MOSCOW, January 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Mechel OAO (NYSE: MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, announces the appointment of Mukhamed Tsikanov as its Senior Vice President on Economics and Management.

Previously, Mr. Tsikanov (52) was Acting General Director of Mechel's Yakutugol OJSHC subsidiary. In his new position, Mr. Tsikanov will be responsible for the strategic development of Mechel OAO's economic and management organization, management accounts policies and planning, and implementation of internal management and control systems.

LONDON, January 24 /PRNewswire/ -- CNBC Europe, has announced the shortlist of nominations for the European Business Leaders Awards (EBLA) 2008.

The Awards programme, which is presented by CNBC Europe and for the first time conducted in partnership with the Financial Times, is now in its fifth year and was created to identify and honour those CEOs who are making a difference through leadership and innovation in their industry sectors. The EBLA 2008 winners will be announced at a special gala dinner and ceremony in London on 13 March 2008.

The shortlist of nominations for the European Business Leaders Awards 2008 are:

TEL AVIV, Israel, January 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company Solves Enterprise Level Development Complexities and Security Challenges of AJAX by Providing an Open Source Solution With no Client Dependency and Proven Reductions in Development Time of Over 80%

Visual WebGui, developer of the AJAX enterprise application development and deployment platform, today announces the availability of their enhanced browser-based solution.

SAN JOSE, California, January 24 /PRNewswire/ --

- MIC94064/65 Series Aimed At Battery-Powered Consumer and Industrial Apps Requiring Small Footprint and Enhanced Power Management

Scientists have discovered that mice genetically engineered to lack the VGLUT3 protein in the brain have profound deafness and seizures. The finding suggests a pathway for exploring the hereditary causes of deafness and epilepsy in humans.

More broadly, the discovery provides an entry point for gaining new insight into the role of glutamate, the chemical messenger carried by the protein, says the team, led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco. Glutamate is involved in virtually every brain function, including sensory perception, learning and memory.

The missing protein is a particular “vesicular neurotransmitter transporter,” a machine within nerve cells that ferries chemical messengers, or “neurotransmitters,” from the fluid-filled cytoplasm into vesicles that are positioned at the tips of nerve cells and serve to release neurotransmitters onto neighboring cells. Transporters and neurotransmitters work together to make possible essentially all neural communication in the brain.

When the Stardust mission returned to Earth with samples from the comet Wild 2 in 2006, scientists knew the material would provide new clues about the formation of our solar system, but they didn’t know exactly how.

Contrary to expectations for a small icy body, much of the comet dust returned by the Stardust mission formed very close to the young sun and was altered from the solar system’s early materials.

New research by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators reveals that, in addition to containing material that formed very close to the young sun, the dust from Wild 2 also is missing ingredients that would be expected in comet dust.

HERTEN, Germany, January 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Aqua Society GmbH has concluded a strategic sales agreement with Switzerland's Prescience AG to cover not only the Middle East but also Turkey, Australia and Britain. Prescience is located in Baar in the canton of Zug, and has additional sales offices in Europe and Saudi Arabia. It represents European technology firms aiming at the global marketing of innovative products in the fields of water and energy. Both partners regard the implementation of the AHC (aqua, heat, cold) container developed by Aqua Society as especially promising for the numerous coastal building projects in the Gulf states.

BRUSSELS, January 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Ansell Healthcare, the world leader in barrier protection, will be presenting its wide range of medical gloves at Arab Health in Dubai, from 28 to 31 January next. The Middle East medical exhibition, with ever-staggering participation and attendance figures, is an ideal platform for Ansell to highlight its hand protection expertise amongst some of the most important and influential professionals in the booming Arab healthcare market.

Has substantial progress been made in computers that can see like humans? Not as much as thought, according to MIT researchers. They say recent results are misleading because the tests being used are stacked in favor of computers.

Computer vision is important for applications ranging from “intelligent” cars to visual prosthetics for the blind. Recent computational models show apparently impressive progress, boasting 60% success rates in classifying natural photographic image sets.

LONDON, January 24 /PRNewswire/ --

Level 3 Communications' European Markets Group today announced that it has been working collaboratively with BT Global Services to expand backbone capacity in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). BT Global Services targets the top 10,000 global multi-site organisations worldwide, providing global reach and a complete range of networked IT solutions and services to its customers. The expanded relationship with Level 3 is part of BT's ongoing commitment to transformation and is in line with BT Global Services' strategy of focusing on the service layer and optimization.