Visix, Inc., is now accepting entries for the 2013 Expression Awards. The company launched the annual awards in 2008 to recognize the best content designs from clients using its digital signage software applications. Due to the popularity of last year's new social media format, this year's contest will be run entirely through Visix's Facebook page, with three Judges' Awards and one People's Choice award chosen from qualified entries. "Each year of the awards, we've seen increasing creativity and understanding of visual communications from our clients," ...

We rely on our fellow motorists to practice safe driving habits. Accidents can happen at any time, even when drivers are devoting their complete attention to the road. If this attention lapses, and a driver is talking, texting or surfing the internet, he or she can easily lose track of what is happening around them. While many states have implemented strong laws that attempt to prevent the countless motor vehicle accidents caused by distracted driving, Texas currently has no statewide ban in place. Each legislative session, there are no proposals designed to pass new ...

For many couples, buying a home is one of the first things that they do after getting married. While this can be a major purchase, it is an important step if they want to start a family. Finding the right place at the right price can take time, and they may feel a sense of relief once the process is over. With home values continuing to remain below peak levels, some families have experienced trouble making their monthly mortgage payments. When one of the spouses unexpectedly passes away, it can be even more difficult to make ends meet. If the surviving homeowner goes ...

In advance of the start of the Missouri legislative session on January 9, 2013, some groups announced their intention to seek changes affecting the Missouri workers' compensation system. Those supporting the change say it would improve the business climate, while others say it will unfairly limit the legal options for people who acquire work-related diseases. Missouri workers' compensation Workers' compensation was developed to provide injured workers with payments for medical care, rehabilitation, partial lost wages, and permanent injuries without having to prove ...

Concussions can cause serious injury to student-athletes, and the risk increases exponentially when players are left in the game after exhibiting the symptoms of a concussion. A recent increase in public awareness, as well as an acknowledgement of the consequences of ignoring such serious head injuries, has lead to a push to address the issue. In response, the Ohio recently passed a new law that will have lasting effects on student-athletes. What the law means for student-athletes Under the new law, coaches of school teams would be required to keep anyone who displays ...

The economic downturn has led to many families experiencing financial problems. Things keep getting more expensive, and couples have less ability to pay for some of the necessities they need. This is especially true in households with children. Money problems often lead to arguments, and these arguments may lead to spouses deciding to go their separate ways. In the past, when a couple would get a divorce, the marital home would be the property that both parties would want to keep. Many homes had substantially increased their values over time, making them seem like safe ...

Anyone who has applied for government benefits knows that the entire process can be very frustrating and time-consuming. Individuals with serious illnesses or disabilities may be able to apply for Social Security Disability benefits. The application process can take years, and it might be very hard for those who are struggling to make ends meet. Those individuals who receive Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits may also be eligible to receive Medicare. Medicare pays medical expenses, while the SSD benefits are used to provide an income because they are too injured ...

A quarterly report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports that America's total debt dropped by $74 billion in the third quarter of last year; however, credit card debt rose by $2 billion during this same period. In fact, TransUnion reports that borrowers had an average of $4,996 in debt as of the third quarter of 2012. What is the cause of rising credit card debt? Experts attribute the problem to sluggish job growth and falling consumer confidence. Fortunately, if you want to bring in the New Year with a solid financial plan, a few debt-reducing options ...

Dealing with a licensed provider is important in all sorts of fields, because licensing helps ensure that the professional working for you meets certain standards. These can range from training and ability to continuing education that keeps the professional up to date on all the latest techniques and innovations. One of the most important areas to have strict licensing requirements is the medical field. According to Anesthesiology News, many people are hurt by medical malpractice in Ohio every year because the doctor was inexperienced or unqualified, and one would hope ...

The Hampton Inn Atlanta-Southlake Morrow Hotel offers affordable lodging to travelers attending the 2013 Atlanta Camping and RV Show from January 25-27. Produced by the Metro Atlanta Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association, the event will take place at Atlanta Exposition Center South and is the largest RV show in Georgia. The show will include: - Fun and informative seminars - A supermarket of RV values all in one place - Model RVs available to tour, such as Motor Homes, Fifth Wheels, and Travel Trailers For admission details and hours visit www.atlantarvshow.com. ...

Bob Carter, CFRE, President and CEO of Bob Carter Companies LLC, has been sworn in as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the largest international association of fundraising professionals (www.afpnet.org). Carter is a specialist in institutional strategy who works with clients throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe. With 230 AFP chapters around the world, Carter's key goals as Chair include continuing to engage the organization and its members in U.S. and worldwide public policy and government relations issues ...

Reputation Advocate, a company that specializes in online reputation management for its clients, has been closely watching the changes, set to alter the family-friendliness of web searches. In recent years, consumers have grown frustrated at Google's "Safe Search" feature, which tended to let explicit search results through. This was especially problematic with image searches, where users enter a search term with the Safe Search filter on, only to find pornographic images displayed on the resulting page of images. Instead of Google defaulting to a mode that ...

Floor & Decor is planning to open its 89,282 square foot showroom in North Richland Hills, Texas on Thursday, February 14, 2013. The shopping center sits on 6.7 acres located at 6801 NE Loop 820, North Richland Hills, TX 76180. Grand Opening weekend festivities include appearances by Ed "Too Tall" Jones and Randy White and plenty of activities for the whole family! The North Richland location is the tenth in Texas for the Atlanta-based flooring retailer. Current Texas locations include Arlington, Austin, Dallas, Houston (Gulf Freeway), Houston (North Freeway), ...

