MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Labour leader Ed Miliband launched an offensive against banks on Sunday ahead of his party's annual conference, promising a "real separation" of retail and investment banking and to raise the top rate of personal income tax.
The Conservative-Lib Demcoalition government has said it will implement the recommendations of an independent review by Oxford University economist John Vickers into how banks should be structured in the wake of the global credit crisis.
But critics, including Vickers, have lamented the watering down of some of the proposals - including the definition of the ring fence between retail and investment arms and the ratio of loans to capital that banks can hold on their books.
Britain's banks - including Barclays, RBS, Lloyds and HSBC - will have until 2019 to make the changes with the government committed to write the new rules into law by 2015.
Labour accuses the government of caving in to fierce lobbying by the financial sector.
"Either they can do it themselves - which frankly is not what has happened over the past year - or the next Labour government will, by law, break up retail and investment banks," Miliband said.
"The banks and the government can change direction and say that they are going to implement the spirit and principle of Vickers to the full - that means the hard ring-fence between retail and investment banking. We need real separation, real culture change. Or we will legislate."
Some in the Conservative-led government had been concerned that punishing the financial sector could damage the competitiveness of the City of London, a major global financial centre, and potentially harm a crucial part of Britain's recession-hit economy.
Miliband's warning to the banks comes ahead of his party's annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester, where he is under pressure to explain to voters how it would govern if elected in 2015.
Miliband, who replaced former prime minister Gordon Brown as Labour leader after that defeat, has struggled to make a good impression on voters so far. While opinion polls show Labour would win an election tomorrow, his own personal approval ratings languish below those of Prime Minister David Cameron.
Seeking to capitalise on a perception of Cameron's government as too friendly to the wealthy in an era of austerity, Miliband said Labour would reverse a tax cut for the highest earners in this year's budget which saw the highest rate of income tax drop to 45 percent from 50 percent.
Rental: Does anyone have any 1bedroom rentals in St John. Looking for a safe clean unit can be condo,apt, loft doesnt really matter for a 6 month or 1 year lease. I am trying to move to the island in next 30 days before season starts. Giving up on the rat race here in the states and gonna come try island life. Can pay several months up front if necessary.
Jobs: I am33 year old working currently in medical device sales here in the states and very excited about a possible move to the islands. I have experience in mortgages/real estate prior to getting into medical device sales and would be willing to even bartend or wait tables as i did that working through college. Dont get me wrong i like to have fun but i need to work to be able to stay on the island long term.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Sen. John McCain says not to expect any surprises in this week's first presidential debate because the televised confrontations nowadays are so heavily scripted.
McCain was President Barack Obama's challenger in 2008. He says if he were running against Obama again, he could easily guess ? and prepare for ? the first half dozen questions because they are usually so obvious.
McCain says he still thinks debates are good for the country and the elections, and he predicted that Wednesday's debate between Obama and Republican Mitt Romney will attract the largest number of viewers in history. But, he says, if Americans are expecting to catch any revealing moments, they might be disappointed because "frankly the candidates are too well prepared."
When I first began making bread, the science involved was always in the back of my mind. I had an idea of what occurred?my diagram for the chemical reactions in dough looked something like this:
When I started preparing a manual for a bread-making class, however, I really began to wonder about the details. Is the sugar for fermentation part of flour? How exactly does the yeast process this sugar? Do all the complex flavors of bread really come from one organic molecule, ethanol? Numerous trips to the university libraries helped me understand the enzymes involved in making the dough.
When I realized that flour contains a very small amount of sugar, only one to two percent, I thought, ?Wait a minute, how is that possible? That?s not enough to make dough rise.? Then I figured out that the starch in flour provides most of the sugar for fermentation, and the starch must be broken down into sugar before it can be fermented. This breakdown is the work of enzymes.
An enzyme is defined as a large molecule, usually a protein, that catalyzes a biological reaction. This means that the enzyme speeds up the reaction by reducing whatever energy barrier is preventing the reaction from happening quickly and easily.
When two molecules bump into each other, there is a chance they will react to form new molecules. Sometimes this happens easily?the two molecules each have an unstable site, for example, and when they bump, a bond forms between the sites, creating a new, stable molecule. In other cases, however, bonds in the reacting molecules must break (which requires energy) before new bonds can form. The amount of energy needed to break the old bonds is the energy barrier to the reaction. This is represented by the solid line in the diagram below.
One way to increase the speed of a reaction is to heat it up. Hotter molecules move faster; they possess more energy. When two of them collide, there is a greater chance that the necessary bonds will break and reaction will occur. If more molecules possess the energy needed to get over the barrier, more of the reaction occurs.
The other way to speed up a reaction is to reduce the barrier, as shown by the dashed line in the diagram. When less energy is needed for the reaction, more molecules will possess enough energy to get over the barrier. Reducing the barrier is the job of catalysts. They alter the situation to reduce the barrier to reaction. Enzymes are a subset of catalysts; they work on biological reactions. About 4000 reactions are known to involve enzymes, including most of the reactions that occur in the human body and several reactions in bread dough, described next.
Enzymes catalyze three main reactions in bread-making: breaking starch into maltose, a complex sugar; breaking complex sugars into simple sugars; and breaking protein chains. The breakages could happen without enzymes, but the energy barrier is so large that it is very unlikely. Essentially, the enzymes are necessary for the reactions to occur.
It is easy to start seeing enzymes as little critters that come in, recognize the site where they can work, and begin to chew on bonds or snap them in half. While this is a convenient picture, it does a disservice to the marvels of biology. Enzymes do not think or act, but still manage to arrive at the sites where they are needed. Each enzyme has a very specific job to do and only interacts with the appropriate molecules for which it is designed, ignoring all others. Enzymes work efficiently and are not used up by the process; after the reaction occurs, the original enzyme molecule is left intact and can proceed to a new site.
If the enzyme does not think, how does it manage to perform its specific task? The simplified picture presented in general chemistry textbooks is called the ?lock and key model.? An enzyme has a specific shape that fits together with the substrate, the molecule on which it will be working. The enzyme bonds to the substrate with a weaker chemical bond, a hydrogen bond or hydrophobic bond, for example. It alters the substrate in a way that makes reaction favorable. Once reaction occurs, the enzyme releases the products and moves on.
