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.
Super User
Lifestyle and Trends
New Delhi, March 29 (IANS) With summer around the corner, sweat is a major problem and it is just no fun. Though it is a natural phenomenon, it can be quite embarrassing and problematic when you are out with someone or have to go for an important meeting.
Home hacks like putting potatoes slices under your arms and drinking a glass of tomato juice every day will help you in getting rid of this excessive sweat.
Rahul Aggarwal, CEO, Organic Harvest, an organic beauty care range company, has shared some easy tips on how to keep sweat at bay this summer season.
* Coconut oil: Infuse about 10 grams of camphor in a bowl of coconut oil and apply on the sweat prone areas after bath. Leave it on for 45-60 minutes. Wash it off with clean water to give you desired results.
* Salt: To cure excessive sweating this summer, mix a tablespoon of salt with lime juice. Massaging your hands with this mix will decelerate the activities of sweat glands.
* Tea tree oil: Tea tree oil can be applied to the high perspiring areas. Desired results can be seen if regularly used. It is also excellent for oily skin.
* Potato: These will help in getting rid of sweat. Simply cut slices of potato and rub them under your arms and the areas prone to sweat. Allow the slices to dry before wearing your clothes.
* Tomato juice: Drinking a glass of tomato juice every day will help you in getting rid of this excessive sweat during summer.
* Grapes: A natural anti-oxidant, grapes help you balance the temperature of the body. So eating grapes daily can help you soothe out the problem of this excessive sweating.
* Vinegar: Intake of two teaspoons of natural vinegar and one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar is an excellent remedy to cure the excessive sweating. Taking this mixture thrice a day on an empty stomach half an hour before or after meals will give you the desired results.
* Cornstarch and baking soda: If you sweat profusely, applying the mixture of cornstarch and baking soda under the arms will help you get rid of this problem. After applying the mixture let it stay for half an hour till it dries up and later wash it off with clean water.
Super User
From Different Corners
Los Angeles, March 29 (IANS) Fungi will be sent for the first time to the International Space Station for the development of medicine, said researchers at the University of Southern California (USC).
The experiments, to be conducted jointly by scientists from the university and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will put specimen of Aspergillus nidulans in the high-radiation and micro-gravity conditions in space to develop new medicines for use in space and on the Earth, USC researchers announced on Monday.
The specimen will be carried by the SpaceX CRS-8 mission scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral on April 8. The launch will be the Hawthorne-based company's first cargo resupply service mission since CRS-7 exploded shortly after launch on June 28, 2015, Xinhua reported.
"Certain types of fungi produce very important molecules called secondary metabolites that are not essential for their growth or reproduction but can be used to make beneficial pharmaceuticals. Examples of secondary metabolites include the antibiotic penicillin and the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin," said a USC statement.
Researchers said the environment of space could trigger physiological changes in the fungi.
"The high-radiation, micro-gravity environment in space could prompt Aspergillus nidulans to produce molecules it doesn't create in Earth's less stressful conditions," Clay Wang, professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences and chemistry at the USC school of pharmacy, was quoted as saying by the media.
"We've done extensive genetic analysis of this fungus and found that it could potentially produce 40 different types of drugs," Wang said.
"The organism is known to produce osteoporosis drugs, which is very important from an astronaut's perspective because we know that in space travel, astronauts experience bone loss."
Scientists also said that molecules from Aspergillus nidulans potentially may be useful in anti-cancer and Alzheimer's disease research.
Super User
Lifestyle and Trends
New Delhi, March 29 (IANS) Excessive use of electronic gadgets has led to a rise in cases of hunched backs among youngsters, health experts have said.
They said the problem initially begins as a mild case of bad posture when the children are comparatively young, but slowly begins to develop into hunched back and shoulders.
"It all starts with a bad posture due to spending more time on small digital screens. The more they get addicted to the gadgets the more the children are comfortable in the bad position," said Dr Arvind G. Kulkarni, head of Spine Scoliosis and Disc Replacement Centre at the Bombay Hospital in Mumbai.
