title: Sodium

text: Sodium compounds are of immense commercial importance, being particularly central to industries producing glass, paper, soap, and textiles. The most important sodium compounds are table salt (NaCl), soda ash (NaCO), baking soda (NaHCO), caustic soda (NaOH), sodium nitrate (NaNO), di- and tri-sodium phosphates, sodium thiosulfate (NaSO·5HO), and borax (NaBO·10HO). In compounds, sodium is usually ionically bonded to water and anions and is viewed as a hard Lewis acid.


title: Sodium

text: Most soaps are sodium salts of fatty acids. Sodium soaps have a higher melting temperature (and seem "harder") than potassium soaps. Sodium containing mixed oxides are promising catalysts and photocatalysts. Photochemically intercalated sodium ion enhances the photoelectrocatalytic activity of WO.


title: Sodium

text: Like all the alkali metals, sodium reacts exothermically with water. The reaction produces caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and flammable hydrogen gas. When burned in air, it forms primarily sodium peroxide with some sodium oxide.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium tends to form water-soluble compounds, such as halides, sulfates, nitrates, carboxylates and carbonates. The main aqueous species are the aquo complexes [Na(HO)], where "n" = 4–8; with "n" = 6 indicated from X-ray diffraction data and computer simulations.


title: Sodium

text: Direct precipitation of sodium salts from aqueous solutions is rare because sodium salts typically have a high affinity for water. An exception is sodium bismuthate (NaBiO). Because of the high solubility of its compounds, sodium salts are usually isolated as solids by evaporation or by precipitation with an organic antisolvent, such as ethanol; for example, only 0.35 g/L of sodium chloride will dissolve in ethanol. Crown ethers, like 15-crown-5, may be used as a phase-transfer catalyst.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium content of samples is determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometry or by potentiometry using ion-selective electrodes.


title: Sodium

text: Like the other alkali metals, sodium dissolves in ammonia and some amines to give deeply colored solutions; evaporation of these solutions leaves a shiny film of metallic sodium. The solutions contain the coordination complex (Na(NH)), with the positive charge counterbalanced by electrons as anions; cryptands permit the isolation of these complexes as crystalline solids. Sodium forms complexes with crown ethers, cryptands and other ligands.


title: Sodium

text: For example, 15-crown-5 has a high affinity for sodium because the cavity size of 15-crown-5 is 1.7–2.2 Å, which is enough to fit the sodium ion (1.9 Å). Cryptands, like crown ethers and other ionophores, also have a high affinity for the sodium ion; derivatives of the alkalide Na are obtainable by the addition of cryptands to solutions of sodium in ammonia via disproportionation.


title: Sodium

text: Many organosodium compounds have been prepared. Because of the high polarity of the C-Na bonds, they behave like sources of carbanions (salts with organic anions). Some well-known derivatives include sodium cyclopentadienide (NaCH) and trityl sodium ((CH)CNa). Sodium naphthalene, Na[CH•], a strong reducing agent, forms upon mixing Na and naphthalene in ethereal solutions.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium forms alloys with many metals, such as potassium, calcium, lead, and the group 11 and 12 elements. Sodium and potassium form KNa and NaK. NaK is 40–90% potassium and it is liquid at ambient temperature. It is an excellent thermal and electrical conductor. Sodium-calcium alloys are by-products of the electrolytic production of sodium from a binary salt mixture of NaCl-CaCl and ternary mixture NaCl-CaCl-BaCl. Calcium is only partially miscible with sodium, and the 1-2% of it dissolved in the sodium obtained from said mixtures can be precipitated by cooling to 120 °C and filtering.


title: Sodium

text: In a liquid state, sodium is completely miscible with lead. There are several methods to make sodium-lead alloys. One is to melt them together and another is to deposit sodium electrolytically on molten lead cathodes. NaPb, NaPb, NaPb, NaPb, and NaPb are some of the known sodium-lead alloys. Sodium also forms alloys with gold (NaAu) and silver (NaAg). Group 12 metals (zinc, cadmium and mercury) are known to make alloys with sodium. NaZn and NaCd are alloys of zinc and cadmium. Sodium and mercury form NaHg, NaHg, NaHg, NaHg, and NaHg.


title: Sodium

text: Because of its importance in human health, salt has long been an important commodity, as shown by the English word "salary", which derives from "salarium", the wafers of salt sometimes given to Roman soldiers along with their other wages. In medieval Europe, a compound of sodium with the Latin name of "sodanum" was used as a headache remedy. The name sodium is thought to originate from the Arabic "suda", meaning headache, as the headache-alleviating properties of sodium carbonate or soda were well known in early times.


title: Sodium

text: Although sodium, sometimes called "soda", had long been recognized in compounds, the metal itself was not isolated until 1807 by Sir Humphry Davy through the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide. In 1809, the German physicist and chemist Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert proposed the names "Natronium" for Humphry Davy's "sodium" and "Kalium" for Davy's "potassium".


title: Sodium

text: The chemical abbreviation for sodium was first published in 1814 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in his system of atomic symbols, and is an abbreviation of the element's New Latin name "natrium", which refers to the Egyptian "natron", a natural mineral salt mainly consisting of hydrated sodium carbonate. Natron historically had several important industrial and household uses, later eclipsed by other sodium compounds.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium imparts an intense yellow color to flames. As early as 1860, Kirchhoff and Bunsen noted the high sensitivity of a sodium flame test, and stated in Annalen der Physik und Chemie:


title: Sodium

text: In a corner of our 60 m room farthest away from the apparatus, we exploded 3 mg of sodium chlorate with milk sugar while observing the nonluminous flame before the slit. After a while, it glowed a bright yellow and showed a strong sodium line that disappeared only after 10 minutes. From the weight of the sodium salt and the volume of air in the room, we easily calculate that one part by weight of air could not contain more than 1/20 millionth weight of sodium.


title: Sodium

text: The Earth's crust contains 2.27% sodium, making it the seventh most abundant element on Earth and the fifth most abundant metal, behind aluminium, iron, calcium, and magnesium and ahead of potassium. Sodium's estimated oceanic abundance is 10.8 grams per liter. Because of its high reactivity, it is never found as a pure element. It is found in many minerals, some very soluble, such as halite and natron, others much less soluble, such as amphibole and zeolite. The insolubility of certain sodium minerals such as cryolite and feldspar arises from their polymeric anions, which in the case of feldspar is a polysilicate.


title: Sodium

text: Atomic sodium has a very strong spectral line in the yellow-orange part of the spectrum (the same line as is used in sodium-vapour street lights). This appears as an absorption line in many types of stars, including the Sun. The line was first studied in 1814 by Joseph von Fraunhofer during his investigation of the lines in the solar spectrum, now known as the Fraunhofer lines. Fraunhofer named it the "D" line, although it is now known to actually be a group of closely spaced lines split by a fine and hyperfine structure.


title: Sodium

text: The strength of the D line allows its detection in many other astronomical environments. In stars, it is seen in any whose surfaces are cool enough for sodium to exist in atomic form (rather than ionised). This corresponds to stars of roughly F-type and cooler. Many other stars appear to have a sodium absorption line, but this is actually caused by gas in the foreground interstellar medium. The two can be distinguished via high-resolution spectroscopy, because interstellar lines are much narrower than those broadened by stellar rotation.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium has also been detected in numerous Solar System environments, including Mercury's atmosphere, the exosphere of the Moon, and numerous other bodies. Some comets have a sodium tail, which was first detected in observations of Comet Hale–Bopp in 1997. Sodium has even been detected in the atmospheres of some extrasolar planets via transit spectroscopy.


title: Sodium

text: Employed only in rather specialized applications, only about 100,000 tonnes of metallic sodium are produced annually. Metallic sodium was first produced commercially in the late 19th century by carbothermal reduction of sodium carbonate at 1100 °C, as the first step of the Deville process for the production of aluminium:


title: Sodium

text: The high demand for aluminium created the need for the production of sodium. The introduction of the Hall–Héroult process for the production of aluminium by electrolysing a molten salt bath ended the need for large quantities of sodium. A related process based on the reduction of sodium hydroxide was developed in 1886.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium is now produced commercially through the electrolysis of molten sodium chloride, based on a process patented in 1924. This is done in a Downs cell in which the NaCl is mixed with calcium chloride to lower the melting point below 700 °C. As calcium is less electropositive than sodium, no calcium will be deposited at the cathode. This method is less expensive than the previous Castner process (the electrolysis of sodium hydroxide).


title: Sodium

text: The market for sodium is volatile due to the difficulty in its storage and shipping; it must be stored under a dry inert gas atmosphere or anhydrous mineral oil to prevent the formation of a surface layer of sodium oxide or sodium superoxide.


title: Sodium

text: Though metallic sodium has some important uses, the major applications for sodium use compounds; millions of tons of sodium chloride, hydroxide, and carbonate are produced annually. Sodium chloride is extensively used for anti-icing and de-icing and as a preservative; examples of the uses of sodium bicarbonate include baking, as a raising agent, and sodablasting. Along with potassium, many important medicines have sodium added to improve their bioavailability; though potassium is the better ion in most cases, sodium is chosen for its lower price and atomic weight. Sodium hydride is used as a base for various reactions (such as the aldol reaction) in organic chemistry, and as a reducing agent in inorganic chemistry.


title: Sodium

text: Metallic sodium is used mainly for the production of sodium borohydride, sodium azide, indigo, and triphenylphosphine. A once-common use was the making of tetraethyllead and titanium metal; because of the move away from TEL and new titanium production methods, the production of sodium declined after 1970. Sodium is also used as an alloying metal, an anti-scaling agent, and as a reducing agent for metals when other materials are ineffective.