For example, the substrate sucrose is a complex sugar that can react with a water molecule to form two simple sugar molecules, glucose and fructose.
There is an energy barrier to the reaction because it takes a lot of energy to break the middle bond of the sucrose.
The enzyme sucrase fits together with the sucrose (below). In order to bond to the enzyme, the sucrose must stretch. This stretching weakens the sucrose?s middle bond, which becomes susceptible to attack by water molecules. The energy barrier has been lowered. When a water molecule comes along, the middle bond easily breaks and reacts with the water molecule. The enzyme is now holding the product molecules, which it releases. Sucrose has been broken into glucose and fructose.
Another example emphasizes the bonding nature of the enzymes; they are not simply fitting into substrates like puzzle pieces, snapping into place. Bonds must form. Once bonded, the active site of the enzyme is positioned near the reaction site of the substrate, which it alters to reduce the energy barrier.
In this example, the substrate is a protein. Proteins are chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. When a peptide bond forms, a water molecule is released.
A water molecule can come back and break a peptide bond, but it usually does not have enough energy.
The enzyme carboxypeptidase catalyzes the breaking of the last peptide bond in the protein chain, releasing the end amino acid. Carboxypeptidase contains a zinc atom with a positive charge. This zinc atom bonds with the protein near the last peptide bond, pulling the electrons of the bond away from it and, thus, weakening it (below). The enzyme also has a pocket area composed of hydrophobic atoms; if the terminal amino acid has a hydrophobic group on it, the group is attracted to this pocket and held by it. In addition, carboxypeptidase can form hydrogen bonds with the terminal amino acid, further securing it in place.
When a water molecule encounters the weakened peptide bond, it likely now has enough energy to break it, recombining with the broken ends to reform the loose amino acid. The various bonds holding the enzyme to the protein substrate are weakened, and the enzyme is released.
The first enzyme to take action in bread dough is amylase. Amylase acts on starch (either amylose or amylopectin), breaking the starch chain between adjacent sugar rings. There are two kinds of amylase: ?-amylase (alpha-amylase) randomly breaks the chain into smaller pieces while ?-amylase (beta-amylase) breaks maltose units off the end of the chain.
Amylase is found in flour. Wheat kernels contain amylase because they need to break starch down into sugar to use for energy when the kernels germinate. The amount of amylase varies with the weather and harvesting conditions of the wheat, so mills generally test for it and add extra or blend flours to get an appropriate amount.
Amylases are mobilized when water is added to the flour. This is one reason why doughs with a higher hydration often ferment faster?the amylases (and other enzymes) can move about more effectively. To reach the starch molecules, amylases must penetrate the starch?s granules; thus, most of the action in bread dough happens at broken granules, where the starch is available for reaction. Fortunately, a percentage of starch granules are damaged during milling and accessible by the amylases.
An amylase is a big molecule, with hundreds of amino acids linked together. Many different groups contribute to the bonding between the amylase and the starch substrate. In addition, there are several different amylase molecules, and each functions differently. The examples of enzyme action presented above give the general idea.
Because of amylase, some of the starch in bread dough is broken into maltose, a double-ring sugar composed of two glucose molecules; but fermentation reactions require single glucose rings. Simple sugars like glucose also provide flavor to the bread and participate in browning reactions that occur at the crust during baking.
Fortunately, the yeast used in bread-making contains the enzyme maltase, which breaks maltose into glucose. When the yeast cell encounters a maltose molecule, it absorbs it. Maltase then bonds to the maltose and breaks it in two. Yeast cells also contain invertase, another enzyme that can break sucrose, like the sucrase described above. This enzyme works on the small percentage of sucrose found in the flour. These two enzymes are responsible for producing much of the glucose needed by the yeast for fermentation.
The other major enzyme at work in bread dough is protease. Protease acts on protein chains, breaking the peptide bonds between amino acids. Carboxypeptidase, described above, is an example of a protease. There are hundreds of proteases, but only a few are found in bread dough, where they chop the gluten into pieces. Proteases occur naturally in flour, yeast cells, and malt. Their levels are measured at the mill and adjusted in the same way that amylase levels are adjusted.
Proteases in bread dough have been the subject of scientific research for the past hundred years. There has been much debate about their importance. In the early years, scientists were trying to prove their existence and measure relative activity in different brands of flour. They amplified the protease activity by adding non-gluten substrates to the mix. These substrates were ones that protease readily attacks. Eventually someone thought to look at protease activity in normal bread dough and found very little activity.
It seems, however, that this very small activity might be just what is needed in bread dough. Too much protease activity would break up the gluten, destroying the network that forms during kneading. A little bit, however, softens the dough and makes it more workable. If the dough is allowed to autolyse (i.e., rest) or if preferments are used, proteases have time to work before kneading, making the dough easier to knead. (I wonder if this is the origin of the word ?autolyse,? from ?autolysis,? which means ?self-breaking? and could refer to the protein proteases at work on the protein chains.)
In addition to affecting the dough?s consistency, proteases affect its flavor. Proteases result in single amino acids when they break the last peptide bond of the protein chain. These amino acids can participate in the flavor and browning reactions that occur at the crust during baking.
So now, my simplified diagram of the chemical reactions in bread dough looks more like this:
This diagram includes the presence of enzymes. Without enzymes, bread-making would not be possible. Then again, neither would we.
TOKYO (AP) ? The International Ice Hockey Federation is operating on the assumption that NHL players will take part in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
"We've prepared everything with the idea that NHL players will be there," IIHFPresident Rene Fasel said Friday. "We've decided about the format and expect them to be there."
Fasel was re-elected to another four-year term as president at the IIHF's general congress in Tokyo.
Just 16 months before the 2014 Sochi Games, NHL players are not certain to compete in the two-week tournament in Russia run by the IIHF. Fasel said the tournament will start a day later than the 2010 games in Vancouver.
"We decided to start on Wednesday instead of Tuesday," Fasel said. "In Vancouver, we started on Tuesday but the players will need more time to travel to Russia. It will mean less rest between games but we have to start on Wednesday."
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has said no decision is imminent about possibly shutting down for two weeks to accommodate an Olympics in which some games would be played in the middle of the night in North America, thus affecting TV viewership and interest.
Before the NHL makes up its mind, a collective bargaining agreement between owners and players must be negotiated. The NHL locked out its players on Sept. 16 when talks broke down. The two sides plan to meet again Friday.
