title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce missed several weeks of the 1991–92 season when he underwent an operation on a longstanding hernia problem, in which Leeds United, after a season-long tussle, beat Manchester United to the championship by four points. Bruce helped United win their first-ever League Cup in April 1992, captaining the team in the final in place of the injured Bryan Robson. Injuries continued to take their toll upon Robson during the 1992–93 season, leading to Bruce captaining the team in the majority of United's matches during the first season of the new Premier League. Bruce scored two late goals in a win over Sheffield Wednesday which proved decisive in United winning the inaugural Premier League title, the first time the club had won the championship of English football since 1967, and he and Robson received the trophy jointly after the home victory over Blackburn Rovers on 3 May.


title: Steve Bruce

text: At the height of his success with United, Bruce was contacted by Jack Charlton, manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, who had discovered that, due to his mother's place of birth, Bruce was eligible to play for Ireland. Bruce states in his autobiography that further investigation revealed that, while his earlier appearance for England B in a friendly was not an issue, his appearances for the England Youth team in a UEFA-sanctioned tournament prohibited him from playing for the senior team of another country. He has subsequently claimed that he chose not to play for Ireland as it would have caused problems for his club at a time when UEFA restricted the number of foreign players that a club could have in their squad in its competitions.


title: Steve Bruce

text: United dominated English football in the 1993–94 season, winning a second consecutive Premier League title and then defeating Chelsea in the FA Cup final to become only the fourth team, and Bruce the first English captain, to win the Double in the 20th century, The 1994–95 season was a disappointing one for Bruce and United, as the club failed in its bid to win a third consecutive Premier League title and lost to Everton in the FA Cup final.


title: Steve Bruce

text: During the following season Bruce was offered the job of manager by three clubs, but Ferguson refused to allow him to pursue the opportunities as he felt the player still had a role to play in the United team. Bruce made a further 30 Premier League appearances, as United managed to overcome a 12-point deficit to Newcastle United to win the championship once again. A week later he was left out of United's squad for the FA Cup final due to a slight injury. At the end of the match Eric Cantona, who had captained the team and scored the only goal in a 1–0 win over Liverpool, attempted to persuade Bruce to be the one to receive the trophy, but Bruce declined. Ferguson denied that Bruce's omission was a sign that his time at the club was nearing an end, but Bruce opted to join First Division club Birmingham City on a free transfer, having signed a contract valued at nearly £2 million over two years, which made him one of the highest-paid players in the country.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce was among five former Premier League players signed by Birmingham manager Trevor Francis to add experience to a squad expected to challenge for promotion. He was made captain of the team, but his Birmingham career was dogged by a series of disagreements with Francis. Director David Sullivan felt the need to publicly deny rumours that Bruce was lined up to replace Francis as manager after the club's stock market flotation. While playing for Birmingham, Bruce was the subject of several bids from his old Manchester United colleague Bryan Robson to sign for Middlesbrough, but the transfer never happened.


title: Steve Bruce

text: The 1997–98 season saw Bruce being left out more frequently, and his omission against Nottingham Forest provoked a public war of words, which fuelled rumours that the manager was to be dismissed and that Bruce would take over as caretaker until the end of the season. At the end of the season he accepted the post of player-manager of Sheffield United. Though the deal was delayed while Birmingham attempted to negotiate a transfer fee for his playing contract, he took up his new position on 2 July 1998. He played 11 matches for the club before retiring as a player, his final appearance being in a home match against Sunderland on 28 November 1998.


title: Steve Bruce

text: During the early part of his career, Bruce's sometimes over-enthusiastic playing style, which he later described as "rampaging", caused him disciplinary problems. He later developed into a solid and dependable all-round player, characterised as "an honest trier who made the absolute most of limited natural ability". In his prime, he was particularly noted for his calm and deliberate passing of the ball, and his ability to control it under pressure, often with his chest. At the time, Mark Wright of Liverpool was said to be the only other centre-back able to match Bruce's level of skill in these areas.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce was also known for his unusually high goalscoring rate for a centre-back, resulting from a combination of his ability to powerfully head the ball and his effectiveness in taking penalty kicks. Although lacking poise and grace, and often criticised for his lack of pace, his bravery and willingness to take knocks from opposition players made him the "heart" of the defence during his time with Manchester United. He was well known for continuing to play even when injured, including returning to the United team at short notice in 1992 even though he was awaiting an operation on a hernia. His indomitable spirit and motivational abilities were deemed vital to the United team, and Alex Ferguson has commented on his "determination and heart".


title: Steve Bruce

text: In his first season as a manager, Bruce guided Sheffield United to eighth place in the First Division, nine points away from a place in the play-offs. He caused controversy when he attempted to take his team off the pitch during an FA Cup match against Arsenal. Bruce felt that the Gunners had broken an unwritten rule of sportsmanship by scoring the winning goal from a throw-in instead of returning the ball to United, who had intentionally kicked it out of play to allow an injured player to be attended to. Although the game eventually continued to a finish, following a gesture by Arsenal the match was declared void and replayed. In May 1999, Bruce resigned from his post after just one season in charge, citing turmoil in the club's boardroom and a shortage of funds for transfers. He contemplated leaving football for a job in television, but was persuaded by Huddersfield Town owner Barry Rubery to become the club's manager.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Huddersfield were early promotion contenders in the 1999–2000 season, winning six consecutive matches to rise to third place in the First Division table by late November, but lost form and failed to reach the play-offs. The team continued to struggle at the start of the 2000–01 season, gaining just six points from 11 matches, and Bruce was sacked in October 2000. He then became involved in a dispute with Rubery, who accused him of "wasting" £3 million on players and having "an ego to feed". Although he was linked with the manager's job at Queens Park Rangers, Bruce remained out of the game until he was appointed manager of Wigan Athletic in April 2001. The team reached the Second Division play-offs but lost in the semi-finals, and Bruce almost immediately left the club, where he had been in charge for less than two months, to take over as manager of Crystal Palace.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Although his new club began the 2001–02 season strongly, topping the First Division table and looking well placed for regaining the Premier League place that it had last held in the 1997–98 season, Bruce tendered his resignation less than three months into the season in order to return to Birmingham City as manager. Although he was initially prevented from doing so by an injunction taken out by Crystal Palace, he was eventually allowed to join the Midlands-based club after a compensation package was agreed. By now he had acquired a reputation as a manager who rarely held down a job for a significant length of time.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Upon his arrival, the Blues were in a mid-table position in the First Division, but a lengthy unbeaten run saw the team qualify for the play-offs. The team went on to beat Bruce's former club Norwich City in the final after a penalty shoot-out to gain promotion to the Premier League, ending a 16-year absence from the top level of English football. Birmingham spent the early part of the 2002–03 season struggling near the foot of the Premier League table, but Bruce's signing of Christophe Dugarry revitalised the team, who ended the season in 13th place and finished higher than local rivals Aston Villa for the first time since the 1970s.


title: Steve Bruce

text: The following season began well for Birmingham, who climbed as high as fourth in the table, but the team's fortunes declined and they could only finish in tenth place at the end of the season. Despite this disappointment, Bruce signed a new contract in June 2004 designed to keep him at St Andrew's for a further five years, but just two months later Freddy Shepherd, chairman of Newcastle United, was reported to have made Bruce his main target in the search for a new manager to replace Bobby Robson. The club was reportedly prepared to pay Birmingham more than £3 million in compensation, and Bruce himself was said to be keen to take over at St James' Park, but he ultimately remained at Birmingham. He stated that "as far as I'm concerned, I've got a job to do [at Birmingham City] and I'm determined to get on with it", but it was also reported that Newcastle would have been required to pay a much larger compensation fee or face legal action had he been persuaded to switch clubs. Initial expectations were high for the 2004–05 season, but the club once again finished in a mid-table position, ending the season in 12th place.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Following the sacking of Graeme Souness as Newcastle manager in February 2006, Bruce was again linked with the job, which ultimately went to Glenn Roeder. By this stage of the 2005–06 season, Birmingham were struggling in the league, and on 21 March 2006 were beaten 7–0 at home by Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Some supporters of the club began to call for his resignation, but Bruce insisted that he would fight on as manager. The team managed to climb out of the relegation zone for the first time in nearly six months after a win over Bolton Wanderers in early April 2006. However, they were soon overtaken by Portsmouth, whose victory over Wigan Athletic on 29 April left Birmingham mathematically unable to match their points total and therefore relegated.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Although Bruce had the largest transfer budget in the division made available to him, Birmingham made a slow start to the 2006–07 season in the Championship and, after a 1–0 defeat at home to Norwich City, the team's fifth consecutive match without a win, there were calls from fans and local journalists for the manager to be sacked. Bruce publicly accepted responsibility for the team's poor run and admitted that he feared for his job, but the team responded with a 1–0 victory over Derby County, and then recorded a further five consecutive league victories to be joint leaders of the league table by late November. On 29 April 2007, Birmingham secured promotion to the Premier League, with one match to play, by virtue of Derby County's 2–0 defeat at Crystal Palace. Chairman David Gold told the press "There have been some dark days but Steve has been outstanding. He was determined to bounce back. He has rebuilt the team and now we are all back where we want to be."


title: Steve Bruce

text: In May 2007, Birmingham's board agreed a new contract for Bruce, but the unwillingness of the club's prospective purchaser Carson Yeung to ratify it left his future uncertain. In October 2007, Bolton Wanderers were refused permission to speak to him about their managerial vacancy.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Later that month, Bruce and Yeung held a meeting which reportedly had positive results. Bruce later claimed that Birmingham's managing director Karren Brady had "shafted" him on a new contract with the club, and when Wigan Athletic requested permission to speak to Bruce about their managerial vacancy, he was receptive to their approach. As required under the terms of his contract, Wigan agreed to pay Birmingham a then-world record compensation for the loss of his services of around £3 million, and they were then allowed to speak to him. On 19 November, Wigan announced the signing of Bruce for a second time.


