text: A 2006 survey in Great Britain, conducted by the BBC's literacy campaign for World Book Day, found "Curious Incident" to be among "the top five happy endings, as voted on by readers" in novels (the others were "Pride and Prejudice", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Jane Eyre" and "Rebecca", the last of which "Curious" outranked).


title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

text: "School Library Journal" praised it as a "rich and poignant novel". The "San Jose Mercury News" said: "Haddon does something audacious here, and he does it superbly. He shows us the way consciousness orders the world, even when the world doesn't want to be ordered", adding that "the great achievement of this novel is that it transcends its obvious cleverness. It's more than an exercise in narrative ingenuity. Filled with humor and pain, it verges on profundity in its examination of those things—customs, habits, language, symbols, daily routines, etc.—that simultaneously unite and separate human beings." A reviewer for "The Christian Century" described it as "an absorbing, plausible book": "The reader becomes absorbed not only in the mystery of a murdered dog and a missing mom, but also in the mysterious world of an autistic child."


text: A reviewer for "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" wrote that the story is "a touching evolution, one that Haddon scripts with tenderness and care... a unique window into the mind of a boy who thinks a little differently, but like many kids his age, doesn't quite know how to feel." Professor Roger Soder called it "visceral" and a "delightful story", declaring, "All of us in our Spokane Book Club are special education professionals and so have considerable experience with kids with this disability, and we found the story believable."


text: Cathy Lowne of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" wrote that "Haddon's skill lies in writing so that, although Christopher may be unaware of emotional undercurrents and nuances of mood, the reader is made aware of them."


text: Alex McClimens, whom Muller quoted above, also wrote: "This magnificent essay in communication is compulsory reading for anyone with the slightest interest in autistic spectrum disorders. This book is also required reading for those who simply enjoy a fascinating story... we are offered a first person narrative to match anything by contemporary writers. Mark Haddon has created a true literary character and his handling of the teenage Asperger's heroic adventure is brilliantly crafted. He uses the literal mind-set of his hero to mask the true direction of the plot." Reviewer Paul Moorehead calls the book "a fairly ripping adventure story" and writes: "It's also quite a feat of writing. The actual use of language is somewhat austere—an unavoidable consequence of having a boy with autism as a narrator— but it has its own beauty, and it works. So persuasive and so effective is the construction of Christopher, not only is he a character you're rooting for, he's also the character in the story you understand the best. It's startling how believably and comfortably this story puts you into what you might have thought were likely to be some pretty alien shoes."


text: Reviewer David Ellis, naming "The Curious Incident" an "ambitious and innovative novel", wrote that Haddon "manages to avoid the opposing pitfalls of either offending people with autism and their families or turning Christopher into an object of pity. Instead of becoming the focus of the plot the autism enhances it. The unemotional descriptions amplify many moments of observational comedy, and misfortunes are made extremely poignantly." He concludes that Christopher's story is "far more enjoyable and likely to stay with you for far longer than any medical textbook".


text: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" has frequently been challenged due to offensive language, unsuited for age group, and religious viewpoint. On the American Library Association's lists of the most banned and challenged books, the book landed the 51st spot between 2010 and 2019, as well as the fifth spot in 2015.


text: A stage adaptation, by Simon Stephens and directed by Marianne Elliott, premiered at the National Theatre on 2 August 2012. It starred Luke Treadaway as Christopher, Nicola Walker as his mother Judy, Paul Ritter as his father Ed, Una Stubbs as Mrs Alexander and Niamh Cusack as Siobhan. The production, which ran until late October, was broadcast live to cinemas worldwide on 6 September through the National Theatre Live programme.


text: The production transferred to the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, from March 2013. On 19 December, during a performance, parts of the ceiling fell down, injuring around 80 of the over 700 patrons inside. It re-opened at the Gielgud Theatre on 24 June 2014. The new West End cast was led by Graham Butler as Christopher Boone, with Sarah Woodward as Siobhan, Nicolas Tennant as Ed, Emily Joyce as Judy, Gay Soper as Mrs Alexander, Vicky Willing as Mrs Shears and Daniel Casey as Mr. Shears. In 2015 the cast was Sion Daniel Young as Christopher Boone, with Rebecca Lacey as Siobhan, Nicolas Tennant as Ed, Mary Stockley as Judy, Jacqueline Clarke as Mrs Alexander, Indra Ové as Mrs Shears, Stephen Beckett as Roger Shears, Matthew Trevannion as Mr Thompson, Pearl Mackie as No. 40/Punk Girl, Sean McKenzie as Reverend Peters and Kaffe Keating plays alternate Christopher. They were joined by Mark Rawlings, Penelope McGhie, Naomi Said and Simon Victor.


text: Mickey Rowe was the first openly autistic actor to play Christopher Boone in the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He documented this experience in the book Fearlessly Different: An Autistic Actor's Journey to Broadway's Biggest Stage.


text: An adaptation and translation into Spanish by María Renée Prudencio played at the Teatro de los Insurgentes in Mexico City in June 2014. The character of Christopher was played by Luis Gerardo Méndez and by Alfonso Dosal on alternate days. An Israeli adaptation (translation into Hebrew by Daniel Efrat) has been staged at the Beit Lessin Theater in Tel Aviv since March of the same year, starring Nadav Netz as Christopher; in 2015, Netz won the Best Actor category at the Israeli Theater Awards for his performance.


text: An adaptation and translation into French by Dominique Hollier premiered at the Théâtre de la Tempête in Paris, directed by Philippe Adrien, running from September 11 through 18 October 2015. It also ran at Théâtre Le Moderne, in Liege, Belgium, direction by Daniel Henry-Smith, from 28 April through 13 May 2017.


text: An adaptation and translation into Danish by Christian Bundegaard premiered at the Odense Teater, September 2019, starring Kristoffer Helmuth as Christopher.


text: The production began a 10th anniversary UK & Ireland tour at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre on 20 November 2021.


text: The film rights for the novel were optioned by Brad Grey and Brad Pitt for Warner Brothers. In 2011 Steve Kloves was attached to write and direct the project, but as of 2022 it has not yet been produced.


text: A Bengali-English adaptation of the novel has been filmed by Sudipto Roy called "Kia and Cosmos", with the gender roles of the characters reversed, and the plot centering around the killing of a cat called Cosmos.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: The Beast of Gévaudan (, ; ) is the historic name associated with a man-eating animal or animals that terrorised the former province of Gévaudan (consisting of the modern-day department of Lozère and part of Haute-Loire as well as the Auvergne and south Dordogne areas of France), in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767. The attacks, which covered an area spanning , were said to have been committed by one or more beasts with formidable teeth and immense tails, according to contemporary eyewitnesses. Most descriptions from the period identify the beast as a striped hyena, wolf, dog, or wolf-dog hybrid.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: Victims were often killed by having their throats torn out. The Kingdom of France used a considerable amount of wealth and manpower to hunt the animals responsible, including the resources of several nobles, soldiers, royal huntsmen, and civilians. The number of victims differs according to the source. A 1987 study estimated there had been 610 attacks, resulting in 500 deaths and 49 injuries; 98 of the victims killed were partly eaten. Other sources claim the animal or animals killed between 60 and 100 adults and children and injured more than 30. The beast was reported killed several times before the attacks finally stopped.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: Descriptions of the time vary, and reports may have been greatly exaggerated, owing to public hysteria, but the beast was generally described as a wolf-like canine with a tall, lean frame capable of taking great strides. It was said to be the size of a calf, a cow, or, in some cases, a horse. It had an elongated head similar to that of a greyhound, with a flattened snout, pointed ears, and a wide mouth sitting atop a broad chest. The beast's tail was also reported to have been notably longer than a wolf's, with a prominent tuft at the end. The beast's fur was described as tawny or russet in color but its back was streaked with black, and a white heart-shaped pattern was noted on its underbelly.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: The Beast of Gévaudan committed its first recorded attack in the early summer of 1764. A young woman named Marie Jeanne Valet, who was tending cattle in the Mercoire forest near the town of Langogne in the eastern part of Gévaudan, saw a beast "like a wolf, yet not a wolf" come at her. However, the bulls in the herd charged the beast, keeping it at bay. They then drove it off after it attacked a second time. Shortly afterward the first official victim of the beast was recorded: 14-year-old Jeanne Boulet was killed near the village of Les Hubacs near Langogne.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: Throughout the remainder of 1764, more attacks were reported across the region. Very soon terror gripped the populace because the beast was repeatedly preying on lone men, women, and children as they tended livestock in the forests around Gévaudan. Reports note that the Beast seemed only to target the victim's head or neck regions.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: By late December 1764, rumors had begun circulating that there might be a pair of animals behind the killings. This was because there had been such a high number of attacks in such a short space of time and because many of the attacks appeared to have occurred or were reported nearly simultaneously. Some contemporary accounts suggest the creature was seen with another such animal, while others report that the beast was accompanied by its young.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: On January 12, 1765, Jacques Portefaix and seven friends were attacked by the beast. After several attacks, they drove it away by staying grouped together. The encounter eventually came to the attention of Louis XV, who awarded 300 livres to Portefaix and another 350 livres to be shared among his companions. The king also rewarded Portefaix with an education at the state's expense. He then decreed that the French state would help find and kill the beast.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: First captain Duhamel of the Clermont Prince dragoons and his troops were soon sent to Le Gévaudan. Although extremely zealous in his efforts, non-cooperation on the part of the local herders and farmers stalled Duhamel's efforts. On several occasions he almost shot the beast, but was hampered by the incompetence of his guards. When the village of Le Malzieu was not present and ready as the beast crossed the Truyère River, Duhamel became frustrated.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: When Louis XV agreed to send two professional wolf hunters, Jean Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval and his son Jean-François, Captain Duhamel was forced to stand down and return to his headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand. Cooperating with d'Enneval was impossible as the two differed too much in their strategies; Duhamel organised wolf hunting parties while d'Enneval and his son believed the beast could only be shot using stealthy techniques. Father and son D'Enneval arrived in Clermont-Ferrand on February 17, 1765, bringing eight bloodhounds that had been trained in wolf hunting. Over the next four months the pair hunted for Eurasian wolves, believing that one or more of these animals was the beast. However, when the attacks continued, the D'Ennevals were replaced in June 1765 by François Antoine (sometimes wrongly identified with his son, Antoine de Beauterne), the king's sole arquebus bearer and lieutenant of the Hunt, who arrived in Le Malzieu on June 22.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: On September 20 or 21, Antoine killed a large grey wolf measuring high, long and weighing . The wolf, which was named "Le Loup de Chazes" after the nearby Abbaye des Chazes, was said to have been quite large for a wolf. Antoine officially stated: "We declare by the present report signed from our hand, we never saw a big wolf that could be compared to this one. Hence, we believe this could be the fearsome beast that caused so much damage." The animal was further identified as the culprit by attack survivors, who recognised the scars on its body inflicted by victims defending themselves. The wolf was stuffed and sent to Versailles, where Antoine's son Antoine de Beauterne was hailed as a hero. Antoine stayed in the Auvergne woods to chase down the female partner of the beast and her two grown pups. Antoine succeeded in killing the female wolf and a pup, which seemed already larger than its mother. At the examination of the pup, it appeared to have a double set of dewclaws, a hereditary malformation found in the Bas-Rouge or Beauceron dog breed. The other pup was shot and hit and was believed to have died while retreating between the rocks. Antoine returned to Paris and received a large sum of money (over 9,000 livres) as well as fame, titles, and awards.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: However, on December 2 two boys aged 6 and 12 were attacked, suggesting that the beast was still alive. The beast tried to capture the youngest, but it was successfully fought off by the older boy. Soon after, successful attacks followed and some of the shepherds witnessed that the beast showed no fear around cattle at all. A dozen more deaths are reported to have followed attacks near La Besseyre-Saint-Mary.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: The killing of the creature that eventually marked the end of the attacks is credited to a local hunter named Jean Chastel, who shot it at the slopes of Mont Mouchet (now called la Sogne d'Auvers) during a hunt organised by a local nobleman, the Marquis d'Apchier, on June 19, 1767. In 1889, Abbot Pourcher told the edifying oral tradition which said that the pious hero Chastel shot the creature after reciting his prayers but the historical accounts do not report any such thing. The story about the large-caliber bullets, home-made with Virgin Mary's medals, is a


