A diet rich in fruit and veg, olive oil and fish boosts bacteria in the gut linked to healthy ageing and reduces bacteria linked to inflammation, experts from five countries said. Photograph: PA/PA Wire

As the global population is projected to live longer, we need to find ways of helping people live healthier into old age. Exercise and diet are the best ways of maintaining good health as we age. But recent research has started to look at the role our gut specifically our microbiome plays in how we grow old. The gut microbiome is a complex community of millions of microbes that live in the intestines. These microbes help to break down dietary ingredients, such as resistant starch, that humans cannot digest. They also help prevent the growth of disease-causing bacteria.

Researchers from the APC Microbiome Institute at University College Cork, along with colleagues in Europe, set out to see if diet could alter the gut microbiome in a way that would promote healthy ageing. They looked at 612 people aged 65 to 79, asking half of them to change their normal diet to a Mediterranean diet for a full year. This involved eating more vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, olive oil and fish, and eating less red meat, dairy products and saturated fats. The other half did not change their diet.

Although there were minimal changes to the microbiome, those who followed the Mediterranean diet had better cognitive function and memory, less inflammation, and better bone strength. Many of the participants were also found to be pre-frail, meaning their bone strength and bone density were about to decrease, at the beginning of the study. Those who followed their regular diet became more frail over the course of the one-year study, while the Mediterranean diet group reversed this trend.

While the obesity crisis is considered the foremost public health issue in the west, malnutrition is a growing concern. Malnutrition occurs when a person is deficient in nutrients, such as protein, vitamins and minerals, or they are not eating enough calories. Under-nutrition is linked to increased frailty, delayed wound healing, and higher mortality. There is clearly a need for us to be proactive in dealing with dietary issues in older people.

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The Irish Times view on the Mediterranean diet: good for the gut - The Irish Times

In Partnership with Chronomics' Breakthrough Evolution for Preventive Healthcare

HONG KONG, Feb. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- S-CELL, in partnership with Chronomics, is the first company in Asia to introduce Healthspan, the most advanced epigenetic testing service in the world. Chronomics was established in 2017 and later officially launched the epigenetics testing kit in hopes to lead a revolution on preventive healthcare.

The biological aging wellness calculator comes with a simple test procedure. Starting with a provided test kit, a saliva sample shall be conducted in the comfort of the individual's residence and will be sent back for researchers to process DNA methylation data. Chronomics then provides detailed and organized results on overall health status, including specific lifestyle and environmental biomarkers that contribute to the current results. Within 6-8 weeks, data can be accessed through an official digital platform for the users to track and personalize health management with the guidance of their health experts.

"By bringing advanced epigenetics into the mainstream, this is the start of true and personalized health management," says Chronomics CEO, Dr. Tom Stubbs, who holds a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the epigenetics of aging. He is a specialist in Epigenetics, Machine Learning, and Computational Biology.

A core point of Healthspan and of which sets it apart from other health tracking methods is the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS). It is an advanced technology that enables researchers to look into biological systems in a next-level capacity than ever made before. Through DNA sequencing, experts of the Chronomics team are able to interpret highly accurate data and expand the knowledge into recommendations to meet the personalized health goals of the patient.

"It allows us to expand the range of things that we quantify beyond biological age," said Dr. Daniel Herranz, CSO and co-founder of Chronomics on the utilization of next-generation sequencing. He also has great expertise in computational epigenetics from acquiring a PhD at the European Bioinformatics Institute. "At the moment people are really obsessed with biological age as the only thing to be measured and it's a great start but our vision in Chronomics is to actually break down the different resources that make up your biological age and by doing this, we can act on more specific aspects of your biology," he added.

John Gong, founder and chairman of S-CELL, also talked about the benefits of the technology towards aging. "Healthspan's cutting edge technology allows us to accurately know and understand key factors that are influencing our Aging and how diet, exercise and health supplementation can slow Aging and improve our Healthspan." This partnership helps in emphasizing the significance of understanding epigenetics for a sustainable healthcare system. The biological wellness solution in the form of a highly accurate test kit puts customers on a new level of ease and opportunity for personalized health management.

