Features

Ever composed, quick and comfortable, the Audi S8 is the high performance version of the Ingolstadt automaker’s luxury flagship saloon, well suited to the self-driving VIP. Discrete yet devastatingly swift with a twin-turbo V8 engine, the S8 offers across-the-range abundance and efficiency. 

Meanwhile, the Quattro four-wheel-drive cleverly apportions power where needed, and with vice-like road-holding the S8 confidently deploys its might come rain or shine. Thoroughly engineered and with sculpted yet subtle design, the S8 is an unflappable continent-shrinking luxury chariot boasting a comprehensive suite of luxury, safety and infotainment equipment and classy cabin.

Sculpted and sophisticated

Tight and concise, the Audi A8 has a cool and confident air of quality and robustness about its design. And with is road-hugging stance and hungry, scowling and tidily framed face seems moody, menacing and ready to devour the road.

Designed with chiselled surfaces, crisp lines and sculpted ridges, the S8 is a full-size luxury saloon that seems condensed and toned. Seemingly smaller than its 5,147mm length suggests, the S8’s muscularly assertive presence is not diminished, and instead, it has an almost pugilistic but un-swaggering sense of tension and power.

An imposing and aggressive front-end features a huge and sternly arrogant grille, deep air intakes and browed headlights. However, this contrasts with a sharply defined and soberly level waistline, reasonably big glasshouse for good visibility and an elegantly flowing roofline.

Riding on massive optional 21-inch alloy wheels amply filling its wheel-arches, the tested car even had subtle but large print ‘Quattro’ decal along its lower side. Alluding to its innovative and effective four-wheel-drive system, the ‘Quattro’ graphics also served to bring to mind Audi’s legendary 1980s rally icon and sporting heritage.

Effortlessly effective

Powered by a twin-turbocharged direct fuel injection, 4-litre V8 engine the Audi S8 is seamlessly refined, abundantly muscular and brutally brisk. Developing 512BHP at 5800rpm and 479lb/ft torque throughout a broad 1,700-5,500rpm range, the S8 virtually eliminates low-end lag and provides effortless smooth mid-range flexibility.

Confident and quick in overtaking and on-the-move acceleration, the S8’s richly generous mid-range torque underwrites a swift and welling rise towards its maximum power. Highly refined from noise, vibrations and harshness, the S8 however delivers more emphatic yet subtly evocative engine acoustics in its ‘Dynamic’ modes

With its compact V8 engine slung low and as near as possible to its front axle and innovatively renowned Quattro hollow shaft differential four-wheel-drive system, the Audi S8 can develop tenacious levels of traction. Digging tight into the tarmac, the S8 effectively puts power down and bolts off-the-line with confident responsiveness.

Crossing the 0-100km/h acceleration benchmark in a supercar-swift 4.1-seconds, the S8 can muscularly keep accelerating to its electronically-governed 250km/h top speed. Powerful yet efficient, the S8 can automatically and imperceptibly de-activate four of eight cylinders to deliver 9.6/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency.

Confidence, comfort and control

Built on a light aluminium frame and riding on multi-link suspension with adaptive air dampers, the S8 is a comfortable and stable high speed luxury express, designed for continent-shrinking Autobahn duties. 

Smooth, supple and wafting the S8’s air dampers belie massive and grippy low profile 265/35R21 tyres when in comfort mode. In Dynamic ‘mode’ the S8 becomes tauter and more buttoned down, firmly containing body roll through corners and settled over vertical rebounds. Steering is direct and light, while its 8-speed automatic gearbox is smooth and swift shifting, with comfort and dynamic modes.

Taut, smooth, refined and comfortable, the S8 is also a deft hand through corners and fast sweepers. Turning in is tidy and grippy fashion, the S8 tucks tightly into corners with confident body control and huge levels of grip and traction. 

Providing unimpeachable road holding, the S8’s Quattro system provides vice-like traction for wet weather confidence and to confidently secure and swift cornering in the dry. Automatically reapportions power where needed, the S8’s immense and sophisticated ability to generate all-wheel traction allows it to power through corners like it is glued to the ground.

