GOP Senators vow to trim superstorm Sandy aid to $23.8 billion

Senate Republicans have proposed an alternate disaster relief plan for states affected by superstorm Sandy, which would use $23.8 billion- rather than President Obama's proposed $60.4 billion- to fund initial relief.

By David Lawder,?Reuters / December 19, 2012

Congressman Peter King, (c.), and Senator Chuck Schumer, listen as Congresswoman Nita Lowey speaks during a news conference, Dec. 14, in New York. Elected officials, business and labor leaders met with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo federal aid to New York following Superstorm Sandy. The U.S. Senate is debating a $60.2 billion aid package requested by President Obama.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

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U.S.?Senate?Republicans sought to slash a $60.4 billion aid bill to cover reconstruction after Superstorm Sandy, proposing on Wednesday to fund only $23.8 billion in immediate disaster relief while assessing longer-term needs.

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The far smaller initial amount is one of a number of Republican amendments aimed at cutting projects from a bill that they see as a "slush fund" loaded with questionable requests for spending on unrelated programs and big infrastructure.

Senator?Daniel Coats?of?Indiana?said his plan for $23.8 billion in initial funding would provide sufficient money for immediate needs through March 27, for work such as debris cleanup, repairing damaged equipment, rebuilding destroyed homes and businesses.

"It seems to me the most logical, responsible way to move forward is to identify the immediate needs and provide the immediate funding to meet those needs," said Coats, a member of the?Senate Appropriations Committee.

He said longer-term needs could be considered next year, as?Congress?works on approving new money to keep government agencies and programs funded after a stopgap measure runs out on March 27.

Senate?Democrats are trying to push through President Barack Obama's full $60.4 billion Sandy disaster aid request before the end of the year.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/6LZrBLe_oaQ/GOP-Senators-vow-to-trim-superstorm-Sandy-aid-to-23.8-billion

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Internet Marketing Search Engine Optimization SEM SEO service ...

Occasionally, we get ideas that we want to make into a business. The internet gives you the venue to market your idea and turn it into a great business as long as you have the right marketing techniques. This article contains tips to help you market your business on the web.

An important tip regarding Internet marketing is to give rewards to those that either frequent your site often or purchase from you often. It is helpful in customer retention, and the appearance of generosity is positive for your company. These kinds of gestures form the basis of good advertising by word of mouth.

Successful Online marketing hinges on having a great website. Testing the site regularly will help you catch bad links or graphics. Visitors who cannot use your site correctly cannot purchase anything.

Make sure you know what tools your competitors are using to drive business. Whatever field you operate in will always have competition.

Make your site available to people around the world. Create more than one version of your website, in multiple languages. With a more global approach, you will get a lot of traffic and a lot more customers. If people are able to read your content in their own language, it?s much more likely that they?ll purchase something from you.

It can sound good on paper to have ten different social media profiles, but if you can?t give them each plenty of time to seem active, it won?t do any good. Many people look at inactive profiles as spam.

Let your clients have the ability to post product reviews, and especially include the reasons they have for their opinions. With honest feedback, you can improve your product offerings. In addition, potential customers can buy with confidence after reading reviews written by others who have already purchased the items and have provided their opinions.

In the world of Internet marketing, always keep an eye on the competition. Find out what is and what isn?t working for them. Watching others is a great way to learn. By doing this, you can learn from their mistakes and not repeat them.

Include a glossary of the words on your site if you want people to think you know what you are talking about. This can help your customers figure out what they need to know, making them more likely to visit your site again. If your website contains pertinent information, others will be drawn to it. Your site will soon be viewed as an expert site in the field.

Calls to action can be made more attractive with the use of words such as ?simple? and ?easy?. People do not like products that seem overly complicated, so adding tag lines like ?easy to use? or ?easy to order? will entice customers to try out your product. This can be a powerful strategy to grow your sales.

Include the word ?limited? in your ad. Individuals purchase online as they are exhausted by the merchandise their area stores are offering. People want items that are unique and different. If you sell a limited edition of something, they will want to buy it to be different, and understand they have to buy it quickly before it runs out.