There have been discussions on the current burden of non-communicable diseases. The stated fact that we are living longer, yet sicker is a huge concern in the healthcare and epigenetics industry. Chronomics stated the need for a paradigm shift in medicine - switching the focus from the treatment of one disease into the prevention of multiple diseases. S-CELL and Chronomics push biological wellness to a new level through this cutting edge technology.

About S-CELL

S-CELL Health & Beauty aims to improve people's quality of living through the creation of breakthrough cellular health supplements that support wellness and aging. S-CELL offers solutions for healthier skin, brain, vision, joints, weight management, and more extended health benefits. Products are made from the breakthrough synergy of the finest natural ingredients from both sides of the world together with the latest advancements in technology.

Press Contact:Email: cs@vita-sc.com Phone: +852 63542288

About Chronomics

Chronomics is an epigenetics testing company headquartered in Norwich, England. They also specialize in the capability to analyze deep and advanced biological data for continuous evolution in the preventive healthcare industry.

Press Contact:Email: chronomics@agencybrazil.com

SOURCE VITACELL INTERNATIONAL CO. LTD. S-CELL

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S-CELL Becomes the First in Asia to Introduce Consumer Epigenetics Testing and is the Most Advanced Test in the World - Yahoo Finance

An illustration of a strand of DNA. Does it hold the key to effective dieting? (Photo:Zephyris)

DNA diets, also known as gene-based nutrition interventions, are being touted as the latest sure-fire way to lose weight. It makes sense right, using your own DNA to tailor a diet to your body?

But the diet is based on sketchy science at best, and may be no more than another fanciful and expensive diet scam at worst.

Numerous companies have sprung up claiming to use DNA analysis to personalize a diet. But experts say, when it comes to diet advice, its misleading to say that the blueprint is our genes.

DNA is important, but it plays a pretty minor role in making personal decisions about food, says Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

And now more scientific evidence backs that up.

Scientists released a new studythe most rigorous so far that found no difference in weight loss between overweight people on diets that matched their genotype and those on diets that didnt.

Knowing genetic risk information doesnt have a big impact, Timothy Caulfield, a University of Alberta scientist told Scientific American magazine.

Simply put, diets cant be matched to genotype, the new study shows.

For basic healthy living, its not about your genes, its about your behavior, Mozaffarian says.

The study was conducted by researchers at Stanford University Medical School. The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It randomly assigned 609 overweight adults, aged 18 to 50, to either a healthy low-fat or healthy low-carb diet.

Dietitians guided the volunteers on healthy low-fat diets (eat less oils, fatty meats, full-fat dairy, and nuts) and low-carb diets (reduce cereals, grains, rice, starchy vegetables, and legumes).

Both groups were instructed to eat lots of vegetables and very few foods with added sugars, trans fats, or refined flour.

A year later, the two diets produced near identical results: an 11.7 pound weight loss in the low-fat group and 13.2 pound loss in the low-carb group. The difference was not statistically significant or meaningful in real life.

The researchers then analyzed weight loss among people whose DNA matched or clashed with their assigned diet.

No significant difference in weight change was detected among participants in matched and mismatched diets, the researchers found. There was also no DNA/diet interaction for waist circumference, body mass index or body fat percentage.

Diets mostly come down to factors other than your genes, Mozaffarian told CNN. Its your age, how much extra weight youre carrying, how you respond to eating starch or sugar, and potentially even your microbiome, that are much more important, he says.

He says cutting back on snack foods and junk foods that contain lots of refined starch and sugar is good advice for everyone. But, he says, there are significant differences from person to person in blood glucose responses after eating these foods.

Of course, a number of companiessuch as Habit, Profile Precise and Nutrigenomixhave sprung up pushing DNA-based diets, and a number of media outlets have blithely touted their claims.

