Month: March 2019

How Three Technion Researchers Could Help Save the World’s Water Supplies

Three researchers who have developed novel techniques for clearing particulate contaminants from water recently presented their work at the 15th International Conference on Small Water and Wastewater Systems (SWWS) and the 7th International Conference on Resource Oriented Sanitation (ROS). The two conferences were co-located at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The researchers are all faculty members in the Technion Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Prof. Michal Green, a world-renowned water treatment expert, reviewed several innovative methods developed in her laboratory to remove nitrates from water. According to her, “high concentrations of nitrates are the main reason for the closure of wells in the coastal aquifer of Israel with a potential for rehabilitation of tens of millions of cubic meters per year.” The various technologies developed in her laboratory, under the management of Dr. Sheldon Tarre, are designed to provide solutions to problems related to the removal of nitrates. These include the removal from brines, which are a by-product of membrane processes, by biological denitrification; removal by ion exchange and bio-regeneration; combination of nanofiltration and reverse osmosis to remove nitrates without brine production; and finally, a closed denitrification radiator with hydrogen as the electrons’ donor, a reactor characterized by high efficiency and very high efficiency of hydrogen.

Prof. Yael Dubowski examined an innovative method for removing organic micropollutants from water: irradiation of the polluted water by ultraviolet (UV) light at extremely short wavelengths. Prof. Dubowski’s research is currently focused on Triclosan, an anti-bacterial substance used in products such as soap and toothpaste. Its presence in treated wastewater effluent and in freshwater is undesirable. According to Dubowski, “The common solutions for treating micropollutants such as triclosan in water are based, inter alia, on the addition of chemicals, which complicates the operation of the system, while we offer a treatment comprising of ultraviolet irradiation only.” Prof. Dubowski and her colleagues are investigating the optimum UV wavelengths for decomposition of triclosan and other organic micropollutants, when irradiating the water with UV light at these wavelengths create a significant chain reaction that decomposes the micropollutants and disinfects the water. The study was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the Lower Saxony State of Germany. Since the system is relatively simple and inexpensive and does not require the purchase of various chemicals, it is an excellent solution for local (decentralized) treatment units.

Dr. Adi Radian, who deals with environmental chemistry with an emphasis on the development of soil and contaminated water treatment methods, introduced new technology to remove pesticides from water by combining adsorption and biodegradation. Pesticides are usually present in polluted water at very low concentrations. So low, in fact, that the usual methods of removing them from water are ineffective. The innovative method developed by Dr. Radian is based on encapsulation of bacteria in a gel made of silicon particles. Micropollutants (pesticides, for instance) are adsorbed to the gel that envelops the bacteria and then degraded by the encapsulated bacteria.

This was the first time that these two conferences, which are part of a series of annual conferences on small water and wastewater treatment systems under the auspices of the International Water Association (IWA) and the Israeli Water Association, were held in Israel. They were organized by Prof. Eran Friedler of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Prof. Amit Gross of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben Gurion University. Some 200 scientists, practitioners and government officials participated, about one-third from Israel and two-thirds from abroad.

https://www.swws2018.org.il/

https://swws2018.net.technion.ac.il/

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/bd25dc_4f0747ed7f904178afcfe199cb009f09.pdf

 

 

Technion and Galilee Medical Center Successfully Test Student-developed Information System

Students from Technion’s LAPIDIM Excellence Program at the Faculty of Computer Science – Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira – recently developed an innovative information system designed to help the management team of the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya make educated and informed decisions in times of emergency. The system was recently implemented in a successful “war drill” in cooperation with the emergency department at the Health Ministry, the IDF Home Front Command, Israel Police, Magen David Adom, fire rescue services and the Nahariya Municipality. The students created a system that includes a user-friendly interface and that presents the management of the Medical Center with a wide range of vital data in real time: the number of people in a ward, anticipated hospitalizations, anticipated patient discharges, availability of operating rooms and blood units.

