Knowledge Update

Mumbai, March 30 (IANS) Having suffered nearly $3 billion in losses on its UK operations, Tata Steel is exploring to put its entire portfolio there up for sale, some 10 years after it forayed into Europe by acquiring Anglo-Dutch Corus for over $8.1 billion).

​Chennai, March 30 (IANS) In a $293 million cash deal India's Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. has agreed to buy 14 established prescription brands from Novartis AG and Novartis Pharma AG in Japan, the Indian company said.

​Tokyo, March 29 (IANS) Japan's parliament on Tuesday approved a record $852 billion budget for the next fiscal year which begins on April 1.

The upper house approved the budget, which is 0.39 percent higher than the existing budget, with majority support from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, after the lower

Beijing, March 29 (IANS) China will expand its power pricing reform nationwide in 2017 following a two-year pilot period in several regions to open the electricity industry, an official said on Tuesday.

New York, March 29 (IANS) The formation of a distinct pattern of sea surface temperatures in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean can predict an increased chance of summer heat waves in the eastern half of the US up to 50 days in advance, say researchers.

The scientists believe that the new technique could improve existing seasonal forecasts, which do not focus on predicting daily extremes.

"Summertime heat waves are among the deadliest weather events, and can have big effects on farming, energy use and other critical aspects of society," said lead author Karen McKinnon from US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, US.

"If we can give city planners and farmers a heads-up that extreme heat is on the way, we might be able to avoid some of the worst consequences," McKinnon noted.

The pattern that the researchers discovered is a contrast of warmer-than-average water coming up against cooler-than-average seas. 

When it appears, the odds that extreme heat will strike during a particular week -- or even on a particular day -- can more than triple, depending on how well-formed the pattern is, the study said.

The findings were published in the journal Nature Geoscience. 

For the study, the US scientists divided the country into regions that tend to experience extreme heat at the same time. 

They then focused on the largest of the resulting blocks: a swath that stretches across much of the Midwest and up the East Coast, encompassing important agricultural areas and heavily populated cities.

The researchers looked for a relationship between global sea surface temperature anomalies -- waters warmer or cooler than average -- and extreme heat in the eastern half of the US.

A pattern popped out in the middle of the Pacific, above a point roughly 20 degrees north latitude. The scientists could find the particular configuration of ocean water temperatures, which they named the Pacific Extreme Pattern, not only when the eastern US was already hot, but also in advance of that heat.

"Whatever mechanisms ultimately lead to the heat wave also leave a fingerprint of sea surface temperature anomalies behind," McKinnon said.​

​London, March 29 (IANS) In a first, researchers in Scotland are using smartphone-based technology to find the reason behind plummeting numbers of harbour seals in the country.

Part of a three-year study by researchers at Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) at University of St Andrews in Scotland, the smartphone-based technology is being used to monitor the well-being of marine mammals, The National reported.

"Over the last 15 years, many of the harbour seal populations in the Northern Isles and on the north and east coasts of Scotland have been declining. Marine data collected during this project on Orkney will help to assess the causes, management and mitigation options in relation to the harbour seals' decline and to prioritise future research directions," Bernie McConnell, SMRU's deputy director, was quoted as saying. 

For the study, marine telemetry tags will be attached to the fur at the back of the heads of a number of harbour seals in Orkney Archipelago of Scotland. 

Small and light, the tags work like smartphones, sending information back to scientists and will eventually drop off when the seal moults, the report explained.

The study is being carried out at the request of the Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage after concerns were raised about the survival of harbour seals in the country.

"This exciting, collaborative study is vital to help us to better understand the drivers of population change in Scottish harbour seals, and to evaluate the potential conservation and management options open to us," professor John Baxter from Scottish Natural Heritage was quoted as saying.

Harbour seals - one of two seal species in Britain - have declined by up to 90 percent in some areas in and around the north and east coast of Scotland, including Orkney, since 2000.​

New York, March 29 (IANS) Ever wondered why we remember certain scenes from films or books without much effort while forgetting others despite paying attention? New research suggests that people tend to remember only those things better that they expect to have future relevance.

Much of what a person can remember is based on their expectation of the information they will need to recall, the study said.

"What we're showing is that attention is not enough to ensure accurate memory," said one of the researchers Brad Wyble, assistant professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University in the US. 

"You need some kind of expectation that attributing certain features to the object is important," Wyble noted.

The findings were published in the journal Cognition.

The researchers tested 60 participants and asked them to watch videos in which two balls were thrown between multiple people. 

The first ball thrown was the target ball. Participants counted the number of times the ball was passed. The second ball was the distractor ball. Each participant watched 36 trials, recording their counts of the target ball after each. The balls in each video were red, green, blue or purple. 

For the first 31 trials, participants chose only the number of passes made with the target ball.

