LONDON, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Unite, Britain's biggest trade union, is using World Book Day tomorrow (Thursday 6th March) to build on the successful work initiated by Union Learning Reps in hundreds of workplaces.

Unite wants it's 2600 Union Learning Reps (ULRs) to set up libraries, book shelves, reading groups and book swaps, to get the union's two million members hooked on books.

Unite the union has secured an extra GBP2.7 million from the Government's learning fund to continue to build a learning culture that supports, encourages and aids it's members in their lifelong learning journey and help them reach goals, both personally and professionally, that many individuals never thought would be possible.

EDMONTON, Alberta, March 5 /PRNewswire/ --

SplitFish AG (SplitFish), a leader in video game hardware innovation, today announced its video game console adapters are now being offered for sale in Canada, Germany, United States, Spain, England, and Russia via direct international distributors. SplitFish has expanded its direct distribution network to include these individual international suppliers to better serve the growing overseas demand with faster fulfillment capability and reduce the FragFX shortages in retail stores globally.

SplitFish is proud to have German distribution via Azoo3D, Jakob, Gross Electronics, Amazon.de or direct from www.Splitfish.de .

A new modeling approach using sea ice motion data to follow parcels of ice backward in time at monthly intervals for up to 3 years while accumulating a history of the solar radiation and air temperature to which the ice was exposed offers new hope for increased accuracy in climate change models, say scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. This is the only model based entirely on historical observations.

Using this new technique, the thickness of Arctic sea ice was estimated from 1982 to 2003. Results showed that average ice thickness and total ice volume fluctuated together during the early study period, peaking in the late 1980s and then declining until the mid-1990s. Thereafter, ice thickness slightly increased but the total volume of sea ice did not increase.

A 10-cent pill doesn't kill pain as well as a $2.50 pill, even when they are identical placebos, according to a provocative study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University.

"Physicians want to think it's the medicine and not their enthusiasm about a particular drug that makes a drug more therapeutically effective, but now we really have to worry about the nuances of interaction between patients and physicians," said Ariely, whose findings appear as a letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

KIEL, Germany, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- In mid-March the German Bundestag (Lower House) is due to vote on an amendment to the German Stem Cell Act. The opposing poles in the debate on embryonic stem cell research could not be further apart: its proponents are calling for the complete liberalisation of stem cell research, while its critics are in favour of a general ban on the use of human stem cells, which are produced from embryos. While the Bundestag debates on a new regulation, Blasticon Biotechnologische Forschung GmbH has made a breakthrough in cell biology:

CALGARY, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Addax Petroleum Corporation (TSX: AXC and LSE: AXC) ("Addax Petroleum" or the "Corporation") announces that Mr. Patrick Spollen, Corporate Finance Manager, will be presenting at the FirstEnergy/Societe Generale - East Coast Canadian Energy Conference in New York, USA on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at approximately 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time / 5:30 p.m. London U.K. Time.

Investors are invited to listen to the live webcast via the following link: http://remotecontrol.jetstreammedia.com/14555

The presentation slides will be available prior to the presentation on Addax Petroleum's website at http://www.addaxpetroleum.com.

About Addax Petroleum

DENVER, March 5 /PRNewswire/ --

Altira Group LLC -- the pioneer and leader in venture capital and private equity funding for energy technology companies -- announced the closing of its most recent fund, Altira Technology Fund V L.P. The limited partners include institutions that have partnered with Altira since 1996 as well as first time investors.

Fund V will invest US$176 million over the next three years to partner with companies that commercialize technology utilized to increase productivity and efficiency gains throughout the energy value chain. As in previous funds, these companies are focused on the traditional and renewable energy sectors.

SAN MATEO, California, March 5 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company Increases Focus on DKIM and Email Authentication

Bizanga, the global company behind the most scalable and full-featured e-mail and message processing platform, today announced an integration partnership with Brandmail Solutions, a leading provider of email verification and branding to thwart email phishing attacks.

ATLANTA, March 5 /PRNewswire/ --

- Irish cider manufacturer to gain better visibility into customer demand and build a more collaborative forecasting process

Logility, Inc. (Nasdaq: LGTY), a leading supplier of collaborative solutions to optimise the supply chain, today announced that C&C Group, a leading manufacturer, marketer and distributor of branded alcoholic beverages, has selected Logility Voyager Solutions(TM) to support its continued growth through increased demand visibility and a more formalised and collaborative forecasting process.

Objectives.

Sepsis is a syndrome that results from a dysregulated host response to infection which can rapidly lead to organ dysfunction and death.
The aim of this study was the microbiological and clinical assessment of a new real-time PCR test (SeptiFast: SF, Roche Diagnostics) for the diagnosis of blood stream infections (BSI) in a population of neutropenic patients.
The results of SF were compared with blood cultures (BC) obtained on the same specimens and the clinical significance of the two methods was assessed.

Methods.