Yes, the little guy is finally beginning to have a shot at showing up for big time keywords on Google?s SERPs (search engine results pages). Google?s number one goal is to provide its users the most relevant search results for their search query. It just so happens that 90% of the time the most relevant search results are the local ones. Small businesses need to take advantage of the benefits SEO can bring to their company.?
I noted back in my February blog post the four factors that are beginning to shape the new world of SEO. Those factors were: big content, content distribution, local search and author rank. Every business, no matter the size, should now be pushing their ?search engine marketing? efforts. Search engine marketing is a great alternative for small businesses who do not have an advertising or marketing budget or for those who are in such a competitive niche that advertising methods like Adwords are too expensive for them.?
Google is pushing local now more than ever. For example, if you go to Google and type in ?advertising,? you?re more than likely going to see a local agency near you. When I?m at our office in downtown Carmel and I search for ?advertising,? the first result I get is the Current in Carmel website. If I?m at my home in Westfield typing in the same keyword, I get a few more authoritative websites, like Wikipedia and entrepreneur.com, but the fifth ranking site is a marketing company that?s a few minutes away in Noblesville.
This is why SEO is very important for small businesses... because now there is a chance for them to show up for very competitive keywords without paying a penny. Search engine marketing for small businesses is not rocket science and for the most part, it doesn?t cost money. Check out the list below to see how you can begin to see improvements in your rankings for keywords. While it may be time consuming, these tasks can be done by just about anyone, so hire yourself an intern if you have to... whatever you have to do to get the below tasks completed.?
First, you need to add a couple of plugins to your website (if it?s a WordPress website). RankReporter and WordPress SEO by Yoast are great plugins for identifying what pages need worked on (in terms of onsite SEO) and what keywords your webpages are showing up for.
The next step is working on your on-site SEO. This form of SEO consists of optimizing your website for search engines, whether it?s how you?re structuring your web pages or the content that you?re putting out on your website. SEOmoz wrote a great article about on-site SEO which can be found here.
Content. Content. Content. The problem most small business owners have is that they lack the will to commit an hour (or two) a week to writing one quality blog post about a topic within their industry. Pushing out content to your website, while following the guidelines laid out for you in the SEOmoz article, is a great way to improve your rankings in the search results. Not only should you be publishing content, but you need to make sure that you have a Google+ page and that you are the author of your blog. You can do that by following the steps laid out in this article.
Maps and Directories. Set yourself up on Google and Bing maps, which is very straightforward and only takes about 20 minutes. Once you?ve done this, check out the top 50 local directories laid out by Hubspot?s Eric Vreeland.
Once you?ve done the above tasks it all circles back to content and rich media, like videos and infographics. Creating unique, quality content goes hand in hand with Google?s top priority of providing its users the most relevant search results. Google rewards people who create unique content that is useful for its audience. Don?t slack off. Push yourself to write a blog at least once a week.
In my experience with small business owners, most believe they do not have the time to work on their Search Engine Marketing campaigns or they are afraid of working on something outside of their comfort zone. But if you are one of those small business owners that put an effort into increasing your website?s rankings, you are really going to have a chance to see a return on your time.?
Team Chernobyl's one and only, brilliant minded, kind hearted, marketing analyst. Want to know me more in depth and personally? Friend me on Facebook, or read below. Likes: Long walks on the Monon, wearing socks with sandals, whipping my hair back and forth, and Justin Bieber. Dislikes: People who take themselves too seriously
HERZLIYA, Israel (Reuters) - Israel is poised for a large-scale assault on Syria to prevent advanced weapons reaching jihadi rebels or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled, Israel's air force chief said on Wednesday.
But Major-General Amir Eshel, addressing a security conference, said his warplanes could be repelled by Syria's formidable, Russian-supplied anti-aircraft systems - an implicit censure of Moscow echoed by Israel's defense minister.
"If Syria collapses tomorrow we could find ourselves very quickly inside this cauldron, and on a very large scale, because this enormous arsenal is parked there, just waiting to be looted, and could be turned (against Israel)," he told the Fisher Institute for Air & Space Studies near Tel Aviv.
"We may find ourselves having to take action, on a very broad scale, within a very short period of time," Eshel said. "It does not mean we will act, but that we have to be ready to."
He assumed fighting could escalate to include attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and by Iran, which backs Assad as well as the Lebanese militia, and that the air force may have to employ "the full spectrum of its might".
Israeli warplanes have struck Syria at least three times this year to destroy what intelligence sources described as advanced anti-aircraft and ground-to-ground missile caches in transit to Hezbollah. The Israelis also worry that Assad may eventually lose control of Syria's chemical warheads stocks.
Beset by the more than two-year insurgency that Hezbollah been helping his army battle, Assad has not retaliated to Israel's air strikes. But there are signs his restraint may wane, such as a shooting attack by Syrian troops at an Israeli patrol in the occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday.
MILITARY SUPREMACY
While militarily superior to Syria, a foe with which it had been in a stable standoff for decades, Israel fears this edge will be blunted by Assad's Russian-made air and coast defenses - especially if Israeli forces are stretched over three fronts.
Eshel said the most formidable of the Russian anti-aircraft systems available, the S-300, was "on its way" to Syria, without elaborating on where he was getting his information.
That suggested that appeals by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Russia to scrap the deal had been unsuccessful.
"Air superiority is critical, and we must contend with a new generation of (Syrian) capabilities," Eshel said.
In separate remarks about Syria to the conference, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said: "There are those who are trying to bring weapons systems into the area that are liable to harm our aerial and naval supremacy ... and this must be prevented in a responsible and considered manner."
Yaalon said that despite recent gains against the Syrian rebels by Assad and Hezbollah forces, Damascus was in decline.
"Assad is losing Syria," he said. "There is a sense that he is charging ahead because of the Russian support, but that story is not over - it could end suddenly, or continue for years as a bloody civil war."
Yaalon played down the prospect of anyone on the Syrian side starting a war with Israel "because they understand the heavy price they would pay".
But neither should Israelis anticipate an easy victory, Eshel told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
"People are looking for a knock-out, for things to be surgical and sterile, but they won't be. The homefront will be hit, no matter how much we defend it," he said, referring to possible missile attacks on the Israeli interior from Syria, Hezbollah and Iran.
(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Michael Roddy)
Everyone's attention might be on the Lumia 925?and the Lumia 928?right now, but it would be a shame to overlook the Lumia 521. This cute, capable smartphone?costs just $29.99 down (or $149.99 in total), and gets you a good mix of performance and features with one of T-Mobile's inexpensive new Simple Choice plans. It's not a phone for power users, and Windows Phone still lacks many of the apps you'll find on iOS and Android. But it's a good place to start for smartphone newbies, or anyone else looking for a decent low-cost smartphone.
