Income of workforce is linked to their height

Income of workforce is linked to their height

HRK News Bureau | New Delhi | Thursday, 16 August 2018

According to a World Bank report, two‐thirds of India’s current workforce was stunted in childhood and that's affecting their income.

171 million children under the age of five were stunted in the year 2014. According to the World Bank, this phenomenon, wherein children are excessively short for their age, is affecting their income levels.

Stunting in childhood is worrisome because it is associated with adverse outcomes throughout the life cycle. The undernourishment and disease that cause stunting impair brain development, leading to lower cognitive and socio-emotional skills, lower levels of educational attainment, and hence, lower incomes.

According to a World Bank report, two‐thirds of India’s current workforce was stunted in childhood.

Data reveals that on an average, an additional centimeter in height translates into 1.7 per cent higher wages in the labour market.

The rationale is that, had the stunted members of the current workforce not been stunted in childhood and attained regular height, they would not have suffered impaired cognitive development in their early years, nor would they have received less education.
Their income today would have been higher by a percentage that reflects the education penalty associated with childhood stunting, the returns to education, the adult height penalty to childhood stunting, the returns to height, the cognitive skills penalty to childhood stunting, and the returns to cognitive skills.

The average reduction of wages due to stunting for South Asia was 10 per cent, while that for North America was two per cent. The Middle East and North Africa do better, with a reduction of four per cent, compared to Europe and Central Asia with a reduction of five per cent.

© 2016 HR Katha

Source:(16/08/2018).

Feeding your baby solids early may help them sleep, study suggests

Feeding your baby solids early may help them sleep, study suggest

Advice on when to introduce babies to solid food has been hotly disputed for years, but the latest research seems to indicate that earlier is better

Nicola Davis @NicolaKSDavis

Mon 9 Jul 2018 16.02 BST Last modified on Tue 10 Jul 2018 00.50 BST

Photograph: NataliaDeriabina/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Introducing solid food to babies before they reach six months might offer a small improvement to their sleep, new research suggests.
Researchers from the UK and US looked at data collected as part of a clinical trial exploring whether early introduction of certain foods could reduce the chance of an infant developing an allergy to them. As part of the study the team also looked the impact on other measures, including growth and sleep.
“An added benefit (of early introduction of solids) is that it seems to confer better sleep for the children,” said Gideon Lack, professor of paediatric allergy at King’s College London, and a co-author of the research.
Writing in the journal Jama Pediatrics, Lack and a team of researchers behind the study say while there is a common belief that eating solid food helps a baby to sleep better – with one NHS survey suggesting most mothers give their child food before five months – many sources of advice for new parents, including the NHS and the National Childbirth Trust, recommend that parents should wait until six months before introducing solids.
“We believe the most likely explanation for our findings of improved sleep is that that these babies are less hungry” said Lack, adding that solid foods might mean less regurgitation or greater feelings of being full.

 

