Producing soldier boy: sperm donation discourse and militarism in Israeli media culture

In this paper I examine the ways in which public discourse about the sperm donation industry in Israel, as appearing in mass media and advertising culture, bridges militarist, pro-natalist, and neoliberal ideologies. In constructing the sperm produced by combat soldiers as superior and in emphasizing the potential dangers of inferior sperm or the lack of enough sperm to meet demand, mainstream media and sperm banks adopt, utilize, and exploit a culture of fear that is linked to Israel’s perceived existential threat in order to serve their own commercial goals. At the same time, the tensions between national-collective and individual perceptions of gender and body occasionally rise to the surface, with media simultaneously embracing and questioning dominant cultural narratives concerning masculinity and militarism. Implications of the relations between media discourses of blood, sacrifice, and death, and those of sperm, reproduction, and cultural regeneration are discussed.     

Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Communities, A Comparative Analysis

In this article we combine the perspectives of sociology and computer science to compare face-to-face (f2f) and computer-mediated communications (CMC) from the viewpoint of their respective abilities to form and sustain communities. We also identify a third type of community-a hybrid-that is based on a combination of faceto-face (f2f) and CMC, or off- and online communications. The article thus in effect addresses an oft-asked question: Can virtual communities be "real", have the same basic qualities as f2f communities? The article is exploratory, because much of the necessary evidence has not yet been generated, and the relevant technologies are rapidly changing.     

Towards a Semantic Documentation of Heritage Objects through Visual and Iconographical Representations

The recording of cultural heritage objects' data and information is constructed throughout the registration of different media items, which function as an anchor of the original object in digital space. The article investigates the application of a theoretical framework for the organization of information related to the visual works, on the base of the identity of their single constituent elements. The framework is, then, used for the formalization of an ontology which is constructed as an extension of CIDOC-CRM. The result is tested with information gathered over the Asinou Church in Cyprus, expressed throughout an ontology for recording propositions over the iconographical attributes and the characteristic of images.     

An off-the-shelf integrated microfluidic device comprising self-assembled monolayers for protein array experiments

Microfluidic-based protein arrays are promising tools for life sciences, with increased sensitivity and specificity. One of the drawbacks of this technology is the need to create fresh surface chemistry for protein immobilization at the beginning of each experiment. In this work, we attempted to include the process of surface functionalization as part of the fabrication of the device, which would substitute the time consuming step of surface functionalization at the beginning of each protein array experiment. To this end, we employed a novel surface modification using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) to immobilize biomolecules within the channels of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) integrated microfluidic device. As a model, we present a general method for depositing siloxane-anchored SAMs, with 1-undecyl-thioacetate-trichlorosilane (C₁₁TA) on the silica surfaces. The process involved developing PDMS-compatible conditions for both SAM deposition and functional group activation. We successfully demonstrated the ability to produce, within an integrated microfluidic channel, a C₁₁TA monolayer with a covalently conjugated antibody. The antibody could then bind its antigen with a high signal to background ratio. We further demonstrated that the antibody was still active after storage of the device for a week. Integration of the surface chemistry into the device as part of its fabrication process has potential to significantly simplify and shorten many experimental procedures involving microfluidic–based protein arrays. In turn, this will allow for broader dissemination of this important technology.     

A study of the integration of passage-, document-, and cluster-based information for re-ranking search results

Cluster-based and passage-based document retrieval paradigms were shown to be effective. While the former are based on utilizing query-related corpus context manifested in clusters of similar documents, the latter address the fact that a document can be relevant even if only a very small part of it contains query-pertaining information. Hence, cluster-based approaches could be viewed as based on “expanding” the document representation, while passage-based approaches can be thought of as utilizing a “contracted” document representation. We present a study of the relative benefits of using each of these two approaches, and of the potential merits of their integration. To that end, we devise two methods that integrate whole-document-based, cluster-based and passage-based information. The methods are applied for the re-ranking task, that is, re-ordering documents in an initially retrieved list so as to improve precision at the very top ranks. Extensive empirical evaluation attests to the potential merits of integrating these information types. Specifically, the resultant performance substantially transcends that of the initial ranking; and, is often better than that of a state-of-the-art pseudo-feedback-based query expansion approach.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF HIGHLY ABLE STUDENTS ACROSS SCIENTIFIC FIELDS

In this paper psychometric data are presented which show that the distribution of highly able Israeli students across the various fields in the sciences is uneven. Most highly able students are attracted to the natural sciences, engineering and computer sciences. Only few are attracted to the social sciences, humanities, arts and education. Assuming that future scientific leaders will emerge from this elite group, the implications that the uneven distribution may have for predicted progress in the sciences are discussed.