Research on wood formation sheds light on plant biology

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 23-Aug-2012
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Contact: Dr. Vincent Chiang
vincent_chiang@ncsu.edu
919-513-0098
North Carolina State University

Scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered a phenomenon never seen before in plants while studying molecular changes inside tree cells as wood is formed.

In research published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20, the team found that one member of a family of proteins called transcription factors took control of a cascade of genes involved in forming wood, which includes a substance called lignin that binds fibers together and gives wood its strength.

The controller protein regulated gene expression on multiple levels, preventing abnormal or stunted plant growth. And it did so in a novel way.

The controller, a spliced variant of the SND1 family, was found in the cytoplasm outside the cell nucleus. This is abnormal, because transcription factor proteins are always in the nucleus. But when one of the four other proteins in its family group was present, the spliced variant was carried into the nucleus, where it bound to the family member, creating a new type of molecule that suppressed the expression of a cascade of genes.

"This is nothing that's been observed before in plants," says Dr. Vincent Chiang, co-director of NC State's Forest Biotechnology Group with Dr. Ron Sederoff. Chiang's research team was the first to produce a transgenic tree with reduced lignin. High lignin levels are desirable for lumber, but lignin is removed during the process of making paper or manufacturing biofuels.

Chiang, a professor in the College of Natural Resources, described the team's finding as the long-sought path to understanding the hierarchy of gene regulation for wood formation.

###

Lead authors are Dr. Quanzi Li, senior research associate, who discovered the controller protein, and doctoral student Ying-Chung Lin, who carried out extensive experimental work, demonstrating with Li that the controller protein was carried into the nucleus.

The research was funded with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.

"Splice Variant of the SND1 Transcription Factor Is a Dominant Negative of SND1 Members and Their Regulation in Populus trichocarpa"

Published: Online the week of Aug. 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Authors: Quanzi Li, Ying-Chung Lin, Ying-Hsuan Sun, Jian Song, Hao Chen, Xing-Hai Zhang, Ronald R. Sederoff, and Vincent L. Chiang. All are members of the Forest Biotechnology Group in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, except for Xing-Hai Zhang, who is with the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida Atlantic University.

Abstract: Secondary Wall-Associated NAC Domain 1s (SND1s) are transcription factors (TFs) known to activate a cascade of TF and pathway genes affecting secondary cell wall biosynthesis (xylogenesis) in Arabidopsis and poplars. Elevated SND1 transcriptional activation leads to ectopic xylogenesis and stunted growth. Nothing is known about the upstream regulators of SND1. Here we report the discovery of a stem-differentiating xylem (SDX)-specific alternative SND1 splice variant, PtrSND1-A2IR, that acts as a dominant negative of SND1 transcriptional network genes in Populus trichocarpa. PtrSND1-A2IR derives from PtrSND1-A2, one of the four fully spliced PtrSND1 gene family members (PtrSND1-A1, -A2, -B1, and -B2). Each full-size PtrSND1 activates its own gene, and all four full-size members activate a common MYB gene (PtrMYB021). PtrSND1-A2IR represses the expression of its PtrSND1 member genes and PtrMYB021. Repression of the autoregulation of a TF family member by its only splice variant has not previously been reported in plants. PtrSND1-A2IR lacks DNA binding and transactivation abilities but retains dimerization capability. PtrSND1-A2IR is localized exclusively in cytoplasmic foci. In the presence of any full-size PtrSND1 member, PtrSND1-A2IR is translocated into the nucleus exclusively as a heterodimeric partner with full-size PtrSND1s. Our findings are consistent with a model in which the translocated PtrSND1-A2IR lacking DNA-binding and transactivating abilities can disrupt the function of full-size PtrSND1s, making them nonproductive through heterodimerization, and thereby modulating the SND1 transcriptional network. PtrSND1-A2IR may contribute to transcriptional homeostasis to avoid deleterious effects on xylogenesis and plant growth.


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[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 23-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Dr. Vincent Chiang
vincent_chiang@ncsu.edu
919-513-0098
North Carolina State University

Scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered a phenomenon never seen before in plants while studying molecular changes inside tree cells as wood is formed.

