Knowledge Update

​New York, Sep 22 (IANS) Greenland lost nearly 2,700 gigatons of ice from 2003-2013, not about 2,500 gigatons as scientists previously thought -- a 7.6 percent difference, a study says.

"It's a fairly modest correction," said study co-author Michael Bevis of The Ohio State University in the US. 

"It doesn't change our estimates of the total mass loss all over Greenland by that much, but it brings a more significant change to our understanding of where within the ice sheet that loss has happened, and where it is happening now," Bevis, who is also the leader of GNET, the Greenland GPS Network, said.

The researchers found that the same hotspot in the Earth's mantle that feeds Iceland's active volcanoes has been playing a trick on the scientists who are trying to measure how much ice is melting on nearby Greenland.

According to the new study published in the journal Science Advances, the hotspot softened the mantle rock beneath Greenland in a way that ultimately distorted their calculations for ice loss in the Greenland ice sheet. This caused them to underestimate the melting by about 20 gigatons (20 billion metric tons) per year.

The new results revealed that the pattern of modern ice loss is similar to that which has prevailed since the end of the last Ice Age.

During the last Ice Age, Greenland's ice sheet was much larger than now, and its enormous weight caused Greenland's crust to slowly sink into the softened mantle rock below. 

When large parts of the ice sheet melted at the end of the Ice Age, the weight of the ice sheet decreased, and the crust began to rebound. It is still rising, as mantle rock continues to flow inwards and upwards beneath Greenland.

"This result is a detail, but it is an important detail," Bevis said. 

"By refining the spatial pattern of mass loss in the world's second largest -- and most unstable -- ice sheet, and learning how that pattern has evolved, we are steadily increasing our understanding of ice loss processes, which will lead to better informed projections of sea level rise," Bevis noted.

The team used GPS to measure uplift in the crust all along Greenland's coast. 

That is when they discovered that two neighbouring stations on the east coast were uplifting far more rapidly than standard models had predicted.

"We did not expect to see the anomalous uplift rates at the two stations that sit on the 'track' of the Iceland hot spot," Bevis said. 

"We were shocked when we first saw them. Only afterwards did we make the connection," Bevis pointed out.

He added that the discovery holds big implications for measuring ice loss elsewhere in the world.

​New York, Sep 22 (IANS) Nearly four per cent of all deaths - approximately 433,000 per year -- are due to the fact that people worldwide spend more than three hours a day just sitting down, a study has found.

Various studies over the last decade have demonstrated how the excessive amount of time we spend sitting down may increase the risk of death, regardless of whether or not we exercise.

The new study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, now estimates the proportion of deaths attributable to that 'chair effect' in the population of 54 countries, using data from 2002 to 2011.

"It is important to minimise sedentary behaviour in order to prevent premature deaths around the world," said lead author of the study Leandro Rezende from University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

He also highlighted that "cutting down on the amount of time we sit could increase life expectancy by 0.20 years in the countries analysed."

The results revealed that over 60 per cent of people worldwide spend more than three hours a day sitting down - the average in adults is 4.7 hours/day -- and this is the culprit behind 3.8 per cent of deaths.

Among the territories studied, there were more deaths in the regions of the Western Pacific, followed by European countries, the Eastern Mediterranean, America and Southeast Asia. 

The highest rates were found in Lebanon (11.6 per cent), the Netherlands (7.6 per cent) and Denmark (6.9 per cent), while the lowest rates were in Mexico (0.6 per cent), Myanmar (1.3 per cent) and Bhutan (1.6 per cent). 

The authors calculated that reducing the amount of time we sit by about two hours (by half) would mean a 2.3 per cent decrease in mortality.

Even a more modest reduction in sitting time, by 10 per cent or half an hour per day, could have an immediate impact on all causes of mortality (0.6 per cebt) in the countries evaluated.

In the words of the experts, measures aimed at addressing the determining factors behind this sedentary conduct would be necessary. 

"Some examples of this approach were recently highlighted by the World Health Organisation," Rezende said.

"For example, a strategic health communication campaign was developed to promote physical activity among women in Tonga (Oceania), while a bicycle-sharing system was developed in Iran in addition to a sustainable transport system in Germany," he noted.

London, Sep 22 (IANS) Do not blame your genes for not being able to reduce that ever-burgeoning waistline. While your genes can increase the risk of obesity, they do not hamper weight-loss, researchers have found.

People carrying a gene associated with fat mass and obesity -- FTO gene -- are at risk of being heavier and increasing their obesity levels. Carriers of this FTO gene are known to be on average 3 kilos heavier and 70 per cent more likely to be obese. 