Students Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira conducted the project under the supervision of Prof. Benny Kimelfeld, the academic supervisor of the LAPIDIM Excellence Program and in collaboration with the Information Systems Department and the management team of the Galilee Medical Center. “The project was initiated as a result of my meeting with Dr. Ziv Paz, Director of the Rheumatology Unit and Assistant Director for Technology and Innovation at the Galilee Medical Center,” says Prof. Kimelfeld. “He believed that the cooperation between us might be useful in the context of databases and analysis of information. At the same time, students from Technion’s LAPIDIM Program asked whether I knew of any projects in ‘the real world’ wherein they could express their technological, entrepreneurial and managerial skills, and make an immediate impact.”

Thus, the connection between the Faculty of Computer Science and the Medical Center began. After several ideas for joint projects were presented, the Center’s administration raised the subject of drill preparedness: the practice of war scenarios and complex multi-casualty events. The Medical Center noted that the problem with such events is that the varied information such as – the locations of the teams, injury levels, and the burden on the wards is not readily available to the management in real-time and that in order to obtain this information they need to contact IT professionals.

Alon and Shapira together with Shelly Shalem, Tomer Biton and Mark Lifshitz of the Medical Center’s information systems department began mapping the information sources. They found 150 different systems, and understood that an integrated system that would distill the relevant information in a friendly and simple manner to the management was required. The students developed the model for the project using a Full Stack approach – a holistic method that handles all aspects from the server and the database to the user interface.

“We provide our students with a variety of technological as well as soft skills; such as teamwork and interpersonal communication, but Tal and Yarden were also required to deal with executive aspects. Each of their recommendations had to pass through a number of managers who would approve, correct or revoke their suggestions. They worked at a very fast pace compared with the norm in large organizations such as hospitals. When they were asked to find a solution to a problem, they would do so rapidly surprising the staff with their quick response time.”

According to Prof. Kimelfeld, “As computer scientists, such collaborations are an excellent opportunity to develop innovative technologies. What we usually lack is the vast database available in public and industrial organizations, and here we were privy to this resource in the process of close collaboration that allowed access to servers and information without compromising patient privacy. We have also had meetings regarding other such projects, and there is potential to work with other bodies that need information processing support. In such collaborations, in addition to students, we can also include faculty members who are interested in working on large databases in their research.”

In recent years, the Galilee Medical Center, headed by Dr. Masad Barhoum, a graduate of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, has been working to implement technological initiatives. Dr. Barhoum, general director of the Medical Center said, “I would like to thank the Technion and Prof. Kimelfeld for the cooperation that enabled us to integrate the system developed by the students into a large and extensive exercise that we held recently. There is no doubt that the main challenge today is the incorporation and integration of information flowing from many different systems. The ability to integrate information and create a real-time picture of the situation is essential for proper management in an emergency. I am pleased with the cooperation and believe that we are expected to have additional projects in which we will be able to combine forces in designing a leading information system for both routine and emergency use.”

The LAPIDIM Excellence Program of Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science was established over a decade ago with the aim of identifying and training future leaders in the hi-tech industry. The students in the program complete a full course of study in one of the Computer Science tracks, as well as courses in entrepreneurship and management at the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. The students, who have access to an exclusive study area in the faculty, receive full exemption from university tuition, a monthly stipend, a computer, and personal support and mentoring from a faculty member.

An exemplary process of Technion technology transfer from lab to the marketplace is revealed in an early stage Startup, Nanosynex which offers a rapid and efficient diagnosis of antimicrobial resistance.

Your daughter is in pain with a urinary infection. To be safe while awaiting lab results, the doctor prescribes a large dose of a broad-spectrum antibiotic. This fails to work and the infection spreads: a superbug is colonizing the bloodstream. In finding the most effective antibiotic to counter infection, speed can save lives and it is the possibility of rapid diagnosis which Nanosynex is offering through its game-changing system.