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: The body was then brought to the castle of Marquis d'Apchier, where it was stuffed by Dr. Boulanger, a surgeon at Saugues. Dr. Boulanger's post-mortem report was transcribed by notary Marin and is known as the "Marin Report" on the beast. Upon being opened, the animal's stomach was shown to contain the remains of its last victim.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: According to modern scholars, public hysteria at the time of the attacks contributed to widespread myths that supernatural beasts roamed Gévaudan, but deaths attributed to a beast were more likely the work of a number of wolves or packs of wolves.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: Attacks by wolves were a very serious problem during the era, not only in France but throughout Europe, with thousands of deaths attributed to wolves in the 18th century alone. In the spring of 1765, in the midst of the Gévaudan hysteria, an unrelated series of attacks occurred near the commune of Soissons, northeast of Paris, when an individual wolf killed at least four people over a period of two days before being tracked and killed by a man armed with a pitchfork. Such incidents were fairly typical in rural parts of western and central Europe.


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: The Marin Report describes the creature as a wolf of unusually large proportions "This animal which seemed to us to be a wolf; But extraordinary and very different by its figure and its proportions of the wolves that we see in this country. This is what we have certified by more than three hundred people from all around who came to see him:"


title: Beast of Gévaudan

text: Despite the widely held interpretation based on most of the historical research that the beast was a wolf or another wild canid, several alternative theories have been proposed, such as a lion. In a 2021 talk by François-Louis Pelissier, based on the described appearance of the animal and specific details of behaviour and what can be inferred about historical distribution, he argued that beast encounters could most likely be blamed on the Italian wolf "Canis" "lupus" "italicus".


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: In statistics, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient or Spearman's "ρ", named after Charles Spearman and often denoted by the Greek letter formula_1 (rho) or as formula_2, is a nonparametric measure of rank correlation (statistical dependence between the rankings of two variables). It assesses how well the relationship between two variables can be described using a monotonic function.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The Spearman correlation between two variables is equal to the Pearson correlation between the rank values of those two variables; while Pearson's correlation assesses linear relationships, Spearman's correlation assesses monotonic relationships (whether linear or not). If there are no repeated data values, a perfect Spearman correlation of +1 or −1 occurs when each of the variables is a perfect monotone function of the other.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Intuitively, the Spearman correlation between two variables will be high when observations have a similar (or identical for a correlation of 1) rank (i.e. relative position label of the observations within the variable: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) between the two variables, and low when observations have a dissimilar (or fully opposed for a correlation of −1) rank between the two variables.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Spearman's coefficient is appropriate for both continuous and discrete ordinal variables. Both Spearman's formula_1 and Kendall's formula_4 can be formulated as special cases of a more general correlation coefficient.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The Spearman correlation coefficient is defined as the Pearson correlation coefficient between the rank variables.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: For a sample of size "n", the "n" raw scores formula_5 are converted to ranks formula_6, and formula_2 is computed as


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: (These sums can be computed using the formulas for the triangular number and Square pyramidal number,


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Identical values are usually each assigned fractional ranks equal to the average of their positions in the ascending order of the values, which is equivalent to averaging over all possible permutations.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: If ties are present in the data set, the simplified formula above yields incorrect results: Only if in both variables all ranks are distinct, then formula_35 (calculated according to biased variance).


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The first equation — normalizing by the standard deviation — may be used even when ranks are normalized to [0, 1] ("relative ranks") because it is insensitive both to translation and linear scaling.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The simplified method should also not be used in cases where the data set is truncated; that is, when the Spearman's correlation coefficient is desired for the top "X" records (whether by pre-change rank or post-change rank, or both), the user should use the Pearson correlation coefficient formula given above.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: There are several other numerical measures that quantify the extent of statistical dependence between pairs of observations. The most common of these is the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, which is a similar correlation method to Spearman's rank, that measures the “linear” relationships between the raw numbers rather than between their ranks.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: An alternative name for the Spearman rank correlation is the “grade correlation”; in this, the “rank” of an observation is replaced by the “grade”. In continuous distributions, the grade of an observation is, by convention, always one half less than the rank, and hence the grade and rank correlations are the same in this case. More generally, the “grade” of an observation is proportional to an estimate of the fraction of a population less than a given value, with the half-observation adjustment at observed values. Thus this corresponds to one possible treatment of tied ranks. While unusual, the term “grade correlation” is still in use.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The sign of the Spearman correlation indicates the direction of association between "X" (the independent variable) and "Y" (the dependent variable). If "Y" tends to increase when "X" increases, the Spearman correlation coefficient is positive. If "Y" tends to decrease when "X" increases, the Spearman correlation coefficient is negative. A Spearman correlation of zero indicates that there is no tendency for "Y" to either increase or decrease when "X" increases. The Spearman correlation increases in magnitude as "X" and "Y" become closer to being perfectly monotone functions of each other. When "X" and "Y" are perfectly monotonically related, the Spearman correlation coefficient becomes 1. A perfectly monotone increasing relationship implies that for any two pairs of data values and , that and always have the same sign. A perfectly monotone decreasing relationship implies that these differences always have opposite signs.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The Spearman correlation coefficient is often described as being "nonparametric". This can have two meanings. First, a perfect Spearman correlation results when "X" and "Y" are related by any monotonic function. Contrast this with the Pearson correlation, which only gives a perfect value when "X" and "Y" are related by a "linear" function. The other sense in which the Spearman correlation is nonparametric is that its exact sampling distribution can be obtained without requiring knowledge (i.e., knowing the parameters) of the joint probability distribution of "X" and "Y".


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: In this example, the arbitrary raw data in the table below is used to calculate the correlation between the IQ of a person with the number of hours spent in front of TV per week [fictitious values used].


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: With formula_36 found, add them to find formula_47. The value of "n" is 10. These values can now be substituted back into the equation


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: That the value is close to zero shows that the correlation between IQ and hours spent watching TV is very low, although the negative value suggests that the longer the time spent watching television the lower the IQ. In the case of ties in the original values, this formula should not be used; instead, the Pearson correlation coefficient should be calculated on the ranks (where ties are given ranks, as described above).


