Tag: Exact Sciences

TAU Students Team Wins 1st Place in Int’l Mathematics Competition

Written by AUFTAU on 12 September 2022. Posted in Newsroom.

An impressive achievement for Tel Aviv University students, who won first prize in a renowned mathematics competition, the International Mathematics Competition (IMC). The competition took place in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, with the participation of 600 students from leading universities around the world. At the end of the one-week long competition, the students from Tel Aviv University got the highest group score (292.5 points), as well as the highest individual score.

The TAU delegation consisted of 8 students from the School of Mathematical Sciences: Shvo Regavim, Noam Tashma, Lior Hadassi, Shahar Friedman, Lior Schain, Dror Fried, Tommy Winetraub and Uri Kreitner. They were accompanied by team leaders Dr. Dan Carmon and Dor Metzer from the School.

Other competition participants came from leading universities, such as: University of Cambridge (England), École Polytechnique (France), Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Germany), University of Amsterdam (Holland), University College London (England), Loránd Eötvös University (Hungary), Barcelona University (Spain).

“The competition required a combination of skills: mathematical knowledge at a very high level, along with creativity and the ability to deal with pressure.”

Academic Powerhouse in World of Mathematics

The Head of TAU’s School of Mathematical Sciences, Prof. Yaron Ostrover, and the program coordinator, Prof. Yehuda Shalom, congratulated the students, and said: “We are very proud of our students for winning first place in the IMC. Their efforts and commitment, as well as that of their team leader, Dr. Dan Carmon, are praiseworthy.”

“TAU’s School of Mathematical Sciences values the preparation of the future generation who will be at the forefront of Israel’s research, science and technology industries. The impressive achievement showcases an important aspect of Israel in general and Tel Aviv University in particular, as an academic powerhouse in the world of mathematics. We also congratulate other universities in Israel for their great achievement.”

Dr. Carmon, the team’s math coach and an engineer with StarkWare says: “We competed against some of the best math students in the world, and are very proud of our success. I’d like to congratulate all the Israeli participants for their excellent achievement. The competition required a combination of skills: mathematical knowledge at a very high level, along with creativity and the ability to deal with pressure. I am sure that the skills the students acquired in the competition will serve them in the future as well. In addition, I’d like to thank my colleagues at StarkWare, who helped us with the expenses involved.”

Mink the Mascot Works His Magic

Dror Fried, one of the team members, says: “The IMC competition is intended for university students, which means that it also includes integrals, linear algebra, and more. Our students tend to perform well in mathematical competitions, but I did not expect that we’d win the first place in the IMC. I was very happy at the closing ceremony when it was announced. I’m also very grateful to Mink, our group mascot, who helped make it happen.”

“Winning is exhilarating,” notes Lior Hadassi. “The atmosphere at the event is very friendly and the medals are just plastic and really not the center of the event, but it’s always fun to win.”

Paying respect to Mink

“We’re all graduates of the Youth Olympiad, with lots of experience in competitive mathematics. Competitions are always stressful, though. Even the hundredth time around. No matter how prepared you think you are, once the competition starts, your adrenaline flows.”

A Meeting of Cultures

“The IMC is a meeting of cultures,” explains Lior. “It was fun to meet teams from all over Europe, from Germany and France, and even from Singapore. I met some friends who I know from the Youth Olympics and who I didn’t think I’d get to see again.”

“This is the fifth international competition that I’m competing in, but the first four of them were all in a virtual format because of Covid-19,” says Dror. “So, it was a welcome opportunity to meet everyone. I spoke with quite a few students from around the world. Everyone had interesting things to say about their country, university, the competition itself, or just stories like how the Slovenians steal the Germans’ mascot every year. I’m in touch with some of the participants, and the WhatsApp group of the contestants is still active.”

“Competitions are always stressful, though.” adds Lior. “Even the hundredth time around. No matter how prepared you think you are, once the competition starts, your adrenaline flows. The most stressful part is when you’re unable to solve a question and the clock is ticking. On the first day of the competition, I was stuck on a question during three full hours. Only in the last half hour of the test did it occur to me how I should solve it.”

“Thank you to Dan Carmon and Dor Metzer, our team leaders, who did a great job organizing our participation and making sure that none of us got lost on the trip. A huge thank you to Lev Radzivilovksi, the head coach of the Israeli math team. Although this time he was not part of the delegation, he cultivated my mathematical abilities and those of many other participants. Without him, Tel Aviv University would not have made this achievement,” concludes Dror.