Form and function

A model for how to combine design and functionality, the Audi S8’s spacious and luxurious, cabin features a stylishly fresh yet conservatively grounded ambiance combined with quality, construction. With clear dials, sporty steering wheel, soft cabin textures, highly adjustable seats, rich Alcantara roof lining and durable, soft and perforated leather upholstery, the S8 is a thoroughly well appointed and comfortably indulgent place.

Ergonomically-designed and luxuriously finished and fitted, the S8 provides a comfortable and supportive seating, along with user-friendly and intuitive infotainment systems, including satnav and Bluetooth enabled multimedia stereo system.

Superbly well-insulated and refined inside, the S8 even features high tech sound cancelling and is well-spaced for front and rear occupants. Extensively well-kitted with standard and optional infotainment, convenience and safety systems, the S8 can be specified with a broad range of equipment, including massaging seats and thermal imaging night vision.

Semi-autonomous driver assistance systems include but are not limited to active lane assistance and adaptive cruise control systems, while driving menus in the S8’s infotainment system allow one to tailor various driving settings including engine and gearbox responses, and damper and steering modes. 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4-litre, twin-turbo, in-line V8-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 89mm

Compression ratio: 9.3:1

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Top gear/final drive: 0.67:1/3.2:1

Power distribution, F/R: 40 per cent/60 per cent

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 512.5 (520) [382] @ 5,800rpm

Specific power: 128.3BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 248.1BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 479 (650) @ 1,700-5,500 rpm

Specific torque: 162.8Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 314.7Nm/tonne

0-100km/h: 4.1-seconds

Top speed: 250km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 13.6/7.3/9.6-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 225g/km

Fuel capacity: 82-litres

Length: 5,147mm

Width: 1,949mm

Height: 1,458mm

Wheelbase: 2,994mm

Track, F/R: 1,632/1,623mm

Kerb weight: 2,065kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Suspension: Multi-link, adaptive air dampers

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Tyres: 265/35R21 (optional)

The Battle for Justice in Palestine

Ali Abunimah

Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014

Pp. 292

Palestinian researcher, media expert and activist Ali Abunimah opens his new book with a bold assertion: “The Palestinians are winning”. (p. xi)

What he means is that they are winning the battle of ideas with Zionism. More and more people are recognising the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ quest for their rights, even as Israel’s ongoing occupation, racism, human rights violations and war crimes chip away at its legitimacy. The terms of the debate have changed in a way conducive to Palestinians advancing their right to self-determination.  

This is not wishful thinking. Abunimah documents his assertion with an analysis of the growing momentum of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and Israel’s response to it. While justice for the Palestinians obviously entails righting historical wrongs, he does not dwell on the past more than is needed to bolster his arguments, but posits the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in its current global context, suggesting future-oriented strategies and alliances. 

Abunimah’s first book, “One Country”, advocated shelving the defunct two-state solution in favour of working for a single democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis. “The Battle for Justice in Palestine” goes a step farther to assess the viability of this project. Due to the strategic US-Israeli alliance, a main focus of the battle for legitimacy — and thus for justice in Palestine — is the United States. In addressing the US scene, Abunimah’s analysis is not limited to the typical machinations of the Zionist lobby, though these are covered, but goes much deeper to analyse the two states’ common colonial past, state violence and history of racism. Connecting the US domestic scene with its foreign policy points to the Palestinians’ actual and potential allies — people of colour as well as others who struggle for social justice, against mass incarceration, war and racism. 

And for those who didn’t get it yet, the book includes a chapter on why Israel’s existence as a Jewish state is in no way compatible with fulfilling Palestinian rights. It also addresses the most persistent objection to the one-state solution, namely, that Israeli Jews will never accept what they view as tantamount to the destruction of Israel, by referring to transitions to peace and democracy in other countries. 