Design and Call Quality The Lumia 521 may not be expensive, but it certainly doesn't feel cheap. Most of the phone is encased in a sturdy, white matte plastic shell. The front of the phone is a glass panel with a 4-inch display, and a little too much bezel, especially on the bottom. It measures 4.88 by 2.52 by 0.39 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.48 ounces, which makes it extremely comfortable to hold and use with just one hand.
The phone's 4-inch IPS LCD is serviceable. It features 800-by-480-pixel resolution, which works out to 235 pixels per inch. It looks bright and vibrant, but that resolution is fast becoming low-end compared with all of the 1080p HD displays we've been seeing. It gets the job done; there's just no wow factor. Typing felt fine on the on-screen keyboard.
There's a headphone jack on top of the phone, a power port on the bottom, and Camera, Power, and Volume buttons on the right. To access the battery, you need to peel off the shell. I found it easiest to place a finger over the camera, then tug at a corner of the phone until it gave way. Underneath you'll find an empty microSD card slot and a removable 1,430mAh battery. It was good for 8 hours and 37 minutes of talk time.
The Lumia 521 can hit up to HSPA+ 21 speeds on T-Mobile's network. It's a little disappointing that it doesn't support the carrier's faster HSPA+ 42 or LTE networks, but it still managed to pull in some good data speeds, with an average of 5.4Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up. It also supports 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi calling.
Voice quality is very good, especially through the phone's earpiece. Voices sound loud, rich, and clear. Calls made with the phone sound a little muffled and digitized, but not distractingly so. A little wind noise made it through but noise cancellation is otherwise pretty strong. The speakerphone is not loud enough to hear outdoors, but calls sounded fine over a Jawbone Era?Bluetooth headset; I had no trouble using the headset to control Microsoft's voice command software.
T-Mobile's new contract-free plans start at $50 per month, and that gets you all the talk and texts you want, along with 500MB of high-speed data per month, after which your speeds are slowed to 2G. $60 gets you 2GB of high-speed data, and $70 gets you unlimited high-speed data. These are excellent rates compared with competitors like AT&T and Verizon, and further enhance the Lumia 521's appeal as a solid budget phone.
Processor, Winodws Phone 8, and Apps The Lumia 521 is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, which is less powerful than the 1.5GHz chip you'll find in nearly every other WP8 handset. The benchmark scores confirm this?the 521 turned in scores about 30% less powerful than competing devices. Luckily, Windows Phone 8 is a light, fast operating system, and using the phone never felt slow. It takes a little longer for apps to open, but I didn't encounter any sluggishness or performance hiccups.
Windows Phone 8 itself is Microsoft's mobile operating system, which is built around a series of live tiles on your home screen. These tiles continuously pull information from social networks, the Internet, messages, and local content stored on your phone, which is both useful and fun. The Contacts menu in particular aggregates information from your email, Facebook, and Twitter feeds, into one great big People Hub. Live tiles now come in different sizes, which shows that Windows Phone is more configurable than Apple's iOS, but still nowhere near as customizable as Google's Android.
Since Microsoft doesn't allow any modification of its operating system, one of the biggest differentiators between Windows phones is the included apps. Nokia includes a number of its own home-grown apps, like Nokia Drive+ Beta, which offers voice-enabled turn-by-turn GPS navigation. Here Maps is a very attractive set of interactive maps, and Here City Lens is an augmented reality app that places nearby points of interest over your camera's view. Nokia Music allows you to buy music or listen to premade playlists for free. These apps are no longer exclusive to Nokia phones, though. Nokia has made them available in the Windows Phone store to all WP8 devices in order to acquire more user-generated data for a better overall experience.
You also get some other apps, like Angry Birds, Slacker Radio, Scout, and T-Mobile TV, which can all be uninstalled if you don't need or want them.
Windows Phone's biggest stumbling block is app availability. The Windows Phone store is home to more than 100,000 apps, but it's not guaranteed to have all of the apps you want. The selection is constantly improving, but you still won't find many of the top new apps for iOS and Android available on Windows Phone.
Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions You get 4.61GB of free internal storage. Luckily, there's also the aforementioned microSD card slot under the back cover that worked with both my 32 and 64GB SanDisk cards. Windows Phone has fairly robust multimedia file support, and the Lumia 521 had no trouble handling any of our test files. Music sounded good over both wired and Bluetooth headphones and video looked sharp during playback.
The 5-megapixel camera has autofocus, but lacks a flash. As long as you have good lighting, performance isn't bad. The camera can capture photos instantaneously, without waiting for the autofocus, but they tend to come out blurry. If you let the autofocus kick in the camera can snap a photo within 0.8 second. In good lighting the camera does a nice job with colors and captures a fair amount of detail compared with other 5MP shooters. It also supports Nokia's Smart Shoot, which I love. It lets you fire off a burst of shots, then erase objects in the background or even swap faces out with another photo when someone isn't smiling.
The camera also records 720p video at a smooth 30 frames per second. Video looks a little grainy, especially indoors, but it's still usable. There's no front-facing camera, so you can't use the 521 to video chat.
For the price, the Nokia Lumia 521 is the best low-cost smartphone you can get on T-Mobile right now. That said, Windows Phone and its lack of apps isn't for everyone. If you want an inexpensive, capable smartphone, and you don't need unfettered access to all the hottest new apps, the Lumia 521 is a solid choice. But if it's apps you're after, you're better off with the iPhone 5, which has the best app selection there is, though it's significantly more pricey. The same goes for the HTC One?and Samsung Galaxy S 4. Both phones have a much greater app selection, along with better cameras, bigger displays, and faster processors. But both phones are a lot more expensive than the 521.
"); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['togglesource'] = new Template(""); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['toolbar'] = new Template(""); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['button'] = new Template("
"); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['menu_item'] = new Template("
#{title}
"); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['togglesource'] = new Template(""); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['emoticons_showall'] = new Template(""); ipb.editor_values.get('templates')['emoticon_wrapper'] = new Template("
Emoticons
"); // Add smilies into the mix ipb.editor_values.set( 'show_emoticon_link', false ); ipb.editor_values.set( 'bbcodes', $H({"snapback":{"id":"1","title":"Post Snap Back","desc":"This tag displays a little linked image which links back to a post - used when quoting posts from the board. Opens in same window by default.","tag":"snapback","useoption":"0","example":"[snapback]100[/snapback]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"topic":{"id":"5","title":"Topic Link","desc":"This tag provides an easy way to link to a topic","tag":"topic","useoption":"1","example":"[topic=1]Click me![/topic]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"Enter the topic ID","menu_content_text":"Enter the title for this link","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"post":{"id":"6","title":"Post Link","desc":"This tag provides an easy way to link to a post.","tag":"post","useoption":"1","example":"[post=1]Click me![/post]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"Enter the Post ID","menu_content_text":"Enter the title for this link","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"spoiler":{"id":"7","title":"Spoiler","desc":"Spoiler tag","tag":"spoiler","useoption":"0","example":"[spoiler]Some hidden text[/spoiler]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"Enter the text to be masked","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"acronym":{"id":"8","title":"Acronym","desc":"Allows you to make an acronym that will display a description when moused over","tag":"acronym","useoption":"1","example":"[acronym='Laugh Out Loud']lol[/acronym]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"Enter the description for this acronym (EG: Laugh Out Loud)","menu_content_text":"Enter the acronym (EG: lol)","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"hr":{"id":"12","title":"Horizontal Rule","desc":"Adds a horizontal rule to separate text","tag":"hr","useoption":"0","example":"[hr]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"1","optional_option":"0","image":""},"php":{"id":"14","title":"PHP Code","desc":"Allows you to enter PHP code into a formatted/highlighted syntax box","tag":"php","useoption":"0","example":"[php]$variable = true;\n\nprint_r($variable);[/php]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"html":{"id":"15","title":"HTML Code","desc":"Allows you to enter formatted/syntax-highlighted HTML code","tag":"html","useoption":"0","example":"[html]\n \n[/html]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"sql":{"id":"16","title":"SQL Code","desc":"Allows you to enter formatted/syntax-highlighted SQL code","tag":"sql","useoption":"0","example":"[sql]SELECT p.*, t.* FROM posts p LEFT JOIN topics t ON t.tid=p.topic_id WHERE t.tid=7[/sql]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"xml":{"id":"17","title":"XML Code","desc":"Allows you to enter formatted/syntax-highlighted XML code","tag":"xml","useoption":"0","example":"[xml]\n \n Test\n \n[/xml]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"member":{"id":"31","title":"Member","desc":"Given a member name, a link is automatically generated to the member's profile","tag":"member","useoption":"1","example":"[member=skyhawk133] runs this site.","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"Input Username of Member","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"1","optional_option":"0","image":"memberbbcode.png"},"extract":{"id":"33","title":"Extract Blog Entry","desc":"This will allow users to define an extract for an entry. Only this piece of the entry will be displayed on the main blog page and will show up in the RSS feed.","tag":"extract","useoption":"0","example":"[extract]This is an example![/extract]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"blog":{"id":"34","title":"Blog Link","desc":"This tag provides an easy way to link to a blog.","tag":"blog","useoption":"1","example":"[blog=100]Click me![/blog]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"entry":{"id":"35","title":"Blog Entry Link","desc":"This tag provides an easy way to link to a blog entry.","tag":"entry","useoption":"1","example":"[entry=100]Click me![/entry]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"twitter":{"id":"36","title":"Twitter","desc":"A tag to link to a user's twitter account","tag":"twitter","useoption":"0","example":"[twitter]userName[/twitter]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":"twitter.png"},"inline":{"id":"37","title":"Inline Code","desc":"Formats code inline instead of in a seperate code box. ","tag":"inline","useoption":"0","example":"[inline]style=\"font-size: 12px;\"[/inline]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":""},"il":{"id":"38","title":"Abbreviated Inline (IL)","desc":"Abbreviated version of the [inline] tag. ","tag":"il","useoption":"0","example":"[il]Code Here[/il]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"0","image":"il2.png"},"code":{"id":"41","title":"Code","desc":"Allows you to enter general code","tag":"code","useoption":"1","example":"[code]$text = 'Some long code here';[/code]","switch_option":"0","menu_option_text":"","menu_content_text":"","single_tag":"0","optional_option":"1","image":""}}) ); ipb.vars['emoticon_url'] = "http://cdn.dreamincode.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/default"; //Search Setup ipb.vars['search_type'] = 'forum'; ipb.vars['search_type_id'] = 15; ipb.vars['search_type_2'] = 'topic'; ipb.vars['search_type_id_2'] = 321502; //]]>
Hi all, just joined. I've written a segment of code that writes the first and last name of employess like so: last name, first name. To minimize the clutter in the main I want to get almost everything into a function so I've written this function that does string copies and string cats the last name and first name with a comma in the middle. However I received errors these are them:
arturo@arturo-Satellite-L305:~/Assign3c$ make g++ assign3c.cpp taxes.o Qsort.o -o main.exe assign3c.cpp: In function ?int main()?: assign3c.cpp:143:28: error: ?lastname? was not declared in this scope assign3c.cpp: In function ?void attachNames(char, char)?: assign3c.cpp:208:17: error: ?record? was not declared in this scope assign3c.cpp:208:24: error: ?i? was not declared in this scope assign3c.cpp:209:21: error: invalid conversion from ?char? to ?char*? [-fpermissive] /usr/include/string.h:136:14: error: initializing argument 1 of ?char* strcat(char*, const char*)? [-fpermissive] make: *** [main.exe] Error 1
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of bomb and gun attacks across Iraq killed more than 40 people on Tuesday, a day after over 70 died in violence targeting majority Shi'ites that has stoked fears of all-out sectarian war with minority Sunnis.
Nearly 300 people have been killed in the past week as sectarian tensions, fuelled by the civil war in neighboring Syria, threaten to plunge Iraq back into communal bloodletting.
Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds have yet to find a stable power-sharing deal and violence is again on the upswing.
In the biggest single incident on Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad killing 11 people and wounding 21, police and medics said.
"I heard a powerful bang and a fireball near the main gate of the mosque," said Uday Raheem, a policeman whose patrol was stationed near the mosque.
"We held back a while fearing a second explosion and then rushed to the blast location. The bodies of worshippers were scattered and some were shouting for help. bleeding to death."
Another bomb outside a cafe in the Doura district of southern Baghdad killed six more and wounded 18.
In Diyala province northeast of the capital, at least eight people, including two policemen, were killed in bombs and shootings, and in Kanaan, also to the northeast, two roadside bombs detonated in quick succession claiming three lives.
In the north of the country, three roadside bombs exploded near a livestock market in the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk, killing six people and shredding the bodies of humans and animals alike.
Mahmoud Jumaa, whose cousin was killed in the multiple bombings, appeared bewildered by their random nature.
"I heard the explosions, but never thought this place would be targeted since these animals have nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with sect, nothing to do with ethnicity or religion," he said.
Kirkuk is in a disputed oil-rich swathe of Iraq claimed both by the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad and ethnic Kurds who run their own autonomous administration in the north.
Two car bomb blasts killed three people in a residential part of the town of Tuz Khurmato, also in the disputed area.
North of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed three soldiers at a checkpoint in Tarmiya, police and medics said, and in Khalis gunmen broke into a house and killed and man and his wife, both of them Sunni Muslims.
The conflict in Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad, is turning in part into a regional proxy war between Sunni and Shi'ite powers.
Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite Hezbollah group is now openly fighting alongside Assad's forces, which are dominated by members of his minority Shi'ite-linked Alawite sect.
Iraq's Sunnis who resent their treatment by Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government have staged mass protests since December. Sunni militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda, have exploited the unrest, urging Sunnis to take up arms.
More than 700 people died violently in April, according to the United Nations, the highest monthly figure in almost five years. Iraq suffered a frenzy of Sunni-Shi'ite violence in 2006-07, when monthly death tolls sometimes topped 3,000.
(Reporting by Mustafa Mahmoud; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
May 20, 2013 ? NOAA presented to the U.S. Coast Guard today a new report that finds that 36 sunken vessels scattered across the U.S. seafloor could pose an oil pollution threat to the nation's coastal marine resources. Of those, 17 were recommended for further assessment and potential removal of both fuel oil and oil cargo.
The sunken vessels are a legacy of more than a century of U.S. commerce and warfare. They include a barge lost in rough seas in 1936; two motor-powered ships that sank in separate collisions in 1947 and 1952; and a tanker that exploded and sank in 1984. The remaining sites are 13 merchant marine ships lost during World War II, primarily along the Atlantic Seaboard and Gulf of Mexico. To see a list of the ships and their locations, visit: http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/protect/ppw/.
The report, part of NOAA's Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project, identifies the location and nature of potential sources of oil pollution from sunken vessels. Knowing where these vessels are helps oil response planning efforts and may help in the investigation of reported mystery spills--sightings of oil where a source is not immediately known or suspected.
"This report is the most comprehensive assessment to date of the potential oil pollution threats from shipwrecks in U.S. waters," said Lisa Symons, resource protection coordinator for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. "Now that we have analyzed this data, the Coast Guard will be able to evaluate NOAA's recommendations and determine the most appropriate response to potential threats."
"The Coast Guard is pleased to receive these risk assessments from our partner agency NOAA and looks forward to our continued coordination on the matter of potential pollution associated with sunken vessels in U.S. waters," said Capt. John Caplis, the Coast Guard's chief of marine environmental response. "Coast Guard federal on-scene coordinators receiving the risk assessments will carefully review the data and incorporate it into their area contingency plans."
In 2010, Congress appropriated $1 million for NOAA to develop a list of the most significant potentially polluting wrecks in U.S. waters, including the Great Lakes, specifically addressing ecological and socio-economic resources at risk. Those funds were not intended for oil or vessel removal.
NOAA maintains the internal Resources and UnderSea Threats (RUST) database of approximately 30,000 sites of sunken material, of which 20,000 are shipwrecks. The remaining items are munitions dumpsites, navigational obstructions, underwater archaeological sites, and other underwater resources.
Initial screening of these shipwrecks revealed 573 that could pose substantial pollution risks, based on the vessel's age, type, and size. This includes vessels built after 1891, when U.S. vessels began using fuel oil; vessels built of steel; vessels over 1,000 gross tons, and any tank vessel.
Additional research about the circumstances of each vessel's loss narrowed that number to 107 shipwrecks. Of those, some were deemed navigational hazards and demolished, and others were salvaged. Most of the 107 wrecks have not been directly surveyed for pollution potential, and in some cases little is known about their current condition.
To prioritize and determine which vessels are candidates for further evaluation, NOAA used a series of risk factors to assess the likelihood of substantial amounts of oil remaining onboard, and the potential ecological and environmental effects if that oil spills. Risk factors include the total oil volume onboard as cargo or fuel, the type of oil, and the nature of the sinking event. For example, a vessel that was struck by multiple torpedoes would likely contain less oil than a vessel that sank in bad weather.
After this third level of screening, 87 wrecks remained on the list developed for the Coast Guard's area contingency plans. Among this group, NOAA determined that 36 shipwrecks are candidates for a "Worst Case" discharge event in which the shipwreck's entire fuel oil and oil cargo would be released simultaneously, and recommended that 17 of these wrecks be considered for further assessment and feasibility of oil removal.
Six wrecks are potential candidates for a "Most Probable" discharge event, where a shipwreck could lose approximately 10 percent of its fuel oil or oil cargo. To date, known oil discharges from shipwrecks are typically in the "Most Probable" category or smaller.
The report, including 87 risk assessments, is not intended to direct Coast Guard activities, but rather provide the Coast Guard with NOAA's scientific and technical assessment and guidance as a natural resource and cultural heritage trustee.
The Coast Guard, as the federal On-scene Coordinator for mitigating oil spills in the coastal marine environment, the Regional Response Teams, and local Area Committees, as established under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, will review and incorporate the assessments into regional and area marine environmental response contingency plans. The individual risk assessments not only highlight concerns about potential ecological and socio-economic impacts, but also characterize most of the vessels as historically significant and many of them as grave sites, both civilian and military.
Funding for any assessment or recovery operations determined to be necessary is dependent upon the unique circumstances of the wreck. If a wreck still has an identifiable owner, that owner is responsible for the cost of cleanup. Coast Guard officials say that if no responsible party exists, the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund would likely be accessed.
To view the report, 2012 Risk Assessment for Potentially Polluting Wrecks in U.S. Waters, visit http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/protect/ppw/.
The Xbox One has finally arrived to serve up all of your living room entertainment in one place. But before you ready to open your wallet for Microsoft's next-gen console, you'd probably like to how the new Xbox stacks up against the old, and how its hardware compares to the next-gen competition from Sony, right? Well, a chart with comparable specs aplenty awaits you after the break.
Move over Clay Buchholz. Marlins starter Alex Sanabia went old school on Monday, bypassing the sunscreen and rosin and simply hocking a big ol? loogie on the baseball after giving up a home run to the Phillies? Domonic Brown.
The video isn?t embeddable yet, but here?s the link to it at MLB.com, as well as some still shots.
As it turned out, that second-inning homer by Brown was the lone run for the Phillies tonight in a 5-1 loss. Sanabia scattered seven hits over 6 1/3 innings in improving to 3-6 on the season. He lowered his ERA to 4.56.
While one can debate the legality of sunscreen on the arm, there?s no doubt what Sanabia was doing was against the rules, and though no one caught him during the game, it will be interesting to see if a suspension follows based on the obvious visual evidence.
Honing in on a niche for your blog can be difficult in the very general topic of fashion. Fashion is a glamorous, beautiful topic, and it?s hard to decide which direction to take when there are so many avenues to explore. However, it?s becoming more and more evident that niche bloggers have a better chance of monetizing because they tend to attract dedicated audiences.
That said, not all niches monetize equally. Some are easier ie, a luxury handbag niche is easier to monetize than a thrift store styling niche. Don?t be discouraged! With some creative, out of the box thinking you can monetize just about any niche.