Dror Fried enjoys Bulgarian nature

Can Music Help Prevent Severe Cognitive Decline?

Written by AUFTAU on 1 September 2022. Posted in Newsroom.

Modern technology contributes to increased longevity and thus to the growth of the elderly population. It is therefore important to take steps to ensure their quality of life, including inventing tools for accessible and quick diagnosis of age-related conditions. While preventative tests are commonly accepted for a variety of physiological problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure or breast cancer, no method has yet been developed to enable routine, accessible monitoring of the brain for cognitive issues.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a method that employs musical tests and a portable instrument for measuring brain activity to detect cognitive decline in old age. The method entails measuring 15 minutes of electrical activity in the subject’s brain while he or she performs simple musical tasks and can be easily implemented by any staff member in any clinic, without requiring special training. The researchers believe the method could pave the way towards early detection of cognitive decline when treatment and prevention of severe decline are possible, improving the quality of life of millions around the world

Many Powers of Music

The study was led at Tel Aviv University by PhD student Neta Maimon from the School of Psychological Sciences and the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, and Lior Molcho from Neurosteer Ltd, headed by Prof. Nathan Intrator from the Blavatnik School of Computer Science and the Sagol School of Neuroscience. Other participants included: Adi Sasson, Sarit Rabinowitz, and Noa Regev-Plotnick from the Dorot-Netanya Geriatric Medical Center. The article was published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

As part of the study, the researchers developed a groundbreaking method combining a portable device for the measurement and innovative analysis of electroencephalography (EEG), developed by Neurosteer, and a short musical test of about 12-15 minutes, developed by Maimon.

“We have actually succeeded in illustrating that music is indeed an effective tool for measuring brain activity.”

Maimon, who specializes in musical cognition, explains that music has great influence on different centers in the brain. On the one hand, music is known to be a quick mood stimulant, particularly of positive emotion. On the other hand, in different situations, music can be cognitively challenging, activating the frontal parts of the brain, especially if we try to concentrate on different aspects of the music, and at the same time perform a particular task. According to Maimon, if we combine these two capabilities, we can create cognitive tests that are quite complex, yet also pleasant and easy to perform.

Neta Maimon specializes in musical cognition

Furthermore, music that is positive and reasonably rhythmic will enhance concentration and performance of the task. Thus, for example, the famous “Mozart effect,” whereby subjects perform better on intelligence tests after listening to Mozart’s music, has nothing to do with Mozart’s music, but rather the fact that music creates a positive mood and stimulates us to a state that is optimal for performing intelligence and creativity tests.

Accordingly, the researchers hypothesized that with musical tools, it would also be possible to challenge the subjects to an extent that would enable testing of the brain’s frontal activity as well as raising their spirits, thus enhancing their performance on the test while the overall experience is pleasant.

Enabling Early Detection of Cognitive Decline

The study included an experiment testing 50 elderly people hospitalized at the Dorot-Netanya Geriatric Medical Center. “Anyone hospitalized at Dorot, or any other geriatric rehabilitation institution, undergoes a standard test called ‘mini-mental,’ designed to evaluate their cognitive condition as a routine part of the intake process,” explains Maimon.

During the test, the subject is connected to the portable EEG device by means of an adhesive band with three electrodes attached to the forehead. The test includes a variety of tasks, including enumerating the days of the week or months of the year backwards. The subject performs a series of musical-cognitive tasks according to audible instructions given automatically through earphones. Short melodies are played by different instruments, and the subjects are instructed to perform various tasks on them at varying levels of difficulty. For example, pressing a button each time any melody is played or pressing it only when the violin plays. In addition, the test includes several minutes of musically guided meditation designed to bring the brain to a resting state, as this state is known to indicate cerebral functioning in various situations. Up to 30 points can be accrued, a high score indicating normal cognition.

“Our method enables the monitoring of cognitive capability and detection of cognitive decline already in the early stages, all by simple and accessible means.”

“The participants scored 18-30 on the mini-mental test, indicating various levels of cognitive functioning,” explains Maimon. “The EEG device registered the electrical activity in the brain during the activity, and the results were analyzed using machine learning technology. This allowed mathematical indices to be identified that were precisely correlated with the mini-mental test scores; in other words, we obtained new neuro-markers [brain markers] that may stand alone as indices of the subject’s cognitive status.”

