One of the biggest decisions facing a racehorse owner is deciding who will train their horse. For experienced racehorse owners the answer is simple - they just stick with whoever has trained their horses previously.
But those new to racehorse ownership will have to make a tough decision. They have to choose a trainer who they believe they can get on well with, and will give them a return on their investment.
The success of trainers varies widely as can be seen with the basic strike rate stat and prize money stat. Some trainers achieve 20%+ strike rates whilst others only win at a rate half or a quarter of that; some trainers will earn millions of pounds in prize money in a year whilst others will only win tens of thousands.
A better indicator of trainer / owner success can be seen in the table below. The table ranks trainers by the percentage of winning owners they have had.
If you are considering becoming a racehorse owner (either as a sole owner, partnership or syndicate) you may want to choose your trainer from the table. A trainer who has a high owner strike rate could well be one who will give you a better return for your investment.
Best Trainers for Owners Table
To use the table just click on a column heading to sort by that column.
e.g. to sort the list by trainer alphabetically click the Trainer heading. If you click it twice the list will be sorted in the opposite direction (ascending / descending).
OwnersThe Owners column displays the total number of individual owners the trainer had during the period analysed (Nov 96 to Nov 06). The trainer with the most owners was Richard Hannon who had 455 individual owners.
Race%This column shows the percentage of owners who won at least one race with the trainer. Sorting this table shows that Sir Mark Prescott is the best trainer for having owners win at least one race. 72% of Prescott's owners won at least one race.
Prize%This column shows the percentage of owners who won any amount of prize money (win or place). The best trainer in the list is Barry Hills. He won some amount of prize money for 90% of his owners.
£10K+This column shows the percentage of owners who won at least £10,000 in prize money. Paul Cole is the best with 55% of his owners winning at least £10,000.
£10K+This column shows the percentage of owners who won at least £25,000 in prize money. Again Paul Cole is the best with 37% of his owners winning at least £25,000.
Owning a racehorse is not cheap. The average auction price in 2005 was £13,300. On top of that you have the ongoing training fees and associated running costs of around £16,000 a year which equates to an investment of nearly £30,000 in your first year. As the table shows, few owners will recover that initial cost.
Please note that owning a racehorse is not all about getting a return from your investment through prize money. A big advantage is the sheer exhilaration of owning a horse and the prestige that goes with it.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
7 Rules of Wealth Building
Practical Keys to Amassing Investment Capital
Most parents want to teach their children responsibility - how to become self sufficient and succeed in life (after all, no one plans on raising a dead beat). However, very few actually accomplish this task. Why? Because, as parents, we are limited to the experiences our parents passed on to us; the antiquated notion that "responsibility" is simply getting a job, saving a little money, and maybe purchasing a car or some equally important item. Hopefully these seven rules will open your eyes and help you teach your children to avoid the traps that have stolen financial success from so many people.
Wealth Building Rule 1:
Put Off MarriageYour biggest obstacle to attaining wealth is YOU. Too often, people live their lives in a manner that is not conducive to creating riches and then get frustrated at "the system" when they only really have themselves to blame.
One of the most important financial decisions you will ever make is marriage (more specifically who you marry and when). By putting off the walk down the aisle for a few years, you can save a decade worth of frustration. Your first goal should be to become financially independent, with little or no debt, and have your investments in place. Once you have these three things, your odds of success are drastically improved by beginning your journey on a level playing field (after all, the number-one reason for divorce is financial trouble).
Wealth Building Rule 2:
Debt is a DiseaseWith a few notable exceptions, debt is a form of bondage; a disease that enslaves the borrower. A few years ago, there was a young lady attending college who shot herself because she couldn't pay back $2,300 in credit card debt. Although an extreme example, it is a testament to the power money has over peoples' lives. Imagine your life without owing anyone anything; your car, your house, your education, all paid for in full. Like what you see? When you want it badly enough, you will make extinguishing your debt your number one priority.
Wealth Building Rule 3:
If You Don't Like Where your Parents Were at Your Age - Do Things DifferentlyThe old cliché that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results," holds just as true today as it did when it was originally written. If you don't like where your parents were at your age, stop what you are doing. During your childhood, they taught you all they knew about money. For many people, these early years established how they feel about their finances today. In order to become financially successful, you must do something different than they did. Otherwise, you will end up exactly as they are.
Wealth Building Rule 4:
When you Begin a Job, Look at the Pay of the Highest EmployeeWhether you are looking for employment now or are thinking about it sometime in the near future, one of the most important things for you to do is to look at what the top-dog gets at any company for which you are considering working. This will give you an idea of how high you can expect to climb in terms of earnings and promotion. If the CEO is making $30,000 a year, you have no chance to make six figures. Select a job accordingly.
Wealth Building Rule 5:
Do Something You Love and Get Paid for ItI remember going into college and being surrounded with people who wanted to be artists, scientists, and businessmen, but instead did what their parents or grandparents told them to do. There is no honor in being a doctor or a lawyer if you wake up every morning and hate your job. Pick a profession you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.
Wealth Building Rule 6:
Understand the Money MythMoney is nothing more than a piece of paper with the image of a long-dead person on it. When you understand that any power it has over you is derived from your relationship with it, you suddenly become free from the constant pressures and stress of thinking about it. Especially at times such as these, if you are putting money away for ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road, stop checking your portfolio every day! There is nothing you can gain from it except stress.
Wealth Building Rule 7:
Your New Commodity is Not Your Labor, It's Your IdeasWith the advent of the Internet and other technological advances, you are no longer limited to supporting yourself or making a living by your physical labor.
Most parents want to teach their children responsibility - how to become self sufficient and succeed in life (after all, no one plans on raising a dead beat). However, very few actually accomplish this task. Why? Because, as parents, we are limited to the experiences our parents passed on to us; the antiquated notion that "responsibility" is simply getting a job, saving a little money, and maybe purchasing a car or some equally important item. Hopefully these seven rules will open your eyes and help you teach your children to avoid the traps that have stolen financial success from so many people.
Wealth Building Rule 1:
Put Off MarriageYour biggest obstacle to attaining wealth is YOU. Too often, people live their lives in a manner that is not conducive to creating riches and then get frustrated at "the system" when they only really have themselves to blame.
One of the most important financial decisions you will ever make is marriage (more specifically who you marry and when). By putting off the walk down the aisle for a few years, you can save a decade worth of frustration. Your first goal should be to become financially independent, with little or no debt, and have your investments in place. Once you have these three things, your odds of success are drastically improved by beginning your journey on a level playing field (after all, the number-one reason for divorce is financial trouble).
Wealth Building Rule 2:
Debt is a DiseaseWith a few notable exceptions, debt is a form of bondage; a disease that enslaves the borrower. A few years ago, there was a young lady attending college who shot herself because she couldn't pay back $2,300 in credit card debt. Although an extreme example, it is a testament to the power money has over peoples' lives. Imagine your life without owing anyone anything; your car, your house, your education, all paid for in full. Like what you see? When you want it badly enough, you will make extinguishing your debt your number one priority.
Wealth Building Rule 3:
If You Don't Like Where your Parents Were at Your Age - Do Things DifferentlyThe old cliché that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results," holds just as true today as it did when it was originally written. If you don't like where your parents were at your age, stop what you are doing. During your childhood, they taught you all they knew about money. For many people, these early years established how they feel about their finances today. In order to become financially successful, you must do something different than they did. Otherwise, you will end up exactly as they are.
Wealth Building Rule 4:
When you Begin a Job, Look at the Pay of the Highest EmployeeWhether you are looking for employment now or are thinking about it sometime in the near future, one of the most important things for you to do is to look at what the top-dog gets at any company for which you are considering working. This will give you an idea of how high you can expect to climb in terms of earnings and promotion. If the CEO is making $30,000 a year, you have no chance to make six figures. Select a job accordingly.
Wealth Building Rule 5:
Do Something You Love and Get Paid for ItI remember going into college and being surrounded with people who wanted to be artists, scientists, and businessmen, but instead did what their parents or grandparents told them to do. There is no honor in being a doctor or a lawyer if you wake up every morning and hate your job. Pick a profession you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life.
Wealth Building Rule 6:
Understand the Money MythMoney is nothing more than a piece of paper with the image of a long-dead person on it. When you understand that any power it has over you is derived from your relationship with it, you suddenly become free from the constant pressures and stress of thinking about it. Especially at times such as these, if you are putting money away for ten, fifteen, or twenty years down the road, stop checking your portfolio every day! There is nothing you can gain from it except stress.
Wealth Building Rule 7:
Your New Commodity is Not Your Labor, It's Your IdeasWith the advent of the Internet and other technological advances, you are no longer limited to supporting yourself or making a living by your physical labor.
Mortgage Mess: Now It's Prime Time
Shares of American Home Mortgage fell Monday after it said it had to write down higher-quality residential loans
When American Home Mortgage Investment (AHM) warned of lower earnings after taking hits on higher quality debt, the real estate investment trust's announcement fanned fears about the mortgage industry on Monday Apr. 9. So far investors have worried for weeks mainly about mortgage companies that have exposure to the riskiest borrowers, but the pain could be spreading.
The Melville (N.Y.)-based American Home originates and resells mainly U.S. residential mortgages that are securitized, or backed with guarantees like collateral. Explaining that debt values weakened by an "unusually large" amount during the first quarter, American Home said on Apr. 6 that it had to write down, or take a loss, on around $484 million of securities rated AA, A, or BBB. Those rating categories typically indicate that borrowers have a good chance of repaying their debts.
As a result American Home now thinks it may earn between 40 cents and 60 cents per share during the first quarter and $3.75 to $4.25 per share during 2007. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected $1.06 per share during the quarter ended March 2007 and $5.00 per share during the full year 2007.
"While the market may recover ... our working assumption must be that current market conditions will persist and that our gain on sale margins will not recover through the balance of the year," CEO Michael Strauss said in a press release Apr. 6.
Strauss' company is fighting such losses by raising the interest rates it charges consumers, however.
Investors responded by selling American Home stock by 15.4% to $21.85 per share in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Apr. 9. Other lenders shed value too. For example, Novastar Financial (NFI) gave up 3.4% to $5.13 per share on the NYSE, Accredited Home Lenders (LEND) 4.4% to $9.22 per share on the Nasdaq and M&T Bank (MTB) 0.9% to $105.08 per share on the NYSE.
"We see this news as evidence that troubles in the residential mortgage market are spreading beyond subprime," Standard & Poor's equity analyst Jason Willey said in a research note. Willey cut his estimate on American Home's 2007 earnings per share to $2.89 from $4.69 and his 12-month target price on the stock by $5 to $22. (S&P, like BusinessWeek.com, is owned by The McGraw-Hill Companies.)
In another recent sign that such pain has spread to others, M&T Bank said in a Mar. 30 regulatory filing that it had found less investor interest for so-called Alt-A loans. That product typically falls between prime and subprime mortgages, requiring less documented information from the borrower.
American Home is the latest lender to take a hit as more people fail to repay their mortgages amid shaky housing prices during recent months -- but most of the recent worry has focused on lenders who have exposure to the highest risk debt. The poster child for the subprime mess, New Century Financial (NEW), on Apr.2 filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware and laid off 3,200 workers-more than half its staff (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/3/07, "The Subprime Story's Latest Chapter: 11"). Kansas City (Mo.) based lender Novastar Financial said after the close of trading Mar. 16 that it intends to reduce its workforce by about 350 people, or about 17%, to align itself with what it calls, with considerable understatement, "changing conditions in the mortgage market."
When American Home Mortgage Investment (AHM) warned of lower earnings after taking hits on higher quality debt, the real estate investment trust's announcement fanned fears about the mortgage industry on Monday Apr. 9. So far investors have worried for weeks mainly about mortgage companies that have exposure to the riskiest borrowers, but the pain could be spreading.
The Melville (N.Y.)-based American Home originates and resells mainly U.S. residential mortgages that are securitized, or backed with guarantees like collateral. Explaining that debt values weakened by an "unusually large" amount during the first quarter, American Home said on Apr. 6 that it had to write down, or take a loss, on around $484 million of securities rated AA, A, or BBB. Those rating categories typically indicate that borrowers have a good chance of repaying their debts.
As a result American Home now thinks it may earn between 40 cents and 60 cents per share during the first quarter and $3.75 to $4.25 per share during 2007. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected $1.06 per share during the quarter ended March 2007 and $5.00 per share during the full year 2007.
"While the market may recover ... our working assumption must be that current market conditions will persist and that our gain on sale margins will not recover through the balance of the year," CEO Michael Strauss said in a press release Apr. 6.
Strauss' company is fighting such losses by raising the interest rates it charges consumers, however.
Investors responded by selling American Home stock by 15.4% to $21.85 per share in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Apr. 9. Other lenders shed value too. For example, Novastar Financial (NFI) gave up 3.4% to $5.13 per share on the NYSE, Accredited Home Lenders (LEND) 4.4% to $9.22 per share on the Nasdaq and M&T Bank (MTB) 0.9% to $105.08 per share on the NYSE.
"We see this news as evidence that troubles in the residential mortgage market are spreading beyond subprime," Standard & Poor's equity analyst Jason Willey said in a research note. Willey cut his estimate on American Home's 2007 earnings per share to $2.89 from $4.69 and his 12-month target price on the stock by $5 to $22. (S&P, like BusinessWeek.com, is owned by The McGraw-Hill Companies.)
In another recent sign that such pain has spread to others, M&T Bank said in a Mar. 30 regulatory filing that it had found less investor interest for so-called Alt-A loans. That product typically falls between prime and subprime mortgages, requiring less documented information from the borrower.
American Home is the latest lender to take a hit as more people fail to repay their mortgages amid shaky housing prices during recent months -- but most of the recent worry has focused on lenders who have exposure to the highest risk debt. The poster child for the subprime mess, New Century Financial (NEW), on Apr.2 filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware and laid off 3,200 workers-more than half its staff (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/3/07, "The Subprime Story's Latest Chapter: 11"). Kansas City (Mo.) based lender Novastar Financial said after the close of trading Mar. 16 that it intends to reduce its workforce by about 350 people, or about 17%, to align itself with what it calls, with considerable understatement, "changing conditions in the mortgage market."
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
CANCER and DNA !
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions for the development and functioning of living organisms. All living things contain DNA genomes. A possible exception is a group of viruses that have RNA genomes, but viruses are not normally considered living organisms. The main role of DNA in the cell is the long-term storage of information. The genome is often compared to a set of blueprints, since it contains the instructions to construct other components of the cell, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the expression of genetic information. In eukaryotes such as animals and plants, DNA is stored inside the cell nucleus, while in prokaryotes such as bacteria, the DNA is in the cell's cytoplasm. Unlike enzymes, DNA does not participate directly in most of the biochemical reactions it controls; rather, various enzymes act on DNA and copy its information into either more DNA, in DNA replication, or transcribe and translate it into protein. In chromosomes, chromatin proteins such as histones compact and organize DNA, which helps control its interactions with other proteins in the nucleus. DNA is a long polymer of simple units called nucleotides, which are held together by a backbone made of sugars and phosphate groups. This backbone carries four types of molecules called bases, and it is the sequence of these four bases that encodes information. The major function of DNA is to encode the sequence of amino acid residues in proteins, using the genetic code. To read the genetic code, cells make a copy of a stretch of DNA in the nucleic acid RNA. Some RNA copies are used to direct protein biosynthesis, but others are used directly as parts of ribosomes or spliceosomes. Alternative double-helical structuresFurther information: Mechanical properties of DNA DNA exists in several possible conformations. The conformations so far identified are: A-DNA, B-DNA, C-DNA, D-DNA,[29] E-DNA,[30] H-DNA,[31] L-DNA,[29], P-DNA[32], and Z-DNA.[8][33] However, only A-DNA, B-DNA, and Z-DNA have been observed in naturally occurring biological systems. Which conformation DNA adopts depends on the sequence of the DNA, the amount and direction of supercoiling, chemical modifications of the bases and also solution conditions, such as the concentration of metal ions and polyamines.[34] Of these three conformations, the "B" form described above is most common under the conditions found in cells. The two alternative double-helical forms of DNA differ in their geometry and dimensions. The A form is a wider right-handed spiral, with a shallow and wide minor groove and a narrower and deeper major groove. The A form occurs under non-physiological conditions in dehydrated samples of DNA, while in the cell it may be produced in hybrid pairings of DNA and RNA strands.[35] Segments of DNA where the bases have been methylated may undergo a larger change in conformation and adopt the Z form. Here, the strands turn about the helical axis in a left-handed spiral, the opposite of the mor Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). Cancer may affect people at all ages, but risk tends to increase with age. It is one of the principal causes of death in developed countries. There are many types of cancer. Severity of symptoms depends on the site and character of the malignancy and whether there is metastasis. A definitive diagnosis usually requires the histologic examination of tissue by a pathologist. This tissue is obtained by biopsy or surgery. Most cancers can be treated and some cured, depending on the specific type, location, and stage. Once diagnosed, cancer is usually treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As research develops, treatments are becoming more specific for the type of cancer pathology. Drugs that target specific cancers already exist for several types of cancer. If untreated, cancers may eventually cause illness and death, though this is not always the case. The unregulated growth that characterizes cancer is caused by damage to DNA, resulting in mutations to genes that encode for proteins controlling cell division. Many mutation events may be required to transform a normal cell into a malignant cell. These mutations can be caused by radiation, chemicals or physical agents that cause cancer, which are called carcinogens, or by certain viruses that can insert their DNA into the human genome. Mutations occur spontaneously, and may be passed down from one cell generation to the next as a result of mutations within germ lines. However, some carcinogens also appear to work through non-mutagenic pathways that affect the level of transcription of certain genes without causing genetic mutation. Many forms of cancer are associated with exposure to environmental factors such as tobacco smoke, radiation, alcohol, and certain viruses. Some risk factors can be avoided or reduced. Adult cancersIn the USA and other developed countries, cancer is presently responsible for about 25% of all deaths.[3] On a yearly basis, 0.5% of the population is diagnosed with cancer. The statistics below are for adults in the United States, and will vary substantially in other countries: Male Female most common cause of death[3] most common cause of death[3] prostate cancer (33%) lung cancer (31%) breast cancer (32%) lung cancer (27%) lung cancer (13%) prostate cancer (10%) lung cancer (12%) breast cancer (15%) colorectal cancer (10%) colorectal cancer (10%) colorectal cancer (11%) colorectal cancer (10%) bladder cancer (7%) pancreatic cancer (5%) endometrial cancer (6%) ovarian cancer (6%) cutaneous melanoma (5%) leukemia (4%) non-Hodgkin lymphoma (4%) pancreatic cancer (6%) Childhood cancersCancer can also occur in young children and adolescents, but it is rare. Some studies have concluded that pediatric cancers, especially leukemia, are on an upward trend.[4][5] The age of peak incidence of cancer in children occurs during the first year of life. Leukemia (usually ALL) is the most common infant malignancy (30%), followed by the central nervous system cancers and neuroblastoma. The remainder consists of Wilms' tumor, lymphomas, rhabdomyosarcoma (arising from muscle), retinoblastoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma.[3] Female and male infants have essentially the same overall cancer incidence rates, but white infants have substantially higher cancer rates than black infants for most cancer types. Relative survival for infants is very good for neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor and retinoblastoma, and fairly good (80%) for leukemia, but not for most other types of cancer.
