title: 99 Homes

text: Principal photography, which began on November 18, 2013 in New Orleans, took a holiday break from Christmas to New Year on December 20. Later, the film resumed shooting on January 6, 2014. Whenever a close-up of Andrew Garfield's face is needed, Ramin Bahrani used a 24mm wide angle lens to emulate the thoughts of Garfield's character.


title: 99 Homes

text: The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2014. and went on to screen at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2014. As well as the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2014. Shortly after, Broad Green Pictures acquired U.S distribution rights to the film. It went on to screen at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2015. The film was released in a limited release on September 25, 2015. The film was released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2015.


title: 99 Homes

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 93%, based on 155 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Fueled by powerful acting and a taut, patiently constructed narrative, "99 Homes" is a modern economic parable whose righteous fury is matched by its intelligence and compassion." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 76 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: 99 Homes

text: Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "A provocative, visceral, sometimes heartbreakingly relevant drama/thriller."


title: 99 Homes

text: Guy Lodge of Variety magazine wrote: "This dynamically acted, unapologetically contrived pic reps the filmmaker’s best chance to date of connecting with a wider audience—one likely to share the helmer’s bristling anger over corruptly maintained class divides in modern-day America."


The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts:


title: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

text: This circuit also hears appeals from the District Court of the Virgin Islands, which is an Article VI territorial court and not a district court under Article III of the Constitution.


text: The court is composed of 14 active judges and is based at the James A. Byrne United States Courthouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The court also conducts sittings in other venues, including the United States Virgin Islands. It is one of 13 United States courts of appeals. Due to the court's appellate jurisdiction over Delaware (where more than half of publicly-traded companies in the United States incorporate), the court handles a significant number of influential commercial cases in the United States.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiological functions of one's own body by using electronic or other instruments, and with a goal of being able to manipulate the body's systems at will. Humans conduct biofeedback naturally all the time, at varied levels of consciousness and intentionality. Biofeedback and the biofeedback loop can also be thought of as self-regulation. Some of the processes that can be controlled include brainwaves, muscle tone, skin conductance, heart rate and pain perception.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback may be used to improve health, performance, and the physiological changes that often occur in conjunction with changes to thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Recently, technologies have provided assistance with intentional biofeedback. Eventually, these changes may be maintained without the use of extra equipment, for no equipment is necessarily required to practice biofeedback.


title: Biofeedback

text: Meta-analysis of different biofeedback treatments have shown some benefit in the treatment of headaches and migraines and ADHD, though most of the studies in these meta-analyses did not make comparisons with alternative treatments.


title: Biofeedback

text: Information coded biofeedback is an evolving form and methodology in the field of biofeedback. Its uses may be applied in the areas of health, wellness and awareness. Biofeedback has its modern conventional roots in the early 1970s.


title: Biofeedback

text: Over the years, biofeedback as a discipline and a technology has continued to mature and express new versions of the method with novel interpretations in areas utilizing the electromyograph, electrodermograph, electroencephalograph and electrocardiogram among others.


title: Biofeedback

text: The concept of biofeedback is based on the fact that a wide variety of ongoing intrinsic natural functions of the organism occur at a level of awareness generally called the "unconscious". The biofeedback process is designed to interface with select aspects of these "unconscious" processes.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback is a process that enables an individual to learn how to change physiological activity for the purposes of improving health and performance. Precise instruments measure physiological activity such as brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity, and skin temperature. These instruments rapidly and accurately feed back information to the user. The presentation of this information—often in conjunction with changes in thinking, emotions, and behavior—supports desired physiological changes. Over time, these changes can endure without continued use of an instrument.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiological functions primarily using instruments that provide information on the activity of those same systems, with a goal of being able to manipulate them at will. (Emphasis added by author.)


title: Biofeedback

text: In both of these definitions, a cardinal feature of the concept is the association of the "will" with the result of a new cognitive "learning" skill. Some examine this concept and do not necessarily ascribe it simply to a willful acquisition of a new learned skill but also extend the dynamics into the realms of a behavioristic conditioning. Behaviorism contends that it is possible to change the actions and functions of an organism by exposing it to a number of conditions or influences. Key to the concept is not only that the functions are unconscious but that conditioning processes themselves may be unconscious to the organism. Information coded biofeedback relies primarily on the behavior conditioning aspect of biofeedback in promoting significant changes in the functioning of the organism.


title: Biofeedback

text: The principle of "information" is both complex and, in part, controversial. The term itself is derived from the Latin verb informare which means literally "to bring into form or shape". The meaning of "information" is largely affected by the context of usage. Probably the simplest and perhaps most insightful definition of "information" was given by Gregory Bateson—"Information is news of change" or another as "the difference that makes a difference". Information may also be thought of as "any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns". Recognizing the inherent complexity of an organism, information coded biofeedback applies algorithmic calculations in a stochastic approach to identify significant probabilities in a limited set of possibilities.


title: Biofeedback

text: An electromyograph (EMG) uses surface electrodes to detect muscle action potentials from underlying skeletal muscles that initiate muscle contraction. Clinicians record the surface electromyogram (SEMG) using one or more active electrodes that are placed over a target muscle and a reference electrode that is placed within six inches of either active. The SEMG is measured in microvolts (millionths of a volt).


title: Biofeedback

text: In addition to surface electrodes, clinicians may also insert wires or needles intramuscularly to record an EMG signal. While this is more painful and often costly, the signal is more reliable since surface electrodes pick up cross talk from nearby muscles. The use of surface electrodes is also limited to superficial muscles, making the intramuscular approach beneficial to access signals from deeper muscles. The electrical activity picked up by the electrodes is recorded and displayed in the same fashion as the surface electrodes. Prior to placing surface electrodes, the skin is normally shaved, cleaned and exfoliated to get the best signal. Raw EMG signals resemble noise (electrical signal not coming from the muscle of interest) and the voltage fluctuates, therefore they are processed normally in three ways: rectification, filtering, and integration. This processing allows for a unified signal that is then able to be compared to other signals using the same processing techniques.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback therapists use EMG biofeedback when treating anxiety and worry, chronic pain, computer-related disorder, essential hypertension, headache (migraine, mixed headache, and tension-type headache), low back pain, physical rehabilitation (cerebral palsy, incomplete spinal cord lesions, and stroke), temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMD), torticollis, and fecal incontinence, urinary incontinence, and pelvic pain. Physical therapists have also used EMG biofeedback for evaluating muscle activation and providing feedback for their patients.


title: Biofeedback

text: A feedback thermometer detects skin temperature with a thermistor (a temperature-sensitive resistor) that is usually attached to a finger or toe and measured in degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit. Skin temperature mainly reflects arteriole diameter. Hand-warming and hand-cooling are produced by separate mechanisms, and their regulation involves different skills. Hand-warming involves arteriole vasodilation produced by a beta-2 adrenergic hormonal mechanism. Hand-cooling involves arteriole vasoconstriction produced by the increased firing of sympathetic C-fibers.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback therapists use temperature biofeedback when treating chronic pain, edema, headache (migraine and tension-type headache), essential hypertension, Raynaud's disease, anxiety, and stress.


title: Biofeedback

text: An electrodermograph (EDG) measures skin electrical activity directly (skin conductance and skin potential) and indirectly (skin resistance) using electrodes placed over the digits or hand and wrist. Orienting responses to unexpected stimuli, arousal and worry, and cognitive activity can increase eccrine sweat gland activity, increasing the conductivity of the skin for electric current.


title: Biofeedback

text: In "skin conductance", an electrodermograph imposes an imperceptible current across the skin and measures how easily it travels through the skin. When anxiety raises the level of sweat in a sweat duct, conductance increases. Skin conductance is measured in microsiemens (millionths of a siemens). In "skin potential", a therapist places an active electrode over an active site (e.g., the palmar surface of the hand) and a reference electrode over a relatively inactive site (e.g., forearm). Skin potential is the voltage that develops between eccrine sweat glands and internal tissues and is measured in millivolts (thousandths of a volt). In "skin resistance", also called galvanic skin response (GSR), an electrodermograph imposes a current across the skin and measures the amount of opposition it encounters. Skin resistance is measured in kΩ (thousands of ohms).


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback therapists use electrodermal biofeedback when treating anxiety disorders, hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating), and stress. Electrodermal biofeedback is used as an adjunct to psychotherapy to increase client awareness of their emotions. In addition, electrodermal measures have long served as one of the central tools in polygraphy (lie detection) because they reflect changes in anxiety or emotional activation.


title: Biofeedback

text: An electroencephalograph (EEG) measures the electrical activation of the brain from scalp sites located over the human cortex. The EEG shows the amplitude of electrical activity at each cortical site, the amplitude and relative power of various wave forms at each site, and the degree to which each cortical site fires in conjunction with other cortical sites (coherence and symmetry).


title: Biofeedback

text: The EEG uses precious metal electrodes to detect a voltage between at least two electrodes located on the scalp. The EEG records both excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) that largely occur in dendrites in pyramidal cells located in macrocolumns, several millimeters in diameter, in the upper cortical layers. Neurofeedback monitors both slow and fast cortical potentials.


title: Biofeedback

text: Slow cortical potentials are gradual changes in the membrane potentials of cortical dendrites that last from 300 ms to several seconds. These potentials include the contingent negative variation (CNV), readiness potential, movement-related potentials (MRPs), and P300 and N400 potentials.


title: Biofeedback

text: Fast cortical potentials range from 0.5 Hz to 100 Hz. The main frequency ranges include delta, theta, alpha, the sensorimotor rhythm, low beta, high beta, and gamma. The thresholds or boundaries defining the frequency ranges vary considerably among professionals. Fast cortical potentials can be described by their predominant frequencies, but also by whether they are synchronous or asynchronous wave forms. Synchronous wave forms occur at regular periodic intervals, whereas asynchronous wave forms are irregular.