?Guarantee? is a power word in internet marketing. You do not want to make customers lose money if they do not like your product. The guarantees that you offer can be different, depending on the product you are selling. A lifetime or 90-day guarantee is most common. The product you sell determines the guarantee to use.

Determining a solid path to your business goals can seem intimidating, even when you are well prepared. Make a list of interests and continue to narrow the list down until you have made a decision. The niche you choose should be something with which you are comfortable and that you enjoy. Once you have a solid goal for the content of your website, it is easier to achieve marketing goals.

Everything you say about your products or services should be true. People aren?t going to believe you if you say that French course you?re pitching helped improve your French, but they might believe you if you show them a video of you speaking French using examples from the course. This is an excellent way to show customers that you have used the products and what they can expect when they buy from you.

Before you even bother with trying to get your site ranked, you first have to build a great website. All online businesses should begin with this idea. If your site is functional and visually appealing, your future workload will be reduced.

Make sure your site comes up on Google searches. With countless people searching Google daily, it is important to make sure that your company shows up when they search for the types of products that you offer. Having your company listed on Google can really take your business far.

Posting your freebie offers on freebie directories can give you great advertising at no cost. Give it a try to see what you can do to get some free advertising for you. There are also directories for e-books, articles and different things you publish online.

A great way to add some appeal to your site while giving information is to add a graphic banner to your site that contains your business?s mission statement or its slogan. This helps to make the web site more professional and communicate your intentions to your visitors. This will allow you to highlight your products and services.

Advertisements for everything are improved by promising fast, easy results. Mention how quickly orders can be placed, how rapidly they are shipped, and how soon your customers can benefit from your products. Useful phrases are ?speedy downloads?, ?quick confirmations?, and ?secure checkout?.

Have a comment form available to consumers who choose not to purchase. They may offer helpful information you can use to increase sales. Their input is valuable because they will let you know if they weren?t happy with your available products, your policies or if there was another problem they experienced.

Make use of emphasis coding on your website. Draw focus to words or phrases that you want to highlight by using bold text, underlining the phrases or italicizing the words. In this way, you can influence your customers? reception of a message and clarify the central points.

Small sellers are probably intimidated by the bigger, more competitive Internet marketplaces. To counter this, make sure your prices are competitive. If you are charging significantly more than other websites, you will not be making many sales. Another method is to consolidate all your offers into a one-stop shopping resource so that your potential customers can view your items without going all over the web.

As you have seen, successful businesses should aim for longevity. Continued success is the only real measure of true achievement, regardless of the size of your business. Each business venture begins somewhere, and these strategies can help you move forward on a solid foot today.

Approach other online retailers or businesses, to propose packaged deals of products and services that can be sold at a discounted price. This is a good way to link multiple markets, thereby collectively increasing sales volume. An excellent example is an online agent who will do the booking for people. This person can help people decrease their prices on airfare, hotels and car rentals, by putting them all in a single transaction. It only works for businesses that have linked products versus having the same products.

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Scientists create nanoscale window to biological world

Dec. 20, 2012 ? If the key to winning battles is knowing both your enemy and yourself, then scientists are now well on their way toward becoming the Sun Tzus of medicine by taking a giant step toward a priceless advantage -- the ability to see the soldiers in action on the battlefield.

Investigators at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have invented a way to directly image biological structures at their most fundamental level and in their natural habitats. The technique is a major advancement toward the ultimate goal of imaging biological processes in action at the atomic level.

"It's sort of like the difference between seeing Han Solo frozen in carbonite and watching him walk around blasting stormtroopers," said Deborah Kelly, an assistant professor at the VTC Research Institute and a lead author on the paper describing the first successful test of the new technique. "Seeing viruses, for example, in action in their natural environment is invaluable."

The technique involves taking two silicon-nitride microchips with windows etched in their centers and pressing them together until only a 150-nanometer space between them remains. The researchers then fill this pocket with a liquid resembling the natural environment of the biological structure to be imaged, creating a microfluidic chamber.

