Navigating Uncharted Waters: The Disruption and Resilience of Elective Surgery Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in Lebanon

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in previously unseen difficulties across the entirety of the world's healthcare system, dramatically reshaping several facets of clinical medicine in the process. Among the industries that were hit particularly hard was elective surgery, which is a fundamental component of medical systems all across the world. In the present study, we investigate the complex relationship between the widespread COVID-19 epidemic and the effects that it has had on elective surgery in the particular setting of Lebanon. This paper seeks to provide insights that can inform future healthcare preparedness and contribute to the ongoing efforts to build a resilient healthcare system that is capable of effectively navigating crises while ensuring the delivery of essential medical services by examining the challenges, adaptations, and implications. The goal of this paper is to provide these insights by examining the challenges, adaptations, and implications

Blood soluble interleukin 1 receptor accessory protein levels are consistently low throughout the menstrual cycle of women with endometriosis

BACKGROUND: A deficiency in the counter-regulatory mechanisms of interleukin 1 (IL1) may play a significant role in endometriosis pathogenesis and associated chronic inflammation. The aim of this study was to investigate peripheral blood levels of soluble IL1 receptor accessory protein (sIL1RAP), a potent natural inhibitor of IL1, in women with and without endometriosis. METHODS: Peripheral blood samples were collected from women with endometriosis (n = 47) consulting for infertility, pelvic pain or tubal ligation, in whom the disease was diagnosed at laparoscopy. Control healthy women (n = 27) were requesting tubal ligation or reanastomosis and had no visible evidence of endometriosis at laparoscopy. sIL1RAP levels were determined by ELISA, whereas estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4) levels were determined by competitive immunoassays. RESULTS: sIL1RAP levels were significantly decreased in women with early endometriosis stages compared to controls (p < 0.05) and markedly during the proliferative phase of the menstrual cycle (p < 0.001). Actually, while sIL1RAP were significantly increased in the proliferative compared to the secretory phase in normal women (p < 0.0001) and peaked at the end of this phase, sIL1RAP remained consistently low and showed non-significant variations throughout the menstrual cycle in women with endometriosis. CONCLUSIONS: Lower circulating levels of sIL1RAP points to a significant impairment in the counter-regulatory mechanisms of IL1, which in view of the cytokine’s potent inflammatory and growth-promoting properties may play a significant role in the pathophysiology of endometriosis

The Implementation of Hamming Code Using Video Steganography

As time goes on, the internet world grows larger and larger. The massive number of people involved in the internet means that there are more data flying around in cyberspace waiting for someone to receive it; that is where the need for steganography emerges. The role of steganography is to ensure that the necessary transmitted data does not fall in the hands of the wrong person. It hides the vital data inside an image or video without noticeable changes, where only a key provided by the sender allows the receiver to crack open the cover and see the original data. Steganography is often mistaken as a method of cryptography. In fact, they are two different methods, but they can be used together. In cryptography, the observer can detect that there is a hidden message but he doesn’t have the required tools to crack it. Hamming code is a type of cryptography and it’s use in my paper will strengthen the security of this implementation and make it even harder to decipher

A New Algorithmic Approach for Detection and Identification of Vehicle Plate Numbers

This work proposes a method for the detection and identification of parked vehicles stationed. This technique composed many algorithms for the detection, localization, segmentation, extraction and recognition of number plates in images. It is acts of a technology of image processing used to identify the vehicles by their number plates. Knowing that we work on images whose level of gray is sampled with (120×180), resulting from a base of abundant data by PSA. We present two algorithms allowing the detection of the horizontal position of the vehicle: the classical method “horizontal gradients” and our approach “symmetrical method”. In fact, a car seen from the front presents a symmetry plan and by detecting its axis, that one finds its position in the image. A phase of localization is treated using the parameter MGD (Maximum Gradient Difference) which allows locating all the segments of text per horizontal scan. A specific technique of filtering, combining the method of symmetry and the localization by the MGD allows eliminating the blocks which don’t pass by the axis of symmetry and thus find the good block containing the number plate. Once we locate the plate, we use four algorithms that must be realized in order to allow our system to identify a license plate. The first algorithm is adjusting the intensity and the contrast of the image. The second algorithm is segmenting the characters on the plate using profile method. Then extracting and resizing the characters and finally recognizing them by means of optical character recogni-tion OCR. The efficiency of these algorithms is shown using a database of 350 images for the tests. We find a rate of lo-calization of 99.6% on a basis of 350 images with a rate of false alarms (wrong block text) of 0.88% by image

Automatic system recognition of Lebanese license plates

License Plate Recognition is an image-processing technology that is used to identify vehicles by their Lebanese license plates. A license plate reader works by extracting the characters from an image. This technology is used for many applications such as toll booths, parking decks, border control, and law enforcement. As a solution to the problem of monitoring the tremendous number of vehicles for law enforcement and security, we use two methods of classifying the Lebanese plate in several areas: Labeling and K-Mean. Then, we have to extract from the plate the two classifications, which are the French line and the Arabic line. We separate each character from each line using the vertical profile method. Then we would recognize the characters by the algorithm of the K-PPV with a rate of recognition of the characters: The Arabic writing is of 82% and the Western writing is of 91 %. Finally we use a vote method between the two writings to increase the rate of recognition up to 93%

On Imperfect CSI for the Downlink of a Two-Tier Network

International audienceIn this paper, we consider a hierarchical two-tier cellular network where a macrocell is overlaid with a tier of randomly distributed femtocells. We evaluate the combined effect of uncoordinated cross-tier interference, feedback delay, and quantization errors on the achievable rate of transmit beamforming with imperfect channel state information (CSI). We model the femtocell spatial distribution as a Poisson point process (PPP) and the temporal correlation of the channel according to a Gauss-Markov model. Using stochastic geometry tools, we derive the probability of outage at the macrocell users as a function of the temporal correlation, the femtocell density, and the feedback rate. We compute the maximum average achievable rate on the downlink of the macrocell network using a properly designed rate backoff scheme. We show that transmit beamforming with imperfect CSI is a viable option for the downlink of a two-tier cellular network, and that rate backoff recovers the loss in rate due to packet outage