title: Biofeedback

text: The synchronous delta rhythm ranges from 0.5 to 3.5 Hz. Delta is the dominant frequency from ages 1 to 2, and is associated in adults with deep sleep and brain pathology like trauma and tumors, as well as learning disability.


title: Biofeedback

text: The synchronous theta rhythm ranges from 4 to 7 Hz. Theta is the dominant frequency in healthy young children and is associated with drowsiness or starting to sleep, REM sleep, hypnagogic imagery (intense imagery experienced before the onset of sleep), hypnosis, attention, and processing of cognitive and perceptual information.


title: Biofeedback

text: The synchronous alpha rhythm ranges from 8 to 13 Hz and is defined by its waveform and not by its frequency. Alpha activity can be observed in about 75% of awake, relaxed individuals and is replaced by low-amplitude desynchronized beta activity during movement, complex problem-solving, and visual focusing. This phenomenon is called alpha blocking.


title: Biofeedback

text: The synchronous sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) ranges from 12 to 15 Hz and is located over the sensorimotor cortex (central sulcus). The sensorimotor rhythm is associated with the inhibition of movement and reduced muscle tone.


title: Biofeedback

text: The beta rhythm consists of asynchronous waves and can be divided into low beta and high beta ranges (13–21 Hz and 20–32 Hz). Low beta is associated with activation and focused thinking. High beta is associated with anxiety, hypervigilance, panic, peak performance, and worry.


title: Biofeedback

text: EEG activity from 36 to 44 Hz is also referred to as gamma. Gamma activity is associated with perception of meaning and meditative awareness.


title: Biofeedback

text: Neurotherapists use EEG biofeedback when treating addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disability, anxiety disorders (including worry, obsessive-compulsive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder), depression, migraine, and generalized seizures.


title: Biofeedback

text: A photoplethysmograph (PPG) measures the relative blood flow through a digit using a photoplethysmographic (PPG) sensor attached by a Velcro band to the fingers or to the temple to monitor the temporal artery. An infrared light source is transmitted through or reflected off the tissue, detected by a phototransistor, and quantified in arbitrary units. Less light is absorbed when blood flow is greater, increasing the intensity of light reaching the sensor.


title: Biofeedback

text: A photoplethysmograph can measure blood volume pulse (BVP), which is the phasic change in blood volume with each heartbeat, heart rate, and heart rate variability (HRV), which consists of beat-to-beat differences in intervals between successive heartbeats.


title: Biofeedback

text: A photoplethysmograph can provide useful feedback when temperature feedback shows minimal change. This is because the PPG sensor is more sensitive than a thermistor to minute blood flow changes. Biofeedback therapists can use a photoplethysmograph to supplement temperature biofeedback when treating chronic pain, edema, headache (migraine and tension-type headache), essential hypertension, Raynaud's disease, anxiety, and stress.


title: Biofeedback

text: The electrocardiogram (ECG) uses electrodes placed on the torso, wrists, or legs, to measure the electrical activity of the heart and measures the interbeat interval (distances between successive R-wave peaks in the QRS complex). The interbeat interval, divided into 60 seconds, determines the heart rate at that moment. The statistical variability of that interbeat interval is what we call heart rate variability. The ECG method is more accurate than the PPG method in measuring heart rate variability.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback therapists use heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback when treating asthma, COPD, depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, heart disease, and unexplained abdominal pain. Research shows that HRV biofeedback can also be used to improve physiological and psychological wellbeing in healthy individuals.


title: Biofeedback

text: HRV data from both polyplethysmographs and electrocardiograms are analyzed via mathematical transformations such as the commonly-used fast Fourier transform (FFT). The FFT splits the HRV data into a power spectrum, revealing the waveform's constituent frequencies. Among those constituent frequencies, high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) components are defined as above and below .15 Hz, respectively. As a rule of thumb, the LF component of HRV represents sympathetic activity, and the HF component represents parasympathetic activity. The two main components are often represented as a LF/HF ratio and used to express sympathovagal balance. Some researchers consider a third, medium-frequency (MF) component from .08 Hz to .15 Hz, which has been shown to increase in power during times of appreciation.


title: Biofeedback

text: A pneumograph or respiratory strain gauge uses a flexible sensor band that is placed around the chest, abdomen, or both. The strain gauge method can provide feedback about the relative expansion/contraction of the chest and abdomen, and can measure respiratory rate (the number of breaths per minute). Clinicians can use a pneumograph to detect and correct dysfunctional breathing patterns and behaviors. Dysfunctional breathing patterns include clavicular breathing (breathing that primarily relies on the external intercostals and the accessory muscles of respiration to inflate the lungs), reverse breathing (breathing where the abdomen expands during exhalation and contracts during inhalation), and thoracic breathing (shallow breathing that primarily relies on the external intercostals to inflate the lungs). Dysfunctional breathing behaviors include apnea (suspension of breathing), gasping, sighing, and wheezing.


title: Biofeedback

text: A pneumograph is often used in conjunction with an electrocardiograph (ECG) or photoplethysmograph (PPG) in heart rate variability (HRV) training.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback therapists use pneumograph biofeedback with patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders, asthma, chronic pulmonary obstructive disorder (COPD), essential hypertension, panic attacks, and stress.


title: Biofeedback

text: A capnometer or capnograph uses an infrared detector to measure end-tidal (the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in expired air at the end of expiration) exhaled through the nostril into a latex tube. The average value of end-tidal for a resting adult is 5% (). A capnometer is a sensitive index of the quality of patient breathing. Shallow, rapid, and effortful breathing lowers , while deep, slow, effortless breathing increases it.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback therapists use capnometric biofeedback to supplement respiratory strain gauge biofeedback with patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders, asthma, chronic pulmonary obstructive disorder (COPD), essential hypertension, panic attacks, and stress.


title: Biofeedback

text: Rheoencephalography (REG), or brain blood flow biofeedback, is a biofeedback technique of a conscious control of blood flow. An electronic device called a rheoencephalograph [from Greek rheos stream, anything flowing, from rhein to flow] is utilized in brain blood flow biofeedback. Electrodes are attached to the skin at certain points on the head and permit the device to measure continuously the electrical conductivity of the tissues of structures located between the electrodes. The brain blood flow technique is based on non-invasive method of measuring bio-impedance. Changes in bio-impedance are generated by blood volume and blood flow and registered by a rheographic device. The pulsative bio-impedance changes directly reflect the total blood flow of the deep structures of brain due to high frequency impedance measurements.


title: Biofeedback

text: Hemoencephalography or HEG biofeedback is a functional infrared imaging technique. As its name describes, it measures the differences in the color of light reflected back through the scalp based on the relative amount of oxygenated and unoxygenated blood in the brain. Research continues to determine its reliability, validity, and clinical applicability. HEG is used to treat ADHD and migraine, and for research.


title: Biofeedback

text: Pressure can be monitored as a patient performs exercises while resting against an air-filled cushion. This is pertinent to physiotherapy. Alternatively, the patient may actively grip or press against an air-filled cushion of custom shape.


title: Biofeedback

text: Mowrer detailed the use of a bedwetting alarm that sounds when children urinate while asleep. This simple biofeedback device can quickly teach children to wake up when their bladders are full and to contract the urinary sphincter and relax the detrusor muscle, preventing further urine release. Through classical conditioning, sensory feedback from a full bladder replaces the alarm and allows children to continue sleeping without urinating.


title: Biofeedback

text: Kegel developed the perineometer in 1947 to treat urinary incontinence (urine leakage) in women whose pelvic floor muscles are weakened during pregnancy and childbirth. The perineometer, which is inserted into the vagina to monitor pelvic floor muscle contraction, satisfies all the requirements of a biofeedback device and enhances the effectiveness of popular Kegel exercises. Contradicting this, a 2013 randomized controlled trial found no benefit of adding biofeedback to pelvic floor muscle exercise in stress urinary incontinence. In another randomized controlled trial the addition of biofeedback to the training of pelvic floor muscles for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence, improved pelvic floor muscle function, reduced urinary symptoms, and improved of the quality of life.


title: Biofeedback

text: In 1992, the United States Agency for Health Care Policy and Research recommended biofeedback as a first-line treatment for adult urinary incontinence.


title: Biofeedback

text: In 2019, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended against the routine use of use biofeedback in managing urinary incontinence in women who can actively contract the pelvic floor. It may be considered though, to aid motivation and adherence to therapy.


title: Biofeedback

text: Biofeedback is a treatment for anismus (paradoxical contraction of puborectalis during defecation). This therapy directly evolved from the investigation anorectal manometry where a probe that can record pressure is placed in the anal canal. Biofeedback therapy is also a commonly used and researched therapy for fecal incontinence, but the benefits are uncertain. Biofeedback therapy varies in the way it is delivered. It is also unknown if one type has benefits over another. The aims have been described as to enhance either the rectoanal inhibitory reflex (RAIR), rectal sensitivity (by discrimination of progressively smaller volumes of a rectal balloon and promptly contracting the external anal sphincter (EAS)), or the strength and endurance of the EAS contraction. Three general types of biofeedback have been described, though they are not mutually exclusive, with many protocols combining these elements. Similarly there is variance of the length of both the individual sessions and the overall length of the training, and if home exercises are performed in addition and how. In rectal sensitivity training, a balloon is placed in the rectum, and is gradually distended until there is a sensation of rectal filling. Successively smaller volume reinflations of the balloon aim to help the person detect rectal distension at a lower threshold, giving more time to contract the EAS and prevent incontinence, or to journey to the toilet. Alternatively, in those with urge incontinence/ rectal hypersensitivity, training is aimed at teaching the person to tolerate progressively larger volumes. Strength training may involve electromyography (EMG) skin electrodes, manometric pressures, intra-anal EMG, or endoanal ultrasound. One of these measures are used to relay the muscular activity or anal canal pressure during anal sphincter exercise. Performance and progress can be monitored in this manner. Co-ordination training involves the placing of 3 balloons, in the rectum and in the upper and lower anal canal. The rectal balloon is inflated to trigger the RAIR, an event often followed by incontinence. Co-ordination training aims to teach voluntary contraction of EAS when the RAIR occurs (i.e. when there is rectal distension).