More than 1300 healthy breastfed three-month-olds were split randomly into two groups in one the babies were exclusively breastfed until they were six months old – as current guidelines recommend – while children in the other group were breastfed and given solid foods, including peanuts, eggs and wheat, from the age of three months, in addition to breastfeeding. After six months babies in both groups were eating a range of solids.
The children’s health and behaviour was followed for three years, with their sleep and consumption of solid food tracked by families through questionnaires.
While not all babies were kept to their allotted regime, on average, babies who were in the breastfeeding only group were first introduced to solids at around 23 weeks, while those in the other group encountered the foods at around 16 weeks
The results, based on data from 1,162 infants and taking into account factors such birth weight and whether children had eczema, reveal babies introduced to solids from three months slept, on average, two hours more a week at the age of six months, than the babies who were only breastfed. They also woke around two fewer times at night per week at six months and had just over 9% fewer incidents of waking up during the night over the course of the study.
The team found that the more closely parents stuck to the early introduction programme, the stronger the effect.
Lack said a crucial finding is that parents who were asked to exclusively breastfeed had almost twice the odds of reporting a serious problem with their child’s sleep than those who were asked to introduce their babies to solid food early.
The team did note that the study did not use sensors to monitor infants’ sleep and that parents might have misreported sleeping behaviour because they had previously encountered the idea that babies fed solid foods earlier sleep better.
However Professor Amy Brown of Swansea University, whose research includes weaning of babies, said the benefits revealed by the study were “minimal” in real-world terms, and that other research showed no rewards for early introduction of solids.
“There is no clear physiological reason why introducing solids foods early would help a baby sleep, especially not for the very small amounts parents were instructed to give in this trial,” she said.
Brown urged caution, noting that no difference in waking was seen until after five months, despite one group being introduced to solids from three months, and that self-report of infant sleep by tired parents was unlikely to be precise.
Prof Mary Fewtrell, nutrition lead for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health welcomed the study, noting the RCPCH currently recommends solid foods are not introduced before four months, but that the evidence base for current advise is more than 10 years old and is currently under review in the UK and EU. “We expect to see updated recommendations on infant feeding in the not too distant future,” she said.
Erin Leichman, a senior research psychologist at St Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, and executive director of the Pediatric Sleep Council said while the impact of early introduction of solid foods likely varied across babies, the findings are important. “Results of this study certainly warrant further research on the topic, particularly addressing how long babies continue to breastfeed despite introduction of solids and how parents interact with their babies at bedtime and during the night after a night waking, which can be related to sleep and night wakings,” she said. “At this point, results of this study do not indicate that solids should be introduced early for all babies.” Making the decision about when to introduce solid foods should be one that is family-based, and made with a trusted health-care provider.”

Source: The Guardian

93% of employees would trust orders from a robot, finds a study

93% of employees would trust orders from a robot, finds a study

HRK News Bureau | New Delhi | Monday, 02 July 2018 

Six per cent of HR professionals are actively deploying AI and 24 per cent of employees are currently using some form of AI at work.

In a changing world, where technology is increasingly pervading human life, a study reveals that people don’t hesitate to take instructions from robots at work. The study was conducted by Oracle and Future Workplace, a research firm preparing leaders for disruptions in recruitment, development and employee engagement. The research involving 1,320 HR leaders and employees in the US, revealed that even as people are ready to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) at work, and understand that the benefits go far beyond automating manual processes, organisations are still lagging behind when it comes to embracing AI. This will result in reduced productivity, skillset obsolescence and job loss.

The study titled, ‘AI at Work’, also identified a large gap between the way people are using AI at home and at work. According to the study, 70 per cent of people are using some form of AI in their personal life, while only six per cent of HR professionals are actively deploying AI and 24 per cent of employees are currently using some form of AI at work. The study tried to find the obstacles preventing AI adoption and the business consequences of not embracing AI even when people are ready to embrace AI at work (93 per cent were found to trust orders from a robot). Majority of the respondents agreed that AI will have a positive impact on their organisations. When asked about the biggest benefit of AI, HR leaders and employees both felt it was increased productivity.

According to the study, most employees believe that AI will improve operational efficiencies (59 per cent), enable faster decision making (50 per cent), significantly reduce cost (45 per cent), enhance customer experiences (40 per cent) and improve the employee experience (37 per cent). Leaders in the HR industry believe AI will positively impact learning and development (27 per cent), performance management (26 per cent), compensation/payroll (18 per cent) and recruitment and employee benefits (13 per cent).

Given the fact that AI has huge potential to improve business performance, HR leaders and employees believe that organisations are not doing enough to prepare the workforce for AI. Respondents also identified a number of other barriers holding back AI in the enterprise.

