title: Kiana Ledé

text: Kiana Ledé Brown was born on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. Her father is of African American and Indigenous American descent, while her mother is Hispanic of Mexican-American descent. As an infant, Ledé began to sing the alphabet immediately after learning it and began performing at the age of 3 upon receiving her first karaoke machine. As a child, Ledé began to regularly perform in school plays and beauty pageants while taking voice lessons and piano study. She would regularly get kicked out of class for singing, prompting her mother to enroll her in a performing arts school so she could put her talent to good use. She attended Mountain Pointe High School.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: In 2011, Ledé's mother discovered Kidz Bop, a website for kids to upload and share videos of themselves performing. She uploaded a video of Ledé performing an original number on the piano which was selected as a finalist. After performing Adele's "Someone Like You" to earn her a place in the Top 4, Ledé won the 2011 KIDZ Star USA Grand Prize out of 45,000 submissions, the largest national talent competition for kids ages 15 and under.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: At a school assembly, Ledé was told that she won the national talent search by "American Idol" winner Kris Allen. The prize included a RCA Records recording contract and a starring role in the "Kidz Bop 21" music video and commercial. Allen said after seeing her live, "she went from 'She's good' to 'She is no doubt gonna win this thing.'"


title: Kiana Ledé

text: Ledé said she had the opportunity to listen to and select from her top three song choices. After considering and listening to the songs, she said she chose her first single "Hey Chica" because of the upbeat tempo. The song was released June 19, 2012. Brown has performed the song on "The Today Show" and at the 86th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. She also performed "Do The Mermaid" from "Barbie in A Mermaid Tale 2".


title: Kiana Ledé

text: In 2012, Ledé was named cover girl for Miss Moxie's Holiday 2012 issue. The site praised "Hey Chica" for promoting a "clear message of self-empowerment and encourages young women to feel beautiful in their own skin".


title: Kiana Ledé

text: At the age of 16, Ledé moved to North Hollywood. She worked at a gymnastics center and a jazz club due to her receiving no advance from RCA Records. As artists do, she wanted more creative control of her music, so she showed the label what she was working on. They did not see potential in her work, and dropped her a month later. She was later motivated by Grammy award-winning production duo Rice N' Peas to perform cover songs. The series was dubbed "Soulfood Sessions" and helped her gain a following.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: In 2016, Ledé was cast in the series regular role as Zoe Vaughn on the second season of MTV's "Scream". In 2018, she also accepted a lead role alongside Joseph Simmons of Run-DMC in the Netflix original series "All About The Washingtons". The series was cancelled after only one season.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: Following her departure from RCA Records, Ledé signed with Republic Records after her rendition of Drake's "Hotline Bling" helped gain their attention. She would later release her debut EP "Selfless" in July 2018. The EP includes her breakout single "Ex", which became her first entry to the Billboard charts, peaking at number 9 on the US R&B Songs charts and at number 1 in several countries. It has earned platinum status from the RIAA as of June 2020. To promote "Selfess", she served as opening act with Ro James on Jessie J's R.O.S.E. Tour. She and Lucky Daye also opened up for the Ella Mai The Debut Tour at Brooklyn Steel in New York on March 12, 2019.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: Ledé's second studio EP, "Myself", was released in June 2019, and included the single "Bouncin" featuring rapper Offset, which peaked within the top 30 of "Billboard"'s rhythmic airplay chart. She would also embark on her first headlining tour that same year.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: Stand-alone singles "Title" and "Easy Breezy" would build momentum for her debut album, which Ledé had been working on for some time. Her highly anticipated 17-track debut album, titled "Kiki" was released on April 3, 2020, which debuted at number 30 on the "Billboard" 200. The album features guest appearances from R&B stars Ari Lennox, 6LACK and more. The lead single "Mad at Me" interpolates Outkast's 2000 hit song "So Fresh, So Clean".


title: Kiana Ledé

text: A tour was planned starting in Europe, but it was eventually postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is currently scheduled to perform across Europe on May 23.


title: Kiana Ledé

text: Ledé would later make a few guest appearances on tracks with Usher, Queen Naija and others. She released the deluxe edition of "Kiki" on October 23, including seven bonus tracks. In 2021, Ledé was featured on the first all-female compilation album, "Big Femme Energy Volume 1", with her track "Cut 'Em Off".


title: Buster (film)

text: Buster is a 1988 British romantic crime comedy-drama based on events from the Great Train Robbery, starring Phil Collins and Julie Walters.


title: Buster (film)

text: The supporting cast include Larry Lamb and Shelia Hancock. The soundtrack features two singles from Collins which topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart.


title: Buster (film)

text: Buster Edwards (Phil Collins) is a petty criminal from the East End of 1963 London. His long-suffering wife June (Julie Walters) thinks of him as a lovable rogue. The film opens with Buster walking along his local high street. He breaks into a shop to steal a suit, into which he then changes to attend a funeral. Buster brings Harry (Michael Attwell), who has been used on other 'jobs' and has recently served 18 months in prison for his part in previous robberies, to discuss the next 'job' with the ring-leader Bruce Reynolds (Larry Lamb). Harry wants 'in' and becomes part of the firm who are planning to rob a Royal Mail train allegedly carrying up to £1 million in cash.


title: Buster (film)

text: After a complex and successful heist, the gang return to their farmhouse hideout to stay out of sight and split the spoils. They find they have stolen over £3 million − much more than they have anticipated or reported by the media. Members of the gang are shown drinking from beer bottles and glasses without wearing gloves, thereby leaving fingerprints which would be evidence of their involvement in the robbery. While lying low at the farmhouse, they hear on the radio that the police are searching farmhouses and outhouses within a radius of the robbery site. The gang become nervous and some members want to immediately return to London for fear of discovery; others think they should keep to the original plan and stay put.


title: Buster (film)

text: The gang decide to return to London, where they meet their 'contact', a solicitor's clerk who, as in the original plan, arranges for the farmhouse to be 'cleared and cleaned', thereby destroying any physical evidence linking the gang to the robbery. The contact states he will bring the plans forward from a few weeks to the next two to three days. Bruce, Buster and Harry are not happy with any delay at all because they fear imminent discovery, so they set off back to the farmhouse in their own car, to do the job themselves. During the journey, they hear on the car radio that the farmhouse hideout has been discovered, so they abandon their plans and return to London, hoping they will have time to escape with their families. Buster returns home, and is devastated to find that June has had a miscarriage while he was committing the robbery. She cannot believe it when she learns of his involvement in what has been quickly dubbed "The Great Train Robbery".


title: Buster (film)

text: For several months after the robbery, Buster and June remain in hiding with their young daughter Nicky (Ellie Beaven) until they are turned in to the police by a suspicious neighbor. Buster flees to Acapulco, where he is met by fellow Great Train Robber, Bruce Reynolds, and his girlfriend Franny (Stephanie Lawrence), who are also on the run and living it up in the sun on the profits of the crime. June and Nicky arrive, despite the disapproval of her mother (Sheila Hancock), and although Nicky seems to love her new life in the sun, June is immediately unimpressed with their new way of life and resolves to return to England, despite knowing that if Buster is to return with them he will be imprisoned. Buster remains in Acapulco for some time after June leaves, until realizing (while celebrating England's 1966 World Cup triumph) that having money and the sun means nothing if he doesn't have his family, so he returns to England to accept his punishment.


title: Buster (film)

text: Twelve years later in 1975, after his release from jail, Buster is seemingly content and running a flower stall near London's Waterloo Bridge.


title: Buster (film)

text: The opening sequence was filmed in Broadway Market, Hackney. The robbery scenes were filmed on the Great Central Railway, using British Rail Class 40, D306, as a stand-in for D326, the engine actually involved. Some scenes were filmed in Page Street, Westminster, London.


title: Buster (film)

text: The real Buster Edwards plays a small cameo during the arrival in Acapulco. He is seen walking out of the airport with his girlfriend, played by Phil Collins’ wife, just before Buster, June, and Nicky.


title: Buster (film)

text: The soundtrack album includes three songs that were performed by Phil Collins. Two of them were released as singles, namely "A Groovy Kind of Love" and "Two Hearts", which reached #1 and #6 on the UK Singles Chart, respectively. Both songs were number one singles in the US.


title: Buster (film)

text: Phil Collins also co-wrote "Loco in Acapulco", performed by the Four Tops for the soundtrack. "Two Hearts" received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song, a Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, tying with "Let the River Run" from "Working Girl" by Carly Simon, while the soundtrack album received a Brit Award for Soundtrack/Cast Recording.


title: Buster (film)

text: Prince Charles and Princess Diana cancelled their attendance of the film's premiere on 15 September 1988, on the advice of Phil Collins, after the film was accused of glorifying crime. Collins said he wanted to avoid causing them "embarrassment". One of the film's critics was Conservative MP Ivor Stanbrook, who said the royal couple should not be associated with a film that "commemorates a particularly sordid and vicious crime."


title: Buster (film)

text: The film opened 16 September 1988 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London and grossed £65,883 in its opening weekend, placing sixth at the UK box office despite playing in just one cinema. After expanding nationwide in its fifth week of release, it reached number one at the UK box office. The film went on to gross £3,939,329 ($7.2 million) in the UK, the highest-grossing independent film of the year; tenth highest-grossing film of the year and the third best British film behind "A Fish Called Wanda" and "The Last Emperor". In the United States and Canada, it grossed $540,000 (£300,000).


title: Buster (film)

text: Reviews for the film were mixed, with praise for the lead performances but criticism of the film's tone. "Radio Times" gave the film three stars out of five, stating: "Too squeaky clean to be believable, this is an entertaining but fairy-tale view of law-breaking." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 3 out of 4 and wrote: "Buster is played with surprising effectiveness by rock star Phil Collins, who looks and sounds like a gentler Bob Hoskins." "Halliwell's Film Guide" described the film as an "uneasy combination of romantic comedy and chase thriller". Leonard Maltin gave the film two-and-a-half stars, writing: "Singer Collins' starring film debut is a diverting (if forgettable) yarn, with Walters a good match as his loving, long-suffering spouse." Maltin also wrote that the film had a "great soundtrack".


