SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals
17.2.3 International collaboration data gathering for SDG
AUM scholars are actively participating in research project collaborations at the regional and international level to gather and measure data for SDGs.
Given that AUM scholars are coming from diverse backgrounds (from more than 60 countries) and AUM research themes and directions highly aligned with sustainable development, the University is able to promote its worldwide influence in sustainable development.
In this report, we present few examples for selected SDGs.
SDG1. No Poverty: Basic Tenets of Financial Inclusion and relationship between access to finance and poverty reduction: A case study of SGSY beneficiaries in Kashmir Valley
AUM scholar (Audil Rashid Khaki) established a research collaboration with a scholar in the University of Kashmir, India to question and analyse the basic tenets of financial inclusion and to understand the relationship between access to finance and poverty reduction. The research publication attempts to elaborate the importance of unrestrained access to finance in building an inclusive financial sector, which is believed to reduce poverty by enabling poor and excluded people to participate in the economic process by employing their skill sets, labour and innovations in the productive activities of the economy, thereby not only increasing their own welfare and standards of living but also contributing at very high marginal returns to the overall economic growth.
This study evaluated the progression of the participants/beneficiaries of National Rural Livelihood Mission Scheme (erstwhile Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana Scheme) across various dimensions of poverty by making use of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
SDG3. Health and Well-being: Factors affecting psychological well-being: Evidence from two nationally representative surveys
AUM scholars (Gholamreza Oskrochi and Ahmed Bani Mustafa) established a research collaboration with the Public Health Registrar in UK. Two nationally representative surveys, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the Understanding Society Survey (USS), were used to construct a unified data set which measured psychological well-being and associated factors using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12).
The final model demonstrated the most important variables affecting self-reported psychological well-being, as determined by GHQ-12, were perception and expectation of future financial situation and problems meeting household expenditure. Gender, age, marital status, number of children at home, highest qualification and job status were also significantly implicated.
SDG3. Health and Well-being: COVID-19 and gastrointestinal symptoms in Mexico, a systematic review
AUM scholar (Gholamreza Oskrochi) participated in a research collaboration with the Mexican Social Security Institute, La Universidad del Zulia (Venezuela), National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico) and the Howard University College of Medicine (United States), focusing on the analysis on data from SARS-CoV-2 positive patients evaluated at healthcare centers and hospitals of Mexico (n = 1607) including Northwest Mexico (Sinaloa state), Southeast Mexico (Veracruz state) and West Mexico (Jalisco state) between March 1 and July 30, 2020.
The study showed a high mortality rate likely related to high frequencies of comorbidities (hypertension, obesity and diabetes). Mortality was different across regions. These discrepancies might be related to the differences in the frequencies of comorbidities, and partially attributed to differences in socio-economic conditions and quality of care. Thus, findings stress the need for improved strategies to get better outcomes in our population.
SDG4. Quality Education: Online Instructional Modalities and Pragmatic Business Education: Evidence from Transition to eLearning during COVID-19 Crisis
AUM scholars (Maia Chiabrishvili, Audil Rashid Khaki and Nasser El-Kanj) established a research collaboration with the Faculty of Business Technologies in Georgia.
The findings of this research are developed from the survey conducted in the universities in Georgia. Results are based on both the qualitative as well as the quantitative analysis of the reflection/perception of instructors in the business disciplines to the pragmatic approach to teaching, to the success/failure, or administrative eagerness and preparedness to respond to the crisis, and the evaluation of the student outcomes. The results suggest that the transition to online education in response to COVID-19 has sufficiently contributed toward the goal of the pragmatic approach in business education.
SDG 8. SDG 13. SDG 14. LOGO: an efficient local and global data collection mechanism for remote underwater monitoring
AUM scholar (Chamseddine, Zaki) established a research collaboration with the Lebanese University, the University of Sulaimani, and the Antonine University in Lebanon focusing on underwater monitoring.
The study proposes an efficient LOcal and GlObal data collection mechanism, called LOGO, that aims to conserve the energy in remote sensing applications. LOGO is based on the cluster scheme and works on two network stages: local and global. The local stage is at the sensor node and aims to reduce its data transmission by eliminating on-period and in-period data redundancies. The global stage is at the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) level and aims to minimize the data redundancy among neighboring nodes based on a spatial-temporal node correlation and Kempe’s graph techniques. The simulation results on real underwater data confirm that LOGO mechanism is less energy consumption with high data accuracy than the existing techniques.