title: Sodium

text: Note the free element is not used as a scaling agent, ions in the water are exchanged for sodium ions. Sodium plasma ("vapor") lamps are often used for street lighting in cities, shedding light that ranges from yellow-orange to peach as the pressure increases. By itself or with potassium, sodium is a desiccant; it gives an intense blue coloration with benzophenone when the desiccate is dry.


title: Sodium

text: In organic synthesis, sodium is used in various reactions such as the Birch reduction, and the sodium fusion test is conducted to qualitatively analyse compounds. Sodium reacts with alcohol and gives alkoxides, and when sodium is dissolved in ammonia solution, it can be used to reduce alkynes to trans-alkenes. Lasers emitting light at the sodium D line are used to create artificial laser guide stars that assist in the adaptive optics for land-based visible-light telescopes.


title: Sodium

text: Liquid sodium is used as a heat transfer fluid in sodium-cooled fast reactors because it has the high thermal conductivity and low neutron absorption cross section required to achieve a high neutron flux in the reactor. The high boiling point of sodium allows the reactor to operate at ambient (normal) pressure, but drawbacks include its opacity, which hinders visual maintenance, and its strongly reducing properties. Sodium will explode in contact with water, although it will only burn gently in air.


title: Sodium

text: Radioactive sodium-24 may be produced by neutron bombardment during operation, posing a slight radiation hazard; the radioactivity stops within a few days after removal from the reactor. If a reactor needs to be shut down frequently, NaK is used. Because NaK is a liquid at room temperature, the coolant does not solidify in the pipes.


title: Sodium

text: In this case, the pyrophoricity of potassium requires extra precautions to prevent and detect leaks. Another heat transfer application is poppet valves in high-performance internal combustion engines; the valve stems are partially filled with sodium and work as a heat pipe to cool the valves.


title: Sodium

text: In humans, sodium is an essential mineral that regulates blood volume, blood pressure, osmotic equilibrium and pH. The minimum physiological requirement for sodium is estimated to range from about 120 milligrams per day in newborns to 500 milligrams per day over the age of 10.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium chloride (salt) is the principal source of sodium in the diet, and is used as seasoning and preservative in such commodities as pickled preserves and jerky; for Americans, most sodium chloride comes from processed foods. Other sources of sodium are its natural occurrence in food and such food additives as monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium nitrite, sodium saccharin, baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), and sodium benzoate.


title: Sodium

text: The U.S. Institute of Medicine set its tolerable upper intake level for sodium at 2.3 grams per day, but the average person in the United States consumes 3.4 grams per day. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 1.5 g of sodium per day.


title: Sodium

text: High sodium consumption is unhealthy, and can lead to alteration in the mechanical performance of the heart. High sodium consumption is also associated with chronic kidney disease, high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and stroke.


title: Sodium

text: There is a strong correlation between higher sodium intake and higher blood pressure. Studies have found that lowering sodium intake by 2 g per day tends to lower systolic blood pressure by about two to four mm Hg. It has been estimated that such a decrease in sodium intake would lead to between 9 and 17% fewer cases of hypertension.


title: Sodium

text: Hypertension causes 7.6 million premature deaths worldwide each year. (Note that salt contains about 39.3% sodiumthe rest being chlorine and trace chemicals; thus, 2.3 g sodium is about 5.9 g, or 5.3 ml, of saltabout one US teaspoon.)


title: Sodium

text: One study found that people with or without hypertension who excreted less than 3 grams of sodium per day in their urine (and therefore were taking in less than 3 g/d) had a "higher" risk of death, stroke, or heart attack than those excreting 4 to 5 grams per day. Levels of 7 g per day or more in people with hypertension were associated with higher mortality and cardiovascular events, but this was not found to be true for people without hypertension. The US FDA states that adults with hypertension and prehypertension should reduce daily sodium intake to 1.5 g.


title: Sodium

text: The renin–angiotensin system regulates the amount of fluid and sodium concentration in the body. Reduction of blood pressure and sodium concentration in the kidney result in the production of renin, which in turn produces aldosterone and angiotensin, which stimulates the reabsorption of sodium back into the bloodstream. When the concentration of sodium increases, the production of renin decreases, and the sodium concentration returns to normal. The sodium ion (Na) is an important electrolyte in neuron function, and in osmoregulation between cells and the extracellular fluid. This is accomplished in all animals by Na/K-ATPase, an active transporter pumping ions against the gradient, and sodium/potassium channels. Sodium is the most prevalent metallic ion in extracellular fluid.


title: Sodium

text: In humans, unusually low or high sodium levels in the blood is recognized in medicine as hyponatremia and hypernatremia. These conditions may be caused by genetic factors, ageing, or prolonged vomiting or diarrhea.


title: Sodium

text: In C4 plants, sodium is a micronutrient that aids metabolism, specifically in regeneration of phosphoenolpyruvate and synthesis of chlorophyll. In others, it substitutes for potassium in several roles, such as maintaining turgor pressure and aiding in the opening and closing of stomata. Excess sodium in the soil can limit the uptake of water by decreasing the water potential, which may result in plant wilting; excess concentrations in the cytoplasm can lead to enzyme inhibition, which in turn causes necrosis and chlorosis.


title: Sodium

text: In response, some plants have developed mechanisms to limit sodium uptake in the roots, to store it in cell vacuoles, and restrict salt transport from roots to leaves. Excess sodium may also be stored in old plant tissue, limiting the damage to new growth. Halophytes have adapted to be able to flourish in sodium rich environments.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium forms flammable hydrogen and caustic sodium hydroxide on contact with water; ingestion and contact with moisture on skin, eyes or mucous membranes can cause severe burns. Sodium spontaneously explodes in the presence of water due to the formation of hydrogen (highly explosive) and sodium hydroxide (which dissolves in the water, liberating more surface). However, sodium exposed to air and ignited or reaching autoignition (reported to occur when a molten pool of sodium reaches about ) displays a relatively mild fire.


title: Sodium

text: In the case of massive (non-molten) pieces of sodium, the reaction with oxygen eventually becomes slow due to formation of a protective layer. Fire extinguishers based on water accelerate sodium fires. Those based on carbon dioxide and bromochlorodifluoromethane should not be used on sodium fire. Metal fires are Class D, but not all Class D extinguishers are effective when used to extinguish sodium fires. An effective extinguishing agent for sodium fires is Met-L-X. Other effective agents include Lith-X, which has graphite powder and an organophosphate flame retardant, and dry sand.


title: Sodium

text: Sodium fires are prevented in nuclear reactors by isolating sodium from oxygen with surrounding pipes containing inert gas. Pool-type sodium fires are prevented using diverse design measures called catch pan systems. They collect leaking sodium into a leak-recovery tank where it is isolated from oxygen.


title: Sodium

text: Liquid sodium fires are more dangerous to handle than solid sodium fires, particularly if there is insufficient experience with the safe handling of molten sodium. In a technical report for the United States Fire Administration, R. J. Gordon writes (emphasis in original)


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Christopher Eccleston (; born 16 February 1964) is an English actor. A two-time BAFTA Award nominee, he is best known for his television and film work, which includes his role as the ninth incarnation of the Doctor in the BBC sci-fi series "Doctor Who" (2005), playing Matt Jamison in "The Leftovers" (2014–2017), and his collaborations with filmmakers Danny Boyle and Michael Winterbottom.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and made his professional acting debut onstage in a Bristol Old Vic production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". He garnered attention for his film roles as Derek Bentley in "Let Him Have It" (1991) and David Stevens in "Shallow Grave" (1994), and for his television performances in "Cracker" (1993–1994) and "Hillsborough" (1996). His BAFTA Award-nominated performance as Nicky Hutchinson in the BBC miniseries "Our Friends in the North" (1996) established him as a household name in the United Kingdom, and he followed the role with appearances in the films "Jude" (1996), "A Price Above Rubies" (1998), "Elizabeth" (1998), "eXistenZ" (1999), "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000), "The Invisible Circus" (2001), "The Others" (2001), "24 Hour Party People" (2002), and "28 Days Later" (2002), as well as television roles including the drama series "Clocking Off" (2000) and a second BAFTA Award-nominated performance as Stephen Baxter in the ITV drama series "The Second Coming" (2003).


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston garnered widespread attention and acclaim for his role in the 2005 revival of "Doctor Who", becoming the first to play the title character since 1996. He departed the role after just one series, for which he won a National Television Award and received nominations for a Broadcasting Press Guild Award and BAFTA Cymru Award. He has since appeared in the television series "Heroes" (2007), "The Shadow Line" (2011), "Blackout" (2012), "Lucan" (2013), "The Leftovers" (2014–2017), "Safe House" (2015), "Fortitude" (2015), and "The A Word" (2016–2020) and films such as "" (2009), "Amelia" (2009), "Song for Marion" (2012), "" (2013) and "Legend" (2015). He won an International Emmy Award for his performance in an episode of the anthology series "Accused". On stage, he has played the title roles in productions of "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" and starred in productions of "Miss Julie", "A Doll's House", and "Antigone". Since 2017, he has narrated the documentary series "Ambulance".