Almost (90 per cent) of HR leaders are worried about adjusting to the rapid adoption of AI as part of their job and find it might make matters worse, as most are not currently empowered to address an emerging AI skill gap in their organisation. While more than half of the employees (51 per cent) are concerned they will not be able to adjust to the rapid adoption of AI and 71 per cent believe AI skills and knowledge will be important in the next three years, 72 per cent of HR leaders noted that their organisation does not provide any form of AI training programme. In addition to the skill gap, HR leaders and employees identified cost (74 per cent), failure of technology (69 per cent) and security risks (56 per cent) as the other major barriers to AI adoption in the enterprise.

Despite concerns of people regarding AI entering the workplace, the study found the opposite to be true with HR leaders and employees (79 per cent of HR leaders; 60 per cent of employees) believing that failure to adopt AI will have negative consequences for their own careers, colleagues and the organisation on the whole.

From an organisational standpoint, respondents believe embracing AI will have the most positive impact on directors and C-Suite executives. By failing to empower leadership teams with AI, organisations could lose competitive advantage.

© 2016 HR Katha
Source: (02/07/2018).

New study finds preference for children to cradle dolls on left is indicator of social cognitive abilities

June 27, 2018 by George Wigmore, City University London

Credit: FamVeld/Shutterstock.com

Children who cradle dolls on the left show higher social cognitive abilities than those who do not, according to new research from City, University of London.

The new findings, which also show deeply inbuilt facial recognition skills which enable children to interpret even simple approximations as human faces, suggest the children's cradling preference could help to indicate some social developmental disorders.
The study builds on previous knowledge of a 'left-cradling bias' – the phenomenon that humans will typically cradle a baby on their left side, enabling both parent and child to keep the other in their left visual field – which is unrelated to dominance of the use of right or left hand. Information from the left visual field is processed by the right hemisphere of the brain, which is associated with emotion and the perception of facial expression.
Further investigation could enable researchers to make important predictions about the trajectory of children's development based on their cradling responses, in association with social and communication abilities.
The research – led by Dr. Gillian Forrester of Birkbeck, University of London and Dr. Brenda Todd of City, University of London – was conducted with 98 typically developing children (54 girls and 44 boys) in reception or year 1 at a mainstream reception school in South London, who were given a human infant doll to cradle.
They were observed to hold the doll markedly more often in a left-cradling position, and those who showed this bias had a significantly higher social ability score compared with those who held the doll on the right.
The social ability traits tested including likeliness to follow rules, willingness to share with others and wanting to please their teachers.
As part of the study the children were also given a pillow to cradle, with three dots marked on to suggest a face. They were more likely to cradle this object on the left, which researchers say indicates the depth of the evolutionary bias, as even a hint of a face will trigger the response.
By contrast, when given a plain pillow, without a suggestion of a face, the children demonstrated neither a left nor right cradling bias.
Birkbeck's Dr. Forrester said: "Even babies recognise the simple design of three dots surrounded by a circle as a face. And faces receive special attention from our left visual field (connected to the right hemisphere), which is faster and more accurate at identifying individuals and their emotional expressions than the right visual field for the majority of the population. This left-visual-field bias is a natural ability, thought to have originated from a need to identify predators in the environment. In modern humans we believe that the left visual field bias for recognising faces and expressions supports our sophisticated social and emotional abilities.

"In our study, children held a plain pillow randomly in either arm, but adding a 'three-dot-face' resulted in a preference to hold in the left arm, mirroring the left-side cradling bias shown by mothers holding babies. The phenomenon, known as the 'left cradling bias', is not just present in humans—it is pervasive across the animal kingdom and found in species as different as gorillas and flying foxes. Keeping a baby in the carer's left visual field allows for more efficiently monitoring of the baby's wellbeing.
"Not surprisingly, the left cradling bias was also seen when children held a human baby doll, indicating that this behaviour is present early in development and you do not need to have had experience of holding babies to express this preference. What was interesting was that children who held the baby doll with a preference for the left arm scored higher on social ability tests, compared with children who held with a right-side preference, indicating that using the visual field linked to the dominant hemisphere for processing social stimuli gives the individual a real-life advantage."
The cradling bias was once thought to be associated with the prevalence of the of the right-handed population but is now known to result from a preference for using the left visual field to view faces – it is quicker and more accurate at identifying individuals and their expressions. Cross cultural studies indicate that approximately 80% of mothers naturally cradle on the left.
City's Dr. Brenda Todd said:
"I have previously studied mothers holding their own babies, finding that the left cradling is strongest in the first 12 weeks after the birth, when the babies are most vulnerable. It is very interesting to see that a similar bias is shown when young children hold a doll which depicts a young infant, indicating that this behavioural preference is apparent so early in our development."