After the thirty-second trial, a message popped up on the participant's screen that read, "This is a surprise memory test! Here we test the “colour” of the target ball. Press a corresponding number to indicate the 'colour' of the target ball."

To this question, 37 percent of participants -- 22 of 60 -- responded with the incorrect colour of the ball, and 16 of these 22 incorrect responses selected the colour of the distractor ball.

In further experiments, the researchers found that once participants realised they would need to report the colour of the ball, they were able to do so with high accuracy.

This indicates that much of what a person can remember is based on their expectation of the information they will need to recall.

"The key discovery was that attending an object for an extended period of time does not ensure that all of the features of that object will be correctly associated with it in memory," Wyble noted.​

​New York, March 29 (IANS) An international team of scientists has identified a key protein that has the potential to reverse established cardiac fibrosis, the abnormal thickening of the heart valves, which progresses to heart failure.

Cardiac fibrosis occurs when healthy cardiac cells are replaced with fibrous connective tissue, causing scarring and a stiffer and less compliant cardiac muscle. 

The researchers found that CCN5, a matricellular protein, can potentially be used for the development of new anti-cardiac fibrosis therapies.

"Our research is the first to demonstrate the ability to reverse cardiac fibrosis in heart failure models by targeting a specific gene," said lead researcher Roger Hajjar, professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, US.

The findings, detailed online in the Journal of American College of Cardiology (JACC), demonstrated that CCN5 might provide a novel platform for the development of targeted anti-cardiac fibrosis therapies, which could benefit many patients with previously untreatable heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.

"Since CCN5 is a secreted protein, we may be able to deliver the CCN5 protein itself rather than the CCN5 gene in the form of recombinant virus or stem cells that are engineered to express CCN5," one of the researchers Woo Jin Park, professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in South Korea, said.

The team induced extensive cardiac fibrosis in experimental animal models of heart failure, and then proceeded to transfer CCN5 to the hearts. 

Eight weeks later, they examined the cellular and molecular effects. The results revealed that CCN5 reversed cardiac fibrosis in the animals. 

The therapeutic efficacy of CCN5 is now being investigated in pre-clinical models of heart failure with extensive fibrosis, the researchers said.​

​New Delhi, March 29 (IANS) The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday urged the Southeast Asian countries to promote educational campaigns regarding self-management of diabetes and make its treatment cost effective.

"Diabetes is of particular concern in the South East Asian Region. More than one out of every four of the 3.7 million diabetes-related deaths globally occur in this region," said Poonam Khetrapal, director for WHO South East Asian region.

"If diabetes prevalence continues to rise, the personal, social and economic consequences will deepen," Khetrapal said.

The South East Asian Region is generally considered to be made up of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, and East Timor.

World Health Day this year focuses on diabetes and calls for scaling up efforts to prevent, care for and detect the disease to arrest the global epidemic which is hitting the low and middle income countries the most.

According to WHO records, over 96 million people in the world do not know that they are suffering from diabetes.

"Diabetes rarely makes headlines, and yet it will be the world's seventh largest killer by 2030 unless intense and focused efforts are made by governments, communities and individuals," said Khetrapal.

Nearly 90 percent of all diabetes cases are of Type 2 diabetes, largely the result of excess bodyweight and physical inactivity, she said.

"Diabetes is both preventable and treatable if detected early. If not properly managed the disease causes serious damage to every major organ in the body, resulting in heart attacks, strokes, blindness and nerve damage," said Khetrapal. 

World Health Day is celebrated on April 7 every year to mark the anniversary of the founding of WHO in 1948. ​

​New York, March 29 (IANS) Researchers have identified an enzyme that is likely to lower the risk of heart related diseases caused by antiviral medicines used for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Approximately 37 million people are living with HIV, according to the World Health Organisation.

Antiviral medications are used to control HIV and prevent its progression to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). 

"The use of antivirals in HIV patients is very important to control the virus, suppress symptoms and improve quality of life," said lead author William Durante, professor at the University of Missouri in the US.

However, these antivirals are linked to the development of metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, and they are also known to increase the risk of heart diseases. 

The study, published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, focused on protease inhibitors -- a common antiviral used to treat HIV, which disrupts HIV's ability to replicate and infect cells. 

But, this inhibitor causes malfunctioning in the endothelial cells, which make up the inner lining of blood vessels, and can lead to cardiovascular disease.

Using a cell-based model of cultured human endothelial cells, the team increased the amount of the enzyme heme oxygenase-1, or HO-1 within the cells.

"Increasing the presence of HO-1 in our model before exposing it to a protease inhibitor allowed the medication to do its job without causing endothelial dysfunction," Durante noted.

"HO-1 shows great promise as a defender of endothelial cells in patients being treated for HIV," he added.

More research is needed to verify that HO-1 will prevent endothelial cell dysfunction with all antiviral medications, the researchers maintained. ​