Knowledge Update

Succession Planning is a must in every organization.

Yet many corporations refuse to take it seriously.

A five step succession planning  process is outlined that can help organizations to have a smooth transition and remain successful in a long run.

The five steps are identify critical positions, identify competencies required, identify strategies to implement, document and prepare implementation plan, evaluate effectiveness of the process.

This model is published in  Khaleej Times Weekend Edition, July 16, 2016.

New York, July 14 (IANS) A gene associated with Alzheimer's disease may shrink brain structures and lower thinking skills as early as in childhood, decades before the illness actually appears, says a research.

The findings showed that children with epsilon(E)4 variant of the apolipoprotein-E gene showed differences in their brain development compared to children with E2 and E3 forms of the gene and were more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease.

In such children the size of the hippocampus -- a brain region that plays a role in memory -- was found to be approximately 5 per cent smaller.

Specifically, the children as small as of age three showed up to 50 per cent lower scores on tests of executive function, working memory and attention. 

Each person receives one copy of the gene (E2, E3 or E4) from each parent, so there are six possible gene variants: E2E2, E3E3, E4E4, E2E3, E2E4 and E3E4, the researchers explained.

Further, children younger than eight and with the E4E4 genotype typically had lower measures on a brain scan as well as had lower scores on a test on memory and thinking skills. 

"Studying these genes in young children may ultimately give us early indications of who may be at risk for dementia in the future and possibly even help us develop ways to prevent the disease from occurring or to delay the start of the disease," said study author Linda Chang from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, US.

However, children older than 8 with these two genotypes had similar and normal test scores compared to the other children.

"These findings mirror the smaller volumes and steeper decline of the hippocampus volume in the elderly who have the E4 gene," Chang added in the work published online in the journal Neurology.

For the study, the team analysed 1,187 children from ages three to 20 years who had genetic tests and brain scans and as well as took tests of thinking and memory skills. 

The children had no brain disorders or other problems that would affect their brain development, such as prenatal drug exposure.​

​Beijing, July 14 (IANS) Playing action-based video games may boost the players' ability to coordinate visual information with their motor control -- a skill critical to many real-world behaviours including driving, says new research.

The findings showed that playing some types of video games can confer benefits for specific visual abilities such as sensitivity to contrast and visuo-spatial attention. 

"The research shows that playing easily accessible action video games can be a cost-effective tool to help people improve essential visuomotor-control skills used for driving," said lead researcher Li Li, Associate Professor at New York University in Shanghai, China.

Experienced action gamers showed much greater precision in keeping to their lane and showed less deviation from centre in the face of increasing headwinds, when compared to the participants with little to no action video game experience.

To establish a causal link between action video games and visuomotor control skills, the team recruited participants who had no action video gaming experience to take part in a training study.

They then compared the visuomotor abilities of players who had played at least 5 hours per week over the previous 6 months to participants who had negligible action video game experience.

The participants were randomly assigned to either an action video game group or a control group, and they completed a total of 10 1-hour training sessions.

The data showed that playing "Mario Kart," a fast-paced action video game, improved participants' visuomotor control skills on the target dot task after five hours of training. 

Those who played "Roller Coaster Tycoon", a non-action strategy game, showed no such improvement over time.

For novice drivers, training with driving video games may be more helpful, the researchers suggested in the work published in the journal Psychological Science. 

​New York, July 14 (IANS) As smartphones become centre of our lives, a new study says that we touch our smartphones 2,617 times a day on average -- and the heaviest smartphone users are clicking, tapping or swiping on their devices 5,427 times a day.

The research firm Dscout, which specialises in consumer reactions to products, recruited 94 Android device users and installed special software on their smartphones. 

The tool tracked each user's “interaction” over five days, all day. 

"By every interaction, we mean every tap, type, swipe and click. We're calling them touches," commented Dscout in a blog post on Thursday. 

Long usage sessions are rare-mostly Netflix and reading. In general, people prefer lots of little sessions with breaks in between.

Eighty seven per cent of participants checked their phones at least once between midnight and 5 a.m.

Messaging and social media apps totaled 26 per cent and 22 per cent of interactions respectively, while internet search browsers comprised 10 per cent, the post noted. ​

New York, July 14 (IANS) A new, minimally invasive procedure could improve treatment for many patients with a common eye disease, without the potential side effects and cost of the current standard of care -- a cornea transplant, new research has found.

In the study involving patients suffering from Fuchs endothelial dystrophy (FED), the researchers showed that removing a few square millimetres of a single layer of cells on the inside of the cornea allowed rejuvenation of the surrounding tissue, without the need for a corneal transplant. 

