Most people have probably never heard of the American Medical Association's impairment ratings. As part of the Illinois workers' compensation reforms of 2011, these ratings are now used by physicians and considered by courts and arbitrators when evaluating workers' compensation claims. Unfortunately the AMA guidelines often negatively impact the claims of injured workers, particularly those with permanent partial disabilities. An attorney, however, can present other evidence to refute the AMA impairment ratings and help an injured worker receive the compensation they ...

Being disabled can often present many challenges, especially in a work environment. A recent study looked at the disabled worker in the workplace and discovered that these workers are more prone to workplace accidents. Fortunately, employers can take preventative steps against injury to help protect employees. The study The study was conducted and then appeared in the American Journal of Public Health. It used computer-assisted interviews from the 2006-2010 National Health Interview study to find that disabled employees are injured more frequently than employees that ...

With the holidays fast approaching, many families are beginning to think about where the kids will spend certain special days of the year. If you're divorced, or if you're contemplating divorce, there are a few considerations you should take into account that could have implications for where your children will spend future holidays. It Can Be a Bad Idea to Put Off Divorce Until After the Holidays When courts have to determine child custody arrangements in a divorce, one of the things they look at is the relationship the child has to each parent. In addition, family ...

For service members who have sustained disabling injuries in the line of duty, two laws offer protection from employment discrimination based on their physical or mental impairments. The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) ensure that veterans both disabled and able-bodied are guaranteed the opportunity to work. How the ADA Applies to Service Members The ADA is an equal opportunity law that that bans employers from discriminating against workers or job applicants based on their disabilities ...

Sugar Skull Sweets is a local cottage foods bake shop, owned by Charlie Oliver and his family, and birthed out of the desire to create good food using local ingredients and specializing in fun and unique flavors. Handcrafted each day, Sugar Skull's diverse offerings include items such as cupcakes, scones, cookies, and other baked goods, but with a special twist. Whether it's beer in the cupcakes or bacon in the cookies, the surprising and unusual collides with the everyday in the Oliver's treehouse home, recently featured on HGTV's "Home Strange Home." The ...

Despite a soft housing market in the throes of resuscitation, Aussie has reported exceptional business growth with home loan lodgements and settlements, plus customer lead generation for October, all tracking well over 20 per cent on the previous year. These results are a reflection of the very successful "it's smart to ask" marketing campaign as well as more customer care initiatives and increased productivity by Aussie's 750 brokers. In October, lodgements were up 27 per cent and settlements up 27 per cent on October 2011, indicating that there is strong ...

Columbus' award-winning science museum, COSI, is showcasing Gunther von Hagen's incredible BODY WORLDS & The Brain exhibit now through Jan. 6. Presented for the first time ever in Ohio, the exhibit shows visitors a rare glimpse of how the human body and mind function together internally, offering views of both the body and brain that are not outwardly visible. BODY WORLDS & The Brain and COSI are open seven days a week, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-6 p.m. Sunday. BODY WORLDS & The Brain presents the complexity and beauty of human anatomy and neuroscience ...

Corcentric, a leading provider of Financial Process Automation solutions, announces the appointment of Clint Johnston to the role of Vice President of Technology Services. Clint has played a major role in Corcentric since the company's inception in the late 1990's. During his tenure at Corcentric, Clint has used his 18-plus years of experience in distribution and accounting to help provide the vision that has fueled the company's growth. He has been extensively involved in both the operations and sales divisions of the company and will continue to do so in his new role. ...

LIVERPOOL, UK – 8 November 2012: Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered that proposed offshore renewable energy developments in the English Channel have the potential to affect the foraging behaviour of northern gannets from Alderney in the Channel Islands. The study by the University of Liverpool, the British Trust for Ornithology and Alderney Wildlife Trust, funded by the Alderney Commission for Renewable Energy, used GPS technology to track 15 northern gannets breeding on Les Etacs in North West Alderney to find out about their feeding habits and ...

University of Washington scientists have succeeded in removing the extra copy of chromosome 21 in cell cultures derived from a person with Down's syndrome. In Down syndrome, the body's cells contain three copies of chromosome 21, rather than the usual pair. A triplicate of any chromosome is a serious genetic abnormality called a trisomy. Trisomies account for almost one-quarter of pregnancy loss from spontaneous miscarriages, according to the research team. Besides Down syndrome (trisomy 21), some other human trisomies are extra Y or X chromosomes, and Edwards syndrome ...

Australia's newest radio telescope is predicted to find an unprecedented 700,000 new galaxies, say scientists planning for CSIRO's next-generation Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). In a paper to be published Sunday in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Australian researchers have combined computer simulations with ASKAP's specifications to predict the new telescope's extraordinary capabilities. "ASKAP is a highly capable telescope. Its surveys will find more galaxies, further away and be able to study them in more detail than ...

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 9, 2012 —The quality of a woman's social networks—the personal relationships that surround an individual—appears to be just as important as the size of her networks in predicting breast cancer survival, Kaiser Permanente scientists report in the current issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Previous research has shown that women with larger social networks—including spouses or partners, female relatives, friends, religious and social ties, and ties to the community through volunteering—have better breast cancer survival. This study is among ...

