This study was reported by Bill Berkrot of the Reuters news service:

Chocolate improves blood vessel function: study
Mon Mar 26, 2007 10:18 AM ET
details

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Chocoholics were given further reason to rejoice on Saturday when a small clinical study showed that dark chocolate improves the function of blood vessels.

While the researchers cautioned against bingeing on bon bons, they said the findings of the trial were clear and called for larger such studies to confirm the results.

“In this sample of healthy adults, dark chocolate ingestion over a short period of time was shown to significantly improve (blood vessel) function,” said Dr. Valentine Yanchou Njike of Yale Prevention Research Center, a co-investigator of the study.

The results, presented at the annual American College of Cardiology scientific meeting in New Orleans, add to mounting evidence of the health benefits of dark chocolate.

During the six-week trial, 45 people were given 8 ounces (227 grams) of cocoa without sugar, cocoa with sugar or a placebo each day.

An upper arm artery’s ability to relax and expand to accommodate increased blood flow—known as flow mediated dilation (FMD)—was measured using high-frequency ultrasound before and after daily cocoa or placebo consumption.

Of the 39 subjects who completed the trial, FMD improved significantly in both cocoa groups—by 2.4 percent among those who had it without sugar and 1.5 percent among those who had it with sugar. It dropped 0.8 percent in the placebo group.

“While the findings from this study do not suggest that people should start eating more chocolate as part of their daily routine, it does suggest that we pay more attention to how dark chocolate and other flavonoid-rich foods might offer cardiovascular benefits,” Njike said.

AIIM Wednesday Webinar
Produced By: Association for Information and Image Management – The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Association

TIME: 2:00-3:00 P.M. (EASTERN), 1:00-2:00 P.M. (CENTRAL), 12:00-1:00 P.M. (MOUNTAIN), 11:00 A.M.-12:00 P.M. (PACIFIC), 7:00-8:00 P.M. (GT)
Speaker: Christine Pierpoint, Welchman Consulting

Your company’s image is often defined by how customers perceive the quality of the communications they receive. But today that means more than just batch statements and policies. Customers are becoming more sophisticated, with increasing demands for real-time information. How can you create, maintain, and deliver this content and make it available in email, fax, print, Web, or SMS – for all of your brands – from a single template?

Attend this Webcast to learn how to:

• Launch new products faster & capture more business by providing personalized quotes, applications, agreements and other critical documents in real time
• Improve efficiency by empowering business users rather than IT to manage document generation
• Reduce operational risk by standardizing communication templates and automating exception management
• Save on total cost of ownership by taking advantage of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and XML to drive your business communications

For further information contact:
Kelly Markiewicz
Phone: 301-587-8202

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AIIM is the international authority on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) – the tools and technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM enables four key business drivers: Continuity, Collaboration, Compliance, and Costs.

For over 60 years, AIIM has been the leading non-profit organization focused on helping users to understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes. Today, AIIM is international in scope, independent, implementation-focused, and, as the representative of the entire ECM industry – including users, suppliers, and the channel – acts as the industry’s intermediary.

STC has announced the appointment of the 2007 Fellows and Associate Fellows. These individuals, listed in this month’s Tieline and available on the STC web site, will be honored at the Technical Communication Summit in May.

STC recognizes and honors deserving senior members by conferring upon them the rank of associate fellow. Those selected as associate fellows are exceptional individuals who have consistently demonstrated meaningful contributions to the Society and to the profession over a period of years.

The highest rank that the Society for Technical Communication can confer upon a member is that of fellow. The select few who become fellows are associate fellows who have attained eminence in the arts and sciences of technical communication through service that has distinguished both the Society and the profession.

[submitted by stc@stc.org]

The 2007 STC election is now open!

Please go to the STC Web site (http://www.stc.org/) and click on the “Vote Now” button to access the online voting. To log on, use your STC member number and password.

If you requested a paper ballot, one is being mailed to you. However, please consider voting online instead. By doing so you will save time and postage, and ensure that your vote is received immediately.

Online voting closes April 12, 2007, at 12:00 noon ET. If you have any questions, please contact Ed Rutkowski at ed@stc.org.

Have a say in STC’s future: Vote today!

Consider attending AIIMexpo
April 16-19, 2007
Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA

AIIM Conference & Expo is the largest and most important annual gathering of information management professionals, featuring an educational program covering the breadth and depth of enterprise content and information management issues, while providing face-to-face access to nearly every major solution provider in the space.

The 2007 conference program has been expanded to 14 tracks, offering several new conference themes that address the needs of senior-level information management professionals. Tracks and themes covered include:

* Compliance & Risk Management
* Digital Rights Management
* Document and Records Management
* ECM Fundamentals
* Information Infrastructure
* Information Classification, Taxonomies & Metadata
* Managing Unstructured Data
* Organizational Management
* Product Selection and Implementation Best Practices
* Publishing Automation
* Search and Text Mining
* Web Content Management/Portals
* Web Services
* Workflow/Business Process Management

According to Tom Bliss, Group Conference Director – AIIM and ON DEMAND Conferences & Expos, Questex Media Group, “This year’s program is designed to show business and IT professionals how to manage enterprise content in a way that puts mission-critical information in front of the people who need it, when they need it. Here they’ll learn how to automate business processes and improve decision making by rethinking the way enterprise information is created, organized, accessed, analyzed and used.”

“The volume of content and information being created today far exceeds our ability to consume it. And for most organizations, that gap is growing quickly. The AIIM conference sessions will cover the breadth of information management issues and provide valuable solutions,” John Mancini, President, AIIM – The ECM Association.

For additional details on the conference tracks, go to http://www.aiimexpo.com/aiimexpo2007/v42/index.cvn?ID=10011.

Pre-conference workshops include:
• The ECM Practitioner Training Program session presented by AIIM -The ECM Association will focus on ECM components and technologies for managing information throughout its lifecycle.
• A half-day tutorial on ECM Product Selection presented by ECM guru Alan Pelz-Sharpe of CMS Watch.
• The Developing Enterprise Taxonomies: A Practical Guide, a half-day workshop presented by noted taxonomy expert, Theresa Regli of CMS Watch.

For additional information on the pre-conference sessions, go to: http://www.aiimexpo.com/aiimexpo2007/v42/index.cvn?ID=10027

To register to attend, call 888-824-3004 or visit www.aiimexpo.com.