Knowledge Update | Horizon University UAE – Essential Insights

​Tokyo, Nov 15 (IANS) Japanese multinational conglomerate company Hitachi Ltd. on Tuesday said it has developed a camera technology that can capture video images without using a lens, the first of this kind in Japan. "This camera technology makes it possible to make a camera lighter and thinner since a lens is unnecessary," Xinhua news agency cited the Tokyo-based company as saying. The new technology also "allow the camera to be more freely mounted in devices such as mobile devices and robots at arbitrary positions without imposing design restraints", said the company. The technology can adjust focus after image capture by using a film imprinted with a concentric-circle pattern instead of a lens, said Hitachi, aiming to commercialise it around 2018. "Moreover, since it acquires depth information in addition to planar information, it is possible to reproduce an image at an arbitrary point of focus even after the image has been captured," it said. Focus can be adjusted anytime to objects requiring attention, so Hitachi is aiming to utilise this technology in a broad range of applications such as work support, automated driving, and human-behaviour analysis with mobile devices, vehicles and robots. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2015 (April 1, 2015-March 31, 2016) totalled 10,034.3 billion yen ($88.8 billion).

New York, Nov 12 (IANS) Traumatic stress may have different impact in the brains of adolescent boys and girls, according to a new brain-scanning study.

The study found structural differences between the sexes in one part of the insula -- a brain region -- among the youth with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or seeing a terrifying event.

"The insula appears to play a key role in the development of PTSD. The difference we saw between the brains of boys and girls who have experienced psychological trauma is important because it may help explain differences in trauma symptoms between sexes," said Victor Carrion, Professor at Stanford University in California. 

"Our findings suggest it is possible that boys and girls could exhibit different trauma symptoms and that they might benefit from different approaches to treatment," added Megan Klabunde, psychologist from Stanford University.

In the study, the research team conducted MRI scans of the brains of 59 study participants aged 9-17. Thirty of them -- 14 girls and 16 boys -- had trauma symptoms, and 29 others -- the control group of 15 girls and 14 boys -- did not. 

In the control group, no differences was found in the brain structure of boys and girls. 

However, among the traumatised boys and girls, they saw differences in a portion of the insula called the anterior circular sulcus. This brain region had larger volume and surface area in traumatised boys than in boys in the control group. 

Insula's volume and surface area were smaller in girls with trauma than among girls in the control group, the researchers said.

In addition, the research also implies that traumatic stress could contribute to accelerated cortical ageing of the insula in girls who develop PTSD, Klabunde noted, adding that the study may help scientists understand how experiencing trauma could play into differences between the sexes in regulating emotions. 

The paper was published online in the journal Depression and Anxiety

New York, Nov 14 (IANS) Following a healthy lifestyle can cut in half the probability of a heart attack or similar events even among those at high genetic risk, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin. "The basic message of our study is that DNA is not destiny," said study senior author Sekar Kathiresan, Director, Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US. The study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that lifestyle factors -- not smoking, avoiding excess weight and getting regular exercise -- significantly alter the risk of coronary events. "Some people may feel they cannot escape a genetically determined risk for heart attack, but our findings indicate that following a healthy lifestyle can powerfully reduce genetic risk," Kathiresan, who is also Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said. "Many individuals - both physicians and members of the general public -- have looked on genetic risk as unavoidable, but for heart attack that does not appear to be the case," Kathiresan added. The researchers analysed genetic and clinical data from more than 55,000 participants in four large-scale studies. Each participant in the analysis was assigned a genetic risk score, based on whether they carried any of 50 gene variants that previous studies associated with elevated heart attack risk. Based on data gathered when participants entered each study, the investigators used four lifestyle factors -- no current smoking; lack of obesity, defined as a body mass index less than 30; physical exercise at least once a week, and a healthy dietary pattern -- to determine a lifestyle score, whether participants had a favourable (three or four healthy factors), intermediate (two factors) or unfavourable (one or no healthy factors) lifestyle. The researchers found that a higher genetic risk score significantly increased the incidence of coronary events -- as much as 90 per cent in those at highest risk. Each healthy lifestyle factor reduced risk, and the unfavourable lifestyle group also had higher levels of hypertension, diabetes and other known risk factors upon entering the studies, the study found.

New York, Nov 13 (IANS) A research team in the US has created a software that can quickly identify the information in cancer reports that would not only save time and work-hours but also reveal overlooked avenues in cancer research.