International African Vaccinology Conference, Cape Town, South Africa—Results from a pivotal, large-scale Phase III trial, published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that the RTS,S malaria vaccine candidate can help protect African infants against malaria. When compared to immunization with a control vaccine, infants (aged 6-12 weeks at first vaccination) vaccinated with RTS,S had one-third fewer episodes of both clinical and severe malaria and had similar reactions to the injection. In this trial, RTS,S demonstrated an acceptable safety and tolerability ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- An ingredient in green tea that helps reduce blood sugar spikes in mice may lead to new diet strategies for people, according to Penn State food scientists. Mice fed an antioxidant found in green tea -- epigallocatechin-3-gallate, or EGCG -- and corn starch had a significant reduction in increase in their blood sugar -- blood glucose -- levels compared to mice that were not fed the compound, according to Joshua Lambert, assistant professor of food science in agricultural sciences. "The spike in blood glucose level is about 50 percent lower than ...

Dying neurons lead to cognitive impairment and memory loss in patients with neurodegenerative disorders–conditions like Alzheimer's disease and traumatic brain injury. To better diagnose and treat these neurological conditions, scientists first need to better understand the underlying causes of neuronal death. Enter Huaxi Xu, Ph.D., professor in Sanford-Burnham's Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging, and Stem Cell Research Center. He and his team have been studying the protein appoptosin and its role in neurodegenerative disorders for the past several years. Appoptosin levels ...

Australian scientists have confirmed a 'weak link' in the immune system – identifying the exact conditions under which an infection can trigger an autoantibody response, a process not clearly understood until now. We have known for many years that autoimmune diseases such as rheumatic fever and Guillain-Barré syndrome (where the body makes antibodies that attack the heart and peripheral nerves respectively) can occur after the body makes immune responses against certain infectious micro-organisms. We have not been able to explain exactly how such examples of infection-driven ...

AWARD-winning research by a transport and logistics expert at the University of Huddersfield has shown that there would be economic and environmental benefits to individual companies and the country if the UK changed the rules to allow high capacity vehicles (HCVs) on to its roads. At 25.25 metres, they would be around a third as long again as the largest lorries currently permitted in Britain. But they would NOT carry heavier loads. They would be used for larger quantities of lightweight goods, therefore cutting down the number of vehicle journeys made, leading to ...

When cooling a liquid below its melting temperature it either crystallizes or transforms into a glass. Glass is a peculiar state of matter: it has the mechanical properties of a solid but an amorphous structure like a liquid. As long ago as 1952, Sir Charles Frank at the University of Bristol argued that the structure of glasses should not be entirely disordered like a liquid but rather that it should be filled with polyhedra like the bicapped square antiprism. Although such motifs have very recently been found in experiments and computer simulations on glassy materials, ...

When millions of people are bracing themselves for the onslaught of extreme weather, as much information as possible is needed to predict the strength of the impending storm. ESA's SMOS mission again showed its versatility by capturing unique measurements of Hurricane Sandy. As its name suggests, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite was designed to measure how much moisture is held in soil and how much salt is held in the surface waters of the oceans. This information is helping to improve our understanding of the water cycle – an essential component ...

A team of Japanese scientists have found scientific proof that people doing exercises appear to perform better when another person compliments them. The research was carried out by a group lead by National Institute for Physiological Sciences Professor Norihiro Sadato, Graduate University for Advanced Studies graduate student Sho Sugawara, Nagoya Institute of Technology Tenure-Track Associate Professor Satoshi Tanaka, and in collaboration with Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology Associate Professor Katsumi Watanabe. The team had previously discovered that ...

Increasingly, bacteria such as E. coli are resisting the action of carbapenems by producing enzymes (carbapenemases) that break a specific chemical bond in the antibiotic, destroying its antimicrobial activity. Carbapenemases are members of the group of enzymes called beta-lactamases that break down penicillins and related antibiotics, but it has not been clear why carbapenemases can destroy carbapenems while other beta-lactamases cannot. Using molecular dynamics simulations, Professor Adrian Mulholland in the School of Chemistry and Dr Jim Spencer in the School of ...

A group of scientists from the University of Copenhagen has created a model that shows how some types of ADHD medicine influence the brain's reward system. The model makes it possible to understand the effect of the medicine and perhaps in the longer term to improve the development of medicine and dose determination. The new research results have been published in the Journal of Neurophysiology. In Denmark approximately 2-3 per cent of school-age children satisfy diagnostic criteria for ADHD, and therefore it is crucial to know how the medicine works. With a new mathematical ...

PHILADELPHIA — New understanding of how drugs called PARP inhibitors, which have already shown promise for the treatment of women with familial breast and ovarian cancers linked to BRCA mutations, exert their anticancer effects has led to the identification of ways in which the patient population that might benefit from PARP inhibitors could be expanded. Yves Pommier, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues reported these data in Cancer Research, a journal ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new study of eight child prodigies suggests a possible link between these children's special skills and autism. Of the eight prodigies studied, three had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. As a group, the prodigies also tended to have slightly elevated scores on a test of autistic traits, when compared to a control group. In addition, half of the prodigies had a family member or a first- or second-degree relative with an autism diagnosis. The fact that half of the families and three of the prodigies themselves were affected by autism is surprising ...

(Boston) – Cardiothoracic surgeons and endocrinologists from Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found that among patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, achieving Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) benchmarks for glycemic control may be irrelevant when perioperative continuous insulin infusion protocols are implemented. These findings appear on-line in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Currently, 40 percent of all patients undergoing CABG suffer from diabetes, and this number is quickly rising. Traditionally these patients ...