The Beirut Research and Innovation Center (BRIC) is a private non-profit research center based in Beirut, Lebanon, and is established as a department of the Lebanese Center for Studies and Research.
BRIC is:
- A research platform, launching and conducting integrated research programs with high economic and social impact in line with national and regional priorities
- An interface between academia, the business community and the public authorities
- A pole of excellence attracting talented scientists
- An intellectual hub where scholars, analysts, and researchers debate to better understand the nature of the challenges faced by our society
Currently BRIC has two divisions: one for scientific research and another for policy making and social studies.
The challenge we are facing is to transform our society from a technology consuming society to a productive knowledge-driven society that is contributing to global progress. This necessitates a long-term vision to consolidate institutional and behavioral changes in the science and technology sector and contribute to the process of transition from an industrial era to the knowledge era with Lebanese and Arab societies playing an active role. This transformation can be achieved through systematic, sincere, and open minded efforts supported by intellectual integrity and economic sustainability.
Vision:
The real engine for human development is the production and acquisition of knowledge through institutional infrastructure. This is a necessary condition for wealth generation, social progress and individual achievement. One of the higher aims of BRIC is to create the conditions to restore the knowledge cycle in our region through a coordinated effort involving vital elements of the society. The aim is to mobilize a critical mass of highly motivated researchers and provide them with the environment to dedicate themselves to the advancement of knowledge.
- Creating an environment for integrated research programs that would lead to scientific progress and useful sustainable solutions to social, economic and political challenges
- Injecting the power of ideas and the discipline of scholarship into the restoration of the Lebanese and Arab knowledge cycle
- Blending politics with science and technology based on ethical foundation to provide the tools for a real transformation of Lebanese and Arab societies
BRIC Team
Prof. Hassan Ghaziri
Phone: :+961-1-653177/142 ext: 102
Email: :hassan.ghaziri@lebcsr.org
Website: :www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Hassan Ghaziri is professor of machine learning and the president of FOMP a Swiss foundation aiming at cross-fertilizing disciplines to analyze and investigate the complex relationship between the Islamic world and the West.
Hassan Ghaziri is also the director of the Beirut Research and innovation Center (BRIC), an Innovative Research Hub at the service of the Middle-East societies and a forum for free open minded and critical thinking. Dr. Ghaziri was professor of Knowledge and Decision Systems at the American University of Beirut and member of AUB senate, the Swiss Federal Institute of technology-Lausanne, and visiting scholar at INSEAD Fontainebleau France and Kyoto University Japan. He co-authored Knowledge Management (Pearson Education Inc., Prentice Hall, 2004), a book adopted by many universities in the US, India and China, in addition to many publications and interventions in several universities and companies to promote the concepts and the tools of KM, raise awareness, and analyze the readiness of developing countries for the Knowledge society.
Mohamad Minkara
Phone: +961-1-653177/142 ext: 104
Email: mohamad.minkara@lebcsr.org
Website: www.lebcsr.org
Dr. Mohammed Husseini
Phone: :+961-1-653177/142 ext: 105
Email::husseini[at]lebcsr[dot]org
Website::www.lebcsr.org/mhusseini
Biography
Dr. Mohammed Al-Husseini is a Senior Researcher and Head of the Humanitarian Demining Research Program. He received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in Computer and Communications Engineering in 1999 and 2001, respectively. He further completed his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in January 2012 from the American University of Beirut, where he was recipient of the Kamal Shair Ph.D. Fellowship. He stayed at AUB as a postdoctoral fellow until July 2012.
From 2001 to 2007, he worked as a research assistant at the ECE Department at AUB and as a lecturer at the Arab Open University in Beirut between 2004 and 2007. In 2013, he was a visiting researcher at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA, where he was also an exchange research scholar from 2009 to 2011.
Mohammed’s research interests include antennas and sources for high-power electromagnetics and the design and applications of antenna arrays, reconfigurable antennas, UWB antennas, antennas for Cognitive Radio, dielectric resonator antennas, wearable antennas, metamaterials, RF energy harvesting and RF circuits. He has over 100 publications in international refereed journals and conference proceedings.
Dr. Mohammed Baydoun
Phone::+961-1-653177/142 ext: 107
Email::mohammed.baydoun@lebcsr.org
Website: :www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Dr. Mohammed Baydoun is a Researcher also working on the Humanitarian Demining Research Program. He received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut, in 2005 and 2007, respectively.
After working in the field of oil and gas in Abu Dhabi, Mohammed went on to earn his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the American University of Beirut in 2014. His research interests include digital image processing, digital signal processing, machine intelligence, and parallel programming. He currently has five publications, the most recent in 2014, entitled “Enhancing Stereo Matching with Classification”.
Dr. Ali Al Takach
Phone: +961-1-653177/142 ext: 105
Email: ali.takach@lebcsr.org
Website: www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Ali Al Takach received his Master 2 degree in MicroÂwave Engineering (MWE) in 2015 from the Lebanese University. He had obtained his Master 1 in 2014 and his Bachelor degree in 2013, both in Electronics and Embedded Systems and both from the Lebanese University.
From March 2015 to July 2015, he attended the IMEPÂLAHC Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, France, as an intern. His research subject was on the ‘Measurement of the shielding efficiency for material used in the aeronautical applications’ Currently, he is a researcher at Beirut Research and Innovation Center, Beirut, Lebanon. His research interests include electromagnetism, characterization of materials, electromagnetic compatibility, and antennas.
