Empirical Study of PEFT techniques for Winter Wheat Segmentation

Parameter Efficient Fine Tuning (PEFT) techniques have recently experienced significant growth and have been extensively employed to adapt large vision and language models to various domains, enabling satisfactory model performance with minimal computational needs. Despite these advances, more research has yet to delve into potential PEFT applications in real-life scenarios, particularly in the critical domains of remote sensing and crop monitoring. The diversity of climates across different regions and the need for comprehensive large-scale datasets have posed significant obstacles to accurately identify crop types across varying geographic locations and changing growing seasons. This study seeks to bridge this gap by comprehensively exploring the feasibility of cross-area and cross-year out-of-distribution generalization using the State-of-the-Art (SOTA) wheat crop monitoring model. The aim of this work is to explore PEFT approaches for crop monitoring. Specifically, we focus on adapting the SOTA TSViT model to address winter wheat field segmentation, a critical task for crop monitoring and food security. This adaptation process involves integrating different PEFT techniques, including BigFit, LoRA, Adaptformer, and prompt tuning. Using PEFT techniques, we achieved notable results comparable to those achieved using full fine-tuning methods while training only a mere 0.7% parameters of the whole TSViT architecture. The in-house labeled data-set, referred to as the Beqaa-Lebanon dataset, comprises high-quality annotated polygons for wheat and non-wheat classes with a total surface of 170 kmsq, over five consecutive years. Using Sentinel-2 images, our model achieved a 84% F1-score. We intend to publicly release the Lebanese winter wheat data set, code repository, and model weights

Multitemporal Remote Sensing Based on an FVC Reference Period Using Sentinel-2 for Monitoring Eichhornia crassipes on a Mediterranean River

International audienceInvasive aquatic plants are a serious global ecological and socio-economic problem because they can cause local extinction of native species and alter navigation and fishing. Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth) is a dangerous invasive floating plant that is widely distributed throughout the world. In Lebanon, it has spread since 2006 in the Al Kabir River. Remote sensing techniques have been widely developed to detect and monitor dynamics and extents of invasive plants such as water hyacinth over large areas. However, they become challenging to use in narrow areas such as the Al Kabir River and we developed a new image-analysis method to extract water hyacinth areas on the river. The method is based on a time series of a biophysical variable obtained from Sentinel-2 images. After defining a reference period between two growing cycles, we used the fractional vegetation cover (FVC) to estimate the water hyacinth surface area in the river. This method makes it possible to monitor water hyacinth development and estimate the total area it colonizes in the river corridor. This method can help ecologists and other stakeholders to map invasive plants in rivers and improve their control

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE METABOLIC DISORDERS IN OBESE MEN AND THE BODY MASS INDEX (BMI)

Background: The influence of body weight on serum lipids and uric acid is often overlooked in clinical practice. Objective: To study the magnitude of metabolic disorders (dyslipidemia and hyper-urecaemia) in asymptomatic obese men and its relation to body mass index (BMI). Methods: The study was conducted between September 2013 and July of 2014 at the medical analyses center in the Faculty of Public Health, Lebanese University. The weight, height, BMI, waist circumference (WC) uric acid, and lipid profile of 148 obese males, apparently healthy, compared with 80 males in a control group (BMI < 25 kg / m²), were investigated. Subjects were grouped by BMI and WC in accordance with the National Institutes of Health cutoff points. Within the normal-weight (18.5-24.9), overweight (25.0-29.9), and obese (≥ 30.0) BMI categories, we distributed the results of all the blood tests and we computed the prevalence of dyslipidemia and hyperurecaemia. Results: The present work revealed that with increasing body weight, the mean total cholesterol, LDL-C, triglycerides(TG), and uric acid increased; while the mean HDL-C decreased. These changes were as follows: the means difference between the first and second group and between the second and the third group were 29 and 31 mg/dl respectively regarding total cholesterol; for TG, these were 47.5 and 53.4 mg/dl; for LDL-C, these were 12 and 29 mg/dl; for HDL-C, these were 3.6 and 3.5 mg/dl; for uric acid, these were 0.3 mg/dl as a common difference, P=0.0245). Conclusion: Excess body weight is associated with deleterious changes in the lipoprotein profile and uric acid

Design and implementation of the European-Mediterranean Postgraduate Programme on Organ Donation and Transplantation (EMPODaT) for Middle East/North Africa countries

This prospective study reports the design and results obtained after the EMPODaT project implementation. This project was funded by the Tempus programme of the European Commission with the objective to implement a common postgraduate programme on organ donation and transplantation (ODT) in six selected universities from Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries (Egypt, Lebanon and Morocco). The consortium, coordinated by the University of Barcelona, included universities from Spain, Germany, Sweden and France. The first phase of the project was to perform an analysis of the current situation in the beneficiary countries, including existing training programmes on ODT, Internet connection, digital facilities and competences, training needs, and ODT activity and accreditation requirements. A total of 90 healthcare postgraduate students participated in the 1-year training programme (30 ECTS academic credits). The methodology was based on e-learning modules and face-to-face courses in English and French. Training activities were evaluated through pre- and post-tests, self-assessment activities and evaluation charts. Quality was assessed through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The project results on a reproducible and innovative international postgraduate programme, improvement of knowledge, satisfaction of the participants and confirms the need on professionalizing the activity as the cornerstone to ensure organ transplantation self-sufficiency in MENA countries

Epidemiology of Chlamydia trachomatis in the Middle East and north Africa: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression.

