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    Farmers’ Resilience In War Zones – A Case Study of Wazzani : A Geopolitical Village on The Lebanese-Occupied Palestinian Borders
    Fakih, Nour; 202380464; Chalak, Ali; Zurayk, Rami; Hamadeh, Shadi; MS; Rural Community Development Program; Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
    This thesis investigates the resilience and recovery strategies of farmers in Wazzani, a Lebanese village situated on the border with occupied Palestine. For decades, Wazzani’s agricultural life has been repeatedly disrupted by Israeli invasions, aerial bombardments, and scorched-earth tactics targeting fields, orchards, and irrigation infrastructure. Despite recurring devastation, farmers consistently return, rebuild, and sustain their agricultural livelihoods, embodying practices of sumud (steadfastness) and adaptive resilience. Using Wazzani as a case study, this research examines the historical and contemporary mechanisms that enable farmers to persist and return under conditions of war, displacement, and environmental destruction. Qualitative data were generated through semi-structured interviews with ten farmers, complemented by two interviews with agricultural engineers from the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture (South Governorate) to contextualize institutional constraints and support mechanisms. These testimonies were triangulated with document analysis of governmental reports, NGO assessments, media archives, and academic studies. The study contributes to scholarship on agrarian resilience in conflict zones by centering farmers’ voices and by adopting a decolonial lens that frames war not as a neutral “conflict” but as ongoing aggression, occupation, and land theft. Findings highlight agriculture as both a livelihood and a land-based practice of endurance through which rural communities resist erasure.
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    Designing a Teacher Portal Based on Argumentation Biology Lessons for Grade 10: Integrating Toulmin’s Framework in the Lebanese Curriculum
    Zahr, Abeer; Khishfeh, Rola; Baytiyeh, Hoda; MA; Department of Education; Faculty of Arts and Sciences; American University of Beirut
    This project aims to design six argumentative biology lessons for Grade 10 students grounded in Toulmin's Argumentation Framework or Model (TAM) for teaching biology and integrated with the Argumentation Model. Six lesson plans are selected from the Lebanese Grade 10 Biology curriculum and Toulmin’s model is integrated into them. They are designed to engage students through student-centered teaching styles based on discussion and debate, group work, lab-based investigations, and report writing. The newly modified lesson plans foster scientific reasoning and encourage collaborative dialogue that deepens conceptual understanding through structured discussions and lab investigations, supported by evidence, while writing scientific essays. The designed lesson plans are customized to be easily adopted by teachers who will shift their teaching styles from teacher-centered strategies, such as lecturing to student-centered styles, such as argumentation. Like any innovation, this new integrated lesson plan may have limitations that require the cooperation of administrative vision and teachers’ qualifications to overcome these disadvantages and turn them into strengths. The outcomes of these newly created lesson plans are successfully measured, practically explored, and can be physically applied in a real classroom setting.
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    Formal Food Rescue in Lebanon: Present Practice and Future Visions
    Adams-Schimminger, Miriam; Challak, Ali; Zurayk, Rami; Abiad, Mohamad; Makdisi, Karim; MSES; Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program; Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences; American University of Beirut
    Food rescue is used the world over as a win-win approach to addressing both food waste and hunger. There are many critiques of food rescue, including that when centred in public policy and social understandings of the issues of waste and hunger it can replicate the conditions that create hunger and needless waste. Despite these critiques, food rescue practice is still widely employed and enjoys broad support from people, businesses, and state actors. Previous research, both theoretical and empirical, has focussed almost exclusively on global north contexts of strong governance, some level of social welfare, and mature waste management systems. This study uses three methods to research the activities and visions of formal food rescue organisations in Lebanon. The first is a critical review of relevant literature; the second is an analysis of texts created by the organizations; and the third is semi-structured interviews with staff of three food rescue organisations in Lebanon. There are four key findings from this research. The first is that the food rescue system in Lebanon is broadly the same as in the literature in many ways, but that the state is absent, creating a vacuum that simultaneously makes food rescue harder while positioning it as a realistic option. Following from this, common critiques of food rescue in the literature, while not easily mapped onto the Lebanese context, reveal decades of entrenched issues beyond the scope of food rescue organisations. A significant finding from this study is that food rescue seems unable to operate in contexts of armed conflict due to the upheaval that this creates. One of the key critiques of food rescue is that it requires orthodoxy; the findings from this study provide some empirical basis for this. The final finding is a proposal that food systems that create hunger are constructed as structurally violent in order to open up new avenues of inquiry, and to argue that hunger as an outcome is a choice. Food rescue is not an appropriate tool to reckon with this as it does not have the capacity to create new social imaginaries. This study has further significance in that it is one of the few studies empirical on food rescue outside the global north and likely the first in the Middle East North Africa region.