Link: LOGO: an efficient local and global data collection mechanism for remote underwater monitoring
SDG11. Sustainable Cities and Communities: Blockchain Technology Enables Healthcare Data Management and Accessibility
AUM scholars (Omar Ali, Ashraf Jaradat and Sareh Rotabi) established a research collaboration with the Faculty of Business, Education, Law, and Art at the University of Southern Queensland in Springfield, Australia and developed a case study to explore how the use of blockchain for data processing systems and accessibility in healthcare will stimulate advances and deliver substantial changes. The research shows the practicality of blockchain technology for various healthcare applications.
This case study was published as a book chapter in the Blockchain Technologies for Sustainability which highlights the applications of blockchain technologies to foster sustainable development in different fields.
Link: Blockchain Technology Enables Healthcare Data Management and Accessibility | springerprofessional.de
SDG 12. Responsible Consumption: Municipal solid waste-to-energy processing for a circular economy in New Zealand
AUM scholars (Munir M., Ahmad Mohaddespour and Nasr T.) established a research collaboration with School of Critical Studies in Higher Education, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, focusing on municipal solid waste (MSW).
The study reviews the current status of comparative MSW generation, energy deficit, and waste-to-energy processing. Various waste-to-energy technologies are reviewed, their potential and current status in New Zealand are described, and their associated challenges identified to develop a potentially promising waste-to-energy process for a circular economy in New Zealand. Waste-to-energy technologies in New Zealand can achieve commercial success and community readiness levels by using better communication strategies to inform end-users and relevant stakeholders, and adding extra safety layers around their processes. Various combinations of waste-to-energy technologies are recommended for successful waste-to-energy processing in New Zealand, as no technology can effectively serve the purpose of waste-to-energy processing alone.
Link: Municipal solid waste-to-energy processing for a circular economy in New Zealand - ScienceDirect
SDG13. Climate Action: Modeling CO2 Emission of Middle Eastern Countries Using Intelligent Methods
AUM scholars (Ibrahim Mahariq, Zaher Al Barakeh and Mahmoud Khasawneh) established a research collaboration with the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering Department, University of Sharjah and the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Louisiana State University, focusing on CO2 emission as considerably dependent on energy consumption and on share of energy sources as well as on the extent of economic activities.
In this study, carbon dioxide emission of seven Middle Eastern countries including Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were modeled by using MLP neural network with various numbers of neurons in hidden layer and different transfer functions including tansig, logsig and radial basis. Consumptions of different energy sources in addition to GDP of the mentioned countries were applied as the inputs of the models. According to the obtained results, using logsig function in the hidden layer and utilizing 13 neurons in the hidden layer led to the most accurate prediction with MSE value of 6.42 while R-squared of this model is 0.9998. In term of accuracy, this model was followed by the network with radial basis function. The R-squared and MSE of the model with radial basis function and logsig were 0.9997 and 8.48, and 0.996 and 9.98, respectively. Moreover, comparison of this model with the proposed one in a similar study, considering five countries in the same region, reveals higher accuracy in term of MSE.
AUM became a full member in CMS at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on June 28, 2019, after receiving an overwhelming vote at the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) Collaboration Board at the CERN council in Geneva, Switzerland.
CERN is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and one of the most respected centers for scientific research. It is located on the border between Switzerland and France and has two main research sites: Meyrin on the Swiss side and Prevessin on the French side.
On June 28 2019, The American University of the Middle East became a full member in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), after receiving an overwhelming majority from the CMS Collaboration Board in the vote that took place at the CERN council on June 28, 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Established in 1954, CERN organization is based in a northwest suburb of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border and is an official United Nations Observer. Since its creation, CERN has historically been a major hub for scientific and technological achievements. CERN is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web.
CERN has two main research sites: Meyrin located in the Swiss side, and Prevessin located in the French one. Current and future main CERN research program is centered around the LHC (Large Hadron Collider, world largest particle accelerator with 27 km of circumference, located 100 meters underground) and two main research experiments: CMS and ATLAS, who were both responsible for the discovery of the Higgs Boson, awarded with the 2013 Noble prize in physics.
AUM is the first institution in Kuwait and the Gulf region to become officially a full member of CMS. This membership will benefit not only the faculty members and students of AUM, but also the Kuwait and GCC community at large.
CMS collaboration represents one of the most advanced and promising research communities in the world, with more than 3000 scientist, engineers and students from 200 institutions around the world. AUM is actively contributing to the upgrade of the CMS detector which is planned to start taking data in 2020 with a promising and exciting research program, such as discovering new particles, investigating extra dimensions, origin of dark matter etc.