title: Biofeedback

text: There is some research that shows the effects of biofeedback on irritable bowel syndrome. However, there may be some adverse effects when using these devices.


title: Biofeedback

text: In 2010 and 2017, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended against the use of biofeedback in managing constipation in children.


title: Biofeedback

text: Caton recorded spontaneous electrical potentials from the exposed cortical surface of monkeys and rabbits, and was the first to measure event-related potentials (EEG responses to stimuli) in 1875.


title: Biofeedback

text: Danilevsky published "Investigations in the Physiology of the Brain", which explored the relationship between the EEG and states of consciousness in 1877.


title: Biofeedback

text: Beck published studies of spontaneous electrical potentials detected from the brains of dogs and rabbits, and was the first to document alpha blocking, where light alters rhythmic oscillations, in 1890.


title: Biofeedback

text: Sherrington introduced the terms neuron and synapse and published the "Integrative Action of the Nervous System" in 1906.


title: Biofeedback

text: Pravdich-Neminsky photographed the EEG and event related potentials from dogs, demonstrated a 12–14 Hz rhythm that slowed during asphyxiation, and introduced the term electrocerebrogram in 1912.


title: Biofeedback

text: Forbes reported the replacement of the string galvanometer with a vacuum tube to amplify the EEG in 1920. The vacuum tube became the de facto standard by 1936.


title: Biofeedback

text: Berger (1924) published the first human EEG data. He recorded electrical potentials from his son Klaus's scalp. At first he believed that he had discovered the physical mechanism for telepathy but was disappointed that the electromagnetic variations disappear only millimeters away from the skull. (He did continue to believe in telepathy throughout his life, however, having had a particularly confirming event regarding his sister). He viewed the EEG as analogous to the ECG and introduced the term "elektenkephalogram". He believed that the EEG had diagnostic and therapeutic promise in measuring the impact of clinical interventions. Berger showed that these potentials were not due to scalp muscle contractions. He first identified the alpha rhythm, which he called the Berger rhythm, and later identified the beta rhythm and sleep spindles. He demonstrated that alterations in consciousness are associated with changes in the EEG and associated the beta rhythm with alertness. He described interictal activity (EEG potentials between seizures) and recorded a partial complex seizure in 1933. Finally, he performed the first QEEG, which is the measurement of the signal strength of EEG frequencies.


title: Biofeedback

text: Adrian and Matthews confirmed Berger's findings in 1934 by recording their own EEGs using a cathode-ray oscilloscope. Their demonstration of EEG recording at the 1935 Physiological Society meetings in England caused its widespread acceptance. Adrian used himself as a subject and demonstrated the phenomenon of alpha blocking, where opening his eyes suppressed alpha rhythms.


title: Biofeedback

text: Gibbs, Davis, and Lennox inaugurated clinical electroencephalography in 1935 by identifying abnormal EEG rhythms associated with epilepsy, including interictal spike waves and 3 Hz activity in absence seizures.


title: Biofeedback

text: Walter (1937, 1953) named the delta waves and theta waves, and the contingent negative variation (CNV), a slow cortical potential that may reflect expectancy, motivation, intention to act, or attention. He located an occipital lobe source for alpha waves and demonstrated that delta waves can help locate brain lesions like tumors. He improved Berger's electroencephalograph and pioneered EEG topography.


title: Biofeedback

text: Kleitman has been recognized as the "Father of American sleep research" for his seminal work in the regulation of sleep-wake cycles, circadian rhythms, the sleep patterns of different age groups, and the effects of sleep deprivation. He discovered the phenomenon of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep with his graduate student Aserinsky in 1953.


title: Biofeedback

text: Dement, another of Kleitman's students, described the EEG architecture and phenomenology of sleep stages and the transitions between them in 1955, associated REM sleep with dreaming in 1957, and documented sleep cycles in another species, cats, in 1958, which stimulated basic sleep research. He established the Stanford University Sleep Research Center in 1970.


title: Biofeedback

text: Andersen and Andersson (1968) proposed that thalamic pacemakers project synchronous alpha rhythms to the cortex via thalamocortical circuits.


title: Biofeedback

text: Kamiya (1968) demonstrated that the alpha rhythm in humans could be operantly conditioned. He published an influential article in "Psychology Today" that summarized research that showed that subjects could learn to discriminate when alpha was present or absent, and that they could use feedback to shift the dominant alpha frequency about 1 Hz. Almost half of his subjects reported experiencing a pleasant "alpha state" characterized as an "alert calmness." These reports may have contributed to the perception of alpha biofeedback as a shortcut to a meditative state. He also studied the EEG correlates of meditative states.


title: Biofeedback

text: Brown (1970) demonstrated the clinical use of alpha-theta biofeedback. In research designed to identify the subjective states associated with EEG rhythms, she trained subjects to increase the abundance of alpha, beta, and theta activity using visual feedback and recorded their subjective experiences when the amplitude of these frequency bands increased. She also helped popularize biofeedback by publishing a series of books, including "New Mind, New body" (1974) and "Stress and the Art of Biofeedback" (1977).


title: Biofeedback

text: Mulholland and Peper (1971) showed that occipital alpha increases with eyes open and not focused, and is disrupted by visual focusing; a rediscovery of alpha blocking.


title: Biofeedback

text: Green and Green (1986) investigated voluntary control of internal states by individuals like Swami Rama and American Indian medicine man Rolling Thunder both in India and at the Menninger Foundation. They brought portable biofeedback equipment to India and monitored practitioners as they demonstrated self-regulation. A film containing footage from their investigations was released as "Biofeedback: The Yoga of the West" (1974). They developed alpha-theta training at the Menninger Foundation from the 1960s to the 1990s. They hypothesized that theta states allow access to unconscious memories and increase the impact of prepared images or suggestions. Their alpha-theta research fostered Peniston's development of an alpha-theta addiction protocol.


title: Biofeedback

text: Sterman (1972) showed that cats and human subjects could be operantly trained to increase the amplitude of the sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) recorded from the sensorimotor cortex. He demonstrated that SMR production protects cats against drug-induced generalized seizures (tonic-clonic seizures involving loss of consciousness) and reduces the frequency of seizures in humans diagnosed with epilepsy. He found that his SMR protocol, which uses visual and auditory EEG biofeedback, normalizes their EEGs (SMR increases while theta and beta decrease toward normal values) even during sleep. Sterman also co-developed the Sterman-Kaiser (SKIL) QEEG database.


title: Biofeedback

text: Birbaumer and colleagues (1981) have studied feedback of slow cortical potentials since the late 1970s. They have demonstrated that subjects can learn to control these DC potentials and have studied the efficacy of slow cortical potential biofeedback in treating ADHD, epilepsy, migraine, and schizophrenia.


title: Biofeedback

text: Lubar (1989) studied SMR biofeedback to treat attention disorders and epilepsy in collaboration with Sterman. He demonstrated that SMR training can improve attention and academic performance in children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADHD). He documented the importance of theta-to-beta ratios in ADHD and developed theta suppression-beta enhancement protocols to decrease these ratios and improve student performance. The Neuropsychiatric EEG-Based Assessment Aid (NEBA) System a device used to measure the Theta-to-Beta ratio was approved as a tool to assist in diagnosis of ADHD on July 15, 2013. However, the field has recently moved away from the measure. This move has been caused by the general change in the population norms in the past 20 years (most likely due to the change in the average amount of sleep in young people).


title: Biofeedback

text: Feré demonstrated the exosomatic method of recording of skin electrical activity by passing a small current through the skin in 1888.


title: Biofeedback

text: Tarchanoff used the endosomatic method by recording the difference in skin electrical potential from points on the skin surface in 1889; no external current was applied.


title: Biofeedback

text: Jung employed the galvanometer, which used the exosomatic method, in 1907 to study unconscious emotions in word-association experiments.


title: Biofeedback

text: Marjorie and Hershel Toomim (1975) published a landmark article about the use of GSR biofeedback in psychotherapy.


title: Biofeedback

text: Jacobson (1930) developed hardware to measure EMG voltages over time, showed that cognitive activity (like imagery) affects EMG levels, introduced the deep relaxation method Progressive Relaxation, and wrote "Progressive Relaxation" (1929) and "You Must Relax" (1934). He prescribed daily Progressive Relaxation practice to treat diverse psychophysiological disorders like hypertension.


title: Biofeedback

text: Several researchers showed that human subjects could learn precise control of individual motor units (motor neurons and the muscle fibers they control). Lindsley (1935) found that relaxed subjects could suppress motor unit firing without biofeedback training.


title: Biofeedback

text: Harrison and Mortensen (1962) trained subjects using visual and auditory EMG biofeedback to control individual motor units in the tibialis anterior muscle of the leg.


title: Biofeedback

text: Basmajian (1963) instructed subjects using unfiltered auditory EMG biofeedback to control separate motor units in the abductor pollicis muscle of the thumb in his Single Motor Unit Training (SMUT) studies. His best subjects coordinated several motor units to produce drum rolls. Basmajian demonstrated practical applications for neuromuscular rehabilitation, pain management, and headache treatment.


title: Biofeedback

text: Marinacci (1960) applied EMG biofeedback to neuromuscular disorders (where proprioception is disrupted) including Bell Palsy (one-sided facial paralysis), polio, and stroke.


