פרסומים

In Yehuda Amichai’s writings, recurrent instances of visiting ruins
serve to confront individuals with history. This motif appears to
engage with the romantic tradition prevalent in literature and art,
which typically glorifies the ancient majesty of ruins. However, Amichai’s
treatment of ruins diverges from this tradition; Rather than
employing ruins to impart a collective–historical lesson, he employs
them to underscore the ephemeral nature of human existence.
The first sections of this article explore these instances of visiting
ruins, while the subsequent sections focus on a specific subset:
ruined synagogues. Through depictions of synagogues in the Galilee
(in the northern part of Israel) and in Würzburg, both in his poetry
and prose, emerges the unique, humanistic ethics of Amichai’s
oeuvre.

Vertical farming has emerged as a sustainable, efficient, and climate-resilient food production method, which can improve food security. In most commercial vertical farms, harvesting is carried out manually, which are labor-intensive and costly. Numerous robotic grippers solutions have been developed for harvesting. However, they have limitations like restricted adaptivity, excessive mechanical stress on target, and poor accessibility, hindering their adoption for harvesting. Here, we present a tendon-driven gripper equipped with a capacitance-based contact sensor array. The proposed gripper can grow and twine around the target vegetable and adjust the tightness of its grip based on number of contacts. The proposed gripper can generate 4 to 10 N pulling force on bok choy and can also grip various gourds, leafy and podded vegetables. This work paves the way for harvesting automation in vertical farms. Apart from agriculture field, the smart gripper can also be used to grasp objects with various size, shape and weight in warehouse, and food & beverage industry.

This special issue on spatial macroeconomics aims to bridge the divide between spatial and macroeconomics. Defined in the introduction, spatial macroeconomics explores the interactions between economic activity and geographical space. The issue comprises eleven papers authored by a total of 32 researchers. These papers were selected through a combination of solicited submissions and an open call for contributions. Four papers within this special issue delve into spatial macroeconomic theory. They cover topics such as agglomeration economies for innovation, a neoclassical spatial general equilibrium growth model, the spatial sorting of heterogeneous workers and the impact of national industrial policies in strategic industries on trade. Additionally, seven papers offer empirical studies that encompass
a wide range of methodologies. These include general equilibrium models, input-output-based analyses and econometric models. The empirical research addresses various topics, such as the impact of trade on productivity, the trade-off between efficiency and equity, fiscal assistance, local and nationwide fiscal
multipliers, forced human displacement during wars and the spatial diffusion effects of renewable energy resource deployment.

Decision-making in animals often involves choosing actions while navigating the environment, a process markedly different from static decision paradigms commonly studied in laboratory settings. Even in decision-making assays in which animals can freely locomote, decision outcomes are often interpreted as happening at single points in space and single moments in time, a simplification that potentially glosses over important spatiotemporal dynamics. We investigated locomotor decision-making in Drosophila melanogaster in Y-shaped mazes, measuring the extent to which their future choices could be predicted through space and time. We demonstrate that turn-decisions can be reliably predicted from flies’ locomotor dynamics, with distinct predictability phases emerging as flies progress through maze regions. We show that these predictability dynamics are not merely the result of maze geometry or wall-following tendencies, but instead reflect the capacity of flies to move in ways that depend on sustained locomotor signatures, suggesting an active, working memory-like process. Additionally, we demonstrate that fly mutants known to have sensory and information-processing deficits exhibit altered spatial predictability patterns, highlighting the role of visual, mechanosensory, and dopaminergic signaling in locomotor decision-making. Finally, highlighting the broad applicability of our analyses, we generalize our findings to other species and tasks. We show that human participants in a virtual Y-maze exhibited similar decision predictability dynamics as flies. This study advances our understanding of decision-making processes, emphasizing the importance of spatial and temporal dynamics of locomotor behavior in the lead-up to discrete choice outcomes.

In light of the changing climate that jeopardizes future food security, genomic selection is emerging as a valuable tool for breeders to enhance genetic gains and introduce high-yielding varieties. However, predicting grain yield is challenging due to the genetic and physiological complexities involved and the effect of genetic-by-environment interactions on prediction accuracy. We utilized a chained model approach to address these challenges, breaking down the complex prediction task into simpler steps. A diversity panel with a narrow phenological range was phenotyped across three Mediterranean environments for various morpho-physiological and yield-related traits. The results indicated that a multi-environment model outperformed a single-environment model in prediction accuracy for most traits. However, prediction accuracy for grain yield was not improved. Thus, in an attempt to ameliorate the grain yield prediction accuracy, we integrated a spectral estimation of spike number, being a major wheat yield component, with genomic data. A machine learning approach was used for spike number estimation from canopy hyperspectral reflectance captured by an unmanned aerial vehicle. The spectral-based estimated spike number was utilized as a secondary trait in a multi-trait genomic selection, significantly improving grain yield prediction accuracy. Moreover, the ability to predict the spike number based on data from previous seasons implies that it could be applied to new trials at various scales, even in small plot sizes. Overall, we demonstrate here that incorporating a novel spectral-genomic chain-model workflow, which utilizes spectral-based phenotypes as a secondary trait, improves the predictive accuracy of wheat grain yield.

Neuraminidases (NA) are sialic acid-cleaving enzymes that are used by both bacteria and viruses. These enzymes have sialoside structure-related binding and cleaving preferences. Differentiating between these enzymes requires using a large array of hard-to-access sialosides. In this work, we used electrochemical impedimetric biosensing to differentiate among several pathogene-related NAs. We used a limited set of sialosides and tailored the surface properties. Various sialosides were grafted on two different surfaces with unique properties. Electrografting on glassy carbon electrodes provided low-density sialoside-functionalized surfaces with a hydrophobic submonolayer. A two-step assembly on gold electrodes provided a denser sialoside layer on a negatively charged submonolayer. The synthesis of each sialoside required dozens of laborious steps. Utilizing the unique protein–electrode interaction modes resulted in richer biodata without increasing the synthetic load. These principles allowed for profiling NAs and determining the efficacy of various antiviral inhibitors.

A close connection between public opinion and policy is considered a vital element of democracy. However, legislators cannot be responsive to all voters at all times with regard to the policies the latter favor. We argue that legislators use their speaking time in parliament to offer compensatory speech to their constituents who might oppose how they voted on a policy, in order to reestablish themselves as responsive to the public’s wishes. Leveraging the case of Brexit, we show that legislators pay more attention to constituents who might be dissatisfied with how they voted. Furthermore, their use of rhetorical responsiveness is contingent on the magnitude of the representational deficit they face vis-à-vis their constituency. Our findings attest to the central role of parliamentary speech in maintaining responsiveness. They also demonstrate that communicative responsiveness can substitute for policy responsiveness