Month: September 2012

The grandfather of cervical cancer prevention

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Greek medical pioneer Georgios Papanikolaou – the inventor of the Pap smear.

Every year, an immeasurable amount of women around the world engage in one of the most effective weapons they have for the fight against cervical cancer.

That weapon is a Pap smear examination – a screening that detects cervical cancer in its most early stages. Since World War II, the Pap smear examination has become the most widely used cancer screening method in the world and the test that itself can also detect pre-cancerous cells in the cervix making it an invaluable tool for cervical cancer prevention.

Thousands of women around the world owe their life to the man who invented the Pap smear – Greek pioneer Georgios Papanikolaou.

The Pap smear was named after its inventor Georgios Nicholas Papanikolaou. Born in Kymi, Greece on May 13, 1883, George Papanikolaou had three siblings.

His father, Nicholas, was a doctor.

His mother, Maria, loved music and literature. As a young man, Dr Papanikolaou went to the University of Athens in 1898 and majored in Music and Humanities.

He then followed in his father’s footsteps and attended medical school. After graduating with a perfect “A” average in 1904, Dr. Papanikolaou began his medical career in the Greek military as Assistant Surgeon.

Dr. Papanikolaou left the military in 1906 and, after a brief stint caring for patients at a leper colony in Greece, he began postgraduate study at the Zoological Institute in Munich, where he received a Ph.D. In 1914, Dr. Papanikolaou secured a position in the Anatomy Department at the Cornell University Medical School in New York. In 1920, he began his study of vaginal cytology (the study of the microscopic appearance of cells).

Over time, Dr. Papanikolaou became very familiar with the normal cytological changes that occur in cervical cells. This familiarity allowed him to make what he called one of the most thrilling experiences of his scientific career; his first discovery of cancer cells in a smear from of the uterine cervix.

Dr Papanikolaou knew malignant cancer cells could be viewed under a microscope after reading a book by Walter Hayle Walshe in 1843 regarding lung diseases.

Papanikolaou began testing the vaginal fluid of guinea pigs before he tested human women.

In 1923, he explained to an audience of physicians that smearing the vaginal fluid on a glass slide would enable the cells from the female reproductive system to be analysed.

When he began testing actual women, by chance one of the women tested positive for cervical cancer. Discovering the cervical cancer cells with the use of his procedure was a thrill for Papanikolaou and it turned out to be a medical breakthrough.

In 1928, Dr. Papanikolaou first presented his findings that uterine cancer could be diagnosed by means of vaginal smear in the paper, New Cancer Diagnosis.

Over a decade passed before the collaboration between Dr Herbert Traut, a gynaecologist and pathologist, and Dr Papanikolaou that would validate and scientifically prove the potential of the vaginal smear for the diagnosis of Cervical Cancer.

Their collaboration involved the taking regular vaginal smears of all women patients at Cornell’s Hospital. The study provided the basis of the book, Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear.

In 1943, when Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear was published, Dr. Papanikolaou’s work quickly became widely known and accepted.

The book describes the process of preparing a cervical smear and the cytologic changes that are seen as cervical cells change from normal, to pre-cancerous, to cancer.

Papanikolaou died in 1962 just before the opening of the Papanikolaou Cancer Research Institute at Miami University. He was awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in 1950. 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of this influential cytologist.

On the 130th anniversary of the birth and 50 years since the death of the outstanding Greek scientist George Papanikolaou, the Odessa branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture is holding a series of activities and events, in collaboration with the municipality of Odessa, the city’s Department of Health, and the Odessa National Medical University.

The events include a flatbed photo exhibition, titled The Great Giver of Life – George Papanikolaou (1883-1962), featuring photographs, letters and other memorabilia from the life and work of the scientist who changed women’s lives, along with the screening of a 2008 documentary, lectures, master classes and roundtable discussions.

Today, Pap smears are considered one of the most successful and effective forms of cancer screening.

The Pap smear is used to check changes in the cervix – the neck of the womb – at the top of the vagina. It is a screening tool to find early warning signs that cancer might develop in the future.

The Pap smear is a simple procedure. Cells are collected from the cervix and placed (smeared) onto a slide.

