The Secrets of the Masters - Investment U

by Alexander Green, Investment U Chief Investment Strategist
Monday, March 4, 2013: Issue #1982

Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the market timers.

There?s a reason famed money manager Ken Fisher calls the stock market ?The Great Humiliator.?

Nobody can know with any certainty what the stock market will do next week, next month, or next year. The sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can start making money in stocks?

I learned this lesson from three world-beaters: Warren Buffett, John Templeton and Peter Lynch.

Going Outside My Research Department?

As a young man starting out in a stock brokerage 27 years ago, I made a startling discovery. The ?analysts? at my firm picking stocks for clients weren?t just bad? they were awful. I soon found myself looking for ideas outside my ?research department.?

After six months of sheer frustration, I had an epiphany?

If I were going to learn from someone else, why not the best?

Instead of listening to the talking heads at my firm, why shouldn?t I listen to the greatest investors in the world?

As this was the early 80s, it was Warren Buffett, who ran Berkshire Hathaway, Peter Lynch, who managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund, and John Templeton, who headed the Templeton Growth Fund.

These men had very little in common in their investment approaches:

Buffett was (and is) a value guy.

Lynch was a growth analyst.

Templeton was a global markets pioneer.

But they all started from the same premise: They didn?t have a clue what the broad stock market was going to do.

That was fine, because they knew something much more valuable: how to identify companies selling for far less than their intrinsic worth. And when the market recognized that value, they sold them.

11 Lessons From Peter Lynch

For instance, Peter Lynch taught me:

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it?s doing.

Never invest in any idea you can?t illustrate with a crayon.

Over the short term, there may be no correlation between the success of a company?s operations and the success of its stock. Over the long term, there?s a 100% correlation.

Buying stocks without studying the companies is the same as playing poker ? and never looking at your cards.

Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.

Owning stock is like having children. Don?t get involved with more than you can handle.

When the insiders are buying, it?s a good sign.

Unless you?re a short seller, it never pays to be pessimistic.

A stock market decline is as predictable as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you?re prepared, it can?t hurt you.

Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.

Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy, or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what?s actually happening to the companies in which you?ve invested.

Lynch?s advice had a profound effect on my stock market approach. He taught me that investment success isn?t the result of developing the right macro-economic view or deciding when to jump in or out of the market. Success is about researching companies to identify those that are likely to report positive surprises.

A Valuable Investment Lesson for Any Investor

I know investors who have spent a lifetime (and a fortune) in the stock market and have still not learned this lesson. Or lack the intestinal fortitude to follow it.

Worse, there are a number of gurus out there who are convinced that they have the smarts ? or a system ? that allows them to get in and out of the market just in the nick of time. Yet you?ll notice that system (ahem) always goes on the fritz just as soon as you start to follow it.

Count yourself a sophisticated investor the day you wake up and say, ?Since no one can tell me with any consistency what the economy and the stock market will do, how should I run my portfolio??

The answer to that question is: a well-defined, battle-tested investment approach that achieves high returns with strictly limited risk.

Of course, everyone in the industry claims that they?re beating the tar out of the market.

Our approach is based on a market-neutral investment philosophy. Our focus is on teaching investors how to seek out the most undervalued opportunities in the market.

As Buffett, Lynch and Templeton famously proved, that?s what actually works.

Good Investing,

Alex

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Source: http://www.investmentu.com/2013/March/secrets-of-the-masters.html

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Baby With H.I.V. Is Reported Cured

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The baby, born in rural Mississippi, was treated aggressively with antiretroviral drugs starting around 30 hours after birth; if further study shows this treatment works, it will almost certainly be recommended globally.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/health/for-first-time-baby-cured-of-hiv-doctors-say.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Early Facebook And LinkedIn Investor David Sze ... - Business Insider

Join Facebook, LinkedIn, Trip Advisor and Disney at IGNITION Mobile on March 21, 2013 in San Francisco! Get market insight on mobile games, apps, devices, content and commerce. Register now.

David Sze was cofounder of Brience and is now a partner at Greylock.

