Introduction & Purpose
Knowledge update and Industry update at Skyline University College (SUC) is an online platform for communicating knowledge with SUC stakeholders, industry, and the outside world about the current trends of business development, technology, and social changes. The platform helps in branding SUC as a leading institution of updated knowledge base and in encouraging faculties, students, and others to create and contribute under different streams of domain and application. The platform also acts as a catalyst for learning and sharing knowledge in various areas.
Super User
From Different Corners
Toronto, Feb 18 (IANS) Are you making the environment and water a bit too clean for your kids? Beware! You may be depriving them of the good microbes that may protect them against various illness, researchers warn.
In a shocking revelation, Canadian researchers have found that children with access to clean drinking water may be at an increased risk of developing asthma in childhood than those who do not.
They also suggested a link between the risk of asthma and a super clean environment (air).
"Those that had access to good, clean water had much higher asthma rates and we think it is because they were deprived of the beneficial microbes," said Brett Finlay, a microbiologist at University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada.
"That was a surprise because we tend to think that clean is good but we realise that we actually need some dirt in the world to help protect you," Finlay added.
The study also showed that while gut bacteria plays a role in preventing asthma, it was the presence of a microscopic fungus or yeast known as Pichia that was more strongly linked to the respiratory condition.
"Children with Pichia were much more at risk of asthma," Finlay noted, adding "instead of helping to prevent asthma, its presence in those early days puts children at risk."
The researcher said this while presenting the details at the 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Boston.
The study may help in understanding the role of microscopic organisms in our overall health.
Super User
From Different Corners
Toronto, Feb 18 (IANS) Researchers have found a novel way to print perovskite solar cells easily and at a cost similar to bringing out a newspaper!
A team, led by Hairen Tan from University of Toronto Engineering found that the solar cells manufactured with perovskite mineral could lead to low-cost, printable solar panels capable of turning nearly any surface into a power generator.
"Economies of scale have greatly reduced the cost of silicon manufacturing," Ted Sargent, an expert in emerging solar technologies, said in a university statement.
"Potentially, perovskites and silicon cells can be married to improve efficiency further, but only with advances in low-temperature processes," added Sargent, who is also the Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology.
Perovskite solar cells depend on a layer of tiny crystals -- each about 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair -- made of low-cost, light-sensitive materials.
Because the perovskite raw materials can be mixed into a liquid to form a kind of 'solar ink', they could be printed onto glass, plastic or other materials using a simple inkjet printing process.
"The most effective materials for making electron selective layers (ESLs) start as a powder and have to be baked at high temperatures, above 500 degrees Celsius," said Tan.
Tan noted that perovskite solar cells using the older, high-temperature method are only marginally better at 22.1 per cent and even the best silicon solar cells can only reach 26.3 per cent.
Tan's perovskite solar cells were also stable and retained more than 90 per cent of their efficiency even after 500 hours of use.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, Feb 18 (IANS) If you thought wireless charging in smartphones was a new thing, you are mistaken as researchers have found a new method to power devices without connecting them to cords.
The new method developed by Disney Research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, for wirelessly transmitting power throughout a room enables users to charge electronic devices as seamlessly as they now connect to WiFi hotspots.
The researchers demonstrated their method, called quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR), inside a specially built 16-by-16-foot room at their lab.
They safely generated near-field standing magnetic waves that filled the interior of the room, making it possible to power several cellphones, fans and lights simultaneously.
"This new innovative method will make it possible for electrical power to become as ubiquitous as WiFi," said Alanson Sample, associate lab director and principal research scientist at Disney Research.
"This in turn could enable new applications for robots and other small mobile devices by eliminating the need to replace batteries and wires for charging," added Sample.
According to Sample, wireless power transmission is a long-standing technological dream.
"In this work, we've demonstrated room-scale wireless power, but there's no reason we couldn't scale this down to the size of a toy chest or up to the size of a warehouse," Sample noted.
The QSCR method involves inducing electrical currents in the metalised walls, floor and ceiling of a room, which in turn generate uniform magnetic fields that permeate the room's interior.
This enables power to be transmitted efficiently to receiving coils that operate at the same resonant frequency as the magnetic fields.
The induced currents in the structure are channelled through discrete capacitors, which isolate potentially harmful electrical fields.
"Our simulations show we can transmit 1.9 kilowatts of power while meeting federal safety guidelines," Chabalko said, adding that this was equivalent to simultaneously charging 320 smart phones.
Super User
From Different Corners
London, Feb 18 (IANS) In a first, researchers have developed a novel DNA computer that is capable of detecting several antibodies in the blood, that may allow better control of the medication for diseases like rheumatism and Crohn's.
"What is special about this system is that it can think and that it can be connected to actuation such as drug delivery," said Maarten Merkx, professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in The Netherlands.
To determine whether someone has a particular disease, it is essential to measure the concentration of specific antibodies -- the agents that our immune system produces when we are ill.
The new method will translate the presence of each antibody into a unique piece of DNA whereby the DNA computer can decide on the basis of the presence of one or more antibodies whether drug delivery, for example, is necessary.
"The presence of a particular DNA molecule sets in motion a series of reactions whereby we can get the DNA computer to run various programs," explained Wouter Engelen, doctoral student at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
"Our results show that we can use the DNA computer to control the activity of enzymes, but we think it should also be possible to control the activity of a therapeutic antibody," Engelen added.
In addition, the system can measure the quantity of therapeutic antibodies in the blood and decide whether it is necessary to administer any extra medication used in treating chronic diseases like rheumatism or Crohn's disease.
Super User
From Different Corners
Moscow, Feb 18 (IANS) Raising hope for an anti-ageing drug in just two to three years, a group of Russian and Swedish scientists have managed to slow down ageing of mice with the use of a novel compound.
