Recag/C4_7 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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Examine how serious the state of cyber security has become, and what the industry needs to do to change how we think about security to enable more proactively fight against cybercriminals. This paper outlines ten steps to help get there. Learn more.
Think you can’t make money in the cloud? Think again. In our free eBook, we detail the ins and outs of offering cloud services and how to maximize your revenue potential. Packaged right, cloud services can be a lucrative practice area for your technology business! Learn more.
Price controls on foodstuffs —a political gimmick?
The price controls slapped on a number of foodstuffs are of limited value despite their popular rhetoric, given the low adherence of traders towards the administered prices and lax enforcement actions by authorities, a recent survey conducted in Colombo and a few of the suburbs, revealed.
A significant variation between the controlled prices and retail prices has been spotted and out of 13 basic grocery items such as potatoes, dhal and onions—on which the price controls have been imposed—only milk powder is being consistently sold at the administered price.
The limited survey was carried out by Advocata Institute—a Colombo-based think tank that promotes free trade—and boutique market research agency, Breakthrough Business Intelligence, for a period of 10 months.
Based on the survey findings, Advocata this week put out a new report titled ‘Price Controls in Sri Lanka: Political Theatre’, which in essence argues that the price controls are futile and they have the nasty tendency to exacerbate problems than solving them.
“Then why does the government do this? In short, for political expediency – to be seen to be doing something about the rising cost of living,” he noted.
According to Ratnasabapathy, if the authorities really want to enforce the price controls, they should get each and every trader to display the list of controlled prices. This would enable the consumers to report on traders who do not adhere to the controlled prices to the enforcement authorities.
However, the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA), which is in charge of implementing the price controls, does not have such a list.
The report pointed out that serious enforcement appears to be confined to consumer items produced by multinationals and large corporates, such as milk powder, cement, cooking gas, etc., which are easier to police.
Interestingly, the survey found out that most of the traders in the informal sector, who are only subjected to token enforcement, are willing to pay an occasional fine for not adhering to the controlled prices, than selling goods at the administered prices.
The report also shed light on the government’s absurd policy of heavily taxing the goods that are being subjected to price controls.
“Taxes play a bigger role in market prices than the controlled prices; the moment the tax comes down, the prices start to come down,” Ratnasabapathy noted.
Price controls can come in two flavours—a price ceiling, where the government sets a maximum price for a good and a price floor, where a minimum price is set, below which the prices are not allowed to fall.
Although Sri Lanka was the first country in Asia to open up its economy, price controls and import restrictions, which were strictly imposed in early 1970s under Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s government, didn’t disappear fully.
From time to time, politicians—both left and right leaning— were seen calling for price controls, mostly on food items, during times the cost of living was seen escalating.
However, the price controls today are not causing any massive shortages of goods or surplus of goods in the market place—the two key outcomes of administered prices—as was the case in early 1970s, where people queued up to buy a loaf of bread or a clothing item.
This aptly demonstrates that the present-day politicians are using price controls—at least on most of the foodstuffs—to win votes rather than reduce the cost of living. The unfortunate truth is that such meddling with the prices distorts the market and creates unintended consequences.
“Prices are signals in an economy. They contain information for buyers and sellers and coordinate activities within an economy. The government can try and control the prices. But it cannot control the underlying fundamentals,” Ratnasabapathy said.
Funk Suite features integration with RADIUS and LDAP systems.
Funk Software Inc.s latest Odyssey Security Software Suite offers an inexpensive way to lock down WLANs in smaller Windows environments.
eWeek Labs tests showed Odyssey Version 1.1 doesnt offer a ton of new features, but its chief advance is a significant one: Odyssey 1.1 gains an enhanced ability to forward wireless LAN authentication requests to Funks Steel-Belted Radius and third-party LDAP directories. The update also has better logging capabilities and a streamlined method of delegating the access points to be secured.
Odyssey 1.1 will be a more cost-efficient fit than hardware appliances for small and midsize companies that want to leverage their RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) infrastructures using an easy-to-manage WLAN security platform.
However, Odyssey doesnt support non-Windows systems, and hardware appliances would be a better choice for securing larger enterprises with complex WLAN topologies. Sites that want to use RADIUS for securing more than WLANs should take a look at Funks Steel-Belted Radius Server Enterprise Edition, which also has built-in 802.1x support.
