title: Thomas Wolsey

text: When mass riots broke out in East Anglia, which should have been under the control of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Henry was quick to denounce the Amicable Grant, and began to lose faith in Wolsey. During the relatively peaceful period in England after the War of the Roses, its population increased. With more demand for food and no additional supply, prices increased. Landowners were forced to enclose land and convert to pastoral farming, which brought in more profit. Wolsey's quest against enclosure was fruitless in terms of restoring economic stability.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The same can be said for Wolsey's legal reforms. After he made justice accessible to all and encouraged more people to bring cases to court, the system was abused. The courts became overloaded with incoherent, tenuous cases, which would have been far too expensive to have rambled on in the Common Law courts. Wolsey eventually ordered all minor cases out of the Star Chamber in 1528. The result of this venture was further resentment by the nobility and the gentry.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: From 1515, when he became cardinal, until his death, Wolsey used art and architecture to underpin his positions. He initiated a building campaign on a scale not only unprecedented for an English churchman and Lord Chancellor, but also exceeded by few English kings. In so doing, he brought Italian Renaissance ideas, classical embellishments, and architectural models into English architecture. Scholars generally cite Somerset House in London (1547–52) as the first classical building in England, built for Edward Seymour, the first Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector to King Edward VI. But Wolsey embraced Italian-inspired classicism nearly half a century before Seymour, though more theoretically than visually. Wolsey's subsequent disgrace over his failure to garner papal approval of an annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon has clouded the fact that he was not only the first high-profile patron in England to seek out and promote Italian classicism in art, architecture, and magnificence, but also that his contributions endured.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Among Wolsey's projects were lavish, classically inspired additions to York Palace in London, the Archbishop of York's residence. He supervised the grandiose temporary buildings at the Field of Cloth of Gold and renovated Hampton Court, which he later relinquished to the king. Wolsey's use of architecture as a symbol of power, along with his introduction of Italian classical ornamentation, set a trend continued by Henry VIII and others. Wolsey oversaw tombs for Henry's VIII's parents at Westminster Abbey and negotiated contracts for Henry VIII's tomb as well as one for himself. If these works had been completed as planned, they would be among Europe's largest, most elaborate, and grandest tombs. The college originally founded and planned by Wolsey and refounded by Henry VIII (Christ Church) remains the largest and grandest of all Oxford colleges.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: As well as his State duties, Wolsey simultaneously attempted to exert his influence over the Church in England. As cardinal and, from 1524, lifetime papal legate, Wolsey continually vied for control over others in the Church. His principal rival was William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who made it more difficult for Wolsey to follow through with his plans for reform. Despite making promises to reform the bishoprics of England and Ireland, and, in 1519, encouraging monasteries to embark on a programme of reform, he did nothing to bring about these changes.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In spite of having many enemies, Wolsey retained Henry VIII's confidence until Henry decided to seek an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. Wolsey's failure to secure the annulment directly caused his downfall and arrest. It was rumoured that Anne Boleyn and her faction convinced Henry that Wolsey was deliberately slowing proceedings; as a result, he was arrested in 1529, and the Pope decided that the official decision should be made in Rome, not England.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In 1529, Wolsey was stripped of his government office and property, including his magnificently expanded residence of Hampton Court, which Henry took to replace the Palace of Westminster as his own main London residence. Wolsey was permitted to remain Archbishop of York. He travelled to Yorkshire for the first time in his career, but at Cawood in North Yorkshire, he was accused of treason and ordered to London by Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In great distress, he set out for the capital with his personal chaplain, Edmund Bonner. He fell ill on the journey, and died at Leicester on 29 November 1530, around the age of 57. Just before his death he reputedly spoke these words:


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In keeping with his practice of erecting magnificent buildings at Hampton Court, Westminster and Oxford, Wolsey had planned a magnificent tomb at Windsor by Benedetto da Rovezzano and Giovanni da Maiano, but he was buried in Leicester Abbey (now Abbey Park) without a monument.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Henry VIII contemplated using the impressive black sarcophagus for himself, but Lord Nelson now lies in it, in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral. Henry often receives credit for artistic patronage that properly belongs to Wolsey.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey lived in a "non-canonical" marriage for around a decade with a woman called Joan Larke of Yarmouth, Norfolk. The edict that priests, regardless of their functions or the character of their work, should remain celibate had not been wholeheartedly accepted in England.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey subsequently had two children, both before he was made bishop: a son, Thomas Wynter (born circa 1510), and a daughter, Dorothy (born circa 1512), both of whom lived to adulthood. The son was sent to live with a family in Willesden and tutored in his early years by Maurice Birchinshaw. He later married and had children of his own. Dorothy was adopted by John Clansey, and was in due course placed in the convent at Shaftesbury Abbey.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Following his rapid promotion, Larke became a source of embarrassment to Wolsey, who arranged for her marriage to George Legh of Adlington, in Cheshire, circa 1519. He provided the dowry. Henry VIII had a mansion built for Legh at Cheshunt Great House.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Before Wolsey was removed from power, he planned to make his home town of Ipswich a seat of learning. He built a substantial college, which for two years, 1528–1530, was parent of the Queen Elizabeth School or Ipswich School, which today flourishes on another site. All that remains of Wolsey's structure is the former waterside gate, figured by


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In 1930 Wolsey was commemorated in Ipswich with a substantial Pageant Play.He is far from forgotten in the town of Ipswich, an appeal having been launched in October 2009 to erect a statue there as a permanent commemoration. Arising from this project, a more-than-life-sized bronze statue to Cardinal Wolsey, shown seated facing south towards St Peter's Church (the former mediaeval Augustinian Priory Church of St Peter and St Paul, which Wolsey annexed as the chapel of his College of Ipswich), teaching from a book, with a familiar cat at his side, was unveiled from beneath a covering flag on 29 June 2011 near the site of the Wolsey home on St Nicholas Street, Ipswich. After a civic procession from the Tower Church, the image, created by sculptor David Annand, was dedicated by blessing in the name of the Holy Trinity by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, and launched in the civic capacity by the Mayor of Ipswich, in the presence of a crowd of onlookers.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: A statue of Wolsey stands in Leicester's Abbey Park close to the site of his burial. It was donated by the Wolsey hosiery company, a major employer in the city and also named after the cardinal.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The Wolsey Place shopping centre and Woking F.C.'s nickname The Cardinals commemorate the fact Wolsey was visiting Henry VIII at Woking Palace when the news arrived that he had been made a cardinal.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Cardinal Wolsey's bust was used in the 1980s above the London Transport roundel on London's buses in west and south-west London as the symbol of the Cardinal bus district, which was named after him and his residence at Hampton Court.


title: Lenskart

text: Lenskart is an Indian multinational optical prescription eyewear retail chain, based in Faridabad. As of September 2020, Lenskart had 900+ stores in over 46 cities in India. Its manufacturing facility in New Delhi manufactures 3 lakh glasses a month.


title: Lenskart

text: Lenskart is building a megaunit in Rajasthan, an automated factory which will manufacture 5 crore glasses annually.


title: Lenskart

text: The company had a valuation of $1 billion by December 2019 after Softbank invested around $275 million. Peyush Bansal, a former Microsoft employee, founded Lenskart in 2010 along with Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi. In 2020, Lenskart generated total revenue of ₹1,000+ crore. Financial backers of Lenskart include TPG Growth, International Finance Corporation and Adveq Management.


title: Lenskart

text: Ratan Tata and Kris Gopalakrishnan have also invested in Lenskart. In March 2018, Wipro’s Chairman Azim Premji invested ₹4 crore in the group, taking the valuation of the company to ₹3,000 crore.


title: Lenskart

text: In 2018, the company became profitable, EBITDA positive (EBITDA). Lenskart launched the eyewear brand John Jacobs in 2017. The company is in talks with Japanese group SoftBank as well as the private equity firm Kedaara Capital for investment. In October 2017, Lenskart's first brand ambassador was Katrina Kaif. In March 2019, the company hired Bhuvan Bam as their first male brand ambassador.


title: Lenskart

text: In June 2022, Lenskart announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the Japanese eyewear brand Owndays. The deal valued Owndays at around 400 million.


title: Supernatural

text: Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world.


title: Supernatural

text: The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception.


title: Supernatural

text: The philosophy of naturalism contends that nothing exists beyond the natural world, and as such approaches supernatural claims with skepticism.