Many have noted that the Palestinians can draw lessons from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, but Abunimah’s point in this regard is very specific: the apartheid regime was not defeated physically. “What did change… was the complete loss of the legitimacy of the apartheid regime and its practices. Once this legitimacy was gone, whites lost the will to maintain a system that relied on repression and violence and rendered them international pariahs.” (p. 53-4)

Such understanding opens the way to examining how Israeli Jews might react if Israel continues to shed its legitimacy. 

Abunimah doesn’t just pick and choose his facts to fit desired conclusions, but comprehensively covers the issues at hand. Using South Africa as a model political transition raises the uncomfortable fact that there was little redress of the vast socioeconomic inequality between blacks and whites created by years of apartheid.

Abunimah attributes this problem to the economic agreements the ANC government entered into which stipulated neoliberal policies now known to have increased poverty and inequality across the globe. 

This recognition prefaces the most interesting, yet disturbing chapter in the book, “Neoliberal Palestine”, which outlines the convergence of US, Israeli and the Palestinian elite’s interests in promoting an aid-dependent, consumerist lifestyle, privatisation and luxury projects. 

One example is Rawabi, a new “model” city near Ramallah, built on confiscated Palestinian land, which can be bought into only via high-interest, American-style mortgages previously unknown in Palestine, but which have caused considerable damage to many Americans. Fighting neoliberalism is thus suggested as another basis for Palestinian alliances, one that has considerable international resonance. 

At a time when the Palestinians seem to be losing on all fronts, it is refreshing that Abunimah points beyond the miserable status quo to highlight signs of potential victory.

The chapter on Israel’s panic at the BDS campaign, which has caused Zionist organisations abroad to adopt new tactics, though with little success, and the chapter on the battle for legitimacy that is unfolding daily on US campuses, are inspirational and instructive as to how one can work so that the Palestinians will win in the end.

NEW YORK — Watson already has won a major TV game show, is looking for a cure for cancer and has ambitious gastronomy ambitions including devising a recipe for chocolate-beef burritos.

The IBM supercomputer is becoming a jack of all trades for the US tech giant — including in its new role as a business consultant and analyst for various industries by using massive Internet databases.

Watson, which gained fame in 2011 for defeating human opponents on the “Jeopardy” quiz show, has been reaching into its computing power since then for an array of other services.

IBM has developed a Watson Engagement Adviser application to counsel members of the military and their families how to smartly manage shifting to life after the service.

In the oil and gas sector, IBM has worked with the British tech group Arria to integrate Watson’s capabilities to help improve management of leaks in refineries.

“You can lose a billion dollars through leaks. It’s bad for revenues, it’s bad for the environment, it’s bad for the security,” said Robert Dale, Arria’s chief technical officer.

In healthcare, IBM in the past week expanded its partnerships in cancer research to 14 US treatment centres to help developed personalised care based on genetics for cases that are difficult to treat.

IBM has worked with health insurers to use big data to improve patient care and has joined with Johnson & Johnson and the medical device maker Medtronic to monitor patients with diabetes and to manage post-operative treatments.

Watson is also in banking: working with financial firms to help advisers compare investment offerings.

“The applicability of the technology is unlimited, anywhere where large amounts of information exist, the technology can be applied,” said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM’s Watson division.

“We are at a point in human history where we generate more data than we can consume.”

He was speaking at a New York event to encourage new applications for the supercomputer.

IBM sees so much potential in Watson that it announced plans last year to invest $1 billion in the division, and nearly 20 business sectors have joined the effort.

Watson has teamed with Elemental Path, maker of “smart toys”, such as a dinosaur that can tell stories and answer questions from children.

“It has the brain of Watson, the spirit of a dinosaur, and efficient answers... to the most awkward questions,” said JP Benini, co-founder of Elemental Path.

‘Chef Watson’

Watson is also getting considerable attention in the kitchen. It uses data analytics to blend flavours and come up with new combinations.

“Watson gives us ingredients to make a dish, selected to pair well together,” said James Briscione of the Institute of Culinary Education.

