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.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
New York, Oct 29 (IANS) Google Glass can make learning Morse code much easier as researchers have developed a system that teaches the code within four hours using a series of vibrations felt near the ear.
Super User
Retail and Marketing
New York, Oct 29 (IANS) Love to eat milk chocolates, but are wary of its negative health effects as a result of higher levels of added sugar and fat? Take heart. Researchers have found a way to introduce the health benefits of dark chocolate -- a powerful source of antioxidants -- into milk chocolates.
Researchers from the North Carolina State University, in the US, have developed a method to use peanut skin extracts to make milk chocolate that has even more nutritional benefits of dark chocolate without affecting the taste.
They extracted phenolic compounds from peanut skins -- a waste product of peanut production -- and encapsulated them into maltodextrin powder which is an edible carbohydrate with a slightly sweet flavour that comes from starchy foods such as potatoes, rice or wheat. The maltodextrin powder was incorporated into the milk chocolate.
"If applied to commercial products, peanut skin extracts would allow consumers to enjoy mild tasting products and have exposure to compounds that have proven health benefits," said lead author Lisa L. Dean from the North Carolina State University.
Including these extracts would allow for a value-added use of the discarded skins, because peanut skins are a waste product of the blanching process of the peanut industry, the authors said.
Consumer testing of 80 subjects who compared samples of both milk chocolates with peanut extracts and without showed that the fortified chocolates were liked as well as the untreated milk chocolate.
These tests also showed that the threshold for detecting the presence of the peanut skin extract was higher than that needed to fortify the milk chocolate to antioxidant levels comparable to dark chocolate, the researchers noted in the paper appearing in the Journal of Food Science.
Super User
Lifestyle and Trends
New York, Oct 29 (IANS) Love to notch up the race numbers on the treadmill each day? Be careful, as running with heavier shoes may slow your race times, researchers have found.
The study found that running times slows when shoe weight is increased, even if only by a few ounces.
For the study, the researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder in the US brought 18 runners, measured energy consumption and 3,000-metre race times in runners wearing shoes of various weights.
To measure running economy, each participant ran on a treadmill using three pairs of nearly identical shoes, with subtle differences.
Unknown to the runners, the researchers added small lead pellets inside the tongues of two of the three pairs of shoes to be used by each runner.
While one pair was normal, each shoe of another pair was made 100 grams heavier and a third pair was loaded with 300 grams of lead pellets per shoe.
Each of the runners ran treadmill tests in which oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production were measured with all three differently weighted shoe pairs.
The results showed that energy costs of the runners rose by about 1 per cent with each extra 100 grams of shoe weight.
On the other hand, when shoe mass is reduced, by compromising with cushioning for example, it doesn't mean you will run faster, said lead author Wouter Hoogkamer, postdoctoral student at University of Colorado-Boulder, adding "Lighter is not always better."
Prior studies have also shown that proper cushioning also reduces the energetic cost of running.
So when selecting footwear, be aware of this trade-off between shoe mass and cushioning, concluded the researchers in the paper published online in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
Super User
From Different Corners
London, Oct 28 (IANS) Researchers have confirmed an unassuming brown pebble, found more than a decade ago by a fossil hunter in Sussex, as the first example of fossilised brain tissue from a dinosaur.
The tissues resemble those seen in modern crocodiles and birds, said the study reported in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London.
The fossilised brain, found by fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks near Bexhill in Sussex in 2004, is most likely from a species similar to Iguanodon - a large herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous Period, about 133 million years ago, according to the study.
"The chances of preserving brain tissue are incredibly small, so the discovery of this specimen is astonishing," said study co-author Alex Liu from the University of Cambridge.
According to the researchers, the reason this particular piece of brain tissue has been so well preserved is that the dinosaur's brain was essentially 'pickled' in a highly acidic and low-oxygen body of water -- similar to a bog or swamp -- shortly after its death.
"What we think happened is that this particular dinosaur died in or near a body of water, and its head ended up partially buried in the sediment at the bottom," David Norman from the University of Cambridge, noted.
"Since the water had little oxygen and was very acidic, the soft tissues of the brain were likely preserved and cast before the rest of its body was buried in the sediment," Norman noted.