Then, because free-floating structures yield images with poor resolution, the researchers coat the microchip's interior surface with a layer of natural biological tethers, such as antibodies, which naturally grab onto a virus and hold it in place.

In a recent study in Lab on a Chip, Kelly joined Sarah McDonald, also an assistant professor at the VTC Research Institute, to prove that the technique works. McDonald provided a pure sample of rotavirus double-layered particles for the study.

"What's missing in the field of structural biology right now is dynamics -- how things move in time," said McDonald. "Debbie is developing technologies to bridge that gap, because that's clearly the next big breakthrough that structural biology needs."

Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe diarrhea among infants and children. By the age of 5, nearly every child in the world has been infected at least once. And although the disease tends to be easily managed in the developed world, in developing countries rotavirus kills more than 450,000 children a year.

At the second step in the pathogen's life cycle, rotavirus sheds its outer layer, which allows it to enter a cell, and becomes what is called a double-layered particle. Once its second layer is exposed, the virus is ready to begin using the cell's own infrastructure to produce more viruses. It was the viral structure at this stage that the researchers imaged in the new study.

Kelly and McDonald coated the interior window of the microchip with antibodies to the virus. The antibodies, in turn, latched onto the rotaviruses that were injected into the microfluidic chamber and held them in place. The researchers then used a transmission electron microscope to image the prepared slide.

The technique worked perfectly.

The experiment gave results that resembled those achieved using traditional freezing methods to prepare rotavirus for electron microscopy, proving that the new technique can deliver accurate results.

"It's the first time scientists have imaged anything on this scale in liquid," said Kelly.

The next step is to continue to develop the technique with an eye toward imaging biological structures dynamically in action. Specifically, McDonald is looking to understand how rotavirus assembles, so as to better know and develop tools to combat this particular enemy of children's health.

The researchers said their ongoing collaboration is an example of the cross-disciplinary work that is becoming a hallmark of the VTC Research Institute.

"It's an ideal collaboration because Sarah provides a phenomenal model system by which we can develop new technologies to move the field of microstructural biology forward," said Kelly.

"It's very win-win," McDonald added. "While the virus is a great tool for Debbie to develop her techniques, her technology is critical for allowing me to understand how this deadly virus assembles and changes dynamically over time."

The paper "Visualizing viral assemblies in a nanoscale biosphere" was published online and will appear in a 2013 edition of Lab on a Chip.

The authors are Brian Gilmore, a research associate at the VTC Research Institute; Shannon Showalter, a research assistant at the VTC Research Institute; Madeline Dukes, an applications scientist at Protochips; Justin Tanner, a postdoctoral associate at the VTC Research Institute; Andrew Demmert, a student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine; McDonald, in addition to her position at the VTC Research Institute, is an assistant professor of biomedical sciences and pathobiology in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine; and Kelly, in addition to her position at the VTC Research Institute, is an assistant professor of biological sciences in Virginia Tech's College of Science.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), via Newswise. The original article was written by Ken Kingery.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Brian L. Gilmore, Shannon P. Showalter, Madeline J. Dukes, Justin R. Tanner, Andrew C. Demmert, Sarah M. McDonald, Deborah F. Kelly. Visualizing viral assemblies in a nanoscale biosphere. Lab on a Chip, 2013; 13 (2): 216 DOI: 10.1039/C2LC41008G

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/5TCFMVlhxpI/121220143311.htm

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Diabetes remission possible with diet, exercise ... - Health.am

? Diabetes news ? Dec 18, 2012

One in nine people with diabetes saw their blood sugar levels dip back to a normal or ?pre-diabetes? level after a year on an intensive diet and exercise program, in a new study.

Complete remission of type 2 diabetes is still very rare, researchers said. But they added that the new study can give people with the disease hope that through lifestyle changes, they could end up getting off medication and likely lowering their risk of diabetes-related complications.

?Kind of a long-term assumption really is that once you have diabetes there?s no turning back on it, and there?s no remission or cure,? said Edward Gregg, the lead author on the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The research, he told Reuters Health, ?is a reminder that adopting a healthy diet, physically-active lifestyle and reducing and maintaining a healthy weight is going to help manage people?s diabetes better.?