Hunched back is a medical condition of exaggerated curving of the upper back. Typically, head and shoulders shift forward, the chest curls inwards and the spine crunches from a healthy 'S' curve to a less healthy 'C' position as the pelvis tilts forward.
"Though associated with old age, hunchback is a condition commonly seen among the youngsters these days, especially those between 9-18 years old. The main cause is weak abdominal muscles from years of sitting in a hunched position. This places uneven pressure on the discs, the cushioning pads between the bones of the lower back, causing them to become compressed and painful," said Kulkarni.
Hyperkyphosis or excessive curvature of thoracic spine is more common among hunchbacks if not treated on time.
"Many people with hyperkyphosis suffer from shortness of breath and other breathing issues. It may also cause anxiety and depression, increased risk of cardiovascular or lung disease and Type 2 diabetes," said Kulkarni.
Talking about the treatment, orthopaedician Ronit Singh of Safdarjung hospital said: "With children and youth, it's important that they learn the correct way to sit, especially when using computers, mobile phones and tablets."
"For the youth and the elderly, exercises like stretching etc often help improve the spine flexibility. Youngsters can emphasise on strengthening abdominal muscles as it helps improve posture. Practicing yoga is considered beneficial for good body posture. Yoga also helps in improving balance; strengthening the core muscles and helping you maintain a proper body alignment," he said.
He said that surgical procedures are recommended and done only if the spine curvature is exaggerated and if it is pinching the spinal cord or the nerve roots.
"Surgery helps in reducing hunchback curvature. The most common procedure is spinal fusion where two or more affected vertebrae are permanently connected. Understanding the importance of good posture at a very early age is essential to maintain a healthy mind and body," he said.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, April 29 (IANS) Researchers have identified four previously unknown genetic diseases that can be brought under the umbrella diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Cases associated with changes in each of the four genes were different from each other in terms of symptoms, intelligence level and other disease features, the researchers said.
"A common fallacy is that schizophrenia can be treated as a single disease," explained lead study author Dolores Malaspina from NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York.
"Our biologically driven study begins to answer longstanding questions in the field about why any two people diagnosed with schizophrenia may have drastically different symptoms. For the first time, we have defined four syndromes mechanistically,” Malaspina noted.
Patients with schizophrenia struggle to interpret reality, typically suffering from hallucinations, learning disabilities, emotional withdrawal and lack of motivation.
In the current study, researchers analysed 48 ethnically diverse patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, looking at symptom sets in patients found to have rare or previously unknown changes in the DNA code of the four genes that disrupted brain function.
The four influential genes now tied by the study to specific conditions are all involved in the growth or regulation of nerve circuits.
"Our results argue that new treatments should -- while addressing core psychoses -- also focus on processing speed in TGM5 cases, working memory in PTPRG, zinc augmentation in SLC39A13, and nerve cell protection in patients with ARMS/KIDINS220 mutations," first study author Thorsten Kranz, postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone, said.
The findings appeared online in the journal EbioMedicine.
"Perhaps as many as 30 percent of schizophrenic patients may now become candidates for more precise treatment based on the individual characteristics of these four genes, with the remaining cases becoming less mysterious as we pull these groups out of the mix," Malaspina said.
SUC Editing Team
Accounting & Finance
New York, March 28 (IANS) If you are not saving enough for your retirement, you may not be alone. A new study has shown that a large number of people avoid saving for their old age because they are afraid to think of their own death.
SUC Editing Team
Information Systems
New York, March 28 (IANS) Looking for friends but unable to find them on Instagram? To solve this problem, Facebook-owned photo-sharing app Instagram has launched a new feature Discover People that enables the user to "discover" other users easily.
SUC Editing Team
Accounting & Finance
Beijing, March 28 (IANS) China's pension fund may begin investing in the nation's share markets, a move that will channel approximately 600 billion yuan ($92 billion) into the equity market and likely improve its liquidity, the media reported on Monday.
