Pulsating catalytic combustion of gaseous fuels

Dissertation made openly available per email from author, 9/12/2016.Ph.D.Ben T. Zin

Volunteers of National Youth Service in Israel: A Study on Motivation for Service, Social Attitudes, and Volunteers\u27 Satisfaction

Volunteers of National Youth Service in Israel: A Study on Motivation for Service, Social Attitudes, and Volunteers\u27 Satisfactio

Leaders and Non-leaders: A Comparative Study of Some Major Developmental Aspects

The research presented here is based on the assumption that there are unique features in the development of leaders in social and organizational settings. Fifty Israeli soldiers who were perceived as leaders by their commanders and peers were compared with 30 soldiers who received low scores on leadership evaluations. The participants were selected out of a group of 286 soldiers on a combat training course. Differences were found between those perceived as leaders and those who scored low on leadership evaluations, in developmental aspects such as relations in the family, expectations transmitted to them by the family, exposure to models of leadership, experiences of leadership roles in social frameworks, and openness to experiences

Adjusting risk-taking to the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds

International audienceLife-history theory predicts that current behaviour affects future reproduction, implying that animals should optimise their escape strategies to reflect fitness costs and benefits of premature escape. Both costs and benefits of escape may change temporally with important consequences for the evolution of escape strategies. Moreover, escape strategies of species may differ according to their positions on slow-fast pace of life gradients. We studied risk-taking in long-distance migratory animals, waders (Charadriiformes), during the annual cycle, i.e., breeding in Europe, stopover in the Middle East and wintering in tropical Africa. Phylogenetically informed comparative analyses revealed that risk-taking (measured as flight initiation distance, FID) changed significantly over the year, being lowest during breeding and peaking at stopover sites. Similarly, relationships between risk-taking and life-history traits changed among stages of the annual cycle. While risk-taking significantly decreased with increasing body mass during breeding, risk-taking-body mass relationship became marginally significant in winter and disappeared during migration. The positive trend of risk-taking along slow-fast pace of life gradient measured as adult survival was only found during breeding. The season-dependent relationships between risk-taking and life history traits suggest that migrating animals respond to fluctuating environments by adopting behavioural plasticity

Multimodal stimulation screens reveal unique and shared genes limiting T cell fitness

Genes limiting T cell antitumor activity may serve as therapeutic targets. It has not been systematically studied whether there are regulators that uniquely or broadly contribute to T cell fitness. We perform genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screens in primary CD8 T cells to uncover genes negatively impacting fitness upon three modes of stimulation: (1) intense, triggering activation-induced cell death (AICD); (2) acute, triggering expansion; (3) chronic, causing dysfunction. Besides established regulators, we uncover genes controlling T cell fitness either specifically or commonly upon differential stimulation. Dap5 ablation, ranking highly in all three screens, increases translation while enhancing tumor killing. Loss of Icam1-mediated homotypic T cell clustering amplifies cell expansion and effector functions after both acute and intense stimulation. Lastly, Ctbp1 inactivation induces functional T cell persistence exclusively upon chronic stimulation. Our results functionally annotate fitness regulators based on their unique or shared contribution to traits limiting T cell antitumor activity

Pulsating catalytic combustion of gaseous fuels

Issued as First quarterly report, Semi annual report, and Final report, Project no. E-16-618Final report has title: Pulsating catalytic combustion of gaseous fuelsFinal report has co-author: Reuven Gal-E

Radiocarbon dating of human burials from Raqefet Cave and contemporaneous Natufian traditions at Mount Carmel

International audienceThe Natufian culture (c. 15–11.5 ka cal BP) marks a pivotal step in the transition from hunting and gathering to sedentism and farming in the Near East. Although conventionally divided into Early and Late phases, this internal chronology lacks support from reliable absolute dates. This is now addressed by new AMS dating from two neighbouring Natufian sites at Mount Carmel in Israel: Raqefet Cave, conventionally assigned to the Late phase of the Natufian; and el- Wad Terrace, spanning the entire Natufian sequence. Results indicate that these two sites were in fact contemporaneous at some point, but with distinct lunate assemblages. Distinguishing between Natufian phases is, therefore, more complex than previously thought; the social implications of diverse but co-existing cultural manifestations must be considered in any future reconstruction of the Natufian

Adjusting risk taking to the annual cycle of long-distance migratory birds

© The Author(s) 2018.Life-history theory predicts that current behaviour affects future reproduction, implying that animals should optimise their escape strategies to reflect fitness costs and benefits of premature escape. Both costs and benefits of escape may change temporally with important consequences for the evolution of escape strategies. Moreover, escape strategies of species may differ according to their positions on slow–fast pace of life gradients. We studied risk-taking in long-distance migratory animals, waders (Charadriiformes), during the annual cycle, i.e., breeding in Europe, stopover in the Middle East and wintering in tropical Africa. Phylogenetically informed comparative analyses revealed that risk-taking (measured as flight initiation distance, FID) changed significantly over the year, being lowest during breeding and peaking at stopover sites. Similarly, relationships between risk-taking and life-history traits changed among stages of the annual cycle. While risk-taking significantly decreased with increasing body mass during breeding, risk-taking–body mass relationship became marginally significant in winter and disappeared during migration. The positive trend of risk-taking along slow–fast pace of life gradient measured as adult survival was only found during breeding. The season-dependent relationships between risk-taking and life history traits suggest that migrating animals respond to fluctuating environments by adopting behavioural plasticity.Te study was fnancially supported by project OPV ITMS26110230119 and VEGA 1/0977/16. TA and PM were supported by Czech Science Foundation project (14–36098G). This paper is a contribution by MD to the thematic network REMEDINAL3-CM (S2013/ MAE-2719).Peer Reviewe