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Confidence intervals for Spearman's "ρ" can be easily obtained using the Jackknife Euclidean likelihood approach in de Carvalho and Marques (2012). The confidence interval with level formula_50 is based on a Wilks' theorem given in the latter paper, and is given by


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: where formula_52 is the formula_50 quantile of a chi-square distribution with one degree of freedom, and the formula_54 are jackknife pseudo-values. This approach is implemented in the R package spearmanCI.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: One approach to test whether an observed value of "ρ" is significantly different from zero ("r" will always maintain ) is to calculate the probability that it would be greater than or equal to the observed "r", given the null hypothesis, by using a permutation test. An advantage of this approach is that it automatically takes into account the number of tied data values in the sample and the way they are treated in computing the rank correlation.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Another approach parallels the use of the Fisher transformation in the case of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. That is, confidence intervals and hypothesis tests relating to the population value "ρ" can be carried out using the Fisher transformation:


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: If "F"("r") is the Fisher transformation of "r", the sample Spearman rank correlation coefficient, and "n" is the sample size, then


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: is a "z"-score for "r", which approximately follows a standard normal distribution under the null hypothesis of statistical independence ().


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: which is distributed approximately as Student's "t"-distribution with degrees of freedom under the null hypothesis. A justification for this result relies on a permutation argument.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: A generalization of the Spearman coefficient is useful in the situation where there are three or more conditions, a number of subjects are all observed in each of them, and it is predicted that the observations will have a particular order. For example, a number of subjects might each be given three trials at the same task, and it is predicted that performance will improve from trial to trial. A test of the significance of the trend between conditions in this situation was developed by E. B. Page and is usually referred to as Page's trend test for ordered alternatives.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Classic correspondence analysis is a statistical method that gives a score to every value of two nominal variables. In this way the Pearson correlation coefficient between them is maximized.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: There exists an equivalent of this method, called grade correspondence analysis, which maximizes Spearman's "ρ" or Kendall's τ.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: There are two existing approaches to approximating the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient from streaming data. The first approach


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: involves coarsening the joint distribution of formula_58. For continuous formula_59 values: formula_60 cutpoints are selected for formula_61 and formula_62 respectively, discretizing


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: these random variables. Default cutpoints are added at formula_63 and formula_64. A count matrix of size formula_65, denoted formula_66, is then constructed where formula_67 stores the number of observations that


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: fall into the two-dimensional cell indexed by formula_68. For streaming data, when a new observation arrives, the appropriate formula_67 element is incremented. The Spearman's rank


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: correlation can then be computed, based on the count matrix formula_66, using linear algebra operations (Algorithm 2). Note that for discrete random


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: variables, no discretization procedure is necessary. This method is applicable to stationary streaming data as well as large data sets. For non-stationary streaming data, where the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient may change over time, the same procedure can be applied, but to a moving window of observations. When using a moving window, memory requirements grow linearly with chosen window size.


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: The second approach to approximating the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient from streaming data involves the use of Hermite series based estimators. These estimators, based on Hermite polynomials,


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: allow sequential estimation of the probability density function and cumulative distribution function in univariate and bivariate cases. Bivariate Hermite series density


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: estimators and univariate Hermite series based cumulative distribution function estimators are plugged into a large sample version of the


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient estimator, to give a sequential Spearman's correlation estimator. This estimator is phrased in


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: terms of linear algebra operations for computational efficiency (equation (8) and algorithm 1 and 2). These algorithms are only applicable to continuous random variable data, but have


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: certain advantages over the count matrix approach in this setting. The first advantage is improved accuracy when applied to large numbers of observations. The second advantage is that the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient can be


title: Spearman's rank correlation coefficient

text: computed on non-stationary streams without relying on a moving window. Instead, the Hermite series based estimator uses an exponential weighting scheme to track time-varying Spearman's rank correlation from streaming data,


title: Forbes list of the World's Most Powerful People

text: Between 2009 and 2018 (with absence in 2017) the business magazine "Forbes" had compiled an annual list of the world's most powerful people. The list had one slot for every 100 million people, meaning in 2009 there were 67 people on the list, and by 2018, there were 75. Slots were allocated based on the amount of human and financial resources that they had sway over, as well as their influence on world events.


title: NAACP

text: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells. Leaders of the organization included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins.


title: NAACP

text: Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination". National NAACP initiatives include political lobbying, publicity efforts and litigation strategies developed by its legal team. The group enlarged its mission in the late 20th century by considering issues such as police misconduct, the status of black foreign refugees and questions of economic development. Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term "colored people," referring to those with some African ancestry.


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP bestows annual awards on African Americans in three categories: Image Awards are for achievement in the arts and media, Theatre Awards are for achievements in theatre and stage, and Spingarn Medals are for outstanding achievement of any kind. Its headquarters is in Baltimore, Maryland. On June 29, 2020 Washington, D.C., radio station WTOP reported that the NAACP intends to relocate its national headquarters from its longtime home in Baltimore, Maryland, to the Franklin D. Reeves Center of Municipal Affairs, a building owned by the District of Columbia located on U and 14th Streets in Northwest Washington, D.C. Derrick Johnson, the NAACP's president and CEO, emphasized that the organization will be better able to engage in and influence change in D.C. than in Baltimore.


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP is headquartered in Baltimore, with additional regional offices in New York, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Colorado and California. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.


title: NAACP

text: In the U.S., the NAACP is administered by a 64-member board led by a chairperson. The board elects one person as the president and one as the chief executive officer for the organization. Julian Bond, civil rights movement activist and former Georgia State Senator, was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by healthcare administrator Roslyn Brock. For decades in the first half of the 20th century, the organization was effectively led by its executive secretary, who acted as chief operating officer. James Weldon Johnson and Walter F. White, who served in that role successively from 1920 to 1958, were much more widely known as NAACP leaders than were presidents during those years.


title: NAACP

text: The organization has never had a woman president, except on a temporary basis, and there have been calls to name one. Lorraine C. Miller served as interim president after Benjamin Jealous stepped down. Maya Wiley was rumored to be in line for the position in 2013, but Cornell William Brooks was selected.


title: NAACP

text: Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the "Branch and Field Services" department and the "Youth and College" department. The "Legal" department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education. The Washington, D.C. bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. government, and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state, and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education.


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP's non-current records are housed at the Library of Congress, which has served as the organization's official repository since 1964. The records held there comprise approximately five million items spanning the NAACP's history from the time of its founding until 2003. In 2011, the NAACP teamed with the digital repository ProQuest to digitize and host online the earlier portion of its archives, through 1972 – nearly two million pages of documents, from the national, legal, and branch offices throughout the country, which offer first-hand insight into the organization's work related to such crucial issues as lynching, school desegregation, and discrimination in all its aspects (in the military, the criminal justice system, employment, housing).


title: NAACP

text: The Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, New York, featured many American innovations and achievements, but also included a disparaging caricature of slave life in the South as well as a depiction of life in Africa, called "Old Plantation" and "Darkest Africa", respectively. A local African-American woman, Mary Talbert of Ohio, was appalled by the exhibit, as a similar one in Paris highlighted black achievements. She informed W. E. B. Du Bois of the situation, and a coalition began to form.


title: NAACP

text: In 1905, a group of thirty-two prominent African-American leaders met to discuss the challenges facing African Americans and possible strategies and solutions. They were particularly concerned by the Southern states' disenfranchisement of blacks starting with Mississippi's passage of a new constitution in 1890. Through 1908, Southern legislatures, dominated by white Southern Democrats, ratified new constitutions and laws creating barriers to voter registration and more complex election rules. In practice, this and the Lily-white movement caused the exclusion of most blacks and many poor whites from the political system in southern states. Black voter registration and turnout dropped markedly in the South as a result of such legislation. Men who had been voting for thirty years in the South were told they did not "qualify" to register. White-dominated legislatures also passed segregation and Jim Crow laws.


title: NAACP

text: Because hotels in the US were segregated, the men convened in Canada at the Erie Beach Hotel on the Canadian side of the Niagara River in Fort Erie, Ontario. As a result, the group came to be known as the Niagara Movement. A year later, three non-African-Americans joined the group: journalist William English Walling, a wealthy socialist; and social workers Mary White Ovington and Henry Moskowitz. Moskowitz, who was Jewish, was then also Associate Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. They met in 1906 at Storer College, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and in 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts.


title: NAACP

text: The fledgling group struggled for a time with limited resources and internal conflict and disbanded in 1910. Seven of the members of the Niagara Movement joined the Board of Directors of the NAACP, founded in 1909. Although both organizations shared membership and overlapped for a time, the Niagara Movement was a separate organization. Historically, it is considered to have had a more radical platform than the NAACP. The Niagara Movement was formed exclusively by African Americans. Four European Americans were among the founders of the NAACP, they included Mary White Ovington, Henry Moskowitz, William English Walling and Oswald Garrison Villard.


title: NAACP

text: The Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois, the state capital and Abraham Lincoln's hometown, was a catalyst showing the urgent need for an effective civil rights organization in the U.S. In the decades around the turn of the century, the rate of lynchings of blacks, particularly men, was at an all-time high. Mary White Ovington, journalist William English Walling and Henry Moskowitz met in New York City in January 1909 to work on organizing for black civil rights. They sent out solicitations for support to more than 60 prominent Americans, and set a meeting date for February 12, 1909. This was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated enslaved African Americans. While the first large meeting did not occur until three months later, the February date is often cited as the organization's founding date.


