title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: The 2021 Western Australian state election was conducted on Saturday 13 March 2021 to elect members to the Parliament of Western Australia, where all 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly and all 36 seats in the Legislative Council were up for election.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: The incumbent Labor Government, led by Premier Mark McGowan, won a second consecutive four-year term in office in an historic landslide victory. Their primary challengers were the opposition Liberal Party, led by Opposition Leader Zak Kirkup, and the National Party, led by Mia Davies. Several minor parties also contested the election in the Assembly and Council.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: ABC News psephologist Antony Green called the election for the Labor Party 42 minutes after the polls closed, with 0.7% of the vote counted. Labor won 53 out of 59 of the seats in the Assembly, outdoing its previous record of 41 seats in 2017, whilst the Liberals had a wipeout loss and won only two seats, suffering a 14% two-party preferred swing. The Nationals claimed the four remaining seats and became the largest opposition party in the Assembly. To date, the election is the most decisive result at any Australian state or federal election since Federation in terms of percentage of lower house seats controlled by the governing party (89.8%), and two-party preferred margin (69.7%–30.3%). Labor's unprecedented victory extended to the Legislative Council, and the party claimed a majority of the seats in the upper house for the first time.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Candidates were elected to single-member seats in the Legislative Assembly via full-preferential instant-runoff voting. In the Legislative Council, six candidates were elected in each of the six electoral regions through the single transferable vote system with group voting tickets. The election was conducted by the Western Australian Electoral Commission.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Although the Liberals and Nationals did not contest the election as a coalition and are separate parties, the two-party-preferred calculation aggregates Labor/Liberal and Labor/Nationals contests.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Labor's victory was built on a near-sweep of Perth. Labor had gone into the election holding 33 of Perth's 43 seats (having lost one at a by-election). It won an additional nine in 2021, some on swings of over 10 percent, leaving Cottesloe as the only non-Labor seat in the capital. Many of Labor's gains came in seats long considered Liberal heartland. For example, Nedlands, the seat of former Liberal premiers Charles and Richard Court, fell to Labor for the first time since its creation in 1930, while South Perth was taken by Labor for the first time since its creation in 1950.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Among the more prominent casualties was Opposition Leader Zak Kirkup, who was heavily defeated in his own seat of Dawesville on a swing of over 14 percent, and former opposition leader Liza Harvey, whose seat of Scarborough fell to a 16 percent swing.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: On paper, Labor was left as the only party with official status in the legislature, as no other party won at least five seats. However, McGowan promised that the Nationals would be properly resourced as an opposition, envisaging that they would divide opposition funding with the Liberals.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: The 2017 state election saw Labor win one of the most comprehensive victories on record at the state or territory level in Australia. Labor won 41 of the 59 seats in the Legislative Assembly—a 23-seat majority—both WA Labor's strongest result ever, and the largest government seat tally and largest government majority in Western Australian parliamentary history. Additionally, Labor exceeded all published opinion polling, winning 55.5 percent of the two-party-preferred vote from a state record landslide 12.8 percent two-party swing. The Liberals were hit by a 15.8% swing against them on the primary vote and lost 18 seats to Labor, finishing with just 13 seats, the lowest share of seats the party has won in any election. The Nationals won the remaining five seats. Labor also became the largest party in the Legislative Council with 14 of the 36 seats, ensuring it required at least five additional votes from non-government members to pass legislation.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Two by-elections were held during the term of parliament, both in 2018. The Liberal Party held the seat of Cottesloe and picked up the seat Darling Range, increasing the Liberal/National bloc in the Assembly to 19 and decreasing the Labor Party to 40. In July/August 2019, Liberal MP Ian Blayney resigned from the party and joined the Nationals, thus returning the Liberal vote bloc to 13 and increasing the National vote bloc to 6.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: In the lead up to the election, Premier Mark McGowan had high approval ratings over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Opinion polls pegged the McGowan Government as unbackable favourites for a second term, and suggested that Labor would be re-elected by a record majority. Labor enjoyed support approaching 70% in the two-party preferred polls, and McGowan maintained a personal approval rating of 88%. On 25 February 2021, 16 days before Election Day, Leader of the Opposition Zak Kirkup conceded that the Liberals could not win the election, citing polling indicating immense popularity for McGowan and the Labor Government. Kirkup said that his main priority was ensuring the Liberals would be able to form a credible opposition, arguing that a Liberal party room reduced to the single digits would be in no position to stop Labor if it went "too far."


