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

Arie Karniel

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.

Online learners logged.
Will we understand traces?
Use data mining!

Arnon Hershkovit

Tel Aviv University, Israel.

My PhD research is focused on the various applications (and limitations) of using data mining for enriching the knowledge about online learners.

Ecology change
When people start to build homes
Freedom is no more

Roy Liran

Tel Aviv University

My dissertation is about the changing dwelling ecologies in the transition from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic productionists in the Northern Jordan Valley.

Mice are not like man
That is what I have proven
And a new gene too.

Yishay Shoval

Weizmann Institute, Israel

I have studied the evolution of a family of cell death promoting kinases, and discovered that one of them diverged considerably in the murines (mice and rats), to become a very different protein. I have also found a new member of this family, previously unknown, which results from alternative splicing.

Compute-nodes talk fast
Problem: switches get too hot
Don’t they see the light?

Assaf Shacham

Columbia University

My dissertation looks into implementing interconnection networks inside supercomputers using optical switching technologies. This solution potentially has much higher bandwidth and much lower power consumption, but many problems need to be solved beforehand. I’m suggesting some solutions to these problems.

Multiplication chart
Grounds embodied notion for
Ratio, proportion

Dor Abrahamson

University of California, Berkeley

Dissertation Title: “Keeping Meaning in Proportion: The Multiplication Table as a Case of Pedagogical Bridging Tools”
My dissertation describes a design-based research study in mathematics education, in which a 5th-grade classroom learned the concepts of ratio and proportion by using the multiplication table to narrate dramatized situations involving proportional growth.  It can be downloaded here.

i tell not my wage
but still want to know what’s yours
secrets unite us

Moshik Lavie

Tel-Aviv University

Dissertation Title: “Secrets & Lies: Topics in Wage Secrecy and Conspicuous Consumption”

Maxwell’s Demon lives
for more than a hundred years.
It cannot be killed.

Orly Shenker

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment, devised by James Clerk Maxwell in 1867 as a counter example for the Second Law of thermodynamics. Since then, people have tried to show that the law is valid and a Demon cannot exist. My thesis examines these attempts and shows that they are flawed.

Oh resonator
Ring tuned on chip by EWOD
Water filtered light

Romi Shamai

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

EWOD (pronounced E-WOD, like e-book) – electrowetting on dielectrics, an electrical method for translating and deforming the shape of droplets, is used to tune an on chip micro ring resonator (change the attenuated wavelength of this optical filter) through controlling its coverage by a droplet of water. Read more about my master’s thesis: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-17-2-1116

Roma monument
new Holocaust memories,
path to inclusion?

Nadine Blumer

University of Toronto

I am writing about Holocaust memory politics of the Sinti and Roma population in Germany. My focus is on the contested development of the Berlin Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime (opening in Spring 2010).

Who ate the methane?
and who is eating the oil?
deep into the mud…

Beth Orcutt

University of Georgia

I studied the fascinating microbes living in marine sediments that metabolize methane and other hydrocarbons.