City Notes: Six Technion students win outstanding development awards

Winners receive awards during a conference the center organized, titled “Security and the War on Terrorism – the Scientific Challenge.”

By TAMARA ZIEVE
Technion University (photo credit: Courtesy)
Technion University
(photo credit: Courtesy)
NORTH
Six students from Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won awards last week for innovative and outstanding development ideas that they put forward as part of a security development competition that the institute’s Center for Security Science and Technology ran. The winners received their awards during a conference the center organized, titled “Security and the War on Terrorism – the Scientific Challenge.” The six winning initiatives were selected out of dozens of submitted projects.
Roni Sinai and Matan Pazi took first prize, to the tune of NIS 3,000, for their Laser Targeted Compass (LTC) – a system for locating and marking targets in real time and sending precise location data. “The device we developed uses a smart phone GPS of police and security forces and makes signals for aircraft so they can distinguish between suspects and security forces.
It also serves as a compass to direct them to the target,” Sinai explained.
Prof. Avi Marmur, head of the Center for Security Science and Technology, said the competition involved undergraduate students whose ideas for development included elements of innovation and originality, and had a reasonable chance of implementation. He added that a committee of experts from the Technion had chosen the winners.
Israel’s largest fruit corporation launches guided summer tours
Fruit corporation Beresheet is running guided tours at its visitor center in the Golan Heights over the summer. Visitors are invited to learn about the produce process, from fruit picking, to refrigerating, to sorting and packaging. Beresheet, which operates in the Golan Heights and Galilee, is the largest producer of apples, pears and stone fruit in the country. Activities include viewing an informational video describing the entire process from planting to marketing. The visitor center is in the Perot Hagolan packing house, where there is also a shop selling seasonal fresh fruit and other produce from the Golan and the Galilee.
The center is open Sunday to Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is closed on Friday and Saturday.
The tours begin at 9:30, with the last morning one starting at 11:00, and continue until 2:30, when the last afternoon tour runs. Tours cost NIS 22 per adult and NIS 18 per child (ages three to 13). Group tours cost NIS 17 per person.
HIV-infected man gets 6 years for raping wife
The Haifa District Court on Sunday imposed a sixyear prison sentence on a man in his 40s who was convicted of raping, threatening and unlawfully confining his wife, local media reported.
The incident occurred after his wife learned that he was carrying the HIV virus, and refused to have sexual relations with him.
Israeli hospital admits man wounded in Syrian civil war
A man wounded in the Syrian civil war was admitted into Israel and transferred to the Western Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya for treatment on Sunday.
The man was suffering from a head wound, according to Channel 10, although the report did not specify the seriousness of his injury.
Israeli hospitals have treated over 30 people wounded in the Syrian fighting to date.
CENTER
Ramat Hasharon cleans up streets with new steam-based device
The Ramat Hasharon Municipality announced last week that its sanitation department was polishing the sidewalks using a new cleaning apparatus that uses steam.
The device produces a current of steam at a temperature of 200º and enables thorough cleaning of broad surfaces, including sidewalks, roads and paths.
Each year, many local municipalities face the phenomenon of dirt accumulating on the sidewalks, along with chewing gum and tough stains that are difficult to remove through normal cleaning methods. According to the municipality, the steam device solves this problem, removing all dirt and stubborn stains. The cleaning device reportedly removes unpleasant smells as well.
Municipality spokesman Gonen Eliasi noted that the municipality CEO, Perah Melech, was placing a great emphasis on constantly improving the city’s appearance.
Municipal staff were instructed to address both small and large issues swiftly, by collecting scrap, removing hazards, and cleaning streets and parks. The spokesman added that the computerized municipal center was open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and all reports of any hazards would be handled immediately.Petah Tikva: 24-year-old man shot in his car
A 24-year-old man was shot while sitting in his car in Petah Tikva last weekend, Magen David Adom reported.
The man was treated for a light gunshot wound and brought to the city’s Rabin Medical Center-Hasharon Campus for further treatment.
The circumstances of the shooting were unknown.
Life-size dinosaurs grace Weizmann science exhibition
This summer, an exhibition at the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Clore Science Garden in Rehovot will feature life-size, moving replicas of various kinds of dinosaurs, including the 25-meter-long Argentinosaurus – the largest animal ever to walk the Earth.
Visitors will be able to see models of dinosaurs in a thicket of plant life, and there will be dinosaur researchers at the Science Garden who will provide explanations, demonstrations and hands-on experience in various scientific fields. The exhibit also explores the research methods of paleontologists, how the discipline has developed over the past decade, and how to determine the age of fossils and the conditions in which the creatures lived.
Scientific digging activities in huge sand boxes will be on offer for young children, enabling them to uncover dinosaur bones and analyze dinosaurs’ footprints. Additionally an exhibition space has been turned into an excavation site displaying a prehistoric jungle with small dinosaurs, and a modern lab will exhibit research tools that paleontologists currently use.
There will also be a workshop on the flight development of prehistoric animals, and participants will have the opportunity to build a flying dinosaur model. Meanwhile, researchers will deliver lectures on topics including extinction on Earth, recent developments in paleontology, asteroids and advanced imaging technologies.
The exhibition, set to start this week, will be open from Saturday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tickets cost NIS 75 per adult and NIS 65 per child (age five to 18). A family pass costs NIS 280, and for senior citizens the price is NIS 37.5.
SOUTH Rahat man gets 5 years for killing 5 in 2010 car accident
Muhamad al-Jabur, 26, of Rahat was sentenced to five years in prison on Sunday for causing the deaths of five members of the Dahan family with his truck in 2010. The accident occurred on the Arava Highway.
Jabur also received one year’s parole and had his driver’s license revoked for 20 years.
Eshkol farmers to receive compensation for Pillar of Defense
The Agriculture Ministry has reached an agreement with the Tax Authority regarding compensation for damage that seven Eshkol Regional Council communities suffered during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Local website reported this week.
During the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip, farmers within seven kilometers of Gaza were instructed not to work the land. However, so were the communities of Ohad, Sde Nitzan, Talmei Eliyahu, Bnei Netzarim, Naveh, Tze’elim and Gvulot, which are more than 7 km.
from the territory. The latter communities will receive compensation that is expected to total between NIS 3 million and NIS 5m., for the time they were unable to farm their land.
Zvika Cohen, the deputy director of finance and investment at the Agriculture Ministry, said his ministry “has undertaken to help peripheral villages that protect the state’s borders. The localities in question were given the same instructions as those villages within the 7-km. radius of the Gaza Strip. Therefore, these villages are entitled to the same compensation. We thank the Tax Authority for its understanding and prompt cooperation.”
Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir called the move “an important decision that will strengthen the peripheral villages that protect the country’s borders and develop the wilderness.”