title: Steve Bruce

text: On 21 November, during a press conference which was intended to formally present Bruce as the new manager of Wigan, the club's chief executive Brenda Spencer informed the media that the deal had been put on hold by "unknown issues" between Bruce and Birmingham City, reported to centre on the advance payment of the image rights element of Bruce's contract at St Andrew's. On 23 November 2007 Wigan announced that Bruce had now signed his contract and would officially rejoin the Latics. His first game in charge was a 1–1 home draw with Manchester City on 1 December 2007. Wigan spent the remainder of the season struggling against relegation, but the club secured Premier League survival with victory over Aston Villa in the penultimate game of the season. In September 2008, Bruce was once again linked with the manager's job at Newcastle United following the departure of Kevin Keegan.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce led Wigan to an 11th-place finish in the 2008–09 season, despite the loss of midfielder Wilson Palacios to Tottenham Hotspur in the January transfer window.


title: Steve Bruce

text: On 27 May 2009, Bruce was reported to have been given permission to talk to Sunderland about succeeding Ricky Sbragia, who resigned as manager after the last match of the season. Bruce was confirmed as the new manager of Sunderland on 3 June after signing a three-year contract. He was joined at Sunderland by three of his former Wigan Athletic coaching staff, assistant Eric Black, goalkeeping coach Nigel Spink, and reserve team coach Keith Bertschin. In his first season at Sunderland, despite a run of 14 games without a win, Bruce led the Black Cats to a 13th-place finish in the Premier League.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce made wholesale changes to Sunderland's squad, signing 13 players and selling 15 in his first 18 months at the club. On 25 February 2011, Bruce signed an extension to his contract, keeping him at Sunderland until 2014, with chairman Niall Quinn stating that "In only 18 months he has reshaped our squad beyond recognition, bringing in some fantastically talented players. He embodies the ethos of teamwork and the importance of camaraderie in creating a wonderful spirit of togetherness amongst the players and staff".


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce was dismissed as manager on 30 November 2011, with Sunderland in 16th position following a poor run of form which culminated with a 2–1 home defeat to bottom club Wigan four days earlier. He later linked his dismissal from the managerial post with the fact that he is a fan of Newcastle United, Sunderland's bitter rivals.


title: Steve Bruce

text: On 8 June 2012, Bruce was appointed as manager at Championship club Hull City on a three-year contract. In his first season with the club, he led them to promotion to the Premier League, clinching second place in the Championship on the final day of the season. The following season, the "Tigers" came 16th with a club record tally of 37 points, and reached the final of the FA Cup for the first time. They took a two-goal lead in the first ten minutes of the final, but opponents Arsenal scored a goal in each half to take the game into extra-time and then scored a third to win the trophy. Reaching the final qualified Hull for the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League, their first European campaign.


title: Steve Bruce

text: In March 2015, Bruce signed a three-year contract extension. A run of poor form left Hull near the bottom of the table going into the final game of the 2014–15 season and needing to defeat Bruce's former club Manchester United to stand any chance of avoiding relegation. They could only manage a 0–0 draw and were relegated to the Championship. The poor performances of a number of players signed by Bruce, including club record signing Abel Hernández, were identified as key factors in the club's failure to remain in the Premier League.


title: Steve Bruce

text: In January 2016, Bruce won the Championship Manager of the Month after leading Hull to four victories; Hernández, who scored six times, got the players' equivalent. Hull finished the season in fourth, qualifying for the play-offs, where they defeated Derby County in the semi-finals. In the final on 28 May, a 25-yard goal from Mohamed Diamé against Sheffield Wednesday won Hull promotion to the Premier League for the second time during Bruce's spell in charge. Bruce said after the game that he had considered resignation following the team's relegation, and would hold talks with the prospective new owners to be assured of his future. In July 2016, with his future at Hull seemingly still uncertain, he was interviewed by officials of The Football Association concerning the vacant position of manager of England. Three days later, Bruce met with Hull City officials and announced his resignation later that day amid claims he became frustrated by a lack of transfer activity at the club.


title: Steve Bruce

text: On 12 October 2016, Bruce was appointed manager of Championship club Aston Villa. In his second match in charge, Villa defeated Reading, the club's first win in 11 games and the first away win for 14 months. He brought in Colin Calderwood as assistant manager from Brighton & Hove Albion and Stephen Clemence from old club Hull City as first-team coach. In the 2017–18 season, Villa secured a play-off place and defeated Middlesbrough to reach the final, but lost 1–0 to Fulham in the final and thus missed out on promotion to the Premier League. On 2 October 2018, Villa surrendered a two-goal lead, drawing 3–3 at home to bottom club Preston North End. One spectator threw a cabbage at Bruce and there were calls from home fans on the Holte End for Bruce to go. The following day, he was sacked by Villa after a poor run of form.


title: Steve Bruce

text: In January 2019, Bruce was appointed manager of Championship club Sheffield Wednesday with effect from the start of the following month. On 27 January, his delay in taking up this appointment was criticised by "Match of the Day" pundits Danny Murphy and Ruud Gullit during a 3–0 FA Cup defeat away to Chelsea. Bruce subsequently defended his decision, as he had had two operations since leaving Aston Villa and needed time to recuperate, as well as the need to recover from the death of both his parents in 2018.


title: Steve Bruce

text: BBC Sport reported in July 2019 that Bruce had resigned from his position at Wednesday, after he earlier admitted that he had held talks with Premier League Newcastle United over their managerial vacancy. His appointment at Newcastle was confirmed on 17 July. Sheffield Wednesday, however, soon filed a report to the Premier League alleging misconduct in his appointment, stating that there were still outstanding legal issues with Bruce having resigned just 48 hours earlier, whilst also suspecting that confidential details of Bruce's contract were leaked making it impossible for him to remain at the club. Newcastle United denied any wrongdoing and stated that they were confident no case could be escalated. Reaction from the fans was mixed, with some feeling Bruce would not achieve the standard set by his predecessor Rafael Benítez, whilst his recent lack of Premier League football and management of rival club Sunderland proved controversial. Bruce acknowledged Benítez's popularity, and stated he hoped the fans would not rush to judgement and give him time to prove himself. Bruce soon made six signings, notably securing Joelinton from 1899 Hoffenheim for £40 million, breaking the club's transfer fee record previously set by the purchase of Miguel Almirón for £21 million six months earlier.


title: Steve Bruce

text: In his first season in charge, Newcastle were tipped for relegation by some pundits but finished 13th, as the campaign was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The following season, almost entirely played behind closed doors due to the ongoing pandemic, saw Bruce guide the club to 12th. In October 2021, the club was bought for £300 million by a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian government's sovereign wealth fund. With the team close to the bottom of the Premier League, Bruce was widely expected to be dismissed from his job by the new owners, but remained in charge and was recognised by the League Managers Association as only the 34th manager in the modern era of English football to have taken charge for 1,000 competitive matches. Newcastle lost that match 3–2 to Tottenham Hotspur at St James' Park on 17 October 2021, and some Newcastle supporters called for Bruce to be removed from his post during and after the game. Bruce left Newcastle by mutual consent three days later on 20 October 2021, after receiving a reported £8 million payout for the remainder of his contract. He had a 27.4% win percentage from 84 league games at Newcastle, the 9th best compared to previous Newcastle managers who had been in charge of at least 20 matches in the Premier League era.


title: Steve Bruce

text: On 3 February 2022, Bruce was appointed manager of EFL Championship club West Bromwich Albion, replacing Valérien Ismaël. Bruce signed an 18-month contract with West Brom who, at the time, were in sixth place in the Championship. He left the role eight months later with the team 22nd in the division, their lowest league position for more than two decades.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce has been married since February 1983 to Janet (née Smith), who is also from the Hexham area, and went to the same school as Bruce. The couple have two children, Alex (born 1984) and Amy (born 1987). Alex is also a footballer, and was signed by his father for Hull City in July 2012. He had previously played under his father's management at Birmingham City, but left the club in 2006, in part due to accusations of nepotism levelled at his father. Amy was linked romantically with Aston Villa player Lee Hendrie in tabloid newspaper stories in 2004, which provoked an angry response from her father, who described the reports as "lies", and claimed that journalists had gone so far as to contact his doctor and examine his household waste in an attempt to uncover gossip. In September 2004, Bruce was involved in an altercation outside his home with two men who were attempting to steal his daughter's car. The affray left him with facial injuries but did not prevent him from travelling to a Premier League match the same day. After the incident one newspaper attempted to connect it with the allegations concerning Hendrie, leading Bruce to contemplate legal action.