Much of the cancer-related data is drawn from electronic, text-based clinical reports that must be manually curated -- a time-intensive process -- before it can be used in research. 

"The manual model is not scalable and we need to develop new tools that can automate the information-extraction process and truly modernise cancer surveillance in the US," said Georgia Tourassi, director of the Health Data Sciences Institute at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

After experimenting with conventional natural-language-processing software, the team found an answer via deep learning -- a machine-learning technique that employs algorithms, big data and the computing power of GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) to emulate human learning and intelligence.

"Our work shows deep learning's potential for creating resources that can capture the effectiveness of cancer treatments and diagnostic procedures and give the cancer community a greater understanding of how they perform in real life," Tourassi added.

GPUs, such as those in Titan, can accelerate this training process by quickly executing many deep-learning calculations simultaneously. 

​New York, Nov 13 (IANS) Infants and new born kids, if seated in cars for more than 30 minutes, may be at a risk of suffocation, suggests a study published in the Daily Mail. According to the study, very young babies whose neck muscles are not strong enough to stop their heads flopping forward could stop breathing. This increases the risk they will be unable to breathe -- with potentially fatal results. "There should be separate advice for very young babies. If you can avoid a journey, it's probably better to do so, restricted to no more than half an hour or so. But try to avoid unnecessary car journeys with young babies," said Peter Fleming, Paediatrician at the Bristol University. Research carried out by the researchers used a laboratory in a laboratory to replicate the effects of sleeping in a car seat during a car journey at 30mph. After half an hour in the seat, the amounts of oxygen in the blood of babies under two months old were found to have dropped 'significantly' while their heart rates increased. The authors said their findings still mean babies should travel in a properly secured child seat during car journeys -- as is required by law. But they advise that an adult should sit next to the baby to make sure the infant is breathing properly. "There have been reports of deaths of infants who have been left in a sitting position, including in car seats -- both on journeys, and when parents have used it as an alternative to a pushchair or cot for the infant to sleep in," Fleming added. Car seat makers should provide consistent information to parents to warn them of the dangers of long car journeys with very young babies, the study suggests.

​New York, Nov 13 (IANS) Thousands of years ago, when the ancestors of modern humans made their way out of Africa to other parts of the globe, their encounter with Neanderthals and Denisovans helped the human race over the years, researchers have said.

Ancient humans met up -- and in some cases had children with -- other forms of humans, including the Neanderthals and Denisovans. This was found through the traces of those meetings remaining in the human genome.

"Our work shows that hybridisation was not just some curious side-note to human history, but had important consequences and contributed to our ancestors' ability to adapt to different environments as they dispersed throughout the world," Joshua Akey of University of Washington said in a statement.

The researchers used genome-scale maps of Neanderthal and Denisovan sequences identified in more than 1,500 geographically diverse people.

The researchers were searching for archaic DNA sequences in those human genomes at frequencies much higher than would be expected if those genes were not doing people any good.

While the vast majority of surviving Neanderthal and Denisovan sequences are found at relatively low frequencies (typically less than five per cent), the new analyses turned up 126 places in our genomes where these archaic sequences exist at much higher frequencies, reaching up to about 65 per cent. 

Seven of those regions were found in parts of the genome known to play a role in characteristics of our skin. Another 31 are involved in immunity.

"The ability to increase to such high population frequencies was most likely facilitated because these sequences were advantageous," Akey explains in paper published in the journal Current Biology.

​New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Insomnia may raise your risks of an irregular and often rapid heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation or arrhythmia, that can further increase your risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications, researchers have found.

Insomnia is having trouble falling asleep, not getting enough sleep, or having poor sleep.

Poor sleep is also known to increase the risk for high blood pressure, obesity and stroke -- key heart disease risk factors, said researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US.

The results showed that people diagnosed with insomnia had a 29 per cent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those without insomnia.

People who reported frequent night-time awakening -- which puts extra stress on the heart's chambers -- had about a 26 per cent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those who did not wake up a lot.

Having less rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep than other sleep phases during the night is also linked to higher chances of developing atrial fibrillation.

"By examining the actual characteristics of sleep, such as how much REM sleep you get, it points us toward a more plausible mechanism. There could be something particular about how sleep impacts the autonomic nervous system," said lead study author Matt Christensen, a medical student at the University of Michigan.

The autonomic nervous system plays a major role in controlling heart rate and blood pressure, Christensen added.

