Towards A Post-Traumatic Urban Design That Heals Cities’ Inhabitants Suffering From PTSD

Cities are generally in a state of constant modification. Some experience this modification at a more rapid pace due to the technology available in the city; others experience this modification due to the city’s time of life, which requires many civilizations to imprint their architectural style and project their social image and identity. In certain cases, these modifications are due to natural disasters, such as earthquakes or tsunamis, or man-made wars, or even both. The study revealed that the relationship found between the ability of “Beirutis” (how Beirut’s original inhabitants call themselves) to perceive their identity through the built environment and PTSD, will help urban planners and architects find the procedures based on observation and scientific facts to build with the opportunity to heal disaster-torn cities’ inhabitants from PTS

Shaping the City that Decreases Overweight and Obesity through Healthy Built Environment

Cities are being built based on the concepts of comfortable, easy, and fast for the inhabitants. However, what is being constructed is promoting physical inactivity, and people are finding that what was being considered as convenient for daily life is, in fact, harmful to their physical health. This study points to the many components of a city that beats overweight issues and especially obesity.  The case study is the city of Beirut: in-depth interviews were conducted with a representative sample of Beirutis (people whose families come from the Beirut city and who were born in this city and are still living in it). These interviews helped measure these participants’ satisfaction with the physical activities and social life that is accessible for all the inhabitants through inclusive urban planning (such as clean open spaces, parks, sidewalks, free or inexpensive public spaces, facilities for green transportation, etc.). The results of the analysis of the interviews were supported with past data demonstrating the increasing obesity issues in Lebanon and previous data in urban and psychological studies that expound the way the brain processes the urban spaces that increase satisfaction and the urban areas that the city should be offering to its inhabitants for positive health outcomes.  The results uncovered the cycle of physical health, mental health, and social contacts which altogether affect the soul of a city where the aim is first and foremost the right to a healthy lifestyle

Adverse drug events associated with vitamin K antagonists: factors of therapeutic imbalance

Nancy El-Helou, Amal Al-Hajje, Rola Ajrouche, Sanaa Awada, Samar Rachidi, Salam Zein, Pascale SalamehClinical and Epidemiological Research Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmacy, Lebanese University, Beirut, LebanonBackground: Adverse drug events (ADE) occur frequently during treatment with vitamin K antagonists (AVK) and contribute to increase hemorrhagic risks.Methods: A retrospective study was conducted over a period of 2 years. Patients treated with AVK and admitted to the emergency room of a tertiary care hospital in Beirut were included. The aim of the study was to identify ADE characterized by a high international normalized ratio (INR) and to determine the predictive factors responsible for these events. Statistical analysis was performed with the SPSS statistical package.Results: We included 148 patients. Sixty-seven patients (47.3%) with an INR above the therapeutic range were identified as cases. The control group consisted of 81 patients (54.7%) with an INR within the therapeutic range. Hemorrhagic complications were observed in 53.7% of cases versus 6.2% of controls (P < 0.0001). No significant difference was noticed between cases and controls regarding the indication and the dose of AVK. Patients aged over 75 years were more likely to present an INR above the therapeutic range (58.2%, P = 0.049). Recent infection was present in 40.3% of cases versus 6.2% of controls (P < 0.0001) and hypoalbuminemia in 37.3% of cases versus 6.1% of controls (P < 0.0001). Treatment with antibiotics, amiodarone, and anti-inflammatory drugs were also factors of imbalance (P < 0.0001).Conclusion: Many factors may be associated with ADE related to AVK. Monitoring of INR and its stabilization in the therapeutic range are important for preventing these events.Keywords: adverse drug events, vitamin K antagonists, bleeding risks, therapeutic imbalanc

Challenges in context-aware mobile language learning: the MASELTOV approach

Smartphones, as highly portable networked computing devices with embedded sensors including GPS receivers, are ideal platforms to support context-aware language learning. They can enable learning when the user is en-gaged in everyday activities while out and about, complementing formal language classes. A significant challenge, however, has been the practical implementation of services that can accurately identify and make use of context, particularly location, to offer meaningful language learning recommendations to users. In this paper we review a range of approaches to identifying context to support mobile language learning. We consider how dynamically changing aspects of context may influence the quality of recommendations presented to a user. We introduce the MASELTOV project’s use of context awareness combined with a rules-based recommendation engine to present suitable learning content to recent immigrants in urban areas; a group that may benefit from contextual support and can use the city as a learning environment

W2S: Microscopy Data with Joint Denoising and Super-Resolution for Widefield to SIM Mapping

