Month: August 2015

Chameleons’ swivelling eyes not as independent as once thought

Chameleons’ eyes track independently, but both lock-on prey for attack

HAIFA, ISRAEL and NEW YORK (Aug. 20, 2015) – Well known among nature’s best tricksters for their ability to change color to fit their background, chameleons have yet another talent up their sleeves – eyes that swivel around and appear to be looking in two directions at once.

In contrast to humans, who have to turn their heads to have a wider but still relatively narrow field of vision, chameleons enjoy a wider field of vision with the ability to swivel their eyes each in a different direction.  Called ‘voluntary strabismus,” this ability enables the chameleon to minimize its body movements to reduce the likelihood of revealing its presence to those it hunts as well as to those that might hunt them.

Is this crazy adaptation really an example of this reptile’s eyes each being independent of the other, thus enabling them to simultaneous see two different views of their world?

To Prof. Ehud Rivlin of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and Prof. Gadi Katzir of the University of Haifa, this seemed like an intriguing research question. They went about answering that question by getting chameleons to play a computer game especially designed to potentially frustrate the creatures, yet possibly solve the riddle of whether chameleons really enjoy ‘eye independence.’

When the researchers showed chameleons a double image of a tiny insect moving opposite directions across a computer screen, the reptiles focused first on one image with one eye while the other eye “wandered.” Suddenly, both eyes locked on one image a nanosecond before the reptile cocked its dart-like, sticky tongue and fired at-will.

“There were a few seconds of indecision when the chameleons were deciding which target to shoot at,” says Prof. Rivlin. “If the eyes were truly independent, one would not expect one eye to stay put and then have the other eye converge.  But we found that once the chameleon made its decision about which target to fire on, it swivelled the second eye around to focus on the same simulated fly the first eye was locked on.”

This behavior pattern, said the researchers, suggests that the second eye has knowledge of where the first eye is directed.  That the chameleons are able to track objects moving in opposite directions before deciding which one to target suggests that their eyes are not really independent, as many have believed.

“Their eyes possibly engage in some kind of ‘cross talk,’” suggested Prof. Rivlin.

When chameleon eye ‘cross talk’ occurs – when the second eye locks onto the same target as the first – this expert predator of tiny insects gets the necessary stereoscopic depth perception at just the right moment for accurate striking.

Chameleons, of which there are over 200 species, are denizens of tropical climates and deserts, but widely kept as pets the world over. They have intrigued scientists and non-scientists alike with their ability to change color and skin textures and their seemingly roaming, independent-looking eyes.

According to the researchers, many animals – especially fish and birds, but not mammals – have wandering, independent eyes, with each eye connected to the opposite side of the brain so that the left part of the brain knows what the right eye is doing, and vice-versa. That’s more common than we realize, they said.

But, no surprise, chameleons are different.

“We demonstrated that when chameleons are presented with two small targets moving in opposite directions, they can perform simultaneous, smooth, monocular visual tracking,” said Prof.  Rivlin. “To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of this capacity. We suggest that in chameleons, eye movements are not simply ‘independent,’ but are disconjugate during scanning, conjugate during binocular (two-eye) tracking, and disconjugate but coordinated during monocular (one-eyed) tracking. Each eye is aware of its own location and the orientation of the other eye. It is just a different kind of cooperation that takes place in human binocular vision.”

The paper describing their research is published in the July 2015 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology (218: 1975-1976).

2015 Shanghai Rankings: Technion consolidates its standing among the world’s elite universities

Technion ranks #77 overall, 18th in computer science and 44th in engineering

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has consolidated its standing as one of the top 100 universities in the world, according to the annual Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) released by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, considered the most reliable global university ranking. The 2015 results, which were published yesterday (Saturday, Aug. 15), highlight Technion’s position among the world’s elite universities, especially in the Technion’s core areas of research and education:

• In the field of computer science the Technion ranks 18th for the third consecutive year. The Technion is one of only four non-U.S. universities among the world’s top 20 in computer science.  This is the highest ranking of any Israeli university in a specific subject area.
• In engineering/technology, Technion is ranked #44, and is the only Israeli university to place in the top 50.
• In the overall global ranking, Technion is in 77th place, up from #78 last year. Technion broke through to the top 80 in 2012, and has remained in this elite group since.  