title: Supernatural

text: Occurring as both an adjective and a noun, descendants of the modern English compound "supernatural" enter the language from two sources: via Middle French ("supernaturel") and directly from the Middle French's term's ancestor, post-Classical Latin ("supernaturalis"). Post-classical Latin "supernaturalis" first occurs in the 6th century, composed of the Latin prefix "super-" and "nātūrālis" (see nature). The earliest known appearance of the word in the English language occurs in a Middle English translation of Catherine of Siena's "Dialogue" ("orcherd of Syon", around 1425; "Þei haue not þanne þe supernaturel lyȝt ne þe liȝt of kunnynge, bycause þei vndirstoden it not").


title: Supernatural

text: The semantic value of the term has shifted over the history of its use. Originally the term referred exclusively to Christian understandings of the world. For example, as an adjective, the term can mean "belonging to a realm or system that transcends nature, as that of divine, magical, or ghostly beings; attributed to or thought to reveal some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature; occult, paranormal" or "more than what is natural or ordinary; unnaturally or extraordinarily great; abnormal, extraordinary". Obsolete uses include "of, relating to, or dealing with metaphysics". As a noun, the term can mean "a supernatural being", with a particularly strong history of employment in relation to entities from the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.


title: Supernatural

text: The ancient world had no word that resembled "supernatural". Dialogues from Neoplatonic philosophy in the third century AD contributed the development of the concept the supernatural via Christian theology in later centuries. The term "nature" had existed since antiquity with Latin authors like Augustine using the word and its cognates at least 600 times in "City of God". In the medieval period, "nature" had ten different meanings and "natural" had eleven different meanings. Peter Lombard, a medieval scholastic in the 12th century, asked about causes that are beyond nature, in that how there could be causes that were God's alone. He used the term "praeter naturam" in his writings. In the scholastic period, Thomas Aquinas classified miracles into three categories: "above nature", "beyond nature", and "against nature". In doing so, he sharpened the distinction between nature and miracles more than the early Church Fathers had done. As a result, he had created a dichotomy of sorts of the natural and supernatural. Though the phrase ""supra naturam"" was used since the 4th century AD, it was in the 1200s that Thomas Aquinas used the term ""supernaturalis"" and despite this, the term had to wait until the end of the medieval period before it became more popularly used. The discussions on "nature" from the scholastic period were diverse and unsettled with some postulating that even miracles are natural and that natural magic was a natural part of the world.


title: Supernatural

text: The metaphysical considerations of the existence of the supernatural can be difficult to approach as an exercise in philosophy or theology because any dependencies on its antithesis, the natural, will ultimately have to be inverted or rejected. One complicating factor is that there is disagreement about the definition of "natural" and the limits of naturalism. Concepts in the supernatural domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality and occultism or spiritualism.


title: Supernatural

text: Nomological possibility is possibility under the actual laws of nature. Most philosophers since David Hume have held that the laws of nature are metaphysically contingent—that there could have been different natural laws than the ones that actually obtain. If so, then it would not be logically or metaphysically impossible, for example, for you to travel to Alpha Centauri in one day; it would just have to be the case that you could travel faster than the speed of light. But of course there is an important sense in which this is not nomologically possible; given that the laws of nature are what they are. In the philosophy of natural science, impossibility assertions come to be widely accepted as overwhelmingly probable rather than considered proved to the point of being unchallengeable. The basis for this strong acceptance is a combination of extensive evidence of something not occurring, combined with an underlying scientific theory, very successful in making predictions, whose assumptions lead logically to the conclusion that something is impossible. While an impossibility assertion in natural science can never be absolutely proved, it could be refuted by the observation of a single counterexample. Such a counterexample would require that the assumptions underlying the theory that implied the impossibility be re-examined. Some philosophers, such as Sydney Shoemaker, have argued that the laws of nature are in fact necessary, not contingent; if so, then nomological possibility is equivalent to metaphysical possibility.


title: Supernatural

text: The term "supernatural" is often used interchangeably with paranormal or preternatural—the latter typically limited to an adjective for describing abilities which appear to exceed what is possible within the boundaries of the laws of physics. Epistemologically, the relationship between the supernatural and the natural is indistinct in terms of natural phenomena that, "ex hypothesi," violate the laws of nature, in so far as such laws are realistically accountable.


title: Supernatural

text: Anthropological studies across cultures indicate that people do not hold or use natural and supernatural explanations in a mutually exclusive or dichotomous fashion. Instead, the reconciliation of natural and supernatural explanations is normal and pervasive across cultures. Cross cultural studies indicate that there is coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations in both adults and children for explaining numerous things about the world such as illness, death, and origins. Context and cultural input play a large role in determining when and how individuals incorporate natural and supernatural explanations. The coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations in individuals may be the outcomes two distinct cognitive domains: one concerned with the physical-mechanical relations and another with social relations. Studies on indigenous groups have allowed for insights on how such coexistence of explanations may function.


title: Supernatural

text: A "deity" ( or ) is a supernatural being considered divine or sacred. The "Oxford Dictionary of English" defines deity as "a god or goddess (in a polytheistic religion)", or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life." A male deity is a god, while a female deity is a goddess.


title: Supernatural

text: Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as God), polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as equivalent aspects of the same divine principle; and nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity but accept a pantheon of deities which live, die, and are reborn just like any other being.


title: Supernatural

text: Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God. A deity need not be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent or eternal, The monotheistic God, however, does have these attributes. Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways – masculine, feminine, androgynous and gender neutral.


title: Supernatural

text: Historically, many ancient cultures – such as Ancient India, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, Nordic and Asian culture – personified natural phenomena, variously as either their conscious causes or simply their effects, respectively. Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities have also been envisioned as a form of existence (Saṃsāra) after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are also subject to death when their merit runs out.


title: Supernatural

text: An angel is generally a supernatural being found in various religions and mythologies. In Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, angels are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth. Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God's tasks. Within Abrahamic religions, angels are often organized into hierarchies, although such rankings may vary between sects in each religion, and are given specific names or titles, such as Gabriel or "Destroying angel". The term "angel" has also been expanded to various notions of spirits or figures found in other religious traditions. The theological study of angels is known as "angelology".


title: Supernatural

text: In fine art, angels are usually depicted as having the shape of human beings of extraordinary beauty; they are often identified using the symbols of bird wings, halos, and light.


title: Supernatural

text: Prophecy involves a process in which messages are communicated by a god to a prophet. Such messages typically involve inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of divine will concerning the prophet's social world and events to come (compare divine knowledge). Prophecy is not limited to any one culture. It is a common property to all known ancient societies around the world, some more than others. Many systems and rules about prophecy have been proposed over several millennia.


title: Supernatural

text: In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities.


title: Supernatural

text: Some religions have religious texts which they view as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired. For instance, Orthodox Jews, Christians and Muslims believe that the "Torah" was received from Yahweh on biblical Mount Sinai. Most Christians believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament were inspired by God. Muslims believe the Quran was revealed by God to Muhammad word by word through the angel Gabriel ("Jibril"). In Hinduism, some Vedas are considered "", "not human compositions", and are supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called "śruti", "what is heard". The 15,000 handwritten pages produced by the mystic Maria Valtorta were represented as direct dictations from Jesus, while she attributed "The Book of Azariah" to her guardian angel. Aleister Crowley stated that "The Book of the Law" had been revealed to him through a higher being that called itself "Aiwass".


title: Supernatural

text: A revelation communicated by a supernatural entity reported as being present during the event is called a vision. Direct conversations between the recipient and the supernatural entity, or physical marks such as stigmata, have been reported. In rare cases, such as that of Saint Juan Diego, physical artifacts accompany the revelation. The Roman Catholic concept of interior locution includes just an inner voice heard by the recipient.


title: Supernatural

text: In the Abrahamic religions, the term is used to refer to the process by which God reveals knowledge of himself, his will, and his divine providence to the world of human beings. In secondary usage, revelation refers to the resulting human knowledge about God, prophecy, and other divine things. Revelation from a supernatural source plays a less important role in some other religious traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.


title: Supernatural

text: Reincarnation is the philosophical or religious concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each biological death. It is also called rebirth or transmigration, and is a part of the Saṃsāra doctrine of cyclic existence. It is a central tenet of all major Indian religions, namely Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth/metempsychosis was held by Greek historic figures, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. It is also a common belief of various ancient and modern religions such as Spiritism, Theosophy, and Eckankar, and as an esoteric belief in many streams of Orthodox Judaism. It is found as well in many tribal societies around the world, in places such as Australia, East Asia, Siberia, and South America.