Russian player Alex Ovechkin, one of the NHL's signature stars, is threatening to play in Sochi no matter what the NHL does.
Fasel said the NHL could decide as late as January not to come but the tournament will go ahead.
"We'll play the tournament anyway," Fasel said. "There are not only 750 NHL players playing hockey in the world."
What makes surgeons happy?Public release date: 28-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Leslie Shepherd shepherdl@smh.ca 416-864-6094 St. Michael's Hospital
General surgeons like to help patients but frustrated by lack of control over resources and work-life balance
TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2012Lack of control over operating rooms and other resources as well as a lack of work-life balance are among the main reasons general surgeons may be dissatisfied with their jobs, a new study has found.
The study was led by Dr. Najma Ahmed, a trauma surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital, at a time when both the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Canadian Medical Association have reported a decline in the number of general surgeons due to low recruitment, poor retention and early retirement.
Dr. Ahmed said that since the general surgery workload in North America is expected to increase over the next 20 years due to the aging population, it's important to know why fewer physicians want to become general surgeons and why so many leave the field.
Her team's findings were published online in the journal Academic Medicine .
Interviews conducted with members of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons in 2010 found that surgeons get satisfaction from resolving patient problems quickly and effectively and they enjoy the social aspect of their work, such as interacting with supportive colleagues, trainees and patients.
"Surgeons we surveyed had a passion for their work that made the long hours involved inconsequential," Dr. Ahmed said. "They described gratification in being able to take care of patients' problems expeditiously, fixing things quite quickly and seeing the immediate outcome of a procedure and its impact on the patient's quality of life."
Contributing to career dissatisfaction were such things as insufficient access to and control over resources and a perceived disconnect between hospital administration and clinical priorities. This negatively impacted their morale and ability to provide timely and high-quality patient care, she said.
One participant in the study commented: "All that everybody wants to do is to cut operating time because it costs the system money to run the OR. Nobody looks and says, 'It's somebody's mother or somebody's daughter or husband or whatever.' They just look at the accounting side of it and that's it."
General surgeons in urban areas cited in particular frustration due to lack of access to OR resources during daylight hours and the routine practice of delaying urgent operations. Rural general surgeons were frustrated by the large amount of time they were on call and the volume of patients due to the large geographic catchment areas their hospitals' served.
Dr. Ahmed said many surgeons wanted more control over their work-life balance.
"The current generation is more family-centric and team-oriented and, while still achievement-oriented, is less interested in personal sacrifices to achieve career success or financial rewards," she said. "These trends, combined with the sociologic realities related to the change in family structures such as single-parent families and two-professional-parent families, mean the protection of personal time and a more tangible way to achieve work-life balance is becoming an increasingly important pragmatic consideration for all professionals."
Dr. Ahmed said a potential solution to some of the issues raised in her study may be the evolving model of acute care surgery. This model separates emergency and elective surgical care, thereby eliminating the competition between the two services for institutional and human resources and decreasing the burden of work on any one general surgeon. Other solutions could include making better use of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physician extenders and patient care navigators.
Between 1981 and 2005, the number of general surgeons in the United States dropped from 7.68 per 100,000 people to 5.69. The Canadian Residency Matching Service reported a decline in the number of first-choice applicants to general surgery between 1996 and 2001, as well as an increasing number of general surgeons pursuing surgical specialty fellowships. An increasing number of Canadian general surgery residents were also failing to complete their training programs.
The greatest impact of the looming shortage of general surgeons will be felt in rural areas. In some areas of the United States, the survival of local hospitals is at risk, because without general surgeons, emergency departments cannot remain open and family physicians are left without a means to secure even basic surgical consultations. General surgeons can also generate as much as 40 per cent of hospital revenue in the U.S.
###
About St. Michael's Hospital
St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, and care of the homeless are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Center, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
For more information or to interview Dr. Ahmed, please contact:
Leslie Shepherd, Manager, Media Strategy
St. Michael's Hospital
Phone: 416-864-6094 or 647-300-1753
shepherdl@smh.ca
Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.
www.stmichaelshospital.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stmikeshospital
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
What makes surgeons happy?Public release date: 28-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Leslie Shepherd shepherdl@smh.ca 416-864-6094 St. Michael's Hospital
General surgeons like to help patients but frustrated by lack of control over resources and work-life balance
TORONTO, Sept. 28, 2012Lack of control over operating rooms and other resources as well as a lack of work-life balance are among the main reasons general surgeons may be dissatisfied with their jobs, a new study has found.
The study was led by Dr. Najma Ahmed, a trauma surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital, at a time when both the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Canadian Medical Association have reported a decline in the number of general surgeons due to low recruitment, poor retention and early retirement.
Dr. Ahmed said that since the general surgery workload in North America is expected to increase over the next 20 years due to the aging population, it's important to know why fewer physicians want to become general surgeons and why so many leave the field.
Her team's findings were published online in the journal Academic Medicine .
Interviews conducted with members of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons in 2010 found that surgeons get satisfaction from resolving patient problems quickly and effectively and they enjoy the social aspect of their work, such as interacting with supportive colleagues, trainees and patients.
"Surgeons we surveyed had a passion for their work that made the long hours involved inconsequential," Dr. Ahmed said. "They described gratification in being able to take care of patients' problems expeditiously, fixing things quite quickly and seeing the immediate outcome of a procedure and its impact on the patient's quality of life."
Contributing to career dissatisfaction were such things as insufficient access to and control over resources and a perceived disconnect between hospital administration and clinical priorities. This negatively impacted their morale and ability to provide timely and high-quality patient care, she said.
One participant in the study commented: "All that everybody wants to do is to cut operating time because it costs the system money to run the OR. Nobody looks and says, 'It's somebody's mother or somebody's daughter or husband or whatever.' They just look at the accounting side of it and that's it."
General surgeons in urban areas cited in particular frustration due to lack of access to OR resources during daylight hours and the routine practice of delaying urgent operations. Rural general surgeons were frustrated by the large amount of time they were on call and the volume of patients due to the large geographic catchment areas their hospitals' served.
Dr. Ahmed said many surgeons wanted more control over their work-life balance.