Getting enough physical activity, avoiding too much caffeine can enhance sleep quality and may also help prevent arrhythmia, the researchers suggested.

The preliminary research was presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2016 in Louisiana, recently.

New York, Nov 14 (IANS) Immune cells in the spleen can contribute to prolonged anxiety following psychological stress, new research has found.

The abundance of white blood cells in the spleen could be sending messages to the brain that result in behavioural changes long after experiencing repeated stress, the study conducted in mice showed.

"Our findings emphasise the possibility that the immune system represents a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of mental health conditions," said Daniel McKim from Ohio State University in the US.

In this study, the scientists determined that the immune cell changes persisted for almost a month after the mice experienced the stress.

"Stress appears to prompt the release of stem cells from the bone marrow to the spleen, where they develop into white blood cells, or monocytes, and expand over time," Jonathan Godbout, Associate Professor at Ohio State, said.

"Then the spleen becomes a reservoir of inflammatory cells," Godbout noted.

The researchers said that the spleen is now understood to be integral to the sensitisation that happens after prolonged stress in mice, leading to anxiety and other cognitive problems down the road. 

"It's like a stress memory," Godbout said.

The researchers said that the work towards explaining the complicated interplay between immunity and stress in animals that have experienced "repeated social defeat" is an effort to eventually improve the well-being of people who experience chronic psychological stress.

The research was presented at Neuroscience 2016, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in San Diego.

New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Experience rather than possession is more likely to give individuals a greater sense of gratitude, and will also make them more generous towards others, a study involving an Indian-origin researcher has found.

Our deeds mean more to us. "We feel more gratitude for what we've done than for what we have," said Thomas Gilovich, Professor of psychology at the Cornell University.

"Think about how you feel when you come home from buying something new," Gilovich said in the study published in the journal, Emotion.

"You might say: this new couch is cool, however, you're less likely to say: I'm so grateful for that set of shelves. 

"But when you come home from a vacation, you are likely to say: I feel so blessed I got to go," he said. 

"People say positive things about the stuff they buy, but they don't usually express gratitude for it, or they don't express it as often as they do for their experiences," Gilovich added.

The researchers looked at 1,200 customer reviews, half for experiential purchases like restaurant meals and hotel stays and half for material purchases like furniture and clothing. 

Reviewers were more likely to spontaneously mention feeling grateful for experiential purchases than material ones, the study suggested.

"One of the reason for this increased gratitude may be because experiences trigger fewer social comparisons than material possessions. 

"Consequently, experiences are more likely to foster a greater appreciation of one's own circumstances," said Jesse Walker, Researcher at the Cornell University.

The researchers also looked at how gratitude for experiences versus material purchases affected pro-social behaviour. 

In a study involving an economic game, they found that thinking about a meaningful experiential purchase caused participants to behave more generously toward others than when they thought about a material purchase.

"This link between gratitude and altruistic behaviour is intriguing," said Amit Kumar, Researcher at the University of Chicago.

"It suggests that the benefits of experiential consumption apply not only to the consumers of those purchases themselves, but to others in their orbit as well," Kumar said.

Feeling gratitude increased happiness and social cohesion, better health outcomes, and even improved sleep quality, the study revealed.

New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Microsoft said its Cheyenne datacentre in Wyoming will now be powered entirely by 237 megawatts of wind energy.

"Our commitment extends beyond greening our own operations because these projects help create a greener, more reliable grid in the communities in which we operate," Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, said in a Microsoft blog post on Monday.

"That's why we are announcing our largest wind energy purchases yet - 237 megawatts of wind energy - that will allow our datacenter in Cheyenne, Wyoming to be powered entirely by wind power," Smith added.

Microsoft has also structured the purchase and partnered with the local utility in novel ways to facilitate a shift of cities and states towards a cleaner energy grid. 

Microsoft said it entered into agreements with two wind farms to power its Cheyenne datacentre from renewable sources.

Of the two partnerships, Microsoft has procured 178 megawatts from the Bloom Wind Project in Kansas through Allianz Risk Transfer (ART) to help bring this new project online and partnered with Black Hills Corp. to purchase wind power from the 59-megawatt Happy Jack and Silver Sage wind farms in Wyoming.

With these energy deals, Microsoft's total investment in wind energy projects in the US has gone up to over 500 megawatts. 

"The combined output of the Bloom and Happy Jack/Silver Sage projects will produce enough energy on an annual basis to cover the energy used at the datacenter," Smith said.