Maimon adds: “We have actually succeeded in illustrating that music is indeed an effective tool for measuring brain activity. The brain activity and response times to tasks correlated to the subjects’ cerebral conditions (correlating to the mini-mental score assigned to them). More importantly, all those who underwent the experiment reported that, on the one hand, it challenged the brain, but on the other it was very pleasant to perform”.

The researchers conclude: “Our method enables the monitoring of cognitive capability and detection of cognitive decline already in the early stages, all by simple and accessible means, with a quick and easy test that can be conducted in any clinic. This method is of special importance today due to the increase in longevity and accelerated population growth, particularly among the elderly. Today, millions of people around the world already suffer or are liable to suffer soon from cognitive decline and its dire consequences, and their number will only increase in the coming decades. Our method could pave the way towards efficient cognitive monitoring of the general population, and thus detect cognitive decline in its early stages, when treatment and prevention of severe decline are possible. It is therefore expected to improve the quality of life of millions around the world.”

New Perspectives on Tackling Human Trafficking

Written by AUFTAU on 28 July 2022. Posted in Newsroom.

In light of the World Day against Trafficking in Persons on July 30, we caught up with Prof. Hila Shamir to discuss her trailblazing legal research aimed at combating human trafficking in Israel and around the globe.

According to the latest estimates, over 40 million people are victims of modern slavery in which individuals perform labor or services under highly exploitative conditions. Their vulnerability to exploitation is often the result of poverty, exclusion or migratory status.

While trafficking is generally thought of as the exploitation in the sex industry, Shamir is among scholars helping to expand the understanding of the phenomenon to include severe forms of labor market exploitation in other labor sectors. For example, this includes the exploitation of workers in industries such as domestic and care work, construction, agriculture, mining, and fishing who are forced to work in inhumane conditions. Such circumstances include working for long hours, in physically unsafe work environments with little to no pay, and with limitations on their liberties and freedom of movement.

Top-Down Approach

“While it is possible to effectively combat human trafficking, to do so requires a willingness to address structural elements, such as restrictive migration regimes and harmful labor market regulation,” says Shamir.

She heads the TraffLab research group at the Buchmann Faculty of Law. Her interdisciplinary team includes students and researchers as well as lawyers from TAU’s Workers’ Rights Clinic, where she serves as the academic advisor. The Clinic supports Shamir’s research through the cases it represents in court.

Shamir won a competitive grant from the EU’s European Research Council for TraffLab’s research. She was the first legal scholar in Israel to win the ERC Starting Grant for outstanding early-career researchers. The ERC also nominated her lab as a finalist for its 2022 Public Engagement with Research Award for its activity building bridges between research and policymaking.

Prof. Hila Shamir. (Photo: Hadas Parush/Haaretz)

New Legal Tools

Shamir’s research seeks to formulate new legal tools to fight human trafficking with labor-based strategies alongside traditional approaches focused on criminal law, border control, and human rights. These strategies target the underlying economic, social and legal structures of labor markets prone to severely exploitative practices.

With her work, Shamir aims to transform the way trafficking is researched and, as a result, the way anti-trafficking policy is devised.

While this is no simple feat, she remains optimistic: “There are examples around the world showing us that this can be done if we are willing to move beyond criminalization and expand anti-trafficking toolkit towards strengthening the bargaining power and improving the rights of the most vulnerable workers.”

She explains that migrant and non-citizen workers are among those most vulnerable to labor trafficking, often due to their legal or social status and institutionalized corruption among employers.

Impacting the National Debate

In a significant project, Shamir’s team devised a comprehensive policy plan that proposes alternative recommendations to Israel’s current national plan on trafficking. Shamir recently presented the strategy suggestion to various Israeli government stakeholders and Knesset committees, and held a public roundtable about the plan with the UN Rapporteur on trafficking. The project also led her team to submit several branch-off policy papers over the past year to Israeli policymakers overseeing foreign workers’ rights and related topics.

Going forward, Shamir is pushing full force ahead with her research as well as public and policy engagement on trafficking. This includes several recent and impending publications based on her research on Israel, modern slavery in global value chains, and bilateral labor agreements, which are among the types of structural frameworks that affect the recruitment practices and labor conditions that can lead to trafficking.

Impressive achievement for Tel Aviv University in the Bar Association Exam

Written by AUFTAU on 17 July 2022. Posted in Alumni News, Newsroom.

100% of the TAU alumni who took the Bar Association exams for the first time, passed successfully and Tel Aviv University also leads with the highest average grade.