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Candidates are elected to single-member seats in the Legislative Assembly via full-preferential instant-runoff voting. In the Legislative Council, six candidates are elected in each of the six electoral regions through the single transferable vote system with group voting tickets.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Election dates are set in statute with four-year fixed terms, to be held on the second Saturday of March every four years.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: In January 2021, Liberal Party candidate for Victoria Park Amanda-Sue Markham defended her husband's controversial views on homosexuality and conversion therapy. Despite calls for her to do so, she did not withdraw from the election.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Additionally, the Liberal Party candidate for Baldivis, Andrea Tokaji, was forced to resign from the Liberal Party after making discredited claims about a link between 5G towers and COVID-19. She continued as an Independent candidate for Baldivis, with the Liberal Party selecting Luke Derrick as her replacement.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: In March 2021, One Nation dumped Roger Barnett as its candidate for the seat of Forrestfield after offensive Muslim and Aboriginal comments emerged from his Facebook page that were posted between 2012 and 2018. It was also reported later that another One Nation candidate had comments that were offensive towards Muslim and African people.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: A redistribution of electoral boundaries for the lower house was announced on 27 November 2019. The changes did not result in a district changing party status notionally based on the new boundaries. However, the districts of Hillarys and Joondalup became far more marginal, with margins of 0.4 and 0.03 respectively. There was one seat renamed in due to the boundary changes, with Girrawheen becoming the new district of Landsdale. Ten districts were not affected by boundary changes.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: This is a pre-election pendulum, taking into account the 2019 boundary redistribution. Estimated margins are calculated by Antony Green for the Western Australian Parliamentary Library. Retiring members are shown in italics.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: While all electorates swung towards Labor, there was some correlation between certain characteristics (demographics as measured by the 2016 Australian Census) and the magnitude of the two-party-preferred swing to Labor in each electorate. This does not necessarily imply a causal relationship but rather some similarities between electoral districts which moved more or less towards the Labor party on the two-party-preferred.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Electoral districts which were flipped by a Labor candidate at the last election (e.g. the electoral district of Joondalup, which was a Liberal-held district prior to the 2017 Western Australian state election) saw a bigger swing to Labor than similar districts which were already Labor-held or which had not changed hands. Districts where a Labor incumbent retired (e.g. electoral district of Albany) saw a smaller swing to Labor than similar districts where there were no Labor retirements.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Electoral districts with a high proportion of persons aged 60 years or older swung less to Labor than the rest of the state (R = 0.2, p < 0.001), even after adjusting for the incumbency effect mentioned above.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Electoral districts with a high proportion of persons working in clerical or administrative jobs swung more to Labor than the rest of the state (R = 0.12, p < 0.01). This may be confounded by the fact that most such electorates are inner-city Perth electorates and therefore this may be more a factor of inner-city Perth swinging harder to Labor than the rest of the state, and not due to clerical/administrative-heavy electorates swinging to Labor per se.


title: 2021 Western Australian state election

text: Electorates with a higher proportion of persons who spoke a language other than English at home also somewhat swung more to Labor than the rest of the state (R = 0.08, p < 0.05).