title: Supernatural

text: Although the majority of denominations within Christianity and Islam do not believe that individuals reincarnate, particular groups within these religions do refer to reincarnation; these groups include the mainstream historical and contemporary followers of Cathars, Alawites, the Druze, and the Rosicrucians. The historical relations between these sects and the beliefs about reincarnation that were characteristic of Neoplatonism, Orphism, Hermeticism, Manicheanism, and Gnosticism of the Roman era as well as the Indian religions have been the subject of recent scholarly research. Unity Church and its founder Charles Fillmore teaches reincarnation.


title: Supernatural

text: In recent decades, many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation, and many contemporary works mention it.


title: Supernatural

text: Karma (; , ; ) means action, work or deed; it also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect where intent and actions of an individual (cause) influence the future of that individual (effect). Good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and future happiness, while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and future suffering.


title: Supernatural

text: With origins in ancient India's Vedic civilization, the philosophy of karma is closely associated with the idea of rebirth in many schools of Indian religions (particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism) as well as Taoism. In these schools, karma in the present affects one's future in the current life, as well as the nature and quality of future lives – one's "saṃsāra".


title: Supernatural

text: In Catholic theology, the supernatural order is, according to New Advent, defined as "the ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created universe and gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny." The "Modern Catholic Dictionary" defines it as "the sum total of heavenly destiny and all the divinely established means of reaching that destiny, which surpass the mere powers and capacities of human nature."


title: Supernatural

text: Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and further developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000).


title: Supernatural

text: "Heaven", or "the heavens", is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as gods, angels, spirits, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter heaven alive.


title: Supernatural

text: Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a "world to come".


title: Supernatural

text: Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, heaven is considered as "Svarga loka", and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its "karma". This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves "Moksha" or "Nirvana". Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as "otherworld."


title: Supernatural

text: The "underworld" is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.


title: Supernatural

text: The concept of an underworld is found in almost every civilization and "may be as old as humanity itself". Common features of underworld myths are accounts of living people making journeys to the underworld, often for some heroic purpose. Other myths reinforce traditions that entrance of souls to the underworld requires a proper observation of ceremony, such as the ancient Greek story of the recently dead Patroclus haunting Achilles until his body could be properly buried for this purpose. Persons having social status were dressed and equipped in order to better navigate the underworld.


title: Supernatural

text: A number of mythologies incorporate the concept of the soul of the deceased making its own journey to the underworld, with the dead needing to be taken across a defining obstacle such as a lake or a river to reach this destination. Imagery of such journeys can be found in both ancient and modern art. The descent to the underworld has been described as "the single most important myth for Modernist authors".


title: Supernatural

text: A "spirit" is a supernatural being, often but not exclusively a non-physical entity; such as a ghost, fairy, jinn, or angel. The concepts of a person's spirit and soul, often also overlap, as both are either contrasted with or given ontological priority over the body and both are believed to survive bodily death in some religions, and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person. In English Bibles, "the Spirit" (with a capital "S"), specifically denotes the Holy Spirit.


title: Supernatural

text: Historically, it was also used to refer to a "subtle" as opposed to "gross" material substance, as in the famous last paragraph of Sir Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathematica".


title: Supernatural

text: A "demon" (from Koine Greek "daimónion") is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore.


title: Supernatural

text: In Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity, below the heavenly planes which may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. In Western occultism and Renaissance magic, which grew out of an amalgamation of Greco-Roman magic, Jewish Aggadah and Christian demonology, a demon is believed to be a spiritual entity that may be conjured and controlled.


title: Supernatural

text: "Magic" or "sorcery" is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures, or language with the aim of utilizing supernatural forces. Belief in and practice of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important spiritual, religious, and medicinal role in many cultures today. The term "magic" has a variety of meanings, and there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is.


title: Supernatural

text: Scholars of religion have defined magic in different ways. One approach, associated with the anthropologists Edward Tylor and James G. Frazer, suggests that magic and science are opposites. An alternative approach, associated with the sociologists Marcel Mauss and Emile Durkheim, argues that magic takes place in private, while religion is a communal and organised activity. Many scholars of religion have rejected the utility of the term "magic" and it has become increasingly unpopular within scholarship since the 1990s.


title: Supernatural

text: The term "magic" comes from the Old Persian "magu", a word that applied to a form of religious functionary about which little is known. During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, this term was adopted into Ancient Greek, where it was used with negative connotations, to apply to religious rites that were regarded as fraudulent, unconventional, and dangerous. This meaning of the term was then adopted by Latin in the first century BCE. The concept was then incorporated into Christian theology during the first century CE, where magic was associated with demons and thus defined against religion. This concept was pervasive throughout the Middle Ages, although in the early modern period Italian humanists reinterpreted the term in a positive sense to establish the idea of natural magic. Both negative and positive understandings of the term were retained in Western culture over the following centuries, with the former largely influencing early academic usages of the word.


title: Supernatural

text: Throughout history, there have been examples of individuals who practiced magic and referred to themselves as magicians. This trend has proliferated in the modern period, with a growing number of magicians appearing within the esoteric milieu. British esotericist Aleister Crowley described magic as the art of effecting change in accordance with will.


title: Supernatural

text: Divination (from Latin "divinare" "to foresee, to be inspired by a god", related to "divinus", divine) is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact with a supernatural agency.


title: Supernatural

text: Divination can be seen as a systematic method with which to organize what appear to be disjointed, random facets of existence such that they provide insight into a problem at hand. If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religious context, as seen in traditional African medicine. Fortune-telling, on the other hand, is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Particular divination methods vary by culture and religion.


title: Supernatural

text: Divination is dismissed by the scientific community and skeptics as being superstition. In the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, "Alexander the false prophet", trained by "one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates".


title: Supernatural

text: Witchcraft or witchery broadly means the practice of and belief in magical skills and abilities exercised by solitary practitioners and groups. "Witchcraft" is a broad term that varies culturally and societally, and thus can be difficult to define with precision, and cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution. Witchcraft often occupies a religious divinatory or medicinal role, and is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view.


title: Supernatural

text: A "miracle" is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity), a miracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.


title: Supernatural

text: Informally, the word "miracle" is often used to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other such miracles might be: survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'. Some coincidences may be seen as miracles.


title: Supernatural

text: A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). The former position is expressed for instance by Thomas Jefferson and the latter by David Hume. Theologians typically say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through nature yet, as a creator, is free to work without, above, or against it as well. The possibility and probability of miracles are then equal to the possibility and probability of the existence of God.


title: Supernatural

text: Skepticism (American English) or scepticism (British English; see spelling differences) is generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of putative knowledge or belief. It is often directed at domains such as the supernatural, morality (moral skepticism), religion (skepticism about the existence of God), or knowledge (skepticism about the possibility of knowledge, or of certainty). Formally, skepticism as a topic occurs in the context of philosophy, particularly epistemology, although it can be applied to any topic such as politics, religion, and pseudoscience.


title: Supernatural

text: One reason why skeptics assert that the supernatural cannot exist is that anything "supernatural" is not a part of the natural world simply by definition. Although some believers in the supernatural insist that it simply cannot be demonstrated using the existing scientific methods, skeptics assert that such methods is the best tool humans have devised for knowing what is and isn't knowable.


title: Supernatural

text: Supernatural entities and powers are common in various works of fantasy. Examples include the television shows "Supernatural" and "The X-Files", the magic of the "Harry Potter" series, "The Lord of the Rings" series, "The Wheel of Time" series, "A Song of Ice and Fire" series and the Force of "Star Wars".


title: The Crying Game

text: The Crying Game is a 1992 thriller film written and directed by Neil Jordan, produced by Stephen Woolley, and starring Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson, Adrian Dunbar, Ralph Brown, and Forest Whitaker. The film explores themes of race, sex, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.


title: The Crying Game

text: The film follows Fergus (Rea), a member of the IRA, who has a brief but meaningful encounter with a British soldier, Jody (Whitaker), who is being held prisoner by the group. Fergus later develops an unexpected romantic relationship with Jody's lover, Dil (Davidson), whom Fergus promised Jody he would take care of. Fergus is forced to decide between what he wants and what his nature dictates he must do.


title: The Crying Game

text: A critical and commercial success, "The Crying Game" won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, alongside Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Rea, Best Supporting Actor for Davidson, and Best Film Editing. In 1999, the British Film Institute named it the 26th-greatest British film of all time.