title: Buster (film)

text: A stage production of "Buster" was staged between 2000 and 2004 at various locations across the UK starring (amongst others) Ray Quinn in the main cast. The production was an adaptation by Kieran Woodbury of the original Colin Shindler screenplay.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Anastasio Somoza García (1 February 1896 – 29 September 1956) was the leader of Nicaragua from 1937 until his assassination in 1956. He was only officially the 21st President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 1950 until his assassination on 29 September 1956, ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military strongman. He was the patriarch of the Somoza family, which ruled Nicaragua as a family dictatorship for 42 years.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: The son of a wealthy coffee planter, Somoza was educated in the United States. After his return to Nicaragua, he helped oust President Adolfo Díaz. He became the foreign secretary and took the title of "General". With the help of the US Marine Corps, which occupied Nicaragua at the time, Somoza became the head of the National Guard. This gave him the power base to remove his wife's uncle, Juan Bautista Sacasa, from the presidency, and make himself president in 1937. In 1947, an ally nominally succeeded him, but he retained power.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: A month after his successor had been inaugurated, Somoza used the military to carry out a coup. The president was declared 'incapacitated' by Congress and Somoza served in his stead. Returning to power in his own name in 1950, he maintained an iron grip on his own Liberal Party while making a deal with the Conservatives; thus, he faced no opposition. This left him free to amass a huge personal fortune. On 21 September 1956, he was shot by poet Rigoberto López Pérez. Mortally wounded, he was flown to the Panama Canal Zone where he died a week later. His eldest son Luis Somoza Debayle, who was Speaker of the House at the time of Somoza Garcia's death, took over as acting president and was elected in his own right in 1957. He served as president until 1963, and as the power behind puppet presidents until his death in 1967. His younger brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle was elected to serve until 1972, then served as the real power behind a nominally bipartisan junta until being reelected in 1974. Somoza Debayle was forced to resign in 1979 and was assassinated in exile in Paraguay the following year.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Somoza was born in San Marcos, Carazo Department in Nicaragua, the son of Anastasio Somoza Reyes, a wealthy coffee planter, and Julia García, and a grandson of Anastasio Somoza Martínez and Isabel Reyes. As a teenager, he was sent to live with relatives in Philadelphia, where he attended the Peirce School of Business Administration (now Peirce College). While living in Philadelphia, he met his future wife, Salvadora Debayle Sacasa, a member of one of Nicaragua's wealthiest families, daughter of Dr. Luis Henri Debayle Pallais and wife Casimira Sacasa Sacasa, daughter of Roberto Sacasa Sarria, 44th and 46th President of Nicaragua, and wife and cousin Ángela Sacasa Cuadra. After returning to Nicaragua, he was unsuccessful as a businessman.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: He married Salvadora Debayle in 1919. They had two sons, Luis Somoza Debayle and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and a daughter, Lillian Somoza de Sevilla Sacasa.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: In 1926, Somoza joined the Liberal rebellion in support of the presidential claims of Juan Bautista Sacasa, his wife's uncle. Somoza failed to distinguish himself in battle, leading an unsuccessful attack on the garrison at San Marcos. However, as a result of being educated in the United States, he spoke excellent English and acted as an interpreter during the U.S.-brokered negotiations between the warring parties.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: In the government of President José María Moncada, to whom he was distantly related, he served as governor of the department of León, Nicaraguan Consul to Costa Rica, and Foreign Minister. Despite his limited military experience, Somoza was able to rise through the ranks of the National Guard (), the constabulary force organized by the United States Marines.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: After waging a bitter, six-year struggle with the forces of General Augusto César Sandino, in January 1933, the Marines evacuated the country following the election of Juan Bautista Sacasa as president. At the urging of the U.S. Ambassador Matthew E. Hanna, Somoza García was appointed as director of the National Guard.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: During peace talks, Somoza ordered the assassination of General Sandino on 21 February 1934 in violation of a safe-conduct agreement. Sandino's assassination was followed by the murder of former Sandino supporters by the National Guard. In June 1936, Somoza forced Sacasa to resign.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Carlos Alberto Brenes ruled for the remainder of the year and in December, Somoza was elected president by a margin of 107,201 votes to 100—an implausibly high margin that could have been obtained only through massive fraud. He took office on New Year's Day 1937. Somoza, popularly known as "Tacho", amended the Constitution to centralize all power in his hands. Family members and key supporters monopolized key positions in the government and military.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: During World War II, the government confiscated the properties of Nicaragua's small, but economically influential German community and sold them to Somoza and his family at vastly lowered prices. By 1944, Somoza was the largest landowner in Nicaragua, owning fifty-one cattle ranches and forty-six coffee plantations, as well as several sugar mills and rum distilleries. Somoza named himself director of the Pacific Railroad, linking Managua to the nation's principal port, Corinto, which moved his merchandise and crops for free and maintained his vehicles and agricultural equipment.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: He also made substantial profits by granting concessions to foreign (primarily U.S.) companies to exploit gold, rubber, and timber, for which he received 'executive levies' and 'presidential commissions.' He passed laws restricting imports and organized contraband operations, which sold merchandise through his own stores. He also extracted bribes from illegal gambling, prostitution, and alcohol distilling. By the end of the decade, he had acquired a fortune estimated to be US$400 million.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Though Nicaragua received Lend-Lease aid in World War II, the unwillingness of Nicaragua to actually fight meant it was given obsolete equipment (most of it being either purchased from Russia, Spain and Portugal or captured German equipment) and no Western training.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: In 1944, under pressure from the U.S., Somoza agreed to liberalize his rule. Unions were legalized, and he agreed not to run for re-election in 1947. The Nationalist Liberal Party nominated an elderly doctor named Leonardo Argüello, with Somoza using the National Guard to secure his election. Somoza intended for Argüello to be a mere puppet and to keep real power in his own hands until he could run again in 1952. However, upon being sworn in as president in May 1947, Argüello displayed considerable independence, attempting to reduce the power of the National Guard and the control of Somoza and his associates over the economy. Less than a month later, Somoza orchestrated another coup, naming one of his wife's uncles, Benjamín Lacayo, as president. This definitively ended any hopes for further democratization in Nicaragua under the Somoza regime.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: When the administration of U.S. President Harry Truman refused to recognize the new government, a Constituent Assembly was convened, which appointed Somoza's uncle, Víctor Manuel Román y Reyes, as president. In another heavily rigged election, Somoza García again became president in 1950. In the 1950s, he reorganized and streamlined his business empire, founding a merchant marine company, several textile mills, a national airline (LANICA, short for Líneas Aéreas de Nicaragua) and a new container port on the Pacific near Managua, which he named Puerto Somoza. (After the Sandinistas came to power they renamed it Puerto Sandino). He also acquired properties in the United States and Canada.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: In 1955, the constitution was amended to allow him to run for another term. Shortly after being nominated, he was shot on 21 September 1956 by the poet Rigoberto López Pérez in the city of León, and died several days later in a Panama Canal Zone hospital.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Somoza's sons, Luis and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ruled the country directly or through figurehead politicians for the next 23 years. Despite widespread corruption and repression of dissent, they were able to receive support from the United States, which viewed them as anti-communist stalwarts and a source of stability. His daughter Lillian Somoza Debayle, born in León, Nicaragua, on 3 May 1921, married Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa, Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States during his brother-in-law's rule. He also had a son named José R. Somoza, born to an unknown mother.


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Somoza is entombed with his oldest son at Cementerio Occidental in the National Guard Mausoleum in Managua, Nicaragua. (He should not be confused with his son, Somoza DeBayle, also a former Nicaraguan dictator, who is entombed in Miami.)


title: Anastasio Somoza García

text: Although Somoza was recognized as a ruthless dictator, the United States continued to support his regime as a non-communist stronghold in Nicaragua. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) supposedly remarked in 1939 that "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's "our" son of a bitch." According to historian David Schmitz, however, researchers and archivists who have searched the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library have found no evidence that Roosevelt ever made this statement. The statement first appeared in the 15 November 1948 issue of "Time" magazine and was later mentioned in a 17 March 1960 broadcast of "CBS Reports" called "Trujillo: Portrait of a Dictator". In this broadcast, however, it was asserted that FDR made the statement in reference to Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. It should be further noted that this statement has been attributed to a variety of United States presidential administrations in regard to foreign dictators. Thus the statement remains apocryphal at this point, though Roosevelt and later presidents certainly supported the Somoza family and their rule over Nicaragua. Andrew Crawley claims that the Roosevelt statement is a myth created by Somoza himself.


title: Brother Mouzone

text: Brother Mouzone (from Arabic موزون "mawzūn", meaning "balanced,” "weighted") is a drug enforcer and hitman from New York City. "The Brother" does not fit the usual picture of drug-trade "muscle"; he always wears a suit, bowtie, and glasses, and speaks politely and precisely. He is also quite learned, reading magazines such as "The Economist", "Harper's", "The Atlantic", "The New Republic", and "The Nation".


title: Brother Mouzone

text: His dress, and extremely proper and pious persona resembles those associated with the Nation of Islam, more particularly its paramilitary wing, the Fruit of Islam, although it is never explicitly stated that he belongs to either organization. Also, his character might be inspired by the Black Mafia, a criminal organization comprising mainly Muslim African Americans that has close connections with the Nation of Islam, but unlike those affiliated with the Nation of Islam, is involved in drug trafficking.