title: Steve Bruce

text: Bruce's autobiography, "Heading for Victory", was published in 1994. In 1999, while manager of Huddersfield, he wrote a trio of novels: "Striker!", "Sweeper!" and "Defender!". The books centred on fictional football manager Steve Barnes, based on Bruce, who solved murder mysteries and thwarted terrorists. Bruce later expressed his embarrassment at the books, which have become sought-after collectables. He intended to publish a new autobiography in late 2019 but the book was postponed indefinitely due to the deaths of his parents and his desire to concentrate on his job at Newcastle.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: Nikita Nguyen (born January 31, 1996) known professionally as Nikita Dragun, is a YouTuber, make-up artist, and model.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: Nikita Nguyen was born in Belgium and attended high school in Virginia, United States. She is of Vietnamese and Mexican descent and came out as trans when she was a teenager. In several of Nguyen's YouTube videos, she has spoken openly about her gender identity.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: Nguyen joined YouTube in February 2013. She stated, "I started to get little brand deals around that time"…" That was also when I decided to start taking Instagram and YouTube seriously." In 2015, by which time she was living in Los Angeles, she came out as transgender. As of October 2021, she has over 3.54 million subscribers on YouTube, 9 million followers on Instagram, and 14.5 million followers on TikTok.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: In response to comments by L Brands chief marketing officer Ed Razek that trans women should not be included in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show because "the show is a fantasy", Nguyen tweeted a video of herself modeling lingerie. In the tweet, Nguyen argues that trans women were indeed able to convey fantasy.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: In March 2019, she announced a make-up line, Dragun Beauty. Aside from the mainstream market, the cosmetic line is also targeted towards the transgender community. All products are vegan and cruelty-free, this is cited as a reason why Nikita decided to launch her brand independently. In June 2019, Nguyen was interviewed about her make-up brand on the LGBT radio network Channel Q, where she credited her journey as a trans woman building her brand as the inspiration behind Dragun Beauty and its products.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: In September 2019, it was announced Nikita would be starring in her own docuseries on Snapchat, "Nikita Unfiltered". The series follows Nguyen as she searches for love, "a different path" in her career, and navigates fame as a trans woman. The series premiered on March 21, 2020.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: On July 21, 2020, Nguyen held a surprise birthday party for YouTuber Larri Merritt during the COVID-19 pandemic at the Hype House mansion. The party included internet celebrities such as James Charles, Charli D'Amelio, Dixie D'Amelio, and others. At the time of the party, California's COVID-19 cases had just surpassed New York's cases. There was an estimated 67 people in attendance, many of whom were seen without face masks despite local health recommendations. Photos and videos of the event appeared on social media sites such as Instagram. These posts drew criticism from the public, including other influencers like Elijah Daniel and Tyler Oakley. Merritt, and some of the other attendees, later apologized. Residents of the Hype House later tested negative for COVID-19.


title: Nikita Dragun

text: Nguyen was arrested on November 7, 2022, after police claimed they found her roaming around the pool in her underwear and spraying police and security personnel with water at The Goodtime Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. According to the police report, officers were called in response to a report of a person acting in a "highly disorderly fashion" and causing a disturbance at the hotel. She was charged for misdemeanor disorderly conduct, misdemeanor battery, and felony battery on a police officer and was taken into custody at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami-Dade County with a $5,000 bond. She claimed she was placed into a men's prison despite her gender identity. Officials from the Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Department disputed that account, saying she had never made it past booking, so was never placed in a men's prison, and was first in an open seating area, then in a holding cell by herself.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA46, and BA47.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person's will to live, personality, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: This brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, short-term memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The frontal cortex supports concrete rule learning. More anterior regions along the rostro-caudal axis of frontal cortex support rule learning at higher levels of abstraction.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The prefrontal cortex has been defined based on cytoarchitectonics by the presence of a cortical granular layer IV. It is not entirely clear who first used this criterion. Many of the early cytoarchitectonic researchers restricted the use of the term prefrontal to a much smaller region of cortex including the gyrus rectus and the gyrus rostralis (Campbell, 1905; G. E. Smith, 1907; Brodmann, 1909; von Economo and Koskinas, 1925). In 1935, however, Jacobsen used the term prefrontal to distinguish granular prefrontal areas from agranular motor and premotor areas. In terms of Brodmann areas, the prefrontal cortex traditionally includes areas 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 24, 25, 32, 44, 45, 46, and 47, however, not all of these areas are strictly granular – 44 is dysgranular, caudal 11 and orbital 47 are agranular. The main problem with this definition is that it works well only in primates but not in nonprimates, as the latter lack a granular layer IV.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: To define the prefrontal cortex as the projection zone of the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus builds on the work of Rose and Woolsey, who showed that this nucleus projects to anterior and ventral parts of the brain in nonprimates, however, Rose and Woolsey termed this projection zone "orbitofrontal." It seems to have been Akert, who, for the first time in 1964, explicitly suggested that this criterion could be used to define homologues of the prefrontal cortex in primates and nonprimates. This allowed the establishment of homologies despite the lack of a granular frontal cortex in nonprimates.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The projection zone definition is still widely accepted today (e.g. Fuster), although its usefulness has been questioned. Modern tract tracing studies have shown that projections of the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus are not restricted to the granular frontal cortex in primates. As a result, it was suggested to define the prefrontal cortex as the region of cortex that has stronger reciprocal connections with the mediodorsal nucleus than with any other thalamic nucleus. Uylings et al. acknowledge, however, that even with the application of this criterion, it might be rather difficult to define the prefrontal cortex unequivocally.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: A third definition of the prefrontal cortex is the area of frontal cortex whose electrical stimulation does not lead to observable movements. For example, in 1890 David Ferrier used the term in this sense. One complication with this definition is that the electrically "silent" frontal cortex includes both granular and non-granular areas.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: According to Striedter the PFC of humans can be delineated into two functionally, morphologically, and evolutionarily different regions: the ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) consisting of the "ventral prefrontal cortex" and the "medial prefrontal cortex" present in all mammals, and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), consisting of the "dorsolateral prefrontal cortex" and the "ventrolateral prefrontal cortex", present only in primates.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The LPFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA45, BA46, and BA47. Some researchers also include BA44. The vmPFC contains the Brodmann areas BA12, BA25, BA32, BA33, BA24, BA11, BA13, and BA14.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The table below shows different ways to subdivide parts of the human prefrontal cortex based upon Brodmann areas.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The prefrontal cortex is highly interconnected with much of the brain, including extensive connections with other cortical, subcortical and brain stem sites. The dorsal prefrontal cortex is especially interconnected with brain regions involved with attention, cognition and action, while the ventral prefrontal cortex interconnects with brain regions involved with emotion. The prefrontal cortex also receives inputs from the brainstem arousal systems, and its function is particularly dependent on its neurochemical environment. Thus, there is coordination between our state of arousal and our mental state. The interplay between the prefrontal cortex and socioemotional system of the brain is relevant for adolescent development, as proposed by the Dual Systems Model.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The medial prefrontal cortex has been implicated in the generation of slow-wave sleep (SWS), and prefrontal atrophy has been linked to decreases in SWS. Prefrontal atrophy occurs naturally as individuals age, and it has been demonstrated that older adults experience impairments in memory consolidation as their medial prefrontal cortices degrade. In monkeys, significant atrophy has been found as a result of neuroleptic or antipsychotic psychiatric medication. In older adults, instead of being transferred and stored in the neocortex during SWS, memories start to remain in the hippocampus where they were encoded, as evidenced by increased hippocampal activation compared to younger adults during recall tasks, when subjects learned word associations, slept, and then were asked to recall the learned words.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has been implicated in various aspects of speech production and language comprehension. The VLPFC is richly connected to various regions of the brain including the lateral and medial temporal lobe, the superior temporal cortex, the infertemporal cortex, the perirhinal cortex, and the parahippoccampal cortex. These brain areas are implicated in memory retrieval and consolidation, language processing, and association of emotions. These connections allow the VLPFC to mediate explicit and implicit memory retrieval and integrate it with language stimulus to help plan coherent speech. In other words, choosing the correct words and staying “on topic” during conversation come from the VLPFC.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The original studies of Fuster and of Goldman-Rakic emphasized the fundamental ability of the prefrontal cortex to represent information not currently in the environment, and the central role of this function in creating the "mental sketch pad". Goldman-Rakic spoke of how this representational knowledge was used to intelligently guide thought, action, and emotion, including the inhibition of inappropriate thoughts, distractions, actions, and feelings. In this way, working memory can be seen as fundamental to attention and behavioral inhibition. Fuster speaks of how this prefrontal ability allows the wedding of past to future, allowing both cross-temporal and cross-modal associations in the creation of goal-directed, perception-action cycles. This ability to represent underlies all other higher executive functions.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Shimamura proposed Dynamic Filtering Theory to describe the role of the prefrontal cortex in executive functions. The prefrontal cortex is presumed to act as a high-level gating or filtering mechanism that enhances goal-directed activations and inhibits irrelevant activations. This filtering mechanism enables executive control at various levels of processing, including selecting, maintaining, updating, and rerouting activations. It has also been used to explain emotional regulation.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Miller and Cohen proposed an Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function, that arises from the original work of Goldman-Rakic and Fuster. The two theorize that “cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represents goals and means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task”. In essence, the two theorize that the prefrontal cortex guides the inputs and connections, which allows for cognitive control of our actions.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The prefrontal cortex is of significant importance when top-down processing is needed. Top-down processing by definition is when behavior is guided by internal states or intentions. According to the two, “The PFC is critical in situations when the mappings between sensory inputs, thoughts, and actions either are weakly established relative to other existing ones or are rapidly changing”. An example of this can be portrayed in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Subjects engaging in this task are instructed to sort cards according to the shape, color, or number of symbols appearing on them. The thought is that any given card can be associated with a number of actions and no single stimulus-response mapping will work. Human subjects with PFC damage are able to sort the card in the initial simple tasks, but unable to do so as the rules of classification change.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Miller and Cohen conclude that the implications of their theory can explain how much of a role the PFC has in guiding control of cognitive actions. In the researchers' own words, they claim that, “depending on their target of influence, representations in the PFC can function variously as attentional templates, rules, or goals by providing top-down bias signals to other parts of the brain that guide the flow of activity along the pathways needed to perform a task”.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Experimental data indicate a role for the prefrontal cortex in mediating normal sleep physiology, dreaming and sleep-deprivation phenomena.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: When analyzing and thinking about attributes of other individuals, the medial prefrontal cortex is activated, however, it is not activated when contemplating the characteristics of inanimate objects.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Studies using fMRI have shown that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), specifically the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC), may modulate mimicry behavior. Neuroscientists are suggesting that social priming influences activity and processing in the amPFC, and that this area of the prefrontal cortex modulates mimicry responses and behavior.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: As of recent, researchers have used neuroimaging techniques to find that along with the basal ganglia, the prefrontal cortex is involved with learning exemplars, which is part of the "exemplar theory", one of the three main ways our mind categorizes things. The exemplar theory states that we categorize judgements by comparing it to a similar past experience within our stored memories.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: A 2014 meta-analysis by Professor Nicole P.Yuan from the University of Arizona found that larger prefrontal cortex volume and greater PFC cortical thickness were associated with better executive performance.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: A widely accepted theory regarding the function of the brain's prefrontal cortex is that it serves as a store of short-term memory. This idea was first formulated by Jacobsen, who reported in 1936 that damage to the primate prefrontal cortex caused short-term memory deficits. Karl Pribram and colleagues (1952) identified the part of the prefrontal cortex responsible for this deficit as area 46, also known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). More recently, Goldman-Rakic and colleagues (1993) evoked short-term memory loss in localized regions of space by temporary inactivation of portions of the dlPFC. Once the concept of working memory (see also Baddeley's model of working memory) was established in contemporary neuroscience by Alan Baddeley (1986), these neuropsychological findings contributed to the theory that the prefrontal cortex implements working memory and, in some extreme formulations, only working memory. In the 1990s this theory developed a wide following, and it became the predominant theory of PF function, especially for nonhuman primates. The concept of working memory used by proponents of this theory focused mostly on the short-term maintenance of information, and rather less on the manipulation or monitoring of such information or on the use of that information for decisions. Consistent with the idea that the prefrontal cortex functions predominantly in maintenance memory, delay-period activity in the PF has often been interpreted as a memory trace. (The phrase "delay-period activity" applies to neuronal activity that follows the transient presentation of an instruction cue and persists until a subsequent "go" or "trigger" signal.)