The peer-reviewed study is published in Cortex. 

More information: G.S. Forrester et al. The left cradling bias: An evolutionary facilitator of social cognition?, Cortex (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.05.011

Journal reference: Cortex
Provided by: City University London


Source: https://medicalxpress.com/ (28/06/2018)

Happy employees contribute to better profits, says global report

Happy employees contribute to better profits, says global report

HRK News Bureau | New Delhi | Wednesday, 27 June 2018

The financial returns are higher for companies taking care of their employees, reveals a report by Globoforce WorkHuman and IBM Smarter Workforce.

Companies that score high on employee experience have better financial results as well. This reiterates the fact that employee happiness is a must for organisational success.

The newly published report, The Financial Impact of a Positive Employee Experience, by IBM Smarter Workforce Institute and the Globoforce WorkHuman establishes that employee experience is positively associated with employee work performance, discretionary effort, and turnover intention.

A key finding of this report is that organisations that score in the top 25 per cent of ‘employee experience’, report nearly triple the return on assets and more than twice the return on sales when compared to companies in the bottom quartile.

For this report, psychologists and experts in HR consulting from Globoforce and IBM surveyed 22,000 employees from across the globe, belonging to a cross-section of industries in thousands of organisations.
The investigation also resulted in the creation of the Employee Experience Index (EEI), which measures employee satisfaction under five headings— belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness and vigour.


Companies, which managed to score highly on EEI, reported returns that significantly outpace those of companies that didn’t perform well. The report is quick to stress that cashing in on this fiscal boost does not need to be a costly affair. It highlighted that improving employee experience is not resource-intensive but really more about making some key changes that will create a more ‘human’ workplace.

Globoforce and IBM stated that a human workplace is one characterised by allowing work–life balance, providing opportunities for feedback and growth, fostering positive co-worker relationships, enabling meaningful work, and empowering workers so that they feel they have a voice.
The study suggests that senior leadership and managers play crucial roles in creating many of those opportunities and ultimately ensure a positive and supportive work environment.

However, the study reveals that a majority - more than 70 per cent – of HR practitioners think that senior leadership could be doing more to improve employees’ experiences at work.

Organisation also need to improve on on two key parameters - work-life balance and better recognition for employees. According to the report, less than a quarter (22 percent) of hr practitioners say that  say their organisations do enough to provide opportunities to recharge, and less than half (49 percent) say there is sufficient recognition of the good work that employees do.

The report also stresses on recognising the humanity of employees and treating them as such.

Previously, this report released the rankings of international countries in which employees reported the highest levels of employee experience.
In the current report, this index has been married with analyses of some of the key metrics of fiscal success for a company.

Return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS) are two of the most commonly used measures of profitability. ROA is the ratio of net income to assets and is used to determine how profitable a company is relative to its total assets. A high ROA indicates that a company is earning more money on less investment, which is obviously ideal.

Source: (27/06/2018).

Uranium ‘widespread’ in India’s groundwater

Uranium ‘widespread’ in India’s groundwater

Groundwater is used to re-supply dried-up wells Copyright: Jeremy Horner/Panos

Speed read

• Excessive groundwater extraction releasing uranium in aquifers
• Chemical traces in water linked to chronic kidney disease
• Routine groundwater testing needs to cover uranium aside from arsenic, fluoride

By: M. Sreelata

[NEW DELHI] Excessive withdrawal of groundwater across India is not only lowering the water table, it is also contaminating water with uranium.

