Dubai's jewellers see better value in 18K push

January 2, 2013

HL

Dubai, Jan 2: Seeking to put the sparkle back into the gold trade after a less than stellar showing in the second half of 2012, Dubai’s jewellers are set to put their marketing muscle behind 18-carat jewellery for the first time. They believe such a move would help considerably improve offtake of jewellery among Western and Chinese shoppers, particularly tourists during the peak holiday season and during DSF.

It also signals a not so subtle shift on the part of Dubai’s jewellery trade which has until now focussed exclusively on 22-carat jewellery and demand from Indian and Pakistani residents and those on visit.

“18K is the most popular caratage in jewellery internationally, especially in Europe; hence it will be appealing to tourists from there,” said Abdul Salam KP, group executive director at Malabar Gold and Diamonds. “It obviously has the advantage of a lower price compared to 22K and offers more design variety as it is acceptable internationally and easier to make in complicated designs.”

On pricing, there is a fairly significant gap between the carats. Yesterday, a gram of 22K was going for Dh180.94 ($49.26) in Dubai, while its 18K counterpart had a less sheen in value terms at Dh147.99 ($40.29) a gram. Moreover, the making charges on 18K are said to be considerably lower.

Apart from the Western tourist, jewellery chains are keeping an equally keen look out for Chinese shoppers. They were quite conspicuous jewellery buyers during DSF 2011, but less so last year. Retailers are hoping for a marked improvement in the upcoming one and expect the 18K push will win them over.

“The Chinese tourist prefer 18K gold jewellery as well as 24K gold bars,” said John Paul Joy Alukkas, executive director, Joyalukkas Group. “The preference for the former is because they can use it more as a day to day rather than special occasion jewellery. The gold bars are with an investment perspective.”

Dubai’s gold trade definitely needs a volume boost and if 18K can provide that, retailers will not mind much. Demand had taken a dent last year after the steady upturn in gold prices through 2011 stalled and went through a bit of volatility.

But a key factor for the subdued demand had to do with events in India, where customs authorities dusted off a long dormant 1967 gold import duty and started applying it vigorously since the second quarter of 2012. This effectively meant that the price differential buying gold jewellery in Dubai as opposed to doing the same in India came down significantly. It also meant that any Indian expat here taking gold back to India would be hit with steep duties. As a case in point, a woman passenger wearing a gold chain weighing 40-gram would have to shell out Rs4,100 as duty on arrival at an Indian airport.

“Implementation of the recent revision in customs duty for gold and the related hassles for passengers has affected the mindset of NRI passengers in a big way,” said Sunny Chittilappilly, chairman of Dubai Gold and Jewellery Group. “As a result gold buying in the Gulf reduced to an extent and demand for 22K Indian jewellery was affected during the high purchase season close to summer.”

Several depositions, both individual and at the industry level, have been made to the Indian authorities for a repeal or a relook at the 1967 provisions. Dubai’s jewellers believe something will come out of the collective action.

In the meantime, they hope the 18K push and DSF 2013 — in which 13 kilos of gold can be won daily - will cut them some slack.

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Agencies
July 24,2020

Colorado, Jul 24: A new study has found that physical stress in one's job may be associated with faster brain ageing and poorer memory.

Aga Burzynska, an assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and her research team connected occupational survey responses with brain-imaging data from 99 cognitively normal older adults, age 60 to 79. They found that those who reported high levels of physical stress in their most recent job had smaller volumes in the hippocampus and performed poorer on memory tasks. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is critical for memory and is affected in both normal ageing and in dementia.

Their findings were published this summer in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience under the research topic 'Work and Brain Health Across the Lifespan.'

"We know that stress can accelerate physical ageing and is the risk factor for many chronic illnesses," Burzynska said. "But this is the first evidence that occupational stress can accelerate brain and cognitive ageing."

She added that it is important to understand how occupational exposures affect the ageing of our brains.

"An average American worker spends more than eight hours at work per weekday, and most people remain in the workforce for over 40 years," Burzynska said. "By pure volume, occupational exposures outweigh the time we spend on leisure social, cognitive and physical activities, which protect our ageing minds and brains."