title: Brother Mouzone

text: Upon first encountering him, the street dealer Cheese mocked Mouzone's formal style of dress by remarking that he must either be in "the Nation" or still let his mother pick out his clothes. Mouzone reveals he is a Muslim by mouthing "Allahu akbar" repeatedly after Omar shoots him, and Mouzone believes he is about to die. He is always accompanied by his "man" Lamar, who runs errands for him.


title: Brother Mouzone

text: Avon Barksdale hires Mouzone to protect the weakened Barksdale operation from Proposition Joe's dealers, who are working the Barksdale towers as part of a secret agreement between Stringer Bell and Proposition Joe. Mouzone confronts and promptly shoots Cheese Wagstaff with snake shot. He then informs Cheese that the next bullet in the chamber is a copper-jacketed hollow point bullet of his own design. Cheese and his dealers flee.


title: Brother Mouzone

text: To maintain his alliance with Proposition Joe, Stringer dupes Omar Little into believing that Mouzone is responsible for the brutal murder of Omar's boyfriend Brandon. After Omar shoots Mouzone, Omar and Mouzone talk, leading Omar to realize that he has been tricked: the talk makes clear Mouzone is a ruthlessly efficient assassin who favors execution-style murder, so carving up Brandon and torturing him to death is not Mouzone's style. Omar calls an ambulance for Mouzone and departs. While recovering in hospital Mouzone informs Stringer that their agreement is "absolved" and later returns to New York.


title: Brother Mouzone

text: In season 3, Mouzone returns to Baltimore. He locates Omar's boyfriend Dante after seeking advice from Baltimore local Vinson. Mouzone beats Dante until he reveals Omar's whereabouts. Rather than exact vengeance on Omar for shooting him, Mouzone suggests that they find and kill Stringer Bell together.


title: Brother Mouzone

text: Avon, whose relationship with Stringer has become strained, after they repeatedly clash on strategy and Stringer reveals that he was responsible for D'Angelo Barksdale's death, reluctantly gives Mouzone a time and a place to find Stringer after Mouzone threatens the Barksdale organization's connection to New York. Before returning to New York, Mouzone releases Dante and gives Omar his weapon to dispose of. In season 3, episode 11, Mouzone and Omar ambush and kill Stringer Bell, ending the story arc that began with Stringer's pursuit of Omar back in season 1.


title: Baroreflex

text: baroreceptor reflex is one of the body's homeostatic mechanisms that helps to maintain blood pressure at nearly constant levels. The baroreflex provides a rapid negative feedback loop in which an elevated blood pressure causes the heart rate to decrease. Decreased blood pressure decreases baroreflex activation and causes heart rate to increase and to restore blood pressure levels. Their function is to sense pressure changes by responding to change in the tension of the arterial wall The baroreflex can begin to act in less than the duration of a cardiac cycle (fractions of a second) and thus baroreflex adjustments are key factors in dealing with postural hypotension, the tendency for blood pressure to decrease on standing due to gravity.


title: Baroreflex

text: The system relies on specialized neurons, known as baroreceptors, chiefly in the aortic arch and carotid sinuses, to monitor changes in blood pressure and relay them to the medulla oblongata. Baroreceptors are stretch receptors and respond to the pressure induced stretching of the blood vessel in which they are found. Baroreflex-induced changes in blood pressure are mediated by both branches of the autonomic nervous system: the parasympathetic and sympathetic nerves. Baroreceptors are active even at normal blood pressures so their activity informs the brain about both increases and decreases in blood pressure.


title: Baroreflex

text: The body contains two other, slower-acting systems to regulate blood pressure: the heart releases atrial natriuretic peptide when blood pressure is too high, and the kidneys sense and correct low blood pressure with the renin–angiotensin system.


title: Baroreflex

text: Baroreceptors are present in the atria of the heart and vena cavae, but the most sensitive baroreceptors are in the carotid sinuses and aortic arch. While the carotid sinus baroreceptor axons travel within the glossopharyngeal nerve (CN IX), the aortic arch baroreceptor axons travel within the vagus nerve (CN X). Baroreceptor activity travels along these nerves directly into the central nervous system to excite glutamatergic neurons within the solitary nucleus (SN) in the brainstem. Baroreceptor information flows from these NSS neurons to both parasympathetic and sympathetic neurons within the brainstem.


title: Baroreflex

text: The SN neurons send excitatory fibers (glutamatergic) to the caudal ventrolateral medulla (CVLM), activating the CVLM. The activated CVLM then sends inhibitory fibers (GABAergic) to the rostral ventrolateral medulla (RVLM), thus inhibiting the RVLM. The RVLM is the primary regulator of the sympathetic nervous system, sending excitatory fibers (glutamatergic) to the sympathetic preganglionic neurons located in the intermediolateral nucleus of the spinal cord. Hence, when the baroreceptors are activated (by an increased blood pressure), the NTS activates the CVLM, which in turn inhibits the RVLM, thus decreasing the activity of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, leading to a relative decrease in blood pressure. Likewise, low blood pressure activates baroreceptors less and causes an increase in sympathetic tone via "disinhibition" (less inhibition, hence activation) of the RVLM. Cardiovascular targets of the sympathetic nervous system includes both blood vessels and the heart.


title: Baroreflex

text: Even at resting levels of blood pressure, arterial baroreceptor discharge activates SN neurons. Some of these SN neurons are tonically activated by this resting blood pressure and thus activate excitatory fibers to the nucleus ambiguus and dorsal nucleus of vagus nerve to regulate the parasympathetic nervous system. These parasympathetic neurons send axons to the heart and parasympathetic activity slows cardiac pacemaking and thus heart rate. This parasympathetic activity is further increased during conditions of elevated blood pressure. The parasympathetic nervous system is primarily directed toward the heart.


title: Baroreflex

text: The baroreceptors are stretch-sensitive mechanoreceptors. At low pressures, baroreceptors become inactive. When blood pressure rises, the carotid and aortic sinuses are distended further, resulting in increased stretch and, therefore, a greater degree of activation of the baroreceptors. At normal resting blood pressures, many baroreceptors are actively reporting blood pressure information and the baroreflex is actively modulating autonomic activity. Active baroreceptors fire action potentials ("spikes") more frequently. The greater the stretch the more rapidly baroreceptors fire action potentials. Many individual baroreceptors are inactive at normal resting pressures and only become activated when their stretch or pressure threshold is exceeded.


title: Baroreflex

text: Baroreceptor mechanosensitivty is hypothesised to be linked to the expression of PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 on neurons in the pretrosal and nodose ganglia.


title: Baroreflex

text: Baroreceptor action potentials are relayed to the solitary nucleus, which uses frequency as a measure of blood pressure. Increased activation of the solitary nucleus inhibits the vasomotor center and stimulates the vagal nuclei. The end-result of baroreceptor activation is inhibition of the sympathetic nervous system and activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.


title: Baroreflex

text: The sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system have opposing effects on blood pressure. Sympathetic activation leads to an elevation of total peripheral resistance and cardiac output via increased contractility of the heart, heart rate, and arterial vasoconstriction, which tends to increase blood pressure. Conversely, parasympathetic activation leads to decreased cardiac output via decrease in heart rate, resulting in a tendency to lower blood pressure.


title: Baroreflex

text: By coupling sympathetic inhibition and parasympathetic activation, the baroreflex maximizes blood pressure reduction. Sympathetic inhibition leads to a drop in peripheral resistance, while parasympathetic activation leads to a depressed heart rate (reflex bradycardia) and contractility. The combined effects will dramatically decrease blood pressure.In a similar manner, sympathetic activation with parasympathetic inhibition allows the baroreflex to elevate blood pressure.


title: Baroreflex

text: Baroreceptor firing has an inhibitory effect on sympathetic outflow. The sympathetic neurons fire at different rates which determines the release of norepinephrine onto cardiovascular targets. Norepinephrine constricts blood vessels to increase blood pressure. When baroreceptors are stretched (due to an increased blood pressure) their firing rate increases which in turn decreases the sympathetic outflow resulting in reduced norepinephrine and thus blood pressure. When the blood pressure is low, baroreceptor firing is reduced and this in turn results in augmented sympathetic outflow and increased norepinephrine release on the heart and blood vessels, increasing blood pressure.


title: Baroreflex

text: The baroreflex may be responsible for a part of the low-frequency component of heart rate variability, the so-called Mayer waves, at 0.1 Hz.


title: Baroreflex

text: The baroreflex can be used to treat resistant hypertension. This stimulation is provided by a pacemaker-like device. While the devices appears to lower blood pressure, evidence remains very limited as of 2018.


title: Baroreflex

text: The ability of baroreflex activation therapy to reduce sympathetic nerve activity suggests a potential in the treatment of chronic heart failure, because in this condition there is often intense sympathetic activation and patients with such sympathetic activation show a markedly increased risk of fatal arrhythmias and death.


title: Baroreflex

text: One trial has already shown that baroreflex activation therapy improves functional status, quality of life, exercise capacity and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide.


title: Janette Manrara

text: Janette Manrara Škorjanec (born November 16, 1983) is a singer, Cuban-American television presenter, choreographer and professional dancer from Miami, Florida, US. Originally a singer, learning from her Cuban family, she formally studied dance from the age of 19. Manrara is best known for her appearances on the US series "So You Think You Can Dance" and British dance reality television competition, "Strictly Come Dancing". She is married to Slovenian dancer and co-star Aljaž Škorjanec. In June 2021, it was announced that Manrara would co host "" with Rylan Clark.


title: Janette Manrara

text: Manrara began performing in musical theatre at age 12, and started her formal dance training at 19, studying ballroom, ballet, pointe, jazz and hip-hop. Manrara studied finance at Florida International University whilst completing her dance training.


title: Janette Manrara

text: In 2015, Manrara became engaged to long time partner, "Strictly Come Dancing" and "Burn the Floor co-star," Aljaž Škorjanec. They were married on 15 July 2017.


