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Investigating the Feasibility of Integrating Extended Producer Responsibility for Efficient Waste Management in Lebanon
No full textWaste mismanagement is considered a global environmental concern, especially in the
Global South countries. Several environmental initiatives were held to enhance the path
towards a more sustainable management of waste. Extended Producer Responsibility
(EPR), with its multi-various schemes, is considered a pivotal approach to sustainable
management that has been successfully adopted for different waste streams in various
Global North countries and is in the process of implementation in some Global South
countries. The EPR approach requires producers to take on the financial and/or physical
responsibilities of managing their waste in the post-consumer phase. Despite its wider
adoption, Lebanon, which is in a serious waste crisis, still lacks such environmental
regulations and concepts. This thesis aims to investigate the feasibility of integrating
EPR into Lebanon’s waste management system by assessing the understanding of this
concept among the plastic and electronic industries and their role in contributing to
sustainable waste management, investigating the challenges that might be encountered
in the adoption of EPR in Lebanon, and exploring the opportunities and steps to address
these challenges and prepare for seamless integration of EPR. In-depth interviews were
conducted with representatives from different sectors, including plastic, electronics, and
governmental and non-governmental organizations.
The findings revealed a notable gap in EPR knowledge. While electronic retailers often
lack an understanding of EPR, enterprises operating in international marketplaces
display higher expertise and proactive participation. The primary challenges to EPR
adoption in Lebanon are several. The informal sector, which dominates the waste
collection, poses a significant structural problem due to its irregular operations and lack
of connection with official institutions. Lebanon's financial instability, as well as the
high costs of recycling infrastructure and procedures, prevent both government and
private sector participation. Inefficient legislative systems and weak legislative
frameworks are considered regulatory barriers to implementing EPR, which are
exacerbated by the corruption and inadequacies of public administration. Despite these
challenges, stakeholders are eager to implement sustainable waste management
solutions. Some industries are already launching voluntary take-back programs. The
study emphasizes that effective EPR implementation in Lebanon needs clear
cooperation between the government, producers, NGOs, and local communities, as well
as a robust legal framework and enforcement
Beyond Antibiotics: Building a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Phage Library for Targeted Therapy
No full textBackground: Microbial resistance due to antibiotic misuse resulted increasing illness and mortality rates. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common hospital-acquired bacterium, has become highly resistant globally, including Lebanon where carbapenem-resistant strains are now prevalent. This resistance has led to higher mortality rates, longer hospital stays, and increased healthcare costs. Consequently, there is a pressing need for alternative solutions, and phage therapy, which consists of using viruses that specifically target and lyse bacterial cells, is being reconsidered as a potential alternative approach. In this study, we aim to isolate and characterize lytic phages from natural sources to evaluate their efficacy against multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains, to develop a phage library for future therapeutic interventions.
Methods: Screening for phages will be conducted by mixing natural resources samples (in our case 12 sewage samples from different regions across Lebanon) and the bacteria in a 96 well plate and OD will be measured. Then, a Double Agar Layer assay will be performed to isolate the phages. Once isolated, phages will be spotted over different Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains for a host range determination. Additionally, phages will be characterized by their bacteriolytic activity, their latency period and burst size determined by a one-step growth assay, their ability clear bacterial biofilm post formation and their stability under different temperature and pH values. Finally, a DNA extraction and sequencing will be performed to identify the phage whole genome.
Results: Six distinct phages were isolated against three Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains from Al Nabatieh and Iaat sewage samples with a titer ranging between 1015 and 1040 PFU/ml. Three phages recorded the widest host range and showed considerable bacterial killing effect, while the rest were more host specific. Only two phages out of these three presented a potential role in significantly eliminating mature biofilm. PSA 44 NAB 02 demonstrated excellent pH and thermal stability and it adsorbed to its host within 5 minutes and lysed the cell within 30 minutes, releasing approximately 30 virions per bacterial cell.