126 Fashion Blog Ideas
This is just a short list of niches for inspirational purposes only. A brainstorm of sorts, they?re not even in a particular order! It?s a list to get your creative mind thinking about how to position your blog, or how to start a new blog with a niche in mind. I personally started with a goal of 30 niches, and it quickly expanded beyond that. The sky is really the limit! Mix, match and create your own niche!
Handbags: Luxury
Handbags: Contemporary
Handbags: Sale
Shoes: Womens
Shoes: Mens
Jewelry & Accessories
Lingerie: New
Lingerie: Vintage
Hats: New
Hats: Vintage
Hats: Avant-garde/Designer
Eyewear
Work wear: Corporate
Work wear: Creative
Work wear: Corporate Mens
Workwear: Plus size
Workwear: Maternity
Luxury Fashion
Contemporary Fashion
Mass market Fashion
High Street/Fast Fashion
Thrifted
Luxury for less
Sustainable Style
Sustainable Style News
Ethical Style
Independent Designers
Local Designers
Local Shopping
Online Shopping
Sample Sales
Online Shopping Sales
Lookbooks & Previews
Runway Fashion Reviews
Product Reviews
Runway Trends
Runway to ?real way? / Catwalk to Sidewalk
Music Fashion
Cinema Fashion
Television Fashion
Fashion in Literature
Fashion in Art
DIY: Fashion Trends
DIY: Runway
DIY: Crafting
Upcycled Fashion
Sewing Tutorials
Knitting/Crochet Tutorials
Handmade Fashion
Denim: Women?s Premium
Denim: Men?s Premium
Denim Style
Denim DIY
Street Style: Fashion Weeks
Street Style: Local
Street Style: Mens
Street Style: Womens
Street Style: Plus Size
Street Style: Age Focused (ie. 20?s, 30?s, 40?s, etc)
Street Style: Events, Music, Clubs
Fashion History
Textile History
Fashion News
Fashion Technology
Fashion Social Media
Fashion Business
Fashion PR
Fashion Design Education
Personal Style: Shopping
Personal Style: Straight Sizes
Personal Style: Plus Sizes
Personal Style: Maternity
Personal Style: Petites
Personal Style: Tall
Personal Style: Menswear
Personal Style: ?Every day?
Personal Style: Avant-garde
Personal Style: High School
Personal Style: College
Personal Style: Age Focused (ie. 20?s, 30?s, 40?s, etc)
Personal Style: Modest
Special Occasion Style
Wedding Style: Designer
Wedding Style: DIY
Wedding Style: Alternative/Niche
Wedding Style: Sustainable
Lifestyle Style, ie. Preppy, Active, Urban, Artist, etc.
'And the Mountains Echoed,' Hosseini's third novel, is racking up huge pre-sale numbers. The book will be released tomorrow.
By Husna Haq,?Correspondent / May 20, 2013
One thing that may come as a surprise to readers of Hosseini's third novel: There?s far less "Afghanistan" and "conflict" in this book ? perhaps a deliberate decision by Hosseini to reframe the country in readers? psyches.
Enlarge
Early reviews are in and they?ve confirmed what we?ve known all along: Khaled Hosseini?s latest novel, ?And the Mountains Echoed,? is a hit. It?s also a surprisingly nuanced, morally complex, exquisitely told tear-jerker.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
Take it from the Washington Post?s book reviewer, Marcela Valdes.
?I?m not an easy touch when it comes to novels, but Hosseini?s new book, 'And the Mountains Echoed,' had tears dropping from my eyes by Page 45,? she writes, positing that Hosseini?s ?secret ingredient might be intense emotion.?
Hosseini?s third book, ?And the Mountains Echoed,? hits stores Tuesday, six years after his previous two books captivated millions of readers and spent years on the bestseller list. His 2003 debut novel, ?The Kite Runner,? was published in 70 countries and spent almost two years on bestseller lists. ?A Thousand Splendid Suns? also became a bestseller in 2007. Together, the two books have sold more than 38 million copies.
?And the Mountains Echoed? isn't due out until tomorrow but pre-orders of the book, in both print and e-book versions, have already exceeded those of "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by almost 95 percent on Amazon.com.
Like the previous two, Hosseini?s latest novel is a heart-wrenching story. ?And the Mountains Echoed? is set partly in Afghanistan, but action also takes place in California, Paris, and the Greek Islands. Early reviews have called it a story about family, separation, and sibling relationships. It begins with an Afghan tale about a horrific monster called a div who comes to an Afghan village to demand the sacrifice of a child. The consequences of the resulting sacrifice of a favored son echo through the lives of all the characters explored in the book, most importantly siblings Abdullah and Pari.
Unlike ?The Kite Runner? and ?A Thousand Splendid Suns,? ?And the Mountains Echoed? is constructed as a series of stories, each set in a different place and time and told from a different point of view.
?In less skillful hands, this structure might seem more like a compilation of short stories than a novel,? writes the Post?s Valdes. ?But Hosseini carefully divvies up details about the circumstances preceding and following Abdullah and Pari?s fateful afternoon, giving the book a satisfying sense of momentum and consequence.?
One thing that may come as a surprise to readers: There?s far less "Afghanistan" and "conflict" in this novel. It appears to be a deliberate decision by Hosseini to reframe the country in readers? psyches as any other setting and not as a country defined by war, conflict, and turmoil.
?I hope a day will come when we write about Afghanistan, where we can speak about Afghanistan in a context outside of the wars and the struggles of the last 30 years,? he told NPR. ?In some way I think this book is an attempt to do that.?
WWE Tag Team Champions Team Hell No ( members:?Kane & Daniel Bryan) will face the biggest challenge of their eight-month title reign when they defend against The Shield?s Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins in a Tag Team Tornado Match at Extreme Rules 2013 aired on Sunday May 19.
Date: Sunday May 19, 2013 Time: 8PMET or 5PMPT Venue Scottrade Center City St. Louis, Missouri TeamHell No vs The Shield?s Reigns & Rollins
Watch Live on PPV
Unlike traditional tag team contests, the stipulation for this Sunday?s championship duel does away with the formality of tagging; instead, all four Superstars will fight concurrently until a pinfall or submission decision is rendered.A holdover from the nascent years of tag team competition, the Tornado Match seemingly plays to the strengths of Reigns and Rollins who, alongside Dean Ambrose, have excelled in matches in which their frenetic ring style isn?t stymied by tags. That?s to say nothing of the inherent danger of Tag Team Tornado Matches. The risk of being blindsided is grave, and double-team attacks are inevitable. When all four Superstars are battling in the ring simultaneously for the entire duration of a match, the overall chance of injury is heightened immeasurably.
May 20, 2013 ? New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells' "superpower" to escape death.
By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer cells into normal cells that die as scheduled.
