Armed conflict and human behavior: a case study of the environmental management process in North Lebanon

This paper examines the variation in the effects of individuals’ vulnerability and trust on human behavior within five geographical areas (Akkar, Menieh, Tripoli, Koura, Batroun) along the northern coastline of Lebanon in the context of recurring armed conflict. Lebanon has been subject to regular episodes of armed conflict since 1975, with severe impacts on the social, economic, and political levels as well as on the environment. We argue that the episodes of armed conflict have increased individuals’ vulnerability and negatively affected citizens’ trust among themselves and between them and the stakeholders in the public sector at the national level involved in the environmental management process. The findings are based on 499 questionnaire surveys among citizens in the study area, 24 structured interviews with heads or representatives of heads of the villages and cities in the study area, and secondary literature including previous studies and official documents. The findings show spatial variation of citizens’ vulnerability to environmental damage caused by armed conflict. Citizens of Akkar, Menieh, and Tripoli show higher levels of vulnerability compared with citizens of Batroun and Koura. In addition, distrust between citizens themselves and between them and public sector stakeholders was one of the results of recurring armed conflict. Lack of trust between citizens and stakeholders of public sector is particularly relevant in environmental management in Lebanon

Adjuvant hyaluronidase to epidural steroid improves the quality of analgesia in failed back surgery syndrome: A prospective randomized clinical trial

Background: Management of low back pain after spinal surgeries is one of the most challenging problems in pain medicine. Transforaminal lumbar epidural steroid injection has been used with inconsistent response. Most patients require multiple and frequent injections due to high recurrence of back pain. Objective: To find out whether the addition of hyaluronidase to the epidural injectate affects the quality and duration of analgesia in patients with low back pain secondary to failed back surgery syndrome. Study Design: Prospective randomized trial. Methods: The study was registered in the Government Clinical Trial registry and the protocol was reviewed and approved by the institutional review board. After obtaining an informed consent, 25 patients with low back pain due to failed back syndrome were randomly assigned to receive a transforaminal epidural injection of hyaluronidase 1500 IU (HYL) or normal saline (NSL) to a mixture of bupivacaine 0.5 (1 mL) and triamcinolone 40mg (1 mL) in a doubleblind fashion. An interventional pain specialist using fluoroscopic guidance performed all epidural injections. The patients received a comprehensive neurological examination by a non-interventional pain specialist who was blinded to the treatment during their follow-up visits, scheduled one, 2, and 4 weeks after the intervention. Numerical pain scores, analgesic requirement, and satisfaction scores were recorded during every visit. Results: There was no difference in demographic data between the 2 groups. Pain scores and total analgesic requirement were significantly lower in the HYL group at 2 and 4 weeks after blockade (P < 0.01). Patient satisfaction was higher in the HYL group. Limitations: The study was limited by a relatively small sample size. Conclusion: We conclude that adding hyaluronidase to the epidural injectate was effective in the management of chronic low back pain in patients with failed back surgery syndrome demonstrated over a period of 4 weeks

Event-triggered fault detection for discrete-time linear systems

In this paper the problem of event-triggered fault detection filter for discrete-time linear systems is considered and a multi-objective formulation of the problem is presented based on H, H- and generalized H2 performance criteria. For each performance index, sufficient conditions are presented based on linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) to design the fault detection observer. In order to reduce the conservativeness of the multi-objective problem, extended LMIs are used to eliminate the couplings of Lyapunov matrices with the system state space matrices. It is shown that through an event-triggered data transmission mechanism, the amount of data that is sent to the fault detection module is decreased dramatically. Simulation results corresponding to a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) demonstrate and illustrate the effectiveness and capabilities of our proposed design methodology. 2015 IEEE.Qatar National Research FundScopu

Simultaneous fault detection and control design for an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle

In this paper, the problem of simultaneous fault detection and control (SFDC) for an autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle (AUV) is considered. An H∞ formulation of the SFDC problem using a dynamic observer is developed. A single module designated as the detector/controller is designed where the detector is a dynamic observer and the controller is a state feedback controller based on the dynamic observer. The detector/controller module produces two signals, namely the detection and the control signals. Sufficient conditions for solvability of the problem are obtained in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) feasibility conditions. Simulation results for a Subzero III AUV illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed design methodology. 2013 IEEE.Scopu

Event-Triggered fault detection, isolation and control design of linear systems

In this paper, the problem of event-Triggered integrated fault detection, isolation and control (E-IFDIC) for discrete-Time linear systems is considered. Using a filter to represent, characterize, and specify the E-IFDIC module, a multi-objective formulation of the problem is presented based on the H /H performance criterion. It is shown that by using an event-Triggered technique applied to both the sensor and filter nodes, the amount of data that is sent through the sensor-To-filter and filter-To-Actuator channels are dramatically decreased. A set of linear matrix inequality (LMI) feasibility conditions are derived to ensure the solvability of the problem as well as to simultaneously obtain the filter parameters and the event-Triggered conditions. A numerical example is also provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed design methodology. 2015 IEEE.Qatar National Research FundScopu

Sensor fault detection and isolation of an industrial gas turbine using partial kernel PCA

In this paper, partial kernel principal component analysis (PKPCA) is studied for sensor fault detection and isolation of an aeroderivative industrial gas turbine. Principal component analysis (PCA) is an effective tool for process monitoring task, however it can achieve acceptable results only for linear processes. In the case of nonlinear processes such as gas turbines, kernel PCA approach can be used which leads to more accurate health monitoring. In order to achieve fault isolation, partial KPCA is proposed where the parity relation concept is used to generate a set of residual signals. The simulation studies demonstrate that using the proposed methodology, the occurrence of sensor faults in an industrial gas turbine can be effectively detected and isolated. 2015, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Qatar National Research FundScopu

Secure Communication in OFDMA-Based Cognitive Radio Networks: An Incentivized Secondary Network Coexistence Approach

In this paper, we propose a secure cooperative communications scheme for orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) cognitive radio networks (CRNs), where a primary base station (PBS) wants to transmit information to some distant primary users (PUs) in the presence of a set of passive eavesdroppers. In our model, the transmission is performed in two consecutive time slots; in the first time slot, the PBS transmits while the secondary users (SUs) and the eavesdroppers listen. In the second time slot, the SUs transmit while the PUs, the secondary base station (SBS), and the eavesdroppers listen. We consider two schemes for eavesdropping; in the first scheme, the eavesdroppers listen to transmissions from the PBS to the SUs, and in the second scheme, we assume that the eavesdroppers apply the maximal ratio combining approach on the received signals in the first and second time slots for the primary network. In the proposed model, the SUs are allowed to use the licensed spectrum of the PUs, as long as they help the PUs to satisfy their secrecy rate requirement. We assume a frame-based transmission where each frame is divided into two consecutive time slots of equal duration. In the first time slot, the PBS transmits while the SUs and the eavesdroppers listen. In the second time slot, the selected SUs relay the PBS information to the distant PUs. Meanwhile, the SUs use the remaining resources to transmit their own information to the SBS while the eavesdroppers listen to this transmission. We form