title: Cavernous sinus

text: The cavernous sinus within the human head is one of the dural venous sinuses creating a cavity called the lateral sellar compartment bordered by the temporal bone of the skull and the sphenoid bone, lateral to the sella turcica.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: The cavernous sinus is one of the dural venous sinuses of the head. It is a network of veins that sit in a cavity. It sits on both sides of the sphenoidal bone and pituitary gland, approximately 1 × 2 cm in size in an adult. The of the internal carotid artery, and cranial nerves III, IV, V (branches V and V) and VI all pass through this blood filled space. Both sides of cavernous sinus is connected to each other via intercavernous sinuses. The cavernous sinus lies in between the inner and outer layers of dura mater.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: Blood leaves the sinus via superior and inferior petrosal sinuses as well as via the emissary veins through the foramina of the skull (mostly through foramen ovale). There are also connections with the pterygoid plexus of veins via inferior ophthalmic vein, deep facial vein and emissary veins.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: Apart from the blood which passes through a venous sinus, several anatomical structures, including some cranial nerves and their branches, also pass through the sinus.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: These nerves, with the exception of CN V, pass through the cavernous sinus to enter the orbital apex through the superior orbital fissure. The maxillary nerve, division V of the trigeminal nerve travels through the lower portion of the sinus and exits via the foramen rotundum. The maxillary branch passes external to, but immediately adjacent to, the lateral wall of the sinus.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: The optic nerve lies just above and outside the cavernous sinus, superior and lateral to the pituitary gland on each side, and enters the orbital apex via the optic canal.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: As a venous sinus, the cavernous sinus receives blood from the superior and inferior ophthalmic veins and from superficial cortical veins, and is connected to the basilar plexus of veins posteriorly. The cavernous sinus drains by two larger channels, the superior and inferior petrosal sinuses, ultimately into the internal jugular vein via the sigmoid sinus, also draining with emissary vein to pterygoid plexus.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: It is the only anatomic location in the body in which an artery travels completely through a venous structure. If the internal carotid artery ruptures within the cavernous sinus, an "arteriovenous fistula" is created (more specifically, a carotid-cavernous fistula). Lesions affecting the cavernous sinus may affect isolated nerves or all the nerves traversing through it.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: The pituitary gland lies between the two paired cavernous sinuses. An abnormally growing pituitary adenoma, sitting on the bony sella turcica, will expand in the direction of least resistance and eventually invade the cavernous sinus. Cavernous sinus syndrome may result from mass effect of these tumors and cause ophthalmoplegia (from compression of the oculomotor nerve, trochlear nerve, and abducens nerve), ophthalmic sensory loss (from compression of the ophthalmic nerve), and maxillary sensory loss (from compression of the maxillary nerve). A complete lesion of the cavernous sinus disrupts CN III, IV, and VI, causing total ophthalmoplegia, usually accompanied by a fixed, dilated pupil. Involvement of CN V (V and variable involvement of V) causes sensory loss in these divisions of the trigeminal nerve. Horner's syndrome can also occur due to involvement of the carotid ocular sympathetics, but may be difficult to appreciate in the setting of a complete third nerve injury.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: Because of its connections with the facial vein via the superior ophthalmic vein, it is possible to get infections in the cavernous sinus from an external facial injury within the danger area of the face. In patients with thrombophlebitis of the facial vein, pieces of the clot may break off and enter the cavernous sinus, forming a cavernous sinus thrombosis. From there the infection may spread to the dural venous sinuses. Infections may also be introduced by facial lacerations and by bursting pimples in the areas drained by the facial vein.


title: Cavernous sinus

text: Potential causes of cavernous sinus syndrome include metastatic tumors, direct extension of nasopharyngeal tumours, meningioma, pituitary tumors or pituitary apoplexy, aneurysms of the intracavernous carotid artery, carotid-cavernous fistula, bacterial infection causing cavernous sinus thrombosis, aseptic cavernous sinus thrombosis, idiopathic granulomatous disease (Tolosa–Hunt syndrome), and fungal infections. Cavernous sinus syndrome is a medical emergency, requiring prompt medical attention, diagnosis, and treatment.


title: Autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity

text: In econometrics, the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) model is a statistical model for time series data that describes the variance of the current error term or innovation as a function of the actual sizes of the previous time periods' error terms; often the variance is related to the squares of the previous innovations. The ARCH model is appropriate when the error variance in a time series follows an autoregressive (AR) model; if an autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model is assumed for the error variance, the model is a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model.


text: ARCH models are commonly employed in modeling financial time series that exhibit time-varying volatility and volatility clustering, i.e. periods of swings interspersed with periods of relative calm. ARCH-type models are sometimes considered to be in the family of stochastic volatility models, although this is strictly incorrect since at time "t" the volatility is completely pre-determined (deterministic) given previous values.


text: To model a time series using an ARCH process, let formula_1denote the error terms (return residuals, with respect to a mean process), i.e. the series terms. These formula_1 are split into a stochastic piece formula_3 and a time-dependent standard deviation formula_4 characterizing the typical size of the terms so that


text: An ARCH("q") model can be estimated using ordinary least squares. A method for testing whether the residuals formula_11 exhibit time-varying heteroskedasticity using the Lagrange multiplier test was proposed by Engle (1982). This procedure is as follows:


text: If an autoregressive moving average model (ARMA) model is assumed for the error variance, the model is a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model.