"The current generation is more family-centric and team-oriented and, while still achievement-oriented, is less interested in personal sacrifices to achieve career success or financial rewards," she said. "These trends, combined with the sociologic realities related to the change in family structures such as single-parent families and two-professional-parent families, mean the protection of personal time and a more tangible way to achieve work-life balance is becoming an increasingly important pragmatic consideration for all professionals."
Dr. Ahmed said a potential solution to some of the issues raised in her study may be the evolving model of acute care surgery. This model separates emergency and elective surgical care, thereby eliminating the competition between the two services for institutional and human resources and decreasing the burden of work on any one general surgeon. Other solutions could include making better use of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physician extenders and patient care navigators.
Between 1981 and 2005, the number of general surgeons in the United States dropped from 7.68 per 100,000 people to 5.69. The Canadian Residency Matching Service reported a decline in the number of first-choice applicants to general surgery between 1996 and 2001, as well as an increasing number of general surgeons pursuing surgical specialty fellowships. An increasing number of Canadian general surgery residents were also failing to complete their training programs.
The greatest impact of the looming shortage of general surgeons will be felt in rural areas. In some areas of the United States, the survival of local hospitals is at risk, because without general surgeons, emergency departments cannot remain open and family physicians are left without a means to secure even basic surgical consultations. General surgeons can also generate as much as 40 per cent of hospital revenue in the U.S.
###
About St. Michael's Hospital
St. Michael's Hospital provides compassionate care to all who enter its doors. The hospital also provides outstanding medical education to future health care professionals in more than 23 academic disciplines. Critical care and trauma, heart disease, neurosurgery, diabetes, cancer care, and care of the homeless are among the Hospital's recognized areas of expertise. Through the Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Center, which make up the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, research and education at St. Michael's Hospital are recognized and make an impact around the world. Founded in 1892, the hospital is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto.
For more information or to interview Dr. Ahmed, please contact:
Leslie Shepherd, Manager, Media Strategy
St. Michael's Hospital
Phone: 416-864-6094 or 647-300-1753
shepherdl@smh.ca
Inspired Care. Inspiring Science.
www.stmichaelshospital.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stmikeshospital
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
King County Green Tools staff Patti Southard and Kinney (missed the other name) made introductory remarks for Mr. Hayes. First they gave us some statistics and diversion rates for construction materials. Newest edition of the Construction Recycling Directory just came out. He suggests that builders use 2 bins on sites so the sorting is done immediately because it is very time consuming to sort it later. He also mentioned the 20/20 Refit Challenge. Rehabilitating older homes to become healthy, comfortable, energy efficient homes is a lot more sustainable than deconstructing a structure and building something new It?s all about keeping materials out of the waste stream.
Patti thanks the staff at Built Green for creating such a great model that others in the country look to. Collaboration is key. She says every day we are working on making this a beter planet it is like writing a love letter to the Earth. She says we are lucky to have the kind of leadership we have in our area ? with Denis Hayes, the founder of Earth Day, having joined our community. She shared her own memories of how Earth Day is a holiday not for religion or anything else, but for doing something for others and the plant.
Denis Hayes Funny guy! Seems to be speaking extemporaneously. He said normally he gives a rousing motivational speech about becoming more green. But he doesn?t have to do that here, since everyone in the room is involved in the green building industry. He talked about how the Bullitt Foundation stat=started out in a hayloft, and since joining the organization the Board agreed to the construction of a green building. The piece of property the foundation owned called for something larger than an office for seven people, and now they have a 52,000 sq ft mixed use building. Billed as ?The Greenest Building in the World? He said there are 26 geothermal wells that are 400 feet deep. ALL of the energy that will be used in this building will be generated by the building. Net Zero is not accomplished very often. Hayes talked about trying to meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge. He spoke about sourcing materials for the building, finding contractors who would
Bullitt Center ? Hard costs up through TI: 17% more expensive than regular Class A office space and found they can?t rent it for any more than regular Class A office space. If you are a tenant in their building and meet ll of your energy goals, you have no energy costs, it?s free. Society needs to start placing real value on things that endure. These major investments count for something. He talked a lot oabout the features that went into this new building. I missed the last tour a couple weeks ago! So I sent an email to find out when the next tour will be. Defnitely have to get it on it.
If I had to do it gain knwoing what I know now and this will sound ridiculous ? this is the first time I have worked on a building, but it has given me a lot of humility. So he deerred t a lot of te experts, vendors, and contractors, for elements and aesthetics that if he woudl have won on if he had stuck to his guns. And he would hold out to have it his way next time.
Wendy Hughes-Jelen is a Seattle-area Realtor? who is EcoBroker Certified? and is a Earth Advantage? Broker AND Built Green? Certified Professional. She helps people find and create their own healthy home, and is trained to assist those with chemical sensitivities, asthma, allergies, or other health concerns that indoor air quality can impact. Wendy is certified to use Energy Star's Portfolio Manager for Energy Efficiency Accounting and Benchmarking (NRGbenchmarking.com). Be sure to look for Westside Green Living With Wendy on Facebook.
Sales promotion is a very important aspect of marketing game and hence it requires keen observation, surveys, and carefully formed strategies to win the game. Big marketing brands often employ marketing agencies to look after their sales promotion in market. These companies not only promote the brand but manage the entire promotional strategies, from planning to execution. In doing so they may use either a single medium at its best or may use all the marketing mediums together. The strategies made by these agencies are flawless and strictly result oriented. They are focused which is why they reach every class of potential customers.
This has earned these marketing agencies a special place among the various brands that look for promoting their products and services at a wider platform. Big communication, Apollo marketing group, and Warburton?s are few of the various amazing marketing agencies that are doing some excellent work in the field of sales promotion. Although they seek the same goal the working of these companies have a lot of creative difference. The differences can be due to various factors, such as nature of brand to be promoted, ethnicity of customers, gender of the customers their age, geography and location of the place where the product is being promoted, and most importantly economical potential of the customer.
For example if sales promotion by big communication in United Kingdom is in English, the promotion of the same product in a non-English country will need it in the native language. Nonetheless, the aim remains same throughout the world i.e. to reach for the customers. Just like the creative difference, there can also be the difference of medium while promoting a product.
For example, if there happens to be a sales promotion by big communication in Nigeria, for a certain food and beverage brand, it is most likely that the agency will use hoardings and public transportations for the promotions. On the contrary, if it is some other place where there are better electronic mediums, then it will rather use television, radio, and internet to promote the brand.