Odyssey Server, which was released in December, is priced at $2,500 for a single server license and 25 client licenses. Additional client licenses can be purchased for $50 each.
Odyssey is less expensive than WLAN security appliances from ReefEdge Inc. or Vernier Networks Inc., but it doesnt offer data encryption acceleration or robust WLAN client mobility features, such as persistent connections or subnet roaming, found in these appliances.
Odyssey Server builds on Funks expertise in RADIUS authentication and provides an 802.1x-compliant RADIUS system that authenticates wireless clients and ensures session privacy to Windows NT and Active Directory environments.
Odyssey Server can run on Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server or Professional systems with Service Pack 2 or on systems running Windows XP Professional. The Odyssey Client runs on most Windows-based clients, including Windows 98, 2000, ME and XP.
Heterogeneous sites supporting wireless clients such as Linux or Mac OS should consider Meetinghouse Data Communications Aegis WLAN security software. Similar to Odyssey, Aegis is an 802.1x-compliant client/server software suite that supports various Extensible Authentication Protocol techniques to secure WLANs. The Aegis Server costs $2,500 with 50 client licenses; additional client licenses cost $40 each. The Aegis Server runs on Linux and Solaris platforms and recently added support for Windows.
Among hardware-based competitors, ReefEdges WLAN security appliance also provides encryption acceleration and granular access control (see eWeek Labs Feb. 3 review at www.eweek.com/links).
Most appliances can work with any access point, whereas Odyssey requires access points to enable authentication with RADIUS servers. Funk provides a hardware compatibility list with a limited number of supported access points, and it plans to provide better access point support in future releases, company officials said.
We found deploying the Odyssey system to be fairly straightforward, but IT managers should be aware of the complications involved in setting up server certificates and upgrading access point firmware to support TTLS (Tunneled Transport Layer Security). We used a certification tool provided by Funk to generate trusted certificates for our Odyssey server to simplify the process.
The Odyssey Client Manager allowed us to easily set up our connections, pick the appropriate wireless network and create user profiles possessing credentials that the Client Manager could authenticate.
We tested Odyssey Server on a Windows 2000 server in a Windows Domain with Active Directory installed. We deployed a 3Com Corp. AP8000 access point and used a laptop running Windows XP Professional with the 3Com wireless adapter to authenticate into our domain.
Software installation was simple, and we easily configured the AP8000 to use RADIUS authentication, but we had to upgrade the firmware to support TTLS.
Odyssey supports wireless adapter cards that use the standard NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) 5.1 for 802.11 WLAN object identifiers. Our Windows XP client had the latest NDIS 5.1 drivers, so we didnt have problems. However, sites running other clients will have to upgrade their client wireless adapters with the latest drivers.
Naming things is hard. This is a land of 11,842 lakes, and a surprisingly large number of them are named Mud. Renaming things is harder.
Someone, somewhere in America, is yelling about Ilhan Omar. Right now, it's Congress.
At least 19 dairy barns collapsed across southern and central Minnesota during the month's storms, the Minnesota Milk Producers Association estimates.
Columnist Jennifer Brooks: This weekend, a group of people whose names aren't worth the ink it would take to print their names rolled into Minnesota and cast lie after lie.
Anyone can talk about the weather. Minnesotans prefer to do something about it.
Maj. Henry Courtney Jr.'s Medal of Honor is coming home to Duluth after long years in storage in a Pennsylvania vault.
Every American knows the only thing worse than our health coverage is losing our health coverage.
School leaders make the best call they can. And if they can, they turn the call into performance art.
Slapfights seem to break out at the Capitol every time Minnesota tries to pick an official state thing.
The worse the weather, the happier they are.
The parents of a newborn are spending the first weeks of 2019 in the neonatal intensive care unit watching over their son, while the medical bills pile up and no paychecks arrive.
We didn't find Jayme. Jayme found us.
Pardon hearing day means four hours of high drama, heartbreak and small mercies for people who are trying hard to be better than they used to be.
Brooks: What do you think a new U president is worth?
Minnesota taxpayers won't know how much the Board of Regents will propose to pay Joan Gabel until a public offer is made, probably next week.
Even with the setback of an offensive display, the city has come far since Jamar Clark's death and the vigil held outside the Fourth Precinct station.
For small businesses, small setbacks — like the headaches from an ongoing, yearslong highway construction — can create huge problems.
While Wisconsin law enforcement uses a Christmas tree to bring a community together, a Minneapolis precinct does the opposite.
Congress banned head covering during its 20th session, in 1837. More than 180 years later, that might come to an end.
Hennepin County's $1.4 million HealthWorks program aims to save taxpayers money in the long run by easing stress, illness and burnout.