Conclusion: We successfully isolated and characterized six bacteriophages. Several phages, highlighted by PSA 44 NAB 02, are potential candidates to be included in our phage library giving there promising bacterial killing capacity and ability in clearing mature biofilm
Multi-Stability Reconfigurable Deployable Quadrifilar Helix Antenna for Disaster Struck and Infrastrure-less Areas
No full textCommunication needs in devastated areas that lack any supporting infrastructure necessitate lightweitght antenna systems that are better suited for emergency personnel. Furthermore, ensuring communication to satellite and terrestrial nodes is a crucial factor in areas with diminished infrastructure or under emergency conditions. This thesis has two main objectives. The first objective is to design a bistable deployable antenna structures such as the Quadrifilar Helix Antenna (QHA) for deployment in disaster-stricken areas. The design process involves combining reconfigurable and deployable elements to create light-weight designs that can be activated as needed, thereby restoring communication in areas with limited infrastructure. At first, this thesis presents a bi-stable deployable QHA that passively reconfigures its polarization and radiation pattern. The proposed structure is composed of counter-rotating helical strips, connected by rotational joints to allow a change in the helix height and radius. Each helical strip is composed of a fiber-reinforced composite material to achieve two stable deployed states. The antenna is suitable for terrestrial and satellite communication since it has an almost omnidirectional pattern for one stable state and a circularly polarized directive pattern for another stable in the L-band. Hence, this thesis introduces an antenna solution for infrastructure-less areas that is portable, agile, and passively reconfigured. The thesis then leverages bistability to propose a Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS). RISs have garnered significant interests for their potential to develop advanced wireless communications environments. Consequently, RISs can substantially enhance the capacity and coverage of wireless networks. They play a vital role in creating the intelligent propagation environments necessary for next-generation communication systems expected to roll out around 2030, including 5G and 6G technologies. Bistable RIS structures prepare for a generation of communication systems that can be deployed and reconfigured on demand with minimum power requirements to ensure communication needs are met. The presented RIS operates at a frequency of 1.7 GHz and presents seven reconfigurable radiation states. By changing the states of the unit cells, the RIS can redirect its radiation pattern
And I Found Her...
No full textA children's book, created by AUB students from the Education Department, for the course EDUC218 as a final project.A little girl has suffered during her childhood, searching for her mom's strength after she has been diagnosed in cancer. She has felt various different emotions throughout this process
Essays on a Postmodern Arabic Novel
Get PDFThis dissertation theorizes a postmodern Arabic novel as a project of historical reflexivity. The first chapter presents this theory arguing that the category “postmodern Arabic novel” usefully prompts attention to textual mediation of objective social reality in a fragmentary Arab world remade into a structural extension of globalized postmodernity. The chapter also frames this theoretical work as an intervention in Arabic studies insofar as it models historical interpretation with and beyond scholarship of the “cultural turn.” The following chapters elaborate the theory of a postmodern Arabic novel through engagement with four texts chosen for the presence of specific footholds for interpretation and discussion either in the texts themselves or in related scholarship. The first revisits Sonallah Ibrahim’s The Smell of It (1966) and thinks with previous readings about the novel’s mediation of an early postmodern “state of failure” in Egypt and the Arab world. The second turns to Ghaleb Halasa’s The Question (1979) and draws out the construction of an imaginary social edifice allegorical of an emergent space of stratification and asymmetry. The third learns from Hoda Barakat’s Disciples of Passion (1993), wherein the tragic saga of a narrator caught in the grip of a fantasy of Relation unhinges from social reality an ambivalent pathology of postmodern Lebanon. Finally, the fourth reads Adania Shibli’s recent Minor Detail (2017) as a search for formal composition adequate to representation of occupation despite its ideological operations. The conclusion reflects on these essays in staged interpretation of contemporary Arabic novels as reading attuned to both historical objectivity’s inscription in the literary text and the latter’s formalistic mediations of spatialized yet ungrounded postmodern situations. The conclusion further reflects on a project that stands as provocation in the direction of a collaborative effort to compose critical readings that enrich our sense of situation in history understood as a sequence of modes of production
L-series of Harmonic Maass Forms
Get PDFWe introduce Harmonic Maass forms and present some of their analytic properties.
We continue to define their related L-series by using Laplace transform, and prove
their functional equations. Our primary objective is to develop a converse theorem
for these L-series in both integral and non-integral weights. This became achievable
through the definition of the mentioned L-series on a broader class of test functions.
To illustrate the idea, we first present an outline of the special case of weakly holo-
morphic modular forms on SL2(Z) and then extend it to Harmonic Maass forms.
