Avant Assessment, a leading provider of multi-lingual language assessments, and the Wisconsin Center for Education Products and Services (WCEPS), a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are excited to announce a licensing partnership in support of their shared vision of advancing academic language proficiency by making the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Standards available through iCAN. The addition of WIDA resources to iCAN, Avant's flagship learning and evaluation tool for teachers and students, enables ...

Getting Smart today launches "How Digital Learning Contributes to Deeper Learning," a white paper that examines how key aspects of personal digital learning - common standards, next-generation assessments, blended learning, and affordable devices - can provide deeper learning opportunities for students. "Deeper Learning is what all young people need to succeed in a complex world, and digital learning is a powerful tool to help them get there. This report shows how," said Bob Rothman, Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Excellent in Education (AEE), ...

The Winter Wonderland Weekend is the best way to kick off your Christmas in London celebrations says LondonTown.com, the number one website for London, and it should know. On the weekend of 8 and 9 December the WWT London Wetland Centre - a beautiful London park in its own right - will be transformed into a winter wonderland complete with Santa's grotto, huskies and fir and pine trees. The 105-acre wildlife oasis in Barnes boasts an array of walkways cutting through meadows and grasslands and past lakes and ponds. It makes for a truly spectacular Christmas setting and ...

Cloud computing has seen major endorsement throughout this year, and statistics seem to concede; a new national poll from San Antonio shows that 91% of "IT decision-makers" see cloud computing as a positive thing. It does not stop there, according to a study sponsored by CompTia, more than 8 in 10 companies currently use some form of cloud solution and that is expected to double in 2013. However, according to the same study, cloud solutions are not restricted to the major businesses; more than half of micro and small businesses implement some sort of cloud-enabled ...

John Lewis department stores announced today that sales last week (to Saturday 1 December) saw a 9.3% increase on the same week last year with a sterling total of GBP124.2m, the third best week the retailer has ever seen, and an increase of 13.3% on the previous week. The cold snap during the week boosted not only sales of outerwear, knitwear and UGGs, but also gifts that enable people to use their ever-popular tech products whilst keeping warm. Hearmuffs, which protect ears from the cold whilst listening to music, and touch gloves, which allow you to use a touch screen ...

Christmas is coming! And Sky Poker, the UK's favourite online poker website, has started getting into the festive spirit! So be sure to head over to Sky Poker and take part in the Santa's Grotto promotion this month. There is over GBP3,000 in prizes up for grabs, so be sure to take part for a chance to win some cash! Santa's Grotto Freeroll will take place on Sunday 23rd December at 7.15pm. The top 5 finishers within the Freeroll will win some great prizes such as an iPad, iPad Mini, Kindle Fire, and a rather handsome amount of money. So be sure to enter for a ...

The developers from Casinowebscripts.com, a top online gaming provider, have done it again and amazed us, managing to release a new multiplayer betting game called "SPEED RACERS". Like the name says it, this game is packed with race dynamism and special effects. Six fast cars compete against each other in a ferocious race, for the 1st place on the finish line. The game features a very realistic environment, with the action being set on a private track near mountains and with spectators positioned all across the area. The players can watch the race by ...

Sound Physicians, a leading hospitalist organization focused on driving improvements in quality, satisfaction and financial performance of inpatient healthcare delivery, announced today an agreement to provide comprehensive hospitalist services at Sonoma Valley Hospital, in Sonoma, Calif. "We're excited to be part of Sonoma Valley Hospital's mission to maintain, improve and restore the health of individuals in the community," said Robert Bessler M.D., CEO of Sound Physicians. "We look forward to joining their team and providing our focus on core deliverables ...

While other e cigarette companies may claim to carry industry first in a lot of areas, most of it is hype as recently seen by other companies touting 50 ML e liquid sales as an industry first. The Firelight brand has carried bottles of 50ML e liquid since July of 2009 and sells them at a lower price point than other merchants and distributors. "It is really a shame that other e cigarette companies make claims about being the first to do something when others have been doing it for years and at a lower price," states May Quintero of Firelight Fusion. "This ...

DinoDirect, an online retailer, is one of the online stores offering free shipping who have a wide global presence amongst online shoppers. The retailer has now collaborated with one of the biggest Russia online retailers to facilitate easier procurement and distribution of products to ending consumers. Online shopping has revolutionized how shoppers access the products they need. Convenience is the main reason why shopping on the Internet has risen in popularity recently, as well as the free shipping offered by most online retailers. DinoDirect has teamed up with a ...

LoansForPoorCredit.net is the premier online service for comparing and applying to multiple adverse credit lenders online. The site has announced the availability of its new cash loans matching service with an efficient, quick response time to provide consumers with lenders to cover those mounting expenses over the holidays. Financial stress is a leading cause of worry for a great number of individuals during the seasonal period, and the site aims to reduce concerns by putting applicants directly in touch with the fastest, "hassle free" online lenders for ...

LA JOLLA, CA----When it's dark, and we start to fall asleep, most of us think we're tired because our bodies need rest. Yet circadian rhythms affect our bodies not just on a global scale, but at the level of individual organs, and even genes. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have determined the specific genetic switches that sync liver activity to the circadian cycle. Their finding gives further insight into the mechanisms behind health-threatening conditions such as high blood sugar and high cholesterol. "We know that genes in the liver turn on and off at different ...