About 118,500 Minnesotans served in World War I and 3,607 of them died, and this year, like every year, Minnesota remembers.
Every ballots is a little miracle, an act of faith and hope, a show of strength and duty by citizens.
It could break your heart, if it hasn't already. This random, repetitive cruelty.
Every three years, Minnesotans spend one long day finding and talking with thousands of their unsheltered neighbors.
There's no reason to wait until Nov. 11 to remember that millions of U.S. veterans could use our help.
We're three weeks from Election Day and Minnesota is running on outrage.
Minnesota is trying to cope with just how much its climate has changed already.
Everybody was having a grand time. Especially the guy who started the whole acornmageddon after a BuzzFeed News report cracked the truth wide open.
To the grieving friends and family scattering rose petals on the lake last week, how David Sheridan died was far less important than how he lived.
The decades of records tells another story: They were trying so hard.
Worthington is a city of 13,000 people, and more than 40 percent of its population is Latino.
And under the yard, the mystery only grew. Still, Carrie Edberg of Zimmerman faces a repair estimate of $15,000.
Sometimes, what you pay for health care in America depends on how loudly you scream when the bill arrives.
Brooks: O Cannabis! What happens when pot's legal next door?
Annan in August at age 80, leaving his mark on international diplomacy and his name on Macalester's Institute for Global Citizenship.
The training made it hard not to think about Mollie Tibbetts or other local cases where a woman has come across danger while out by herself.
If there's another debate in the Third District race for Congress, maybe there will be time to talk about health care policy or for the audience to ask a few questions.
It may be difficult for the community to miss its paper if it doesn't really feel like it's gone.
This is a story of bloodshed and cupcakes and our stupid-expensive health care system.
Ethan Levin, a sophomore defensive lineman, will return to St. Paul Central, his old high school, with his new teammates and a message.
It's going to be sweet when it's complete. But now? It feels exactly like getting sucked into a taffy puller.
Nothing about public health or family planning seems to be bipartisan these days.
The Peltiers' new normal is surgery and therapy and medical bills on top of medical bills.
More and more farmers are working the cannabis strain into rotation beside their soybeans and sugar beets.
Everyone who wasn't a reporter penned in the center of the arena directly under speakers blasting "Tiny Dancer" at full volume did look like they were having fun.
Minnesota had good intentions and bad execution when it set out to turn polling places into tranquil, slogan-free oases.
Days after the party endorsing conventions, we are neck-deep in would-be governors, lieutenant governors, attorneys general and congresspeople.
This has been a week of teachable moments on social media.
This end-of-session horse trading and arm twisting comes at a price.
After a move from D.C. back to Minnesota, the water provides a perfect place to decompress.
Minnesota's newest U.S. senator settles in, raises $2M for campaign.
This weekend's district conventions in the Second and Third districts will determine which challengers go up against Reps. Paulsen and Lewis this fall.
Regular exercise in old age not only reduces the risk of physical problems such as heart disease and hip fractures, Australian researchers have found it may also slow down memory loss as we age.
A study of physical activity in patients with early memory problems found 150 minutes of walking per week led to improvements in memory, language and visual skills, as well as giving patients a boost to their confidence.
The results of the study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggest that physical activity could be more effective in improving memory and mental function than drugs, and without the side effects.
Lead author and old age psychiatrist Professor Nicola Lautenschlager from the University of Melbourne says there are no drugs available that can improve memory in patients with early memory problems, so the results are particularly important for this group of people.
"Our effect is modest, not dramatic, but it is significant and much better than comparable trials that have been done with medication," she says.
Researchers were surprised to discover that the benefits of exercise lasted well beyond the six months of the trial, with patients showing improvements 18 months after the study ended.
Previous research has shown suggested that people who are more active in later life are less likely to experience dementia or memory loss.
However this is the first time researchers have attempted a trial of an exercise-based treatment, which was conducted at the University of Western Australia.
Each patient was provided with an activity plan developed by a physical activity expert, carefully designed to fit with their existing activities, fitness and any physical problems they might have.
Patients were also fitted with pedometers to record how many steps they took, and contacted weekly to help them keep up with the exercise regime.
The study did not include tests such as MRI scans, which might have given some clues as to what was happening inside the brain. The researchers suggest improved blood flow to the brain, or the physical and mental stimulation from the exercise might explain the effects.