Super User
From Different Corners
Brasilia, March 28 (IANS) Brazilian researchers have improved delivery of a medication to fight Alzheimer's by using a nanofibre to regulate the compound's release, the media reported on Monday.
The project is being led by doctoral student Geisa Salles and professor Anderson Lobo, coordinator of Vale do Paraiba University's Research and Development Institute in Sao Jose dos Campos.
"We developed this nanomaterial that contains the drug for the treatment of Alzheimer's and we already tested it in vitro with cells mimicking the disease's behaviour. The results have been quite promising, and we believe we could make a great contribution in the treatment of this chronic pathology," Salles told Efe news.
The process, called nanotreatment, depends on a combination of polymers and proteins in nanomaterials to make a fibre that, once implanted under the skin, releases the medication into the blood stream continuously for quick and lasting absorption.
The fibre - 800 nanometers thick and almost invisible to the human eye - is filled with a medication imported from Britain.
The electro-wiring technique, in which a needle with the drug receives energy and light to release bits of the fibre, is used to make the nanodevice for implanting in patients.
In the laboratory, the technique adds a second efficiency testing phase that may extend the drug's duration by 30 percent.
"Hypothetically, it would be like a patch to stop smoking, but we still need more research to determine how to use it, and in which stage of Alzheimer's disease we should start fighting the action of amyloid beta, the protein, or peptide, found in the brains of patients with the disease," Lobo added.
Super User
Retail and Marketing
London, March 28 (IANS) Shoppers should bring a list with them to minimise the chances of returning home only to find they forgot something, say researchers.
A list is especially helpful while shopping for things that you do not buy regularly, while you can generally rely on memory while buying familiar items, the findings suggest.
Although this may seem like an intuitive solution, statistics show that only about half of shoppers use lists, the study pointed out.
The findings were published online in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
For the study, the researchers observed more than 700 consumers in different scenarios.
The investigators were eager to find out if people could predict how many items on the list they would remember to buy once they started shopping after they spent 10 minutes reading a story.
"One of our key findings is that people don't correctly anticipate when they are more likely to forget items," said Daniel Fernandes, assistant professor of marketing at Catholic University of Portugal.
"When we have something in our mind, it is hard to imagine that we will forget it," Fernandes noted.
This failure to predict our forgetfulness suggests that people should always bring a shopping list, he explained.
These findings could also have broader implications for performance at work.
"We often rely on our memories to perform familiar tasks at work, and those tasks will come easily to mind, but unfamiliar tasks are hard to recall," Fernandes said.
"To maximise our effectiveness on the job, it's important to pay special attention to those less familiar tasks and put them on the agenda," Fernandes noted.
Super User
From Different Corners
New York, March 28 (IANS) The disappearance of Arctic Sea ice due to massive climate change is causing the surface of Greenland's melt area to increase, thereby fuelling a steep rise in the sea-level, finds a study.
During summers, melting Arctic Sea ice favours stronger and more frequent "blocking-high" pressure systems.
The high pressure tends to enhance the flow of warm, moist air over Greenland, contributing to an increased extreme heat events and surface ice melting, which in turn fuels sea-level rise, a monstrous issue for coastal communities around the world.
"Whenever there's a big melt year in Greenland, on the surface anyway, it's usually because there's either a blocking high or a large northward swing in the jet stream and both of those things tend to be long-lived features in the circulation," said one of the researchers, Jennifer Francis, professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US.
Both transport a lot of heat, moisture and clouds over the Greenland ice sheet, leading to more melting, the researchers pointed out.
The study was published online in the Journal of Climate.
The Greenland ice sheet holds an enormous volume of frozen water, and the global sea level would rise about 20 to 23 feet if it all melted. Surface melting of the ice sheet has increased dramatically since the relative stability and modest snow accumulation in the 1970s, the study said.
Sea-level rise is already "becoming very conspicuous and it's going to be bad. It's happening faster and faster," Francis said adding that the change is accelerating.