Greylock Partners' David Sze has made some very good investment decisions. He wrote early checks to Facebook, Pandora and LinkedIn.

But he just wrote his biggest startup check yet. Sze gave Nextdoor, a social network for neighborhoods, $15 million on behalf of Greylock, which led the startup's $21.6 million round of financing.

Sze tells Bloomberg that Nextdoors' membership growth reminds him of the early LinkedIn days.

Nextdoor has yet to generate revenue, but it plans to go after local advertising dollars, which many entrepreneurs have tried and failed to capture. It's up and running in 8,000 US neighborhoods, more than double its reach in July. Bloomberg says 500,000 messages are exchanged daily over Nextdoor.

"It has all the hallmarks of being the next great massively valued social network,? Sze said. ?I see every social network that comes out. I?ve sorted through all of them and passed on most of them.?

Nextdoor hasn't disclosed membership numbers but ComScore data shows 140,000 people visited the site last month. The company's internal analytics are likely higher, but it still seems like a small amount of users to snag so much money. The two-year-old company has nearly 40 employees and it was co-founded by?Nirav Tolia.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/investor-david-sze-writes-his-biggest-startup-check-yet-to-nextdoor-2013-3

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Vt. town ponders exhibit honoring Soviet dissident

FILE- In this May 24, 1994 file photo, Alexander Solzhenitsyn jokes with the media as he leaves his long-time home in Cavendish, Vt. to return to his native Russia. Voters in the Vermont town that was once the home-in-exile of the former Soviet dissident author are expected to decide whether to commemorate his 18 years in Cavendish. On Town Meeting day, voters will decide whether the town should assume ownership of an historic stone church that would be used to house an exhibit honoring the Nobel laureate who arrived in Cavendish in 1977 and stayed until 1995. He died in Russia in 2008.(AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

FILE- In this May 24, 1994 file photo, Alexander Solzhenitsyn jokes with the media as he leaves his long-time home in Cavendish, Vt. to return to his native Russia. Voters in the Vermont town that was once the home-in-exile of the former Soviet dissident author are expected to decide whether to commemorate his 18 years in Cavendish. On Town Meeting day, voters will decide whether the town should assume ownership of an historic stone church that would be used to house an exhibit honoring the Nobel laureate who arrived in Cavendish in 1977 and stayed until 1995. He died in Russia in 2008.(AP Photo/Toby Talbot, File)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) ? Residents of the southern Vermont town that was once the home-in-exile of former Soviet dissident and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn are considering whether to convert an historic church into an exhibit to honor the Nobel laureate's 18 years in Cavendish.

At Town Meeting ? the locals' annual decision-making gathering and the venue where Solzhenitsyn once addressed his neighbors when he arrived in 1977 ? voters will be asked whether they should take ownership of a small stone Universalist Church and use it to honor him.

Solzhenitsyn, who spent eight years in prison and labor camps for criticizing Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, said he chose Cavendish for its resemblance to his homeland and its small-town personality.

"I dislike very much large cities with their empty and fussy lives," he told his new neighbors. "I like very much the simple way of life and the population here, the simplicity and the human relationship. I like the countryside, and I like the climate with the long winter and the snow, which reminds me of Russia."

Solzhenitsyn wrote his best known works, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "The Gulag Archipelago," based on his years imprisoned, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

If the town decides at the meeting Monday to take over the deed to the church, plans call for some repairs and later an exhibit that would include videos of Solzhenitsyn, talking about his years in Cavendish where he lived until 1994 and where his son, Ignat, a pianist and conductor, still lives with his family.

The town, which prided itself on protecting Solzhenitsyn's privacy, hopes to find the sign that once sat in a store window warning that the proprietors offered no directions to his home.

Visitors still ask, and townspeople still decline.

"That's been our legacy is to let people do what they need to do, and let people be as best we can. I love our town's history of being a place of refuge, and I love the fact that when Solzhenitsyn was here he extended that to other people ...," said Margo Caulfield, coordinator of the Cavendish Historical Society.

The impetus for the project came when the town had little to offer a group of Russian tourists last summer who expected a monument in their countryman's honor, Caulfield said.

