פרסומים

2015
Shady Farah, Kunduru, Konda Reddy , Tsach, Tsadok , Bentolila, Alfonso , ו Domb, Abraham J. 2015. Forensic Comparison Of Synthetic Fibers. Polymers For Advanced Technologies, 26, 7, Pp. 785–796.

A modeling framework is formulated and applied to assess the sensitivity of the hydrological regime of two catchments in a convective rainfall environment with respect to projected climate change. The study uses likely rainfall scenarios with high spatiotemporal resolution that are de- pendent on projected changes in the driving regional meteorological synoptic systems. The framework was applied to a case study in two medium-sized Mediterranean catchments in Israel, affected by convective rainfall, by combining the HiReS-WG rainfall generator and the SAC-SMA hydrolog- ical model. The projected climate change impact on the hy- drological regime was examined for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios, comparing the historical (beginning of the 21st century) and future (mid-21st-century) periods from three general circulation model simulations available from CMIP5. Focusing on changes in the occurrence frequency of regional synoptic systems and their impact on rainfall and streamflow patterns, we find that the mean annual rain- fall over the catchments is projected to be reduced by 15% (outer range 2–23%) and 18%(7–25%) for the RCP4.5 sand RCP8.5 emission scenarios, respectively. The mean annual streamflowvolumes are projected to be reduced by 45%(10– 60%) and 47% (16–66 %). The average events’ streamflow volumes for a given event rainfall depth are projected to be lower by a factor of 1.4–2.1. Moreover, the streamflow sea- son in these ephemeral streams is rojected to be shorter by 22%and 26–28%for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. The amplification in reduction of streamflow volumes relative to rainfall amounts is related to the projected reduction in soil moisture, as a result of fewer rainfall events and longer dry spells between rainfall events during the wet sea- son. The dominant factors for the projected reduction in rainfall amount were the reduction in occurrence of wet synop- tic systems and the shortening of the wet synoptic systems durations. Changes in the occurrence frequency of the two dominant types of the regional wet synoptic systems (active Red Sea trough and Mediterranean low) were found to have a minor impact on the total rainfall.

N. Peleg, Shamir, E. , Georgakakos, K. P. , ו Morin, E.. 2015. A Framework For Assessing Hydrological Regime Sensitivity To Climate Change In A Convective Rainfall Environment: A Case Study Of Two Medium-Sized Eastern Mediterranean Catchments, Israel. Hydrology And Earth System Sciences, 19, Pp. 567–581. doi:10.5194/hess-19-567-2015. Publisher's Version תקציר
A modeling framework is formulated and applied to assess the sensitivity of the hydrological regime of two catchments in a convective rainfall environment with respect to projected climate change. The study uses likely rainfall scenarios with high spatiotemporal resolution that are dependent on projected changes in the driving regional meteorological synoptic systems. The framework was applied to a case study in two medium-sized Mediterranean catchments in Israel, affected by convective rainfall, by combining the HiReS-WG rainfall generator and the SAC-SMA hydrological model. The projected climate change impact on the hydrological regime was examined for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios, comparing the historical (beginning of the 21st century) and future (mid-21st-century) periods from three general circulation model simulations available from CMIP5. Focusing on changes in the occurrence frequency of regional synoptic systems and their impact on rainfall and streamflow patterns, we find that the mean annual rainfall over the catchments is projected to be reduced by 15% (outer range 2–23%) and 18% (7–25%) for the RCP4.5 sand RCP8.5 emission scenarios, respectively. The mean annual streamflow volumes are projected to be reduced by 45% (10–60%) and 47% (16–66%). The average events’ streamflow volumes for a given event rainfall depth are projected to be lower by a factor of 1.4–2.1. Moreover, the streamflow season in these ephemeral streams is projected to be shorter by 22% and 26–28% for the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. The amplification in reduction of streamflow volumes relative to rainfall amounts is related to the projected reduction in soil moisture, as a result of fewer rainfall events and longer dry spells between rainfall events during the wet season. The dominant factors for the projected reduction in rainfall amount were the reduction in occurrence of wet synoptic systems and the shortening of the wet synoptic systems durations. Changes in the occurrence frequency of the two dominant types of the regional wet synoptic systems (active Red Sea trough and Mediterranean low) were found to have a minor impact on the total rainfall.
Freud, Religion, and Messianism

