MARK SYSTEMS, the residential construction industry's leading provider of single-data base ERP software, has once again been recognized as one of the Constructech 50 most influential construction technology providers. Receiving the designation for the fourth year in a row, this continues a string of awards for MARK SYSTEMS' industry leading ERP software that includes multiple "Top Product" and "Vision" awards dating back to 2008. "It's very rewarding to have our products and performance recognized outside of our custom base," said Mark Finelli, ...

Los Gatos Research (LGR), the leader in precision trace gas analyzers, today announced that it has expanded the lower speed (up to 1 Hz) trace gas analyzer line to include as many as nine different Ultraportable trace gas analyzers with various combinations available in ten different products. This year's R&D 100 Award winning analyzer for NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) joins a series of 1 Hz analyzers that measure the same trace gases as the high speed analyzers and are used for applications ranging from natural gas leak detection to soil trace gas flux to landfill gas monitoring. ...

The American Institute of Physics' Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (JRSE) has published a special issue on emerging energy trends in China. Eight selected papers present modeling and policy analysis of the diffusion of new energy technologies in the rapidly developing country. Two of the papers, one examining bioenergy consumption and one studying the economics of cooking fuel, are summarized below. Researchers Explore Bioenergy Utilization in China With China the largest growing economy in the world, scientists and policymakers alike are keenly interested ...

One of the most economically devastating diseases in the world for those who raise cows, sheep, pigs, goats, deer and other cloven-hoofed animals is foot and mouth Disease (FMD). This incredibly contagious and fast-spreading disease causes fever, blisters on the feet and mouth (hence the name), loss of appetite, drooling, and lameness. Most herds affected are culled, as in the case of the 2001 outbreak in Great Britain when over 10 million animals had to be destroyed. Traditional vaccines for FMD typically have three problems: first, there are so many different strains ...

Some coral reef fish may be better prepared to cope with rising CO2 in the world's oceans – thanks to their parents. Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) today reported in the journal Nature Climate Change, encouraging new findings that some fish may be less vulnerable to high CO2 and an acidifying ocean than previously feared. "There has been a lot of concern around the world about recent findings that baby fish are highly vulnerable to small increases in acidity, as more CO2 released by human activities dissolves into the oceans," ...

Deerfield, Il (July 3, 2012) A pair of provocative studies in the July 2012 issue of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (AJTMH) provides a window into the intense ground war now underway against malaria. In one review, researchers offer new evidence supporting indoor insecticide spraying as a way to dramatically reduce malaria deaths. In another study, scientists in Mali simultaneously affirm the effectiveness of a critical drug to treat malaria infection in the West African malaria "hot zone" amidst concerns that it may follow the path of its predecessors ...

An increased risk of bladder cancer is linked to the use of pioglitazone, a medication commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/press/cmaj112102.pdf People with type 2 diabetes are at risk of several types of cancer, including a 40% increased risk of bladder cancer, compared to people without diabetes. Previous studies have shown a higher incidence of bladder cancer in people taking pioglitazone, a type of thiazolidinedione. To determine whether ...

"The obesity crisis is made worse by the way industry formulates and markets its products and so must be regulated to prevent excesses and to protect the public good," writes a leading food expert in this week's PLoS Medicine. Kelly Brownell from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University argues that like all industries, the food industry plays by certain rules: "It must defend its core practices against all threats, produce short-term earnings, and in do doing, sell more food. If it distorts science, creates front groups to do its bidding, compromises ...

"The South African government should develop a plan to make healthy foods such as fruit, vegetables, and whole grain cereals more available, affordable, and acceptable, and non-essential, high-calorie, nutrient-poor products, including soft drinks and some packaged foods and snacks, less available, more costly, and less appealing to the South African population," write international health experts in this week's PLoS Medicine. The authors, led by Ehimario Igumbor from the University of the Western Cape in Bellville argue that in South Africa, ''Big Food'' (large commercial ...

Under pressure from civil society organizations, the Brazilian government has introduced legislation to protect and improve its traditional food system, standing in contrast to the governments of many industrialized countries that have partly surrendered their prime duty to protect public health to transnational food companies, argue nutrition and public health experts writing in this week's PLoS Medicine. Carlos Monteiro and Geoffrey Cannon, from the Center for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition of the University of São Paulo, explain that, in Brazil, traditional ...

CHICAGO – In analysis that included more than 9 million Department of Defense nonactive and active duty personnel, the rates of both community-onset and hospital-onset methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia decreased from 2005 to 2010, while the proportion of community-onset skin and soft tissue infections due to MRSA has more recently declined, according to a study in the July 4 issue of JAMA. "The magnitude of invasive MRSA infections as well as the emergence of community-onset MRSA infections in the United States has been well documented," according ...

CHICAGO – Although some have suggested that patients receiving medication for immune-mediated diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis may be at increased risk of herpes zoster (HZ; shingles) shortly after receipt of the vaccine, an analysis that included nearly 20,000 vaccinated Medicare beneficiaries finds that the live zoster vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of HZ shortly after vaccination in patients currently treated with biologics, and that it is associated with a significantly reduced longer-term risk of HZ in patients with an immune-mediated ...