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    The Effect of Sympathetic Neural Supply On The Eruption Rate Of Rats’ Mandibular Incisors
    Kassab , Ammar; Chediac, José; Saade, Nayef E.; Jabbur, Suhayl J.; MS; Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences; Faculty of Medicine
    Background: Tooth eruption is defined as the movement of a tooth from its site of development within the alveolar process to its functional position in the oral cavity. The control of eruption mechanism is multifactorial, where the nervous system plays important role in the control of different contributors to this process. Aims: (1) to investigate the effect of neurotomy on the eruption rate of rats’ incisors, (2) and to evaluate the role of the sympathetic nervous system, in particular, in the eruption rate, (3) to explore the differences in eruption rate between intact and shortened incisors without altering the neural supply. Material and methods: Forty nine (49) adult female Sprague-Dawley rats divided into seven groups; group 1: (n=8) had guanethidine treatment (30 mg/kg/day; for one week) to block the sympathetic transmission at effector level; group 2: (n=8) received hexamethonium treatment (10 mg/kg/day; for one week) to produce sympathetic block at ganglionic level; group 3: (n=7) subjected to chemical ablation of capsaicin sensitive primary afferents, and followed by daily treatment with guanethidine (30 mg/kg/day; for one week); group 4: (n=7) had the left inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) cut; group 5: (n=5) served as a sham for axotomy group; group 6: (n=7) had their left mandibular incisor cut out of occlusion by 2-3 mm; group 7: (n=7) served as a control group. Two landmarks were used to measure eruption rate: the first landmark was a groove placed on the distal aspect of the incisor, while the second landmark was a tattoo placed at the attached gingiva at the distal margin of the tooth. Measurements were registered every 48hrs for a period of 144hrs. Statistical analysis of results was performed (ANOVA) and the significance was tested by post hoc Bonferroni's multiple range test. Results: The temporal evolution of the eruption of intact incisors elicited an initial fast ascension, followed by a phase of deceleration and decline at the end of the observation period. The eruption was significantly reduced in rats treated with guanethidine in 1st time segment (0.87 ± 0.06 mm vs. 1.18±0.15 mm in control, P<0.05) and at total observation period (2.57 ± 0.06 mm vs. 3.00 ± 0.16 mm; P< 0.01). The rate of eruption was attenuated in hexamethonium treated rats but measurements were not statistically significant. IAN section significantly attenuated eruption rate in 2nd (0.44 ± 0.13 mm, p<0.001), 3rd (0.47 ± 0.11 mm, p<0.001), and total time segments (1.8 ± 0.15 mm, p<0.001). Guanethidine treatment in rats with ablated CSPA fibers reduced eruption rate during the first (0.79 ± 0.07 mm; p < 0.05), second (0.66± 0.7mm; P< 0.001), and total (2.24 ± 0.08 mm; p<0.001) time segments. The rate of eruption of shortened incisors significantly increased at the 1st (1.67±0.2 mm; p<0.01) and 2nd (1.66±0.2 mm, p<0.05) time segments then presented a compensatory deceleration until the tooth reached the incisal plane (0.37±0.17 mm, p<0.01). Conclusion: the nervous system plays a key role in the control of the eruption process of rats’ mandibular incisors. Sympathetic supply appears to constitute a major component in this control.
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    The Effect of Capsaicin Sensory Primary Afferents on the Eruption Rate Of Rats’ Mandibular Incisors
    El Hage, Marianne; Chediac, José; Saade, Nayef E.; Jabbur, Suhayl E.; MS; Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences; Faculty of Medicine
    Background and Aims: Tooth eruption is defined as the movement of a tooth from its site of development within the alveolar process to its functional position in the oral cavity. Several studies aimed to investigate the neural effect on the eruption mechanism. Most of reported results were descriptive based on clinical observations and were not supported by experimental evidence. The present study aims to investigate (1) the possible involvement of the sensory nervous system in the eruption rate of mandibular incisors in rats, and 2) the possible involvement of substance P in this process. Materials and methods: Rats (adult female Sprague-Dawley) were divided into 5 groups; group 1, (n=7) had no chemical or surgical intervention (control group); group 2, (n=7) was subjected to the exposure and sectioning of the inferior alveolar nerve (IAN); group 3, (n=6) was subjected to selective ablation of the sensory afferent fibers to the incisor by topical application of capsaicin on the left IAN; group 4, (n=5), was the sham capsaicin group, where the capsaicin solvent was applied to the left IAN; group 5, (n=7) consisted of rats subjected to systemic ablation of their capsaicin sensitive primary afferents (CSPA); group 6, (n=8) was subjected to daily treatment with substance P antagonist, Spantide II. The method adopted to measure tooth eruption was based on two fixed reference points; the first reference was localized, with a groove, at the junction of the buccal and distal surface of the tooth and the second was a tattoo mark on the gingiva at the tooth base. A digital caliper (accuracy 0.01mm) was used for measurements, which were performed every 48hr over a period of 144 hours. Each measurement was repeated three times on each rat. Rats were sacrificed under deep anesthesia and the brainstem of rats of three groups (Control, Spantide II, and systemic capsaicin ablation) were collected and processed for the determination of substance P by Immunohistochemistry (IHC). The result obtained for each time point was presented as the mean and standard error of the mean (SEM) of measurements made on all rats in the same experimental group. Statistics were made using GraphPad Instat 3, and the significance of variations were calculated. Results: A general trend of reduction in the rate of eruption was observed in all groups. Significant reduction was observed in group 2 during the second (48-96hrs) and the third (96-144hrs) time segments, (0.44 ± 0.13mm) and (0.47 ± 0.11mm), respectively compared to control (0.79 ± 0.15mm) and (1.02 ± 0.14mm). Same pattern of attenuation was noticed in group 3 (0.41 ± 0.13mm, p < 0.01) as compared to the control (1.08 ± 0.09mm), as well as in group 6 (0.73±0.08mm, p < 0.05) compared to control (1.08±0.09 mm) at time point 48-96 hrs group 5 showed a significant attenuation of the eruption rate of the mandibular incisors at the initial time segment (0.64 ± 0.04 mm, p < 0.001) as compared to the control group (1.18±0.15 mm). IHC results showed a marked attenuation of substance P immunoreactivity in group 6 and a complete absence of immunoresctivity in G6 as compared to control. Conclusion: Capsaicin sensitive primary afferents play a major role in the control of the eruption process; however, their absence does not produce a permanent impairment.