STAR WORLDP-32P-26 OK, BONO IS BACKNO CLEAR WINNERSP-15

AN PRESENTATION

SEPTEMBER 2010

VOL 1 - ISSUE 7 SHAPING THE FUTURE

The Wealth of NATIONS

3EDITOR’S NOTE

SEPTEMBER 2010

Hi Everybody,

It is a settled idea that ‘knowledge’ is the main mover of the world econ-

omy today. And the best way to equip oneself to participate in it, is to go through a very good university education.

The test for a good univer-sity education is to see if the graduate has acquired the ability to acquire new knowl-edge as he progresses in life - this world requires us to lead one of continuous learning.

These are among the rea-sons why there is so much discussion on higher education ev-erywhere and in Oman. And it has caused stu-dents to move within continents and further in search of good uni-versities.

A knowledge driven economy has also cre-ated a difficult situa-tion in poor and devel-oping countries, where for long, the focus was on primary education, as it was seen as a way of helping people out of poverty. As a re-sult, currently, higher education systems in several developing countries are finding it difficult to cope.

Again, it will be a mistake to now focus on higher education and neglect primary or secondary edu-cation. As only with sound school education will stu-dents master the basics, and develop interests to do well in university.

A university’s function, apart from teaching and learning, includes scholar-ship and research and there-fore makes greater financial demands. Private finance has begun to play a signifi-cant role in higher education in many parts of the world, including Oman, as those in

charge of public finance have to choose between competing demands.

Private businesses will be inclined to fund teaching and research programmes where their demands are met – say in certain branches of engi-neering or applied research. They will also prefer to fund programmes in private uni-versities, where they feel they can shape the courses and research to suit their needs, in the absence of government interference. Not only that, such universities will see it

as in their interest to have close ties with businesses, so that their degree programmes are in tune with the needs of industry and students get fi-nancial support.

Still, there will be pro-grammes which directly benefit society in areas like education, healthcare, de-fence services and the civil service, which are less likely to attract private funding and would have to depend on gov-ernment finance.

Anyway, for a country to develop a system of great universities, academic staff

must have academic and in-tellectual freedom to think freely and carry research in directions they feel inclined to. That would mean no inter-ference from the financiers, be they the state or business.

Campus met Prof Dr Bur-khard Rauhut, who for nine years was rector of RWTH Aachen, a leading technical university in Europe, before being appointed rector at GUtech, in Muscat. In Keep-ing the Edge, an article based on an interview with him, we see how patterns of funding,

competition and con-sumerisation affect teaching and research in universities around the world.

OPINION POLLIn last month’s

Opinion Poll, read-ers felt that it is the Internet that mat-tered most, followed by the mobile phone, Pentium chip and lap-top. The internet has done more for free-dom and the spread of ideas, knowledge and wealth, than any other system in our lifetimes. In the two decades that it has been around, along with the laptop, Pen-tium chip and mobile

phone, it has become part of single a device which serves as a mobile phone, performs as a computer and even a TV. In the coming years we will see more powerful comput-ing in such devices and it re-mains to be seen if we can do away with laptops and PCs.

That’s for now.Do keep in touch via campus@happening-media.com

Jeta Pillai

OPINIONPOLL

What is most important for success?

SEND your response ‘a’ or ‘b’ or ‘c’ or ‘d’ tocampus@happening-media.comor SMS to 99255965 by September 20, 2010.

EDITOR’S NOTE

a) Ambition.

b) Courage.

c) Intelligence.

d) Hard work.

STAR WORLDP-32P-26 OK, BONO IS BACKNO CLEAR WINNERSP-15

AN PRESENTATION

SEPTEMBER 2010

VOL 1 - ISSUE 7 SHAPING THE FUTURE

The Wealth of NATIONS

8 iN

4 CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER 2010

RANDOM THOUGHTS

READERS’ CORNER

HEALTH

STAR WORLD

LIFE

JUST BETWEEN US

NEWS/EVENTS

ICON

DIFFERENT STROKES

THE INTERVIEW

CAREERPRECISION IN FIXATIONIn the coming years Oman will need many more orthopaedic surgeons, says Dr EBS Ramanathan, senior consultant, orthopaedics, Khoula Hospital.

KEEPING THE EDGEProf Dr Burkhard Rauhut tells us how important a steady source of finance and academic freedom are for a university to achieve excellence.

DISEASE IN A DISH James Thomson has found that stem cell-derived heart cells beat in a dish, and scien-tists should be able to detect which drugs alter the heart’s rhythm.

JOY OF INNOVATIONThose who have made it in business have exploited ideas that have come to their minds.

DESTINATIONBALANCED IN VIENNAA few ideas on keeping your weight under control while in the Austrian capital.

14

16

6

18

22

12

28

30

32333435

CONTENTS

C O V E R P H O T O :Students from Sultan Qaboos University during a tour of Europe.

MCT News Service, Agencies, Jeta Pillai, Wikipedia, Archives

Faisal Moideen

Avril

Nashat Salah

Mobile: 97770074

8 iN

6 DIFFERENT STROKES

SEPTEMBER 2010

A huge quantity of olive stones on an ancient shipwreck more than 2,000 years old has pro-

vided valuable insight into the diet of sailors in the ancient world, re-searchers in Cyprus said. The ship-wreck, dating from around 400BC and laden mainly with wine ampho-rae from the Aegean island of Chios and other north Aegean islands, was discovered deep under the sea off Cyprus’s southern coast. Excavation on the site, which started in Nov. 2007, has determined that the ship was a merchant vessel of the late classical period. “An interesting piece of evidence that gives us infor-mation on the conditions under which the sailors of antiquity lived, are the large numbers of olive pips that were found during excavation, since these pips must have been part of the crew’s food supply,” Cy-prus’s antiquities department. Ol-ives and olive oil are a staple of the Mediterranean diet and their con-sumption over hundreds of years has been well documented.

Nearly 40 per cent of employees in India play golf to mingle with senior business executives, the highest proportion of any country surveyed in a new poll. Golfing to get ahead was

also popular in China, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia where 33 per cent of people questioned said they used the sport as a means of professional social networking. Overall, 15 per cent of the 12,691 employees surveyed in 24 countries said golf gave them an op-portunity to climb the corporate ladder. “I don’t think it’s odd that one in seven use this as a stepping stone,” said John Wright,

a senior vice president with Ipsos in Toronto. “It’s a rich man’s sport in India. It’s a place where real estate developers and inves-

tors are moving to the sport”.The introduction in 2010 of the Avantha Masters, with its 1.5 mil-

lion euro purse was an indication of golf’s growing popularity in In-dia, according to Wright.

Nearly half of workers in China said they thought the sport could help to advance their career, followed by 46 per cent of employees in In-

dia, 37 per cent in South Korea, 35 per cent in South Africa and 30 per cent in Saudi Arabia.

Golf gives the edge

Ancient mariner’s diet

Scientists have identified two parts of the brain linked with severe anxiety in young monkeys, and they suspect these same areas may also play a role in children who develop anxiety disorders,

offering new promise for treatment. Nervous monkeys in the study showed heightened brain activity in the amygdala and anterior hip-pocampus, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature. “We’re really excited about the findings because we think that they have the potential to have a direct impact on how we understand these illnesses in children and hopefully we can come up with better ways to treat kids based on this information,” Ned Kalin, who led the study, said.

Kalin, who treats anxiety disorders in adults, said many children or adolescents exhibit early signs of the disorders, such as shyness and a tendency to stay quiet and not move when strangers are present.

Anxious spots

8 DIFFERENT STROKES

SEPTEMBER 2010

A lake in Argentina’s remote, inhospita-ble northwest may offer clues on how life got started on Earth and how it

could survive on other planets, scientists say. Researchers have found millions of «super» bacteria thriving inside the oxygen-starved Lake Diamante, in the centre of a giant volca-nic crater located over 15,400 feet above sea level. The bacteria’s habitat is similar to prim-itive earth, before living and breathing organ-isms began wrapping a protective atmosphere of oxygen around the planet. The conditions – which include high arsenic and alkaline lev-els – could also shed light on life beyond Earth. “This is of great scientific interest as a window to look to our past and also for a sci-ence called astrobiology, the study of life on other planets,” said Maria Eugenia Farias, part of the team that discovered the life-forms. If bacteria can survive here, the theory goes, it could also survive somewhere like Mars. Farias said these bacteria, called «poly-extremophiles» are exceptional because they flourish in the harshest of circumstances.

Life in a lake

Informal networks at work are fostering inequality and prevent-ing women from advancing their careers and breaking through the glass ceiling. Professor Gail McGuire, of Indiana University

South Bend, found that women do not get the same assistance as men form informal connections in the workplace. “We have laws that prohibit discrimination and enforce equal pay, but that only touches the surface,” McGuire said. “We need to look at informal professional structures, not formal ones. These are the real sources of inequality”.

McGuire, the chair of the department of sociology and anthropol-ogy at the university, evaluated informal networks at one of the country’s largest financial services organisations with a nine-page survey of 1,100 employees. Although men were outnumbered by women in the company, they still occupied higher positions in the firm. And the people in the top jobs, regardless of whether they were men or women, were more likely to help men rather than women further their careers through informal networks. McGuire said the finding was consistent with other research that has shown that when women make it to the top, they adopt the dominant framework and ideas of their male counterparts.

A biased network

Scientists reported on Tuesday they have some of the best evidence yet to sup-port long-held theories that repeated blows to the head may cause nerve-de-generative diseases like Lou Gehrig’s disease and Alzheimer’s. Autopsies of

12 athletes who died with brain or neurological disease showed a distinctive pattern of nerve damage – and fingered some potential culprits. All had repeated concussions

during their careers. Three of the men had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, the star baseball player who died of it. Experts in brain injury said the study, published in the Journal of Neuropathol-ogy & Experimental Neurology, pointed to new areas of research and possible ways to prevent long-term damage from concussions.

If you could somehow give a person a drug, you could potentially prevent an ill-ness like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,» Dr. Jeffrey Bazarian of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York said.

Concussions and Alzheimer’s

Phone: 2449 30519616 0120 / 9984 4896 www.gutech.edu.om

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- Mechanical Engineering - Process Engineering

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Facts : - Language of tuition is English - Laptops for Pre-University and Bachelor students - Access to wireless internet

- All BSc programmes are internationally accredited-ACQUIN - Financial aid available - Trips to Germany if it is a part of the programme

Programmes Offered

10 DIFFERENT STROKES

SEPTEMBER 2010

US aerospace and defence companies are stepping up support for educational pro-grammes, in the hope of encouraging stu-

dents to pursue technical careers to help replace an expected flood of worker retirements. Compa-nies are sponsoring student robotics competitions, forming partnerships with technical schools and calling for higher national education standards in an effort to bring new urgency to the coming US shortage of workers trained in science, tech-nology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). “If we can work on retention and we can work on the excitement of STEM or engineering, then we can change the equation,” William Swanson, chief ex-ecutive of Raytheon Co, said in an interview.

A 2010 study by Aviation Week magazine found that, among companies with more than 100,000 workers, 19 per cent of employees are now at re-tirement age. That figure will jump to more than 30 per cent in 2012 and nearly 40 per cent by 2014, the publication said. But with only about 70,000 bachelor’s degrees in engineering awarded in the US annually, according to a 2008 report from the Aerospace Industries Association trade group, there are not enough graduates to replenish the workforce. The problem hits home for aero-space and defense companies especially, as many engineering jobs in the field are only open to US citizens because of security requirements.

