Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

About: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a education organization based out in Haifa, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Upper and lower bounds. The organization has 31714 authors who have published 79377 publications receiving 2603976 citations. The organization is also known as: Technion Israel Institute of Technology & Ṭekhniyon, Makhon ṭekhnologi le-Yiśraʼel.

Photonic Floquet topological insulators

Abstract: Topological insulators are a new phase of matter, with the striking property that conduction of electrons occurs only on their surfaces. In two dimensions, electrons on the surface of a topological insulator are not scattered despite defects and disorder, providing robustness akin to that of superconductors. Topological insulators are predicted to have wide-ranging applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing and spintronics. Substantial effort has been directed towards realizing topological insulators for electromagnetic waves. One-dimensional systems with topological edge states have been demonstrated, but these states are zero-dimensional and therefore exhibit no transport properties. Topological protection of microwaves has been observed using a mechanism similar to the quantum Hall effect, by placing a gyromagnetic photonic crystal in an external magnetic field. But because magnetic effects are very weak at optical frequencies, realizing photonic topological insulators with scatter-free edge states requires a fundamentally different mechanism-one that is free of magnetic fields. A number of proposals for photonic topological transport have been put forward recently. One suggested temporal modulation of a photonic crystal, thus breaking time-reversal symmetry and inducing one-way edge states. This is in the spirit of the proposed Floquet topological insulators, in which temporal variations in solid-state systems induce topological edge states. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a photonic topological insulator free of external fields and with scatter-free edge transport-a photonic lattice exhibiting topologically protected transport of visible light on the lattice edges. Our system is composed of an array of evanescently coupled helical waveguides arranged in a graphene-like honeycomb lattice. Paraxial diffraction of light is described by a Schrodinger equation where the propagation coordinate (z) acts as 'time'. Thus the helicity of the waveguides breaks z-reversal symmetry as proposed for Floquet topological insulators. This structure results in one-way edge states that are topologically protected from scattering.

Genome-wide meta-analysis increases to 71 the number of confirmed Crohn's disease susceptibility loci

Abstract: We undertook a meta-analysis of six Crohn's disease genome-wide association studies (GWAS) comprising 6,333 affected individuals (cases) and 15,056 controls and followed up the top association signals in 15,694 cases, 14,026 controls and 414 parent-offspring trios. We identified 30 new susceptibility loci meeting genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10⁻⁸). A series of in silico analyses highlighted particular genes within these loci and, together with manual curation, implicated functionally interesting candidate genes including SMAD3, ERAP2, IL10, IL2RA, TYK2, FUT2, DNMT3A, DENND1B, BACH2 and TAGAP. Combined with previously confirmed loci, these results identify 71 distinct loci with genome-wide significant evidence for association with Crohn's disease.

On the Complexity of Finite Sequences

Abstract: A new approach to the problem of evaluating the complexity ("randomness") of finite sequences is presented. The proposed complexity measure is related to the number of steps in a self-delimiting production process by which a given sequence is presumed to be generated. It is further related to the number of distinct substrings and the rate of their occurrence along the sequence. The derived properties of the proposed measure are discussed and motivated in conjunction with other well-established complexity criteria.

Safety climate in industrial organizations: theoretical and applied implications.

Abstract: A 40-item measure of organizational climate for safety was constructed and validated in a stratified sample of 20 industrial organizations in Israel. This climate reflects employees' perceptions about the relative importance of safe conduct in their occupational behavior. It can vary from highly positive to a neutral level, and its average level reflects the safety climate in a given company. It was shown that there is an agreement among employees' perceptions regarding safety climate in their company and that the level of this climate is correlated with safety program effectiveness as judged by safety inspectors. The two dimensions of highest importance in determining the level of this climate were workers' perceptions of management attitudes about safety and their perceptions regarding the relevance of safety in general production processes. It is proposed that organizational climate, when operationalized and validated as demonstrated in this article, can serve as a useful tool in understanding occupational behavior.