The first U.S. charter school opened in 1992. Since then the number of charters has grown to more than 4,000 in 40 states, serving 1.2 million students, according to RAND, a nonprofit research organization based in Santa Monica, California.

Students at charter schools graduate and attend college at significantly higher rates than students at traditional public schools, according to a Rand Corp. study led by a Michigan State University scholar.The study, which offers mixed overall results for charter school advocates, comes amid a national debate over President Obama's endorsement of charter schools, which are experimental public schools that operate independently of the local school board.

DALLAS, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

Conselium, a leading executive search firm with a specialty in ethics and compliance, today introduced Corporate Compliance Insights (CCI), a global online forum and job board for corporate governance, compliance, risk management and business ethics. Corporate Compliance Insights was introduced to fill the growing need of corporate compliance and ethics professionals as they adjust to the new economy and a global shift in business. Created to be an informative knowledge-sharing platform, Corporate Compliance Insights' mission is to educate and encourage interaction among members of the compliance, ethics, risk and governance community.

LONDON, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The Department of Health's Specialist Advisor for Autism, Elaine Hill, has publicly urged practitioners, service users, their families and the general public to submit their views and case studies to the Government's consultation on a National Autism Strategy at a national conference on the mental health needs of people with ASC that took place in London on Wednesday 17th June 2009 sponsored by autism care services provider Brookdale Care.

TEL AVIV, Israel, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Name Highlights Company's Mission to Improve the Quality of Mobile Applications and Services

Nexperience, a leading provider of remote access and automated testing solutions for mobile devices, announced today that is has changed its name to Perfecto Mobile.

The new name highlights Perfecto Mobile's mission and on-going commitment to its customers and partners to improve efficiency and maximize quality in the development, testing and deployment processes of mobile applications and services.

HOLLAND, Ohio, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

A compact, modular system to produce food-grade, recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) resin is now available globally. The system has been designed to cost-effectively address increased international rPET demand for blow molding, injection molding and thermoforming applications, by efficiently turning post-consumer PET containers into reusable food-grade resin.

PTI Recycling Systems, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Plastic Technologies, Inc., has been formed to bring the proven LNO(TM)c rPET production process to the global marketplace. For the past two years, LNO(TM)c resin has been produced for commercial use in the United States, by Plastic Technologies' sister company Phoenix Technologies, Bowling Green, Ohio.

BERLIN, NIMES, France and RICHMOND, California, June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Diagnostics company BRAHMS Aktiengesellschaft, Cezanne and Lumiphore Inc., a biotechnology leader from California, announced that they have signed an agreement on incorporation of Lumiphore's Lumi4(R)-Tb complexes in BRAHMS diagnostic tests.

Under the agreement, BRAHMS together with its subsidiary Cezanne, developer and manufacturer of KRYPTOR automated diagnostic solutions, has the non-exclusive rights to incorporate Lumi4(R) technology into current and future diagnostic tests and the exclusive rights to use the technology in diagnostic tests for Down's Syndrome including Trisomy 21, 13 and 18, Triploidy, Translocation, and Mosaicism.

KITCHENER, Ontario, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Desktop Client allows users to share local files as easily as they share links on the internet

IGLOO Software (www.igloosoftware.com), a leading provider of online community and social software solutions for organizations of any size, today announced the release of its new Desktop Client (http://www.igloosoftware.com/solutions/features/desktop). By integrating key document centric features into the IGLOO Community Platform, members are now able to share files from their personal computers quickly and easily with other members in their online community.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090622/NY34383 )

MATTHEWS, North Carolina, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

CEM Corporation has won a 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in the Greener Reaction Conditions category for its Sprint(TM) Rapid Protein Analyzer. The company will accept the award this evening during a ceremony at the Carnegie Institute for Science (CIS) in Washington, DC.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090622/CL35336 ) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090622/CL35336LOGO )

DUBLIN, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- Casual Games Leader's First Foray into Social Gaming, Attracts 5 Million Monthly Users After 6 Months as Public Beta

PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced that Bejeweled(R) Blitz, the 1-minute version of its mega-hit franchise Bejeweled for Facebook, has officially launched and is now out of beta. Relying entirely on its own merits, the social version of Bejeweled has become a Facebook phenomenon, attracting more than 5 million monthly users after quietly debuting in beta form in late December of 2008. With new users joining at a rapidly increasing rate, Bejeweled Blitz now adds a new friend to the fold every second.

AUSTIN, Texas and BOSTON, June 22 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company sees Collaborative Enterprise Management (CEM) as next major wave of productivity and innovation - and offers solutions that deliver real business outcomes

Today at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, nGenera(TM) (http://www.ngenera.com/) announced four new end-to-end Collaborative Enterprise Management Solutions designed to deliver greater efficiency, employee and customer engagement, and innovation to the enterprise. The company also announced the release of nGenera Collaboration Platform 3.0, a full-featured cloud-based platform that is compatible with Microsoft's SharePoint and Google's OpenSocial, and hosts a suite of collaborative applications that power nGenera's CEM Solutions.