Research based on a comprehensive study of 8,000 birds in Israel

Written by AUFTAU on 9 April 2022. Posted in Newsroom.

Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers say that climate change may be responsible for changes in the morphology of many birds in Israel over the past 70 years. The body mass of some species decreased while in others body length increased, in both cases increasing the ratio between surface area and volume. The researchers contend that these are strategies to facilitate heat loss to the environment.

“The birds evidently changed in response to the changing climate,” the researchers concluded. “However, this solution may not be fully adequate, especially as temperatures continue to rise.”

The study was led by Professor Shai Meiri and PhD student Shahar Dubiner of the School of Zoology, Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at TAU. The paper was published in the scientific journal Global Ecology and Biogeography.

Professor Meiri explains that according to “Bergmann’s rule,” an ecogeographical rule formulated in the 19th century, members of bird and mammal species living in a cold climate tend to be larger than members of the same species living in a warmer climate. This is because the ratio of surface area to volume is higher in smaller animals, permitting more heat loss (an advantage in warm regions), and lower in larger bodies, minimizing heat loss (a benefit in colder climates). Based on this rule, scientists have predicted that global warming will lead to a reduction in animal size, with a possible exception: birds living in the human environment (such as pigeons, house sparrows, and the hooded crow) may gain size due to increased food availability, a phenomenon already witnessed in mammals such as jackals and wolves.

Relying on the vast bird collection preserved by the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at TAU, the researchers looked for changes in bird morphology over the past 70 years in Israel. They examined approximately 8,000 adult specimens of 106 different species, including migratory birds that annually pass through Israel such as the common chiffchaff, white stork, and black buzzard; resident wild birds like the Eurasian jay, Eurasian eagle-owl, and rock partridge; and commensal birds that live near humans. They built a complex statistical model consisting of various parameters to assess morphological changes — in the birds’ body mass, body length and wing length — during the relevant period.

“Our findings revealed a complicated picture,” Dubiner says. “We identified two different types of morphological changes: some species had become lighter – their mass had decreased while their body length remained unchanged; while others had become longer – their body length had increased, while their mass remained unchanged. These together represent more than half of the species examined, but there was practically no overlap between the two groups – almost none of the birds had become both lighter and longer.

“We think that these are two different strategies for coping with the same problem, namely the rising temperatures. In both cases, the surface area to volume ratio is increased by either increasing the numerator or reducing the denominator, which helps the body lose heat to its environment. The opposite, namely a decrease in this ratio, was not observed in any of the species.”

These findings were observed across the country, regardless of nutrition, and in all types of species. A difference was identified, however, between the two strategies: changes in body length tended to occur more in migrants, while changes in body mass were more typical of non-migratory birds. The very fact that such changes were found in migratory birds coming from Asia, Europe, and Africa suggests that this is a global phenomenon. The study also found that the impact of climate change over time on bird morphology is 10 times greater than the impact of similar differences in temperature between geographical areas.

“Our findings indicate that global warming causes fast and significant changes in bird morphology,” Dubiner concludes. “But what are the implications of these changes? Should we be concerned? Is this a problem, or rather an encouraging ability to adapt to a changing environment? Such morphological changes over a few decades probably do not represent an evolutionary adaptation, but rather certain phenotypic flexibility exhibited by the birds. We are concerned that over such a short period of time, there is a limit to the flexibility or evolutionary potential of these traits, and the birds might run out of effective solutions as temperatures continue to rise.”

TAU Welcomes Ukrainian Emergency Fellowship Students

Written by AUFTAU on 1 April 2022. Posted in Newsroom.

Tel Aviv University officially welcomed seven Ukrainian graduate students, who arrived within the framework of the Emergency Fellowship Fund recently announced by the University in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing refugee crisis.

The all-women group of students hail from different cities in Ukraine, stretching from Lviv and Kyiv to Mariupol and Mikolaiv, and will continue their studies in law, medicine, psychology, music and linguistics.

“You are very much wanted here at TAU,” President Ariel Porat told the students at the introductory meeting, expressing hope that despite the unfortunate circumstances students will find “a home away from home” at the University that will enrich their academic and personal lives.

Constant Worry

Most of the students left their families behind in Ukraine, and worry about their wellbeing around the clock. “I managed to speak to my family yesterday, but today the connection was severed and I was unable to reach them,” says Alisa, a graduate student in law, who will be studying Crisis Management at TAU. She comes from a small town near Mariupol, in Eastern Ukraine, which has suffered some of the heaviest blows in the fighting. Alisa heard about the Fellowship through her academic advisor, as did most of the other students.

