Knowledge Update

​New York, March 21 (IANS) Chief of marketing and human resource officers need to better coordinate their activities to maximise a company's value, says a new research.

Customers and employees represent two critical stakeholders of a firm. In most organisations, customer-related activities are under the purview of marketing, while employee-related activities are under the purview of human resource. 

The results of the study showed that the relative consistency with which a company treats its customers and employees could affect the company's long-term value. 

Improving consistency in employee and customer achievements can lead to a big change for a firm both financially and metaphorically.

Also, the customer -- and employee -- related achievements could have a positive impact on a firm's valuation while the lapses can strengthen the negative impact. 

Companies that have consistency in employee and customer achievements on average have 11 percent higher firm valuation than those having inconsistent outcomes. 

"Our results imply that CEOs need to ensure that critical members of the C-suite coordinate their activities to maximize firm value," the researchers maintained.

The findings also revealed that the effect of uniformity in customer and employee related activities are stronger for firms with a narrow than a broad business scope.

"We found these results to be much stronger for firms with a narrow than a broad business focus; that is, competing in fewer than more business segments,” said Yan "Anthea" Zhang, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard professor of Management at the Rice Jones University in Texas, US.

To achieve this oneness, it is critical for firms to ensure that their marketing and human-resource departments act in unison, the researchers asserted.

The authors found evidence to support their theory using a dataset of 21,447 observations between 1994 and 2010 that represented 4,643 firms. ​

​New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) Chinese internet conglomerate LeEco on Friday said they would display Le Super Car concept at Beijing Auto Show scheduled from April 25 to May 4. The company formed several partnerships including with luxury sports car brand Aston Martin for RapidE that incorporates the LeEco Internet of the Vehicle (IOV) system, Chinese ride-sharing app Yidao Yongche and Beijing Dianzhuang Technology Ltd. and start-up electric car firm Faraday Future. LeEco also roped in Chinese autonomous driving expert Kai Ni to solidify its positioning in the automotive value chain. The company said the car would be in the market by 2018. Aston Martin and LeEco signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in January and revealed the first results of their collaboration -- an Aston Martin Rapide S at the Consumer Electronic Show earlier this year. ​

​New York, March 19 (IANS) Facebook has introduced a secret basketball mini-game into its Messenger service, a media report said on Saturday.

The hoop shooting game can be unlocked by sending a basketball emoji to a friend or group in the latest version of the Messenger app and then simply clicking on it, Tech

London, March 19 (IANS) Annual spending on research and development (R&D) in Britain has reached an all-time high, exceeding more than $44 billion, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

​Singapore, March 19 (IANS) The Singapore ArtScience Museum on Saturday unveiled a new exhibit that merges cutting edge technology with artistic design and creativity in 15 larger-than-life installations mimicking ecosystems, cities and space. "Art is usually static with limited interaction. Now technology has opened new opportunities for artists to stretch their imagination," said Fujiwara Tetsuya, the managing director of Panasonic System Solutions. Panasonic in Asia Pacific partnered with the Singaporean ArtScience Museum and teamLab, a Japanese art and technology collective, to create the earth-inspired exhibit, EFE news reported. The 1,500 square-metre exhibit "FUTURE WORLD: Where Art Meets Science" under the first theme "Nature" invites visitors to explore rooms where flowers bloom and die and butterflies flutter in interweaving pixels on gallery walls. Using teamLab's interactive 4D vision technology "visitors experience the universe from within it, as it surrounds, enfolds them and responds to their presence, thus helping visitors understand themselves as part of the vastness of celestial space", said teamLab. The second concept, "Town", reflects a cityscape that invites visitors to populate towns by inputting digital data, watching cities grow and physically build and construct architecture with fibreglass light cubes. Finally, the crystal universe of "Space" transports viewers into a darkened galaxy with star-studded skies, with over 170,000 LED lights used to light up the re-creation of the universe. "We hope to invoke in visitors a new and imaginative sense of wonder in the world around us," said Honor Hagar, the executive director of the ArtScience Museum.​

​Toronto, March 18 (IANS) Opening up a whole new paradigm for treating or even indefinitely postponing the onset of osteoporosis, researchers have found that a single injection of stem cells could potentially restore the normal bone structure in those affected by the condition in which bones become brittle as a result of loss of tissue.

