Morning Tidings

Tag: study

  • Robots With Realistic Pain Expressions Can Cut Error, Bias by Doctors: Study

    London, March 14: UK researchers have developed a way to generate more realistic and accurate expressions of pain on the face of medical training robots during physical examination of painful areas. The new approach by the Imperial College London team could help to reduce error and bias by doctors during physical examination.

    The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest this could also help teach trainee doctors to use clues hidden in patient facial expressions to minimise the force necessary for physical examinations, and may also help to detect and correct early signs of bias in medical students by exposing them to a wider variety of patient identities. Sophia, the Robot’s Digital Artwork Is Up For Auction, Watch Videos of First AI Paintings to be Sold Online.

    “Improving the accuracy of facial expressions of pain on these robots is a key step in improving the quality of physical examination training for medical students,” said Sibylle Rerolle, from Imperial’s Dyson School of Design Engineering.

    In the study, undergraduate students were asked to perform a physical examination on the abdomen of a robotic patient. Data about the force applied to the abdomen was used to trigger changes in six different regions of the robotic face – known as MorphFace – to replicate pain-related facial expressions.

    This method revealed the order in which different regions of a robotic face, known as facial activation units (AUs), must trigger to produce the most accurate expression of pain. The study also determined the most appropriate speed and magnitude of AU activation.

    The researchers found that the most realistic facial expressions happened when the upper face AUs (around the eyes) were activated first, followed by the lower face AUs (around the mouth). In particular, a longer delay in activation of the Jaw Drop AU produced the most natural results.

    When doctors conduct physical examination of painful areas, the feedback of patient facial expressions is important. However, many current medical training simulators cannot display real-time facial expressions relating to pain and include a limited number of patient identities in terms of ethnicity and gender.

    The researchers say these limitations could cause medical students to develop biased practices, with studies already highlighting racial bias in the ability to recognise facial expressions of pain.

    “Underlying biases could lead doctors to misinterpret the discomfort of patients – increasing the risk of mistreatment, negatively impacting doctor-patient trust, and even causing mortality,a said co-author Thilina Lalitharatne, from the Dyson School of Design Engineering.

    “In the future, a robot-assisted approach could be used to train medical students to normalise their perceptions of pain expressed by patients of different ethnicity and gender.”

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Mar 14, 2022 05:37 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • Earth Has Not One, but Two Trojan Asteroids Now: Study

    Barcelona, February 2: Trojan asteroid, also called Trojan planet, is any one of a number of asteroids that occupy a stable Lagrangian point in a planet’s orbit around the Sun. Recent research by astronomers has discovered the second Earth Trojan asteroid, almost a decade after the discovery of the first. The results of the study have been published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’.

    The international team of astronomers, led by researcher Toni Santana-Ros, from the University of Alicante and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), confirmed the existence of the second Earth Trojan asteroid known to date, the 2020 XL5, after a decade of search.

    All celestial objects that roam around our solar system feel the gravitational influence of all the other massive bodies that build it, including the Sun and the planets. If one considers only the Earth-Sun system, Newton’s laws of gravity stated that there are five points where all the forces that act upon an object located at that point cancel each other out. These regions are called Lagrangian points, and they are areas of great stability. Earth Trojan asteroids are small bodies that orbit around the L4 or L5 Lagrangian points of the Sun-Earth system. Intense Burst of Radiation Fired From Sun Expected To Batter Earth on Wednesday.

    These results confirm that 2020 XL5 is the second transient Earth Trojan asteroid known to date, and everything indicates it will remain Trojan –that is, it will be located at the Lagrangian point– for four thousand years, thus it is qualified as transient. The researchers have provided an estimation of the object bulk size (around one kilometer in diameter, larger than the Earth Trojan asteroid known to date, the 2010 TK7, which was 0.3 kilometres in diameter), and have made a study of the impulse a rocket needs to reach the asteroid from Earth.

    Although Trojan asteroids have been known to exist for decades in other planets such as Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, it was not until 2011 that the first Earth Trojan asteroid was found. The astronomers have described many observational strategies for the detection of new Earth Trojans.