title: Biofeedback

text: "While Marinacci used EMG to treat neuromuscular disorders, his colleagues used the EMG only for diagnosis. They were unable to recognize its potential as a teaching tool even when the evidence stared them in the face! Many electromyographers who performed nerve conduction studies used visual and auditory feedback to reduce interference when a patient recruited too many motor units. Even though they used EMG biofeedback to guide the patient to relax so that clean diagnostic EMG tests could be recorded, they were unable to envision EMG biofeedback treatment of motor disorders."


title: Biofeedback

text: Whatmore and Kohli (1968) introduced the concept of dysponesis (misplaced effort) to explain how functional disorders (where body activity is disturbed) develop. Bracing your shoulders when you hear a loud sound illustrates dysponesis, since this action does not protect against injury. These clinicians applied EMG biofeedback to diverse functional problems like headache and hypertension. They reported case follow-ups ranging from 6 to 21 years. This was long compared with typical 0-24 month follow-ups in the clinical literature. Their data showed that skill in controlling misplaced efforts was positively related to clinical improvement. Last, they wrote "The Pathophysiology and Treatment of Functional Disorders" (1974) that outlined their treatment of functional disorders.


title: Biofeedback

text: Wolf (1983) integrated EMG biofeedback into physical therapy to treat stroke patients and conducted landmark stroke outcome studies.


title: Biofeedback

text: Peper (1997) applied SEMG to the workplace, studied the ergonomics of computer use, and promoted "healthy computing."


title: Biofeedback

text: Taub (1999, 2006) demonstrated the clinical efficacy of constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) for the treatment of spinal cord-injured and stroke patients.


title: Biofeedback

text: Shearn (1962) operantly trained human subjects to increase their heart rates by 5 beats-per-minute to avoid electric shock. In contrast to Shearn's slight heart rate increases, Swami Rama used yoga to produce atrial flutter at an average 306 beats per minute before a Menninger Foundation audience. This briefly stopped his heart's pumping of blood and silenced his pulse.


title: Biofeedback

text: Engel and Chism (1967) operantly trained subjects to decrease, increase, and then decrease their heart rates (this was analogous to ON-OFF-ON EEG training). He then used this approach to teach patients to control their rate of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs), where the ventricles contract too soon. Engel conceptualized this training protocol as illness onset training, since patients were taught to produce and then suppress a symptom. Peper has similarly taught asthmatics who wheeze to better control their breathing.


title: Biofeedback

text: Schwartz (1971, 1972) examined whether specific patterns of cardiovascular activity are easier to learn than others due to biological constraints. He examined the constraints on learning integrated (two autonomic responses change in the same direction) and differentiated (two autonomic responses change inversely) patterns of blood pressure and heart rate change.


title: Biofeedback

text: Schultz and Luthe (1969) developed Autogenic Training, which is a deep relaxation exercise derived from hypnosis. This procedure combines passive volition with imagery in a series of three treatment procedures (standard Autogenic exercises, Autogenic neutralization, and Autogenic meditation). Clinicians at the Menninger Foundation coupled an abbreviated list of standard exercises with thermal biofeedback to create autogenic biofeedback. Luthe (1973) also published a series of six volumes titled "Autogenic therapy".


title: Biofeedback

text: Fahrion and colleagues (1986) reported on an 18–26 session treatment program for hypertensive patients. The Menninger program combined breathing modification, autogenic biofeedback for the hands and feet, and frontal EMG training. The authors reported that 89% of their medication patients discontinued or reduced medication by one-half while significantly lowering blood pressure. While this study did not include a double-blind control, the outcome rate was impressive.


title: Biofeedback

text: Freedman and colleagues (1991) demonstrated that hand-warming and hand-cooling are produced by different mechanisms. The primary hand-warming mechanism is beta-adrenergic (hormonal), while the main hand-cooling mechanism is alpha-adrenergic and involves sympathetic C-fibers. This contradicts the traditional view that finger blood flow is controlled exclusively by sympathetic C-fibers. The traditional model asserts that, when firing is slow, hands warm; when firing is rapid, hands cool. Freedman and colleagues' studies support the view that hand-warming and hand-cooling represent entirely different skills.


title: Biofeedback

text: Vaschillo and colleagues (1983) published the first studies of heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback with cosmonauts and treated patients diagnosed with psychiatric and psychophysiological disorders. Lehrer collaborated with Smetankin and Potapova in treating pediatric asthma patients and published influential articles on HRV asthma treatment in the medical journal "Chest". The most direct effect of HRV biofeedback is on the baroreflex, a homeostatic reflex that helps control blood pressure fluctuations. When blood pressure goes up, the baroreflex makes heart rate go down. The opposite happens when blood pressure goes down. Because it takes about 5 seconds for blood pressure to change after changes in heart rate (think of different amounts of blood flowing through the same sized tube), the baroreflex produces a rhythm in heart rate with a period of about 10 seconds. Another rhythm in heart rate is caused by respiration (respiratory sinus arrhythmia), such that heart rate rises during inhalation and falls during exhalation. During HRV biofeedback, these two reflexes stimulate each other, stimulating resonance properties of the cardiovascular system caused by the inherent rhythm in the baroreflex, and thus causing very big oscillations in heart rate and large-amplitude stimulation of the baroreflex. Thus HRV biofeedback exercises the baroreflex, and strengthens it. This apparently has the effect of modulating autonomic reactivity to stimulation. Because the baroreflex is controlled through brain stem mechanisms that communicate directly with the insula and amygdala, which control emotion, HRV biofeedback also appears to modulate emotional reactivity, and to help people with anxiety, stress, and depression


title: Biofeedback

text: Emotions are intimately linked to heart health, which is linked to physical and mental health. In general, good mental and physical health are correlated with positive emotions and high heart rate variability (HRV) modulated by mostly high frequencies. High HRV has been correlated with increased executive functioning skills such as memory and reaction time. Biofeedback that increased HRV and shifted power toward HF (high-frequencies) has been shown to lower blood pressure.


title: Biofeedback

text: On the other hand, LF (low-frequency) power in the heart is associated with sympathetic vagal activity, which is known to increase the risk of heart attack.


title: Biofeedback

text: LF-dominated HRV power spectra are also directly associated with higher mortality rates in healthy individuals, and among individuals with mood disorders.


title: Biofeedback

text: Anger and frustration increase the LF range of HRV. Other studies have shown anger to increase the risk of heart attack, so researchers at the Heartmath Institute have made the connection between emotions and physical health via HRV.


title: Biofeedback

text: Because emotions have such an impact on cardiac function, which cascades to numerous other biological processes, emotional regulation techniques are able to effect practical, psychophysiological change.


title: Biofeedback

text: McCraty et al. discovered that feelings of gratitude increased HRV and moved its power spectrum toward the MF (mid-frequency) and HF (high-frequency) ranges, while decreasing LF (low-frequency) power.


title: Biofeedback

text: The Heartmath Institute's patented techniques involve engendering feelings of gratitude and happiness, focusing on the physical location of the heart, and breathing in 10-second cycles.


title: Biofeedback

text: In 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended against the use of biofeedback in managing chronic pain in adults.


title: Biofeedback

text: Newton-John, Spense, and Schotte (1994) compared the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Electromyographic Biofeedback (EMG-Biofeedback) for 44 participants with chronic low back pain. Newton-John et al. (1994) split the participants into two groups, then measured the intensity of pain, the participants' perceived disability, and depression before treatment, after treatment and again six months later. Newton-John et al.(1994) found no significant differences between the group which received CBT and the group which received EMG-Biofeedback. This seems to indicate that biofeedback is as effective as CBT in chronic low back pain. Comparing the results of the groups before treatment and after treatment, indicates that EMG-Biofeedback reduced pain, disability, and depression as much as by half.


title: Biofeedback

text: Budzynski and Stoyva (1969) showed that EMG biofeedback could reduce frontalis muscle (forehead) contraction. They demonstrated in 1973 that analog (proportional) and binary (ON or OFF) visual EMG biofeedback were equally helpful in lowering masseter SEMG levels.


title: Biofeedback

text: McNulty, Gevirtz, Hubbard, and Berkoff (1994) proposed that sympathetic nervous system innervation of muscle spindles underlies trigger points.


title: Biofeedback

text: Budzynski, Stoyva, Adler, and Mullaney (1973) reported that auditory frontalis EMG biofeedback combined with home relaxation practice lowered tension headache frequency and frontalis EMG levels. A control group that received noncontingent (false) auditory feedback did not improve. This study helped make the frontalis muscle the placement-of-choice in EMG assessment and treatment of headache and other psychophysiological disorders.


title: Biofeedback

text: Sargent, Green, and Walters (1972, 1973) demonstrated that hand-warming could abort migraines and that autogenic biofeedback training could reduce headache activity. The early Menninger migraine studies, although methodologically weak (no pretreatment baselines, control groups, or random assignment to conditions), strongly influenced migraine treatment.


title: Biofeedback

text: A 2013 review classified biofeedback among the techniques that might be of benefit in the management of chronic migraine.


title: Biofeedback

text: Flor (2002) trained amputees to detect the location and frequency of shocks delivered to their stumps, which resulted in an expansion of corresponding cortical regions and significant reduction of their phantom limb pain.


title: Biofeedback

text: Financial traders use biofeedback as a tool for regulating their level of emotional arousal in order to make better financial decisions. The technology company Philips and the Dutch bank ABN AMRO developed a biofeedback device for retail investors based on a galvanic skin response sensor. Astor et al. (2013) developed a biofeedback based serious game in which financial decision makers can learn how to effectively regulate their emotions using heart rate measurements.


title: Biofeedback

text: A randomized study by Sutarto et al. assessed the effect of resonant breathing biofeedback (recognize and control involuntary heart rate variability) among manufacturing operators; depression, anxiety and stress significantly decreased. Heart rate variability data can be analyzed with deep neural networks to accurately predict stress levels. This technology is utilized in a mobile app in combination with mindfulness techniques to effectively promote stress reduction.