Mortgages’ Mystery: The Losses
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
HAVE you noticed how quickly financial market crises come and go nowadays? Refco, the venerable commodities firm, disintegrated in a week in 2005 and last year’s demise of Amaranth, a $6 billion hedge fund, took about the same amount of time. It is a measure of how deep and wide the money pools are today that the billions lost at these institutions amounted to no more than a blip on a screen.
he mortgage mess, however, has a different look and feel. As much as investors, lenders and home sellers want it to be over, it is likely to drag on.
There are several reasons for this. Working out troubled loans one by one takes time. So does selling tracts of empty homes.
But there is also this: Because of the way mortgages are packaged into pools and sold to investors, it is still not clear who owns the faltering loans and how much money has been lost.
This episode seems to be unfolding in slow motion.
Certainly, the bad news keeps coming. Last week, we learned that foreclosure rates soared 47 percent in March over the same period in 2006.
RealtyTrac, a keeper of a database of properties in foreclosure or about to be, reported that California had 31,434 foreclosures in March, nearly triple the figure from the same period last year. Foreclosure rates in Nevada and Colorado also surged.
Fears are rising among builders as well. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Home Price Index, a measure of builder confidence, fell to 33 in April. Last year at this time, the index stood at 51.
“The tightening of mortgage lending standards in connection with the subprime crisis has shaken the confidence of both consumers and builders,” said David F. Seiders, the chief economist at the home builders association.
Mr. Seiders did not mention investors, but they can’t be happy, either. A report from asset-backed-securities analysts at Lehman Brothers last week estimated that some $19 billion in losses are sitting in loan pools assembled in 2005, 2006 and early 2007. Most of these losses are in collateralized debt obligations, securities that invested aggressively in mortgages in recent years and that pension funds, insurance companies and hedge funds all hold.
Lehman estimates losses of $1.5 billion on 2005 issues, $11.4 billion on those from 2006 and an additional $5.9 billion from the 2007 vintage, including those still in the pipeline. Sound like a lot of money? It is: the $18.8 billion accounts for about 5.5 percent of all mortgages issued and outstanding in the period.
These figures are estimates, not actual losses, because accounting rules allow pension funds and insurance companies that hold these securities to mark their stakes at the prices they paid for them, not at the current market levels. The losses are there, but they remain unrecorded.
Only when these investors sell their holdings do they have to book the loss they incur. That’s no fun, so investors are likely to hang on to their holdings as long as they can. If they need liquidity, they could be pushed to sell, of course. Another thing that could force sales: a downgrade by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s or Fitch Ratings, the credit rating agencies. Most pension funds and insurance companies cannot hold securities that are rated below investment grade — “junk” in industry parlance.
This has not yet happened, to the immense relief of investors, no doubt. Notwithstanding all the news about defaults, delinquencies and foreclosures, the rating agencies have not downgraded many mortgage loans because, they say, they do not expect their original assumptions regarding the loans’ performance to change substantially.
As Susan Barnes, a managing director at S.& P., told Congress last week, the firm had downgraded just 0.3 percent of the subprime issues it rated, as of April 12. “While we do not expect there to be widespread downgrades,” she explained, “if the marketplace or economy as a whole experiences further financial distress, there could be a more prolonged period of negative performance, and S.& P. may need to take further rating actions.”
WHILE investors have not had to face harsh market realities, homeowners looking to refinance their loans will not be as fortunate as lenders tighten their underwriting standards and home prices soften, according to Lehman. Lehman says it expects that 20 percent to 30 percent of borrowers who took out loans last year will be unable to refinance their mortgages when the terms of their loans reset. The firm said that it expects as many as 15 percent of borrowers who struck deals in 2005 to be shut out of the mortgage market when they try to refinance.
If true, this will increase defaults on these loans significantly. Lehman estimates cumulative losses of 11.4 percent on 2006 loans and almost 13 percent on 2007 loans.
These estimates may prove high, Lehman said, if mortgage lenders and servicers offer generous loan modifications to struggling borrowers.
And last week, investors were heartened by Freddie Mac’s announcement that this summer it would begin offering $20 billion in loans to borrowers trying to refinance their mortgages. Fannie Mae, another big mortgage lender, has also agreed to put money into a refinancing pot.
That’s great for borrowers, but not for investors in existing mortgage pools, said Thomas A. Lawler, founder of Lawler Economic and Housing Consulting. He noted last week that these initiatives would attract the better borrowers, those who could meet more stringent lending requirements, such as being able to muster a 20 percent down payment and document appropriate income levels.
But as these people pay off their existing loans, two problems arise for investors. The prepayment of the loan means expected income from it disappears, and it also leaves mortgage pool investors with a greater proportion of troubled borrowers.
“To the extent that the availability of these programs makes it possible for better subprime borrowers to refinance away from current lenders and into a better mortgage product,” Mr. Lawler said, “it’s hard to see how that will be beneficial to the existing holders of subordinated subprime loans.”
Fannie and Freddie, in other words, are not putting out the welcome mat for mortgage loans that should never have been made. Those remain squarely in the hands of investors. We may not know who they are. But they do.
HAVE you noticed how quickly financial market crises come and go nowadays? Refco, the venerable commodities firm, disintegrated in a week in 2005 and last year’s demise of Amaranth, a $6 billion hedge fund, took about the same amount of time. It is a measure of how deep and wide the money pools are today that the billions lost at these institutions amounted to no more than a blip on a screen.
he mortgage mess, however, has a different look and feel. As much as investors, lenders and home sellers want it to be over, it is likely to drag on.
There are several reasons for this. Working out troubled loans one by one takes time. So does selling tracts of empty homes.
But there is also this: Because of the way mortgages are packaged into pools and sold to investors, it is still not clear who owns the faltering loans and how much money has been lost.
This episode seems to be unfolding in slow motion.
Certainly, the bad news keeps coming. Last week, we learned that foreclosure rates soared 47 percent in March over the same period in 2006.
RealtyTrac, a keeper of a database of properties in foreclosure or about to be, reported that California had 31,434 foreclosures in March, nearly triple the figure from the same period last year. Foreclosure rates in Nevada and Colorado also surged.
Fears are rising among builders as well. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Home Price Index, a measure of builder confidence, fell to 33 in April. Last year at this time, the index stood at 51.
“The tightening of mortgage lending standards in connection with the subprime crisis has shaken the confidence of both consumers and builders,” said David F. Seiders, the chief economist at the home builders association.
Mr. Seiders did not mention investors, but they can’t be happy, either. A report from asset-backed-securities analysts at Lehman Brothers last week estimated that some $19 billion in losses are sitting in loan pools assembled in 2005, 2006 and early 2007. Most of these losses are in collateralized debt obligations, securities that invested aggressively in mortgages in recent years and that pension funds, insurance companies and hedge funds all hold.
Lehman estimates losses of $1.5 billion on 2005 issues, $11.4 billion on those from 2006 and an additional $5.9 billion from the 2007 vintage, including those still in the pipeline. Sound like a lot of money? It is: the $18.8 billion accounts for about 5.5 percent of all mortgages issued and outstanding in the period.
These figures are estimates, not actual losses, because accounting rules allow pension funds and insurance companies that hold these securities to mark their stakes at the prices they paid for them, not at the current market levels. The losses are there, but they remain unrecorded.
Only when these investors sell their holdings do they have to book the loss they incur. That’s no fun, so investors are likely to hang on to their holdings as long as they can. If they need liquidity, they could be pushed to sell, of course. Another thing that could force sales: a downgrade by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s or Fitch Ratings, the credit rating agencies. Most pension funds and insurance companies cannot hold securities that are rated below investment grade — “junk” in industry parlance.
This has not yet happened, to the immense relief of investors, no doubt. Notwithstanding all the news about defaults, delinquencies and foreclosures, the rating agencies have not downgraded many mortgage loans because, they say, they do not expect their original assumptions regarding the loans’ performance to change substantially.
As Susan Barnes, a managing director at S.& P., told Congress last week, the firm had downgraded just 0.3 percent of the subprime issues it rated, as of April 12. “While we do not expect there to be widespread downgrades,” she explained, “if the marketplace or economy as a whole experiences further financial distress, there could be a more prolonged period of negative performance, and S.& P. may need to take further rating actions.”
WHILE investors have not had to face harsh market realities, homeowners looking to refinance their loans will not be as fortunate as lenders tighten their underwriting standards and home prices soften, according to Lehman. Lehman says it expects that 20 percent to 30 percent of borrowers who took out loans last year will be unable to refinance their mortgages when the terms of their loans reset. The firm said that it expects as many as 15 percent of borrowers who struck deals in 2005 to be shut out of the mortgage market when they try to refinance.
If true, this will increase defaults on these loans significantly. Lehman estimates cumulative losses of 11.4 percent on 2006 loans and almost 13 percent on 2007 loans.
These estimates may prove high, Lehman said, if mortgage lenders and servicers offer generous loan modifications to struggling borrowers.
And last week, investors were heartened by Freddie Mac’s announcement that this summer it would begin offering $20 billion in loans to borrowers trying to refinance their mortgages. Fannie Mae, another big mortgage lender, has also agreed to put money into a refinancing pot.
That’s great for borrowers, but not for investors in existing mortgage pools, said Thomas A. Lawler, founder of Lawler Economic and Housing Consulting. He noted last week that these initiatives would attract the better borrowers, those who could meet more stringent lending requirements, such as being able to muster a 20 percent down payment and document appropriate income levels.
But as these people pay off their existing loans, two problems arise for investors. The prepayment of the loan means expected income from it disappears, and it also leaves mortgage pool investors with a greater proportion of troubled borrowers.
“To the extent that the availability of these programs makes it possible for better subprime borrowers to refinance away from current lenders and into a better mortgage product,” Mr. Lawler said, “it’s hard to see how that will be beneficial to the existing holders of subordinated subprime loans.”
Fannie and Freddie, in other words, are not putting out the welcome mat for mortgage loans that should never have been made. Those remain squarely in the hands of investors. We may not know who they are. But they do.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Top 5 Things Not to Say at a Poker Table
Sometimes when you are sitting at a poker table you say things. The reasons to say things are numerous. You could be saying them to speed up the game, throw your opponents off, or say things just because you are drunk.
This is a list of the top 5 things that you should refrain from saying while at a poker table.
5. Why would you do that? Don't you know how to play poker?
4. My wife game me $39 to play. I scrounged up the extra buck so I could buy in.
3. Oh we are playing Razz? Well then, I raise!
2. Ah hell, I'm all in! (Sir, this is fixed limit poker)
1. This one time, in a freeroll...
This is a list of the top 5 things that you should refrain from saying while at a poker table.
5. Why would you do that? Don't you know how to play poker?
4. My wife game me $39 to play. I scrounged up the extra buck so I could buy in.
3. Oh we are playing Razz? Well then, I raise!
2. Ah hell, I'm all in! (Sir, this is fixed limit poker)
1. This one time, in a freeroll...
Omaha Holdem Basics
One of the most profitable variations of poker today, especially online, is Omaha high low split eight-or-better, mercifully reduced to the more common name Omaha/8. The main reason for this profitability is not only are there many poor poker players who play Omaha/8, but there are just as many who don’t even understand the rules and hand values. Another reason is that Omaha/8 is a very straightforward and mathematical game. It has much less short-term variance, or luck, than holdem.
The good news is you have come to the right place to start maximizing your chance at this profit. Starting below you will learn the basics such as how to play and how to read both high and low hands. After you have a solid understanding of the rules, continue with the Omaha/8 strategy sections. They cover basic and advanced strategy for both limit and pot limit Omaha/8.
Omaha/8 can be played with anywhere from 2 to 10 players with most rooms running full tables of 9 or 10 players. The player to the left of the dealer or button places a forced bet called the small blind and the player to the small blinds left places a forced bet called the big blind. The big blind is equal to the lower betting limit of the game, for example in a 10/20 game the big blind is 10. The small blind is half the big blind, or 5 in our example.
Each player then receives four cards face down, often called hole cards. The first round of betting starts at this time with the player to the big blinds left, who can fold, call or raise. Play continues to the left until it reaches the big blind, who may check if the pot hasn’t been raised, or raise. Three cards are then placed face up in the center of the table. This is called the flop and these cards are community cards, which can be used by every player to form their best hand.
The second round of betting starts at this time with the first person still involved in the hand to the left of the dealer. A fourth community card, often called the turn, is placed face up in the center, followed by a third round of betting. This and the last round are at the upper limit, 20 in our example, in limit play. The last community card, called the river, is now placed face up in the center of the table and the last round of betting is conducted.
The pot is then awarded based on the following rules:1. If there is not a possible low hand, the high hand wins the entire pot. If two players tie for the best high hand, then the pot is split between both players.2. If one or more players have a qualifying low hand the pot is split. Half the pot is awarded to the best high hand and the other half is awarded to the best low hand. In the event of a tie, the half of the pot awarded is split between the two ties, or they each receive one-fourth of the pot. This is often called “getting quartered”.
The single most important rule to remember in Omaha/8 is that you must use exactly two cards from your hand and three from the board, or community cards, to form your best hand. If you have both a high and low hand, you can use two different cards from your hand to form them, but you still are required to use exactly two. The number of players who don’t understand this rule will surprise you.
Another major problem area for many players, particularly holdem players, is playing too many hands. Players assume incorrectly that because they start with four cards instead of two, that they can play a higher percentage of starting hands. This is completely wrong and can make even a great player lose money. Just like most forms of poker, tight and aggressive play is the path to profitability. This means playing around 25% of your starting hands.
When I was learning Omaha/8, the strategy I quickly was forced to adopt was looking for reasons not to play a hand instead of reasons to play it. This may sound like a small thing, but by evaluating the shortcomings of a hand you will quickly become a tighter and better player.
A challenge that everyone faces when learning Omaha/8 is correctly reading low hands. Remember that because each player must use two hole cards and three from the board, the only hands that can be split are the ones with three unpaired cards eight or below on the board.
The fastest way to read low hands is to read them backwards as a number. When comparing two or more hands this way, the lowest number wins. Here is an example, with the lowest hand first and highest hand last.
A 2 3 4 5 - 54,321
A 3 4 5 7 - 75,431
2 4 5 6 7 - 76,542
A 2 3 4 8 - 84,321
The good news is you have come to the right place to start maximizing your chance at this profit. Starting below you will learn the basics such as how to play and how to read both high and low hands. After you have a solid understanding of the rules, continue with the Omaha/8 strategy sections. They cover basic and advanced strategy for both limit and pot limit Omaha/8.
Omaha/8 can be played with anywhere from 2 to 10 players with most rooms running full tables of 9 or 10 players. The player to the left of the dealer or button places a forced bet called the small blind and the player to the small blinds left places a forced bet called the big blind. The big blind is equal to the lower betting limit of the game, for example in a 10/20 game the big blind is 10. The small blind is half the big blind, or 5 in our example.
Each player then receives four cards face down, often called hole cards. The first round of betting starts at this time with the player to the big blinds left, who can fold, call or raise. Play continues to the left until it reaches the big blind, who may check if the pot hasn’t been raised, or raise. Three cards are then placed face up in the center of the table. This is called the flop and these cards are community cards, which can be used by every player to form their best hand.
The second round of betting starts at this time with the first person still involved in the hand to the left of the dealer. A fourth community card, often called the turn, is placed face up in the center, followed by a third round of betting. This and the last round are at the upper limit, 20 in our example, in limit play. The last community card, called the river, is now placed face up in the center of the table and the last round of betting is conducted.
The pot is then awarded based on the following rules:1. If there is not a possible low hand, the high hand wins the entire pot. If two players tie for the best high hand, then the pot is split between both players.2. If one or more players have a qualifying low hand the pot is split. Half the pot is awarded to the best high hand and the other half is awarded to the best low hand. In the event of a tie, the half of the pot awarded is split between the two ties, or they each receive one-fourth of the pot. This is often called “getting quartered”.
The single most important rule to remember in Omaha/8 is that you must use exactly two cards from your hand and three from the board, or community cards, to form your best hand. If you have both a high and low hand, you can use two different cards from your hand to form them, but you still are required to use exactly two. The number of players who don’t understand this rule will surprise you.
Another major problem area for many players, particularly holdem players, is playing too many hands. Players assume incorrectly that because they start with four cards instead of two, that they can play a higher percentage of starting hands. This is completely wrong and can make even a great player lose money. Just like most forms of poker, tight and aggressive play is the path to profitability. This means playing around 25% of your starting hands.
When I was learning Omaha/8, the strategy I quickly was forced to adopt was looking for reasons not to play a hand instead of reasons to play it. This may sound like a small thing, but by evaluating the shortcomings of a hand you will quickly become a tighter and better player.
A challenge that everyone faces when learning Omaha/8 is correctly reading low hands. Remember that because each player must use two hole cards and three from the board, the only hands that can be split are the ones with three unpaired cards eight or below on the board.
The fastest way to read low hands is to read them backwards as a number. When comparing two or more hands this way, the lowest number wins. Here is an example, with the lowest hand first and highest hand last.
A 2 3 4 5 - 54,321
A 3 4 5 7 - 75,431
2 4 5 6 7 - 76,542
A 2 3 4 8 - 84,321
Toyota 'world's largest carmaker'
Japan's Toyota has overtaken US rival General Motors to become the world's biggest carmaker, a spokesman for the company has said.
According to company figures, Toyota sold 2.348 million vehicles in the first three months of 2007.
That compares with General Motors (GM)' sales of 2.26 million cars and small trucks during the same period.
Japanese carmakers have been boosting foreign sales and making gains in the US, the world's largest car market.
Heat
Toyota has enjoyed strong sales on the back of the success of its pioneering petrol/electricity hybrid, the Prius, and new models such as the popular Camry Sedan and Corrola.
Meanwhile, its Detroit rival GM has struggled to compete as high fuel prices have driven people away from its trucks and sports utility vehicles.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world"
Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco
The American car giant has been forced to cut thousands of jobs and close factories to turn around its business.
The first-quarter results steps up the heat on GM - which sells vehicles under a range of brands, including Saab, Buick and Cadillac - to maintain its long-held status as the world's number one carmaker by global sales.
Battle
One lucrative avenue GM is pursuing is the coveted Chinese market, where it is already the market leader with sales of 876,000 cars in 2006 through its joint ventures.
The firm is investing about $1bn (£500m) annually in order to reach its target of selling an additional 500,000 cars a year in China.
GM has been forced to go green as consumers start to snub SUVs
The battle between Toyota and GM for the top spot will be keenly monitored until annual production figures reveal any transformation in the pecking order.
But Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said overtaking GM was not Toyota's first priority.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world," Nolasco said. "We simply want to be the best in quality. After that, sales will take care of themselves."
One lingering concern for the Japanese carmaker loved by the America consumer comes from lawmakers in big manufacturing states in the US.
They assert US carmakers are being unfairly penalised by the Japanese government keeping the yen artificially low.
According to company figures, Toyota sold 2.348 million vehicles in the first three months of 2007.
That compares with General Motors (GM)' sales of 2.26 million cars and small trucks during the same period.
Japanese carmakers have been boosting foreign sales and making gains in the US, the world's largest car market.
Heat
Toyota has enjoyed strong sales on the back of the success of its pioneering petrol/electricity hybrid, the Prius, and new models such as the popular Camry Sedan and Corrola.