BACKGROUND: The epidemiology of Chlamydia trachomatis in the Middle East and north Africa is poorly understood. We aimed to provide a comprehensive epidemiological assessment of C trachomatis infection in the Middle East and north Africa. METHODS: We did a systematic review of C trachomatis infection as well as a meta-analysis and meta-regression of C trachomatis prevalence. We searched PubMed and Embase, as well as regional and national databases up to March 13, 2019, using broad search terms with no language or year restrictions. Any document or report including biological measures for C trachomatis prevalence or incidence was eligible for inclusion. We extracted all measures of current (genital or rectal), recent, and ever infection with C trachomatis. We estimated pooled average prevalence in different populations using random-effects meta-analysis. Factors associated with prevalence and sources of between-study heterogeneity were determined using meta-regression. FINDINGS: We identified a total of 1531 citations, of which 255 reports contributed to 552 C trachomatis prevalence measures from 20 countries. No incidence measures were identified. Pooled prevalence of current genital infection was 3·0% (95% CI 2·3-3·8) in general populations, 2·8% (1·0-5·2) in intermediate-risk populations, 13·2% (7·2-20·7) in female sex workers, 11·3% (9·0-13·7) in infertility clinic attendees, 12·4% (7·9-17·7) in women with miscarriage, 12·4% (9·4-15·7) in symptomatic women, and 17·4% (12·5-22·8) in symptomatic men. Pooled prevalence of current rectal infection was 7·7% (4·2-12·0) in men who have sex with men. Substantial between-study heterogeneity was found. Multivariable meta-regression explained 29·0% of variation. Population type was most strongly associated with prevalence. Additional associations were found with assay type, sample size, country, and sex, but not with sampling methodology or response rate (about 90% of studies used convenience sampling and >75% had unclear response rate). There was no evidence for temporal variation in prevalence between 1982 and 2018. INTERPRETATION: C trachomatis prevalence in the Middle East and north Africa is similar to other regions, but higher than expected given its sexually conservative norms. High prevalence in infertility clinic attendees and in women with miscarriage suggests a potential role for C trachomatis in poor reproductive health outcomes in this region. FUNDING: National Priorities Research Program from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation)

Effects of environmental pollutants on human health with special reference to lead

Imperial Users onl

Géographie urbaine de la ville de Tripoli (Liban)

Doctorat en Sciencesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

Les conséquences sociales de l'émigration au Liban

Faour Ali. Les conséquences sociales de l'émigration au Liban. In: Cahiers de la Méditerranée, n°44, 1, 1992. Liban 1992. pp. 225-243

Determinants of Female Age At First Marriage in Jordan.

The main concerns of this study are: (1) identification of some critical determinants of female age at first marriage in Jordan, and (2) explanation of the effects of these determinants within the framework of two conceptual models for urban and rural areas. While the urban model uses individual-level explanatory variables, the rural model includes both micro and macrovariables. The macrovariables are based on single villages or pairs of villages referred to as communities. The data are from the individual and household schedules of the 1976 Jordan Fertility Survey, which are of reasonably good quality, especially with respect to age at marriage. In urban Jordan, wife's education and prenuptial work experience are of paramount importance in explaining the variations in her marriage age among all cohorts of ever-married women, followed by religion. The strength of the net effects of these variables generally declines by age, but the effect of work is strong in the oldest cohort. The rural subsample is split into two groups: nonmigrants and migrants. Nonmigrants are rural women with rural childhoods, and migrants are rural women with urban or desert childhoods (mainly urban). Testing the rural model shows that: (1) wife's education and prenuptial work are significant predictors of her age at first marriage except where either of them basically does not vary, as is the case of education among nonmigrants. (2) Although community membership is considerably more important than microvariables in predicting age at marriage among both migrants and nonmigrants, its contribution to the explained variance is modest. Furthermore, I have not been able to capture all inter-community differences in marriage age with aggregate variables. However, there is some evidence that the more heavily agricultural and the highly illiterate villages promote earlier female marriages. Other important contributing factors to village differences in marriage age are thought to be local traditions regarding female marriage age as well as some missing microvariables.Ph.D.DemographyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159731/1/8402275.pd

Assessment of The trophic state and Chlorophyll-a concentrations using Landsat OLI in Karaoun reservoir, Lebanon

Fadel, A., Faour G. and Slim K. 2016. Assessment of the trophic state and chlorophyll-a concentrations using Landsat OLI in Karaoun reservoir, Lebanon. Lebanese Science Journal, 17(2): 130-145. Harmful algal blooms have become a worldwide environmental problem. A regular and cost-effective monitoring of these blooms is highly needed by lakes managers. Satellite remote sensing imagery like Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI) can be used to assess and monitor chlorophyll-a in water bodies over large areas in a cost-effective way. In this study, the accuracy of Landsat OLI to estimate chlorophyll-a was examined. Four field campaigns and cloud free images of Landsat OLI with 30 m resolution (01 May 2013, 21 August 2013, 10 July 2015, and 11 August 2015) were used in this study to determine the accuracy of Landsat OLI in estimating chlorophyll-a in a 12 km2 freshwater body, Karaoun reservoir. After atmospheric correction of these images, reflectance of single and multiple band combinations were compared to field chlorophyll-a data. Results of field campaigns showed that the trophic state of Karaoun reservoir is still eutrophic to hypereutrophic with high nutrient concentration and low phytoplankton biodiversity, dominated by cyanobacteria species, Microcystis aeruginosa and Aphanizomenon ovalisporum. On single band level, the in situ chlorophyll-a measurement correlated best with band 5 (0.85 - 0.88 µm), with R=0.75 and R2=0.57. Highest correlation (R=0.84 and R2=0.72) was obtained using band combination, B2:B4 band ratio multiplied by B5. Results indicated that Landsat OLI can be used effectively to determine chlorophyll-a concentration in lakes and reservoirs. We recommend the application of Landsat OLI as a satisfactory and cost effective method for monitoring chlorophyll-a in other lakes through-out the worl