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909, by a larger group including African Americans W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimké, Mary Church Terrell, and the previously named whites Henry Moskowitz, Mary White Ovington, William English Walling (the wealthy Socialist son of a former slave-holding family), Florence Kelley, a social reformer and friend of Du Bois; Oswald Garrison Villard, and Charles Edward Russell, a renowned muckraker and close friend of Walling. Russell helped plan the NAACP and had served as acting chairman of the National Negro Committee (1909), a forerunner to the NAACP.


title: NAACP

text: On May 30, 1909, the Niagara Movement conference took place at New York City's Henry Street Settlement House; they created an organization of more than 40, identifying as the National Negro Committee. Among other founding members were Lillian Wald, a nurse who had founded the Henry Street Settlement where the conference took place.


title: NAACP

text: Du Bois played a key role in organizing the event and presided over the proceedings. Also in attendance was Ida B. Wells-Barnett, an African-American journalist and anti-lynching crusader. Wells-Barnett addressed the conference on the history of lynching in the United States and called for action to publicize and prosecute such crimes. The members chose the new organization's name to be the "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" and elected its first officers:


title: NAACP

text: The larger conference resulted in a more diverse organization, where the leadership was predominantly white. Moorfield Storey, a white attorney from a Boston abolitionist family, served as the president of the NAACP from its founding to 1915. At its founding, the NAACP had one African American on its executive board, Du Bois. Storey was a long-time classical liberal and Grover Cleveland Democrat who advocated "laissez-faire" free markets, the gold standard, and anti-imperialism. Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights, not only for blacks but also for Native Americans and immigrants (he opposed immigration restrictions). Du Bois continued to play a pivotal leadership role in the organization, serving as editor of the association's magazine, "The Crisis," which had a circulation of more than 30,000.


title: NAACP

text: "The Crisis" was used both for news reporting and for publishing African-American poetry and literature. During the organization's campaigns against lynching, Du Bois encouraged the writing and performance of plays and other expressive literature about this issue.


title: NAACP

text: The Jewish community contributed greatly to the NAACP's founding and continued financing. Jewish historian Howard Sachar writes in his book "A History of Jews in America" that "In 1914, Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of the NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise."


title: NAACP

text: In its early years, the NAACP was based in New York City. It concentrated on litigation in efforts to overturn disenfranchisement of blacks, which had been established in every southern state by 1908, excluding most from the political system, and the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial segregation.


title: NAACP

text: In 1913, the NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy, workplaces, and hiring. African-American women's clubs were among the organizations that protested Wilson's changes, but the administration did not alter its assuagement of Southern cabinet members and the Southern block in Congress.


title: NAACP

text: By 1914, the group had 6,000 members and 50 branches. It was influential in winning the right of African Americans to serve as military officers in World War I. Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned and 700,000 men registered for the draft. The following year, the NAACP organized a nationwide protest, with marches in numerous cities, against D. W. Griffith's silent movie "The Birth of a Nation," a film that glamorized the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, several cities refused to allow the film to open.


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP began to lead lawsuits targeting disfranchisement and racial segregation early in its history. It played a significant part in the challenge of "Guinn v. United States" (1915) to Oklahoma's discriminatory grandfather clause, which effectively disenfranchised most black citizens while exempting many whites from certain voter registration requirements. It persuaded the Supreme Court of the United States to rule in "Buchanan v. Warley" in 1917 that state and local governments cannot officially segregate African Americans into separate residential districts. The Court's opinion reflected the jurisprudence of property rights and freedom of contract as embodied in the earlier precedent it established in "Lochner v. New York". It also played a role in desegregating recreational activities via the historic Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan after plaintiff Sarah Elizabeth Ray was wrongfully discriminated against when attempting to board a ferry.


title: NAACP

text: In 1916, chairman Joel Spingarn invited James Weldon Johnson to serve as field secretary. Johnson was a former U.S. consul to Venezuela and a noted African-American scholar and columnist. Within four years, Johnson was instrumental in increasing the NAACP's membership from 9,000 to almost 90,000. In 1920, Johnson was elected head of the organization. Over the next ten years, the NAACP escalated its lobbying and litigation efforts, becoming internationally known for its advocacy of equal rights and equal protection for the "American Negro".


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP devoted much of its energy during the interwar years to fight the lynching of blacks throughout the United States by working for legislation, lobbying, and educating the public. The organization sent its field secretary Walter F. White to Phillips County, Arkansas, in October 1919, to investigate the Elaine Race Riot. Roving white vigilantes killed more than 200 black tenant farmers and federal troops after a deputy sheriff's attack on a union meeting of sharecroppers left one white man dead. White published his report on the riot in the "Chicago Daily News". The NAACP organized the appeals for twelve black men sentenced to death a month later based on the fact that testimony used in their convictions was obtained by beatings and electric shocks. It gained a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in "Moore v. Dempsey" that significantly expanded the Federal courts' oversight of the states' criminal justice systems in the years to come. White investigated eight race riots and 41 lynchings for the NAACP and directed its study "Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States".


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP also worked for more than a decade seeking federal anti-lynching legislation, but the Solid South of white Democrats voted as a bloc against it or used the filibuster in the Senate to block passage. Because of disenfranchisement, African Americans in the South were unable to elect representatives of their choice to office. The NAACP regularly displayed a black flag stating "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" from the window of its offices in New York to mark each lynching.


title: NAACP

text: It organized the first of the two 1935 New York anti-lynching exhibitions in support of the Costigan-Wagner Bill, having previously widely published an account of the Lynching of Henry Lowry, as "An American Lynching", in support of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.


title: NAACP

text: In alliance with the American Federation of Labor, the NAACP led the successful fight to prevent the nomination of John Johnston Parker to the Supreme Court, based on his support for denying the vote to blacks and his anti-labor rulings. It organized legal support for the Scottsboro Boys. The NAACP lost most of the internecine battles with the Communist Party and International Labor Defense over the control of those cases and the legal strategy to be pursued in that case.


title: NAACP

text: The organization also brought litigation to challenge the "white primary" system in the South. Southern state Democratic parties had created white-only primaries as another way of barring blacks from the political process. Since the Democrats dominated southern states, the primaries were the only competitive contests. In 1944 in "Smith v. Allwright", the Supreme Court ruled against the white primary. Although states had to retract legislation related to the white primaries, the legislatures soon came up with new methods to severely limit the franchise for blacks.


title: NAACP

text: The board of directors of the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund in 1939 specifically for tax purposes. It functioned as the NAACP legal department. Intimidated by the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, the Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc., became a separate legal entity in 1957, although it was clear that it was to operate in accordance with NAACP policy. After 1961 serious disputes emerged between the two organizations, creating considerable confusion in the eyes and minds of the public.


title: NAACP

text: By the 1940s, the federal courts were amenable to lawsuits regarding constitutional rights, against which Congressional action was virtually impossible. With the rise of private corporate litigators such as the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits became the pattern in modern civil rights litigation, and the public face of the Civil Rights Movement. The NAACP's Legal department, headed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, undertook a campaign spanning several decades to bring about the reversal of the "separate but equal" doctrine announced by the Supreme Court's decision in "Plessy v. Ferguson".


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP's Baltimore chapter, under president Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson, challenged segregation in Maryland state professional schools by supporting the 1935 "Murray v. Pearson" case argued by Marshall. Houston's victory in "Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada" (1938) led to the formation of the Legal Defense Fund in 1939.


title: NAACP

text: The campaign for desegregation culminated in a unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision in "Brown v. Board of Education" that held state-sponsored segregation of public elementary schools was unconstitutional. Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South. NAACP activists were excited about the judicial strategy. Starting on December 5, 1955, NAACP activists, including Edgar Nixon, its local president, and Rosa Parks, who had served as the chapter's Secretary, helped organize a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. This was designed to protest segregation on the city's buses, two-thirds of whose riders were black. The boycott lasted 381 days. In 1956 the South Carolina legislature created an anti-NAACP oath, and teachers who refused to take the oath lost their positions. After twenty-one Black teachers at the Elloree Training School refused to comply, White school officials dismissed them. Their dismissal led to Bryan v. Austin in 1957, which became an important civil rights case. In Alabama, the state responded by effectively barring the NAACP from operating within its borders because of its refusal to divulge a list of its members. The NAACP feared members could be fired or face violent retaliation for their activities. Although the Supreme Court eventually overturned the state's action in "NAACP v. Alabama", , the NAACP lost its leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement while it was barred from Alabama.


title: NAACP

text: New organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC, in 1957) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, in 1960) rose up with different approaches to activism. Rather than relying on litigation and legislation, these newer groups employed direct action and mass mobilization to advance the rights of African Americans. Roy Wilkins, NAACP's executive director, clashed repeatedly with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders over questions of strategy and leadership within the movement.


title: NAACP

text: The NAACP continued to use the Supreme Court's decision in "Brown" to press for desegregation of schools and public facilities throughout the country. Daisy Bates, president of its Arkansas state chapter, spearheaded the campaign by the Little Rock Nine to integrate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.


title: NAACP

text: By the mid-1960s, the NAACP had regained some of its prominence in the Civil Rights Movement by pressing for civil rights legislation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. That fall, President John F. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress before he was assassinated.


title: NAACP

text: President Lyndon B. Johnson worked hard to persuade Congress to pass a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations, and succeeded in gaining passage in July 1964. He followed that with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided for protection of the franchise, with a role for federal oversight and administrators in places where voter turnout was historically low.