Subsequently, we consider an example of using the converse theorem
Roundtable 2023
No full textThis discussion is the fifth of AUB-NCC’s 2023 series of roundtables, titled “Navigating Climate Change and environmental activism in the MENA region: Challenges and Opportunities”. Roundtable discussion Organized on September 21st 2023 at the Asfari Institute Conference Hall in AUB.The series is co-designed with: Nature Conservation Center, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, Asfari Institute for Civil Society & Citizenship, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Arab Reform Initiative.Panel: Lea Kai, Climate Change Project Manager at UNDP/Lebanese Ministry of Environment ; Nadim Farajalla, Director of the Climate Change and the Environment Program at the AUB Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (AUB-IFI) ; Camille Ammoun, Policy Advisor and Political Economy Analyst and Associate Fellow at AUB-IFI ; George Ziadeh, Youth Climate Activist and MENA Operations Coordinator at Leave it in the Ground Initiative (LINGO) ; Sarine Karajerjian, Director of the Environmental Politics Program at the Arab Reform Initiative (Moderator). Opening Remarks from Tarek Al Khoury, Regional Coordinator for Climate Action at UNEP West Asia Office.This brief was published following the fifth roundtable of AUB-NCC's 2023 series, titled “Navigating Climate Change and Environmental Activism in the MENA Region: Challenges and Opportunities.” The panel discussion delved deeper into the challenges and political strains faced by Global South countries concerning climate finance. Issues related to the distribution of climate finance in the MENA region were highlighted, particularly favoring mitigation over crucial adaptation needs. Concerns were also raised about the COP potentially transforming into a platform for greenwashing and to market patented technologies, thus sidelining genuine negotiations, and dismissing the issues faced by smaller nations like Lebanon
Exploring the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of College Students Toward Sustainable Diets in Lebanon: A Cross-Sectional Study
No full textBackground: Global and local food systems are currently challenged by various factors that compromise their ability to protect environmental resources and planetary health while failing to provide nutritious, accessible, and safe food equitably to all populations. Sustainable diets are critically needed to address some of these challenges. Sustainable diets are defined as dietary patterns that promote all dimensions of individuals’ health and wellbeing; have low environmental pressure and impact; are accessible, affordable, safe, and equitable; and are culturally acceptable. Such diets are particularly needed among college students, a key consumer group that is overall characterized by increased environmental awareness and a transitional age of independence, where dietary choices can evolve into lifelong habits. While much research has focused on the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) towards healthy eating as well as the relationship between healthy diets and food insecurity among this population group, the present study aims to broaden our understanding to encompass not only healthy, but sustainable diets, particularly in the regional context undergoing climate stressors, environmental degradation, public health challenges and high rates of food insecurity.
Objective: The present study aims to explore the KAP of college students towards sustainable diets and to examine the relationship between their demographic, socioeconomic, and food security status with the KAP of sustainable diets.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among college students enrolled in different public and private universities across Lebanon. Participants were recruited through a convenience sampling approach, using email invitations and social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn), as well as sharing the survey link within WhatsApp groups. Interested participants completed an online survey on LimeSurvey after providing their informed consent. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and data collection took place between the months of March and April 2024. The online survey included questions related to demographic, socioeconomic and university characteristics, and food security status of college students measured using the previously validated and used food insecurity experience scale (FIES). In addition, previously validated scales were used to assess the KAP of sustainable diets among college students. These assessments provided numerical scores, with higher scores indicating greater knowledge, more positive attitudes, and more favorable practices. The possible score ranges for knowledge, attitudes, and practices were [0,52], [0,40] and [0,76], respectively. Descriptive statistics were presented as means and standard deviations (mean ± SD) and as frequencies and proportions n (%) for continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Simple and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to explore the relationships between KAP, as dependent variables, with food security status and other demographic and socioeconomic correlates in the models. Results were presented as beta-coefficients (β) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).
Results: A total of 701 university students were recruited from 16 universities across Lebanon. The study sample was comprised of 58% females and 41% males with less than 1% identifying as other gender identities. The average age of participants was 20.6 years (± 2.15). Most students were Lebanese (96.4%) and attending private universities (80.6%). Approximately 61.6% pursued majors unrelated to health, while 38.4% were majoring in health-related fields. As for food insecurity levels, 60% were food secure while 40 % were food insecure, with 28% being mildly food insecure and 12% being moderately to severely food insecure. Knowledge and attitudes scores overall, showed good and positive results (36.24 ± 8.15; 30.33 ± 5.30). When individual items from each of the knowledge and attitude scales were evaluated, most participants responded strongly agree/agree on the following statements: “distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy foods” (92.2%) and “believing that sustainable diets should be affordable” (94%). However, students showed lower understanding of other dimensions related to “understanding the cultural and social dimensions of sustainable diets” (52%) and the least favorable attitudes were reported towards the impact of government policies and regulations to encourage and improve sustainability (53%). Lower scores on the sustainable practices were observed among study participants. These findings reflected less engagement in sustainable practices, such as willingness to pay more for environmentally friendly choices (10.8%), composting food at home (10.9%) or reducing meat consumption (12.1%). On the other hand, participants reported higher engagement in practices such as limiting food waste (79.4%), encouraging others to reduce food waste (66.7%), and preferring local products over imported food products (69%). Results from the simple linear regression models showed significant associations between food security level and KAP scores (all p-values <0.05). Other significant variables were also identified and included in the multiple linear regression models such as gender, age, major, university category and personal income. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that food security status was no longer statistically significant with KAP of sustainable diets among college students in the study sample, after adjusting for other demographic and socioeconomic covariates. Results indicated that female participants had better scores across all KAP models compared to male participants (β =2.811, 95% CI 1.671, 3.952] ; β = 3.029 , 95% CI [2.278, 3.779] ; β= 3.254 , 95% CI [1.757 , 4.750]). Students enrolled in non-health majors had lower knowledge scores (β =-4.200 , 95% CI [-5.405, 2.995 ]) and less favorable attitudes (β =-2.027, 95% CI [-2.819 , -1.236]) compared to students from health majors. Similarly, those having personal monthly incomes in the medium range (170) had lower knowledge ( β =-2.808, 95% CI [-4.210 , 1.405]) and attitudes score( β =-1.815, 95% CI [-2.735 , -0.894]). Older students and those enrolled in a higher tuition fees university had higher attitudes scores (β =1.885, 95% CI [0.775 , 2.995] ; β =0.956, 95% CI [0.040 , 1.872] ). With respect to practices, results from the multiple linear regression showed that students with higher knowledge and attitudes scores had significantly higher sustainable practices scores (β =0.320, 95% CI [0.199 , 0.440] and β =0. 401, 95% CI [0.218 , 0.585], respectively). Being a female and students enrolled in the public university also remained statistically significant with higher practices scores compared to males and students enrolled in the private universities. Students overall expressed willingness to learn more about sustainable dietary practices through short social media posts and other online platforms. Several perceived challenges were identified among college students to adopt sustainable practices including such as the high prices of sustainable food options.
