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Knowledge Update

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.

INELASTICITY OF EMERGING ECONOMIES TO FINANCIAL CRISIS


The global financial crisis is attributed to a large scale lending, to subprime borrowers by the small,
medium and large private banks, a phenomenon observed in USA. The crisis spread to European

TRENDS IN COMMODITY FLOWS IN UAE

Exports and imports are common areas of study but re- exports as a thrust area has emerged in the
recent past and is not clearly understood as to why countries resort to such strategies. A country like UAE

Cross cultural Product Symbolism among Indian Expatriates In UAE

​Consumer buying process does not always consider economic rationale, product utility, functional performance and is sometimes not even subject to price sensitivity. Instead it is based on social acceptability, perceptible status and is used as a tool of symbolic communication with their immediate neighborhood and social groups to seek affiliation and create impression management.

Managing Maritime Infrastructure: Lessons from UAE and China

Ports play a significant role in the development of a country since it links the domestic economy with the rest of the world and thus help in promoting international trade. As a result, port development becomes a major issue for policy making and ongoing economic reforms and trade liberalization. It is well known fact that the port development and

Our beliefs can worsen pain, insomnia conditions

London, Sep 22 (IANS) Individual beliefs can play a potential role in worsening insomnia and pain experiences in patients with chronic pain conditions like back pain, fibromyalgia and arthritis, a team of researchers has found.

"I won't be able to cope with my pain if I don't sleep well," is the common way patients with chronic pain conditions think, the researchers said.

"Thoughts can have a direct and/or indirect impact on our emotion, behaviour and even physiology. The way how we think about sleep and its interaction with pain can influence the way how we cope with pain and manage sleeplessness," said Nicole Tang from the University of Warwick in Britain.

While some of these beliefs are healthy and useful, others are rigid and misinformed. Such conditions can be effectively managed by cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), the study added.

Based on these beliefs, the team developed a scale -- pain-related beliefs and attitudes about sleep (PBAS) -- to measure beliefs about sleep and pain.

The scale, when tested on four groups of patients suffering from long-term pain and bad sleeping patterns, showed that people who believe they won't be able to sleep as a result of their pain are more likely to suffer from insomnia, thus causing worse pain.

Further, the scale was vital in predicting patients' level of insomnia and pain difficulties. 

Current psychological treatments for chronic pain have mostly focused on pain management and a lesser emphasis on sleep.

However, the "PBAS scale provides a useful clinical tool to assess and monitor treatment progress during these therapies", noted Esther Afolalu from the University of Warwick. 

The study has provided therapists the means with which to identify and monitor rigid thoughts about sleep and pain that are sleep-interfering, allowing the application of the proven effective CBT for insomnia in people with chronic pain.

With better sleep, pain problems are significantly reduced, especially after receiving a short course of CBT for both pain and insomnia, the researchers concluded in the paper published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Public Project Evaluation and Selection

Project evaluation in a private sector is purely based on the returns on cost factors but it is not the same in the case of public projects. The issue of selecting and implementing public projects is predominated by the political, social and economic dimensions. In the bargain methodological issues pertaining to the evaluation and objectivity take a back seat when political perspectives dominate the social and economic perspectives. International funding agencies and planned economies have emphasized the need for developing effective methodologies to give objective orientation to investments and the accrual of social benefits to the stakeholders who deserve the most. In this paper an attempt is made to evaluate the public projects by double scoring method which incorporates national priorities and the selection of public projects so that objectivity is maintained purely on the rationality of priority ranking. This method would be more meaningful to serve the community on need basis and increase their satisfaction. 

All non-Africans descended from a single migration out of Africa

New York, Sep 22 (IANS) Studying hundreds of new genomes from across the globe, researchers, one of them of Indian-origin, have found compelling evidence that essentially all non-Africans alive today descend from a single migration out of Africa some 72,000 years ago.

The findings are supported by three new genome sequencing studies published in the journal Nature.

One of the studies led by Harvard Medical School (HMS) geneticists sequenced samples from 142 smaller populations, most of which were previously understudied.

"We wanted to go out into the world and pull together as many of the ethnically, linguistically and anthropologically diverse samples as we possibly could," said first author of the study Swapan Mallick from Harvard Medical School. 