title: NAACP

text: Under its anti-desegregation director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's COINTELPRO program targeted civil rights groups, including the NAACP, for infiltration, disruption and discreditation.


title: NAACP

text: Kivie Kaplan became NAACP President in 1966. After his death in 1975, scientist W. Montague Cobb took over until 1982. Roy Wilkins retired as executive director in 1977, and Benjamin Hooks, a lawyer and clergyman, was elected his successor.


title: NAACP

text: In the 1990s, the NAACP ran into debt. The dismissal of two leading officials further added to the picture of an organization in deep crisis. After such, Rupert Richardson began her term as president of the NAACP in 1992.


title: NAACP

text: In 1993, the NAACP's Board of Directors narrowly selected Reverend Benjamin Chavis over Reverend Jesse Jackson to fill the position of Executive Director. A controversial figure, Chavis was ousted eighteen months later by the same board. They accused him of using NAACP funds for an out-of-court settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Following the dismissal of Chavis, Myrlie Evers-Williams narrowly defeated NAACP chairperson William Gibson for president in 1995, after Gibson was accused of overspending and mismanagement of the organization's funds.


title: NAACP

text: In 1996, Congressman Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic Congressman from Maryland and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, was named the organization's president. Three years later strained finances forced the organization to drastically cut its staff, from 250 in 1992 to 50.


title: NAACP

text: In the second half of the 1990s, the organization restored its finances, permitting the NAACP National Voter Fund to launch a major get-out-the-vote offensive in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections. 10.5 million African Americans cast their ballots in the election; this was one million more than four years before. The NAACP's effort was credited by observers as playing a significant role in Democrat Al Gore's winning several states where the election was close, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan.


title: NAACP

text: During the 2000 presidential election, Lee Alcorn, president of the Dallas NAACP branch, criticized Al Gore's selection of Senator Joe Lieberman for his vice-presidential candidate because Lieberman was Jewish. On a gospel talk radio show on station KHVN, Alcorn stated, "If we get a Jew person, then what I'm wondering is, I mean, what is this movement for, you know? Does it have anything to do with the failed peace talks? ... So I think we need to be very suspicious of any kind of partnerships between the Jews at that kind of level because we know that their interest primarily has to do with money and these kind of things."


title: NAACP

text: NAACP President Kweisi Mfume immediately suspended Alcorn and condemned his remarks. Mfume stated,I strongly condemn those remarks. I find them to be repulsive, anti-Semitic, anti-NAACP and anti-American. Mr. Alcorn does not speak for the NAACP, its board, its staff or its membership. We are proud of our long-standing relationship with the Jewish community and I personally will not tolerate statements that run counter to the history and beliefs of the NAACP in that regard.Alcorn, who had been suspended three times in the previous five years for misconduct, subsequently resigned from the NAACP. He founded what he called the Coalition for the Advancement of Civil Rights. Alcorn criticized the NAACP, saying, "I can't support the leadership of the NAACP. Large amounts of money are being given to them by large corporations with which I have a problem." Alcorn also said, "I cannot be bought. For this reason I gladly offer my resignation and my membership to the NAACP because I cannot work under these constraints."


title: NAACP

text: Alcorn's remarks were also condemned by Jesse Jackson, Jewish groups and George W. Bush's rival Republican presidential campaign. Jackson said he strongly supported Lieberman's addition to the Democratic ticket, saying, "When we live our faith, we live under the law. He [Lieberman] is a firewall of exemplary behavior." Al Sharpton, another prominent African-American leader, said, "The appointment of Mr. Lieberman was to be welcomed as a positive step." The leaders of the American Jewish Congress praised the NAACP for its quick response, stating that: "It will take more than one bigot like Alcorn to shake the sense of fellowship of American Jews with the NAACP and black America ... Our common concerns are too urgent, our history too long, our connection too sturdy, to let anything like this disturb our relationship."


title: NAACP

text: In 2004, President George W. Bush declined an invitation to speak to the NAACP's national convention. Bush's spokesperson said that Bush had declined the invitation to speak to the NAACP because of harsh statements about him by its leaders. In an interview, Bush said, "I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent. You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me." Bush said he admired some members of the NAACP and would seek to work with them "in other ways".


title: NAACP

text: On July 20, 2006, Bush addressed the NAACP national convention. He made a bid for increasing support by African Americans for Republicans, in the midst of a midterm election. He referred to Republican Party support for civil rights.


title: NAACP

text: In October 2004, the Internal Revenue Service informed the NAACP that it was investigating its tax-exempt status based on chairman Julian Bond's speech at its 2004 Convention, in which he criticized President George W. Bush as well as other political figures. In general, the US Internal Revenue Code prohibits organizations granted tax-exempt status from "directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office." The NAACP denounced the investigation as retaliation for its success in increasing the number of African Americans who were voting. In August 2006, the IRS investigation concluded with the agency's finding "that the remarks did not violate the group's tax-exempt status."


title: NAACP

text: As the American LGBT rights movement gained steam after the Stonewall riots of 1969, the NAACP became increasingly affected by the movement to gain rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. While chairman of the NAACP, Bond became an outspoken supporter of the rights of gays and lesbians and stated his support for same-sex marriage. He boycotted the 2006 funeral services for Coretta Scott King, as he said the King children had chosen an anti-gay megachurch. This was in contradiction to their mother's longstanding support for the rights of gay and lesbian people. In a 2005 speech in Richmond, Virginia, Bond said:


title: NAACP

text: In a 2007 speech on the Martin Luther King Day Celebration at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, Bond said, "If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married." His positions have pitted elements of the NAACP against religious groups in the civil rights movement who oppose gay marriage, mostly within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The NAACP became increasingly vocal in opposition against state-level constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage and related rights. State NAACP leaders such as William J. Barber II of North Carolina participated actively against North Carolina Amendment 1 in 2012, but conservative voters passed it.


title: NAACP

text: On May 19, 2012, the NAACP's board of directors formally endorsed same-sex marriage as a civil right, voting 62–2 for the policy in a Miami, Florida quarterly meeting. Benjamin Jealous, the organization's president, said of the decision, "Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law. ... The NAACP's support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people." Possibly significant in the NAACP's vote was its concern with the HIV/AIDS crisis in the black community; while AIDS support organizations recommend that people live a monogamous lifestyle, the government did not recognize same-sex relationships as part of this. As a result of this endorsement, Keith Ratliff Sr. of Des Moines, Iowa, resigned from the NAACP board.


title: NAACP

text: Individuals traveling in the state are advised to travel with extreme CAUTION. Race, gender and color based crimes have a long history in Missouri. Missouri, home of Lloyd Gaines, Dred Scott and the dubious distinction of the Missouri Compromise and one of the last states to lose its slaveholding past, may not be safe. ... [Missouri Senate Bill] SB 43 legalizes individual discrimination and harassment in Missouri and would prevent individuals from protecting themselves from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in Missouri.


title: NAACP

text: Moreover, over-zealous enforcement of routine traffic violations in Missouri against African Americans has resulted in an increasing trend that shows African Americans are 75% more likely to be stopped than Caucasians.


title: NAACP

text: Missouri NAACP Conference president Rod Chapel Jr., suggested that visitors to Missouri "should have bail money."


title: NAACP

text: The organization's national initiatives, political lobbying, and publicity efforts were handled by the headquarters staff in New York and Washington, D.C. Court strategies were developed by the legal team based for many years at Howard University.


title: NAACP

text: NAACP local branches have also been important. When, in its early years, the national office launched campaigns against "The Birth of a Nation", it was the local branches that carried out the boycotts. When the organization fought to expose and outlaw lynching, the branches carried the campaign into hundreds of communities. And while the Legal Defense Fund developed a federal court strategy of legal challenges to segregation, many branches fought discrimination using state laws and local political opportunities, sometimes winning important victories.


title: NAACP

text: Those victories were mostly achieved in Northern and Western states before World War II. When the Southern civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1940s and 1950s, credit went both to the Legal Defense Fund attorneys and to the massive network of local branches that Ella Baker and other organizers had spread across the region.


title: NAACP

text: Youth sections of the NAACP were established in 1936; there are now more than 600 groups with a total of more than 30,000 individuals in this category. The NAACP Youth & College Division is a branch of the NAACP in which youth are actively involved. The Youth Council is composed of hundreds of state, county, high school and college operations where youth (and college students) volunteer to share their opinions with their peers and address local and national issues. Sometimes volunteer work expands to a more international scale.


title: NAACP

text: "The mission of the NAACP Youth & College Division shall be to inform youth of the problems affecting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities; to advance the economic, education, social and political status of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities and their harmonious cooperation with other peoples; to stimulate an appreciation of the African Diaspora and other African Americans' contribution to civilization; and to develop an intelligent, militant effective youth leadership."


title: NAACP

text: Since 1978, the NAACP has sponsored the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) program for high school youth around the United States. The program is designed to recognize and award African-American youth who demonstrate accomplishment in academics, technology, and the arts. Local chapters sponsor competitions in various categories for young people in grades 9–12. Winners of the local competitions are eligible to proceed to the national event at a convention held each summer at locations around the United States. Winners at the national competition receive national recognition, along with cash awards and various prizes.


