Virus to blame for rise in throat cancer: study | The Raw Story

By Reuters
Tuesday, October 4, 2011

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(Reuters) ? Cancer of the back of the mouth and throat is on the rise, primarily because of more cases stemming from a viral infection called human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a U.S. study.

The number of people who were diagnosed with HPV-related oral cancer in 2004 was triple the number diagnosed in 1988 ? due largely, researchers suspect, to changes in sexual behavior that have helped spread the virus.

HPV is a very common sexually transmitted infection that can cause genital warts and certain cancers, including of the cervix, anus and penis.

?The whole relationship between HPV-related head and neck cancer completely changes our ideas of who is at risk, how to treat the cancer, the prognostics of the cancer, and prevention,? said Maura Gillison, at the Ohio State University, who led the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Gillison and her colleagues examined oral cancer tissue collected from 271 patients over a 20-year period.

The type of cancer they examined, called oropharyngeal, originates in the back of the tongue, the soft part of the roof of the mouth, the tonsils, or the side of the throat.

They checked the samples for evidence of HPV infection and found that the HPV-related cases became more and more common each decade, while those samples that didn?t test positive for the virus became less common.

From these results, they estimate that HPV-related oral cancers afflict 26 out of every million people in the United States, compared to eight out of every million people in 1988.

Tina Dalianis, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who did not take part in the study, said she believes the increase in oral cancers ?is due to an HPV epidemic.?

?We believe sexual habits have changed, and that there is an increase in sexual activity earlier on in life, with an exchange of many more sex partners in general,? she wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

The current study confirms what Dalianis had found previously in Sweden ? that HPV-related oral cancers were becoming the dominant form of the disease.

Previously, tobacco had been the primary cause of oral cancer, and most oral cancer cases were HPV-negative.

Gillison?s group found that HPV-negative cancers have been cut in half since the 1980s. HPV-positive cases, which had made up just 16 percent of oral cancer cases in the 1980s, comprised more than 70 percent in the 2000s.

The good news is that people diagnosed with the HPV-positive form of the cancer have a better prognosis, and the cancer is more responsive to treatment, Gillison said.

There is also a potential opportunity for prevention using an HPV vaccine that is approved to prevent cervical and anal cancer, she said. If the vaccine can prevent these HPV-caused cancers, perhaps it can work for oropharyngeal cancers too.

Gillison and her colleagues have received research funds or consulting jobs through the companies that sell HPV vaccines, and one of the companies is a financial contributor to an organization that helped fund the study.

The vaccines are not proven to prevent oral cancer, and Gillison said it will be important to test whether they are effective for this increasingly common form. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/gPtMdm

(Reporting from New York by Kerry Grens at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Mochila insert follows.

Reuters

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Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/04/virus-to-blame-for-rise-in-throat-cancer-study/

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Counseling Psychology: Helping Those that have Substance Abuse ...

According to the World Health Organization, substance abuse ?refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs which leads to a dependence syndrome that develop after repeated substance use and that typically include a strong desire to take the drug, difficulties in controlling its use, persistence in usage despite consequence, priorities such an activity over other daily needs and increased tolerance?. This simply means that substance abuse is addiction.

Based on statistics, alcohol abuse results to 2.5 million deaths per year; 15.3 million have drug use disorders, 120 out of 148 report HIV infection due to injecting of drugs. This numbers are very alarming. The good thing though is that when a case for this abuse is made, a substance abuse counselor gets in the picture and helps the fallen victim get back to normal.

Their main role is to aid in assessing those abusers and to help them go to the right services for their rehabilitation. Naturally, they advocate substance abuse prevention and they are willing to help those who are crying out for help when the addiction has taken its toll. It is natural that they would support the campaign on substance abuse prevention and will vigorously promote that. The job of a substance abuse counselor is very tough because not only are they going to handle unstable clients but they are also exposed to other diseases that can be found in the clients. But if they are dedicated, then they will only find these things as risks and challenges.

So what are the things to do in order to become a substance abuse counselor? The first is to go to school more specifically in the field of sociology or psychology to better understand the disorder of substance abuse and many other pertinent things. You should also then volunteer in treatments centers and clinics to obtain some experience and get the ropes in counseling. The other thing to do is to make sure that you know how to handle stress and have total control of your mental state because the job can be mentally tiring. To ensure health in that area, make sure that you have a good support system and also that you find ways to relax.