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston was born on 16 February 1964 into a working-class family in the Langworthy area of Salford, Lancashire, the son of Elsie and Ronnie Eccleston. He has two brothers named Alan and Keith, twins who are eight years older than him. On his religious upbringing, he has said, "My dad's family were Catholic. My mum was very Church of England – still is – but it doesn't work for me." The family lived in a small terraced house on Blodwell Street before moving to Little Hulton when Eccleston was seven months old. He attended Joseph Eastham High School, where he became head boy.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: At the age of 19, Eccleston was inspired to pursue acting by such television dramas as "Boys from the Blackstuff". He completed a two-year Performance Foundation Course at Salford Tech, then went on to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He was influenced in his early years by Ken Loach's film "Kes" and Albert Finney's performance in the film "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", but he soon found himself performing the classics, including the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Molière. At the age of 25, he made his professional stage debut in the Bristol Old Vic's production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". Underemployed as an actor for some years after graduating from college, he took a variety of odd jobs at a supermarket, on building sites, and as an artist's model.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston first came to public attention as Derek Bentley in the film "Let Him Have It" (1991), and the "Inspector Morse" episode "Second Time Around" (1991). In 1992, he played the role of Sean Maddox in the BBC drama miniseries "Friday on my Mind". A regular role in the Granada Television production "Cracker" (1993–94) brought him recognition in the UK; and, after he told TV bosses of his desire to leave the series, they killed off his character in October 1994, making him a victim of the serial killer Albie Kinsella (Robert Carlyle). At around the same time, Eccleston appeared in the episode "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" of the "Poirot" series adapted from mysteries by Agatha Christie.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: He appeared in the low-budget Danny Boyle film "Shallow Grave" (1994), in which he co-starred with actor Ewan McGregor. The same year, he won the part of Nicky Hutchinson in the epic BBC drama serial "Our Friends in the North", whose broadcast on BBC Two in 1996 helped make him a household name in the UK. Eccleston starred in an ensemble cast that included actors Mark Strong and Gina McKee, as well as Daniel Craig. In 1996, he took the part of Trevor Hicks—a man who lost both of his daughters in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster—in the television drama film "Hillsborough", penned by Jimmy McGovern. In real life, he was the best man to Trevor Hicks at his wedding in March 2009.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: His film career has since taken off with a variety of roles, including "Jude" (1996), "Elizabeth" (1998), "eXistenZ" (1999), "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000), "The Others" (2001), "24 Hour Party People" (2002) and "28 Days Later" (2002). He played a major role as the protagonist of the 2002 "Revengers Tragedy", adapted from Thomas Middleton's play of the same name. He starred in the independent films "A Price Above Rubies" (1998) and "The Invisible Circus" (2001). He appeared in the car-heist film "Gone in 60 Seconds", but did not take his driving test until January 2004. He said on BBC's "Top Gear" that his licence restricts him to vehicles with automatic transmission.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: He has appeared in a variety of television roles, especially in British dramas. These have included "Hearts and Minds" (1995) for Channel 4, "Clocking Off" (2000) and "Flesh and Blood" (2002) for the BBC and "Hillsborough" (1996), a modern version of "Othello" (2001), playing 'Ben Jago', (the Iago character); and the religious telefantasy epic "The Second Coming" (2003) for ITV, in which he played Steve Baxter, the son of God. He has made guest appearances in episodes of the comedy-drama "Linda Green" (2001) and macabre sketch show "The League of Gentlemen" (2002). Eccleston appeared in a stage role in "Hamlet" in the 2002 production at Leeds's West Yorkshire Playhouse. March–April 2004 saw him return to the venue in a new play, "Electricity".


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston has been twice nominated in the Best Actor category at the British Academy Television Awards. His first nomination came in 1997 for "Our Friends in the North", but he lost to Nigel Hawthorne (for "The Fragile Heart"). He was nominated in 2004 for "The Second Coming"; Bill Nighy won for "State of Play". Eccleston won the Best Actor category at the 1997 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards for "Our Friends in the North". In 2003 he won the RTS Best Actor award for a second time, for his performance in "Flesh and Blood". In July 2004, a poll of industry experts, conducted by "Radio Times" magazine, voted Eccleston the "19th Most Powerful Person in Television Drama."


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: On 2 April 2004, it was announced that Eccleston was to play the ninth incarnation of the Doctor in the revival of the BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who". The first series began transmission on 26 March 2005. Eccleston is the first actor to play the role who was born after the series began. On 30 March, the BBC released a statement, ostensibly from Eccleston, saying that he had decided to leave the role after just one series, because he feared becoming typecast. On 4 April, the BBC revealed that the statement had been falsely attributed and released without Eccleston's consent. The BBC admitted that they had broken an agreement made in January not to disclose publicly that he only intended to do one series. The statement had been made after journalists made queries to the press office.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Following his departure, Eccleston was replaced by David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: On 11 June 2005, during a BBC radio interview, when asked if he had enjoyed working on "Doctor Who", Eccleston responded by saying, "Mixed, but that's a long story." Eccleston's reasons for leaving the role continue to be debated in Britain's newspapers: on 4 October 2005 Alan Davies told "The Daily Telegraph" that Eccleston had been "overworked" by the BBC, and had left the role because he was "exhausted". Eccleston later stated that he left the show because he "didn't enjoy the environment and the culture that the cast and crew had to work in", but that he was proud of having played the role. Eccleston said in a subsequent interview, "My relationship with my three immediate superiors – the showrunner, the producer and co-producer – broke down irreparably during the first block of filming and it never recovered."


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: On 7 November 2008, at the National Theatre to promote his book "The Writer's Tale", "Doctor Who" writer Russell T Davies said that Eccleston's contract was for a single year because it was uncertain whether the show would continue beyond a single revival series. In retrospect, he says, it has been an enormous success, but at the time there were doubts within the BBC. Eccleston was voted "Most Popular Actor" at the 2005 National Television Awards for his portrayal of the Doctor.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In July 2012, Eccleston spoke positively of his time on "Doctor Who" during a talk at the National Theatre. This led to speculation he was considering making a return appearance as the Doctor for the show's 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor", in 2013. Matt Smith, who portrayed the Eleventh Doctor, stated that he would have loved Eccleston to return. However, after discussions with executive producer Steven Moffat, Eccleston declined his role. However, in a 2018 interview Eccleston said that the BBC had "put [him] on a blacklist" when he left.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston began appearing as a guest at "Doctor Who" conventions for the first time in 2018. He had previously expressed his reluctance to appear at conventions, saying in 2017 that he preferred to "just earn [his] living by acting". He has since said that his experience of meeting fans at conventions "healed something in [him]" and made him re-evaluate his relationship to the series.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: On 9 August 2020, it was announced that Eccleston would reprise his role of the Ninth Doctor in audio dramas for Big Finish Productions, across four boxsets to be released between May 2021 and February 2022. This would be the first time he had portrayed the role in 16 years. Eccleston was later confirmed to appear in a further four boxsets, releasing in 2022 and 2023. However, he has said that it is unlikely that he will reprise the role on television for the 60th Anniversary, as his relationship with the BBC "has not healed". However, it was announced in November 2022 that he is set to appear in Big Finish's eight part audio 60th anniversary: ""Once and Future""


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: On 30 October 2005, Eccleston appeared on stage at the Old Vic theatre in London in the one-night play "Night Sky" alongside Navin Chowdhry, Bruno Langley, David Warner, Saffron Burrows and David Baddiel. Eccleston sat on the 2nd Amazonas International Film Festival Film Jury in November 2005. The Canadian born director Norman Jewison was chairman of the Jury. In December 2005, Eccleston travelled to Indonesia's Aceh province for the "BBC Breakfast" news programme, examining how survivors of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami were rebuilding their lives.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In March 2006, Eccleston appeared in the ITV documentary special "Best Ever Muppet Moments" as a commentator. In May 2006, he appeared as the narrator in a production of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Lowry theatre in his home city of Salford. The theatre company with which he performed, Celebrity Pig (of which he is patron), is made up of learning disabled actors. In August 2006, Eccleston filmed "New Orleans, Mon Amour" with Elisabeth Moss. The film was directed by Michael Almereyda and shot in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. It was released in 2008 to film festivals in America and Italy.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Late in 2006 he starred in "Perfect Parents", an ITV drama written and directed by Joe Ahearne, who had directed him in "Doctor Who". Eccleston joined the cast of the NBC TV series "Heroes" in the episode "Godsend", which was broadcast on 22 January 2007. Eccleston played a character named Claude who has the power of invisibility, and helps Peter Petrelli with his powers. Eccleston appeared as the Rider in a film adaptation of Susan Cooper's novel "The Dark Is Rising", which opened in the USA on 5 October 2007.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston appeared on the BBC Four World Cinema Award show in February 2008, arguing the merits of five international hits such as "The Lives of Others" and "Pan's Labyrinth" with Jonathan Ross and Archie Panjabi. In 2009, Eccleston starred opposite Archie Panjabi in a short film called "The Happiness Salesman". Eccleston agreed to do the film because of Panjabi and the fact that it was a winner of the British Short Screenplay Competition. He also appeared as the villainous Destro in the film, "". That same year, Eccleston also appeared in an episode of "The Sarah Silverman Program" and starred in the film "Amelia" as Fred Noonan alongside Richard Gere, Hilary Swank and Ewan McGregor.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston was cast as John Lennon in a BBC production called "Lennon Naked" which aired in the UK on 23 June 2010, with Eccleston playing the title role, and Naoko Mori, who had previously appeared with him in "Doctor Who", as Yoko Ono. In November 2010, Eccleston starred in the first episode of BBC One anthology drama "Accused". He won an International Emmy Award for his role. In May 2011, he starred as Joseph Bede in "The Shadow Line", a seven-part television drama serial for BBC Two.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: On 31 December 2011, Eccleston played the role of Pod Clock in an adaptation of Mary Norton's children's novel "The Borrowers" on BBC One. In July 2012, he starred in the political thriller "Blackout" on BBC One. In the same month, he starred as Creon in an adaptation of "Antigone" at the Royal National Theatre; his performance in the play was called "charismatic" and "intense". In September 2012, Eccleston starred in the film "Song for Marion", also known as "Unfinished Song" with Terence Stamp.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In 2013, Eccleston portrayed the villainous Malekith in "", the sequel to "Thor" and the eighth instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Later that year, he played John Aspinall in "Lucan", a mini-series about the disappearance of Lord Lucan. From 2014 to 2017, Eccleston starred as Reverend Matt Jamison on the HBO drama series "The Leftovers" and earned consistent acclaim for his performance across all three seasons. In 2015, Eccleston starred in the television series "Fortitude" as a scientist based in Arctic Norway alongside Stanley Tucci and Michael Gambon before he and Marsha Thomason played a married couple who own a guest house in the Lake District in the series "Safe House". Later in 2015, Eccleston starred as