Each year in the United States, at least two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and around 23,000 people die as a result, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). A report supported by the UK government and the Wellcome Trust predicts that Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) could cost US$100 trillion between now and 2050, with the annual death toll reaching 10 million over that period. Established estimates reveal that for every hour that effective antibiotic treatment is delayed, survival rates drop by around 7.6% for patients with septic shock. Technologies that predict the resistance of a specific bacteria within the shortest possible time can save lives.

One such technology will be commercialized into an innovative system developed by Nanosynex. The test offers same-day results to help doctors determine the most appropriate antibiotic treatment for their patients. It uses a phenotypic approach involving microfluidic techniques and fluorescent-based analysis. The product will be marketed to laboratories in the form of disposable cards and a fluorescent reader

Nanosynex technology is based on research from the laboratory of Prof. Shulamit Levenberg, Dean of the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Prof. Levenberg and her team developed a diagnostic chip with hundreds of nanoliter wells containing a specific bacteria-antibiotic combination. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Nanosynex co-founders, Diane Abensur (CEO) & Michelle Heymann (VP Marketing)

The highway to commercialization opened when two students from the Technion Startup MBA program chose technology from the laboratory of Prof. Levenberg as a case study as part of the entrepreneurship course. Initially funded by the Israel innovation Authority (IIA) Kamin grant, the entrepreneurs presented the business case at T³ (Technion Technology Transfer). They showed commitment from their first investor and strategic partner – the major shareholder of Biosynex – a French company in the rapid diagnostic industry with a distribution network in +60 countries. Nanosynex emerged as a Startup in 2017, with funding to further develop the concept. They began winning prizes, entered the Technion DRIVE Accelerator and signed a definitive license agreement with the Technion Research and Development Foundation (TRDF).

Nanosynex Co-founders Michelle Heymann and Diane Abensur were attracted to Technion because of its reputation for innovation and technology transfer. “Both passionate about Life Sciences, we were looking for an opportunity in this field and were determined to create a Startup that will respond to a huge need, make the world a healthier place, all that with a reasonable time to market so we could see through commercialization,” says Heymann. “We searched for technologies in the T³ Book of Big Ideas and started a deep scouting and analysis process of the top potential Technion discoveries with our strategic partner Biosynex. That’s how we understood that Prof. Levenberg’s research could bring us exactly what we were looking for.”

“Most of the tech-transfer process is a business deal that requires sharp negotiation skills and goodwill from all parties”, says Heymann. “We created Nanosynex based on a Technion technology, hired Technion alumni as employees and strive to make Nanosynex an important part of the Technion high-quality ecosystem at every opportunity. Nanosynex just closed its seed round of investment and is now fully dedicated to its prototyping.”

High School Students Are Inspired by Technion’s ‘Tech Women’ Event

At Tech Women, outstanding female high school students were encouraged to pursue academic studies in science and engineering.

Over 800 outstanding female high school students from all over Israel attended the 4th annual Tech Women 2018 event in November, hosted by Technion to encourage women to study science and engineering. The event was made possible through the generosity of the Rosalyn August Girls Empowerment Mission (GEM) Initiative.

Rosalyn August, who came to Technion for the event with her granddaughter Lauren, told the crowd about her own personal experience as a young woman in the U.S. in the 1960s. At the time, she was discouraged from joining the family business and, eventually, she became an advocate for women breaking the glass ceiling. She also explained why she supports Technion.

“It is clear to me that technology is our future and it is our duty to help integrate women into this field. Trust yourselves, find what you love and love what you do,” Mrs. August asserted, adding that she felt an instant bond with Technion’s quiet, underplayed vibe as soon as she arrived on campus for the first time a decade ago. All of the students who were invited to participate in the event study mathematics and other science and technology related subjects at the highest level. At Technion, they met with female researchers, faculty members and graduate students, as well as visiting laboratories and hearing about the various fields of study.

In her opening remarks, Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, said: “I have always had to prove myself, and being the only woman in the room drives me even further.” When Technion first opened in 1924, female students comprised only 6% of the student population. Gradually, and especially during the past decade, the number of female students at Technion has grown considerably, and today they account for 40% of the student body.