This simple procedure restored clear vision to three out of four patients suffering from FED, the most frequent cause for corneal transplantation in the US.

"It's quick, inexpensive and it spares patients from having someone else's cells in their eyes, which requires local immunosuppression," said lead researcher Kathryn Colby, Professor at the University of Chicago.

The proof-of-concept study was published in the journal Cornea.

Over the past two years while at Harvard Medical School, Colby performed the new procedure, known as Descemet stripping.

Descemet stripping involves removing a small patch of the corneal endothelium (the pumping cells that stop working in FED) attached to an underlying layer (the Descemet membrane). 

In patients with FED, water accumulates in the cornea, the clear front window of the eye, because of the dysfunction of the pumping cells, causing reduced vision, glare and haloes. 

If left untreated, the condition progresses to painful blindness.

Removal of the central dysfunctional cells enables healthier peripheral cells to migrate to the centre of the cornea, where they re-establish pumping capacity and removal of fluid from the layers above. This gradually restores clear vision.

"Although Descemet stripping is a relatively simple procedure, its potential is revolutionary," Colby said.​

​Buenos Aires, July 14 (IANS) Researchers in Argentina have excavated the fossil of a new carnivorous dinosaur that lived around 90 million years ago, a media report said on Thursday.

The 26-feet (8 metres) long dinosaur had two-fingered small forearms that were merely 2 feet (60 cm) long, scientists said in a news conference after the team published the discovery in the PLOS ONE journal, Xinhua news agency reported.

The dinosaur belonged to the theropods (beast footed) -- a family that also included Tyrannosaurs and Velociraptors, the scientists said.

The dinosaur was named Gualicho Shinyae, a combination of the name of an evil spirit Gualichu -- worshipped by the local Tehuelche community in the Patagonia region and Akiko Shinya, the scientist who first discovered the dinosaur in southern Rio Negro Province.

The dinosaur was unearthed in 2007, but difficulties postponed the team's analysis.

The fossil was currently being conserved at the Patagonian Museum of Natural Sciences in the city of General Roca and the Carlos Ameghino Provincial Museum in Cipolletti, both in Rio Negro Province.

​London, July 15 (IANS) Scientists have found a new method of creating human stem cells which could solve the big problem of the large-scale production needed to fully realise the potential of these remarkable cells for understanding and treating disease.

The discovery has been made by a team of scientists at the University of Nottingham in Britain, Uppsala University and GE Healthcare in Sweden.

"By using a protein derived from human blood called Inter-alpha inhibitor, we have grown human pluripotent stem cells in a minimal medium without the need for costly and time-consuming biological substrates,” said first author Sara Pijuan-Galito from Uppsala University.

Inter-alpha inhibitor is found in human blood at high concentrations, and is currently a by-product of standard drug purification schemes.

"The protein can make stem cells attach on unmodified tissue culture plastic, and improve survival of the stem cells in harsh conditions,” Pijuan-Galito said.

"It is the first stem cell culture method that does not require a pre-treated biological substrate for attachment, and therefore, is more cost and time-efficient and paves the way for easier and cheaper large-scale production," Pijuan-Galito explained.

Human pluripotent stem cells are undifferentiated cells which have the unique potential to develop into all the different types of cells in the body. 

With applications in disease modelling, drug screening, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, there is already an enormous demand for these cells, which will only grow as their use in the clinic and by the pharmaceutical industry increases.

However, production of stem cells at the scale required for optimal application in modern healthcare is currently not feasible because available culture methods are either too expensive, or reliant on substances that would not be safe for clinical use in humans.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Communications, could lead to quicker and cheaper large scale industrial production.

The work was started at Uppsala University in Sweden, and the first author, Dr Sara Pijuan-Galitó, is now continuing her work as a Swedish Research Council Research Fellow at Nottingham. Sara said: 

"This new method has the potential to save time and money in large-scale and high-throughput cultures, and be highly valuable for both basic research and commercial applications," Cecilia Anneren, who has a joint position at Uppsala University and at GE Healthcare in Uppsala, said.​

​New York, July 15 (IANS) American black bears may be able to recognise things they know in real life, such as pieces of food or humans, when looking at a photograph of the same thing in the computer, suggests new research.

"Bears can transfer learning with real objects to photographs of those objects presented on computer screens," said one of the researchers, Zoe Johnson-Ulrich from the Oakland University in the US.