Even specialized publications like Health.com, which should know better, have promoted the diets.

The companies provide customized meal plans, grocery lists, recipes, and even exercise routines, typically based on AncestryDNA or 23andMe DNA results.

But dieters should beware, especially if the meal plan eliminates entire food groups. If the recommendation is based on DNA, it has no basis in science.

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DNA Diet Hailed as Key to Weight Loss, But Don't Bet Your Genes On It - Celebrity Health & Fitness

Mike Parrys Damascene moment came when his daughter asked him for a football and a tennis racquet for Christmas, and it occurred to him that he was in no shape to kick or hit a ball around. Up to that moment, the 47-year-old hadnt given much thought to his health.

Despite the fact that I was creeping towards my late forties, it didnt occur to me to be worried. It just wasnt something I was particularly interested in, and there wasn't any reason to make time for it, he says. Every morning, hed head straight to his desk job, skipping breakfast. His evenings were taken up by client appointments or a decompressing drink at the pub.

But major lifestyle overhauls are rarely easy. Knowing he wouldnt be able to do it alone, Mike signed up with a personal trainer at Ultimate Performance gym in Manchester. It was nine miles away, and everybody said I was mad to go there every day. Having not stepped in a gym for over 20 years, I was also concerned about whether I would even fit in, whether it was something I could actually do, whether I would be embarrassed. It was pretty much a new world for me.

Parry was also managing existing injuries to his elbow and shoulder, so his training had to be accordingly. There was always something the trainers could come up with that would allow me to do exercises in a certain way without affecting existing or historical injuries.

The major changes to his diet and routine were tough for the first few days. "I was on a low-carb diet to start with, and I did start to feel a bit tired, which apparently is common," he says. But within a week, I started to feel more alert, less sluggish. I was a lot more active, and I was actually sleeping seven to eight hours a night.

Now, more than five stone lighter, he still finds his transformation somewhat baffling: You often see these before-and-after pictures on social media and you think, Yeah, OK. I didnt consider that it could one day be me. All I wanted to do was be in a position where I could play sports with my daughter. His confidence has also improved hugely: "I am able to buy clothes that fit me properly, that look good as well, that allow me to go out and socialise in places that I wouldnt have necessarily gone before."

As for his daughter's verdict? She said how incredibly proud she was and that I should carry on no matter what.

Parry trained three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In order to recover faster in between sessions and further improve his cardiovascular system, he also had to perform 10K walks in between sessions. Here are some of his go-to supersets, from trainer Anthony Paulhe.

1A: Static Lunge x10 Parry started with 10 reps, building up to 15, eventually adding weights when he was confident with the movement.

1B: Diverging Row x10 Lunges were paired with 10 reps of this posture-improving back exercise. After 10 reps, go back to the lunge, for three rounds total.

2A: Hack Squat x10

Pause at the bottom for a second to strengthen the glutes and quads in the weakest position of the exercise.

2B: DB Shoulder Press x10 By alternating between upper- and lower-body, both body parts get more rest for greater quality of execution. Do three rounds.

3A: Prowler Push The prowler is a valuable exercise, requiring low skill and technique. Charge back and forth across the length of your gym.

3B: The Plank As well as building core strength, the plank teaches proper hip and shoulder positioning. Repeat for three rounds, or five if you're fit enough.

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How This Reader Lost 5 Stone and Built a Midlife Six-Pack - Men's health UK

For six hours, a circular robot flits up and down a wall, sketching out a lotus with myriad intricate designs embedded in each petal. Four marker pens color in the designs. It looks beautiful. But as soon as its complete, the robot reverses course, erasing the image and leaving the wall as if it had never been there.

Scribit-design

This is a mandala, reimagined. These complex patterns are meant to reflect the visions that monks see while meditating about virtues such as compassion, wisdom, and more, says Tenzin Priyadarshi, a Buddhist monk and the CEO of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT. To automate the elaborate process of creating and destroying them, an important tradition in Buddhism, Priyadarshi teamed up with Carlo Ratti, an MIT architect and designer of Scribit, a $500 write and erase robot that uses special markers to draw and erase art on a wall.