Not enough aerospace engineers

Good looks can kill a woman’s chances of snaring jobs considered “masculine,” according to a study by the University

of Colorado Denver Business School. Attractive women faced discrimination when they ap-plied for jobs where appearance was not seen as important. These positions included job ti-tles like manager of research and develop-ment, director of finance, mechanical engineer and construction supervisor. They were also overlooked for categories like director of secu-rity, hardware salesperson, prison guard and tow-truck driver. “In these professions being attractive was highly detrimental to women,” researcher Stefanie Johnson said in a state-ment, adding that attractive women tended to be sorted into positions like receptionist or secretary. “In every other kind of job, attrac-tive women were preferred. This wasn’t the case with men which shows that there is still a double standard when it comes to gender”.

Too hot for the job

Rangers captured an escaped tiger at a South African farm recently after a two-day helicopter search. The tiger was fed raw beef and led away from the farm about 70km east of the country’s biggest city of Johannesburg. “He is

stressed out. He has had two lovely pieces of meat now,” the tiger’s owner, Goosey Fernandes, said. Fernandes said he called the tiger out of from where it was hiding.

The tired and bruised animal then walked slowly to the owner and licked him on the cheek.

The 140kg tiger named Panjo escaped from the back of a pickup truck while it was being driven to a vet.

Tigers, native to Asia, are usually only found in zoos in South Africa, which is home to numerous species of big cats.

Fernandes said the tiger would be returning to his home at a private game re-serve.

Tiger found after helicopter search

12 READERS’ CORNER

SEPTEMBER 2010SEPTEMBER 2010

As we roll on through Holy Month of Ramadan, with Eid celebrations approaching,

anxieties of returning to school and university are on the rise. Compe-tition is becoming increasingly tough, and every student needs to be on top of their game in order to succeed. This past academic year saw 47,000 students graduate from schools across the country, with the Ministry of Higher Educa-tion financing 14,024 students for further studies. The fact that the government is able to sponsor that many learners is certainly a feat, as other countries of the world are far less lucky. But this still means that 32,976 young adults are now in a position where they have to ei-ther pay their way through college, get a job or stay at home. The ma-jority of parents would like to see

their children continue studying, in order to get a degree or diploma so that they can enjoy a career suit-ed to them.

Colleges are expensive all over the world, with Oman no excep-tion. Realistically, most families are unable to put money aside each month to build up some sort of college fund. It takes three to four years to get an undergradu-ate degree and possibly one more if the student needs to do a foun-dation year. In order to skip the foundation year, students are re-quired to write an IELTS exam. These exams are extremely diffi-cult and the average Ministry of Manpower approved level 9, will achieve a score of around 5. The bulk of school leaving students is nowhere near a level 9. In order to save a whole year’s university

or college tuition, it is vital that children are exposed to the Eng-lish language as early as possible. There are various institutes run-ning structured general English, IELTS training and foundation programmes at a fraction of the price.

Academic success does not only mean getting good grades, it means achieving excellent overall results. One needs to be well-rounded, responsible, independent and capable. The stresses of cam-pus life need not be further mount-ed by financial pressure. Start now! Learn, teach and use English for the youth of our country.

For more information, contact,info@moderngulf.comDeidre Harvey,Director of Modern Gulf Institute.

General foundation programmes

Education is truly the step-ping stone for successful living, and the success of

it depends on how youths have been taught and perceived the genuine concepts of learning. Learning is fun and interest-ing. To be involved and to get involved in the learning pro-cess is absolutely a memorable experience for the teacher and the learner.

Education is believed to be the transmission of modern technology and one of the building blocks for in-depth knowledge; however, nowa-days, quality of education is becoming a hot issue, due to some factors. Research says

that students’ interest in stud-ies have declined because of modern technology.

Some people have agreed to this view; though, I believe that this idea depends on certain situations. In schools, colleges and universities, students are taught the concepts and practi-cal applications of technology so they would become adept and skillful in facing the mod-ern world.

In the classroom, technology makes class interactions inter-esting and wholesome with the aid of computers and other electronic devices. Technology brings out the modern strat-egy of teaching pedagogy. For

instance, a teacher can present his/her lessons in an animated and colourful way through the help of different computer ap-plications.

Using overhead projector is one example of electronic device; though Power Point presentation is an animated and more interactive one. In Power Point, there are so many applications that can motivate learners to be involved in the discussion process. These days students are adept in using Power Point in their class re-ports and this strategy could bring out the best in them.

Black-Board E-learning is another technology device

that helps and assists learn-ers in their studies. Through BB-e-learning, students can interact with their teachers and classmates by logging into their site account and start off with discussions. Learners can post blogs, ask questions and do their home works on line. Black-Board E-learning features several applications like posting announcements, lectures, quizzes, extra links, directories and a lot more.

Smart board is another tech-nology tool which facilitates meaningful, colourful and vi-brant face-to face interactions with students. In smart board, a teacher does not need to use the traditional board marker and duster to write on the board; she/he can use the aid of smart board.

Using a modern technology for teaching is absolutely con-venient and interesting but it needs extra time and effort for preparation. Furthermore, the

operations of these mechanical devices are complicated so us-ers must be fully aware in us-ing them.

Using modern machines and tools for teaching does not complicate the teaching, be-cause it guarantees captivat-ing the students attention for a span of time.

Technology can bring colourful, animated effects; thus, giving vivid imagination and clear comprehension about the subject matter; also the teacher’s style, like emphasis, motivation and clear direc-tions about what the students should do, will help students in achieving the target learn-ing outcomes.

Susana A. CochingcoPrevious teaching Post: 5 years- ESL Lecturer, Al Musan-na College of TechnologyPresent teaching post: 1 year, Caledonian College of Engi-neering

Techno-trendy

SEPTEMBER 2010

As we roll on through Holy Month of Ramadan, with Eid celebrations approaching,

anxieties of returning to school and university are on the rise. Compe-tition is becoming increasingly tough, and every student needs to be on top of their game in order to succeed. This past academic year saw 47,000 students graduate from schools across the country, with the Ministry of Higher Educa-tion financing 14,024 students for further studies. The fact that the government is able to sponsor that many learners is certainly a feat, as other countries of the world are far less lucky. But this still means that 32,976 young adults are now in a position where they have to ei-ther pay their way through college, get a job or stay at home. The ma-jority of parents would like to see

their children continue studying, in order to get a degree or diploma so that they can enjoy a career suit-ed to them.

Colleges are expensive all over the world, with Oman no excep-tion. Realistically, most families are unable to put money aside each month to build up some sort of college fund. It takes three to four years to get an undergradu-ate degree and possibly one more if the student needs to do a foun-dation year. In order to skip the foundation year, students are re-quired to write an IELTS exam. These exams are extremely diffi-cult and the average Ministry of Manpower approved level 9, will achieve a score of around 5. The bulk of school leaving students is nowhere near a level 9. In order to save a whole year’s university

or college tuition, it is vital that children are exposed to the Eng-lish language as early as possible. There are various institutes run-ning structured general English, IELTS training and foundation programmes at a fraction of the price.

Academic success does not only mean getting good grades, it means achieving excellent overall results. One needs to be well-rounded, responsible, independent and capable. The stresses of cam-pus life need not be further mount-ed by financial pressure. Start now! Learn, teach and use English for the youth of our country.

For more information, contact,info@moderngulf.comDeidre Harvey,Director of Modern Gulf Institute.

General foundation programmes

Education is truly the step-ping stone for successful living, and the success of

it depends on how youths have been taught and perceived the genuine concepts of learning. Learning is fun and interest-ing. To be involved and to get involved in the learning pro-cess is absolutely a memorable experience for the teacher and the learner.

Education is believed to be the transmission of modern technology and one of the building blocks for in-depth knowledge; however, nowa-days, quality of education is becoming a hot issue, due to some factors. Research says

that students’ interest in stud-ies have declined because of modern technology.

Some people have agreed to this view; though, I believe that this idea depends on certain situations. In schools, colleges and universities, students are taught the concepts and practi-cal applications of technology so they would become adept and skillful in facing the mod-ern world.

In the classroom, technology makes class interactions inter-esting and wholesome with the aid of computers and other electronic devices. Technology brings out the modern strat-egy of teaching pedagogy. For

instance, a teacher can present his/her lessons in an animated and colourful way through the help of different computer ap-plications.

Using overhead projector is one example of electronic device; though Power Point presentation is an animated and more interactive one. In Power Point, there are so many applications that can motivate learners to be involved in the discussion process. These days students are adept in using Power Point in their class re-ports and this strategy could bring out the best in them.

Black-Board E-learning is another technology device

that helps and assists learn-ers in their studies. Through BB-e-learning, students can interact with their teachers and classmates by logging into their site account and start off with discussions. Learners can post blogs, ask questions and do their home works on line. Black-Board E-learning features several applications like posting announcements, lectures, quizzes, extra links, directories and a lot more.

Smart board is another tech-nology tool which facilitates meaningful, colourful and vi-brant face-to face interactions with students. In smart board, a teacher does not need to use the traditional board marker and duster to write on the board; she/he can use the aid of smart board.

Using a modern technology for teaching is absolutely con-venient and interesting but it needs extra time and effort for preparation. Furthermore, the

operations of these mechanical devices are complicated so us-ers must be fully aware in us-ing them.

Using modern machines and tools for teaching does not complicate the teaching, be-cause it guarantees captivat-ing the students attention for a span of time.

Technology can bring colourful, animated effects; thus, giving vivid imagination and clear comprehension about the subject matter; also the teacher’s style, like emphasis, motivation and clear direc-tions about what the students should do, will help students in achieving the target learn-ing outcomes.

Susana A. CochingcoPrevious teaching Post: 5 years- ESL Lecturer, Al Musan-na College of TechnologyPresent teaching post: 1 year, Caledonian College of Engi-neering

Techno-trendy

14 ICON

SEPTEMBER 2010

The small plastic vial in James Thomson’s hand contains more than

1.5 billion carefully coddled heart cells grown at Cellular Dynamics, a startup based in Madison, Wisconsin. They are derived from a new type of stem cell that Thomson, a co-founder of the company, hopes will improve our models of hu-man diseases and transform the way drugs are developed and tested.

Thomson, director of re-generative biology at the Mor-gridge Institute at the Univer-sity of Wisconsin, first iso-lated human embryonic stem cells in 1998. Isolating these cells, which are capable of maturing into any other type of cell, marked a landmark in biology – but a controver-

sial one, since the process destroys a human embryo. A decade later, Thomson and Junying Yu, then a Wiscon-sin postdoc, reached another milestone: they developed a way to make stem cells from adult cells by adding just four genes that are normally active only in embryos. (Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka simultaneously published a similar approach.) Dubbed in-duced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), they have the two defining characteristics of embryonic stem cells: they can reproduce themselves many times over, and they can develop into any cell type in the human body. Because no human embryos are used to create them, iPS cells solve two problems that had long plagued researchers: political protest and shortages of mate-rial.

Much of the excitement over iPS cells, and stem cells in general, arises from the possibility that they could replace damaged or diseased tissue. But Thomson thinks their most important contri-bution will be to provide an unprecedented window on human development and dis-ease. Scientists can create stem cells from the adult cells of people with different disor-ders, such as diabetes, and in-duce them to differentiate into the types of cells damaged by the disease. This could allow

researchers to watch the dis-ease as it unfolds and trace the molecular processes that have gone awry.