Meanwhile, its Detroit rival GM has struggled to compete as high fuel prices have driven people away from its trucks and sports utility vehicles.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world"
Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco
The American car giant has been forced to cut thousands of jobs and close factories to turn around its business.
The first-quarter results steps up the heat on GM - which sells vehicles under a range of brands, including Saab, Buick and Cadillac - to maintain its long-held status as the world's number one carmaker by global sales.
Battle
One lucrative avenue GM is pursuing is the coveted Chinese market, where it is already the market leader with sales of 876,000 cars in 2006 through its joint ventures.
The firm is investing about $1bn (£500m) annually in order to reach its target of selling an additional 500,000 cars a year in China.
GM has been forced to go green as consumers start to snub SUVs
The battle between Toyota and GM for the top spot will be keenly monitored until annual production figures reveal any transformation in the pecking order.
But Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said overtaking GM was not Toyota's first priority.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world," Nolasco said. "We simply want to be the best in quality. After that, sales will take care of themselves."
One lingering concern for the Japanese carmaker loved by the America consumer comes from lawmakers in big manufacturing states in the US.
They assert US carmakers are being unfairly penalised by the Japanese government keeping the yen artificially low.
Toyota 'world's largest carmaker'
Japan's Toyota has overtaken US rival General Motors to become the world's biggest carmaker, a spokesman for the company has said.
According to company figures, Toyota sold 2.348 million vehicles in the first three months of 2007.
That compares with General Motors (GM)' sales of 2.26 million cars and small trucks during the same period.
Japanese carmakers have been boosting foreign sales and making gains in the US, the world's largest car market.
Heat
Toyota has enjoyed strong sales on the back of the success of its pioneering petrol/electricity hybrid, the Prius, and new models such as the popular Camry Sedan and Corrola.
Meanwhile, its Detroit rival GM has struggled to compete as high fuel prices have driven people away from its trucks and sports utility vehicles.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world"
Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco
The American car giant has been forced to cut thousands of jobs and close factories to turn around its business.
The first-quarter results steps up the heat on GM - which sells vehicles under a range of brands, including Saab, Buick and Cadillac - to maintain its long-held status as the world's number one carmaker by global sales.
Battle
One lucrative avenue GM is pursuing is the coveted Chinese market, where it is already the market leader with sales of 876,000 cars in 2006 through its joint ventures.
The firm is investing about $1bn (£500m) annually in order to reach its target of selling an additional 500,000 cars a year in China.
GM has been forced to go green as consumers start to snub SUVs
The battle between Toyota and GM for the top spot will be keenly monitored until annual production figures reveal any transformation in the pecking order.
But Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said overtaking GM was not Toyota's first priority.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world," Nolasco said. "We simply want to be the best in quality. After that, sales will take care of themselves."
One lingering concern for the Japanese carmaker loved by the America consumer comes from lawmakers in big manufacturing states in the US.
They assert US carmakers are being unfairly penalised by the Japanese government keeping the yen artificially low.
According to company figures, Toyota sold 2.348 million vehicles in the first three months of 2007.
That compares with General Motors (GM)' sales of 2.26 million cars and small trucks during the same period.
Japanese carmakers have been boosting foreign sales and making gains in the US, the world's largest car market.
Heat
Toyota has enjoyed strong sales on the back of the success of its pioneering petrol/electricity hybrid, the Prius, and new models such as the popular Camry Sedan and Corrola.
Meanwhile, its Detroit rival GM has struggled to compete as high fuel prices have driven people away from its trucks and sports utility vehicles.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world"
Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco
The American car giant has been forced to cut thousands of jobs and close factories to turn around its business.
The first-quarter results steps up the heat on GM - which sells vehicles under a range of brands, including Saab, Buick and Cadillac - to maintain its long-held status as the world's number one carmaker by global sales.
Battle
One lucrative avenue GM is pursuing is the coveted Chinese market, where it is already the market leader with sales of 876,000 cars in 2006 through its joint ventures.
The firm is investing about $1bn (£500m) annually in order to reach its target of selling an additional 500,000 cars a year in China.
GM has been forced to go green as consumers start to snub SUVs
The battle between Toyota and GM for the top spot will be keenly monitored until annual production figures reveal any transformation in the pecking order.
But Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said overtaking GM was not Toyota's first priority.
"Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world," Nolasco said. "We simply want to be the best in quality. After that, sales will take care of themselves."
One lingering concern for the Japanese carmaker loved by the America consumer comes from lawmakers in big manufacturing states in the US.
They assert US carmakers are being unfairly penalised by the Japanese government keeping the yen artificially low.
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Our goal is to give consumers all the information and resources they need to make informed auto insurance decisions. We are your online car insurance marketplace!
Shopping for car insurance is the only way to save money on car insurance. With CarInsurance.com it is easy to buy your auto insurance online, in some states you could complete the process and have your proof of insurance in 15 minutes!
Our site is easy to use and our goal is to show you how much you can save with our services. Not only will you save your money, but you will save your time too. Our online car insurance quote takes just a few minutes and then we provide rates from companies that suit your needs. You can finish online or our professional call center is available to help you purchase car insurance. In some states you will be directed to one of our trusted partners for a rate in you area.
Because we offer multiple company rates and the ability to purchase their auto insurance quote from one place, we are ahead of other online insurance companies. Start your quote to see how companies compete for your business. You could save over 25% on your auto insurance.
Our goal is to give consumers all the information and resources they need to make informed auto insurance decisions. We are your online car insurance marketplace!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Minder winst voor Nokia door goedkopere gsm's
De Finse telecomgigant Nokia, wereldwijd marktleider in de gsm-verkoop, heeft in de eerste drie maanden van dit jaar minder winst geboekt.
Een verklaring ligt bij de meerverkoop van goedkope gsm's, die vooral in China en India in trek zijn. Ook concurrent Motorola kampt met hetzelfde fenomeen. Motorola kondigde woensdag zelfs een kwartaalverlies aan.
Bij Nokia daalde de winst met 6,6 procent tot 979 miljoen euro. Per aandeel kwam de winst uit op 25 eurocent. De inkomsten stegen wel, met 3,7 pct tot 9,86 miljard euro. Nokia kon ook zijn marktaandeel vergroten tot 36 procent wereldwijd.
Topman Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo noemde de tussenbalans 'bemoedigend" en wees onder meer op de hoge winstmarge en de sterke groei in het aantal verkochte gsm's. In China en India verkocht het bedrijf zelfs 45 procent meer mobieltjes dan vorig jaar.
Nokia verwacht dat de verkoop wereldwijd dit jaar zal toenemen met 10 procent, maar ook dat de gemiddelde prijs van een gsm-toestel verder zal dalen.
Een verklaring ligt bij de meerverkoop van goedkope gsm's, die vooral in China en India in trek zijn. Ook concurrent Motorola kampt met hetzelfde fenomeen. Motorola kondigde woensdag zelfs een kwartaalverlies aan.
Bij Nokia daalde de winst met 6,6 procent tot 979 miljoen euro. Per aandeel kwam de winst uit op 25 eurocent. De inkomsten stegen wel, met 3,7 pct tot 9,86 miljard euro. Nokia kon ook zijn marktaandeel vergroten tot 36 procent wereldwijd.
Topman Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo noemde de tussenbalans 'bemoedigend" en wees onder meer op de hoge winstmarge en de sterke groei in het aantal verkochte gsm's. In China en India verkocht het bedrijf zelfs 45 procent meer mobieltjes dan vorig jaar.
Nokia verwacht dat de verkoop wereldwijd dit jaar zal toenemen met 10 procent, maar ook dat de gemiddelde prijs van een gsm-toestel verder zal dalen.
How To Play Poker
PlayWinningPoker.com aims to help players learn to win at poker, but before you can win at poker, you need to learn how to play poker! But poker isn't some sort of widget that comes with easy to assemble instructions. There are a wide variety of games with different rules (and strategies). There are even different betting structures (like Limit versus No Limit) and different game formats (like normal "ring" games versus tournaments).
Here are a variety of links to pages on this site that deal with the basics, from game rules to hand rankings to basic strategies. After a bit of reading, these days the best way to learn how to play poker is by playing the free poker games at an online cardroom -- or even just watching others play. It's very simple to do, you download the software, sign up (doesn't cost anything unless you eventually play for real money) then click one of the active tables and watch how the game moves and how poker hands are played. If you want to play, click an open seat on a free-play table and start playing. The learning process is greatly accelerated, and you don't need to rely on friends to put together a game. Online there are always games to play or watch. Naturally free games are wilder and somewhat unrealistic compared to money games, but in terms of offering a way to learn the fundamentals, nothing else in history compares.
Here are a variety of links to pages on this site that deal with the basics, from game rules to hand rankings to basic strategies. After a bit of reading, these days the best way to learn how to play poker is by playing the free poker games at an online cardroom -- or even just watching others play. It's very simple to do, you download the software, sign up (doesn't cost anything unless you eventually play for real money) then click one of the active tables and watch how the game moves and how poker hands are played. If you want to play, click an open seat on a free-play table and start playing. The learning process is greatly accelerated, and you don't need to rely on friends to put together a game. Online there are always games to play or watch. Naturally free games are wilder and somewhat unrealistic compared to money games, but in terms of offering a way to learn the fundamentals, nothing else in history compares.
Sluwheid, bedrog en vlucht: Poker
Tijdens de Vietnam oorlog, verklaarde de schrijver Paul Goodman (Growing Up Absurd) dat er drie manieren zijn voor geschikte mannen om onder de dienstplicht in Amerika uit te komen: sluwheid, bedrog en vlucht.
In poker is de meest voor de hand liggende manier om geld te verdienen om je beste hand te tonen om de pot te winnen. Om te winnen proberen de meeste spelers zich te richten op de ins en outs van de selectie van beginhanden , tactiek om handen te spelen en andere strategieën die aangedreven worden om geld te krijgen door de beste hand te tonen. Het tonen van de beste hand is absoluut iets wat je soms moet doen om een winnende speler te zijn, maar het is slechts de einduitkomst en het toont de speler dat het absoluut niet het belangrijkste ding is. De meeste winst van een winnende speler komt van sluwheid, bedrog en vlucht.
Sluwheid: Het winnen van de pot is niet het einde van het verhaal. Het is amper het begin. Om te beginnen, is het beheersen van de manipulatie van de pot grootte een ingewikkeld talent. Het zou duidelijk moeten zijn dat Speler A veel beter doet dan Speler B als Speler A regelmatig acht inzetten wint in een bepaalde pot en slechts drie riskeert terwijl Speler B slechts zes inzetten in een bepaalde pot wint en er drie riskeert.
Sluwheid speelt ook een rol bij de spel selectie, tafel selectie, stoel selectie, tijd van de dag van het spel selectie, beeld projectie, het bewerken van je tegenstanders en specifieke taktieken zoals het isoleren van de inzet tegen bepaalde spelers.
Bedrog: Winstgevende bluf strategie is het duidelijkste ding hier, maar het is niet het einde van hoe bedrog geld kan winnen. In iedere hand die we spelen, hebben we kansen om onze tegenstanders te misleiden zodat ze zich gedragen op de manier wat wij willen. Je wilt je tegenstanders in beweging zetten om dingen te doen die voordelig voor jouw zijn en niet voordelig voor hun. Als je de nuts op de river maakt en je tegenstander maakt absoluut niets, dan wil je ze zeker tegen jouw in laten zetten. Of je check-raisen of re-raisen!
Met misleiden bedoel ik echter niet dat je je tegenstanders moet verwarren. Een verwarde tegenstander kan over de correcte actie struikelen! Als je je tegenstanders met succes misleidt, zullen ze handelen op de manier wat jij wilt. Denkende spelers zouden zich constant moeten bezighouden met het bedrog bij de tegenstanders, met het doel ze in je voordeel te laten handelen.
Vluchten: De fold is het belangrijkste van de vier poker handelingen (bet/inzet, raise, call, fold) omdat... het geheim van winnend poker is hoe je de handen speelt die je verliest. Echter door het verlangen van de meeste spelers om “winnaar” te zijn, vergeten ze schijnbaar dat we in een negen handig spel acht keer de verliezende hand uitgedeeld krijgen dus wat er werkelijk toe doet is wat we met die acht handen doen en niet wat we met die ene hand doen die we winnen!
Het belangrijkste financiële verschil tussen een goede en slechte speler zit hem in folden, het sparen van inzetten. Niet toevallig is dit ook ongeveer (maar niet helemaal) het verschil tussen werkelijk geweldige spelers en gewoon goede spelers. Ik verwijs echter niet naar “de big laydown.” Terwijl veel spelers zichzelf op de rug kloppen als ze dat af en toe voor mekaar krijgen, moet het in perspectief worden gezet. De big laydown is een zelfzaam iets. De fold gebeurt op een bepaald punt in iedere hand die we niet winnen.
Vlucht is ook belangrijk in de vaardigheid om te kiezen wanneer men een spel stopt. Spelers denken gewoonlijk lang na over “wanneer te stoppen”, maar de wetenschap van folding wordt bijna nooit besproken, gedeeltelijk omdat winnende spelers redelijk gemakkelijk tot een fundamentele, verstandige folding strategie komen: als je gelooft dat je niet de beste situatie hebt, fold. Maar het “beste” is vaak tamelijk troebel, een moeilijk ding om te beoordelen.
Pogingen om de verliezen te minimaliseren, voegen meer geld toe aan de zak van de speler dan pogingen om de winst te maximaliseren gewoon omdat er meer kansen zijn om te minimaliseren. Ondanks dit besteden spelers gewoonlijk maar een fractie van hun denken aan het minimaliseren/verlies strategie vergeleken bij hun maximalisering/win strategie. As een gevolg zijn de inzetten verspild. De winst gereduceerd.
Geld dat niet verloren is laat zich hetzelfde besteden als geld dat gewonnen is.
Poker is een bodemloze put van beslissingen en acties met financiële vertakkingen. Winnend poker is meer dan een pot voorgeschoven te krijgen als je “wint”. Wanneer je werkelijk in een spel bent (nadat je je spel/tafel/enz. selectie), gaat het allemaal om inzetten. Een inzet hier, een inzet daar...het doet er niet toe waar je die inzetten oppakt – via een vroege fold, een verstandige laydown later in een hand, pot manipulatie, bewerken en misleiden van tegenstanders, enzovoorts – wat er toe doet is dat die inzetten in je stapel blijven, en in je zak.
Sluwheid, bedrog en vlucht stoppen meer geld in je zak.
In poker is de meest voor de hand liggende manier om geld te verdienen om je beste hand te tonen om de pot te winnen. Om te winnen proberen de meeste spelers zich te richten op de ins en outs van de selectie van beginhanden , tactiek om handen te spelen en andere strategieën die aangedreven worden om geld te krijgen door de beste hand te tonen. Het tonen van de beste hand is absoluut iets wat je soms moet doen om een winnende speler te zijn, maar het is slechts de einduitkomst en het toont de speler dat het absoluut niet het belangrijkste ding is. De meeste winst van een winnende speler komt van sluwheid, bedrog en vlucht.
Sluwheid: Het winnen van de pot is niet het einde van het verhaal. Het is amper het begin. Om te beginnen, is het beheersen van de manipulatie van de pot grootte een ingewikkeld talent. Het zou duidelijk moeten zijn dat Speler A veel beter doet dan Speler B als Speler A regelmatig acht inzetten wint in een bepaalde pot en slechts drie riskeert terwijl Speler B slechts zes inzetten in een bepaalde pot wint en er drie riskeert.
Sluwheid speelt ook een rol bij de spel selectie, tafel selectie, stoel selectie, tijd van de dag van het spel selectie, beeld projectie, het bewerken van je tegenstanders en specifieke taktieken zoals het isoleren van de inzet tegen bepaalde spelers.
Bedrog: Winstgevende bluf strategie is het duidelijkste ding hier, maar het is niet het einde van hoe bedrog geld kan winnen. In iedere hand die we spelen, hebben we kansen om onze tegenstanders te misleiden zodat ze zich gedragen op de manier wat wij willen. Je wilt je tegenstanders in beweging zetten om dingen te doen die voordelig voor jouw zijn en niet voordelig voor hun. Als je de nuts op de river maakt en je tegenstander maakt absoluut niets, dan wil je ze zeker tegen jouw in laten zetten. Of je check-raisen of re-raisen!
Met misleiden bedoel ik echter niet dat je je tegenstanders moet verwarren. Een verwarde tegenstander kan over de correcte actie struikelen! Als je je tegenstanders met succes misleidt, zullen ze handelen op de manier wat jij wilt. Denkende spelers zouden zich constant moeten bezighouden met het bedrog bij de tegenstanders, met het doel ze in je voordeel te laten handelen.
Vluchten: De fold is het belangrijkste van de vier poker handelingen (bet/inzet, raise, call, fold) omdat... het geheim van winnend poker is hoe je de handen speelt die je verliest. Echter door het verlangen van de meeste spelers om “winnaar” te zijn, vergeten ze schijnbaar dat we in een negen handig spel acht keer de verliezende hand uitgedeeld krijgen dus wat er werkelijk toe doet is wat we met die acht handen doen en niet wat we met die ene hand doen die we winnen!
Het belangrijkste financiële verschil tussen een goede en slechte speler zit hem in folden, het sparen van inzetten. Niet toevallig is dit ook ongeveer (maar niet helemaal) het verschil tussen werkelijk geweldige spelers en gewoon goede spelers. Ik verwijs echter niet naar “de big laydown.” Terwijl veel spelers zichzelf op de rug kloppen als ze dat af en toe voor mekaar krijgen, moet het in perspectief worden gezet. De big laydown is een zelfzaam iets. De fold gebeurt op een bepaald punt in iedere hand die we niet winnen.
Vlucht is ook belangrijk in de vaardigheid om te kiezen wanneer men een spel stopt. Spelers denken gewoonlijk lang na over “wanneer te stoppen”, maar de wetenschap van folding wordt bijna nooit besproken, gedeeltelijk omdat winnende spelers redelijk gemakkelijk tot een fundamentele, verstandige folding strategie komen: als je gelooft dat je niet de beste situatie hebt, fold. Maar het “beste” is vaak tamelijk troebel, een moeilijk ding om te beoordelen.
Pogingen om de verliezen te minimaliseren, voegen meer geld toe aan de zak van de speler dan pogingen om de winst te maximaliseren gewoon omdat er meer kansen zijn om te minimaliseren. Ondanks dit besteden spelers gewoonlijk maar een fractie van hun denken aan het minimaliseren/verlies strategie vergeleken bij hun maximalisering/win strategie. As een gevolg zijn de inzetten verspild. De winst gereduceerd.
Geld dat niet verloren is laat zich hetzelfde besteden als geld dat gewonnen is.
Poker is een bodemloze put van beslissingen en acties met financiële vertakkingen. Winnend poker is meer dan een pot voorgeschoven te krijgen als je “wint”. Wanneer je werkelijk in een spel bent (nadat je je spel/tafel/enz. selectie), gaat het allemaal om inzetten. Een inzet hier, een inzet daar...het doet er niet toe waar je die inzetten oppakt – via een vroege fold, een verstandige laydown later in een hand, pot manipulatie, bewerken en misleiden van tegenstanders, enzovoorts – wat er toe doet is dat die inzetten in je stapel blijven, en in je zak.
Sluwheid, bedrog en vlucht stoppen meer geld in je zak.