The Harvard geneticists and their international team of colleagues began by selecting two genomes each from 51 populations represented in a collection called the Human Genome Diversity Project. 

Next, they assembled samples from members of 91 other groups, including diverse Native American, South Asian, and African populations not previously included in genome-wide studies, and sent the DNA for sequencing. In all, the project analysed the genomes of 300 people.

A key conclusion -- that the vast majority of modern human ancestry in non-Africans derives from a single population that migrated out of Africa -- is also supported by two other whole-genome sequencing studies appearing simultaneously in Nature. 

One, led by an Estonian group, focused on 379 whole genome sequences; the other, led by a Danish group, analysed 108 Australians and New Guineans.

Together, the three studies put to rest a lingering question about whether indigenous peoples of Australia, New Guinea and the Andaman Islands descend in large part from a second group that left Africa earlier and skirted the coast of the Indian Ocean. 

They do not, the Harvard researchers said.

"Our best estimate for the proportion of ancestry from an early-exit population is zero," David Reich, Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

The study that analysed 108 Australians and New Guineans estimated that around 72,000 years ago, an ancestral population common to Aborginal Australians, Europeans and East Asians left the African continent. 

"Discussions have been intense as to what extent Aboriginal Australians represent a separate Out-of-Africa exit to those of Asians and Europeans," said Professor Laurent Excoffier of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the University of Bern said. 

"We find that, once we take into account admixture with archaic humans, the vast majority of the Aboriginal Australian genetic makeup comes from the same African exit as other non-Africans," Excoffier explained.

The HMS-led study further revealed that the common ancestors of modern humans began to differentiate at least 200,000 years ago, long before the out-of-Africa dispersal occurred.

"It had been unclear whether the group that expanded out of Africa represented a large subset of the populations within Africa," said Mallick. 

"This really shows that there was a lot of substructure prior to the expansion," Mallick noted.

Perceptional Variations of Product Placements in Movies among Expatriate Youth: a case study in UAE

Creativity in advertisements in the form, structure, content and the technology is required to hold the attention span of the viewers. Product placement or embedded advertisements is an alternative strategy adopted by advertisers to overcome limitations of effectiveness and legal restrictions of traditional commercial communication. The paper describes the communication effectiveness of product placement of three different types of products placed in three different movies and resumes the small body of research in the field with the help of a empirical research. A quasi-experimental study is carried out in UAE was designed in order to identify awareness and attitude effects of the product placements as well as general evaluations of conventional advertisements. The results indicate small effectiveness of communication by the product placement especially in recognizing the brand, though not always it leads to product enquire, but it generates awareness and interest in the product because of realistic appeal produced by the product placement in a world of realism. Product Placement in movies enhances the effects of celebrity endorsement of the products because it is in a movie setting and reveals the product utility and its features without directing the consumer unlike in a conventional advertisement. Therefore it makes product placement more acceptable. The research highlighted the enhancement of product assessment in the new form of advertisements.

CAN YOU SPOT THE NEXT LEADER?

Succession planning is an important activity for continuing businesses without which organizations starts fading out due to absence of leaders who can lead the organization after the successfull leader. In this article a five step process of succession planning is discussed and provides guidelines for organizations to think in the direction of succession planning. The five steps begin with identify critical positions that can shape the organization, identify competencies of incumbent leaders, identify strategies of succession planning, document and implement succesion plan, evaluate the effectiveness of the process and the leader. This process can be equally applicable in small, medium and large organizations with appropriate modification to the context. 

Perceptional Variations of Product Placements in Movies among Expatriate Youth: a case study in UAE.

Advertisers have a challenging task ahead of them to hold the target audience focused on their communication material. The challenge is more aggressive in almost all the medias of advertising be it a Television, radio, print or even outdoor sources. To gain the longer attention span is a commodity of the past. It even becomes difficult to precisely measure the advertising effectiveness of a particular brand especially when the consumers are bombarded with innumerable ads in a short duration. Viewers too have started adopting avoidance techniques like frequent brand switching during the ads or diverting their attention by involving into discussions when the ads are displayed. In some cases it is observed it is a cause of irritation or annoyance. Getting captive audience for advertising is a rarity. Euphoria of clutter in advertising is overcome by ad agencies by innovative ideas like increasing the frequency of the ads in the short span, increasing the volume levels during ads, bringing in more sexual overtures in the ads and many more.

