Home-based primary care (HBPC) emerged as a significant solution to meet the complex health needs of patients who are unable to receive the “clinic-based” model of primary health care (PHC) service delivery. In Lebanon, HBPC services were not commonly available and often expensive. International Medical Corps (IMC) was among the leading organizations that provided HBPC services for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients through its supported primary healthcare centers (PHCCs). The aim of this research is to appraise IMC’s HBPC project in Lebanon, using the Donabedian framework’s assessment of structure, process, and outcome in health service delivery.
Methods: A parallel mixed-methods design was used to conduct this study to address structure, process, and outcome measures of the HBPC initiative launched by IMC. The quantitative aspect used a retrospective approach and analyzed IMC/Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) data collected as part of the HBPC project. Whereas, the qualitative approach, consisting of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with the project team members and frontline nurses, examined fidelity, facilitators, and barriers in delivering HBPC services.
Results: Findings demonstrated the presence of comprehensive SOPs and KPIs for COVID-19, but a lack-thereof for non-COVID-19 cases; thereby affecting the process and outcomes of HBPC program. Additionally, resource deficits were highlighted, especially the inconsistent provision of diagnostic tests and disability-specific services. The main facilitators were organizational, with coordination and enthusiasm of PHCCs being pivotal in the success of the program. The project was also found to have a positive impact on health outcomes and patient satisfaction. As for challenges, they were mainly resource limitations, adaptability of PHCC staff to new routines and regulations related to HBPC, and bureaucratic procedures slowing project operations. A major limitation was found with respect to service packages provided to eligible Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) patients. Challenges were mainly with respect to medication shortages, social disputes between local and native communities, and administrative and logistic mishaps.
Conclusion: The study highlighted the strengths and weakness of a pilot HBPC within the Lebanese community, provided through PHCCs. Financial barriers remain the biggest threat to service sustainability, risking the services to be halted or suspended. To mitigate this, MoPH can include HBPC as part of the national PHC protocol, or in other words, to enforce it as a standard of care within Lebanon, which could be used to lobby for future funds and improve overall healthcare for homebound patients
Face, Content, and Cultural Validity of the Arabic Version of the Multiple Sclerosis Intimacy and Sexuality Questionnaire-15 (MSISQ-15)
No full textBackground: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients may experience sexual dysfunction, but they may not be adequately assessed for this issue in Lebanon. The Multiple Sclerosis Intimacy and Sexuality Questionnaire-15 (MSISQ-15) is used to assess the effects of symptoms of MS on the patient’s sexual activity and satisfaction in both genders and has high validity and reliability. The short-term goals of this project were: 1) Conduct face, content, and cultural validity of the Arabic MSISQ-15 in patients with MS at an MS Center in Lebanon. 2) Encourage Lebanese healthcare professionals to screen for sexual dysfunction in patients with MS in Lebanon by providing them with a culturally valid tool. The long-term goal is to improve screening practices and treat sexual dysfunction in patients with MS in Lebanon.
Methods: An expert translator conducted the translation from English to Arabic, and one of the professors at AUB back translated into English without looking at the original questionnaire to check for the accuracy and equivalence of the translated materials. We followed the expert, pretest, and observations approaches to test the face validity and expert judgment to test the content validity. Cultural validity was also assessed by patients and experts’ judgement. We sought IRB approval before initiating any contact with the participants. The sample was purposeful and followed the maximum variation technique whereby two registered nurses and three physicians (research fellows) working at the MS center at AUBMC and eleven patients with MS visiting the MS center at AUBMC were included.
Results: Sixty-three percent of the patients were females. Research fellows were all medical doctors who have been hired as research fellows in the MS center. The overall questionnaire was deemed credible to participants, and appeared adequate for the assessment of primary, secondary, and tertiary sexual dysfunction. Our project showed that the Scale-Content Validity Index (S-CVI) of the MSISQ-15 Arabic version was 0.987 and the Item-Content Validity Indices (I-CVIs) ranged between 0.8 to 1. Cultural validity indices raged from 0.8 to 1. The overall cultural validity of the scale was 0.973. All items were clear and understandable by the patients except the second and third questions; patients did not understand these two questions during the interview until examples were added to each, after which they found them appropriate.