Onderzoek: De Hypotheker biedt de 3 voordeligste spaarhypotheken
Onderzoek: De Hypotheker biedt de 3 voordeligste spaarhypotheken
April 2007. De Geldgids van de Consumentenbond heeft in de april-uitgave een vergelijkend onderzoek naar spaarhypotheken in Nederland gepubliceerd. De top 3 van dit onderzoek bestaat uit Bank of Scotland, Argenta en de Solide Koers Spaarhypotheek. De Hypotheker kan als enige hypotheekadviseur deze top 3 van voordeligste spaarhypotheken aanbieden.
Is de gehele top 3 verkrijgbaar bij De Hypotheker? Jazeker. De Hypotheker adviseert u immers onafhankelijk, vrijblijvend en doet zaken met alle belangrijke geldverstrekkers in Nederland. Deze geven op hun beurt graag aantrekkelijke rentetarieven aan de grootste onafhankelijke hypotheekadviesketen van Nederland. Daarom kan De Hypotheker u altijd een voordelig aanbod doen. Zoals nu met deze top 3 en met vele andere hypotheken in het onderzoek.
De meeste geschikte?
Zijn de voordeligste spaarhypotheken daarmee dan ook meteen de meest geschikte voor jou? Zeker niet. Dat kan alleen maar blijken als je alles op een rij hebt laten zetten door een van onze adviseurs. De keuze van je hypotheek is én blijft immers net zo persoonlijk als de keuze van jouw huis.
Meer informatie
Wil je weten of de meest voordelige spaarhypotheek van Nederland ook bij jou past? Maak dan vandaag nog een afspraak met De Hypotheker bij jou in de buurt voor een oriënterend gesprek
April 2007. De Geldgids van de Consumentenbond heeft in de april-uitgave een vergelijkend onderzoek naar spaarhypotheken in Nederland gepubliceerd. De top 3 van dit onderzoek bestaat uit Bank of Scotland, Argenta en de Solide Koers Spaarhypotheek. De Hypotheker kan als enige hypotheekadviseur deze top 3 van voordeligste spaarhypotheken aanbieden.
Is de gehele top 3 verkrijgbaar bij De Hypotheker? Jazeker. De Hypotheker adviseert u immers onafhankelijk, vrijblijvend en doet zaken met alle belangrijke geldverstrekkers in Nederland. Deze geven op hun beurt graag aantrekkelijke rentetarieven aan de grootste onafhankelijke hypotheekadviesketen van Nederland. Daarom kan De Hypotheker u altijd een voordelig aanbod doen. Zoals nu met deze top 3 en met vele andere hypotheken in het onderzoek.
De meeste geschikte?
Zijn de voordeligste spaarhypotheken daarmee dan ook meteen de meest geschikte voor jou? Zeker niet. Dat kan alleen maar blijken als je alles op een rij hebt laten zetten door een van onze adviseurs. De keuze van je hypotheek is én blijft immers net zo persoonlijk als de keuze van jouw huis.
Meer informatie
Wil je weten of de meest voordelige spaarhypotheek van Nederland ook bij jou past? Maak dan vandaag nog een afspraak met De Hypotheker bij jou in de buurt voor een oriënterend gesprek
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Mac Hacked for $10,000 Prize
In a dubious demonstration of the insecurity of Apple's (AAPL) Macintosh OS X, a pair of software engineers won a free MacBook and, most likely, a $10,000 prize for finding and exploiting a security hole in the Safari Web browser.
The rules of the two-day contest "PWN to OWN" contest, held at the CanSecWest computer security conference in Vancouver, B.C., were relaxed on the second day after none of participants were able to break into two MacBooks connected to a wireless router.
On the second and final day of the conference, participants were allowed to put malicious code online and launch so-called drive-by attacks on the Mac's built-in Safari browser. Two hours and 24 minutes later, the organizers announced that one of the MacBooks had been breached.
The attack was launched by software engineer Shaun Macaulay, but the strategy he used was devised by Dino Dai Zovi, a professional computer security researcher in New York, who found the vulnerability in Safari and wrote the exploit overnight in about 9 hours, he told CNET News. According to CNET's report:
Dai Zovi plans to apply for a $10,000 bug bounty TippingPoint announced on Thursday if a previously unknown Apple bug was used. "Shane can have the laptop, I want the money," Dai Zovi said. TippingPoint runs the Zero Day Initiative bug bounty program.
A good account of the technical details, as far as they are known, is available at Ars Technica's Infinite Loop. According to comments posted on Digg, the pair were able to achieve user-level shell access only, not root level.
Dragos Ruiu, who organized the CanSecWest conference, said the contest was staged to draw attention to security shortcomings in Macs. He told InfoWorld: "You see a lot of people running OS X saying it's so secure, and frankly, Microsoft is putting more work into security than Apple has."
Apple loyalists were quick to point out that it was Safari that was breached, not OS X. "Prepare for a deluge of FUD," wrote MacDaily News, "as the thirst in some quarters for Mac OS X to be 'hacked' is insatiable." (link)
FUD is an acroynm for "fear, uncertainty and doubt," originally used to describe IBM's marketing strategy for fending off competition in the mainframe computer market. PWN is not an acronym, but Internet security jargon for "to compromise" or "control." As reader Matthew Sgarlata points out, pwn is also frequently used in gaming culture to mean "soundly defeat" or "dominate."
The rules of the two-day contest "PWN to OWN" contest, held at the CanSecWest computer security conference in Vancouver, B.C., were relaxed on the second day after none of participants were able to break into two MacBooks connected to a wireless router.
On the second and final day of the conference, participants were allowed to put malicious code online and launch so-called drive-by attacks on the Mac's built-in Safari browser. Two hours and 24 minutes later, the organizers announced that one of the MacBooks had been breached.
The attack was launched by software engineer Shaun Macaulay, but the strategy he used was devised by Dino Dai Zovi, a professional computer security researcher in New York, who found the vulnerability in Safari and wrote the exploit overnight in about 9 hours, he told CNET News. According to CNET's report:
Dai Zovi plans to apply for a $10,000 bug bounty TippingPoint announced on Thursday if a previously unknown Apple bug was used. "Shane can have the laptop, I want the money," Dai Zovi said. TippingPoint runs the Zero Day Initiative bug bounty program.
A good account of the technical details, as far as they are known, is available at Ars Technica's Infinite Loop. According to comments posted on Digg, the pair were able to achieve user-level shell access only, not root level.
Dragos Ruiu, who organized the CanSecWest conference, said the contest was staged to draw attention to security shortcomings in Macs. He told InfoWorld: "You see a lot of people running OS X saying it's so secure, and frankly, Microsoft is putting more work into security than Apple has."
Apple loyalists were quick to point out that it was Safari that was breached, not OS X. "Prepare for a deluge of FUD," wrote MacDaily News, "as the thirst in some quarters for Mac OS X to be 'hacked' is insatiable." (link)
FUD is an acroynm for "fear, uncertainty and doubt," originally used to describe IBM's marketing strategy for fending off competition in the mainframe computer market. PWN is not an acronym, but Internet security jargon for "to compromise" or "control." As reader Matthew Sgarlata points out, pwn is also frequently used in gaming culture to mean "soundly defeat" or "dominate."
Sallie Mae to Be Sold for $25 Billion
Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest lender to college students, announced today that it would be sold to JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and two private equity firms for $25 billion.
The deal is the largest buyout of a financial services company and comes amid calls in Washington to cut the federal subsidies and guarantees that have allowed Sallie Mae’s core loan business to thrive for years.
Shares of Sallie Mae, officially known as the SLM Corporation, were up 18 percent in morning trading.
The other two private buyers are New York-based firms that have until now have kept a relatively low profile: J.C. Flowers & Company and Friedman Fleischer & Lowe. Together, the two firms will control 50.2 percent of the company, while the banks will own the rest.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two banks are going to provide Sallie Mae with up to $200 billion of backup financing to guarantee that the company can continue to make low-cost loans in the event that its access to capital, whether through the federal government or through private markets, becomes limited.
Under the terms of the deal, they said, the buyers will pay $60 a share in cash, which represents almost a 50 percent premium over Sallie Mae’s battered share price before news of a potential buyout was reported in The New York Times last week. The share price has surged nearly 15 percent on the prospect that the company could be bought out.
For Sallie Mae, which originates nearly 23 percent of student loans, this deal may be a salvation at a time when its business model has been under attack from several directions. All the uncertainty has caused Sallie Mae’s stock to plunge more than 20 percent over the last year, making it a takeover target.
The purchase of Sallie Mae represents the increasing willingness of private equity firms to step into highly regulated and scrutinized industries as they clamor for larger deals. Earlier this year, TXU, the largest power producer in Texas, agreed to be sold to a group of private equity firms in a deal valued at $45 billion. That deal, which faces significant government hurdles in Texas, is seen a test for how traditionally free-wheeling private equity firms are able to maneuver the tight corners of government regulation. The purchase of Sallie Mae is likely to raise similar scrutiny from legislators and consumer advocacy groups.
Sallie Mae is both a lender and a debt collector, making profits on both sides of its loans. Last year, the company earned $1.2 billion and generated a lot of cash that makes it attractive to private equity buyers. Even so, some Wall Street analysts believe that it is a poor candidate to be saddled with debt because its business relies on razor-thin interest margins and the use of derivatives to manage its exposure to interest-rate swings.
The private equity firms are essentially placing a bet that the legislative debates will ultimately fall in Sallie Mae’s favor, even if the outcome is likely to mean reduced federal subsidies. The theory is that Sallie Mae’s larger scale and lower operating costs will still give it an advantage over its competitors. Currently, the company is carrying $142 billion in private and guaranteed loans on its books, about 27 percent of American student loans in the United States.
While 85 percent of its business is currently federally guaranteed, the company could also shift into the higher-interest and faster-growing market for private loans, which unlike guaranteed loans, is not subsidized by the government.
Eric Dash contributed reporting.
The deal is the largest buyout of a financial services company and comes amid calls in Washington to cut the federal subsidies and guarantees that have allowed Sallie Mae’s core loan business to thrive for years.
Shares of Sallie Mae, officially known as the SLM Corporation, were up 18 percent in morning trading.
The other two private buyers are New York-based firms that have until now have kept a relatively low profile: J.C. Flowers & Company and Friedman Fleischer & Lowe. Together, the two firms will control 50.2 percent of the company, while the banks will own the rest.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two banks are going to provide Sallie Mae with up to $200 billion of backup financing to guarantee that the company can continue to make low-cost loans in the event that its access to capital, whether through the federal government or through private markets, becomes limited.
Under the terms of the deal, they said, the buyers will pay $60 a share in cash, which represents almost a 50 percent premium over Sallie Mae’s battered share price before news of a potential buyout was reported in The New York Times last week. The share price has surged nearly 15 percent on the prospect that the company could be bought out.
For Sallie Mae, which originates nearly 23 percent of student loans, this deal may be a salvation at a time when its business model has been under attack from several directions. All the uncertainty has caused Sallie Mae’s stock to plunge more than 20 percent over the last year, making it a takeover target.
The purchase of Sallie Mae represents the increasing willingness of private equity firms to step into highly regulated and scrutinized industries as they clamor for larger deals. Earlier this year, TXU, the largest power producer in Texas, agreed to be sold to a group of private equity firms in a deal valued at $45 billion. That deal, which faces significant government hurdles in Texas, is seen a test for how traditionally free-wheeling private equity firms are able to maneuver the tight corners of government regulation. The purchase of Sallie Mae is likely to raise similar scrutiny from legislators and consumer advocacy groups.
Sallie Mae is both a lender and a debt collector, making profits on both sides of its loans. Last year, the company earned $1.2 billion and generated a lot of cash that makes it attractive to private equity buyers. Even so, some Wall Street analysts believe that it is a poor candidate to be saddled with debt because its business relies on razor-thin interest margins and the use of derivatives to manage its exposure to interest-rate swings.
The private equity firms are essentially placing a bet that the legislative debates will ultimately fall in Sallie Mae’s favor, even if the outcome is likely to mean reduced federal subsidies. The theory is that Sallie Mae’s larger scale and lower operating costs will still give it an advantage over its competitors. Currently, the company is carrying $142 billion in private and guaranteed loans on its books, about 27 percent of American student loans in the United States.
While 85 percent of its business is currently federally guaranteed, the company could also shift into the higher-interest and faster-growing market for private loans, which unlike guaranteed loans, is not subsidized by the government.
Eric Dash contributed reporting.
Google Buys an Online Ad Firm for $3.1 Billion
Google agreed to its largest acquisition yesterday, reaching a deal to purchase DoubleClick, the online advertising company, from two private equity firms for $3.1 billion in cash, almost double what it paid for YouTube last year. And perhaps just as important, the deal kept DoubleClick from the hands of Microsoft.
For Google, the purchase is another step in its transformation from a search engine into an advertising powerhouse. DoubleClick, which is based in New York City, specializes in software for display advertising and has close relationships with Web publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies.
“It’s the two juggernauts in search and display getting together,” said Martin Reidy, president of Modem Media, an ad agency in the Publicis Groupe.
For computer users, the deal could mean more advertising tailored to their online habits, especially if DoubleClick and Google combine some of their huge databases of information on Internet use to direct specific ads to different Web surfers’ tastes.
“This merger is really a part of a global growth strategy for Google,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in a conference call.
Mr. Schmidt said that being able to kick-start Google’s display advertising business and marry it with search advertising was the most compelling reason for the purchase.
The sale of DoubleClick involved weeks of negotiation that included at one point Yahoo, AOL and, most prominently, Microsoft, which has been trying to position itself as an advertising rival to Google. Even though Microsoft has more cash on hand than Google, the company was ultimately outbid.
“Keeping Microsoft away from DoubleClick is worth billions to Google,” an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, Jordan Rohan, said. “Yet again, Microsoft is on the sidelines and away from the action.”
The acquisition will also strengthen Google’s position with respect to Yahoo, its chief rival in Internet search and advertising and a leader in the sale of display ads.
DoubleClick may not be a household name, but it is the most prominent ad serving company on the Web, meaning that it delivers display ads from ad agencies to the sites where they are run.
DoubleClick provides software and services to both Web publishers like MySpace and AOL and to advertisers and agencies, who buy the ads. DoubleClick’s software culls data about Web surfers’ interaction with ads to determine how to place the most effective display ads.
Google, for all its outsize reputation, has made most of its money in the online basics: the text-based search engine and small text ads that are like the Yellow Pages of the online advertising. DoubleClick’s strength, by contrast, lies in flashy banner ads and, more recently, video ads that are more like high-end magazine or television ads. Google has taken steps in the last year to enter display advertising by expanding its AdSense program but has not gained great traction.
“Google really wants to get into the display advertising business in a big way, and they don’t have the relationships they need to make it happen,” said Dave Morgan, the chairman of Tacoda, an online advertising network. “But DoubleClick does. It gives them immediate access to those relationships.”
Google, of course, has its own formulas for aiming ads and has been very successful delivering text ads related to the content people are reading about. The two companies will work together to deliver what Google called “more relevant” ads in a news release.
“You can dive deep into that data and say who were those people, where do they live, what were they doing when they looked at those ads?” said Randall Rothenberg, the chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a group in New York that represents online publishers, including Google. “You can protect privacy and provide great insights for advertisers.”
The sale raises questions about how Google will manage its existing business and that of the new DoubleClick unit while avoiding conflicts of interest. If DoubleClick’s existing clients start to feel that Google is using DoubleClick’s relationships to further its own ad network, some Web publishers or advertisers might jump ship.
Most of DoubleClick’s clients are locked into long-term contracts to keep using DoubleClick. And DoubleClick’s chief executive, David Rosenblatt, said in an interview last night that the company would protect its ability to remain neutral with its clients.
“We are exquisitely sensitive to our role as Switzerland,” Mr. Rosenblatt said. “In the simplest sense, they bought customer relationships, and they’re primarily focused on making sure not only are those relationships preserved but that they are enhanced and made better.”
Mr. Rosenblatt said that Google’s vast network of advertisers would offer DoubleClick publishers more opportunities to monetize their sites.
A highflying stock in the late 1990s, DoubleClick was an early pioneer in online advertising and was one of the few online ad companies to survive the burst of the dot-com bubble. In 2005, it was taken private by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion.
Since then, the company has sold two data and e-mail advertising businesses and acquired Klipmart, which specializes in online video. DoubleClick generated about $300 million in revenue and $50 million in earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes last year, mostly from providing ads on Web sites.
While some suggested that $3.1 billion was a high price for DoubleClick others said Google was buying far more than DoubleClick’s cash flow. And, Google has plenty of cash to spare. At the end of last year it had $11.24 billion in cash and marketable securities.
People close to the deal said it came down to a matter of price. Google outbid Microsoft, in an echo of a bout in December 2005 when the two rivals bid for the right to sell ads on Time Warner’s AOL unit. Google won then, too, agreeing to pay $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in AOL.
One attraction for Google was DoubleClick’s new exchange that brings Web publishers and advertising buyers together on a Web site where they can participate in auctions for ad space.
“What this represents is the further acceleration of Google creating the spine of being able to manage information on consumer entertainment,” said Richard Beaven, chief executive of Initiative North American, an agency in the Interpublic Group of Companies that buys ads. “In the context of that vision, this is a very important step.”
For Google, the purchase is another step in its transformation from a search engine into an advertising powerhouse. DoubleClick, which is based in New York City, specializes in software for display advertising and has close relationships with Web publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies.
“It’s the two juggernauts in search and display getting together,” said Martin Reidy, president of Modem Media, an ad agency in the Publicis Groupe.
For computer users, the deal could mean more advertising tailored to their online habits, especially if DoubleClick and Google combine some of their huge databases of information on Internet use to direct specific ads to different Web surfers’ tastes.
“This merger is really a part of a global growth strategy for Google,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in a conference call.
Mr. Schmidt said that being able to kick-start Google’s display advertising business and marry it with search advertising was the most compelling reason for the purchase.
The sale of DoubleClick involved weeks of negotiation that included at one point Yahoo, AOL and, most prominently, Microsoft, which has been trying to position itself as an advertising rival to Google. Even though Microsoft has more cash on hand than Google, the company was ultimately outbid.
“Keeping Microsoft away from DoubleClick is worth billions to Google,” an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, Jordan Rohan, said. “Yet again, Microsoft is on the sidelines and away from the action.”
The acquisition will also strengthen Google’s position with respect to Yahoo, its chief rival in Internet search and advertising and a leader in the sale of display ads.
DoubleClick may not be a household name, but it is the most prominent ad serving company on the Web, meaning that it delivers display ads from ad agencies to the sites where they are run.
DoubleClick provides software and services to both Web publishers like MySpace and AOL and to advertisers and agencies, who buy the ads. DoubleClick’s software culls data about Web surfers’ interaction with ads to determine how to place the most effective display ads.
Google, for all its outsize reputation, has made most of its money in the online basics: the text-based search engine and small text ads that are like the Yellow Pages of the online advertising. DoubleClick’s strength, by contrast, lies in flashy banner ads and, more recently, video ads that are more like high-end magazine or television ads. Google has taken steps in the last year to enter display advertising by expanding its AdSense program but has not gained great traction.
“Google really wants to get into the display advertising business in a big way, and they don’t have the relationships they need to make it happen,” said Dave Morgan, the chairman of Tacoda, an online advertising network. “But DoubleClick does. It gives them immediate access to those relationships.”