Traditional mandalas are sketched out by hand and then painstakingly filled with colored sand. Once the mandala is complete, it is destroyed, symbolizing the transience of beauty and existence. Scribit, however, isnt so delicate, and relies on pre-programmed images. There is no sand, no meticulous sketching, no fear that the mandala could be destroyed any second. Theres also the physical relief. It was easier on my back than creating these intricate mandalas, Priyadarshi says of the traditional 50-hour process.

But getting a robot to sketch a design on the wall seems counterproductive. Isnt it cheating?

Not at all, says Priyadarshi. He insists that a robot isnt a way to bypass the hard work of meditation via mandala; rather, its mesmerizing movements help one enter a relaxed state.

The robot mandalas also point to an increasingly intertwined future for religion and technology. Religiosity might be on the wane for younger generations, but smartphones are ubiquitous: Muslim Pro and Siddur are smartphone apps that notify devout users of prayer time for Muslims and Jews respectively, and mindfulness apps have found a role in Buddhist practices. Priyadarshi, who calls technology a blessing and a curse, thinks the future of religion involves adapting technology to worship in this way.

When asked if a robotic mandala achieves the same results as a hand-drawn one, Ganden Thurman, the executive director of Tibet House, a center of study for Tibetan Buddhism, says yes and no. He points to flags planted in mountain passes where winds are thought to carry prayers, or prayer wheels and drums stamped with wishes for the suffering. Those are vehicles by which a person is engaging with Buddhism, Thurman says, and the robot can likewise be compared to the intermediary of a canvas, brush, or pencil, all used with the intent to do good and be good.

But the robot cant benefit from the doing of the mandala, he explains. The robot is not a sentient being. Buddhism is concerned with the uplift and well-being of sentient beings, the ability to move and facilitate from pain to pleasure, which happens through self-awareness.

Still, a robot mandala can be as valuable as a human-made one in planting a future karmic seed, Thurman says.

To Priyadarshi, one major benefit is that a robotic mandala allows the average person to connect to religion at home, free from distraction. It also means that the person is spending less time worrying about the mandalas intricacy and more time in contemplationthe ultimate purpose of the mandala.

Its also an antidote to what Priyadarshi sees as an ever shrinking attention span in a busy world. Technology can cause positive nudges in individuals so that they can learn about focus, empathy, compassion, he says. Were trying to use technology as a tool to facilitate certain behavioral shifts.

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The robot does the hard work. Can you still attain enlightenment? - MIT Technology Review

For relationships to endure, we need to be loving not just on Valentines Day but all year round, a Buddhist teacher tells Marjorie Brennan

WHILE Valentines Day is a celebration of romantic love, amid the avalanche of red roses, cheesy cards and bottles of bubbly, the many other types of love we experience in our lives can be forgotten.

The consumerist nature of the day may be at odds with reflection and contemplation, but it does provide an opportunity to consider how we can nurture different kinds of love in our life, which can also help enhance our relationship with a spouse or partner.

On this theme, the Buddhist approach has much to offer in terms of teaching us how to love ourselves and in turn open our hearts to others.

Andrew Warr (pictured right), who is based in the English city of Brighton, has been studying and practising Buddhism for 36 years and regularly conducts meditation workshops at Dzogchen Beara Tibetan Buddhist retreat centre in West Cork.

Valentines Day is sort of acknowledged but I wouldnt say it is incorporated [in Buddhism], he says. From a Buddhist point of view, in a romantic relationship, you may think the other person is fantastic and everything about them seems wonderful but what everybody is hoping for is something that is enduring. So when things are difficult, when you lose the romance, you lose everything.

Buddhism is more about a good-hearted connection with the person that can endure beyond that romantic realm. If you are focused on one loving relationship, even just thinking in that way inhibits the capacity for that relationship to be at its best. If it is just weighted on one person, that is quite narrow. If we want to have a genuine, loving relationship with somebody, our heart has to be much bigger.