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In 2016, Eccleston began appearing as Maurice Scott in the BBC drama "The A Word". Maurice is the eccentric but lovable dad to his daughter who, with her husband, has an autistic son. The second series began airing in November 2017 both in the UK and the US, where "The A Word" airs on SundanceTV. A third series was confirmed and aired in the spring of 2020.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston played the lead role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "Macbeth" in 2018. The production was streamed on BBC Four. Also in 2018, Eccleston starred in two films; opposite Tom Wilkinson as crime boss Harvey in "Dead in a Week or Your Money Back" and as a Nazi officer Heinz in "Where Hands Touch". That same year he appeared in "King Lear" as Oswald and in the television mini-series "Come Home", the latter of which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor. In 2021, Eccleston starred in the six-part television mini-series "Close to Me".


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Further upcoming projects include playing Fagin in the series "Dodger" and in a television adaptation of the award-winning novel "My Name is Leon".


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston married Mischka, a copywriter, in November 2011. Their first child, a son named Albert, was born in February 2012. Their second child, a daughter named Esme, was born in 2013. They were divorced in December 2015.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston is a lifelong supporter of Manchester United FC, and was a regular marathon runner until 2000.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In September 2007, as part of a £9.5 million building project, Salford's Pendleton College named its new 260-seat auditorium the Eccleston Theatre.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston became a Mencap charity ambassador on 28 April 2005, and is a supporter of the British Red Cross. He also supports research for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia; his father, Ronnie, had vascular dementia in his later years, from 1998 until his death in 2012.


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In his autobiography, Eccleston described chronic eating disorders and depression, and said that he had considered suicide. Speaking about his poor mental health, he wrote that he was "a lifelong body hater".


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: In politics, Eccleston has criticised the Conservative Party and expressed concern at opportunities for actors from his background to achieve his level of success in the future. He said in July 2017, "It's always been a policy of the Conservative government and party to destroy working class identity. If you prevent them from having a cultural voice, which is what's happening, they achieve that. They hate us, they want to destroy us, so we're being ruled out of having a voice."


title: Christopher Eccleston

text: Eccleston endorsed Labour Party incumbent Andy Burnham in the 2021 Greater Manchester mayoral election.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (born 17 November 1952) is a South African businessman and politician who is currently serving as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Formerly an anti-apartheid activist, trade union leader, and businessman, Ramaphosa is also the president of the African National Congress (ANC).


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa rose to national prominence as secretary general of South Africa's biggest and most powerful trade union, the National Union of Mineworkers. In 1991, he was elected ANC secretary general under ANC president Nelson Mandela and became the ANC's chief negotiator during the negotiations that ended apartheid. He was elected chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly after the country's first fully democratic elections in 1994 and some observers believed that he was Mandela's preferred successor. However, Ramaphosa resigned from politics in 1996 and became well known as a businessman, including as an owner of McDonald's South Africa, chair of the board for MTN, member of the board for Lonmin, and founder of the Shanduka Group.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: He returned to politics in December 2012 at the ANC's 53rd National Conference and served as the deputy president of South Africa under President Jacob Zuma from 2014 to 2018. He was also chairman of the National Planning Commission. At the ANC's 54th National Conference on 18 December 2017, he was elected president of the ANC. Two months later, the day after Zuma resigned on 14 February 2018, the National Assembly (NA) elected Ramaphosa as president of South Africa. He began his first full term as president in May 2019 following the ANC's victory in the 2019 South African general election. While president, Ramaphosa served as chairperson of the African Union from 2020 to 2021 and led South Africa's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa's estimated net worth was estimated at over R6.4 billion ($450 million) as of 2018. He has been criticised for the conduct of his business interests, including his harsh posture as a Lonmin director towards the Marikana miners' strike in the week ahead of the Marikana massacre.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On the 19th December 2022 it was announced that the ANC's 55th National Conference had elected Ramaphosa to a second term as president of the ANC.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa was born in Soweto, Johannesburg, on 17 November 1952, to Venda parents. He is the second of the three children to Erdmuth and retired policeman Samuel Ramaphosa. He attended Tshilidzi Primary School and Sekano Ntoane High School in Soweto. In 1971, he matriculated from Mphaphuli High School in Sibasa, Venda where he was elected head of the Student Christian Movement. He subsequently registered to study law at the University of the North (Turfloop) in Limpopo Province in 1972.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: While at university, Ramaphosa became involved in student politics and joined the South African Students Organisation (SASO) and the Black People's Convention (BPC). This resulted in him being detained in solitary confinement for eleven months in 1974 under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, 1967, for organising pro-Frelimo rallies. In 1976 he was detained again, following the unrest in Soweto, and held for six months at John Vorster Square under the Terrorism Act. After his release, he became a law clerk for a Johannesburg firm of attorneys and continued with his legal studies through correspondence with the University of South Africa (UNISA), where he obtained his Bachelor of Procurationis degree (B. Proc.) in 1981.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: After completing his legal qualifications and obtaining his degree, Ramaphosa joined the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA) as an advisor in the legal department. In 1982, CUSA requested that Ramaphosa start a union for mineworkers; this new union was launched in the same year and was named the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Ramaphosa was arrested in Lebowa, on the charge of organising or planning to take part in a meeting in Namakgale which had been banned by the local magistrate.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In August 1982, CUSA resolved to form the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and in December Ramaphosa became its first secretary. Ramaphosa was the conference organiser in the preparations leading to the formation of the Congress of the South African Trade Union (COSATU). He delivered a keynote address at Cosatu's launch rally in Durban in December 1985. In March 1986, he was part of COSATU's delegation which met the African National Congress in Lusaka, Zambia.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa was elected as the first general secretary of the union, a position he held until he resigned in June 1991, following his election as secretary-general of the African National Congress (ANC). Under his leadership, union membership grew from 6,000 in 1982 to 300,000 in 1992, giving it control of nearly half of the total black workforce in the South African mining industry. As general secretary, he, James Motlatsi (president of NUM), and Elijah Barayi (vice-president of NUM) also led the mineworkers in one of the biggest strikes ever in South African history.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In December 1988, Ramaphosa and other prominent members of the Soweto community met Soweto's mayor to discuss the rent boycott crisis.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In 1985, the NUM broke away from CUSA and helped to establish the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). When COSATU joined forces with the United Democratic Front (UDF) political movement against the National Party government of P. W. Botha, Ramaphosa took a leading role in what became known as the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM).


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: While not a member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Ramaphosa has claimed that he is a committed socialist.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: After the ANC was unbanned in early 1990, Ramaphosa became increasingly close with the organisation. In January 1990, he accompanied released ANC political prisoners to the ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia; and, later, that year, he served as chairman of the National Reception Committee, which coordinated arrangements for Nelson Mandela's release from prison, including concomitant celebratory rallies. Ramaphosa was elected Secretary-General of the ANC at the party's 48th National Conference in Durban in July 1991, and subsequently became head of the ANC's delegation to the negotiations that ended apartheid. He was also a visiting professor of law at Stanford University in October 1991.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Following the first fully democratic elections in 1994, he became a Member of Parliament (MP) and was elected the chairperson of its Constitutional Assembly on 24 May 1994, a central role in Mandela's Government of National Unity. He was also re-elected, unopposed, as ANC Secretary-General at the party's 49th National Conference in December 1994. However, in 1996, he resigned from ANC office and from Parliament and announced his retreat from politics, reportedly because he was disappointed that Thabo Mbeki had been anointed Mandela's successor.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: After he resigned from politics, Ramaphosa became a businessman, taking advantage of the conducive environment provided by the new Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy. Among other positions, he was executive chairman of Shanduka Group, a company he founded, which invested in mineral resources, energy, real estate, banking, insurance, and telecoms (SEACOM). By 2014, Shanduka was worth more than R20-billion, and the Ramaphosa family's Tshivhase Trust was its majority shareholder. Ramaphosa was also a chairman of Bidvest, MTN, and from March 2007, Mondi, a leading international paper and packaging group. His other non-executive directorships included Macsteel Holdings, Alexander Forbes, SABMiller, Lonmin, Anglo American, and Standard Bank. In 2011, Ramaphosa paid for a 20-year master franchise agreement to run 145 McDonald's restaurants in South Africa. He also belonged to the Coca-Cola Company International Advisory Board and the Unilever Africa Advisory Council.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa's various shareholdings made him one of South Africa's richest men. According to the "Sunday Times", his estimated net worth of R2.22 billion made him the 13th richest person in South Africa in 2011, and that figure jumped to R3.1 billion in 2012. Both estimates, moreover, excluded his unlisted investments through Shanduka, including the McDonald's franchise agreement and a coal-mining partnership with Glencore.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: During a visit to Uganda in 2004, Ramaphosa became interested in the Ankole breed of cattle. Because of inadequate disease control measures in Uganda, the South African government denied him permission to import any of the breed. Instead, Ramaphosa purchased 43 cows from Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and shipped them to Kenya, where they were artificially inseminated; the embryos were then removed and shipped to South Africa, to be transferred to quarantined cows. As of August 2017, Ramaphosa had 100 Ankole breeding cows at his Ntaba Nyoni farm in Mpumalanga. That year, he co-wrote a book about the breed, "Cattle of the Ages: Stories, and Portraits of the Ankole Cattle of Southern Africa".