text: In that case, the GARCH ("p", "q") model (where "p" is the order of the GARCH terms formula_21 and "q" is the order of the ARCH terms formula_22 ), following the notation of the original paper, is given by


text: Generally, when testing for heteroskedasticity in econometric models, the best test is the White test. However, when dealing with time series data, this means to test for ARCH and GARCH errors.


text: Exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) is an alternative model in a separate class of exponential smoothing models. As an alternative to GARCH modelling it has some attractive properties such as a greater weight upon more recent observations, but also drawbacks such as an arbitrary decay factor that introduces subjectivity into the estimation.


text: For stock returns, parameter formula_36 is usually estimated to be positive; in this case, it reflects a phenomenon commonly referred to as the "leverage effect", signifying that negative returns increase future volatility by a larger amount than positive returns of the same magnitude.


text: This model should not be confused with the NARCH model, together with the NGARCH extension, introduced by Higgins and Bera in 1992.


text: Integrated Generalized Autoregressive Conditional heteroskedasticity (IGARCH) is a restricted version of the GARCH model, where the persistent parameters sum up to one, and imports a unit root in the GARCH process. The condition for this is


text: The exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (EGARCH) model by Nelson & Cao (1991) is another form of the GARCH model. Formally, an EGARCH(p,q):


text: where formula_39, formula_40 is the conditional variance, formula_41, formula_42, formula_43, formula_44 and formula_45 are coefficients. formula_46 may be a standard normal variable or come from a generalized error distribution. The formulation for formula_47 allows the sign and the magnitude of formula_46 to have separate effects on the volatility. This is particularly useful in an asset pricing context.


text: The GARCH-in-mean (GARCH-M) model adds a heteroskedasticity term into the mean equation. It has the specification:


text: The Quadratic GARCH (QGARCH) model by Sentana (1995) is used to model asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks.


text: Similar to QGARCH, the Glosten-Jagannathan-Runkle GARCH (GJR-GARCH) model by Glosten, Jagannathan and Runkle (1993) also models asymmetry in the ARCH process. The suggestion is to model formula_57 where formula_55 is i.i.d., and


text: The Threshold GARCH (TGARCH) model by Zakoian (1994) is similar to GJR GARCH. The specification is one on conditional standard deviation instead of conditional variance:


text: where formula_65 if formula_66, and formula_67 if formula_68. Likewise, formula_69 if formula_68, and formula_71 if formula_66.


text: Hentschel's fGARCH model, also known as Family GARCH, is an omnibus model that nests a variety of other popular symmetric and asymmetric GARCH models including APARCH, GJR, AVGARCH, NGARCH, etc.


text: In 2004, Claudia Klüppelberg, Alexander Lindner and Ross Maller proposed a continuous-time generalization of the discrete-time GARCH(1,1) process. The idea is to start with the GARCH(1,1) model equations


text: and then to replace the strong white noise process formula_55 by the infinitesimal increments formula_76 of a Lévy process formula_77, and the squared noise process formula_78 by the increments formula_79, where


text: is the purely discontinuous part of the quadratic variation process of formula_81. The result is the following system of stochastic differential equations:


text: where the positive parameters formula_84, formula_85 and formula_86 are determined by formula_87, formula_88 and formula_89. Now given some initial condition formula_90, the system above has a pathwise unique solution formula_91 which is then called the continuous-time GARCH (COGARCH) model.


text: Unlike GARCH model, the Zero-Drift GARCH (ZD-GARCH) model by Li, Zhang, Zhu and Ling (2018) lets the drift term formula_92 in the first order GARCH model. The ZD-GARCH model is to model formula_57, where formula_55 is i.i.d., and


text: The ZD-GARCH model does not require formula_96, and hence it nests the Exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) model in "RiskMetrics". Since the drift term formula_92, the ZD-GARCH model is always non-stationary, and its statistical inference methods are quite different from those for the classical GARCH model. Based on the historical data, the parameters formula_98 and formula_99 can be estimated by the generalized QMLE method.


text: Spatial GARCH processes by Otto, Schmid and Garthoff (2018) are considered as the spatial equivalent to the temporal generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models. In contrast to the temporal ARCH model, in which the distribution is known given the full information set for the prior periods, the distribution is not straightforward in the spatial and spatiotemporal setting due to the interdependence between neighboring spatial locations. The spatial model is given by formula_100 and


text: where formula_102 denotes the formula_103-th spatial location and formula_104 refers to the formula_105-th entry of a spatial weight matrix and formula_106 for formula_107. The spatial weight matrix defines which locations are considered to be adjacent.