In research published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 20, the team found that one member of a family of proteins called transcription factors took control of a cascade of genes involved in forming wood, which includes a substance called lignin that binds fibers together and gives wood its strength.

The controller protein regulated gene expression on multiple levels, preventing abnormal or stunted plant growth. And it did so in a novel way.

The controller, a spliced variant of the SND1 family, was found in the cytoplasm outside the cell nucleus. This is abnormal, because transcription factor proteins are always in the nucleus. But when one of the four other proteins in its family group was present, the spliced variant was carried into the nucleus, where it bound to the family member, creating a new type of molecule that suppressed the expression of a cascade of genes.

"This is nothing that's been observed before in plants," says Dr. Vincent Chiang, co-director of NC State's Forest Biotechnology Group with Dr. Ron Sederoff. Chiang's research team was the first to produce a transgenic tree with reduced lignin. High lignin levels are desirable for lumber, but lignin is removed during the process of making paper or manufacturing biofuels.

Chiang, a professor in the College of Natural Resources, described the team's finding as the long-sought path to understanding the hierarchy of gene regulation for wood formation.

###

Lead authors are Dr. Quanzi Li, senior research associate, who discovered the controller protein, and doctoral student Ying-Chung Lin, who carried out extensive experimental work, demonstrating with Li that the controller protein was carried into the nucleus.

The research was funded with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.

"Splice Variant of the SND1 Transcription Factor Is a Dominant Negative of SND1 Members and Their Regulation in Populus trichocarpa"

Published: Online the week of Aug. 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Authors: Quanzi Li, Ying-Chung Lin, Ying-Hsuan Sun, Jian Song, Hao Chen, Xing-Hai Zhang, Ronald R. Sederoff, and Vincent L. Chiang. All are members of the Forest Biotechnology Group in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, except for Xing-Hai Zhang, who is with the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida Atlantic University.

Abstract: Secondary Wall-Associated NAC Domain 1s (SND1s) are transcription factors (TFs) known to activate a cascade of TF and pathway genes affecting secondary cell wall biosynthesis (xylogenesis) in Arabidopsis and poplars. Elevated SND1 transcriptional activation leads to ectopic xylogenesis and stunted growth. Nothing is known about the upstream regulators of SND1. Here we report the discovery of a stem-differentiating xylem (SDX)-specific alternative SND1 splice variant, PtrSND1-A2IR, that acts as a dominant negative of SND1 transcriptional network genes in Populus trichocarpa. PtrSND1-A2IR derives from PtrSND1-A2, one of the four fully spliced PtrSND1 gene family members (PtrSND1-A1, -A2, -B1, and -B2). Each full-size PtrSND1 activates its own gene, and all four full-size members activate a common MYB gene (PtrMYB021). PtrSND1-A2IR represses the expression of its PtrSND1 member genes and PtrMYB021. Repression of the autoregulation of a TF family member by its only splice variant has not previously been reported in plants. PtrSND1-A2IR lacks DNA binding and transactivation abilities but retains dimerization capability. PtrSND1-A2IR is localized exclusively in cytoplasmic foci. In the presence of any full-size PtrSND1 member, PtrSND1-A2IR is translocated into the nucleus exclusively as a heterodimeric partner with full-size PtrSND1s. Our findings are consistent with a model in which the translocated PtrSND1-A2IR lacking DNA-binding and transactivating abilities can disrupt the function of full-size PtrSND1s, making them nonproductive through heterodimerization, and thereby modulating the SND1 transcriptional network. PtrSND1-A2IR may contribute to transcriptional homeostasis to avoid deleterious effects on xylogenesis and plant growth.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/ncsu-row082312.php

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Engineers achieve longstanding goal of stable nanocrystalline metals

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2012) ? Most metals -- from the steel used to build bridges and skyscrapers to the copper and gold used to form wires in microchips -- are made of crystals: orderly arrays of molecules forming a perfectly repeating pattern. In many cases, including the examples above, the material is made of tiny crystals packed closely together, rather than one large crystal. Indeed, for many purposes, making the crystals as small as possible provides significant advantages in performance, but such materials are often unstable: The crystals tend to merge and grow larger if subjected to heat or stress.