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: His resignation from politics notwithstanding, Ramaphosa occasionally accepted positions in the public eye, both abroad and in South Africa. He became the first Vice Chairman of the Commonwealth Business Council, and, in 1998, the Chairman of South Africa's BEE Commission. In 2000, he was appointed to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning as an arms inspector, responsible for supervising the decommissioning of Irish Republican Army armaments in Northern Ireland. And, in April 2010, he was appointed by President Jacob Zuma to the National Planning Commission, where he served as Deputy Chairperson to Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis, which followed the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki in December 2007, Ramaphosa was unanimously chosen by Kofi Annan's mediation team to be the chief mediator in charge of long-term talks. However, Kibaki's government protested Ramaphosa's involvement, saying that he had business links with Kibaki's opponent Raila Odinga. According to Ramaphosa, Odinga had visited him in 2007, but he did not have any "special interest" that would lead him to favour one side or the other; however, he said that he could not be an effective mediator without "the trust and confidence of all parties" and that he did not wish to become an obstacle to the negotiations. He therefore withdrew from the talks on 4 February. However, he returned to a peacemaking role in 2014, when – in his capacity as Deputy Chairperson of the National Planning Commission – he served as the South African President's Special Envoy to South Sudan during the South Sudanese civil war.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa also continued to accept nominations to the National Executive Committee of the ANC: at the 50th National Conference in 1997, he received the most votes of any candidate; and at the 51st National Conference in 2002, he received the second-most. Ahead of the 52nd National Conference in 2007, he denied persistent rumours that he intended to join the race to replace Mbeki as ANC president; that year, he ranked 30th on the list of most popular NEC candidates.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa made his return to political leadership in 2012, ahead of the ANC's 53rd National Conference, when he received nominations to become ANC Deputy President. On 20 May 2012, Derek Hanekom, an ANC MP, publicly encouraged Ramaphosa to run for the ANC presidency, saying, "We need leaders of comrade Cyril's calibre. I know Cyril is very good at business, but I really wish he would put all his money in a trust and step up for a higher and more senior position". Ramaphosa dismissed the resulting speculation, saying, "You can't read anything [into what Hanekom said]. He was joking".


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Indeed, Ramaphosa did not confirm his intention to accept the deputy presidential nomination until 16 December, the day before the conference began. However, he received strong backing from incumbent President Jacob Zuma – a partnership viewed as a strategic attempt by Zuma to "outsmart and punish" Kgalema Motlanthe, who was challenging Zuma for the presidency but whose constituency was similar to Ramaphosa's, given their shared union backgrounds and polished reputations. Ramaphosa elected ANC Deputy President in a resounding victory on 18 December: he received 3,018 votes, while Mathews Phosa received 470 votes and Tokyo Sexwale received 463 votes.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: After his reelection in the 2014 elections, President Zuma appointed Ramaphosa the Deputy President of South Africa on 25 May 2014; Ramaphosa was sworn into office by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng the following day.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: After his election as ANC Deputy President, Ramaphosa had begun the process of resigning from various business positions, and in 2014 he concluded the process, as required by the Executive Ethics Code. This entailed his exit from Shanduka, from McDonald's South Africa, from platinum producer Lonmin, and from all other companies which might give rise to a conflict of interest, particularly in industries regulated by the government. His other interests – including a share trading company, his livestock farms, his property interests, and a sports car company – were placed in a blind trust. Parliament's 2014 Register of Members’ Interests reflected over R76-million in company shares held by Ramaphosa (although that figure excluded shares held together with private individuals), as well as his ownership of 30 townhouses in Johannesburg and two apartments in Cape Town.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Alongside his duties as Deputy President, Ramaphosa was made Leader of Government Business in the National Assembly in terms of section 91(4) of the Constitution, a role which involved coordinating between Parliament and Zuma's cabinet. On 3 June, Zuma also appointed him the Chairman of the National Planning Commission, with Jeff Radebe as his deputy. In addition, Ramaphosa was responsible for developing a proposal to implement a national minimum wage, leading consultation on the matter between Zuma's administration and representatives of labour and business. The proposal was approved by cabinet in November 2017.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In July 2014, Ramaphosa called for unity in the country after Julius Malema argued that the Afrikaans portion of the national anthem should be scrapped. Ramaphosa said, "We are about building a nation and we must extend a hand of friendship, a hand of continued reconciliation to those who feel that the national anthem does not represent them any longer, and it can happen on both sides". Late in Zuma's term, Ramaphosa also began to address publicly the widespread allegations of corruption in Zuma's administration.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In 2018, Ramaphosa, in Zuma's stead, led South Africa's delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, to promote investment and business in South Africa. His other official trips abroad included a two-day working visit to Vietnam and Singapore, the objectives of which included consolidating trade relations, as well as the opportunity for South Africa to learn from the Singaporean economic model and the role it prescribed for state-owned enterprises. Ramaphosa also continued to serve as Zuma's Special Envoy during the mediation in the South Sudanese conflict, and participated in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediation in neighbouring Lesotho.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa stood for the ANC presidency in 2017, at the expiry of Zuma's term. Although he received the NUM's endorsement as early as September 2016, his campaign did not begin until April 2017. Under the banner #CR17 Siyavuma, Ramaphosa ran on anti-corruption platform, with an emphasis on economic policies conducive to industrialisation and investment. He was endorsed by Cosatu and the SACP; by the provincial leadership of the ANC's Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, and Gauteng provinces; and by politicians including education minister Angie Motshekga, former finance minister Pravin Gordhan, Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini, and former KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa's primary opponent was Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who had the endorsement of Zuma, her ex-husband. On 18 December 2017, he was elected the President of the ANC at the party's 54th National Conference, defeating Dlamini-Zuma by 2,440 votes to 2,261.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In his first speech as ANC leader, Ramaphosa pledged to stamp out corruption in the party. He subsequently spearheaded what he said was a campaign to "renew" the ANC internally and to restore its integrity and public image. Among other things, this campaign entailed the implementation of the new step-aside rule to suspend ANC leaders accused of corruption. This, in turn, led to a confrontation with ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule, who, upon his suspension from the party in May 2021, attempted to retaliate by suspending Ramaphosa, accusing him of irregularities in the financing of the CR2017 campaign. Magashule's attempt had no legal force because of his own suspension.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In December 2022, Ramaphosa was re-elected leader of the ANC, running against Zweli Mkhize, for a second five-year term. The next parliamentary general election is set to take place in 2024, with the ANC largely expected to remain the largest party in South Africa, despite losing 19 seats in the last election.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Following President Jacob Zuma's resignation in February 2018, Ramaphosa was elected unopposed as President of South Africa by the National Assembly on 15 February 2018. Ramaphosa took his oath of office in the presidential guesthouse, Tuynhuys, by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Markets rallied strongly the day after Ramaphosa assumed the presidency with stocks rising and the rand reaching its firmest since early 2015. Government bonds also increased in strength.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 16 February 2018, Ramaphosa gave his first State of the Nation Address as the president of South Africa, the first time in a democratic South Africa where the president delivered his State of the Nation Address without a deputy president. Ramaphosa emphasised the need to grow the economy of South Africa, increase tourism and youth employment, as well as reduce the size of the Cabinet. In this speech, Ramaphosa also focused on the importance of keeping Mandela's legacy alive.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa's speech was met with mostly positive reviews from opposition parties saying that his speech was positive and that it would bring about change, but that they would hold him accountable.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 17 February 2018, Ramaphosa, as commander in chief of the South African National Defence Force, attended the Armed Forces Inter-Faith Service at the Mittah Seperepere Convention Centre in Kimberley and made his first public speech as the president of South Africa.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 26 February 2018, Ramaphosa, who had inherited Jacob Zuma's cabinet, reshuffled cabinet for the first time removing many of the cabinet members who had been controversial through the Zuma era and who had close links to the Gupta family. Ramaphosa also named the deputy president of the African National Congress and the Premier of Mpumalanga, David Mabuza, as the country's Deputy President.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 8 May 2019, the African National Congress led by President Ramaphosa won 57.50% of the vote in the 2019 South African general election. Ramaphosa was subsequently elected unopposed to his first full term as president by the National Assembly on 22 May 2019. As Ramaphosa had previously been elected as president to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of his predecessor, he is constitutionally eligible to serve two full terms.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: At the 2020 AU summit, Ramaphosa expressed support for the African Continental Free Trade Area and described it as a major driver for reigniting industrialization and paving the way for Africa's integration into the global market. Ramaphosa also stated that the free trade agreement will make Africa a player of considerable weight and scale in the global market as well.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: At the 2020 AU Summit, Ramaphosa also expressed support for closing the gender gap and ending gender inequality.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Since Ramaphosa became president he has made land reform and the economy his main priorities, as well as dealing with the outbreak of listeriosis which has claimed the lives of over 100 since the start of 2018.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In February 2018, South Africa's parliament voted 241–83 to begin amending the "property clause" in the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 19 March 2018, Ramaphosa suspended Tom Moyane as the Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service after Moyane had refused to step down.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Under his leadership, the African National Congress has pushed for a constitutional amendment allowing the government to confiscate farms owned by White South Africans. He has said that the state having the power to seize property for no compensation will encourage economic growth. In a time when the Rand is at a two-year low, economists have been doubtful over the possibility of this policy being successful.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 14 August 2018, Ramaphosa appointed Dr. Silas Ramaite as the Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) following the ruling by the Constitutional Court that Director Shaun Abrahams had been appointed unlawfully by the former president, Jacob Zuma.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: South Africa made world headlines because of attacks against foreign nationals within the borders of the country, with many South Africans blaming foreign nationals for the country's socio-economic issues.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 10 June 2021, Ramaphosa announced that his government would raise the threshold for the amount of electricity that private companies could produce without a license - from 1 Megawatt to 100 Megawatts. The decision was taken in order to respond to the increasing challenges faced by the country during the ongoing energy crisis, and to give "oomph" in Ramaphosa's words, to South Africa's economic recovery.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 11 February 2022, Ramaphosa announces that his government will formalise the South African cannabis industry, seeking to grow both production and exports.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa launched the Youth Employment Service (YES) initiative as a means to employ one million youth and giving them more experience in the working field, with the South African Government even introducing the Employment Tax Incentive, which would reduce employer's costs when hiring youth.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 14 August 2018, President Ramaphosa addressed the launch of the Sanitation Appropriate For Education (SAFE) initiative in Pretoria to respond to the sanitary challenges facing the country's poorest schools.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa made his first international trip as President of South Africa to the Republic of Angola and met with President João Lourenço in his capacity as chairperson of the SADC to talk about peace and defence. Ramaphosa made his first international trip as the president of South Africa on 2 March 2018 to the Republic of Angola and met with President João Lourenço as the chair of the SADC.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 20 March 2018, Ramaphosa made a trip to Kigali, Rwanda along with Foreign Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, and met with President Paul Kagame and spoke about restoring relations between South Africa and Rwanda, later participating as panelists on the African Continental Free Trade Area Business Forum (ACFTABF) ahead of the 10th African Union Extraordinary Summit. The following day, Ramaphosa signed the Kigali Declaration on the establishment of the ACFTABF at the 10th African Union Extraordinary Summit.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa hosted the 11th BRICS summit for 25–27 July 2018, at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 10 May 2021, Ramaphosa said that the ANC condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the potential evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the "brutal attacks on Palestinian protesters" at Al-Aqsa Mosque.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022, Ramaphosa did not move to condemn Russia or agree to enter any sanctions against Russia. A month later, he stated that maintaining neutrality was essential to his having been asked to mediate between the two countries leadership. Despite the on-going invasion and reports of alleged war crimes being committed by Russia; Ramaphosa also then blamed NATO's proximity to Russian borders for the actions of Vladimir Putin and his allies, stating that "The war could have been avoided if NATO had heeded the warnings from amongst its own leaders and officials over the years that its eastward expansion would lead to greater, not less, instability in the region."


