Month: November 2024

According to the committee’s chair, Adv. Sarit Golan, “Advancing the construction plan for a new, state-of-the-art building is great news not only for the Technion, Israel’s leading academic institution but also for the city of Haifa.”

The new building, named after Nancy and Stephen Grand, one of Technion’s major benefactors, will address the needs of the Department of Aerospace Engineering. The department is the only one of its kind in Israel and has experienced continuous growth in recent years. It trains most engineers in Israel’s aerospace and aviation industries, and its graduates hold senior positions in the field. The academic department will be named after Stephen B. Klein.

 

 

The department was established in the early days of the State of Israel at the initiative of the first president of the Technion, Yaakov Dori, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and the Technion’s vice president Prof. Sydney Goldstein, recognizing the need for a strong aviation and space industry in the young state of Israel. Indeed, department alumni are leaders in these industries and maintain close collaboration with researchers across a wide range of fields.

In January 2024, department alumna Prof. Daniela Raveh assumed the role of Dean of the Department, leading it through advanced growth and development processes.

In recent years, the department has grown in terms of research scope, the number of faculty members, and the number of students, necessitating a modern facility suited to the needs of the 21st century. The new building will be constructed next to the historic department building, blending innovation with conservation.

The eight-story structure will cover a total area of 7,200 square meters and house advanced laboratories and research infrastructure. The project will adhere to high environmental standards and harmonize architecturally with the surrounding landscape and historic buildings. The entrance area of the new building will be integrated with the renovated teaching area of the old building.

The new building will allow the department to recruit new faculty and researchers, initiate new areas of research and teaching, expand its activities in research and development, and maintain its international status in engineering research and education. It will also significantly increase the number of students at all degree levels and improve teaching and research infrastructure.

The department opened the 2024-2025 academic year with a sharp increase in the number of new students beginning their studies at the Technion. This represents a 25% increase compared to the previous year (2023-2024) and a 40% increase compared to the 2022-2023 academic year.

 

In October, against the backdrop of heightened tension in the North, the Technion held an international online student conference on “Leadership in Times of Crisis.” The conference was initiated by a group of MBA students – Tohar Daniel, Rotem Spier, Gal Forkosh, and Noa Seidenwar – together with Prof. Miriam Erez, associate dean of the MBA Program. The conference was held as part of a partnership between the Technion’s Davidson MBA Program and GNAM – a global network of business established by Yale School of Management, connecting MBA students in the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences at the Technion with their peers at leading universities worldwide.

 

Prof. Erez, an Israel Prize laureate, has led the GNAM (Global Network for Advanced Management) program at the Technion since its inception in 2016. “As part of the program, students from 14 business schools come to the Technion, and some of our MBA students spend a week at one of these schools,” she said. “This year, Technion students did travel abroad, but the event scheduled to take place at the Technion in March 2024 was postponed due to the war. Our MBA students worked hard to organize an event at the Technion that would showcase the best of Israel during a time of crisis. This initiative was theirs, and they led the organization and guest speakers.”

 

 

The Technion conference took place online this year from October 13-18, with 43 students from 14 business schools participating. Lecturers from the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences and other Technion faculties participated, including Nobel laureate Prof. Dan Shechtman, alongside guest speakers and leading figures in Israel’s industry. Notable participants included Technion graduate and entrepreneur Eyal Waldman; Ofer Doron, who leads the Beresheet spacecraft initiative; Paralympic athlete Moran Samuel; Paris Paralympics gold medal winner Uri Lahav, co-founder of Outbrain and founder of a logistical support project for evacuees in Eilat; and Amichai Bar-Nir, the outgoing CEO of Top-Gum in Sderot, which specializes in dietary supplements.

 

 

Among the faculty lecturers, Dr. Noa Zychlinski presented her research on hybrid hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Ido Erev spoke about decision-making during crises, Dr. Shelly Lev-Koren discussed multicultural virtual teams (and facilitated the teamwork with each team composed of students from different countries), and Prof. Erez lectured on managing organizations in times of crisis. Dr. Zohar Rubinstein from Tel Aviv University and his son Eran Rubinstein, who earned his MBA from the Technion, spoke on national resilience – their field of expertise.