This paper (1) seeks to address Freud’s early theory of religion and to uncover its basic antieschatological structure. I argue that Freud identified in Totem and Taboo (1913) a fundamental religious impulse, at the infrastructure of human history, which commits history to constant struggle between guilt and rebelliousness. This impulse, the product of the murder of the primal father, prevents, in the Freudian formulation, the fulfillment of the ideal of reason within history. Compared with German Idealism theories of history and nature, Freud’s theory of religion subverts the organizing structure and purposeful causality of historical progress, and hinders all hopes for a Hegelian End of History. Freud’s anti-messianic theory of religion thus not only negates the eschatological vision of German philosophy, but allows for political action by rejecting hopes for transcendental salvation. If Freud’s critique of religion usually assigns Freud to the tradition of Kant and Hegel, the proposed reading of Freud’s theory of religion establishes his place in counter-Enlightenment philosophy, alongside Nietzsche and Heidegger.

(1) The author would like to thank the Center for Austrian Studies, European Forum at the Hebrew University and the City of Vienna for the generous financial support which made this paper possible, and Prof. Christoph Schmidt for his careful reading of the manuscript and his illuminating and valuable suggestions.

gilad_sharvit_for_website.pdf
From Berlin to Jerusalem and Back - Gershom Scholem between Israel and Germany
2015. From Edom To Kedar. Articles In Memory Of Yom Tov Assis. Part 2, Pp. 332. Jerusalem: Hispania Judaica and the Ben Zvi Institute .
between_edom_and_kedar_studies_in_memor2.pdf
Lena Lipskaya-Velikovsky, Kotler, Moshe , Easterbrook, Adam , ו Jarus, Tal . 2015. From Hospital Admission To Independent Living: Is Prediction Possible?. Psychiatry Research, 226, 2-3, Pp. 499–506. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2015.01.027. Publisher's Version
Yorai Amit, Li, Yuanyuan , Frenkel, Anatoly I, ו Banin, Uri . 2015. From Impurity Doping To Metallic Growth In Diffusion Doping: Properties And Structure Of Silver-Doped Inas Nanocrystals. Acs Nano, 9, 11, Pp. 10790-10800. . Publisher's Version תקציר

Abstract Image

Tuning of the electronic properties of presynthesized colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) by doping plays a key role in the prospect of implementing them in printed electronics devices such as transistors and photodetectors. While such impurity doping reactions have already been introduced, the understanding of the doping process, the nature of interaction between the impurity and host atoms, and the conditions affecting the solubility limit of impurities in nanocrystals are still unclear. Here, we used a postsynthesis diffusion-based doping reaction to introduce Ag impurities into InAs NCs. Optical absorption spectroscopy and analytical inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) were used to present a two-stage doping model consisting of a “doping region” and a “growth region”, depending on the impurity to NC ratio in the reaction vessel. X-ray absorption fine-structure (XAFS) spectroscopy was employed to determine the impurity location and correlate between the structural and electronic properties for different sizes of InAs NCs and dopant concentrations. The resulting structural model describes a heterogeneous system where the impurities initially dope the NC, by substituting for In atoms near the surface of the NC, until the “solubility limit” is reached, after which the rapid growth and formation of metallic structures are identified.