Examine how serious the state of cyber security has become, and what the industry needs to do to change how we think about security to enable more proactively fight against cybercriminals. This paper outlines ten steps to help get there. Learn more.

Think you can’t make money in the cloud? Think again. In our free eBook, we detail the ins and outs of offering cloud services and how to maximize your revenue potential. Packaged right, cloud services can be a lucrative practice area for your technology business! Learn more.

Price controls on foodstuffs —a political gimmick?

The price controls slapped on a number of foodstuffs are of limited value despite their popular rhetoric, given the low adherence of traders towards the administered prices and lax enforcement actions by authorities, a recent survey conducted in Colombo and a few of the suburbs, revealed.

A significant variation between the controlled prices and retail prices has been spotted and out of 13 basic grocery items such as potatoes, dhal and onions—on which the price controls have been imposed—only milk powder is being consistently sold at the administered price.

The limited survey was carried out by Advocata Institute—a Colombo-based think tank that promotes free trade—and boutique market research agency, Breakthrough Business Intelligence, for a period of 10 months.

Based on the survey findings, Advocata this week put out a new report titled ‘Price Controls in Sri Lanka: Political Theatre’, which in essence argues that the price controls are futile and they have the nasty tendency to exacerbate problems than solving them.

“Then why does the government do this? In short, for political expediency – to be seen to be doing something about the rising cost of living,” he noted.

According to Ratnasabapathy, if the authorities really want to enforce the price controls, they should get each and every trader to display the list of controlled prices. This would enable the consumers to report on traders who do not adhere to the controlled prices to the enforcement authorities.

However, the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA), which is in charge of implementing the price controls, does not have such a list.

The report pointed out that serious enforcement appears to be confined to consumer items produced by multinationals and large corporates, such as milk powder, cement, cooking gas, etc., which are easier to police.

Interestingly, the survey found out that most of the traders in the informal sector, who are only subjected to token enforcement, are willing to pay an occasional fine for not adhering to the controlled prices, than selling goods at the administered prices.

The report also shed light on the government’s absurd policy of heavily taxing the goods that are being subjected to price controls.

“Taxes play a bigger role in market prices than the controlled prices; the moment the tax comes down, the prices start to come down,” Ratnasabapathy noted.

Price controls can come in two flavours—a price ceiling, where the government sets a maximum price for a good and a price floor, where a minimum price is set, below which the prices are not allowed to fall.

Although Sri Lanka was the first country in Asia to open up its economy, price controls and import restrictions, which were strictly imposed in early 1970s under Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s government, didn’t disappear fully.

From time to time, politicians—both left and right leaning— were seen calling for price controls, mostly on food items, during times the cost of living was seen escalating.

However, the price controls today are not causing any massive shortages of goods or surplus of goods in the market place—the two key outcomes of administered prices—as was the case in early 1970s, where people queued up to buy a loaf of bread or a clothing item.

This aptly demonstrates that the present-day politicians are using price controls—at least on most of the foodstuffs—to win votes rather than reduce the cost of living. The unfortunate truth is that such meddling with the prices distorts the market and creates unintended consequences.

“Prices are signals in an economy. They contain information for buyers and sellers and coordinate activities within an economy. The government can try and control the prices. But it cannot control the underlying fundamentals,” Ratnasabapathy said.

Funk Suite features integration with RADIUS and LDAP systems.

Funk Software Inc.s latest Odyssey Security Software Suite offers an inexpensive way to lock down WLANs in smaller Windows environments.

eWeek Labs tests showed Odyssey Version 1.1 doesnt offer a ton of new features, but its chief advance is a significant one: Odyssey 1.1 gains an enhanced ability to forward wireless LAN authentication requests to Funks Steel-Belted Radius and third-party LDAP directories. The update also has better logging capabilities and a streamlined method of delegating the access points to be secured.

Odyssey 1.1 will be a more cost-efficient fit than hardware appliances for small and midsize companies that want to leverage their RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) infrastructures using an easy-to-manage WLAN security platform.

However, Odyssey doesnt support non-Windows systems, and hardware appliances would be a better choice for securing larger enterprises with complex WLAN topologies. Sites that want to use RADIUS for securing more than WLANs should take a look at Funks Steel-Belted Radius Server Enterprise Edition, which also has built-in 802.1x support.

Odyssey Server, which was released in December, is priced at $2,500 for a single server license and 25 client licenses. Additional client licenses can be purchased for $50 each.