Now, MIT researchers have found a way to avoid that problem. They've designed and made alloys that form extremely tiny grains -- called nanocrystals -- that are only a few billionths of a meter across. These alloys retain their nanocrystalline structure even in the face of high heat. Such materials hold great promise for high-strength structural materials, among other potential uses.

The new findings, including both a theoretical basis for identifying specific alloys that can form nanocrystalline structures and details on the actual fabrication and testing of one such material, are described in a paper published Aug. 24 in Science.

Graduate student Tongjai Chookajorn, of MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), guided the effort to design and synthesize a new class of tungsten alloys with stable nanocrystalline structures. Her fellow DMSE graduate student, Heather Murdoch, came up with the theoretical method for finding suitable combinations of metals and the proportions of each that would yield stable alloys. Chookajorn then successfully synthesized the material and demonstrated that it does, in fact, have the stability and properties that Murdoch's theory predicted. They, along with their advisor Christopher Schuh, the Danae and Vasilis Salapatas Professor of Metallurgy and department head of DMSE, are co-authors of the paper.

For decades, researchers and the metals industry have tried to create alloys with ever-smaller crystalline grains, Schuh says. But, he adds, "nature does not like to do that. Nature tends to find low-energy states, and bigger crystals usually have lower energy."

Looking for pairings with the potential to form stable nanocrystals, Murdoch studied many combinations of metals that are not found together naturally and have not been produced in the lab. "The conventional metallurgical approach to designing an alloy doesn't think about grain boundaries," Schuh explains, but rather focuses on whether the different metals can be made to mix together or not. But, he adds, it's the grain boundaries that are crucial for creating stable nanocrystals. So Murdoch came up with a way of incorporating these grain boundary conditions into the team's calculations.

Why go to the trouble of designing such materials? Because they can have properties that other, more conventional metals and alloys do not, the researchers say. For example, the alloy of tungsten and titanium that the MIT researchers developed and tested in this study is likely exceptionally strong, and could find applications in protection from impacts, guarding industrial or military machinery or for use in vehicular or personal armor. But the researchers stress that this fundamental research could lead to a wide range of potential uses. "This is one case study, but there are potentially hundreds of alloys we could make," Schuh says.

Other nanocrystalline materials designed using these methods could have additional important qualities, such as exceptional resistance to corrosion, the team says. But finding materials that will remain stable with such tiny crystal grains, out of the nearly infinite number of possible combinations and proportions of the dozens of metallic elements, would be nearly impossible through trial and error. "We can calculate, for hundreds of alloys, which ones work, and which don't," Murdoch says.

The key to designing nanocrystalline alloys, they found, is "finding the systems where, when you add an alloying element, it goes to the grain boundaries and stabilizes them," Schuh says, rather than distributing uniformly through the material. Under classical metallurgical theory, such a selective arrangement of materials is not expected to occur.

The tungsten-titanium material that Chookajorn synthesized, which has grains just 20 nanometers across, remained stable for a full week at a temperature of 1,100 degrees Celsius -- a temperature consistent with processing techniques such as sintering, where powdered material is packed into a mold and heated to produce a solid shape. This means this alloy could easily become a practical material for a variety of applications where its high strength and impact resistance would be important, the researchers say.

Julia Weertman, a professor emerita of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University, says this work "represents a significant advancement toward the goal of creating nanocrystalline alloys that are usable at elevated temperatures." She adds that "Schuh and his students, using thermodynamic considerations, derived a method to choose alloys that will remain stable at high temperatures. ? This research opens up the use of microstructurally stable nanocrystalline alloys in high temperature applications, such as engines for aircraft or power generation."

The work was funded by the U.S. Army Research Office.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The original article was written by David L. Chandler.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Tongjai Chookajorn, Heather A. Murdoch, Christopher A. Schuh. Design of Stable Nanocrystalline Alloys. Science, 24 August 2012: Vol. 337 no. 6097 pp. 951-954 DOI: 10.1126/science.1224737

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/oUCKez1neQ8/120823143053.htm

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Paul Ryan takes his workout on the road | Bodybuilding ...


From the window of my room at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Pittsburgh, I can see a sliver of the hotel fitness center. This morning I looked down there and saw a guy with an earpiece. Secret Service.