In fluorescence microscopy live-cell imaging, there is a critical trade-off between the signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution on one side, and the integrity of the biological sample on the other side. To obtain clean high-resolution (HR) images, one can either use microscopy techniques, such as structured-illumination microscopy (SIM), or apply denoising and super-resolution (SR) algorithms. However, the former option requires multiple shots that can damage the samples, and although efficient deep learning based algorithms exist for the latter option, no benchmark exists to evaluate these algorithms on the joint denoising and SR (JDSR) tasks. To study JDSR on microscopy data, we propose such a novel JDSR dataset, Widefield2SIM (W2S), acquired using a conventional fluorescence widefield and SIM imaging. W2S includes 144,000 real fluorescence microscopy images, resulting in a total of 360 sets of images. A set is comprised of noisy low-resolution (LR) widefield images with different noise levels, a noise-free LR image, and a corresponding high-quality HR SIM image. W2S allows us to benchmark the combinations of 6 denoising methods and 6 SR methods. We show that state-of-the-art SR networks perform very poorly on noisy inputs. Our evaluation also reveals that applying the best denoiser in terms of reconstruction error followed by the best SR method does not necessarily yield the best final result. Both quantitative and qualitative results show that SR networks are sensitive to noise and the sequential application of denoising and SR algorithms is sub-optimal. Lastly, we demonstrate that SR networks retrained end-to-end for JDSR outperform any combination of state-of-the-art deep denoising and SR networksComment: ECCVW 2020. Project page: \<https://github.com/ivrl/w2s

Tackling Acceptability Issues in Communities of Practice by Providing a Lightweight Email-based Interface to eLogbook: a Web 2.0 Collaborative Activity and Asset Management System

eLogbook is a Web-based collaborative environment designed for communities of practice. It enables users to manage joint activities, share related assets and get contextual awareness. In addition to the original Web- based access, an email-based eLogbook interface is under development. The purpose of this lightweight interface is twofold. First, it eases eLogbook access when using smart phones or PDA. Second, it eases eLogbook acceptance for community members hesitating to learn an additional Web environment. Thanks to the proposed interface, members of a community can benefit from the ease of use of an email client combined with the power of an activity and asset management system without burden. The Web-based eLogbook access can be kept for supporting further community evolutions, when participation becomes more regular and activities become more complex. This paper presents the motivation, the design and the incentives of the email-based eLogbook interface

Soot-free low-NOx aeronautical combustor concept: the lean azimuthal flame for kerosene sprays

An ultralow emission combustor concept based on “flameless oxidation” is demonstrated in this paper for aviation kerosene. Measurements of gas emissions, as well as of the size and number of nanoparticles via scanning mobility particle sizing, are carried out at the combustor outlet, revealing simultaneously soot-free and single-digit NOx levels for operation at atmospheric conditions. Such performance, achieved with direct spray injection of the fuel without any external preheating or prevaporization, is attributed to the unique mixing configuration of the combustor. The combustor consists of azimuthally arranged fuel sprays at the upstream boundary and reverse-flow air jets injected from downstream. This creates locally sequential combustion, good mixing with hot products, and a strong whirling motion that increases residence time and homogenizes the mixture. Under ideal conditions, a clean, bright-blue kerosene flame is observed, free of soot luminescence. Although soot is intermittently formed during operation around optimal conditions, high-speed imaging of the soot luminescence shows that particles are subjected to long residence times at O2-rich conditions and high temperatures, which likely promotes their oxidation. As a result, only nanoparticles in the 2–10 nm range are measured at the outlet under all tested conditions. The NOx emissions and completeness of the combustion are strongly affected by the splitting of the air flow. Numerical simulations confirm the trend observed in the experiment and provide more insight into the mixing and air dilution

From Oxford to Hawaii Ecophysiological Barriers Limit Human Progression in Ten Sport Monuments

In order to understand the determinants and trends of human performance evolution, we analyzed ten outdoor events among the oldest and most popular in sports history. Best performances of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race (since 1836), the channel crossing in swimming (1875), the hour cycling record (1893), the Elfstedentocht speed skating race (1909), the cross country ski Vasaloppet (1922), the speed ski record (1930), the Streif down-hill in Kitzbühel (1947), the eastward and westward sailing transatlantic records (1960) and the triathlon Hawaii ironman (1978) all follow a similar evolutive pattern, best described through a piecewise exponential decaying model (r2 = 0.95±0.07). The oldest events present highest progression curvature during their early phase. Performance asymptotic limits predicted from the model may be achieved in fourty years (2049±32 y). Prolonged progression may be anticipated in disciplines which further rely on technology such as sailing and cycling. Human progression in outdoor sports tends to asymptotic limits depending on physiological and environmental parameters and may temporarily benefit from further technological progresses

Less is more: Antibiotics at the beginning of life

Antibiotic exposure at the beginning of life can lead to increased antimicrobial resistance and perturbations of the developing microbiome. Early-life microbiome disruption increases the risks of developing chronic diseases later in life. Fear of missing evolving neonatal sepsis is the key driver for antibiotic overtreatment early in life. Bias (a systemic deviation towards overtreatment) and noise (a random scatter) affect the decision-making process. In this perspective, we advocate for a factual approach quantifying the burden of treatment in relation to the burden of disease balancing antimicrobial stewardship and effective sepsis management