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: To explore alternative interpretations of delay-period activity in the prefrontal cortex, Lebedev et al. (2004) investigated the discharge rates of single prefrontal neurons as monkeys attended to a stimulus marking one location while remembering a different, unmarked location. Both locations served as potential targets of a saccadic eye movement. Although the task made intensive demands on short-term memory, the largest proportion of prefrontal neurons represented attended locations, not remembered ones. These findings showed that short-term memory functions cannot account for all, or even most, delay-period activity in the part of the prefrontal cortex explored. The authors suggested that prefrontal activity during the delay-period contributes more to the process of attentional selection (and selective attention) than to memory storage.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Various areas of the prefrontal cortex have been implicated in a multitude of critical functions regarding speech production, language comprehension, and response planning before speaking. Cognitive neuroscience has shown that the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is vital in the processing of words and sentences.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The right prefrontal cortex has been found to be responsible for coordinating the retrieval of explicit memory for use in speech, whereas the deactivation of the left is responsible for mediating implicit memory retrieval to be used in verb generation. Impaired recollection of nouns (explicit memory) is impaired in some amnesic patients with damaged left prefrontal cortices, but verb generation remains intact because of its reliance on left prefrontal deactivation.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Many researchers now include BA45 in the prefrontal cortex because together with BA44 it makes up an area of the frontal lobe called Broca's area. Broca's Area is the widely considered the output area of the language production pathway in the brain (as opposed to Wernicke's area in the medial temporal lobe, which is seen as the language input area). BA45 has been shown to be implicated for the retrieval of relevant semantic knowledge to be used in conversation/speech. The right lateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) is implicated in the planning of complex behavior, and together with bilateral BA45, they act to maintain focus and coherence during speech production. However, left BA45 has been shown to be activated significantly while maintaining speech coherence in young people. Older people have been shown to recruit the right BA45 more so than their younger counterparts. This aligns with the evidence of decreased lateralization in other brain systems during aging.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: In addition, this increase in BA45 and RLPFC activity in combination of BA47 in older patients has been shown to contribute to “off-topic utterances.” The BA47 area in the prefrontal cortex is implicated in “stimulus-driven” retrieval of less-salient knowledge than is required to contribute to a conversation. In other words, elevated activation of the BA47 together with altered activity in BA45 and the broader RLPFC has been shown to contribute to the inclusion of less relevant information and irrelevant tangential conversational speech patterns in older subjects.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: In the last few decades, brain imaging systems have been used to determine brain region volumes and nerve linkages. Several studies have indicated that reduced volume and interconnections of the frontal lobes with other brain regions is observed in patients diagnosed with mental disorders and prescribed potent antipsychotics; those subjected to repeated stressors; those who excessively consume sexually explicit materials; suicides; those incarcerated; criminals; sociopaths; those affected by lead poisoning; and daily male cannabis users (only 13 people were tested). It is believed that at least some of the human abilities to feel guilt or remorse, and to interpret reality, are dependent on a well-functioning prefrontal cortex. The advanced neurocircuitry and self-regulatory function of the human prefrontal cortex is also associated with the higher sentience in humans, as the prefrontal cortex in humans occupies a far larger percentage of the brain than in any other animal. And it is theorized that, as the brain has tripled in size over five million years of human evolution, the prefrontal cortex has increased in size sixfold.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: A review on executive functions in healthy exercising individuals noted that the left and right halves of the prefrontal cortex, which is divided by the medial longitudinal fissure, appears to become more interconnected in response to consistent aerobic exercise. Two reviews of structural neuroimaging research indicate that marked improvements in prefrontal and hippocampal gray matter volume occur in healthy adults that engage in medium intensity exercise for several months.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: A functional neuroimaging review of meditation-based practices suggested that practicing mindfulness enhances prefrontal activation, which was noted to be correlated with increased well-being and reduced anxiety, although cohort studies are needed to better solidify this theory.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Treatments with anti-cancer drugs often are toxic to the cells of the brain, leading to memory loss and cognitive dysfunction that can persist long after the period of exposure. Such a condition is referred to as chemo brain. To determine the basis of this condition, mice were treated with the chemotherapeutic agent mitomycin C. In the prefrontal cortex, this treatment resulted in an increase of the oxidative DNA damage 8-oxodG, a decrease in the enzyme OGG1 that ordinarily repairs such damage, and epigenetic alterations.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Chronic intake of alcohol leads to persistent alterations in brain function including altered decision-making ability. The prefrontal cortex of chronic alcoholics has been shown to be vulnerable to oxidative DNA damage and neuronal cell death.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Perhaps the seminal case in prefrontal cortex function is that of Phineas Gage, whose left frontal lobe was destroyed when a large iron rod was driven through his head in an 1848 accident. The standard presentation is that, although Gage retained normal memory, speech and motor skills, his personality changed radically: He became irritable, quick-tempered, and impatient—characteristics he did not previously display — so that friends described him as "no longer Gage"; and, whereas he had previously been a capable and efficient worker, afterward he was unable to complete. However, careful analysis of primary evidence shows that descriptions of Gage's psychological changes are usually exaggerated when held against the description given by Gage's doctor, the most striking feature being that changes described years after Gage's death are far more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: Subsequent studies on patients with prefrontal injuries have shown that the patients verbalized what the most appropriate social responses would be under certain circumstances. Yet, when actually performing, they instead pursued behavior aimed at immediate gratification, despite knowing the longer-term results would be self-defeating.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The interpretation of this data indicates that not only are skills of comparison and understanding of eventual outcomes harbored in the prefrontal cortex but the prefrontal cortex (when functioning correctly) controls the mental option to delay immediate gratification for a better or more rewarding longer-term gratification result. This ability to wait for a reward is one of the key pieces that define optimal executive function of the human brain.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: There is much current research devoted to understanding the role of the prefrontal cortex in neurological disorders. Clinical trials have begun on certain drugs that have been shown to improve prefrontal cortex function, including guanfacine, which acts through the alpha-2A adrenergic receptor. A downstream target of this drug, the HCN channel, is one of the most recent areas of exploration in prefrontal cortex pharmacology.