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa has been internationally praised for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa with the BBC commenting that, in this regard, "Ramaphosa has emerged as a formidable leader — composed, compassionate, but seized by the urgency of the moment." In October 2020, Ramaphosa began a period of self-isolation after a guest at a dinner party he attended tested positive for coronavirus.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 12 December 2021, Minister in the Presidency, Mondli Gungubele announced that Ramaphosa had tested positive for COVID-19, and deputy president, David Mabuza would take over "all responsibilities" for the following week.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa publicly declared in South Africa on 24 May 2018 that he would be donating half of his salary (R3.6 million annually) to charity in honour of late former South African president Nelson Mandela. He said the gesture was aimed at encouraging the wealthy to dedicate some of their pay to help build the nation. The donation was set to be managed by the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF).


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: The Marikana massacre, as referred to in the media, occurred when police broke up an occupation by striking Lonmin workers of a "koppie" (hilltop) near Nkaneng shack settlement in Marikana on 16 August 2012. As a result of the police shootings, 34 miners died and an additional 78 miners were injured causing anger and outcry against the police and South African government. Further controversy emerged after it was discovered that most of the victims were shot in the back and many victims were shot far from police lines. The violence on 16 August 2012 was the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since the end of the apartheid era.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: During the Marikana Commission, it also emerged that Lonmin management solicited Ramaphosa, as Lonmin shareholder and ANC heavyweight, to coordinate "concomitant action" against "criminal" protesters and therefore is seen by many as being responsible for the massacre.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Under the investigation of Farlam committee, Ramaphosa said that Lonmin lobbied government and the SAPS firstly to secure a massive police presence at Lonmin and secondly to characterise what was taking place as a criminal rather than an industrial relations event.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: The Marikana Commission of Inquiry ultimately found that given the deaths that had already occurred, his intervention did not cause the increase in police on site, nor did he know the operation would take place on 16 August.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: He was employed on the board of directors of Lonmin while taking an active stance when the Marikana Massacre took place on Lonmin's Marikana premises. On 15 August 2012 he called for action against the Marikana miners' strike, which he called "dastardly criminal" conduct that needed "concomitant action" to be taken. He later admitted and regretted his involvement in the act and said that it could have been avoided if contingency plans had been made prior to the labour strike.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: In August 2017, the "Sunday Independent" published an article alleging that Ramaphosa had had several extramarital affairs, including with some women to whom he had given money. Ramaphosa denied the allegations, claiming that they were politically motivated aimed to derail his presidential campaign.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 19 July 2019, the Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, released a report in which she claimed that Ramaphosa had intentionally misled the Parliament of South Africa over the controversial Bosasa donations to his CR17 ANC presidential campaign. COPE Leader Mosiuoa Lekota called for Ramaphosa to be impeached while DA Leader Mmusi Maimane proposed the establishment of an ad hoc committee to effectively investigate these allegations. Ramaphosa briefed the nation on 21 July 2019 and described the report as "fundamentally flawed" and called for a judicial review of Mkhwebane's findings.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa has been criticised for the conduct of his business interests, although he has never been indicted for illegal activity in any of these controversies. Controversial business dealings include his joint venture with Glencore and allegations of benefitting illegally from coal deals with Eskom which he has staunchly denied, during which Glencore was in the public spotlight for its tendentious business activities involving Tony Blair in the Middle East; his son, Andile Ramaphosa, has also been found to have accepted payments totalling R2 million from Bosasa, the security company implicated in corruption and state capture by the Zondo Commission;


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: On 9 February 2020 it is alleged about US$4 million in cash was stolen from Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo, although the exact amount was disputed.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa received the Olof Palme Prize in Stockholm in October 1987. In 2009, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2009, presented by Awards Council member Archbishop Desmond Tutu at a ceremony at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town. He has also frequently been listed as an influential individual: he was voted 34th in the 2004 list of Top 100 Great South Africans, was included in the "Time" 100 in 2007 and 2019.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: He has received honorary doctorates from, among others, the University of Natal, the University of Port Elizabeth, the University of Cape Town, the University of the North, the National University of Lesotho, National University of Ireland Galway, the University of Massachusetts Boston, and the University of Pennsylvania.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: Ramaphosa was married from 1978 to 1989 to Hope Ramaphosa, with whom he has a son, and from 1991 to 1993 to the now deceased businesswoman Nomazizi Mtshotshisa. In 1996, he married Tshepo Motsepe, a medical doctor and the sister of South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe. He is thought to have five children.


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: He owns a luxury mansion at the foot of Lion's Head in Cape Town, as well as 30 other properties. In 2018, Investing.com estimated his net worth at R6.4 billion ($450 million).


title: Cyril Ramaphosa

text: He is a polyglot, and is known for using a variety of South African languages when delivering his speeches.


title: Ragdoll

text: The Ragdoll is a breed of cat with a distinct colorpoint coat and blue eyes. Its morphology is large and weighty, and it has a semi-long and silky soft coat. American breeder Ann Baker developed Ragdolls in the 1960s. They are best known for their docile, placid temperament and affectionate nature. The name 'Ragdoll' is derived from the tendency of individuals from the original breeding stock to go limp and relaxed when picked up. The breed is particularly popular in both the United Kingdom and the United States.


title: Ragdoll

text: Ragdolls are often known as "dog-like cats" or "puppy-like cats", due to their tendency to follow people around, their receptiveness to handling, and their relative lack of aggression towards other pets.


title: Ragdoll

text: Ragdolls are distinguishable by the upside-down V-shaped markings on their foreheads, large round blue eyes, soft, thick coats, thick limbs, long tails, and soft bodies. Their color rings are commonly tricolor or bicolor.


title: Ragdoll

text: The breed was developed in Riverside, California, by breeder Ann Baker. A regular, non-pedigreed, white domestic longhaired cat named Josephine produced several litters of typical cats. Josephine was of a Persian/Angora type and had litters sired by several unknown male Birman or Burmese-like cats, one of which had the Siamese point coloration. Josephine later produced kittens with a docile, placid temperament, affectionate nature, and a tendency to go limp and relaxed when picked up.


title: Ragdoll

text: Out of those early litters came Blackie, an all-black Burmese-like male, and Daddy Warbucks, a seal point with white feet. Daddy Warbucks sired the founding bi-color female Fugianna, and Blackie sired Buckwheat, a dark brown/black Burmese-like female. Both Fugianna and Buckwheat were daughters of Josephine. All Ragdolls are descended from Baker's cats through matings of Daddy Warbucks to Fugianna and Buckwheat.


title: Ragdoll

text: Baker, in an unusual move, spurned traditional cat breeding associations. She trademarked the name "Ragdoll", set up her own registry – the International Ragdoll Cat Association (IRCA) – around 1971, and enforced stringent standards on anyone who wanted to breed or sell cats under that name. The Ragdolls were also not allowed to be registered by other breed associations. The IRCA is still in existence today but is quite small, particularly since Baker's death in 1997.