Built in 1844 under the leadership of renowned abolitionist Rev. Warren Skinner, the church was decommissioned in the 1960s. Caulfield said church leaders last year offered to donate the building to the town.

"He just did an incredible job of showing that a person can sustain unbelievable horrors and go on to live a remarkable life and just really thrive," Caulfield said of the town's famous resident. "Our focus is clearly we want to make sure our schoolchildren know about the work that he did and the importance that it played."

In 1994, just before he and his family moved back to Russia, Solzhenitsyn spoke again at Town Meeting, bringing tears to people's eyes. And after he died in Russia in 2008, the town held a memorial service to honor him at the elementary school.

___

Online: http://cavendishhistoricalsocietynews.blogspot.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-01-Solzhenitsyn%20Exhibit/id-3530317ed0ec406da98c684219634609

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Astronomers spy possible baby planet in stellar womb

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Scientists have found what they believe to be a planet-in-the-making that is still gathering material left over from the formation of its parent star.

The object appears as a faint blob nested inside a disk of gas and dust that swirls around a very young star known as HD 100546, located about 335 light years away in the constellation Musca, or The Fly, astronomers report in a paper published on Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal.

Light travels about 186,000 miles per second, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km) a year. The embedded object appears to be about the size of Jupiter, although it is about 68 times farther away from its parent star than Earth is from the sun. At that distance, the object takes 360 years to complete one orbit around its star.

Jupiter, by comparison, orbits about five times farther from the sun than Earth and completes an orbit in just under 12 years. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, is more than 300 times the size of Earth.

If confirmed, HD 100546's planet would be the first of more than 800 extrasolar planets and more than 2,000 candidate planets found while it was still in the formation phase.

"So far, planet formation has mostly been a topic tackled by computer simulations," lead researcher Sascha Quanz, with ETH Zurich's Institute for Astronomy in Switzerland, said in a statement.

"If our discovery is indeed a forming planet, then for the first time scientists will be able to study the planet-formation process," he said.

Researchers picked out the object after analyzing more than 35,000 near-infrared images of the star's disk taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope array in Chile.

Additional observations are needed to rule out that the light source is coming from a background object. The newly found object, known as HD 100546 b, could also be a fully formed planet that was gravitationally elbowed out of a position closer to the star by sibling planets.

There already is evidence HD 100546 b is not alone. Astronomers previously found what is believed to be an extremely large planet orbiting HD 100546 about six times farther away than Earth orbits the sun. The planet, which is in a gap in the star's dust disk, is 10 times closer to its parent star than the newly found object.

"If confirmed, HD100546 b would be a unique laboratory to study the formation process of a new planetary system, with one giant planet currently forming in the disk and a second planet possibly orbiting in the disk gap," the researchers wrote in their paper.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/astronomers-spy-possible-baby-planet-stellar-womb-004023371.html

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State Dept: No major objections to Canada pipeline

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The State Department on Friday raised no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and said other options to get the oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change.

The latest environmental review stops short of recommending approval of the project, but the review gives the Obama administration political cover if it chooses to endorse the pipeline in spite of opposition from many Democrats and environmental groups. State Department approval of the 1,700-mile pipeline is needed because it crosses a U.S. border.

The lengthy report says Canadian tar sands are likely to be developed, regardless of whether the U.S. approves Keystone XL, which would carry oil from western Canada to refineries in Texas. The pipeline would also travel through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

The report acknowledges that development of tar sands in Alberta would create greenhouse gases but makes clear that other methods of transporting the oil ? including rail, trucks and barges ? also pose a risk to the environment.

The State Department analysis for the first time evaluated two options using rail: shipping the oil on trains to existing pipelines or to oil tankers. The report shows that those other methods would release more greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming than the pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline, according to the report, would release annually the same amount of global warming pollution as 626,000 passenger cars.

A scenario that would move the oil on trains to mostly existing pipelines would release 8 percent more greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide than Keystone XL. That scenario would not require State Department approval because any new pipelines would not cross the U.S border.