Development of typical traits of ageing was dramatically reduced in the group of mice treated with the compound - artificial antioxidant SkQ1, showed the results of the study published in the journal Aging.
This compound -- that appears to work by protecting animal cells from the toxic byproducts of mitochondria, known as intracellular powerstations -- was developed in the Moscow State University by Russian biologist Vladimir Skulachev.
"Our study opens the way to the treatment of ageing with mitochondrially targeted antioxidants," Skulachev, a co-author of the study, said.
Experiments involved a special strain of genetically-modified mice created and characterised in Sweden.
A single mutation was introduced into genome of these mice resulting in the substantially accelerated mutagenesis in mitochondria which leads to accelerated ageing and early death of the mutant mice. They live less than one year (normal mouse lives more than two years).
The mutation promotes development of many age-related defects and diseases indicating that the major defect of these mice is indeed ageing.
Starting from the age of 100 days one group of mutant mice was treated with small doses of SkQ1 (approximately 12 micrograms) added into their drinking water.
Another group of animals served as a control group receiving pure water.
Differences between the two groups became obvious starting from the age 200-250 days.
Animals in the control group aged rapidly as expected. They were losing weight, their body temperature decreased, severe curvature of the spine (as a result of osteoporosis) and alopecia were developing, their skin became thinner, and in case of females estrus cycle was impaired.
Finally their mobility and oxygen consumption were decreased.
The development of all these typical traits of ageing was dramatically decelerated in the group treated with SkQ1.
Some of the ageing traits did not appear in that group at all, the study said.
This work "clearly demonstrates the key role of mitochondrially produced reactive oxygen species (free radicals) in the process of ageing of mammals", Skulachev said.
An oral form of the compound is now in the process of clinical trials in Russia.
The researchers believe that in case of positive results of these trials, such "anti-ageing" drug can be approved for use in two to three years.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
New York, Feb 17 (IANS) The February updates in Microsoft Office will now enable owners of the Macbook Pro with Touch Bar to work with the LCD strip Apple introduced with its latest laptop.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
New York, Feb 17 (IANS) Google has announced that it was "years closer" to deliver internet to remote parts of the world using high-flying balloons.
Researchers at Google's Project Loon -- part of the company's X research lab -- said it was now able to use machine learning to predict weather systems, meaning the firm has a
SUC Editing Team
Retail and Marketing
Beijing, Feb 17 (IANS) Chinese smartphone maker ZTE is set to launch the "Gigabit" phone at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona later this month. "The ZTE Gigabit phone will revolutionise connectivity with a new standard of download speeds, 1Gbps, bringing a qualitative leap to a new world of mobile experience by making 360-degree panoramic VR video, instant Cloud storage, entertainment upgrades and fast cache of ultra Hi-Fi music and movies possible," the company said in a statement on Friday. ZTE will focus on leading 5G evolution, advancing cloudification, creating the Internet of Everything (IoT) and developing state of art devices. The company will also showcase the newly updated "Axon 7" with both Android Nougat and Daydream by Google along with a range of new devices as part of the highly acclaimed Blade series.
Super User
From Different Corners
London, Feb 17 (IANS) A fat pay cheque may be influenced by more than just physical attractiveness or the lack of it, say researchers dispelling the 'beauty premium' theory which says beautiful people earn more while those who are not so gorgeous are paid less.
The findings showed that healthier and more intelligent people and those with more conscientious, more extraverted and less neurotic personality traits are the ones who take fatter pay checks home.
"Physically more attractive workers may earn more, not necessarily because they are more beautiful, but because they are healthier, more intelligent and have better personality traits conducive to higher earnings, such as being more conscientious, more extraverted and less neurotic," said Satoshi Kanazawa from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Economists have widely documented the "beauty premium" -- or, conversely, the "ugliness penalty" -- on wages.
Population-based surveys in the US and Canada for instance showed that people who are physically attractive earn more, while those who are aesthetically compromised earn less.
For the study, detailed in the Journal of Business and Psychology, the team analysed a nationally representative sample from a US data set that measured physical attractiveness of all respondents on a five-point scale at four different points in life over 13 years.
The beauty premium theory was dispelled when factors such as health, intelligence, and major personality factors together with other correlates of physical attractiveness were taken into account.
The analysis showed that people are not necessarily discriminated against because of their looks.
In addition, the study also offered narrower categories of relative attractiveness, with less attractive participants split into "very unattractive" and "unattractive."
The differentiation revealed an apparent ugliness premium, with very unattractive people earning more than their merely unattractive peers, the researchers said.
Super User
From Different Corners
London, Feb 17 (IANS) Antibiotics may be an effective treatment for acute non-complicated appendicitis in children, instead of surgery, a study says.
The condition, which causes the appendix -- a small organ attached to the large intestine -- to become inflamed due to a blockage or infection, affects mainly children and teenagers.
Appendicitis is currently treated through an operation to remove the appendix, known as an appendicectomy.
"Acute appendicitis is one of the most common general surgical emergencies worldwide and surgery has long been the gold standard of treatment. But it is invasive and costly, not to mention extremely daunting for the child concerned and their family," said lead researcher Nigel Hall, Associate Professor of Paediatric Surgery at the University of Southampton in Britain.
"Our review shows that antibiotics could be an alternative treatment method for children," Hall noted.
For the study, the researchers assessed existing literature published over the past 10 years that included 10 studies reporting on 413 children who received non-operative treatment rather than an appendectomy.
The review published in the journal Pediatrics showed that no study reported any safety concern or specific adverse events related to non-surgical treatment, although the rate of recurrent appendicitis was 14 per cent.
"When we compared the adult literature to the data in our review it suggested that antibiotic treatment of acute appendicitis is at least as effective in children as in adults. This now needs to be explored more widely," Hall said.