Sales promotions can be indirect and direct. Direct promotions can include interactions with retailers and ultimate consumers, giving away of free gift vouchers, organizing engaging seminars and workshops. While indirect promotions do not involve in any of this, instead they use behind the stage techniques like discounted price deals, reward programs, price pack deals, coupons, gift or shopping vouchers and giving away of the free complimentary gifts.
Apparently, one that has all the qualities mentioned above becomes the favorite of traders and business brands and enjoy a great goodwill in the market for their work. Being an award winning agency, sales promotion by big communication is itself a guarantee for a brand to be successful. The reason for its popularity is the wide creative approach that the agency applies to reach up to the customers. By intense hard work of several years, today it has served several ?A? listed brands in market. Unilever food solution, Toshiba, Samsung, Saint-Gobain, and Aqua Pure are some of them.
Chinese protesters followed the rules on Tuesday, obediently forming small groups and awaiting their turn to march past the Japanese embassy to express anger over disputed islands.
By Peter Ford,?Staff writer / September 18, 2012
A demonstrator shouts slogans during a protest in front of a Chinese national flag on the 81st anniversary of Japan's invasion of China, in Shanghai, Sept. 18. Anti-Japan protests reignited across China on Tuesday, the emotional anniversary marking Tokyo's occupation of its giant neighbor, escalating a maritime dispute which has forced major Japanese brandname firms to suspend business there.
Carlos Barria/Reuters
Enlarge
The first sign of just how closely the Chinese authorities were monitoring and controlling today?s anti-Japanese demonstrations here came on my cellphone.
Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford
Beijing Bureau Chief
Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
It was an SMS from the Beijing police. Barely had I arrived in the vicinity of the Japanese embassy, the target of a fourth day of protests over a territorial dispute, than the message popped up on my screen.
?The Beijing Public Security Bureau reminds you to please express your patriotism in a rational and orderly fashion and to follow police instructions. Thank you for your cooperation,? it read.
The Chinese government was clearly anxious that Tuesday?s demonstrations, marking the anniversary of the incident that sparked Japan?s 1931 occupation of Northeastern China, should not turn violent, as had happened over the weekend.
The protesters, mostly young men, many waving red and gold Chinese flags or portraits of Mao Zedong, were doing as they were told by organizers. Obediently they formed up in small groups and awaited their turn to march past the embassy, where they slowed down just long enough to throw bottles of water at the gates.
Any hotheads in the crowd who might have wanted to do more were dissuaded by the sight of helmeted riot police standing shoulder to shoulder along the roadside, reinforcing thousands of police officers who were making sure, megaphones in hand, that everybody kept moving. Also reinforcing the police were civilian security volunteers wearing armbands, and reinforcing them were dayglo-orange-waistcoated traffic wardens.
Then the protesters marched on down the street in glorious late summer sunshine, chanting slogans such as ?Japanese dogs out of China,? or ?China wake up,? and even reminding themselves, in unison, to ?listen to orders.??
A block down the street they turned around, marched back down the way they had come, then turned around once more and started all over again.
?I?ve been round three times already and I won?t go home until everybody else does,? said Zhang Chong, a young clothes vendor, his cheek decorated with a Chinese flag decal.
?We didn?t lose the Diaoyu islands in Mao Zedong?s time and we will not allow them to be lost by our generation,? Mr. Zhang said, explaining why he had taken to the streets.
The worst outbreak of anti-Japanese sentiment for many years was sparked last week when the Japanese government bought three of the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea known here as the Diaoyu and in Japan as the Senkaku. China claims sovereignty over the islands, which are under Japanese control and were privately owned until last week.
The Chinese government responded by fiercely denouncing the purchase, formally specifying the geographical coordinates of the waters that it claims around the islands, sending surveillance vessels to the islands and sanctioning anti-Japanese demonstrations around the country, some of which torched Japanese-owned businesses on Saturday.
Nothing like that was to be allowed on Tuesday, it was clear. As the protesters approached the Japanese embassy, a loudspeaker mounted on a police car played them a tape loop: ?The Chinese government shares the people?s feelings? a woman?s voice assured them. ?The government has made it clear it will not accept any territorial infringement. But once you have expressed yourself, please move on.?
IEEE, a worldwide organization of engineers, computer scientists and researchers, inadvertently exposed the usernames and passwords of 100,000 of its members, nearly 25 percent of its total?membership.
The discovery was made by Radu Dragusin, a teaching assistant in the University of Copenhagen's Department of Computer Science, on Sept. 18.
"Among the almost 100,000 compromised users are Apple, Google, IBM, Oracle and Samsung employees, as well as researchers from NASA, Stanford and many other places," Dragusin writes on?his blog.?
Dragusin said he did not make the "raw data" available to anyone but IEEE. In a statement to NBC News Wednesday, the organization confirmed the problem, but said it has "conducted a thorough investigation and the issue has been addressed and resolved."
The IEEE is also "in the process of notifying?those who may have been affected," a spokesperson for the group said, advising them to change their passwords, and apologizing to members for what happened.
Lest you think that engineers and scientists would?probably have lockbox-tight passwords, that doesn't appear to be the case. Dragusin did an analsyis of the exposed passwords, and surprisingly, some?of them were the?all-too-common and not-advised choices?including: "password," "123456," "abcd1234," "12345678" and "1234567890."
In describing what he does, Dragusin says he is working on a specialized search engine to help "clinicians aid in the diagnosis of rare diseases. For the future, I am looking for something exciting to do." It looks like he may have found it.
Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on?Facebook,?and on?Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.