    “There have been many previous attempts to find Earth Trojans, including in situ surveys such as the search within the L4 region, carried out by the NASA OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft, or the search within the L5 region, conducted by the JAXA Hayabusa-2 mission”, noted Toni Santana-Ros, author of the publication. He added that “all the dedicated efforts had so far failed to discover any new member of this population”.

    The low success in these searches can be explained by the geometry of an object orbiting the Earth-Sun L4 or L5 as seen from our planet. These objects are usually observable close to the sun. The observation time window between the asteroid rising above the horizon and sunrise is, therefore, very small.

    Therefore, astronomers pointed their telescopes very low on the sky where the visibility conditions are at their worst and with the handicap of the imminent sunlight saturating the background light of the images just a few minutes in the observation.

    To solve this problem, the team carried out a search of 4-meter telescopes that would be able to observe under such conditions, and they finally obtained the data from the 4.3m Lowel Discovery telescope (Arizona, United States), and the 4.1m SOAR telescope, operated by the National Science Foundation NOIRLab (Cerro Pachon, Chile).

    The discovery of the Earth Trojan asteroids is very significant because these can hold a pristine record on the early conditions in the formation of the Solar System, since the primitive trojans might have been co-orbiting the planets during their formation, and they add restrictions to the dynamic evolution of the Solar System. In addition, Earth Trojans are the ideal candidates for potential space missions in the future. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Rocket on Course to Hit the Moon After Seven Years.

    Since the L4 Lagrangian point shares the same orbit as the Earth, it takes a low change in velocity to be reached. This implies that a spacecraft would need a low energy budget to remain in its shared orbit with the Earth, keeping a fixed distance to it. “Earth Trojans could become ideal bases for an advanced exploration of the Solar System; they could even become a source of resources”, concluded Santana-Ros.

    The discovery of more trojans will enhance the knowledge of the dynamics of these unknown objects and will provide a better understanding of the mechanics that allow them to be transient.

    (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, Morning Tidings Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

  • Study Finds Problematic Smartphone Use During COVID-19 Pandemic

    Washington, December 24: A new research has identified links between problematic smartphone use and low sense of control, repetitive thinking, and fear of missing out (FOMO) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2021.

    The study has been published in the ‘PLOS ONE Journal’. Also Read | Bihar Shocker: Witness in Twin Murder Case Shot Dead in Broad Daylight Outside Gaya Court.

    Julia Brailovskaia of Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Germany, and colleagues presented these findings. Also Read | Apple Days Sale: iPhone 13 Now Available From Rs 61,900; AirPods Pro at Rs 17,990.

    Previous research had shown that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, smartphone use had significantly increased. While smartphones can enhance daily routines and social connections, the use of smartphones can become problematic and negatively affect relationships, work, and mental or physical health. A better understanding of factors that may contribute to problematic smartphone use could help inform efforts to prevent and manage such behaviour.

    To provide new insights, Brailovskaia and colleagues conducted an online survey of 516 smartphone users aged 18 and over in Germany in April and May of 2021. The survey included questions to evaluate self-reported smartphone use as well as a sense of control, fear of missing out, and repetitive negative thinking–three factors that the researchers hypothesized could contribute to problematic smartphone use, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Statistical analysis of the survey results found that low sense of control, fear of missing out, and repetitive negative thinking were, indeed, all associated with greater severity of problematic smartphone use.

    While the findings do not prove causation, the statistical analysis also suggested possible interactions between the four factors. For one, fear of missing out may be a key mechanism by which a low sense of control could lead to problematic smartphone use. Meanwhile, a higher degree of repetitive negative thinking was associated with a stronger relationship between fear of missing out and problematic smartphone use.

    The sample was comprised of mostly female and rather young participants; the authors suggested that the study should be replicated in more age and gender-balanced samples from other countries, to ensure the results are generalizable to other populations. Furthermore, the study was conducted during the pandemic when participants’ usual daily routines may have been disrupted, possibly affecting the participants’ sense of control. Nonetheless, the findings are in line with the hypothesis that loss of control–as experienced by some during the pandemic–could boost the risk of problematic smartphone use.

    On the basis of their findings and prior studies, the researchers proposed that physical activity and mindfulness practices could help reduce problematic smartphone use.