Briscione noted that “Chef Watson” uses a flavour pairing theory based on chemical compounds, a creative way to mix computing and cuisine that produced a bacon-mushroom dessert served at the New York event.

For the culinary minded, Watson allows chefs to indicate a particular dish, such as a salad or burrito, and Watson offers new suggestions like the chocolate-beef burrito recipe it has crafted.

The computer has in its memory thousands of recipes from “Bon Appetit” magazine, and it also knows the chemical properties of foods. If Watson suggests marrying strawberries with mushrooms, it’s because the two foods share a chemical bond.

“Every dish we put together is a combination of ingredients that nobody has ever seen before,” Briscione said.

PRAGUE — Obese children are far less likely to finish school than peers of normal weight, according to European research Thursday which also highlighted body image problems in kids as young as six.

And these problems are likely to become bigger and bigger as the waistlines of European children expand — led by Ireland with 27.5 per cent of under-fives classified as overweight, according to findings presented at a European Congress on Obesity in Prague.

Britain had the second-highest rate with 23.1 per cent, followed by Albania with 22 per cent and Georgia with 20 per cent, Bulgaria with 19.8 per cent and Spain with 18.4 per cent, said an analysis of data provided by 32 countries in the World Health Organisation’s 53-member Europe region.

Kazakhstan had the lowest rate at 0.6 per cent, Lithuania 5.1 per cent, conference host the Czech Republic 5.5 per cent, and Tajikistan 6 per cent.

People are classified overweight if they have a BMI (body weight index, a ratio of weight to height) of 25 and higher, and obese from a BMI of 30.

A second study presented at the congress said only 56 per cent of children in Sweden who had received treatment for obesity completed 12 years or more of school, compared to 76 per cent of normal-weight peers.

Differences in gender, ethnicity or socioeconomic status did not affect the result, said the research conducted among nearly 9,000 youngsters in Sweden.

The reasons were not clear, but study author Emilia Hagman of the Karolinska Institutet theorised that bullying might be a factor.

“If you are being bullied at school, you are feeling all this stigmatisation, you don’t really want to go to school so maybe school absences could be one reason,” she told AFP on the sidelines of the congress.

“Maybe you don’t sleep well at night so how easy is it going to be to sit in the classroom the day afterwards and learn? There are many, many reasons.”

A third research paper, conducted in England, found that children as young as six can be dissatisfied with being overweight.

Data was collected from 301 pupils from six years of age from eight primary schools in Leeds.

Of the group, 19 per cent (59) were overweight or obese and had “higher body shape dissatisfaction scores on average than normal weight children”, said a statement.

Girls had a higher dissatisfaction score than boys showing they had a greater desire to be thin even at this young age, according to the authors.

“Obesity prevention programmes need to consider psychological wellbeing and ensure that it is not compromised,” said researcher Pinki Sahota of the Leeds Beckett University.

Globally, the WHO says 42 million children under five were overweight or obese in 2013.

Obese children experience breathing difficulties, bone breaks, high blood pressure and “psychological harm”, according to a WHO factsheet.

LAS VEGAS — The food tech start-up Freight Farms is giving new life to old shipping containers, and at the same time giving impetus to locally grown food.

At the Collision technology conference in Las Vegas, the company showed off its basil sprouts nurtured in a used cargo container equipped to let crops flourish just about anywhere.

“Our mission is to create a more connected and sustainable food system,” Caroline Katsiroubas of Freight Farms told AFP at the event.

“Everyone wants to be more local, know where their food comes from and have a relationship with people growing their food.”

Jon Friedman and Brad McNamara founded the Boston-based start-up in 2010 with a vision of outfitting used shipping containers with sophisticated hydroponics equipment to turn them into boxed farms that could be placed in alleys, abandoned lots, parking lots or any other location where agriculture would typically be out of the question.

There is a massive supply of old insulated containers once used to ship refrigerated goods around the world on cargo ships, according to Katsiroubas. Evidently, it is cheaper to buy new containers than to repair old units.