The participant group was highly diverse, including the director of Data Science at Mastercard in Utah, USA, a senior manager at Mercedes-Benz, a veterinarian from Chile, and a health manager from an ambulance company in Australia. During the conference, students worked in mixed teams as consulting firms, providing solutions for handling crises in various organizations facing challenges. Prof. Erez stated, “It was impressive and moving to see Technion MBA students working with students from Yale University in the United States and GNAM business schools in Turkey, Ireland, England, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, India, Hong Kong, China, and Australia – focused on a shared purpose and leaving politics aside. In the concluding session, we received much praise from the international students, and again I want to emphasize the central role our students played in initiating, organizing, and leading this important event, as well as the excellent logistical and organizational support provided by the administrative staff of the MBA Program, the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, and the Faculty Computer Center.”

 

A new system developed at the Technion is assisting the administration in optimizing the start of the academic year, with a focus on new students. Based on a business intelligence (BI) platform, the system allows relevant parties to manage classroom and lab assignments, allowing new students to study on campus rather than remotely. This helps them form connections with each other, get to know their instructors, and build learning networks.

 

 

Developed by Moti Yeger, head of Technion Libraries, at the initiative of Senior Vice President Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, the system was implemented with key contributions from Sergey Makhlin, deputy security officer in the Security and Emergency Unit; Revital Broiman from the Central Library; and staff members from the undergraduate teaching department: Nurit Wigotzky, Lina Ashrapov, and Rachel Movsisian.

Recently, Israel’s Home Front Command raised Haifa’s alert level to level 2, which restricts students from attending physical classes at the Technion campus. This alert level has far-reaching implications for the maximum number of people allowed in classrooms, labs, buildings, and on the entire Technion campus. These constraints must also factor in proximity to designated protected spaces, as specified by the Home Front Command.

Given the complexity of these factors, Technion developed a unique system that provides relevant authorities with a dynamic, accurate overview of student assignments to campus spaces and their proximity to protected areas. According to Moti Yeger, “It’s an advanced planning tool based on business intelligence (BI) that provides a dynamic map of spaces where activities – mainly teaching – can take place according to Home Front Command guidelines. One of its advantages is that if the guidelines change, we can update the system, instantly receive an updated map, and assign lectures and labs accordingly.”

 

 

According to Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, “The strategic decision by the Technion’s administration places new students as the top priority for on-campus learning. These students don’t yet know their peers or professors, and this familiarity is essential for building learning networks and sharing academic challenges. The next priority is for lab work, as hands-on lab experience is irreplaceable, and the Technion is doing its utmost to continue lab activities as usual. For those not assigned to on-campus learning, instructors and teaching assistants will facilitate online learning, whether interactively via Zoom or asynchronously through recordings combined with workshops and digital meetings. Collaboration across the campus, from academic and administrative staff, security units, and especially the students themselves, is essential for successful learning in these complex conditions. And of course, we eagerly await improvements in the situation that will allow a swift and full return to regular campus activity.”

The new system integrates two information sources – a map of protected spaces and a map of teaching classrooms and course assignments. Academic Secretary of Undergraduate Studies Dr. Efrat Nativ-Ronen explained that this integration provides an accurate overview essential for optimal classroom allocation on campus. For the Security and Emergency Unit, the system provides a real-time picture of expected campus occupancy, enabling the unit to ensure these numbers remain within Home Front Command limits. If the system detects an over-allocation, assignments are adjusted in advance.

Signage on campus has been updated to ensure a clear and quick path to protected spaces. A dedicated website has also been set up where students and staff can track course allocations across the campus. These current efforts are part of the continued enhancement of security and safety on campus since the outbreak of the war, including strengthening the security infrastructure, preparing shelters, distributing communication devices, and providing relevant training to various units.

 

Researchers at the Technion Faculty of Biology have presented findings that could lead to new genetic treatments for cancer and brain diseases. Published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, the study was led by Ph.D. student Berta Eliad, master’s student Noa Schneider, and their advisor, Associate Professor Ayelet Lamm. The study is a collaboration with the research group of Professor Heather Hundley from Indiana University.

 

 

DNA is effectively the body’s instruction manual for producing proteins, whereas RNA is like a copy of one page from the manual — a recipe for making a specific protein. To make more extensive, more diverse sets of these “protein recipes,” our body uses an RNA editing mechanism. This process changes the RNA sequence, resulting in a changed recipe. RNA editing occurs naturally in cells, but researchers are currently exploring the possibility of directing these processes to repair mutated RNA.