So I wasn?t entirely surprised to walk into the tiny exercise room a little after 7 a.m. and find the Republican vice presidential candidate working out. There was a row of about half a dozen elliptical machines and treadmills, one workout bench, a small rack of dumbbells, an inflatable exercise ball, and a folding workout mat.

Paul Ryan had staked out a spot between the workout bench and the weights. He wore a red Wisconsin Badgers baseball cap, a green short-sleeved workout shirt, gray running shorts, and Asics running shoes. The only sign that he was part of the biggest political story in America right now was a lone Secret Service agent, who spent most of his time standing outside the door to the fitness center.

I couldn?t immediately tell whether Ryan was doing P90X, the extreme workout routine that he reportedly prefers. All I could see was a lot of pushups (T pushups, one-handed pushups, clapping pushups) and a lot of crunches. It seemed way more intense than Mitt Romney?s workout, which usually includes nothing more than a stint on an elliptical machine. Then again, at 42, Ryan is the age of Romney?s oldest son.

As I ran on the treadmill, a woman in a baseball cap came up and started chatting with Ryan. She asked for a photo, and he took one with her iPhone. He explained that if they tilted their heads up, the baseball caps wouldn?t obscure their faces in the photo. After one shot with his arm in the photo, he tried again. She thanked him and left.

At this point he was doing weights along with the pushups and sit-ups. Triceps, shoulders, chest. There was some deep breathing but no embarrassing grunting. He took regular water breaks from a cup on the workout bench.

Another woman walked up, requested a photo, and asked about his routine. He showed her the P90X app on his iPad, which he?d balanced on the workout bench. From the tone of her questions, it sounded as though she was familiar with the routine.

At one point he laughed and told her he doesn?t do the ?Insanity? workouts in a hotel fitness center. ?If I did, I?d look like that guy,? Ryan said, pointing at me, in a tank top, drenched from a sprint on the treadmill.

When I left the gym at 8 a.m., Ryan was still going.

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Jenson Button believes Fernando Alonso will face tough - Bettor

Jenson Button believes Fernando Alonso will face tough championship battle ? Formula 1 news

McLaren driver, Jenson Button has said that the current leader in the drivers? championship, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari will face a tough battle in the season ahead.

Alonso is presently leading the drivers? rankings with 164 points and has a very good lead over his main competitors, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing.

Although, Button said that he is very much impressed by the development of the Italian team in the season so far and admired the performance of the two-time world champion who has successfully limited the probable damage for his team. However, he insisted the Spaniard will not win the title easily as he will receive a strong challenge from the other contenders in the remaining nine races of the season.

?The team [Ferrari] have done a great job to get the points they have, but I don't think they've really had the speed,? Button said. ?They are going to manage it well, they are a great team and Fernando is a great driver. But it's tough when you see other teams winning races consistently and I think that might be happening over the next few races.?

In addition, he said that even though he is 88 points behind Alonso in the drivers? standings, nevertheless, he asserted that he is looking forward to come up stronger in the approaching races and is aiming to secure a competitive position.

Besides, he said that after facing difficulties in few races, they have managed to perform stronger in the last couple of grands prix on which he is extremely happy. He also said that their car has got the potential to achieve more and they are planning to launch some major updates in it so as to make a strong appearance in the Belgian GP.

?So the general car is good and the improvements that we've put on it at the last two races have been great and I think we're very good at getting everything together at the moment,? he added.

Above and beyond, it will be interesting to see how the Woking based team comes up in the second half of the season.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/Jenson-Button-believes-Fernando-Alonso-will-face-tough-championship-battle-Formula-1-news-a181949

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Kristin Davis Splits From Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin

Mars rover Curiosity begins driving at Bradbury landing

ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2012) ? NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has begun driving from its landing site, which scientists announced today they have named for the late author Ray Bradbury.

Making its first movement on the Martian surface, Curiosity's drive combined forward, turn and reverse segments. This placed the rover roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from the spot where it landed 16 days ago.

NASA has approved the Curiosity science team's choice to name the landing ground for the influential author who was born 92 years ago today and died this year. The location where Curiosity touched down is now called Bradbury Landing.