title: The Crying Game

text: At a rural Northern Irish fairground, a Provisional IRA volunteer named Fergus (Stephen Rea) and a unit of other IRA members, led by Peter Maguire (Adrian Dunbar), kidnap a black British soldier named Jody (Forest Whitaker) after a female member of their unit, Jude (Miranda Richardson), lures Jody to a secluded area by promising sex. The unit intends to hold Jody until an imprisoned IRA member is released, and if their demands are not met within three days, he will be executed. Fergus—assigned to stand guard over Jody—begins bonding with him, and Jody tells Fergus the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog.


title: The Crying Game

text: Realising he will most likely die, Jody requests Fergus to promise to seek out his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson). When the deadline set by Jody's captors passes with their demands unmet, Fergus is ordered to take Jody into the woods to kill him. Fergus seemingly complies but when Jody attempts escape, Fergus pursues him without shooting him. Just as Jody escapes onto a road, a British armoured personnel carrier accidentally runs over and kills him. The British army attacks the IRA unit and Fergus manages to escape, believing that his companions have perished in the attack. Fergus escapes to London, taking a job as a day labourer under the alias "Jimmy".


title: The Crying Game

text: A few months later, Fergus encounters Dil, working as a stylist at a hair salon. Later, they talk in a bar, where a drunken customer torments Dil. Fergus, consumed by guilt over Jody's death, follows the pair, rescuing Dil. Fergus soon begins falling in love with her and their relationship progresses, but when the two prepare to become intimate in her apartment, Dil reveals her transgender status while undressing. An initially repulsed Fergus rushes to the bathroom to vomit after hitting Dil in the face, and then leaves her apartment. A few days later, Fergus leaves Dil a note in her mailbox apologising and the two reconcile. Despite initially being shocked by Dil's gender identity, he is still taken by her. Around the same time, Jude unexpectedly reappears and tells Fergus the IRA has tried and convicted him of treason "in absentia". She forces him to agree to help assassinate a British judge, and mentions that she knows about his affair, warning him that the IRA will kill Dil if he does not cooperate.


title: The Crying Game

text: Fergus continues to woo Dil, cutting her hair short and dressing her in Jody's old cricket uniform as a disguise to shield her from possible retribution. The night before the IRA mission, Dil gets drunk and Fergus escorts her to her apartment, where she asks him to never leave her again. Fergus stays with her, and admits his role in Jody's death. Dil, drunk, appears not to understand; however, in the morning, before Fergus awakens, Dil restrains him by tying his arms and legs to the bed with stockings, leaving Fergus unable to complete the assassination. Holding Fergus at gunpoint with his own pistol, Dil demands that he tell her that he loves her and will never leave her; he complies, and she unties him.


title: The Crying Game

text: Without Fergus present, an angered Maguire decides with Jude to proceed with the mission. Maguire underestimates the judge's protection, and an armed bodyguard shoots and kills him while Jude manages to escape. She vengefully enters Dil's flat with a gun, seeking to kill Fergus for missing the assassination. Dil subdues her and shoots her repeatedly after uncovering her part in Jody's death, finally killing her with a shot to the neck. She then points the gun at Fergus, but lowers it, saying that she cannot kill him because Jody will not allow her to. Fergus prevents Dil from shooting herself and tells her to go into hiding. He wipes her fingerprints off the gun, replaces them with his own, and allows himself to be arrested in her place. A few months later, Dil visits Fergus in prison and asks why he took the fall for her. He responds, "As a man once said, it's in my nature," and tells her the story of the Scorpion and the Frog.


title: The Crying Game

text: Neil Jordan first drafted the screenplay in the mid-1980s under the title "The Soldier's Wife", but shelved the project after a similar film was released.


title: The Crying Game

text: A 1931 short story by Frank O'Connor called "Guests of the Nation", in which IRA soldiers develop a bond with their English captives, whom they are ultimately forced to kill, partly inspired the story. The original draft had the character Dil as a cisgender woman, but Jordan decided to make the character transgender at the premiere of his film "The Miracle" at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival in 1991.


title: The Crying Game

text: Jordan sought to begin production of the film in the early 1990s, but found it difficult to secure financing, as the script's controversial themes and his recent string of box office flops discouraged potential investors. Several funding offers from the United States fell through because the funders wanted Jordan to cast a woman to play the role of Dil, believing that it would be impossible to find an androgynous male actor who could pass as female. Derek Jarman eventually referred Jordan to Jaye Davidson, who was completely new to acting, and was spotted by a casting agent while attending a premiere party for Jarman's film "Edward II". Rea later said, "'If Jaye hadn't been a completely convincing woman, my character would have looked stupid'". The film included full-frontal "male" nudity on Davidson's part; he was filmed nude in the notable bedroom scene in which Dil's sexual anatomy was revealed.


title: The Crying Game

text: The film went into production with an inadequate patchwork of funding, leading to a stressful and unstable filming process. The producers constantly searched for small amounts of money to keep the production going, and the unreliable pay left crew members disgruntled. Costume designer Sandy Powell had an extremely small budget to work with and ended up having to lend Davidson some of her own clothes to wear in the film, as the two happened to be the same size.


title: The Crying Game

text: The film was known as "The Soldier's Wife" for much of its production, but Stanley Kubrick, a friend of Jordan, counselled against the title, which he said would lead audiences to expect a war film. The opening sequence was shot in Laytown, County Meath, Ireland, and the rest in London and Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire, England. The bulk of the film's London scenes were shot in the East End, specifically Hoxton and Spitalfields. Dil's flat is in a building facing onto Hoxton Square, with the exterior of the Metro on nearby Coronet Street. Fergus's flat and Dil's hair salon are both in Spitalfields. Chesham Street in Belgravia was the location for the assassination of the judge, with the now-defunct Lowndes Arms pub just around the corner.


title: The Crying Game

text: The film was shown at festivals in Italy, the United States and Canada in September, and originally released in Ireland and the UK in October 1992, where it failed at the box office. Director Neil Jordan, in later interviews, attributed this failure to the film's heavily political undertone, particularly its sympathetic portrayal of an IRA fighter. The bombing of a pub in London is specifically mentioned as turning the English press against the film.


title: The Crying Game

text: The then-fledgling film studio Miramax Films decided to promote the film in the U.S. where it became a sleeper hit. A memorable advertising campaign generated intense public curiosity by asking audiences not to reveal the film's "secret" regarding Dil's gender identity. Those surveyed by CinemaScore on opening night gave the film a grade "B" on a scale of A+ to F. Jordan also believed the film's success was a result of the film's British–Irish politics being either lesser-known or completely unknown to American audiences, who flocked to the film for what Jordan called "the sexual politics".


title: The Crying Game

text: The film earned critical acclaim and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Actor (Rea), Best Supporting Actor (Davidson) and Best Director. Writer-director Jordan finally won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film went on to success around the world, including re-releases in Britain and Ireland.


title: The Crying Game

text: "The Crying Game" received worldwide acclaim from critics. The film has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The consensus states, ""The Crying Game" is famous for its shocking twist, but this thoughtful, haunting mystery grips the viewer from start to finish."


title: The Crying Game

text: Roger Ebert awarded the film a rating of four out of four stars, describing it in his review as one that "involves us deeply in the story, and then it reveals that the story is really about something else altogether" and named it "one of the best films of 1992".


title: The Crying Game

text: Richard Corliss, in "Time" magazine, stated: "And the secret? Only the meanest critic would give that away, at least initially." He alluded to the film's secret by means of an acrostic, forming the sentence "she is a he" from the first letter of each paragraph.


title: The Crying Game

text: Much has been written about "The Crying Game"'s discussion of race, nationality, and sexuality. Theorist and author Jack Halberstam argued that the viewer's placement in Fergus's point of view regarding Dil being a trans woman reinforces societal norms rather than challenging them.


title: The Crying Game

text: "The Crying Game" was placed on over 50 critics' ten-best lists in 1992, based on a poll of 106 film critics.


title: The Crying Game

text: The film grossed £2 million ($3 million) in the United Kingdom. In the United States and Canada it was more successful, grossing $62.5 million. Based on its US gross, it was the most successful film of the year on a cost to US gross basis. It grossed a total of $71 million worldwide.


title: The Crying Game

text: The soundtrack to the film, "The Crying Game: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack", released on 23 February 1993, was produced by Anne Dudley and Pet Shop Boys. Boy George scored his first hit since 1987 with his recording of the title song – a song that had been a hit in the 1960s for British singer Dave Berry. The closing rendition of Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man" was performed by American singer Lyle Lovett.


title: The Crying Game

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki>Orchestral tracks composed by Anne Dudley and performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra of London


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system is sometimes considered part of the autonomic nervous system, and sometimes considered an independent system.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The autonomic nervous system functions to regulate the body's unconscious actions. The sympathetic nervous system's primary process is to stimulate the body's fight or flight response. It is, however, constantly active at a basic level to maintain homeostasis. The sympathetic nervous system is described as being antagonistic to the parasympathetic nervous system which stimulates the body to "feed and breed" and to (then) "rest-and-digest".