Conclusion: College students in Lebanon demonstrated overall good knowledge and positive attitudes towards sustainable diets yet adopting sustainable dietary practices remain challenging for students in our study sample. Findings from the present study also showed that higher knowledge and favorable attitudes towards dietary sustainability to be significant predictors for more sustainable practices and thus efforts should focus on enhancing education and awareness programs among this population group. Given the critical role of young adults as future parents and consumers of the next decades, promoting student engagement in the adoption of sustainable dietary habits is crucial, particularly in contexts facing growing challenges with food and nutrition insecurity. The collaborative efforts of the public and private sectors are essential in promoting sustainable food choices that are healthy, affordable and culturally acceptable. Also, educational institutions can play a key role in fostering sustainability among the student population through integrated curricula, research opportunities, practical campus initiatives and better food environments. Further research is still needed to examine the interlinkages between food security and the different dimensions of sustainability, in regions with numerous public health, environmental and political stressors, particularly LMICs such as Lebanon
Predictors of Negative Coping Mechanisms in Ukrainian Households During Conflict: A Machine Learning Approach
Get PDFUkrainian households found themselves forced to adopt negative mechanisms for coping in order to endure the hardships of war in Ukraine. These strategies, including reducing necessary expenses or selling assets, may have long-term effects on household’s capacity to effectively handle money and maintain good health. This thesis explores the use of advanced machine learning (ML) algorithms to identify the primary predictors of the harmful coping strategies that Ukrainian households used throughout the conflict. Furthermore, it investigates the effect of several variables, such as proximity to frontline, financial and economic status, and household characteristics, on the likelihood of utilizing negative coping techniques. After finding the optimal set of features for each outcome, Lasso model was used to assess magnitude of the association found in the complex imbalanced dataset between the predictors and the outcomes. Paired with cost-sensitive learning, we were able to identify the significant predictors of negative coping mechanisms. The associations uncovered between the predictors and outcomes revealed two distinct early warning patterns for policymakers: those that serve as protective factors and those that serve as risk factors. These insights, in turn, serve as early warnings for policy makers to target vulnerable households, helping to prevent resorting to negative coping mechanisms
Inventory System with Scheduled Demand and Distributed Supply
No full textWe consider a simple supply chain model constituted of a retailer facing end-
consumers’ demand while being supplied by a large number of suppliers. We model
the retailer as a single server queue while the independent suppliers are assumed to
form an infinite server system. Many applications can fit this setting. We focus in
this work on the case where the market demand is predictable (i.e., orders arriv-
ing following a deterministic sequence) while concentrating the uncertainty on the
supply side through the processing time of each “server”. In this setting, suppliers
decide first on their capacity level followed by the retailer who decides on the ade-
quate base-stock level. From a queueing perspective, suppliers can be represented
by a D/G/∞ queue. The retailer’s queue turns out to be an S/D/1 queue (the S
denotes a scheduled traffic as defined in Araman et al. (2021)), where the positive
perturbation is the supplier’s processing time. To analyze this system, we consider
first the centralized system as a benchmark where the retailer sets both the capacity
level as well as the base-stock level. For the decentralized setting, we consider two
cases. In the first one, all suppliers are under one supply function and decide their
capacity levels as one entity. In the more interesting case, we assume that suppliers
decide individually on their capacity. The objective function is the inventory cost
rate that suppliers and retailer are each minimizing. Even under exponential per-
turbations, the problem is intractable. We therefore suggest, through an asymptotic
analysis, a full characterization of the optimal centralized and Nash solutions under
a heavy traffic regime. Moreover, we perform a numerical analysis to validate these
approximations through a Monte Carlo simulation