However, carrying the risk version of the FTO gene has no effect on weight loss, as people with FTO gene respond just as well to weight loss interventions as everyone else, the study said.

"You can no longer blame your genes. Our study shows that improving your diet and being more physically active will help you lose weight, regardless of your genetic makeup," said lead author Professor John Mathers at Newcastle University in Britain.

Moreover, the response to weight loss interventions for people carrying the risk variant of the FTO gene was similar for men and women, younger and older and of different ethnicities, the researchers stated. 

"This is important news for people trying to lose weight as it means that diet, physical activity or drug-based weight loss plans will work just as well in those who carry the risk version of FTO," Mathers added.

For the study, published in the journal The BMJ, the team used individual data from 9,563 adults, who were enrolled in random controlled weight loss trials around the world to find out whether carrying the risk version of the FTO gene affects the amount of weight loss.

The causes of the obesity epidemic are multiple and complex, but current evidence suggests they have little to do with gene profiles, Alison Tedstone, Chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said in a linked editorial. 

​New York, Sep 22 (IANS) Growing up in a well-off home can benefit a child's physical health, but lack of good relationship with parents, or the presence of abuse, may affect health, as well as well-being during mid-life, a study has found.

"Good parent-child bonds may be necessary to enforce eating, sleeping and activity routines," said researcher Assistant Professor Matthew A. Andersson at Baylor University in Texas, US.

The study found that if the parent-child relationships are strained or abusive, meals may be less coordinated among the family, and children are more likely to eat sugary or high-fat foods as snacks, even in place of proper meals. 

Sleep and activity routines could also become irregular, keeping children from developing healthy lifestyles and social and emotional skills necessary for successful ageing.

On the other hand, good parent-child bonds in economically disadvantaged homes, might promote health, but do not seem to lessen the negative impact of low socio-economic status as the children age, Andersson said. 

Parents with less education and fewer financial advantages are more apt to threaten or force obedience rather than have constructive dialogue, and that may lessen warm relations. 

In addition, disease rates or inflammation among those children when they become adults have been linked strongly to abuse, mistreatment or lower levels of parental warmth.

"Without adequate parent-child relationship quality to match, socio-economic advantage during childhood may not offer much protection against major chronic disease as children become adults and reach middle age," Andersson stated.

In the study, good health at mid-life was defined as being free from 28 possible conditions -- cancer, circulatory or respiratory disease, endocrine diseases, nervous system diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases, skin and digestive disease and musculoskeletal conditions.

For the study, the team analysed data on disease or poor health of middle-aged adults. They surveyed 2,746 respondents aged 25 to 75 in 1995 about their childhood treatment by parents. 

Surveys were conducted again nearly 10 years later, with 1,692 of the individuals taking part. 

The follow-up analysis revealed that childhood abuse continued to undermine any protection from disease when linked to childhood socio-economic advantage, the researchers concluded, in the paper published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

London, Sep 22 (IANS) Individual beliefs can play a potential role in worsening insomnia and pain experiences in patients with chronic pain conditions like back pain, fibromyalgia and arthritis, a team of researchers has found.

"I won't be able to cope with my pain if I don't sleep well," is the common way patients with chronic pain conditions think, the researchers said.

"Thoughts can have a direct and/or indirect impact on our emotion, behaviour and even physiology. The way how we think about sleep and its interaction with pain can influence the way how we cope with pain and manage sleeplessness," said Nicole Tang from the University of Warwick in Britain.

While some of these beliefs are healthy and useful, others are rigid and misinformed. Such conditions can be effectively managed by cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), the study added.

Based on these beliefs, the team developed a scale -- pain-related beliefs and attitudes about sleep (PBAS) -- to measure beliefs about sleep and pain.

The scale, when tested on four groups of patients suffering from long-term pain and bad sleeping patterns, showed that people who believe they won't be able to sleep as a result of their pain are more likely to suffer from insomnia, thus causing worse pain.

Further, the scale was vital in predicting patients' level of insomnia and pain difficulties. 

Current psychological treatments for chronic pain have mostly focused on pain management and a lesser emphasis on sleep.

However, the "PBAS scale provides a useful clinical tool to assess and monitor treatment progress during these therapies", noted Esther Afolalu from the University of Warwick. 

The study has provided therapists the means with which to identify and monitor rigid thoughts about sleep and pain that are sleep-interfering, allowing the application of the proven effective CBT for insomnia in people with chronic pain.

