Over half of the visits to car dealer websites occur outside of the traditional 9-5 office hours. Online enquiries tend to peak, between 7-10pm - but a response is usually not processed until the following day. The automotive director of Google UK stated that the average time for a UK dealer to respond to an online enquiry is 72 hours (compared to just 4 hours in the US). Motor traders can use a variety of services to deal with enquiries out of hours, including call centres or 'live chat' applications to respond to site visitors. In the current trading climate, effectively ...

Elk Grove Village, Illinois- based Arc-Tronics has signed a 2-year agreement for the provision of outsourced manufacturing support or, "shelter," services with the Tucson, Arizona-based Offshore Group. The agreement will run through September of 2013. Arc-Tronics will occupy 17,226 square feet of industrial space at The Offshore Group's Bella Vista Industrial Park in Empalme, Sonora Mexico. The company is a manufacturer of custom printed circuit boards, and expects to employ a workforce of 125 at the project's maturity. According to Michael Goeringer, president of ...

Michaels, North America's largest arts and crafts specialty retailer, caps a month of positive news with recognition from global brand consultant Interbrand, which has just released its annual Best U.S. Retail Brands. The report, released on March 31, includes Michaels for the first time, with the Irving, Texas-based retailer debuting at #29. Also in March, Michaels reported a 14 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit as annual sales hit $4 billion for the first time, with its 10 successful private label lines such as Celebrate It, Creatology, Bead Landing and Recollections ...

Between November 2010 and March 2011, knitters and crocheters from across the USA contributed over 26,000 handmade scarves to the 35 participating Special Olympics Programs of the 2011 Special Olympics USA Scarf Project. The scarves were created and donated by thousands of participants including school children and community centers, knitting and church groups, school bus drivers, a 102-year old woman from Wisconsin, a woman's correctional facility who adopted the project, and many more. In honor of the success and meaning of the 2011 Special Olympics USA Scarf Project, ...

Some data centers in Quincy are temporarily handling Japanese information systems due to the earthquakes in Japan. We recently learned that some Japanese companies moved some of their data, website, Internet and email functions to some of the data centers in Quincy, said Pat Boss, the Port of Quincy's government affairs director. "The Quincy data centers are handling some of the Internet traffic, while Japan is getting its data centers up and running again," Boss explained. Quincy has a large fiber-optic connection to Asia, that runs via an access point north ...

Be whisked away to a toymaker's workshop as South Bay Ballet presents the Storybook Ballet Coppelia, a charming and sentimental tale of mistaken identity and a beautiful life-size doll, on June 4, 2011 at 2 and 6 pm, and June 5 at 3 pm at the James R. Armstrong Theatre in Torrance. From the escapades of Dr. Coppelius to the humorous misunderstandings between Swanhilda and Franz, along with the engaging score by Leo Delibes, South Bay Ballet's staging of this light-hearted comedy promises to delight your auditory and visual senses, and tickle your funny bone! Tickets are ...

Custom-Writing.org followed the 2011 global centenary of International Women's Day with great interest. This year's them highlighted women's continuing lack of access to education. Custom-Writing.org, as an educational business, is responding by assembling a donation to support women's resources for education. Worldwide, over half of the kids who are receiving no schooling are girls, and two thirds of illiterate adults are female. This is clearly a waste of human resources, since economic growth is a well-documented outcome of increased schooling and training, especially ...

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. – Every parent with young children knows that couples need to work together to accomplish the myriad tasks waiting both at work and at home. But it may come as a surprise that fireflies also juggle their commitments to find a comfortable work-family balance. According to new research led by biologists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences, wingless "stay-at-home" female fireflies get less support from their mates than females who are able to fly. There are more than 2000 species of fireflies around the globe, and these beetles show ...

Brian Geary Consulting has announced the addition of a new blog feature at its website, BrianGeary.com. The blog is inspired by topics and quotes from business, economics and marketing books. Company founder Brian Geary takes these ideas and writes how they can be applied to a company's on-line content strategy. "I have to give credit to the authors I've read," explains company spokesman Brian Geary, "because their books have been such a valuable source of ideas for my own business." The blog adds value to the original author's writings by showing how the ideas can be ...

GoPicnic , the Chicago-based leader in delicious-tasting, flavorful meal solutions introduces four new creations: all are pre-packaged, ready-to-eat and require no refrigeration or preparation. Finally, a foodie's dream for eating on-the-go - grandly - is answered! GoPicnic is hassle- and fuss-free food that tastes delicious, plus keeps your body feeling good, energized and excited. The clever care packages are a sweet and satisfying solution to sending a friend and loved one a bit of home. Two of the four new care packages are gluten-free, fulfilling an unmet demand for ...

Loss of glaciers and snowpack due to climate warming in alpine regions is putting pressure on a rare aquatic insect, the meltwater stonefly, according to a study recently released in Climatic Change Letters. In the study, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Montana, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service illustrate that alpine aquatic insects can be good early warning indicators of climate warming in mountain ecosystems. The glaciers in Glacier National Park are predicted to disappear by 2030 and, as its name infers, the meltwater ...

April 4, 2011– For women, having a male partner who exhibits controlling behaviors such as limiting contact with friends and insisting on knowing one's whereabouts at all times, may be associated with increased physical and sexual relationship violence. However, young women experiencing these behaviors are more hesitant to answer questions about relationship violence—a fact that presents challenges for healthcare providers and others seeking to assist woman who are at risk. The study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health is published in the ...