Another alternative that relies mostly on rail to move the oil to the Canadian west coast, where it would be loaded onto oil tankers to the U.S. Gulf Coast, would result in 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions, the report said.

In both alternatives, the oil would be shipped in rail cars as bitumen, a thick, tar-like substance, rather than as a liquid.

The State Department was required to conduct a new environmental analysis after the pipeline's operator, Calgary-based TransCanada, changed the project's route though Nebraska. The Obama administration blocked the project last year because of concerns that the original route would have jeopardized environmentally sensitive land in the Sand Hills region.

The administration later approved a southern section of the pipeline, from Cushing, Okla., to the Texas coast, as part of what President Barack Obama has called an "all of the above" energy policy that embraces a wide range of sources, from oil and gas to renewables such as wind and solar.

The pipeline plan has become a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over climate change. Republicans and business and labor groups have urged the Obama administration to approve the pipeline as a source of much-needed jobs and a step toward North American energy independence.

Environmental groups have been pressuring the president to reject the pipeline, saying it would carry "dirty oil" that contributes to global warming. They also worry about a spill.

Industry groups and Republicans hailed the report, saying the Obama administration was moving closer to approving Keystone XL, which has been under consideration since 2008.

"No matter how many times KXL is reviewed, the result is the same: no significant environmental impact," said Marty Durbin, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest lobbying group for the oil and gas industry.

The report "puts this important, job-creating project one step closer to reality," Durbin said.

Environmentalists blasted the report.

"This analysis fails in its review of climate impacts, threats to endangered wildlife like whooping cranes and woodland caribou, and the concerns of tribal communities," said Jim Lyon, vice president of the National Wildlife Federation.

If Keystone XL would not speed tar sands development, "why are oil companies pouring millions into lobbying and political contributions to build it?" Lyon asked. "By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, President Obama can keep billions of tons of climate-disrupting carbon pollution locked safely in the ground."

The draft report begins a 45-day comment period, after which the State Department will issue a final environmental report before Secretary of State John Kerry makes a recommendation about whether the pipeline is in the national interest.

Kerry has promised a "fair and transparent" review of the plan and said he hopes to decide on the project in the "near term." Most observers do not expect a decision until summer at the earliest.

Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said Friday that Canada will respect the U.S. review process and noted the importance of the pipeline to the Canadian economy. "Canada's continued prosperity will be determined by our ability to diversify markets for our energy products," Oliver said.

Obama's initial rejection of the pipeline last year went over badly in Canada, which relies on the United States for 97 percent of its energy exports.

___

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

___

Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/state-dept-no-major-objections-canada-pipeline-212911462--politics.html

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Hackathon's Goal: A Smartphone Game That Scores Points for Cancer Research

UK-based charity is sponsoring a weekend hackathon, but those invited won't be using their coding talents to advance any business causes. The 40 programmers, gamers, graphic designers and other specialists will spend the time designing a smartphone game that can let average users help with cancer research,

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/2920abe0/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C774310Bhtml/story01.htm

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Officials: France in Mali until July or later

PARIS (AP) ? French troops will stay in the West African country of Mali at least until July, amid tougher-than-expected resistance from Islamic fighters, officials have told The Associated Press, despite earlier government promises to begin a quick pullout within weeks.

France's leadership has painted the intervention against al-Qaida-backed radicals in Mali, which began in January, as a swift and limited one, and said that France could start withdrawing its 4,000 troops in Mali in March and hand over security duties to an African force.

But the combat in rugged Sahara Desert mountains is growing harder, and there's a rising threat that the militants will turn to suicide bombings, hostage-taking and other guerrilla tactics.

One French diplomat acknowledged this week that a French military presence is expected to remain for at least six months. Two other French officials told The Associated Press that the French will remain at least until July, when France is hoping that Mali can hold elections.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the military campaign.

Any French pullout in March is likely to be small and symbolic, leaving behind a robust force to try to keep the peace in a poor and troubled country, the officials say. Mali was largely peaceful until a coup last year led to a political vacuum that allowed militants inspired by an extreme form of Islam to grab control of the country's north.