For each 10 percent rise in the number of residents with a four-year college degree, the average overall employment rate in United States metropolitan areas rose by 2 percent between 1980 and the year 2000. That employment rate rose higher for women (2.2 percent) vs. men (1.9 percent) and benefited some of the least educated the most dramatically. For instance, every 10 percent rise in an area's four-year college degree attainment boosted the employment rate for women with either a high school diploma or even less education by 3.2 percent. The research by John Winters, ...

December 10, 2012, New York, NY – Tumor metastasis, the ability of cancer cells to migrate from their tissue of origin and colonize elsewhere in the body, accounts for over 90% of cancer deaths. When patients die from cancer, it is usually caused by distant metastases established by malignant cells that split off from the primary cancer and began growing in new settings. Scientists from the Ludwig Center at the University of Chicago hypothesized over 15 years ago that an intermediate state of tumor spread or metastasis exists between patients with extensive metastasis ...

Montreal, 10 December 2012—Right now, if businesses or environmental officials need to estimate the impact of different greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction measures in one country or region of North America compared to another, they face multiple GHG reporting regimes with varying levels of detail and complexity. In response, Canada, Mexico and the United States are seeking to improve the comparability of emissions data in North America to advance domestic carbon emissions objectives, standards, regulations and policies by 2015, as part of the Commission for Environmental ...

Charlottesville, VA (December 11, 2012). Neurosurgeons at All Children's Hospital/Johns Hopkins Medicine (St. Petersburg, FL) and the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine (Tampa, FL) recently achieved excellent physical and aesthetic results in an infant born with extreme macrocephaly due to hydrocephalus. This was accomplished with routine implantation of a ventriculoperitoneal shunt followed by a new operation to stabilize and reduce the size of the baby's head. Both surgeries were performed during the infant's first week of life. The surgeons report ...

KNOXVILLE – Epigenetics – how gene expression is regulated by temporary switches, called epi-marks – appears to be a critical and overlooked factor contributing to the long-standing puzzle of why homosexuality occurs. According to the study, published online today in The Quarterly Review of Biology, sex-specific epi-marks, which normally do not pass between generations and are thus "erased," can lead to homosexuality when they escape erasure and are transmitted from father to daughter or mother to son. From an evolutionary standpoint, homosexuality is a trait that ...

For the first time, researchers sequenced DNA molecules without the need for the standard pre-sequencing workflow known as library preparation. Using this approach, the researchers generated sequence data using considerably less DNA than is required using standard methods, even down to less than one nanogram of DNA; 500 times less DNA than is needed by standard practices. Libraries are collections of DNA fragments derived from genomic samples using molecular biology techniques specific to the sequencing technology being used. They are laborious, time consuming, and ...

A team of Italian astronomers performed a very difficult measurement for which it was necessary to use the most advanced instrumentation in combination with an unusual technique, so as to involve even the Moon as a natural astronomical mirror. The challenge was the observation of effect occurred during the transit of Venus across the Sun on June 6th, dubbed "Rossiter-McLaughlin effect". This is a phenomenon that occurs when a celestial body passes in front of a star, hiding a part of its rotating surface and that produces a temporary distortion in the profiles of the spectral ...

In order to widen the narrowed airways in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), tiotropium bromide (tiotropium in brief) is one of the drugs available that can be prescribed for inhalation. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has examined whether tiotropium offers a perceptible advantage to patients compared to a dummy medication (placebo) and to other COPD drugs. In addition, the two currently marketed types of inhaler (HandiHaler and Respimat) for tiotropium (trade name: Spiriva®) were compared. According to ...

British employers have avoided slashing their budgets for training during the recession because they believe it is vital to their operations, a new study has found. Researchers analysed figures from various surveys showing that spending in real terms on training fell by only 5% from 2007 to 2009, and has remained steady since. They also spoke to managers from 52 companies and found that almost all remained committed to keeping their training schemes going. In an article in the December edition of the journal Work, Employment and Society, the researchers say that "a ...

Researchers from the UK and Australia have uncovered a new element of the honeybee's genetic makeup, which may help to explain why bees are so sensitive to environmental changes. Scientists from the University of Sheffield, Queen Mary, University of London and the Australian National University, have found that honeybees have a 'histone code' – a series of marks on the histone proteins around which their DNA is wrapped in order to fit into the nucleus of a cell. This code is known to exist in humans and other complex organisms in order to control changes in cell development ...

Philadelphia, PA, December 11, 2012 – A new study published in Biological Psychiatry suggests that autism is associated with reductions in the level of cellular adhesion molecules in the blood, where they play a role in immune function. Cell adhesion molecules are the glue that binds cells together in the body. Deficits in adhesion molecules would be expected to compromise processes at the interfaces between cells, influencing tissue integrity and cell-to-cell signaling. In the brain, deficits in adhesion molecules could compromise brain development and communication ...

University of Granada researchers have developed a cell phone that can be downloaded free from App Store and improves basic competences (maths, language, knowledge of the environment, autonomy and social skills) in children with autism-related disorders or Down Syndrome. This application--named Picaa--can be used on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and has been translated into several languages (English, Galician, Arab, etc.). This application has topped the 20,000 downloads from App Store--mainly from Spain and the USA--since its release. Picaa is a system designed for the ...

Black holes are surrounded by many mysteries, but now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have come up with new groundbreaking theories that can explain several of their properties. The research shows that black holes have properties that resemble the dynamics of both solids and liquids. The results are published in the prestigious scientific journal, Physical Review Letters. Black holes are extremely compact objects in the universe. They are so compact that they generate an incredibly strong gravitational pull and everything that comes near them ...