Google, of course, has its own formulas for aiming ads and has been very successful delivering text ads related to the content people are reading about. The two companies will work together to deliver what Google called “more relevant” ads in a news release.
“You can dive deep into that data and say who were those people, where do they live, what were they doing when they looked at those ads?” said Randall Rothenberg, the chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a group in New York that represents online publishers, including Google. “You can protect privacy and provide great insights for advertisers.”
The sale raises questions about how Google will manage its existing business and that of the new DoubleClick unit while avoiding conflicts of interest. If DoubleClick’s existing clients start to feel that Google is using DoubleClick’s relationships to further its own ad network, some Web publishers or advertisers might jump ship.
Most of DoubleClick’s clients are locked into long-term contracts to keep using DoubleClick. And DoubleClick’s chief executive, David Rosenblatt, said in an interview last night that the company would protect its ability to remain neutral with its clients.
“We are exquisitely sensitive to our role as Switzerland,” Mr. Rosenblatt said. “In the simplest sense, they bought customer relationships, and they’re primarily focused on making sure not only are those relationships preserved but that they are enhanced and made better.”
Mr. Rosenblatt said that Google’s vast network of advertisers would offer DoubleClick publishers more opportunities to monetize their sites.
A highflying stock in the late 1990s, DoubleClick was an early pioneer in online advertising and was one of the few online ad companies to survive the burst of the dot-com bubble. In 2005, it was taken private by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion.
Since then, the company has sold two data and e-mail advertising businesses and acquired Klipmart, which specializes in online video. DoubleClick generated about $300 million in revenue and $50 million in earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes last year, mostly from providing ads on Web sites.
While some suggested that $3.1 billion was a high price for DoubleClick others said Google was buying far more than DoubleClick’s cash flow. And, Google has plenty of cash to spare. At the end of last year it had $11.24 billion in cash and marketable securities.
People close to the deal said it came down to a matter of price. Google outbid Microsoft, in an echo of a bout in December 2005 when the two rivals bid for the right to sell ads on Time Warner’s AOL unit. Google won then, too, agreeing to pay $1 billion for a 5 percent stake in AOL.
One attraction for Google was DoubleClick’s new exchange that brings Web publishers and advertising buyers together on a Web site where they can participate in auctions for ad space.
“What this represents is the further acceleration of Google creating the spine of being able to manage information on consumer entertainment,” said Richard Beaven, chief executive of Initiative North American, an agency in the Interpublic Group of Companies that buys ads. “In the context of that vision, this is a very important step.”
Mortgage Refinancing
Refinancing is when you apply for a secured loan in order to pay off another different loan secured against the same assets, property etc. If this original loan had a fixed interest rate mortgage which has now declined considerably, then you would like to avail of a new loan at a more favorable interest rate.
When is Refinancing an Option
Typically home refinancing is done when you have a mortgage on your home and apply for a second loan to pay off the first one. While taking the decision to go for the home refinancing option, it is important to first determine whether the amount you save on interests balances the amount of fees payable during refinancing.
Benefits of Home Refinancing
Imagine a scenario where you can have access to extra cash, while simultaneously lowering your monthly mortgage payment. This dream can become a reality through mortgage refinancing.
A house is the largest asset you may ever own. Likewise, your mortgage payment may be the largest expense you'll have in your monthly budget. Wouldn't it be great to use this asset to reduce your monthly payment and put extra cash in your pocket? When you refinance your mortgage, you can take advantage of the equity in your home and enable this to take place.
Lower Refinance Rate, Lower Payments
When you purchased your dream home, the financial environment dictated interest rates. While certain factors, like your credit rating and the amount of the down payment that you were able to afford, influenced your interest rate, the single most important factor was the prevailing rates at that moment. However, interest rates fluctuate. When the Federal Reserve enters a rate-cutting period, the prevailing rates may become significantly lower than when you originally purchased your home.
By refinancing your mortgage when interest rates are lower, you can exchange a higher interest rate for a lower one, which, in turn, will lower your monthly payment.
Shorten the Length of Your Mortgage when Refinancing
Another advantage of home refinancing is that you can shorten the term of your mortgage. Let's say, for example, that you originally had a 30-year mortgage and have been paying it for eight years. Thanks to mortgage refinancing, you can switch to a shorter term of either 10, 15 or 20 years. This can save you thousands of dollars of interest. Also, if the refinance rate is lower, but you maintain the same monthly payment, you will build up equity in your home more quickly, because more of your payment will be going towards principal.
Exchange an Adjustable Rate for a Fixed Refinance Rate
When interest rates are low, adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are the housing market's darlings. However, as interest rates increase, that adjustable rate may not look as sweet. It's also possible that you opted for an ARM because your financial future was less secure, or you weren't sure how long you'd stay in your home. If, however, you've become financially stable and know that you'll be staying in your home for several years, it may be beneficial to swap that fluctuating adjustable rate for a fixed one. You'll have more security knowing that your monthly payment will remain steady, regardless of the current market environment.
Access to Extra Cash - Cash-out refinancing
One way to put more money in your pocket is to tap into the equity you've built in your home and do a "cash-out" refinancing. In this scenario, you can refinance for an amount higher than your current principal balance and take the extra funds as cash. This can provide money for remodeling your home, paying off high-interest rate bills, or sending your kids to college.
Bye, Bye PMI
If you were unable to make a down payment of 20 percent when you purchased your home, you may have been required to purchase Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). If your house has appreciated since then, and you've steadily paid down your mortgage, your equity may now be more than 20 percent. If you refinance, you will no longer need PMI.
In many ways, your house is like a cash cow. If you have discipline and knowledge of the benefits of refinancing, you can tap into its milk for years to come.
To find the best refinance loan offers complete our short form. You will find lenders and brokers that offer home refinance loans in California, Florida and all other states.
When is Refinancing an Option
Typically home refinancing is done when you have a mortgage on your home and apply for a second loan to pay off the first one. While taking the decision to go for the home refinancing option, it is important to first determine whether the amount you save on interests balances the amount of fees payable during refinancing.
Benefits of Home Refinancing
Imagine a scenario where you can have access to extra cash, while simultaneously lowering your monthly mortgage payment. This dream can become a reality through mortgage refinancing.
A house is the largest asset you may ever own. Likewise, your mortgage payment may be the largest expense you'll have in your monthly budget. Wouldn't it be great to use this asset to reduce your monthly payment and put extra cash in your pocket? When you refinance your mortgage, you can take advantage of the equity in your home and enable this to take place.
Lower Refinance Rate, Lower Payments
When you purchased your dream home, the financial environment dictated interest rates. While certain factors, like your credit rating and the amount of the down payment that you were able to afford, influenced your interest rate, the single most important factor was the prevailing rates at that moment. However, interest rates fluctuate. When the Federal Reserve enters a rate-cutting period, the prevailing rates may become significantly lower than when you originally purchased your home.
By refinancing your mortgage when interest rates are lower, you can exchange a higher interest rate for a lower one, which, in turn, will lower your monthly payment.
Shorten the Length of Your Mortgage when Refinancing
Another advantage of home refinancing is that you can shorten the term of your mortgage. Let's say, for example, that you originally had a 30-year mortgage and have been paying it for eight years. Thanks to mortgage refinancing, you can switch to a shorter term of either 10, 15 or 20 years. This can save you thousands of dollars of interest. Also, if the refinance rate is lower, but you maintain the same monthly payment, you will build up equity in your home more quickly, because more of your payment will be going towards principal.
Exchange an Adjustable Rate for a Fixed Refinance Rate
When interest rates are low, adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are the housing market's darlings. However, as interest rates increase, that adjustable rate may not look as sweet. It's also possible that you opted for an ARM because your financial future was less secure, or you weren't sure how long you'd stay in your home. If, however, you've become financially stable and know that you'll be staying in your home for several years, it may be beneficial to swap that fluctuating adjustable rate for a fixed one. You'll have more security knowing that your monthly payment will remain steady, regardless of the current market environment.
Access to Extra Cash - Cash-out refinancing
One way to put more money in your pocket is to tap into the equity you've built in your home and do a "cash-out" refinancing. In this scenario, you can refinance for an amount higher than your current principal balance and take the extra funds as cash. This can provide money for remodeling your home, paying off high-interest rate bills, or sending your kids to college.
Bye, Bye PMI
If you were unable to make a down payment of 20 percent when you purchased your home, you may have been required to purchase Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). If your house has appreciated since then, and you've steadily paid down your mortgage, your equity may now be more than 20 percent. If you refinance, you will no longer need PMI.
In many ways, your house is like a cash cow. If you have discipline and knowledge of the benefits of refinancing, you can tap into its milk for years to come.
To find the best refinance loan offers complete our short form. You will find lenders and brokers that offer home refinance loans in California, Florida and all other states.
Deadly plague hits Warcraft world
A deadly virtual plague has broken out in the online game World of Warcraft.
Although limited to only a few of the game's servers the numbers of characters that have fallen victim is thought to be in the thousands.
Originally it was thought that the deadly digital disease was the result of a programming bug in a location only recently added to the Warcraft game.
However, it now appears that players kicked off the plague and then kept it spreading after the first outbreak.
Since its launch in November 2004, World of Warcraft (Wow) has become the most widely played massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in the world.
Its creator, Blizzard, claims that now more than four million people are regular players.
Last rites
Wow is an online game that gives players the chance to adventure in the fantasy world of Azeroth that is populated by the usual mixture of humans, elves, orcs and other fantastic beasts.
As players explore the world, the characters they control become more powerful as they complete quests, kill monsters and find magical items and artefacts that boost abilities.
The Warcraft world is a familiar fantasy setting
To give these powerful characters more of a challenge, Blizzard regularly introduces new places to explore in the online world.
In the last week, it added the Zul'Gurub dungeon which gave players a chance to confront and kill the fearsome Hakkar - the god of Blood.
In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a "corrupted blood" infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.
The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar's corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.
This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.
Although computer controlled characters did not contract the plague, they are said to have acted as "carriers" and infected player-controlled characters they encountered.
Body count
The first server, or "realm" as Blizzard calls them, affected by the plague was Archimonde; but it is known to have spread to at least two others.
The spread of the disease could have been limited by the fact that Hakkar is difficult to kill, so some realms may not yet have got round to killing him and unleashing his parting shot.
In World of Warcraft players can be orcs, humans or other fantastic creatures
The digital disease instantly killed lower level characters and did not take much longer to kill even powerful characters.
Many online discussion sites were buzzing with reports from the disaster zones with some describing seeing "hundreds" of bodies lying in the virtual streets of the online towns and cities.
"The debate amongst players now is if it really was intentional although due to the effects of the problem it seems unlikely," Paul Younger, an editor on the unofficial worldofwar.net site, told the BBC News website.
"It's giving players something to talk about and could possibly be considered the first proper 'world event'", he said.
Luckily the death of a character in World of Warcraft is not final so all those killed were soon resurrected.
Blizzard tried to control the plague by staging rolling re-starts of all the servers supporting the Warcraft realms and applying quick fixes.
However, there are reports that this has not solved all the problems and that isolated pockets of plague are breaking out again.
The "Corrupted Blood" plague is not the first virtual disease to break out in game worlds. In May 2000 many players of The Sims were outraged when their game characters died because of an infection contracted from a dirty virtual guinea pig.
Although limited to only a few of the game's servers the numbers of characters that have fallen victim is thought to be in the thousands.
Originally it was thought that the deadly digital disease was the result of a programming bug in a location only recently added to the Warcraft game.
However, it now appears that players kicked off the plague and then kept it spreading after the first outbreak.
Since its launch in November 2004, World of Warcraft (Wow) has become the most widely played massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in the world.
Its creator, Blizzard, claims that now more than four million people are regular players.
Last rites
Wow is an online game that gives players the chance to adventure in the fantasy world of Azeroth that is populated by the usual mixture of humans, elves, orcs and other fantastic beasts.
As players explore the world, the characters they control become more powerful as they complete quests, kill monsters and find magical items and artefacts that boost abilities.
The Warcraft world is a familiar fantasy setting
To give these powerful characters more of a challenge, Blizzard regularly introduces new places to explore in the online world.
In the last week, it added the Zul'Gurub dungeon which gave players a chance to confront and kill the fearsome Hakkar - the god of Blood.
In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a "corrupted blood" infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.
The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar's corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.
This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.
Although computer controlled characters did not contract the plague, they are said to have acted as "carriers" and infected player-controlled characters they encountered.
Body count
The first server, or "realm" as Blizzard calls them, affected by the plague was Archimonde; but it is known to have spread to at least two others.
The spread of the disease could have been limited by the fact that Hakkar is difficult to kill, so some realms may not yet have got round to killing him and unleashing his parting shot.
In World of Warcraft players can be orcs, humans or other fantastic creatures
The digital disease instantly killed lower level characters and did not take much longer to kill even powerful characters.
Many online discussion sites were buzzing with reports from the disaster zones with some describing seeing "hundreds" of bodies lying in the virtual streets of the online towns and cities.
"The debate amongst players now is if it really was intentional although due to the effects of the problem it seems unlikely," Paul Younger, an editor on the unofficial worldofwar.net site, told the BBC News website.
"It's giving players something to talk about and could possibly be considered the first proper 'world event'", he said.
Luckily the death of a character in World of Warcraft is not final so all those killed were soon resurrected.
Blizzard tried to control the plague by staging rolling re-starts of all the servers supporting the Warcraft realms and applying quick fixes.
However, there are reports that this has not solved all the problems and that isolated pockets of plague are breaking out again.
The "Corrupted Blood" plague is not the first virtual disease to break out in game worlds. In May 2000 many players of The Sims were outraged when their game characters died because of an infection contracted from a dirty virtual guinea pig.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall
· Concrete barrier to encircle Sunni district· Construction under cover of night Ewen MacAskill in WashingtonSaturday April 21, 2007The Guardian
The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month.
The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank.
Captain Scott McLearn, who is based at Camp Victory, the US base on the outskirts of Baghdad, said Shias "are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street".
Although Baghdad is full of barriers and checkpoints, particularly round the Green Zone where the US and British are based along with the Iraq government, this is the first time a wall has been built along sectarian lines.
Its construction comes as the security situation appears to be deteriorating despite the recent US troop "surge". This week a bombing at the Sadriya market in the city killed 140 people - the deadliest in the capital since the 2003 invasion.
Walls are controversial. The Israeli government insists its wall is effective in reducing suicide bombers but Palestinians, many of whose lives it has seriously disrupted, as well as some Israelis argue that it consolidates divisions.
The Baghdad wall, which will be 12ft (3,5 metres) high, is being built by US paratroopers who left Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of the city, on the first night in a dozen trucks carrying stacks of huge concrete barriers, each weighing 14,000 pounds (6,300kg). Cranes, protected by tanks, winched them into place. Building has continued every night since.
News of the wall's construction came as the Democratic US Senate leader, Harry Reid, provoked a new row with the White House when he claimed the defence secretary, Robert Gates, and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, know that "this war is lost". Mr Gates, on a visit to Baghdad yesterday, said: "On the war is lost, I respectfully disagree."
The White House repeated that the new strategy, which involves sending more US troops to Baghdad, is showing tentative signs of working.
Since the US-led invasion, "ethnic cleansing" has resulted in population shifts that have left Baghdad increasingly divided on sectarian grounds, separated by the Tigris which runs through the centre of the city. Sunnis are consolidating on the west side and Shias on the east. The wall is being built round the biggest remaining Sunni enclave on the east bank, at Adhamiya. Referred to by US troops as the Great Wall of Adhamiya, it is surrounded on three sides by Shia neighbourhoods and has been the scene of some of the city's worst violence.
There was confusion about the wall at US HQ. Major-General William Caldwell, the usual US spokesman in Baghdad, said on Wednesday he was unaware of efforts to build a wall. "Our goal is to unify Baghdad, not subdivide it into separate [enclaves]," he said. But a US military press release from Camp Victory provided extensive details about the construction. It said: "The area the wall will protect is the largest predominately Sunni neighbourhood in east Baghdad. The wall is one of the centrepieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence."
The strategy involves creating a series of gated communities, in which US and Iraqi troops control entry and exits. The aim is to try to prevent movement by insurgents, in particular suicide bombers.
Residents of Adhamiya had mixed feelings. Ahmed Abdul-Sattar, a government worker, said: "I don't think this wall will solve the city's serious security problems. It will only increase the separation between our people, which has been made so much worse by the war."
The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month.
The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank.
Captain Scott McLearn, who is based at Camp Victory, the US base on the outskirts of Baghdad, said Shias "are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street".
Although Baghdad is full of barriers and checkpoints, particularly round the Green Zone where the US and British are based along with the Iraq government, this is the first time a wall has been built along sectarian lines.
Its construction comes as the security situation appears to be deteriorating despite the recent US troop "surge". This week a bombing at the Sadriya market in the city killed 140 people - the deadliest in the capital since the 2003 invasion.
Walls are controversial. The Israeli government insists its wall is effective in reducing suicide bombers but Palestinians, many of whose lives it has seriously disrupted, as well as some Israelis argue that it consolidates divisions.
The Baghdad wall, which will be 12ft (3,5 metres) high, is being built by US paratroopers who left Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of the city, on the first night in a dozen trucks carrying stacks of huge concrete barriers, each weighing 14,000 pounds (6,300kg). Cranes, protected by tanks, winched them into place. Building has continued every night since.
News of the wall's construction came as the Democratic US Senate leader, Harry Reid, provoked a new row with the White House when he claimed the defence secretary, Robert Gates, and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, know that "this war is lost". Mr Gates, on a visit to Baghdad yesterday, said: "On the war is lost, I respectfully disagree."
The White House repeated that the new strategy, which involves sending more US troops to Baghdad, is showing tentative signs of working.
Since the US-led invasion, "ethnic cleansing" has resulted in population shifts that have left Baghdad increasingly divided on sectarian grounds, separated by the Tigris which runs through the centre of the city. Sunnis are consolidating on the west side and Shias on the east. The wall is being built round the biggest remaining Sunni enclave on the east bank, at Adhamiya. Referred to by US troops as the Great Wall of Adhamiya, it is surrounded on three sides by Shia neighbourhoods and has been the scene of some of the city's worst violence.
There was confusion about the wall at US HQ. Major-General William Caldwell, the usual US spokesman in Baghdad, said on Wednesday he was unaware of efforts to build a wall. "Our goal is to unify Baghdad, not subdivide it into separate [enclaves]," he said. But a US military press release from Camp Victory provided extensive details about the construction. It said: "The area the wall will protect is the largest predominately Sunni neighbourhood in east Baghdad. The wall is one of the centrepieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence."
The strategy involves creating a series of gated communities, in which US and Iraqi troops control entry and exits. The aim is to try to prevent movement by insurgents, in particular suicide bombers.
Residents of Adhamiya had mixed feelings. Ahmed Abdul-Sattar, a government worker, said: "I don't think this wall will solve the city's serious security problems. It will only increase the separation between our people, which has been made so much worse by the war."
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Iran Exonerates Six Who Killed in Islam’s Name
TEHRAN, April 18 — The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered “morally corrupt.”