“These containers all had past lives,” she said with a gesture. “We clean them up and retrofit them.”

Freight Farms installs equipment that controls environmental factors ranging from temperature and carbon dioxide levels to air flow and nutrients in water fed to crops.

Tilling recycled soda bottles

Seeds in “grow trays” sprout under blue light ideally suited for young plants. They are transferred to take root in an artificial soil of sorts made of recycled plastic soda bottles in “zip grow towers” that stand upright. The effect is like plants growing along the sides of columns.

Flexible strings of lights hanging from the container ceiling simulate the necessary sunshine.

All the nutrients needed by plants are in water fed through the pseudo-soil. Each container produces as much crop as about 1.8 acres (0.7 hectares) of traditional farmland, and uses about 90 per cent less water in the process, according to Katsiroubas.

There is even an application that lets container farms be completely monitored and controlled from afar.

Each container uses about 30,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, roughly the equivalent of that used by two US households, but less than a greenhouse producing the same amount of crop. 

Going solar for electricity is not yet an option, since it would take more solar cells than could fit atop a container, according to Katsiroubas.

Freight Farms modifies equipment to be more energy efficient and hopes that, along with advances in solar cell efficiency, containers will one day be self-sufficient when it comes to power.

“The electricity we are pulling is definitely a pain point,” Katsiroubas said. “It would be great if we were completely off the grid, but at the moment we have to be plugged in.”

Freight Farms reasons that crop-growing energy use is offset to some degree by decreases in resources devoted to transporting produce long distances and less spoilage.

Crops can be ready for harvest in six to eight weeks depending on what is being grown, and restaurants have taken to paying premium prices for high-quality produce that is locally sourced, according to Freight Farms.

Urban farmers can even find out what is in demand at restaurants or markets and pick those crops to plant, since climate, weather and soil are not concerns.

“We have these wild visions of cities being self-sustaining and every school operating one,” Katsiroubas said.

“We are absolutely not trying to take out traditional farming.”

Freight Farms systems have a starting price of $76,000, and about three dozen have been sold in North America, according to Katsiroubas.

It sounded so promising.

Anyone, anywhere would be able to strap on a headset in their living room and be able to experience events anywhere in the world — or outside of it — as if they were really there.

Virtual reality (VR) technology was long seen as the next big thing. But real reality always seemed to get in the way.

For years, it was the costly and bulky equipment. More recently, the sparse investment in software because of a lack of consumer-ready headgear.

Now, that could change.

Oculus, the VR business bought for $2 billion by Facebook Inc last year, said this week it would start shipping a consumer version of its Rift headset in early 2016, raising hopes that investment in VR software will finally take off.

“I have been waiting for virtual reality since I was a little boy 30 years ago,” said Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie Securities in New York.

“Our view is that things are radically different this time.”

About 2.7 million VR headsets, including versions aimed at app and content developers, could be sold in 2015, according to technology consultancy KZero.

With the launch of more consumer-friendly versions, total VR sales are expected to jump to 39 million in 2018, helping software companies alone rake in $4.6 billion — up from a projected $129 million this year.

“We believe that many very deep-pocketed companies will be in this space soon,” Schachter said.

Sony Corp and Taiwan’s HTC Corp are among the big hardware makers planning to launch consumer headsets — HTC by the end of 2015 and Sony next year.

Oculus partnered with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to build the developer version of the South Korean company’s mobile VR headset, Gear VR Innovator Edition, which was released in the United States in December. Samsung is expected to release a consumer-version Gear VR by the end of the year.

“This is the right time for early stage investors,” said Mike Rothenberg, founder and CEO of Rothenberg Ventures, a San Francisco venture capital firm that has invested in VR startups.

Santa Barbara, California-based WorldViz, plans to release a number of gaming, education and entertainment apps this year and expects revenue to double, founder and President Peter Schlueer said.

‘True transition’

Gaming and entertainment apps are expected to drive initial uptake of VR hardware.