title: Janette Manrara

text: Manrara originally auditioned for "So You Think You Can Dance" but failed to make it through to the top 20. She auditioned again in season 5, performing a lap dance and made it through to the top 20, where she was paired with contemporary dancer Brandon Bryant. Like Manrara, Bryant had come through Las Vegas week during Season 4 only to be cut during the Top 20 selection. During her time on the show, Janette received much praise from the judges; both Mia Michaels and Nigel Lythgoe said Janette was their favorite female dancer that season and Lythgoe went on to say he hoped she would win the entire competition. An Argentine Tango she performed with Bryant was the first dance on Season 5 to receive a standing ovation from the judges. However, Manrara was eliminated during week 7 along with contemporary dancer Jason Glover.


title: Janette Manrara

text: During the show's eighth season, Manrara returned as an All Star to perform a Paso Doble with contestant Marko Germar.


title: Janette Manrara

text: In 2013 Manrara became a professional dancer on British TV show "Strictly Come Dancing". Her first celebrity partner in the 11th series was fashion designer Julien Macdonald; they were the third couple to be eliminated. She returned for the 12th series and partnered actor Jake Wood, with whom she made it to the Semi-Finals and finished in 5th place overall. For the 13th series, she was paired with TV personality Peter Andre; they were the 9th couple to be eliminated. As well as her main series appearances Manrara has also taken part in one-off specials of the show. In 2013 she performed a Quickstep with actor Ricky Norwood on the "Christmas special". In 2014 Manrara scored a maximum of 40 points in 'T"he People's Strictly for Comic Relief'" for an American Smooth with, "'Kidz R us'" founder, Phillip Barnett. Manrara took part in the 2016 "'Strictly Come dancing Live tour"' with her series 12 partner Jake Wood. For series 14, she was partnered with radio DJ Melvin Odoom. They were the first couple to be eliminated after receiving the fewest public votes, there was no dance off due to fellow competitor Anastacia's injury. Odoom and Manrara reprised their partnership in the 2016 "Christmas special", she also danced with canoeist Joe Clarke in the 2016 Children in Need special. For series 15, she was partnered with former JLS singer Aston Merrygold. They were the sixth couple eliminated in week 7, losing the dance-off to Mollie King and her partner AJ Pritchard. For series 16, she was partnered with children's television and This Morning doctor Dr. Ranj Singh. They were the sixth couple to be eliminated. During her seventh series on the show, in 2019, she was partnered with paralympian, Will Bayley. They had to withdraw from the competition on week 7, after Will sustained a knee injury in rehearsals the previous week. For her eighth series, she was partnered with pop singer, HRVY, where she reached the final for the first time and came runner-up. With HRVY, she also holds the record for the earliest perfect score for their Street/Commercial routine in week 6.


title: Janette Manrara

text: On 10 June 2021, it was announced that Manrara would become the new presenter of "", taking over from Zoe Ball who stepped down from the series earlier in the year. Manrara therefore did not continue as a professional dancer on the show.


title: Janette Manrara

text: The couple's Contemporary dance, to Lukas Graham's song "7 Years", was dedicated to the patients and staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Bayley had been treated for cancer, aged seven. Michael Hogan of "The Daily Telegraph" said the pair "... didn't leave a dry eye in the house after their beautiful, barefoot contemporary dance."


title: Janette Manrara

text: Due to a knee injury sustained during studio rehearsals, Bayley was unable to perform in week 6 (Halloween Week). On 30 October it was confirmed that he had withdrawn from the competition.


title: Janette Manrara

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic all scores are out of 30 as only three judges were present. This was the first series that Manrara got her first ever perfect score, also the first perfect score in Week 6. Plus, it was her first ever Musicals Week and final since she first joined the show in 2013.


title: Janette Manrara

text: In July 2022, Manrara announced she would be teaching & performing with Aljaž Škorjanec at Donahey's Dancing with The Stars Weekends in 2023.


title: Janette Manrara

text: Following her appearance on "So You Think You Can Dance", Manrara joined musical TV series, "Glee" as a principal dancer. She also made her ""Burn the Floor - West End"" debut at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on 21 July 2010. Additionally, she was part of the "Burn the Floor" US cast, which toured the United States from late 2010 through May 2011. She also appears on the BBC One show Morning Live doing a fitness workout. She has also co presented the show.


title: State pattern

text: The state pattern is a behavioral software design pattern that allows an object to alter its behavior when its internal state changes. This pattern is close to the concept of finite-state machines. The state pattern can be interpreted as a strategy pattern, which is able to switch a strategy through invocations of methods defined in the pattern's interface.


title: State pattern

text: The state pattern is used in computer programming to encapsulate varying behavior for the same object, based on its internal state. This can be a cleaner way for an object to change its behavior at runtime without resorting to conditional statements and thus improve maintainability.


title: State pattern

text: The state design pattern is one of twenty-three design patterns documented by the Gang of Four that describe how to solve recurring design problems. Such problems cover the design of flexible and reusable object-oriented software, such as objects that are easy to implement, change, test, and reuse.


title: State pattern

text: Implementing state-specific behavior directly within a class is inflexible because it commits the class to a particular behavior and makes it impossible to add a new state or change the behavior of an existing state later, independently from the class, without changing the class. In this, the pattern describes two solutions:


title: State pattern

text: This makes a class independent of how state-specific behavior is implemented. New states can be added by defining new state classes. A class can change its behavior at run-time by changing its current state object.


title: State pattern

text: In the accompanying Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagram, the codice_1 class doesn't implement state-specific behavior directly. Instead, codice_1 refers to the codice_3 interface for performing state-specific behavior (codice_4), which makes codice_1 independent of how state-specific behavior is implemented. The codice_6 and codice_7 classes implement the codice_3 interface, that is, implement (encapsulate) the state-specific behavior for each state. The UML sequence diagram shows the run-time interactions:


title: State pattern

text: The codice_1 object delegates state-specific behavior to different codice_3 objects. First, codice_1 calls codice_12 on its current (initial) state object (codice_6), which performs the operation and calls codice_14 on codice_1 to change context's current state to codice_7. The next time, codice_1 again calls codice_12 on its current state object (codice_7), which performs the operation and changes context's current state to codice_6.


title: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein

text: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein () is an Indian Hindi-language supernatural, fantasy, thriller television series produced by Balaji Telefilms. It was the spin-off series of "Naagin 5". It starred Krishna Mukherjee and Harsh Rajput.


title: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein

text: Rehan is extraordinary and lives like a human despite not being one. He likes darkness and hates light as he is a cursed Vampire, due to their parents, Veer, an eagle, and Sarvashresth Aadi Naagin Bani's forbidden union and searches for love which he never finds. Priya is a half-human, half-fairy. She has some incredible powers. The two meet in Mussoorie when Rehan returns to India to learn the truth behind his supernatural identity while Priya arrives there to search for her long-lost parents. They feel attracted to each other but hide their real selves. Priya starts living in the Khurana's mansion unaware that they are her real family. Rageshwari, Priya's estranged mother, knowing their powers and their destiny, tries to separate Priya from Rehan, believing that he might harm her. Meanwhile, Rehan and Priya repeatedly cross paths and sense connections. Priya learns from Rageshwari that she is her mother and Farishta is her father. She decides to keep this a secret in order to not ruin her mother's respect in front of her family.


title: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein

text: Rehan gets his ultimate vampire powers. Priya learns of Rehan's identity after seeing him in his true form. He unwillingly attacks her but fails. He realizes that something is preventing him from harming her. The next day being a full moon day is when Rehan will completely transform into an Aadishaat. Meanwhile, Swati and Arnav's engagement takes place. Priya thinks that she should reveal Rehan's truth in front of everyone but Rageshwari locks her in a room, fearing Rehan might harm Priya to become more powerful. It is also announced that Soumya and Mohit's engagement will also take place on the same day. But Mohit hesitates to make Soumya wear the ring and reveals to everyone that he loves Priya, to their surprise. Rehan goes to confront Priya about her relationship with Mohit.


title: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein

text: Rehan apologises to Priya for scaring her and expresses his deep love for his sister, Soumya. He also discusses her love for Mohit. As Priya says she has no feelings for Mohit, Rehan asks for her help to make Mohit aware of the truth. He convinces her to agree to his fake marriage proposal to keep Mohit away from her. She agrees on the condition that Rehan shouldn't hurt her family. Rehan thanks her and takes her home where he proposes her. But Priya disagrees and says that she loves Mohit, upon being blackmailed by a stranger named Ajnabi who held Rageshwari hostage. This ruins their plan and his unknowing sister's life and angers Rehan. So he takes Priya to a jungle and kills her. He then becomes an Aadishaat and acquires uncontrollable powers which cause him to forget the murder. Rageshwari takes Priya's dead body to a mysterious place and pleads for her revival.


title: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein

text: Upon her request, Shivanya's, Shivangi's, Bela's, Brinda's, and Bani's poison are given to Priya as an antidote for Rehan's bite. Priya is resurrected and transforms into a naagin with powers equal to Rehan. Meanwhile, Rehan tries to remember the night he took her to the jungle. Priya decides to take revenge on Rehan for killing her. Thus, she returns to his mansion and tricks Mohit to marry her. Rehan threatens Mohit and asks him to marry Soumya. He senses Priya around him and searches the mansion for her. He finally sees her disguised as a bride, hiding Soumya and taking her place. He locks Mohit in a room and impersonates him. Rehan and Priya are then married. The others are shocked when they see Priya. Upon Rehan's insistence, they agree to let Priya stay in their house. Rageshwari is killed by Pam and Soumya and they are revealed to be the main villains. After a series of events, Priya gets to the truth and Soumya is killed by Pam. Pam takes Rehan with her to kill him so that she can obtain his powers but Priya saves him and they both kill Pam. Rehan and Priya mutually decide to try to make their relationship work and reunite with each other.