text: In a different vein, the machine learning community has proposed the use of Gaussian process regression models to obtain a GARCH scheme. This results in a nonparametric modelling scheme, which allows for: (i) advanced robustness to overfitting, since the model marginalises over its parameters to perform inference, under a Bayesian inference rationale; and (ii) capturing highly-nonlinear dependencies without increasing model complexity.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver (Norwegian for "wolves") is a Norwegian experimental electronica band founded in 1993, by vocalist Kristoffer Rygg. Their early works, such as debut album "Bergtatt", were categorised as folklore-influenced black metal, but the band has since evolved a fluid and increasingly eclectic musical style, blending genres such as experimental rock, electronica, ambient, trip hop, symphonic and chamber traditions, noise, progressive and experimental music into their oeuvre. 1997 marked their international debut with the release of their third album "Nattens madrigal" through German label Century Media. However, following discord with the label, Rygg formed his own imprint, Jester Records, in 1998.


title: Ulver

text: In 1997, Rygg invited composer and multi-instrumentalist Tore Ylwizaker into the band, and together they changed Ulver's musical direction. Their first musical endeavour together, "Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", drew from a variety of non-metal sources, including classical and avant-garde, and the works of William Blake. "Metamorphosis" (1999) and "Perdition City" (2000) followed, showcasing further experimentation and explorations into electronic music. In 2000, author Jørn H. Sværen joined the band, and since then, the core of Ulver has been Rygg, Ylwizaker and Sværen. In 2009, Ulver expanded their line-up: British multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan became the fourth core member, and several other musicians were enlisted as supporting and live members; of the latter, Norwegian musician and producer Ole Alexander Halstensgård has since established himself as another prominent member of the band.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver has performed at several prestigious venues, including Queen Elizabeth Hall (2009), the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet (2010), Teatro Regio di Parma (2013), Labirinto della Masone di Franco Maria Ricci (2017) and held artist residency at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (2018).


title: Ulver

text: The band have sold in excess of half a million records, been three nominated for the Norwegian Grammy Awards, Spellemannsprisen, in different categories, won "Album of the Year" at the Oslo Awards for "Shadows of the Sun" in 2008, won the NATT&DAG award for "Best Live Act" in 2011, and earned a global reputation for stylistic unpredictability.


title: Ulver

text: Author and musician Julian Cope has said, "Ulver are cataloguing the death of our culture two decades before anyone else has noticed its inevitable demise."


title: Ulver

text: The band was founded in 1993 in Oslo by vocalist Kristoffer Rygg together with Grellmund, Robin Malmberg, Carl-Michael Eide, Håvard Jørgensen, and A. Reza. Ulver issued their first demo cassette, "Vargnatt", in November 1993. Their music and style was consistent with the Norwegian black metal subculture of the early 1990s. However some have noted the avant-garde, jazz, rock and gothic influences that would later shape the band's sound. The archaic Dano-Norwegian lyrics were greatly influenced by Scandinavian folktales and inspired by Baroque poets such as Ludvig Holberg and the hymn-writer Thomas Kingo.


title: Ulver

text: Their debut album, "Bergtatt", the first part of what has become known as Ulver's "Black Metal Trilogie," was issued in February 1995 through Norwegian label Head Not Found. The album was met with critical acclaim, and was notable for blending black metal, harsh vocals and blurred, buzzing guitars with quiet, folk-like acoustic passages. It was praised for its unique atmosphere and was described as "mysterious, melancholic, eerie, and oddly tranquil."


title: Ulver

text: Prior to their second album, founding member Grellmund committed suicide on New Year’s Day 1996 at the age of 19."Kveldssanger", issued March 1996 by Head Not Found, Ulver eschewed a typical black metal sound by incorporating classical guitars, cello and choral chamber chants overlaid with subtle orchestral landscapes. The album was a drastic contrast to "Bergtatt", whilst still retaining the atmospheric and folk themes. Rygg has since remarked that "Kveldssanger", despite strong content, was an "immature attempt at making a classical album". The album was praised for its atmosphere, evoking a feeling of quiet, eerie solitude.