It is also important that you obtain a substance abuse counselor certification because it is a requirement for some states and so that you have a greater chance to get hired. So be sure to talk about it from the Certification Board of Addiction Professionals and find out how to do it.

It is not easy to be a substance abuse counselor. It has its hazards and risks and has many challenges. Plenty of patience and understanding is also needed. But the reward is just worth it.

If you would like to know more about Substance Abuse Counselor, just visit us, substance abuse counselor certification.

Source: http://articlesobsessed.com/health-fitness/counseling-psychology-helping-those-that-have-substance-abuse

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Samsung grows ever bigger, but icon status elusive (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea ? If you own a consumer electronics gadget, there's a good chance something from Samsung makes it tick.

The company has traveled far from its roots as a seller of cheap appliances in the 1970s and 1980s when South Korean products were more likely to be panned than praised internationally.

Over those decades it has grown to become the world's biggest manufacturer of memory chips and LCDs ? key components that let PCs, digital music players and smartphones store data and display it on flat, high-resolution screens. And they are inside the company's own finished consumer products such as its top selling TVs and No. 2-ranked smartphones.

But Samsung still has a perception problem. It may be massive and its products known for high quality, but it has yet to mesmerize consumers. The idea the company is a follower, not a leader, risks being cemented by the global intellectual property battle that was ignited when Apple Inc. began legal action in April against Samung for what it says is uninhibited copying of its iPhone and iPad designs.

Sue Chung is someone Samsung should be winning over. Young, Korean and studying for grad school, she uses Apple's iPhone for reasons including ease of use and a positive feeling about its maker.

"The image is very important," she said, sitting in a Seoul coffee shop. "Apple's image is very free and more open."

Within South Korea ? a searingly ambitious nation that obsesses over its international standings in anything measurable ? pride in Samsung's achievements is leavened by comparisons with Apple and its quarter century of game-changing products such as the Macintosh computer and iPhone.

If Samsung Electronics Co. is to live up to the vaulting ambitions of its homeland and its top executives, many feel it must move beyond being a highly efficient imitator to creating products so original and seductive in function and design they become icons of consumer culture. Being big alone no longer cuts it.

Illustrating Samsung's heft, its net profit last year was more than five times the combined earnings of Japanese rivals Panasonic Corp., Sharp Corp., Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and loss-making Sony Corp. Total sales in 2010 came to a company record of 154.6 trillion won ($136.6 billion), making Samsung the world's biggest technology company by sales.

Yet even bigger dividends can come from vision such as that possessed by Apple's Steve Jobs or Akio Morita, the late co-founder of Sony, which popularized music-on-the-go with the 1979 introduction of its Walkman music player.

Apple has a market capitalization of about $350 billion, while Samsung, which has seen its share price slump 11 percent this year, is worth much less ? about $105 billion.

Tony Michell, a Seoul-based business consultant and author of a book on Samsung, said that the company's dilemma is how to take advantage of its deep well of domestic brainpower.

"Koreans are immensely creative but their traditional culture of hierarchy doesn't let them be creative," he said. "And so Samsung has this problem that it has at the moment: a heavy cultural conservatism which is preventing full creativity."

The intellectual property battle under way with Apple has highlighted one of the perils of playing catch-up.

The Cupertino, California-based Apple, which spurred the smartphone boom with the launch of its iPhone in 2007, slammed Samsung in April by filing a lawsuit in the United States alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of its Android-based Galaxy brand of products "slavishly copy" the iPhone and iPad.

Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung, which supplies key components such as chips to Apple for its smart devices, has fought back with lawsuits accusing the U.S. company of violating its patents. The battle is playing out in 10 countries, according to Samsung, including the United States and South Korea.

A German court recently ruled in Apple's favor and banned direct sales of Samsung's new Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer, saying it "did not keep the necessary distance" from the iPad 2 in its design, the news agency dapd reported. A court ruling in Australia on Apple's request to stop sales of the same tablet in that country is expected this week.

Samsung, meanwhile, has asked a Dutch court to prevent Apple from selling iPhones and iPads in the Netherlands, saying the U.S. company does not have licenses to use Samsung-patented 3G mobile technology in the devices.

A development sometimes overlooked amid the arguments over intellectual property is that Samsung, fueled by the Galaxy brand, is gaining fast in the rush to woo global smartphone consumers after a late start.

The company ranked No. 2 globally in smartphones behind Apple in the second quarter of this year, according to U.S.-based market research firm IDC, which cited the growing global popularity of the Galaxy S.