France, which is winding down its 11-year presence in Afghanistan, has now spent more than ?100 million ($131million) on fighting in Mali over the past six weeks, and is facing the prospect of another protracted and costly intervention against far-away jihadists.

France's defense minister seems to be seeking wiggle room on the timetable for a pullout. And one French diplomat acknowledged: "Nobody believes the French presence will be over in six months." Some analysts say even that's optimistic.

In the latest fighting, military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said Thursday that about 1,200 French, 800 Chadian and an unspecified number of Malian troops are closing in on an unspecified number of extremist fighters in a roughly 25-square kilometer (15-mile) zone in the Adrar des Ifoghas range near the Algerian border in northeastern Mali.

The oval-shaped area south of the town of Tessalit is the "center of gravity" of a new French operation involving helicopter gunships, fighter jets, mobile artillery pieces and armored vehicles, Burkhard said. He declined to provide details because the operation was ongoing, but indicated that French fighters had killed about 40 insurgents over the last week or so.

Burkhard said he believes al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was active in the area. AQIM is one of three militant groups that controlled northern Mali for 10 months before France's Jan. 11 invasion sent them scurrying into rural areas. And he left little doubt that the armed extremists are digging in for a long fight.

"They are sustained in a region they know very well. ... They have established defensive, underground positions, positions that their different members can change between, and logistically ? with pre-positioned weapons and food depots," he said. "They want to hold this area in a durable way."

French politicians, wary that public support for the war could quickly sink, are increasingly seeking to play down expectations and gird for a long-term commitment.

"The hardest part is yet to come. ... It's more complicated because we have to be on the ground, with a fine-toothed comb, slowly, meter after meter practically, on a territory that's still rather vast but where the terrorists have been reduced," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio on Tuesday. "We'll take this to the end."

France's government has said it plans a gradual drawdown starting in March. As the diplomat put it: "That doesn't mean we're going to pull out 1,000 all at once, but even if we pull out 100, that will be considered by the French public as the start of a withdrawal."

After France's longtime participation in NATO's Afghan mission, and its major role in helping topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, French officials are wary about getting bogged down in yet another war ? and setting timetables about withdrawal is both uncomfortable and uncertain.

Pressed on the time frame in an interview with France-2 TV last week, Le Drian said: "We are not there for a long time. We have no intention to stay."

From the get-go of their military campaign on Jan. 11, the French have summed up their military strategy as stopping the advance of jihadists from unruly northern Mali toward Bamako, the capital, and freeing the northern cities the radicals had controlled for 10 months, imposing harsh Islamic rule. Those two goals have largely been achieved through French air power and long-distance artillery strikes.

The third pillar of the French campaign is proving the hardest: rooting out rebel holdouts in the Ifoghas range near Algeria's border, and rallying African troops to take over stabilization and peacekeeping efforts once the French leave.

That plan was dealt a blow last week when about two dozen reputedly crack troops from Chad, another former French colony with familiarity operating in desert terrain like northern Mali's, were killed in a gunfight in the Ifoghas.

Lining up African military support, which has already been sputtering, could run into greater hurdles if their troops are getting killed. Since the operation began, French officials estimate that hundreds of insurgents have been killed; two French soldiers have died.

One reason the French are likely to stay for a while is that they are the only Western power with the wherewithal to act militarily in West Africa.

"Generally when an army says it's going to pull out its troops, it never does withdraw them all. In other words, you can imagine special forces, logistics teams are going to stay there, and maybe in support of the African armies that are supposed to take over," said Laurence Aida Ammour, a security and defense expert focusing on West and northern Africa at the Institute of Political Science in Bordeaux.

Much of the international community has given moral and political support to France, but limited its payouts. European trainers for Malian soldiers are expected to help, and several Western allies have helped with logistics support including transport planes.

The United States is helping with intelligence-gathering, notably with unarmed drones flying out of neighboring Niger. Under U.S. law, the American government ? which had been training Malian forces before the military coup last year ? cannot provide aid to countries run by or with a major component of control of unelected juntas.