Skip to next paragraph
Morteza Nikoubazi/Reuters
At an Army Day parade Wednesday in Tehran, a soldier saluted a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The reversal, in an infamous five-year-old case from Kerman, in central Iran, has produced anger and controversy, with lawyers calling it corrupt and newspapers giving it prominence.
“The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great, and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system,” Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview.
Three lower court rulings found all the men guilty of murder. Their cases had been appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the guilty verdicts. The latest decision, made public this week, reaffirms that reversal.
“The objection by the relatives of the victims is dismissed, and the ruling of this court is confirmed,” the court said in a one-page verdict.
The ruling may still not be final, however, because a lower court in Kerman can appeal the decision to the full membership of the Supreme Court. More than 50 Supreme Court judges would then take part in the final decision.
According to the Supreme Court’s earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran’s Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.
The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.
Members of the Basiji Force are known for attacking reformist politicians and pro-democracy meetings. President Ahmadinejad was a member of the force, but the Supreme Court judges who issued the ruling are not considered to be specifically affiliated with it.
Iran’s Islamic penal code, which is a parallel system to its civic code, says murder charges can be dropped if the accused can prove the killing was carried out because the victim was morally corrupt.
This is true even if the killer identified the victim mistakenly as corrupt. In that case, the law requires “blood money” to be paid to the family. Every year in Iran, a senior cleric determines the amount of blood money required in such cases. This year it is $40,000 if the victim is a Muslim man, and half that for a Muslim woman or a non-Muslim.
In a long interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, a Supreme Court judge, Mohammad Sadegh Al-e-Eshagh, who did not take part in this case, sought Wednesday to discourage vigilante killings, saying those carried out without a court order should be punished.
At the same time, he laid out examples of moral corruption that do permit bloodshed, including armed banditry, adultery by a wife and insults to the Prophet Muhammad.
“The roots of the problems are in our laws,” said Mohammad Seifzadeh, a lawyer and a member of the Association for Defenders of Human Rights in Tehran. “Such cases happen as long as we have laws that allow the killer to decide whether the victim is corrupt or not. Ironically, such laws show that the establishment is not capable of bringing justice, and so it leaves it to ordinary people to do it.”
The ruling stems from a case in 2002 in Kerman that began after the accused watched a tape by a senior cleric who ruled that Muslims could kill a morally corrupt person if the law failed to confront that person.
Some 17 people were killed in gruesome ways after that viewing, but only five deaths were linked to this group. The six accused, all in their early 20s, explained to the court that they had taken their victims outside the city after they had identified them. Then they stoned them to death or drowned them in a pond by sitting on their chests.
Three of the families had given their consent under pressure by the killers’ families to accept financial compensation, said Mr. Ahmadi, the lawyer.
Such killings have occurred in the past. A member of the security forces shot and killed a young man in 2005 in the subway in Karaj, near Tehran, for what he also claimed was immoral behavior by the victim.
A judge caused outrage in 2004 in Neka, in the north, after he issued a death sentence for a 16-year old girl for what he said were chastity crimes. After the summary trial, he had her hanged in public immediately, before the necessary approval from the Supreme Court.
Neither man has been punished.
“Such laws are not acceptable in our society today,” said Hossein Nejad Malayeri, the brother of Gholamreza Nejad Malayeri, who was killed by the group in Kerman. “That means if somebody has money, he can kill, and claim the victim was corrupt.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html?ref=world
Skip to next paragraph
Morteza Nikoubazi/Reuters
At an Army Day parade Wednesday in Tehran, a soldier saluted a portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The reversal, in an infamous five-year-old case from Kerman, in central Iran, has produced anger and controversy, with lawyers calling it corrupt and newspapers giving it prominence.
“The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great, and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system,” Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview.
Three lower court rulings found all the men guilty of murder. Their cases had been appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the guilty verdicts. The latest decision, made public this week, reaffirms that reversal.
“The objection by the relatives of the victims is dismissed, and the ruling of this court is confirmed,” the court said in a one-page verdict.
The ruling may still not be final, however, because a lower court in Kerman can appeal the decision to the full membership of the Supreme Court. More than 50 Supreme Court judges would then take part in the final decision.
According to the Supreme Court’s earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran’s Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.
The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.
Members of the Basiji Force are known for attacking reformist politicians and pro-democracy meetings. President Ahmadinejad was a member of the force, but the Supreme Court judges who issued the ruling are not considered to be specifically affiliated with it.
Iran’s Islamic penal code, which is a parallel system to its civic code, says murder charges can be dropped if the accused can prove the killing was carried out because the victim was morally corrupt.
This is true even if the killer identified the victim mistakenly as corrupt. In that case, the law requires “blood money” to be paid to the family. Every year in Iran, a senior cleric determines the amount of blood money required in such cases. This year it is $40,000 if the victim is a Muslim man, and half that for a Muslim woman or a non-Muslim.
In a long interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, a Supreme Court judge, Mohammad Sadegh Al-e-Eshagh, who did not take part in this case, sought Wednesday to discourage vigilante killings, saying those carried out without a court order should be punished.
At the same time, he laid out examples of moral corruption that do permit bloodshed, including armed banditry, adultery by a wife and insults to the Prophet Muhammad.
“The roots of the problems are in our laws,” said Mohammad Seifzadeh, a lawyer and a member of the Association for Defenders of Human Rights in Tehran. “Such cases happen as long as we have laws that allow the killer to decide whether the victim is corrupt or not. Ironically, such laws show that the establishment is not capable of bringing justice, and so it leaves it to ordinary people to do it.”
The ruling stems from a case in 2002 in Kerman that began after the accused watched a tape by a senior cleric who ruled that Muslims could kill a morally corrupt person if the law failed to confront that person.
Some 17 people were killed in gruesome ways after that viewing, but only five deaths were linked to this group. The six accused, all in their early 20s, explained to the court that they had taken their victims outside the city after they had identified them. Then they stoned them to death or drowned them in a pond by sitting on their chests.
Three of the families had given their consent under pressure by the killers’ families to accept financial compensation, said Mr. Ahmadi, the lawyer.
Such killings have occurred in the past. A member of the security forces shot and killed a young man in 2005 in the subway in Karaj, near Tehran, for what he also claimed was immoral behavior by the victim.
A judge caused outrage in 2004 in Neka, in the north, after he issued a death sentence for a 16-year old girl for what he said were chastity crimes. After the summary trial, he had her hanged in public immediately, before the necessary approval from the Supreme Court.
Neither man has been punished.
“Such laws are not acceptable in our society today,” said Hossein Nejad Malayeri, the brother of Gholamreza Nejad Malayeri, who was killed by the group in Kerman. “That means if somebody has money, he can kill, and claim the victim was corrupt.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html?ref=world
Cancer
Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). Cancer may affect people at all ages, but risk tends to increase with age. It is one of the principal causes of death in developed countries.
There are many types of cancer. Severity of symptoms depends on the site and character of the malignancy and whether there is metastasis. A definitive diagnosis usually requires the histologic examination of tissue by a pathologist. This tissue is obtained by biopsy or surgery. Most cancers can be treated and some cured, depending on the specific type, location, and stage. Once diagnosed, cancer is usually treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As research develops, treatments are becoming more specific for the type of cancer pathology. Drugs that target specific cancers already exist for several types of cancer. If untreated, cancers may eventually cause illness and death, though this is not always the case.
The unregulated growth that characterizes cancer is caused by damage to DNA, resulting in mutations to genes that encode for proteins controlling cell division. Many mutation events may be required to transform a normal cell into a malignant cell. These mutations can be caused by radiation, chemicals or physical agents that cause cancer, which are called carcinogens, or by certain viruses that can insert their DNA into the human genome. Mutations occur spontaneously, and may be passed down from one cell generation to the next as a result of mutations within germ lines. However, some carcinogens also appear to work through non-mutagenic pathways that affect the level of transcription of certain genes without causing genetic mutation.
Many forms of cancer are associated with exposure to environmental factors such as tobacco smoke, radiation, alcohol, and certain viruses. Some risk factors can be avoided or reduced.
Nomenclature and classification
The following closely related terms may be used to designate abnormal growths:
Neoplasia and neoplasm are the scientific designations for cancerous diseases. This group contains a large number of different diseases. Neoplasms can be benign or malignant.
Cancer is a widely used word that is usually understood as synonymous with malignant neoplasm. It is occasionally used instead of carcinoma, a sub-group of malignant neoplasms. Because of its overwhelming popularity relative to 'neoplasia', it is used frequently instead of 'neoplasia', even by scientists and physicians, especially when discussing neoplastic diseases as a group.
Tumor in medical language simply means swelling or lump, either neoplastic, inflammatory or other. In common language, however, it is synonymous with 'neoplasm', either benign or malignant. This is inaccurate since some neoplasms do not usually form tumors, for example leukemia or carcinoma in situ.
Paraneoplasia is a disturbance associated with a neoplasm but not related to the invasion of the primary or a secondary (metastatic) tumour. Disturbances can be hormonal, neurological, hematological, biochemical or otherwise clinical.
Cancers are classified by the type of cell that resembles the tumor and, therefore, the tissue presumed to be the origin of the tumor. The following general categories are usually accepted:
Carcinoma: malignant tumors derived from epithelial cells. This group represents the most common cancers, including the common forms of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer.
Lymphoma and Leukemia: malignant tumors derived from blood and bone marrow cells
Sarcoma: malignant tumors derived from connective tissue, or mesenchymal cells
Mesothelioma: tumors derived from the mesothelial cells lining the peritoneum and the pleura.
Glioma: tumors derived from glia, the most common type of brain cell
Germinoma: tumors derived from germ cells, normally found in the testicle and ovary
Choriocarcinoma: malignant tumors derived from the placenta
Malignant tumors are usually named using the Latin or Greek root of the organ as a prefix and the above category name as the suffix. For instance, a malignant tumor of liver cells is called hepatocarcinoma; a malignant tumor of the fat cells is called liposarcoma. For common cancers, the English organ name is used. For instance, the most common type of breast cancer is called ductal carcinoma of the breast or mammary ductal carcinoma. Here, the adjective ductal refers to the appearance of the cancer under the microscope, resembling normal breast ducts.
Benign tumors are named using -oma as a suffix with the organ name as the root. For instance, a benign tumor of the smooth muscle of the uterus is called leiomyoma (the common name of this frequent tumor is fibroid).
Adult cancers
In the USA and other developed countries, cancer is presently responsible for about 25% of all deaths.[3] On a yearly basis, 0.5% of the population is diagnosed with cancer.
The statistics below are for adults in the United States, and will vary substantially in other countries:
Male
Female
most common
cause of death[3]
most common
cause of death[3]
prostate cancer (33%)
lung cancer (31%)
breast cancer (32%)
lung cancer (27%)
lung cancer (13%)
prostate cancer (10%)
lung cancer (12%)
breast cancer (15%)
colorectal cancer (10%)
colorectal cancer (10%)
colorectal cancer (11%)
colorectal cancer (10%)
bladder cancer (7%)
pancreatic cancer (5%)
endometrial cancer (6%)
ovarian cancer (6%)
cutaneous melanoma (5%)
leukemia (4%)
non-Hodgkin lymphoma (4%)
pancreatic cancer (6%)
Childhood cancers
Cancer can also occur in young children and adolescents, but it is rare. Some studies have concluded that pediatric cancers, especially leukemia, are on an upward trend.[4][5]
The age of peak incidence of cancer in children occurs during the first year of life. Leukemia (usually ALL) is the most common infant malignancy (30%), followed by the central nervous system cancers and neuroblastoma. The remainder consists of Wilms' tumor, lymphomas, rhabdomyosarcoma (arising from muscle), retinoblastoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma.[3]
Female and male infants have essentially the same overall cancer incidence rates, but white infants have substantially higher cancer rates than black infants for most cancer types. Relative survival for infants is very good for neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor and retinoblastoma, and fairly good (80%) for leukemia, but not for most other types of cancer.
Epidemiology
Cancer epidemiology is the study of the incidence of cancer as a way to infer possible trends and causes. The first such cause of cancer was identified by British surgeon Percivall Pott, who discovered in 1775 that cancer of the scrotum was a common disease among chimney sweeps. The work of other individual physicians led to various insights, but when physicians started working together they could make firmer conclusions.
A founding paper of this discipline was the work of Janet Lane-Claypon, who published a comparative study in 1926 of 500 breast cancer cases and 500 control patients of the same background and lifestyle for the British Ministry of Health. Her ground-breaking work on cancer epidemiology was carried on by Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill, who published "Lung Cancer and Other Causes of Death In Relation to Smoking. A Second Report on the Mortality of British Doctors" followed in 1956 (otherwise known as the British doctors study). Richard Doll left the London Medical Research Center (MRC), to start the Oxford unit for Cancer epidemiology in 1968. With the use of computers, the unit was the first to compile large amounts of cancer data. Modern epidemiological methods are closely linked to current concepts of disease and public health policy. Over the past 50 years, great efforts have been spent on gathering data across medical practise, hospital, provincial, state, and even country boundaries, as a way to study the interdependence of environmental and cultural factors on cancer incidence.
The biggest problem facing cancer epidemiology today is the changing concept of 'cancer incidence'. For example, a breast cancer tumor with a very slow growth rate may be found with a mammogram at 50 years, while the same tumor may have been found as a noteworthy 'lump' at 70 years, depending on the specific growth factors affecting that particular patient's case. As diagnostic tools improve, this has a direct impact on the epidemiological data.
In some Western countries, such as the USA,[3] and the UK[13] cancer is overtaking cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death. In many Third World countries cancer incidence (insofar as this can be measured) appears much lower, most likely because of the higher death rates due to infectious disease or injury. With the increased control over malaria and tuberculosis in some Third World countries, incidence of cancer is expected to rise; this is termed the epidemiologic transition in epidemiological terminology.
Cancer epidemiology closely mirrors risk factor spread in various countries. Hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) is rare in the West but is the main cancer in China and neighboring countries, most likely due to the endemic presence of hepatitis B and aflatoxin in that population. Similarly, with tobacco smoking becoming more common in various Third World countries, lung cancer incidence has increased in a parallel fashion.
Prevention
Cancer prevention is defined as active measures to decrease the incidence of cancer. This can be accomplished by avoiding carcinogens or altering their metabolism, pursuing a lifestyle or diet that modifies cancer-causing factors and/or medical intervention (chemoprevention, treatment of pre-malignant lesions).
Much of the promise for cancer prevention comes from observational epidemiologic studies that show associations between modifiable life style factors or environmental exposures and specific cancers. Evidence is now emerging from randomized controlled trials designed to test whether interventions suggested by the epidemiologic studies, as well as leads based on laboratory research, actually result in reduced cancer incidence and mortality.
Examples of modifiable cancer risk include alcohol consumption (associated with increased risk of oral, esophageal, breast, and other cancers), smoking (although 20% of women with lung cancer have never smoked, versus 10% of men[14]), physical inactivity (associated with increased risk of colon, breast, and possibly other cancers), and being overweight (associated with colon, breast, endometrial, and possibly other cancers). Based on epidemiologic evidence, it is now thought that avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, being physically active, and maintaining recommended body weight may all contribute to reductions in risk of certain cancers; however, compared with tobacco exposure, the magnitude of effect is modest or small and the strength of evidence is often weaker. Other lifestyle and environmental factors known to affect cancer risk (either beneficially or detrimentally) include certain sexually transmitted diseases, the use of exogenous hormones, exposure to ionizing radiation and ultraviolet radiation, certain occupational and chemical exposures, and infectious agents.
See alcohol and cancer for more on that topic.
Diet and cancer
The consensus on diet and cancer is that obesity increases the risk of developing cancer. Particular dietary practices often explain differences in cancer incidence in different countries (e.g. gastric cancer is more common in Japan, while colon cancer is more common in the United States). Studies have shown that immigrants develop the risk of their new country, suggesting a link between diet and cancer rather than a genetic basis.[citation needed]
Despite frequent reports of particular substances (including foods) having a beneficial or detrimental effect on cancer risk, few of these have an established link to cancer. These reports are often based on studies in cultured cell media or animals. Public health recommendations cannot be made on the basis of these studies until they have been validated in an observational (or occasionally a prospective interventional) trial in humans.
The case of beta-carotene provides an example of the necessity of randomized clinical trials. Epidemiologists studying both diet and serum levels observed that high levels of beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, were associated with a protective effect, reducing the risk of cancer. This effect was particularly strong in lung cancer. This hypothesis led to a series of large randomized trials conducted in both Finland and the United States (CARET study) during the 1980s and 1990s. This study provided about 80,000 smokers or former smokers with daily supplements of beta-carotene or placebos. Contrary to expectation, these tests found no benefit of beta-carotene supplementation in reducing lung cancer incidence and mortality. In fact, the risk of lung cancer was slightly, but not significantly, increased by beta-carotene, leading to an early termination of the study.[15]
Other chemoprevention agents
Daily use of tamoxifen, a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), typically for 5 years, has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer in high-risk women by about 50%. A recent study reported that the selective estrogen receptor modulator raloxifene has similar benefits to tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer in high-risk women, with a more favorable side effect profile. [16]
Finasteride, a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, has been shown to lower the risk of prostate cancer, though it seems to mostly prevent low-grade tumors. [17] The effect of COX-2 inhibitors such as rofecoxib and celecoxib upon the risk of colon polyps have been studied in familial adenomatous polyposis patients [18] and in the general population. [19][20] In both groups, there were significant reductions in colon polyp incidence, but this came at the price of increased cardiovascular toxicity.
Genetic testing
Genetic testing for high-risk individuals is already available for certain cancer-related genetic mutations. Carriers of genetic mutations that increase risk for cancer incidence can undergo enhanced surveillance, chemoprevention, or risk-reducing surgery.
Gene
Cancer types
Availability
BRCA1, BRCA2
Breast, ovarian, pancreatic
Commercially available for clinical specimens
MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, PMS, PMS2
Colon, uterine, small bowel, stomach, urinary tract
Commercially available for clinical specimens
Diagnosing cancer
Most cancers are initially recognized either because signs or symptoms appear or through screening. Neither of these lead to a definitive diagnosis, which usually requires the opinion of a pathologist.
Signs and symptoms
Roughly, cancer symptoms can be divided into three groups:
Local symptoms: unusual lumps or swelling (tumor), hemorrhage (bleeding), pain and/or ulceration. Compression of surrounding tissues may cause symptoms such as jaundice.
Symptoms of metastasis (spreading): enlarged lymph nodes, cough and hemoptysis, hepatomegaly (enlarged liver), bone pain, fracture of affected bones and neurological symptoms. Although advanced cancer may cause pain, it is often not the first symptom.
Systemic symptoms: weight loss, poor appetite and cachexia (wasting), excessive sweating (night sweats), anemia and specific paraneoplastic phenomena, i.e. specific conditions that are due to an active cancer, such as thrombosis or hormonal changes.
Every single item in the above list can be caused by a variety of conditions (a list of which is referred to as the differential diagnosis). Cancer may be a common or uncommon cause of each item.
Biopsy
A cancer may be suspected for a variety of reasons, but the definitive diagnosis of most malignancies must be confirmed by histological examination of the cancerous cells by a pathologist. Tissue can be obtained from a biopsy or surgery. Many biopsies (such as those of the skin, breast or liver) can be done in a doctor's office. Biopsies of other organs are performed under anesthesia and require surgery in an operating room.