In the nearer term, iPS cells may revolutionise toxicity testing for drugs. The cells are “the first unlimited source of any type of human tissue,” says Thomson, who founded Cellular Dynamics to put stem cells to practical use. The company sells heart muscle cells derived from its iPS cells to pharmaceutical giants such as Roche, which are using them to screen experimental drugs for harmful side effects. Thomson hopes those cells will help uncover problems early in the drug development process, saving billions of dol-lars on research and testing. For instance, since the iPS-derived heart cells will beat in a dish, scientists should be able to detect which drugs al-ter the heart’s rhythm. Scien-tists can also use the cells to study how the heart functions at a molecular level. And the company is developing other cell types, including brain and liver cells. The latter are of particular interest to phar-maceutical researchers, since drug toxicity often shows up in the liver. “Having a model that would predict toxicity before going into humans is incredibly valuable,” says Chris Parker, vice president and chief commercial officer of Cellular Dynamics.

By generating iPS cells from people with diverse ethnic backgrounds and genetic con-ditions, and from those who have reacted poorly to certain drugs, scientists can also gain a better picture of how com-pounds will affect different people. Thomson and others have already created iPS cells from people with ALS, Down syndrome, and spinal muscu-lar atrophy, among other dis-orders. While it’s not yet clear how well those cells reflect the specific diseases, early re-search is promising. If it suc-ceeds, researchers hope to use iPS cells to study other dis-orders and develop drugs to treat them. “That’s the thing that would fundamentally change the way drug devel-

opment happens,” says Kyle Kolaja, director of early safety and investigative toxicology at Roche, which has partnered with Cellular Dynamics.

The last decade brought many difficult years for Thom-son. His work on embryonic stem cells was a break-through, but it also brought intense controversy and me-dia attention, turning him somewhat reclusive. With the rise of iPS cells and Cellular Dynamics, Thomson is begin-ning to come back to the lime-light. “I think the legacy of embryonic stem cells will be that they gave rise to iPS cells,” he says. “These cells will be used in creative ways we can’t even imagine.”

Tribune Media Services

Disease in a

DISHJames Thomson says stem cells can help scientists watch a disease as it unfolds, writes Emily Singer

James Thomson (left) and assistant Junying Yu.

Colonies of heart cells beat in sync when grown on a dish.

A precise combination of chemicals, agitation, and temperature transforms the iPS cells into heart cells.

15TECH WORLD

SEPTEMBER 2010

No clear WINNERSThe iPad will not kill the Kindle, writes Farhad Manjoo

Not since the days of “Amazon.toast” has the smell of death hung in the air at Ama-

zon.com’s annual shareholder meeting.

But there it was this past spring. The company faced no real financial trouble: Sales were up by nearly 30 per cent, and Amazon had recently com-pleted its Zappos acquisition. The stench came from all of the Kindle.toast predictions in the wake of iPad’s debut and rapid adoption. CEO Jeff Be-zos’s black-and-white e-reader looked awfully wan compared with the iPad, which lets peo-ple surf the Web, watch mov-ies, play games, run applica-tions, and also read books. And in colour! The Kindle’s fate was written in e-ink. Apple had cre-ated the Kindle killer.

Death is a surprisingly fre-quent topic of conversation in the tech industry. Everyone is constantly on the lookout for the next Google killer, the next iPhone killer, the next Facebook killer. This search isn’t irrational. For as long as anyone can remember, tech businesses have operated ac-cording to winner-take-all economics – a single product comes to thoroughly dominate a certain category, while all its rivals suffer crushing failures. Think of Windows, the iPod, or Google. These products are so far ahead of the field that you wonder why the competi-tion even bothers. The iPad, with its blockbuster sales and round-the-clock media cover-age, looks like another winner-take-all business. If the iPad succeeds, doesn’t it follow that everything else in its path, in-cluding the Kindle, will lose?

Not so fast. The days of this kind of zero-sum game appear to be on the wane. As we begin to access the Internet on all kinds of new gadgets and not just PCs – and as those gadgets get smaller, more portable, and more specialised in their pur-pose – we’re beginning to see something unusual in the tech industry. Stalemate. Across a range of markets, several com-panies are competing for more-or-less equal market share.

Look at the s m a r t p h o n e business. A c -

cording to Nielsen, Apple now commands about 28 per cent of the market, impressive just three years after the iPhone’s debut. Yet it seems far from ob-vious that Apple will gobble up the entire business. Research in Motion’s BlackBerry con-tinues to lead, while phones based on Google’s Android OS (a year younger than the iP-hone) now constitute 9 per cent of the market – and that share is expanding.

Although it’s impossible to predict who will come out on top in the years ahead, it’s difficult to see how anyone “loses”. Pro-prietary platforms aren’t what they used to be. In the PC era, Windows won, because every-one needed a common system for running applications, and Microsoft was savvy enough to understand the power of feed-back loops – developers cre-ated programmes for Windows because that’s where the cus-tomers were, and customers bought it because that’s where developers were. In the Inter-net age, though, customers are no longer locked into a single platform. A committed iPhone user could easily switch to An-droid – your email, social-net-working contacts, bookmarks, and other data will follow you wherever you go.

What about applications? Thanks to common Web-based programming standards, it’s easy for developers to port their applications to what-ever phones come along next. More important, the Web – our greatest source of applications – is available to anyone, on any platform. As long as Apple, Google, HP (through Palm), Microsoft, and RIM stay in the game, they’ll each be one amazing phone away from tak-ing the lead, or one terrible phone away from losing it.

That brings us back to Ama-zon’s allegedly beleaguered e-reader. Speaking to investors, Bezos pointed out that because Kindle books are delivered across the Internet to a range of devices – including the iPad – Amazon might actually ben-efit from the Apple tablet’s popularity. The more iPads Apple sells, the more potential Amazon customers. Bezos is wise to ignore the calls for Amazon to make the Kindle more like the iPad. The Kindle

will be a gadget whose only purpose is to read books.

Bezos concedes that such a device isn’t for everyone, but “serious readers” will always prefer a dedicated e-reader. They’ll also like the Kindle’s new low price: $189. It’s

time to kill the idea of the killer. Tribune Media Services

iPad

16 RANDOM THOUGHTS

SEPTEMBER 2010

Most of you might have gone out of the country visiting places,

friends and relatives during holidays. Some of you might have stayed back and whiled away your time with family and friends. Whatever activ-ity you had indulged in or undertaken to productively utilise the holiday period you wouldn’t have missed watch-ing a world that is constantly changing – socially, cultur-ally and technologically.

Every day we see a new in-novation debuting in the mar-ket, making us wonder ‘what an idea’ it is. Sometimes, the products are simple but use-

ful in our daily lives, making our tasks and chores a tad easier. A casual walk around souqs reveals what I mean.

These inexpensive prod-ucts, mass-produced and marketed, are tailor-made for a use-and-throw culture. Demand for these items ex-ists as long as no other better products similar to these hit the market. By that time the manufacturer of a novel item would have made his pie. If we need it, we will buy; or, if it tickles our fancy we purchase because it’s not pricey. After buying it we start thinking of putting it to some use, ad-miring its usefulness. But we give little thought to the idea

that inspired the manufac-turer. He wouldn’t have mass-produced the product without an eye on its salability and profits. The source of that idea need not be the manufac-turer himself but somebody else whose intelligence might have sparked the idea and some company transformed it into a product.

Delve a bit more deeply into the world of ideas which are a byproducts of our imagina-tion. If it is rich and fertile, new ideas germinate by the second. If it is starved noth-ing sprouts out of inconceiv-able mind. The irresistible itch for doing or finding something new stokes the

fires of imagination. Some of you might have had that urge but probably don’t know how to go about it because what-ever you see around nothing appears to fire your imagina-tion. This is where a break from routine makes you look at the world afresh.

A long spell of holidays gives you time to chalk out future plans if you have completed your graduation or about to complete college course. What next is the di-lemma most of the students face once they finish college studies. While some opt for jobs according to their ap-titudes, some others may like to go for further studies

The joy of

INNOVATIONVery few grab an idea and harness its immense power, writes S. Madhusudhana Rao

Jeff Bezos, president and founder of Amazon.com stands among his inventory in his south Seattle warehouse. An idea that became a big business.

17RANDOM THOUGHTS

SEPTEMBER 2010

or start something on their own. Either way it’s good. But those with a bent of busi-ness mind seek to trek a new path, away from traditional business lines. They want to do something new but stuck in the groove thinking what to do. This is where the link between a product and an in-novative idea comes in.

When you allow your mind idling away for some days a wandering mind could trig-ger an idea like a flash of lightning in a dark sky. But what is more important is to grab it and harness its im-mense power. Very few do it, nevertheless.

When you go out keep your eyes and ears open. They tap millions of bits of information without your knowledge and the brain processes it and gives you the right answer at the right time. In the initial stages, your business pro-posal may sound outlandish but some of the ideas dubbed most outrageous are multi-billion-dollar businesses.

Take, for example, Post-It Notes. It became a household name by default. The little yellow square was born out of a scientific mistake at 3M labs in the US 30 years ago. Scientists working on some

other product had accidental-ly stumbled upon an adhesive that could stick and come un-stuck on any surface several

times before losing its chemi-cal property.

More significant than the serendipitous discovery was

making use of the adhesive’s unique chemical property. This was where the seed of an idea played a seminal role. The scientists didn’t discard the adhesive as useless for their work; they had put it to good use by making little canary yellow slips, Post-It Notes, as a stationery item.

Now, the pads, sold in 150 countries in 62 colours and in eight sizes, including eco-friendly ones, have become a part of our office and home stationery. In a way, Post-It Notes are manual short mes-sage service carriers. While 3M scientists Arthur Fry and Spencer Silver who had struck gold with the sticky pad con-tinue to reap rich dividends from their investment in the invention, they were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in March this year. There is no sign of their name and fame – as well as fortune – diminishing in the foreseeable future because there is no other product bet-ter than this in the market at the moment.

Post-It Notes pad is only one example of thousands of consumer products that are introduced into the market ev-ery year by manufacturers all over the world. There are, of

course, small entrepreneurs, young and energetic like you, who pursue their ideas with dogged determination. I am not talking of software biggies in the Silicon Valley who start-ed off in garages. But teens and young adults who took off with zero investment such as home delivery of fruit and vegetables, evening snacks for office staff, among many oth-ers. In all such cases what we notice is there exists a need which we should be able to see and exploit at the right time.

Simple ideas need not nec-essarily come out of great sci-entific or engineering brains. But they should be workable, satisfy the customer and meet his needs. You may think that it all calls for management skills. But schools and col-leges don’t teach the practical side of life or how to generate ideas. Most of the very small entrepreneurs have basic education and skills but they improve upon them over a pe-riod of time.

So, if you conceive an idea, however trivial it is, pickle it for some time, mull over its adaptability to practical life, its applications and its mar-ket. Then give a shape to it and find the joy of innova-tion!

Kerala is where a lot of people from Oman go for their vacations.

Post-It

18 THE INTERVIEW

SEPTEMBER 2010

The rate at which liv-ing standards grow in a country is directly

related to the rate of growth of productivity within that economy.

Industrial productivity or competitiveness, in turn, will be affected by the rate at which it can assimilate new technology, and the capability of its labour force.

How productive the labour force is, will depend on how highly skilled they are, and levels of capital investment and high technologies in use.

Growth rates are also af-fected by ideas and innova-tion, which again are related to the quality of human capi-tal available locally. These are among the reasons why, even in recessionary times, countries like Oman, China, India, Germany, France and the US have announced high-

er budgets for education and research.