Odyssey is less expensive than WLAN security appliances from ReefEdge Inc. or Vernier Networks Inc., but it doesnt offer data encryption acceleration or robust WLAN client mobility features, such as persistent connections or subnet roaming, found in these appliances.

Odyssey Server builds on Funks expertise in RADIUS authentication and provides an 802.1x-compliant RADIUS system that authenticates wireless clients and ensures session privacy to Windows NT and Active Directory environments.

Odyssey Server can run on Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server or Professional systems with Service Pack 2 or on systems running Windows XP Professional. The Odyssey Client runs on most Windows-based clients, including Windows 98, 2000, ME and XP.

Heterogeneous sites supporting wireless clients such as Linux or Mac OS should consider Meetinghouse Data Communications Aegis WLAN security software. Similar to Odyssey, Aegis is an 802.1x-compliant client/server software suite that supports various Extensible Authentication Protocol techniques to secure WLANs. The Aegis Server costs $2,500 with 50 client licenses; additional client licenses cost $40 each. The Aegis Server runs on Linux and Solaris platforms and recently added support for Windows.

Among hardware-based competitors, ReefEdges WLAN security appliance also provides encryption acceleration and granular access control (see eWeek Labs Feb. 3 review at www.eweek.com/links).

Most appliances can work with any access point, whereas Odyssey requires access points to enable authentication with RADIUS servers. Funk provides a hardware compatibility list with a limited number of supported access points, and it plans to provide better access point support in future releases, company officials said.

We found deploying the Odyssey system to be fairly straightforward, but IT managers should be aware of the complications involved in setting up server certificates and upgrading access point firmware to support TTLS (Tunneled Transport Layer Security). We used a certification tool provided by Funk to generate trusted certificates for our Odyssey server to simplify the process.

The Odyssey Client Manager allowed us to easily set up our connections, pick the appropriate wireless network and create user profiles possessing credentials that the Client Manager could authenticate.

We tested Odyssey Server on a Windows 2000 server in a Windows Domain with Active Directory installed. We deployed a 3Com Corp. AP8000 access point and used a laptop running Windows XP Professional with the 3Com wireless adapter to authenticate into our domain.

Software installation was simple, and we easily configured the AP8000 to use RADIUS authentication, but we had to upgrade the firmware to support TTLS.

Odyssey supports wireless adapter cards that use the standard NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) 5.1 for 802.11 WLAN object identifiers. Our Windows XP client had the latest NDIS 5.1 drivers, so we didnt have problems. However, sites running other clients will have to upgrade their client wireless adapters with the latest drivers.

Naming things is hard. This is a land of 11,842 lakes, and a surprisingly large number of them are named Mud. Renaming things is harder.

Someone, somewhere in America, is yelling about Ilhan Omar. Right now, it's Congress.

At least 19 dairy barns collapsed across southern and central Minnesota during the month's storms, the Minnesota Milk Producers Association estimates.

Columnist Jennifer Brooks: This weekend, a group of people whose names aren't worth the ink it would take to print their names rolled into Minnesota and cast lie after lie.

Anyone can talk about the weather. Minnesotans prefer to do something about it.

Maj. Henry Courtney Jr.'s Medal of Honor is coming home to Duluth after long years in storage in a Pennsylvania vault.

Every American knows the only thing worse than our health coverage is losing our health coverage.

School leaders make the best call they can. And if they can, they turn the call into performance art.

Slapfights seem to break out at the Capitol every time Minnesota tries to pick an official state thing.

The worse the weather, the happier they are.

The parents of a newborn are spending the first weeks of 2019 in the neonatal intensive care unit watching over their son, while the medical bills pile up and no paychecks arrive.

We didn't find Jayme. Jayme found us.

Pardon hearing day means four hours of high drama, heartbreak and small mercies for people who are trying hard to be better than they used to be.

Brooks: What do you think a new U president is worth?

Minnesota taxpayers won't know how much the Board of Regents will propose to pay Joan Gabel until a public offer is made, probably next week.

Even with the setback of an offensive display, the city has come far since Jamar Clark's death and the vigil held outside the Fourth Precinct station.

For small businesses, small setbacks — like the headaches from an ongoing, yearslong highway construction — can create huge problems.

While Wisconsin law enforcement uses a Christmas tree to bring a community together, a Minneapolis precinct does the opposite.

Congress banned head covering during its 20th session, in 1837. More than 180 years later, that might come to an end.

