TAU Trends in Research |
Despite the potentially serious impacts of effluents and pollution on marine environments, current schemes for monitoring such dangers tend to be expensive, slow and ineffective. TAU researchers, led by Dr. Ofer Mokady, have developed a promising, radically different molecular biomonitoring approach which examines how gene expression is altered in response to potentially damaging levels of environmental pollution. Using differential display polymerase chain reaction (DD-PCR) techniques, the researchers can simultaneously scan the genome of mollusks (clams, oysters, etc.) for environmentally responsive genes without any a priori genetic information. Bivalves are collected from clean sites and exposed in tanks to different levels of pollution. DD-PCR amplified gene fragments from the different populations are then separated by gel electrophoresis to identify and then sequence "marker" genes which respond to specific environmental pollutants. The end result could be useful new "early-warning" testing kits for marine environmental contamination.
The Seam Line, by TAU's Dr. Israel Drori, examines the ethnographic and sociological impacts of employing traditional young Arab and Druze women in Israeli textile factories in the Galilee. The tension between the workplace ethic and the traditional role of women in their family, home and society results in a dynamic process of conflicts, negotiations, reciprocity and mutual aid which ultimately help alleviate (without completely abolishing) the alienation generated by the industrial setting. Several atypical elements, such as the juxtaposition of Arab workers and Jewish managers, make this case study all the more fascinating.
The respect tendered formal, written "artistic" playwriting has led to the neglect of the Jewish oral, folk-tradition of theatrical performance, particularly the Purim-spiel. These informal but highly informative and satirical performances were a major part of popular celebrations of the Purim season in early modern Europe. Prof. Ahuva Belkin has reexamined this neglected theatrical genre, with its elements of carnival lawlessness, anti-establishment defiance and creative "abuse". She also compares these and other popular characteristics of the genre with similar features found in contemporaneous European folk cultures.
TAU Prof. Josef Zohar recently won the Annual Prize for Clinical Psychology of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology for his distinguished twenty-year career in psychiatry and psychiatric research, particularly for his pioneering work and book on intractable depression, and his discovery of substances which can biochemically induce the symptoms of compulsive anxiety. The prize was awarded in Paris before an international audience of 6,000 participating psychiatrists.
In many exciting new applications, the in-plane movements of microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS) is sensed by measuring the capacitance changes they induce. A new TAU approach replaces bulky conventional sensors with a small, 0.10mm, solid-state device consisting of a coiled cantilevered beam with a meshed proof mass at one end. This transmits detected mechanical stresses to a microscopic NMOS transistor sensor at the other end. The transistor is directly integrated into the MEMS-containing silicon chip. The researchers, from the TAU Faculty of Engineering, have already developed integrated chips containing both microscopic gyroscopes and their new sensor. The low costs of fabricating such a fully integrated system should permit their stabilizing not only expensive avionic and automotive systems, but even hand-held cameras and elderly people with balance problems.
Is a high-quality transport infrastructure really an essential prerequisite for economic development? Despite the major national expenses allocated to pursuing this dogma, the validity of its underlying premises has never been examined in depth. A new book by TAU Prof. Yossi Berechman and Prof. David Banister (University College of London), based on many major case studies, concludes that, in many developed economies, transportation investments may contribute only marginally to economic growth, although forward looking land-use, employment and transportation efficiency policies can increase the overall impact.
Last modified: June 27, 1999