National elections in July are supposed to give Mali's wobbly government more legitimacy, notably so that countries like the United States could offer their blessing and support.

___

Sylvie Corbet and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-france-mali-until-july-later-220832424.html

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Three overstretched DNA structures confirmed

Feb. 28, 2013 ? A novel discovery brings a close to a 17-year-old scientific debate about the impact of mechanical stretching on the structure of DNA.

A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yan Jie from the Department of Physics at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Science has identified three new distinct overstretched deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) structures caused by mechanical stretching. This discovery provides a clear answer to a long-running debate among scientists over the nature of DNA overstretching.

Debate on Possible DNA Structural Transitions

Recent single-molecule studies revealed that mechanical stretching could induce transitions to elongated DNA structures. Three possible elongated DNA structures have been proposed, namely: a single-stranded DNA under tension, DNA bubbles consisting two parallel, separated single-stranded DNA under tension, and a new form of base-paired double-stranded DNA. The existence of the three transitions has been heavily discussed among scientists for some 17 years.

To fully understand the nature of DNA overstretching, the team led by Assoc Prof Yan, which comprises members from NUS, the University of Minnesota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explored the possible structural transitions.

Three Distinct Transitions Revealed

In their recent study, the researchers systematically investigated the three possible transitions induced by mechanical stretching, with methods to control DNA construct, temperature, force and salt concentration. Their data successfully identified all the three proposed structures and fully characterised their respective thermo-mechanical properties. These findings were first published on the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 19 February 2013. These findings complete the picture about the structures of DNA under tension, providing a conclusion to the 17-year-old debate.

Biological Implications and Potential Applications

As forces over a wide range are present in the DNA of cells, the researchers' findings provide new perspectives of possible force-dependent regulations of critical biological processes, such as DNA damage repair and gene transcriptions.

In addition, as many recently developed DNA devices are based on thermo-mechanical properties of various DNA structural motifs, these findings may also have potential applications in designing new DNA devices for the future.

The Next Step

To further their research, Assoc Prof Yan and his team will study the physiological functions of the three overstretched DNA structures, and investigate the presence of any new DNA structures under other mechanical constraints.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/UdUdRvs5FAo/130228080240.htm

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Institute of Mental Health Research looking deeper into depression

Depression research centre to practice new way of diagnosing patients

Jesse Mellott | Fulcrum Staff

The University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR) has set up a depression research centre to help alleviate the challenges faced by health-care practitioners while maintaining an emphasis on total care.

The centre plans to assess many biological parameters including genetics, electrical activity in the brain, and biochemical analysis, as opposed to simply observing symptoms. Dr. Zul Merali is the president and CEO of the IMHR and the visionary behind the centre.

?What we are trying to create is a very research-informed pathway to treatment,? Merali said. ?We want to start treating depression the way we would cancer or heart disease.?

The rationale for approaching depression treatment in this way is that it is currently diagnosed based upon symptoms.

?You?ll describe the symptoms, like having difficulty sleeping, or not eating well, or sleeping too much, or not having fun from things that use to be pleasurable,? explained Merali. ?So based upon the number of symptoms you describe, we may classify you as being clinically depressed.?

According to Merali, this treatment is not always effective, because patients are not always completely open about their symptoms.

?[We are] successfully treating only about 30 per cent of the patients?the other 30 show you a bit of a response, and the other third won?t respond no matter what you do,? Merali explained.

Merali hopes that with the creation of the centre, treatment will be more personalized.

This is not the only initiative that Merali is involved in when it comes to treating and diagnosing depression. In addition to creating further depression-focused research centres across the country, he is helping create a network to deal with the illness on a national level, The network, called the Canadian Depression Research and Intervention Network, is receiving funding from the federal government.

?We will have a network where we will be talking together, sharing information, sharing research-based interventions, having annual conferences, training students across different sites, doing clinical trials together, and sharing the information so that when we have new ways of doing things they will trickle up right away,? Merali said.

Source: http://thefulcrum.ca/2013/03/institute-of-mental-health-research-looking-deeper-into-depression/

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