    The authors added, “Problematic smartphone use is fostered by the interaction of loss of control, fear of missing out and repetitive negative thinking.”

    (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, Morning Tidings Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

  • Joining Social Media Before Age 11 Is Associated With Problematic Digital Behaviours, Finds Study

    New York, October 28: Using social media platforms like Instagram or Snapchat before age 11 was significantly related to more problematic digital behaviour compared to those who joined these platforms when they were older, finds a new study.

    The study, published in Computers in Human Behavior, showed that joining Instagram or Snapchat before age 11 was significantly associated with having online friends or joining social media sites that parents would disapprove of, more problematic digital technology behaviour, more unsympathetic online behaviour, and greater likelihood of online harassment and sexual harassment victimisation. However, some of these effects were lessened when parents restricted phone use and limited how often their kids checked social media.

    “Social media sites all require a minimum age of 13 to register, but the reality is that many users are younger than that: one-third of our sample had already started using social media at age 11 or 12 and another one-third had begun at age 10 or younger,” said lead author Linda Charmaraman, director of the Youth, Media and Wellbeing Research Lab at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW).

    “This study helps us understand the risks and benefits for kids and tweens, so that parents and policymakers can make decisions that prioritise their well being,” she added. The team surveyed 773 middle schoolers in the Northeast US about their social media initiation, digital behaviour, and parental restrictions on digital use. Facebook Crisis: New Whistleblower Alleges Social Media Giant Put Profits Over Combating Hate Speech, Misinformation.

    The researchers also found that regardless of when they joined social media, early adolescents more frequently engaged in positive digital behaviour than negative ones.

    And those who joined social media as children (age 10 or younger) demonstrated a greater tendency to engage in supportive or civically-engaged online community behaviour such as socially supportive social media posts, fostering awareness of social issues, or organising events through social media, compared to those who joined later. This may be due to being socialised at a younger age to understand both the positive and negative potential of different platforms.

    “These findings suggest that the industry-based age minimum of 13 for social media users may potentially be a good standard, if it can be enforced,” said Charmaraman.

    “The findings also suggest that a potential strategy to support families with children, tweens, and teens is to keep track of social media sites joined and online friend networks; set even one rule about screen use (i.e., limiting duration on school nights); and monitor children’s frequency of checking, particularly if they’re using social media at age 10 and younger.”

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Oct 28, 2021 08:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • Indian Astronomers Study How Ejections From Sun’s Corona Influence Space Weather Predictions Crucial for Monitoring Satellites Ahead of Isro’s Aditya-L1 Mission

    A recent study has shown how conditions and events in the solar atmosphere like coronal mass ejections influence the accuracy of space weather prediction, which is crucial for the health of our satellites. This understanding will aid the interpretation of data from the upcoming Aditya-L1, India’s first solar mission.

    Space weather refers to the conditions in the solar wind and near-Earth space, which can adversely affect the performance of space-borne and ground-based technological systems. The space weather near the Earth is mainly due to Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), which are frequent explosive expulsions of huge magnetized plasma from the Sun into its surroundings, which can blow past the Earth. Example of space weather events is the geomagnetic storm, a perturbation in the Earth’s magnetic field, which can last for few hours to few days. Understanding of how events in the solar atmosphere influence space weather is necessary for monitoring and maintaining our satellites.

    In the present work, astronomers led by Dr. Wageesh Mishra of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. Of India showed that plasma properties and Earth arrival times of CMEs from the Sun can vary substantially with longitudinal locations in the interplanetary space. This research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy journal and is co-authored by Kunjal Dave from C.U. Shah University, Gujarat, Prof. Nandita Srivastava from Physical Research Laboratory, Udaipur, and Prof. Luca Teriaca from the Max Planck Institute of for the Solar System Research, Germany.

    See Pics:

    In this research, the team studied the Earth-directed CMEs and interplanetary counterparts of CMEs (ICMEs). With access to publicly available plasma measurements in situ at three locations in the Solar System, — two of NASA’s STEREO spacecraft and the LASCO coronagraph onboard SOHO located near the first Lagrangian point (L1) on the Sun-Earth line, they reconstructed a 3D view of the CMEs & ICMEs. The two events that are the basis of the present study are the ICMEs of 11th March and 6th August 2011 (which is when they arrived at Earth). Using multi-point remote and in situ observations, the study investigated the differences in the dynamics, arrival time, plasma, and magnetic field parameters of ICME structures at the locations in the heliosphere where the different satellites are located.