“The Shanghai ranking is recognized as the leading academic ranking of world universities and it continues to acknowledge Israeli scientific achievements, and Technion in particular,” stated Technion President, Prof. Peretz Lavie, following the publication of this year’s rankings. “I am very pleased at Technion’s standing among the world’s elite universities in engineering and especially in the field of computer science. These achievements are a clear manifestation of Technion’s excellence. Our outstanding faculty members, researchers and staff will continue to nurture and train Technion students, who represent the future of Israeli science and technology.”

The Shanghai Ranking was established in 2003 with the aim to identity the global standing of top Chinese universities while comparing them to 500 of the world’s leading institutes. Since then it has evolved into the most influential ranking of universities worldwide. Many objective indicators are examined, including the number of faculty and alumni who have won Nobel Prizes and other prestigious awards; the number of articles published in leading scientific journals; and other per capita performance indices of the universities. More than 1000 universities are ranked by ARWU every year and the top 500 are including in the published rankings.

Heading the list of the world’s top universities are leading American institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of California, Berkeley.

Married couple researchers from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and University of Haifa build a crowd-based developmental diary

A new free website developed by the married couple Ayelet and Eli Ben-Sasson, faculty members at University of Haifa and Technion, respectively, lets parents monitor their child’s development using crowd wisdom

“My daughter said her first word!”, “My son isn’t walking yet”, “She started crawling today”, these are sentences every parent is familiar with, ones that mix anticipation, pride, and anxiety. The Internet is full of blogs and websites devoted to early childhood development, but these sources do not provide a scientific real-time comparison of one child’s developmental status with that of other children.

Working as a team, Ayelet and Eli Ben-Sasson have developed a free website based on crowd wisdom, offering an electronic developmental diary for parents who want to learn about their child’s developmental milestones. The innovative website – baby.croinc.org (CROINC stands for CROwd-based INteractive Clustering) – meets parents’ needs in a supportive community where they can instantly obtain relevant and specific information in accordance with the individual developmental profile of their children from birth to age six. Eli, a professor in the Computer Science Department at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, brings his expertise in algorithms to the project. Ayelet, a professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy at the University of Haifa and an expert on early childhood development, contributes her knowledge in this area.

“The website enables parents to create a personal developmental diary for their baby, including milestones about their motor, communication, and social skills” explains Professor Ayelet Ben-Sasson. “The system gives parents information about future milestones, so that they can help their child advance towards these goals and understand their baby’s behavior from a developmental standpoint. Research shows that early diagnosis and treatment of developmental problems leads to significantly better outcomes, because of the increased brain plasticity of young children.”

“The advantage of crowd wisdom is especially great when you’re dealing with complex phenomena” explains Prof. Eli Ben-Sasson, “and early childhood development is as complex, mysterious and important as it gets. Our website is a collaborative platform where parents play the dual role of ‘clients’ and ‘service providers’. We do not presume to replace pediatricians or well-baby clinics but rather create a dynamic database containing essential information which will be available to all parents who need it. Those parents who want to learn more should simply register and try it out. After all, it’s freely available online and takes less than 5 minutes to enroll.”

The website enables parents to build a personal developmental diary for their baby. Once the diary is created, it provides parents with processed statistical information about their child’s rate of development compared with the “typical” rate of development, based on information entered by other parents. The website was programmed by Eden Sayag and Matan Yechieli, who are currently completing their undergraduate degrees in Computer Science at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and users are supported by Yael Schwartz-Klein, an early childhood therapist at Haifa University. Currently, baby.croinc.org has over 300 members world-wide, and is looking to increase its user base (free) because, as both professors Ben-Sasson explain, a larger user base means improved data accuracy which benefits every user of the system.