With age-related osteoporosis, the inner structure of the bone diminishes, leaving the bone thinner, less dense, and losing its function. 

The disease is responsible for an estimated 8.9 million fractures per year worldwide.

But how can an injection of stem cells reverse the ravages of age in the bones?

The researchers earlier demonstrated a causal effect between mice that developed age-related osteoporosis and low or defective mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in these animals.

"We reasoned that if defective MSCs are responsible for osteoporosis, transplantation of healthy MSCs should be able to prevent or treat osteoporosis," said senior author of the study William Stanford, professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

To test that theory, the researchers injected osteoporotic mice with MSCs from healthy mice.

Stem cells are "progenitor" cells, capable of dividing and changing into all the different cell types in the body. 

Able to become bone cells, MSCs have a second unique feature, ideal for the development of human therapies -- these stem cells can be transplanted from one person to another without the need for matching (needed for blood transfusions, for instance) and without being rejected.

After six months post-injection, a quarter of the life span of these animals, the osteoporotic bone had astonishingly given way to healthy, functional bone.

The findings were published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

"We had hoped for a general increase in bone health," study co-author John Davies, professor at the University of Toronto, said. 

"But the huge surprise was to find that the exquisite inner "coral-like" architecture of the bone structure of the injected animals--which is severely compromised in osteoporosis--was restored to normal," Davies noted.

While there are currently no human stem cell trials looking at a systemic treatment for osteoporosis, the long-range results of the study point to the possibility that as little as one dose of stem cells might offer long-term relief.​

​New York, March 18 (IANS) A new equation developed by scientists can predict more accurately your walking energy expenditure, thus replacing the leading standardised equations used for close to half a century that were based on the assumption that one size fits all.

"Our new equation is formulated to apply regardless of the height, weight and speed of the walker. It's appreciably more accurate," said Lindsay Ludlow, a researcher at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas.

The equation developed by SMU scientists, which was recently described in in the Journal of Applied Physiology, is about four times more accurate for adults and children together, and about two to three times more accurate for adults only, Ludlow said.

"The economy of level walking is a lot like shipping packages -- there is an economy of scale," said Peter Weyand, a study co-author. "Big people get better gas mileage when fuel economy is expressed on a per-pound basis," he added.

The research comes at a time when greater accuracy combined with mobile technology, such as wearable sensors, is increasingly being used in real time to monitor the body's status. 

The researchers note that some devices use the old standardised equations, while others use a different method to estimate the calories burned.​

New York, March 18 (IANS) Having more ideal cardiovascular health is linked with better brain processing speed and is more likely to prevent the decline in brain function that sometimes accompanies ageing, according to a study.

The researchers from the University of Miami and the Columbia University used the American Heart Association's "Life's Simple Seven" definition of cardiovascular health, which includes tobacco avoidance, ideal levels of weight, physical activity, healthy diet, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose.

"Achieving the health metrics of Life's Simple 7 is associated with a reduced risk of strokes and heart attacks, even among the elderly," said study lead author Hannah Gardener from the University of Miami.

"The finding that they may also impact cognitive, or brain function underscores the importance of measuring, monitoring and controlling these seven factors by patients and physicians," Gardener added.

At the beginning of the study, published recently in Journal of the American Heart Association, 1,033 participants were tested for memory, thinking and brain processing speed.

Brain processing speed measures how quickly a person is able to perform tasks that require focused attention. Approximately six years later, 722 participants repeated the cognitive testing, which allowed researchers to measure performance over time.