Invitation to the media: 59th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences (IACAS)

Some 600 engineers, scientists and aviation experts from Israel and abroad are due to attend the 59th Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences (IACAS) – Israel’s most important event in the field of aviation and space – this week on March 6 and 7, 2019.

The event will take place on Wednesday, March 6 at the Dan Panorama Hotel in Tel Aviv and on Thursday, March 7 at the Churchill Auditorium and the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Technion in Haifa. The 59th IACAS Organizing Committee is headed by Prof. Emeritus Mordechai (Moti) Karpel of Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering.

New research and up-to-date technologies will be presented at the event, including innovative projects in the space industry – the launch of SpaceIL’s Beresheet spacecraft, currently on its way to the moon; and the Elbit and Technion autonomous drone swarm. The annual competition will also be held for the student final projects of Technion’s Aerospace Engineering Faculty.

The plenary lectures will be delivered by: Dr. Amiram Appelbaum, Chief Scientist and chairman of the board of the Israel Innovation Authority on “Innovation Beyond the Horizon”; aerospace engineering Prof. Elaine Oran of the University of Maryland on “The Beauty of Turbulence and Transitions in Reactive Flows”; Prof. Juan Alonso of Stanford University on “Industrial Shape Optimization Applications Using Adjoints and HPC: A 25-Year Perspective”; Opher Doron, VP & General Manager of Israel Aerospace Industries Space Divison; Prof. Penina Axelrad of the University of Colorado at Boulder on “Scientific Applications of Global Satellite Navigation Systems”; and Prof. Carlos Cesnick of the University of Michigan on “Very Flexible Aircraft: Performance Promises and Aeroelastic Challenges.”

Dr. Susan Ying, President of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS), will speak about “Aviation’s Third Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities” She has vast experience in the aerospace industry, and her illustrious career includes work at NASA, McDonald Douglas, Boeing and more recently at the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). She is currently the Vice President of Technology Strategy and International Relations at Ampaire, a startup company which is developing electric aircraft to reduce operating costs and the environmental impact of commercial air travel.  

Dr. Ying, a pilot, and certified flight instructor, completed her degree at Cornell University in mechanical engineering and aeronautical engineering. She went on for her master’s and doctoral degrees in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, where she received the Distinguished Doctorate Prize in 1986.

For the full conference program click here

 

Safarcon: A new ride-sharing application for women in the Arab sector

The application was developed by researchers at Technion’s Transportation Research Institute (TRI) in collaboration with Kayan, a feminist non-profit organization, and supported by the Office of the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Transport. According to the researchers, the application intends to help solve the problem of Arab women’s access to the workplace in the absence of adequate public transportation, thereby increasing their participation in the job market.

Researchers from TRI and Kayan, which aims to promote the status and rights of Arab women, have developed a unique ride-sharing application which supports Arabic and is adapted to the Arab sector in general and to Arab women in particular. The purpose of the application is to create alternative modes of transportation and to increase mobility in Arab society. This free application connects drivers with passengers who need to reach the same destination. The application also features a package-delivery scheduling system.

The application was developed by Prof. Yoram Shiftan, Dr. Robert Ishaq, and Ebtihal Shety of TRI at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in cooperation with Kayan’s General Director Rafah Anabtawi and Director of the Community Department Mona Mahajneh.

In order to characterize the application, the Technion research team held focus groups with the participation of 117 women from 10 communities in Northern Israel and reached these conclusions:

• The participants support the values of mutual assistance and responsibility expressed through their willingness to implement travel-share, in order to benefit from convenient and time-saving travel at low cost.
• The participants also addressed various challenges and concerns, primarily concern for their personal security. Most of the participants said they would prefer to travel only with drivers who are familiar to them. Another disadvantage that arose in the focus groups was the loss of flexibility and privacy.