A fire bomb explodes among riot police during clashes in Athens Wednesday Sept. 26, 2012. Police clashed with protesters hurling petrol bombs and bottles in central Athens Wednesday after an anti-government rally called as part of a general strike in Greece turned violent. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)
A fire bomb explodes among riot police during clashes in Athens Wednesday Sept. 26, 2012. Police clashed with protesters hurling petrol bombs and bottles in central Athens Wednesday after an anti-government rally called as part of a general strike in Greece turned violent. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)
ALTERNATIVE CROP FOR XPG104 - Riot policemen on fire after a petrol bomb thrown by protesters ignited during a nationwide general strike in Athens, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. Police clashed with protesters hurling petrol bombs and bottles in central Athens Wednesday after an anti-government rally called as part of a general strike in Greece turned violent. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Protesters of the Greek Communist party affiliated unions march in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens Wednesday Sept. 26, 2012. Greek workers walked off the job Wednesday for the first general strike since the country's coalition government was formed in June, as the prime minister and finance minister hammered out a package of euros 11.5 billion ($14.87 billion) in spending cuts. Athens has struggled to come up with more punishing austerity measures that would be acceptable to its rescue creditors, with disagreements arising between the three parties that make up the coalition government. Greece?s creditors have demanded more fiscal reforms if they are to continue handing out rescue loans preventing the country from a messy default that could roil the euro. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
A protester kicks a tear gas canister towards riot police during a nationwide general strike in Athens, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. Police clashed with protesters hurling petrol bombs and bottles in central Athens Wednesday after an anti-government rally called as part of a general strike in Greece turned violent. About 50,000 people joined the union-organized march in central Athens on Wednesday, held during a general strike against new austerity measures planned in the crisis-hit country. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
A protester prepares to throw a petrol bomb at riot police during a nationwide general strike in Athens, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. Police clashed with protesters hurling petrol bombs and bottles in central Athens Wednesday after an anti-government rally called as part of a general strike in Greece turned violent. About 50,000 people joined the union-organized march in central Athens on Wednesday, held during a general strike against new austerity measures planned in the crisis-hit country. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
ATHENS, Greece (AP) ? Europe's fragile financial calm was shattered Wednesday as investors worried that violent anti-austerity protests in Greece and Spain's debt troubles showed that the continent still cannot contain its financial crisis.
Police fired tear gas Wednesday at rioters hurling gasoline bombs and chunks of marble during Greece's largest anti-austerity demonstration in six months. The protests were part of a 24-hour general strike, the latest test for Greece's nearly four-month-old coalition government and the new spending cuts it plans to push through.
The brief but intense clashes by several hundred rioters among the 60,000 people protesting in Athens came a day after anti-austerity protests rocked the Spanish capital.
In Madrid, thousands of angry protesters again swarmed as close as they could get Wednesday night to Parliament, watched by a heavy contingent of riot police. There was no fresh violence, but the demonstrators cut off traffic on one of the city's major thoroughfares at the height of the evening commute.
The protesters chanted for the release of 34 people detained Tuesday night in clashes that injured 64 others. They also demanded new elections to oust Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his conservative government, which has imposed cutbacks and tax hikes, deepening the gloom in a country struggling with recession and unemployment of nearly 25 percent, the highest among the 17 nations using the common euro currency.
Spain's central bank warned Wednesday the country's economy continues to shrink "significantly," sending the Spanish stock index tumbling and its borrowing costs rising.
Across Europe, stock markets fell as well. Germany's DAX dropped 2 percent while the CAC-40 in France fell 2.4 percent and Britain's FTSE 100 slid 1.4 percent. The euro was also hit, down a further 0.3 percent at $1.2840.
The turmoil Wednesday ended weeks of relative calm and optimism among investors that Europe and eurozone might have turned a corner. Markets have been breathing easier since the European Central Bank said earlier this month it would buy unlimited amounts of government bonds to help countries with their debts.
The move by the ECB helped lower borrowing costs for indebted governments from levels that only two months ago threatened to bankrupt Spain and Italy. Stocks also rose. Media speculation about the timing and cost of a eurozone breakup or a departure by troubled Greece faded.
However, the economic reality in Europe remained dire. Several countries have had to impose harsh new spending cuts, tax rises and economic reforms to meet European deficit targets and, in Greece's case, to continue getting vital aid. The austerity has hit citizens with wage cuts and fewer services, and left their economies struggling through recessions as reduced government spending has undermined growth.
"Yesterday's anti-austerity protests in Madrid, together with today's 24-hour strike in Greece, are both reminders that rampant unemployment and a general collapse in living standards make people desperate and angry," said David Morrison, senior market strategist at GFT Markets.
"There are growing concerns that the situation across the eurozone is set to take a turn for the worse," he said.
Spain has struggled for months to convince investors that it can handle its debts. The government is to unveil an austere 2013 draft budget and new economic reforms Thursday. Many believe they could be a precursor to a request for financial help from the ECB. The government has already introduced ?65 billion ($83.5 billion) in austerity measures designed to bring down its deficit.
The country is suffering its second recession in three years, with a predicted 1.5 percent economic contraction in 2012. The Bank of Spain warned Wednesday the recession could be deeper.
Spain has come under pressure to tap the ECB bond-buying program that has been partly designed to keep a lid on the country's borrowing costs. So far, the government has been reluctant to ask for help for fear of the conditions that may be attached.
Spain's IBEX stock exchange fell in 4 percent on Wednesday while the interest rate on its 10-year bonds rose 0.26 percentage points to 5.99 percent on concerns about the country's economy and that it is taking too long to make up its mind about applying for ECB assistance.
"The demonstrations remind us that central bankers cannot solve the crisis alone. The ECB's plan to intervene in sovereign bond markets can only succeed if governments in crisis countries can convince their electorates that ongoing austerity and reform are necessary to avoid bankruptcy," said Martin Koehring of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
"This, however, is increasingly challenging without the return of economic growth."
Greece, meanwhile, has been dependent since May 2010 on billions of euros in two rescue loan packages from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. In return, it slashed salaries and pensions and hiked taxes in an effort to reform an economy derailed by decades of overspending and corruption.
Although Greece accounts for only about 2 percent of the eurozone's total economy, its crisis has shaken the euro and led to concern it could destabilize other, much larger economies in the 17-nation bloc. Greece is in its fifth year of recession, with unemployment above 24 percent.
Shortly before Greece's strike got under way, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras hammered out a ?11.5 billion ($14.9 billion) package of spending cuts for 2013-14 demanded by the country's international lenders, along with another ?2 billion in improved tax collection.
The government has struggled to come up with austerity measures acceptable to the country's creditors, with disagreements arising between the three coalition parties. The next payment of ?31 billion hinges on the further cuts.
Stournaras was briefing the other two party leaders Wednesday, and Samaras was to meet with them Thursday morning. If they agree, the package will be presented to Greece's debt inspectors.