A hospital-based surveillance study conducted by Ciara O'Reilly of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA and colleagues describes the risk factors for death amongst children who have been hospitalized with diarrhea in rural Kenya. Reporting in this week's PLoS Medicine, the authors found that infections with nontyphoidal Salmonella and with Shigella (but not with rotavirus) were associated with an increased risk of death. The authors state that: "This study can help inform policy makers on priority areas for interventions to reduce childhood ...

In this week's PLoS Medicine, David Osrin of the UCL Institute of Child Health, UK and colleagues report findings from a cluster-randomized trial conducted in Mumbai slums that aimed to evaluate whether facilitator-supported women's groups could improve perinatal outcomes. Their findings indicate that while it is possible to facilitate the discussion of perinatal health care by urban women's groups in the challenging conditions that exist in the slums of Mumbai, there was no measureable effect of community mobilization through the facilitation of women's groups on perinatal ...

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Kay-Tee Khaw of the University of Cambridge, UK and colleagues analyze data from a prospective cohort study and show associations between plasma concentrations of saturated phospholipid fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease, and an inverse association between omega-6 polyunsaturated phospholipid fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease. The authors comment: "Early guidelines to prevent [coronary heart disease] recommended reductions in saturated fat but little consistency as to what might be substituted: other fats, protein, ...

Dietary restriction can slow age-related diseases and extend the lifespan of all species tested to date. Understanding this phenomenon might help people live longer, preferably without having to drastically limit calories. Now, investigators reporting in the July 3 issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism have found that in flies, dietary restriction causes enhanced fat metabolism in the muscle and increased physical activity, both of which are critical for extending lifespan. The findings suggest that dietary restriction may cause changes in muscle that can lead ...

Istanbul, 3 July 2012: Women who drink five or more cups of coffee a day severely reduce their chance of success from IVF treatment. Indeed, Danish investigators who followed up almost 4000 IVF and ICSI patients described the adverse impact as "comparable to the detrimental effect of smoking". The study was presented today at the annual meeting of ESHRE by Dr Ulrik Schiøler Kesmodel from the Fertility Clinic of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark. Results showed that the consumption of five or more cups of coffee a day reduced the clinical pregnancy rate by 50% and ...

Istanbul, 3 July 2012: Cigarette smoke reduces the production of a Fallopian tube gene known as "BAD", which helps explain the link between smoking and ectopic pregnancy. The finding, from scientists led by Drs Andrew Horne and Colin Duncan at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Reproductive Health in Edinburgh, UK, was described today at the annual meting of ESHRE (European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology) in Istanbul. Ectopic pregnancy - when the embryo implants outside the uterus and in the Fallopian tube - occurs in up to 2% of all pregnancies ...

Istanbul, 3 July 2012: Women with a higher intake of dietary saturated fats have fewer mature oocytes available for collection in IVF, according to results of a study from the Harvard School of Public Health funded by the US National Institutes of Health. The study investigated the effect of dietary fat (classified as total, saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, omega 6, omega 3 and trans) on a range of preclinical and clinical outcomes in women having IVF. Results showed that the intake of saturated fat was inversely related to the number of mature oocytes retrieved, ...

Washington, D.C.— When evaluating the historic contributions made by different countries to the greenhouse gasses found in Earth's atmosphere, calculations generally go back no further than the year 1840. New research from Carnegie's Julia Pongratz and Ken Caldeira shows that carbon dioxide contributions from the pre-industrial era still have an impact on our climate today. Their work is published in Environmental Research Letters. The burning of fossil fuels that came with industrialization released massive amounts of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, which ...

Researchers in the biological sciences department in the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary have revealed how white blood cells move to infection or inflammation in the body; findings which could help lead to developing drug therapies for immune system disorders. The research is published this month in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. It's long been known that two human proteins—L-selectin and calmodulin—are involved in moving white blood cells to the site of inflammation or infection in the body. L-selectin is embedded in the cellular membrane of the ...

A climate model accounting for the carbon dioxide (CO2) released into our atmosphere before the industrial revolution has been used to show the detrimental effect of carbon emissions on global temperature in the long-term. In a study published today, 4 July, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science have shown that pre-industrial emissions from land use changes are responsible for about nine per cent of the increase in today's global mean temperature since that era. "The relatively small amounts ...

Stem cells found in amniotic fluid can be transformed into a more versatile state similar to embryonic stem cells, according to a study published today in the journal Molecular Therapy. Scientists from Imperial College London and the UCL Institute of Child Health succeeded in reprogramming amniotic fluid cells without having to introduce extra genes. The findings raise the possibility that stem cells derived from donated amniotic fluid could be stored in banks and used for therapies and in research, providing a viable alternative to the limited embryonic stem cells currently ...

New, more effective vaccines are struggling to have an impact in the drive to eradicate polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan because not enough children are being vaccinated, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal today. Sharp declines in vaccine uptake led to a rise in the number of new infections between 2006 and 2011, even though new vaccines introduced during this time have proven to be more effective against the main circulating strain of the virus. Poliovirus exists in three strains, with type 1 the most prevalent and type 2 unseen anywhere in ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The impact on bat populations of a deadly fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome may depend on how gregarious the bats are during hibernation. Species that hibernate in dense clusters even as their populations get smaller will continue to transmit the disease at a high rate, dooming them to continued decline, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. One gregarious species has surprised researchers, however, by changing its social behavior. White-nose syndrome has decimated bat colonies throughout the ...