Dr. Ishaq and Ebtihal Shety said, “We knew that we were facing a major challenge yet we believed that a ride-sharing application could only improve the limitations of public transportation in Arab communities. Our main target audience were women who suffer from lack of transport options both within and outside their villages. The application’s main potential is that the majority of these women (98%) have access to a smartphone and 73% have a driver’s license.”

“It was clear to us that we had to offer a simple and intuitive application that fully supports the Arabic language,” said Prof. Shiftan. We chose a simple and meaningful name – Safarcon – which translates into, ‘Your Travels’ and a logo designed in both Arabic and English. While the application is also available for men, its main goal is to increase transport mobility among women. This is a non-profit application, and the financial accounting takes place between the driver and the passenger.”

Referring to the importance of the application for Arab women, Anabtawi said, “The problem of accessibility to public transportation is considered one of the most significant barriers that women face and which hinders women’s integration into the job market and their involvement in the public arena. This application, which was designed according  to the needs of Arab women, taking into account gender and cultural sensitivity, may provide a solution, if only partial, to the inter-locality and inter-city mobility limitations.”

The researchers believe that Safarcon can help Arab women cope with the lack of adequate transport and mobility solutions and that via the use of the application the number of Arab women entering the workforce is likely to increase.

Six pubs in Haifa will be serving up science along with drinks on Sunday, March 10, 2019, as part of International Women’s Day events offered by Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Called “Science at the Bar,” the six parallel lectures by leading female Technion researchers are free to the public. The six lectures begin at 20:00 at six bars around the city. The event was organized by Prof. Ayellet Tal of Technion’s Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering and advisor to the Technion President for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering.

Below is a list of the events:

Syncopa Bar, 5 Khayat Street, Haifa

Genetics Prof. Ruth Hershberg of Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine will speak on, “From Abundance to Deficiency – the Evolution of Bacteria Under Prolonged Hunger.”

Prof. Hershberg researches the evolution of bacteria in an attempt to understand their wonderful ability to produce variation rapidly and how this ability makes it possible for bacteria to adapt quickly to extreme changes in their environment.

Shanan Street Bar, 3 Shalom Aleichem Street, Haifa

Dr. Oksana Stalnov of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering will lecture on “Sound Waves and Aircraft.”

Dr. Stalnov is involved in interdisciplinary research on the interaction between air flow and the formation of sound waves. Among other things, she develops miniature sampling systems and advanced algorithms for acoustic cameras to identify sound sources.

Nola Socks Pub, 4, Shalom Aleichem Street, Haifa

Prof. Shenhav Cohen, of Technion’s Faculty of Biology and Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), will speak about: “How maintenance of normal muscle mass promotes health.”

Prof. Cohen has developed a new field of research that combines the biology of muscle and the biochemistry of the ubiquitin-proteosome system. She studies molecular mechanisms associated with muscle weakness (atrophy) due to obesity or starvation, aging, neural damage, and various diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart failure.

HaPina Café, 43, Masada Street, Haifa

Prof. Kinneret Teodorescu of the Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management will lecture on: “The Search for  Searching Behaviors.”

Prof. Teodorescu studies the interaction between optimal search and human behavior – Why do people go beyond optimal searches? When do they search too little or and when do they search too much?

Tea Pool Café, 1, Masada Street, Haifa

Prof. Matanya Sack of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning will lecture on: “The Landscape of an Urban Designer.”

Sack is an assistant professor at Technion’s Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning and founding partner of Sack and Reicher Architecture and Landscape Studio in Tel Aviv-Jaffa that specializes in integrated open spaces and structures, based on regional and national mapping and the relationship between man and his environment.

After Dark Bar, 30, Jaffa Road, Haifa

Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari of the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology will lecture on “Science Communication in the Post-Truth Era.”

Prof. Baram-Tsabari is head of the Science Communications Research Group and a former science journalist. She is also a member of the Israel Young Academy. Her research investigates how non-scientists use science in their lives and how to support scientists who want to involve the public in their research.

All lectures begin at 20:00. The number of seats is limited. Please secure your place in advance.

Click here to register