NEW YORK and LONDON, September 15 /PRNewswire/ -- ICIS Chemical Business magazine has unveiled the ICIS Top 100 Chemical Companies, featuring the world's top chemical players ranked by annual sales.

According to the ICIS Top 100 listing of chemical company financial performance, published in the September 15 issue of ICIS Chemical Business, sector sales rose by 11% in 2007 in local currency terms and 18% when converted to US dollars.

Operating profits across the sector climbed by more than 12%. The average operating margin increase was 6%.

"Riding the rollercoaster of soaring energy and commodity prices, global chemical industry players performed remarkably well in 2007," said Nigel Davis, Insight Editor at ICIS.

LONDON, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Transaction to Result in On-going 11% Increase in Profit Contribution From the Nelspruit Project

Cascal N.V. (NYSE: HOO), a leading provider of water and wastewater services in seven countries, today announced that its wholly owned South African subsidiary Cascal Operations (Pty) Limited has purchased the remaining 10 percent of its Greater Nelspruit Utility Company (Pty) ("Nelspruit") water/wastewater concession project from Sivukile Investments (Pty) Limited. Combined, the Nelspruit and Siza Water projects in South Africa accounted for approximately 14 percent of the Company's fiscal 2008 annual revenue.

SAN JOSE, California, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company Addresses Designers Thirst For Smaller Footprint, Higher Operating/Transient Voltage For Popular 5V BUS

MONTREAL, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Study of More Than 60,000 Women Underscores Need for Better Understanding of Implications and Risks Associated with Osteoporosis

Results from the Global Longitudinal study of Osteoporosis in Women (GLOW) showed that 55 percent of women diagnosed with osteoporosis do not believe they are at a higher risk of fractures than their peers. This latest study from GLOW included more than 60,000 women over age 55 and was presented today at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) 30th Annual Meeting.

SEATTLE, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

Christian Aid, the largest grant giving organization in the UK, has awarded leading interactive marketing and technology consultancy, Ascentium Corporation, with a contract to manage its business process re-engineering project. Using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, MOSS 2007 and Office 2003, Ascentium will create "The Promise Solution," an innovative new program that will enable Christian Aid to compete for funding and demonstrate returns on donations, rather than merely save cost.

AUSTIN, Texas—A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant discovered in the Amazon rainforest by University of Texas at Austin evolutionary biologist Christian Rabeling is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve.

The new ant is named Martialis heureka, which translates roughly to "ant from Mars," because the ant has a combination of characteristics never before recorded. It is adapted for dwelling in the soil, is two to three millimeters long, pale, and has no eyes and large mandibles, which Rabeling and colleagues suspect it uses to capture prey.

LONDON, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- With Photo

A new device that gives people a hi-tech hearing boost when they most need it is to be launched on the high street.

About the size of a jelly bean, the HearPlus personal hearing assistant (PHA) has been introduced in response to growing demand from the baby boomer generation who are looking to boost and enhance their hearing in certain social situations. The intelligent device, which has a modern and sleek design, will cost only GBP149 and will be available exclusively from David Ormerod Hearing Centres located in selected Boots Stores and David Ormerod Hearing at Home. .

GENEVA, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Study Highlights Underlying Reasons for why Patients are Missing Their Supplementation

GENEVA, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

New research published today at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), Montréal, Canada, reveals that less than half (43%) of patients in Europe with osteoporosis are claiming to take both calcium and vitamin D supplementation with their osteoporosis treatment.(i) Maximum benefit in managing osteoporosis can be achieved with combination therapy of an osteoporosis treatment (such as a bisphosphonate) with calcium and vitamin D supplementation, (ii) yet the majority of patients in this research claim they do not follow this approach.

Menus and advertising affect our emotions, and if we understand those emotions, we make better food choices, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Authors Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Terry L. Childers (all University of Kentucky) examined the "emotional intelligence" of consumers, including obese people. They found that people who made the healthiest choices had high correlations between their emotional intelligence and confidence in their emotional intelligence—what the authors call "emotional calibration."

Dr. Ed Corboy had no idea what was afflicting his 80-year-old mother, Joan Corboy. All he knew for certain was that since being treated for what was a routine diarrheal infection, she seemed to be wasting away and none of her doctors or other health specialists could explain why.

Afraid that his mother was running out of time, Corboy called the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for advice. Dr. Clifford McDonald told him the infection his mother probably had was of the NAP1 type of the bacteria Clostridium difficile, a virulent strain of a common intestinal bacteria currently plaguing hospitals that now rivals the superbug Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as one of the top emerging disease threats to humans.