With fire, woodland thrives.
With water, rainforest spreads.
Two systems, or one?

Laura Warman

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Rainforest and fire-prone (pyrophytic) vegetation in the Wet Tropics of Far North Queensland are usually approached as two independent biological systems that happen to occur close together. My project examines whether they can be considered alternative stable states within single large complex system.

 

Chiral Induction
strokes my mind with Organic
(chemist) Seduction

השראה כיראלית
מלטפת ברוך את
תת ההכרה

Anat Milo

Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

My research is focused on developing solid-state organic-inorganic hybrid materials for the induction of chirality upon various organic transformations.

Medieval cities –
Not as dirty as we think.
Muck and filth cleaned up.

Dolly Jørgensen

University of Virginia

In my PhD dissertation, I examined sanitation practices in English and Scandinavian urban areas from 1350 to 1600. Using both written and archeological evidence, I defined the roles of city corporations and individuals in street maintenance, waste management, and river cleansing, and found working social and technological systems that kept the urban space relatively free from waste.

reveal the tacit
logic of your strategy
to make it better

Roberto Perez-Franco

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I am developing a methodology to help practitioners improve the supply chain strategy of their firms. The methodology calls for making explicit the tacit logic of their functional strategies, as a prerequisite for evaluating and improving them.

 

Silent falling snow.
A snowflake melts in my hand.
No more frozen tears.

John T. Bridge

My dissertation examines the relationship between the physical act of crying and the cathartic release of emotional trauma in the therapeutic setting. This reveals in more detail the intimate relationship between the mind and the body.

Planning is crucial
we can’t predict the future
embrace the unknown

Yishai Boasson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thesis title: “An Evaluation of Scenario Planning for Supply Chain Design”

נקודות קטנות
הן זוהרות רק עד גבול
תופסות חיידקים

little little spots
seen only to a limit
catch bacterium

Inbal Tsarfati

Ben Gurion University of the Negev

I work in the filed of microarray miniaturization. A microarray is a device composed of selective bio-molecules (like antibodies) spots. When something binds to this molecule an optical signal appears.

I once was a girl
said the gentleman sadly
but now no longer

Catherine Robson

University of California, Davis

My dissertation (1995) considered middle-class male fantasies of original femininity in the cultural productions of Victorian Britain.

Assault: a minor crime?
Yes. Our “right to violence.”
Impunity reigns.

Joshua Stein

University of California, Los Angeles

Dissertation Title: “The Right to Violence: Assault Prosecution in New York, 1760-1840″ (2009).
My dissertation traces a fundamental transformation in the criminal prosecution of assault and battery. Instead of punishing assault as a bothersome breach of public peace, authorities began to prosecute it as a crime in its own right. As criminal sentences grew more severe (and their enforcement costlier), prosecution became much more selective. Convictions relative to the population plummeted, leaving most perpetrators of violence unpunished. Choosing which cases merited prosecution, the state followed attitudes on privacy and authority, consolidating a zone of allowable aggression I call “the right to violence.”

Bad people
should not be given armies
for they are bad

Eliav Lieblich

Columbia University Law School

My JSD dissertation involves analyzing the capacity of parties to an internal armed conflict to invite external intervention. My claim is that international law provides us tools to substantively distinguish between different parties according to their human rights records and other characteristics.

New product design
is not managed efficiently
use a DSM-based plan

Arie Karniel

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: “Managing the Dynamics of Product Development Process for New Product development”
My PhD dissertation “Managing DPDP for NPD” focuses on developing a framework for the management of NPD processes (iterative processes with process schemes that changes according to the evolving product knowledge). The framework incorporates the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) method and Petri nets. The DSM method was used for modeling the product knowledge, and then using reordering algorithms for planning the design processes. Petri nets formalization concepts were used for formally proving process structure properties that result from DSM-based plans, and allow implementation of the on-going process changes during the design process at run-time.

There is online law.
Where does it come from you ask?
Legal consciousness!

Ayelet Oz

Harvard Law School

My SJD research is focused on the way abstract understandings of legal concepts by laymen influence the creation of legal orders within online communities.

 

Trees misplaced,
Far goes the seed,
how high the wind?

Paul Caplat

University of Queensland, Australia

I study the importance of long distance seed dispersal in the spread of invasive conifers.

Electricity
Nature creates it cleanly
From light and proteins

Benjamin Chu

University of California, Los Angeles

Dissertation Title: “Bio-solar energy generation and harvesting from biomolcule/copolymer hybrid systems”
My dissertation work demonstrated light-induced current generation in a solution of nano-scale block-copolymer vesicles by reconstituting two energy-transducing proteins, bacteriorhodopsin and cytochrome C oxidase, into a biomimetic copolymer and coupling their functionality to produce a biological-based photovoltaic system (a bio-solar cell, if you will).

Smaug impede nanos
SAM domain binds R.N.A.
Structure now solved

Tzvi Aviv

University of Toronto

Thesis title: “RNA recognition by SAM domains” (2006).
My thesis includes the NMR and crystal structures of a SAM (Sterile Alpha Motif) domain in its free form and in complex with an RNA stem-loop. These structures depict the molecular mechanism of RNA recognition by the SAM domain of Smaug, a post-transcriptional regulator protein that plays a key role in fruit fly development.

Photosynthesis.
Adaptation to high light,
by redox signals.

Gal Wittenberg

Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Plants use light energy in the process of photosynthesis. However, too much light might cause damage to the plant cells. In my work I try to uncover how plants use the relay of electrons amongst proteins, known as redox reactions, to adjust to the changing light intensities throughout the day.

These lovers’ laughter
echoes through the centuries.
Can we laugh with them?

 

Hebrew version for the Haiku:
מעבר לזמן
האם יהדהד צחוקם
של נאהבים?

 

French version:
A travers les siècles
Les amoureux riront-ils
Toujours avec nous?

Hilla Karas

Tel Aviv University

My research examines the question of translating literary texts from Old French into modern French in the twentieth century, based on the corpus of translations to “Aucassin and Nicolette”. I describe the interactions between the categories of Self and Other in this ambiguous situation.

Artists have power
They can change the way we think
Politics take heed

Talya Leodari

Newcastle University

Dissertation Title: Between Two Worlds: performance, politics, and the role of art in social change”
My research explores the role that the arts in general, and theatre in particular, play in effecting societal change – and the fact that traditional (academic) politics has ignored this in favor of theories that focus solely on the role of the state. I argue that art, as an expression of the voices of the people, has much of value to bring to the political process.

Opponent unknown.
Nothing is clear, what will he do?
I would satisfice.

Lior Davidovitch

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Title: “Strategic interactions under severe uncertainty” (2008)
My thesis in the discipline of Decision Theory explores the application of info-gap decision theory to cases where the uncertainty is not about the properties of the world, but rather concerns the reaction of some (not necessarily adverse) agent. Info-gap decision theory claims that one should not aim for the best performance possible (optimizing), but to be able to withstand great error in estimation and still yield a reasonable result (satisficing).

Marines rule was by
professionalism reshaped
to Guardia National

Ilan Diner

Tel Aviv University

My M.A. is about the U.S. Marine Corps attempts to establish a professional identity in the early 20th century. I argue that it drove the Marines to regulate their rule of Central American countries. This process culminated in the construction of a U.S. imperial system, which was based on development of local National Guard.