 

 

One of the most common types of RNA editing found in nature is A-to-I RNA editing. In this process, an enzyme called ADAR changes one of the molecules that make up the RNA, converting it from adenosine (A) to inosine (I). Disruptions in this process can lead to cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and misactivation of the immune system.

 

 

The Technion researchers examined the ADAR enzyme in C. elegans — a worm commonly used as a model organism in biological research due to its transparency and rapid development. The researchers discovered that in these worms, the ADAR enzyme is found near DNA molecules during cell division and concluded that RNA editing occurs when new RNAs are created. They also discovered that ADAR is expressed in embryos, oocytes and nerve cells, but not in sperm cells or other cells, meaning the mechanism is selective for specific tissues. Furthermore, they discovered a protein that controls the location of the ADAR enzyme within the cell and identified which RNA the ADAR enzyme “prefers” to edit.

 

According to the researchers, “Our findings show where RNA editing takes place and which factors regulate it, allowing us to understand how RNA editing can be used to repair damaged genes. This study provides new, groundbreaking insights in genetic medicine, which may lead to the development of innovative treatments for severe diseases.”

Read the full article here

Almog Green, a student at the Technion’s Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, placed second in the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championship held this summer in Portugal. Green trains and competes in the Women’s Pair category. Unlike rhythmic gymnastics, acrobatics involves no equipment – the athletes rely solely on their bodies to perform flips, pyramids, and more, with teamwork being a key component.

Green entered the world of gymnastics at the age of three in a “kids’ class where we did cute little forward rolls,” as she puts it. The head of the acrobatics association at the time, scouting for talented children, spotted her when she was four and told her father she had real potential. “My dad was shocked, but by age six, I joined the Maccabi Dan club, progressing from there to the Israeli National Acrobatic Team and winning the Israeli Championship and international competitions.”

 

 

Almog balanced her 2023-24 training year, which culminated in the World Championship, alongside her first year of studies at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. “I knew for a long time that I wanted to study medicine because of the challenge and the opportunity to meet people – both patients and professionals. I love challenges, learning and growth, and this profession suits me perfectly. My mom and older sister are both doctors, and my younger brother is studying medicine in the elite Atuda program.”

She was accepted into the Faculty of Medicine two years ago but decided to defer her studies to prepare for the World Championship. To save time, she started studying biology at Tel Aviv University, then reapplied for medical school and was accepted at both the Technion and Hebrew University. “There was something very appealing about the Technion – the location, the atmosphere, and the people. They also told us we could meet the dean, Prof. Ami Aronheim, before the school year. I met with him and explained that this would be a demanding year, as I’d be preparing for the World Championship in acrobatics. He made it clear that there would be no compromise on academic requirements but assured me the Faculty would be supportive in other ways. For example, if I missed the first exam round due to a competition, I was allowed to take an additional round.”

Reflecting on her first year, she’s very positive – even enthusiastic. “The Faculty exposes students to the real clinical world right from the first year, through courses like anatomy and ‘Clinical Tuesdays.’ It was a fascinating year, and I’m pleased with my grades as well.”

In addition to her studies, she maintained a rigorous training schedule – five sessions a week, each lasting six hours, and even more leading up to competitions. “I knew I had to keep up with my studies during the semester and not leave things for the end, as I wouldn’t have flexibility during exam periods. In the end, I truly enjoyed both worlds – studying and acrobatics. It was challenging, with no shortage of fatigue.”

Green currently trains with the Begin Holon club, through which she won the World Championship at the senior level. “I have six medals from European Championships and three from World Cups, some of them gold, and a medal from the World Championship was my dream. My next goal is the ‘World Games’ – the Olympics for non-Olympic sports, set to take place next year, but that depends on my study workload.”

 

The recently published Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) highlights the inclusion of the Technion in the world’s top 100 universities in the overall ranking and in five specific research fields: chemistry, aerospace engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, water resources engineering, and mathematics. The Technion’s placements on the GRAS provide an exclamation point to its strong performance on the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) published earlier this year.

The Technion achieved its highest global rankings in chemistry, placing 32nd worldwide (a sharp rise from 61st in 2023) and 4th in Europe. In aerospace engineering, the Technion ranked 40th worldwide and 12th in Europe.