Warr refers to this as widening the circle of love which he says will enhance our relationship with our spouse or partner.

Buddhist meditations for cultivating love and compassion are really about starting with one person we feel affection towards already, then we use that as almost like an example of how we can extend love to others, to incorporate everybody, including ourselves. The idea is that as our heart becomes more attuned to feeling goodwill towards a wider range of people, that impacts on all our relationships, including those with our partners or spouses.

LOVING KINDNESS

Among the workshops which Warr teaches are ones centred on the Loving Kindness meditation, which has been practised in Buddhism for more than 2,500 years.

The meditation helps people develop a deep, pervasive and unconditional love that transcends our normal limitations. This process starts with developing a more healthy and loving relationship with ourselves.

There is an increasing realisation that a lot of unhappiness is due to the relationship we have with ourselves not being very healthy. Sometimes when things are difficult, we might be giving ourselves a hard time about it or we blame someone else, getting caught up with that before acknowledging were suffering in some way, says Warr.

This recognition that we are in pain and the showing of self-compassion are often the first steps towards forging a healthier relationship with ourselves, and then others, says Warr.

We need to be kind to ourselves and to speak to ourselves with some tenderness, as we would to someone who is suffering to say to ourselves Im suffering, this is difficult; to be a good friend to ourselves. The reality is we all experience suffering in our life that its something that happens, theres nothing wrong with us. The best way is to be with ourselves in that, not to immediately distract ourselves and not to do something which wont help alleviate it.

ROLE OF MINDFULNESS

Warr says that the now-popular concept of mindfulness can also be brought to bear in how we love, and relate to, others.

One of the gifts of mindfulness is to be more aware of other people. We can develop ways to actually notice people how they are oh, theyre enjoying themselves, how wonderful and actually relate to them in our hearts more as another human being with feelings, rather than as just an object we might regard favourably or unfavourably.

For people interested in learning about how meditation can improve their relationships, Warr says there are various avenues to pursue, including online research, apps, and courses and retreats.

There are meditations which are specifically designed to cultivate goodheartedness, often in the Buddhist tradition of Metta, often translated as loving kindness. There are different mediations on compassion which help to reveal the natural good-heartedness we all have so its not simply about being aware or mindful, its acknowledging that within us all we had a natural capacity for love and warmth.

The anger, the jealousy, the distress, those are all passing experiences fundamentally we all have good hearts, which is the Buddhist view of things. Meditations for love and kindness and compassion are, for many people, effective ways to get in touch with that good-heartedness and help us to release resentments and to feel and express warmth towards others.

Andrew Warrs upcoming retreats at Dzogchen Beara are Calm and Clear, May 29-June 1 and Peaceful Mind, Loving Heart, July 11-18; See dzogchenbeara.org/events/

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Open hearts: The Buddhist approach to love and loving - Irish Examiner

