WASHINGTON, July 14 /PRNewswire/ --

The escalating price tag for the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline is the biggest obstacle facing the massive project, the top US official coordinating permitting said here on Monday.

Appearing at the latest Platts Energy Podium event in Washington, Federal Coordinator of the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects Drue Pearce said competing project proposals to ship gas from Alaska's North Slope to major US markets are navigating treacherous political, financial and logistical terrain, but progress has been made on all fronts. The best-case scenario for completion of a project is around 2018, Pearce said, adding that "a more realistic first-gas date, but still optimistic, is probably 2019."

Have you ever been puzzled by a statement like this: “Rotating a spin-1/2 particle by 360° does not bring it back to the same quantum state, but to the state with the opposite quantum phase; this is detectable, in principle, with interference experiments. To return the particle to its exact original state, one needs a 720° rotation.” (Wikipedia). Last week I zoomed back to 1820 and introduced Ørsted and his famous experiment, and left you with a promise of going mathematical tomb raiding. Tomb Raider was first released in 1996 for the Sega Saturn, and other platforms followed. The lore has it that this was the first mass market video game to be programmed using quaternions. Prior to that, rotations had been represented by Euler Angles or similar. Imagine you are flying an aeroplane. You are going in direction A, heading up or down at angle B, and your wings are tilted at angle C. Euler’s achievement in introducing these to the worlds of mechanics, astronomy, etc., in the mid-18th century was a landmark in itself. But they do come with mathematical problems when you are flying and tumbling at the speed of Lara Croft, one of which is that in certain orientations you can get a bad case of gimbal lock. Step in quaternions: the mathematical tomb raider who brought these to the worlds of video gaming and flight simulation appears to be Ken Shoemake, of the University of Pennsylvania, with a seminal paper in the journal Computer Graphics, 1985. But whom exactly did he, so to speak, “excavate”?

PRINCETON, New Jersey, July 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- Search Engine Optimized Directory Makes it Easy to Connect with Technology and Service Providers Focused on Specific Chemical Reactions

WARSAW, Poland, July 14 /PRNewswire/ --

Preliminary findings from a landmark independent, academic study on the value of project management, released today at the Project Management Institute's biennial research conference, clearly demonstrate that business and organizational performance can be significantly improved through the practice of project management.

The study, "Researching the Value of Project Management," is "unequivocal in its findings and independently validates what we've believed all along," said Edwin J. Andrews, Ph.D., director of Academic and Educational Programs & Services at the Project Management Institute.

LONDON, July 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Global DataCenter Management (GDCM), the leading provider of data centre management solutions has today announced a strategic partnership with APW President Systems, a provider of data centre infrastructure, to distribute its nlyte(TM) solution across India. APW President Systems will be solely responsible for engaging new customers in the region, managing local implementation and providing ongoing support.

nlyte(TM) is aimed at helping organisations achieve a complete view of their data centres, allowing them to intelligently manage power consumption, reduce greenhouse emissions and increase the lifetime of assets, among other benefits.

ZURICH, Switzerland, July 14 /PRNewswire/ --

Novelis Europe announced today that it will raise conversion prices of all its aluminium flat-rolled products by up to 10 percent. The price increase will vary across the product range depending on the exposure to the rising costs of energy, alloys and various operating materials.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070809/NOVELISLOGO )

Novelis Europe is an operating segment of Novelis Inc. and is the leading supplier of high-quality aluminium sheet and coil to the European market.

BRUSSELS, KIEL, Germany and ZEIST, The Netherlands, July 14 /PRNewswire/ -- EU Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx presented the first European Privacy Seal to search engine Ixquick (http://www.ixquick.com) today. Ixquick is now the first search engine to be formally approved by the EU.

The European Privacy Seal guarantees that IT products and services comply with the demanding EU laws and regulations on privacy and data security. The award is issued by EuroPriSe, a consortium of nine privacy organisations backed by the European Commission.

RAANANA, Israel, July 14 /PRNewswire/ --

- Rich Functionality and Ease-of-Use Ensures KonoLive is the Definitive Instant Collaboration Environment

KonoLive(TM), the instant collaboration software that launched at DEMO'08 in Palm Desert, CA, in January, has evolved with new, improved functionality and is now available as a public alpha release from http://www.konolive.com. KonoLive is the instant collaboration software that is defining the future of knowledge sharing by empowering teams and individuals to get things done together.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080714/310595 )

LONDON, July 14 /PRNewswire/ -- An online NHS Health Guide for people with diabetes has been launched on the national NHS website, NHS Choices http://www.nhs.uk

The guide, http://www.nhs.uk/Pathways/diabetes/Pages/Landing.aspx, takes patients through each stage, from before diagnosis, through to how to live and self-manage the condition. Throughout the next year, NHS Choices will be rolling out more guides from the 60 most common long-term conditions, giving people the information they require to make their own choices and decisions about their treatment.

NHS Choices has also released complete online guides to living with stroke, asthma, dementia, depression and heart disease.

See links below:

NOVATO, California, July 14 /PRNewswire/ --

Raptor Pharmaceuticals Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: RPTP), today announced the appointments of Richard L. Franklin, M.D., Ph.D. to the Company's board of directors and Stephen C. Blacklow, M.D., Ph.D. to its scientific advisory board.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071022/NYM074LOGO )