One way that cancer cells thrive is by inhibiting a process that would cause them to die on a regular cycle that is subject to strict programming. This study in cells, led by Ohio State University researchers, found that a compound in certain plant-based foods, called apigenin, could stop breast cancer cells from inhibiting their own death.
Much of what is known about the health benefits of nutrients is based on epidemiological studies that show strong positive relationships between eating specific foods and better health outcomes, especially reduced heart disease. But how the actual molecules within these healthful foods work in the body is still a mystery in many cases, and particularly with foods linked to lower risk for cancer.
Parsley, celery and chamomile tea are the most common sources of apigenin, but it is found in many fruits and vegetables.
The researchers also showed in this work that apigenin binds with an estimated 160 proteins in the human body, suggesting that other nutrients linked to health benefits -- called "nutraceuticals" -- might have similar far-reaching effects. In contrast, most pharmaceutical drugs target a single molecule.
"We know we need to eat healthfully, but in most cases we don't know the actual mechanistic reasons for why we need to do that," said Andrea Doseff, associate professor of internal medicine and molecular genetics at Ohio State and a co-lead author of the study. "We see here that the beneficial effect on health is attributed to this dietary nutrient affecting many proteins. In its relationship with a set of specific proteins, apigenin re-establishes the normal profile in cancer cells. We think this can have great value clinically as a potential cancer-prevention strategy."
Doseff oversaw this work with co-lead author Erich Grotewold, professor of molecular genetics and director of Ohio State's Center for Applied Plant Sciences (CAPS). The two collaborate on studying the genomics of apigenin and other flavonoids, a family of plant compounds that are believed to prevent disease.
The research appears this week in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Though finding that apigenin can influence cancer cell behavior was an important outcome of the work, Grotewold and Doseff point to their new biomedical research technique as a transformative contribution to nutraceutical research.
They likened the technique to "fishing" for the human proteins in cells that interact with small molecules available in the diet.
"You can imagine all the potentially affected proteins as tiny fishes in a big bowl. We introduce this molecule to the bowl and effectively lure only the truly affected proteins based on structural characteristics that form an attraction," Doseff said. "We know this is a real partnership because we can see that the proteins and apigenin bind to each other."
Through additional experimentation, the team established that apigenin had relationships with proteins that have three specific functions. Among the most important was a protein called hnRNPA2.
This protein influences the activity of messenger RNA, or mRNA, which contains the instructions needed to produce a specific protein. The production of mRNA results from the splicing, or modification, of RNA that occurs as part of gene activation. The nature of the splice ultimately influences which protein instructions the mRNA contains.
Doseff noted that abnormal splicing is the culprit in an estimated 80 percent of all cancers. In cancer cells, two types of splicing occur when only one would take place in a normal cell -- a trick on the cancer cells' part to keep them alive and reproducing.
In this study, the researchers observed that apigenin's connection to the hnRNPA2 protein restored this single-splice characteristic to breast cancer cells, suggesting that when splicing is normal, cells die in a programmed way, or become more sensitive to chemotherapeutic drugs.
"So by applying this nutrient, we can activate that killing machinery. The nutrient eliminated the splicing form that inhibited cell death," said Doseff, also an investigator in Ohio State's Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute. "Thus, this suggests that when we eat healthfully, we are actually promoting more normal splice forms inside the cells in our bodies."
The beneficial effects of nutraceuticals are not limited to cancer, as the investigators previously showed that apigenin has anti-inflammatory activities.
The scientists noted that with its multiple cellular targets, apigenin potentially offers a variety of additional benefits that may even occur over time. "The nutrient is targeting many players, and by doing that, you get an overall synergy of the effect," Grotewold explained.
Doseff is leading a study in mice, testing whether food modified to contain proper doses of this nutrient can change splicing forms in the animals' cells and produce an anti-cancer effect.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A tornado half a mile wide struck near Oklahoma City on Sunday, part of a massive storm front that hammered the central United States. News reports said at least one person had died.
By early Sunday evening, 19 tornados had touched down in parts of Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas, according to the National Weather Service and local news reports.
Fox News reported that one person was killed in Shawnee, Oklahoma, east of Oklahoma City.
Police in Shawnee could not immediately be reached to confirm the report.
Officials of the National Weather Service in Oklahoma issued a series of increasingly urgent warnings in the late afternoon and evening, including an alert on Twitter about a tornado striking Pink, a town on the edge of Oklahoma City.
"Large tornado west of Pink!" the post read. "Take cover RIGHT NOW in Pink! DO NOT WAIT!"
An extreme weather system stretching from north Texas to Minnesota had been building for hours on Sunday when a "large tornado" touched down near Wichita, Kansas at 3:45 pm Central Standard time, according to a weather service alert.
Another alert warned of the likelihood of "exceptionally powerful, severe thunderstorms capable of destructive hail as large as baseballs," especially over southeast Kansas in the evening.
Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa are all in the path of the storm system capable of producing winds of up to 80 miles per hour, large hail stones and violent tornadoes.
The storm prompted an unusually blunt warning from the central region of the National Weather Service, which covers 14 states.
"You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter," it said. "Complete destruction of neighborhoods, businesses and vehicles will occur. Flying debris will be deadly to people and animals."
A tornado also touched down in southwest Wichita at 3:45 p.m. Central time, moving northeast at about 35 miles per hour toward Topeka, said Pat Slattery, spokesman for the National Weather Service for the U.S. Central region.
In northeast Oklahoma, the Lincoln County sheriff's office reported three tornado touchdowns in that region, NBC News said reported early on Sunday evening.
Slattery said the potential severity of the storm prompted the weather service to issue the stark advisory, which is part of a new warning system being tested in the U.S. Central region after a violent tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011, killing 158 people and injuring hundreds.
Slattery said the new advisory was reserved for severe tornadoes with the potential to form into "supercell" storms, which produce powerful winds and flash flooding. Supercells are considered to be the most dangerous of four categories of storms because of the extreme weather they generate.
A recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration assessment of the Joplin storm found that "when people heard the first tornado warning, they did not immediately seek shelter. They looked for a secondary source to confirm the tornado," Slattery said. "That got some people killed."
(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio, Richard Chang and David Brunnstrom)
QIANTUN, China (Reuters) - Two years short of 70, Zhang Guosheng spends his days caring for an 81-year-old fellow villager - washing his clothes, bringing meals to his bed, and keeping him company - a routine he'll keep up until he himself needs the type of care he is now giving.
"Living here is better than staying at home alone. We help each other and have a common language," said the spritely Zhang, an enthusiastic dancer. "We are very happy here."
With younger villagers who would traditionally have looked after their parents and grandparents flocking to the booming cities to seek work as part of Beijing's urbanization drive, Qiantun village in northern China's Hebei province has had to pioneer a new model - the old looking after the even older.