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I read a book recently about big ideas, and Buddhism got a mention. The ultimate goal in Buddhism, according to this book, is to eliminate craving and live in the now. When we crave, we suffer. Indeed, to crave is to suffer. A perfectly normal human condition which Buddha urges we avoid at all costs due to the philosophical price tag. I mention this because the other day I was in a doctor's waiting room, and I was suffering because I faced the prospect of paying the gap, something I normally crave to never pay. Thinking back in Buddhist terms I must have been suffering even before I arrived because of that craving. I was suffering even more when I realised the gap was looming. In an effort to live in the now, I sat down and started thumbing through the mags, which was probably a mistake. Interesting the magazines you get in waiting rooms. They kind of tell you about the place you're waiting at and what it thinks you might be capable of. Like paying the gap. Clearly I was not at the barbers because there was not one mag about dirt bike racing, fishing of golf. More from Simon Walker: The complete That's Life archive The mags in this waiting room were exclusively about high-end architecture, renovations and cutting edge interior design, and rightly or wrongly, I started to make a connection between these things and paying the gap. I'd been to a bulk-billing general practice a couple of weeks before and there'd been no magazines at all, just incessant morning TV blaring on a flat screen. Talk about suffering. But I wasn't paying any gap, so I craved only one thing, they turn off the TV. Back at this other waiting room, the glossy mags only served to highlight a second gap - between the houses in the mags, and my humble pile. I think they call it a Grand Design moment, characterised by craving things you'll never be able to afford. Coincidentally, Kevin McLeod is touring Australia at the moment fielding many questions about his fabulous TV show, the central one being, where do the people get the resources to fund these dream homes? Inheritance seemed a bit vulgar, so Kevin suggested many got lucky playing the real estate game - back in the 1600s I think. Like Grand Designs, the mags in this waiting room waxed lyrical a lot about architects who'd returned from exotic places, charged up spiritually to collaborate with clients who didn't seem to have jobs, but many of whom had just returned from New York having slummed it in a loft apartment on Central Park, which they'd renovated too. Both the loft and Central Park. Everyone seemed intent on "embracing the lived experience". It got me contemplating the lived experience of my carpets back at my house and how long they'd been under foot, or vice versa, and from two gaps, I nearly started contemplating jumping off a third. Just in time my name was called out and I was back in the now of the waiting room, craving nothing more than a clean bill of health, grandly resigned to suffering no more about hard to achieve big ideas.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/n8uGJwMg95DiH9D4L9ShGa/79ee8079-38d3-4b98-9a23-943be0f5f9a7.jpg/r0_135_2100_1322_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

OPINION

February 22 2020 - 12:30AM

I read a book recently about big ideas, and Buddhism got a mention.

The ultimate goal in Buddhism, according to this book, is to eliminate craving and live in the now. When we crave, we suffer. Indeed, to crave is to suffer. A perfectly normal human condition which Buddha urges we avoid at all costs due to the philosophical price tag.

I mention this because the other day I was in a doctor's waiting room, and I was suffering because I faced the prospect of paying the gap, something I normally crave to never pay.

Thinking back in Buddhist terms I must have been suffering even before I arrived because of that craving.

I was suffering even more when I realised the gap was looming.

In an effort to live in the now, I sat down and started thumbing through the mags, which was probably a mistake.

Interesting the magazines you get in waiting rooms. They kind of tell you about the place you're waiting at and what it thinks you might be capable of. Like paying the gap.

Clearly I was not at the barbers because there was not one mag about dirt bike racing, fishing of golf.

The mags in this waiting room were exclusively about high-end architecture, renovations and cutting edge interior design, and rightly or wrongly, I started to make a connection between these things and paying the gap.

I'd been to a bulk-billing general practice a couple of weeks before and there'd been no magazines at all, just incessant morning TV blaring on a flat screen. Talk about suffering. But I wasn't paying any gap, so I craved only one thing, they turn off the TV.

Back at this other waiting room, the glossy mags only served to highlight a second gap - between the houses in the mags, and my humble pile. I think they call it a Grand Design moment, characterised by craving things you'll never be able to afford.

Coincidentally, Kevin McLeod is touring Australia at the moment fielding many questions about his fabulous TV show, the central one being, where do the people get the resources to fund these dream homes?

Inheritance seemed a bit vulgar, so Kevin suggested many got lucky playing the real estate game - back in the 1600s I think.

Like Grand Designs, the mags in this waiting room waxed lyrical a lot about architects who'd returned from exotic places, charged up spiritually to collaborate with clients who didn't seem to have jobs, but many of whom had just returned from New York having slummed it in a loft apartment on Central Park, which they'd renovated too. Both the loft and Central Park. Everyone seemed intent on "embracing the lived experience".

It got me contemplating the lived experience of my carpets back at my house and how long they'd been under foot, or vice versa, and from two gaps, I nearly started contemplating jumping off a third.