The slide is sent to a laboratory where the cells are tested for anything unusual. If abnormal changes are found at screening, further tests will be done to see if treatment is needed.

The Pap smear is not for diagnosing cancer, but rather, for finding early changes which might become cancer.

All women with a cervix who have ever had sex at some time in their life are at risk of cervical cancer.

About half the new cases of cervical cancer diagnosed each year are in women over 50 years of age. More women over 50 years of age die from cervical cancer because their cancer is diagnosed later when treatment is more difficult.

Regular Pap smears every two years can help prevent up to 90 per cent of the most common type of cervical cancer.

Source: The International Herald Tribune

Real estate listings in the South Kensington area of London. British finance authorities are poring over a list of about 400 Greek individuals who have bought and sold London properties since 2009.

Real estate agents recall sifting the listings for some of the most prestigious, and expensive, properties in South Kensington, a favored area for London’s international set.

But the supposed house hunter, Lavrentis Lavrentiadis, never pulled the trigger back in the spring of 2011, realtors say. Within months his failing institution, a small lender known as Proton Bank, was seized. The Greek government, suspecting that Mr. Lavrentiadis may have moved money out of the country, is now investigating his activities to see if he engaged in fraud and money laundering.

Greece, heavily in debt and desperate to track down money wherever it can, is leaving no stone unturned.

Mr. Lavrentiadis has denied the allegations, and his lawyer did not respond to questions about any interest his client might have had in London properties. But the Greek banker’s rumored flirtation with this city’s prime real estate market, and the frenzy it stirred among sales agents, is telling.

At the request of the Athens government, the British financial authorities recently handed over a detailed list of about 400 Greek individuals who have bought and sold London properties since 2009.

The list, closely guarded, has not been publicly revealed. But Greek officials are poring over it to determine whether the people named — who they say include prominent businessmen, bankers, shipping tycoons and professional athletes — have deceived the tax authorities by understating their wealth.

“These people have money and they are known — but it is not clear yet if they have violated any laws,” said Haris Theoharis, an official in the Greek Finance Ministry. Tax investigators have been examining the list to see if there is any overlap between those who bought London properties and those already identified as being tax cheats.

The Greek government, under pressure from its international lenders to raise €13.5 billion, or $17.4 billion, via tax increases and spending cuts, is intent on making the well-heeled share the burden. Studies have shown that the country may be forgoing as much as €30 billion a year in uncollected taxes, with a significant portion of that amount having been shipped out of the country as the affluent seek shelter from Greece’s financial storm.

This week, the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, opened an investigation into the bank accounts of more than 30 Greek politicians to determine whether they should be charged with tax evasion and the illegal accumulation of wealth. The politicians on the list included the president of the Greek Parliament, Evangelos Meimarakis, creating an embarrassing distraction for Mr. Samaras’s coalition government. Mr. Meimarakis is a former defense minister who has also been implicated in allegations of a money-laundering network said to involve two other former ministers.

But London, long a magnet for foreign real estate investors, has become a special focus for Greek officials trying to track down money that has fled the country.

Bankers say that accounts in Singapore and even in the country of Georgia have become favorite destinations for fleeing funds, more so than the traditional Swiss haven, because of those countries’ looser rules and regulations about accepting large sums of foreign money.

But while Singapore and Switzerland have been reluctant to divulge information about its Greek clientele, the British government has been more cooperative in sharing its real estate records.

There is an air of desperation to this Athens fund-raising drive, which includes leasing out empty Greek islands and even putting up for sale the former residence of the Greek consul general in the tony London neighborhood of Holland Park.

But with Greece’s membership in the euro at stake, every conceivable revenue-raising strategy is being pursued, even if it remains unclear how successful it will be.

For the better part of a century, owning a grand London home in Belgravia or Mayfair has been accepted practice for the wealthiest Greeks — ship owners in particular — looking to hedge their bets against their country’s volatile economy. Since 2008, when the country’s problems began to surface, a much broader spectrum of Greek investors has turned to London real estate.

“Greeks are panicking,” said Sandy Triantopoulou-von Croy of EPPC, a real estate firm in London that does a lot of work with Greek clients. “They just do not know what to do with their money.”