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: There are two kinds of neurons involved in the transmission of any signal through the sympathetic system: pre-ganglionic and post-ganglionic. The shorter preganglionic neurons originate in the thoracolumbar division of the spinal cord specifically at T1 to L2~L3, and travel to a ganglion, often one of the paravertebral ganglia, where they synapse with a postganglionic neuron. From there, the long postganglionic neurons extend across most of the body.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: At the synapses within the ganglia, preganglionic neurons release acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that activates nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on postganglionic neurons. In response to this stimulus, the postganglionic neurons release norepinephrine, which activates adrenergic receptors that are present on the peripheral target tissues. The activation of target tissue receptors causes the effects associated with the sympathetic system. However, there are three important exceptions:


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: Sympathetic nerves arise from near the middle of the spinal cord in the intermediolateral nucleus of the lateral grey column, beginning at the first thoracic vertebra of the vertebral column and are thought to extend to the second or third lumbar vertebra. Because its cells begin in the thoracolumbar division – the thoracic and lumbar regions of the spinal cord – the sympathetic nervous system is said to have a "thoracolumbar outflow". Axons of these nerves leave the spinal cord through the anterior root. They pass near the spinal (sensory) ganglion, where they enter the anterior rami of the spinal nerves. However, unlike somatic innervation, they quickly separate out through white rami connectors (so called from the shiny white sheaths of myelin around each axon) that connect to either the paravertebral (which lie near the vertebral column) or prevertebral (which lie near the aortic bifurcation) ganglia extending alongside the spinal column.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: To reach target organs and glands, the axons must travel long distances in the body, and, to accomplish this, many axons relay their message to a second cell through synaptic transmission. The ends of the axons link across a space, the synapse, to the dendrites of the second cell. The first cell (the presynaptic cell) sends a neurotransmitter across the synaptic cleft where it activates the second cell (the postsynaptic cell). The message is then carried to the final destination.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: Presynaptic nerves' axons terminate in either the paravertebral ganglia or prevertebral ganglia. There are four different paths an axon can take before reaching its terminal. In all cases, the axon enters the paravertebral ganglion at the level of its originating spinal nerve. After this, it can then either synapse in this ganglion, ascend to a more superior or descend to a more inferior paravertebral ganglion and synapse there, or it can descend to a prevertebral ganglion and synapse there with the postsynaptic cell.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The postsynaptic cell then goes on to innervate the targeted end effector (i.e. gland, smooth muscle, etc.). Because paravertebral and prevertebral ganglia are close to the spinal cord, presynaptic neurons are much shorter than their postsynaptic counterparts, which must extend throughout the body to reach their destinations.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: A notable exception to the routes mentioned above is the sympathetic innervation of the suprarenal (adrenal) medulla. In this case, presynaptic neurons pass through paravertebral ganglia, on through prevertebral ganglia and then synapse directly with suprarenal tissue. This tissue consists of cells that have pseudo-neuron like qualities in that when activated by the presynaptic neuron, they will release their neurotransmitter (epinephrine) directly into the bloodstream.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: In the sympathetic nervous system and other components of the peripheral nervous system, these synapses are made at sites called ganglia. The cell that sends its fiber is called a preganglionic cell, while the cell whose fiber leaves the ganglion is called a postganglionic cell. As mentioned previously, the preganglionic cells of the sympathetic nervous system are located between the first thoracic segment and the third lumbar segments of the spinal cord. Postganglionic cells have their cell bodies in the ganglia and send their axons to target organs or glands.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The ganglia include not just the sympathetic trunks but also the cervical ganglia (superior, middle and inferior), which send sympathetic nerve fibers to the head and thorax organs, and the celiac and mesenteric ganglia, which send sympathetic fibers to the gut.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: Messages travel through the sympathetic nervous system in a bi-directional flow. Efferent messages can trigger changes in different parts of the body simultaneously. For example, the sympathetic nervous system can accelerate heart rate; widen bronchial passages; decrease motility (movement) of the large intestine; constrict blood vessels; increase peristalsis in the oesophagus; cause pupillary dilation, piloerection (goose bumps) and perspiration (sweating); and raise blood pressure. One exception is with certain blood vessels such as those in the cerebral and coronary arteries, which dilate (rather than constrict) with an increase in sympathetic tone. This is because of a proportional increase in the presence of β adrenergic receptors rather than α receptors. β receptors promote vessel dilation instead of constriction like α1 receptors. An alternative explanation is that the primary (and direct) effect of sympathetic stimulation on coronary arteries is vasoconstriction followed by a secondary vasodilation caused by the release of vasodilatory metabolites due to the sympathetically increased cardiac inotropy and heart rate. This secondary vasodilation caused by the primary vasoconstriction is termed functional sympatholysis, the overall effect of which on coronary arteries is dilation.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The target synapse of the postganglionic neuron is mediated by adrenergic receptors and is activated by either norepinephrine (noradrenaline) or epinephrine (adrenaline).


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for up- and down-regulating many homeostatic mechanisms in living organisms. Fibers from the SYNS innervate tissues in almost every organ system, providing at least some regulation of functions as diverse as pupil diameter, gut motility, and urinary system output and function. It is perhaps best known for mediating the neuronal and hormonal stress response commonly known as the "fight-or-flight response". This response is also known as "sympatho-adrenal response" of the body, as the preganglionic sympathetic fibers that end in the adrenal medulla (but also all other sympathetic fibers) secrete acetylcholine, which activates the great secretion of adrenaline (epinephrine) and to a lesser extent noradrenaline (norepinephrine) from it. Therefore, this response that acts primarily on the cardiovascular system is mediated directly via impulses transmitted through the sympathetic nervous system and indirectly via catecholamines secreted from the adrenal medulla.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for priming the body for action, particularly in situations threatening survival. One example of this priming is in the moments before waking, in which sympathetic outflow spontaneously increases in preparation for action.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: Sympathetic nervous system stimulation causes vasoconstriction of most blood vessels, including many of those in the skin, the digestive tract, and the kidneys. This occurs as a result of activation of alpha-1 adrenergic receptors by norepinephrine released by post-ganglionic sympathetic neurons. These receptors exist throughout the vasculature of the body but are inhibited and counterbalanced by beta-2 adrenergic receptors (stimulated by epinephrine release from the adrenal glands) in the skeletal muscles, the heart, the lungs, and the brain during a sympathoadrenal response. The net effect of this is a shunting of blood away from the organs not necessary to the immediate survival of the organism and an increase in blood flow to those organs involved in intense physical activity.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The afferent fibers of the autonomic nervous system, which transmit sensory information from the internal organs of the body back to the central nervous system (or CNS), are not divided into parasympathetic and sympathetic fibers as the efferent fibers are. Instead, autonomic sensory information is conducted by general visceral afferent fibers.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: General visceral afferent sensations are mostly unconscious visceral motor reflex sensations from hollow organs and glands that are transmitted to the CNS. While the unconscious reflex arcs normally are undetectable, in certain instances they may send pain sensations to the CNS masked as referred pain. If the peritoneal cavity becomes inflamed or if the bowel is suddenly distended, the body will interpret the afferent pain stimulus as somatic in origin. This pain is usually non-localized. The pain is also usually referred to dermatomes that are at the same spinal nerve level as the visceral afferent synapse.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: Together with the other component of the autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system aids in the control of most of the body's internal organs. Reaction to stress—as in the flight-or-fight response—is thought to be elicited by the sympathetic nervous system and to counteract the parasympathetic system, which works to promote maintenance of the body at rest. The comprehensive functions of both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems are not so straightforward, but this is a useful rule of thumb.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: In heart failure, the sympathetic nervous system increases its activity, leading to increased force of muscular contractions that in turn increases the stroke volume, as well as peripheral vasoconstriction to maintain blood pressure. However, these effects accelerate disease progression, eventually increasing mortality in heart failure.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The name of this system can be traced to the concept of sympathy, in the sense of "connection between parts", first used medically by Galen. In the 18th century, Jacob B. Winslow applied the term specifically to nerves.