Campus met Prof Dr Bur-khard Rauhut, Rector of Ger-man University of Technology in Oman (GUtech) and asked him how matters related to funding, competition among universities and consumeri-sation were affecting higher education and research in this region and around the world. Before coming to Oman in 2008, Rauhut was rector of RWTH Aachen, a leading tech-nical university in Europe, for nine years, and has the expe-rience of grappling with such issues as an administrator for over a decade.

GOVERNMENT FUNDINGIf universities are funded

by government, they can focus on competing among them-selves for academic achieve-ments and seek international

recognition, as they will not have to compromise on stan-dards to bring in revenue.

Rauhut said there should be at least partial government funding, as it will help uni-versities maintain quality in education and of graduates. “A university that is solely de-pendant on the market, will at some time have to lower its standards and take more stu-dents. In the Middle East and Oman, where you are start-ing from a very low base, it is even more important for gov-ernment to fund education”.

And this will help the local economy. He gave the exam-ple of South Korea. “Once, one of the poorest countries in the world, its economy is current-ly ranked 15, largely because the government spent revenue equal to 10 per cent of GDP on education”.

He said that for a university

Keeping the

EDGEA university that is solely dependant on the market, will at some time have to lower its standards, Dr Burkhard Rauhut tells Jeta Pillai

An Apple employee discusses how to design applica-tions for the iPhone to a group of students at Stan-ford University in California.

Prof Dr Burkhard Rauhut

19THE INTERVIEW

SEPTEMBER 2010

to keep high standards, it will need very good teachers who are paid high salaries, and stringent criteria for admit-ting students. “Every teacher wishes to have a class of tal-ented students”. This can be possible only with govern-ment funding.

“For teaching at a univer-sity to be state-of-the-art, it has to be done alongside re-search. If such a university has government support, then it will have the choice of ac-cepting only those research projects from industry that are in keeping with its own development strategy”.

But “there is a fear associ-ated with public funding, and that is too much government interference. It can restrict freedom and the nature of re-search and development the university wants. That way, private funding is very good if scientific freedom is guar-anteed”.

Rauhut said in the US, some of its very famous private uni-versities are supported by en-dowments and so do not have to depend on the market.

As competition among high-er educational institutions in Oman grows, a require-ment is adherence to quality. Rauhut said, “At GUtech, we will follow the RWTH Aachen

standard. For example, last year some students were un-able to follow what was being taught and had to leave. It is only when the first batch graduates, will society know of our standards”.

He felt that although higher education in Oman “was pro-gressing in the right way”, there is an urgent need to im-prove the standards of school education, especially in the

quality of teaching. “The feel-ing is that the students who join GUtech are not of the same standard as in Europe”.

ALTERNATIVE REVENUE SOURCES

If a government cuts fund-ing to universities, as has happened in the United King-dom this year, “universities will be forced to lower quality and take more students”.

Revenue will have to be raised from other sources like student fees, private do-nations and industry.

“The top universities will not suffer, because they will be in a position to find alter-native sources of revenue, but those in the second and third tier, will”. What the lower ranked universities are likely to do is “take more students by lowering standards” along

with full-fee paying foreign students, to make up for the loss of revenue.

In Australia, following a de-cline in government funding, international student fees have become a key revenue source for universities, ac-counting for more than 15 per cent of revenue.

The trend of students going abroad is set to continue. “In RWTH Aachen, 60 to 80 per cent of the PhD students are foreign students. Chinese and Indian students will continue to go abroad as they do not have enough world class uni-versities there”.

Rauhut also does not agree with the idea of campuses abroad, because the culture of the original cannot be rep-licated. “Some US universities have them, but it is for busi-ness reasons”.

CORPORATISATIONThen, does corporatisation

lead to greater efficiency, rates of innovation and ac-countability?

Rauhut said if they have to act more like a business, then it is likely to lead to greater efficiency, but that pressure should not be too high, as it could lead to a situation where the university struggles in dealing with a business envi-

Main building of RWTH Aachen.

Omani students in Munich.

20 THE INTERVIEW

SEPTEMBER 2010

ronment, while teaching and innovation suffer. In some places in the Gulf, corporati-sation has reached a stage which can “best be described as selling certificates”.

So can things go all the way to a situation where corpora-tions can offer degrees? “The Volkswagen Group and Di-amler of Germany and some US fast food companies have corporate institutes, but it is mainly for their own staff and of a standard lower than university-level. But in South Korea the best technical uni-versity is POSTECH Univer-sity, which is funded by the steel giant POSCO, and the company does not interfere in its functioning”.

TELE-TEACHINGWill tele-teaching make

residential universities redun-dant in the future? For exam-ple: A university with its main campus in Muscat will have teaching centres in other parts of the country and region. Teachers at the main campus will interact with classes at the centres whenever neces-sary through very good tele-conferencing facilities. Also teacher-researchers from the main campus will spend time at regular intervals at the centres, in addition to faculty movement between the main campus and the centres.

Apart from taking educa-tion to the students, the cen-tres will also prove to be a source of revenue for the uni-versity.

Rauhut said that in higher education, face-to-face inter-action with students is very important, but it is possible that in the future there could be some tele-teaching of the-ory, as the new generation of students who are used to web conversations and the like, will be able to adapt better.

In the Middle East, espe-

cially, he feels, personal in-teraction with the students is very necessary. In his own experience at GUtech, stu-dents were not very happy with fly-in professors. “For our bachelor’s courses 90 per cent of the teachers are from Germany and they find that the teaching and learning process here are very differ-ent. They have to adapt to the students’ needs”.

I N T ER- DEPA RT M EN TA L COOPERATION

Is there any need to alter the department-based struc-ture of universities? Does it hinder joint research in areas like robotic surgery and cli-mate science?

“We have discussed this three to four times at RWTH Aachen and our decision was to have overarching struc-tures over existing ones, whatever the existing ones might be. This is because you have to interact and these overarching administrative structures make it easier. Re-search in climate science for example requires interaction between departments of phys-ics, biology, mathematics, me-teorology, geology and more. If possible, you can put them all in one building and they could have budgets for joint research. But whatever struc-ture you choose you have to make sure that you can cross the borders between the structural elements easily”.

Rauhut agrees with the view that it is important for universities to contribute to the society they are living in so that there is a feeling of mutual benefit.

“In the case of GUtech, its biggest contribution to soci-ety is its graduates. Then there is consultancy and re-search with industry and gov-ernment, which is very im-portant”.

At a college in Muscat.

Omani students in Europe.Croquet on the lawns at Princeton University.

21MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

SEPTEMBER 2010

Dear readers

Welcome back to this column after a long break.

The word ‘howler’ is infor-mal usage and refers to a fool-ish or stupid mistake, espe-cially in the use of words, as in exam howlers. Exam howl-ers are often “amusing turns of phrase” observed in the answer scripts of students. While browsing the Internet, I came across many examples of student howlers collected by Mr. Eric Smith of Notting-ham from the essays of over-seas students he had marked in the School Certificate Eng-lish exams. Here are some for our discussion.

One student wrote “All walks and no play makes Jack a doll boy.” The sentence should read: ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ That is, if you work all the time without relaxation, you will become an uninterest-ing person. You should have a proper mix of work and play. The confusion was be-tween ‘work’ and ‘walk’, and between ‘dull’ and ‘doll’. In another example, “Table-ten-nising is controlled by an Em-pirer. The two parsons toss the tennis ball to each other”, the student had mistaken the word ‘Empire’ (meaning a kingdom) for ‘umpire’ (or the

referee), and ‘parsons’ (mean-ing priests or clergymen) for ‘persons’ (or people). More-over, it’s not “table-tennising”, but simply ‘table-tennis’.

Here’s another: “People were carrying on in the quiet way to which they had been accustomed since time im-moral.” What the student meant was ‘from time im-memorial’, that is, from a very long time ago. The word ‘immoral’ is the opposite of ‘moral’, and you know the dif-ference in meaning. Another student wrote, “I was given a blanket and some coffee, but I could not drink them.” How can one ‘drink’ a ‘blanket’? The use of the plural pronoun “them” was wrong; it should have been ‘it’ or ‘the coffee’.

Look at this: “After several years, his business began to flush.” The business began to ‘flourish’ (prosper, grow), not ‘flush’ (to be washed out by a sudden flow of water, as in ‘flush the toilet’). Another student observed, “The head-master caned me only on rear occasions”, giving an amusing twist to the meaning – ‘Rear’ means the back part or posi-tion. What he actually meant was that only rarely (‘on rare occasions’) was he beaten with a cane.

A history student wrote, “The colonists won the War

and no longer had to pay for taxis.” What a world of dif-ference in meaning between ‘taxes’ (the word intended) and ‘taxis’! Here’s another one: “Lincoln said: ‘In onion, there is strength’.” It should be ‘union’ (or rather ‘unity’). Onion is an edible bulb with a pungent taste and odour. Here is yet another: “Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years.” She was not “the longest queen”; she was ‘a queen with the longest pe-riod of reign’. Besides, she sat on a ‘throne’, a stately chair for a sovereign power. The rose plant has ‘thorns’ (sharp points or prickles on the stem); you have to be care-ful when you pluck roses. Again, “Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent.” The ‘President’ of a country is different from a ‘precedent’, which means ‘a previous and parallel case serving as an example’ as in law (a previous decision or ruling).

According to a geography student, “Certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irri-tation.” There is a difference in meaning between ‘dessert’ (the sweet course at the end of a meal) and ‘desert’ (a dry, barren region). Now you know which of the two meanings

the student had in mind. Cul-tivation is done by ‘irrigation’ (supplying land with water); ‘irritation’ refers to the feel-ing of annoyance or discom-fort, as in irritation of the skin or don’t irritate me.

A student of English litera-ture defined a myth like this: “A myth is a female moth.” A ‘moth’ is an insect. What is the relation between the in-sect (moth) and the form of literature known as myth? If a ‘myth’ is a “female moth”, what is the male moth called? According to another stu-dent, “In midevil times most of the people were alliterate.” It should be ‘medieval times’, meaning the Middle Ages, the period from about AD 1100 to about AD 1400 in European history – note the correct spelling. ‘Alliteration’ re-fers to the “occurrence of the same letter or sound at the be-ginning of two or more words in succession”, as in “sing a song of sixpence”. It is a liter-ary device frequently used by poets for effect. Students of literature will be able to give many examples.

I’m sure you appreciate how important it is to ‘mind your language’. Choose the right words for the meanings you want to convey. Send in your feedback to: ramanipn@yahoo.co.in

Avoid howlers!

Dr P N Ramani is an English Professor who was teaching at the Higher College of Technology, Muscat until recently. Now he is working with the Ministry of Manpower as QA Specialist.

22 CAREER

SEPTEMBER 2010

Dr EBS Ramana-than travels a lot, about three to four times a month,

and they begin at Muscat International Airport.

And every time he is at the departure hall or pass-ing through security, one or two officials wave at him, point to their knees and do a thumbs-up.

They are his patients. While playing soccer or during training, the of-ficers injure their knees and end up at Khoula Hos-pital, where Ramanathan is the senior consultant at its National Trauma Centre and National Sports Clinic. “Many officials have been my patients. They have come to me with sports in-juries and have recovered

to lead active lives. I am friends with some of them and their thumbs-up at the airport means a lot to me. It gives me a lot of satisfac-tion”.

BECOMING A SURGEONRamanathan said, doctors and surgeons must be “mo-tivated by service, only then will they develop a caring attitude” that can raise the spirits of a very sick patient - “A few comforting words can create more confidence in a patient than the best surgery”.