title: Ragdoll

text: In 1975, a group led by a husband-and-wife team, Denny and Laura Dayton, broke ranks with the IRCA with the aim of gaining mainstream recognition for the Ragdoll. Beginning with a breeding pair of IRCA cats, this group eventually developed the Ragdoll standard currently accepted by major cat registries such as the CFA and the FIFe. Around the time of the spread of the Ragdoll breed in America during the early 1960s, a breeding pair of Ragdolls was exported to the UK. Eight more cats followed this pair to fully establish the breed in the UK, where it is recognized by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy.


title: Ragdoll

text: The Ragdoll has been known to have a very floppy and calm nature, with claims that these characteristics have been passed down from the Persian and Birman breeds. Opinions vary as to whether this trait might be the result of genetic mutation or merely an instinctive reaction from being picked up as kittens by their mother. The extreme docility of some individuals has led to the myth that Ragdolls are pain resistant. Some breeders in Britain have tried to breed away from the limpness owing to concerns that extreme docility 'might not be in the best interests of the cat'.


title: Ragdoll

text: Breed standard marketing and publicity material describe the Ragdoll as affectionate, intelligent, relaxed in temperament, gentle, and an easy-to-handle lap cat. The animals are often known as 'puppy cats', 'dog-like cats', 'cat-dogs', etc., because of their placid nature and affectionate behavior, with the cats often following owners from room to room as well as seeking physical affection akin to certain dog breeds. Ragdolls can be trained to retrieve toys and enjoy doing so. They have a very playful nature that often lasts well into their senior years. Unlike many other breeds, Ragdolls prefer staying low to the ground rather than the highest point in the household.


title: Ragdoll

text: The Ragdoll is one of the largest domesticated cat breeds. Fully-grown females weigh from . Males are substantially larger, ranging from or more. It can take up to four years for a Ragdoll to reach mature size.


title: Ragdoll

text: They have a sturdy body, bulky frame, and proportionate legs. Their heads are broad with a flat top and wide space between the ears. They have long, muscular bodies with broad chests and short necks. Their tails are bushy and long in length, their paws are large, round, and tufted, and their coats are silky, dense, and medium to long length. Due to their coats tending to be long, they usually require brushing at least twice a week. Adults develop knickerbockers on their hind legs and a ruff around their necks.


title: Ragdoll

text: The breed is often known for its large round deep blue eyes, though other cats may have that feature as well. The genes for point coloration are also responsible for these distinctive blue eyes. More intense shades of blue are favored in cat shows.


title: Ragdoll

text: Although the breed has a plush coat, it consists mainly of long guard hairs, while the lack of a dense undercoat results, according to the Cat Fanciers' Association, in 'reduced shedding and matting'. But there may be a noticeable increase of shedding in the spring.


title: Ragdoll

text: Ragdolls come in six distinct colors: seal, chocolate, red, and the corresponding 'dilutes': blue, lilac, and cream. There also are the lynx and tortoiseshell variations in all colors and the three patterns. Ragdoll kittens are born white: they have good color at 8–10 weeks and full color and coat at 3–4 years.


title: Ragdoll

text: One study, utilizing Swedish insurance data, showed that of the common cat breeds, the Ragdoll and Siamese have the lowest survival rate. They typically live from 12 to 15 years.


title: Ragdoll

text: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a common heart disease in all cats and is most commonly genetic in cause. The disease causes thickening of the cardiac wall, which makes the heart pump blood less efficiently. It can, in some instances, lead to sudden death. In Ragdolls that are homozygous positive for the disease (having two copies of the HCM gene), the condition can present early (as young as six months) and tends to be severe, with most cats dying by age 3. Heterozygous (one copy of HCM gene) cats tend to have later onset and slower progression of the disease, with less severe impact.


title: Ragdoll

text: A DNA test was developed in 2007 to identify the gene that causes HCM in Ragdolls. Breeding only from Ragdolls that are free from this gene (homozygous negative) will ensure that they will not develop the form of HCM associated with it.


title: Ragdoll

text: The allelic frequencies of the Ragdoll HCM mutation R820W were 0.17 in cats from Italy and 0.23 in cats from the US in 2013. This reference states that the R820W prevalence is 30% in UK. The HCM prevalence was found to be 2.9% (95% CI = 2.7–8.6%) in this study.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: María José de Pablo Fernández, known professionally as Cote de Pablo (born November 12, 1979), is a Chilean-American actress and singer. Born in Santiago, Chile, she moved to the United States at the age of ten, where she studied acting.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo co-hosted episodes of the Latin-American talk show "Control" with former "Entertainment Tonight" host Carlos Ponce at the age of 15 before attending Carnegie Mellon University to study music and theatre. After appearing in a number of television roles, she was cast to portray main character Ziva David in the CBS television series "NCIS" in 2005 and won an ALMA Award for the role in 2011.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: She performed a portion of Tom Waits' song "Temptation" for a 2008 episode of "NCIS". Outside the series, she has sung on Roberto Pitre's "Vivo En Vida" CD.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: She was born in Santiago, Chile, to Francisco de Pablo and María Olga Fernández. She has a younger sister, Andrea, and a brother, Francisco, who works as a DJ. When de Pablo was 10 years old, her mother, María Olga Fernández, took a job in Miami, Florida, at a Spanish-language television network. While there, de Pablo attended Arvida Middle School and New World School of the Arts, where she studied musical theatre. In the fifth grade, she found many people could not pronounce her first name of "María José", so she asked them to call her "Coté", a common Chilean nickname for María José. De Pablo attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she studied music and theater and appeared in several plays, including "And the World Goes 'Round," "The House of Bernarda Alba," "Indiscretions," "The Fantasticks," and "A Little Night Music." She graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theater.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo began working in the entertainment industry at age 15, when she hosted some episodes of the talk show "Control" (1994–95) on Univision, alongside former "Entertainment Tonight" host Carlos Ponce.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: After graduation, she moved to New York City to find work as an actress, working as a waitress in an Indian restaurant in Manhattan and an Italian eatery in Brooklyn to support herself. In 2000, she had roles in Fox's "The $treet" and the CBS-drama "The Education of Max Bickford". She picked up parts in the New York City Public Theater, on the TV show "All My Children," and in commercials. De Pablo played the role of Marguerite Cisneros in "The Jury" (broadcast on the Fox Network). The show was short-lived, screening only 10 one-hour episodes. In 2005, De Pablo was about to make her Broadway debut in "The Mambo Kings" as Dolores Fuentes, but the show closed after a short trial run in San Francisco.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo is primarily known for her portrayal of Ziva David, an Israeli Mossad officer turned NCIS agent, in the police procedural drama "NCIS". She had submitted a videotape audition while waiting for "The Mambo Kings" to move forward and was asked to fly to Los Angeles for a screen test two days after it was canceled. Network executives arranged for her to act alongside series regular Michael Weatherly to test for chemistry during her second audition; he went off script by brushing her hair back and commenting, "You remind me of Salma Hayek". De Pablo's response to Weatherly was to stay in character and she "dismissed him completely". Afterward, producer Donald P. Bellisario met with her as she was waiting for a cab to take her back to the airport, telling her she had landed the part.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo described the character as "someone completely different from anyone else on the show because she's been around men all her life; she's used to men of authority. She's not afraid of men."


title: Cote de Pablo

text: In 2006, she won an Imagen Award at the Imagen Foundation Awards for Best Supporting Actress in Television for "NCIS". In 2008 and 2009, she was nominated for the same award. Also in 2008 and 2009, she was nominated for an ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Television Series. In 2011, de Pablo was nominated once again for an Imagen Award, but this time it was for Best Actress in Television, not Supporting Actress. She won the 2011 ALMA Award for Favorite Television Actress—Leading Role in Drama.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: On July 10, 2013, it was reported by CBS that de Pablo would be leaving "NCIS" for undisclosed reasons, although she remained long enough to conclude her character Ziva David's storyline at the beginning of season 11. Later, in a 2016 Q&A session, de Pablo stated that part of the reason why she left the show was because of the direction of her character's arc and feeling that the scripts were not good enough to make her stay.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo later told Cindy Elavsky that Ziva could come back because she did not die. However, in the season 13 finale of the series, it was stated that her character had apparently died in an explosion in Israel.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: Three years later in 2019, season 16 episode 'She', revealed that Ziva is alive and has gone into hiding off-screen. De Pablo made a surprise unannounced return to the show in the last scene of the season 16 finale, which aired on May 21, 2019, in which Ziva arrives at Gibbs' basement to warn him that his life is in danger. Producers confirmed that de Pablo would appear in the first two episodes of the show's 17th season and then in the season's tenth and eleventh episodes as part of her storyline.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: In 2014 de Pablo was cast in the film "The 33", about the 2010 Copiapó mining accident, as the wife of one of the miners. She was also cast in the 2015 CBS miniseries "The Dovekeepers", based on the Alice Hoffman novel. In March 2016, "Deadline Hollywood" reported de Pablo is slated to return to series television as Laura Kale in Syfy's thriller-drama, "Prototype", pending negotiations. In April 2016, TVLine columnist Matt Mitovich confirmed de Pablo's return to series television. The show was to feature "three unlikely colleagues—two of them played by de Pablo and Jack Davenport—who inadvertently stumble upon an invention that challenges the very nature of quantum physics—a discovery which in turn puts their lives in grave danger." In August 2016, "Deadline" reported that Syfy passed on the show.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: On August 28, 2018 "Deadline" announced that de Pablo and former "NCIS" castmate Michael Weatherly would be the executive producers of the upcoming CBS detective drama "MIA", written by Shepard Boucher.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo performed a portion of Tom Waits' song "Temptation" on the "NCIS" episode "", which first aired in the US on September 23, 2008. Her full performance of the song, including some lyrics in French, appears on "NCIS: The Official TV Soundtrack", which was released on February 10, 2009.


title: Cote de Pablo

text: She is the singer in Roberto Pitre's "Vivo en vida" where she sings "Samba in Prelude" and "Cry Me a River". De Pablo was also featured on "The 33"'s official soundtrack, singing "Gracias a la Vida".


title: Cote de Pablo

text: De Pablo was in a long-term relationship with actor Diego Serrano, but they were reported to have separated in June 2015.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: "Sensitivity" and "specificity" mathematically describe the accuracy of a test which reports the presence or absence of a condition. Individuals for which the condition is satisfied are considered "positive" and those for which it is not are considered "negative".