Wednesday's strike shut down Greece's famed Acropolis and halted flights for hours. Ferry services were suspended, schools, shops and gas stations were closed and hospitals functioned on emergency staff.
Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said the limited violence and what he called a smaller turnout than opposition parties had hoped for showed that "Greek society understands what the government is doing is the only possible solution."
____
Pan Pylas in London, Nicholas Paphitis and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, and Alan Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this report.
In an election season that has produced reels of negative ads and dizzying spin, more Americans find that President Barack Obama's ads remain honest, giving his campaign a 12-point lead over that of his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, according to the Yahoo!/Esquire poll.
Many Americans appear to agree with Romney pollster Neil Newhouse's statement that "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," though perhaps not in the way the Romney campaign would like. Among the general population, 42 percent found that the president's ads stick to the truth, while only 30 percent said the same about Romney's campaign ads.
As for which side's ads contained outright lies, Americans view Romney and Obama as neck and neck. The margin of error for the survey, conducted shortly after the two national political conventions, is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
[See more graphics at Esquire.com]
But the sad truth is that two-thirds of Americans fully expect politicians to lie, as a rule of thumb. Most who hold that expectation are bothered by it.
In his interview with "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, Romney complained that the president and his supporters distort the facts to fit their narrative. But 60 percent of those surveyed found that Romney's refrain?that Obama has "failed" America in his first term?is too harsh an appraisal, with only 36 percent calling it a justified claim.
The poll was conducted among a random national sample of 1,002 adults from Sept. 7 to Sept. 10. The respondents were contacted by landline and cellular telephone. View the full results (pdf).
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OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Tuesday expressed concern about the continuing European debt crisis and the potential for the U.S. economy to sharply contract at the start of next year.
Flaherty, who has frequently urged the European Union to quickly tackle its problems, said the "major and immediate threat facing the world" was the European sovereign and banking crisis.
He told a meeting of business executives in Ottawa that the euro area economy was unlikely to see a sharp rebound in the third quarter.
"Today, the euro area is essentially in recession," he said in the text of his speech, noting with approval that the European Central Bank had recently announced plans to support European sovereign debt markets.
"We continue to wait for intentions to become actions. European leaders must continue to make progress on fiscal and banking unions and encourage vulnerable countries to reform," he said.
Canada's economy is heavily reliant on the United States, where $600 billion in spending reductions and expiring tax cuts will kick in at the start of 2013 unless a deal is struck to shrink the U.S. budget deficit.
"The U.S. needs to reduce its fiscal deficit over time. This point is clear. But it also needs to ensure that there is policy certainty in the short-term so that markets and investors can be confident that its economic growth will not be interrupted," said Flaherty.
"Though, at present, global recovery is extremely weak in some sectors, I am hopeful that the major difficulties will be resolved and the global recovery will strengthen."
The finance minister said although the Canadian economy had outstripped those of most other developed nations since the economic recession, "we would like to see more progress".
He also called on private sector businesses to invest more to help grow the economy.
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ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2012) ? Based on two new studies by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, regeneration of a new limb or organ in a human will be much more difficult than the mad scientist and supervillain, Dr. Curt Connors, made it seem in the Amazing Spider-man comics and films.
As those who saw the recent "The Amazing Spiderman" movie will know, Dr. Connors injected himself with a serum made from lizard DNA to successfully regrow his missing lower right arm -- that is, before the formula transformed him into a reptilian humanoid.
But by studying a real lizard-like amphibian, which can regenerate missing limbs, the Salk researchers discovered that it isn't enough to activate genes that kick start the regenerative process. In fact, one of the first steps is to halt the activity of so-called jumping genes.
In research published August 23 in Development, Growth & Differentiation, and July 27 in Developmental Biology, the researchers show that in the Mexican axolotl, jumping genes have to be shackled or they might move around in the genomes of cells in the tissue destined to become a new limb, and disrupt the process of regeneration.
They found that two proteins, piwi-like 1 (PL1) and piwi-like 2 (PL2), perform the job of quieting down jumping genes in this immature tadpole-like form of a salamander, known as an axolotl -- a creature whose name means water monster and who can regenerate everything from parts of its brain to eyes, spinal cord, and tail.
"What our work suggests is that jumping genes would be an issue in any situation where you wanted to turn on regeneration," says the studies' senior author, Tony Hunter, a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory and director of the Salk Institute Cancer Center.
"As complex as it already seems, it might seem a hopeless task to try to regenerate a limb or body part in humans, especially since we don't know if humans even have all the genes necessary for regeneration," says Hunter. "For this reason, it is important to understand how regeneration works at a molecular level in a vertebrate that can regenerate as a first step. What we learn may eventually lead to new methods for treating human conditions, such as wound healing and regeneration of simple tissues."
The research team, which included investigators from other universities around the country, sought to characterize the transcriptional fingerprint emerging from the early phase of axolotl regeneration. They specifically looked at the blastema, a structure that forms at a limb's stump.
There the scientists found transcriptional activation of some genes, usually found only in germlime cells, which indicated cellular reprogramming of differentiated cells into a germline state.
In the Development, Growth & Differentiation study, the research team, led by Wei Zhu, then a postdoctoral researcher in Hunter's laboratory, focused on one of these genes, the long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) retrotransposon.
LINE-1 elements are jumping genes that arose early in vertebrate evolution. They are pieces of DNA that copy themselves in two stages -- first from DNA to RNA by transcription, and then from RNA to DNA by reverse transcription. These DNA copies can then insert themselves into the cell's genome at new positions.
A few years ago, Fred Gage, professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute, discovered that LINE-1 elements move around during neuronal development, and may program the identities of individual neurons.
"Most of these copies appear to be 'junk' DNA, because they are defective and can never jump again," says Hunter. But all mammals, including humans, still have active LINE-1 genes, and the salamander, whose genome is 10 times larger than a human's, contains many more.
Active LINE-1 retrotransposons can keep jumping, and that was true in the developing blastema where LINE-1 jumping was dramatically switched on. But in the researchers' companion study, in Developmental Biology, they found that PL1 and PL2 switch off transcription of repeat elements, such as LINE-1. "The idea is that in the development of germ cells, you definitely don't want these things hopping around," says Hunter. "The mobilization of these jumping genes can introduce harmful genomic rearrangements or even abort the regeneration process."
