The Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN, for its acronym in Spanish), in a recently published report, stated that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 4.7 percent in 2011, the highest growth rate in the Central American region and well above the Latin America and the Caribbean average of 4.3 percent. Following Nicaragua's growth in 2011 were Costa Rica with a 3.8 percent GDP growth, Guatemala with 3.3 percent, Honduras with 3.2 percent and El Salvador with 1.4 percent. This is the second consecutive year in which Nicaragua leads the region in terms of ...

(PHILADELPHIA) – Researchers at the Rothman Institute at Jefferson examined data on patients being treated for lumbar stenosis and the degenerative spine condition spondylolisthesis and found that patients who received epidural steroid injections (ESI) had a higher rate of crossover to surgery and fared worse in physical health and bodily pain versus those who did not receive ESI, dispelling their pre-study hypothesis. Data for this study was gathered from the database of the prospective, multicenter NIH-funded SPORT (Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial) of surgical ...

La Jolla, CA -- Reviving a theory first proposed in the late 1800s that the development of organs in the normal embryo and the development of cancers are related, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have studied organ development in mice to unravel how breast cancers, and perhaps other cancers, develop in people. Their findings provide new ways to predict and personalize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. In a paper published February 3 in Cell Stem Cell, the scientists report striking similarities between genetic signatures found in certain types ...

BaseKit, the online website builder, has been launched by HostGator; enabling their SMB's to build and manage their own website with the state of the art technology. The hosting giant, based in Houston, Texas, is offering BaseKit to both new and existing customers. As one of the fastest growing private companies in America, HostGator is always seeking innovative products and services to enrich its customers' experiences and surpass their expectations. BaseKit has received international acclaim as an all-in-one website builder that lets SMB's build a site that "looks ...

A monsoon trough continues to drench northeastern Australia and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite measured and calculated the rainfall in the region. Low pressure centers associated with a summer monsoon trough have repeatedly drenched Australia from central Queensland to northern New South Wales. The clockwise rotation of these low pressure centers have continued to pump warm moist air from the Coral Sea over these areas resulting in severe flooding. Thousands of Australians have been displaced by this flooding. A Tropical cyclone called Jasmine ...

Tracker Corp, http://trackercorp.com, the most innovative developer of Form I-9 & E-Verify compliance software and the immigration case management system trusted by more Fortune 500 employers than any other provider, released the latest round of enhancements to its Tracker I-9 software, version 7.4. Tracker I-9 software fully complies with all current functional changes to E-Verify (v23). These changes include enabling RIDE (Records and Images from DMV for E-Verify) validation of certain Drivers' Permits and State-Issued ID cards (currently Mississippi only), providing ...

SAN FRANCISCO – Following a total joint replacement, anticoagulation (blood thinning) drugs can prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot deep within the extremities, or a pulmonary embolism (PE), a complication that causes a blood clot to move to the lungs. However, prolonged use of these therapies may increase the risk of hemorrhage and infection. In the study, "Aspirin was Effective to Prevent Proximal DVT and PE in TKA and THA - Analysis of 1,500 Cases," presented today at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), investigators ...

SAN FRANCISCO – The elevated risk of pulmonary embolism (PE) – a blood clot that travels from the leg to the lungs – following total joint replacement (TJR) surgery has been well established, yet little is known about the natural course and timing of this potentially fatal condition. In the study, "Pulmonary Embolism Following Total Joint Arthroplasty: When Do They Occur?", presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), researchers reviewed the records of 25,660 patients who received TJR between 2000 and 2010. All patients ...

SAN FRANCISCO – Previous studies have found that human behavior during a recession is remarkably different than that during a bullish economy. For example, people tend to spend more time focused on working and less time engaging in leisure and recreation activities, resulting in fewer motor vehicle and other accidents. According to a 10-year study at a Level 1 regional trauma center, presented today at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), economic trends do impact orthopedic trauma volume. Between 1999 and 2009, a local ...

Raleigh criminal lawyer Damon Chetson announced the launch of new online North Carolina DWI case evaluation tool designed to provide customized answers based on responses users provide. The tool, developed after countless of research, allows people who are concerned about North Carolina DWI charges to select various options based, and produces a case review based on those answers and based on current North Carolina law. "The tool is not meant to replace a Raleigh DWI lawyer," said Mr. Chetson, who practices DWI and criminal law in Wake County. "However, ...

It has long been known that psychostimulant drugs have the paradoxical effect of reducing hyperactivity. [Psychostimulant drugs include methylphenidate – known by the trade names Ritalin, Concerta, and Methylin – and methamphetamine]. Since the mid-1950s, millions of children and adults have been prescribed stimulant medications to control attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But for more than seven decades, since the first experiment that gave an amphetamine drug to children diagnosed with behavioral problems, scientists have not known how stimulants work to ...

A new study on children who are raised bilingual examined the effects on children's development of growing up speaking two languages. The study found that different factors were responsible for the language- and non-language-related outcomes of bilingualism found in previous research. The research was carried out at York University in Toronto and published in the journal Child Development. Bilingual children show differences in how they develop language and cognitive skills through the early school years. Children who grow up speaking two languages have slower language ...