title: Ulver

text: Following the success of their first two albums, Ulver signed with German label Century Media for their third album "Nattens madrigal", issued in March 1997, marking the band's international debut. The album showcases a black metal style similar to "Bergtatt", abandoning the acoustic and atmospheric elements of "Kveldssanger", with an intentionally underproduced sound. The album has been described as "raw and grim black metal at its blackest." A common myth about the album is that the band spent the recording budget on Armani suits, cocaine and a Corvette; and recorded the album outdoors in a Norwegian forest on an 8-track recorder. Rygg, however, has stated that this is not true, and possibly a rumour started by Century Media. The album has been described as "so fast and ferocious and the vocals so garbled that it's best just to take the sheer sonic force as reflecting the band's concept, rather than trying to piece it all together."


title: Ulver

text: "Metal Injection" concluded ""Kveldssanger" had no electric instruments, "Nattens madrigal" had no acoustic instruments, but "Bergtatt", has both acoustic and electric instruments; it's like they spliced the elements from "Bergtatt" into two separate albums. If that's the case, then "Nattens madrigal" really showcases the black metal prowess of the band. The album answers exactly why people were so angered by Ulver's transition away from black metal, and why people are still bitter at their direction today."


title: Ulver

text: In 1997, Century Media issued "The Trilogie – Three Journeyes Through the Norwegian Netherworlde", a limited edition collection, containing "Bergtatt", "Kveldssanger" and "Nattens madrigal" in LP Picture Disc format, housed in a cardboard box, with a booklet and bonus posters.


title: Ulver

text: In 1997, Rygg invited composer and sound architect Tore Ylwizaker into the collective in order to expand their artistic and musical visions; and together they stepped over the boundaries of black metal aesthetics, creating a genre-defying work in "Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", released in December 1998. The album was issued through Rygg's own imprint, Jester Records, a label born out of discord between Ulver and Century Media. Musically, the album blended electronics, industrial music elements, progressive metal and experimental rock, adding ambient passages. Lyrically, the album incorporates the entire text of William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", utilising guest vocalists on several songs. The album received widespread acclaim from critics within both the rock/metal and alternative music press - being awarded "album of the month" in several high-profile magazines such as "Terrorizer", "Metal Hammer", and "Rock Hard" and ranked highly in their end of year's best polls. However, the album's transitional nature perhaps alienated many fans of the band's first three albums — causing a backlash from the black metal scene.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver, now only consisting of Rygg and Ylwizaker, issued an EP, "Metamorphosis", in September 1999. The music moving to the more heavily electronic approach, bridging the gap to the film-noir ambiance of 2000's full-length album "Perdition City". In the sleeve notes to "Metamorphosis", the group declared:


title: Ulver

text: "Perdition City", issued in March 2000, was described as moody, atmospheric electronica, cinematic in scope, evoking a soundtrack for an imaginary film. "Kerrang!" praised the album, ranking it top ten that year, noting "This ain't rock 'n roll. This is evolution on such a grand scale that most bands wouldn't even be able to wrap their tiny little minds around it." Musically, Ulver not only explores new genres, but also shift from extrovert, into more introverted moods, or interior music.


title: Ulver

text: Later that year, Jørn H. Sværen joined the band. The band followed up "Perdition City" with two improv/minimalist/ambient/glitch companion EPs, called "Silence Teaches You How to Sing" and "Silencing the Singing", in September and December 2001, respectively. The material featured here was loosely recorded during the sessions for the "Perdition City" album. The style is more experimental/atmospheric and less beat-oriented; rather mood pieces that revolve around the "Perdition City" theme. Due to the experimental nature of the music, both "Silence" EPs were limited to two thousand, and three thousand copies. However, both EPs were re-released as one disc, under the title "Teachings in Silence", in November 2002.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver, now with more confidence in their ambient sensibilities descent into the world of film soundtracks, producing scores for "Lyckantropen" (issued as "Lyckantropen Themes", in November 2002), "Svidd neger" (issued as "Svidd neger", in September 2003) and a joint soundtrack with singer/songwriter Tom McRae for the multiple award-winning "Uno". Ulver were praised for their soundtrack work, and their ability to adapt and providing a sense of continuity to each film. The song "Silence Teaches You How to Sing" was later used in the 2012 supernatural horror film "Sinister".


title: Ulver

text: Ulver celebrated their ten-year anniversary with a remix album, "", issued in April 2003, featuring contributions from Third Eye Foundation, Bogdan Raczynski, Fennesz, V/Vm and Merzbow.