title: Prefrontal cortex

text: The term "prefrontal" as describing a part of the brain appears to have been introduced by Richard Owen in 1868. For him, the prefrontal area was restricted to the anterior-most part of the frontal lobe (approximately corresponding to the frontal pole). It has been hypothesized that his choice of the term was based on the prefrontal bone present in most amphibians and reptiles.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus (; ; 319/318–272 BC) was an Epirote king and statesman of the Hellenistic period. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house, and later he became king (Malalas also called him toparch) of Epirus. He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome, and had been regarded as one of the greatest generals of antiquity. Several of his victorious battles caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus became king of Epirus in 306 BC at the age of 13, but was dethroned by Cassander four years later. He saw action during the Wars of the Diadochi and regained his throne in 297 BC with the support of Ptolemy I Soter. During what came to be known as the Pyrrhic War, Pyrrhus fought Rome at the behest of Tarentum, scoring costly victories at Heraclea and Asculum. He proceeded to take over Sicily from Carthage but was soon driven out, and lost all his gains in Italy after the Battle of Beneventum in 275 BC.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus seized the Macedonian throne from Antigonus II Gonatas in 274 BC and invaded the Peloponnese in 272 BC. The Epirote assault on Sparta was thwarted, however, and Pyrrhus was killed during a street battle at Argos.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: The Latinized Pyrrhus derives from the Greek "Pyrrhos" (; ), meaning redhaired, redheaded or flame-colored. "Pyrrhos" was also used as an alternate name for Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Homeric Greek mythology.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In c. 319 BC, Pyrrhus was born to prince Aeacides of Epirus, and Phthia, a Thessalian noblewoman, the daughter of the Thessalian general Menon. Aeacides was a cousin of Olympias, making Pyrrhus a second cousin to Alexander the Great. He had two sisters: Deidamia and Troias. In 319/318 BC, Arrybas, Aeacides' father and the regent of Epirus, died leaving Epirus to the joint kings Aeacides and Neoptolemus.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Aeacides supported Olympias in her fight against Cassander and marched on Macedon. In 317 BC, when Pyrrhus was only two, Olympias requested Aeacides' support yet again and he marched on Macedon a second time. Many of his soldiers did not like their service and mutinied. Aeacides released these soldiers from his army, but as a result his army was too small to achieve anything. When the mutineers arrived in Epirus they caused a rebellion against their absent king and Aeacides was dethroned. Cassander sent one of his generals, Lyciscus, to act as regent to the still underaged Neoptolemus. Epirus in effect became a puppet kingdom of Cassander. Pyrrhus' family fled north and took refuge with Glaukias of the Taulantians, one of the largest Illyrian tribes. Pyrrhus was raised by Beroea, Glaukias' wife, a Molossian of the Aeacidae dynasty. Cassander marched against Glaukias, defeated his army and captured Apollonia. Glaukias had to promise not to act against Cassander, but he refused to give up Pyrrhus and his family.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: By 313 BC, Cassander was distracted by his war against Antigonus Monophthalmus, one of the most powerful of the Diadochi. Fearing an invasion from Asia Minor, where Antigonus was building up his forces, he shifted his attention from west to the east. Aeacides took advantage of the situation and returned to Epirus. He appears to have regained popularity and raised a large army. Cassander sent an army under his brother Philip who defeated Aeacides in two battles. Aeacides was wounded in the last battle and died soon after.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 307 BC, Glaukias invaded Epirus and put Pyrrhus on the throne. Pyrrhus was only eleven years old, so his guardians ruled in his stead until he came of age. When he was seventeen he travelled to the court of Glaukias in Illyria to attend the wedding of one of Glaukias' sons. While he was in Illyria the Molossians rose in rebellion, drove out Pyrrhus' supporters, and returned Neoptolemus to the throne. This time Glaukias was unable to help him.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus travelled to the Peloponnese and served his brother-in-law Demetrius Poliorcetes who had married his sister Deidamia, and who was campaigning against Cassander in southern Greece.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 302 BC, Demetrius took his army to Asia Minor to support his father Antigonus Monophthalmus. Pyrrhus impressed Antigonus for he is reputed to have said that Pyrrhus would become the greatest general of his time, if he lived long enough.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Antigonus had grown too powerful and the other successors, Seleucus, Lysimachus, Ptolemy and Cassander, had united against him. Lysimachus and Seleucus, reinforced by two of Cassander's armies, had concentrated their forces in Asia Minor and marched on Antigonus. Both armies met at Ipsus in Phrygia. The Battle of Ipsus was the largest and most important battle of the Wars of the Successors. Pyrrhus probably fought with Demetrius on the right wing, a place of honour, and made a brilliant display of valour among the combatants. Despite these brave efforts, Antigonus lost both the battle and his life. Demetrius, victorious on his wing, managed to escape with 9,000 men, and Pyrrhus continued to serve his brother-in-law as he started rebuilding Antigonus' empire.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 298 BC, Pyrrhus was taken hostage to Alexandria, under the terms of a peace treaty made between Demetrius and Ptolemy I Soter. There, he married Ptolemy I's stepdaughter Antigone (a daughter of Berenice I of Egypt from her first husband Philip—respectively, Ptolemy I's wife and a Macedonian noble). In 297 BC, Cassander died and Ptolemy, always looking for allies, decided to help restore Pyrrhus to his kingdom. He provided Pyrrhus with men and funds and sent him back to Epirus.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus returned to Epirus at the head of an army, but not willing to fight a civil war he agreed to rule Epirus together with Neoptolemus. Soon both kings started to plot against one another. Pyrrhus was informed of a plot against his life and decided to strike first. He invited his fellow king to a dinner and had him murdered. The act does not appear to have been unpopular as Epirus' nobility seem to have been devoted to him.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 295 BC, Pyrrhus transferred the capital of his kingdom to Ambracia. In 292 BC, he went to war against his former ally and brother-in-law Demetrius by invading Thessaly while Demetrius was besieging Thebes. Demetrius responded immediately; he left the siege to his son Antigonus Gonatas and marched back north at the head of a large army. Pyrrhus, outnumbered, withdrew to Epirus.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: While he was back in Epirus, Pyrrhus suffered another setback. His second wife, Lannasa, daughter of Agathocles of Syracuse the self-proclaimed king of Sicily, deserted him. She claimed that she, a daughter of a Greek king, could no longer bear to share her home with barbarian women. She fled to Corcyra with her dowry, offering it and herself to Demetrius. He accepted, sailed to the island and took possession of both Corcyra and Lannasa. After returning to his army in mainland Greece, Demetrius planned to invade Epirus. In 289 BC, he invaded Pyrrhus' allies, the Aetolian League, hoping to neutralize them before he invaded Epirus. The Aetolians refused battle and retreated into the hills. After ransacking the Aetolians' countryside, Demetrius left a strong force under his best general Pantauchus in Aetolia and marched on Epirus. Meanwhile, Pyrrhus had raised his army and was marching to the rescue of his Aetolian allies. The two armies, on different roads, passed one another and Demetrius started plundering Epirus while Pyrrhus met Pantauchus in battle.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus had the bulk of the army of Epirus with him, probably 20,000–25,000 men, while Pantauchus commanded but a detachment of Demetrius' army consisting of around 11,000 men. The fighting was heavy, and according to the sources Pantauchus and Pyrrhus sought out one another. Pantauchus challenged Pyrrhus to individual combat, and Pyrrhus accepted. After hurling spears at each other they fought it out with swords. Pyrrhus was wounded, but in return wounded his opponent twice, in the thigh and in the neck. Pantauchus' bodyguards had to carry him away. Emboldened by their king's victory, the Epirotes resumed their attack and broke Pantauchus' army, and took 5,000 prisoners. The army then honoured Pyrrhus by bestowing the surname of 'Eagle' upon him. Demetrius, upon hearing of Pyrrhus's victory, marched back to Macedon. Pyrrhus released his prisoners and marched back to Epirus.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 289 BC, Pyrrhus, learning that Demetrius was dangerously ill, invaded Macedonia. His original intention was merely to raid and pillage, but with Demetrius unable to lead his forces he met almost no opposition. Pyrrhus penetrated as far as the old Macedonian capital of Aegae before Demetrius was well enough to take the field. Since Demetrius commanded a superior force, Pyrrhus had no choice but to retreat.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Demetrius, just as restless as Pyrrhus, planned to invade Asia and reclaim his father's old domains. He first made peace with Pyrrhus granting him his holdings in Macedonia while holding on to Corcyra and Leucas, then he started to raise a vast army and a huge fleet. Faced with this threat, the other Diadochi Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus allied against him. The three kings sent embassies to Pyrrhus trying to win him over to their side or at least get him to remain neutral. If the allies won and Pyrrhus remained neutral he would gain nothing. If on the other hand Demetrius would be victorious he could overwhelm Pyrrhus at any time in the future. Pyrrhus's personal enmity against Demetrius might have played an additional role in his decision to join the allies.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 288 BC, the allied kings began their campaigns against Demetrius. Ptolemy sailed against Demetrius's Greek allies with a large fleet. Lysimachus invaded upper Macedonia from Thrace. Pyrrhus waited until Demetrius had marched against Lysimachus and then invaded southern Macedonia. Demetrius must have thought that Pyrrhus would not renege on his treaty, because western and southern Macedonia fell without opposition. Meanwhile, Demetrius had won a victory over Lysimachus near Amphipolis. When the Macedonian army heard that their homeland was being overrun by Pyrrhus, they turned on Demetrius. They were fed up with his autocratic rule and grandiose plans and refused to advance any further. Demetrius then led his army against Pyrrhus, probably hoping that his Macedonians would be more willing to fight a foreign invader rather than Lysimachus, a veteran of Alexander. Unfortunately for Demetrius, his troops were so fed up with him that they deserted to Pyrrhus and he had to flee. Lysimachus was soon joined by Pyrrhus and they decided to share rulership over Macedonia.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Demetrius gathered a new army in Greece and besieged Athens, which had rebelled against the puppet government he had installed. The Athenians called on Pyrrhus for assistance and he marched against Demetrius once more. This caused Demetrius to raise the siege. The Athenians thanked Pyrrhus by erecting a bust to him and allowing him into the city for the celebrations. However, they did not allow his army to enter the city, probably fearing Pyrrhus would install a garrison and make himself overlord of Athens. Pyrrhus made the most of the situation and advised the Athenians never to let a king enter their city again.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus and Demetrius made peace once more but, like all previous agreements, it did not last. When Demetrius, in 286 BC, invaded Asia in order to attack Lysimachus's Asian domains, Lysimachus requested that Pyrrhus invade Thessaly and from there attack Demetrius' garrisons in Greece. Pyrrhus agreed, probably in order to keep his fractious Macedonian troops busy and less likely to rebel and also to gain an easy victory over the weakened Antigonids. He quickly defeated Antigonus Gonatas, Demetrius's son, who ceded Thessaly to him in order to make peace. Pyrrhus's Greek Empire was now at its zenith: he ruled an enlarged Epirus, half of Macedonia, and Thessaly.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 285 BC, Demetrius was defeated by Seleucus. This freed the hands of Lysimachus who decided to get rid of his co-ruler in Macedonia. He first isolated Pyrrhus from his traditional ally the Ptolemies, by marrying Arsinoe II, the sister of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. He also made a large donation to the Aetolians, Pyrrhus's main allies in Greece. Pyrrhus felt threatened enough to make an alliance with Antigonus Gonatas. In 284 BC, Lysimachus invaded Pyrrhus's half of Macedonia with a huge army. Unable to stand against Lysimachus's superior army Pyrrhus retreated and linked up with Antigonus Gonatas. Lysimachus started a propaganda campaign in which he appealed to the patriotism of the Macedonians serving Pyrrhus. He reminded them that Pyrrhus was in fact a foreign king while he himself was a true Macedonian. The campaign was successful. With his Macedonian troops turning against him Pyrrhus had no other choice but to withdraw to Epirus. Lysimachus invaded and plundered Epirus the following year. Pyrrhus did not oppose Lysimachus for he was probably fighting a war in Illyria to the north. According to Pausanius, "Pyrrhus was roaming around as usual".