According to a study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, uranium contamination is “an emerging and widespread phenomenon”. It analysed aquifers in 16 of India’s 29 states, focusing on western Rajasthan and Gujarat where uranium concentrations are higher than the WHO’s safe limit of 30 micrograms per litre.

Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University in North Carolina, United States, who is the lead author of the study, tells SciDev.Net that “the decline in groundwater levels accelerates uranium mobilisation to groundwater”. Uranium build-up may also be linked to nitrate pollutants released from chemical fertilisers, which make uranium more soluble (as it is insoluble in its natural form).

“The urgent next step is to see if we can identify areas of high prevalence of kidney disease that could be associated with high uranium levels in drinking water”

- Avner Vengosh, Duke University

India is the world’s largest user of groundwater pumped up through borewells. The World Bank reports that more than 60 per cent of irrigated agriculture and 85 per cent of drinking water depend on the resource.

Vengosh suggests that India’s water agencies make groundwater management a priority to protect people from the harmful effects of exposure to uranium, which include a higher risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). “The urgent next step is to see if we can identify areas of high prevalence of kidney disease that could be associated with high uranium levels in drinking water,” he says.

Sunderrajan Krishnan, executive director of the Inren Foundation, a non-profit water research body based in Gujarat state, says a key finding in the study was the link between water table fluctuations and the presence of uranium. He points out that this is especially noticeable when the water level depletes to the point where uranium-bearing rocks in the aquifers are exposed to oxidation.

“Half a century ago, water levels never reached that low,” Krishnan tells SciDev.Net.

The link between CKD and uranium in India was first made by the state-run Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, says Krishnan. The disease is prevalent in coastal parts of Andhra Pradesh state.

In light of the study’s findings, authorities should urgently make testing for uranium a routine part of groundwater quality monitoring, says Vengosh. Current tests in India include those for arsenic and fluoride, which are among the more serious contaminants that pose risks to human health.


Source:  

World Tobacco Day: One in three cops addicted to any form of tobacco in Mumbai, says Study [Free Press Journal, 31/05/2018]

World Tobacco Day: One in three cops addicted to any form of tobacco in Mumbai, says Study

— By Swapnil Mishra, Free Press Journal, May 31, 2018 07:44 am.

According to the study conducted by the doctors of Government Dental College, Mumbai, revealed one out of three policeman are addicted of consuming ...

Mumbai: According to the study conducted by the doctors of Government Dental College, Mumbai, revealed one out of three policeman are addicted of consuming tobacco in any form. Looking at the statistics, the researchers on the eve of World Tobacco Day, have appealed the state government to reduce tobacco consumption in policemen to in turn prevent threats of oral cancer.

Dr Akshay Chaturmohta, who was the part of the survey said due to long working hours policeman consume tobacco so that they can be awake at night when they are on duty. The study was published in ‘Advanced Human Biology’. “More than two thousand policemen from Mumbai were surveyed for the study, which showed 34 per cent were addicted to tobacco products, 12.3 per cent to smoking and 6.1 per cent to pan apart from 20 per cent being addicted to alcohol consumption,” added Dr Akshay.

The city-based psychiatrist said they have counselled many police officers who wanted to quit tobacco-eating, but most of the time they come late for counselling when they are too addicted. “Despite people know consuming tobacco in any form can cause cancer though they consume it. Once they are addicted it is hard for them to leave for which policeman comes for counselling,” said Dr Sagar Mundada, Pyschiatrist. According to data released by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World showed that nearly 50 per cent of people attempt quit tobacco but they could not do it.