 

In this paper a new approach to advertising is evaluated through an empirical study. Product placement or embedded advertisement is an emerging concept which is observed more frequently in the web pages, social gatherings, audio and video sources. These kinds of embedded products in social and entertainment events are unlike traditional advertisements but may serve the purpose of advertisement in a realistic environment which may gain attention among the captive audience and may also give them an opportunity to observe the product use in a virtual context especially when used in a Television serial or a movie. Influence of Celebrity endorsement of the product during a particular scene or a sequence can also generate positive impact on the audience.

 

Conceptual literature: Conceptually product placement falls under 'below the line' advertisement. (Mueller, O., 1997), Product Placement is the practice of integrating specific products and brands into movie or TV serial sequences as a prop or as set dressing in a TV show/film. It is assumed that its commercial intention is partly concealed and therefore less obtrusive or even not realized at all by the recipients who cannot avoid this type of integrated advertising so easily (Auer et al., 1991).

Product placement is a promotional tool that is assumed to provide increased brand awareness and enhanced brand image. It is an effective strategy to gain exposure and promote products to the general public with a high rate of visibility. (www.monkeyjct.com/faqs.html) Embedded advertising can be visual placement, verbal placement, hands-on placement or and corporate placement.

 

Today's consumer is inundated with advertising everywhere in television and radio sets, billboards, magazines, buses, newspapers, the Internet... And these are just the usual suspects. From people walking down the street wearing signs, to flyers on our cars and in our mailboxes, to ads on the ATM screens as we wait for it to dispense our cash -- we see ads all day, everyday. Consumer on the other hand have developed tactics of avoiding over exposure to the ads either by switching channels or getting engaged in other activities during the commercial ads display.

 

The television networks producers have become aware of the irritations that the interruptions during the programs cause to their valued customers (www.monkeyjct.com/faqs.html) therefore they are ready to replace the advertisements with product placements and present a show without interruptions from ads at regular intervals. Product placements do not necessarily reduce the revenues for the television networks but definitely has an opportunity to increase the viewership and improve their audience ratings. Therefore acceptability embedded advertisements is growing in the entertainment industry where innumerable examples can be seen as mentioned below:

 

  • Risky Business - Ray-Ban sunglasses
  • Back to the Future - Pepsi products
  • Demolition Man - Taco Bell (In the future, everything is Taco Bell...)
  • You've Got Mail - America On-Line (AOL), Apple, IBM and Starbucks
  • Austin Powers - Pepsi and Starbucks
  • Cast Away - FedEx and Wilson
  • Men in Black II - Ray-Ban sunglasses, Mercedes Benz, Sprint, Burger Kin
  • Herbie, the love Bug – Volkswagen Beetle
  • RoboCop – Ford Taurus
  • Smokey and Bandit – Pontiac Trans Am
  • The world is not enough – BMW ZB
  • Lara Croft Tomb Raider – Jeep Wrangler Rubicon

Clever marketers try not to cross the line of customer tolerance limits. Yet they  want their products to be visible within a scene, but not the focus. The product needs to fit, almost seamlessly (almost being the key word here) into the shot and context of the scene. When done correctly, product placement can add a sense of realism to a movie or television show that something like a can simply marked "soda" cannot.

 

Past Evidences : Product placement is something that dates back to at least the early 1950s when Gordon's Gin paid to have Katharine Hepburn's character in "The African Queen" toss loads of their product overboard. Since then, there have been countless placements in thousands of movies. A worldwide trend in advertising, product placement is a vehicle for everything from foodstuffs to electronics to automobiles.

 

Product placement really saw a surge in the mid 1980s now there are specific corporate positions and entire agencies that can handle the job. Some larger corporations will dedicate personnel to scout out opportunities for product integration or placement within films, television shows and even games and music. The benefits of embedded advertising are implied endorsements, long life and global, low cost, low clutter, high profile, captive audience and realistic approach.