Knowledge Update

​New York, April 12 (IANS) Ever wondered what causes your shoelaces to loosen even when you tie them as firmly as possible?

It is because while running, the force of a foot striking the ground stretches and then relaxes the knot, a study has showed. 

As the knot loosens, a second force caused by the swinging leg acts on the ends of the laces, like an invisible hand, which rapidly leads to a failure of the knot in as few as two strides after inertia acts on the laces.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, may help understand things like DNA that fail under dynamic forces, the researchers said. 

"When you talk about knotted structures, if you can start to understand the shoelace, then you can apply it to other things, like DNA or microstructures, that fail under dynamic forces," said Christopher Daily-Diamond, graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley.

Using a slow-motion camera and a series of experiments, the researchers assessed a pair of running shoes that were laced-up and were on a treadmill. 

They found that shoelace knot failure happens in a matter of seconds, triggered by a complex interaction of forces, as when running, the foot strikes the ground at seven times the force of gravity.

In addition, the study showed that some laces might be better than others for tying knots, but the fundamental mechanics causing them to fail is the same.

"The interesting thing about this mechanism is that your laces can be fine for a really long time, and it's not until you get one little bit of motion to cause loosening that starts this avalanche effect leading to knot failure," said Christine Gregg, graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley.

​New York, April 12 (IANS) Individuals' different social etworking profile on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn stem from a desire to fit within the distinctive culture or etiquette of each site, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin.

The findings showed that users are not explicitly modifying their profile, but rather subconsciously adapting the behaviour modelled to fit in.

"Despite our best efforts, we do still fit stereotypes of gender and age in the way we tailor our persona," said Nishanth Sastry, Senior Lecturer at King's College London.

For instance, a photo of someone's colourful Starbucks drink may be popular on Instagram, but the same image post to LinkedIn would be frowned upon. 

"The users tend to portray themselves differently in these different worlds," added Dongwon Lee, Associate Professor at the Pennsylvania State University.

The findings will be presented at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) in Canada.

For the research, the team compiled information on over 100,000 social media users by utilising About.me -- a site that acts as a social media directory -- where users volunteer their own profiles, making it an extremely reliable dataset.

Upon analysing the profile pictures and biography information provided by these users, the team also found some surprising differences in how different demographics portray themselves. 

The results showed that women were less likely to wear corrective eyewear, like reading glasses, in their profile pictures and users under the age of 25 were less likely to be smiling in their profile picture.

"Social media consumes an increasingly large portion of our lives. Therefore, understanding how we interact with each other on social media is important to understanding who we are in the online world, and how we relate to each other in virtual but still meaningful ways," Sastry added. 

​Mumbai, April 11 (IANS) India's first industrial-articulated robots in different sizes targeted at micro, small and medium enterprises besides large-scale manufacturers, to help increase their efficiency, were launched by Tata Motors Ltd here on Tuesday.

​New York, April 11 (IANS) Software giant Microsoft has bought startup Deis that specialises in containers -- a modern way to develop and deploy software.

The deal is seen as a boost to Microsoft's cloud because software containers are termed as the new building blocks of cloud-based applications.

Beijing, April 11 (IANS) Boeing on Tuesday said its Boeing Business Jet variants for the corporate jet market have seen continuous growth in China with a fleet of 29 aircraft in operation.

Washington, April 11 (IANS) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has underlined the importance of sustaining growth in emerging markets and developing economies, as they face less supportive external environment.

Washington, April 4 (IANS) Apart from undertaking various expeditions beyond Earth, scientsts at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have joined a partnership created to develop self-driving cars using radar, lasers, the Global Positioning System and computer vision.

​New Delhi, April 11 (IANS) Alibaba Group's news app UC News has crossed 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) in India and Indonesia, the company said on Tuesday.

UC News was launched in June 2016 and since then it has grown rapidly in the Indian and Indonesian markets.

​Gurugram, April 11 (IANS) Global networking giant Cisco and leading fashion retailer Shoppers Stop on Tuesday announced to implement Cisco wireless solution across 80 Shoppers Stop stores in India.

​Accra, April 11 (IANS) Falling crude oil prices hit trade between India and Nigeria last year as imports from the African nation dwindled to $9.94 billion from the previous year's $13.68 billion, down by 27 per cent, the Indian High Commission said.