title: NAACP

text: The environmental justice group at NAACP has 11 full-time staff members. In April 2019, the NAACP published a report outlining the tactics used by the fossil fuel industry. The report claims that "Fossil fuel companies target the NAACP for manipulation and co-optation." The NAACP has been concerned about the influence of utilities which have contributed massive amounts of money to NAACP chapters in return for chapter support of non-environmentally friendly goals of utilities. In response, the NAACP has been working with its chapters to encourage them to support environmentally sound policies.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets, also called thrombocytes (from Greek θρόμβος, "clot" and κύτος, "cell"), are a component of blood whose function (along with the coagulation factors) is to react to bleeding from blood vessel injury by clumping, thereby initiating a blood clot. Platelets have no cell nucleus; they are fragments of cytoplasm that are derived from the megakaryocytes of the bone marrow or lung, which then enter the circulation. Platelets are found only in mammals, whereas in other vertebrates (e.g. birds, amphibians), thrombocytes circulate as intact mononuclear cells.


title: Platelet

text: One major function of platelets is to contribute to hemostasis: the process of stopping bleeding at the site of interrupted endothelium. They gather at the site and, unless the interruption is physically too large, they plug the hole. First, platelets attach to substances outside the interrupted endothelium: "adhesion". Second, they change shape, turn on receptors and secrete chemical messengers: "activation". Third, they connect to each other through receptor bridges: "aggregation". Formation of this platelet plug (primary hemostasis) is associated with activation of the coagulation cascade, with resultant fibrin deposition and linking (secondary hemostasis). These processes may overlap: the spectrum is from a predominantly platelet plug, or "white clot" to a predominantly fibrin, or "red clot" or the more typical mixture. Some would add the subsequent "retraction" and "platelet inhibition" as fourth and fifth steps to the completion of the process and still others would add a sixth step, "wound repair". Platelets also participate in both innate and adaptive intravascular immune responses.


title: Platelet

text: Circulating inactivated platelets are biconvex discoid (lens-shaped) structures, 2–3 µm in greatest diameter. Activated platelets have cell membrane projections covering their surface.


title: Platelet

text: In a first approximation, the platelet shape can be considered similar to oblate spheroids, with a semiaxis ratio of 2 to 8. This approximation is often used to model the hydrodynamic and optical properties of a platelet population, as well as to restore the geometric parameters of individual measured platelets by flow cytometry. More accurate biophysical models of the platelet surface morphology, which model its shape from first principles, make it possible to obtain a more realistic platelet geometry in a calm and activated state.


title: Platelet

text: The fundamental function of platelets is to clump together to stop acute bleeding. This process is complex, as more than 193 proteins and 301 interactions are known to be involved in platelet dynamics. While there is much overlap, platelet function can be modeled in three steps:


title: Platelet

text: Endothelial cells are attached to the subendothelial collagen by von Willebrand factor (VWF), which these cells produce. VWF is also stored in the Weibel-Palade bodies of the endothelial cells and secreted constitutively into the blood. Platelets store vWF in their alpha granules.


title: Platelet

text: When the endothelial layer is disrupted, collagen and VWF anchor platelets to the subendothelium. Platelet GP1b-IX-V receptor binds with VWF; and GPVI receptor and integrin α2β1 bind with collagen.


title: Platelet

text: The intact endothelial lining "inhibits" platelet activation by producing nitric oxide, endothelial-ADPase, and PGI (prostacyclin). Endothelial-ADPase degrades the platelet activator ADP.


title: Platelet

text: Resting platelets maintain active calcium efflux via a cyclic AMP-activated calcium pump. Intracellular calcium concentration determines platelet activation status, as it is the second messenger that drives platelet conformational change and degranulation (see below). Endothelial prostacyclin binds to prostanoid receptors on the surface of resting platelets. This event stimulates the coupled Gs protein to increase adenylate cyclase activity and increases the production of cAMP, further promoting the efflux of calcium and reducing intracellular calcium availability for platelet activation.


title: Platelet

text: ADP on the other hand binds to purinergic receptors on the platelet surface. Since the thrombocytic purinergic receptor P2Y12 is coupled to Gi proteins, ADP reduces platelet adenylate cyclase activity and cAMP production, leading to accumulation of calcium inside the platelet by inactivating the cAMP calcium efflux pump. The other ADP-receptor P2Y1 couples to Gq that activates phospholipase C-beta 2 (PLCB2), resulting in inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) generation and intracellular release of more calcium. This together induces platelet activation. Endothelial ADPase degrades ADP and prevents this from happening. Clopidogrel and related antiplatelet medications also work as purinergic receptor P2Y12 antagonists. Data suggest that ADP activates the PI3K/Akt pathway during a first wave of aggregation, leading to thrombin generation and PAR‐1 activation, which evokes a second wave of aggregation.


title: Platelet

text: Platelet activation begins seconds after adhesion occurs. It is triggered when "collagen" from the subendothelium binds with its receptors (GPVI receptor and integrin α2β1) on the platelet. GPVI is associated with the Fc receptor gamma chain and leads via the activation of a tyrosine kinase cascade finally to the activation of PLC-gamma2 (PLCG2) and more calcium release.


title: Platelet

text: Tissue factor also binds to factor VII in the blood, which initiates the extrinsic coagulation cascade to increase thrombin production. Thrombin is a potent platelet activator, acting through Gq and G12. These are G protein-coupled receptors and they turn on calcium-mediated signaling pathways within the platelet, overcoming the baseline calcium efflux. Families of three G proteins (Gq, Gi, G12) operate together for full activation. Thrombin also promotes secondary fibrin-reinforcement of the platelet plug. Platelet activation in turn degranulates and releases factor V and fibrinogen, potentiating the coagulation cascade. So, in reality, the process of platelet plugging and coagulation are occurring simultaneously rather than sequentially, with each inducing the other to form the final fibrin-crosslinked thrombus.


title: Platelet

text: Collagen-mediated GPVI signalling increases the platelet production of thromboxane A2 (TXA2) and decreases the production of prostacyclin. This occurs by altering the metabolic flux of platelet's eicosanoid synthesis pathway, which involves enzymes phospholipase A2, cyclo-oxygenase 1, and thromboxane-A synthase. Platelets secrete thromboxane A2, which acts on the platelet's own thromboxane receptors on the platelet surface (hence the so-called "out-in" mechanism), and those of other platelets. These receptors trigger intraplatelet signaling, which converts GPIIb/IIIa receptors to their active form to initiate "aggregation".


title: Platelet

text: Platelets contain dense granules, lambda granules and alpha granules. Activated platelets secrete the contents of these granules through their canalicular systems to the exterior. Simplistically, bound and activated platelets degranulate to release platelet chemotactic agents to attract more platelets to the site of endothelial injury. Granule characteristics:


title: Platelet

text: As shown by flow cytometry and electron microscopy, the most sensitive sign of activation, when exposed to platelets using ADP, are morphological changes. Mitochondrial hyperpolarization is a key event in initiating changes in morphology. Intraplatelet calcium concentration increases, stimulating the interplay between the microtubule/actin filament complex. The continuous changes in shape from the unactivated to the fully activated platelet is best seen on scanning electron microscopy. Three steps along this path are named "early dendritic", "early spread" and "spread". The surface of the unactivated platelet looks very similar to the surface of the brain, with a wrinkled appearance from numerous shallow folds to increase the surface area; "early dendritic", an octopus with multiple arms and legs; "early spread", an uncooked frying egg in a pan, the "yolk" being the central body; and the "spread", a cooked fried egg with a denser central body.


title: Platelet

text: These changes are all brought about by the interaction of the microtubule/actin complex with the platelet cell membrane and open canalicular system (OCS), which is an extension and invagination of that membrane. This complex runs just beneath these membranes and is the chemical motor that literally pulls the invaginated OCS out of the interior of the platelet, like turning pants pockets inside out, creating the dendrites. This process is similar to the mechanism of contraction in a muscle cell. The entire OCS thus becomes indistinguishable from the initial platelet membrane as it forms the "fried egg". This dramatic increase in surface area comes about with neither stretching nor adding phospholipids to the platelet membrane.


title: Platelet

text: Platelet activation causes its membrane surface to become negatively charged. One of the signaling pathways turns on scramblase, which moves negatively charged phospholipids from the inner to the outer platelet membrane surface. These phospholipids then bind the tenase and prothrombinase complexes, two of the sites of interplay between platelets and the coagulation cascade. Calcium ions are essential for the binding of these coagulation factors.


title: Platelet

text: In addition to interacting with vWF and fibrin, platelets interact with thrombin, Factors X, Va, VIIa, XI, IX, and prothrombin to complete formation via the coagulation cascade. Six studies suggested platelets express tissue factor: the definitive study shows they do not. The platelets from rats were conclusively shown to express tissue factor protein and also it was proved that the rat platelets carry both the tissue factor pre-mRNA and mature mRNA.


title: Platelet

text: Aggregation begins minutes after activation, and occurs as a result of turning on the GPIIb/IIIa receptor, allowing these receptors to bind with vWF or fibrinogen. There are around 60,000 of these receptors per platelet. When any one or more of at least nine different platelet surface receptors are turned on during activation, intraplatelet signaling pathways cause existing GpIIb/IIIa receptors to "change shape" – curled to straight – and thus become capable of binding.


title: Platelet

text: Since fibrinogen is a rod-like protein with nodules on either end capable of binding GPIIb/IIIa, activated platelets with exposed GPIIb/IIIa can bind fibrinogen to aggregate. GPIIb/IIIa may also further anchor the platelets to subendothelial vWF for additional structural stabilisation.