Conclusion: The Arabic version of the MSISQ-15 has good face validity and adequate content and cultural validity in the Lebanese population for assessing the impact of MS symptoms on sexual activity and satisfaction.
May Ziadeh in al-Ahrām Newspaper: Rethinking Education in 1920s Egypt
No full textMary Elias Ziadeh, pen name “May Ziadeh”, was a Lebanese-Palestinian literary figure born in 1886 in Nazareth, Palestine. She migrated with her family to Cairo, Egypt, in 1907. She moved between Lebanon and Egypt but lived in Egypt for the greater part of her life. She died in Egypt in 1941. She started her career in journalism in her father’s newspaper, al-mahrusa, where she published articles and directed some of its sections. She then wrote in other newspapers, such as the Egyptian al-Ahrām newspaper, which serves as the primary newspaper for my thesis. In my thesis, I will shed light on May Ziadeh as a journalistic figure and her contributions in the al-Ahrām newspaper from 1929 to 1934. I will focus on the intellectual thoughts present in her articles understudy about the concept of education and its major issues in Egyptian academic institutions. In Chapter 1, I will give an overview of the Arab Nahda, Ziadeh’s intellectual relationships, Ziadeh as a journalist in her era, and the importance of women’s education throughout her articles. In Chapter 2, I will analyze the education system in turn-of-the-twentieth century in Egypt, the impact of colonialism, educational reforms in Ziadeh’s point of view, her criticisms on weaknesses of education on both social and economic levels, her new horizons for education, and the relationship between gender and education. In conclusion, Ziadeh played a key role in translation, literature, journalism, and education. The theme of education has manifested clearly in Ziadeh’s al-Ahrām articles in which they showed the weaknesses of the educational systems in Egypt and gave potential solutions to the problems presented in the late 1920s and 1930s. Further research can be done on Ziadeh’s articles because they are still relevant to the present day especially in the scope of education and social activism
A NON-PHARMACOLOGICAL INTERVENTION PROTOCOL TO REDUCE DEMENTIA-RELATED AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIORS IN OLDER NURSING HOME RESIDENTS IN LEBANON: A PROPOSAL FOR THE DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND EVALUATION OF INDIVIDUALIZED MUSIC THERAPY
Get PDFAs the older adult population in Lebanon is expected to double to 20% in 2030 so is the risk of dementia which is characterized by a gradual and progressive cognitive decline and commonly affects older adults. Therefore, dementia is expected to become a public crisis in Lebanon within the next 20 years. Dementia is associated with behavioral and psychological changes that significantly affect the patient's quality of life. Aggression, which is a common behavioral dysfunction associated with dementia, is usually managed with atypical antipsychotics which may increase mortality risk. Hence, there is a need to explore a non-pharmacological approach to manage dementia-related aggression that does not pose a high risk to patients. Studies have shown that music therapy is a promising non-pharmacological intervention that has a significant effect on reducing dementia-related aggression. The objective of this project is to design, implement, and evaluate an individualized music therapy protocol with the goal of reducing dementia-related aggressive behavior frequency in a Lebanese sample of older adults residing in a nursing home. This project introduces an Individualized Music Intervention protocol to manage agitation and aggression in dementia patients, adding to the intervention Middle Eastern music to accommodate Lebanese culture. The implementation and evaluation plan for this intervention is described. This intervention will take place in a Lebanese nursing home and will target older adults
Beyond Labels: Unsupervised Approaches and Representation Learning Techniques for Hate Speech Detection
No full textThe proliferation of Hate Speech on social media platforms has been increasing recently,
causing severe adverse effects on victims’ mental health and well-being. This serious
phenomenon requires updated automated detection systems. However, existing
supervised machine learning models have significant limitations as they rely heavily on
labeled data, which is costly, prone to errors, and lacks scalability and generalizability.