Help is on the way: Technion students developed “Enoshi” – a social volunteering platform connecting volunteers to those in need

Students from the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion developed an innovative social volunteering platform that aids volunteers, volunteer organizations and those in need. The “Enoshi” (‘humane’ in Hebrew) platform is based on the ‘wisdom of crowds’ and on information exchange, and facilitates effective volunteer management including the linkage between volunteers and people in need of assistance. Today, the platform serves as a volunteer management network for Holocaust survivors, and its developers are hoping to expand into other areas of volunteer services.

This unique platform was developed by Technion students Nir Ben-Haroe, Michal Burstein and Omer Arad during the Android Application Development Course they took, led by Prof. Eran Yahav, Teaching Assistants Omer Katz and Zvi Listopad, and course lecturer Lior Bruder.

“A person who chooses to volunteer discovers that searching for volunteer opportunities becomes a very cumbersome and often discouraging process,” explains Michal Burstein. “They must approach a voluntary association, announce their willingness to volunteer, and wait to be matched up with an appropriate assignment that can accommodate their volunteering schedule. Since each organization has its own pool of volunteers, the volunteer must turn to each of these organizations separately.”

“The system we developed lets you find a volunteering assignment quickly and with relative ease near your home,” adds Omer Arad. “Each person that signs up for the application indicates their home address and selects the area of volunteer work that interests them through predefined categories such as: emotional support, assistance to clinical staff, repair work, driving assignments, etc.”

“Once the user signs up for the application, they receive information about people who need assistance within the proximity of their place of residence, thus letting the volunteer choose their volunteering opportunity, as opposed to the conventional way, which is more time consuming (it involves the field coordinator of an organization putting volunteers in contact with the person in need of assistance). The “Enoshi” application forms this connection on its own, and according to Arad, “Takes into consideration the location of residence of the potential volunteer and the person in need, thereby cutting through the formalities set by the voluntary association, and effectively manages the matching up of volunteers to open assignments. This also allows volunteers to put in their volunteering hours when it suits their schedule without obligation. It should also be noted that the application protects the privacy of people in need of assistance.”

The idea for the application was conceived by Karin Komkov and Moran Shribman, visual communications students from the NB Haifa School of Design. It was based on a meeting that the group members had with representatives of the volunteer organizations ‘Ruach Tova‘ and ‘Latet’ and with people from the Holocaust Survivors’ Welfare Fund. At this meeting, the students learned about the needs and processes by which these associations operate and designed the application accordingly.

“This is an innovative idea carrying great potential,” stated Dima Malkin, who serves as a field coordinator for the ‘Latet’ organization (in the Haifa area), “because it allows us to call up volunteers that are not regularly active and who are not interested in committing to long-term assignments. This application locates potential volunteers (in terms of time available and distance to an assignment), and gives non-active volunteers more volunteering opportunities.”

The platform is currently being used to manage volunteers assisting Holocaust survivors. Its developers are confident that it will gradually expand into other areas of volunteer services.

Israeli delegation brings home three bronze medals from the International Chemistry Olympiad.

Students prepared at the Technion.

A great source of Israeli pride – three of the four members of the Israeli team won bronze medals at the 47th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) which took place in Baku, Azerbaijan. The four-student team, which studied and trained during the past few months at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, included: Itai Zvieli, a twelfth grade student from Ironi Hey High School in Haifa; Nadav Genossar, an eleventh grade student from the Rabin High School (Ironi Beth) in Modiin; Ron Solan, a tenth grade student from the Harishonim High School in Herzliya; and Roni Arenzon, a twelfth grade student from Ort Alon High School in Nazareth Eylit.