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: If the true condition can not be known, a "gold standard test" is assumed to be correct. In a diagnostic test, sensitivity is a measure of how well a test can identify true positives and specificity is a measure of how well a test can identify true negatives. For all testing, both diagnostic and screening, there is usually a trade-off between sensitivity and specificity, such that higher sensitivities will mean lower specificities and vice versa.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: If the goal is to return the ratio at which the test identifies the percentage of people highly likely to be identified as having the condition, the number of true positives should be high and the number of false negatives should be very low, which results in high sensitivity. This is especially important when the consequence of failing to treat the condition is serious and/or the treatment is very effective and has minimal side effects.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: If the goal is to return the ratio at which the test identifies the percentage of people highly likely to be identified as not having the condition, the number of true negatives should be high and the number of false positives should be very low, which results in high specificity. That is, people highly likely to be excluded by the test. This is especially important when people who are identified as having a condition may be subjected to more testing, expense, stigma, anxiety, etc.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The terms "sensitivity" and "specificity" were introduced by American biostatistician Jacob Yerushalmy in 1947.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: Imagine a study evaluating a test that screens people for a disease. Each person taking the test either has or does not have the disease. The test outcome can be positive (classifying the person as having the disease) or negative (classifying the person as not having the disease). The test results for each subject may or may not match the subject's actual status. In that setting:


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: After getting the numbers of true positives, false positives, true negatives, and false negatives, the sensitivity and specificity for the test can be calculated. If it turns out that the sensitivity is high then any person who has the disease is likely to be classified as positive by the test. On the other hand, if the specificity is high, any person who does not have the disease is likely to be classified as negative by the test. An NIH web site has a discussion of how these ratios are calculated.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: Consider the example of a medical test for diagnosing a condition. Sensitivity refers to the test's ability to correctly detect ill patients who do have the condition. In the example of a medical test used to identify a condition, the sensitivity (sometimes also named the detection rate in a clinical setting) of the test is the proportion of people who test positive for the disease among those who have the disease. Mathematically, this can be expressed as:


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: A negative result in a test with high sensitivity is useful for ruling out disease. A high sensitivity test is reliable when its result is negative since it rarely misdiagnoses those who have the disease. A test with 100% sensitivity will recognize all patients with the disease by testing positive. A negative test result would definitively "rule out" presence of the disease in a patient. However, a positive result in a test with high sensitivity is not necessarily useful for ruling in disease. Suppose a 'bogus' test kit is designed to always give a positive reading. When used on diseased patients, all patients test positive, giving the test 100% sensitivity. However, sensitivity does not take into account false positives. The bogus test also returns positive on all healthy patients, giving it a false positive rate of 100%, rendering it useless for detecting or "ruling in" the disease.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: If a test cannot be repeated, indeterminate samples either should be excluded from the analysis (the number of exclusions should be stated when quoting sensitivity) or can be treated as false negatives (which gives the worst-case value for sensitivity and may therefore underestimate it).


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: Consider the example of a medical test for diagnosing a disease. Specificity relates to the test's ability to correctly reject healthy patients without a condition.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: Specificity of a test is the proportion of those who truly do not have the condition who test negative for the condition. Mathematically, this can also be written as:


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: A positive result in a test with high specificity is useful for ruling in disease. The test rarely gives positive results in healthy patients. A positive result signifies a high probability of the presence of disease. A test with 100% specificity will recognize all patients without the disease by testing negative, so a positive test result would definitely rule in the presence of the disease. However, a negative result from a test with high specificity is not necessarily useful for ruling out disease. For example, a test that always returns a negative test result will have a specificity of 100% because specificity does not consider false negatives. A test like that would return negative for patients with the disease, making it useless for ruling out the disease.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The above graphical illustration is meant to show the relationship between sensitivity and specificity. The black, dotted line in the center of the graph is where the sensitivity and specificity are the same. As one moves to the left of the black dotted line, the sensitivity increases, reaching its maximum value of 100% at line A, and the specificity decreases. The sensitivity at line A is 100% because at that point there are zero false negatives, meaning that all the negative test results are true negatives. When moving to the right, the opposite applies, the specificity increases until it reaches the B line and becomes 100% and the sensitivity decreases. The specificity at line B is 100% because the number of false positives is zero at that line, meaning all the positive test results are true positives.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The middle solid line in both figures that show the level of sensitivity and specificity is the test cutoff point. Moving this line resulting in the trade-off between the level of sensitivity and specificity as previously described. The left-hand side of this line contains the data points that have the condition (the blue dots indicate the false negatives). The right-hand side of the line shows the data points that do not have the condition (red dots indicate false positives). The total number of data points is 80. 40 of them have a medical condition and are on the left side. The rest is on the right side and do not have the medical condition.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: For the figure that shows high sensitivity and low specificity, the number of false negatives is 3, and the number of data point that has the medical condition is 40, so the sensitivity is . The number of false positives is 9, so the specificity is . Similarly, the number of false negatives in another figure is 8, and the number of data point that has the medical condition is 40, so the sensitivity is . The number of false positives is 3, so the specificity is .


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The red dot indicates the patient with the medical condition. The red background indicates the area where the test predicts the data point to be positive. The true positive in this figure is 6, and false negatives of 0 (because all positive condition is correctly predicted as positive). Therefore, the sensitivity is 100% (from ). This situation is also illustrated in the previous figure where the dotted line is at position A (the left-hand side is predicted as negative by the model, the right-hand side is predicted as positive by the model). When the dotted line, test cut-off line, is at position A, the test correctly predicts all the population of the true positive class, but it will fail to correctly identify the data point from the true negative class.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: Similar to the previously explained figure, the red dot indicates the patient with the medical condition. However, in this case, the green background indicates that the test predicts that all patients are free of the medical condition. The number of data point that is true negative is then 26, and the number of false positives is 0. This result in 100% specificity (from ). Therefore, sensitivity or specificity alone cannot be used to measure the performance of the test.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: In medical diagnosis, test sensitivity is the ability of a test to correctly identify those with the disease (true positive rate), whereas test specificity is the ability of the test to correctly identify those without the disease (true negative rate).


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: If 100 patients known to have a disease were tested, and 43 test positive, then the test has 43% sensitivity. If 100 with no disease are tested and 96 return a completely negative result, then the test has 96% specificity. Sensitivity and specificity are prevalence-independent test characteristics, as their values are intrinsic to the test and do not depend on the disease prevalence in the population of interest. Positive and negative predictive values, but not sensitivity or specificity, are values influenced by the prevalence of disease in the population that is being tested. These concepts are illustrated graphically in this applet Bayesian clinical diagnostic model which show the positive and negative predictive values as a function of the prevalence, sensitivity and specificity.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: It is often claimed that a highly specific test is effective at ruling in a disease when positive, while a highly sensitive test is deemed effective at ruling out a disease when negative. This has led to the widely used mnemonics SPPIN and SNNOUT, according to which a highly specific test, when positive, rules in disease (SP-P-IN), and a highly sensitive test, when negative, rules out disease (SN-N-OUT). Both rules of thumb are, however, inferentially misleading, as the diagnostic power of any test is determined by both its sensitivity "and" its specificity.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The tradeoff between specificity and sensitivity is explored in ROC analysis as a trade off between TPR and FPR (that is, recall and fallout). Giving them equal weight optimizes informedness = specificity + sensitivity − 1 = TPR − FPR, the magnitude of which gives the probability of an informed decision between the two classes (> 0 represents appropriate use of information, 0 represents chance-level performance, < 0 represents perverse use of information).


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The sensitivity index or "d′" (pronounced "dee-prime") is a statistic used in signal detection theory. It provides the separation between the means of the signal and the noise distributions, compared against the standard deviation of the noise distribution. For normally distributed signal and noise with mean and standard deviations formula_3 and formula_4, and formula_5 and formula_6, respectively, "d′" is defined as:


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: An estimate of "d′" can be also found from measurements of the hit rate and false-alarm rate. It is calculated as:


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: "d′" is a dimensionless statistic. A higher "d′" indicates that the signal can be more readily detected.


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: The relationship between sensitivity, specificity, and similar terms can be understood using the following table. Consider a group with P positive instances and N negative instances of some condition. The four outcomes can be formulated in a 2×2 "contingency table" or "confusion matrix", as well as derivations of several metrics using the four outcomes, as follows:


title: Sensitivity and specificity

text: Sensitivity and specificity values alone may be highly misleading. The 'worst-case' sensitivity or specificity must be calculated in order to avoid reliance on experiments with few results. For example, a particular test may easily show 100% sensitivity if tested against the gold standard four times, but a single additional test against the gold standard that gave a poor result would imply a sensitivity of only 80%. A common way to do this is to state the binomial proportion confidence interval, often calculated using a Wilson score interval.