This thesis explores unsupervised learning techniques, specifically clustering enhanced
with deep representation learning, to overcome these limitations. Traditional (TF-IDF,
Word2Vec) and modern methods (transformers, pre-trained language models, and
contrastive learning) are leveraged to enrich representations of short texts and capture
semantic similarities without labeling. We investigate the state-of-the-art Simple
Contrastive Learning of Sentence Embedding (SimCSE), a contrastive learning approach
for sentence embeddings, and propose Hate-SimCSE: a finetuned SimCSE framework to
encode robust hate speech representations, leading to better clustering results. Extensive
experiments on diverse public datasets demonstrate significant clustering performance
improvements from Hate-SimCSE over conventional text clustering approaches with an
accuracy ranging from 0.58 to 0.86, a 2% to 15% improvement. Overall, our work
illustrates the potential of these new techniques to develop more effective methods for
combating the pressing societal issue of online hate and to create a safer online
environment for all users. Additionally, this research can extend beyond hate speech
detection, impacting various applications in NLP downstream tasks, such as semantic text
similarity, information extraction, and question-answering
Fabricated Intimacy: Civil War History in Lebanese Epistolary Narratives
No full textHistory often transcends the confines of official records, finding expression in private forms such as letters, which convey details that might be omitted from national narratives. This thesis highlights the significance of these letters in contributing to Lebanese history,
particularly during the Civil War from 1975 to 1990. My research examines letters found in three Lebanese novels, each written in a different language, with two of them being epistolary by genre: Lettre Posthume by Dominique Eddé (1989), Bareed Beirut by Hanan al-Shaykh (1992), translated as Beirut Blues by Catherine Cobham (1995), and Somewhere, Home by Nada Awar Jarrar (2004).
The focus of my work is not so much on history itself, but rather on the intimacy conveyed through the epistolary form—intimacy that often remains outside the scope of academic narratives. Specifically, I aim to explore three key questions: How does the form of the letter fabricate intimacy? How do the narrative and its techniques employed in the
epistolary form shape intimacy? And how does verisimilitude within these letters contribute to the fabrication of intimacy? Through a comparative analysis, this research sheds light on the complex relationship between history and fiction, and the process of weaving an intimate narrative together, further emphasizing how the epistolary form can bridge what is public and what is private. The findings suggest that Lebanese epistolary novels use the structural and stylistic elements of letter-writing to fabricate intimate narratives, highlighting the unique ability of this form to bridge public and private spheres
Green Hydrogen Bridge: Harnessing African Solar Resources for European Energy Transition
No full textThe objective of this thesis is to develop a design methodology using ordinal optimization
(OO) technique for hydrogen generation in Europe using a hybrid solar system located in
Africa. Reverse osmosis water desalination, water electrolysis using a polymer-
electrolyte membrane (PEM), solar panels and batteries are the subsystems used to
produce green hydrogen. The main goal is to size properly each of these system
components to achieve an average production rate of around 50 tons per day at the lowest
cost of production in dollars per kilogram of hydrogen. The cost of production will take
into account the different systems used in addition to transportation of the power through
submarine cables from Africa to Europe. This thesis examines the feasibility of
harnessing abundant solar energy resources in North Africa to export it to Europe where
it will be used to produce green hydrogen for the European market. The green hydrogen
produced using solar energy, does not emit carbon dioxide when oxidized, making it an
essential tool in the fight against global warming, and helping to reach a decarbonized
economy by replacement of fossil fuels, which is as an important step toward a more
sustainable and ecologically friendly energy future. This study intends to construct a
comprehensive and sustainable green hydrogen generation simulation model using a
multidisciplinary approach that includes solar technology, electrochemical water
electrolysis, and economic modeling. This simulation model will be used in an ordinal
optimization approach to determine the size and cost each subsystem in order to produce
the market demand of 50 tons of hydrogen per day at minimum cost. Through this OO
approach, an optimal solution has been identified, comprising a PV size of 810MW,