The tissue diagnosis indicates the type of cell that is proliferating, its histological grade and other features of the tumor. Together, this information is useful to evaluate the prognosis of this patient and choose the best treatment. Cytogenetics and immunohistochemistry may provide information about future behavior of the cancer (prognosis) and best treatment.
Screening
Cancer screening is an attempt to detect unsuspected cancers in the population. Screening tests suitable for large numbers of healthy people must be relatively affordable, safe, noninvasive procedures with acceptably low rates of false positive results. If signs of cancer are detected, more definitive and invasive follow up tests are performed to confirm the diagnosis.
Screening for cancer can lead to earlier diagnosis. Early diagnosis may lead to extended life. A number of different screening tests have been developed. Breast cancer screening can be done by breast self-examination. Screening by regular mammograms detects tumors even earlier than self-examination, and many countries use it to systematically screen all middle-aged women. Colorectal cancer can be detected through fecal occult blood testing and colonoscopy, which reduces both colon cancer incidence and mortality, presumably through the detection and removal of pre-malignant polyps. Similarly, cervical cytology testing (using the Pap smear) leads to the identification and excision of precancerous lesions. Over time, such testing has been followed by a dramatic reduction of cervical cancer incidence and mortality. Testicular self-examination is recommended for men beginning at the age of 15 years to detect testicular cancer. Prostate cancer can be screened for by a digital rectal exam along with prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood testing.
Screening for cancer is controversial in cases when it is not yet known if the test actually saves lives. The controversy arises when it is not clear if the benefits of screening outweigh the risks of follow-up diagnostic tests and cancer treatments. For example: when screening for prostate cancer, the PSA test may detect small cancers that would never become life threatening, but once detected will lead to treatment. This situation, called overdiagnosis, puts men at risk for complications from unnecessary treatment such as surgery or radiation. Follow up procedures used to diagnose prostate cancer (prostate biopsy) may cause side effects, including bleeding and infection. Prostate cancer treatment may cause incontinence (inability to control urine flow) and erectile dysfunction (erections inadequate for intercourse). Similarly, for breast cancer, there have recently been criticisms that breast screening programs in some countries cause more problems than they solve. This is because screening of women in the general population will result in a large number of women with false positive results which require extensive follow-up investigations to exclude cancer, leading to having a high number-to-treat (or number-to-screen) to prevent or catch a single case of breast cancer early.
Cervical cancer screening via the Pap smear has the best cost-benefit profile of all the forms of cancer screening from a public health perspective as, being largely caused by a virus, it has clear risk factors (sexual contact), and the natural progression of cervical cancer is that it normally spreads slowly over a number of years therefore giving more time for the screening program to catch it early. Moreover, the test itself is easy to perform and relatively cheap.
For these reasons, it is important that the benefits and risks of diagnostic procedures and treatment be taken into account when considering whether to undertake cancer screening.
Use of medical imaging to search for cancer in people without clear symptoms is similarly marred with problems. There is a significant risk of detection of what has been recently called an incidentaloma - a benign lesion that may be interpreted as a malignancy and be subjected to potentially dangerous investigations.
Canine cancer detection has shown promise, but is still in the early stages of research.
Treatment of cancer
Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibody therapy or other methods. The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status). A number of experimental cancer treatments are also under development.
Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body is the goal of treatment. Sometimes this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness. The effectiveness of chemotherapy is often limited by toxicity to other tissues in the body. Radiation can also cause damage to normal tissue.
Because "cancer" refers to a class of diseases, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single "cure for cancer" any more than there will be a single treatment for all infectious diseases.
Surgery
In theory, cancers can be cured if entirely removed by surgery, but this is not always possible. When the cancer has metastasized to other sites in the body prior to surgery, complete surgical excision is usually impossible.
Examples of surgical procedures for cancer include mastectomy for breast cancer and prostatectomy for prostate cancer. The goal of the surgery can be either the removal of only the tumor, or the entire organ. A single cancer cell is invisible to the naked eye but can regrow into a new tumor, a process called recurrence. For this reason, the pathologist will examine the surgical specimen to determine if a margin of healthy tissue is present, thus decreasing the chance that microscopic cancer cells are left in the patient.
In addition to removal of the primary tumor, surgery is often necessary for staging, e.g. determining the extent of the disease and whether it has metastasized to regional lymph nodes. Staging is a major determinant of prognosis and of the need for adjuvant therapy.
Occasionally, surgery is necessary to control symptoms, such as spinal cord compression or bowel obstruction. This is referred to as palliative treatment.
Chemotherapy
Main article: Chemotherapy
See also: History of cancer chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with drugs ("anticancer drugs") that can destroy cancer cells. It interferes with cell division in various possible ways, e.g. with the duplication of DNA or the separation of newly formed chromosomes. Most forms of chemotherapy target all rapidly dividing cells and are not specific for cancer cells. Hence, chemotherapy has the potential to harm healthy tissue, especially those tissues that have a high replacement rate (e.g. intestinal lining). These cells usually repair themselves after chemotherapy.
Because some drugs work better together than alone, two or more drugs are often given at the same time. This is called "combination chemotherapy"; most chemotherapy regimens are given in a combination.
The treatment of some leukaemias and lymphomas requires the use of high-dose chemotherapy, and total body irradiation (TBI). This treatment ablates the bone marrow, and hence the body's ability to recover and repopulate the blood. For this reason, bone marrow, or peripheral blood stem cell harvesting is carried out before the ablative part of the therapy, to enable "rescue" after the treatment has been given. This is known as autologous transplantation. Alternatively, bone marrow may be transplanted from a matched unrelated donor (MUD).
Monoclonal antibody therapy
Main article: Monoclonal antibody therapy
Immunotherapy is the use of immune mechanisms against tumors. These are used in various forms of cancer, such as breast cancer (trastuzumab/Herceptin®) and leukemia (gemtuzumab ozogamicin/Mylotarg®). The agents are monoclonal antibodies directed against proteins that are characteristic to the cells of the cancer in question, or cytokines that modulate the immune system's response.
Immunotherapy
Main article: Cancer immunotherapy
Other, more contemporary methods for generating non-specific immune response against tumours include intravesical BCG immunotherapy for superficial bladder cancer, and use of interferon and interleukin. Vaccines to generate non-specific immune responses are the subject of intensive research for a number of tumours, notably malignant melanoma and renal cell carcinoma.
Radiation therapy
Main article: Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy (also called radiotherapy, X-ray therapy, or irradiation) is the use of ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Radiation therapy can be administered externally via external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) or internally via brachytherapy. The effects of radiation therapy are localised and confined to the region being treated. Radiation therapy injures or destroys cells in the area being treated (the "target tissue") by damaging their genetic material, making it impossible for these cells to continue to grow and divide. Although radiation damages both cancer cells and normal cells, most normal cells can recover from the effects of radiation and function properly. The goal of radiation therapy is to damage as many cancer cells as possible, while limiting harm to nearby healthy tissue. Hence, it is given in many fractions, allowing healthy tissue to recover between fractions.
Radiation therapy may be used to treat almost every type of solid tumor, including cancers of the brain, breast, cervix, larynx, lung, pancreas, prostate, skin, stomach, uterus, or soft tissue sarcomas. Radiation is also used to treat leukemia and lymphoma. Radiation dose to each site depends on a number of factors, including the radiosensitivity of each cancer type and whether there are tissues and organs nearby that may be damaged by radiation. Thus, as with every form of treatment, radiation therapy is not without its side effects.
Hormonal suppression
The growth of some cancers can be inhibited by providing or blocking certain hormones. Common examples of hormone-sensitive tumors include certain types of breast and prostate cancers. Removing or blocking estrogen or testosterone is often an important additional treatment.
Symptom control
Although the control of the symptoms of cancer is not typically thought of as a treatment directed at the cancer, it is an important determinant of the quality of life of cancer patients, and plays an important role in the decision whether the patient is able to undergo other treatments. Although all practicing doctors have the therapeutic skills to control pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhage and other common problems in cancer patients, the multidisciplinary specialty of palliative care has arisen specifically in response to the symptom control needs of this group of patients.
Pain medication, such as morphine and oxycodone, and antiemetics, drugs to suppress nausea and vomiting, are very commonly used in patients with cancer-related symptoms.
Chronic pain due to cancer is almost always associated with continuing tissue damage due to the disease process or the treatment (i.e. surgery, radiation, chemotherapy). Although there is always a role for environmental factors and affective disturbances in the genesis of pain behaviors, these are not usually the predominant etiologic factors in patients with cancer pain. Furthermore, many patients with severe pain associated with cancer are nearing the end of their lives and palliative therapies are required. Issues such as social stigma of using opioids, work and functional status, and health care consumption are not likely to be important in the overall case management. Hence, the typical strategy for cancer pain management is to get the patient as comfortable as possible using opioids and other medications, surgery, and physical measures.
Treatment trials
Clinical trials, also called research studies, test new treatments in people with cancer. The goal of this research is to find better ways to treat cancer and help cancer patients. Clinical trials test many types of treatment such as new drugs, new approaches to surgery or radiation therapy, new combinations of treatments, or new methods such as gene therapy.
A clinical trial is one of the final stages of a long and careful cancer research process. The search for new treatments begins in the laboratory, where scientists first develop and test new ideas. If an approach seems promising, the next step may be testing a treatment in animals to see how it affects cancer in a living being and whether it has harmful effects. Of course, treatments that work well in the lab or in animals do not always work well in people. Studies are done with cancer patients to find out whether promising treatments are safe and effective.
Patients who take part may be helped personally by the treatment(s) they receive. They get up-to-date care from cancer experts, and they receive either a new treatment being tested or the best available standard treatment for their cancer. Of course, there is no guarantee that a new treatment being tested or a standard treatment will produce good results. New treatments also may have unknown risks, but if a new treatment proves effective or more effective than standard treatment, study patients who receive it may be among the first to benefit.
Cancer vaccines
Considerable research effort is now devoted to the development of vaccines (to prevent infection by oncogenic infectious agents, as well as to mount an immune response against cancer-specific epitopes) and to potential venues for gene therapy for individuals with genetic mutations or polymorphisms that put them at high risk of cancer.
As of October 2005, researchers found that an experimental vaccine for HPV types 16 and 18 was 100% successful at preventing infection with these types of HPV and, thus, are able to prevent the majority of cervical cancer cases.[21]
Complementary and alternative medicine
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments are the diverse group of medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not part of conventional medicine. Oncology, the study of human cancer, has a long history of incorporating unconventional or botanical treatments into mainstream cancer therapy. Some examples of this phenomenon include the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel, which is derived from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, and ATRA, all-trans retinoic acid, a derivative of Vitamin A that induces cures in an aggressive leukemia known as acute promyelocytic leukemia. Many "complementary" and "alternative" medicines for cancer have not been studied using the scientific method, such as in well-designed clinical trials, or they have only been studied in preclinical (animal or in-vitro) laboratory studies. Many times, "complementary" and "alternative" medicines are supported by marketing materials and "testimonials" from users of the substances.
"Complementary medicine" refers to substances used along with conventional medicine, while "alternative medicine" refers to compounds used instead of conventional medicine. A study of CAM use in patients with cancer in the July 2000 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that 69 percent of 453 cancer patients had used at least one CAM therapy as part of their cancer treatment.[22]
Some complementary measures include botanical medicine, such as an NIH trial currently underway testing mistletoe extract combined with chemotherapy for the treatment of solid tumors, acupuncture for managing chemotherapy-associated nausea and vomiting and in controlling pain associated with surgery, prayer, psychological approaches such as "imaging" or meditation to aid in pain relief or improve mood.[23]
A wide range of alternative treatments have been offered for cancer over the last century. The appeal of alternative cures arises from the daunting risks, costs, or potential side effects of many conventional treatments, or in the limited prospect for cure. No alternative therapies have been shown in randomized controlled trials to effectively cure cancer by themselves, although the Journal of Urology published a study in 2005 [24] demonstrating that a consuming plant based diet and making other lifestyle changes was able to reduce cancer markers in a group of men with prostate cancer using no conventional treatments. Other (unproven) anti-cancer diets include the grape diet and the cabbage diet.
Coping with cancer
Many local organizations offer a variety of practical and support services to people with cancer. Support can take the form of support groups, counseling, advice, financial assistance, transportation to and from treatment, films or information about cancer. Neighborhood organizations, local health care providers, or area hospitals may have resources or services available.
While some people are reluctant to seek counseling, studies show that having someone to talk to reduces stress and helps people both mentally and physically. Counseling can also provide emotional support to cancer patients and help them better understand their illness. Different types of counseling include individual, group, family, self-help (sometimes called peer counseling), bereavement, patient-to-patient, and sexuality.
Many governmental and charitable organizations have been established to help patients cope with cancer. These organizations often are involved in cancer prevention, cancer treatment, and cancer research. Examples include: American Cancer Society, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Lance Armstrong Foundation, BC Cancer Agency, Macmillan Cancer Relief , the Terry Fox Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, International Agency for Research on Cancer, The Cancer Council Australia and the National Cancer Institute (US).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer
There are many types of cancer. Severity of symptoms depends on the site and character of the malignancy and whether there is metastasis. A definitive diagnosis usually requires the histologic examination of tissue by a pathologist. This tissue is obtained by biopsy or surgery. Most cancers can be treated and some cured, depending on the specific type, location, and stage. Once diagnosed, cancer is usually treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. As research develops, treatments are becoming more specific for the type of cancer pathology. Drugs that target specific cancers already exist for several types of cancer. If untreated, cancers may eventually cause illness and death, though this is not always the case.
The unregulated growth that characterizes cancer is caused by damage to DNA, resulting in mutations to genes that encode for proteins controlling cell division. Many mutation events may be required to transform a normal cell into a malignant cell. These mutations can be caused by radiation, chemicals or physical agents that cause cancer, which are called carcinogens, or by certain viruses that can insert their DNA into the human genome. Mutations occur spontaneously, and may be passed down from one cell generation to the next as a result of mutations within germ lines. However, some carcinogens also appear to work through non-mutagenic pathways that affect the level of transcription of certain genes without causing genetic mutation.
Many forms of cancer are associated with exposure to environmental factors such as tobacco smoke, radiation, alcohol, and certain viruses. Some risk factors can be avoided or reduced.
Nomenclature and classification
The following closely related terms may be used to designate abnormal growths:
Neoplasia and neoplasm are the scientific designations for cancerous diseases. This group contains a large number of different diseases. Neoplasms can be benign or malignant.
Cancer is a widely used word that is usually understood as synonymous with malignant neoplasm. It is occasionally used instead of carcinoma, a sub-group of malignant neoplasms. Because of its overwhelming popularity relative to 'neoplasia', it is used frequently instead of 'neoplasia', even by scientists and physicians, especially when discussing neoplastic diseases as a group.
Tumor in medical language simply means swelling or lump, either neoplastic, inflammatory or other. In common language, however, it is synonymous with 'neoplasm', either benign or malignant. This is inaccurate since some neoplasms do not usually form tumors, for example leukemia or carcinoma in situ.
Paraneoplasia is a disturbance associated with a neoplasm but not related to the invasion of the primary or a secondary (metastatic) tumour. Disturbances can be hormonal, neurological, hematological, biochemical or otherwise clinical.
Cancers are classified by the type of cell that resembles the tumor and, therefore, the tissue presumed to be the origin of the tumor. The following general categories are usually accepted:
Carcinoma: malignant tumors derived from epithelial cells. This group represents the most common cancers, including the common forms of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer.
Lymphoma and Leukemia: malignant tumors derived from blood and bone marrow cells
Sarcoma: malignant tumors derived from connective tissue, or mesenchymal cells
Mesothelioma: tumors derived from the mesothelial cells lining the peritoneum and the pleura.
Glioma: tumors derived from glia, the most common type of brain cell
Germinoma: tumors derived from germ cells, normally found in the testicle and ovary
Choriocarcinoma: malignant tumors derived from the placenta
Malignant tumors are usually named using the Latin or Greek root of the organ as a prefix and the above category name as the suffix. For instance, a malignant tumor of liver cells is called hepatocarcinoma; a malignant tumor of the fat cells is called liposarcoma. For common cancers, the English organ name is used. For instance, the most common type of breast cancer is called ductal carcinoma of the breast or mammary ductal carcinoma. Here, the adjective ductal refers to the appearance of the cancer under the microscope, resembling normal breast ducts.
Benign tumors are named using -oma as a suffix with the organ name as the root. For instance, a benign tumor of the smooth muscle of the uterus is called leiomyoma (the common name of this frequent tumor is fibroid).
Adult cancers
In the USA and other developed countries, cancer is presently responsible for about 25% of all deaths.[3] On a yearly basis, 0.5% of the population is diagnosed with cancer.
The statistics below are for adults in the United States, and will vary substantially in other countries:
Male
Female
most common
cause of death[3]
most common
cause of death[3]
prostate cancer (33%)
lung cancer (31%)
breast cancer (32%)
lung cancer (27%)
lung cancer (13%)
prostate cancer (10%)
lung cancer (12%)
breast cancer (15%)
colorectal cancer (10%)
colorectal cancer (10%)
colorectal cancer (11%)
colorectal cancer (10%)
bladder cancer (7%)
pancreatic cancer (5%)
endometrial cancer (6%)
ovarian cancer (6%)
cutaneous melanoma (5%)
leukemia (4%)
non-Hodgkin lymphoma (4%)
pancreatic cancer (6%)
Childhood cancers
Cancer can also occur in young children and adolescents, but it is rare. Some studies have concluded that pediatric cancers, especially leukemia, are on an upward trend.[4][5]
The age of peak incidence of cancer in children occurs during the first year of life. Leukemia (usually ALL) is the most common infant malignancy (30%), followed by the central nervous system cancers and neuroblastoma. The remainder consists of Wilms' tumor, lymphomas, rhabdomyosarcoma (arising from muscle), retinoblastoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma.[3]
Female and male infants have essentially the same overall cancer incidence rates, but white infants have substantially higher cancer rates than black infants for most cancer types. Relative survival for infants is very good for neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor and retinoblastoma, and fairly good (80%) for leukemia, but not for most other types of cancer.
Epidemiology
Cancer epidemiology is the study of the incidence of cancer as a way to infer possible trends and causes. The first such cause of cancer was identified by British surgeon Percivall Pott, who discovered in 1775 that cancer of the scrotum was a common disease among chimney sweeps. The work of other individual physicians led to various insights, but when physicians started working together they could make firmer conclusions.
A founding paper of this discipline was the work of Janet Lane-Claypon, who published a comparative study in 1926 of 500 breast cancer cases and 500 control patients of the same background and lifestyle for the British Ministry of Health. Her ground-breaking work on cancer epidemiology was carried on by Richard Doll and Austin Bradford Hill, who published "Lung Cancer and Other Causes of Death In Relation to Smoking. A Second Report on the Mortality of British Doctors" followed in 1956 (otherwise known as the British doctors study). Richard Doll left the London Medical Research Center (MRC), to start the Oxford unit for Cancer epidemiology in 1968. With the use of computers, the unit was the first to compile large amounts of cancer data. Modern epidemiological methods are closely linked to current concepts of disease and public health policy. Over the past 50 years, great efforts have been spent on gathering data across medical practise, hospital, provincial, state, and even country boundaries, as a way to study the interdependence of environmental and cultural factors on cancer incidence.