Marina, another law student, was enrolled at the Ukrainian State Pedagogical University in Kropyvnytskyi, a central town which she says is pretty safe for now. The University premises, however, have been converted into living quarters for people escaping from more dangerous areas. Lectures are only taking place online and are highly irregular. “I was supposed to graduate in June,” she tells us, “but for now, I’m just happy to be able to continue my studies here at TAU.”

Kateryna from Kyiv studies psychology, and left immediate family members in Ukraine. “This is my first time in Israel and I know nothing about the local culture, but I’m very curious to learn,” she says, adding that the adjustment process helps her endure the constant concern about her family’s wellbeing.

“We need some time to ‘unfreeze’, before we can start to take in and appreciate our surroundings,” adds Alisa.

Here to Help

The students are being offered counseling and psychological services by TAU International, which has been taking full care of them since their arrival in Israel. “In light of the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, we are making a great effort to ensure that the Ukrainian students enjoy their campus experience and have a smooth transition to living in Tel Aviv, and that all their immediate needs are met,” says Michal Linder Zarankin, the School’s International Projects Coordinator.

Their tuition and living expenses are covered by TAU’s $1 million Emergency Fellowship Fund, which was swiftly raised by the University’s donors around the world over the last few weeks.

Five more Ukrainian students are expected to arrive next week, as well as some faculty members.

Out of the 30,000 students studying at TAU, over 300 hold dual Israeli-Ukrainian citizenship. In addition to these, there are many Israeli TAU students of Ukrainian and Russian descent.

Featured image: Ukrainian graduate students are welcomed by TAU’s President Ariel Porat, Prof. Milette Shamir VP International and TAU International staffers

TAU Researchers Identified a Serious Security Flaw in Samsung’s Galaxy Series

Written by AUFTAU on 1 April 2022. Posted in Newsroom.

TAU Researchers Identified a Serious Security Flaw in Samsung’s Galaxy Series.

Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered a serious security flaw in Samsung’s flagship Galaxy series. The researchers contacted Samsung in May 2021, and in October the company released a software update that fixed the loophole. According to the researchers, users who have not updated their Android software since October are urged to do so as soon as possible, as hackers could take advantage of the loophole found to hack into the Galaxy smartphones in the series and steal sensitive information.

The study was conducted by Prof. Avishai Wool of TAU’s School of Electrical Engineering, Dr. Eyal Ronen of the Blavatnik School of Computer Science, and graduate student Alon Shakevsky.

Securing the Last Layer of Protection

“In protecting smartphones using the Android system, there is a special component called TrustZone” explains Prof. Wool. “This component is a combination of hardware and software, and its job is to protect our most sensitive information – the encryption and identification keys. We found an error in the implementation of Samsung’s TrustZone code, which allowed hackers to extract encryption keys and access secure information.”

“It should be understood that phone companies like Samsung go to enormous lengths to secure their phones, and yet we still hear about attacks, for example in the case of the NSO spyware,” Dr Ronen adds. “TrustZone is designed to be the last layer of protection, the internal safe. So, even if NSO managed to hack into my phone, it still wouldn’t be able to access the encryption keys. For example, if I approve a bank transfer using a fingerprint, the fingerprint enters the phone’s TrustZone, and hackers will have no way to use the fingerprint to carry out transactions in my bank account. In our article, we showed that failures in Samsung’s code also allowed access to these sensitive cryptographic keys.”

The Research Team (from left to right): Alon Shakevsky, Prof. Avishai Wool and Dr. Eyal Ronen

“A Secret Code Never Guarantees Longevity”

In May 2021, the Tel Aviv University researchers contacted Samsung and presented their findings. In October 2021, Samsung released an update to the Android operating software that fixed the major loophole in about 100 million Galaxy phones. The company and the researchers coordinated the date of the publication of the findings and the date of the update in order to prevent hackers from taking advantage the loophole.

“Master’s student Alon Shakevsky worked for months on extracting the code from the device so that we could investigate it,” says Wool, “and two weeks ago hackers broke into the company’s databases and leaked Samsung’s code. The information that was previously confidential is today available to everyone, including researchers like us. Therefore, the lesson for phone companies should be to publish the code in advance, let the experts and researchers check the architecture, and not to rely too much on the code’s secrecy. A secret code never guarantees longevity, because it will eventually leak. In the end, we helped Samsung.”