title: Kuch Toh Hai: Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein

text: "Kuch Toh Hai - Naagin Ek Naye Rang Mein" opened with an average TRP of 1.7 occupying 15th position in Hindi GEC urban however dropped in the following weeks.


title: Tubeway Army

text: Tubeway Army were a London-based new wave band led by lead singer Gary Numan. Formed at the height of punk rock in 1977 the band gradually changed to an electronic sound. They were the first band of the electronic era to have a synthesiser-based number-one hit, with their single "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and its parent album "Replicas" both topping the UK charts in mid-1979. After its release, Numan opted to drop the Tubeway Army name and release music under his own name as he was the sole songwriter, producer and public face of the band, but he retained the musicians from Tubeway Army as his backing band.


title: Tubeway Army

text: Aged 18 years, Gary Webb had fronted London band Mean Street in 1976 (their song "Bunch of Stiffs" appeared on the "Live at the Vortex" compilation, and was the B-side of the "Vortex" 7-inch). After leaving this band, he auditioned as lead guitarist for another band called The Lasers, where he met bass-player Paul Gardiner. The Lasers soon became Tubeway Army, and were eventually reformed with Webb's uncle Jess Lidyard on drums. Webb rechristened himself "Valerian", Gardiner "Scarlett" and Lidyard "Rael".


title: Tubeway Army

text: Webb was a prolific songwriter. The band began playing gigs on the punk scene in London and via demo recordings (later released as "The Plan") managed to secure a record deal with the independent Beggars Banquet label. They released two guitar-heavy, punk-style singles in the first half of 1978 ("That's Too Bad"/"Oh! Didn't I Say", and "Bombers"/"Blue Eyes"/"OD Receiver"). These failed to chart.


title: Tubeway Army

text: During this time the band went through some line-up changes, changing drummers and briefly adding a second guitarist, but due to musical differences Webb and Gardiner split with them as they wanted to move away from punk rock.


title: Tubeway Army

text: By this time Tubeway Army had decided to abandon live shows – Webb was unhappy with pub-venue gigs on the often violent London punk scene. Their last gig in July 1978 (sharing the bill with The Skids) was abandoned halfway through the set because of violence and Webb decided that Tubeway Army would become a studio-only band. (There are only 2 known recordings of Tubeway Army concerts – Live at the Roxy in 1977 and a London show from February 1978 – this was released as a bootleg album in the early 1980s. It was later officially included under the title "Living Ornaments '78" as bonus tracks on the 1998 CD re-release of the "Tubeway Army" album).


title: Tubeway Army

text: Soon afterwards, the "Tubeway Army" album was quickly recorded by the original line-up. At this point Webb adopted the name "Gary Numan", taking his new pseudonym from a local Yellow Pages where a plumber called "Arthur Neumann" was listed, the singer abandoning the German spelling, to become Numan. Whilst still largely guitar/bass/drums-based, the album saw his first tentative use of the Minimoog synthesizer, which he had come across by accident in the recording studio during the album sessions. Lyrically the record touched on dystopian and sci-fi themes similar to those employed by authors J. G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick, of whom Numan was a fan (the opening lines of the song "Listen to the Sirens" are a direct lift from the title of Dick's book "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said").


title: Tubeway Army

text: At this point Numan was keen to distance his music from punk rock and wanted to drop the Tubeway Army group name and release the album under his own stage name, but the idea was rejected by Beggars Banquet and the album was released with the title "Tubeway Army" on blue vinyl in November 1978. Whilst the album's modest initial pressing of 5000 copies sold out, it did not enter the album charts at that time, and no singles were lifted from it.


title: Tubeway Army

text: Following swiftly on, Numan took Tubeway Army back into the studio to record their follow-up album, "Replicas" and also a session for John Peel in early 1979. The result was more synth and science fiction oriented than the last album. The first single from the album, the bleak, slow-paced keyboard-driven song "Down in the Park" failed to chart, although it would prove an enduring cult track in the years to come, and has to date been covered by Marilyn Manson, Foo Fighters, Flight, and nine other bands.


title: Tubeway Army

text: The next single, "Are 'Friends' Electric?" was very successful, reaching the No. 1 spot. By the end of 1979 it had become the fourth highest selling single in the UK that year. The underlying context of this song was also a reference to another Philip K. Dick novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" A special picture-disc helped boost sales but what particularly grabbed the British public's imagination was Tubeway Army's appearance on the BBC show "The Old Grey Whistle Test", followed soon after by a slot on "Top of the Pops" on 24 May 1979. The band, now including Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie, Chris Payne, Paul Gardiner and drummer Cedric Sharpley, appeared all dressed in black and near-motionless, Numan in particular giving a performance often referred to as being "like an android" (a style that was later reported to have been a means of covering stage nerves but which then became his trademark). The single remained at number one in the UK charts for four weeks, with "Replicas" following suit in the album charts. With Tubeway Army still avoiding live shows, Numan recruited some additional musicians to make these television appearances (see above).


title: Tubeway Army

text: At the peak of success, a John Peel session in June 1979 was credited as Gary Numan, and the Tubeway Army group name was dropped. Numan would however keep the same musicians as his backing band on his subsequent solo releases and tours.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by a disposition to treat authority figures with unquestioning obedience and respect. Conceptually, the term "authoritarian personality" originated from the writings of Erich Fromm, and usually is applied to men and women who exhibit a strict and oppressive personality towards their subordinates.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: In "The Authoritarian Personality" (1950), Theodor W. Adorno and Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and Nevitt Sanford proposed a personality type that involved the "potentially fascistic individual." The historical background that influenced the theoretical development of the authoritarian personality included the rise of fascism in the 1930s, the Second World War (1939–1945), and the Holocaust, which indicated that the fascistic individual was psychologically susceptible to the ideology of anti-Semitism and to the emotional appeal of anti-democratic politics. Known as the Berkeley studies, the researches of Adorno and Frenkel-Brunswik, and of Levinson and Sanford concentrated upon prejudice, which they studied within psychoanalytic and psychosocial frameworks of Freudian and Frommian theories.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: Although the term was first coined in 1950, different portrayals of the authoritarian personality type have been made before. One example is Der Untertan, a famous German novel, which draws its inspiration for its authoritarian protagonist from the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. The book shows that the idea for an authoritarian personality type predates fascism.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: The authoritarian personality has a strict superego, which controls a weak ego that is unable to cope with the strong impulses of the id. The resulting intrapsychic conflicts cause personal insecurities, which result in the superego adhering to externally imposed conventional norms (conventionalism), and unquestioning obedience to the authorities who impose and administer the social norms of society (authoritarian submission). The ego-defense mechanism of psychological projection arises when the authoritarian person avoids self-reference to the anxiety-producing impulse(s) of the id, by projecting the impulse(s) onto the "inferior" minority social-groups of the culture (projectivity), which are expressed by way of greatly evaluative and harshly judgmental beliefs (power and toughness) and rigid stereotype.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: The authoritarian person also presents a cynical and disdainful view of humanity, and a need to wield power and be tough, which arise from the anxieties produced by the perceived lapses of people who do not abide by the conventions and social norms of society (destructiveness and cynicism); a general tendency to focus upon people who violate the value system, and to act oppressively against them (authoritarian aggression); anti-intellectualism, a general opposition to the subjective and imaginative tendencies of the mind (anti-intraception); a tendency to believe in mystic determination (superstition); and an exaggerated concern with sexual promiscuity.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: In human psychological development, the formation of the authoritarian personality occurs within the first years of a child's life, strongly influenced and shaped by the parents' personalities and the organizational structure of the child's family; thus, parent-child relations that are "hierarchical, authoritarian, [and] exploitative" can result in a child developing an authoritarian personality. Authoritarian-personality characteristics are fostered by parents who have a psychological need for domination, and who harshly threaten their child to compel obedience to conventional behaviors. Moreover, such domineering parents also are preoccupied with social status, a concern they communicate by having the child follow rigid, external rules. In consequence of such domination, the child suffers emotionally from the suppression of his or her feelings of aggression and resentment towards the domineering parents, whom the child reverently idealizes, but does not criticize. Such personalities may also be related to studies in preschool children of personality and political views as reported by scientists in 2006 which concluded that some children described as being "somewhat dominating" were later found, as adults, to be "relatively liberal", and those described as "relatively over-controlled" were later found, as adults, to be "relatively conservative"; in the words of the researchers, "Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable."


title: Authoritarian personality

text: According to a study by Brandt and Henry, there is a direct correlation between the rates of gender inequality and the levels of authoritarian ideas in the male and female populations. It was found that in countries with less gender equality where individualism was encouraged and men occupied the dominant societal roles, women were more likely to support traits such as obedience which would allow them to survive in an authoritarian environment and less likely to encourage ideas such as independence and imagination. In countries with higher levels of gender equality, men held less authoritarian views. It is theorized that this occurs due to the stigma attached to individuals who question the cultural norms set by the dominant individuals and establishments in an authoritarian society as a way to prevent the psychological stress caused by the active ostracizing of the stigmatized individuals.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: Issues with Brandt and Henry's study is that the countries with the highest levels of egalitarianism, which are the Scandinavian countries, have more men in positions of power in private sector roles such as management than the US. Individualism is far more encouraged in the US and enforced societal gender roles are under attack far more in places such as Sweden and Denmark.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: Bob Altemeyer used the right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) scale, to identify, measure, and quantify the personality traits of authoritarian people. The political personality type identified with the RWA scale indicates the existence of three psychological tendencies and attitudinal clusters characteristic of the authoritarian personality: (i) Submission to legitimate authorities; (ii) Aggression towards minority groups whom authorities identified as targets for sanctioned political violence; and (iii) Adherence to cultural values and political beliefs endorsed by the authorities. As measured with the NEO-PI-R Openness scale, the research indicates a negative correlation (r=0.57) between the personality trait of "openness to experience", of the Five Factor Model of the human personality.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: The research of Jost, Glaser, Arie W. Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) indicates that authoritarianism and right-wing authoritarianism are ideological constructs for social cognition, by which political conservatives view people who are the Other who is not the Self. That the authoritarian personality and the conservative personality share two, core traits: (i) resistance to change (social, political. economic), and (ii) justification for social inequality among the members of society. Conservatives have a psychological need to manage existential uncertainty and threats with situational motives (striving for dominance in social hierarchies) and with dispositional motives (self-esteem and the management of fear).


