JOKERGame 22 Twenty-two

Child Anxiety Disorder

Child anxiety disorder is one of the most common mental, emotional, and behavioral problems that commonly occur in both children and adolescents. The childhood anxiety disorder usually affects more girls than boys. Depression usually accompanies the childhood anxiety disorder in most of the children and adolescents.
Children with an anxiety disorder are usually so afraid, worried, or uneasy that they cannot function normally. Some anxiety disorders can last through out the life of the child and can greatly interfere in day to day work. There are various types of anxiety disorders which are commonly found in young children.
Anxiety disorders in children can range from a simple adjustment disorder to more difficult and debilitating disorders such as panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder. If anxiety disorder in a child is not treated in the early stages, it can lead to missed school days or an inability to finish school, impaired relations with peers and low self-esteem.
Some of the types of anxiety disorders that can occur in a child include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and acute stress disorder. Some other types of anxiety disorder common in children include social phobia, specific phobia, adjustment disorder with anxiety, and anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition.
Thinking ability, decision-making ability, perceptions of the environment, learning, and concentration of a child are baby affected in severe cases of anxiety disorders. An anxiety disorder can raise blood pressure and heart rate and also cause a multitude of bodily complaints, such as vomiting, stomach pain, ulcers, diarrhea, tingling, weakness, and shortness of breath.

How to Identify the Symptoms of Appendicitis

The process of diagnosing appendicitis is very challenging to doctors. The symptoms of appendicitis have an unspecific character and don’t always indicate to appendicitis. In some forms of the illness, the general symptoms of appendicitis are even impossible to detect in time.

Appendicitis is usually diagnosed upon patients’ reports of symptoms. The most common symptoms of appendicitis are: pronounced, recidivating pain in the lower abdomen (it usually occurs in the umbilical region and later localizes in the right lower area of the abdomen), loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, abdominal bloating and moderate fever. These symptoms of appendicitis are more intense in the acute forms of the illness. It is important to note that people with chronic appendicitis may only have one or two of these symptoms, and usually at a lower intensity (high fever is uncharacteristic to people with chronic appendicitis). Some people may not have any symptoms of appendicitis at all!

Appendicitis can affect anyone, at any age. Generally, appendicitis seems to have a higher incidence in males. Acute forms of appendicitis mostly occur in children and teenagers (with ages between 3 and15), but also in older patients (ages above 50). Due to the fact that small children are incapable of expressing their pain and distress, the acute forms of appendicitis are usually detected later in very young patients. This allows the illness to aggravate and many children develop complications before they receive the appropriate medical treatment. In most cases, the presence of appendicitis in elderly patients is also revealed late. The symptoms of appendicitis are perceived differently by older patients and by the time the illness is diagnosed, they may have already developed gangrene or sepsis.

The symptoms of appendicitis in people with special conditions are probably the most difficult to detect. While symptoms like fever, abdominal pain and bloating are common in most patients with acute appendicitis, some people with the illness only feel a general state of fatigue and discomfort. The symptoms of appendicitis are almost impossible to timely detect in people with HIV, people who have previously suffered surgical interventions, people with diabetes, people that receive treatment with immuno-supressives and obese people. In many cases, these special categories of people are sent to the operation room right after they are diagnosed with acute appendicitis.

The symptoms of appendicitis are simply not reliable in diagnosing the illness. However, there are other means of diagnosing appendicitis: blood analysis, endoscopy and computerized tomography.

Although the mortality rate of people with appendicitis has considerably decreased in the last decades, the illness is still considered to be a medical emergency. Considering the gravity of the illness, you should see a doctor even you have the slightest symptom of appendicitis. If the symptoms of appendicitis are intense, you may have already developed complications and prompt medical intervention is required. Pay attention to the symptoms of appendicitis and remember that this illness can be life-threatening!

Dissecting Income Statement

Knowing income statement real well is critical to your investing success. Income Statement is crucial in determining the fair value of a common stock. Why? Because I believe that the fair value of any investment is determined by the return it can generate for a given price. If a common stock is trading at $ 100 and it earns $ 4 annually, then it is yielding 4%. If a treasury bond is yielding 5% right now, who would want to buy a common stock which yields only 4%? To be honest, there are probably some investors out there who will buy stocks at any price. However, this type of investing is seldom profitable.
Analyzing income statement will tell us how much profits a company can earn. This will in turn tell us how much percentage return we can expect. So, without further ado, let us go through the components of a typical income statement.
Revenue. Also called sales, Revenue is the lifeblood of a company. To earn revenue, a company has to sell. For retail companies like Walmart, you have to sell items at the stores. For service companies such as H&R Block, it has to sell its expertise to tax filers.
Cost of Revenue. Sometimes called Cost of Good Sold, Cost Revenue is the direct cost of providing a particular good or service to customers. For example, the cost of selling one can of soda at Walmart is the price it bought the soda from manufacturers.
Gross Profit. This is the difference between the price of good or service that a firm sells and the cost of providing that particular good or service. In other words, it is the mark up that a firm impose on its customers. For example, if Walmart sells a can of soda for $ 1.00 while it costs $ 0.60 from the manufacturer, then gross profit of Walmart for selling that can of soda is $ 0.40. When gross profit is expressed in term of percentage, it is called gross profit margin. In this case, gross profit margin of Walmart is ($0.40/ $ 1.00) x 100% = 40%.
Research & Development.This is the cost of doing research in order to provide future revenue or cost improvement. Either way, it is designed to boost the firm’s future profit. For example, Walmart may spend certain dollars in order to improve its inventory management, which in turn will reduce cost of operating its business.
Selling General & Administrative. This is a really broad category. Basically, this is the fixed cost of doing business. Marketing expense, office rent, manager and the CEO’s salary is included here. So do depreciation and amortization expense. For your information, depreciation expense is the expense incurred every year for buying a long-term assets such as machinery or vehicle. Amortization expense is the expense incurred for obtaining goodwill, which is obtained from acquiring companies above its net asset value. When a company is considering layoffs, it is this cost that they are trying to reduce.
Operating Income. This is the difference between gross profit and operating expenses. Operating expense here is the total cost of research development and selling general & administrative. Operating income can be thought as the income generated as a result of a firm’s primary business activities.
Other Income/Expense. This is the income earned or expense incurred outside of the firm’s business activities. For example, capital gain on sale of asset or expense incurred due to lawsuit punitive damage.
Interest Expense. This is the expense incurred from borrowing long term debt. A firm gets additional funding by borrowing money. In turn, it has to pay interest for the loan. This interest is called interest expense.
Income Before Tax, Income Tax Expense. Once you take out all the other income/expense and interest expense from operating income, you get income before tax. A profitable firm has to pay tax on this income. The tax paid by the firm is found in the income statement under category income tax expense.
Net Income. This is our final destination. This is the reason why we go through all the components of an income statement. Also known as net profit, net income is what a company earns at a specific time frame. From here on, you can then calculate the fair value of the firm. Does it yield less than 4% treasury bond, which is considered safe haven? If so, the common stock definitely needs to be sold or avoided.
Please note that each companies have different ways of presenting their income statements. However, most companies present them similar to the above criteria. If some companies give a totally different ways of presenting their financial performance, it is best to ask them questions or avoid the common stock altogether.