The International Chemistry Olympiad is the oldest international science competition for high-school students, now in its forty-seventh year. Three-hundred students from 75 countries competed in this year’s competition, which was held in the city of Baku, the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan. The academic challenge included a theoretical test and laboratory experiment, during which students were asked to synthesize material, conduct kinetic follow-up after a chemical reaction and identify unknown substances based on chemical reactions. The Israeli delegation was accompanied by Prof. Zeev Gross from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, who is in charge of all youth outreach activities in Chemistry, Dr. Izana Nigel-Etinger, who serves as the head coach, and PhD student Jenya Vestfrid, who gained experience by training the 2014 delegation. During their studies leading up to the competition, members of the team were also assisted by faculty members, doctoral students and laboratory engineers from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, and Mrs. Mira Katz who was responsible for all the administrative tasks.

“The material they were tested on was at a very high level, much higher than what is being taught in Israeli high schools,” remarked Prof. Gross. “The four members of the Israeli team are the most outstanding of the thousands of students that participated in the screening process. To bring them to the desired level, they underwent very intensive training and study. We are extremely proud of the team’s accomplishments and are so pleased that three of its members attained bronze medals – Itai, Nadav and Ron.”

“This was a very special experience for me,” said Nadav Genossar on his way back to Israel. “We met students from all over the world. We studied and trained a lot for this competition, to reach the high level of knowledge required.  I participated in the IChO competition last year as well, and this year I won a bronze medal!”

 

The Design Expo at the Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering:

A walker for children with disabilities, a robot that helps the elderly, a device to reduce forearm tremors in patients with Parkinson’s disease, a dedicated load release device for submarines, an auxiliary device for lifting and inserting rebars in buildings

The Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering presented 18 new projects at its annual Design Expo. The exhibition featured projects developed by (fourth year) students at the faculty, in cooperation with the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. The three outstanding teams won prizes awarded by Technion Vice President Prof. Moshe Sidi.

First prize went to students Ziv Sela, Dror Avitan and Oron Shinar, who built a dedicated load release device for a tiny submarine, under the guidance of Giora Gorali. The device is designed for the discharging a load from an autonomous submarine developed at the Technion. The load, which is placed in a defined location on the seabed, can be used for various purposes. The student project included a stabilization system for the load on the ground and an emission chamber including doors, buoyancy tanks and more. “The main problem was the balance of the submarine after launching the load,” explains student Ziv Sela, “and this required a lot of investment and complicated calculations.”

Second prize was won by students Guy Dahan, Dor Haddad and Rafael Tebeka, for the development of a device for lifting rebars and inserting them into a mold of hoops before pouring concrete, under the guidance of Dr. Zvi Fruchter. The device is designed to replace the construction workers who lift and insert the long heavy rebars used for reinforcing concrete. “Today, it takes two or three laborers to do the job,” said Dor Haddad, “and the goal of the project was to relieve them of the load. The planning was carried out in accordance with requirements defined by Hod Assaf Industries Ltd, and I believe that the device will be used by the company.”

Third prize was awarded for a device for practicing walking, intended for children with motor disabilities and developed by students Tom Beatty, Eli Filashtinski and Alex Shishko, under the guidance of Kfir Cohen and in cooperation with Ofakim School in Haifa. The device, intended for children with motor disabilities at a various functional levels, enables them to practice walking movements while bearing maximum weight on their lower limbs. The device moves the child from a lying-down position to a standing position and, for children with low motor functioning, it can simulate actual walking, thereby teaching the body what walking is and which muscles it should use. The device will be used at Ofakim School.

Another interesting project revealed at the exhibition was the TELE-CARE robot, a robot for assisting independent senior citizens who live at home. (The project is a joint project of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Computer Science). “The robot enables the operator to communicate with the elder, with the tablet mounted on the robot serving as his eyes and ears.” Student Sergei Botner related, “in the future, the robot will enable the doctor to maintain daily contact with the elder at home, to make sure everything is all right with him, take his blood pressure remotely and remind him to take his pills.”

