Addressing Food Insecurity in Crisis-Stricken Lebanon

Almost three years into the economic crisis, Lebanon shows no sign of recovery. The sharp decline in economic activity, coupled with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation, has pushed thousands of Lebanese households into poverty and unemployment. In addition to the rising poverty, the heavily indebted country that has long been struggling with structural macroeconomic anomalies and persistent political instability is now haunted by the sinister memories of the “great famine.” Concerns about food and nutrition insecurity are intensifying at both the national and sub-national levels as the main food security indicators started to follow an alarming trajectory. Thus, there is a pressing need for government to prioritize food security and take immediate actions to prevent hunger and malnutrition. Examining the changing trends in the four main food security pillars, this brief provides several actionable policy recommendations that are urgently needed to strengthen food security in the short and medium-term, at both the national and household levels, recognizing the need for a more comprehensive food security plan that addresses food and nutrition security in its totality

Expiratory and inspiratory cries detection using different signals' decomposition techniques

This paper addresses the problem of automatic cry signal segmentation for the purposes of infant cry analysis. The main goal is to automatically detect expiratory and inspiratory phases from recorded cry signals. The approach used in this paper is made up of three stages: signal decomposition, features extraction, and classification. In the first stage, short-time Fourier transform, empirical mode decomposition (EMD), and wavelet packet transform have been considered. In the second stage, various set of features have been extracted, and in the third stage, two supervised learning methods, Gaussian mixture models and hidden Markov models, with four and five states, have been discussed as well. The main goal of this work is to investigate the EMD performance and to compare it with the other standard decomposition techniques. A combination of two and three intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) that resulted from EMD has been used to represent cry signal. The performance of nine different segmentation systems has been evaluated. The experiments for each system have been repeated several times with different training and testing datasets, randomly chosen using a 10-fold cross-validation procedure. The lowest global classification error rates of around 8.9% and 11.06% have been achieved using a Gaussian mixture models classifier and a hidden Markov models classifier, respectively. Among all IMF combinations, the winner combination is IMF3+IMF4+IMF5

Sinkholes and uvalas in evaporite karst: spatio-temporal development with links to base-level fall on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea

Enclosed topographic depressions are characteristic of karst landscapes on Earth. The developmental relationship between depression types, such as sinkholes (dolines) and uvalas, has been the subject of debate, mainly because the long developmental timescales in classical limestone karst settings impede direct observation. Here we characterize the morphometric properties and spatio-temporal development of ∼1150 sinkholes and five uvalas formed from ∼1980 to 2017 in an evaporite karst setting along the eastern coast of the hypersaline Dead Sea (at Ghor Al-Haditha, Jordan). The development of sinkhole populations and individual uvalas is intertwined in terms of onset, evolution and cessation. The sinkholes commonly develop in clusters, within which they may coalesce to form compound or nested sinkholes. In general, however, the uvalas are not defined by coalescence of sinkholes. Although each uvala usually encloses several clusters of sinkholes, it develops as a larger-scale, gentler and structurally distinct depression. The location of new sinkholes and uvalas shows a marked shoreline-parallel migration with time, followed by a marked shoreline-perpendicular (i.e. seaward) growth with time. These observations are consistent with theoretical predictions of karstification controlled by a laterally migrating interface between saturated and undersaturated groundwater, as induced by the 35 m fall in the Dead Sea water level since 1967. More generally, our observations indicate that uvalas and the sinkhole populations within them, although morphometrically distinct, can develop near-synchronously by subsidence in response to subsurface erosion

Discovery of Tantalum, Rhenium, Osmium, and Iridium Isotopes

Currently, thirty-eight tantalum, thirty-eight rhenium, thirty-nine osmium, and thirty-eight iridium, isotopes have been observed and the discovery of these isotopes is discussed here. For each isotope a brief synopsis of the first refereed publication, including the production and identification method, is presented.Comment: To be published in At. Data Nucl. Data Table

Rethinking place-making: aligning placeness factors with perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) to improve the built environment in historical district