His advice to those who want to be orthopaedic sur-geons is to do their master’s in general surgery before joining the orthopaedic surgery programme. “It is while training as a general

surgeon that you learn the basic surgery skills, espe-cially, on how to deal with soft tissues. Whereas, if you go straight to orthopae-dic surgery training, you tend to focus on the bone and neglect soft tissues”.

After acquiring a bach-elor’s degree in medicine, it will take four years to get through the general surgery programme and another four to complete the orthopaedic surgery course. Ramanathan said that a proposal to start an orthopaedic surgery pro-gramme at Khoula Hospital was with the Oman Medi-cal Specialities Board and hopes to see it begin this academic year.

He is of the view that doc-tors can do their general

surgery training in Oman or the other Gulf countries, but should spend two years in an orthopaedic depart-ment in the west, before joining the orthopaedic surgeon’s course. “This will give doctors a good idea of the latest developments in the field”.

Like other types of sur-gery here too there are su-per-specialities like, sports medicine, total joint recon-struction (arthroplasty), paediatric orthopaedics and spine surgery.

How a doctor chooses his super-speciality depends on what interest he devel-ops while studying, or it could be the influence of a professor. Ramanathan got interested in sports medi-cine because he was always

Precision in FIXATION

Apart from dealing with fractures, it is important for an orthopaedic surgeon to learn reconstruction of soft tissues, Dr EBS Ramanathan tells Jeta Pillai

An arthroscopic rota-tor cuff repair being done on a male patient at TRIA Orthopaedic Center in Blooming-ton, Minnesota, US.

Dr EBS Ramanathan, senior consultant, ortho-paedics, Khoula Hospital, had his basic medical edu-cation in Chennai, is FRCS in general surgery and or-thopaedics, and M.Ch. in orthopedics from the Uni-versity of Liverpool.

23CAREER

SEPTEMBER 2010

interested in sports. He played hockey for Madras University and also the combined universities of India. And in England, he worked under the famous orthopaedic surgeon, Ba-sil Helal, who used to look after the British Olympic team.

CONTINUOUS EDUCATIONRamanathan said, “A good surgeon will be very intelli-gent and hard working and will keep himself abreast of the latest advances in the field. He should also be reading and contributing to journals. In the course of his practice, he should keep a good record of his cases and their outcomes and a comparative study of them could form the base of research papers. Starting a journal club within the de-partment would be a good idea”.

He is on the editorial board of the international journal The Knee, and be-cause he is a member of the American Academy of Or-thopedic Surgeons, he gets six to seven newsletters every week from them. He

spends one hour every day reading research papers in orthopaedic science.

There are also courses that a surgeon can take part in at regular intervals. Ra-manathan, every five years, does a one-week master’s course at AO Foundation in Davos, Switzerland.

He also says, surgeons should hone their skills on cadavers rather than medi-cal simulators, because on them you can create situ-ations almost identical to that on a patient. “Apart from learning how to deal with a fracture you learn to reconstruct soft tissues”.

ADVANCESThe availability of advanced imaging technology like digital X-rays, CT scans, MRI and PET scans have revolutionised practice and “we now know the nature of the fracture and injury before surgery begins”.

Minimally invasive sur-gery (arthroscopy) lets surgeons diagnose or treat conditions in areas like the knee, shoulder and spine.

Unlike in the case of open surgery, in arthroscopic

procedures, only two small incisions are made, one for the arthroscope (endo-scope) and another for the surgical instruments. It reduces tissue damage and recovery time. Ramana-than gave the example of a patient with a fractured tibia (shin bone). “We do not split muscles and dis-turb blood supply to the bone, thus increasing the speed with which the frac-ture heals”.

There are also centres in the US and Europe where knee replacement and hip replacement are done by minimally invasive sur-gery.

Although orthopaedic surgery is considered a ma-ture speciality, there are new advances in genetic engineering and biomedi-cal engineering that could reduce suffering and in-crease the life of implants.

Ramanathan said that in laboratories, bone joints in mice have been regenerated by transplanting stem cells infused with genes on to the bone. “So in the future it will be possible to regen-erate cartilage in human

An orthopaedic surgeon per-forms a partial hip replacement at Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital Ozaukee, in Me-quon, Wiscon-sin.

An orthopaedic surgeon watches a patient use a bone growth stimulator.

24 CAREER

SEPTEMBER 2010

The foot after ankle replacement surgery.

arthritic joints by injecting the area with stem cells”.

In the “repair of liga-ments and knee replace-ment, angles and rotation are very important” as mis-alignment can cause pain and reduce the longevity of the implant. “The align-ment can be perfected by computers”.

He said that although Computer Assisted Ortho-paedic Surgery systems have been developed to enable more accurate and consistent alignment of knee implants, it is still to

be utilised in standard pro-cedures.

Another area where some progress still needs to be made is that of finding the perfect material for joint implants. That is, material that does not wear. This is because, metallic ions re-leased from the implants can enter the patient’s

organs and cause harm. Right now, the materials used, such as cobalt-chro-mium-molybdenum alloys, and those of stainless steel and titanium, show differ-ent rates of wear.

SHORTAGEIn Oman, unfortunately for a variety of reasons, medi-cal conditions and injuries that require the attention of orthopaedic surgeons are likely to rise with the passage of time. Their causes include road acci-dents, domestic falls, osteo-porosis, industrial acci-

dents and violence. Oman needs more orthopaedic surgeons, as there is a long waiting list of patients with sports injuries, needing knee replacements and spine injuries.

The x-ray of the right ankle shows the implant put in by an orthopae-dic surgeon at OrthoMed Centre in Modesto, California.

Another area where some progress still needs to be made is that of finding the perfect material for joint implants. That is, material that does not wear. This is because, metallic ions released from the implants can enter the patient’s organs and cause harm.

25COUNSELLOR

SEPTEMBER 2010

Being UNIQUEEach person has a personal brand, regardless of whether we are students, employees or directors

The concept of personal b r a n d i n g came to light

in 1997, which is about 13 years ago. It is de-fined as the process of setting a marketing identity for persons and their vocational lives.

Previous methods were restricted to self-development of one’s abilities and skills. However, the new concept of personal branding pays atten-tion to a person’s suc-cess as a result of his self-perfection and uniqueness in his field of work.

The concept is not limited to develop-ment of individual skills and knowledge, but it exceeds that, to include developing the person’s ability to brand him/herself and show it clearly in the field of work.

Companies raced to make and improve their personal brand-ing or that of their

commercial brands as it was important to market their products and services and get international public-ity in order to reach the highest number of consumers. The com-panies compile their personal brands with the values of qual-ity, trust, security and comfort. For example, think about the con-cepts and meanings which come to your mind when you think about a big brand like BMW.

Some people think that making a per-sonal brand is very expensive and it is limited to the world of celebrities and big companies. However, each person has a per-sonal brand regard-less of whether we are students, employees or directors. Have you ever thought about the impression you can make on others when they meet you for the first time? Or how they look at you?

Do they think you are a person whom they can trust? Do they think you are a creative and smart person? Are you well-known to others? Do you think you can control how people look at you? If you start to think about these aspects seri-ously, you have begun to think about the na-ture of your personal brand.

Establishing a per-sonal brand is open to all and it becomes easier with technol-ogy which allows easy communication with others and the avail-ability of personal branding channels.

Personal branding includes taking care of everything related to you, starting from ap-pearance and clothes, to your abilities, expe-rience, skills and rela-tions with others.

(Salim Al Saidi is a con-sultant for vocational guidance)Salim Al Saidi is a

career adviser.

26 MUSIC

SEPTEMBER 2010

I sang like a bird tonight,” Bono says with a broad smile, standing in the

aisle of U2’s tour jet shortly after take-

off from Turin, Italy, where the

Irish band has just dazzled 45,000 people at Olympic Stadium. “I knew I could do that. I didn’t know about

the rest of it. But once I got

started, I knew it was going to be all right.”

The August 6th show, the opening date of a two-month European tour, marked U2’s triumphant return to the road with their outdoor digi-tal-age spectacular, the 360° Tour. The Turin performance – dramatically revamped from the 2009 concerts, with rarely played songs from U2’s catalog and three unreleased numbers – was also Bono’s first gig since he underwent emergency spinal surgery on May 21st in Munich to repair a herniated disk that had caused partial paralysis in both legs. The operation

forced U2 to cancel an ap-pearance at Britain’s Glaston-bury festival and to postpone 16 North American stadium shows until 2011. When the band convened in Turin for several days of rehearsals be-fore the show, Bono had been out of rehabilitation for only two weeks.

But when the singer walked onto U2’s gigantic cir-cular stage that night, to the dirty-rock surge of the new instrumental Return of the Stingray Guitar, he prowled the outer catwalk like a prize-fighter, throwing punches in the air. Bono also jumped to the fast, jubilant beat of Get

OK, Bono is backThe singer tells David Fricke how it feels to recover from spinal surgery and tour

Bono

27MUSIC

SEPTEMBER 2010

on Your Boots and, during the encores, swung from his hanging, illuminated steer-ing-wheel microphone like a gymnast in a biker jacket. “I walked on as Señor Bragga-docio,” he cracks later. “It was the first time in 10 weeks that I felt I could do it. And I felt good.”

“We had that feeling -- ‘OK, this is going to work’ – a few days ago in rehearsal,” U2’s guitarist, the Edge, says on the plane, sitting at a table with drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and bassist Adam Clayton during the short flight to Nice, France, where the band mem-bers all have homes and are taking a weekend off before the next show in Frankfurt. “But that moment when Bono came on and literally started jiving, I went, ‘OK, he’s back. He’s going for it’”.

Clayton says he knew Bono “could get through tonight. It was the next gig I was worry-ing about, because the adren-aline takes over.”

Mullen agrees: “Bono wasn’t going to take any chances in Turin. It’s what he’s going to do three weeks down the road.” Actually, the drum-mer adds, “I preferred him tonight, more than I have on some gigs. There was some-thing about his stance. There was an energy, where he had to draw on something deep.”

Bono has a word for it: “Gratitude,” he declares two days later, sitting in the turret-like sunroom of his oceanside home, a short drive up the Mediterranean coast from Nice. He is dressed in a blue denim shirt and off-white trousers, sipping a late-morning coffee and recalling the day he was wheeled into surgery. “This guy is telling me the chances of getting out intact,” he says. “They’re better than even, really good odds. But I saw Ali” – Bono’s wife -- “looking at me like, ‘Is this going to be a different person I’ll be meeting tomor-row?’”

“I think I could have made a limp work,” Bono claims, laughing. “There are a lot big-ger problems out there than the ones I was facing. I guess, for me, it would have been the end of a certain era. But I came out of it perfect. And I feel incredibly grateful. To get through that show – that was the look on my face, grat-itude.”

On May 11th, the day af-ter his 50th birthday, Bono was in training for the North American shows, cycling in New York, when he felt some-thing go wrong. “What had happened was the disk had burst through a ligament and broken into pieces,” he says. Bono didn’t know that yet. He

walked around with a cane for a few days before getting an MRI and being told by his German physician, Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, that he needed an operation immediately.

“To discover that you’re not indestructible was a bit of a blow,” Bono concedes, with

another laugh. He learned something else during his weeks of recovery in bed. “I learned, on my back, that I need to be a little more re-strained.” Even so, between Bono’s release from the hospi-tal and U2’s arrival in Turin, the band spent time working

on and recording new mate-rial at a studio in Julian Len-non’s home, up the hill from Bono’s house. Bono sang while lying down on a table.