title: Authoritarian personality

text: The research on ideology, politics, and racist prejudice, by John Duckitt and Chris Sibley, identified two types of authoritarian worldview: (i) that the social world is dangerous, which leads to right-wing authoritarianism; and (ii) that the world is a ruthlessly competitive jungle, which leads to social dominance orientation. In a meta-analysis of the research, Sibley and Duckitt explained that the social-dominance orientation scale helps to measure the generalization of prejudice and other authoritarian attitudes that can exist within social groups. Although both the right-wing authoritarianism scale and the social-dominance orientation scale can accurately measure authoritarian personalities, the scales usually are not correlated.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: These researchers' most noteworthy measurement for authoritarianism is the F-scale, designed to tap a set of beliefs thought to be associated with authoritarianism without the need for specific out-groups indicated. Kirscht and Dillehay (1967) outlined several problems with the Berkeley studies, including response bias. Response bias results from the F-scale being uniformly worded in a confirming direction. Hence, if one tends to respond in agreement with items, regardless of their content, one is rated as an authoritarian by such a test. Several studies have shown that more variance of the F-scale can be explained by response bias than the content of the items (Kirscht & Dillehay, 1967).


title: Authoritarian personality

text: Actual assessment of 16 Nazi criminals at Nuremberg trials (reported in Zillmer, "et al.", 1995) conducted by clinicians using the Rorschach test, and in one study, the F scale for authoritarianism, found that these ex-Nazis score high on three dimensions (anti-intraception, superstition and stereotyping, and projectivity), but not all nine dimensions as the theory predicted.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: One of the first applications of the authoritarian scales in academia was by Stern and colleagues, in the early 1950s, at the University of Chicago. The hypothesized prediction was that "authoritarian" students would have difficulty in the sciences and humanities, and use of an attitudinal scale was a successful predictor.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: Among the criticisms of the sociologic theory presented in "The Authoritarian Personality" (1950) are the validity of the psychoanalytic interpretation of personality; methodological inadequacies of the California F-scale personality test; and bias that authoritarianism exists only in the right wing of the political spectrum. In addition an analysis examining the authoritarian personality approach written by C.G. Sibley and J. Duckitt reported that more recent research has produced two more effective scales of measurement for authoritative personalities. The first scale is called the Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and the second is called the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). They have proved to be highly reliable in predicting prejudice and other characteristics associated with authoritative personalities. In "The Anti-authoritarian Personality" (1977) W.P. Kreml found stylistic similarities between authoritarians and anti-authoritarians (dogmatism, rigidity, etc.), and that variable constructs, such as (a) the relative need for order, (b) the relative need for power, (c) the rejection or acceptance of impulse, and (d) extroversion-versus-introversion, differentiated the two types of personality, and could underpin a full-spectrum psycho-political theory.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: Wiggins provided an insightful explanation of how the authoritarian construct is an example of the synthetic approach to personality assessment. In short, in the synthetic approach, the assumption is that those with authoritarian personality characteristics are assessed with researcher's intuitive model of what characteristics fit the criterion role requirements of the predicted situation (support of Fascism). Hence, it is not a completely empirical approach to prediction, but rather based on "arm chair" situational analysis of the criteria, and intuited psychological characteristics to be assessed that fit the situation. More recently, Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) have presented how the traditional research in authoritarianism or conservatism has confounded the psychological variables (e.g., personality characteristics) with the political criteria (conservative attitudes). Hence the scales measuring individual differences on authoritarianism often include the criteria attitudinal statements of political ideologies.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: The personality construct for the authoritarian personality proposed that the social environment influenced the expression of prejudice, based upon the social forces of the time, because the authoritarian person's ideology is created within the culture. Yet, in "The Social Being and Social Psychology" (1998) S. Taylor said that the hypothesized interaction of society and the authoritarian person was lost to the subsequent research that used the F-scale in differential psychological studies. Given the science of personality assessment, the variety of methods Adorno, "et al." used are now unsupported, and might explain that lack of empirical studies using the F-scale or the other scales developed by Adorno "et al." in subsequent research. An example of the social environment impact is presented by Gibb (1969) in his critique of personality traits and leadership, where a study by Katz suggested that the social situation can override personality differences. In the study, groups of black and white students were formed. Some mixed racial groups had students scoring high authoritarian F scores, and in other mixed groups, low F score students. Comparisons of high authoritarian white students to those not scoring authoritarian indicated that the former student type were more cooperative and less willing to endorse stereotypes towards blacks. Situational norms against prejudicial perceptions might have influenced authoritarian students to act less prejudicial in order to conform to the prescribed norm. Altemeyer's analytical research indicated that of the nine personality components hypothesized, only three components correlated: (i) authoritarian submission, (ii) authoritarian aggression, and (iii) conventionalism.


title: Authoritarian personality

text: In 2021, Morning Consult (an American data intelligence company) published the results of a survey measuring the levels of authoritarianism in adults in America and seven other Western countries. The study used Bob Altemeyer's right-wing authoritarianism scale, but they omitted the following two statements from Altemeyer's scale: (1) "The established authorities generally turn out to be right about things, while the radicals and protestors are usually just "loud mouths" showing off their ignorance"; and (2) "Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married." Morning Consult's scale thus had just 20 items, with a score range of 20 to 180 points. Morning Consult found that 25.6% of American adults qualify as "high RWA" (scoring between 111 and 180 points), while 13.4% of American adults qualify as "low RWA" (scoring 20 to 63 points).


title: Authoritarian personality

text: In a 2009 book, Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler identified evangelical Christians as the most authoritarian of voting blocs in the United States. Furthermore, the former Confederate states (ie "the South") showed higher levels of authoritarianism than the rest. Rural populations tend to be more authoritarian than urban ones. The authoritarianism levels of these demographics were assessed with four items that appeared in the American National Election Studies:


title: Filmfare Award for Best Film

text: The Filmfare Award for Best Film is given by the "Filmfare" magazine as part of its annual Filmfare Awards for Hindi films.


title: Filmfare Award for Best Film

text: The award was first given in 1954. Here is a list of the award winners and the nominees of the respective years. Each individual entry shows the title followed by the production company and the producer.


title: Filmfare Award for Best Film

text: Yash Raj Films has produced 18 films that have been nominated, the most for any production house. It also shares the most wins at 4 along with Bimal Roy Productions and UTV Motion Pictures. While Yash Chopra has been the producer of all of the winning films of Yash Raj Films, Bimal Roy has been the producer of all of the winning films of Bimal Roy Productions, thus making them the producers with the most wins. Bimal Roy, Yash Chopra, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali have each directed 4 winning films, the most for any director. Aamir Khan has starred in 9 winning films which is the most for any actor in a leading role. Nutan, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai, and Rani Mukerji have each starred in 3 winning films which is the most for any actress in a leading role.


title: Filmfare Award for Best Film

text: In 2005, Filmfare announced the best movie of the last 50 years as "Sholay", although the film did not win the Filmfare Award for Best Film in its year of release.


title: Better Dayz

text: Better Dayz is the eighth studio album and fourth posthumous album by the late American rapper 2Pac, and is his last to be a double-album.


title: Better Dayz

text: It was released on November 26, 2002, debuting at number five on the US "Billboard" 200. This album is the second of two albums (the first being "Until the End of Time") that consists of a collection of previously unreleased material by way of remixed songs from Tupac's "Makaveli" period while signed to Death Row Records, and was produced by Johnny "J", Jazze Pha, Frank Nitty, and E.D.I. Mean of Outlawz. It includes "Military Minds" which features Boot Camp Clik members Buckshot and Smif-n-Wessun (credited as Cocoa Brovaz) which was supposed to be part of a collaborative album between Shakur and BCC titled "One Nation" but was never officially released due to Shakur's death. Better Dayz has no censored references to Death Row Records unlike the previous album, "Until the End of Time". The only track on the album pre-Death Row era is "My Block (Remix)", which was recorded in 1994–1995 during Shakur's time with Interscope Records, and which the original version can be found on "The Show". The song ‘’Late Night’’ featuring DJ Quik, has been removed from all digital versions of the album for an unknown reason.


title: Better Dayz

text: The album features appearances by Outlawz, Ron Isley, Nas, Mýa, Jazze Pha and Tyrese, among others. The hit single, "Thugz Mansion," comes in two versions: an acoustic version featuring Nas and J. Phoenix, on which the music video is based, and a hip hop version featuring Anthony Hamilton.


title: Better Dayz

text: It features unreleased recordings from the 1994–1996 period, the majority of which are remixed mainly between Thug Life Volume 1 & . Others retain their original form or are complete finished mixes, such as "Fuck 'Em All", "Late Night", "Ghetto Star", "Better Dayz", "Who Do U Believe In?" and "They Don't Give a Fuck About Us".


title: Better Dayz

text: John Bush from AllMusic wrote: "Better Dayz shouldn't be overlooked [...] A lengthy two-disc set, it benefits from a raft of still-compelling material by one of the two or three best rappers in history, as well as excellent compiling by executive producers Suge Knight and Afeni Shakur, 2Pac's mother. Organizing the set roughly into one disc of hardcore rap and one of R&B jams makes for an easier listen, and the R&B disc especially has some strong tracks, opening with a remix of 1995's 'My Block' and including quintessentially 2Pac material—reflective, conflicted, occasionally anguished—like 'Never Call U Bitch Again,' 'Better Dayz,' 'Fame,' and 'This Life I Lead.' [...] It's 2Pac's best album since his death." "Kludge" magazine included it on their list of best albums of 2002. The track "Ghetto Star" has appeared on the soundtrack to the video game 25 To Life.