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: The Greek city of Tarentum, in southern Italy, fell out with Rome due to a violation of an old treaty that specified Rome was not to send warships into the Tarentine Gulf. In 282 BC, the Romans installed garrisons in the Greek cities of Thurii (on the western end of the Tarentine Gulf), Locri, and Rhegium, and sent warships to Thurii. Although this was designed as a measure against the Italian peoples of Lucania, the Tarentines grew nervous and attacked the Romans in Thurii, driving the Roman garrison from the city and sinking several Roman warships. Tarentum was now faced with a Roman attack and certain defeat, unless they could enlist the aid of greater powers. Rome had already made itself into a major power, and was poised to subdue all the Greek cities in Magna Graecia. The Tarentines asked Pyrrhus to lead their war against the Romans. Pyrrhus was encouraged to aid the Tarentines by the Oracle of Delphi. He recognized the possibility of carving out an empire for himself in Italy. He made an alliance with Ptolemy Keraunos, King of Macedon and his most powerful neighbor, and arrived in Italy in 280 BC.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus entered Italy with an army consisting of 20,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20 war elephants in a bid to subdue the Romans. The elephants had been loaned to him by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who had also promised 9,000 soldiers and a further 50 elephants to defend Epirus while Pyrrhus and his army were away.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Due to his superior cavalry, his elephants and his deadly phalanx infantry, he defeated the Romans, led by Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus, in the Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC, in the Roman province of Lucania. There are conflicting sources about casualties. Hieronymus of Cardia reports the Romans lost about 7,000 while Pyrrhus lost 3,000 soldiers, including many of his best; Dionysius gives a bloodier view of 15,000 Roman dead and 13,000 Epirot. Several tribes, including the Lucanians, Bruttii, Messapians, and the Greek cities of Croton and Locri, joined Pyrrhus. He then offered the Romans a peace treaty which was eventually rejected. Pyrrhus tried to wrest Campania from the Romans, but was thwarted in this by the reinforced army of Laevinus. He then boldly marched on Rome itself, but found its defences too formidable. Meanwhile, the Romans had made peace with the Etruscans and had recalled Tiberius Coruncanius, the other consul, who was marching his army southwards from Etruria towards Rome. Pyrrhus now faced three armies; the garrison of Rome, Laevinus from the south and Curuncanius from the north. Not wanting to be caught between three armies Pyrrhus withdrew to Tarentum, where he wintered his troops.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: When Pyrrhus invaded Apulia (279 BC), the two armies met in the Battle of Asculum, where Pyrrhus won a costly victory. The consul Publius Decius Mus was the Roman commander, and while his able force was ultimately defeated, they almost managed to break the back of Pyrrhus' Epirot army, guaranteeing the security of Rome itself. In the end, the Romans lost 6,000 men and Pyrrhus 3,500 including many officers. Pyrrhus later famously commented on his victory at Asculum, stating, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined". It is from reports of this semi-legendary event that the term Pyrrhic victory originates.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 278 BC, Pyrrhus received two offers simultaneously. The Greek cities in Sicily asked him to come and drive out Carthage, which along with Rome was one of the two great powers of the Western Mediterranean. At the same time, the Macedonians, whose King Ptolemy Keraunos had been killed by invading Gauls, asked Pyrrhus to ascend the throne of Macedon. Pyrrhus decided that Sicily offered him a greater opportunity, and sailed his army there.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 278 BC, soon after disembarking his army in Sicily, he lifted the Carthaginian Siege of Syracuse. Pyrrhus was proclaimed king of Sicily. He was already making plans for his son Helenus, a grandson of Agathocles of Syracuse through his mother, to inherit the kingdom of Sicily and his other son Alexander to be given Italy. In 277 BC, Pyrrhus captured Eryx, the strongest Carthaginian fortress in Sicily. This prompted the rest of the Carthaginian-controlled cities to defect to Pyrrhus.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 276 BC, Pyrrhus negotiated with the Carthaginians. Although they were inclined to come to terms with Pyrrhus, supply him money and send him ships once friendly relations were established, he demanded that Carthage abandon all of Sicily and make the Libyan Sea a boundary between themselves and the Greeks. The Greek cities of Sicily opposed making peace with Carthage because the Carthaginians still controlled the powerful fortress of Lilybaeum, on the western end of the island. Pyrrhus eventually gave in to their proposals and broke off the peace negotiations. Pyrrhus' army then began besieging Lilybaeum. For two months he launched unsuccessful assaults on the city, until finally he realized he could not mount an effective siege without blockading it from the sea as well. Pyrrhus then requested manpower and money from the Sicilians in order to construct a powerful fleet. When the Sicilians became unhappy about these contributions he had to resort to compulsory contributions and force to keep them in line. These measures culminated in him proclaiming a military dictatorship of Sicily and installing military garrisons in Sicilian cities.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: These actions were deeply unpopular and soon Sicilian opinion became inflamed against him. Pyrrhus had so alienated the Sicilian Greeks that they were willing to make common cause with the Carthaginians. The Carthaginians took heart from this and sent another army against him. This army was promptly defeated. In spite of this victory, Sicily continued to grow increasingly hostile to Pyrrhus, who began to consider abandoning Sicily. At this point, Samnite and Tarentine envoys reached Pyrrhus and informed him that of all the Greek cities in Italy, only Tarentum had not been conquered by Rome. Pyrrhus made his decision and departed from Sicily. As his ship left the island, he turned and, foreshadowing the Punic Wars, said to his companions: "What a wrestling ground we are leaving, my friends, for the Carthaginians and the Romans." While his army was being transported by ship to mainland Italy, Pyrrhus' navy was destroyed by the Carthaginians at the Battle of the Strait of Messina, with 98 warships sunk or disabled out of 110.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: While Pyrrhus had been campaigning against the Carthaginians, the Romans had rebuilt their army by calling up thousands of fresh recruits. When Pyrrhus returned from Sicily, he found himself vastly outnumbered against a superior Roman army under Manius Curius Dentatus. After the inconclusive Battle of Beneventum in 275 BC, Pyrrhus decided to end his campaign in Italy and return to Epirus which resulted in the loss of essentially all the gains he had made in Italy. The city of Tarentum remained under the dominion of the Epirotes.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: His western campaign had taken a heavy toll on his army as well as his treasury. Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Pyrrhus went to war yet again. The realm of his rival king Antigonus Gonatas of Macedon was the most obvious target. Pyrrhus raised an army from his Epirote garrisons, Gallic mercenaries and the troops he had brought back from Italy and marched east into Macedon. He won an easy victory at the Battle of the Aous and took most of Macedon.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Antigonus managed to hold on to a number of coastal cities. He then waited for an opportunity to reclaim his kingdom while Pyrrhus was already looking for another war to fight. Furthermore, Pyrrhus made himself very unpopular in Macedon by allowing his Gauls to plunder the tombs of the Macedonian kings at Aegae.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In 272 BC, Cleonymus, a Spartan of royal blood who was hated among fellow Spartans, asked Pyrrhus to attack Sparta and place him in power. Pyrrhus agreed to the plan, intending to win control of the Peloponnese for himself, but unexpected strong resistance thwarted his assault on Sparta. On the retreat he lost his firstborn son Ptolemy, who had been in command of the rearguard.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus had little time to mourn, as he was immediately offered an opportunity to intervene in a civic dispute in Argos. Since Antigonus Gonatas was approaching too, he hastened to enter the city with his army by stealth, only to find the place crowded with hostile troops. During the confused Battle of Argos in the narrow city streets, Pyrrhus was trapped. While he was fighting an Argive soldier, the soldier's old mother, who was watching from a rooftop, threw a tile which knocked him from his horse and broke part of his spine, paralyzing him. Whether he was alive or not after the blow is unknown, but his death was assured when a Macedonian soldier named Zopyrus, though frightened by the look on the face of the unconscious king, hesitantly and ineptly beheaded his motionless body. This story is later recounted by Plutarch in his "Life of Pyrrhus."