Apple shipped 20.3 million iPhones for a market share of 19.1 percent, while Samsung's results were 17.3 million smartphones and 16.2 percent market share.

Samsung and other manufacturers, however, are far behind Apple in tablets, where the U.S. company controlled 80 percent of the North American market in the second quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

Song Jaeyong, a professor of strategy and international management at Seoul National University Business School, says Samsung has excelled by being a "fast follower" ? imitating or licensing technologies and then competing by lowering costs, improving quality and adding functions.

The company should "hire more outsiders and outcast figures" to spur "creative innovation," said Song, who co-authored a recent study of the company that appeared in the Harvard Business Review.

To be sure, Samsung has made efforts to bring in outsiders, with powerful Chairman Lee Kun-hee repeatedly urging creativity.

"Samsung actually is a great employer of foreigners at all levels," said Michell, the consultant and author. "But the Korean voice doesn't listen to the foreigners working inside enough."

American Michael Kim can attest to that. He says he was recruited to work at Samsung and did so in 2008 and 2009, serving as a senior manager in the semiconductor business.

"People at the top of Samsung want the company to become more innovative and not be perceived as the imitator that it has been perceived as for so long" but a rigid corporate culture works against that, he said.

"They would tell us that they want us to be change agents and that they want us to try to fix whatever we see that needs fixing," said Kim. "You're appreciated until you actually try to start changing things."

Kim said a hope for the company could be when the current crop of smart, talented younger engineers, who he says are discouraged from speaking up, advance into middle management where they can wield more influence.

Samsung disputed Kim's remarks, saying they "do not represent the views of former and current employees."

Lee Younghee, a senior vice president and chief of global marketing for mobile communications, the division that includes smartphones and tablets, concedes that if the definition of creativity is limited to Apple or Sony, then Samsung has lagged. But that is just part of the story, she says.

"Samsung has been leading," she said in an interview, referring to innovations in areas such as wireless communications technology, where it owns numerous patents. "Isn't that innovation?"

Ultimately, she said, the question of creativity will be judged by consumers.

"I think the market is fair and consumers are very fair," she said. "Consumers know what they want, they know what's the best. I think the consumer will answer to this."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111003/ap_on_hi_te/as_skorea_surging_samsung

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[OOC] Unbound

RolePlayGateway is proudly powered by obscene amounts of caffeine, duct tape, Wordpress, Moodle, phpBB, AJAX Chat, Mantis, and the efforts of many dedicated writers and roleplayers. It operates under a "don't like it, suggest an improvement" platform, and we gladly take suggestions for improvements or changes.

The custom-built "roleplay" system was designed and implemented by Eric Martindale as of July 2009. All attempts to replicate or otherwise emulate this system and its method of organizing roleplay are strictly prohibited without his express written and contractual permission; violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

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Census: Hispanics fuel US white population growth (AP)

WASHINGTON ? In a twist to notions of race identity, new 2010 census figures show an unexpected reason behind a renewed growth in the U.S. white population: more Hispanics listing themselves as white in the once-a-decade government count.

The shift is due to recent census changes that emphasize "Hispanic" as an ethnicity, not a race. While the U.S. government first made this distinction in 1980, many Latinos continued to use the "some other race" box to establish a Hispanic identity. In a switch, the 2010 census forms specifically instructed Latinos that Hispanic origins are not races and to select a recognized category such as white or black.

The result: a 6 percent increase in white Americans as tallied by the census, even though there was little change among non-Hispanic whites. In all, the number of people in the "white alone" category jumped by 12.1 million over the last decade to 223.6 million. Based on that definition, whites now represent 72 percent of the U.S. population and account for nearly half of the total population increase since 2000.

Broken down by state, California and Texas were home to nearly half of Hispanics who identified as white, followed by Florida and New York. Together, these four states comprised nearly two-thirds of the "white alone" population who were Hispanic. Overall, Hialeah, Fla.; Fargo, N.D.; Arvada, Colo.; Billings, Mont., and Scottsdale, Ariz., posted the highest shares in the "white alone" category, at roughly 90 percent or more.

"The white population has become more diverse as evidenced by the growth of the Hispanic white population and the multiple-race white population," including black-white and white-Asian people, according to the 2010 census analysis released Thursday.

Some demographers say the broadened white category in 2010 could lead to a notable semantic if not cultural shift in defining race and ethnicity. Due to the impact of Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing group, the Census Bureau has previously estimated that whites will become the minority in the U.S. by midcentury. That is based on a definition of whites as non-Hispanic, who are now at 196.8 million.