title: Ulver

text: In 2002, the trio announced that they were working on a string remake of "Nattens madrigal", but Rygg later stated that the project "is in a state of total dormancy."


title: Ulver

text: In August 2003, Ulver issued an EP, "A Quick Fix of Melancholy", essentially a teaser for the forthcoming album, "Blood Inside". A delicate marriage of orchestration and electronica the EP features text by Christian Bök and a remix of a song from "Kveldssanger".


title: Ulver

text: In 2004, the group collaborated with Sámi vocalist Mari Boine and percussionist Marilyn Mazur to score Mona J. Hoel's film "Salto, salmiakk og kaffe". The film premiered in August 2004, however, the soundtrack remains unreleased.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver issued "Blood Inside" in June 2005, produced together with King Crimson collaborator Ronan Chris Murphy. The album returns to more classical arrangements and instrumentation, described as "a beautifully crafted album of both substance and style. Certainly, "Blood Inside" is still not for everyone, but those who choose to indulge in this will find themselves rewarded on every level." "["Blood Inside"] is ambiguous and full of intricate layers and influences working to tell a story that is both haunting and mesmerising. Garm's beautiful distorted vocals act as outcries of a desperate man hidden, pushed in the background of the story that the instrumentation tells." Webzine Avantgarde-metal.com concludes: "the sound of the album is maybe their most extravagant, extrovert, dynamic and wild, ranging from swing band to danceable hard electronic pop, with a lot of peaceful moments in between so much energy."


title: Ulver

text: Ulver and drone metal band Sunn O))) collaborated on the fifteen-minute track "CUT WOODeD" - a tribute to the deceased film director Ed Wood, which later appeared on Sunn O)))'s "WHITEbox" box set, issued in July 2006.


title: Ulver

text: "Shadows of the Sun" was issued in October 2007 in Europe and the United States and would include collaborations with artists Pamelia Kurstin contributing theremin, Mathias Eick on trumpet and Christian Fennesz, adding supplemental shimmer. Rygg described it as "our most personal record to date." Described as "low-key, dark and tragic," the album received critical acclaim, and in February 2008 the album won the Oslo Awards for "Album of the Year", in 2008. The album was also voted best album of 2007 at the website Sonic Frontiers.


title: Ulver

text: In 2009, Ulver announced it would become a quartet. Its three extant members — Kristoffer Rygg, Tore Ylwizaker and Jørn H. Sværen — enlisted British composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O'Sullivan (Æthenor, Guapo, Mothlite) into the collective. Ole Alexander Halstensgård was another prominent musician to be included in the live-act.


title: Ulver

text: The band accepted an invitation to appear at the Norwegian Festival of Literature, at Maihaugsalen (part of Maihaugen) in Lillehammer, Norway on 30 May 2009. The collective were accompanied by guest musicians Lars Pedersen (aka When) on drums, Pamelia Kurstin playing Theremin and Halstensgård (a founding member of Norwegian group Paperboys). The success of this performance lead to them embarking on a string of other live performances in 2009 and 2010, selling out prestigious venues, such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Volksbühne in Berlin and La Cigale in Paris before they returned to their homeland for their performance at The Norwegian Opera House. Ulver were the first band outside the established Norwegian music scene to be invited to play at the Opera House.


title: Ulver

text: The first album to feature the quartet is "Wars of the Roses", issued in April 2011 via Kscope, preceded by a single, "February MMX," in February. The album entered the Norwegian National Album Charts at Number 17. SputnikMusic noted, ""Wars of the Roses"<nowiki>'</nowiki> thoughtful conception and execution serves only for a thoughtful listen. After all this time, it still remains a privilege to bear witness to these wolves evolve once again." Murat Batmaz, commenting for "Sea of Tranquility" webzine, noted, "it amalgamates musical traits from its predecessors while re-shaping them with a more direct approach."


title: Ulver

text: In November 2011, Kscope released "The Norwegian National Opera," a film documenting Ulver's performance at The Norwegian National Opera on 31 July 2010. Described as "mesmerizing and stunningly beautiful" and "a unique and at times hypnotic live experience; far from a conventional one; more akin to a piece of performance art than a standard concert."