Surrounded by green wheat fields that stretch across a flat plain, Qiantun is unremarkable among countless rural Chinese communities, but its old-age care model is now a prototype cited by central government as a solution to the daunting challenge of caring for a vast and rapidly greying rural population.
One of every four Chinese will be older than 60 by 2030, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Massive rural-to-urban migration will further strain the rural areas' ability to provide care for the elderly, as personal savings and family support remain the primary pillars of old-age care.
"Migrants to urban areas are mainly young adults, leaving mostly the elderly in villages with children," said Wang Dewen, an expert with the World Bank's Beijing office. "The formal eldercare system in rural areas is very weak, and basically a blank spot in many places."
As a result, the gap between the number of elderly in rural and urban areas is expected to balloon over the next 15 years, to 11 percentage points from today's 1.24 percentage points, the ministry projects.
The costs of caring for China's rapidly expanding elderly population are likely to be too heavy a burden for the government, forcing Beijing to find cost-effective and creative ways to provide care in myriad localities. The self-help model practiced among the 1,500 residents of Qiantun offers a cheaper and streamlined alternative to a state-run system.
More than 95 percent of China's rural elderly still adhere to the traditional practice of seeking old-age care within their families, Wang said. But families are no longer able to cope, with youth and even middle-aged people heading to cities to find work, leaving the elderly behind to fend for themselves.
THE "LIGHT" OF FEIXIANG
In their search for affordable eldercare models, Beijing's leaders have turned their attention 450 km (280 miles) to the south in Hebei's Feixiang county, where Qiantun lies. The practice of old people taking care of each other posed a simple and attractive solution.
Labeled "mutual assist eldercare", the Feixiang model is set to be expanded to the rest of rural China, with 3 billion yuan ($490 million) set aside by the central government to get it started over the coming three years.
"The light of Feixiang will shine across China," Li Liguo, minister of civil affairs, declared enthusiastically during a trip to Feixiang in 2011. "Feixiang has set an example for the whole country."
But not everyone is as optimistic about the model.
"As people get older, they don't tend to get healthier. So if you have somebody in their sixties caring for somebody in their nineties, are they going to be able, and trained and strong enough themselves to care for somebody who has chronic conditions?" said Tony Buccheri, a manager with Right at Home International, a U.S.-based senior home care provider that offers services in China through a partner.
Buccheri's concern echoes that of Cai Qingyang, pioneer of the model and Qiantun's village chief.
"Old people with critical illnesses need more than the very basic care provided here, and we will have to think of other ways to care for them," said the 61 year-old former soldier Cai, watching several old villagers dancing in the yard.
"But this really is the only feasible way given the local elder care situation. The village and the government simply can't afford proper institutional care for every aged rural resident," Cai added.
In 2008, Cai sought to do something about the lack of care for rural elderly left behind as young adults sought better paying work in cities. He turned an abandoned brick house into an old-age home, where 25 elderly villagers moved into 11 rooms, keeping each other company, sharing meals, as well as farming and doing housework.
His innovation has thrived under state support and more than a dozen other provinces have replicated the model.
OLD BEFORE RICH
What separates China's ageing pattern from that in other Asian societies such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore is that the country is still relatively poor on a per capita basis. The phrase "getting old before rich" reflects the fact that even though China's economic growth remains robust, its demographics work against it.
Those in the emerging middle class have more options among at-home care providers, and public as well as private senior homes, and are more likely to find them affordable.
The rural elderly have fewer resources and fewer choices, while youth migration patterns unstitch the traditional family safety net. And despite years of efforts by China's leaders, the income gap between urban and rural residents has increased. A report published by the World Bank last year noted that rural elderly have "remained consistently poorer than the urban elderly over time".
Nor is that likely to change. Two-thirds of elderly Chinese currently live in rural areas, and although migration patterns cloud demographic estimates, many demographers believe the majority of China's elderly will remain in the countryside.
To meet the challenge, says the World Bank's Wang, China must make its urbanization an equalizer of basic social services for urban and rural residents. To do that, he adds, it must reform the household registration system that ties social services to people's registered home, to facilitate family migration to cities and receive care there.
But in the short term, rural areas such as Qiantun, which has three times as many elderly residents as young adults, can only make do with the resources they have. The government provides 600 yuan ($97.68) a year in subsidies for each of the 30 elderly Qiantun villagers at the centre. Their average age is 75.
By contrast, offering professional care at an old-age care institution would cost a minimum of ten times as much, 6,000 yuan a year, according to government estimates, offset by a mere 120 yuan annual subsidy from the government.
At the Qiantun villager centre, "old" Zhang, as he is known, talks about the future as he brings a bowl of dumplings and medicine to the bedside of his charge, bedridden by a broken thigh bone.
"He can't move around now, I help him," said a still spry Zhang. "When I can't move, someone will also care for me."
May 20, 2013 ? Melbourne researchers have identified an immune protein that has the potential to stop or reverse the development of type 1 diabetes in its early stages, before insulin-producing cells have been destroyed.
The discovery has wider repercussions, as the protein is responsible for protecting the body against excessive immune responses, and could be used to treat, or even prevent, other immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
Professor Len Harrison, Dr Esther Bandala-Sanchez and Dr Yuxia Zhang led the research team from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's Molecular Medicine division that identified the immune protein CD52 as responsible for suppressing the immune response, and its potential for protecting against autoimmune diseases. The research was published today in the journal Nature Immunology.
So-called autoimmune diseases develop when the immune system goes awry and attacks the body's own tissues. Professor Harrison said CD52 held great promise as a therapeutic agent for preventing and treating autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes.
"Immune suppression by CD52 is a previously undiscovered mechanism that the body uses to regulate itself, and protect itself against excessive or damaging immune responses," Professor Harrison said. "We are excited about the prospect of developing this discovery to clinical trials as soon as possible, to see if CD52 can be used to prevent and treat type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. This has already elicited interest from pharmaceutical companies."
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that develops when immune cells attack and destroy insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Approximately 120,000 Australians have type 1 diabetes and incidence has doubled in the last 20 years. "Type 1 diabetes is a life-long disease," Professor Harrison said. "It typically develops in children and teenagers, and it really makes life incredibly difficult for them and their families. It also causes significant long-term complications involving the eyes, kidneys and blood vessel damage, and at great cost to the community."
Professor Harrison said that T cells that have or release high levels of CD52 are necessary to maintain normal balance in the immune system. "In a preclinical model of type 1 diabetes, we showed that removal of CD52-producing immune cells led to rapid development of diabetes. We think that cells that release CD52 are essential to prevent the development of autoiummune disease, and that CD52 has great potential as a therapeutic agent," he said.