That could change, if the common conception of white were to shift.

"What's white in America in 1910, 2010 or even 2011 simply isn't the same," said Robert Lang, sociology professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, citing the many different groups of European immigrants in the early 20th century who later became known collectively as white. He notes today that could mean a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in upstate New York or Jews and Italians in the lowest East side of Manhattan.

Predicting a similar shift for Hispanics, Lang and others noted that mixed marriages are now more common between whites and Hispanics. U.S.-born Latino children of immigrants also are more likely than their parents to identify as white. "The definition of white has always been expansive," he said. "I could see the census in 2030 or 2040 dropping the differentiation between Hispanics and whites."

Roderick Harrison, a Howard University sociologist and former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, agreed that growing numbers of second- and third-generation Hispanics may lose some of their cultural identity as they become more assimilated in the U.S. "Some portion might indeed become, for most social purposes, `white,'" he said.

The latest census figures also show the number of Americans who identified themselves as partly black and partly white more than doubled to 1.8 million. For the first time, the black-white combination is the most prevalent group among multiracial Americans, making up 1 in 5 members of that subgroup. They exceed the number of multiracials who identified as being white and "some other race," composed of mostly Hispanics, as well as white-Asians and white-American Indians.

States in the South including South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama tripled their numbers of people identifying as a mix of black and white, mostly because their overall numbers are smaller. In those places, less than 3 percent of blacks identified that way ? lower than the national average of 4.5 percent.

In raw numbers, states that had the biggest increases in the black-white category were California, Florida, Texas, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Some blacks who are partly white have been reluctant to openly embrace their white background, due to a strong black identity in their communities. Historically, several states previously had a "one drop" rule that classified whites with any African blood as black.

In the 2010 census, President Barack Obama was among those who identified himself only as African-American, even though his mother was white.

"There is no question that racial lines are blurring in the United States, especially among `new' minorities ? Hispanics, Asians and growing mixed race generations. Yet it's particularly significant that we are seeing breakdowns in white-black separation," said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "Strong gains in interracial marriages and higher mixed-race identification among youth suggest that past racial categories will need to be radically changed or even dispensed with in the next two or three decades."

The share of Hispanics identifying themselves as white increased over the past decade from 48 percent to 53 percent, while the proportion of those who marked "some other race" dropped from 42 percent to 37 percent. Many Hispanics previously preferred to check the "some other race" category to express their nationalities ? such as Mexican or Cuban.

The Census Bureau has been examining different ways to count the nation's demographic groups. One experiment is a possible change to the questionnaire that would effectively treat Hispanics as a mutually exclusive group. It would allow people to check off just one of five race or ethnic categories ? white, black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander or American Indian/Alaska Native ? rather than asking people who identify themselves as Hispanic to also check what race they are.

Other findings:

_The multiple-race white population, including black-whites and white-Asians, increased by at least 8 percent in every state, with the biggest gains in the South.

_The non-Hispanic white population declined in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

_The majority of blacks, both non-Hispanic blacks and those in combination with Hispanics or other races, lived in the South. About 60 percent of their total population lived in 10 states ? New York, Florida, Texas, Georgia, California, North Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio. The biggest gains in blacks over the past decade occurred in Florida, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.

_Cities with the highest share of blacks, both non-Hispanic and in combination with others, include Detroit at 84 percent. It was followed by Jackson, Miss., Miami Gardens, Fla., and Birmingham, Ala.

___

Online:

http://www.census.gov

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110929/ap_on_go_ot/us_census_race

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Banco Popular Completes Sale of Construction and Commercial Real

September 29, 2011 05:46 PM?Eastern Daylight Time?

Popular, Inc. (Nasdaq: BPOP) announced today that Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, its principal banking subsidiary, completed the sale of a portfolio of construction and commercial real estate loans with an unpaid principal balance and net book value of approximately $358 million and approximately $148 million, respectively. The purchaser is a newly created joint venture (the ?Joint Venture?), which is majority owned by a limited liability company to be created by Goldman Sachs & Co., Caribbean Property Group LLC and East Rock Capital LLC.

?This transaction is an important step; one of several initiatives the Corporation is pursuing to continue to derisk its balance sheet.?

The loans were sold at a price essentially equal to their book value and Banco Popular will not recognize any significant gain or loss on the sale.