With better sleep, pain problems are significantly reduced, especially after receiving a short course of CBT for both pain and insomnia, the researchers concluded in the paper published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Project evaluation in a private sector is purely based on the returns on cost factors but it is not the same in the case of public projects. The issue of selecting and implementing public projects is predominated by the political, social and economic dimensions. In the bargain methodological issues pertaining to the evaluation and objectivity take a back seat when political perspectives dominate the social and economic perspectives. International funding agencies and planned economies have emphasized the need for developing effective methodologies to give objective orientation to investments and the accrual of social benefits to the stakeholders who deserve the most. In this paper an attempt is made to evaluate the public projects by double scoring method which incorporates national priorities and the selection of public projects so that objectivity is maintained purely on the rationality of priority ranking. This method would be more meaningful to serve the community on need basis and increase their satisfaction. 

New York, Sep 22 (IANS) Studying hundreds of new genomes from across the globe, researchers, one of them of Indian-origin, have found compelling evidence that essentially all non-Africans alive today descend from a single migration out of Africa some 72,000 years ago.

The findings are supported by three new genome sequencing studies published in the journal Nature.

One of the studies led by Harvard Medical School (HMS) geneticists sequenced samples from 142 smaller populations, most of which were previously understudied.

"We wanted to go out into the world and pull together as many of the ethnically, linguistically and anthropologically diverse samples as we possibly could," said first author of the study Swapan Mallick from Harvard Medical School. 

The Harvard geneticists and their international team of colleagues began by selecting two genomes each from 51 populations represented in a collection called the Human Genome Diversity Project. 

Next, they assembled samples from members of 91 other groups, including diverse Native American, South Asian, and African populations not previously included in genome-wide studies, and sent the DNA for sequencing. In all, the project analysed the genomes of 300 people.

A key conclusion -- that the vast majority of modern human ancestry in non-Africans derives from a single population that migrated out of Africa -- is also supported by two other whole-genome sequencing studies appearing simultaneously in Nature. 

One, led by an Estonian group, focused on 379 whole genome sequences; the other, led by a Danish group, analysed 108 Australians and New Guineans.

Together, the three studies put to rest a lingering question about whether indigenous peoples of Australia, New Guinea and the Andaman Islands descend in large part from a second group that left Africa earlier and skirted the coast of the Indian Ocean. 

They do not, the Harvard researchers said.

"Our best estimate for the proportion of ancestry from an early-exit population is zero," David Reich, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

The study that analysed 108 Australians and New Guineans estimated that around 72,000 years ago, an ancestral population common to Aborginal Australians, Europeans and East Asians left the African continent. 

"Discussions have been intense as to what extent Aboriginal Australians represent a separate Out-of-Africa exit to those of Asians and Europeans," said Professor Laurent Excoffier of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the University of Bern said. 

"We find that, once we take into account admixture with archaic humans, the vast majority of the Aboriginal Australian genetic makeup comes from the same African exit as other non-Africans," Excoffier explained.

The HMS-led study further revealed that the common ancestors of modern humans began to differentiate at least 200,000 years ago, long before the out-of-Africa dispersal occurred.

"It had been unclear whether the group that expanded out of Africa represented a large subset of the populations within Africa," said Mallick. 

"This really shows that there was a lot of substructure prior to the expansion," Mallick noted.

Creativity in advertisements in the form, structure, content and the technology is required to hold the attention span of the viewers. Product placement or embedded advertisements is an alternative strategy adopted by advertisers to overcome limitations of effectiveness and legal restrictions of traditional commercial communication. The paper describes the communication effectiveness of product placement of three different types of products placed in three different movies and resumes the small body of research in the field with the help of a empirical research. A quasi-experimental study is carried out in UAE was designed in order to identify awareness and attitude effects of the product placements as well as general evaluations of conventional advertisements. The results indicate small effectiveness of communication by the product placement especially in recognizing the brand, though not always it leads to product enquire, but it generates awareness and interest in the product because of realistic appeal produced by the product placement in a world of realism. Product Placement in movies enhances the effects of celebrity endorsement of the products because it is in a movie setting and reveals the product utility and its features without directing the consumer unlike in a conventional advertisement. Therefore it makes product placement more acceptable. The research highlighted the enhancement of product assessment in the new form of advertisements.

Succession planning is an important activity for continuing businesses without which organizations starts fading out due to absence of leaders who can lead the organization after the successfull leader. In this article a five step process of succession planning is discussed and provides guidelines for organizations to think in the direction of succession planning. The five steps begin with identify critical positions that can shape the organization, identify competencies of incumbent leaders, identify strategies of succession planning, document and implement succesion plan, evaluate the effectiveness of the process and the leader. This process can be equally applicable in small, medium and large organizations with appropriate modification to the context.