battery size of 1350MWh, PEM size of 86 tons per day, RO size of 56.25m3/h, SC size
of 2000mm2 and hydrogen storage of 32 tons. The results underscore the viability of the
proposed approach in meeting production goals at a competitive cost of $4.43 per
kilogram of hydrogen, with the Morocco and Spain route chosen for power delivery. The
quoted cost is based on projected technologies for the year 2035 and is likely to drop
further
Exposure to Mycotoxins from the Consumption of Corn-Based Breakfast Cereals in the UAE
Get PDFCorn-based breakfast cereals, known as cornflakes, have become a common breakfast choice worldwide, recognized for their convenience and versatility. However, mycotoxins can contaminate these products, potentially adversely affecting human health. This study assessed the occurrence of five mycotoxins (AFB1, OTA, DON, ZEA, and FUM) in all cornflake Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) marketed in the UAE. It also evaluated the effect of different independent variables, including country of origin, temperature on production day, storage time, and presence of chocolate, bran, and nut ingredients. It then estimated the exposure levels of the UAE population to these mycotoxins, along with associated risk factors such as HQ, MOE, liver cancer cases, and kidney disease risk. A total of 76 distinct cornflake SKUs were identified for testing using the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) technique. The mean concentrations of AFB1, OTA, ZEA, FUM, and DON among positive samples were 2.0, 1.0, 10.14, 584.9, and 90.6 μg/kg, respectively. With the exception of AFB1, the average levels of all mycotoxins in the cornflake samples remained below the established EU limits. Among positive samples, 4 (5.3%), 1 (1.3%), 1 (1.3%), and 1 (1.3%) SKUs exceeded EU limits for AFB1, OTA, FUM, and ZEA, respectively. The country of origin (developing vs. developed countries) exhibited a significant effect on AFB1 presence in cornflakes (p < 0.0001), with higher proportions of positive SKUs in developing countries. Furthermore, higher temperature on the production day was associated with significantly higher AFB1 occurrence (p=0.009). Moreover, the presence of chocolate ingredients demonstrated a slight effect on AFB1 (p=0.05) and a more pronounced effect on OTA (p=0.002), with higher percentages observed in SKUs containing chocolate. Overall, the risk of mycotoxin exposure was low, with HQ values below 1 for all toxins. While daily consumers faced higher risks for some mycotoxins, regular consumers had minimal risk. Liver cancer risk was minimal for both groups (1 liver cancer case and less than 1 case per 1,000,000 people per year, respectively). Similarly, OTA exposures were below the threshold. Besides, the necessary daily intake of cornflakes to reach the TDI (Tolerable Daily Intake) for each mycotoxin is very high across all age groups. However, the observed consumption among children, adolescents and adults remains notably below these thresholds for all mycotoxins, suggesting a safe level of cornflake consumption. Future research should investigate the co-occurrence of mycotoxins and the effect of combined mycotoxin exposures. Routine monitoring is a must to track emerging brands entering the market and to uphold food safety standards, thereby safeguarding public health
Coffee Reading and Narrative Healing in Bint Jbeil
Get PDFCoffee reading or tobsir is a common practice among the women of Bint Jbeil in South Lebanon. However, in the official histories of the town, historians and anthropologists were silent on this topic. The main reason of this silence is that coffee reading is looked upon by some conservative groups in the town. It is still allowed though, and most women practice it for fun. Other than being a superstitious, useless, and religiously forbidden act, I show in this ethnography the other lenses where this practice could be studied. In chapter 2, I unravel the reasons why the women of Bint Jbeil need tobsir in their daily lives and look at this practice as a choreographed conversation that brings out the anxieties of these women to the surface at a time where the country is in a multidimensional crisis. In chapter 3, I present the healing side of tobsir, where I give the bassara, the coffee reader, the role of a healer who after building a connection with the women being read that enables the exchange of emotions, she transforms through her cup reading the narratives of these women into ones about the universe away from every day worries. Lastly, in chapter 4, I study the two modes of interpretations the bassarat use while practicing tobsir: the form-based interpretation and the intuition-based interpretation. I go deeper into the formed signs in the coffee cups and their meanings and show how these bassarat activate their intuition in this kind of divination