Backstage in Turin, U2’s manager, Paul McGuinness, says Bono’s operation and U2’s delayed summer shows cost the tour about $15 mil-lion. Only half of that figure, which includes venue and equipment rentals, and tour-personnel salaries, is covered by insurance. But McGuin-ness insists the band never considered shutting down the tour for financial reasons or over fears for Bono’s recov-ery: “We sold over a million tickets for those 16 shows in North America. Those fans’ trust has to be repaid. Tour-ing has also been half of the band’s life. Not to perform would go against the grain.”

On the plane, the Edge con-tends that the set-list mix in Turin – of deep tracks such as Miss Sarajevo and In a Little While, with the still-unfinished acoustic ballad North Star and the grunge-y rocker Glastonbury – proves the 360° Tour is hitting a new stride. “We’re not promoting anything,” he contends, re-ferring to the early emphasis on last year’s No Line on the Horizon. “These concerts are everything we have to give – our past, our future, where

we’re at today.”“It’s so easy to do your hits –

lay it out, and everybody goes yippee,” Mullen says. “We’re not about that. We’re about change and taking chances – and failing. That’s what U2 do – we succeed, and we fail. We never do the middle.”

“I feel like there’s a lot of joy around,” Bono says in his sunroom, swirling his hand in the air. “I don’t know what’s going on, but every-one’s in a great mood. Songs are much more airborne, more light-footed.” There are also a lot of them: four new albums’ worth. In addition to Songs of Ascent – a sec-ond set of tracks from the No Line sessions -- and Bono and the Edge’s score for the Spider-Man musical (finally set to open on Broadway on Dec. 21), U2 are working on a “rock album,” as Bono puts it, “and a club-sounding album.” He expects U2 will release a new record, drawn from that body of songs, in time for their return to North America next year. “That’s going to be great. Those people are going to have tickets to a whole new show with new songs.

“This could be our heyday,” Bono raves with the same broad smile he had on the plane. “Maybe we just needed a little pause.”

Tribune Media Services

ON MAY 11TH, THE DAY AFTER HIS 50TH BIRTHDAY,

BONO WAS IN TRAINING FOR THE NORTH AMERICAN

SHOWS, CYCLING IN NEW YORK, WHEN HE FELT

SOMETHING GO WRONG. “WHAT HAD HAPPENED

WAS THE DISK HAD BURST THROUGH A LIGAMENT AND

BROKEN INTO PIECES,” HE SAYS.

Adam Clayton (left) and Edge of U2.

28 HEALTH

SEPTEMBER 2010SEPTEMBER 2010

Cataract is when the crys-talline lens in the eye starts to get cloudy, caus-

ing disturbances in vision, in the form of blurriness, glare, halos, faded colours and double vision.

It is a leading cause of vision loss in adults 55 years and older and blindness worldwide. About half of the human population of 65 yrs has cataract, and by 75 yrs, almost everyone has it. However, cataracts are highly treatable, and through advanc-es in both cataract surgery and intraocular lenses (IOLs), more people are experiencing full restoration of their vision than ever before.

What causes cataracts?In general, there are two

main causes of cataracts: we can acquire them or we can be born with them.

Acquired cataracts are a re-sult of a variety of factors. They include, exposure to ultraviolet light, and the normal process of the lens becoming less resilient and transparent and thicker.

Trauma to the eye can also cause cataracts and is the most common cause of cataracts in people under 40.

Systemic diseases can also cause cataracts, including dia-betes and hypothyroidism.

Toxins, such as chronic use of corticosteroids, can cause cataracts. Several studies have linked the development of cataracts to alcohol consump-tion and exposure to cigarette smoke. Secondary causes, such

as eye surgeries, chronic in-flammation, and some types of glaucoma and extreme near-sightedness can also cause cataracts. Congenital cataracts is when patients are born with them and are quite rare.

Diabetes can cause cataracts by causing the lens to be ove-rhydrated. An endocrine dis-order such as an over-active thyroid, or hypothyroidism, can cause cataracts as well.

The most common cause of a secondary cataract is chronic inflammation of any of the com-ponents of the uvea, including the iris, the ciliary body, or choroids. This inflammation is also known as chronic anterior uveitis.

Other causes of secondary cataracts, such as surgery to treat glaucoma, vitreoretinal surgery, and retinal detach-ment and the subsequent sur-gery, can also cause a cataract to develop.

Other causes of congenital cataracts include metabolic disorders such as galactosemia or hypoglycemia and intrauter-ine infections such as rubella, herpes simplex, and varicela. Acquired cataracts account for over 99 per cent of all cataracts, while congenital cataracts ac-count for less than 1 per cent

What are the symptoms of cataracts?

Blurry or dim vision, colours appearing faded, poor night vi-sion, halos appearing around lights, and sensitivity to bright lights can be symptoms.

Age–related cataracts devel-op very slowly and painlessly. In fact, we may not even realise that our vision is changing un-til we find ourselves going to the eye doctor seeking a change in our eye glass or contact lens prescription. It is often during one of these routine trips that the doctor will perform an eye examination and ask if we are experiencing any of the follow-ing symptoms.

Blurred vision: When we have developed a cataract, our vision may blur or dim.

This decreasing clarity (in-creasing opacity) makes it dif-ficult for the lens to focus light on the back of the eye, or the retina. In the early stages of cataracts, a change in your eye-glass or contact lens prescrip-tion and increasing the use of bright light may help you see

better, but it can never be fully corrected by eyeglasses or con-tact lenses.Faded or dull colours: As the lens of the eye ages, it takes on a yellowish and then a brown-ish tint, which changes the way we see colours.

We may not even notice that the colors we are seeing have become dull or faded until the symptom is severe. A certain amount of yellowing of the lens over time is normal, does not constitute a cataract and is ac-tually beneficial.Poor night vision: Our eyes need more light to see at night. As cataracts progress, the lens of the eye becomes denser, less clear, and less able to transmit light to the back of the eye. At first, we may notice that we simply need more light to read. Then we may notice that it’s harder to see objects on the street while driving in the eve-ning or at night. While both of these symptoms are, to some extent, an inevitable part of ag-ing, both can be made worse by a cataract.

Halos around light: When we have a cataract, we may see halos or “ghosting” around points of light. This is caused by the len’s decreased ability to fo-cus light.

Do I have to be hospitalised to have surgery?

Cataract surgery is an out-patient procedure performed while the patient is awake. Numbing drops or an injection of local anesthetic make the surgery painless.

The most common and most advanced cataract surgery technique is called phacoemul-sification. During this surgery, a small ultrasonic probe is used to break up (emulsify) the cloudy lens into tiny pieces, which are then removed from the eye.

This procedure is performed through an incision so tiny that it heals on its own in the days following surgery. Stitches are seldom needed to close this tiny wound. This causes less dis-comfort and allows for a much quicker recovery of vision.

Do I need glasses after sur-gery?

Once the cataract is removed, an artificial lens implant (called an intraocular lens, or IOL) is gently placed in the eye. Stan-dard IOLs provide clear vision and excellent clarity for distant objects, but many patients who receive these standard lenses will require glasses for near and intermediate vision activi-ties such as reading or using a computer.

Thanks to recent advances in lens technology, we are now proud to offer replacement lens-es that are specially designed to reduce or eliminate your de-pendence on glasses, if one of

these lenses better suits your lifestyle.How is a cataract diagnosed?

Cataracts are usually de-tected during an examination by a qualified ophthalmologist. Regular appointments are im-portant for early detection of cataracts. Some of the standard eye tests that may be used to di-agnose cataracts include: Visual acuity test: A chart is used to evaluate how well the patient sees at multiple dis-tances.Pupil dilation: Eye drops wid-en the pupil so that the lens and retina can be better examined.Tonometry: Fluid pressure in the eye is gauged in this exam, which also helps detect glaucoma.

How effective is cataract sur-gery?

In general 98 to 99 per cent of cataract surgeries are con-sidered successful. Risk is even lower in patients who undergo phacoemulsification with a small incision.

What is cataract surgery?Cataract surgery is a simple

operation where a surgeon re-moves the eye’s clouded natu-ral lens and replaces it with an artificial IOL. The entire procedure is generally done on an outpatient basis and usually lasts between 15 and 30 min-utes. Patients may experience little to no pain and can usually return to their normal activities the following day.

How is the procedure done?Your surgeon will make a

small incision at or near your cornea and insert an instru-ment about the size of a pen tip to break up and remove the cloudy lens. Once the natural lens is removed, the IOL is in-serted through the same inci-sion and set into its permanent position.

What is phacoemulsification? This technique is the most ad-

vanced and most commonly used. It requires a very small incision on the side of the cornea (an eighth of an inch or smaller). Because of the size and location of the incision, stitches are rarely needed, and the eye heals rapidly. Of patients who undergo phacoemulsification, more than 97 per cent experience no complications.

What if I delay the surgery?Depending on the severity

of your vision loss, you may be able to take some simple steps to delay surgery. Options in-clude getting a new pair of prescription eyeglasses and increasing your home lighting. You may also reduce glare in-doors by repositioning lights or wearing polarised sunglasses outside.

But before deciding to delay surgery, you’ll need to consult your eye care professional and

ask yourself how much your cataract is affecting your safety or quality of life.

What is an Intraocular Lens (IOL)?

An intraocular lens is an artificial lens made of plastic, silicone or acrylic that performs the function of the eye’s natural lens. Most of today’s IOLs are around a quarter of an inch in diameter and soft enough to be folded so they can be placed into the eye through a very small in-cision.

What happens after surgery? Recovery time after cataract

surgery is usually about six weeks, but most discomfort should subside after a day or two. Immediately following surgery, the patient may experi-ence some discomfort and irri-tation of the eye. Many patients also experience increased light sensitivity and a small amount of fluid discharge. Special pills and eye drops may be pre-scribed to promote healing and regulate the pressure inside the eye. Pain relievers may also be taken during the first few days if necessary.

What is the chance of having normal vision again?

After surgery, there will be a period of recovery while the eyes adjust to seeing without the cata-ract. If only one eye is treated, the eyes must learn to work together again. Many everyday activities can be resumed soon after sur-gery, although patients may ex-perience blurry vision for a time. Driving may be impractical and unsafe at first; your physician will advise you on the appropri-ate time to begin driving again. Also, patients who receive IOLs may notice some colour distor-tion at first. This should resolve itself within a few months, as the eyes adjust to the new, clear lenses of the IOLs.

Most people will still require reading glasses, bifocals or con-tacts after cataract surgery, de-spite the improvement in vision that the procedure offers.

Can diabetes or diabetic retin-opathy cause cataracts?

Diabetic retinopathy is an eye disease resulting from dia-betes. Diabetic retinopathy oc-curs when the tiny blood vessels in the retina weaken and leak blood and fluid into the eye. Dia-betic retinopathy cannot cause cataracts, but diabetes can. With diabetes, the eye’s lens may be-come overhydrated. When this occurs, deposits or opacities can form at either the front or back of the lens, forming a cataract. In some cases, this type of cataract can form in a few days.

Can cataracts cause diabetes or diabetic retinopathy?

Cataracts cannot cause diabe-tes or diabetic retinopathy.

Cataract FACTS

Dr. Jose Ricardo Lievano S., ophthalmologist and cata-ract surgery consultant at Muscat Eye Laser Center

STAR WORLDOK, BONO IS BACKNO CLEAR WINNERS

NATIONS

30 DESTINATION

SEPTEMBER 2010

A visit to Vienna I made some years ago turned into a three-day sugar high as I went,

like a bee from flower to flow-er, from one great cafe to an-other, eating almost nothing but classic Viennese pastries.