title: Biofeedback

text: A meta analysis by the "University of Cambridge" compiles previous studies on biofeedback being used in the management and control of anxiety. In this article the previous studies are evaluated for validity and relevance into how they attribute to the effectiveness of biofeedback being used in tandem with other forms of therapy to produce reduced and manageable anxiety. This analysis concluded that the use of biofeedback in the form of HRV monitoring produced self reported large reduction of anxiety as a consistent finding in the studies that were a part of the meta analysis.


title: Biofeedback

text: In a study of 18 healthy individuals published in the "International Journal of Stress Management" it was established that with the use of biofeedback there were large improvements in the individuals ability to relax which was translated in the individuals having improved scores on the Smith Relaxation States Inventory 3 test which measures mindfulness, energized positive feelings and basic relaxation.


title: Biofeedback

text: A 2012 observational study by Pacella et al. found a significant improvement in both visual acuity and fixation treating patients with age-related macular degeneration or macular degeneration with biofeedback treatment through MP-1 microperimeter.


title: Biofeedback

text: Moss, LeVaque, and Hammond (2004) observed that "Biofeedback and neurofeedback seem to offer the kind of evidence-based practice that the healthcare establishment is demanding." "From the beginning biofeedback developed as a research-based approach emerging directly from laboratory research on psychophysiology and behavior therapy. The ties of biofeedback/neurofeedback to the biomedical paradigm and to research are stronger than is the case for many other behavioral interventions" (p. 151).


title: Biofeedback

text: The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) and the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) have collaborated in validating and rating treatment protocols to address questions about the clinical efficacy of biofeedback and neurofeedback applications, like ADHD and headache. In 2001, Donald Moss, then president of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, and Jay Gunkelman, president of the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research, appointed a task force to establish standards for the efficacy of biofeedback and neurofeedback.


title: Biofeedback

text: The Task Force document was published in 2002, and a series of white papers followed, reviewing the efficacy of a series of disorders. The white papers established the efficacy of biofeedback for functional anorectal disorders, attention deficit disorder, facial pain and temporomandibular joint dysfunction, hypertension, urinary incontinence, Raynaud's phenomenon, substance abuse, and headache.


title: Biofeedback

text: A broader review was published and later updated, applying the same efficacy standards to the entire range of medical and psychological disorders. The 2008 edition reviewed the efficacy of biofeedback for over 40 clinical disorders, ranging from alcoholism/substance abuse to vulvar vestibulitis. The ratings for each disorder depend on the nature of research studies available on each disorder, ranging from anecdotal reports to double blind studies with a control group. Thus, a lower rating may reflect the lack of research rather than the ineffectiveness of biofeedback for the problem.


title: Biofeedback

text: The randomized trial by Dehli et al. compared if the injection of a bulking agent in the anal canal was superior to sphincter training with biofeedback to treat fecal incontinence. Both methods lead to an improvement of FI, but comparisons of St Mark's scores between the groups showed no differences in effect between treatments.


title: Biofeedback

text: Following their reviews, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence have recommended against the use of biofeedback in the treatment of constipation in children, urinary incontinence in women, and chronic pain.


title: Biofeedback

text: Yucha and Montgomery's (2008) ratings are listed for the five levels of efficacy recommended by a joint Task Force and adopted by the Boards of Directors of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology (AAPB) and the International Society for Neuronal Regulation (ISNR). From weakest to strongest, these levels include: not empirically supported, possibly efficacious, probably efficacious, efficacious, and efficacious and specific.


title: Biofeedback

text: Level 1: Not empirically supported. This designation includes applications supported by anecdotal reports and/or case studies in non-peer-reviewed venues. Yucha and Montgomery (2008) assigned eating disorders, immune function, spinal cord injury, and syncope to this category.


title: Biofeedback

text: Level 2: Possibly efficacious. This designation requires at least one study of sufficient statistical power with well-identified outcome measures but lacking randomized assignment to a control condition internal to the study. Yucha and Montgomery (2008) assigned asthma, autism, Bell palsy, cerebral palsy, COPD, coronary artery disease, cystic fibrosis, depression, erectile dysfunction, fibromyalgia, hand dystonia, irritable bowel syndrome, PTSD, repetitive strain injury, respiratory failure, stroke, tinnitus, and urinary incontinence in children to this category.


title: Biofeedback

text: Level 3: Probably efficacious. This designation requires multiple observational studies, clinical studies, waitlist-controlled studies, and within subject and intrasubject replication studies that demonstrate efficacy. Yucha and Montgomery (2008) assigned alcoholism and substance abuse, arthritis, diabetes mellitus, fecal disorders in children, fecal incontinence in adults, insomnia, pediatric headache, traumatic brain injury, urinary incontinence in males, and vulvar vestibulitis (vulvodynia) to this category.


title: Biofeedback

text: (a) In a comparison with a no-treatment control group, alternative treatment group, or sham (placebo) control using randomized assignment, the investigational treatment is shown to be statistically significantly superior to the control condition or the investigational treatment is equivalent to a treatment of established efficacy in a study with sufficient power to detect moderate differences.


title: Biofeedback

text: (b) The studies have been conducted with a population treated for a specific problem, for whom inclusion criteria are delineated in a reliable, operationally defined manner.


title: Biofeedback

text: (c) The study used valid and clearly specified outcome measures related to the problem being treated.


title: Biofeedback

text: (e) The diagnostic and treatment variables and procedures are clearly defined in a manner that permits replication of the study by independent researchers.


title: Biofeedback

text: (f) The superiority or equivalence of the investigational treatment has been shown in at least two independent research settings.


title: Biofeedback

text: Yucha and Montgomery (2008) assigned attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, chronic pain, epilepsy, constipation (adult), headache (adult), hypertension, motion sickness, Raynaud's disease, and temporomandibular joint dysfunction to this category.


title: Biofeedback

text: Level 5: Efficacious and specific. The investigational treatment must be shown to be statistically superior to credible sham therapy, pill, or alternative bona fide treatment in at least two independent research settings. Yucha and Montgomery (2008) assigned urinary incontinence (females) to this category.


title: Biofeedback

text: In a healthcare environment that emphasizes cost containment and evidence-based practice, critics question how these treatments compare with conventional behavioral and medical interventions on efficacy and cost. A review of a meta-analysis of biofeedback treatments noted the lack of comparisons with existing treatments in most of the studies included.


title: Biofeedback

text: The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) is a non-profit scientific and professional society for biofeedback and neurofeedback. The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is a non-profit scientific and professional society for neurofeedback. The Biofeedback Foundation of Europe (BFE) sponsors international education, training, and research activities in biofeedback and neurofeedback. The Northeast Regional Biofeedback Association (NRBS) sponsors theme-centered educational conferences, political advocacy for biofeedback friendly legislation, and research activities in biofeedback and neurofeedback in the Northeast regions of the United States. The Southeast Biofeedback and Clinical Neuroscience Association (SBCNA) is a non-profit regional organization supporting biofeedback professionals with continuing education, ethics guidelines, and public awareness promoting the efficacy and safety of professional biofeedback. The SBCNA offers an Annual Conference for professional continuing education as well as promoting biofeedback as an adjunct to the allied health professions. The SBCNA was formally the North Carolina Biofeedback Society (NCBS), serving Biofeedback since the 1970s. In 2013, the NCBS reorganized as the SBCNA supporting and representing biofeedback and neurofeedback in the Southeast Region of the United States of America.


title: Biofeedback

text: The Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (formerly the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America) is a non-profit organization that is a member of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE). BCIA offers biofeedback certification, neurofeedback (also called EEG biofeedback) certification, and pelvic muscle dysfunction biofeedback. BCIA certifies individuals meeting education and training standards in biofeedback and neurofeedback and progressively recertifies those satisfying continuing education requirements. BCIA certification has been endorsed by the Mayo Clinic, the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB), the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR), and the Washington State Legislature.


title: Biofeedback

text: The BCIA didactic education requirement includes a 48-hour course from a regionally-accredited academic institution or a BCIA-approved training program that covers the complete General Biofeedback Blueprint of Knowledge and study of human anatomy and physiology. The General Biofeedback Blueprint of Knowledge areas include: I. Orientation to Biofeedback, II. Stress, Coping, and Illness, III. Psychophysiological Recording, IV. Surface Electromyographic (SEMG) Applications, V. Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Applications, VI. Electroencephalographic (EEG) Applications, VII. Adjunctive Interventions, and VIII. Professional Conduct.


title: Biofeedback

text: Applicants may demonstrate their knowledge of human anatomy and physiology by completing a course in human anatomy, human physiology, or human biology provided by a regionally-accredited academic institution or a BCIA-approved training program or by successfully completing an Anatomy and Physiology exam covering the organization of the human body and its systems.


title: Biofeedback

text: Applicants must also document practical skills training that includes 20 contact hours supervised by a BCIA-approved mentor designed to them teach how to apply clinical biofeedback skills through self-regulation training, 50 patient/client sessions, and case conference presentations. Distance learning allows applicants to complete didactic course work over the internet. Distance mentoring trains candidates from their residence or office. They must recertify every 4 years, complete 55 hours of continuing education during each review period or complete the written exam, and attest that their license/credential (or their supervisor's license/credential) has not been suspended, investigated, or revoked.