“In order to protect ourselves,” Dr. Ronen concludes, “we encourage all owners of Samsung Galaxy devices to update their software.”

And Let There Be Light

Written by AUFTAU on 6 February 2022. Posted in Magazine, Newsroom.

Efforts by TAU’s Clinical Law Program will help keep electricity running for those who are struggling to pay utility bills.

The recent drop in temperature in Israel has led to a significant increase in electricity consumption. But what about those who simply cannot afford basic necessities?

A petition jointly filed by Tel Aviv University’s Human Rights Clinic at The Buchmann Faculty of Law will help keep the electricity on for some of Israel’s most underprivileged populations. In response to the appeal, Israel’s High Court ruled that electricity must not be cut off for citizens who prove a difficult economic or medical condition, effective immediately. We spoke with attorney Adi Nir Binyamini from TAU’s Human Rights Clinic, one of the lawyers who handled the case.

Electricity – A Fundamental Right?

In a precedent-setting decision, the High Court ruled on January 20 that access to electricity should be considered a fundamental right and that the Electricity Authority must, within six months, amend the criteria for power outages as a means of collecting debt. Meanwhile, the new ruling assists electricity consumers who find themselves in serious economic or medical distress, and ensure that they will not be left in the dark or the cold and without other basic needs.

The ruling came in response to a petition filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) in collaboration with the Human Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University, Physicians for Human Rights and the Israel Union of Social Workers against the Electricity Authority, the Israel Electric Corp. and Energy Minister. It was filed on behalf of several poor families whose electricity had been cut off for non-payment.

The High Court of Justice ruled that, until the Electricity Authority establishes appropriate criteria and procedures (within six months from the time of the ruling), it must enable consumers facing power cuts from lack of payment to demonstrate whether they are suffering financial or health problems that justify their continued access to electric power. The court said the Electricity Authority must conduct a hearing prior to cutting a customer’s power. It gave the national electricity provider six months to revise its procedures and ordered it to pay the petitioners 40,000 NIS ($12,800) in expenses, to be divided among them. “This is a dramatic change from the previous situation, when it was possible to cut off people’s electricity access due to the accumulation of debt, except for very few exceptions,” explains Att. Nir Binyamini.

From the second hearing in Higher Court, on October 28, 2021 (from left to right): Gil Gan Mor (ACRI), Hicham Chabaita and Att. Adi Nir Binyamini from TAU’s Human Rights Clinic and Att. Mascit Bendel (ACRI)

The Beginning of a New Era

Binyamini, who has dealt with electricity litigation for several years now, says, “I feel personal and professional satisfaction that on the coldest day of the year, when people were left without heating, the High Court accepted our position and ruled not to cut off people’s electricity due to poverty and that debt must instead be collected by more moderate means.”

When asked how the Clinic got involved with the project, Binyamini explains that TAU’s Humans Rights Clinic was previously part of a legal battle over water disconnections for consumers unable to pay their water bill. “After that was successfully completed, we took on the subject of electricity and have been working on it continuously for the past eight years. The Clinic represented and handled the two petitions that were submitted to the Israeli High Court, and over the years we have dealt with hundreds of individual cases of people being cut off from electricity. We have also been guiding and assisting social workers with individual cases.”

She adds that a large number of students from the Clinic have worked on the case over the years, and stresses that such practical experience is an extremely valuable component of legal education.

Upon the court’s ruling, Binyamini along with Att. Maskit Bendel of the ACRI issued a statement, saying: “We hope that the ruling, which opened with the words ‘and let there be light,’ heralds the beginning of new era when it comes to protecting weak populations from having their electricity cut off.”

Attorney-at-law Adi Nir Binyamini from Tel Aviv University’s Human Rights Clinic (photo: Tomer Jacobson)

A House is Not a Home Without a Pet

Written by AUFTAU on 4 October 2021. Posted in Newsroom.

TAU law students are helping elderly citizens and their pets move to senior homes.

Many senior citizens have to part with their beloved pets just when they need them the most: when they leave their homes and transition to live in public housing for the elderly. In many of these governmental institutions, pets are still not allowed – and when they are, the policy is not always implemented. This can cause a painful situation which may harm the mental and physical wellbeing of senior citizens, and affect the welfare of the animals (often senior as well) that find themselves homeless and separated from their loving caretakers.

We have some positive news: There are good people out there who are pro-actively seeking to protect the rights of pet caretakers, as well as the pets’.