But the advent of user-friendly and low-cost gear will also spur adoption by educational institutions, the military and industry.

Ford Motor Co, for instance, uses VR headsets to help test car designs.

Oculus has not disclosed pricing for the consumer Rift. Co-founder Nate Mitchell has said it will be “affordable” but pricier than the Gear VR, which costs around $200.

Eon Reality, based in Irvine, California, and NextVR, headquartered in Laguna Beach, California, are among the most prominent software companies hoping to cash in on the VR boom.

Mary Spio, president of Next Galaxy Corp, a Miami Beach company whose Netflix-like platform delivers VR content, said software makers have been waiting for proof of success of the hardware.

“I think we are going to see a slow build up of content and then we will start to see an avalanche of content maybe a few months after the Oculus [Rift] hits,” Spio said.

“I think that 2016 really is going to be when we see that inflection, the true transition for virtual reality.”

AMMAN — Incorporating a transportation vehicle in artworks might seem like an odd concept at first, but the works displayed as part of the “Do You Vespa?” exhibition at Jacaranda Images proved the opposite.

Four artists, Mike Derderian, Mohammad Awwad, Ibraheem Awamleh and Lutfi Zayed presented artworks at the exhibition that focuses on the Vespa motorcycles, where creativity and practicality meet.

The Vespa, which translates to ‘wasp’ in Italian was first manufactured in 1946 in Florence and has ever since been a widely-used transportation device among Europeans.

CEO of Darwazeh Motors, Tamer Darwazeh said: “Vespa always supports art around the world. This year we did this project in Jordan to incorporate and integrate local artists with the Vespa culture.”

The exhibition not only showcases artworks by the Jordanian artists, but also vintage posters portraying the beauty of the machine and its accessibility to both women and men.

“The Vespa is very easy to ride, the nicest thing about it is that even a lady in a skirt can ride it,” Darwazeh said. “It is environmentally-friendly and it is a fashionable way to get around,” he added.

According to Darwazeh, the motorcycle emits 90 per cent less carbon than a car.

Contributing artist Mohammad Awwad was excited to participate in the exhibition as it is a new way for presenting a product that is “great for Amman”.

“It’s a new experience working on a concept that aims to showcase a product such as this one. I think Vespas are great for Amman; they are environmentally-friendly, colourful and they save you plenty of time while commuting. I also think that the scooter’s driver definitely has a nicer view of Amman than a car driver.”

Similarly, artist Derderian, who is also a writer and illustrator, wanted to be involved in the exhibition because it is a new concept.

“It’s always great to do something different,” Derderian said. “People always expect you to draw about politics in the Middle East, which is why I always want to do something creative about social and daily life and breakaway from politics.”

Graphic designer and artist Lutfi Zayed said that the scooter has a unique aesthetic that instantly spot. He said: “There are certain design icons that a graphic designer immediately recognise. The design of a Vespa and the vintage artworks that portrayed it are definitely important icons.”

If you think playing computer games is not for you because you are not a little child anymore you should think twice. There is more in gaming than meets the eye.

Some don’t play because their life style or their work doesn’t leave time for that. This is perfectly understandable. Others don’t because they feel it’s just not serious to play. This is less understandable.

Whether you are a gamer or not, the gaming industry is a side of high tech you just cannot ignore. Between offline (home consoles mainly) and online games, the sector represented an average of $85 billion turnover for each of the past two years 2013 and 2014.

The diversity of the games you can play and the various age brackets that are concerned draw a large palette that is hard to describe or analyse in a few words or even a few paragraphs. It’s an entire world on its own.

However, one aspect of gaming concerns us all; it is the gamification of e-learning.

E-Learning is an exploding phenomenon that started 15 years ago. By the year 2020 it is estimated that half of learning in the world will be done online. The market will involve $105 billion this year alone.