His team?s study can?t prove the experimental program - which included weekly group and individual counseling for six months, followed by less frequent visits - was directly responsible for blood sugar improvements.

The original goal of the research was to look at whether that intervention lowered participants? risk of heart disease (so far, it hasn?t).

But the diabetes improvements are in line with better weight loss and fitness among people in the program versus those in a comparison group who only went to a few annual counseling sessions, Gregg?s team reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

IS IT COST-EFFECTIVE?

About eight percent of people in the United States have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. The new study included 4,503 of them who were also overweight or obese.

People randomly assigned to the intensive program had diet and exercise counseling with a goal of cutting eating and drinking back to 1200 to 1800 calories per day and increasing physical activity to just under three hours per week.

After one year, 11.5 percent of them had at least partial diabetes remission, meaning that without medication their blood sugar levels were no longer above the diabetes threshold. That compared to just two percent of participants in the non-intervention group who saw their diabetes improve significantly.

People who?d had diabetes for fewer years were more likely to have blood sugar improvements, as were those who lost more weight or had stronger fitness gains during the study.

However, less than one-third of people whose diabetes went into remission during the program managed to keep their blood sugar levels down for at least four years, the researchers found.

?Clearly lifestyle intervention is good for people with diabetes,? said Dr. John Buse, a diabetes researcher from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

?The question is how cost-effective is it, what are the long-term consequences (and) how would it really compare with alternative approaches like bariatric surgery and drug therapy?? Buse, who wasn?t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

Dr. David Arterburn, from Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, said some studies of weight-loss surgery, for instance, have found two-thirds of people who start out with diabetes have complete remission.

Arterburn, who co-wrote an editorial published with the new study, said anyone with diabetes - or at high risk - should consider either lifestyle interventions or surgery, if they?re eligible, to reduce future health risks.

Gregg said his team was working on a cost-analysis of the current program, but that it was fairly ?resource-intensive.?

?If people have access to the support to make these sorts of changes, they may have the benefits that we?ve seen here,? he said. But, ?What we should remember is that more modest changes in lifestyle are also effective.?

SOURCE:? Journal of the American Medical Association, online December 18, 2012.

Provided by ArmMed Media

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Source: http://www.health.am/db/more/diabetes-remission-possible/

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Cathay Pacific named Best International Business Class ? Yahoo!7 ...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.thefinancialherald.com/?p=391039

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It's a Boy for Claire Danes!

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Travel costly but worth it for small businesses | TribLIVE

By Rhonda Abrams

Published: Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 12:01?a.m.
Updated 34 minutes ago

Business travel is an often-neglected aspect of small-business life, and most entrepreneurs don?t travel enough.

Nothing beats the power of a face-to-face meeting for closing a deal or maintaining an ongoing client relationship. Business travel can be expensive, especially on a small-business budget, but I?ve got tips to save you money.

1. Travel early in the year. January and February are often a less expensive time to travel with a couple of exceptions.

2. Use alternate airports. Going to Miami, Washington or San Francisco? Check prices to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Baltimore; or San Jose and Oakland, Calif., instead. Lower-cost airlines often run flights from secondary airports, driving prices down on all airlines.

3. Shop prices on the Internet,but also call hotels directly. Often, the lowest rate ? especially at the last minute ? can be obtained by checking with the hotel.

4. Get a credit card that gives you miles, and pay business expenses with that card.

5. Try moderately priced, business-oriented motels. Many hotel chains are specifically aimed at road warriors ? entrepreneurs, salespeople, consultants. These hotels provide a lot of stuff free: Wi-Fi, breakfast, parking, sometimes even free appetizers and drinks in the early evening.

6. Use your own cellphone in the United States. Hotel phones can be costly, even for local calls.

7. Use smartphone apps to connect when you?re outside the United States. You can call or text back home free.

It?s tough to build, maintain and deepen professional relationships from a distance. Travel is the way to build those bridges.

Rhonda Abrams is president of The Planning Shop and publisher of books for entrepreneurs.

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Source: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/3131943-74/travel-business-entrepreneurs

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