Who? Students of The Buchmann Faculty of Law who work through the Clinic for Environmental Justice and the Protection of Animal Rights, an integral part of the The Coller-Menmon Animal Rights and Welfare Program, Israel’s leading and most comprehensive academic program on animal law, at the Faculty of Law. We do realize that’s a mouthful and warrants some further explanation…

Protecting Animals’ Rights

The Clinic for Environmental Justice has been handling a range of environmental issues since 2001. In 2017, it expanded its operations to include the protection of animals’ rights. Through their work at the Clinic, law students get to practice drafting applications, precedents and position papers, closely accompanied by top academics and clinical facilitators from Israel’s legal system.

Dr. Orit Hirsch-Matsioulas researches human-animal relations. She is a post-doctoral fellow of The Coller-Menmon Animal Rights and Welfare Program and one of the founders of The Community for Human-Animal Studies Israel (HASI). Together with Adv. Amnon Keren, Program Coordinator and Clinical Instructor at the Clinic, she made the rights of the elderly and their pets one of the Clinic’s lead projects.

Both Granny and Kitty Benefit

The project was significantly accelerated when the Clinic decided to handle the appeal of a group of senior citizens who were told they were not allowed to bring their pets to their public housing apartments. “The rights of elderly people were violated,” says Dr. Hirsch-Matsioulas. “Some of them decided against moving because they did not want to part with their pets. Noah, the umbrella organization for Israel’s animal protection associations, contacted us, and we got in touch with the Ministry of Construction and Housing to change the existing policy.”

Dr. Hirsch-Matsioulas presented the Ministry with academic studies on emotional, cognitive and health-related benefits of pet relationships for senior citizens. Moreover, she brought a new element to the attention of the Ministry officials, namely the effect of the relationship on the animals.

“We built a multidisciplinary team of people from the fields of law, social sciences, social work, gerontology (i.e. the multidisciplinary study of aging, including physical aspects as well as mental, social and societal implications) and civil society organizations, and we’re working together with the Ministry of Construction and Housing,” explains Dr. Hirsch-Matsioulas.

A temporary policy was established, allowing for the entry and keeping of pets in all public senior homes, called בתי גיל הזהב, under the responsibility of Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing. It was widely agreed that this temporary right should eventually become permanent, however this is a lengthy process.

Kitty and Milo also have rights. Photo: Vika Minkowitz Mualem

Focusing on Solutions

While we’re excited to share that this undertaking is, in fact, a global precedent, the process of implementing the policy has not been a smooth ride. Due to Covid restrictions, the team has not been able to enter the senior housing buildings to teach the staff about the new guidelines for successful implementation. “The doors have been opened. Now, we must focus on ensuring the optimal execution,” says Dr. Hirsch-Matsioulas.

Dr. Hirsch-Matsioulas is compiling a report with all the issues that do or may arise. She will then proceed to examine the appropriate solutions for every listed problem, through consultation with relevant professionals. The aim is to come up with suitable solutions for the preservation of the elderly’s right to good health and a dignified life, as well as the preservation of the rights of the animals. Once completed, she will present the list to policy makers to advance the legislation, with the aim that the Ministry of Construction and Housing can adopt the law on a permanent basis.

The arrived upon solutions will be offered, and hopefully adopted, by additional countries as well.

Emotional, cognitive and health benefits enjoyed by both parties. Photo: Vika Minkowitz Mualem

Across Generations and Species

“We intend to visit senior homes, observe and learn, and then to provide cultural programs with positive and educational messages on how to co-exist in a community with multiple living species,” offers Dr. Hirsch-Matsioulas.

“Education is central for promoting change, and we would like to cultivate a new atmosphere on ground through a series of lectures. Children and youth are oftentimes leading agents of change, and we may end up including the grandchildren in this effort.”

“Beyond our firm conviction that the elderly shouldn’t have to part with their pets, that are to them like family members for all intents and purposes, the Clinic also makes sure that the animals’ interests are represented. Forced removal of an animal from a warm and loving home can cause him or her great suffering, especially in old age,” adds Adv. Keren.

“In recent years, there’s been a growing recognition in Israel of animal rights and their welfare, as key considerations in decision-making pertaining to them. We will continue to develop this trend, whereby the animal is regarded as a subject with his or her own rights, each animal representing a world of his or her own and worthy of protection in and by him- or herself.”

Dr. Orit Hirsch-Matsioulas and her good friend, Shenef.