title: Better Dayz

text: "Better Dayz" debuted at number five on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 366,000 copies in its first week. This became 2Pac's eighth US top-ten album. In its second week, the album dropped to number eight on the chart, selling an additional 163,000 copies. As of September 2011, the album has sold 1,765,597 copies in the United States. On July 23, 2014, the album was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over three million copies.


title: Better Dayz

text: In May 2003, the album was also certified triple platinum in Canada for sales of over 300,000 copies in Canada.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: Aamby Valley City is a township developed by the Sahara India Pariwar on the outskirts of Pune, India.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: The city, founded in 2006, is spread over of hilly terrain in the "Sahyadri hills" of the Western Ghats. It is about from Lonavala, from the city of Pune and from the city Mumbai. The township is connected by road from Mahabaleshwar. The township has an airstrip that stopped functioning in late 2016. It has an average annual rainfall of from June to September.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: Marketed to India's super-rich, the city was developed in five phases. It was designed and master planned by GruenBobby Mukherji & Associates in the year 2003. It is almost entirely owned and operated by Sahara and related entities. It has between 600800 luxury bungalows priced between 5 crore to 20 crore.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: Three large man made lakes have been created by constructing dams. The largest lake is 1.5 km in length. The city is spread over 10,000 acres and ten villages near Lonavala and boasts of an airstrip, helipads, shopping complexes, 256 acres PGA approved 18-hole golf course, captive power plant, two small dams, an international school, and a hospital. The township has multiple luxury restaurants and a lagoon with an artificial beach adjacent to the replica of Varanasi ghat for cultural programs.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: Since its founding the city has faced variety of financial and legal troubles for having received investments of 62,643 crore from deposits collected by four Sahara cooperative societies allegedly in violation of norms. Per Sahara group, the Aamby Valley project was valued at about 1 trillion ($14.76 billion) in 2014, citing a Knight Frank India report. This high valuation claimed by Sahara was in contrast with the weakened financial profile of the project. According to Securities and Exchange Board of India, Aamby Valley posted an after-tax profit of 90 million in the 12 months ended March 2013 compared to 694 million in the July 2011-March 2012 period. In 2018-19, the Aamby Valley project made a consolidated loss of 994 crore compared to a loss of 1,133 crore in the previous year. Its total income came down to 958 crore in 2018-19 from 1,530 crore a year ago.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: In 2016, the Tehsildar of Mulshi, a local revenue authority, sealed the gated township for non-payment of taxes. It was reopened the same day after Sahara group made a payment of 2.53 crore.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: In April 2017, the Supreme Court of India ordered the auction of Aamby Valley project to recoup 14,000 crore the company owes to duped investors. The court set a seemingly high reserve price of 37,000 crore, which led to limited interest and only two bids and no buyers in the end. In July 2018, after failing to attract prospective buyers, the supreme court deferred the auction and allowed to city to be under control of the Sahara Parivar. In 2019, the court decided to continue with the auction.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: In January 2020, the supreme court appointed a receiver to manage Aamby Valley and to explore a new auction.


title: Aamby Valley City

text: In 2014, Aamby Valley inked a 4-year $14 million sponsorship deal with Bangladesh national cricket team. Without citing any reasons, the Bangladesh Cricket Board ended the contract 15 months before it was scheduled to end.


title: Toyota C transmission

text: Toyota Motor Corporation's C family is a family of manual transmissions built for small to mid-sized front-wheel-drive vehicles (but also used in mid-engine applications).


title: Toyota C transmission

text: A version stamped C50X11a is found in the Australian market 2007 Yaris and it has the same ratios as listed for C54.


title: Toyota C transmission

text: A 5-Speed Manual Transmission for FWD and mid-engine cars. Compared to the C50/52, it features close-ratio 3rd-to-4th gearing.


title: Toyota C transmission

text: Beware, bellhousings marked with the C60 stamp are also used on other gearboxes other than the 6speed, some J-spec 5 speeds also have this marking as well


title: Toyota C transmission

text: A 6-Speed Manual Transmission for FWD cars, and includes an optional helical limited slip differential. Transmissions with an identification code ending with 12C are LSD equipped. Code ending with 12A are non-LSD. A Limited Slip Differential is offered only in the Levin BZ-R and Trueno BZ-R.


title: Naruto: Shippuden (season 19)

text: The episodes from the nineteenth season of the anime series "" are based on Part II for Masashi Kishimoto's manga series. The anime original season focuses on the Chūnin Exams that occur after Part I. The episodes are directed by Hayato Date, and produced by Pierrot and TV Tokyo. The nineteenth season aired from January to May 2015.


title: Naruto: Shippuden (season 19)

text: The season would make its English television debut on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block and premiere on June 12 to October 9, 2022.


title: Naruto: Shippuden (season 19)

text: The season contains four musical themes: two openings and endings. The first opening theme, by KANA-BOON, is used from episode 394 to 405. The second opening theme, by Yamazaru, is used from episode 406 to 413. The first ending theme, "Spinning World" by Diana Garnet, is used from episode 394 to 405. The second ending theme, by sana, is used from episode 406 to 413.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are a group of birth defects in which an opening in the spine or cranium remains from early in human development. In the third week of pregnancy called gastrulation, specialized cells on the dorsal side of the embryo begin to change shape and form the neural tube. When the neural tube does not close completely, an NTD develops.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Specific types include: spina bifida which affects the spine, anencephaly which results in little to no brain, encephalocele which affects the skull, and iniencephaly which results in severe neck problems.


title: Neural tube defect

text: NTDs are one of the most common birth defects, affecting over 300,000 births each year worldwide. For example, spina bifida affects approximately 1,500 births annually in the United States, or about 3.5 in every 10,000 (0.035% of US births), which has decreased from around 5 per 10,000 (0.05% of US births) since folate fortification of grain products was started. The number of deaths in the US each year due to neural tube defects also declined from 1,200 before folate fortification was started to 840.


title: Neural tube defect

text: There are two classes of NTDs: "open", which are more common, and "closed". Open NTDs occur when the brain and/or spinal cord are exposed at birth through a defect in the skull or vertebrae (spinal column). Open NTDs include anencephaly, encephaloceles, hydranencephaly, iniencephaly, schizencephaly, and the most common form, spina bifida. Closed NTDs occur when the spinal defect is covered by skin. Types of closed NTDs include lipomeningocele, lipomyelomeningocele, and tethered cord.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Anencephaly (without brain) is a severe neural tube defect that occurs when the anterior-most end of the neural tube fails to close, usually during the 23rd and 26th days of pregnancy. This results in an absence of a major portion of the brain and skull. Infants born with this condition lack the main part of the forebrain and are usually blind, deaf and display major craniofacial anomalies. The lack of a functioning cerebrum will prevent the infant from even gaining consciousness. Infants are either stillborn or usually die within a few hours or days after birth. For example, anencephaly in humans can result from mutations in the NUAK2 kinase.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Encephaloceles are characterized by protrusions of the brain through the skull that are sac-like and covered with membrane. They can be a groove down the middle of the upper part of the skull, between the forehead and nose, or the back of the skull. Due to the range in its location, encephaloceles are classified by the location as well as the type of defect it causes. Subtypes include occipital encephalocele, encephalocele of the carnival vault, and nasal encephaloceles (frontoethmoidal encephaloceles and basal encephaloceles), with approximately 80% of all encephaloceles occurring in the occipital area. Encephaloceles are often obvious and diagnosed immediately. Sometimes small encephaloceles in the nasal and forehead are undetected. Despite the wide range in its implications, encephaloceles are most likely to be caused by improper separation of the surface ectoderm and the neuroectoderm after the closure of the neural folds in the fourth week of gastrulation.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Hydranencephaly is a condition in which the cerebral hemispheres are missing and instead filled with sacs of cerebrospinal fluid. People are born with hydranencephaly, but most of the time, the symptoms appear in a later stage. Newborns with hydrancephaly can swallow, cry, sleep and their head is in proportion to their body. However, after a few weeks, the infants develop increased muscle tone and irritability. After a few months, the brain start to fill with cerebrospinal fluid (hydrocephalus). This has several consequences. Infants start to develop problems with seeing, hearing, growing, and learning. The missing parts of the brain and the amount of cerebrospinal fluid can also lead to seizures, spasm, problems with regulating their body temperature, and breathing and digestion problems. Besides problems in the brain, hydranencephaly can also be seen on the outside of the body. Hydrocephalus leads to more cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, which can result in an enlarged head.


title: Neural tube defect

text: The cause of hydranencephaly is not clear. Hydranencephaly is a result of an injury of the nervous system or an abnormal development of the nervous system. The neural tube closes in the sixth week of the pregnancy, so hydranencephaly develops during these weeks of the pregnancy. The cause of these injuries/development is not clear.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Iniencephaly is a rare neural tube defect that results in extreme bending of the head to the spine. The diagnosis can usually be made on antenatal ultrasound scanning, but if not will undoubtedly be made immediately after birth because the head is bent backwards and the face looks upwards. Usually the neck is absent. The skin of the face connects directly to the chest and the scalp connects to the upper back. Individuals with iniencephaly generally die within a few hours after birth.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Inadequate levels of folate (vitamin B) and vitamin B during pregnancy have been found to lead to increased risk of NTDs. Although both are part of the same biopathway, folate deficiency is much more common and therefore more of a concern. Folate is required for the production and maintenance of new cells, for DNA synthesis and RNA synthesis. Folate is needed to carry one carbon groups for methylation and nucleic acid synthesis. It has been hypothesized that the early human embryo may be particularly vulnerable to folate deficiency due to differences of the functional enzymes in this pathway during embryogenesis combined with high demand for post translational methylations of the cytoskeleton in neural cells during neural tube closure. Failure of post-translational methylation of the cytoskeleton, required for differentiation has been implicated in neural tube defects. Vitamin B is also an important receptor in the folate biopathway such that studies have shown deficiency in vitamin B contributes to risk of NTDs as well. There is substantial evidence that direct folic supplementation increases blood serum levels of bioavailable folate even though at least one study have shown slow and variable activity of dihydrofolate reductase in human liver. A diet rich in natural folate (350 μg/d) can show as much increase in plasma folate as taking low levels of folic acid (250 μg/d) in individuals However a comparison of general population outcomes across many countries with different approaches to increasing folate consumption has found that only general food fortification with folic acid reduces neural tube defects. While there have been concerns about folic acid supplementation being linked to an increased risk for cancer, a systematic review in 2012 shows there is no evidence except in the case of prostate cancer which indicates a modest reduction in risk.