title: Sympathetic nervous system

text: The concept that an independent part of the nervous system coordinates body functions had its origin in the works of Galen (129–199), who proposed that nerves distributed spirits throughout the body. From animal dissections he concluded that there were extensive interconnections from the spinal cord to the viscera and from one organ to another. He proposed that this system fostered a concerted action or ‘sympathy’ of the organs. Little changed until the Renaissance when Bartolomeo Eustacheo (1545) depicted the sympathetic nerves, the vagus and adrenal glands in anatomical drawings. Jacobus Winslow (1669–1760), a Danish-born professor working in Paris, popularised the term ‘sympathetic nervous system’ in 1732 to describe the chain of ganglia and nerves which were connected to the thoracic and lumbar spinal cord.


title: Northern Europe

text: The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54°N, or may be based on other geographical factors such as climate and ecology.


title: Northern Europe

text: The climate is mainly Oceanic climate (Cfb), Humid continental climate (Dfb), Subarctic climate (Dfc and Dsc) and Tundra (ET).


title: Northern Europe

text: Northern Europe might be defined roughly to include some or all of the following areas: British Isles, Fennoscandia, the peninsula of Jutland, the Baltic plain that lies to the east and the many islands that lie offshore from mainland Northern Europe and the main European continent. In some cases, Greenland is also included, although it is only politically European, comprising part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and not considered to be geographically in Europe.


title: Northern Europe

text: The area is partly mountainous, including the northern volcanic islands of Iceland and Jan Mayen, and the mountainous western seaboard, Scotland and Scandinavia, and also often includes part of the large plain east of the Baltic sea.


title: Northern Europe

text: The entire region's climate is at least mildly affected by the Gulf Stream. From the west climates vary from maritime and maritime subarctic climates. In the north and central climates are generally subarctic or Arctic and to the east climates are mostly subarctic and temperate/continental.


title: Northern Europe

text: Just as both climate and relief are variable across the region, so too is vegetation, with sparse tundra in the north and high mountains, boreal forest on the north-eastern and central regions temperate coniferous forests (formerly of which a majority was in the Scottish Highlands and south west Norway) and temperate broadleaf forests growing in the south, west and temperate east.


title: Northern Europe

text: There are various definitions of Northern Europe which often include the British Isles, the Nordic countries and the Baltic states and sometimes Greenland, northern Germany, northern Belarus and northwest Russia.


title: Northern Europe

text: The United Nations geoscheme is a system devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) which divides the countries of the world into regional and subregional groups, based on the M49 coding classification. The partition is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories.


title: Northern Europe

text: EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, giving definitions of terms for official use. In the definition of "Northern Europe", the following countries are included:


title: Northern Europe

text: In this classification Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Ireland are included in Western Europe.


title: Northern Europe

text: In the "CIA World Factbook", the description of each country includes information about "Location" under the heading "Geography", where the country is classified into a region. The following countries are included in their classification "Northern Europe":


title: Northern Europe

text: In this classification Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Ireland are included in Western Europe, while Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are included in Eastern Europe.


title: Northern Europe

text: The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions is a biogeographical system developed by the international Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, formerly the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases. The WGSRPD standards, like other standards for data fields in botanical databases, were developed to promote "the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the world's heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large". The system provides clear definitions and codes for recording plant distributions at four scales or levels, from "botanical continents" down to parts of large countries. The following countries are included in their classification of "Northern Europe":


title: Northern Europe

text: Countries in Northern Europe generally have developed economies and some of the highest standards of living in the world. They often score highly on surveys measuring quality of life, such as the Human Development Index. Aside from the United Kingdom, they generally have a small population relative to their size, most of whom live in cities. The quality of education in much of Northern Europe is rated highly in international rankings, with Estonia and Finland topping the list among the OECD countries in Europe.


title: Northern Europe

text: The Hansa group in the European Union comprises most of the Northern European states, plus the Netherlands.


title: Northern Europe

text: During the Early Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church expanded into Northern Europe and spread Christianity among the Germanic peoples. Christianity reached the peoples of Scandinavia and the Baltic region in later centuries. The Latin alphabet along with the influence of Western Christianity spread northward from Rome, leading to written English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Latvian, Estonian, Finnish and Sami languages. The Sámi were the last peoples to be converted in the 18th century.


title: Northern Europe

text: During the Reformation, which began in Northern Europe according to some looser definitions of the region, Protestantism was embraced in Northern Europe to an extent unseen in other parts of Europe, and the vast majority of Northern European countries, by any definition, are mostly Protestant historically, although many are non-practising. There are also growing numbers of non-religious people and people of other religions, especially Muslims, due to open immigration policies. In the United Kingdom, there are also significant numbers of Indian religions such as Hindus and Sikhs, due to the large South Asian diaspora.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: William Joseph Burns (born April 4, 1956) is an American diplomat serving as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Biden administration since March 19, 2021. He previously served as the United States deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014, and in 2009 he served as Acting Secretary of State before the Senate confirmation of Hillary Clinton. He retired from the United States Foreign Service in 2014 after a 32-year diplomatic career. From 2014 to 2021, he served as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns previously served as ambassador of the United States to Jordan from 1998 to 2001, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs from 2001 to 2005, ambassador of the United States to the Russian Federation from 2005 to 2008, and under secretary of state for political affairs from 2008 to 2011.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In January 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Burns to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was unanimously confirmed by voice vote on March 18, 2021, sworn in officially as director on March 19, 2021, and ceremonially sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on March 23, 2021.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns was born at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1956. He is the son of Peggy Cassady and William F. Burns, who was a United States Army Major General, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State; and served as Director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1988–1989 in the Ronald Reagan administration and as the first U.S. special envoy to denuclearization negotiations with former Soviet countries under the legislation sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: He earned a B.A. degree in history from La Salle University and M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees in international relations from St John's College, Oxford, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. Burns was also a member of the Oxford University Men's Basketball Team.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns entered the Foreign Service in 1982 and served as Deputy Secretary of State from 2011 to 2014. He had served as under secretary for political affairs from 2008 to 2011. He was ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2001 to 2005, and ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001. He had also been executive secretary of the State Department and special assistant to Secretaries Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, minister-counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, acting director and principal deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, and Special Assistant to the President and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the United States National Security Council.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In 1995, while serving as counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, he wrote that "hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here."


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In 2008, Burns was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as a Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the U.S. Foreign Service, equivalent to a four-star general officer in the U.S. Armed Forces. Promotions to the rank are rare.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In 2008, Burns wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: A cable that Burns signed as ambassador to Russia in August 2006, released by WikiLeaks, provided a detailed eyewitness account of the lavish wedding organized in Makhachkala by Russian State Duma member and Dagestan Oil Company chief Gadzhi Makhachev for his son. The wedding lasted for two days, and its attendees included Chechnya′s Ramzan Kadyrov. An FSB colonel sitting next to the cable's authors tried to add "cognac" to their wine until an FSB general told him to stop. In 2015, Burns told Gideon Rachman of the "Financial Times" that the cable had been "largely written by his colleagues", with Rachman remarking that the telegram had gained a reputation of "a minor classic of comic writing, its tone very much not what one might expect of a diplomatic cable". In June 2013, Andrew Kuchins remarked about Burns′ stint in Moscow, "It was a period when the relationship was deteriorating very significantly, but he was personally respected by Russian authorities as a consummate professional diplomat".


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In 2013, Burns and Jake Sullivan led the secret bilateral channel with Iran that led to the interim agreement between Iran and the P5+1 and ultimately the Iran nuclear deal. Burns was reported to be "in the driver's seat" of the American negotiating team for the interim agreement. Burns had met secretly with Iranian officials as early as 2008, when President George W. Bush dispatched him.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In a piece published in "The Atlantic" in April 2013, Nicholas Kralev praised him as the "secret diplomatic weapon" deployed against "some of the thorniest foreign policy challenges of the US".


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns retired from the Foreign Service in 2014, later becoming president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In November 2020, as Burns' name was being cited by press as one of several possible candidates to be nominated by Joe Biden for Secretary of State, Russia′s broadsheet "Kommersant"'s sources "in the state structures" of the Russian Federation agreed that his candidacy would "be the most advantageous for Moscow of all the five cited" in the media.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: On January 11, 2021, Joe Biden announced he planned to nominate Burns as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that Burns shared his belief "that intelligence must be apolitical and that the dedicated intelligence professionals serving our nation deserve our gratitude and respect."