In Israel, the Technion is the leading university in eight research fields: chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronics engineering, chemical engineering, nanoscience and nanotechnology, water resources engineering, food science and technology, and aerospace engineering.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said, “The Technion competes globally with universities that are older, larger, and far wealthier. Our consistent presence among the world’s top universities stems from the dedicated work of our academic and administrative staff, students, faculty deans, and leadership. Despite Israel facing prolonged conflict and Israeli academia encountering hostility and boycotts, both Israel and its academia remain strong and determined to pursue excellence. The Technion, which opened its doors more than a century ago, laid the foundation for the emerging State and has consistently pursued a national mission. Today, it plays a crucial role in reinvigorating Israel, its society and economy. This global acknowledgment of the Technion’s excellence motivates us to keep advancing our scientific, technological, educational, and national objectives.”

 

 

Dean of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry Prof. Efrat Lifshitz said, “This impressive achievement reflects the outstanding world-class research and excellence of the faculty and its members. The Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion upholds excellence in research and education. This is evident through prestigious awards, memberships in leading international chemistry organizations, editorial positions in prominent international journals, significant research grants, high-impact publications, collaborations with top industries, and training a new generation of scientists and industry leaders. Our diverse and interdisciplinary research attracts brilliant young scientists and faculty members, whose immense contributions advance human knowledge and educate future trailblazing scientists and industry leaders.”

In August, the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) placed the Technion among the world’s top 100 academic institutions and 11th among technological universities. The Shanghai Ranking, conducted by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, is the leading global higher education ranking system. Since 2012 (except for 2020), the Technion has consistently been in the top 100, ranking between 69th and 94th.

The Global Ranking of Academic Subjects now places the Technion in the top 100 in five research fields: chemistry, aerospace engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, water resources engineering, and mathematics.

Click here for the full ranking.

The Technion Faculty of Aerospace Engineering began the 2024-25 academic year with a significant rise in first-year students. This represents an increase of 25% from last year (2023-24) and around 40% compared to the previous year (2022-23). This year, 128 new students are beginning their studies in the faculty, including 27 women and a record number of military cadets (47). There is also growth in the joint Aeronautics-Physics track, with 23 new students.

 

 

According to the Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Daniella Raveh, “The past year has highlighted the critical challenges in the field of aeronautics and their significance for Israel’s security. The world is experiencing an unprecedented revolution in the field of space, with the entry of private initiatives into space launches and flights. In Israel, more than 100 private companies are active in this field. The Technion Faculty of Aerospace Engineering is the only one of its kind in Israel, and its graduates are leaders in Israel’s aeronautics and space industries. Our students understand they will gain the tools to become aerospace engineers by studying here. They will make a significant contribution to the nation’s defense and become technological leaders in aviation and space.”

 

 

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said, “When Iron Dome interceptor fragments fell on the Technion campus during the missile salvos from Iran about a month ago, I watched the numerous interceptions from my office windows and thought with pride that the Technion is likely the only university in the world directly protected by technologies developed by its graduates – Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow system are just a few examples. Graduates from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering have made tremendous contributions to the State.”

 

 

The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering was the first faculty to be established on the Technion’s Neve Sha’anan campus in the 1950s. The Faculty trains engineers who fill positions in Israel’s aeronautics and space industries, and its graduates hold senior roles in the field. The establishment of the Faculty was envisioned shortly after Israel’s founding with the support of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who recognized its critical importance to Israel’s security. In 1953, the cornerstone was laid for the faculty building.

 

Researchers at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion have developed a new chemical process to produce raw materials for the manufacture of polymers, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural compounds. In a paper about the process in Nature Chemistry, the researchers detail how they developed the new process and conducted a computational analysis to explain its mechanisms and key stages. The study was led by doctoral students Alexander Koronatov and Deepak Ranolia, and postdoctoral researcher Pavel Sakharov, under the guidance of Prof. Mark Gandelman.

 

 

Called triazenolysis, the new process converts alkenes – common organic compounds such as petroleum – into multifunctional amines useful in various research and industrial applications.

 

The Technion-developed process mimics ozonolysis, a long-established technology used to create molecules with carbon-oxygen bonds. Ozonolysis, developed more than a century ago, is effective at forming carbon-oxygen bonds but does not produce carbon-nitrogen bonds. This is where triazenolysis comes into play, producing carbon-nitrogen bonds relevant to a wide range of applications by cleaving carbon-carbon bonds in olefins (a class of chemicals made up of hydrogen and carbon with one or more pairs of carbon atoms linked by a double bond).

