Knowledge Update

Cairo, Nov 3 (IANS) The Egyptian central bank on Thursday devalued the country's currency by 48 per cent against the US dollar and raised interest rates by 3 per cent.

The official exchange rate of the Egyptian pound will now be 13 to the US dollar, down from 8.8, Xinhua news agency reported.

​Taipei, Nov 3 (IANS) The island nation of Taiwan has something of interest for everyone -- scenic, lush-green mountains, lakes, hot springs, culture, cable cars, high-speed trains, museums, malls, amusement parks, beaches and a world class aquarium.

Taiwan, with a population of around 23 million, is not just an industrialised region churning out electronic and other products for global brands but a fusion of multi-cultural traditions and modernity.

The presence of different classes of lodging options in Taiwan and the newly-floated Scoot Airlines grabbing travellers with low fares, Taiwan can also be added to travel destinations for Indians.

It should however be mentioned that language is one issue to be managed here, as English is not widely understood. Also, vegetarians will find Taiwan a bit of a challenge, though hotels do offer vegetarian food. There are also some Indian restaurants.

Around 1.20 a.m. the yellow-painted aircraft took to the skies from Chennai towards Singapore -- the Lion City. Scoot offers different kinds of classes, including a baby-free class, so that travellers are not disturbed by crying babies. But one is helpless if the person next to you starts his/her roaring snore!

It was a new experience to have the piping hot, spicy and tasty Nasi Lemak Malay fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk at an unearthly hour of 2.30 a.m. several thousand feet above the earth.

Travel tip: Better carry a small bottle of water as the airline does not provide even a cup of water free.

We (a group of journalists and I) reached Taipei and were received by Francis Wu, an experienced tour guide assigned to us by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau.

The next morning we boarded the high-speed train (HST) to Zuoying, around 340 km from Taipei. The plan was to travel back over the next couple of days soaking in Taiwan's natural beauty and culture.

The train ride was smooth, sans noise and jerks even while changing tracks at over 230 kmph. The green mountains and farm fields that rushed past were a pleasant sight.

From Zuoying station we reached the YoHo Beach Resort at Pingtung for lunch where the Taiwanese food was good. Beach bummers can go to the popular Baisha Bay for a spectacular sunset, setting the mood for much more fun at the resort.

The other popular spot nearby is the Fu An, the God of Earth temple at Che Cheng. The big temple is built in a royal style and the Earth God is said to be very benevolent in acceding to your prayers.

One of the not-to-be-missed tourist spots in Pingtung is the National Museum of Marine Biology & Aquarium where one can watch dolphins and sharks, among others, gliding elegantly inside the overhead glass enclosures.

Walking through the glass tunnel, tourists can see coral reefs and hundreds of fish and also the manual feeding of stingrays by the aquarium's divers.

The stingray's underside looks like one of the ghosts in the "Casper the Ghost" comic and its wide mouth like the smiley emoticon!

At the Yunlin County en route to Tainan city, daredevils can try out the "Diving Machine G5", a high-speed 65-metre vertical fall at the Janfusun Fancy World, a major amusement park. There is also the "Sky Jet" that offers a high-speed 65-metre ascent and a free fall at the park.

The artistically inclined would find the private Chimei Museum housing sculptures and musical instruments interesting.

Yet another picturesque spot in Taiwan is the Sun Moon Lake located 748 metres above sea level that powers several hydel power plants.

From there, via a cable car ride enjoying the green valley below, one can reach the Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village that narrates the story about the ancient tribes or Austronesans and also hosts cultural shows.

After flying sky lanterns and enjoying the waterfall at the Shifen village it was time to reach Taipei to enjoy the city by night from the 89th floor of the 101-storied Taipei 101 building.

And then it was time to scoot back to Chennai, of course with much reluctance.

​London, Nov 3 (IANS) If you are physically fit and in good shape, you may be well-guarded against the health problems that arise when you feel particularly stressed at work, a study says.

The findings showed that a high fitness level offers particularly effective protection for professionals who experience a high degree of stress in the workplace -- known as psychosocial stress.

Psychosocial stress is one of the key factors leading to illness-related absences from work. This type of stress is accompanied by impaired mental well-being and an increase in depressive symptoms.

It also raises the likelihood of cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and an unfavourable blood lipid profile.

Conversely, a high fitness level is associated with fewer depressive symptoms and fewer cardiovascular risk factors, the researchers said.

"The study is significant because it is precisely when people are stressed that they tend to engage in physical activity less often," said Markus Gerber, Professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

Further, in the individuals who were stressed showed particularly large differences between those with a high, medium, and low fitness level.

For example, when stress levels were high, the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol -- or the bad cholesterol -- values exceeded the clinically relevant limit in employees with a low fitness level, but not in those with a high fitness level.

By contrast, where the exposure to stress was low, far smaller differences were observed between fitness levels.

To promote a physically active lifestyle, a high priority should be attached to the systematic measurement of cardiorespiratory fitness and the provision of theoretically sound and evidence-based physical activity counselling, the researchers stated.