High-quality early child care isn't important just for children, but for their mothers, too. That's the conclusion of a new study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin; the study appears in the journal Child Development. The study analyzed data from more than 1,300 children in the longitudinal Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which was sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). As part of the study, children's care settings were evaluated at multiple points when the children ...

Everything Matters Publishing is thrilled to announce the launch of their new website, www.HCGDietBooks.com. This carefully crafted HCG Diet Book site is bright and informative as well as easy to maneuver and currently welcomes HCG Diet plan customers and soon will also handle wholesale HCG practitioners. The HCG Diet community will encounter exceptional HCG Diet books, and receive friendly, timely customer service with prompt shipping when ordering HCG Diet books from this new site. HCG Diet customers can glean information on each HCG book, download the original HCG ...

War, the aftermath of war, and political violence are harmful to children's and teens' mental health and well-being. But few studies have looked at how this happens. A new longitudinal study of neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has found that political violence affects children by upsetting the ways their families function, resulting in behavior problems and mental health symptoms among the youths over extended periods of time. "Our findings suggest that working with families in communities affected by political violence may have long-term benefits for children ...

Young people's choices about using drugs and alcohol are influenced by peers—not only close friends, but also sports teammates. A new study of middle schoolers and their social networks has found that teammates' smoking plays a big role in youths' decisions about smoking, but adolescents who take part in a lot of sports smoke less. The study was conducted at the University of Southern California (USC) and appears in the journal Child Development. Researchers looked at 1,260 ethnically diverse, urban, middle-class sixth through eighth graders. They asked the students ...

Children who have difficult relationships with their peers can experience more psychological dysfunction, such as depression. But does the depression lead to youths' relationship problems, or do difficulties in the relationships provoke the depression? A new study of children in the middle years of childhood has found that depression forecasts problems in peer relationships, including being victimized by peers and problems being accepted by peers. The study appears in the journal Child Development; it was conducted by researchers at Arizona State University and the University ...

PHILADELPHIA -- In their search for new, better ways to diagnose periprosthetic joint infection, Rothman Institute at Jefferson researchers have discovered that measurement of C-reactive protein in the synovial fluid is extremely accurate, while measuring a patients’ serum white blood cell count (WBC) and the percentage of neutrophils (PMN%), the conventional method for diagnosis, has a minimal role in the determination of PJI. The synovial fluid is the viscous liquid that lubricates the joints and feeds the cartilage. "This research indicates that we may need to ...

A study by Hospital for Special Surgery researchers has provided the first comprehensive look at just how metal-on-metal total hip replacements are failing in patients around the country. Made possible by what is thought to be the largest archive of failed joint replacements, the research should help doctors develop a better hip replacement for future patients. The study will be reported at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Feb. 7-11. "This paper is the first step in what is a path to try to understand what the problems are with ...

Acelloria.com recently launched the beta version of 'XEstimate' in Canada, an innovative tool that calculates the value of a home based on similar surrounding properties to help with home-related decisions, whether you're buying, selling, renovating or refinancing. Acelloria's XEstimate, generated by an in-house team of experts, is an excellent and easy way we can provide valuable financial information and statistics to buyers who may not have access to such calculations otherwise. Its' main goal is to improve the buying process by educating the buyer in all aspects of ...

A new study has demonstrated that a procedure wherein healthy cartilage is transplanted to fix an area of damaged cartilage (osteoarticular cartilage transplantation or OATS procedure) is superior to the standard of care for repairing cartilage defects. It is thought that fixing such lesions may ultimately help to prevent the onset of osteoarthritis, and get athletic individuals back to sporting activities reliably. The study by Hospital for Special Surgery researchers was reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Feb. 7-11. "Studies ...

Deep in the heart of the southern Milky Way lies a stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula. It is about 7500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina (The Keel) [1]. This cloud of glowing gas and dust is one of the closest incubators of very massive stars to the Earth and includes several of the brightest and heaviest stars known. One of them, the mysterious and highly unstable star Eta Carinae, was the second brightest star in the entire night sky for several years in the 1840s and is likely to explode as a supernova in the near future, by astronomical standards. ...

The award was in recognition of the innovative customer Care programme he set up, designed and implemented to support customers and crew in times of difficulty. P&O Cruises was also named Favourite Cruise Company for the fifth year running. This award was voted for by readers of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday and was presented at a ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. P&O Cruises managing director, Carol Marlow, said: "We are all so proud of Andrew for being named the 'unsung hero' - our Care programme was implemented to ensure that ...

A team of researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) have developed a web application to test the visual intelligence of Facebook users through the social network. The new platform will enable researchers to test different cognitive skills and to obtain large amounts of data that determine what parameters affect the brain's visual capacity. Any Facebook user can download this application (available in both Spanish and English languages), which consists of different tests for measuring visual intelligence and calculation ability. Gonzalo García de ...

TEMPE - A new study provides evidence that adolescents who suffer from depression are more likely to develop difficulty in peer relationships including being bullied at school. It's often assumed that being bullied leads to psychological problems, such as depression, but the study doesn't support this line of thought. "Often the assumption is that problematic peer relationships drive depression. We found that depression symptoms predicted negative peer relationships," said Karen Kochel, Arizona State University School of Social and Family Dynamics assistant research ...