Understanding the concept of place is critically important for urban design and place-making practice, and this research attempted to investigate the pathways by which perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) influence placeness factors in the Chinese context. Twelve hypotheses were developed and combined in a structural equation model for validation. The Tanhualin historical district in Wuhan, China was selected for the analysis. As a result, place attachment was verified as a critical bridge factor that mediated the influence of PUDQs on place satisfaction. Among the five selected PUDQs, walkability and space quality were revealed as the most influential factors associated with place attachment and place satisfaction. Accessibility was actually indirectly beneficial to place-making via the mediation of walkability. Corresponding implications and strategies were discussed to maintain the sense of place for historic districts

Détermination des moments d'inertie et des déformations à partir des mesures des périodes courtes dans les noyaux pair-pair déformés

Une étude systématique des vies moyennes des premiers états excités dans les noyaux pair-pair déformés ayant 150 ≤ A ≤ 192 nous a amené à étudier les périodes des premiers états excités des noyaux de : 172Hf, 174Hf, 178Hf, 156Dy, 158Dy et 156Gd. Les probabilités des transitions réduites B(E2, 2+ -> 0+), les moments quadrupolaires intrinsèques Q0 les déformations ß, les moments d'inertie rigide Irig et les moments d'inertie irrotationnelle lierot ont été déduits et discutés en fonction du nombre de neutrons N. Une nouvelle relation empirique reliant le moment d'inertie des noyaux à la déformaiton est établie. Expérimentalement, nous décrivons un dispositif convertisseur temps-amplitude qui permet de mesurer les vies moyennes de 10-8 s à quelque 10-11 s

Biosafety - knowledge of student of pharmacy

Submitted by Erika Demachki ([email protected]) on 2014-09-05T20:46:26Z No. of bitstreams: 2 (LEILA ABOU SALHA DISSERTAÇÃO MEPES FINAL28022014 DIFINITIVA).pdf: 1146310 bytes, checksum: ceea6748760a294b7f289fc3f04e6ee5 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-05T20:46:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 (LEILA ABOU SALHA DISSERTAÇÃO MEPES FINAL28022014 DIFINITIVA).pdf: 1146310 bytes, checksum: ceea6748760a294b7f289fc3f04e6ee5 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-28Professional practice is also guided by the teaching- learning and knowledge in biosafety training of pharmacists , is of paramount importance for the safe and conscientious professional practice . The study aims to investigate the knowledge of undergraduate students about concepts of biosafety aspects in the use of personal protective equipment , standard precautions and immunization . A questionnaire was applied to interview students of pharmacy of a public institution to collect data on biosafety , during the period November 2012 to May 2013. Among the 300 participants , 132 ( 64.4 %) use lab coat and glove 240 ( 80 % ) have knowledge of waste disposal , 246 ( 82 % ) know about measures to protect the safety and health of workers in health services , 289 ( 96 % ) know the correct handwashing and 71 ( 26 % ) reported knowledge of occupational immunization. It was observed that approximately 65 % of the students showed biosafety knowledge and this knowledge did not show the expected periods over the course of the addition. There is need for changes in teaching strategies to be effective in practice biosecurity as essential to professional practice safely content, reaffirming content as transversal and interdisciplinary .A prática profissional se orienta também pelo processo de ensino-aprendizagem e o conhecimento em biossegurança na formação dos farmacêuticos, é de suma importância para o exercício profissional seguro e consciente. O estudo tem por objetivo investigar o conhecimento de graduandos acerca de conceitos de biossegurança nos aspectos da utilização de equipamentos de proteção individual, precauções-padrão e imunização. Aplicou-se questionário para entrevistar alunos do curso de farmácia de uma instituição pública para coleta de dados sobre biossegurança, durante o período de novembro de 2012 a maio de 2013. Dos 300 participantes, 132 (64,4%) utilizam jaleco e luva, 240 (80%) tem conhecimento sobre descarte de resíduos, 246 (82%) sabem sobre medidas de proteção à segurança e a saúde de trabalhadores dos serviços de saúde, 289 (96%) conhecem a higienização correta das mãos e 71 (26%) relataram conhecimento acerca de imunização ocupacional. Observou-se que aproximadamente 65% dos graduandos mostraram conhecimento em biossegurança e esse conhecimento não apresentou o acréscimo esperado ao longo dos períodos do curso. Há necessidade de mudanças nas estratégias de ensino para se efetivar na prática a biossegurança como conteúdo imprescindível ao exercício profissional com segurança, reafirmando o conteúdo como transversal e interdisciplinar