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: On February 24, his nomination was well-received in the confirmation hearing in the Senate. On March 2, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved Burns' nomination, setting him up for a final floor vote. On March 18, Burns was confirmed to the role with unanimous consent after Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) lifted his hold on the nomination. He was officially sworn in as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on March 19, with a ceremony performed by Vice President Kamala Harris on March 23, 2021.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In his confirmation hearing before the Senate, Burns said, "an adversarial, predatory Chinese leadership poses our biggest geopolitical test". He said China was working to "methodically strengthen its capabilities to steal intellectual property, repress its own people, bully its neighbors, expand its global reach and build influence in American society."


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In April 2021, Biden announced his intention to withdraw all regular U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021. Burns told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on April 14, 2021, that "[t]here is a significant risk once the U.S. military and the coalition militaries withdraw" but added that the U.S. would retain "a suite of capabilities."


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: On August 23, 2021, Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, who returned to Afghanistan from exile in Qatar, to discuss the August 31 deadline for a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In early November 2021, Burns flew to Moscow, notifying Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Putin’s security council, that the United States believed Mr. Putin was considering a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Burns warned that if Putin proceeded down this path, the West would respond with severe consequences for Russia. John Sullivan, at the time the American ambassador to Russia, recounted that Patrushev was undeterred, "supremely confident". Upon his return to Washington, Burns informed Biden that Putin had all but made up his mind to take over Ukraine, Mr. Burns told him, and the Russians had absolute confidence victory would come swiftly.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: On March 31, 2022, Burns tested positive for COVID-19, a day after meeting with President Biden during a socially distanced meeting at the White House while wearing an N 95 mask.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In April 2022, Burns warned that Vladimir Putin's "desperation" over Russia's failures in Ukraine could result in the use of tactical nuclear weapons or "low-yield nuclear weapons." That same month, Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with the Saudi crown prince, asking him to increase the country’s oil production. They also discussed Saudi weapons purchases from China.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: His memoir, "The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal", was published by Random House in 2019. It was published in conjunction with an archive of nearly 100 declassified diplomatic cables. International Relations scholars who reviewed the book were mostly positive.


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns’ dissertation was published in 1985 as "Economic Aid and American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955—1981".


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns is the recipient of three Presidential Distinguished Service Awards and several Department of State awards, including three Secretary's Distinguished Service Awards, the Secretary's Career Achievement Award, the Charles E. Cobb Jr. Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development (2006), the Robert C. Frasure Memorial Award (2005), and the James Clement Dunn Award (1991). He also received the Department of Defense Award for Distinguished Public Service (2014), the U.S. Intelligence Community Medallion (2014), and the Central Intelligence Agency's Agency Seal Medal (2014).


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: In 1994, Burns was named to "Time"'s lists of "50 Most Promising American Leaders Under Age 40" and "100 Most Promising Global Leaders Under Age 40". He was named "Foreign Policy"'s "Diplomat of the Year" in 2013. He is the recipient of Anti-Defamation League's Distinguished Statesman Award (2014), the Middle East Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award (2014), and the American Academy of Diplomacy's Annenberg Award for Diplomatic Excellence (2015).


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns holds four honorary doctoral degrees and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also an honorary Fellow, St. John's College, Oxford (from 2012).


title: William J. Burns (diplomat)

text: Burns is married to Lisa Carty, a former diplomat and current UN OCHA senior official, and has two daughters. He speaks English, French, Russian, and Arabic.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah Yacob (Jawi script: ; born 23 August 1954) is a Singaporean politician and former lawyer who has been serving as the eighth president of Singapore since 2017. Prior to her presidency, she was the country's parliament speaker. She is also the first female president in Singapore's history.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: A former member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), she was the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Bukit Batok East ward of Jurong GRC between 2001 and 2015, and the Marsiling ward of Marsiling–Yew Tee GRC between 2015 and 2017.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: She resigned from the party and became an independent to run for the 2017 presidential election and won an uncontested election after the other candidates except for her did not meet the criteria to qualify.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: The election was specifically reserved for candidates from the Malay community due to an amendment made to the Constitution.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah was born on 23 August 1954 at her family home on Queen Street in Singapore, to an Indian father and Malay mother. Her father was a watchman who died due to a heart attack when she was eight years old, leaving her and four siblings to be brought up by her mother. Her family was in poverty at the time of her father's death, and she helped her mother to sell nasi padang outside the former Singapore Polytechnic (now Bestway Building) along Prince Edward Road.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: She attended Singapore Chinese Girls' School and Tanjong Katong Girls' School before graduating from the University of Singapore (now National University of Singapore) in 1978 with a Bachelor of Laws degree and was called to the Singapore Bar in 1981. She subsequently went on to complete a Master of Laws degree at the National University of Singapore in 2001, and was conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the National University of Singapore on 7 July 2016.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah began her career working as a legal officer at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), before becoming the director of its legal services department in 1992. She was later appointed as a director of the Singapore Institute of Labour Studies (now Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute) in 1999.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah made her political debut in the 2001 general election as part of a five-member PAP team contesting in Jurong GRC and won.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Following the 2001 general election, Halimah was appointed Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports. Following a Cabinet reshuffle in November 2012, she was appointed Minister of State for Social and Family Development. She had also served as Chairperson of the Jurong Town Council.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In January 2015, Halimah was co-opted into the PAP's Central Executive Committee (CEC), the party's highest decision-making body.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: As Member of Parliament, Halimah has spoken out actively against Islamic extremism, in particular condemning and disassociating from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: On 8 January 2013, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong nominated Halimah to succeed Michael Palmer as Speaker of Parliament following Palmer's resignation after he was revealed to have had an extramarital affair. Halimah was elected Speaker on 14 January 2013, the first woman to hold the post in Singapore's history.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah served at the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) as Deputy Secretary-General, Director of the Legal Services Department and Director of the Women's Development Secretariat. She had also served as Executive Secretary of the United Workers of Electronics and Electrical Industries.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah was elected as the Workers' Vice-Chairperson of the Standards Committee of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva from 2000 to 2002 and in 2005. Between 2003 and 2004, she was the Workers' Spokesperson for the ILC Committee on Human Resources Development and Training.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: While speaking during the debate on the Presidential Elections Amendment Bill on 6 February 2017, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Chan Chun Sing addressed Halimah as "Madam President" twice instead of "Madam Speaker", drawing laughter from the PAP MPs and leading to widespread speculation that Halimah would be the party's preferred candidate for the reserved presidential elections.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: On 6 August 2017, Halimah announced that she would be stepping down as Speaker of Parliament and MP of Marsiling–Yew Tee the next day to run for the presidency in the 2017 presidential election, which was reserved for members of the Malay community. She was widely viewed as the PAP's candidate for the election, and was endorsed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In an interview published on 11 August 2017, Halimah gave her views on the reserved presidential election. She said that it "shows we don't only talk about multiracialism, but we talk about it in the context of meritocracy or opportunities for everyone, and we actually practise it". Although some commentators have felt that the reserved election did not promote meritocracy, Halimah rejected that view, as she described, "All candidates have to qualify ... If we weaken eligibility criteria for those taking part in a reserved election, yes, then we are compromising meritocracy for representation. We are not - the same criteria apply to everybody". Regarding commentators who have questioned the lower qualifying bar for public sector candidates like herself, Halimah said, "It is an open, transparent system ... has been in place since 1991".