Just in time my name was called out and I was back in the now of the waiting room, craving nothing more than a clean bill of health, grandly resigned to suffering no more about hard to achieve big ideas.

See the rest here:
Simon Walker invests the grand resign of living in the now - Newcastle Herald

Kathmandu, February 17

The main organising committee of the International Buddhist Conference has started preparations for the event that is going to be held from May 5 to 7 on the occasion of Buddha Jayanti.

The three-day event will take place in Lumbini, in which participants from 21 countries will come to attend the conference.

A meeting of main organising committee held today at the Ministry of Culture Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) informed that participants from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, India, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, South Korea, Bhutan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh, America, United Kingdom, Russia, Costa Rica, France and Germany have confirmed their participation.

Likewise, several researchers and students of Buddhism will also take part in the event.

However, due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese participants may decide to cancel their registration.

Addressing the meeting today, Tourism Minister Yogesh Bhattarai said, This conference will help to promote Nepal as a religious destination.

As the country is celebrating the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign, this conference could help us to bring in a large number of tourists into the country.

As a conference hall that can accommodate 5,000 people has been built in Lumbini, the conference this year will not face the problems faced in the previous two conferences, he said, adding, Moreover, we are trying to bring the Gautam Buddha International Airport into operation in time for the conference.

The meeting has decided to observe Buddha Jayanti this year with a week-long celebration. On the first day of Buddha Jayanti week on May 1, a cleaning campaign will be organised in Lumbini, Bhairahawa, Kapilvastu and Ramgram areas. It will be followed by a blood donation programme on May 2 and tree plantation on May 3 in Rupandehi and Kapilvastu.

On May 4, a peace marathon and cultural events will be organised in Lumbini. Meanwhile, during the three days of the conference, peace rallies and chanting of Paritran Paath will be organised.

A version of this article appears in print on February 18, 2020 of The Himalayan Times.

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Buddhist conference to be attended by 21 countries - Himalayan Times

Staff, parents and children from Busy Bees nursery in Corby are celebrating after receiving an outstanding rating from Ofsted.

Inspectors visited the nursery on the Oakley Vale estate last month and rated it as outstanding in all areas, improving on its previous rating of good from January 2016.

It received top marks for the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management.

Youngsters from Busy Bees nursery in Corby celebrating the outstanding Ofsted report

The inspection report said: "Children love being in this setting and are very eager to get involved in all the exciting activities."

It noted that staff make children's language development a real priority, the children's behaviour is excellent and the safeguarding arrangements are effective.

Inspectors also found that children with special educational needs or disabilities receive highly skilful and sensitive support.

The report said children experience lots of exciting opportunities to learn about other people and the community around them.

And added: "Leaders and managers are inspiring and always encourage staff to do well and improve their practice.

"Managers and staff constantly reflect on their practice and identify things they can do better."

Centre director Rhonda Rowlatt said: We are proud of our outstanding grading and delighted that Ofsted recognise the high quality we provide every child in our care, giving all children the best start in life.

The nursery caters for children up to the age of five and has 90 youngsters on its roll.

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Corby nursery rated outstanding in all areas - Northamptonshire Telegraph

A new study by Gallup and TrueSpace looks at the conditions post-startup companies need in order to make the transition from the treacherous "adolescent" phase of rapid but sporadic and unpredictable growth to a more stable developmental phase. The results from 2,494 business owners on the Five Conditions Assessment (5CA) show how their companies' growth performance relates to systems that help them understand the drivers of growth, monitor factors most likely to influence it and make continual adjustments to how it allocates time, talent and capital to improve predictability and reduce risk.

The first article on the Gallup/TrueSpace study provides an overview of the broad concepts addressed by the Five Conditions framework. Here we look at three specific factors that are among the most strongly related to recent growth performance among companies in the study:

A clear, compelling point of view directed toward the target market. Companies with high Point of View scores are 2.5 times more likely than others to have had revenue growth of at least 10% in each of the past two years.