In addition, the study also has direct implications for the therapy and treatment of stress-related disorders, Gerber said.

It therefore pays to stay physically active, especially during periods of high stress, the researchers noted in the paper published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (MSSE).

​New York, Nov 2 (IANS) Making canola oil part of your diet may help you burn extra abdominal fat in less than four weeks, finds a new study.

"Visceral, or abdominal, fat increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, and is also associated with increased risk for conditions such as metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Monounsaturated fats in canola oil decreases fat that has adverse health effects," said Penny M. Kris-Etherton, Professor at the Pennsylvania State University, US.

For the study, the researchers tested the effect of five different vegetable oil blended in 101 participants' diets through a controlled study. 

The subjects were randomly assigned to follow for four weeks each of the treatment oil diets: conventional canola, high-oleic acid canola, high-oleic acid canola with DHA (a type of omega-3 fatty acid), corn/safflower and flax/safflower. 

After each four-week diet period, participants were given a four-week break before starting the next diet period.

All of the participants had abdominal obesity, or increased waist circumference, and were either at risk for or had metabolic syndrome -- a group of conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, low HDL (also known as good cholesterol) and excess body fat around the waist.

When participants consumed conventional canola oil or high-oleic acid canola oil for just four weeks, they lost abdominal fat.

The researchers found that after one month of adhering to diets that included canola oil, participants had 11 kgs, or a quarter pound, less belly fat than they did before the diet. 

They also found that the weight lost from the mid-section did not redistribute elsewhere in the body. 

In order to incorporate canola oil into the diet the researchers suggested using it when sauteing foods, in baking, adding it to a smoothie and in salad dressings.

The researchers presented their study at The Obesity Society's Annual Scientific Meeting.

​New York, Nov 3 (IANS) The constant feeling of being lonely and isolated may be due to the increased amyloid levels in the brain and can be indicative of preclinical Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found.

Loneliness -- characterised by subtle feelings of social detachment -- may be associated with early brain changes in preclinical Alzheimer's disease, prior to mild cognitive impairment.

The findings showed that higher brain amyloid burden was associated with more frequent feelings of isolation, being left out, and lacking companionship, independent of sociodemographic factors, objective measures of social network, depressive and anxiety symptoms.

"The study reports a novel association of loneliness and cortical amyloid burden in cognitively normal adults and present evidence for loneliness as a neuropsychiatric symptom relevant to preclinical Alzheimer's disease," said Nancy J. Donovan, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard in Boston.

Emotional and behavioural symptoms in cognitively normal older people may be direct manifestations of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology at the preclinical stage, prior to the onset of mild cognitive impairment, the study stated. 

For the study, the team included 43 women and 36 men with an average age of about 76 years. Out of these, 22 (28 per cent) were carriers of the genetic risk factor apolipoprotein, and 25 (32 per cent) were in the amyloid-positive group based on volume in imaging. 

The participants' average loneliness score was 5.3 on a scale of 3 to 12.

Higher cortical amyloid levels were associated with greater loneliness after controlling for age, sex, genetic risk, socioeconomic status, depression, anxiety and social network. 

The participants in the amyloid-positive group were 7.5 times more likely to be classified as lonely than non-lonely compared with individuals in the amyloid-negative group. 

The association between high amyloid levels and loneliness was also stronger in APOE 4 carriers than in non-carriers.

"The study will inform new research into the neurobiology of loneliness and other socioemotional changes in late life and may enhance early detection and intervention research in Alzheimer's disease," Donovan said in the study appearing online in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

New York, Nov 3 (IANS) US researchers have identified a possible trigger of chronic inflammation in people with diabetes which could be targeted for preventing complications such as heart attacks, strokes, kidney problems and other related health issues.

"The number of people with diabetes has quadrupled worldwide over the last 20 years," said Clay F. Semenkovich, Professor at the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in the US. 

Too much fat in the diet promotes insulin resistance by spurring chronic inflammation. 

But blocking the production of fat inside immune cells may prevent inflammation in people with diabetes and even in other conditions, such as arthritis and cancer, in which chronic inflammation plays a role. 

This could have a profound impact on health, Semenkovich added.

For the study, Semenkovich's team made genetically altered mice that could not make the enzyme for fatty acid synthase (FAS) in immune cells called macrophages. 

Without the enzyme, it was impossible for the mice to synthesise fatty acids, a normal part of cell metabolism.

"We were surprised to find that the mice were protected from diet-induced diabetes. They did not develop the insulin resistance and diabetes that normally would have been induced by a high-fat diet," said Xiaochao Wei from the Washington University. 

Further, through a series of experiments in the animals and in cell cultures, the researchers found that if macrophages could not synthesise fat from within, the external membranes of those cells could not respond to fat from outside the cells. That prevented the cells from contributing to inflammation.

But, eliminating inflammation altogether is not the answer to preventing diabetic complications because inflammation is also vital for clearing infectious pathogens from the body and helps wounds heal, Semenkovich said.