 

The research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

 

For the full article: click here

 

 

On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, the Technion inaugurated the Uzia Galil Foyer in the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The foyer was named after the founder of Elbit Systems and other companies. The ceremony was attended by Galil’s family and Elbit Systems management including president and CEO Bezhalel (Butsi) Machlis and former Elbit Systems Board Chairman Miki Federman. Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, Dean of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering Prof. Idit Keidar, and Chairman of the Israel Friends of Technion Association, Prof. Peretz Lavie, were also in attendance.

 

 

The foyer, which honors the legacy of Uzia Galil z”l and showcases advanced defense technology developed by Elbit Systems, was made possible thanks to support from the Galil family and Elbit Systems. The display in the hall highlights the connection between Galil’s legacy and Elbit products, which are at the forefront of Israel’s defense technology.

Uzia Galil (1925–2021) was an alumnus of the Technion’s Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and one of the founding figures of Israel’s high-tech industry. He was born in 1925 in Bucharest and immigrated to Israel at age 16 as part of the Youth Aliyah movement. In 1943, he was accepted to the Technion, and upon completing his studies, served in the Israeli Navy for many years. After earning a master’s degree from Purdue University, he worked in Chicago on Motorola’s color television development, and upon returning to Israel, rejoined the Israeli Navy as the head of the Electronics R&D Department.

In 1957, Galil joined the Technion as a lecturer and the head of the Electronics Department in the Faculty of Physics, where he developed advanced electronic systems for physical research. In parallel to his work at the Technion, he founded Elron in 1962, which led to the creation of more than 25 technology companies, including Elscint and Zoran. Later, he established the Galil Center for Medical Information and Telemedicine at the Technion’s Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, aiming to integrate technology for the benefit of healthcare through the use of advanced systems.

At the ceremony, Galil’s daughter, Ruth Alon, a Technion alumna and high-tech entrepreneur, said: “We always knew and felt that the extended Galil family includes the Technion and Elbit. These were my father’s ‘homes.’ The collaboration between academia and industry was always his vision and mission, and there’s no more fitting place to commemorate and honor him.”

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said, “Uzia was a visionary who contributed greatly to the Technion, to Israeli industry, and society. He was one of the Technion’s most distinguished alumni and a devoted friend of the institution where he received his education. Uzia was a pioneer in many areas, and he laid the foundations for Israel’s high-tech industry. His vision of integrating technology and medicine for the benefit of humanity was ahead of its time. His immense contribution to the Technion as Chairman of the Board of Governors and as a member of the Executive Committee was invaluable. This new entrance hall is dedicated to his legacy – connecting academia and industry and nurturing the future generation of scientists and engineers.”

Bezhalel (Butsi) Machlis, CEO and president of Elbit Systems, said, “A nation that does not know its past has a poor present and an uncertain future. These words by Yigal Allon are reflected in the entrance hall, which was established to honor Uzia Galil’s legacy. The bond between the Technion, its alumni, and Elbit is a strong partnership of collaboration, action, and responsibility for integrating advanced technologies into Israel’s industry. Elbit employees, many of whom are Technion alumni, recognize and act in accordance with Uzia Galil’s vision. His unique character, drive for action, creation, and innovation inspire us – company managers and employees – every day. We are proud to continue his path, committed to preserving and passing on his legacy, and contributing every day to the defense of the State of Israel.”

Prof. Peretz Lavie, former Technion president, and chairman of the Israel Friends of Technion Association said, “Uzia taught us that innovation and entrepreneurship are more than just technical skills – they are a way of thinking, a belief in the power of ideas to change the world. Uzia was not just a leader but a mentor for those who worked with him. He believed in people’s potential as much as he believed in the potential of technology. That’s why the Technion was so close to his heart. He believed wholeheartedly in the connection between academia and industry, and he expressed this belief in almost every meeting of the Technion’s Executive Committee, where he served for many years.”

In 1977, the Technion awarded Galil an honorary doctorate. In 1980, he became the first Technion graduate to serve as Chairman of the Board of Governors, a position he held until 1990. In 1997, he received the Israel Prize for his contribution to the development of Israel’s high-tech industry and the prestigious Technion Medal that same year.