    The team explains Sun emits a continuous stream of charged particles called the Solar Wind. The two selected events were ideal for studying the effects of the CME shocks moving through the solar wind. Aditya-L1: After Chandrayaan 2 Launch, ISRO Eyes India’s First-Ever Solar Mission in 2020.

    “We found that plasma characteristics and arrival times of a CME-driven shock, propagating in a pre-conditioned inhomogeneous medium, may be different at different longitudinal locations in the heliosphere,” said Wageesh Mishra, the lead author.

    The study highlights the difficulties in connecting the local observations of an ICME from a single in situ spacecraft to its global structures and explains that accurate prediction of large CME structures at any location in the heliosphere is challenging. It emphasized that lack of information about the pre-conditioned ambient solar wind medium can severely limit the accuracy of CME arrival time and space weather prediction. This new understanding will aid the interpretation of data from space missions.

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on Sep 21, 2021 06:18 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).

  • A New Study Addresses Alkaline Water Electrolysis, A Key Technology in the Decarbonizing Society

    A New Study Addresses Alkaline Water Electrolysis, A Key Technology in the Decarbonizing Society

    Decarbonizing society is the key presumption for Carbon neutrality of the society which refers to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This is one of the goals of policies of many countries across the world.  Carbon neutrality can be done by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the “post-carbon economy”).

    Researchers from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague conducted research dealing with decarbonizing solutions. “We classified the materials reported into groups according to chemical composition and proposed criteria for a comparison of the materials reported in the literature,” says professor, Karel Bouzek

    With interest in renewable energy sources and the decarbonization of industry rapidly accelerating, alkaline water electrolysis can now be regarded as a critical technology that enables efficient energy conversion and storage. 

    Since an alkaline environment is suitable for a vast range of materials with satisfactory chemical stability under operating conditions, the topic of catalysts for the alkaline route could give rise to confusion in the community. Thus, researchers focused on analyzing the current situation in the electrocatalysis of the hydrogen evolution reaction in an alkaline and a neutral environment, presenting the leading group of materials studied and discussing their potential to achieve industrial relevance.

    Graphical abstract of the study.

    The research addresses the main limitations of standard parameters used for evaluating and comparing the catalytic activity and stability of selected catalysts. Furthermore, the research article comprehensively compares catalyst activities concerning the individual groups depending on their composition and the most used cations and cation-based materials.

  • Two-year study to analyse how COVID-19 vaccines affect people with weakened immunity- Technology News

    Two-year study to analyse how COVID-19 vaccines affect people with weakened immunity- Technology News

    Agence France-PresseJul 07, 2021 14:42:27 IST

    How effective are Covid vaccines if your immune system is compromised by HIV, cancer or a recent organ transplant?

    Faced with very little data — and fears that some of these patients could be particularly vulnerable to the virus — scientists are seeking to figure out how to best protect them.

    In one of the largest research projects into the issue so far, dozens of French hospitals have launched a two-year study of some 10,000 people to help shine light onto how people with these conditions respond to immunisation for the coronavirus.

    “The goal is to find out how we can best protect those patients,” the study’s head Odile Launay told AFP.

    Authorities like the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say people with compromised immune systems can receive the vaccine, but stress that there is still little data on safety.

    “If you have a condition or are taking medications that weaken your immune system, you may NOT be fully protected even if you are fully vaccinated,” the CDC adds, urging people to continue to take precautions and to consult their doctor.

    Multiple doses

    People’s immune systems can be suppressed by disease — or by treatments taken to deal with other conditions — and this may mean their body has trouble producing the antibodies vaccines are meant to trigger.

    Conditions where this might be the case include diabetes, obesity, cancer, organ and bone marrow transplants, chronic severe kidney failure, HIV or multiple sclerosis.

    In the case of a transplant, a patient’s immune response is suppressed on purpose to prevent his or her body from attacking the new organ.

    Another French study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 100 transplant patients and found their immune response to vaccines was insufficient after two doses.