Intentional strategies for acquiring and developing talent. Companies with high Talent scores are 2.7 times more likely than others to have grown at least 10% in each of the past two years.

High levels of trust among employees and other stakeholders in the credibility of the organization's leaders. Companies with high Credibility scores are also 2.7 times more likely than others to have grown at least 10% in each of the past two years.

The 5CA is designed to measure the growth potential of post-startup businesses -- those that have survived their first three years and have at least $2 million in annual revenue but have not yet reached the lower mid-market threshold of $10 million. The more than 2 million companies in this fledgling group have the potential to create millions of new jobs if they can achieve consistent, long-term growth -- but they are less likely than startups or larger businesses to capture the attention of investors, policymakers and the media.

The framework for the 5CA borrows from System Dynamics, a field brought to the mainstream by the late Professor Jay Forrester of MIT. This involves evaluating businesses by seeing them as a series of feedback systems. Each of the Five Conditions represents a broad requirement for predictable performance and consistent growth. Within each Condition is a set of feedback loops, and each loop includes specific elements that can increase or diminish a business' growth potential. Once a business is modeled in this manner, limits to its growth become visible, and entrepreneurs can act and make decisions with more precision.

For example, one of the feedback loops in the Alignment condition is Focus -- the extent to which the company's resources are focused on a clearly defined target market and broadly understood objectives. Within that loop, the 5CA addresses four elements -- labeled Market, Point of View, Customers and Talent -- that can change the organization's level of Focus.

Point of View and Talent are among the three elements (out of 30 overall in the framework) most strongly related to businesses' growth performance over the past two years. A closer look at these elements gives one a better idea of how the 5CA measures the concepts associated with the Five Conditions. See Appendix A in the Five Conditions Assessment report to find out where each of these elements fits into the overall framework.

In order to align a company's resources for high performance, leaders must first develop, promote and sustain a point of view that distinguishes the company from others in the industry. Critically, that point of view isn't just a sales tactic -- it's a system that governs how customers, employees and partners perceive the business, helping them focus on the needs of high-value customers while removing nontarget customers from consideration.

A distinctive point of view also purposely alters risk perception by enabling companies to demonstrate credibility, position themselves as trusted providers and become recognized as the best -- the lowest-risk, highest-value option -- in their niche. For businesses that are not market leaders, a point of view serves as the only effective and sustainable mechanism for providing high-value customers the assurance they need to feel confident in changing from the status quo. Specific 5CA questions addressing Point of View include:

Companies that are building the capacity for consistent growth clearly recognize the central role of talent in achieving it. Role definitions and expectations are clarified and formalized, which makes it easier to identify specific talent needs. Finding and selecting employees with the skills and experience valued by the target market becomes a full-time effort.

Once they have effective processes for finding and hiring new talent, high-performing companies shift their focus to development and retention. Leaders recognize that talent development -- rather than just talent acquisition -- is a critical driver of growth, and opportunities for personal growth and development become part of the value proposition it presents to prospective employees. Specific 5CA questions addressing talent include:

The Credibility element measures employees' confidence in the future of the company and the entrepreneur's or CEO's ability to lead it there. This relationship demonstrates one accumulating advantage of businesses that achieve repeated growth periods: The resulting credibility bolsters confidence among employees and shareholders for the longer-term growth journey. High-performing companies recognize the importance of leadership credibility and use employee feedback systems to track it.

Importantly, leadership credibility is bolstered not just by the entrepreneurs' own experience and abilities, but also by their willingness to seek advice and to hire outside leadership talent when needed. Ultimately, credibility is determined by whether the leadership has found a way to consistently meet performance expectations. Specific 5CA questions addressing credibility include:

For more information about the Five Conditions Assessment, please download the full report from TrueSpace and Gallup.

Steve Crabtree is a senior editor and research analyst for Gallup. He is the lead editor of Gallup's State of the Global Workplace reports.

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What Information Do Business Leaders Need to Bolster Growth? - Gallup