LONDON, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- An industrial dispute has arisen involving the INEOS Group of companies and Unite the union in relation to changes proposed to the company's pension arrangements for current and future employees at the Grangemouth Refinery Petrochemicals site in Scotland. In April 2008 industrial action took place and prior to the action commencing statements were made by both the company and the union representatives in relation to the dispute.

ABERDEEN, Scotland and 'S-HERTOGENBOSCH, The Netherlands, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Quintiq, a leading provider of advanced planning and scheduling solutions, today announced that it has won the contract to provide a comprehensive resource optimisation solution to FirstGroup, the world's leading transport operator.

Following a successful pilot with First ScotRail, Quintiq's resource optimisation solutions will be implemented at all four of First's rail passenger franchises, First ScotRail, First TransPennine Express, First Capital Connect and First Great Western.

Health-care system constraints combined with a lack of a uniform referral process are leaving Ontario physicians brokering which patients are in greatest need of hip and knee replacement, a study led by a St. Michael's Hospital researcher funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has revealed.

The study, conducted by a team of researchers from across the University of Toronto and published in Medical Decision Making, examined the impact of patient characteristics, including age, weight/obesity, comorbidity and perioperative risk, and gender and caretaker roles in the decision-making process of 18 family physicians, 15 rheumatologists and 17 orthopedic surgeons from across Ontario.

The variability in this process means not everyone who needs this surgery will actually get surgery.

LONDON, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of the industry day of action planned for 2nd July, the Road Haulage Association will be joining forces with other protest groups, primarily to support the Fuel Price Regulator amendment to the Finance Bill (expected to be debated at that time) and also the seek the introduction of an Essential User Rebate.

The lobby will commence at 11.30am in Old Palace Yard (opposite the House of Commons) until approx 1.00pm after which time members will be seeking meetings with their MPs to highlight the issues in person.

NEW YORK, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- 680 million mobile Internet subscribers expected by 2012

Brazil, Russia, India and China-collectively known as BRIC -- represent the next great growth curve for both the mobile and interactive marketing industries. Home to over 40% of the world's population, the BRIC countries form the core of an emergent global middle class that will number over 1 billion people by 2015. eMarketer projects that the BRIC countries will account for over 1.7 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2012 and expects over 680 million subscribers to access the mobile Internet.

Mobile Usage Metrics for BRIC, 2012 (millions and % penetration) http://www.emarketer.com/images/chart_gifs/095001-096000/095344.gif

UTRECHT, the Netherlands, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- WatchMouse, a leader in website performance monitoring, monitored the most popular sports sites, belonging to each of the Euro 2008 nations. Combining the errors, speed (load time) and availability measurements, WatchMouse calculated a Site Availability Index (SPI) for each of the sites, to reveal that the nations with the best sports sites are France, Spain and the Netherlands. Sports enthusiasts in Turkey may be disappointed by confirmation that their nation's favorite sports site ranks as the worst, largely due to long load times.

SAN DIEGO, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

With food prices going up, farmers are getting wealthy (or wealthier, in the case of the big conglomerates), right? Not outside the US, according to a study in Economic Development and Cultural Change by Marcel Fafchamps(1) and Ruth Vargas Hill(2).

In their new study for look to the long-time coffee producing nation of Uganda to attempt to answer the riddle of why higher prices don't 'trickle down' in other countries, even if they are modern liberalized economies.

Coffee is the world's largest agricultural commodity, and is also one of the world's most volatile. Large global coffee price fluctuations mean coffee has seen many periods of rapidly increasing prices. But new research shows that when global coffee prices rise, farmers do not see the same rise in the price they receive.

ROSEAU, Commonwealth of Dominica, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Neuftec Limited, the proprietor of the original nano-particulate cerium oxide fuel catalyst technology, which recently issued a claim against Oxonica Energy Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxonica PLC, for infringement of its European Patent in the High Court of Justice, has commented on a fundamental inaccuracy in Oxonica's AGM Statement issued by Dr Matthews (CEO) on 19 June 2008.

Dr Kevin Matthews stated in the recent Regulatory Announcement that:

"In 2007 Neuftec acknowledged that Envirox as supplied by Nyacol, Oxonica's strategic partner, does not fall within the claims of their granted patent, EP(UK) 1299 508."