The Design expo at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering was held as part of a “new product design project” led by Dr. Hagay Bamberger under the guidance of Prof. Reuven Katz, Head of the Design, Manufacturing and CAD track at the Faculty. The companies that took part in the course include Rafael, Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit, Iscar, Hod Assaf Industries, Unilever, Vargus, Taro and Phoenicia. The course instructors who supervised the students during the development process were: Dr. Yehuda Rosenberg, Dr. Zvi Fruchter, Dubi Zuk, Giora Gorali, Dr. Yoram Kirzon, Kfir Cohen, Avraham Grinblat, Shlomo Nezer, Nimrod Meller, Dr. Avner Ronen Dr. Essam Totry, Professor Steven (Haim) Frankel and Yair Cizling.

Other projects on display included a device for relief of forearm tremors in patients with Parkinson’s disease by means of a unique stainless steel bracelet; a glass temperature-measuring device; a wing spreading device and, of course, the third Formula One car manufactured at the Technion for the FSAE Championship in Italy. The car is designed and manufactured by a team of 57 students, led by student Evgeny Guy. This year many innovations have been introduced in the car, including a helmet that displays the data right before the driver’s eyes (like the display on fighter planes), a 15% reduction in the vehicle’s weight, improved aerodynamics and an acceleration sensor combined with a gyroscope.

“The students went through a process of product development from the initial concept stage to its realization and presentation at the exhibition,” said Dr. Hagay Bamberger, who teaches the course. “There is nothing more exciting than exhibiting something that you made yourself, and the students learned a lot during the process. After much deliberation, we decided to award the first prize to the members of the team that developed the dedicated load release device for a tiny submarine, because they dealt with complex technical challenges and with requirements that changed during the course of the project, and they eventually developed a product that included original solutions.”

The event was also attended by Senior Vice President Prof. Moshe Sidi and Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Prof. Yoram Halevy.  Prof. Sidi said at the event that “this multidisciplinary cooperation is also excellent preparation for the real world, where multidisciplinary cooperation is essential in almost every sector. One day, when you supervise the management of a major project of national importance, or when work hard on the development of a product that will totally change the lives of millions, remember where it all began.”

Technion students have developed an innovative method for the accurate release of colon imaging pills

Ilya Glants and Tsafrir Ozer are the first prize winners in the Project Competition held by the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. The prize was awarded for their final project conducted in collaboration with Check-Cap Ltd – an innovative method for accurately pinpointing the entrance to the colon.

“Such pinpointing is necessary in the use of ultra low dose x-ray imaging capsule that is designed to create reconstructed 2D and 3D images of the colon, used for cancer detection purpose,” Ozer explains. “The capsule has limited energy, and therefore there is a need to trigger the imaging mechanism in it only when it passes from the small intestine to the colon, thus consuming energy.”

The students studied the environmental properties of the colon and detected criteria to distinguish the colon from the rest of the digestive system. They isolated two criteria that are sufficient for such pinpointing: (1) the release of specific enzymes from the flora, and (2) the emission of hydrogen and methane. The use of specific sensors to detect these indices enables the accurate delivery of the capsule, which is activated at the right time and location inside the digestive system.

The competition was held as part of the Faculty’s annual Projects Conference, with prizes were awarded by Cbyond Ltd.

Second prize went to the students Ilia Gelfat and Adi Sandelson. They developed a device for Hanita Lenses Ltd that measures flow velocity through the Company’s implant. This implant is used for the treatment of open-angle glaucoma, a disease characterized by the accumulation of aqueous fluid in the eye`s anterior chamber, causing damage to the optic nerve.