 

Adam Lefstein, Snell, Julia , ו Israeli, Mirit . 2015. From Moves To Sequences: Expanding The Unit Of Analysis In The Study Of Classroom Discourse. British Educational Research Journal, 41, Pp. 866–885.
James Duban. 1/13/2015. From Negative Identity To Existential Nothingness: Philip Roth And The Younger Jewish Intellectuals. Partial Answers, 13, 1, Pp. 43-55. doi:10.1353/pan.1/13/2015. 0010. Publisher's Version

What pertinence might the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre hold for Philip Roth’s brief but provocative contribution to Norman Podhoretz’s Commentary collection, “Jewishness and the Younger Intellectuals: A Symposium” (1961), and for Roth’s attitude to Judaism and ethnic bias generally? The article suggests that ideas advanced in Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew (1946) helped Roth shape his symposium essay and, more importantly, his early skepticism about religious affiliation grounded in hatred and chauvinism rather than in living, generative faith. The association of Sartrean ideas — the distinction, in Being and Nothingness (1943), between Being in-itself and Being for-itself and Sartre’s views on anti-Semitism — figures in Roth’s comments on twentieth-century Jewish outlook and in his formulation of “Grossbartism.” This existential mix may owe something, as well, to the Heideggerian state of being “thrown” — insofar as Sartre appropriates the concept to discuss the prospect of being thrown into a trans-cultural state of tolerance, a state that Roth seems to desire for Jew and gentile alike.

 

James Duban is Professor of English and an Associate Dean in the Honors College at the University of North Texas. The author of books about Herman Melville and the Henry James family, he has published, as well, in Philological Quarterly, Philip Roth Studies, Philosophy and Literature, Harvard Theological Review, Literature and Theology, and The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, among others. His current research centers on Philip Roth, Arthur Koestler, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

 

Updated in March 2017

 