    Scientists recommended three doses for those patients, which is now the rule in France.

    The new study, which involves 30 hospitals and has been signing up participants since March, is aiming for 8,650 participants with compromised immune systems and a control group of 1,850 un-compromised people.

    Participants will have their blood drawn to measure the presence of antibodies at the time of vaccination and then again after one month, six months, one year and then two years after the last dose.

    “The data will allow us to adapt our vaccine recommendations to specific patient populations,” Launay said.

    Other measures

    Health authorities could for example decide to shorten the waiting period between the first dose and the two or three booster shots that would likely follow for immune-compromised patients.

    And in cases where vaccines failed to produce any results, doctors would opt for other strategies like vaccinating the patient’s family and caregivers and maintaining social distancing.

    If a vaccine failure results in infection with Covid-19, researchers will also sequence the virus.

    This could pick up whether the illness is caused by an existing variant – or even pick up any new mutations.

    While the Covid-19 virus typically infects individuals for around 10 days before being neutralised by the body, some studies have shown that certain patients, particularly those with compromised immune systems, may carry it for several weeks or longer.

    This increases the window of opportunity for the virus to mutate, potentially resulting in new variants.

    A similar study was launched in the UK in March, which will monitor 5,000 immunocompromised patients’ responses to Covid-19 vaccinations.

    “We urgently need to understand if patient populations with chronic conditions such as cancer, inflammatory arthritis and kidney and liver disease are likely to be well-protected by current COVID-19 vaccines,” lead researcher Iain McInnes of the University of Glasgow said at the time.

  • Is Smart Technology Making People Dumber? Here’s What Study Says

    Is Smart Technology Making People Dumber? Here’s What Study Says

    Washington, July 4: While there are plenty of negatives associated with smart technology, there is also a positive side to it, according to a new University of Cincinnati research by social and behavioural expert Anthony Chemero.

    “Despite the headlines, there is no scientific evidence that shows that smartphones and digital technology harm our biological cognitive abilities,” says the UC professor of philosophy and psychology who recently co-authored a paper stating such in Nature Human Behaviour. Smart Technology Is Not Making People Dumber, Says Study.

    In the paper, Chemero and colleagues at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management expound on the evolution of the digital age, explaining how smart technology supplements thinking, thus helping us to excel.

    “What smartphones and digital technology seem to do instead is to change the ways in which we engage our biological cognitive abilities,” Chemero says, adding “these changes are actually cognitively beneficial.”

    For example, he says, your smartphone knows the way to the baseball stadium so that you don’t have to dig out a map or ask for directions, which frees up brain energy to think about something else. The same holds true in a professional setting: “We’re not solving complex mathematical problems with pen and paper or memorizing phone numbers in 2021.”

    Computers, tablets and smartphones, he says, function as an auxiliary, serving as tools that are good at memorization, calculation and storing information and presenting information when you need it.

    Additionally, smart technology augments decision-making skills that we would be hard-pressed to accomplish on our own, says the paper’s lead author Lorenzo Cecutti, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto.

    Using GPS technology on our phones, he says, can not only help us get there but lets us choose a route based on traffic conditions. “That would be a challenging task when driving round in a new city.”

    Chemero adds: “You put all this technology) together with a naked human brain and you get something that’s smarter…and the result is that we, supplemented by our technology, are actually capable of accomplishing much more complex tasks than we could with our un-supplemented biological abilities.”

    While there may be other consequences to smart technology, “making us stupid is not one of them,” says Chemero.

    (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, Morning Tidings Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

  • IIT-Madras Develops Drone Algorithms to Help Study How Fire Behaves in Space Stations, Satellites

    IIT-Madras Develops Drone Algorithms to Help Study How Fire Behaves in Space Stations, Satellites

    New Delhi, June 27: Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have developed algorithms for drones to help study how fire behaves in space stations, shuttles and satellites. According to the team, a multirotor microgravity platform can also simulate reduced-gravity environments similar to Moon and Mars, thereby recreating those conditions on Earth for experiments.

    The team claims that at present, generating microgravity (gravity experienced is close to zero) is possible only through space stations, satellites, space shuttles, sounding rockets, and drop towers, almost all of which are beyond the reach of most educational institutions in India.