Mr. Lavrentiadis was not the only bank chief to dabble in London real estate. Theodore Pantalakis, a former chief executive of Agricultural Bank of Greece, another ailing lender, caused a stir in Athens this year when it was revealed that in 2011 he had transferred €8 million abroad with the intent to purchase a property in London. Mr. Pantalakis has said that the authorities were informed of the transaction and that the appropriate taxes were paid.

Greek money, along with wealth from China, Russia and various other countries, has kept the high end of London’s property market buoyant despite — or maybe because of — the global financial turmoil. According to research by Savills, a London-based property company, £20 billion of foreign money has been invested in prime residential real estate here since 2006.

The biggest year on record was 2011, when foreigners snapped up £5.2 billion worth of new residences. With economic uncertainty in the euro zone increasing this year, demand for these properties in 2012 shows no sign of letting up, real estate agents say.

Investors from Italy and France have been most prominent in using London properties as a hedge against the euro. But the Greek influx has been especially striking.

Officials in Greece examining these transactions estimate that about 250 Greeks invested over £100 million in prime London residences in 2009 and 2010, according to records collected with the assistance of the British government. As the crisis grew worse last year and this year, government officials say it is likely that the inflows increased.

Not everyone, of course, was looking for a £60 million manse as Mr. Lavrentiadis was said to have done. Even in London, with its enclaves of billionaire oligarchs and sheiks, such requests do not frequently roll around.

Ms. von Croy says that the average asking price from her Greek clients is about £1.5 million, which is still a significant enough barometer of wealth to attract the attention of the Greek tax authorities.

Experts say it is not only high rollers looking to make a splash. Many of the recent buyers hail from Greece’s professional classes, including lawyers, doctors, accountants and midlevel bankers who are paying £300,000 to £500,000 for modest apartments.

Notably, a recent study conducted by economists at the University of Chicago concluded that it was within this segment of society where most of Greece’s tax collection shortfall occurs. By delving through bank records, the economists found that Greek professionals — not the truly wealthy, but the comfortably affluent — skirted as much as €28 billion worth of taxes in 2009.

That would have been enough to cover one-third of the country’s budget deficit that year.

Mr. Theoharis, of the Greek Finance Ministry, said London properties represented but a small portion of the billions Greeks had shipped out of their country since 2009. In 2011, according to government figures, Greeks sent €6 billion to foreign bank accounts. The data for 2012 are even more stark: for the first half of the year about €5 billion left the country, Mr. Theoharis said.

Much of that outflow came in the panicky months preceding the two rounds of Greek elections in May and June.

More recently, the effort by Mr. Samaras’s government to push through spending cuts and economic overhauls has somewhat calmed fears of an immediate Greek euro exit. In fact there was actually a rare increase, of 2 percent, in Greek bank deposits in July.

The harder trick to turn could be persuading Greek real estate money in London to come back home — especially now, with the tax man closely watching.

Business strategist Peter Economides gives an answer to a German journalist of Süddeutsche Zeituns who asked if Greeks are Europeans.

By Peter Economides* – It took me a while to answer this question.

Not because it was a difficult question to which I did not have an answer. But simply because it had been asked.

The person asking was a known journalist from Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the most widely read, and most highly respected, German newspapers.

Isn’t Europe a Greek name?

The woman abducted by Zeus in the form of a white bull?

Isn’t Greek thought at the heart of European civilization? Perhaps we don’t have to go as far as claiming, as did Giscard d’Estaing that “Europe without Greece would be like a child without a birth certificate.”

But where did we go wrong?Apart from the genesis of Europe – in name or in spirit – isn’t Europe a mosaic? A beautiful, multicolored mosaic in which each piece plays a role and the whole is bigger than each of its individual pieces.It was a big question this journalist was asking me.

Much, much bigger than I thought.Of course Greeks are Europeans.Perhaps not, however, in a world dominated by productivity, efficiency, balanced books and the Protestant ethic. But is this all that Europe is about?

Greeks are under pressure.

To become “good Europeans.” And what it means to be a good European is dominated by the Northern European definition. This definition may move sometime to the more encompassing idea with which the European Union was initially intended.