Physical demands at work

Burzynska explained that the association between "physical stress" and brain/memory were driven by physical demands at work. These included excessive reaching, or lifting boxes onto shelves, not necessarily aerobic activity. This is important because earlier work by Burzynska and her colleagues showed that leisure aerobic exercise is beneficial for brain health and cognition, from children to very old adults. Therefore, the researchers controlled for the effects of leisure physical activity and exercise.

As expected, leisure physical activity was associated with greater hippocampal volume, but the negative association with physical demands at work persisted.

"This finding suggests that physical demands at work may have parallel yet opposing associations with brain health," Burzynska explained. "Most interventions for postponing cognitive decline focus on leisure, not on your job. It's kind of unknown territory, but maybe future research can help us make some tweaks to our work environment for long-term cognitive health."

She added that the results could have important implications for society.

"Caring for people with cognitive impairment is so costly, on economic, emotional and societal levels," Burzynska said. "If we can support brain health earlier, in middle-aged workers, it could have an enormous impact."

The researchers considered and corrected for several other factors that could be related to work environment, memory and hippocampus, such as age, gender, brain size, educational level, job title, years in the occupation and general psychological stress.

One piece of the puzzle

"The research on this topic is so fragmented," Burzynska said. "One previous study linked mid-life managerial experience with greater hippocampus volume in older age. Another showed that taxi drivers had larger hippocampi than a city's bus drivers, presumably due to the need to navigate. In our study, job complexity and psychological stress at work were not related to hippocampal volume and cognition. Clearly, our study is just one piece of the puzzle, and further research is needed."

The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data used for the study was collected at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign between 2011 and 2014.

CSU researchers now can collect MRI data with the new 3T scanner at the University's Translational Medicine Institute.

With this new capability, Burzynska, along with Michael Thomas and Lorann Stallones of CSU's Department of Psychology, is launching a new project, "Impact of Occupational Exposures and Hazards on Brain and Cognitive Health Among Aging Agricultural Workers," which will involve collecting MRI brain scans and identifying risk and protective factors that could help the agricultural community age successfully. The project recently obtained funding as an Emerging Issues Short-Term Project from the High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety.

The Department of Human Development and Family Studies is part of CSU's College of Health and Human Sciences.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

There is no evidence that the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, which is primarily used against tuberculosis, protects people against infection with the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The WHO therefore didn't recommend BCG vaccination for the prevention of COVID-19 in the absence of evidence, according to its daily situation report on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There is experimental evidence from both animal and human studies that the BCG vaccine has non-specific effects on the immune system. These effects have not been well characterized and their clinical relevance remains unknown," WHO stated.

Two clinical trials addressing the question are underway, and WHO will evaluate the evidence when it is available, it noted.

BCG vaccination prevents severe forms of tuberculosis in children and diversion of local supplies may result in an increase of disease and deaths from the tuberculosis, it warned.

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Agencies
January 5,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 5: After a woman filed a lawsuit against a diet soda company, the California court has declared that the beverage does not promise to help buyers in losing weight.

The woman had gulped down the drink for over a decade but did not lose inches as a result.

The three-judge panel declared during the hearing: "The prevalent understanding of the term in (the marketplace) is that the 'diet' version of a soft drink has fewer calories than its 'regular' counterpart."

However, the members of the US 9th circuit court have felt that the consumers tend to make out something of their own that is unreasonable and eventually hamper the reputation of brands through a deceptive allegation, reports Fox News.

The response was due to a misleading case filed against Diet Dr Pepper by Shana Becerra from Santa Rosa, California. Shana claimed that she has been addictively purchasing the low-calorie beverage for the past 13 years hoping for losing some fat but failed to lose even a single inch.

The woman also stated that the attractive and fit models misled her into believing that drink will help her in perfecting her body like them.

However, the court's decision was that advertisements are for representational purposes only. "Cannot be reasonably understood to convey any specific meaning at all," as written by Judge Jay Bybee.

Shana had last week made such allegation against Diet coke as well where the court came to a similar verdict. She claimed that she had found various studies where it is evident that the artificial sweetener aspartame used in diet beverages actually boosts weight gain.

But the artificial sweetener is approved in by the concerned administrative department and thus is used in most American drinks.

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