title: Biofeedback

text: Claude Bernard proposed in 1865 that the body strives to maintain a steady state in the internal environment (milieu intérieur), introducing the concept of homeostasis. In 1885, J.R. Tarchanoff showed that voluntary control of heart rate could be fairly direct (cortical-autonomic) and did not depend on "cheating" by altering breathing rate. In 1901, J. H. Bair studied voluntary control of the retrahens aurem muscle that wiggles the ear, discovering that subjects learned this skill by inhibiting interfering muscles and demonstrating that skeletal muscles are self-regulated. Alexander Graham Bell attempted to teach the deaf to speak through the use of two devices—the phonautograph, created by Édouard-Léon Scott's, and a manometric flame. The former translated sound vibrations into tracings on smoked glass to show their acoustic waveforms, while the latter allowed sound to be displayed as patterns of light. After World War II, mathematician Norbert Wiener developed cybernetic theory, that proposed that systems are controlled by monitoring their results. The participants at the landmark 1969 conference at the Surfrider Inn in Santa Monica coined the term biofeedback from Wiener's feedback. The conference resulted in the founding of the Bio-Feedback Research Society, which permitted normally isolated researchers to contact and collaborate with each other, as well as popularizing the term "biofeedback." The work of B.F. Skinner led researchers to apply operant conditioning to biofeedback, decide which responses could be voluntarily controlled and which could not. In the first experimental demonstration of biofeedback, Shearn used these procedures with heart rate. The effects of the perception of autonomic nervous system activity was initially explored by George Mandler's group in 1958. In 1965, Maia Lisina combined classical and operant conditioning to train subjects to change blood vessel diameter, eliciting and displaying reflexive blood flow changes to teach subjects how to voluntarily control the temperature of their skin. In 1974, H.D. Kimmel trained subjects to sweat using the galvanic skin response.


title: Biofeedback

text: 1968 – Annual Veteran's Administration research meeting in Denver that brought together several biofeedback researchers


title: Biofeedback

text: 1969 – April: Conference on Altered States of Consciousness, Council Grove, KS; October: formation and first meeting of the Biofeedback Research Society (BRS), Surfrider Inn, Santa Monica, CA; co-founder Barbara B. Brown becomes the society's first president


title: Biofeedback

text: 1972 – Review and analysis of early biofeedback studies by D. Shearn in the 'Handbook of Psychophysiology'.


title: Biofeedback

text: 1974 – Publication of "The Alpha Syllabus: A Handbook of Human EEG Alpha Activity" and the first popular book on biofeedback, "New Mind, New Body" (December), both by Barbara B. Brown


title: Biofeedback

text: 1975 – American Association of Biofeedback Clinicians founded; publication of "The Biofeedback Syllabus: A Handbook for the Psychophysiologic Study of Biofeedback" by Barbara B. Brown


title: Biofeedback

text: 1977 – Publication of "Beyond Biofeedback" by Elmer and Alyce Green and "Biofeedback: Methods and Procedures in Clinical Practice" by George Fuller and "Stress and The Art of Biofeedback" by Barbara B. Brown


title: Biofeedback

text: 1979 – Publication of "Biofeedback: Principles and Practice for Clinicians" by John Basmajian and "Mind/Body Integration: Essential Readings in Biofeedback" by Erik Peper, Sonia Ancoli, and Michele Quinn


title: Biofeedback

text: 1980 – First national certification examination in biofeedback offered by the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America (BCIA); publication of "Biofeedback: Clinical Applications in Behavioral Medicine" by David Olton and Aaron Noonberg and "Supermind: The Ultimate Energy" by Barbara B. Brown


title: Biofeedback

text: 1984 – Publication of "Principles and Practice of Stress Management" by Woolfolk and Lehrer and "Between Health and Illness: New Notions on Stress and the Nature of Well Being" by Barbara B. Brown


title: Biofeedback

text: 1984 - Publication of "The Biofeedback Way To Starve Stress", by Mark Golin in Prevention Magazine 1984


title: Biofeedback

text: 2004 – Publication of "Evidence-Based Practice in Biofeedback and Neurofeedback" by Carolyn Yucha and Christopher Gilbert


title: Biofeedback

text: 2008 – Biofeedback Neurofeedback Alliance formed to pool the resources of the AAPB, BCIA, and ISNR on joint initiatives


title: Biofeedback

text: 2010 – Biofeedback Certification Institute of America renamed the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (BCIA)


title: 3G Capital

text: 3G Capital is a Brazilian-American multibillion-dollar investment firm, founded in 2004 by Alex Behring, Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira, Marcel Herrmann Telles and Roberto Thompson Motta.


title: 3G Capital

text: The firm is best known for implementing zero-based budgeting at its portfolio companies: Anheuser-Busch InBev, Restaurant Brands International (Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen), Kraft Heinz as well as partnering with Berkshire Hathaway for its acquisitions.


title: 3G Capital

text: In 2010, the company acquired Burger King for $3.3 billion, and subsequently took the company private. The deal was announced in September 2010, and was finalized in November. Shareholders received $24.00 per share in cash. Under new management, Burger King introduced a reworked menu and marketing strategies. In June 2012, Burger King was once again listed as a publicly traded company through a $1.4 billion deal with Justice Holdings. Despite the relisting, 3G Capital retained a 71% stake of the company.


title: 3G Capital

text: In December 2014, the Canadian government approved the purchase of Tim Hortons by 3G Capital for $12.5 billion. The acquisition merged Burger King with Tim Hortons as Restaurant Brands International.


title: 3G Capital

text: On 25 March 2015, it was announced that 3G Capital was in "advanced talks" to buy Kraft Foods for $40 billion, and merge it with Heinz to form the world's fifth largest food company. Heinz was being advised in the transaction by Lazard and Kraft by Centerview Partners.


title: 3G Capital

text: In 2019 the firm submitted bids for ThyssenKrupp AG, but stepped out the negotiations, ThyssenKrupp Elevator Technology unit was bought by a consortium for €17.2 billion.


title: 3G Capital

text: In September 2021, Kraft Heinz announced that Hemmer, a Brazilian company focused on condiments and sauces, was being acquired for an undisclosed amount. This acquisition follows the recent agreement with Assan Foods – a Turkey company focused on sauces – belonging to Kibar Holding, for approximately $100 million.


title: 3G Capital

text: On December 30, 2021, 3G Capital entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 75% of interest in Hunter Douglas, a global market leader in window coverings and a major manufacturer of architectural products. The deal was completed on February 25, 2022, for approximately US$ 7.1 billion.


title: 3G Capital

text: 3G Capital has offices in Rio de Janeiro and New York City and the firm is run by managing partner Alex Behring in New York. The state of incorporation is the Cayman Islands.


title: Piccadilly

text: Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway westward. St James's is to the south of the eastern section, while the western section is built up only on the northern side. Piccadilly is just under in length, and it is one of the widest and straightest streets in central London.


title: Piccadilly

text: The street has been a main thoroughfare since at least medieval times, and in the Middle Ages was known as "the road to Reading" or "the way from Colnbrook". Around 1611 or 1612, a Robert Baker acquired land in the area, and prospered by making and selling piccadills. Shortly after purchasing the land, he enclosed it and erected several dwellings, including his home, Pikadilly Hall. What is now Piccadilly was named Portugal Street in 1663 after Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II, and grew in importance after the road from Charing Cross to Hyde Park Corner was closed to allow the creation of Green Park in 1668. Some of the most notable stately homes in London were built on the northern side of the street during this period, including Clarendon House and Burlington House in 1664. Berkeley House, constructed around the same time as Clarendon House, was destroyed by a fire in 1733 and rebuilt as Devonshire House in 1737 by William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire. It was later used as the main headquarters for the Whig party. Burlington House has since been home to several noted societies, including the Royal Academy of Arts, the Geological Society of London, the Linnean Society, and the Royal Astronomical Society. Several members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of the street. St James's Church was consecrated in 1684 and the surrounding area became St James Parish.


title: Piccadilly

text: The Old White Horse Cellar, at No. 155, was one of the most famous coaching inns in England by the late 18th century, by which time the street had become a favoured location for booksellers. The Bath Hotel emerged around 1790, and Walsingham House was built in 1887. Both the Bath and the Walsingham were purchased and demolished, and the prestigious Ritz Hotel built on their site in 1906. Piccadilly Circus station, at the east end of the street, was opened in 1906 and rebuilt to designs by Charles Holden between 1925 and 1928. The clothing store Simpson's was established at Nos. 203–206 Piccadilly by Alec Simpson in 1936. During the 20th century, Piccadilly became known as a place to acquire heroin, and was notorious in the 1960s as the centre of London's illegal drug trade. Today, it is regarded as one of London's principal shopping streets. Its landmarks include the Ritz, Park Lane, Athenaeum and Intercontinental hotels, Fortnum & Mason, the Royal Academy, the RAF Club, Hatchards, the Embassy of Japan and the High Commission of Malta.


title: Piccadilly

text: Piccadilly has inspired several works of fiction, including Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" and the work of P. G. Wodehouse. It is one of a group of squares on the London Monopoly board.


title: Piccadilly

text: The street has been part of a main road for centuries, although there is no evidence that it was part of a Roman road, unlike Oxford Street further north. In the Middle Ages it was known as "the road to Reading" or "the way from Colnbrook". During the Tudor period, relatively settled conditions made expansion beyond London's city walls a safer venture. Property speculation became a lucrative enterprise, and developments grew so rapidly that the threat of disease and disorder prompted the government to ban developments. Owing to the momentum of growth, the laws had little real effect.


title: Piccadilly

text: A plot of land bounded by Coventry, Sherwood, Glasshouse and Rupert streets and the line of Smith's Court was granted by Elizabeth I to William Dodington, a gentleman of London, in 1559–60. A year or so later it was owned by a brewer, Thomas Wilson of St Botolph-without-Aldgate. The grant did not include a small parcel of land, acres in area, on the east of what is now Great Windmill Street. That plot may have never belonged to the Crown, and was owned by Anthony Cotton in the reign of Henry VIII. John Cotton granted it to John Golightly in 1547, and his descendants sold it to a tailor, Robert Baker, in 1611–12. Six or seven years later, Baker bought 22 acres of Wilson's land, thanks largely to money from his second marriage.


