Bar-Ilan University

About: Bar-Ilan University is a education organization based out in Ramat Gan, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 12835 authors who have published 34964 publications receiving 995648 citations. The organization is also known as: Bar Ilan University & BIU.

The anxiety-buffering function of close relationships: evidence that relationship commitment acts as a terror management mechanism.

Abstract: Three studies examined the terror management function of romantic commitment. In Study 1 (N = 94), making mortality salient led to higher reports of romantic commitment on the Dimensions of Commitment Inventory (J. M. Adams & W. H. Jones, 1997) than control conditions. In Study 2 (N = 60), the contextual salience of thoughts about romantic commitment reduced the effects of mortality salience on judgments of social transgressions. In Study 3 (N = 100), the induction of thoughts about problems in romantic relationships led to higher accessibility of death-related thoughts than did the induction of thoughts about either academic problems or a neutral theme. The findings expand terror management theory, emphasizing the anxiety-buffering function of close relationships.

The nature of the mother's tie to her infant: maternal bonding under conditions of proximity, separation, and potential loss.

Abstract: Attachment has generally been examined from the infant's perspective. We focused on mothers' post-partum thoughts and behaviors. Guided by an ethological approach, maternal bonding was examined under conditions of proximity, separation, and potential loss. Ninety-one mothers were interviewed: mothers of full-term infants who maintained continuous proximity to the infant, mothers of healthy premature infants who were separated from the infant, and mothers of very low birthweight infants who experienced potential loss and prolonged separation. Mothers of term infants reported medium-to-high levels of preoccupations with thoughts of infant safety and well-being. Preoccupations increased with separation (Group 2) and significantly decreased with impending loss (Group 3). Attachment behaviors and representations were the highest among mothers of term infants and declined linearly with the duration of mother-infant separation. Maternal trait anxiety and depression were related respectively to higher levels of preoccupations and reduced attachment behaviors and representations, independent of the infant medical condition and mother-child separation. Discussion focused on the comparability of maternal and infant attachment in relation to the neurobiological system underlying bond formation.

Anatomical properties of the arcuate fasciculus predict phonological and reading skills in children

Abstract: For more than a century, neurologists have hypothesized that the arcuate fasciculus carries signals that are essential for language function; however, the relevance of the pathway for particular behaviors is highly controversial. The primary objective of this study was to use diffusion tensor imaging to examine the relationship between individual variation in the microstructural properties of arcuate fibers and behavioral measures of language and reading skills. A second objective was to use novel fiber-tracking methods to reassess estimates of arcuate lateralization. In a sample of 55 children, we found that measurements of diffusivity in the left arcuate correlate with phonological awareness skills and arcuate volume lateralization correlates with phonological memory and reading skills. Contrary to previous investigations that report the absence of the right arcuate in some subjects, we demonstrate that new techniques can identify the pathway in every individual. Our results provide empirical support for the role of the arcuate fasciculus in the development of reading skills.

Dissipation of contestable rents by small numbers of contenders

Abstract: The theory of rent seeking with its origins in the observations of Gordon Tullock (1967) - or to use Jagdish Bhagwati's (1982) proposed term, the theory of directly unproductive profit-seeking activities - is concerned with the potentially adverse effects on resource allocation of incentives to cap- ture and defend artificially-contrived rents and transfers. The scope for so- cial loss proposed by the theory derives from the relation between the value of a contestable prize and the value of the resources attracted into the con- test to determine the beneficiary of the prize. Underlying this social loss is a specification of how rational behavior by optimizing agents links the value of the prize sought to the resources expended. It has been traditional to assume competitive behavior in describing the activities of lobbying and influence seeking. Then, if some further condi- tions are satisfied, l the total value of the resources expended precisely equals the value of the prize sought, so dissipation is complete. 2 Conse- quently, the social cost associated with contestability of a rent can be in- ferred from the value of the rent itself, and the detailed and hard-to-come- by information on individual outlays made in the course of the contest be- comes unnecessary. By basing their analyses on competitive dissipation, contributors to the rent seeking literature (see the review by Robert Tollison, 1982) have been able to presume that the observed value of a contested rent is an exact measure of the associated social cost of monopoly power or regu- lation. Similarly, in the trade-theoretic literature where the rights contested are to quota premia or revenues from trade taxes (Krueger, 1974; Bhagwati

Crumpled globule model of the three-dimensional structure of DNA

Abstract: We argue that in order to maintain the biological function of DNA confined inside the cell nucleus, its spatial structure has to be unknotted, of the so-called crumpled globule type. The fixation of a particular realization of this non-equilibrium structure by attractive interactions between specific units imposes a connection between the spatial structure of DNA and the statistical distribution of these units along the chain contour. This suggests that both primary sequence and spatial structure of native DNA were formed simultaneously by a self-similar evolution process. The predictions of our model are compared with recent observations of long-range correlations in intron-containing genes and non-transcribed regulatory elements and further experimental tests are proposed.