An experimental setup built at the Technion Faculty of Physics demonstrates the transfer of atoms from one place to another through quantum tunneling between optical tweezers. Led by Prof. Yoav Sagi and doctoral student Yanay Florshaim from the Solid State Institute, the research was published in Science Advances.

 

The experiment is based on optical tweezers — an experimental tool for capturing atoms, molecules, and even living cells using an optical potential created by laser beams focused to a micron-sized spot. How is this possible? The interaction of light with matter generates a force proportional to the intensity of the light. This force is too weak to affect our daily lives, but when it comes to tiny particles such as atoms, it can be strong enough to hold them in place or move them from one location to another. The invention of optical tweezers, which have become a significant tool in physics, earned physicist Arthur Ashkin the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018.

 

 

The Technion researchers used a linear array of three optical tweezers in their experiment. By changing the distances between each pair of adjacent tweezers, they dynamically controlled the tunneling rate of atoms between them. Tunneling is a phenomenon unique to the quantum world, where particles have a chance to pass through a potential barrier they cannot classically overcome. By controlling the tunneling rate, the researchers were able to smoothly and efficiently transfer atoms between the two outer tweezers.

 

 

In addition, the researchers showed that although the atoms move between both sides of the chain, the likelihood of finding them in the middle tweezer is very low. This intriguing feature of the transfer scheme can be understood by recalling that in quantum theory, a particle is described by a wave packet. In the scheme demonstrated in the experiment, the waves interfere destructively in the middle trap, making it impossible to find the atoms there. This is the first demonstration of this transfer method, and the researchers believe it could represent a significant milestone in the development of new quantum platforms.

The research is supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Pazy Foundation, and the Helen Diller Quantum Center at the Technion.

Click here for the paper in Science Advances

 

XRISM, an X-ray telescope designed to facilitate discoveries about the evolution of galaxy clusters and the extreme space-time around black holes, was launched into space in September 2023. Prof. Ehud Behar of the Technion Faculty of Physics, an expert on X-ray observations from space, is part of the XRISM mission’s core science team. His team, which includes Technion PhD students, has been leading the analysis of several key XRISM observations in its first year of operation.

In September, a media briefing was held in Japan about the mission’s main achievements:
• Discovery of the 3D structure of the N132D supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, and detection of iron at very high temperatures. The remnants, created by an explosion that occurred about 3,000 years ago, provide an unprecedented window into the lives and deaths of massive stars. XRISM’s observation revealed that – contrary to the prevailing hypothesis that the remnants of N132D are spherical – they actually have a tubular (or donut) shape, expanding at a speed of 1,200 kilometers per second. The supernova explosion produced iron, and the resulting shock waves heated it to extremely high temperatures – around 10 billion degrees Celsius.

• Discovery of the structure surrounding the supermassive black hole in the NGC 4151 galaxy, located about 62 million light-years away from us. XRISM’s observations provide unprecedented insights into the material surrounding the black hole at the center of the galaxy, which has a mass 30 million times that of the Sun. Specifically, the observations show the reflection of X-rays from gas in the accretion disk around the black hole, which spins at speeds of up to 15,000 km/s. These discoveries offer new information about the growth of black holes influenced by the surrounding material.

 

XRISM has two primary scientific instruments: Resolve, a high-resolution spectrometer that can measure the energy (color) of X-ray photons to unprecedented precision; and Xtend, an X-ray imaging camera. According to the XRISM website, “At first glance, the Universe seems barren, a place cold, dark, and empty. But the Universe as revealed in X-rays — faint thought they are — paints a different picture. Hot plasmas at millions of degrees. Jets emanating from black holes. Ultra-high energy particles traveling at speeds surpassing 99% of the speed of light.”

The Resolve spectrometer makes precise measurements of the “color” of X-rays, a capability that makes it the primary instrument of the XRISM mission. “The fireworks that decorate the summer skies come about when different chemical elements are made to glow hot. Each metal responds to heating by emitting its own distinctive color.”
Using Resolve, the scientific community can map the elements in our Universe and, based on these data, discover a wide variety of facts in three main domains: (1) the kinematic “blueprint” for galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the Universe; (2) the “recipe for producing chemical elements in the Universe”; and (3) “the edge of space-time around black holes.” by studying matter just before it falls into black holes, or is ejected at enormous speeds away from it.”