    “Another option is to use ‘free-fall’ flights on Earth to create microgravity. The free fall of sounding rockets and free fall of payloads from high altitude balloons and drop towers can also enable microgravity,” Kedarisetty Siddhardha, research scholar, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Madras told PTI. Scientists Use NASA Satellite Data To Track Ocean Microplastics From Space.

    “These microgravity platforms provide stable and high-quality microgravity. However, it takes a few months to years to gain access to any of the existing microgravity platforms. Moreover, the cost to access these platforms’ services is not affordable by many educational and research institutions,” he added.

    The team has developed an algorithm that can precisely control multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) such as quadrotors or drones. The team has published this research in reputed peer-reviewed international journals, including Aerospace Systems, Aerospace Science and Technology, and Microgravity Science and Technology.

    “These algorithms and techniques for multirotor UAV control could accurately maintain its acceleration. Although multirotor UAVs currently do not have high payload capacities, they are readily available at a low cost, making them accessible to all. We have conducted flight tests using a quadrotor and a hexrotor that we developed and found that those flights attained stable and high-quality microgravity levels,” he said.

    “The research team showed that existing quadrotors could be turned into microgravity platforms via minor design modifications and appropriate control, estimation, and automation algorithms. Furthermore, the methods and algorithms developed by us for turning multirotors into microgravity platforms are generic. So, they can be replicated easily to create multirotor microgravity platforms with high payload capacities,” Siddhardha added.

    The two multirotors that the team built and flew are the first UAVs to conduct on board experiments in microgravity. Earlier, efforts by other researchers to make UAVs as microgravity platforms did not see much success as those platforms could not attain gravity levels close to zero.

    “While most conventional microgravity platforms can simulate only microgravity, a multirotor microgravity platform can also simulate reduced-gravity environments like that on the Moon and Mars.

    “All it takes is a change in one parameter in the software that Siddhardha embeds in his multirotor that autonomously performs the manoeuvres required to achieve the level of gravity needed,” said Joel George Manathara, Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Madras. NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Completes 8th Flight on Mars.

    The team has carried out experiments on board his multirotor microgravity platforms to observe capillary action as well as the change in the shape of the liquid meniscus in microgravity.

    “These experiments undoubtedly prove that multirotors can be turned into platforms on which microgravity experiments can be carried out. Nowadays, almost every educational institution has a robotics lab or a flying club with multirotors. Thus, this research opens up the possibility of conducting experiments in microgravity at every university in India,” Siddhardha said.

  • WHO Study Finds Long Working Hours Killing Hundreds Of Thousands of People a Year

    WHO Study Finds Long Working Hours Killing Hundreds Of Thousands of People a Year

    Burning that midnight oil is not can prove fatal, folks. Long working hours are contributing to the death of hundreds of thousands of people a year, according to a study conducted by the World Health Organisation. The study found that there has been a 29% increase in deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease since 2000. An estimated  745 000 have succumbed to the perils of long working hours in 2016. 

    In the first global analysis on the dire effects of long working hours, WHO  estimated that 398 000 people died from a stroke and 347 000 from heart disease as a result of having worked at least 55 hours a week. The report alleged there is a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease in a 55 hour work week, compared to putting in 35 to 40 hours a week.

    The WHO portends that this trend will only worsen during the pandemic, which has forced millions of people to work from home and skewed the boundaries between work and home.

    “The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way many people work,“ said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Teleworking has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between home and work. In addition, many businesses have been forced to scale back or shut down operations to save money, and people who are still on the payroll end up working longer hours. No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease. Governments, employers and workers need to work together to agree on limits to protect the health of workers.”

    The joint study, produced by the WHO and the International Labour Organization,  indicated that the number of people working long hours has significantly increased during the pandemic. This has also risked the lives of these individuals. The study said deaths occurred much later in life, sometimes decades later, than the shifts worked. It also showed 72% of victims were men and were middle-aged or in the older demographic.

    The report – collated data from 194 countries between  2000-2016- also found that people living in South East Asia and the Western Pacific region were the most affected by long working hours.

    (The above story first appeared on Morning Tidings on May 18, 2021 12:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website morningtidings.com).