title: Platelet

text: Classically it was thought that this was the only mechanism involved in aggregation, but three new mechanisms have been identified which can initiate aggregation, depending on the velocity of blood flow (i.e. shear range).


title: Platelet

text: Platelets have central role in innate immunity, initiating and participating in multiple inflammatory processes, directly binding pathogens and even destroying them. This supports clinical data which show that many with serious bacterial or viral infections have thrombocytopenia, thus reducing their contribution to inflammation. Also platelet-leukocyte aggregates (PLAs) found in circulation are typical in sepsis or inflammatory bowel disease, showing the connection between thrombocytes and immune cells.


title: Platelet

text: The platelet cell membrane has receptors for collagen. Following the rupture of the blood vessel wall, the platelets are exposed and they adhere to the collagen in the surrounding connective tissue.


title: Platelet

text: As hemostasis is a basic function of thrombocytes in mammals, it also has its uses in possible infection confinement. In case of injury, platelets, together with the coagulation cascade, form the first line of defense by forming a blood clot. Thus, hemostasis and host defense were intertwined in evolution. For example, in the Atlantic horseshoe crab (living fossil estimated to be over 400 million years old), the only blood cell type, the amebocyte, facilitates both the hemostatic function and the encapsulation and phagocytosis of pathogens by means of exocytosis of intracellular granules containing bactericidal defense molecules. Blood clotting supports the immune function by trapping the pathogenic bacteria within.


title: Platelet

text: Although thrombosis, blood coagulation in intact blood vessels, is usually viewed as a pathological immune response, leading to obturation of lumen of blood vessel and subsequent hypoxic tissue damage, in some cases, directed thrombosis, called immunothrombosis, can locally control the spread of the infection. The thrombosis is directed in concordance of platelets, neutrophils and monocytes. The process is initiated either by immune cells by activating their pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), or by platelet-bacterial binding. Platelets can bind to bacteria either directly through thrombocytic PRRs and bacterial surface proteins, or via plasma proteins that bind both to platelets and bacteria. Monocytes respond to bacterial pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), or damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) by activating the extrinsic pathway of coagulation. Neutrophils facilitate the blood coagulation by NETosis. In turn, the platelets facilitate neutrophils' NETosis. NETs bind tissue factor, binding the coagulation centres to the location of infection. They also activate the intrinsic coagulation pathway by providing its negatively charged surface to the factor XII. Other neutrophil secretions, such as proteolytic enzymes, which cleave coagulation inhibitors, also bolster the process.


title: Platelet

text: In case of imbalance throughout the regulation of immunothrombosis, this process can quickly become aberrant. Regulatory defects in immunothrombosis are suspected to be major factor in causing pathological thrombosis in many forms, such as disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) or deep vein thrombosis. DIC in sepsis is a prime example of both dysregulated coagulation process as well as undue systemic inflammatory response resulting in multitude of microthrombi of similar composition to that in physiological immunothrombosis – fibrin, platelets, neutrophils and NETs.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets are rapidly deployed to sites of injury or infection, and potentially modulate inflammatory processes by interacting with leukocytes and by secreting cytokines, chemokines and other inflammatory mediators. Platelets also secrete platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF).


title: Platelet

text: Platelets modulate neutrophils by forming platelet-leukocyte aggregates (PLAs). These formations induce upregulated production of αmβ2 (Mac-1) integrin in neutrophils. Interaction with PLAs also induce degranulation and increased phagocytosis in neutrophils. Platelets are also the largest source of soluble CD40L which induces production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and upregulate expression of adhesion molecules, such as E-selectin, ICAM-1 and VCAM-1, in neutrophils, activates macrophages and activates cytotoxic response in T and B lymphocytes.


title: Platelet

text: Recently, the dogma that mammalian platelets lacking nucleus are unable of autonomous locomotion was broken. In fact, the platelets are active scavengers, scaling walls of blood vessels and reorganising the thrombus. They are able to recognize and adhere to many surfaces, including bacteria. They are even able to fully envelop them in their open canalicular system (OCP), leading to proposed name of the process being "covercytosis", rather than phagocytosis, as OCS is merely an invagination of outer plasma membrane. These platelet-bacteria bundles are then used as an interaction platform for neutrophils which destroy the bacteria using the NETosis and phagocytosis.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets also participate in chronic inflammatory diseases, such as synovitis or rheumatoid arthritis. Platelets are activated by collagen receptor glycoprotein IV (GPVI). Proinflammatory platelet microvesicles trigger constant cytokine secretion from neighboring fibroblast-like synoviocytes, most prominently Il-6 and Il-8. Inflammatory damage to surrounding extracellular matrix continually reveals more collagen, maintaining the microvesicle production.


title: Platelet

text: Activated platelets are able to participate in adaptive immunity, interacting with antibodies. They are able to specifically bind IgG through FcγRIIA, receptor for constant fragment (Fc) of IgG. When activated and bound to IgG opsonised bacteria, the platelets subsequently release reactive oxygen species (ROS), antimicrobial peptides, defensins, kinocidins and proteases, killing the bacteria directly. Platelets also secrete proinflammatory and procoagulant mediators such as inorganic polyphosphates or platelet factor 4 (PF4), connecting innate and adaptive immune responses.


title: Platelet

text: "Spontaneous and excessive bleeding" can occur because of platelet disorders. This bleeding can be caused by deficient numbers of platelets, dysfunctional platelets, or very excessive numbers of platelets: over 1.0 million/microliter. (The excessive numbers create a relative von Willebrand factor deficiency due to sequestration.)


title: Platelet

text: One can get a clue as to whether bleeding is due to a platelet disorder or a coagulation factor disorder by the characteristics and location of the bleeding. All of the following suggest platelet bleeding, not coagulation bleeding: the bleeding from a skin cut such as a razor nick is prompt and excessive, but can be controlled by pressure; spontaneous bleeding into the skin which causes a purplish stain named by its size: petechiae, purpura, ecchymoses; bleeding into mucous membranes causing bleeding gums, nose bleed, and gastrointestinal bleeding; menorrhagia; and intraretinal and intracranial bleeding.


title: Platelet

text: Excessive numbers of platelets, and/or normal platelets responding to abnormal vessel walls, can result in venous thrombosis and arterial thrombosis. The symptoms depend on the site of thrombosis.


title: Platelet

text: Platelet concentration in the blood (i.e. platelet count), is measured either manually using a hemocytometer, or by placing blood in an automated platelet analyzer using particle counting, such as a Coulter counter or optical methods. Most common blood testing methods include platelet count in their measurements, usually reported as (PLT).


title: Platelet

text: Platelet concentrations vary between individuals and over time, with the population average being between 250,000 and 260,000 cells per mm (equivalent to per microliter), but the typical laboratory accepted normal range is between 150,000 to 400,000 cells per mm or 150–400 × 10 per liter.


title: Platelet

text: On a stained blood smear, platelets appear as dark purple spots, about 20% the diameter of red blood cells. The smear is used to examine platelets for size, shape, qualitative number, and clumping. A healthy adult typically has 10 to 20 times more red blood cells than platelets.


title: Platelet

text: Bleeding time was first developed as a test of platelet function by Duke in 1910. Duke's test measured the time taken for bleeding to stop from a standardized wound in the ear lobe which was blotted every 30 seconds. The normal time for bleeding to stop was less than 3 minutes. More modern techniques are now used. A normal bleeding time reflects sufficient platelet numbers and function, plus normal microvasculature.


title: Platelet

text: In multiple electrode aggregometry, anticoagulated whole blood is mixed with saline and a platelet agonist in a single-use cuvette with two pairs of electrodes. The increase in impedance between the electrodes as platelets aggregate onto them, is measured and visualized as a curve.


title: Platelet

text: In light transmission aggregometry (LTA), platelet-rich plasma is placed between a light source and a photocell. Unaggregated plasma allows relatively little light to pass through. After adding an agonist, the platelets aggregate, resulting in greater light transmission, which is detected by the photocell.


title: Platelet

text: The PFA-100 (Platelet Function Assay - 100) is a system for analysing platelet function in which citrated whole blood is aspirated through a disposable cartridge containing an aperture within a membrane coated with either collagen and epinephrine or collagen and ADP. These agonists induce platelet adhesion, activation and aggregation, leading to rapid occlusion of the aperture and cessation of blood flow termed the closure time (CT). An elevated CT with EPI and collagen can indicate intrinsic defects such as von Willebrand disease, uremia, or circulating platelet inhibitors. The follow-up test involving collagen and ADP is used to indicate if the abnormal CT with collagen and EPI was caused by the effects of acetyl sulfosalicylic acid (aspirin) or medications containing inhibitors.


title: Platelet

text: Low platelet concentration is called thrombocytopenia, and is due to either "decreased production" or "increased destruction". Elevated platelet concentration is called thrombocytosis, and is either "congenital", "reactive" (to cytokines), or due to "unregulated production": one of the "myeloproliferative neoplasms" or certain other myeloid neoplasms. A disorder of platelet function is called a thrombocytopathy or a platelet function disorder.