jamesduban.jpg
K.H. Keimer, Kreimerman, I. , ו Garfinkel, Y.. 2015. From Quarry To Completion: Hirbet Qe?Yafa As A Case Study In The Building Of Ancient Near Eastern Settlements. Zeitschrift Des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins, 131, 2, Pp. 109-128.
It is over 125 years since Ilya Metchnikoff described the significance of phagocytosis. In this review, we examine the early origins and development of macrophage research continuing after his death in 1916, through the period of the reticuloendothelial system. Studies on these cells resulted in a substantial literature spanning immunology, hematology, biochemistry, and pathology. Early histological studies on morphology and in situ labeling laid the foundations to appreciate the diversity and functional capacity of these cells in the steady state and during pathology. We complete this phagocyte retrospective with the establishment of the mononuclear phagocyte system nomenclature half a century ago.
Shahal Abbo, Gopher, A. , ו Lev-Yadun, S.. 2015. Fruit Domestication In The Near East. Plant Breeding Reviews, 39, 1, Pp. 325-378. doi:10.1002/9781119107743.ch07. Publisher's Version תקציר
Following the emergence of farming societies in the Neolithic Near East, a number of fruit trees were domesticated and became an integral part of the mixed farming economy of the region. These include emblematic crops such as olive, grape vine, date palm, fig, and pomegranate, as well as almond and carob. Unlike the Near Eastern founder grain crops that are thought to have originated in a relatively small “core area” and spread from there as a harmonic agro-economic package, Near Eastern fruit trees were adopted from several geographically remote and ecologically distinct areas: olive and carob in the east Mediterranean, grape vine and fig in the trans-Caucasus, pomegranate and almond in central Asia, and date palm in lower Mesopotamia. Following domestication, and owing to their reproductive biology (open pollination), extensive (bidirectional) domesticated–wild gene flow is thought to have had a major role in the emergence of new cultivars and in shaping the adaptation pattern of these species both under domestication and in nature. The reproductive biology and growth pattern of these fruit trees suggest that conscious (rather than unconscious) selection played a major role in the adoption of these taxa from the wild, in the development of special agro-techniques required to ensure sustainable production, and in developing methods for processing and long-term preservation of the fruit yield. Some authors see a phenotypic continuum between a wild erratic fruit yield pattern (often masting), alternate bearing, and a regular fruiting pattern typical of some domesticated trees, but we consider masting behavior and alternate bearing as two distinct developmental phenomena, probably controlled by different genetic systems that do not represent a genuine evolutionary continuum. The adoption of fruit trees necessitated and was mediated by a number of sociocultural adaptations that include a higher level of delayed return, long-term land allocation, and resource and labor investment in processing and storage facilities. As such, fruit tree domestication could have occurred only after the domestication of annual grain crops and the establishment of farming-based communities across West Asia. Copyright © 2015 by Wiley-Blackwell. All rights reserved
Eirik Søvik, Bloch, Guy , ו Ben-Shahar, Yehuda . 2015. Function And Evolution Of Micrornas In Eusocial Hymenoptera. Frontiers In Genetics, 6, Pp. 193. doi:10.3389/fgene.2015.00193. Publisher's Version תקציר
The emergence of eusociality (“true sociality”) in several insect lineages represents one of the most successful evolutionary adaptations in the animal kingdom in terms of species richness and global biomass. In contrast to solitary insects, eusocial insects evolved a set of unique behavioral and physiological traits such as reproductive division of labor and cooperative brood care, which likely played a major role in their ecological success. The molecular mechanisms that support the social regulation of behavior in eusocial insects, and their evolution, are mostly unknown. The recent whole-genome sequencing of several eusocial insect species set the stage for deciphering the molecular and genetic bases of eusociality, and the possible evolutionary modifications that led to it. Studies of mRNA expression patterns in the brains of diverse eusocial insect species have indicated that specific social behavioral states of individual workers and queens are often associated with particular tissue-specific transcriptional profiles. Here we discuss recent findings that highlight the role of non-coding microRNAs (miRNAs) in modulating traits associated with reproductive and behavioral divisions of labor in eusocial insects. We provide bioinformatic and phylogenetic data, which suggest that some Hymenoptera-specific miRNA may have contributed to the evolution of traits important for the evolution of eusociality in this group.
Omer Gottesman, Efrati, Efi , ו Rubinstein, Shmuel M. 2015. Furrows In The Wake Of Propagating D-Cones. Nature Communications, 6, 7232, Pp. 7232. . Publisher's Version
A crumpled sheet of paper displays an intricate pattern of creases and point-like singular structures, termed d-cones. It is typically assumed that elongated creases form when ridges connecting two d-cones fold beyond the material yielding threshold, and scarring is thus a by-product of the folding dynamics that seek to minimize elastic energy. Here we show that rather than merely being the consequence of folding, plasticity can act as its instigator. We introduce and characterize a different type of crease that is inherently plastic and is formed by the propagation of a single point defect. When a pre-existing d-cone is strained beyond a certain threshold, the singular structure at its apex sharpens abruptly. The resulting focusing of strains yields the material just ahead of the singularity, allowing it to propagate, leaving a furrow-like scar in its wake. We suggest an intuitive fracture analogue to explain the creation of furrows.
R Wang, Yang, J, Peng, L, Zhao, J, Mu, N, Huang, J, Lazarovici, P, Chen, H, ו Zheng, W. 2015. Gardenamide A Attenuated Cell Apoptosis Induced By Serum Deprivation Insult Via The Erk1/2 And Pi3K/Akt Signaling Pathways.. Neuroscience, 286, Pp. 242–250. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.11.056. תקציר
Gardenamide A (GA) is a stable genipin derivative with neuroprotective properties. It rescued pheochromocytoma cell (PC12) sympathetic cultures and retinal neuronal cells from apoptosis insult induced by serum deprivation. GA attenuated the accumulation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. Western blotting with specific phospho-antibodies indicated that GA increased the phosphorylation of both the protein kinase B (Akt) and the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2) in PC12 cells. The GA neuroprotective effect was inhibited by either the specific phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor LY294002 or the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway inhibitor PD98059. These results propose that the neuroprotective effect of GA on PC12 neuronal cell cultures was mediated through both the PI3K/Akt and ERK1/2 signaling pathways. Therefore, GA may serve as a pharmacological tool to investigate neuroprotective mechanisms of neurons afflicted by different insults.