The year of 2011 is looking great for the charity auction business. Kevin Rutter, professional charity auctioneer and owner of Hot Auctioneering, is experiencing it first-hand. Kevin conducts benefit and charity auctions around the United States and this year's benefit and charity auction events are surpassing the gloomy expectations brought on by our economic woes. Economic uncertainty and turmoil plagued many nonprofits in 2010. Donors seemed cautious and hesitant, perhaps some becoming concerned for their own financial health. "In a time of economic instability, there ...

New data from the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine shows that wait times for a number of heart surgeries have gone down close to 50 per cent in Alberta and British Columbia. The objective of the study was to investigate wait times for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery, after the patient has undergone diagnosis through a process called catheterization. PCI's are commonly referred to as balloon angioplasty and CABG's refer to open heart or bypass surgery. The work was led by Danielle Southern , Dr. William ...

Orlando, Fla. -- Most women are infected with human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause cervical cancer - yet few develop the cancer. Now researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, a part of Georgetown University Medical Center, believe they have found the missing link explaining why: activation of the beta-catenin oncogene. At the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, the researchers say that a new mouse model they developed demonstrates that switching the oncogene on in the cervix of HPV infected mice promoted ...

OUTER DARKNESS is an award-winning supernatural suspense thriller that takes place in the Westlake Village area of Southern California in the weeks leading up to Halloween. The events that take place in this quiet, upscale suburban town would shock it's residents to the core, if they knew the unseemly details of what was going on just behind their backs. It is a chilling tale of unseen supernatural warfare, compounded by the very real and undeserved physical threat inflicted upon an everyday family by a vicious satanic crime cult. Jim DiMario and his family accidentally ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Breast cancer survivors who experience extreme weight gain have an increased risk of death after breast cancer diagnosis. Moderate weight gain did not affect breast cancer outcomes. These study results were presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held here April 2-6. The investigation, which looked at the association of post-diagnosis weight gain and breast cancer outcomes, was conducted by researchers at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. Data for the study came from the After Breast Cancer (ABC) Pooling Project, which includes 18,336 ...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Soy food consumption did not increase the risk of cancer recurrence or death among survivors of breast cancer, according to the results of a study presented at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011, held April 2-6. Researchers investigated the association between soy food intake and breast cancer outcomes among survivors, using data from a multi-institution collaborative study, the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project. "There has been widespread concern about the safety of soy food for women with breast cancer," said lead researcher Xiao Ou Shu, M.D., Ph.D., ...

Very Important Relationships, Inc. (VIR), an on-line marketing solutions company and premier provider of customer loyalty, employee benefits, and fundraising programs, today announced the launched of its new Multiple Integrated Systems Technology platform ("MIST"). MIST architecture allows the integration of multiple websites/services, different secured online systems and social communities ("multiple web based platforms"), all under one roof; thus creating a seamless experience for the end user. "MIST allows VIR's client's to integrate custom features from multiple ...

ORLANDO, FL (April 5, 2011) – A nutrient found in carrots and sweet potatoes may prove key to fighting breast cancer at early stages, according to a new study by researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Sandra Fernandez, PhD, an assistant research professor at Fox Chase, will present the findings at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011 on Tuesday, April 5. Retinoic acid, a derivative of vitamin A, could be a promising cancer therapy because it affects cell growth, proliferation, and survival. Although it is being tested in a number of clinical trials, so far its success ...

ORLANDO, FL (April 5, 2011) – Cancer risk increases with age, and scientists have long perceived a possible evolutionary tradeoff between longer lifespan and greater risk of cancer. Now, researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center find direct evidence for that tradeoff in new data showing that expression of a key tumor suppressor protein induces premature aging in mice. Greg H. Enders, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Epigenetics and Progenitor Cell Program at Fox Chase, will present the results at the AACR 102nd Annual Meeting 2011 on Tuesday, April 5. "I didn't anticipate ...

ORLANDO, FL (April 5, 2011) – Women who have children, particularly early in life, have a lower lifetime risk of breast cancer compared with women who do not. Now, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have identified a gene expression pattern in breast tissue that differs between post-menopausal women who had children and post-menopausal women who did not. The results will help scientists understand why pregnancy reduces breast cancer risk and may help them develop chemopreventive strategies that can provide similar protection for women who did not have children. Pregnancy ...

BALAM Dance Theatre: From Bali to the Bronx commences BALAM Dance Theatre's (BALAM) spring 2011 season with a FREE performance on Thursday, April 28, 12:30-1:45 p.m., at Lehman College's Lovinger Theatre, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard, Bronx, New York. BALAM is a New York City-based company that offers a new vision of contemporary dance by fusing ballet, modern and diverse cultural dance styles with Balinese theatre. BALAM Dance Theatre: From Bali to the Bronx celebrates the arrival of spring and the company's recent successful tour of Bali, Indonesia by creating a new ...

ORLANDO, FL (April 5, 2011) –Tumor suppressor genes normally control the growth of cells, but cancer can spring up when these genes are silenced by certain chemical reactions that modify chromosomes. Among the most common culprits responsible for inactivating these genes are histone deacetylases, a class of enzymes that remove acetyl groups from DNA-scaffolding proteins, and DNA methyltransferases, a family of enzymes that add methyl groups to DNA. Drugs that counteract these enzymes, and thus reactivate tumor suppressor genes, are promising cancer therapies. For example, ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Computed tomography examinations of children in hospital emergency departments increased substantially from 1995 to 2008, according to a new study published online and in the June print edition of Radiology. Researchers said the findings underscore the need for collaboration among medical professionals to ensure that pediatric CT is appropriately ordered, performed and interpreted. "We need to think creatively about how to partner with each other, with ordering clinicians and with CT manufacturers to ensure that all children are scanned only when it ...