The biggest problem facing cancer epidemiology today is the changing concept of 'cancer incidence'. For example, a breast cancer tumor with a very slow growth rate may be found with a mammogram at 50 years, while the same tumor may have been found as a noteworthy 'lump' at 70 years, depending on the specific growth factors affecting that particular patient's case. As diagnostic tools improve, this has a direct impact on the epidemiological data.
In some Western countries, such as the USA,[3] and the UK[13] cancer is overtaking cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death. In many Third World countries cancer incidence (insofar as this can be measured) appears much lower, most likely because of the higher death rates due to infectious disease or injury. With the increased control over malaria and tuberculosis in some Third World countries, incidence of cancer is expected to rise; this is termed the epidemiologic transition in epidemiological terminology.
Cancer epidemiology closely mirrors risk factor spread in various countries. Hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) is rare in the West but is the main cancer in China and neighboring countries, most likely due to the endemic presence of hepatitis B and aflatoxin in that population. Similarly, with tobacco smoking becoming more common in various Third World countries, lung cancer incidence has increased in a parallel fashion.
Prevention
Cancer prevention is defined as active measures to decrease the incidence of cancer. This can be accomplished by avoiding carcinogens or altering their metabolism, pursuing a lifestyle or diet that modifies cancer-causing factors and/or medical intervention (chemoprevention, treatment of pre-malignant lesions).
Much of the promise for cancer prevention comes from observational epidemiologic studies that show associations between modifiable life style factors or environmental exposures and specific cancers. Evidence is now emerging from randomized controlled trials designed to test whether interventions suggested by the epidemiologic studies, as well as leads based on laboratory research, actually result in reduced cancer incidence and mortality.
Examples of modifiable cancer risk include alcohol consumption (associated with increased risk of oral, esophageal, breast, and other cancers), smoking (although 20% of women with lung cancer have never smoked, versus 10% of men[14]), physical inactivity (associated with increased risk of colon, breast, and possibly other cancers), and being overweight (associated with colon, breast, endometrial, and possibly other cancers). Based on epidemiologic evidence, it is now thought that avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, being physically active, and maintaining recommended body weight may all contribute to reductions in risk of certain cancers; however, compared with tobacco exposure, the magnitude of effect is modest or small and the strength of evidence is often weaker. Other lifestyle and environmental factors known to affect cancer risk (either beneficially or detrimentally) include certain sexually transmitted diseases, the use of exogenous hormones, exposure to ionizing radiation and ultraviolet radiation, certain occupational and chemical exposures, and infectious agents.
See alcohol and cancer for more on that topic.
Diet and cancer
The consensus on diet and cancer is that obesity increases the risk of developing cancer. Particular dietary practices often explain differences in cancer incidence in different countries (e.g. gastric cancer is more common in Japan, while colon cancer is more common in the United States). Studies have shown that immigrants develop the risk of their new country, suggesting a link between diet and cancer rather than a genetic basis.[citation needed]
Despite frequent reports of particular substances (including foods) having a beneficial or detrimental effect on cancer risk, few of these have an established link to cancer. These reports are often based on studies in cultured cell media or animals. Public health recommendations cannot be made on the basis of these studies until they have been validated in an observational (or occasionally a prospective interventional) trial in humans.
The case of beta-carotene provides an example of the necessity of randomized clinical trials. Epidemiologists studying both diet and serum levels observed that high levels of beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A, were associated with a protective effect, reducing the risk of cancer. This effect was particularly strong in lung cancer. This hypothesis led to a series of large randomized trials conducted in both Finland and the United States (CARET study) during the 1980s and 1990s. This study provided about 80,000 smokers or former smokers with daily supplements of beta-carotene or placebos. Contrary to expectation, these tests found no benefit of beta-carotene supplementation in reducing lung cancer incidence and mortality. In fact, the risk of lung cancer was slightly, but not significantly, increased by beta-carotene, leading to an early termination of the study.[15]
Other chemoprevention agents
Daily use of tamoxifen, a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), typically for 5 years, has been demonstrated to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer in high-risk women by about 50%. A recent study reported that the selective estrogen receptor modulator raloxifene has similar benefits to tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer in high-risk women, with a more favorable side effect profile. [16]
Finasteride, a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, has been shown to lower the risk of prostate cancer, though it seems to mostly prevent low-grade tumors. [17] The effect of COX-2 inhibitors such as rofecoxib and celecoxib upon the risk of colon polyps have been studied in familial adenomatous polyposis patients [18] and in the general population. [19][20] In both groups, there were significant reductions in colon polyp incidence, but this came at the price of increased cardiovascular toxicity.
Genetic testing
Genetic testing for high-risk individuals is already available for certain cancer-related genetic mutations. Carriers of genetic mutations that increase risk for cancer incidence can undergo enhanced surveillance, chemoprevention, or risk-reducing surgery.
Gene
Cancer types
Availability
BRCA1, BRCA2
Breast, ovarian, pancreatic
Commercially available for clinical specimens
MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, PMS, PMS2
Colon, uterine, small bowel, stomach, urinary tract
Commercially available for clinical specimens
Diagnosing cancer
Most cancers are initially recognized either because signs or symptoms appear or through screening. Neither of these lead to a definitive diagnosis, which usually requires the opinion of a pathologist.
Signs and symptoms
Roughly, cancer symptoms can be divided into three groups:
Local symptoms: unusual lumps or swelling (tumor), hemorrhage (bleeding), pain and/or ulceration. Compression of surrounding tissues may cause symptoms such as jaundice.
Symptoms of metastasis (spreading): enlarged lymph nodes, cough and hemoptysis, hepatomegaly (enlarged liver), bone pain, fracture of affected bones and neurological symptoms. Although advanced cancer may cause pain, it is often not the first symptom.
Systemic symptoms: weight loss, poor appetite and cachexia (wasting), excessive sweating (night sweats), anemia and specific paraneoplastic phenomena, i.e. specific conditions that are due to an active cancer, such as thrombosis or hormonal changes.
Every single item in the above list can be caused by a variety of conditions (a list of which is referred to as the differential diagnosis). Cancer may be a common or uncommon cause of each item.
Biopsy
A cancer may be suspected for a variety of reasons, but the definitive diagnosis of most malignancies must be confirmed by histological examination of the cancerous cells by a pathologist. Tissue can be obtained from a biopsy or surgery. Many biopsies (such as those of the skin, breast or liver) can be done in a doctor's office. Biopsies of other organs are performed under anesthesia and require surgery in an operating room.
The tissue diagnosis indicates the type of cell that is proliferating, its histological grade and other features of the tumor. Together, this information is useful to evaluate the prognosis of this patient and choose the best treatment. Cytogenetics and immunohistochemistry may provide information about future behavior of the cancer (prognosis) and best treatment.
Screening
Cancer screening is an attempt to detect unsuspected cancers in the population. Screening tests suitable for large numbers of healthy people must be relatively affordable, safe, noninvasive procedures with acceptably low rates of false positive results. If signs of cancer are detected, more definitive and invasive follow up tests are performed to confirm the diagnosis.
Screening for cancer can lead to earlier diagnosis. Early diagnosis may lead to extended life. A number of different screening tests have been developed. Breast cancer screening can be done by breast self-examination. Screening by regular mammograms detects tumors even earlier than self-examination, and many countries use it to systematically screen all middle-aged women. Colorectal cancer can be detected through fecal occult blood testing and colonoscopy, which reduces both colon cancer incidence and mortality, presumably through the detection and removal of pre-malignant polyps. Similarly, cervical cytology testing (using the Pap smear) leads to the identification and excision of precancerous lesions. Over time, such testing has been followed by a dramatic reduction of cervical cancer incidence and mortality. Testicular self-examination is recommended for men beginning at the age of 15 years to detect testicular cancer. Prostate cancer can be screened for by a digital rectal exam along with prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood testing.
Screening for cancer is controversial in cases when it is not yet known if the test actually saves lives. The controversy arises when it is not clear if the benefits of screening outweigh the risks of follow-up diagnostic tests and cancer treatments. For example: when screening for prostate cancer, the PSA test may detect small cancers that would never become life threatening, but once detected will lead to treatment. This situation, called overdiagnosis, puts men at risk for complications from unnecessary treatment such as surgery or radiation. Follow up procedures used to diagnose prostate cancer (prostate biopsy) may cause side effects, including bleeding and infection. Prostate cancer treatment may cause incontinence (inability to control urine flow) and erectile dysfunction (erections inadequate for intercourse). Similarly, for breast cancer, there have recently been criticisms that breast screening programs in some countries cause more problems than they solve. This is because screening of women in the general population will result in a large number of women with false positive results which require extensive follow-up investigations to exclude cancer, leading to having a high number-to-treat (or number-to-screen) to prevent or catch a single case of breast cancer early.
Cervical cancer screening via the Pap smear has the best cost-benefit profile of all the forms of cancer screening from a public health perspective as, being largely caused by a virus, it has clear risk factors (sexual contact), and the natural progression of cervical cancer is that it normally spreads slowly over a number of years therefore giving more time for the screening program to catch it early. Moreover, the test itself is easy to perform and relatively cheap.
For these reasons, it is important that the benefits and risks of diagnostic procedures and treatment be taken into account when considering whether to undertake cancer screening.
Use of medical imaging to search for cancer in people without clear symptoms is similarly marred with problems. There is a significant risk of detection of what has been recently called an incidentaloma - a benign lesion that may be interpreted as a malignancy and be subjected to potentially dangerous investigations.
Canine cancer detection has shown promise, but is still in the early stages of research.
Treatment of cancer
Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, monoclonal antibody therapy or other methods. The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status). A number of experimental cancer treatments are also under development.
Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body is the goal of treatment. Sometimes this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness. The effectiveness of chemotherapy is often limited by toxicity to other tissues in the body. Radiation can also cause damage to normal tissue.
Because "cancer" refers to a class of diseases, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single "cure for cancer" any more than there will be a single treatment for all infectious diseases.
Surgery
In theory, cancers can be cured if entirely removed by surgery, but this is not always possible. When the cancer has metastasized to other sites in the body prior to surgery, complete surgical excision is usually impossible.
Examples of surgical procedures for cancer include mastectomy for breast cancer and prostatectomy for prostate cancer. The goal of the surgery can be either the removal of only the tumor, or the entire organ. A single cancer cell is invisible to the naked eye but can regrow into a new tumor, a process called recurrence. For this reason, the pathologist will examine the surgical specimen to determine if a margin of healthy tissue is present, thus decreasing the chance that microscopic cancer cells are left in the patient.
In addition to removal of the primary tumor, surgery is often necessary for staging, e.g. determining the extent of the disease and whether it has metastasized to regional lymph nodes. Staging is a major determinant of prognosis and of the need for adjuvant therapy.
Occasionally, surgery is necessary to control symptoms, such as spinal cord compression or bowel obstruction. This is referred to as palliative treatment.
Chemotherapy
Main article: Chemotherapy
See also: History of cancer chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with drugs ("anticancer drugs") that can destroy cancer cells. It interferes with cell division in various possible ways, e.g. with the duplication of DNA or the separation of newly formed chromosomes. Most forms of chemotherapy target all rapidly dividing cells and are not specific for cancer cells. Hence, chemotherapy has the potential to harm healthy tissue, especially those tissues that have a high replacement rate (e.g. intestinal lining). These cells usually repair themselves after chemotherapy.
Because some drugs work better together than alone, two or more drugs are often given at the same time. This is called "combination chemotherapy"; most chemotherapy regimens are given in a combination.
The treatment of some leukaemias and lymphomas requires the use of high-dose chemotherapy, and total body irradiation (TBI). This treatment ablates the bone marrow, and hence the body's ability to recover and repopulate the blood. For this reason, bone marrow, or peripheral blood stem cell harvesting is carried out before the ablative part of the therapy, to enable "rescue" after the treatment has been given. This is known as autologous transplantation. Alternatively, bone marrow may be transplanted from a matched unrelated donor (MUD).
Monoclonal antibody therapy
Main article: Monoclonal antibody therapy
Immunotherapy is the use of immune mechanisms against tumors. These are used in various forms of cancer, such as breast cancer (trastuzumab/Herceptin®) and leukemia (gemtuzumab ozogamicin/Mylotarg®). The agents are monoclonal antibodies directed against proteins that are characteristic to the cells of the cancer in question, or cytokines that modulate the immune system's response.
Immunotherapy
Main article: Cancer immunotherapy
Other, more contemporary methods for generating non-specific immune response against tumours include intravesical BCG immunotherapy for superficial bladder cancer, and use of interferon and interleukin. Vaccines to generate non-specific immune responses are the subject of intensive research for a number of tumours, notably malignant melanoma and renal cell carcinoma.
Radiation therapy
Main article: Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy (also called radiotherapy, X-ray therapy, or irradiation) is the use of ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Radiation therapy can be administered externally via external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) or internally via brachytherapy. The effects of radiation therapy are localised and confined to the region being treated. Radiation therapy injures or destroys cells in the area being treated (the "target tissue") by damaging their genetic material, making it impossible for these cells to continue to grow and divide. Although radiation damages both cancer cells and normal cells, most normal cells can recover from the effects of radiation and function properly. The goal of radiation therapy is to damage as many cancer cells as possible, while limiting harm to nearby healthy tissue. Hence, it is given in many fractions, allowing healthy tissue to recover between fractions.
Radiation therapy may be used to treat almost every type of solid tumor, including cancers of the brain, breast, cervix, larynx, lung, pancreas, prostate, skin, stomach, uterus, or soft tissue sarcomas. Radiation is also used to treat leukemia and lymphoma. Radiation dose to each site depends on a number of factors, including the radiosensitivity of each cancer type and whether there are tissues and organs nearby that may be damaged by radiation. Thus, as with every form of treatment, radiation therapy is not without its side effects.
Hormonal suppression
The growth of some cancers can be inhibited by providing or blocking certain hormones. Common examples of hormone-sensitive tumors include certain types of breast and prostate cancers. Removing or blocking estrogen or testosterone is often an important additional treatment.
Symptom control
Although the control of the symptoms of cancer is not typically thought of as a treatment directed at the cancer, it is an important determinant of the quality of life of cancer patients, and plays an important role in the decision whether the patient is able to undergo other treatments. Although all practicing doctors have the therapeutic skills to control pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhage and other common problems in cancer patients, the multidisciplinary specialty of palliative care has arisen specifically in response to the symptom control needs of this group of patients.
Pain medication, such as morphine and oxycodone, and antiemetics, drugs to suppress nausea and vomiting, are very commonly used in patients with cancer-related symptoms.
Chronic pain due to cancer is almost always associated with continuing tissue damage due to the disease process or the treatment (i.e. surgery, radiation, chemotherapy). Although there is always a role for environmental factors and affective disturbances in the genesis of pain behaviors, these are not usually the predominant etiologic factors in patients with cancer pain. Furthermore, many patients with severe pain associated with cancer are nearing the end of their lives and palliative therapies are required. Issues such as social stigma of using opioids, work and functional status, and health care consumption are not likely to be important in the overall case management. Hence, the typical strategy for cancer pain management is to get the patient as comfortable as possible using opioids and other medications, surgery, and physical measures.
Treatment trials
Clinical trials, also called research studies, test new treatments in people with cancer. The goal of this research is to find better ways to treat cancer and help cancer patients. Clinical trials test many types of treatment such as new drugs, new approaches to surgery or radiation therapy, new combinations of treatments, or new methods such as gene therapy.
A clinical trial is one of the final stages of a long and careful cancer research process. The search for new treatments begins in the laboratory, where scientists first develop and test new ideas. If an approach seems promising, the next step may be testing a treatment in animals to see how it affects cancer in a living being and whether it has harmful effects. Of course, treatments that work well in the lab or in animals do not always work well in people. Studies are done with cancer patients to find out whether promising treatments are safe and effective.
Patients who take part may be helped personally by the treatment(s) they receive. They get up-to-date care from cancer experts, and they receive either a new treatment being tested or the best available standard treatment for their cancer. Of course, there is no guarantee that a new treatment being tested or a standard treatment will produce good results. New treatments also may have unknown risks, but if a new treatment proves effective or more effective than standard treatment, study patients who receive it may be among the first to benefit.
Cancer vaccines
Considerable research effort is now devoted to the development of vaccines (to prevent infection by oncogenic infectious agents, as well as to mount an immune response against cancer-specific epitopes) and to potential venues for gene therapy for individuals with genetic mutations or polymorphisms that put them at high risk of cancer.
As of October 2005, researchers found that an experimental vaccine for HPV types 16 and 18 was 100% successful at preventing infection with these types of HPV and, thus, are able to prevent the majority of cervical cancer cases.[21]
Complementary and alternative medicine
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments are the diverse group of medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not part of conventional medicine. Oncology, the study of human cancer, has a long history of incorporating unconventional or botanical treatments into mainstream cancer therapy. Some examples of this phenomenon include the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel, which is derived from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, and ATRA, all-trans retinoic acid, a derivative of Vitamin A that induces cures in an aggressive leukemia known as acute promyelocytic leukemia. Many "complementary" and "alternative" medicines for cancer have not been studied using the scientific method, such as in well-designed clinical trials, or they have only been studied in preclinical (animal or in-vitro) laboratory studies. Many times, "complementary" and "alternative" medicines are supported by marketing materials and "testimonials" from users of the substances.
"Complementary medicine" refers to substances used along with conventional medicine, while "alternative medicine" refers to compounds used instead of conventional medicine. A study of CAM use in patients with cancer in the July 2000 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that 69 percent of 453 cancer patients had used at least one CAM therapy as part of their cancer treatment.[22]
Some complementary measures include botanical medicine, such as an NIH trial currently underway testing mistletoe extract combined with chemotherapy for the treatment of solid tumors, acupuncture for managing chemotherapy-associated nausea and vomiting and in controlling pain associated with surgery, prayer, psychological approaches such as "imaging" or meditation to aid in pain relief or improve mood.[23]
A wide range of alternative treatments have been offered for cancer over the last century. The appeal of alternative cures arises from the daunting risks, costs, or potential side effects of many conventional treatments, or in the limited prospect for cure. No alternative therapies have been shown in randomized controlled trials to effectively cure cancer by themselves, although the Journal of Urology published a study in 2005 [24] demonstrating that a consuming plant based diet and making other lifestyle changes was able to reduce cancer markers in a group of men with prostate cancer using no conventional treatments. Other (unproven) anti-cancer diets include the grape diet and the cabbage diet.
Coping with cancer
Many local organizations offer a variety of practical and support services to people with cancer. Support can take the form of support groups, counseling, advice, financial assistance, transportation to and from treatment, films or information about cancer. Neighborhood organizations, local health care providers, or area hospitals may have resources or services available.
While some people are reluctant to seek counseling, studies show that having someone to talk to reduces stress and helps people both mentally and physically. Counseling can also provide emotional support to cancer patients and help them better understand their illness. Different types of counseling include individual, group, family, self-help (sometimes called peer counseling), bereavement, patient-to-patient, and sexuality.
Many governmental and charitable organizations have been established to help patients cope with cancer. These organizations often are involved in cancer prevention, cancer treatment, and cancer research. Examples include: American Cancer Society, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Lance Armstrong Foundation, BC Cancer Agency, Macmillan Cancer Relief , the Terry Fox Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Foundation, Canadian Cancer Society, International Agency for Research on Cancer, The Cancer Council Australia and the National Cancer Institute (US).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer
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