The following is a summary of the principal terms of the transaction:

• The purchase price for the transaction is equal to 45.3% of the unpaid principal balance of the loans as of March 31, 2011 (approximately $381 million), adjusted for certain collections and advances made after such date.
• As consideration for the sale of the loans, Banco Popular will receive approximately $48 million in cash, a note for approximately $86 million as seller financing and a 24.9% equity interest in the new Joint Venture.
• Of the $148 million in book value of loans sold, approximately $91 million, or 62%, are construction loans and approximately $57 million, or 38%, are commercial real-estate loans.
• Approximately 97% of the loans sold were classified as non-performing loans.
• Banco Popular will extend a $68.5 million advance facility to the Joint Venture to cover unfunded commitments and other costs to complete the construction projects and a $20 million working capital line of credit to fund certain expenses of the Joint Venture.
• The parties have agreed that no distributions may be made by the Joint Venture to its equity members until all the credit facilities have been paid in full and all commitments to lend terminated. In addition, any distributions by the Joint Venture to its equity members, including Banco Popular, will be made on a pro rata basis according to their proportionate interest in the entity.
• The Joint Venture will engage CPG Island Servicing LLC, an affiliate of Caribbean Property Group, as servicer of the purchased loans. At the same time, the servicer will enter into a subservicing agreement with Archon Group LP, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs, under which it will provide certain subservicing functions with respect to the purchased loans.

Richard Carri?n, Chairman and CEO of Popular, Inc., stated: ?This transaction is an important step; one of several initiatives the Corporation is pursuing to continue to derisk its balance sheet.?

Founded in 1893, Popular, Inc. is the leading banking institution by both assets and deposits in Puerto Rico and ranks 36th by assets among U.S. banks. In the United States, Popular has established a community-banking franchise providing a broad range of financial services and products with branches in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Florida and California.

See the original post:
Banco Popular Completes Sale of Construction and Commercial Real Estate Loans

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Source: http://www.enterprisecommunicate.com/banco-popular-completes-sale-of-construction-and-commercial-real-estate-loans/

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Precise Business Marketing with Audience Segmentation

Business marketing today is all about audience segmentation and value propositions. In today?s contracting economy corporate buying authorities are not going to authorize purchases unless they have a strong value proposition, and unless the functionality of the product or service supports their business plan. So, when you?re creating a business marketing campaign to penetrate a new or existing account, ?relevance? is the name of the game. There?s an old adage in sales training that people only purchase for one of two reasons:

1. Reducing their pain
2. Increasing their pleasure

In business marketing today it?s all about reducing pain. Your value propositions should be built around pain points, their negative impact, what capabilities your product or service brings to the table to alleviate the pain, and what value that creates.

At the V12 Group, business marketing means precise marketing

Business marketing is no place for ?one size fits all? marketing communications. You?ve got to go beyond segmenting your business marketing list by high-level parameters like industry, size and geographic location. You also have to segment by disciplines in the buying authority and build value propositions around the pain points for each segment.

Typically the buying authority in a B2B situation can be segmented into the technical buyer(s), the financial buyer(s) and the end user buyer(s). A separate value proposition must be developed for each because while there may be some common pain points across all three disciplines, each will have some pain points of their own that must be addressed in their language.

The more relevant you make your value propositions and messaging, i.e. the more you tailor them to a company and the individual disciplines within the buying authority, the more effective your business marketing campaigns will be.

The tools you need to tailor your business marketing

At v12 Group we provide a full range of data services for business marketing managers. Our multi-channel business database combines postal, email, and phone data, as well as more than 15+ selectors to improve targeting. This includes firmagraphic and contact level demographic data. The database has been DPV confirmed to have 99% deliverable addresses.

We also provide a full range of e-mail business marketing services. In our experience, target audience, creative call to action and campaign deployment are critical success factors in email business marketing. We test each until we identify the right approach to that element. Upon identifying the highest performing combination we market to the remainder of the target audience. The result is relevant campaigns that drive high response rates.

Contact the V12 Group to get started targeting your business prospects with pinpoint accuracy.

Related posts:

1. Audience Segmentation Drives Successful B2B Campaigns
2. Success in Business Marketing
3. Audience Segmentation Data Accumulation
4. Audience Segmentation, Key for Both Customer Acquisition and Retention
5. Audience Segmentation ? Divide and Conquer
6. Business Marketing Lists for Better Targeting
7. Data Marketing for Business to Business Programs

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Source: http://www.v12groupinc.com/marketing-data/precise-business-marketing-with-audience-segmentation/

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