It makes therefore perfect sense to use the attractive and motivating features of gaming in e-learning to boost productivity, to make it more pleasurable and to achieve better results. Combining gaming with e-learning is a winning formula that only presents advantages. Create courses that are shaped and designed like computer games is the ultimate digital form in the education field.

Keeping score, setting different levels of the game, creating avatars, competing with friends, being part of a story, feeling rewarded by the results and the scores, making it all lively, not forgetting the dynamism and the challenge that all games bring, it all creates a scope of ideal edutainment.

Big corporation are creating their own gamification for e-learning. It is in no way a simple task as it involves a huge dose of creativity, as well as great programming skills, teaching experience, and overall requires large, expensive teams to achieve good results. Look at the credits that roll with advanced gaming and you can easily compare them with the credits that come at the end of major motion pictures that cost tens of millions of dollars and make teams of hundreds work.

“… there is actually an exact science behind why gamification in eLearning is so successful… [It] improves knowledge absorption and retention.” (Christopher Pappas, Dec-2014). 

Given the cost of developing quality gamification for e-learning, for now only the wealthy actors of the private sector seem able to generate good products. In Jordan the activity is hardly emerging and a lot remains to be done. One can bet, however, that locally designed and developed games for e-learning are expected to appear on the market as early as this year.

PARIS — Women who are obese while pregnant may put their offspring at risk of childhood diabetes, a condition that requires lifelong insulin therapy, Swedish researchers recently said.

A study of more than 1.2 million children born in Sweden between 1992 and 2004 and monitored for several years, found a 33-per cent higher risk for the disease among children whose mothers were obese during the first trimester of pregnancy, but were not diabetic themselves

“Maternal overweight and obesity in early pregnancy were associated with increased risk of type 1 diabetes in the offspring of parents without diabetes,” a team wrote in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

The highest risk was still for children of parents who had diabetes themselves, the study found. There was no additional risk for children of mothers who were obese on top of having diabetes.

Over 5,700 children from the study group were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes by 2009.

Type 1 diabetes is usually found in children and young people — a chronic condition caused when the pancreas does not produce insulin to control blood sugar levels. It requires lifelong insulin treatment, and constitutes about 10 per cent of all diabetes cases — though the number is growing.

And the increase “may partly be explained by increasing prevalence of maternal overweight/obesity”, said the study.

People with a BMI (body weight index, a ratio of weight to height) of 25 and higher are classified overweight, while 30 and over obese. 

Obesity, too, is soaring, having more than doubled worldwide since 1980. By 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults were overweight, of whom 600 million were obese, according to the World Health Organisation. 

Type 2 diabetes is much more common than type 1 and is believed to be caused by lifestyle factors, and controlled through healthy diet, exercise and medication.

“Prevention of overweight and obesity in women of reproductive age may contribute to a decreased incidence of type 1 diabetes,” the study concluded.

AMMAN — Interweaving past with modern cultural aesthetics, Sudanese artist Abdul Qader Bakheit present the Nile River as “the source of all civilisations” in his exhibition “The Nile Breeze”.

“It is a geographical location that supports various cultures and traditions,” Bakheit told The Jordan Times.

The exhibition focuses on culture from that region and the woman, who according to Bakheit, “play an integral part of this world”.

“Most of my works include the presence of the female. The woman symbolises life; life without her is not complete, to me she represents stability,” Bakheit said.

To bring the essence of the Nile’s culture into his art, Bakheit used carpets as his canvas.

“Each year I try to use different mediums and this year I decided to integrate carpet into my works,” Bakheit said, “I worked on carpet known as ‘birsh’ that is made of a specific type of tree leaves. This kind of carpet is very commonly used in countries surrounding the Nile such as Egypt and Sudan at weddings, to sleep on, for prayer and for sitting in general.”

The exhibition also includes works in acrylic on canvas and watercolour on paper, all created during the past four years.

Bakheit, who currently resides in Jordan, said that there needs to be continuous experimentation for the technique used to be seamlessly integrated within the context of the work.

The exhibition runs at Dar Al Anda Art Gallery until May 27.