Dr. Abbas Ballit
Phone::+961-1-653177/142
Email: abbass.ballit@lebcsr.org
Website::www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Abbass Ballit is an electrical and electronics engineer graduated from the faculty of engineering in the Lebanese university in 2012, and then, in 2013, he received his Master 2 degree in “industrial control” from the “Ecole Doctoral des Sciences et de la Technologie” in the Lebanese university, cotutelle with the UTC (Univérsité de Technologie de Compiègne) in France.
After working in the construction field for several years, he decided to start his PhD. He started the researches in 2017 in the UVSQ (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) in Versailles, France. His project subject is about developing a novel fabrication process of the lower limb prostheses, especially the socket, to replace the currently used artisanal and subjective methods, to reduce the production time and cost of these products.
Abbass’s research interests include biomechanics, study and simulate the behavior of viscoelastic material such as soft tissues of human body, measurement of material elastic properties using different techniques such as ultrasound scan or mechanical indentation, parallel programming, optimization algorithms including machine learning systems and genetic algorithm.. 3D object modeling, manipulation, and dynamic simulation.
Hassan Al Husseini
Phone: +961-1-653177/142 ext: 111
Email: hassan.husseini@lebcsr.org
Website: www.lebcsr.org
Baraa Shiboub
Phone: +961-1-653177/142 ext: 104
Email: baraa.shiboub@lebcsr.org
Website: www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Baraa Shiboub is a Software Engineer graduate from Yarmouk Private University (YPU), Damascus, Syria. He received his B.S. degree in Informatics and Communication Engineering in 2015.
Baraa’s main expertise focuses on programming, web development (different websites and mobile apps), digitization, archiving, and social media management. Baraa also works on social innovations across Lebanon, including projects on Syrian refugees (research on education for Syrian refugees).
Baraa has five years of experience in the field of Software Engineering in Damascus, Syria and one year working collaboratively with a company in the UAE for web development services.
Fellows
Stuart Henley
Dr. Lise Safatly
Phone::+961-1-653177/142
Email::lise.safatly@lebcsr.org
Website::www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Dr. Lise Safatly is a senior research fellow at Beirut Research and Innovation center, a research associate at the American University of Beirut, and a part-time lecturer at the Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering.
Her research focuses on the feature extraction and classification of biomedical signals for heart diseases diagnosis, and the automated localization of landmines.
She also investigated practical plans to integrate ethics learning in modern universities. Lise is an active member in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Lebanese Order of Engineers.
Lise received her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the American University of Beirut. She earned her Master in Electronic Systems from Ecole Polytechnique de Nantes, France and her Engineering diploma in Telecommunications and Information Technology Engineering from the Lebanese University.
Dr. Sara Najem
Phone::+961-1-653177/142
Email::sara.najem@lebcsr.org
Website::www.lebcsr.org
Biography
Sara received her BS and MS in physics at the American University of Beirut with focus on network complexity and dynamics. She then obtained her Ph.D. in Physics at McGill University studying out-of-equilibrium morphodynamics of immune and neural cells.
She is the recipient of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). She was a Postodoctoral Fellow at the Couzin Lab at Princeton University from 2012-2014 and the Gordon & Betty Moore Postdoctoral Fellow at GALCIT at California Institute of Technology from 2014 till 2016. Currently, she holds a joint position at BRIC and the National Center for Remote Sensing of CNRS-L studying complexity at the urban scale using machine learning and statistical physics machinery.
Collaborators
Prof. Ali El- Hajj
Prof. Hussein Ismaeel
Dr. Abdallah El Bizri
PHD Students
Hassan Shwaykani
Title: Dielectric Material Spectroscopy
Master Students
Mohammad Haidar
Title: Effect of Soil Properties on Electromagnetic Radiation Penetration
Karim Kassem
Title: Hybrid COMSOL model for QCM Bio-sensors
Nizar Tarabay
Title: Low Cost Assistive and Obstacle Detection System Applied to a Sip and Puff Wheelchair
Project Statement
Patients with tetraplegia (also known as quadriplegia) suffer from the loss of sensation and lack of control of their four limbs. Many systems such as the sip and puff wheelchair were developed to assist tetraplegic patients and help accommodate their mobility needs. A high end tetraplegia wheelchair (although not affordable to all) can allow for acceptable mobility whereby the patient can smoothly maneuver the wheelchair. On the other hand, a low cost sip and puff (S&P) wheelchair has limited adaptability and mobility. Low cost models are reported to cause respiratory fatigue due to the large number of commands (needed for navigation) which the patients have to feed the system (sipping and puffing). These low end models are also difficult to operate particularly in non- standard environments (sharp curves, circular curves, etc.). This project aims at enhancing the low cost S&P wheelchairs while keeping it an affordable choice for all patients. The project goals will be achieved by adding an array of obstacle detection sensors and integrating a fuzzy assistive system.
Approach
Ultrasonic sensors deployed on the S&P wheelchair help in creating a clear image of the surrounding environment. These sensors help in reducing the number of commands triggered by the patient who will still maintain complete command of the system. Moreover, an assistive system will further enhance the mobility and adaptability considerations by using a Fuzzy Logic controller. The rule base is developed through experiments that will provide the user with the best control results. Previous research by Al Halabi (Assistive Navigation of a Sip and Puff Controlled Wheelchair Using Obstacle Detectors) showed positive simulation results whereby combining ultrasonic sensors and fuzzy logic controllers reduced the number of commands needed to navigate the wheelchair by 10% to 40% (depending on the complexity of the environment). Moreover, the overall smoothness, precision, and stability of the system were enhanced by the Fuzzy Logic implementation (as compared to the human driving algorithms). MyRIO, the real-time embedded evaluation board made by National Instruments, will be the system controller, and the code will be developed using LabVIEW.