Older and wiser, this time I would do it differently: I would prove to myself and to my gentle and patient cardiolo-gist, Dr. No Fun, that I could visit Vienna and keep to my low-fat, low-calorie. Although I was staying at the Hotel Sa-cher, which offers perhaps Europe’s best buffet break-fast, on my first morning, I ordered an egg-white omelet, made myself a plate of fresh fruit salad and poured a glass of perfectly fresh orange juice. I then checked into the hotel’s recently added spa, for healthy rotation through the sauna and steam room, followed by herbal tea and dried fruit.

In travel, all prudence can and should be balanced with some indulgence, so for lunch, I had a classic Wiener Schnit-

zel at Griensteidl, one of the great cafe restaurants of the city. Just to make sure I didn’t fall off the bandwagon, I sur-gically sliced away about half of the fried bread-crumb en-velope that makes an expertly prepared Wiener Schnitzel, which is what Griensteidl serves, the surprisingly so-phisticated medley of flavours that it is.

The next morning, I felt it was only fair, in light of my relative success of the prior day, to take just a bit of the Sachertorte that’s always left out for breakfast at the hotel whose name the classic choco-late pastry bears.

For lunch, I chose Oester-reicher im MAK. The MAK is the city’s museum of applied arts, but unlike most muse-ums, where you are lucky to get only an overpriced cafete-ria, here you are offered a chic restaurant synthesising tradi-tion with modern sensibilities. Chef Helmut Oesterreicher – the name literally means “Aus-trian” – has made a restaurant that mixes contemporary decor

and an aura of cool with Aus-trian specialties: Those on the left side of the menu are made the old-fashioned way (with butter, cream, hearty meats – the very regional delights that Dr. No Fun has branded the foods of the damned), while those on the right side of the menu offer a lighter, healthier take on tradition (the election of which apparently would earn me a halo). I selected my low-fat chicken breast from the right side, but I snuck over to the naughty page for a Frit-tatensuppe – a beef broth with crepe strips that was actually quite light.

I had a meeting with busi-ness associates at Cafe Gerst-ner – and I could hardly refuse the offer of that classic cherry strudel. To do that in front of Viennese could appear rude – so I explained it to myself. The next morning, I had my egg-white omelet and fruit salad, but Sachertorte really doesn’t seem complete without at least some whipped cream, and that was when I noticed that there were other fine pastries

Golf carts are more prevalent than cars on the streets of Avalon.

Balanced in

VIENNA The Austrian capital is a city that celebrates its culinary traditions, writes Alan Behr

Patrons enjoy teatime at Cafe Demel in Vienna.

A chef makes omelets during breakfast at the Hotel Sacher.

31DESTINATION

SEPTEMBER 2010

available to try, in nearly bite-size portions. By teatime, I found myself at Demel, which is known for its own take on Sachertorte. It would be fool-ish not to try that alternative, also with whipped cream, and in my carefully planned com-parison test, I did notice that the apricot jam was positioned by Demel differently within the cake, but in terms of qual-ity – they were both tasting just fine to me.

By dinner, I was starting to worry that I had lapsed a bit. I went with a colleague to Ves-tibuel, which is across from the Austrian parliament, in the grand and ornate home of the Burgtheater, which is one of the state theatres of Aus-tria.

As assorted dignitaries came and left, we each enjoyed a sensible dish of organic chicken. Chicken is deceptive-ly easy to make – because it is easy to prepare too dry. The chicken at Vestibuel was moist and, most important, light and low in fat.

Gugelhupf is ring-shaped, ridged Austrian cake; rather chewy, it goes with coffee in Vienna the way that French fries go with hamburgers on Coney Island. I know that be-cause there was a Gugelhupf right next to the Sachertorte at breakfast the next morning. It seemed as if they belonged with each other like yin and yang, like Gilbert and Sul-livan, like – I allowed myself half a slice. I took a long walk to work off breakfast and ended up in the Stadtpark (City Park) – right in front of the Steir-ereck, which is often named by critics as Austria’s greatest restaurant. And wouldn’t you know it? I had remembered to reserve far in advance.

As with any restaurant holding two Michelin stars, service is leisurely and de-mure, and lunch will last nearly until mid-afternoon. Game being a showpiece of

Austrian cooking, the meal was built around a main course of roast venison with Jerusalem artichokes, Brus-sels sprouts and, for the fruit notes, sloes. A challenge with game is to preserve the zest of the meat without letting it overwhelm the palette, and the result here was a perfec-tion of balance. As red meats go, the venison was rather lean, and instead of the cheese course, the kitchen gave me a plate of small, sliced fruit and two flavors of sorbet.

The conclusion came when a waiter wheeled in what looked like a rolling garden. It con-tained potted plants, and you were invited to select which plant would provide the basis for your herbal tea. I chose the apple mint. For sweetener I was given a leaf from another plant native to South America. While I let the teapot steep over a candle flame for the re-quired 12 to 15 minutes, I con-cluded that, in all, I could be a proud of myself.

Having proven I could be temperate even through a two-star temptation, that evening, back at the Sacher, the room’s pianist played pop and classi-cal favorites. The chef and the waiter, sensitized to my needs, came up with a plan: the veal that forms the meaty core of Wiener Schnitzel was served without the fried bread-crumb covering but with a side of steamed white rice. I had re-turned to my diet in triumph.

I left the Rote Bar flush with victory. I got as far as the oth-er side of the building when I came upon Cafe Sacher. It was my last night. I looked left and right to see if I was being no-ticed by anyone I knew – or anyone who looked like a car-diologist in disguise. Then I slipped into the cafe for a Sa-chertorte nightcap.

Old habits die hard. And in Vienna, a city that celebrates its culinary traditions, some old habits are built to stay.

IF YOU GO:Hotel Sacher: www.sacher.comDemel: www.demel.atCafe Gerstner: www.gerstner.atCafe Griensteidl: www.cafegriensteidl.atRestaurant Steierereck: http://steirereck.atOesterreicher im MAK: www.oesterreicheimmak.atVestibuel: www.vestibuel.at.

MCT News Service

A waiter makes herb tea at the Steirereck. Diners enjoy breakfast at the Hotel Sacher.

32 STAR WORLD

SEPTEMBER 2010

Singer Kanye West has vowed never to swear again in order to become a perfect gentle-man. West, famed for gatecrashing the stages

of numerous award shows, says he’s now in a posi-tive frame of mind and has put his former persona behind him. “That’s the Rosewood mentality, like affluence, like not cursing out in public, pulling out chairs for your lady, opening up doors. That’s where I’m at,” he said. He added his present out-look is so positive, it’s helping him produce the best songs of his career.

I t wasn’t the perfect setting for a romantic proposal,

but a young Delhi boy dared to pop the question to

actress Deepika Padukone when she came to a mall in

Delhi recently, to promote her film Lafangey Parindey. The

youth went down on his knees, looked at the Bollywood beauty

and asked: “Will you marry me?”

Deepika, who was accompa-nied by her co-star Neil Nitin

Mukesh, seemed baffled by the sudden, unexpected proposal. But she was quick to respond.

“I am not ready for marriage yet,” replied Deepika, who

looked lovely in a sari. But the youth wasn’t willing to give up

so easily. “But I am ready for you,” he said.

Not ready yet

Being feminist helps

Actress Jennifer Aniston may have made a suc-cessful career in films after appearing in hit sitcom Friends, but her co-star Courteney Cox

says she’s is too shy to be a part of the industry. The 46-year-old, who played Monica Geller in the show, admits she did not have the confidence to go to audi-tions. “I always talked myself out of going in to read. I don’t know if I had that much confidence. I was always thinking I needed to do something else, be more mysterious,” she said. Cox, who is currently seen in popular comedy TV series Cougar Town, admits she is “much more con-tent,” but says she is still hurt by having been the only one of the Friends cast not to have been nomi-nated for an Emmy award. Co

urte

ney

too

shy

Singer Beyonce Knowles has revealed that her feminist values have helped her have successful relationships with men. The Halo singer – who is married to hip-hop superstar Jay-Z – says she’s always had good friendships with females and thinks

that has played a big part in her never falling for the wrong type of man. “I think I am a feminist in a way. It’s not something I consciously decided I was going to be; perhaps it’s because I grew up in a singing group with other women, and that was so helpful to me. It kept me out of so much trouble and out of bad relationships,” she said. “My friendships with my girls are just so much a part of me that there are things I am never going to do that would upset that bond. I never want to betray that friendship because I love being a woman and I love being a friend to other women. I think we learn a lot from our female friends - female friendship is very, very important,” she added.

Acclaimed Bollywood filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker will be connecting with his fans on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook to answer queries on his

forthcoming film Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey. The film is based on the Chittagong uprising of 1930. The man behind films like Lagaan, Swades and Jodhaa Akbar, will be answer-ing queries. The aim will be that even non-resident Indian fans are involved in the effort, said a source close to Gowar-iker. Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, releasing on Dec 3, will also feature actress Deepika Padukone as the revolutionary Kal-pana Dutt.

Gowariker on TwitterNever to swear

SUDOKU

LIFE

33

SEPTEMBER 2010

People with metabolic syndrome – a cluster of risk factors for

heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes – have a better chance of reversing it, if they stick to a healthy diet, a new study shows.

While it seems obvious that eating healthy would make you healthier, the findings are important because they show it’s a person’s dietary pattern, not just individual components of their diet, that matters, Dr. Alice Lichtenstein, an expert on diet and heart

health from Tufts Univer-sity in Boston, who was not involved in the new study, said.

A person is considered to have metabolic syndrome if they have three or more of the following risk fac-tors: excess belly fat; high triglyceride levels (a harm-ful blood fat); low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol; high blood pressure; and ei-ther high blood sugar levels or Type 2 diabetes.

According to the National Heart Lung and Blood Insti-tute (NHLBI), having meta-bolic syndrome doubles a

person’s risk of heart

disease and quintuples their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Nearly a quarter of US adults have the metabolic syndrome.

In the current study, Dr. Tasnime N. Akbaraly of University College London and her colleagues looked at whether sticking closely to the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) could help reverse metabolic syn-drome.

The AHEI is a set of nutri-tional guidelines published by Harvard School of Public Health researchers in 2002. The guidelines emphasise eating whole grains rather than refined grains, white meat rather than red meat, and lots of fruits, vegeta-bles, nuts and soy. Studies

have shown that follow-ing the guidelines

helps cut the risk of chronic disease in

both men and women.

Reuters

Diet reverses metabolic syndrome

ARIES It is time for career advance-ment and males should expect some shocking news.

TAURUS Success should be within your reach. Relations with friends may go bad, but it is for good.

GEMINI This is a time to take a break from the stress of work and go on a short holiday with friends.

CANCER It is a time to relax and take a look at all you have done so far. Go out, spend time with friends and fam-ily, before getting back to work.

LEO Find more time for socialisation, and relaxation. Spend more time thinking about how relationships are developing.

VIRGO Be careful not to make im-pulsive investments and trust people you do not know well enough. Take time before making decisions.

LIBRA You will meet people with whom you will develop relationships. Make the most of it.

SCORPIO You will make special friends and your cautious approach to work and business will bear fruits.

SAGITTARIUS You will get a chance

to be in a leadership position. And be-cause you are always ready to change and accept new ideas you will stay in good shape.CAPRICORN Speak out and discuss problems with friends. It will help you with difficult situations and re-lieve you of stress.

AQUARIUS You will find that a lot of good has come out of your relation-ships. Make use of challenges by see-ing them as opportunities to prove yourself.

PISCES This is a period when you will achieve a few of your goals and that will impress a lot of people.

