Knowledge Update

​London, Oct 6 (IANS) Vitamin E supplementation may reduce the risk of pneumonia in elderly men who are not smokers, new research has found.

Administration of 50 mg per day of vitamin E decreased the risk of pneumonia in elderly male smokers by 72 per cent after they quit smoking, the findings, published in the journal Clinical Interventions in Aging, showed.

For the study, Harri Hemila from University of Helsinki, Finland, explored whether vitamin E supplementation might influence the risk of community-acquired pneumonia. 

He analysed the data of the randomised trial (Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention [ATBC] Study) which was conducted in Finland and included male smokers aged from 50 to 69 years.

The age when the participant had started to smoke significantly modified the effect of vitamin E on pneumonia. 

Vitamin E decreased the risk of pneumonia by 35 per cent in 7,469 participants who had started smoking at a later age, at 21 years or older, whereas the vitamin had no apparent effect on pneumonia for those who had started to smoke at a younger age.

Among the 7,469 participants who started to smoke at a later age, vitamin E supplementation reduced the incidence of pneumonia by 69 per cent in a subgroup of 2,216 light smokers who exercised in their leisure time. 

In this subgroup, vitamin E prevented pneumonia in 12.9 per cent of the participants by the time they reached the age of 74 years, which corresponds to one in eight getting a benefit from the vitamin. 

The vitamin did not have a significant effect on participants who smoked heavily or had not been exercising.

The incidence of pneumonia was 72 percent lower in the vitamin E participants who had quit smoking, and this benefit from vitamin E was also seen among those who smoked heavily or did not exercise.

New York, Oct 5 (IANS) Medication-resistant bacteria are making it more difficult to treat a common but severe kidney infection, says a study.

Pyelonephritis -- infection of the kidney usually caused by E. coli bacteria and which can start as a urinary tract infection -- causes fever, back pain and vomiting. 

About half of people infected require hospitalisation. If not treated with effective antibiotics, it can cause sepsis and death.

"This is a very real example of the threat posed by the emergence of new antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, which greatly complicates treatment of infection," said the study's lead author David Talan, Professor at David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles. 

In an earlier study based on data from 10 large hospital emergency departments in the US, almost 12 per cent of people diagnosed with pyelonephritis had infections resistant to the standard class of antibiotic used in treatment -- fluoroquinolone. That is up from four per cent in a similar study conducted a decade ago. 

The new study -- published in the jurnal Emerging Infectious Diseases -- also documents the emergence of infections caused by a specific strain of E. coli that is resistant to additional types of antibiotics, severely limiting treatment options. 

That strain, dubbed ESBL for the antibiotic-destroying enzymes it produces (extended-spectrum beta-lactamases), was not detected in the previous study. 

Currently, there are only a few intravenous antibiotic options to treat ESBL-related infections, and no oral antibiotics that are consistently effective.

The study included 453 people diagnosed with kidney infection. The study participants were diagnosed between July 2013 and December 2014 in 10 emergency departments at large hospitals in the US.

The rates of ESBL-related infections varied from zero per cent to more than 20 per cent, depending on the location of the emergency room and patient risk factors.

About three of every four people infected with ESBL-producing E. coli were initially treated with antibiotics ineffective against that particular strain of bacteria, placing them at risk for poor outcomes, the researchers reported.

​Mumbai, Oct 5 (IANS) Although 48 per cent of companies have invested in big data in 2016 -- up three per cent from 2015 -- those who plan to invest within the next two years fell from 31 to 25 per cent in 2016, a new Gartner survey has found.

​Washington, Oct 4 (IANS) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday maintained its forecast for global growth in 2016 at 3.1 per cent, saying the subpar trend will continue without determined policy action.

New York, Oct 5 (IANS) After the popular mobile messaging platform WhatsApp, parent company Facebook has reportedly rolled out end-to-end encryption for its Messenger users.

London, Oct 4 (IANS) In a bid to develop one of the worlds largest industrial cloud platforms, Swiss engineering giant and Microsoft on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership to help industrial customers create new value with digital solutions.

​San Francisco, Oct 4 (IANS) With an aim to lead the world of smartphones with its artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology, Google on Tuesday launched much-awaited Pixel -- a new premium device completely designed by the tech giant -- at a special event here. The launch also ended the Nexus branding under which the company has always released phones in partnership with other original equipment manufacturers like LG (for Google Nexus 5) and Huawei (for Google Nexus 6P). Although HTC has manufactured the smartphones, the new devices bear Google branding. With curved edges and a unibody made up of combination of aluminium and glass, the device comes in two sizes -- 5 and 5.5-inch with super AMOLED displays -- and is available in quite black, very silver and limited edition really blue colours. Pixel is first smartphone with Google Assistant -- a built in AI programme that works as an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator. So now just ask questions, tell it to do things. With the highest ever DxOMark Mobile score of 89, Pixel's 12.3MP rear camera with f/2.0 click stunning photos in any light conditions -- #Nofilter needed. Catch action shots as they happen with Smartburst, which takes a rapid-fire sequence of shots. Use Lens Blur to achieve shallow depth of field and bokeh effects, making your subject pop. Google is offering free and unlimited online storage for photos and videos -- in original quality. Google's video calling app Google Duo comes preloaded on the devices. The device also has Pixel Imprint -- the fingerprint scanner on the back of the smartphone for quick access to all apps, texts and e-mails. Catering to the demand of a large battery that not only charges fast but also lasts all day long, Pixel devices come with 2,770 or 3,450 mAh battery packs that can give up to 7 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. It comes with a Type-C charging port and has retained the 3.5mm headphone jack. The device has a Bluetooth 4.2. With powerhouse specifications, both the devices have similar hardware under the hood. Pixel smartphones are fitted with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 821 Quad core (2x 2.15 Ghz and 2x1.6 Ghz) processors, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM and run on Android Nougat 7.0 operating system that was launched in August. The devices are available for $649 and up for pre-order in the US, Britain, Canada, Germany and Australia. The device will be available in India from October 13.