The study is published online in the journal Nature.

​London, Nov 3 (IANS) Consuming foods rich in proteins such as lean meat, fish, legumes and almonds can significantly reduce fat accumulated in the liver within six weeks, researchers say.

The findings showed that liver fat levels dropped by up to 48 per cent after eating high-protein diet regardless of whether it came from a plant or animal source, and also prevented the occurrence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease -- a very common disorder where excess fat accumulates in the liver -- especially in people with diabetes.

"When left untreated, fatty liver is an important step progress to Type 2 diabetes and can develop into liver cirrhosis, which can have life-threatening effects," said lead author Andreas F.H. Pfeiffer, Endocrinologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DifE), in Germany. 

Further, the study showed that high-protein diet caused favourable changes in the liver and lipid metabolism, improved insulin sensitivity and led to a significant reduction in the hormone fibroblast growth factor 21 in the blood.

For the study, the researchers investigated the effects of two high-protein diets -- plant- or animal-based -- on the metabolism of 37 female and male subjects between the ages of 49 and 78 years suffering from Type 2 diabetes and, in most cases, from fatty liver. 

The main source for the plant protein group were foods such as noodles or bread that were enriched with pea protein. The animal protein group consumed lean milk products as well as white meat and fish as protein sources.

The results showed that no negative effect was observed on renal function or glucose metabolism and all study participants benefited from the high-protein diet. 

The liver fat content decreased significantly, in half of the study participants by more than 50 per cent. 

The study was published in the journal Gastroenterology.

​Washington, Nov 3 (IANS) US space agency NASA has completed the construction of the world's largest space telescope, after almost two decades.

The James Webb Space Telescope is considered to be the successor to NASA's 26-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, the agency announced on Wednesday.

NASA said an Ariane 5 rocket will launch it from French Guiana in October 2018, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Today, we're celebrating the fact that our telescope is finished and we're about to prove that it works," Nobel laureate and Webb's senior project scientist John Mather said during a news conference posted on Youtube, adding that the new telescope will open up "a whole new territory of astronomy".

"We will see things we have not seen before because this telescope is much more powerful than even the great Hubble telescope," Mather said, adding "To give you some perspective about what we can do with it. If you were a bumblebee at a distance of the moon, we will be able to see you, both by your reflective sunlight and by thermal radiation and heat you emitted."

According to NASA, its engineers and technicians on Wednesday successfully completed the first important optical measurement of Webb's fully assembled primary mirror, known as a Centre of Curvature test, to measure the mirror's shape.

Next, the 6.5-metre primary mirror consisting of 18 hexagonal mirrors will go through a series of rigorous tests that will simulate the violent sound and vibration environments the telescope will experience inside its rocket on its way out into space.

The Centre of Curvature test will be repeated after the launch environment testing and the results compared to find if there are any changes or damages to the optical system.

NASA said the Webb telescope will be used to observe distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars.

The $8.7 billion project is led by NASA but also supported by the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

​New York, Nov 2 (IANS) Positive school climate helps students not just to achieve academic excellence but also improve outcomes for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, according to a new study.

Researchers found substantial evidence that schools with positive climates can narrow achievement gaps among students of different socioeconomic backgrounds and between students with stronger and weaker academic abilities.

"Our analysis shows that schools do matter and can do much to improve academic outcomes. Our findings suggest that by promoting a positive climate, schools can allow greater equality in educational opportunities, decrease socioeconomic inequalities, and enable more social mobility," said Ron Avi Astor, professor at the University of Southern California, in the US. 

For their study, published in the Review of Educational Research, the researchers analysed 78 studies that focused on the relationship between school or classroom climate, academic achievement, and socioeconomic status.

In their analysis, the authors found great variation in the school climate definitions and measurements used by researchers, reflecting the absence of clear and uniform standards.

The analysis also found no correlation between socioeconomic status and perceptions of school climate. This suggests that schools serving students of lower socioeconomic status do not necessarily have poor climates and that positive climates can be nurtured in these schools.

"Positive school climate has the potential to break the negative influences that stem from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and to mitigate risk factors that threaten academic achievement," said Ruth Berkowitz, assistant professor of social work at the University of Haifa, Israel. 

​New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS) Taipei-based technology major BenQ has attained the top position in the Indian projector market with a 28 per cent market share, a report by research and consulting firm Futuresource Consulting said on Wednesday. In first quarter of this year, BenQ dominated the market with a 25 per cent market share and since then has strengthened its position by growing to 28 per cent of overall projector market. "BenQ will continue to focus on innovation and technology in digital display space," said Rajeev Singh, Managing Director, BenQ India, in a statement. BenQ has 39 per cent share in the SVGA market, 61 per cent in the short throw market and also leads in the corporate high brightness category with a 37 per cent market share and 47 per cent in the full-HD vertical. The brand also leads in education market with more than 70 per cent market share in private schools, which means out of every three private smart classroom in the country, two uses BenQ projector, the report added.