The number grid should be filled up with numbers 1-9. Each column and row should contain the numbers1-9. No digit should be repeated within a row or col-

umn. Also, in the box, there should be no repetition of.numbers from 1 to 9

How to solve the puzzle:

34 JUST BETWEEN US

There is more to travel than the obvious purpos-es of pleasure, fun and

experiencing alien places. Living in another land, even

if it is for just a few days, puts us in a new pace of life, and with a new set of people, land-scape, architecture, culture, food and language.

And when we find, because of the texture of our minds, that some of these are supe-rior to what we experience in the everyday, we begin to ex-amine our lives. It leads us to challenge and reform our ex-isting selves, and re-evaluate our lives and its purposes, leading to the emergence of new ones.

Take a Himalayan holiday for instance. The days would be spent traveling through thick coniferous forests, by glistening rivers and high lakes and on vast meadows. While, dawn, evenings and nights would be in a cottage of wood and stone, set amidst gardens and apple orchards, and surrounded by mist-cov-

ered mountains and conifer-ous forests.

Here, you will not care to listen to the most refined mu-sic, or read the most refined English. What is great writ-ing and great music in our fine cities, has no relevance in the Himalayas. This is because, the mountains are overwhelmingly superior in beauty, refinement and scale. They overpower our mental processes of seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling, in a way no music, writing or monu-ment by man can - that’s the genius of nature.

Then, after having expe-rienced such beauty on vast stretches bereft of human presence, it would be natural for you to develop a dislike for human habitation and the sounds, smells and disquiet that come with it – although only temporarily. What will remain with you permanently, is a fondness for nature and perhaps a determination to do what you can, to preserve it.

It is wrong to form an opin-

ion of an alien land without visiting it. The impression we gain of it, from its politics, television, movies and gossip, is without a key element, and that is, interaction with its ordinary people. What makes news are the actions of the state or radical groups within it, which could be far from the values of that civilization or the nature of its people.

When travelling through dictatorships in Asia or else-where, we may learn that the families there have the same values and aspirations as us – where parents are striving to see that their children do well in life.

If at all there is anything to fear, it is the state, and if we feel safe and liked and looked after, it is because of the pres-ence and good nature of the ordinary people.

So we must travel, so that we get a chance to look at our-selves and fully understand the others.

Jeta Pillai

What is great writing and great music in our fine cities, has no relevance in the Himalayas. This is because, the mountains are overwhelmingly superior in beauty, refinement and scale.

SEPTEMBER 2010

35NEWS/EVENTS

SEPTEMBER 2010

The German University of Technology in Oman (GUtech) offers students

in the Gulf region excel-lent higher education and according to international standards. “All our BSc pro-grammes are internationally accredited. The high quality of all programmes ensures that GUtech graduates will be prepared for a success-ful professional career. Our students will be competi-tive in the international job market and they will be able to pursue a career in the Gulf or anywhere else in the world,” said Professor Dr. Burkhard Rauhut, Rector at GUtech and former Rector at RWTH Aachen University

– one of the top universities of technology in Europe and GUtech’s German parent uni-versity.The language of instruction at GUtech is English. German is taught as an additional lan-guage. The university offers a pre-university programme and four BSc programmes in Sustainable Tourism and Regional Management, Ap-plied Information Technology, Applied Geosciences, as well as in Urban Planning and Architectural Design. All bachelor’s programmes are full-time courses. Moreover, this year, the university has introduced a pre-University programme for two Bachelor of Engineer-

ing programmes in Process Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. In addition, two part-time master’s pro-grammes in Integrated Urban Planning and in Petroleum Geoscience will start at the beginning of next year. GUtech is located on the beach road in Athaiba. By the end of Sept., all BSc and MSc programmes will move to a new campus in Athaiba, close to Muscat International Airport. The Foundation Year programme will continue in the Athaiba campus.“Germany has an excellent reputation for its engineer-ing. Therefore, we are very proud to extend our study-programmes and introduce

a pre-University programme for two Bachelor of Engineer-ing programmes. In addition to that, we will offer two new Master’s programmes,” said Prof. Rauhut. New Bachelor of Engineering Programmes at GUtech The first four semesters of the BEng programme in Mechanical Engineering and Process Engineering will focus on the fundamentals of mathematics, natural sciences and informatics together with the basics of engineering. The second part of the study programme in Mechanical Engineering will concentrate on key areas of mechanical engineering. Mechanical Engineers work for an example on power-producing machines, such as electronic generators, inter-

nal combustion engines, and steam and gas turbines. Process engineers are mainly concerned with chemical and biochemical processes in which raw materials undergo change, and scaling-up pro-cesses from the laboratory into the processing plant. Process engineers will have the possibility to work in different areas such as the development of economical industrial processes, food and beverages, artificial fibres, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy and clean water. The entry requirement for GUtech’s BEng and BSc pro-grammes is a pass in a rele-vant stream of the Foundation Year programme or equiva-lent academic results, such as A-Level or International Baccalaureat. In addition, students must demonstrate adequate competency in Eng-lish with at least IELTS 6.0.Special features GUtech offers a wireless net-work on both premises and a laptop to all Foundation Year and Bachelor’s students. To maximise the success of the studies, each GUtech student has a personal mentor. The individualised mentoring process allows professors and lecturers to be constantly aware of the actual progress of their students. Each year, a group of selected Founda-tion Year students travels to RWTH Aachen University to attend a German Language course in summer. Daily Holy Ramadan QuizFor further information about the Holy Ramadan Quiz please go to: www.gutech.edu.om For details on the admission process, please email the de-partment of Registration and Student Affairs: admissions@gutech.edu.om or call 24 49 30 51.

The University of Central Lancashire – or UCLan how we like to lovingly

call it – has been ranked North-west-England’s top modern university with its campus sit-ting snug in the city centre of cosmopolitan Preston. UCLan belongs to the new universities in the UK being founded in 1992, but its roots go way back to 1828 and the humble begin-nings of the founding of the ‘Institution for the Diffusion of Knowledge’. Since then the uni-versity has propelled itself into becoming a major player, both at home and across the world, with offices in China, India, Pakistan and many more col-laborations spread across the globe. In Oman, the University of Central Lancashire has been associated with the Internation-

al College of Engineering and Management (ICEM) for more than seven years and has since fostered strong and fruitful re-lationships, training its gradu-ates to the highest standards in fire safety engineering.UCLan is now one of the larg-est universities in the UK with a student community of more than 35,000 students, 500 undergraduate courses and 180 postgraduate courses – and it’s not stopping there.

UCLan’s franchise programmes across the world are gaining international reputation and students from all across the globe appreciate UCLan’s focus on equipping graduates with the best skills to get started in a job. For that reason and many more UCLan has been rated so highly by its students for satisfaction (83 per cent) and overall student support. Uclan boasts a number of world-class courses including a nationally

acclaimed journalism course, exciting sports related courses taught at the best facilities in the northwest, as well as the popular tourism, hospital-ity and management courses. Some of Uclan’s courses have been very popular with Omani students. Not only are fire engineering and fire safety engineering highly in demand, but also several courses within UCLan’s School of Nursing and Caring Sciences, which has

maintained strong links with the Sultanate since 1998, with Omani nurses having success-fully completed undergraduate qualifications in critical care nursing, mid-wifery, as well as the Master’s in Professional Practice and MSc Nursing.UCLan is going global – and is evolving every minute of every day. Uclan is home to students and staff from many different social and ethnic backgrounds across the UK, and from almost every country in the world. The friendly and welcoming atmosphere at the university with its 3,000 multina-tional staff who have been repeat-edly awarded for their outstand-ing support services, creates an amazing learning environment, encourages new contacts and friendships and helps to set you up for your next job.

GUtech’s international standard courses

Top facilities at UCLan

German business meets at GUtech.

36 NEWS/EVENTS

SEPTEMBER 2010

Winners will earn 20 per cent commission for a year If you can

serve up a sumptuous sambar, prepare the perfect pilaf or dish out a delicious dessert, Spicy Village is giving you the chance to earn the title of Chef of Oman and receive royalties on dishes sold in the restau-rant for a year.From Oct. 6 to Oct. 10, cook-ing contests will be held at Spicy Village Oman restau-rants, with the dining areas converted into kitchens and participants cooking their favourite recipes in front of a watching audience and a pan-el of judges. Fifty winners will be selected in five categories, with the top three winners in each category receiving spe-cial prizes. And the winning dishes will be published in a special Spicy Village cook-book and offered in Spicy Village restaurants for a year, with winners earn-ing 20 per cent com-

mission on sales of their dish. Anyone who has dined at a Spicy Village restaurant for 10,000 rials or over and has kept their receipt(s) can take part simply by submitting their chosen recipe

to: receipe@spicyvillage.com or by applying online at: www.spicyvillage.com.“This is the first ever cookery contest to be held in Oman in which the winners can earn royalties on their dishes for a year,” Durgesh of Spicy Vil-lage commented, “and as well as looking for talented chefs to take part, we are inviting Omanis to come along and watch. Anyone who has a Spicy Village receipt worth 15 rials or more can watch the contest for free, or you can pay

2.900 rials at the door. There will be a full live entertain-ment programme and audi-ence members will have the chance to win prizes and gifts themselves. And following the contest, there will be a deli-cious buffet dinner, which will include the winning dishes that have been selected by our judges.”Participants can enter dishes in five categories: starters, main courses, which can be Indian, Chinese, Continental and Arabic cuisine, rice-based dishes, salads and desserts. The panel of judges will choose the winners based on criteria such as preparation and presentation, use of ingre-dients, aroma, colour and taste.

Spicy Village restaurant invited its customers to participate in a Holy

Month of -Ramadan night recently, by hosting a big Iftar party. Sponsors, insur-ance companies and partners of the restaurant had invited the guests to the evening.There were 14 preparations, including Omani food such as Showa, and traditional Indian plates for which Spicy Village is famous. Visitors were able to use a big air-

conditioned tent for praying, while women had a new room for prayers. They could also listened to religious speeches through the restaurants sound system. Thomas, general manager of Al Roseel Travel, said, “I am so glad to celebrate the Holy Month of Ramadan with my family and friends in Spicy

Village restaurant”. He added that the food was delicious and the staff very welcoming.Zandi, from the Ministry of Defence was also at the party. She said this Iftar party was an exceptional event. Man-gafnan, project engineer at Parsons Company, said that the restaurant’s park was the best place to hold Iftar. “The

weather was warm and per-fect for the occasion”.As a Muslim restaurant that of-fers Indian, Chinese and inter-national cuisine, using 100 per cent Halal meat, Spicy Village celebrates the Holy Month of Ramadan by preparing special food and holding Iftar party. Visitors at its branches in Al Khuwair, Al Roseel, Sohar, Sur

and Nizwa, enjoy Iftar meals, which include fresh juices, dates, meat, cream caramel, coffee and many other Omani foods and sweets. These are followed by a buffet of 30 inter-national preparations. The restaurant also provides catering for weddings, con-ferences and other special occasions.

For more information, please visit the website. www.spicyvillage.com

Spicy Village Chefs of Oman contest

The contests will be held at the following Spicy Village restaurants:

Oct.6: Spicy Village, Al Khuwair

Oct.7: Spicy Village, Rusayl

Oct.8: Spicy Village, Sohar

Oct.9: Spicy Village, Sur

Oct.10: Spicy Village, Nizwa

Anyone who wants to take part should submit their recipe in advance to: receipe@spicyvillage.com, or com-plete an online recipe application form at: www.Spicy village.com/cookerycontest.html

Iftar at Spicy Village