The third prize went to three teams: Vered Azar and Adi Raz, who carried out their project at the laboratory of Prof. Dan Adam in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, developed a dictionary learning-based software for the purpose of automatic classification of various echocardiogram views. Gilan Grimberg and Uri Merdler, who carried out their project at the laboratory of Prof. Shulamit Levenberg in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, developed a software that investigates and characterizes the morphology of various neural-vascular 3D constructs. Shahar Rawski, who carried out his project at IDOS Ltd, studied and analyzed the various mechanical properties of the shoulder’s humeral shell component, as part of an implant designed by the company.

Faculty Dean Prof. Amir Landesberg said, “The Project Conference is held in order to encourage initiative and creativity among students and strengthen the relationship between the faculty and relevant companies in the industry and medical institutions. These entities take part in many of the projects and thus come in contact with students who are the scientists and engineers of the future in the field of biomedical engineering.”

Dr. Alex Vilensky, who is in charge of the project course, said: “The projects, which express the knowledge and tools acquired by students in the fields of engineering, science and medicine, are the highlight of the degree program. In many cases the project is taken forward to its first stage of patent registration and eventually to the establishment of a start-up.”

Other projects presented at the Conference are: a system for measuring body temperature during plastic surgery (in partnership with Lumenis Ltd), semi-automatic image processing for mapping anatomical structures during MR imaging of malignant tumors in the breast (in partnership with InSightec Ltd), a polymeric adhesive patch for measuring the oxygen in the skin, and imaging of opto-genetic excitation of the cortical neurons.

In light of the limitations of existing drugs for AIDS:

Researchers at the Technion Faculty of Biology offer a new strategy to combat the HIV-1 virus

The AIDS epidemic continues to take the lives of millions around the world. Despite the resistance of the body cells that are attacked, and despite the use of dedicated drugs, HIV-1 virus manages to survive and reproduce in the living cell and is displaying increasing resistance.

In light of the partial failure of existing drugs, the strategy of medical research in this field is changing: instead of focusing on the proteins of the virus (and the development of drugs that target them), the new strategy focuses on the interactions of the virus proteins with the host cell.

This strategy is far more effective, since the virus cannot survive and reproduce without relying on the cellular mechanisms of the host cell. However, the new strategy also has its weaknesses.

Assistant Prof. Akram Alian of the Technion Faculty of Biology explains that when the virus encounters a barrier on its way into a cell, it looks for ‘detours’ that will enable it to take advantage of the cell nevertheless. Since there is redundancy in the host cell – various mechanisms leading to the same operation – the virus may exploit a self-mutation that could enable it to make use of that detour. “Our hypothesis is that the redundancy in the cellular pathways may represent a survival mechanism that allows the virus to take advantage of a wide variety of similar processes,” says Assistant Prof. Alian. “The virus can use these detours when the favored route is blocked by natural cellular mechanisms or artificial drugs and under other circumstances in which it is better for the virus to circumvent the obstacles of the cellular environment and the various stages of replication.”

Assistant Prof. Alian and research assistant Dr. Ailie Marx present an abstract of the innovative concept in a paper that was published in the May issue of the Journal of Virology. Janine McCaughey, a visiting student in the lab, illustrates this idea with a drawing of HIV-1 as an octopus whose arms represent takeover paths. The illustration appears on the cover of the issue (http://jvi.asm.org/content/89/12.cover-expansion).

An earlier article, published in the journal Cell Structure in October 2014, reviewed a new approach to AIDS research developed by scientists at Assistant Prof. Alian’s laboratory. The researchers conducted a comparison of an important viral protein (integrase) that exists in both HIV-1 and FIV, the AIDS pathogen in cats, and discovered new differences

that could aid in the understanding and prediction of the development of resistance. With both viruses, the integrase inserts the viral DNA into the DNA of the infected cell, and then replicates itself in a manner that enables it to spread throughout the body.

“The virus is a kind of Trojan horse, which uses the host’s genome in order to replicate,” explains Assistant Prof. Alian. “Now we are studying this issue in depth and trying to develop this idea of ‘multiple route reproduction of the HIV virus,’ as a new strategy in the treatment of AIDS.”