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Antigonus had him cremated with all honours and sent his surviving son Helenus back to Epirus. That same year, upon hearing the news of Pyrrhus's death, the Tarentinians surrendered to Rome.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: In his "Life of Pyrrhus", Plutarch records that Hannibal ranked him as the greatest commander the world had ever seen, though in the "Life of Titus Quinctius Flamininus", Plutarch writes that Hannibal placed him second after Alexander the Great. This latter account is also given by Appian. While he was a mercurial and often restless leader, and not always a wise king, he was considered one of the greatest military commanders of his time.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus was known for his benevolence. As a general, Pyrrhus's greatest political weaknesses were his failures to maintain focus and to maintain a strong treasury at home (many of his soldiers were costly mercenaries).


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: The concept of a monarch having a touch that could heal all wounds may have originated with Pyrrhus. As Pliny the Elder states, Pyrrhus' great toe on his right foot cured diseases of the spleen by merely touching the patient. His toe could also not be burned so when his body was cremated, his toe was put in a coffer, and kept at an unknown temple.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus lends his name to the term "Pyrrhic victory" which stems from statement he is alleged to have made following the Battle of Asculum. In response to congratulations for winning a costly victory over the Romans, he is reported to have said: "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined". The term Pyrrhic Victory has therefore come to signify a victory that was won at such cost that it loses all worth.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus and his campaign in Italy provided the Greek world with an opportunity to check the advance of Rome further into the Mediterranean. The failure to fully exploit this opportunity while Rome was still only an Italian regional power had immense consequences. The conquest of Magna Graecia by the Romans brought them into direct competition with Carthage, ultimately leading to the First Punic War. Rome's victory in this conflict arguably transformed it from a regional power to one of the most powerful states in the Mediterranean. Over the next century the failure of the various Kingdoms and city states of the Hellenistic world to put on a united front against Rome resulted in their absorption into the Roman Empire or, in the case of some, the reduction to the status of a Roman client state. By 197 BC, Macedonia and many southern Greek city-states became Roman client states; in 188 BC, the Seleucid Empire was forced to cede most of Asia Minor to Rome's ally Pergamon (Pergamum). In 133 BC Attalus III, the last King of Pergamon (excluding the pretender Eumenes III), bequeathed the Kingdom and its considerable territories in Asia Minor to Rome in his will. At the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC Rome defeated the city-state of Corinth and its allies in the Achaean League. The league was dissolved and Rome took formal possession of the territoires which constitute modern day Greece, re-organising these territories into province of Macedonia. Finally, in 63 BC, Pompey Magnus delivered the final coup de grace to the already much reduced Seleucid Empire, deposing its last ruler and absorbing its territories into the new Roman province of Syria.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus wrote memoirs and several books on the art of war. These have since been lost, although, according to Plutarch, Hannibal was influenced by them, and they received praise from Cicero.


title: Pyrrhus of Epirus

text: Pyrrhus was married five times: his first wife Antigone bore him a daughter called Olympias and a son named Ptolemy in honour of her stepfather. She died in 295 BC, possibly in childbirth, since that was the same year her son was born. His second wife was Lanassa, daughter of King Agathocles of Syracuse (r. 317–289 BC), whom he married in about 295 BC; the couple had two sons, Alexander and Helenus; Lanassa left Pyrrhus. His third wife was the daughter of Audoleon, King of Paeonia; his fourth wife was the Illyrian princess Bircenna, who was the daughter of King Bardylis II (r. c. 295–290 BC); and his fifth wife was the daughter of Ptolemy Keraunos, whom he married in 281/280 BC.


title: Fingerprint

text: A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfaces such as glass or metal. Deliberate impressions of entire fingerprints can be obtained by ink or other substances transferred from the peaks of friction ridges on the skin to a smooth surface such as paper. Fingerprint records normally contain impressions from the pad on the last joint of fingers and thumbs, though fingerprint cards also typically record portions of lower joint areas of the fingers.


title: Fingerprint

text: Human fingerprints are detailed, nearly unique, difficult to alter, and durable over the life of an individual, making them suitable as long-term markers of human identity. They may be employed by police or other authorities to identify individuals who wish to conceal their identity, or to identify people who are incapacitated or deceased and thus unable to identify themselves, as in the aftermath of a natural disaster.


title: Fingerprint

text: Their use as evidence has been challenged by academics, judges and the media. There are no uniform standards for point-counting methods, and academics have argued that the error rate in matching fingerprints has not been adequately studied and that fingerprint evidence has no secure statistical foundation. Research has been conducted into whether experts can objectively focus on feature information in fingerprints without being misled by extraneous information, such as context.


title: Fingerprint

text: Fingerprints are impressions left on surfaces by the friction ridges on the finger of a human. The matching of two fingerprints is among the most widely used and most reliable biometric techniques. Fingerprint matching considers only the obvious features of a fingerprint.


title: Fingerprint

text: The composition of fingerprints consists of water (95%-99%), as well as organic and inorganic constituents. The organic component is made up of amino acids, proteins, glucose, lactase, urea, pyruvate, fatty acids and sterols. Inorganic ions such as chloride, sodium, potassium and iron are also present. Other contaminants such as oils found in cosmetics, drugs and their metabolites and food residues may be found in fingerprint residues.


title: Fingerprint

text: A friction ridge is a raised portion of the epidermis on the digits (fingers and toes), the palm of the hand or the sole of the foot, consisting of one or more connected ridge units of friction ridge skin. These are sometimes known as "epidermal ridges" which are caused by the underlying interface between the dermal papillae of the dermis and the interpapillary (rete) pegs of the epidermis. These epidermal ridges serve to amplify vibrations triggered, for example, when fingertips brush across an uneven surface, better transmitting the signals to sensory nerves involved in fine texture perception. These ridges may also assist in gripping rough surfaces and may improve surface contact in wet conditions.


title: Fingerprint

text: Consensus within the scientific community suggests that the patterns on fingertips are hereditary. The fingerprint patterns between monozygotic twins have been shown to be very similar, whereas dizygotic twins have considerably less similarity. Significant heritability has been identified for 12 dermatoglyphic characteristics. Current models of dermatoglyphic trait inheritance suggest Mendelian transmission with additional effects from either additive or dominant major genes.


title: Fingerprint

text: Whereas genes determine the general characteristics of patterns and their type, the presence of environmental factors result in the slight differentiation of each fingerprint. However, the relative influences of genetic and environmental effects on fingerprint patterns are generally unclear. One study has suggested that roughly 5% of the total variability is due to small environmental effects, although this was only performed using total ridge count as a metric. Several models of finger ridge formation mechanisms that lead to the vast diversity of fingerprints have been proposed. One model suggests that a buckling instability in the basal cell layer of the fetal epidermis is responsible for developing epidermal ridges. Additionally, blood vessels and nerves may also serve a role in the formation of ridge configurations. Another model indicates that changes in amniotic fluid surrounding each developing finger within the uterus cause corresponding cells on each fingerprint to grow in different microenvironments. For a given individual, these various factors affect each finger differently preventing two fingerprints from being identical while still retaining similar patterns.


title: Fingerprint

text: It is important to note that the determination of fingerprint inheritance is made difficult by the vast diversity of phenotypes. Classification of a specific pattern is often subjective (lack of consensus on the most appropriate characteristic to measure quantitatively) which complicates analysis of dermatoglyphic patterns. Several modes of inheritance have been suggested and observed for various fingerprint patterns. Total fingerprint ridge count, a commonly used metric of fingerprint pattern size, has been suggested to have a polygenic mode of inheritance and is influenced by multiple additive genes. This hypothesis has been challenged by other research, however, which indicates that ridge counts on individual fingers are genetically independent and lack evidence to support the existence of additive genes influencing pattern formation. Another mode of fingerprint pattern inheritance suggests that the arch pattern on the thumb and on other fingers are inherited as an autosomal dominant trait. Further research on the arch pattern has suggested that a major gene or multifactorial inheritance is responsible for arch pattern heritability. A separate model for the development of the whorl pattern indicates that a single gene or group of linked genes contributes to its inheritance. Furthermore, inheritance of the whorl pattern does not appear to be symmetric in that the pattern is seemingly randomly distributed among the ten fingers of a given individual. In general, comparison of fingerprint patterns between left and right hands suggests an asymmetry in the effects of genes on fingerprint patterns, although this observation requires further analysis.


title: Fingerprint

text: In addition to proposed models of inheritance, specific genes have been implicated as factors in fingertip pattern formation (their exact mechanism of influencing patterns is still under research). Multivariate linkage analysis of finger ridge counts on individual fingers revealed linkage to chromosome 5q14.1 specifically for the ring, index, and middle fingers. In mice, variants in the gene EVI1 were correlated with dermatoglyphic patterns. EVI1 expression in humans does not directly influence fingerprint patterns but does affect limb and digit formation which in turn may play a role in influencing fingerprint patterns. Genome-wide association studies found single nucleotide polymorphisms within the gene ADAMTS9-AS2 on 3p14.1, which appeared to have an influence on the whorl pattern on all digits. This gene encodes antisense RNA which may inhibit ADAMTS9, which is expressed in the skin. A model of how genetic variants of ADAMTS9-AS2 directly influence whorl development has not yet been proposed.


title: Fingerprint

text: Before computerization, manual filing systems were used in large fingerprint repositories. A fingerprint classification system groups fingerprints according to their characteristics and therefore helps in the matching of a fingerprint against a large database of fingerprints. A query fingerprint that needs to be matched can therefore be compared with a subset of fingerprints in an existing database. Early classification systems were based on the general ridge patterns, including the presence or absence of circular patterns, of several or all fingers. This allowed the filing and retrieval of paper records in large collections based on friction ridge patterns alone. The most popular systems used the pattern class of each finger to form a numeric key to assist lookup in a filing system. Fingerprint classification systems included the Roscher System, the Juan Vucetich System and the Henry Classification System. The Roscher System was developed in Germany and implemented in both Germany and Japan. The Vucetich System was developed in Argentina and implemented throughout South America. The Henry Classification System was developed in India and implemented in most English-speaking countries.