title: Piccadilly

text: Baker became financially successful by making and selling fashionable piccadills. Shortly after purchasing the land, he enclosed it (the parishioners had Lammas grazing rights) and erected several dwellings, including a residence and shop for himself; within two years his house was known as Pickadilly Hall. A map published by Faithorne in 1658 describes the street as "the way from Knightsbridge to Piccadilly Hall". A nearby gaming house, known as Shaver's Hall and nicknamed "Tart Hall" or "Pickadell Hall", was popular with the gentry of London. Lord Dell lost £3,000 gambling at cards there in 1641.


title: Piccadilly

text: After Robert Baker's death in 1623 and the death of his eldest son Samuel shortly afterward, his widow and her father purchased the wardship of their surviving children; the death of the next eldest son, Robert, in 1630, allowed them to effectively control the estate. Their only daughter died, and her widower Sir Henry Oxenden retained an interest in the land. Several relatives claimed it, but after Mary Baker's death in about 1665, the estate reverted to the Crown. A great-nephew, John Baker, obtained possession of part of it, but squabbled over the lands with his cousin, James Baker; trying to play one another off, they paid or granted rights to Oxenden and a speculator, Colonel Thomas Panton, eventually losing out to them. By the 1670s, Panton was developing the lands; despite the claims of some distantly-related Bakers, he steadily built them up.


title: Piccadilly

text: Piccadilly was named Portugal Street in 1663 after Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. Its importance to traffic increased after an earlier road from Charing Cross to Hyde Park Corner was closed to allow the creation of Green Park in 1668. After the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Charles II encouraged the development of Portugal Street and the area to the north (Mayfair), and they became fashionable residential localities. Some of the grandest mansions in London were built on the northern side of the street. Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and close political adviser to the king, purchased land for a house; Clarendon House (now the location of Albemarle Street) was built in 1664, and the earl sold the surplus land partly to Sir John Denham, who built what later became Burlington House. Denham chose the location because it was on the outskirts of London surrounded by fields. The house was first used to house the poor, before being reconstructed by the third Earl of Burlington in 1718. Berkeley House was constructed around the same time as Clarendon House. It was destroyed by a fire in 1733, and rebuilt as Devonshire House in 1737 by William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, and was subsequently used as the headquarters for the Whig party. Devonshire House survived until 1921, before being sold for redevelopment by Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire for £1 million. Burlington House has since been home to the Royal Academy of Arts, the Geological Society of London, the Linnean Society of London, the Royal Astronomical Society, the British Astronomical Association, the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Society of Chemistry.


title: Piccadilly

text: The land to the south of Piccadilly was leased to trustees of the Earl of St Albans in 1661 for a thirty-year term, subsequently extended to 1740. Nos. 162–165 were granted freehold by the king to Sir Edward Villiers in 1674. The White Bear Inn had been established between what is now No. 221 Piccadilly and the parallel Jermyn Street since 1685. It remained in use throughout the 18th century before being demolished in 1870 to make way for a restaurant.


title: Piccadilly

text: St James's Church was first proposed in 1664, when residents wanted the area to become a separate parish from St Martin in the Fields. After several Bill readings, construction began in 1676. The building was designed by Christopher Wren and cost around £5,000. It was consecrated in 1684, when the surrounding area became St James Parish.


title: Piccadilly

text: By 1680, most of the original residential properties along Portugal Street had been demolished or built over. The name Piccadilly was applied to part of the street east of Swallow Street by 1673, and eventually became the "de facto" name for the entire length of Portugal Street. A plan of the area around St James Parish in 1720 describes the road as "Portugal Street "aka" Piccadilly". John Rocque's Map of London, published in 1746, refers to the entire street as Piccadilly.


title: Piccadilly

text: Piccadilly was increasingly developed, and by the middle of the 18th century it was continuously built on as far as Hyde Park Corner. The development of St James's and Mayfair, in particular, made Piccadilly one of the busiest roads in London. Hugh Mason and William Fortnum started the Fortnum & Mason partnership on Piccadilly in 1705, selling recycled candles from Buckingham Palace. By 1788, the store sold poultry, potted meats, lobsters and prawns, savoury patties, Scotch eggs, and fresh and dried fruits.


title: Piccadilly

text: The street acquired a reputation for numerous inns and bars during this period. The Old White Horse Cellar, at No. 155, was one of the most famous coaching inns in England but was later destroyed. The Black Bear and White Bear (originally the Fleece) public houses were nearly opposite each other, although the former was demolished in about 1820. Also of note were the Hercules' Pillars, just west of Hamilton Place, the Triumphant Car, which was popular with soldiers, and the White Horse and Half Moon. The Bath Hotel emerged around 1790 and Walsingham House was built in 1887. The Bath and the Walsingham were demolished when the Ritz Hotel opened on the site in 1906.


title: Piccadilly

text: No. 106, on the corner of Piccadilly and Brick Street, was built for Hugh Hunlock in 1761. It was subsequently owned by the 6th Earl of Coventry who remodelled it around 1765; most of the architecture from this renovation has survived. In 1869, it became home to the St James's Club, a gentleman's club that remained there until 1978. The building is now the London campus of the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology.


title: Piccadilly

text: Several members of the Rothschild family had mansions at the western end of the street. Nathan Mayer Rothschild moved his banking premises to No. 107 in 1825, and the construction of other large buildings, complete with ballrooms and marble staircases, led to the street being colloquially referred to as Rothschild Row. Ferdinand James von Rothschild lived at No. 143 with his wife Evelina while Lionel de Rothschild lived at No. 148. Melbourne House was designed by William Chambers for Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne and built between 1770 and 1774. It was converted to apartments in 1802, and is now the Albany. The house has been the residence for the British Prime Ministers William Ewart Gladstone and Edward Heath. St James's Hall was designed by Owen Jones and built between 1857 and 1858. Charles Dickens gave several readings of his novels in the hall, including "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist". The hall hosted performances from Antonín Dvořák, Edvard Grieg and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was demolished in 1905, and replaced by the Piccadilly Hotel.


title: Piccadilly

text: In the late 18th century, Piccadilly was a favoured place for booksellers. In 1765, John Almon opened a shop in No. 178, which was frequented by Lord Temple and other Whigs. John Stockdale opened a shop on No. 181 in 1781. The business continued after his death in 1810, and was run by his family until 1835. Hatchards, now the oldest surviving bookshop in Britain, was started by John Hatchard at No. 173 in 1797; it moved to the current location at No. 189-90 (now No. 187) in 1801. Aldine Press moved to Piccadilly from Chancery Lane in 1842, and remained there until 1894.


title: Piccadilly

text: The Egyptian Hall at No. 170, designed in 1812 by P. F. Robinson for W. Bullock of Liverpool, was modelled on Ancient Egyptian architecture, particularly the Great Temple of Dendera (Tentyra). One author described it as "one of the strangest places Piccadilly ever knew". It was a venue for exhibitions by the Society of Painters in Water Colours and the Society of Female Artists during the 19th century. It contained numerous Egyptian antiquaries; at an auction in June 1822, two "imperfect" Sekhmet statues were sold for £380, and a flawless one went for £300.


title: Piccadilly

text: The premises at 190–195, built in 1881–1883, housing the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and known as the "Royal Institute Galleries", are grade II listed. Number 195 is now home to BAFTA, Lyons’ first teashop opened in Piccadilly in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain, ultimately numbering around 200 locations, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the UK.


title: Piccadilly

text: By the 1920s, most old buildings on the street had been demolished or were in institutional use; traffic noise had driven away residents, but a few residential properties remained. Albert, Duke of York lived at No. 145 at the time of his accession as King George VI in 1936.


title: Piccadilly

text: The clothing store Simpson's was established at 203 - 206 Piccadilly by Alec Simpson in 1936, providing factory-made men's clothing. The premises were designed by the architect Joseph Amberton in a style that mixed art deco and Bauhaus school design and an influence from Louis Sullivan. On opening, it claimed to be the largest menswear store in London. It closed in January 1999; its premises are currently the flagship shop of the booksellers Waterstones.


title: Piccadilly

text: During the 20th century, Piccadilly became known as a place to acquire heroin. Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece recalled people queuing outside Piccadilly's branch of Boots for heroin pills in the late 1940s. By the 1960s, the street and surrounding area were notorious as the centre of London's illegal drug trade, where heroin and cocaine could be purchased on the black market from unscrupulous chemists. By 1982, up to 20 people could be seen queueing at a chemist dealing in illegal drugs in nearby Shaftesbury Avenue. No. 144 was occupied by squatters in 1968, taking advantage of a law that allowed disused buildings to be used for emergency shelter for the homeless. The radical squatting movement that resulted foundered soon afterward, owing to the rise of drug dealers and Hells Angels occupying the site. An eviction took place on 21 September 1969; the events resulted in the licensing of squatting organisations that could take over empty premises to use as homeless shelters. In 1983, A. Burr of the "British Journal of Addiction" published an article on "The Piccadilly Drug Scene", in which the author discussed the regular presence of known dealers and easy accessibility of drugs.


title: Piccadilly

text: Today, Piccadilly is regarded as one of London's principal shopping streets, hosting several famous shops. The Ritz Hotel, Park Lane Hotel, Athenaeum Hotel and Intercontinental Hotel are located on the street, along with other luxury hotels and offices. During the 20th century, it had been an established area for gentlemen's clubs; this usage has sharply declined, and only the Cavalry and Guards Club and the Royal Air Force Club remain.


title: Piccadilly

text: Piccadilly is a major thoroughfare in the West End of London and has several major road junctions. To the east, Piccadilly Circus opened in 1819 connecting it to Regent Street. It has become one of the most recognised landmarks in London, particularly after a statue of Eros was constructed on the junction in 1893, and the erection of large electric billboards in 1923. At the western end of Piccadilly is Hyde Park Corner, and the street has a major road junction with St James's Street and other significant junctions at Albemarle Street, Bond Street and Dover Street.