According to Prof. Behar, “The Resolve spectrometer is a technological revolution. Its sensor is made of superconducting pixels that are kept at a low temperature. Every X-ray photon that hits a pixel raises the temperature and changes its electrical properties, enabling the system to measure the photon’s energy with unprecedented precision. Resolve has been operating in space for a year now, giving us a new wealth of information about the astrophysical sources the telescope is observing. It helps us map important phenomena in the universe and, based on our observations of them, understand dynamic processes related to the formation of elements and the evolution of cosmic structures. This is a very exciting project, and we are inundated with new data coming to us daily from space via XRISM.”

XRISM is a joint project of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA). Prof. Behar is the only researcher on the telescope’s science team who is not from any of the countries in which these entities are located. He was personally appointed by the director of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. XRISM’s design incorporates lessons learned from previous Japanese telescopes decommissioned at various stages due to malfunctions. The XRISM mission aims to ensure continuity in X-ray observations — a continuity that could have been disrupted by the time gap between previous X-ray telescopes and the ATHENA telescope, which is not expected to be launched before 2035. XRISM will be the only telescope of its kind for at least the next 13 years. This will ensure the observational continuity required for expanding our understanding of astrophysical phenomena.

A new and exciting field has emerged in the hardware domain in recent years: in-memory computing. The in-memory computing approach introduces a significant change from the way computers typically operate. While traditionally the CPU runs calculations based on information stored in the computer’s memory, with this innovative approach, some operations are performed directly within the memory, reducing data transfers between the memory and the CPU. As transferring data between computer units is time- and energy-intensive, this change leads to significant savings in both.

Recent decades have seen dramatic improvements in the performance of these two components; the calculation speed of processors has skyrocketed, as has the storage capacity of memory units. These developments have only exacerbated the problem, with data transfer becoming a bottleneck that limits the computer’s overall speed.

Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering has dedicated the past few years to finding solutions to “the memory wall problem”— the problem of computations requiring two separate hardware components. In papers published in recent years, he has presented hardware technologies that enable some operations to run in memory, mitigating the “traffic jams” created between the processor and memory in conventional computers.

This paradigm shift in computer architecture has groundbreaking applications in many fields, including artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, finance, information systems and more. Unsurprisingly, many research groups in academia and industry are working on this issue: looking into memory architecture, researching the production of innovative memory units in chip factories, and studying the basic computational operations that would take place in a computer designed with an in-memory-computing approach.

However, one crucial aspect of this approach has been almost entirely unexplored until now: software. For decades, computer programs have been written for “classic” computers, the fundamental structure of which has barely changed since the very first computers in the 1940s. These programs are collections of read and write operations taking place in the computer’s memory, and computational operations performed by the processor. The units of information stored in the memory have addresses that enable software to locate and transfer them to the CPU for processing.

“With some computations now handled by the memory, we need new software,” explains Prof. Kvatinsky. “This new software has to be based on new instructions that support in-memory computations. This new computation method is so different from the conventional one that it renders some of the existing building blocks of computer science unusable. Therefore, we need to write new code, which requires a lot of time and effort from software developers.”

 

A new article by Prof. Kvatinsky’s research group, led by Ph.D. student Orian Leitersdorf in collaboration with researcher Ronny Ronen, presents a solution to this problem. Their new platform uses a set of commands that bridges the gap between in-memory computing solutions and popular programming languages like Python. To build this new platform, the researchers developed a theory for the programming interfaces of in-memory computing architecture and created software development libraries that convert Python commands into machine commands executed directly in the computer’s memory.

They call this new concept PyPIM — a combination of the abbreviation for Python and the acronym for Processing-in-Memory. With this new platform, software developers will be able to write software for PIM computers with ease.

 

The researchers have also created a simulation tool for developing hardware and measuring performance, allowing developers to estimate the improvement in code runtime relative to a regular computer. In their paper, the researchers demonstrate various mathematical and algorithmic computations performed using the new platform, with short and simple code, resulting in significant performance improvements.

The new research was presented at the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture, one of the most important conferences in the field of computer architecture, which took place this week in Austin, Texas.

Orian Leitersdorf, 21, is soon to be the Technion’s youngest-ever Ph.D. graduate and is a graduate of the Technion Excellence Program.  Ronny Ronen is a senior researcher in the faculty, Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky is a faculty member and head of the Architectures and Circuits Research Center (ACRC).

 

Click here for the full paper.