פרסומים

Since early in this decade, Israeli cinema has witnessed the emergence of a new religious wave that presents mainly ultra-Orthodox Jewish culture. Its emergence is influenced by the global rise of religious politics in the post-9/11 era and the subsequent global war on terror, but most of all, by the major forces at work in the Israeli milieu – the heated divide between religious belief and the secular worldview, the threat of a large and growing Orthodox population, socio-political trends to the right, the increasing influence of the settler movement as a powerful social and political force, and the specific socio-political complexity of the second Intifada period. Narrative religious cinema made during the second Intifada does not deal with the extreme and highly influential figure of religious national-Zionism, the settler; instead, it represents the minority figure of the ultra-Orthodox Jew as its ultimate other. This displacement sets the ultra-Orthodox as a benign substitute through which multiculturalist and religious conflicts and left-right clashes might be negotiated. In fact, narrative cinema critically celebrates the ultra-Orthodox otherness as harmless entertainment for both secular and national-religious Zionist audiences. In this climate of intensified repression, a number of documentaries, all by women directors, though not dealing with the settler, present the intolerance and oppressive violence prevalent in ultra-Orthodox culture. By calling attention to the political dimension of fundamentalism, largely hidden in narrative films, these documentaries grasp the distinctiveness of Jewish fundamentalism in the socio-structural sphere rather than in the realm of ideas. Negotiating the different facets and body-lines of the ultra-Orthodox male (and female) stands at the core of films like Black Bus and Gevald. By mobilizing a discussion of pre-modern vs. modern forms of fundamentalism, these documentaries protest, on one hand, the modesty revolution set against women and, on the other, the extreme violence aimed at the (secular and religious) GLBT community. Analyzing this wave in a highly debated socio-political climate therefore reawakens classic questions regarding access to and visibility of marginal groups in documentary cinema, as well as current questions along the lines of multi-religiousness, ethnicity, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation.  

Since early in this decade, Israeli cinema has witnessed the emergence of a new religious wave that presents mainly ultra-Orthodox Jewish culture. Its emergence is influenced by the global rise of religious politics in the post-9/11 era and the subsequent global war on terror, but most of all, by the major forces at work in the Israeli milieu – the heated divide between religious belief and the secular worldview, the threat of a large and growing Orthodox population, socio-political trends to the right, the increasing influence of the settler movement as a powerful social and political force, and the specific socio-political complexity of the second Intifada period. Narrative religious cinema made during the second Intifada does not deal with the extreme and highly influential figure of religious national-Zionism, the settler; instead, it represents the minority figure of the ultra-Orthodox Jew as its ultimate other. This displacement sets the ultra-Orthodox as a benign substitute through which multiculturalist and religious conflicts and left-right clashes might be negotiated. In fact, narrative cinema critically celebrates the ultra-Orthodox otherness as harmless entertainment for both secular and national-religious Zionist audiences. In this climate of intensified repression, a number of documentaries, all by women directors, though not dealing with the settler, present the intolerance and oppressive violence prevalent in ultra-Orthodox culture. By calling attention to the political dimension of fundamentalism, largely hidden in narrative films, these documentaries grasp the distinctiveness of Jewish fundamentalism in the socio-structural sphere rather than in the realm of ideas. Negotiating the different facets and body-lines of the ultra-Orthodox male (and female) stands at the core of films like Black Bus and Gevald. By mobilizing a discussion of pre-modern vs. modern forms of fundamentalism, these documentaries protest, on one hand, the modesty revolution set against women and, on the other, the extreme violence aimed at the (secular and religious) GLBT community. Analyzing this wave in a highly debated socio-political climate therefore reawakens classic questions regarding access to and visibility of marginal groups in documentary cinema, as well as current questions along the lines of multi-religiousness, ethnicity, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation.  