CD52 appears to play a dominant role in controlling or suppressing immune activity in the early stages of the immune response, Professor Harrison said. "We identified a specialised population of immune cells (T cells) that carry high levels of CD52, which they release to dampen the activity of other T cells and prevent uncontrolled immune responses," Professor Harrison said. "The cells act as an early 'braking' mechanism."
Professor Harrison said his goal is to prevent and ultimately cure type 1 diabetes. "In animal models we can prevent and cure type 1 diabetes," Professor Harrison said. "I am hopeful that these results will be translatable into humans, hopefully in the not-too-distant future."
This research was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and the Victorian Government.
Isla Fisher attended the Opening Ceremony and premiere of "The Great Gatsby" during the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 15 in Cannes, France.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Emma Stone stepped out in New York City on May 15 looking adorable as always.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Baz Luhrmann posed together at "The Great Gatsby" photocall at the 66th Cannes Film Festival on May 15.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
A very pregnant Penelope Cruz and her brother Eduardo visited their sister Monica at the hospital after she gave birth to a baby girl on May 14 in Madrid, Spain.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Zoe Saldana looked incredible at the "Star Trek Into Darkness" premiere held at The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., on May 14.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Nicole Kidman arrived at the Martinez Hotel in Cannes, France to attend a photocall of the Jury on the eve of the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival on May 14.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Katie Holmes was spotted on the set of "Mania Days" in New York City on May 14.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Emma Watson arrived on a flight at the Nice Airport on May 14 to attend the upcoming 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival in France.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Lea Michele attended the FOX 2013 Programming Presentation Post-Party at Wollman Rink Central Park in New York City on May 13.
Celebrity News: May 2013
Angelina Jolie revealed that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/angelina-jolie-double-mastectomy_n_3271514.html?utm_hp_ref=celebrity" target="_blank">she had a double mastectomy</a> after discovering she carried a cancer gene on May 14.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Owl City's Adam Young took a snack break while helping launch the new OREO cookie "Wonderfilled" campaign in NYC on May 14.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Alyson Hannigan was spotted leaving the AOL office after visiting The Huffington Post in New York City on May 13.
Celebrity News: May 2013
Angie Everhart <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/angie-everhart-cancer-diagnosis_n_3267500.html" target="_blank">confirmed that she's been diagnosed</a> with thyroid cancer.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Selma Blair was seen enjoying her Mother's Day with her son, Arthur Bleick at the beach in Malibu, Calif., on May 12.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux took a stroll after shopping at Barney's and dining at Fred's Restraunt in New York City on May 12.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Sienna Miller attended the Arqiva British Academy Television Awards at the Royal Festival Hall on May 12 in London.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Reese Witherspoon flaunted her legs in short shorts while watching her son's football game in Brentwood, Calif., on May 11.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Selena Gomez was spotted spending some time at the pool in Miami, Fla., on May 11.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Halle Berry flaunted her baby bump at the 20th Annual EIF Revlon Run/Walk For Women held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 11.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Liv Tyler took a walk with a male friend around West Village in New York City on May 10.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Stephen Amell hosted the F*ck Cancer event on May 9 at Bootsy Bellows in Los Angeles, Calif.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Pregnant actress Jenna Dewan headed out of her home in London on May 9.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Kerry Washington stopped by "Extra" at The Grove in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 8.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Bradley Cooper went incognito as he headed to the set of "American Hustle" on May 8 in Boston.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Ryan Reynolds was spotted walking his dog Baxter while sporting the new Fitbit Flex Wireless Activity Wristband in Bedford, NY on May 7.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Olivia Wilde was spotted rocking Carrera shades at Carrera Ignition Night in New York City on May 7.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Jennifer Lopez and Casper Smart held hands while leaving their hotel in New York City on May 7. Check out J.Lo's tight leather pants!
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Blake Lively rocked thigh-high boots and a little black dress for a photo shoot in New York CIty on May 7.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Jennifer Lawrence and Sarah Jessica Parker share a laugh while attending the "PUNK: Chaos To Couture" Costume Institute Gala at the MET Museum in New York City on May 6.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Beyonce looked amazing at the "PUNK: Chaos To Couture" Costume Institute Gala at the MET Museum in New York City on May 6.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Kristen Stewart wowed in a jumpsuit at the "PUNK: Chaos To Couture" Costume Institute Gala at the MET Museum in New York City on May 6.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Nina Dobrev dazzled at the "PUNK: Chaos To Couture" Costume Institute Gala at the MET Museum in New York City on May 6.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale attended the "PUNK: Chaos To Couture" Costume Institute Gala at the MET Museum in New York City on May 6.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Jessica Biel flashed her bra while she was out with her dogs for a walk on May 6 in New York City.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Brooke Burke-Charvet and her son enjoyed Wendy`s new Frosty Waffle Cones in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 6.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West held hands on May 5 before heading to dinner in New York City.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger were seen walking together in SOHO in New York City on May 5.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Josh Hartnett was snapped catching a cab in New York City on May 5.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
The crowd watched as Paris Hilton and her boyfriend River Viiperi shared a sweet kiss at the Pool After Dark at Harrah's Resort in Atlantic City on May 4.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Orlando Bloom had his hands full during an afternoon outing in Beverly Hills, Calif., with 2-year-old son Flynn on My 4.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Keith Urban carried 2-year-old daughter Faith while 4?-year-old Sunday Rose stuck close to mom Nicole Kidman as the family ventured out in Hollywood on May 4.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
LeAnn Rimes sported short shorts as she shopped in Los Angeles, Calif., on May 3.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Nina Dobrev visited the Origins Flatiron store for the launch of the new Origins GinZing? Energy-boosting on May 3 in New York City.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Leonardo DiCaprio and Jay-Z partied with Mo?t & Chandon at the after party for the NY premiere of "The Great Gatsby" on May 1.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Heidi Klum was spotted leading the "Right End" Hair Revolution at The Grove on May 1 in Los Angeles, Calif.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Allison Williams rocked spandex as she filmed scenes for "Girls" in Chinatown, NYC, on May 1.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
LaLa Anthony provided some added comfort by donating Dr. Scholl's Massaging Gel Insoles to construction workers at the Seaside Heights boardwalk on May 1. The New Jersey town is working tirelessly on the rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Sandy.
Celebrity Photos: May 2013
Hilary Duff donned a tight red dress as she headed into "The Today Show" in New York City on May 1.
Celebrity Photos: April 2013
Amy Poehler hosted Worldwide Orphans Salon Event presented by Shutterfly on April 30 in Los Angeles, Calif.
Celebrity Photos: April 2013
Nicole Richie attended the AOL 2013 Digital Content Newsfront at Moynihan Station in New York City on April 30.
Celebrity Photos: April 2013
Kristin Cavallari arrived on a flight at LAX airport in Los Angeles, Calif., with her son Camden on April 30.