title: Platelet

text: Normal platelets can respond to an "abnormality on the vessel wall" rather than to hemorrhage, resulting in inappropriate platelet adhesion/activation and thrombosis: the formation of a clot within an intact vessel. This type of thrombosis arises by mechanisms different from those of a normal clot: namely, extending the fibrin of venous thrombosis; extending an unstable or ruptured arterial plaque, causing arterial thrombosis; and microcirculatory thrombosis. An arterial thrombus may partially obstruct blood flow, causing downstream ischemia, or may completely obstruct it, causing downstream tissue death.


title: Platelet

text: Some drugs used to treat inflammation have the unwanted side effect of suppressing normal platelet function. These are the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). Aspirin irreversibly disrupts platelet function by inhibiting cyclooxygenase-1 (COX1), and hence normal hemostasis. The resulting platelets are unable to produce new cyclooxygenase because they have no DNA. Normal platelet function will not return until the use of aspirin has ceased and enough of the affected platelets have been replaced by new ones, which can take over a week. Ibuprofen, another NSAID, does not have such a long duration effect, with platelet function usually returning within 24 hours, and taking ibuprofen before aspirin prevents the irreversible effects of aspirin.


title: Platelet

text: Platelet transfusion is most frequently used to correct unusually low platelet counts, either to prevent spontaneous bleeding (typically at counts below 10×10/L) or in anticipation of medical procedures that will necessarily involve some bleeding. For example, in patients undergoing surgery, a level below 50×10/L is associated with abnormal surgical bleeding, and regional anaesthetic procedures such as epidurals are avoided for levels below 80×10/L. Platelets may also be transfused when the platelet count is normal but the platelets are dysfunctional, such as when an individual is taking aspirin or clopidogrel. Finally, platelets may be transfused as part of a massive transfusion protocol, in which the three major blood components (red blood cells, plasma, and platelets) are transfused to address severe hemorrhage. Platelet transfusion is contraindicated in thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), as it fuels the coagulopathy.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets are either isolated from collected units of whole blood and pooled to make a therapeutic dose, or collected by platelet apheresis: blood is taken from the donor, passed through a device which removes the platelets, and the remainder is returned to the donor in a closed loop. The industry standard is for platelets to be tested for bacteria before transfusion to avoid septic reactions, which can be fatal. Recently the AABB Industry Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services (5.1.5.1) has allowed for use of pathogen reduction technology as an alternative to bacterial screenings in platelets.


title: Platelet

text: Pooled whole-blood platelets, sometimes called "random" platelets, are separated by one of two methods. In the US, a unit of whole blood is placed into a large centrifuge in what is referred to as a "soft spin". At these settings, the platelets remain suspended in the plasma. The platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is removed from the red cells, then centrifuged at a faster setting to harvest the platelets from the plasma. In other regions of the world, the unit of whole blood is centrifuged using settings that cause the platelets to become suspended in the "buffy coat" layer, which includes the platelets and the white blood cells. The "buffy coat" is isolated in a sterile bag, suspended in a small amount of red blood cells and plasma, then centrifuged again to separate the platelets and plasma from the red and white blood cells. Regardless of the initial method of preparation, multiple donations may be combined into one container using a sterile connection device to manufacture a single product with the desired therapeutic dose.


title: Platelet

text: Apheresis platelets are collected using a mechanical device that draws blood from the donor and centrifuges the collected blood to separate out the platelets and other components to be collected. The remaining blood is returned to the donor. The advantage to this method is that a single donation provides at least one therapeutic dose, as opposed to the multiple donations for whole-blood platelets. This means that a recipient is not exposed to as many different donors and has less risk of transfusion-transmitted disease and other complications. Sometimes a person such as a cancer patient who requires routine transfusions of platelets will receive repeated donations from a specific donor to further minimize the risk. Pathogen reduction of platelets using for example, riboflavin and UV light treatments can also be carried out to reduce the infectious load of pathogens contained in donated blood products, thereby reducing the risk of transmission of transfusion-transmitted diseases. Another photochemical treatment process utilizing amotosalen and UVA light has been developed for the inactivation of viruses, bacteria, parasites, and leukocytes that can contaminate blood components intended for transfusion. In addition, apheresis platelets tend to contain fewer contaminating red blood cells because the collection method is more efficient than "soft spin" centrifugation at isolating the desired blood component.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets collected by either method have a very short shelf life, typically five days. This results in frequent problems with short supply, as testing the donations often requires up to a full day. Since there are no effective preservative solutions for platelets, they lose potency quickly and are best when fresh.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets are stored under constant agitation at 20–24 °C (68–75.2 °F). Units can not be refrigerated as this causes platelets to change shape and lose function. Storage at room temperature provides an environment where any bacteria that are introduced to the blood component during the collection process may proliferate and subsequently cause bacteremia in the patient. Regulations are in place in the United States that require products to be tested for the presence of bacterial contamination before transfusion.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets do not need to belong to the same A-B-O blood group as the recipient or be cross-matched to ensure immune compatibility between donor and recipient unless they contain a significant amount of red blood cells (RBCs). The presence of RBCs imparts a reddish-orange color to the product and is usually associated with whole-blood platelets. An effort is sometimes made to issue type specific platelets, but this is not critical, as it is with RBCs.


title: Platelet

text: Prior to issuing platelets to the recipient, they may be irradiated to prevent transfusion-associated graft versus host disease or they may be washed to remove the plasma if indicated.


title: Platelet

text: The change in the recipient's platelet count after transfusion is termed the "increment" and is calculated by subtracting the pre-transfusion platelet count from the post-transfusion platelet count. Many factors affect the increment including the recipient's body size, the number of platelets transfused, and clinical features that may cause premature destruction of the transfused platelets. When recipients fail to demonstrate an adequate post-transfusion increment, this is termed platelet transfusion refractoriness.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets, either apheresis-derived or random-donor, can be processed through a "volume reduction" process. In this process, the platelets are spun in a centrifuge and the excess plasma is removed, leaving 10 to 100 mL of platelet concentrate. Such volume-reduced platelets are normally transfused only to neonatal and pediatric patients when a large volume of plasma could overload the child's small circulatory system. The lower volume of plasma also reduces the chances of an adverse transfusion reaction to plasma proteins. Volume reduced platelets have a shelf life of only four hours.


title: Platelet

text: The blood clot is only a temporary solution to stop bleeding; tissue repair is needed. Small interruptions in the endothelium are handled by physiological mechanisms; large interruptions by the trauma surgeon. The fibrin is slowly dissolved by the fibrinolytic enzyme, plasmin, and the platelets are cleared by phagocytosis.


title: Platelet

text: Platelets release platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), a potent chemotactic agent; and TGF beta, which stimulates the deposition of extracellular matrix; fibroblast growth factor, insulin-like growth factor 1, platelet-derived epidermal growth factor, and vascular endothelial growth factor. Local application of these factors in increased concentrations through platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is used as an adjunct in wound healing.


title: Platelet

text: Instead of having platelets, non-mammalian vertebrates have nucleated thrombocytes, which resemble B lymphocytes in morphology. They aggregate in response to thrombin, but not to ADP, serotonin, nor adrenaline, as platelets do.


title: Platelet

text: The term "thrombocyte" (clot cell) came into use in the early 1900s and is sometimes used as a synonym for platelet; but not generally in the scientific literature, except as a root word for other terms related to platelets (e.g. "thrombocytopenia" meaning low platelets). The term thrombocytes are proper for mononuclear cells found in the blood of non-mammalian vertebrates: they are the functional equivalent of platelets, but circulate as intact cells rather than cytoplasmic fragments of bone marrow megakaryocytes.


title: Platelet

text: In some contexts, the word "thrombus" is used interchangeably with the word "clot", regardless of its composition (white, red, or mixed). In other contexts it is used to contrast a normal from an abnormal clot: "thrombus" arises from physiologic hemostasis, "thrombosis" arises from a pathologic and excessive quantity of clot. In a third context it is used to contrast the result from the process: "thrombus" is the result, "thrombosis" is the process.


title: Alan Carr

text: Alan Graham Carr (born 14 June 1976) is an English comedian, broadcaster and writer. His breakthrough was in 2001, winning the "City Life" Best Newcomer of the Year and the BBC New Comedy Awards. In the ensuing years, Carr's career burgeoned on the Manchester comedy circuit before he became known for co-hosting "The Friday Night Project" (2006–2009) with Justin Lee Collins. This led to the release of a short-lived entertainment show "Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong" (2008), and he went on to star in the comedy chat show "" (2009–2016) which aired on Channel 4. Since 2017, Carr often stands in as a team captain on "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown". In 2019, he became a judge on "RuPaul's Drag Race UK". In 2021, he took over from Fearne Cotton as host of BBC’s "Interior Design Masters".


title: Alan Carr

text: Carr hosted the radio show "Going Out with Alan Carr" on BBC Radio 2 (2009–2012), as well as releasing his autobiography book "Look Who It Is!" (2008), and going on three arena stand-up comedy tours: "Tooth Fairy Live" (2007), "Spexy Beast Live" (2011) and "Yap, Yap, Yap!" (2015). Carr has won three British Comedy Awards (2007, 2008, 2013), two National Television Awards (2012, 2015) and a BAFTA TV Award (2013).


title: Alan Carr

text: Alan Graham Carr was born on 14 June 1976 in Weymouth, Dorset, oldest son of Christine and Graham Carr, and spent the majority of his childhood in Northampton. His father, whose family comes from the North East of England, is a former Northampton Town manager and Newcastle United chief scout. Carr has a younger brother, Gary.