Cyclic nitroxides are a large group of compounds composed of diverse stable radicals also known as synthetic antioxidants. Although nitroxides are valuable for use in several skin conditions, in in vivo conditions they have several drawbacks, such as nonspecific dispersion in normal tissue, preferential renal clearance and rapid reduction of the nitroxide to the corresponding hydroxylamine. However, these drawbacks can be easily addressed by encapsulating the nitroxides within microemulsions. This approach would allow nitroxide activity and therefore their valuable effects (e.g. activation of the Keap1-Nrf2-EpRE pathway) to continue. In this work, nitroxides were encapsulated in a microemulsion composed of biocompatible ingredients. The nanometric size and shape of the vehicle microemulsion and nitroxide microemulsion displayed high similarity, indicating that the stability of the microemulsions was preserved. Our studies demonstrated that nitroxide microemulsions were more potent inducers of the Keap1-Nrf2-EpRE pathway than the free nitroxides, causing the activation of phase II enzymes. Moreover, microemulsions containing nitroxides significantly reduced UVB-induced cytotoxicity in the skin. Understanding the mechanism of this improved activity may expand the usage of many other Nrf2 modulating molecules in encapsulated form, as a skin protection strategy against oxidative stress-related conditions.

Edited by Moshe Bar-Asher and Steven D. Fraade

Since the first millennium BCE, nomads of the Eurasian steppe have played a key role in world history and the development of adjacent sedentary regions, especially China, India, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Although their more settled neighbors often saw them as an ongoing threat and imminent danger—“barbarians,” in fact—their impact on sedentary cultures was far more complex than the raiding, pillaging, and devastation with which they have long been associated in the popular imagination. The nomads were also facilitators and catalysts of social, demographic, economic, and cultural change, and nomadic culture had a significant influence on that of sedentary Eurasian civilizations, especially in cases when the nomads conquered and ruled over them. Not simply passive conveyors of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and physical artifacts, nomads were frequently active contributors to the process of cultural exchange and change. Their active choices and initiatives helped set the cultural and intellectual agenda of the lands they ruled and beyond.This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars from different disciplines and cultural specializations to explore how nomads played the role of “agents of cultural change.” The beginning chapters examine this phenomenon in both east and west Asia in ancient and early medieval times, while the bulk of the book is devoted to the far flung Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This comparative approach, encompassing both a lengthy time span and a vast region, enables a clearer understanding of the key role that Eurasian pastoral nomads played in the history of the Old World. It conveys a sense of the complex and engaging cultural dynamic that existed between nomads and their agricultural and urban neighbors, and highlights the non-military impact of nomadic culture on Eurasian history.Nomads As Agents of Cultural Change illuminates and complicates nomadic roles as active promoters of cultural exchange within a vast and varied region. It makes available important original scholarship on the new turn in the study of the Mongol empire and on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds.

Are all three of Marr's levels needed? Should they be kept distinct? We argue for the distinct contributions and methodologies of each level of analysis. It is important to maintain them because they provide three different perspectives required to understand mechanisms, especially information-processing mechanisms. The computational perspective provides an understanding of how a mechanism functions in broader environments that determines the computations it needs to perform (and may fail to perform). The representation and algorithmic perspective offers an understanding of how information about the environment is encoded within the mechanism and what are the patterns of organization that enable the parts of the mechanism to produce the phenomenon. The implementation perspective yields an understanding of the neural details of the mechanism and how they constrain function and algorithms. Once we adequately characterize the distinct role of each level of analysis, it is fairly straightforward to see how they relate.

Although cysteine cathepsins have been identified as key regulators of cancer growth, their specific role in tumor development remains unclear. Recent studies have shown that high activity levels of tumor cathepsins are primarily a result of increased cathepsin activity in cancer-promoting tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). To further investigate the role of cysteine cathepsin activity in normal and polarized macrophages, we established in vitro and in vivo models of macrophage differentiation and polarization and used a novel cysteine cathepsin inhibitor, GB111-NH2, to block the activity of cathepsins B, L and S. Here we show that in vitro, cysteine cathepsin inhibition yields both apoptosis and proliferation of macrophages, owing to increased oxidative stress. Proteomic analysis of cathepsin- inhibited macrophages demonstrates inhibition of autophagy, suggesting a likely cause of elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. In vivo models of mammary cancer further show that cathepsin inhibition yields TAM death owing to increased ROS levels. Strikingly, apoptosis in TAMs yields a seemingly cell non-autonomous death of neighboring cancer cells, and regression of the primary growth. These results show that cysteine cathepsin inhibitors can specifically trigger macrophage cell death and may function as an effective anticancer therapy in tumors with high levels of TAMs.