Working with colleagues from the University of Western Australia, the researchers used scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques in order to identify the tough membranes, or meninges, that surrounded the brain itself, as well as strands of collagen and blood vessels.
The structure of the fossilised brain, and in particular that of the meninges, shows similarities with the brains of modern-day descendants of dinosaurs, namely birds and crocodiles, the study said.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, Oct 29 (IANS) Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have greater numbers of harmful mutations in their mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) than family members, US researchers have found.
Autism is a serious developmental disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and interact.
Previous studies pointed out to the malfunctions in mitochondria -- the powerhouse of the cell -- as a major cause of ASD, however, the biological link was not established.
In the new study, the researchers discovered a unique pattern of heteroplasmic mutations, where both mutant and normal mDNA sequences exist in a single cell.
Children with ASD have more than twice as many potentially harmful mutations compared to unaffected siblings, and 1.5 times as many mutations that would alter the resulting protein.
"The result of our study synergises with recent work on ASD, calling attention to children diagnosed with ASD, who have one or more developmental abnormalities or related co-morbid clinical conditions for further testing on mDNA and mitochondrial function," said Zhenglong Gu of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Further, the study showed that these mutations can be inherited from the mother, or could be a result of spontaneous mutation during development.
Carrying harmful mutations in mDNA is also associated with increased risk of neurological and developmental problems among children with ASD, because mitochondria plays a central role in metabolism.
The risks are most pronounced in children with lower IQ and poor social behaviour compared to their unaffected siblings, the researchers said.
"Since many neurodevelopmental disorders and related childhood disorders show abnormalities that converge upon mitochondrial dysfunction, and may have mDNA defects as a common harbinger, future research is needed...," Gu noted.
For the study, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, the scientists analysed mDNA sequences from 903 children with ASD, along with their unaffected siblings and mothers.
SUC Editing Team
International Business
Mumbai, Oct 28 (IANS) Tata Steel Minerals Canada, a joint venture between Tata Steel Ltd and New Millennium Iron Corp signed definitive agreements with Resources Quebec (RQ) and Investment Quebec (IQ) for concluding investments of Canadian dollar $175 million, the steel producer said on Friday.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
San Francisco, Oct 28 (IANS) Apple has released a significant update to its professional video editing app Final Cut Pro X.
The app now comes with new editing features for the Magnetic Timeline, support for the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro and a redesigned interface with full support for
SUC Editing Team
International Business
Kathmandu, Oct 28 (IANS) State-owned Nepal Airline Corporation (NAC) said it has initiated steps to bring four of the six Chinese aircraft it has contracted for, having received two.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
London, Oct 28 (IANS) Smartphone applications could offer patients with Type 2 diabetes a highly effective method of self-managing their condition, researchers have found in a study.
Super User
Retail and Marketing
San Francisco, Oct 28 (IANS) Cupertino-based Apple has introduced the thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro ever, along with a breakthrough interface that replaces the traditional row of function keys with a Retina-quality multi-touch display called the Touch Bar.
The MacBook Pro features sixth-generation quad-core and dual-core processors, up to 2.3 times the graphics performance over the previous generation, super-fast SSDs and up to four Thunderbolt 3 ports.
The new MacBook Pro sports Apple's brightest and most colourful Retina display yet, the security and convenience of Touch ID, a more responsive keyboard, a larger Force Touch trackpad and an audio system with double the dynamic range.
"This week marks the 25th anniversary of Apple's first notebook, through the years each generation has introduced new innovations and capabilities, and it is fitting that this all-new generation of MacBook Pro is the biggest leap forward yet," said Philip Schiller, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Apple, in a statement.
As thin as a MacBook display at 0.88 mm, the Retina display on the new MacBook Pro at 500 nits of brightness, is 67 per cent brighter than the previous generation, features 67 per cent more contrast and is the first Mac notebook display to support wide colour gamut.
And with power-saving technologies like a larger pixel aperture, a variable refresh rate and power-efficient LEDs, the display consumes 30 per cent less energy than before.
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro, at just 15.5 mm thin, is 14 per cent thinner and has 20 per cent less volume than before, and weighing just 1.83 kg is nearly half a pound lighter.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar and Touch ID features a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro, also features Touch Bar and Touch ID, a 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.5GHz, 16GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage.
All the devices will soon be available in the market, the company said.