"This was not a difficult choice for the science team," said Michael Meyer, NASA program scientist for Curiosity. "Many of us and millions of other readers were inspired in our lives by stories Ray Bradbury wrote to dream of the possibility of life on Mars."

Today's drive confirmed the health of Curiosity's mobility system and produced the rover's first wheel tracks on Mars, documented in images taken after the drive. During a news conference today at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., the mission's lead rover driver, Matt Heverly, showed an animation derived from visualization software used for planning the first drive.

"We have a fully functioning mobility system with lots of amazing exploration ahead," Heverly said.

Curiosity will spend several more days of working beside Bradbury Landing, performing instrument checks and studying the surroundings, before embarking toward its first driving destination approximately 1,300 feet (400 meters) to the east-southeast.

"Curiosity is a much more complex vehicle than earlier Mars rovers. The testing and characterization activities during the initial weeks of the mission lay important groundwork for operating our precious national resource with appropriate care," said Curiosity Project Manager Pete Theisinger of JPL. "Sixteen days in, we are making excellent progress."

The science team has begun pointing instruments on the rover's mast for investigating specific targets of interest near and far. The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument used a laser and spectrometers this week to examine the composition of rocks exposed when the spacecraft's landing engines blew away several inches of overlying material.

The instrument's principal investigator, Roger Weins of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, reported that measurements made on the rocks in this scoured-out feature called Goulburn suggest a basaltic composition. "These may be pieces of basalt within a sedimentary deposit," Weins said.

Curiosity began a two-year prime mission on Mars when the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft delivered the car-size rover to its landing target inside Gale Crater on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The mission will use 10 science instruments on the rover to assess whether the area has ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

In a career spanning more than 70 years, Ray Bradbury inspired generations of readers to dream, think and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and nearly to 50 books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

His groundbreaking works include "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles," "The Illustrated Man," "Dandelion Wine," and "Something Wicked This Way Comes." He wrote the screenplay for John Huston's classic film adaptation of "Moby Dick," and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted 65 of his stories for television's "The Ray Bradbury Theater," and won an Emmy for his teleplay of "The Halloween Tree."

JPL manages the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

More information about Curiosity is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

Follow the mission on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/-uTtv1j1sSo/120822154011.htm

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Giving your site visitors something to look forward to | Search Engine ...


Businesses Online | Search Engine Marketing | * Written by wildnettechnologies | Monday, 20 August 2012 23:48 | Word Count: 507

Giving people the power to jump from one virtual space to the next in one click did not do any good to their attention span. Internet users are also demanding for something new, something fresh.

Don?t change your site?s content for one week and don?t expect them to go back. This is one of the pitfalls of many bloggers and one of the reasons why social media is such a hit. The perennial search for up-to-the-minute online updates makes web content management system UK or CMS an indispensable element in a comprehensive internet marketing plan.

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Providing Readers with Shareable Content

Web content management allows your business to give internet users a constant stream of interesting and informative updates which is very fitting in today?s highly viral online environment. People are always on the hunt for internet materials which they can share in their social media networks and you will not be able to take advantage of this virtual word-of-mouth phenomenon if your content is stale and irrelevant. Regularly reinventing your website?s content makes your business more sharable in social networking sites making it an efficient way of generating organic traffic for your webpage.

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Other Search Engine Optimization Benefits

One of the most obvious benefits of having a Website Content Management System UK in place is avoiding duplicate content which is especially advantageous in terms of search engine optimization. With the recent roll out of Panda and Google, sites with a constant feed of unique materials are ranked higher, while those with iterative and repetitive content are ignored. Following the same line of thinking, CMS complements most dynamic websites as it makes content creation and updating dispersed among several individuals, instead of just one web administrator. Further, it makes content creation more interactive. It also makes live content be fed to your site. The most common application of this feature can be seen in online trading sites wherein market updates can be seen by investors live.

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Outsourcing Your Content Management Needs

Being software assisted, web content management has evolved to a relatively easy task as it was before. However, what takes time is developing new content. An efficient way to do this is to hire a third party firm to take care of both the creation of new content and publishing them at your webpage. These firms can even develop a content strategy and are well in-tuned of what users are searching for online.

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Will Rep. Todd Akin drop out of Senate race?