New York, Oct 4 (IANS) New York, Oct 4 (IANS) A gene associated with an increased risk of children developing a common ear infection has been identified by US researchers.

Middle-ear infection, or acute otitis media, is an ear infection that is usually caused by bacteria or viruses.

Common symptoms include ear pain and fever and in some cases, it may also cause drainage of fluid from the ear or hearing loss. 

"This painful childhood ear infection is the most frequent reason children receive antibiotics," said Hakon Hakonarson from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). 

For the study, the team performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) with DNA samples from 11,000 children. 

They found that an association between acute otitis media and a site on chromosome 6 containing the gene FNDC1, and then replicated the finding in an independent pediatric cohort with data from 2,000 children. 

The scientists showed that the mouse gene corresponding to FNDC1 was expressed in the animal's middle ear. 

"Although the gene's function in humans has not been well studied, we do know that FNDC1 codes for a protein with a role in inflammation," Hakonarson added.

The finding, published online in the journal Nature Communications, may offer an early clue to helping doctors develop more effective treatments to prevent one of the most common childhood illnesses.

Middle-ear infection, or acute otitis media, is an ear infection that is usually caused by bacteria or viruses.

Common symptoms include ear pain and fever and in some cases, it may also cause drainage of fluid from the ear or hearing loss. 

"This painful childhood ear infection is the most frequent reason children receive antibiotics," said Hakon Hakonarson from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). 

For the study, the team performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) with DNA samples from 11,000 children. 

They found that an association between acute otitis media and a site on chromosome 6 containing the gene FNDC1, and then replicated the finding in an independent pediatric cohort with data from 2,000 children. 

The scientists showed that the mouse gene corresponding to FNDC1 was expressed in the animal's middle ear. 

"Although the gene's function in humans has not been well studied, we do know that FNDC1 codes for a protein with a role in inflammation," Hakonarson added.

The finding, published online in the journal Nature Communications, may offer an early clue to helping doctors develop more effective treatments to prevent one of the most common childhood illnesses.

​New York, Oct 4 (IANS) Gender bias at workplace can influence how supervisors view a manager's long-term potential, a new study shows.

The researchers examined a phenomenon called managerial derailment and found that supervisors can have subtle, even subconscious differences while expecting behaviour from male and female managers, which can have costly consequences for women in the workplace, most notably the loss of mentorship.

"If you're doing performance evaluations, there's a record in a Human Resource file you could refer to, and gender biases could be identified and dealt with," said Joyce Bono, Professor at the University of Florida, US.

"However, perceptions of derailment potential exist in a supervisor's head. They're informal assessments that supervisors make, yet they have important implications for the opportunities that supervisors provide," added Bono.

To examine gender bias in perceptions of derailment potential, the authors conducted four studies. 

Two studies analysed data collected on nearly 50,000 managers enrolled in leadership development programmes and the other two were experimental studies where managers examined performance reviews of two fictitious employees whose only difference was their gender.

Bono and her colleagues found that when evaluating managers who exhibited equal levels of ineffective interpersonal behaviours, supervisors were more likely to predict derailment for women managers than for men. 

Because of these negative assessments, female managers receive less mentoring.

"Sponsorship and mentoring are even more important for women than men because women are typically are less connected to those higher in the corporate hierarchy in part because there are more men than women at higher levels," Bono added in the study published in the journal Personnel Psychology.

Bono emphasises that the negative assessments female managers receive from male supervisors are not purposeful or nefarious.

"Don't think of the bias exhibited here as behaviour of bad people who don't want women to get ahead. Rather, we expect women to be nicer than men, because that's what our society has told us to expect. These beliefs influence our behaviors, often without our awareness," the author said.

​New York, Oct 5 (IANS) People who spend more than three hours a day on Facebook have more relaxed privacy attitudes and are more likely to share personal information than those who spend less time on the social networking site, new research has found.

Heavy social network users who read friends' updates and share information about themselves become used to the act of posting their information as they read daily about their friends and the world, spurring them to post more about themselves -- and to share more during off-line encounters, the study said.

"People sometimes don't realise the powerful socialising role of social media," said Mina Tsay-Vogel, Assistant Professor at Boston University in the US.

"Yes, we are maintaining relationships with others, and we might all get to know the most current news and what people are doing, and it's very satiating," Tsay-Vogel said.

"But we might not realise that it's also affecting how we're seeing information disclosure in the real world, and how it's also impacting us to then disclose our own personal information. Not only in the virtual world, but in the off-line world," she noted.

The study, published in the journal New Media and Society, analysed five years' worth of surveys from 2,789 students (18-to-25-year-old) in the US.

Researchers surveyed students in introductory communications courses between 2010 and 2015, asking them about their Facebook habits and their attitudes toward privacy and government regulation in order to discern patterns in their behaviour and attitudes about sharing information on Facebook.

This multiyear look at the same age group gave researchers more insights into users' attitudes than a one-time snapshot, Tsay-Vogel said.

The data showed that heavier users of Facebook, defined as being on a social network for more than the sample average of 3.17 hours a day, had more relaxed privacy attitudes and were more likely to share personal information, Tsay-Vogel said.