The Effects Of Smoking On Pregnant Women

Smoking during pregnancy is accepted as the most significant avoidable risk factor for an unsuccessful pregnancy result. Smoking is linked with fetal growth restriction, and increasing evidence also suggests that smoking can cause stillbirth, preterm birth, placental abruption, and possibly sudden infant death syndrome. Smoking during pregnancy is also associated with enhanced risks of spontaneous abortions, ectopic pregnancies, and placenta previa, and it might increase risks of behavioral disorders in childhood. Studies have shown with randomized controlled trials, that smoking intervention during pregnancy has had limited success. Smoking during pregnancy continues to be an important risk factor for maternal and fetal outcomes during pregnancy

A question of Mesorah?

In the upcoming Krias Hatorah in Parshat Shoftim and Parshat Ki Savo there are a number of instances where the meaning of a phrase changes completely based on the pronunciation of a single word – םד – with either a Komatz or Patah. Until recently, most Chumashim and Tikunim which generally followed the famous Yaakov Ben Hayyim 1525 edition of Mikraot Gedolot published in Venice that printed a seemingly inconsistent pattern in the pronunciation of the different occurrences of this word

Metaphor in Sign Languages

Metaphor abounds in both sign and spoken languages. However, in sign languages, languages in the visual-manual modality, metaphors work a bit differently than they do in spoken languages. In this paper we explore some of the ways in which metaphors in sign languages differ from metaphors in spoken languages. We address three differences: (a) Some metaphors are very common in spoken languages yet are infelicitous in sign languages; (b) Body-part terms are possible in very specific types of metaphors in sign languages, but are not so restricted in spoken languages; (c) Similes in some sign languages are dispreferred in predicative positions in which metaphors are fine, in contrast to spoken languages where both can appear in these environments. We argue that these differences can be explained by two seemingly unrelated principles: the Double Mapping Constraint (Meir, 2010), which accounts for the interaction between metaphor and iconicity in languages, and Croft’s (2003) constraint regarding the autonomy and dependency of elements in metaphorical constructions. We further argue that the study of metaphor in the signed modality offers novel insights concerning the nature of metaphor in general, and the role of figurative speech in language

The effect of Bortezomib and Rapamycin on Telomerase Activity in Mantle Cell Lymphoma

AbstractMantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a hematological malignancy with unfavorable prognosis. Novel therapeutic approaches for treating the disease are aimed at the mechanisms regulating growth signals, cellular proliferation, and survival pathways of the malignant clones. Bortezomib (Brt), a proteasome inhibitor with pleiotropic activities was shown to be active in MCL and is currently implemented in therapeutic combinations for this disease. Telomerase activity is essential for survival of malignant cells and as such is considered a valid therapeutic target. This study evaluated the effects of bortezomib on telomerase activity and its regulation in MCL cells in vitro and ex vivo.Our study shows that bortezomib exerts a cytotoxic effect in a dose dependent manner in two MCL cell lines, with differential sensitivity. While the IC50 for HBL-2 cells ranged between 2.5 ng/ml to 1.5 ng/ml during 24-72 h respectively, the IC50 for the NCEB cells was twice. Bortezomib differentially inhibited telomerase activity (TA): in HBL-2 cells there was a decline of 20%-55% during 24-72 h respectively. However in NCEB cells the decline was much smaller, and did not exceed 25%. Inhibition of telomerase activity is shown to be operated by two separate mechanisms: reduction of the hTERT mRNA expression (controlled by the binding of transcription factors) and reduction in phosphorylation of the catalytic subunit of hTERT by its kinases, AKT and PKCα.A decrease in telomerase activity was demonstrated also in mononuclear cells, isolated from three MCL patients following incubation of the cells in the presence of bortezomib for 24-72 h. In one patient the decrease in TA ranged between 17%-37% respectively, in the second patient between 63%-76% and in the third patient between 70-100% for 24-72 h respectively.The current study indicates that a combination of bortezomib and rapamycin, (an m-Tor pathway inhibitor used in MCL treatment) induced synergistic inhibition of telomerase activity. In HBL-2 cells, the combined treatment of bortezomib and rapamycin decreased TA by 80% compared to the expected value (40%) and for NCEB cells a similar trend was observed. In contrast, there was neither additive nor synergistic effect of this combination on cell proliferation.In the light of the crucial role of telomerase in cancer cells, it was important to characterize the possible relations between telomerase and bortezomib and to distinguish the biochemical mechanisms of its regulation and its interactions with other signal transduction inhibitors such as rapamycin. The results of this work encourage the in vivo examination of the therapeutic potential of the combination of bortezomib and rapamycin in Mantle Cell Lymphoma patients

Coherent, super resolved radar beamforming using self-supervised learning

High resolution automotive radar sensors are required in order to meet the high bar of autonomous vehicles needs and regulations. However, current radar systems are limited in their angular resolution causing a technological gap. An industry and academic trend to improve angular resolution by increasing the number of physical channels, also increases system complexity, requires sensitive calibration processes, lowers robustness to hardware malfunctions and drives higher costs. We offer an alternative approach, named Radar signal Reconstruction using Self Supervision (R2-S2), which significantly improves the angular resolution of a given radar array without increasing the number of physical channels. R2-S2 is a family of algorithms which use a Deep Neural Network (DNN) with complex range-Doppler radar data as input and trained in a self-supervised method using a loss function which operates in multiple data representation spaces. Improvement of 4x in angular resolution was demonstrated using a real-world dataset collected in urban and highway environments during clear and rainy weather conditions.Comment: 28 pages 10 figure

Metal-less Optical Left Handed Material by Low-dimensional Quantum Structure Anisotropy

We propose a novel concept of left-handed metamaterial assembly by semiconductor based low-dimensional quantum structures. We theoretically demonstrate the left-handed material, combined from low-dimensional semiconductor quantum wells or quantum dots. One of the most important advantages of the proposed scheme is the possible controllability of material regime and the ability to invert the material losses to gain by using active, pumped quantum structure