The Power of One was the debut - and best-known - novel of this prolific author who died just a few months ago. Bryce Courtenay was born in South Africa and the novel is 'semi-autobiographical' - it is left to the reader to decide just which parts are true and how much is a product of the writer's imagination. Certainly there are many similarities between the childhood of the author and that of the novel's protagonist, the self-styled Peekay. Peekay is an exceptional child of English descent who encounters horrific bullying when sent to a boarding school at the tender ...

Today, Cyclomundo announced that it has expanded its popular visually intensive 3-Lake Cycling trip for 2013 with two options offering different trip itineraries. This world-class route, which lasts 5 nights and 6 days, links three major lakes in the region, namely, Lake Geneva, Lac du Bourget and Lake Annecy. One major element that makes Cyclomundo's offerings unique is that the company's tours are now perfect for both leisure cyclists with less experience, as well as very serious riders who are interested in more challenging climbs. As a result, groups can enjoy cycling ...

iOrgsoft has released a new product-iMedia Maker for Mac. Based on the Video Editor for Mac, this iMedia Maker for Mac has changed quite a lot, and some the functions it can provide are what the old version cannot compare to. The new program can easily add text, audio, image, transition effects, special effects and video to video. For those who love customizing movies, this app is really a good helper. Support lots of video formats For Mac users, among the tools to edit videos, the first app they think of is definitely the Final Cut Pro. But to edit videos, FCP may ...

Magma forms far deeper than geologists previously thought, according to new research results. A team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University put very small samples of peridotite, rock derived from Earth's mantle, under high pressures in a laboratory. The scientists found that the rock can and does liquify, at least in small amounts, at pressures equivalent to those found as deep as 250 kilometers down in the mantle beneath the ocean floor. Dasgupta said that this answers several questions about Earth's inner workings. He is the lead author of a paper ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, January 22, 2013 – The cab driver who was an engineer in his home country, the gas station attendant who used to teach physics, the cashier who trained as a pediatrician. Time and again, new immigrants find themselves in jobs for which their level of education outstrips the requirements, meaning a major loss for the economy. In a paper recently published in the peer-reviewed open-access journal ISRN Economics, Mesbah Sharaf, an assistant professor in Concordia's Department of Economics, found that two-thirds of recent ...

In experiments on rats outfitted with tiny goggles, scientists say they have learned that the brain's initial vision processing center not only relays visual stimuli, but also can "learn" time intervals and create specifically timed expectations of future rewards. The research, by a team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sheds new light on learning and memory-making, the investigators say, and could help explain why people with Alzheimer's disease have trouble remembering recent events. Results of the study, ...

TORONTO, Jan. 23, 2013—Smokers who quit when they are young adults can live almost as long as people who never smoked, groundbreaking new research has found. Smoking cuts at least 10 years off a person's lifespan. But a comprehensive analysis of health and death records in the United States found that people who quit smoking before they turn 40 regain almost all of those lost years. "Quitting smoking before age 40, and preferably well before 40, gives back almost all of the decade of lost life from continued smoking," said Dr. Prabhat Jha, head of the Centre for Global ...

Estrogen levels drop dramatically in menopause, a time when the risk of urinary tract infections increases significantly. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found new evidence in mice that the two phenomena are connected by more than just timing. If further research confirms these links, boosting estrogen levels may get a second look as an approach for reducing urinary infections in menopausal women. "Scientists tested estrogen as a treatment for post-menopausal women with urinary tract infections in the 1990s, but the results ...

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of late-life dementia. The disorder is thought to be caused by a protein known as amyloid-beta, or Abeta, which clumps together in the brain, forming plaques that are thought to destroy neurons. This destruction starts early, too, and can presage clinical signs of the disease by up to 20 years. For decades now, researchers have been trying, with limited success, to develop drugs that prevent this clumping. Such drugs require a "target" — a structure they can bind to, thereby preventing the toxic actions of Abeta. Now, ...

Cancer is thought to arise from DNA damage at fragile sites in the genome. A study published by Cell Press on January 24th in the journal Cell reveals a new class of fragile sites that contributes to DNA alterations in a type of blood cancer called B cell lymphoma The findings could lead to the development of more effective treatments for B cell lymphoma and potentially other cancers. "This study describes an underlying mechanism of genome instability in B cell lymphoma that could not be previously explained," says senior study author André Nussenzweig of the National ...

You might expect dung beetles to keep their "noses to the ground," but they are actually incredibly attuned to the sky. A report published online on January 24 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows that even on the darkest of nights, African ball-rolling insects are guided by the soft glow of the Milky Way. While birds and humans are known to navigate by the stars, the discovery is the first convincing evidence for such abilities in insects, the researchers say. It is also the first known example of any animal getting around by the Milky Way as opposed to ...

An insect with a tiny brain and minimal computing power has become the first animal proven to use the Milky Way for orientation. Scientists from South Africa and Sweden have published findings showing the link between dung beetles and the spray of stars which comprises our galaxy. Although their eyes are too weak to distinguish individual constellations, dung beetles use the gradient of light to dark provided by the Milky Way to ensure they keep rolling their balls in a straight line and don't circle back to competitors at the dung pile. "The dung beetles don't care which ...