title: Halimah Yacob

text: On 25 August 2017, Halimah launched her official campaign website, including her campaign slogan "Do Good Do Together", which was criticised by many for being ungrammatical. She defended her slogan, explaining that it is meant to be catchy. In response to public queries whether Halimah broke election rules by campaigning ahead of the nomination day, the Elections Department clarified that its rule which forbids candidates from campaigning before close of nomination only applies to candidates who are nominated.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah's campaign expenses reached only $220,875 out of the $754,982.40 legal limit. Her expenses were used for promotional material, room rental, office supplies, food, transport and phone bills. Queries were also raised regarding Halimah's long affiliation with the PAP and perceived lack of political independence as she quit the party just one month ago to campaign in the election. Halimah responded by comparing herself to former President Ong Teng Cheong, who was also a PAP member before being elected. She also cited that she had abstained from voting in an amendment for the Human Organ Transplant Act in 2007.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Former NMP Calvin Cheng suggested that Halimah does not appear to have the professional experience needed to manage the financial reserves. According to Publichouse.sg's estimate, her financial management involvement is only about $40 million, much less than the stringent $500 million shareholders’ equity requirement for private sector candidates.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Being the only candidate to be issued a Certificate of Eligibility, Halimah became the eighth President of Singapore. Tan Cheng Bock, a former presidential candidate, wrote that Halimah "will occupy the most controversial presidency in the history of Singapore." "The Economist" described her as "popular and able". She is also the nation's first female President and Southeast Asia's fourth female Head of State after Corazon Aquino and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines and Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah's sudden resignation as sole minority MP in Marsiling–Yew Tee GRC has sparked calls among the opposition for a by-election as the purpose of GRC is to ensure minority representation. The PAP government refused to hold a by-election, culminating in the filing of a lawsuit by Wong Souk Yee, a resident in the GRC. A hearing was set for 15 January 2018.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: On 13 September 2017, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) filed a lawsuit in the High Court against the PAP government for refusing to call a by-election in Marsiling–Yew Tee GRC following Halimah's resignation from her post as the sole minority MP in her constituency.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In a High Court hearing conducted on 23 January 2018, Wong's lawyer, Peter Low, argued that the Parliamentary Elections Act should be interpreted such that all MPs of the group representation constituency have to leave their spots when one or more seats are left empty, or when only one remaining MP is a minority candidate. He cited Article 49 (1) of the Constitution, which states that when "the seat of a Member… has become vacant for any reason other than a dissolution of Parliament, the vacancy shall be filled by election" to support his argument.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: After the Elections Department announced that Halimah was the only possible candidate for the presidency, global media monitoring house Meltwater observed a significant increase in negative sentiment on social media surrounding the Presidential Elections from 11 to 12 September 2017. The data shows 83% of negative sentiment and 17% of positive sentiment. Following the announcement, a number of Singaporeans began using the hashtag #NotMyPresident on Facebook and Twitter to voice their disappointment. In response, "The Straits Times" reported that there was the use of #halimahismypresident by an "equally vocal group", urging "Singaporeans to rally round their next president".


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah's decision to remain staying in her public housing HDB flat at Yishun raised security concerns. On 2 October 2017, Halimah accepted the government's decision to move her out of her Yishun flat to a more secure location. The government keeps track on the residence and security arrangements for her as well.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah was sworn on 14 September 2017 as the president of Singapore at The Istana. She was "ex officio" appointed Chancellor of the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah made her first state visit as president to Brunei on 11 May 2018, where she witnessed the signing of a financial technology agreement and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to exchange information related to money laundering and terrorist financing between Singapore and Brunei. At the invitation of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, Halimah was the first president of Singapore to visit the Netherlands since the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries on 7 December 1965. The visit took place from 20 to 24 November 2018.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In September 2019, Halimah oversaw the signing of eight memorandums with the Philippines, allowing Singaporean companies and small and medium-sized enterprises to expand in the areas of data protection, science and technology and skills training and development of human resources.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In 2019, Halimah advocated for companies to embrace gender equality, noting that it will increase innovation and business profitability during her speech at the Women's Forum Asia. She had also publicly voiced her views about a local podcast, Okletsgo, for their offensive remarks against women and asked the hosts of the show for an apology for their remarks.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In April 2020, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, Halimah approved her in-principle for the government's request to draw S$21 billion from the past national reserves, aimed at subsidising wages of 1.9 million workers and preserving jobs and businesses. On 7 April 2020, the Supplementary Supply Bill was revised for the Resilience and Solidarity Budgets and the revised bill was asserted by Halimah on 9 April 2020. On 5 June 2020, the Parliament of Singapore passed the Second Supplementary Supply Bill for the Fortitude Budget, to allow for the government to draw an additional of S$31 billion from the past reserves, aimed at securing employment for those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic as the country loosens restrictions after the circuit breaker.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: On 16 June 2020, Halimah assented to the Second Supplementary Supply Bill, which enacted the Second Supplementary Supply Act, to allow the government the additional requested funds to ease the effects of the pandemic. This marks the second time that the past reserves of Singapore were drawn in the financial year of 2020 and it was also the largest amount drawn from the past reserves since Singapore's independence, with the funds totalling S$52 billion. She was the 2nd president to exercise the President's discretionary powers for this purpose, after President S. R. Nathan in 2009 for the financial crisis of 2007–2008.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Halimah is married to Mohammed Abdullah Alhabshee, a Malay of Arab descent, and they have five children. Mohammed graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. It was also where he first met Halimah.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: Although Halimah is categorised as an Indian Muslim due to her father's descent, she ran for the 2017 presidential election as a Malay candidate and identifies herself as a Malay Muslim.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: After being sworn in as president, she was known to be the first president residing in a HDB flat. Her flat was a duplex in Yishun, consisting of one 5-room flat and one 4-room flat joined by demolishing the median wall. Halimah previously stated that she would not be moving out of her HDB flat during her term in office. On 2 October 2017, however, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced that she would be moving out of the public housing apartment, due to security threats identified by security agencies from being the head of state.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: In recognition of her contributions, she was awarded the "Berita Harian Achiever of the Year Award" in 2001, the "Her World Woman of the Year Award" in 2003, and the AWARE Heroine Award 2011.


title: Halimah Yacob

text: She was also inducted into the Singapore Council of Women's Organisations' Singapore Women's Hall of Fame in 2014.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Monstera deliciosa, the Swiss cheese plant or split-leaf philodendron is a species of flowering plant native to tropical forests of southern Mexico, south to Panama. It has been introduced to many tropical areas, and has become a mildly invasive species in Hawaii, Seychelles, Ascension Island and the Society Islands. It is very widely grown in temperate zones as a houseplant.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: The common name "Swiss cheese plant" is also used for the related species from the same genus, "Monstera adansonii". The common name "split-leaf philodendron" is also used for the species "Thaumatophyllum bipinnatifidum", although neither species are in the genus "Philodendron".


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: The specific epithet "deliciosa" means "delicious", referring to the edible fruit. The genus "Monstera" is named from the Latin word for "monstrous" or "abnormal", and refers to the unusual leaves with natural holes that members of the genus have.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Its popular name as a houseplant of "Swiss cheese plant", or just "cheese plant", is commonly stated to refer to the "eyes" or holes which develop in its leaves similar to the holes in some Swiss-type cheeses such as Emmental cheese.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Other common names include delicious monster, fruit salad plant, fruit salad tree (in reference to its edible fruit, which tastes similar to a fruit salad), ceriman, monster fruit, monsterio delicio, monstereo, Mexican breadfruit, windowleaf, balazo and Penglai banana. The names in Spanish (), Portuguese (), and French () refer to the change of the leaves from entire to fenestrated, comparing it in the first two cases with the ribs of Adam and in the third with the hole-filled . In Mexico, the plant is sometimes referred to as . In coastal regions of Sicily, especially Palermo, it is called "zampa di leone" (lion's paw).


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: This member of the arum family (Araceae) is a hemiepiphyte with aerial roots. It is able to grow up to high in the wild, with large, leathery, glossy, pinnate, heart-shaped leaves long by broad. The leaves on young plants are smaller and entire with no lobes or holes, but soon produce lobed and fenestrate leaves as they grow. Although it can grow very tall in nature, it only measures between when grown indoors. The older the plant, the more the leaves are covered with its familiar large perforations.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Wild seedlings grow towards the darkest area they can grow until they find a tree trunk, then start to grow up towards the light, creeping up the tree.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: The inflorescence is adorned with a cream-white spathe of uniform, velvety appearance, covering, like a hood, a yellowish white spadix high and about in diameter. Flowers are self pollinating, containing both androecium and gynoecium. Since they contain both structures, this plant is able to self-pollinate.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: The fruit of "Monstera deliciosa" is up to long and diameter, and it looks like a green ear of maize covered with hexagonal scales. As the fruit ripens, these scales or platelets fall off the fruit, releasing a strong and sweet scent. The smell has been compared to a combination of pineapples and bananas. The fruit is edible and safe for humans.


title: Monstera deliciosa

text: Fruits of plants of the Araceae (Arum family) often contain raphides and trichosclereids – needle-like structures of calcium oxalate. In "M. deliciosa," unripe fruit containing these needle-like crystalline structures can cause irritation of the mouth.