This work describes a novel supercapacitor electrode based on a glass fiber felt substrate, single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) and metal oxide layers (RuO2 or MnO2). It is fabricated by the repeated and alternate deposition of SWCNTs and metal oxides via dipping and electrodeposition, resp., to achieve three-dimensional layered hierarchical structured supercapacitor electrodes. The results show that the layered structured electrodes fabricated by alternating deposition of SWCNTs and metal oxides have higher capacitance as compared with the bulk deposited samples, which are fabricated by deposition of SWCNTs followed by metal oxides. The best configuration studied in this work shows specific capacitance of 72 and 98 F/g for the SWCNT-MnO2 and SWCNT-RuO2, resp., whereas the corresponding areal capacitances are 0.07 and 0.09 F/cm2. This three-dimensional porous electrode structure design combines the high mech. stability of the felt substrate with the high cond. and sp. surface area of SWCNTs, and the high capacitance of metal oxides. This will add immensely to the research and development of wearable lightwt. electronics in harsh environments. [on SciFinder(R)]

This work describes a novel supercapacitor electrode based on a glass fiber felt substrate, single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) and metal oxide layers (RuO2 or MnO2). It is fabricated by the repeated and alternate deposition of SWCNTs and metal oxides via dipping and electrodeposition, resp., to achieve three-dimensional layered hierarchical structured supercapacitor electrodes. The results show that the layered structured electrodes fabricated by alternating deposition of SWCNTs and metal oxides have higher capacitance as compared with the bulk deposited samples, which are fabricated by deposition of SWCNTs followed by metal oxides. The best configuration studied in this work shows specific capacitance of 72 and 98 F/g for the SWCNT-MnO2 and SWCNT-RuO2, resp., whereas the corresponding areal capacitances are 0.07 and 0.09 F/cm2. This three-dimensional porous electrode structure design combines the high mech. stability of the felt substrate with the high cond. and sp. surface area of SWCNTs, and the high capacitance of metal oxides. This will add immensely to the research and development of wearable lightwt. electronics in harsh environments. [on SciFinder(R)]

Background: VICKZ (IGF2BP1,2,3/ZBP1/Vg1RBP/IMP1,2,3) proteins bind RNA and help regulate many RNA-mediated processes. In the midbrain region of early chick embryos, VICKZ is expressed in the neural folds and along the basal surface of the neural epithelium, but, upon neural tube closure, is down-regulated in prospective cranial neural crest (CNC) cells, concomitant with their emigration and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Electroporation of constructs that modulate cVICKZ expression demonstrates that this down-regulation is both necessary and sufficient for CNC EMT. These results suggest that VICKZ down-regulation in CNC cell-autonomously promotes EMT and migration. Reduction of VICKZ throughout the embryo, however, inhibits CNC migration non-cell-autonomously, as judged by transplantation experiments in Xenopus embryos. Results and Conclusions: Given the positive role reported for VICKZ proteins in promoting cell migration of chick embryo fibroblasts and many types of cancer cells, we have begun to look for specific mRNAs that could mediate context-specific differences. We report here that the laminin receptor, integrin alpha 6, is down-regulated in the dorsal neural tube when CNC cells emigrate, this process is mediated by cVICKZ, and integrin alpha 6 mRNA is found in VICKZ ribonucleoprotein complexes. Significantly, prolonged inhibition of cVICKZ in either the neural tube or the nascent dermomyotome sheet, which also dynamically expresses cVICKZ, induces disruption of these epithelia. These data point to a previously unreported role for VICKZ in maintaining epithelial integrity.