The study involving a black bear called Migwan and a computer screen was part of a broader research project into the welfare of bears in captivity. 

It aimed to find out how the animals themselves rate the environment in which they are held, and the facilities, food and features provided to them. 

The goal is to assess this by presenting bears with photographs of objects. 

To do so, the research team first had to assess whether bears are in fact able to recognise images of objects and people familiar to them when these are presented to them on a touch screen.

With this in mind, the researchers tested the responses of Migwan. 

The bear was born in the wild, but was rescued at a very young age and rehabilitated due to injuries. 

She had previously received several months of training on an unrelated task using photographs of food items from her normal diet. 

In this study, Migwan was first presented with two sets of objects new to her. Her ability to recognise these later, when presented with photographs including the items she had learned, was then assessed. 

In a reverse task, she was also trained on the photographs of two different sets of objects and tested on the transfer to real objects.

It was found that Migwan was able to recognise, on a photograph, the visual features of objects or natural stimuli she already knew. It is an ability that bears share with hens, rhesus monkeys, pigeons, tortoises and horses.

The findings were published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

The researchers believe that the findings have important implications for the use of photographs in computerised studies involving bears, and in ultimately ensuring the welfare of captive bears.

"Bears' responses to these photographs may reflect behaviors towards real items," Jennifer Vonk who is also from Oakland University noted.​

New York, July 15 (IANS) The largest island in the Philippines may be home to the greatest concentration of mammal diversity in the world, say researchers who have been exploring the island for the past 15 years.

Their research, published in the scientific journal Frontiers of Biogeography, showed that 56 species of non-flying mammals are now known to live on the island, 52 of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. 

And out of those 56 species, 28 were discovered in the course of the team's research.

"It's become clear that Luzon Island has exceptional diversity and the greatest concentration of mammal diversity, I'd say on the planet," said one of the researchers Scott Steppan, Professor at Florida State University in the US.

Luzon is roughly 40,000 square miles and has never been connected to any continental land, but it has a complex geography. 

It is tropical, but also very mountainous with lots of volcanic pieces that have come together as the continental plates have crunched into each other.

The mountaintops form distinct habitats that are widely different from the base of the mountain. 

Combining the expertise of scientists from a variety of backgrounds, the team embarked on an extensive effort to catalogue the numerous species they believed were on this island.

Among the 28 new species discovered by the team, there are four species of tiny tree-mice with exceptionally long whiskers, and five species of mice that look like shrews and feed on earthworms. 

"The fact that we found some new ones was not surprising," Steppan said. "New small mammals are being discovered all the time, but finding 28 new species on one island -- an island that had been studied pretty well before -- was beyond expectation," Steppan said.

For comparison, in Luzon there are 56 non-flying land mammals, 52 of which are endemic to the island. 

In Cuba, which is roughly the same size, there are 15 total native non-flying mammals, most of which are native to the island, the researchers said.

"This revealed the exceptional diversity of Luzon," Steppan said. ​

​New York, July 13 (IANS) Many diet plans are doomed from the start -- The reason being that dieters tend to adopt the wrong strategies, often planning to ditch their favourite foods and replace them with less-desirable options, new research has revealed.

A study published in the journal Psychology & Marketing says successful dieters focus on adding healthy foods and reveals that health-plan successes are determined by approach or avoidance strategies.

"Our research shows that instead of creating rules to avoid one's favourite treats, dieters should focus on eating healthy foods that they enjoy," said Meredith David, Assistant Professor at Baylor University in the US.

Dieters who restrict themselves from consuming the foods they love most may be setting themselves up for failure. Instead, they may be better off by allowing occasional "treats" and focusing attention on healthy foods, revealed the study.

The research conducted upon 542 participants hinged on a person's level of self-control.

"Our data reveals that individuals who are generally more successful at reaching their goals tend to develop more motivating plans regarding the inclusion of healthy, well-liked items and the exclusion of unhealthy items that are not one's favourites," added David.

The researchers found that the participants when asked to list specific rules that they might use to guide their food consumption, a large percentage of them listed restricting and avoiding certain foods.

This was particularly the case among low self-control individuals - those who generally have less success in reaching their goals.

When thinking of unhealthy foods to avoid as a part of a diet, low self-control individuals think of foods that they really like -- their favourite snacks, and most tempting items. High self-control individuals think of foods that they like but could reasonably forgo.

When thinking of healthy foods to eat as a part of a diet, low self-control individuals think of foods they do not like, such as those that they find highly unpalatable while high self-control individuals think of foods they enjoy eating.​