Hennepin County's $1.4 million HealthWorks program aims to save taxpayers money in the long run by easing stress, illness and burnout.

About 118,500 Minnesotans served in World War I and 3,607 of them died, and this year, like every year, Minnesota remembers.

Every ballots is a little miracle, an act of faith and hope, a show of strength and duty by citizens.

It could break your heart, if it hasn't already. This random, repetitive cruelty.

Every three years, Minnesotans spend one long day finding and talking with thousands of their unsheltered neighbors.

There's no reason to wait until Nov. 11 to remember that millions of U.S. veterans could use our help.

We're three weeks from Election Day and Minnesota is running on outrage.

Minnesota is trying to cope with just how much its climate has changed already.

Everybody was having a grand time. Especially the guy who started the whole acornmageddon after a BuzzFeed News report cracked the truth wide open.

To the grieving friends and family scattering rose petals on the lake last week, how David Sheridan died was far less important than how he lived.

The decades of records tells another story: They were trying so hard.

Worthington is a city of 13,000 people, and more than 40 percent of its population is Latino.

And under the yard, the mystery only grew. Still, Carrie Edberg of Zimmerman faces a repair estimate of $15,000.

Sometimes, what you pay for health care in America depends on how loudly you scream when the bill arrives.

Brooks: O Cannabis! What happens when pot's legal next door?

Annan in August at age 80, leaving his mark on international diplomacy and his name on Macalester's Institute for Global Citizenship.

The training made it hard not to think about Mollie Tibbetts or other local cases where a woman has come across danger while out by herself.

If there's another debate in the Third District race for Congress, maybe there will be time to talk about health care policy or for the audience to ask a few questions.

It may be difficult for the community to miss its paper if it doesn't really feel like it's gone.

This is a story of bloodshed and cupcakes and our stupid-expensive health care system.

Ethan Levin, a sophomore defensive lineman, will return to St. Paul Central, his old high school, with his new teammates and a message.

It's going to be sweet when it's complete. But now? It feels exactly like getting sucked into a taffy puller.

Nothing about public health or family planning seems to be bipartisan these days.

The Peltiers' new normal is surgery and therapy and medical bills on top of medical bills.

More and more farmers are working the cannabis strain into rotation beside their soybeans and sugar beets.

Everyone who wasn't a reporter penned in the center of the arena directly under speakers blasting "Tiny Dancer" at full volume did look like they were having fun.

Minnesota had good intentions and bad execution when it set out to turn polling places into tranquil, slogan-free oases.

Days after the party endorsing conventions, we are neck-deep in would-be governors, lieutenant governors, attorneys general and congresspeople.

This has been a week of teachable moments on social media.

This end-of-session horse trading and arm twisting comes at a price.

After a move from D.C. back to Minnesota, the water provides a perfect place to decompress.

Minnesota's newest U.S. senator settles in, raises $2M for campaign.

This weekend's district conventions in the Second and Third districts will determine which challengers go up against Reps. Paulsen and Lewis this fall.

Regular exercise in old age not only reduces the risk of physical problems such as heart disease and hip fractures, Australian researchers have found it may also slow down memory loss as we age.

A study of physical activity in patients with early memory problems found 150 minutes of walking per week led to improvements in memory, language and visual skills, as well as giving patients a boost to their confidence.

The results of the study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggest that physical activity could be more effective in improving memory and mental function than drugs, and without the side effects.

Lead author and old age psychiatrist Professor Nicola Lautenschlager from the University of Melbourne says there are no drugs available that can improve memory in patients with early memory problems, so the results are particularly important for this group of people.

"Our effect is modest, not dramatic, but it is significant and much better than comparable trials that have been done with medication," she says.

Researchers were surprised to discover that the benefits of exercise lasted well beyond the six months of the trial, with patients showing improvements 18 months after the study ended.

Previous research has shown suggested that people who are more active in later life are less likely to experience dementia or memory loss.

However this is the first time researchers have attempted a trial of an exercise-based treatment, which was conducted at the University of Western Australia.

Each patient was provided with an activity plan developed by a physical activity expert, carefully designed to fit with their existing activities, fitness and any physical problems they might have.

Patients were also fitted with pedometers to record how many steps they took, and contacted weekly to help them keep up with the exercise regime.

The study did not include tests such as MRI scans, which might have given some clues as to what was happening inside the brain. The researchers suggest improved blood flow to the brain, or the physical and mental stimulation from the exercise might explain the effects.