But no matter what, it is up to Greeks to carve out a meaningful role within Europe and the world. And Greeks can only do this by being in touch with their essential DNA. If Greeks lose this DNA, then Greeks lose themselves. Full stop.

Let me make one thing clear. I am not talking about physiological DNA. This page is not the place to attempt to trace back Greek lineage to the ancients.

I am talking about the essential concept of Greece. The spirit with which Greeks live their lives.

The stuff that defines the “Greekness” of Greece. About what makes this nation tick. What makes us get up in the morning.

I think the world understands what this is. It’s called life. And the amazing love that Greeks have for life. It was present in ancient Greece.

The love of humanity that gave rise to democracy. The love of beauty that gave rise to sculpture. The love of peace that gave rise to the Olympic Truce.

The love of knowledge which gave rise to science. The love of discovery that gave rise to philosophy. The love of wisdom that shines from the Acropolis in Athens.

Life. This is Greek knowhow. And when we harness its creative power we will reverse our image as a nation with a zest for life and an aversion to productivity.

We need to utilize our “life knowhow” and transform it into creative enterprise that will be valued by the world.

This is how we can reignite our economy. By doing things that Greeks can excel at.

By creating sustainable competitive advantage based on the uniquely Greek knowledge – and love – of life.

*Peter Economides is a brand strategist with a global perspective.

He has lived on four continents doing work that has impacted brands and consumers almost everywhere.

He has learned from the leaders of some of the world’s best brands. He is the owner and founder of Felix BNI.

Amateur astronomers have proved time and again how much their contributions can help professionals promote progress in their field.

A recent example is Greek amateur astronomer Emmanuel Kardasis, a member of the Hellenic Amateur Astronomy Association.

Kardasis created the new Ganymede brightness map (or albedo map) by using a common “hobby” telescope, ordinary camera and computer equipment.

Officials of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) said that his map matches with the ones taken by professionals.

The EPSC is meeting this week in Madrid and Kardasis’ map is to be presented in hope of encouraging amateur astronomers to continue their own research.

Kardasis’ map identifies features on Ganymede, such as Phrygia Sulcus, a system of thousands of miles of grooves and ridges and a low-lying dark area called the Nicholson region.

Source: ΑΠΕ

Ο πιο πολύγλωσσος άνθρωπος -μιλά 32 γλώσσες- στην Ευρώπη, ο Γιάννης Οικονόμου από την Κρήτη, πήρε μέρος στο συνέδριο «Πολυγλωσσία στην Ευρώπη», που πραγματοποιήθηκε στη Λεμεσό.

Ο κ. Οικονόμου εργάζεται από το 2002 ως μεταφραστής στην Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή.

Σπούδασε γλωσσολογία στο πανεπιστήμιο της Θεσσαλονίκης και στη συνέχεια έκανε μεταπτυχιακές σπουδές Μεσανατολικών Γλωσσών και Πολιτισμών στο πανεπιστήμιο Κολούμπια (Columbia), των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών Αμερικής.

Στο πλαίσιο τού συνεδρίου, η Επίτροπος της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, αρμόδια για θέματα Εκπαίδευσης, Πολιτισμού, Πολυγλωσσίας και Νεολαίας, Ανδρούλλα Βασιλείου, απένειμε τα βραβεία με το «Ευρωπαϊκό Σήμα Γλωσσών» σε πέντε έργα από το Βέλγιο, την Ιταλία, τη Λιθουανία, τη Νορβηγία και τη Ρουμανία, τα οποία σημείωσαν εξαιρετικές επιδόσεις στην προώθηση της διδασκαλίας και της εκμάθησης γλωσσών.

Σε δηλώσεις της, η κ. Βασιλείου επεσήμανε ότι η γλωσσική πολυμορφία είναι πλούτος για την Ε.Ε. και όλοι θα πρέπει να προσπαθήσουν, ώστε οι νέες γενιές να μαθαίνουν ακόμη περισσότερες γλώσσες.

Επίσης, δήλωσε ότι η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή συνεχίζει την προσπάθειά της, ώστε κάθε παιδί να γνωρίζει δύο επιπλέον γλώσσες, πέραν της μητρικής του.