Knowledge Update

​New York, April 26 (IANS) Children with vision problems not correctable with glasses or contact lenses are twice as likely to have a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when compared to peers without such disorders, suggests a study.

"Children with vision problems should be monitored for signs and symptoms of ADHD so that this dual impairment of vision and attention can best be addressed," said the study's led author Dawn DeCarlo from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the US.

The findings appeared in the journal of the American Academy of Optometry. 

The researchers analysed data on more than 75,000 children (aged four to 17) from the 2011-12 National Survey of Children's Health, conducted by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Parents were asked whether they had ever been told their child had some type of vision problem that was not correctable with standard glasses or contact lenses. 

Examples of such conditions include disorders of eye alignment or eye movement, such as strabismus or nystagmus.

A current diagnosis of ADHD was reported for 15.6 percent of children with vision problems, compared to 8.3 percent of those without vision problems. 

The findings add new evidence that children with vision problems not correctable by glasses or contact lenses have a higher prevalence of ADHD. The association is independent of differences in patient and family characteristics, the study said.​

​Seoul, April 26 (IANS) Hyundai Motor's operating profit fell to the lowest in five years in the first quarter, a regulatory filing showed on Tuesday.

Operating profit was 1.34 trillion won ($1.16 billion) during the January-March period, down 15.5 percent from the same period last year.

​New York, April 26 (IANS) A San Francisco-based startup has raised $17 million to “rehumanise the interaction” between doctors and patients by using the Google Glass eye-wearable device.

Using Google Glass, Augmedix has developed a platform for doctors to collect, update and recall patient and other medical data in real time, technology website TechCrunch reported on Tuesday.

Google Glass is no longer available for consumers but its enterprise business continues to rise especially in the health care sector.

“When you are with doctors without Glass, they are charting and clicking on computers for a lot of the time and not focusing on their patients,” Ian Shakil, CEO of Augmedix was quoted as saying.

​Washington, April 26 (IANS) Nearly two in three Americans said they prefer to save rather than to spend money, setting a new record since 2001, found a Gallup poll.

The research result came on Monday amid concerns that Americans are not spending enough to keep the US economy growing at a healthy pace, Xinhua news agency reported.

​Beijing, April 25 (IANS) China's coal consumption will be around 4.3 billion tonnes by 2020 as the government pushes for cleaner and greener growth despite the slowing economy, the China National Coal Association (CNCA) said on Monday.

Kathmandu, April 25 (IANS) China has emerged as one of the top five bilateral donors to Nepal in fiscal 2014-15 in terms of funds disbursed, Nepal's Finance Ministry said on Monday.

​London, April 26 (IANS) Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration was the major driver behind the global climatic shifts that occurred in the "Eocene epoch" between 53 and 34 million years ago, says a new study.

The results support the view that elevated CO2 was responsible for the extreme warmth of the early Eocene and that CO2 decline was responsible for the subsequent cooling that ultimately led to the establishment of today’s polar ice sheets.

The researchers believe that the findings, published in the journal Nature, could help scientists better predict future climate change.

For the study, the research team developed new records of past CO2 levels by analysing ancient ocean sediments. 

"We cannot directly measure CO2 concentrations from that long ago,” said study lead author Eleni Anagnostou, postdoctoral researcher at University of Southampton in Britain.

"Instead we must rely on indirect ‘proxies’ present in the geological record. In this study, we used the chemical composition of marine fossils preserved in sediments to reconstruct ancient CO2 levels,” Anagnostou noted.

Applying pioneering geochemical techniques - developed at the University of Southampton over the past five years - the team used isotopes of the element boron in the shells as a proxy for pH (a measure of acidity), and used that to determine the atmospheric CO2 levels.

They found that between the early Eocene and the late Eocene, CO2 levels approximately halved. 

Using our current understanding of the relationship between sea surface temperature and CO2 at different latitudes, they also demonstrated that the changes in CO2 concentration can explain the majority of the cooling that occurred.

This research can also be used to gain a better understanding of how the Earth will respond to increasing levels of CO2 in the future, the scientists said.​

​Beijing, April 25 (IANS) China's central bank on Monday pumped more money into the market to ease a liquidity strain.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted 180 billion yuan ($27.6 billion) of seven-day reverse re-purchase agreements (repo), a process in which central banks purchase

Tokyo, April 24 (IANS) The agriculture ministers of the G7 countries agreed on Sunday to deepen cooperation to combat diseases that affect livestock by creating a system to rapidly exchange information on cases of this kind.

New York, April 23 (IANS) A team led by an Indian-origin researcher has developed a smartphone app that projects a magnified smartphone screen to provide better visibility to low-vision users.