Rumors were flying Monday afternoon that Rep. Todd Akin would resign his candidacy after causing a firestorm of controversy with his "legitimate rape" comments on Sunday. A senior Republican official told Buzzfeed's Ben Smith that Akin is planning to withdraw his Senate candidacy at 5:00 pm tomorrow. The source said Akin may still change his mind, however, and Smith cites another source who throws cold water on the speculation. Meanwhile, conservative blogger Erick Erickson and former Mitt Romney foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell both wrote on Twitter that Akin would resign.

Somebody better tell the candidate, however. Akin wrote on Twitter while the rumors were flying that he is "in this race to win," and called on supporters to donate to his embattled campaign. He told Sean Hannity Monday afternoon that "we're going to stay in."

Scores of Republican politicians have condemned Akin for saying on Sunday that victims of "legitimate rape" do not need access to legal abortions because they cannot biologically become pregnant. Akin apologized for the statement on Monday but said he wouldn't drop out. "I'm not a quitter," Akin said on Mike Huckabee's radio show. Nonetheless, pressure has been mounting for his withdrawal. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who runs the Senate Republicans' campaign arm, said in a statement that Akin should carefully consider his candidacy over the next 24 hours, a sentiment echoed by Mitt Romney. An unnamed official told the AP that the NRSC would not spend the $5 million it had set aside for the Missouri race on Akin.

The Republican party can nominate a candidate to replace Akin if he drops out on or before Tuesday. After that date, Akin needs a court order to drop out. The six-term Congressman was by no means the favorite even before his gaffe. His rival, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, spent $2 million during the Republican?primary boosting Akin as the "true conservative" because the campaign considered him the weakest potential challenger.

This story has been updated to include additional reporting.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/report-akin-drop-tomorrow-185735978.html

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Real estate law | Contacts Manufacturer Supplier Wholesaler ...

Real estate law: Not for you?

Actual estate is indeed one of the safest investments and a lot of folks use actual estate as an investment avenue. Actual estate law is not the forte of true estate attorneys and true estate agents only. Every actual estate investor must recognize at least the fundamentals of true estate law. In reality, a brief course or a concise book on real estate law can occasionally be of wonderful aid (and is typically sufficient for understanding the basics of genuine estate law).

What you require to comprehend is the real estate law with respect to the legal procedures that you need to have to follow for making certain a smooth transfer of title to the house you obtain/sell and other related procedures. You require to comprehend the fee structure (e.g. stamp duty, etc) that you want to take care of as per true estate law. You can also recognize the classification of properties and how the simple real estate law applies to them. How the commercial and residential properties are treated differently by the real estate law. The tax laws with respect to actual estate are one of the issues that would be of most interest to you. So, your study on actual estate law must also cover all the aspects associated to taxes. How mortgages are treated in the perspective of true estate law is an additional point that you really should know about. Then once more, the true estate law with respect to tenancy ought to also be well understood by people who wish to rent out their home.

However, you ought to not overdo that i.e. you should not commence becoming hysterical about understanding true estate law (lest you end up wasting a lot of time in attempting to find out every little thing about true estate law and be left with no time to evaluate your real estate investment). Leave the intricacies of genuine estate law with the true estate attorneys (and to some extent actual estate brokers who as well are taught genuine estate law as part of their course for getting broker license).

Understanding the a variety of legal terms referred to in genuine estate laws can support you in not only enhancing your understanding of true estate but also help in producing your conversations with genuine estate attorneys/agents actually fruitful. You must also note that although some of the fundamentals remain the exact same, the genuine estate laws vary across numerous states. Also, real estate laws (specifically the tax associated actual estate laws) can undergo a modify over a period of time, so you require to keep a tab on such alterations. Any large adjustments will anyhow seem prominently in news and you will get to know of them anyhow.

So understanding a small bit of true estate law can genuinely be useful (and is, in truth, essential).

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Source: http://blog.1stfind.com/?p=441811&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=real-estate-law

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Turning Customer Intelligence into Innovation - Scott Anthony - Blogs

It's a paradox of the information age. The glut of information that bombards us daily too frequently obscures true insight. Intelligence should drive better innovation, but unless it is strategically collected and used, it functions like a summer beach novel ? an engaging distraction.

