Gardeners have loved hanging baskets for years and they have tried many ways to make hanging baskets beautiful. Coco liners have been their first choice for primary materials and have been a hanging basket staple for decades. They were originally sought to provide a unique alternative to hanging terra cotta pots and plastic containers that sat in wire or macrame mesh baskets. Coco liners have a long and interesting history. They are fabricated from the shell, or outer covering, of a coconut, hence the name coco liner. The first steps of the coco liner's production are ...

Making it easier for customers to spend money helps restaurants to bake bigger profits into their bottom line. Andromeda POS' new partnership with Mercury Payment Systems is giving tech-savvy restaurant owners the capabilities they've been asking for: speedy and secure payment processing that is PCI compliant, plus an easy way to roll out gift cards on the fly. "Restaurants using our Point Of Sale software solution will be able to serve more customers faster, improving convenience for them while also protecting their data," says Andromeda POS VP Americas Dave ...

Independence in the bathroom is one of the most challenging tasks for accessibility and safety in the home. No matter the disability, the bathroom is almost always one of the most challenging rooms in which to maneuver. It is difficult to feel at home, much less feel safe, if you don't have secure access in your own bathroom. Achieving safety and independence with bathroom modifications is possible with the right products, but there are added benefits as well. For example: Customization: Modifying a bathroom is, by definition, a very individualized project. It includes ...

NationaLease held its 2013 Spring Maintenance Managers Meeting with a record-breaking attendance of over 180 member attendees, representing over 120 member companies, as well as a host of suppliers. Each year, NationaLease, one of the largest full service truck leasing organizations in North America, brings together fleet maintenance managers and other transportation executives to share best practices in truck maintenance. This year's event, held May 15-17 in Schaumburg, IL, boasted a race-car theme, reflecting NationaLease's celebration of its Reciprocal Service Rally, ...

The JM Internet Group (web: jm-seo.org), a leader in providing SEO Training, is proud to announce a free SEO training for small business as their 'kick off' to their June classes in search engine optimization. SEO or search engine optimization is all about getting a business to the top of Google's organic or natural search results vs. having to pay Google via the AdWords advertising program. Small businesses have taken SEO training classes from the JM Internet Group and been very successful in their SEO efforts. "June is our last SEO Training Session for small businesses ...

Patients undergoing planned surgery appear more likely to die if they have their operation at the end of the week, a study published in the British Medical Journal has found. Researchers at Imperial College London looked at over four million elective procedures conducted in NHS hospitals in England between 2008 and 2011. They found that 27,582 patients died within 30 days of surgery. The mortality rate was lowest for patients having operations on Monday, and increased for each subsequent day of the week. The odds of death were 44 per cent higher for operations on a Friday ...

Paper is known for its ability to absorb liquids, making it ideal for products such as paper towels. But by modifying the underlying network of cellulose fibers, etching off surface "fluff" and applying a thin chemical coating, researchers have created a new type of paper that repels a wide variety of liquids – including water and oil. The paper takes advantage of the so-called "lotus effect" – used by leaves of the lotus plant – to repel liquids through the creation of surface patterns at two different size scales and the application of a chemical coating. The material, ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a paper titled "Global Burden of Oral Conditions in 1990-2010: A Systemic Analysis." The paper, written by lead author Wagner Marcenes, Queen Mary University, London, is published in the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research. The "Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010)" produced comparable estimates of the burden of 291 diseases and injuries in 1990, 2005 and 2010. This article reports on the global burden of untreated caries, severe periodontitis ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool and Callaghan Innovation in New Zealand have developed a new chemical approach to help harness the natural ability of complex sugars to treat Alzheimer's disease. The team used a new chemical method to produce a library of sugars, called heparan sulphates, which are known to control the formation of the proteins in the brain that cause memory loss. Heparan sulphates are found in nearly every cell of the body, and are similar to the natural blood-thinning drug, heparin. Now scientists have discovered how to produce them chemically ...

Dr. Geneviève Durrieu (from the Pharmaco-epidemiology team assessing the use of medication and the risks involved, Unit 1027 "Epidemiology and public health analyses: risks, chronic diseases and handicaps" - Inserm / Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier) led the French part of this study, the results of which are published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Within the framework of this international study, is France proving to be a model student? Prescription-only drugs play a major part in the therapeutic care of the patient. However, they can also have ...

After analysing football league players over nine seasons, from 2000 to 2009, Spanish researchers have come up with a mathematical method for estimating the goal-scoring performance of each player. According to their ranking, the most able strikers are Messi, Ronaldo Nazário, Makkay, Villa and Etoo. Over nine seasons, researchers from the faculties of Economic and Business Sciences at the Universities of Granada and Jaén analysed the performance of football players in the Spanish league from 2000/2001 to 2008/2009, with the aim of creating a mathematical model to evaluate ...

Interim results of an EORTC intergroup trial have confirmed that adjuvant imatinib impacts short-term freedom from relapse in patients with localized, surgically resected, high/ intermediate-risk GIST. In the high-risk subgroup, a non-statistically significant trend in favor of the adjuvant arm was observed in terms of Imatinib failure-free survival. This new endpoint for the adjuvant setting, survival free from any failure of the first employed tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was designed to incorporate secondary resistance, currently the main factor adversely affecting prognosis ...