The researchers found that having more cardiovascular health factors was associated with less decline over time in processing speed, memory and executive functioning, which is associated with focusing, time management and other cognitive skills.

"In addition, further study is needed to identify the age ranges, or periods over the life course, during which cardiovascular health factors and behaviours may be most influential in determining late-life cognitive impairment, and how behavioural and health modifications may influence cognitive performance and mitigate decline over time," Gardener said.​

​London, March 19 (IANS) A source of cosmic rays radiating energies 100 times greater than those achieved at the largest terrestrial particle accelerator -- the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) -- has been found in the innermost region of our Milky Way galaxy.

The source was revealed after a detailed analysis of the data collected by the H.E.S.S. observatory in Namibia, which was published in the latest issue of the journal Nature. 

H.E.S.S. observatory is being run by an international collaboration of 42 institutions in 12 countries and has been mapping the centre of our galaxy in very high energy gamma rays for over the past 10 years.

"Somewhere within the central 33 light years of the Milky Way there is an astrophysical source capable of accelerating protons to energies of about one petaelectronvolt, continuously for at least 1,000 years," said Emmanuel Moulin from the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre in France. 

Cosmic rays with energies up to approximately 100 teraelectronvolts (TeV)1 are produced in our galaxy by objects such as supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae. 

Theoretical arguments and direct measurements of cosmic rays reaching the Earth indicate, however, that the cosmic-ray factories in our galaxy should be able to provide particles up to one petaelectronvolt (PeV)2 at least. 

While many multi-TeV accelerators have been discovered in recent years, the search for the sources of the highest energy Galactic cosmic rays has been unsuccessful.

The electrically-charged cosmic rays are strongly deflected by the interstellar magnetic fields that pervade our galaxy. Their path through the cosmos is randomised by these deflections, making it impossible to directly identify the astrophysical sources responsible for their production. 

Thus, for more than a century, the origin of the cosmic rays has remained one of the most enduring mysteries of science.

In analogy to the "Tevatron" -- the first human-built accelerator that reached energies of 1 TeV -- this new class of cosmic accelerator has been dubbed a "Pevatron."

​Tokyo, March 18 (IANS) Calcium has been known long as good for our bones, but it might also be the key to a good night's sleep, says a new study, unveiling a new theory how sleep works.

The study showed that sleep depends on the activity of calcium inside neurons.

Moreover, it was also revealed that a mechanism regulated by calcium ions is indeed responsible for controlling the sleep duration.

The study, published in the journal Neuron, contributes to the understanding and treatment of sleep disorders like insomania and sleep apnea and other associated neuro-degenerative diseases.

Over a life time the amount of sleep needed gets gradually reduced, in both animals and humans.

Sleep allows the body to recover from the effects of daily life, such as removing waste products from the brain and restoring the immune system, and may use the time to process experiences and lay down long-term memories. 

However, the fundamental reasons for sleep and the mechanisms by which sleep duration is regulated remain largely unknown.

"Although sleep is a fundamental physiologic function, its mechanism is still a mystery," said corresponding author Hiroki Ueda from the University of Tokyo in Japan.

The team developed a computational model of sleep and identified seven genes responsible for causing mice to stay awake or fall asleep. 

The research group then tested their predictions against 21 different genetically modified mouse types.

Out of the 21, seven exhibited significant changes in sleep duration. 

In addition, the research group also showed that the inflow of calcium ions into neurons is required for mice to fall asleep and that pumping calcium ions out of neurons is required for mice to wake up. 

"Sleep is one of the most fundamental physiological functions. From flies to humans, it seems that most animals sleep, but we still know so little about the molecular processes by which sleep duration is regulated," Ueda added. 

In addition to becoming new molecular targets for sleep drugs, the genes we have identified could also become targets for drugs that treat certain psychiatric disorders that occur with sleep dysfunction, the researchers suggested.​