Thoughtful companies intertwine customer intelligence throughout the three phases that characterize most successful innovations. Innovation starts with discovery ? where an innovator pinpoints an important problem to solve. Ground-level intelligence is critical to this part of the process.

While companies are increasingly using detailed analytics to fine-tune pricing, packaging, and product performance, analytics have their limits when it comes to finding the next big idea. After all, data only exists about the past ? discovering untapped opportunities typically requires a heavy dose of primary research to tease out what the customer needs but cannot easily articulate. Consumers don't do a good job reporting what they currently want or do, let along what they might want or will do in the future.

Procter & Gamble is famous for its deep commitment to these kinds of anthropological approaches. For example, in the early 2000s, P&G investigated the cleaning habits of Indian consumers who washed garments by hand. At first glance that's a counterintuitive place to look for new growth, because those consumers are unlikely to buy P&G detergents formulated for washing machines. But since hand washers constitute 80% of the home-based washing market in India, it was too big a market to ignore. P&G observed that many consumers were in fact hand washing garments using machine-oriented detergents to take advantage of their superior cleaning benefits. However, the chemical formulations weren't intended for hand washing and could cause abrasions or burns.

Insight in hand, innovators next blueprint a solution to address the identified problem. In the case of P&G in India, the idea the company ultimately commercialized was Tide Naturals, a special formulation that lets hand washers get the cleaning benefit of Tide without suffering the downsides of machine detergents.

There are substantial opportunities to generate real-time intelligence by involving customers in the blueprinting process. For example, four years ago the Indian company Godrej & Boyce was working on an idea for a small, battery-powered refrigerator to reach the 80% of Indians without refrigerators. The team working on the idea brought an early prototype of the concept to a rural village and showed it to 600 women. Navroze Godrej, who leads the company's disruptive growth efforts, describes how the event was a way to get "instant feedback" allowing Godrej to "co-create with these women. It was also here that the final color we went with ? ruby red ? was decided pretty unanimously with 600 women."

P&G has a number of mechanisms to facilitate this kind of real-time customer input, such as a specially designed "Home of the Future" and "Store of the Future" 30 miles north of corporate headquarters in Cincinnati, online networks such as VocalPoint, where hundreds of thousands of mothers provide feedback on products, and the regular practice of bringing "real" consumers into its offices.

The final stage in the process is to iteratively test an idea by executing smart experiments to test key assumptions. Does the product (or service) solve the consumer problem it was intended to in a way that generates repeat use and re-purchase? Will consumers purchase at the required price point? Can the idea be reliably delivered at scale? Do the economics work? Ideally, tests to answer these kinds of questions aren't run in the laboratory, but with real customers in everyday settings. Presenting early ideas to customers to get their feedback provides vital intelligence that helps increase the success rate and sustainability of innovation.

There are a number of ways to generate this kind of real-world input. Many consumer-facing companies use employees as "customers" to test new concepts inside their walls. For example, the headquarters of Unilever's India operations contains a "street" with shops and kiosks selling Unilever products to glean insights from employee customers. Business to business companies can consider bringing rough ideas to customer councils, running pilots with select customers, or even using booths in industry conferences to gauge interest in new ideas. Since the goal is learning, companies should ensure they keep tests simple and focused. Affordable online tools such as LinkedIn, eLance.com, SurveyMonkey, Wix, Amazon's Mechanical Turk, Appmkr.com, and Google SketchUp can complement live testing to accelerate effective, affordable experimentation.

Companies seeking to more formally intertwine intelligence with innovation should consider three straightforward starting points:

  1. Mandate that everyone in the company increase the amount of time they spend with customers ? however much time your company is spending, it is probably not enough.
  2. Find simple ways to make customer conversations more frequent. Consider forming a lead user panel or creating an online community like those offered by CommuniSpace.
  3. Build a little-bets lab, a mechanism by which you can selectively introduce early ideas to the market. For example, at beta620.nytimes.com, users can test drive early experiments offered by The New York Times Company. Little bets labs facilitate the thoughtful process of strategic experimentation that typifies successful innovation.

Want more intelligent innovation? Starting by intertwining intelligence and innovation.

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/anthony/2012/08/turning_customer_intelligence.html

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