Featured image: Family and flatmates. Photo: Noah Toledano

For the first time: The “God Particle” has been characterized in its decay into a pair of charm quarks

Written by AUFTAU on 8 August 2021. Posted in Newsroom, Press release.

Physicists worldwide have been captivated by the Higgs boson particle, also known as the “God Particle”. Its discovery a decade ago made waves in the physics community, and had researchers curious to learn more about its properties. TAU researchers have now succeeded, as part of a groundbreaking study, to describe a rare physical process through which the Higgs boson decays into a pair of rare elementary particles. The rate of this decay process can now be characterized more precisely and completely than before.

The new study was conducted as part of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (Geneva) by Prof. Erez Etzion and doctoral students Guy Koren, Hadar Cohen and David Reikher from the Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, at Tel Aviv University. It was a collaboration with the research team of Prof. Eilam Gross from the Weizmann Institute of Science and others.

Learning More About Forces in Nature

Over fifty years ago, physicists Prof. Peter Higgs and Prof. Francois Englert (who since 1984 has been a Sackler Fellow by special appointment in the TAU School of Physics and Astronomy) estimated that a new particle might exist whose field “provides the mass” to the elementary particles in our world.

In 2012, the end of a 30-year hunt for the Higgs boson was celebrated. Israeli researchers were senior partners in this discovery, and Prof. Halina Abramowicz, who was part of the TAU team, said “The discovery of the Higgs-like particle affirms the world view that the universe is made up of straightforward, symmetrical laws and that humans are the byproduct of disruptions in that symmetry.” Higgs and Englert won the Nobel Prize the following year.

The Challenge of Creating the Higgs boson

In the particle accelerator, pairs of protons are made to collide with each other at extremely high velocities. In such energetic collisions, various interesting processes can occur, from which, one can learn about the nature of our universe. The way in which these processes are investigated, is by means of a complex array of particle detectors placed around the points of collision, enabling reconstruction of the types of particles that are generated during the collision, as well as their features. A vast range of processes can occur during the collisions, and each has its own unique “signature” in the detector. In order to extract rare events and acquire new insights about the elementary particles and forces in nature, large amounts of statistical data must be collected (i.e. a very large number of collisions must be observed).

The Higgs boson is, as mentioned, a relatively heavy elementary particle, but can be created in collision between protons, as long as the accelerator’s energy is high enough. Immediately after its creation, it decays into lighter particles.

“It is interesting to investigate into which types of particles the Higgs decays, and with what frequency it decays into each type of particle,” says Guy Koren. “To help answer that question, our group is trying to measure the rate at which the Higgs boson decays into particles called ‘charm quarks’.” Quarks are a specific type of particles that share similar features. They compound, for instance, the protons and neutrons, which are in the nuclei of atoms. Koren continues to explain that measuring the decay of Higgs boson into ‘charm quarks’ is not a simple mission, for two reasons: 1. Only one out of billions of collisions [between protons] result in the creation of Higgs bosons. Furthermore, only three percent of the Higgs bosons that do emerge proceed to decay into charm quarks. 2. Five additional types of quarks exist, and they all leave similar signatures in the detectors. So, even when the process does take place, it is very hard to identify.

More Information About The Rate of Decay

Despite all the collisions that have been collected since 2012, the group from Tel Aviv has not yet identified enough decays of Higgs bosons into charm quarks to measure the rate of the process with the required statistical accuracy.

Nevertheless, sufficient data has been accumulated to state what the maximal rate of the process is with respect to the theoretical predictions. A rate of decay higher than the predicted rate would constitute a first important indicator for “new” physics or expansion of the currently accepted model – the standard model of elementary particles. From the current measurement, the researchers conclude (with a well-defined statistical certainty) that there is no chance that the rate of decay of the Higgs boson into charm quark is 8.5 (or more) times higher than the theoretical predictions, otherwise enough such decays would have been observed in order to measure it. “This is the first time that anyone has ever succeeded in saying something important about the rate of this specific decay based on a direct measurement of it, therefore it is a very important and significant statement in our field,” explains Koren

The research is not yet over, however. Higgs’ decays into quarks of smaller masses have yet to be observed. As a result, the researchers cannot be certain that the same ‘rules’ apply to quarks from those generations. “If it should appear that the Higgs boson decays at a rate that is not proportional to mass (squared) of the particles, there could be far-reaching implications for our understanding of the universe,” explains Prof. Etzion.

Featured image: Illustration: The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)’s LHC accelerator, by which the Higgs boson was detected in 2012 in the ATLAS and CMS experiments