title: Neural tube defect

text: There have been studies showing the relationship between NTDs, folate deficiency and the difference of skin pigmentation within human populations across different latitudes. There are many factors that would influence the folate levels in human bodies: (i) the direct dietary intake of folic acid through fortified products, (ii) environmental agents such as UV radiation. In concern with the latter, the UV radiation-induced folate photolysis has been shown via in vitro and in vivo studies to decrease the folate level and implicate in etiology of NTDs not only in humans but other amphibian species. Therefore, a protection against the UV radiation-induced photolysis of folate is imperative for the evolution of human populations living in tropical regions where the exposure to UV radiation is high over the year. One body natural adaptation is to elevate the concentration of melanin inside the skin. Melanin works as either an optical filter to disperse the incoming UV radiation rays or free radical to stabilize the hazardous photochemical products. Multiple studies have demonstrated the highly melanized integument as a defense against folate photolysis in Native Americans or African Americans correlates with lower occurrence of NTDs in general.


title: Neural tube defect

text: As reported by Bruno Reversade and colleagues, the inactivation of the NUAK2 kinase in humans leads to anencephaly. This fatal birth defect is believed to arise as a consequence of impaired HIPPO signalling. Other genes such as TRIM36 have also been associated with anencephaly in humans.


title: Neural tube defect

text: A deficiency of folate itself does not cause neural tube defects. The association seen between reduced neural tube defects and folic acid supplementation is due to a gene-environment interaction such as vulnerability caused by the C677T methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) variant. Supplementing folic acid during pregnancy reduces the prevalence of NTDs by not exposing this otherwise sub-clinical mutation to aggravating conditions. Other potential causes can include folate antimetabolites (such as methotrexate), mycotoxins in contaminated corn meal, arsenic, hyperthermia in early development, and radiation. Maternal obesity has also been found to be a risk factor for NTDs. Studies have shown that both maternal cigarette smoking and maternal exposure to secondhand smoke increased the risk for neural tube defects in offspring. A mechanism by which maternal exposure to cigarette smoke could increase NTD risk in offspring is suggested by several studies that show an association between cigarette smoking and elevations of homocysteine levels. Cigarette smoke during pregnancy, including secondhand exposure, can increase the risk of neural tube defects. All of the above may act by interference with some aspect of normal folic acid metabolism and folate linked methylation related cellular processes as there are multiple genes of this type associated with neural tube defects.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Folic acid supplementation reduces the prevalence of neural tube defects by approximately 70% of neural tube defects indicating that 30% are not folate-dependent and are due to some cause other than alterations of methylation patterns. Multiple other genes related to neural tube defects exist which are candidates for folate insensitive neural tube defects. There are also several syndromes such as Meckel syndrome, and triploid syndrome which are frequently accompanied by neural tube defects that are assumed to be unrelated to folate metabolism


title: Neural tube defect

text: Tests for neural tube defects include ultrasound examination and measurement of maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein (MSAFP). Second trimester ultrasound is recommended as the primary screening tool for NTDs, and MSAFP as a secondary screening tool. This is due to increased safety, increased sensitivity and decreased false positive rate of ultrasound as compared to MSAFP. Amniotic fluid alpha-fetoprotein (AFAFP) and amniotic fluid acetylcholinesterase (AFAChE) tests are also used to confirming if ultrasound screening indicates a positive risk. Often, these defects are apparent at birth, but acute defects may not be diagnosed until much later in life. An elevated MSAFP measured at 16–18 weeks gestation is a good predictor of open neural tube defects, however the test has a very high false positive rate, (2% of all women tested in Ontario, Canada between 1993 and 2000 tested positive without having an open neural tube defect, although 5% is the commonly quoted result worldwide) and only a portion of neural tube defects are detected by this screen test (73% in the same Ontario study). MSAFP screening combined with routine ultrasonography has the best detection rate although detection by ultrasonography is dependent on operator training and the quality of the equipment.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Incidence of neural tube defects has been shown to decline through maintenance of adequate folic acid levels prior to and during pregnancy. This is achieved through dietary sources and supplementation of folic acid. In 1996, the United States Food and Drug Administration published regulations requiring the addition of folic acid to enriched breads, cereals, flour and other grain products. Similar regulations made it mandatory to fortify selected grain products with folic acid in Canada by 1998. It is important to note that during the first four weeks of pregnancy (when most people do not even realize that they are pregnant), adequate folate intake is essential for proper operation of the neurulation process. Therefore, any individuals who could become pregnant are advised to eat foods fortified with folic acid or take supplements in addition to eating folate-rich foods to reduce the risks of serious birth defects. In Canada, mandatory fortification of selected foods with folic acid had been shown to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects by 46% compared to incidence prior to mandatory fortification. However, relying on eating a folate-rich diet alone is not recommended for preventing neural tube defects when trying to conceive because a regular diet usually does not contain enough folate to reach pregnancy requirements. All individuals who have the ability to become pregnant are advised to get 400 micrograms of folic acid daily. This daily 400 mcg dose of folic acid can be found in most multivitamins advertised as for women. Higher doses can be found in pre-natal multivitamins but those doses may not be necessary for everyone. Individuals who have previously given birth to a child with a neural tube defect and are trying to conceive again may benefit from a supplement containing 4.0 mg daily, following advice provided by their doctor. In Canada, guidelines on folic acid intake when trying to conceive is based on a risk assessment of how likely they are to experience a neural tube defect during pregnancy. Risk is divided into high, moderate, and low risk categories. High risk would include those that had a past experience with neural tube defects, either themselves or during another pregnancy. Medium risk individuals are those with certain conditions that put them at higher risk for experiencing a neural tube defect. These include having a first or second degree relative or partner with a history of neural tube defects, having a gastrointestinal condition that affects normal absorption patterns, advanced kidney disease, kidney dialysis, alcohol over-use, or had another pregnancy resulting in a congenital abnormality that was folate sensitive. Medium risk individuals would also include those taking medications that can interfere with folate absorption such as anticonvulsants, metformin, sulfasalazine, triamterene, and trimethoprim. Low risk would include everyone else that do not fall into either medium or high risk categories. Recommendations on when to start folic acid supplementation for all individuals looking to become pregnant is at least 3 months preconception. If an individual is in the high risk category, the recommended dose is 4–5 mg of folic acid daily until 12 weeks gestation and then decrease to 0.4–1 mg until 4–6 weeks postpartum or for however long breastfeeding lasts. If an individual is in the medium risk category, the recommended dose is 1 mg of folic acid daily until 12 weeks gestation and then they can either continue at 1 mg or decrease to 0.4 mg daily until 4–6 weeks postpartum or however long breastfeeding lasts. If the pregnancy is low risk to develop a neural tube defect then the recommendation for that individual is 0.4 mg daily until 4–6 weeks postpartum or however long breastfeeding lasts. All dose recommendations and risk assessment should be done with the advice of a qualified health care provider.


title: Neural tube defect

text: As of 2008, treatments of NTDs depends on the severity of the complication. No treatment is available for anencephaly and infants usually do not survive more than a few hours. Aggressive surgical management has improved survival and the functions of infants with spina bifida, meningoceles and mild myelomeningoceles. The success of surgery often depends on the amount of brain tissue involved in the encephalocele. The goal of treatment for NTDs is to allow the individual to achieve the highest level of function and independence. Fetal surgery in utero before 26 weeks gestation has been performed with some hope that there is benefit to the outcome including a reduction in Arnold–Chiari malformation and thereby decreases the need for a ventriculoperitoneal shunt but the procedure is very high risk for both mother and baby and is considered extremely invasive with questions that the positive outcomes may be due to ascertainment bias and not true benefit. Further, this surgery is not a cure for all problems associated with a neural tube defect. Other areas of research include tissue engineering and stem cell therapy but this research has not been used in humans.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Neural tube defects resulted in 71,000 deaths globally in 2010. It is unclear how common the condition is in low income countries.


title: Neural tube defect

text: Prevalence rates of NTDs at birth used to be a reliable measure for the actual number of children affected by the diseases. However, due to advances in technology and the ability to diagnose prenatally, the rates at birth are no longer reliable. Measuring the number of cases at birth may be the most practical way, but the most accurate way would be to include stillbirths and live-births. Most studies that calculate prevalence rates only include data from live births and stillborn children and normally exclude the data from abortions and miscarriages. Abortions are a huge contributing factor to the prevalence rates; one study found that in 1986 only a quarter of the pregnancies with an identified NTD were aborted, but that number had already doubled by 1999. Through this data, it is clear that excluding data from abortions could greatly affect the prevalence rates. This could also possibly explain why prevalence rates have appeared to drop. If abortions are not being included in the data but half of the identified cases are being aborted, the data could show that prevalence rates are dropping when they actually are not. However, it is unclear how much of an impact these could have on prevalence rates due to the fact that abortion rates and advances in technology vary greatly by country.