Instead of through pigments, these 'polymer opals' get their colour from their internal structure alone, resulting in pure colour which does not run or fade. The materials could be used to replace the toxic dyes used in the textile industry, or as a security application, making banknotes harder to forge. Additionally, the thin, flexible material changes colour when force is exerted on it, which could have potential use in sensing applications by indicating the amount of strain placed on the material. The most intense colours in nature - such as those in butterfly wings, ...

New research suggesting that elective hernia surgery offers value-for-money and improved quality of life for patients has been published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. The new analysis is based on patients' own assessments of their health-related quality of life together with costs reported by hospitals. The research also indicates that keyhole surgery may offer more health benefit and value for money than open surgery for hernia operations. Recently it has been suggested that the NHS could save money by reducing access to hernia repair surgery. An inguinal ...

This news release is available in German. On 29 May 2013, the 2nd Annual Global Meeting of the Global Research Council (GRC) in Berlin has ended. Over three days, the heads of about 70 science and research councils from around the world as well as high-ranking guests from science and research, science administration and research policy attended the meeting. The topics of discussion and endorsement were an Action Plan towards Open Access, a high-level Statement of Principles for Research Integrity as well as new statutes for the GRC. Hosted jointly by the German Research ...

WASHINGTON--Geochemistry analysis conducted by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory of fossil sediment injection structures off the New Zealand coast in February and March, reveal no presence of modern day expulsions of methane gas, a potential contributor to global 'greenhouse effect' warming. The main focus of this most recent expedition was to investigate the geological origin of seafloor anomalies discovered during a 2007 marine-life survey on the Chatham Rise. During the 2007 survey scientists discovered several large sea floor craters, or pockmarks, including a ...

For the first time, a new kind of so-called Klein tunnelling—representing the quantum equivalent of crossing an energy wall— has been presented in a model of two interacting particles. This work by Stefano Longhi and Giuseppe Della Valle from the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology in Milan, Italy, is about to be published in EPJ B. Klein tunnelling is a quantum phenomenon referring to the fact that a high-potential barrier can be transparent to a particle moving at a speed nearing that of light, referred to as relativistic. Most of the previous Klein tunnelling ...

People who walk or bike to work are likely to influence their co-workers and partners to do the same, according to health researchers. "Social influences are important, specifically interpersonal influences, such as spouses and co-workers," said Melissa Bopp, assistant professor of kinesiology, Penn State. She emphasized that community and employers also significantly influence whether people choose to actively commute. More than 80 percent of American adults do not meet the guidelines for aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities, according to Healthy People 2020, ...

A pioneering imaging technique to track the effects of next-generation nanomedicines on patients has been harnessed by a University of Strathclyde academic. Professor Dr. M. N. V. Ravi Kumar and Dr. Dimitrios Lamprou, of the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, believe an advanced form of atomic force microscopy, known as PeakForce QNM, could boost developments in the field of nanomedicines, the encapsulation of potent drugs in tiny particles measuring billionths of a meter in diameter. They described how this detailed imaging approach may also help ...

New research is tweaking an old adage about how to get ahead in a competitive workplace: It's not just who you know, but what you believe in. A recently published BYU business study finds that employees who are "true believers" in the mission of their organization are more likely to increase in status and influence than non-believers. "Many organizations today have a well-defined mission with enduring principles that matter, not only to employees, but to other stakeholders," said John Bingham, BYU professor of organizational leadership and strategy. "It's a shift from ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have identified the molecular mechanism behind the transformation of one of the components in Alzheimer's disease. They identified the crucial step leading to formations that kill brain cells. Alzheimer's disease is associated with memory a loss and personality changes. It is still not known what causes the onset of the disease, but once started it cannot be stopped. The accumulation of plaques in the brain is widely considered a hallmark of the disease. The key discovery identified the chemical reaction that causes the plaques ...

Women who experienced severe physical or sexual abuse during childhood are much more likely to have a food addiction as adults than women who did not experience such abuse, according to a new study published in the journal Obesity. The study's findings provide valuable new information regarding potential causes and treatments for food addiction and obesity. National surveys indicate that more than a third of American women experienced some form of physical or sexual abuse before they reached 18 years of age. Also, research shows that such childhood abuse has consequences ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Cancer patients, physicians and insurers want to be sure that whatever therapy is recommended and provided to patients is based on evidence, preferably results from randomized clinical trials. But are there enough clinical trials data to provide this level of confidence? A University of North Carolina School of Medicine study says not necessarily. Radiation oncologists evaluated how often patients were seen in their clinic with medical decisions to be made that were not specifically addressed by randomized controlled trials. They determined that ...

The fabled ivory carvings from the ancient Phoenician city of Arslan Tash — literally meaning "Stone Lion" — may appear a dull monochrome in museums today, but they glittered with brilliant blue, red, gold and other colors 2,800 years ago, a new study has confirmed after decades of speculation. It appears in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry. Ina Reiche and colleagues explain that these carvings are rare, housed in museums like the Louvre, and art experts regard them as the most beautiful ivory carvings of the era. Experts long believed that the lion heads, amulets ...

A healthy Nordic diet lowers cholesterol levels, and therefore the risk of cardiovascular disease, a pan-Nordic study where Lund University participated has found. There was also decreased inflammation associated with pre-diabetes. - The subjects who ate a Nordic diet had lower levels of harmful LDL cholesterol and higher levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. The amount of harmful fat particles in the blood also declined, says Lieselotte Cloetens, a biomedical nutrition researcher at Lund University. The 'healthy Nordic diet' used in the study contains local produce such ...