In fact, when the researchers inhibited PL1 and PL2 activity in the axoloti limb blastema, regeneration was significantly slowed down.
"The need to switch on one set of genes to stop other genes from jumping just illustrates how amazingly difficult it would be to regenerate something as complex as a limb in humans," Hunter says. "But that doesn't mean we won't learn valuable lessons about how to treat degenerative diseases."
The work was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Public Health Service, and an Innovation Grant from the Salk Institute.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
Wei Zhu, Gerald M. Pao, Akira Satoh, Gillian Cummings, James R. Monaghan, Timothy T. Harkins, Susan V. Bryant, S. Randal Voss, David M. Gardiner, Tony Hunter. Activation of germline-specific genes is required for limb regeneration in the Mexican axolotl. Developmental Biology, 2012; 370 (1): 42 DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2012.07.021
Wei Zhu, Dwight Kuo, Jason Nathanson, Akira Satoh, Gerald M. Pao, Gene W. Yeo, Susan V. Bryant, S. Randal Voss, David M. Gardiner, Tony Hunter. Retrotransposon long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) is activated during salamander limb regeneration. Development, Growth & Differentiation, 2012; 54 (7): 673 DOI: 10.1111/j.1440-169X.2012.01368.x
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Nuplex is to close plants and cut jobs in New Zealand and Australia in response to lower demand for its products.
The resins and chemicals maker says a tenth of its 800-strong Australasian workforce is affected and up to 40 jobs will be eliminated in New Zealand over the next two years.
Nuplex will close its Onehunga plant and its high-temperature facility at Penrose, affecting up to 40 jobs.
It will also close sites at Canning Vale in Western Australia and Wangaratta in Victoria, costing another 40 jobs, but will shift operations and invest more in its remaining sites, including Penrose.
Australasian regional president Sam Bastounas says the firm has experienced very tough trading conditions in Australasia over the last 18 months.
Mr Bastounas says the high Australian dollar and a construction sector that is under pressure are having an impact on the company.
"What we've done is look at our overall footprint across Australia and New Zealand and we've made the decision to streamline our operations and through that preserve manufacturing in Australia and and New Zealand."
The listed company makes products that are used in the paint, paper and textile industries, but it has been hurt by the downturn in construction markets on both sides of the Tasman.
Nuplex's profit is expected to fall by $17 million this financial year due to restructuring costs and writing down the value of plant, equipment and investments.
But Nuplex says the full benefit of the changes should result in pre-tax savings of about $5.6 million a year by 2015.
Nuplex's shares fell 21 cents to $2.97 on Monday morning.
By Daniels College of Business University of Denver on September 25, 2012
Charles Schwab & Co, Inc. is a Daniels Corporate Partner, and has long supported Daniels students through collaborative projects, sponsorship of the Daniels Inclusive Excellence Case Competition and in other ways.
In spring 2012, Charles Schwab had a project that needed creative thinking and a fresh perspective and turned to the Daniels Consulting Firm (DCF), the consulting arm of the Daniels Strategy and Consulting Group. DCF is a student-run organization that strives to prepare its members for success in the business consulting industry.
?We value the insights that the Daniels Consulting team brought to one of our recent marketing projects,? said JP Snow, VP, client experience, who was part of the Charles Schwab team that worked with DCF. ?They were able to quickly understand the key issue. Then they delivered exactly what you expect from a consulting engagement: outside perspective that is still relevant and practical. We?re using their product as we develop the next steps in our business plan.?
Jessica Gu (MBA 2012), past president of DCF?who worked on the project and was recently hired by Charles Schwab?says that the DCF-Schwab project dramatically enhanced students? skill sets and understanding of the business world. ?Throughout a 10-week project, we worked closely with our client to help them solve the business problem they faced,? Gu said. ?We increased our business acumen and are better prepared for career-growth opportunities. I really appreciate Charles Schwab, DCF and the Daniels College of Business for giving me this great opportunity.?
?Working with Schwab was a fabulous test of the skills we acquired in the Daniels MBA program,? said Emalee Sugano (MBA 2012, BA 2010), the DCF project manager for the Charles Schwab project. ?The client was wonderful, gave helpful feedback along the way and was open to our final recommendations. This was one of the biggest projects DCF has tackled thus far, and we hope for continued challenges like this in the future.?
Posted in Business Pulse| Tagged charles schwab, Colorado, corporate partners program, Daniels College Business, daniels consulting firm, DENVER, DU, MBA |
When I started preparing a manual for a bread-making class, however, I really began to wonder about the details. Is the sugar for fermentation part of flour? How exactly does the yeast process this sugar? Do all the complex flavors of bread really come from one organic molecule, ethanol? Numerous trips to the university libraries helped me understand the enzymes involved in making the dough.
Enzymes catalyze three main reactions in bread-making: breaking starch into maltose, a complex sugar; breaking complex sugars into simple sugars; and breaking protein chains. The breakages could happen without enzymes, but the energy barrier is so large that it is very unlikely. Essentially, the enzymes are necessary for the reactions to occur.
There is an energy barrier to the reaction because it takes a lot of energy to break the middle bond of the sucrose.
Another example emphasizes the bonding nature of the enzymes; they are not simply fitting into substrates like puzzle pieces, snapping into place. Bonds must form. Once bonded, the active site of the enzyme is positioned near the reaction site of the substrate, which it alters to reduce the energy barrier.
A water molecule can come back and break a peptide bond, but it usually does not have enough energy.
The first enzyme to take action in bread dough is amylase. Amylase acts on starch (either amylose or amylopectin), breaking the starch chain between adjacent sugar rings. There are two kinds of amylase: ?-amylase (alpha-amylase) randomly breaks the chain into smaller pieces while ?-amylase (beta-amylase) breaks maltose units off the end of the chain.
This diagram includes the presence of enzymes. Without enzymes, bread-making would not be possible. Then again, neither would we.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sX-pwuzHzHnuEEk0A_YSmWuQSBpM95PNdk_uhuFDS04eiuVNep0Qyc_mzVWAGaQ31ck7ImVv4kI4MRKY2HAsE8JgrPt-3ZuCnxG1f4S9k=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 28-Sep-2012
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Charles Schwab & Co, Inc. is a Daniels Corporate Partner, and has long supported Daniels students through collaborative projects, sponsorship of the Daniels Inclusive Excellence Case Competition and in other ways.