title: Fingerprint

text: In the Henry Classification System there are three basic fingerprint patterns: loop, whorl, and arch, which constitute 60–65 percent, 30–35 percent, and 5 percent of all fingerprints respectively. There are also more complex classification systems that break down patterns even further, into plain arches or tented arches, and into loops that may be radial or ulnar, depending on the side of the hand toward which the tail points. Ulnar loops start on the pinky-side of the finger, the side closer to the ulna, the lower arm bone. Radial loops start on the thumb-side of the finger, the side closer to the radius. Whorls may also have sub-group classifications including plain whorls, accidental whorls, double loop whorls, peacock's eye, composite, and central pocket loop whorls.


title: Fingerprint

text: The system used by most experts, although complex, is similar to the Henry Classification System. It consists of five fractions, in which "R" stands for right, "L" for left, "i" for index finger, "m" for middle finger, "t" for thumb, "r" for ring finger and "p"(pinky) for little finger. The fractions are as follows:


title: Fingerprint

text: The numbers assigned to each print are based on whether or not they are whorls. A whorl in the first fraction is given a 16, the second an 8, the third a 4, the fourth a 2, and 0 to the last fraction. Arches and loops are assigned values of 0. Lastly, the numbers in the numerator and denominator are added up, using the scheme:


title: Fingerprint

text: A 1 is added to both top and bottom, to exclude any possibility of division by zero. For example, if the right ring finger and the left index finger have whorls, the fraction used is:


title: Fingerprint

text: Fingerprint identification, known as dactyloscopy, or hand print identification, is the process of comparing two instances of friction ridge skin impressions (see Minutiae), from human fingers or toes, or even the palm of the hand or sole of the foot, to determine whether these impressions could have come from the same individual. The flexibility of friction ridge skin means that no two finger or palm prints are ever exactly alike in every detail; even two impressions recorded immediately after each other from the same hand may be slightly different. Fingerprint identification, also referred to as individualization, involves an expert, or an expert computer system operating under threshold scoring rules, determining whether two friction ridge impressions are likely to have originated from the same finger or palm (or toe or sole).


title: Fingerprint

text: An intentional recording of friction ridges is usually made with black printer's ink rolled across a contrasting white background, typically a white card. Friction ridges can also be recorded digitally, usually on a glass plate, using a technique called Live Scan. A "latent print" is the chance recording of friction ridges deposited on the surface of an object or a wall. Latent prints are invisible to the naked eye, whereas "patent prints" or "plastic prints" are viewable with the unaided eye. Latent prints are often fragmentary and require the use of chemical methods, powder, or alternative light sources in order to be made clear. Sometimes an ordinary bright flashlight will make a latent print visible.


title: Fingerprint

text: When friction ridges come into contact with a surface that will take a print, material that is on the friction ridges such as perspiration, oil, grease, ink, or blood, will be transferred to the surface. Factors which affect the quality of friction ridge impressions are numerous. Pliability of the skin, deposition pressure, slippage, the material from which the surface is made, the roughness of the surface, and the substance deposited are just some of the various factors which can cause a latent print to appear differently from any known recording of the same friction ridges. Indeed, the conditions surrounding every instance of friction ridge deposition are unique and never duplicated. For these reasons, fingerprint examiners are required to undergo extensive training. The scientific study of fingerprints is called dermatoglyphics.


title: Fingerprint

text: Exemplar prints, or known prints, is the name given to fingerprints deliberately collected from a subject, whether for purposes of enrollment in a system or when under arrest for a suspected criminal offense. During criminal arrests, a set of exemplar prints will normally include one print taken from each finger that has been rolled from one edge of the nail to the other, plain (or slap) impressions of each of the four fingers of each hand, and plain impressions of each thumb. Exemplar prints can be collected using live scan or by using ink on paper cards.


title: Fingerprint

text: In forensic science a partial fingerprint lifted from a surface, is called a "latent fringerprint". Moisture and grease on fingers result in latent fingerprints on surfaces such as glass. But because they are not clearly visible, their detection may require chemical development through powder dusting, the spraying of ninhydrin, iodine fuming, or soaking in silver nitrate. Depending on the surface or the material on which a latent fingerprint has been found, different methods of chemical development must be used. Forensic scientists use different techniques for porous surfaces, such as paper, and nonporous surfaces, such as glass, metal or plastic. Nonporous surfaces require the dusting process, where fine powder and a brush are used, followed by the application of transparent tape to lift the latent fingerprint off the surface.


title: Fingerprint

text: While the police often describe all partial fingerprints found at a crime scene as latent prints, forensic scientists call partial fingerprints that are readily visible "patent prints". Chocolate, toner, paint or ink on fingers will result in patent fingerprints. Latent fingerprints impressions that are found on soft material, such as soap, cement or plaster, are called "plastic prints" by forensic scientists.


title: Fingerprint

text: Fingerprint image acquisition is considered to be the most critical step in an automated fingerprint authentication system, as it determines the final fingerprint image quality, which has a drastic effect on the overall system performance. There are different types of fingerprint readers on the market, but the basic idea behind each is to measure the physical difference between ridges and valleys.


title: Fingerprint

text: All the proposed methods can be grouped into two major families: solid-state fingerprint readers and optical fingerprint readers. The procedure for capturing a fingerprint using a sensor consists of rolling or touching with the finger onto a sensing area, which according to the physical principle in use (optical, ultrasonic, capacitive, or thermalsee ) captures the difference between valleys and ridges. When a finger touches or rolls onto a surface, the elastic skin deforms. The quantity and direction of the pressure applied by the user, the skin conditions and the projection of an irregular 3D object (the finger) onto a 2D flat plane introduce distortions, noise, and inconsistencies in the captured fingerprint image. These problems result in inconsistent and non-uniform irregularities in the image. During each acquisition, therefore, the results of the imaging are different and uncontrollable. The representation of the same fingerprint changes every time the finger is placed on the sensor plate, increasing the complexity of any attempt to match fingerprints, impairing the system performance and consequently, limiting the widespread use of this biometric technology.


title: Fingerprint

text: In order to overcome these problems, as of 2010, non-contact or touchless 3D fingerprint scanners have been developed. Acquiring detailed 3D information, 3D fingerprint scanners take a digital approach to the analog process of pressing or rolling the finger. By modelling the distance between neighboring points, the fingerprint can be imaged at a resolution high enough to record all the necessary detail.


title: Fingerprint

text: The human skin itself, which is a regenerating organ until death, and environmental factors such as lotions and cosmetics, pose challenges when fingerprinting a human. Following the death of a human the skin dries and cools. Obtaining fingerprints from a dead human, to aid identification, is hindered by the fact that only the coroner or medical examiner is allowed to examine the dead body. Fingerprints of dead humans may be obtained during an autopsy.


title: Fingerprint

text: In the 1930s criminal investigators in the United States first discovered the existence of latent fingerprints on the surfaces of fabrics, most notably on the insides of gloves discarded by perpetrators.


title: Fingerprint

text: Since the late nineteenth century, fingerprint identification methods have been used by police agencies around the world to identify suspected criminals as well as the victims of crime. The basis of the traditional fingerprinting technique is simple. The skin on the palmar surface of the hands and feet forms ridges, so-called papillary ridges, in patterns that are unique to each individual and which do not change over time. Even identical twins (who share their DNA) do not have identical fingerprints. The best way to render latent fingerprints visible, so that they can be photographed, can be complex and may depend, for example, on the type of surfaces on which they have been left. It is generally necessary to use a "developer", usually a powder or chemical reagent, to produce a high degree of visual contrast between the ridge patterns and the surface on which a fingerprint has been deposited.


title: Fingerprint

text: Developing agents depend on the presence of organic materials or inorganic salts for their effectiveness, although the water deposited may also take a key role. Fingerprints are typically formed from the aqueous-based secretions of the eccrine glands of the fingers and palms with additional material from sebaceous glands primarily from the forehead. This latter contamination results from the common human behaviors of touching the face and hair. The resulting latent fingerprints consist usually of a substantial proportion of water with small traces of amino acids and chlorides mixed with a fatty, sebaceous component which contains a number of fatty acids and triglycerides. Detection of a small proportion of reactive organic substances such as urea and amino acids is far from easy.


title: Fingerprint

text: Fingerprints at a crime scene may be detected by simple powders, or by chemicals applied "in situ". More complex techniques, usually involving chemicals, can be applied in specialist laboratories to appropriate articles removed from a crime scene. With advances in these more sophisticated techniques, some of the more advanced crime scene investigation services from around the world were, as of 2010, reporting that 50% or more of the fingerprints recovered from a crime scene had been identified as a result of laboratory-based techniques.


title: Fingerprint

text: Although there are hundreds of reported techniques for fingerprint detection, many of these are only of academic interest and there are only around 20 really effective methods which are currently in use in the more advanced fingerprint laboratories around the world.


title: Fingerprint

text: Some of these techniques, such as ninhydrin, diazafluorenone and vacuum metal deposition, show great sensitivity and are used operationally. Some fingerprint reagents are specific, for example ninhydrin or diazafluorenone reacting with amino acids. Others such as ethyl cyanoacrylate polymerisation, work apparently by water-based catalysis and polymer growth. Vacuum metal deposition using gold and zinc has been shown to be non-specific, but can detect fat layers as thin as one molecule.