title: Piccadilly

text: The road is part of the A4 connecting central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway. Congestion along the road has been reported since the mid-19th century, leading to its progressive widening and removing the northern portions of Green Park. Traffic signals were installed in the 1930s. In the late 1950s, the Ministry of Transport remodelled Hyde Park Corner at the western end to form a major traffic gyratory system, including enlargement of Park Lane. It opened on 17 October 1962 at a cost of £5 million.


title: Piccadilly

text: The London bus routes 6, 9, 14, 19, 22, 38, N9, N19, N22, N38 and N97 all run along Piccadilly. In 1972, a westbound bus lane was introduced between Piccadilly Circus and St James's Street. In November 1976 an eastbound bus lane was introduced between Old Park Lane and Berkeley Street. Part of the Piccadilly line on the London Underground travels under the street. Green Park, Hyde Park Corner, and Piccadilly Circus stations (which are all on the Piccadilly line) have entrances in or near Piccadilly. Down Street station also served the western end of the street from 1907 until it closed in 1932 because of low usage.


title: Piccadilly

text: is one of Letitia Elizabeth Landon's "Scenes in London" in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836. It is evocative of many aspects of life in the city, both by day and by night.


title: Piccadilly

text: The music hall song "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" mentions Piccadilly and Leicester Square in its lyrics. It was written in 1912 about an Irishman living in London, but became popular after being adopted by the mostly Irish Connaught Rangers during World War I. The street is mentioned in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1881 operetta "Patience", in the lyrics of the song "If You're Anxious For To Shine". One of the major hit songs of the Edwardian musical play The Arcadians (1909) which enjoyed long runs in the West End of London and on New York's Broadway is "All down Piccadilly" (Simplicitas and Chorus, Act III, revised version), with music by Lionel Monckton who also co-wrote the words with Arthur Wimperis.


title: Piccadilly

text: Piccadilly is mentioned in several works of fiction. E. W. Hornung's "gentleman thief" Raffles lives at the Albany, as does Jack Worthing from Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest". According to author Mary C King, Wilde chose the street because of its resemblance to the Spanish word "peccadillo", meaning "slashed" or "pierced". In Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited", the mansion Marchmain House, supposedly located in a cul-de-sac off St James's near Piccadilly, is demolished and replaced with flats. In the 1981 Granada Television dramatisation, Bridgewater House in Cleveland Row was used as the exterior of Marchmain House. In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Jonathan Harker is astonished to see the Count in Piccadilly, which sets off a chain of events that leads to the formation of the group of vampire hunters. Later, Dracula is confronted by the vampire hunters in his house in Piccadilly, before making his escape. In Arthur Machen's 1894 novella "The Great God Pan", Helen Vaughan, the satanic villainess and offspring of Pan, lives off Piccadilly in the pseudonymous Ashley Street. Margery Allingham's fictional detective Albert Campion has a flat at 17A Bottle Street, Piccadilly, over a police station, although Bottle Street is equally fictitious. Several P.G. Wodehouse novels use the setting of Piccadilly as the playground of the rich, idle bachelor in the inter-war period of the 20th century. Notable instances are present in the characters of Bertie Wooster and his Drones Club companions in the Jeeves stories, and the character of James Crocker in the story "Piccadilly Jim". Dorothy Sayers' fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey is described as living at 110A Piccadilly in the inter-war period.


title: Piccadilly

text: In the 1963 movie The Great Escape the character Ashley-Pitt portrayed by David McCallum tells Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett "See you in Picadilly, Scott's Bar" as he was making his escape from the tunnel.


title: Piccadilly

text: The street is a square on the British Monopoly board, forming a set with Leicester Square and Coventry Street. When a European Union version of the game was produced in 1992, Piccadilly was one of three London streets selected, along with Oxford Street and Park Lane.


title: Piccadilly

text: In 1996, Latvian singer Laima Vaikule released an album titled "Ya vyshla na Pikadilli" ("I Went Out on Piccadilly").


title: Attention span

text: Attention span is the amount of time spent concentrating on a task before becoming distracted. Distractibility occurs when attention is uncontrollably diverted to another activity or sensation. Attention training is said to be part of education, particularly in the way students are trained to remain focused on a topic of observation or discussion for extended periods, developing listening and analytical skills in the process.


title: Attention span

text: Measuring humans estimated attention span depends on what the attention is being used for. The terms “transient attention” and “selective sustained attention” are used to separate short term and focused attention. Transient attention is a short-term response to a stimulus that temporarily attracts or distracts attention. Researchers disagree on the exact amount of the human transient attention span, whereas selective sustained attention, also known as focused attention, is the level of attention that produces consistent results on a task over time. Common estimates of the attention span of healthy teenagers and adults range from 5 to 6 hours. This is possible because people can choose repeatedly to re-focus on the same thing. This ability to renew attention permits people to 'pay attention' to things that last for more than a few minutes, such as lengthy films.


title: Attention span

text: For children it is little different, older children are more capable of longer periods of attention than younger children. Average attention spans per age before 18 years old look like this:


title: Attention span

text: For time-on-task measurements, the type of activity used in the test affects the results, as people are generally capable of a longer attention span when they are doing something that they find enjoyable or . Attention is also increased if the person is able to perform the task fluently, compared to a person who has difficulty performing the task, or to the same person when they are just learning the task. Fatigue, hunger, noise, and emotional stress reduce the time focused on the task.


title: Attention span

text: A research study that consisted of 10,430 males and females ages 10 to 70 observed sustained attention time across a lifespan. The study required participants to use a cognitive testing website where data was gathered for seven months. The data collected from the study concluded that attention span is not one singular linear equation; at age 15 it is recorded that attention-span-related abilities diverge. Over the course of the study, collected evidence additionally found that, in humans, attention span is at its highest level when a person is in their early 40s, then gradually declines in old age.


title: Attention span

text: Many different tests on attention span have been used in different populations and in different times. Some tests measure short-term, focused attention abilities (which is typically below normal in people with ADHD), and others provide information about how easily distracted the test-taker is (typically a significant problem in people with ADHD). Tests like the DeGangi's "Test of Attention in Infants" (TAI) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV) are commonly used to test for attention-related issues in young children when interviews and observations are inadequate. Older tests, like the Continuous Performance Test and the Porteus Maze Test, have been rejected by some experts. These tests are typically criticized as not actually measuring attention, being inappropriate for some populations, or not providing clinically useful information.


title: Attention span

text: Variability in test scores can be produced by small changes in the testing environment. For example, test-takers will usually remain on task for longer periods of time if the examiner is visibly present in the room than if the examiner is absent.


title: Attention span

text: In an early study of the influence of temperament on attention span, the mothers of 232 pairs of twins were interviewed periodically about the similarities and differences in behavior displayed by their twins during infancy and early childhood. The results showed that each of the behavioral variables (temper frequency, temper intensity, irritability, crying, and demanding attention) had a significant inverse relationship with attention span. In other words, the twin with longer attention span was better able to remain performing a particular activity without distraction, and was also the less temperamental twin.


title: Attention span

text: One study of 2600 children found that early exposure to television (around age two) is associated with later attention problems such as inattention, impulsiveness, disorganization, and distractibility at age seven. This correlational study does not specify whether viewing television increases attention problems in children, or if children who are naturally prone to inattention are disproportionately attracted to the stimulation of television at young ages, or if there is some other factor, such as parenting skills, associated with this finding.


title: Attention span

text: Furthermore, a study examining the relations between children’s attention span-persistence in preschool and later school achievement and college completion. In other words, this study is analyzing the importance of children’s early skills for predicting later developmental paths. For instance, children who enrolled in formal schooling without the ability to pay attention, remember instructions, and demonstrate self-control have more difficulty in elementary school and throughout high school. The research found that children’s age 4 attention span-persistence significantly predicted math and reading achievement at age 21 after controlling for achievement levels at age 7, adopted status, child vocabulary skills, gender, and maternal education level.


title: Attention span

text: How well a parent can capture and keep a two-year-old's attention on a toy may be more important than just a pleasant way to pass the time. "By successfully focusing a young child's attention on objects during free play, parents may be giving their child practice in using attention as a way to shift into a positive emotional state". "We found that children whose parents actively directed and maintained their child's visual attention spent more time distracting themselves away from a source of distress."


title: Sliced bread

text: Sliced bread is a loaf of bread that has been sliced with a machine and packaged for convenience, as opposed to the consumer cutting it with a knife. It was first sold in 1928, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped". By 1933, around 80% of bread sold in the US was pre-sliced, leading to the popular idiom "greatest thing since sliced bread".


title: Sliced bread

text: Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, United States, invented the first single loaf bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire, and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, who sold their first slices on July 7, 1928. Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved to be a success. Battle Creek, Michigan, has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread sliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim. The bread was advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped".


title: Sliced bread

text: St. Louis baker Gustav Papendick bought Rohwedder's second bread slicer and set out to improve it by devising a way to keep the slices together at least long enough to allow the loaves to be wrapped. After failures trying rubber bands and metal pins, he settled on placing the slices into a cardboard tray. The tray aligned the slices, allowing mechanized wrapping machines to function.


title: Sliced bread

text: W.E. Long, who promoted the Holsum Bread brand, used by various independent bakers around the country, pioneered and promoted the packaging of sliced bread, beginning in 1928. In 1930, Wonder Bread, first sold in 1925, started marketing sliced bread nationwide.


title: Sliced bread

text: In the United Kingdom, the first slicing and wrapping machine was installed in the Wonderloaf Bakery in Tottenham, London, in 1937. By the 1950s around 80% of bread sold in Britain was pre-sliced.


title: Sliced bread

text: As commercially sliced bread resulted in uniform and somewhat thinner slices, people ate more slices of bread at a time. They also ate bread more frequently, because of the ease of getting and eating another piece of bread. This increased consumption of bread and, in turn, increased consumption of spreads, such as jam, to put on the bread.