There is wide agreement that a nexus or integrated approach to managing and governing natural resources such as land, water, and energy can improve environmental, climate, human, and political security. However, few if any countries in the MENA region have made progress in implementing such an approach. There appear to be several constraints inhibiting the development and adoption of nexus approaches. These constraints include strong sectoral silos, insufficient incentives for integrated planning and policy making at all levels, and limited vision, knowledge, and practical experience to guide successful implementation. In turn, the limited implementation and hence lack of empirical evidence of a nexus approach, which could demonstrate its benefits, does little to strengthen political will for the development of adequate incentives, structures, and procedures. Against this backdrop, this paper presents five case studies which take an integrated approach, in three MENA countries, namely Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco. Based on an analytical framework developed here, the paper analyses and compares the success factors for nexus implementation, and also for transfer and upscaling. The analysis emphasizes the need for appropriate framework conditions, targeted investments and pioneering actors, to make integrated approaches across sectors and levels work. With the evidence presented, the paper aims to set in motion a positive or virtuous cycle of generating more nexus evidence, improved framework conditions, further nexus implementation on the ground, and from that even more nexus evidence. Finally, the paper contributes to overcoming the repeated requests for better definition and conceptualization of the nexus, which often has slowed down adoption of the concept.

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Anomalies are generally unknown and unexpected and cannot be detected with prior knowledge. Consequently, it is highly desirable to have them detected in an unsupervised manner on a timely basis. One way to do so is to perform anomaly detection while the process of data collection is still ongoing, so that weak anomalies will not be dominated and overwhelmed by subsequent detected strong anomalies. This paper presents an approach to progressive band processing of anomaly detection (PBP-AD) band by band according to band sequential (BSQ) format. In other words, anomaly detection can be carried out band by band progressively without waiting for entire bands completely acquired. This significant advantage allows anomaly detection to be implemented in real time in the sense of progressive band processing with the data processing taking place and data being collected at the same time. This capability also paves a way for anomaly detection in future satellite data communication and transmission where the data can be processed and down linked from satellites band by band simultaneously. Index Terms-Anomaly detection, band sequential (BSQ), causal band K-RXD (CBK-RXD), causal band R-RXD (CBR-RXD), causal band sample correlation matrix (CBSCM), K-RXD, PBP-K-RXD, PBP-R-RXD, R-RXD, progressive band processing (PBP), progressive band processing of anomaly detection (PBP-AD).

Face detection is the determination of the positions and sizes of faces, primarily human, within digital images and videos, often as a component of a broader facial recognition system. It is seen as technologically mature, yet its operational performance typically remains sub-optimal, even within the less difficult frontal face detection tests. Empirical evidence shows that the Viola-Jones framework, a standard face detection solution with generally superior performance and other desirable properties, underdetects in some instances. Some true faces survive all but the final stages of the rejection cascade, resulting in missed faces. A hybrid framework consisting of a neural network following a truncated Viola-Jones cascade is constructed in an attempt to recover the undetected faces. Presumably, the neural network could fine tune and augment the face decision. Its inputs are a subset of the thresholding (detection) values of a rejection cascade's intermediate stages. Experiments reveal significantly improved performance, with increased detection rates if no false alarm increases are tolerated, with a greater detection rate increase if some false alarm increases are acceptable, and with a substantial false alarm reduction with no detection reduction. These improved face detection results could address shortcomings in widely-varying applications.

AUTHORS AbstractThe eradication of poverty is an important priority for the South African government. The Constitution makes provision for vulnerable households and, therefore, local government has to develop policies to address the needs of the poor. Municipalities developed and adopted Indigent Policies to ensure that the poor households have access to essential basic services. This led the researcher to investigate what challenges are related to the financial sustainability of the Indigent Policy in its implementation process at the City of Cape Town for the period from 2003 to 2016. This study followed a qualitative research approach. Data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews. The participants were selected, because they had access to the most recent information that relates to the Indigent Policy.