“Despite nearly seven of 10 smokers in India being aware that smoking is dangerous,” added doctor. Dr Bipeenchandra Bhamre, Cardio-Thoracic Surgeon at Sir H N Reliance Foundation Hospital and Research Center said, “Smoking increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, which includes coronary heart disease and stroke. Smokers are almost twice as likely to have a heart attack compared with people who have never smoked.”

Source: http://www.freepressjournal.in/news/mumbai/page/2 (31/05/2018)

Going to church could help you live longer, study says

Going to church could help you live longer, study says

By Carina Storrs, Special to CNN

Updated 1712 GMT (0112 HKT) May 16, 2016

(CNN)Many Americans say they attend church because it helps them stay grounded and gives them spiritual guidance. A new study suggests that regular attendance may also help increase their lifespan.

Researchers looked at data on nearly 75,000 middle-age female nurses in the United States as part of the Nurses' Health Study. The participants answered questions about whether they attended religious services regularly every four years between 1992 and 2012, and about other aspects of their lives over the years.

The researchers found that women who went to church more than once a week had a 33% lower risk of dying during the study period compared with those who said they never went. Less-frequent attendance was also associated with a lower risk of death, as women who attended once a week or less than weekly had 26% and 13% lower risk of death, respectively.

Women who regularly attended religious services also had higher rates of social support and optimism, had lower rates of depression and were less likely to smoke. However, the researchers took into account these differences between churchgoers and non-churchgoers when they calculated the decrease in death rates of 13% to 33%.

Going to church could have a number of additional benefits that could, in turn, improve longevity, but the researchers were not able to examine them with the available data. Attendance could promote self-discipline and a sense of meaning and purpose in life, or it could provide an experience of the transcendent, said Tyler J. VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. VanderWeele led the new research, which was published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Our study suggests that for health, the benefits outweigh the potentially negative effects," such as guilt, anxiety or intolerance, VanderWeele said.

Most of the women in the study were Protestant or Catholic, so it is not clear whether a similar association would be found between religious service attendance and longevity for people of other Christian religions, Judaism or Islam.

The study also did not explore the association in men. Previous research suggests that male churchgoers also benefit, though their decrease in death rate is not as large as among women, VanderWeele said.

"There have been literally thousands of studies" looking at whether religion is good for your health, said Dr. Dan German Blazer II, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center. The findings have been mixed about whether aspects of religious devotion such as prayer and spirituality -- such as reading the Bible or other religious literature -- improve longevity.

"The one (aspect) that is significantly more predictive of good health is about religious service attendance," said Blazer, who wrote an editorial about the new study in the same issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

Most people report that they are spiritual, and it is possible that actually attending religious services is good for their health because they are taking actions that are in line with their beliefs, Blazer said. "You have a more integrated life in this sense." However, this explanation is purely speculative, and studies have not explored this theory, he added.

The suggestion that attending religious services regularly could boost longevity has met with some criticism in the field. Other researchers have pointed out that the relationship could be due to other factors, such as the possibility that healthier people are more likely to go to church, perhaps because they are more mobile.

The main strength of the current study is that the researchers were able to look at whether participants reported attending religious services at several points over many years, making it easier to find out which came first, religious activity or disease and health outcomes, Blazer said.

Nevertheless, Blazer warns that it is important not to make too much of the new findings. "This study does not suggest that clinicians prescribe attending religious services as a way to be more healthy," he said. It was not meant to assess going to church as an actual medical intervention.

On the other hand, the study does suggest that "clinicians who know their patients well and follow them over a period of time, like primary care doctors, inquire when it is appropriate about their religious beliefs and practices," Blazer said. That way, if patients say that attending religious services is important to them, the doctor can help ensure that they maintain a good relationship with their church, temple or mosque.

This attitude about the place of religion in medical care is becoming more common among health care professionals and has been introduced into the curriculum of more and more medical schools, Blazer said.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/16/health/religion-lifespan-health/index.html (18/05/2018)