title: Ulver

text: Ulver's next project, "Childhood's End" came in the form of a collection of covers of "60s psychedelic chestnuts", issued on Jester Records, under license to Kscope, in May 2012. The album, a reinterpretation of '60s psychedelia, was intended by Ulver as a reflection on lost innocence. The album received favourable reviews; Ben Ratliffe, writing for "The New York Times", praised "Childhood's End" for its treatment of the original music, commenting that "these cover versions reward the ambition of the original songs, draping them with stateliness." Placing the album in the context of Ulver's discography, Ratliffe noted that "Childhood's End" is "the most straight-ahead Ulver record ever, but still strange". A music video for "Magic Hollow", directed by Justin Oakey, was released in April 2012.


title: Ulver

text: In 2012, Roadburn Records issued an installment in their "Roadburn" EP series on 7″ vinyl, featuring the songs "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)" b/w "Reverberation (Doubt)." Limited to 500 copies, of which 100 copies is gold vinyl - the release commemorated Ulver's performance at the Roadburn Festival, 013, Tilburg, in the Netherlands, on 12 April 2012. The full performance at the festival was issued as "Live at Roadburn" in June 2013 via Roadburn Records. It was the first and only time tracks from "Childhood's End" were performed live.


title: Ulver

text: Announcing a new DIY approach, Ulver released a press statement, "The Art of Dying," an articulated rant about the changes in the record industry. The band collected some covers and curiosities, and made them available to download as "Oddities & Rarities#1", including material from tribute albums and the "Uno" soundtrack.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver were commissioned in 2012 by the Tromsø Kulturhus (House of Culture) in Norway, in a cooperation with the Arctic Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra cultural institution to compose and perform a Mass. With additional aid and advice from composer Martin Romberg, and contemporary composers/musicians Ole-Henrik Moe and Kari Rønnekleiv, "Messe I.X–VI.X" was composed and first performed live by Ulver, alongside the Tromsø Chamber Orchestra on 21 September 2012. The band then took the recordings back to Crystal Canyon, Oslo and spent winter and spring in post-production, honing the material for its studio-equivalent. Issued in August 2013, Ulver's tenth studio album received universal critical acclaim, described as "a challenging work and an album of rare beauty".


title: Ulver

text: In January 2014, Ulver collaborated with Norway's National Theatre, providing the soundtrack to "Demoner 2014" (translated "Demons 2014"); based on a text by Geir Gulliksen, in turn freely based on the Dostoyevsky novel "Demons" (also known as "The Possessed"), the play premiered on 8 February 2014.


title: Ulver

text: On 2 January 2014, Ulver announced an 11-date European tour, "the February dates will consist of partly new and improv-based material, likely to revolve around motifs already familiar to our familiars. We are looking forward to get out there, and hope for some interesting music to be born those evenings and nights. We also aim to document some of it for those of you who cannot come."


title: Ulver

text: Ulver released a collaboration album with Sunn O))), entitled "Terrestrials", issued in February 2014 via Southern Lord. Produced by Rygg and Stephen O'Malley, it has been described as "three live improvisation pieces". On 10 December 2013, a sample from the closing track, "Eternal Return," was released for streaming. It was also streamed on Pitchfork Advance on the day it was released, until 10 February 2014.


title: Ulver

text: In April 2014, Century Media announced "Trolsk Sortmetall 1993-1997", collecting together the albums "Bergtatt", "Kveldssanger" and "Nattens madrigal", as well as the band's original demo cassette, "Vargnatt", and other rarities.


title: Ulver

text: In July 2014, Ulver contributed a cover of Shirley Collins' "Poor Murdered Woman" in support of Burning Bridges & Fifth Column Film's project "The Ballad of Shirley Collins". A film, book and tribute album honouring the life and work of this musical pioneer and folk legend.


title: Ulver

text: On 3 June 2015 on the band's official website, in a statement titled "Only Theatre of Pain," Ulver announce a number of forthcoming projects; including "Messe in Concert" at the distinguished Teatro Regio, Parma, Italy, 16 November 2013, with the Mg_Inc Orchestra. A live document of their concert featuring Pamelia Kurstin, including 15 minutes of new music written and performed specifically for the scene and topped up with full orchestra versions of "Little Blue Bird" and "Eos". They continue to announce their newest works, tentatively titled "The Assassination of Julius Caesar", with texts and themes in development.


title: Ulver

text: On 15 October 2015, in an interview with website "Steel for Brains", Ulver announced "ATGCLVLSSCAP", a double album with over 80 minutes worth of material, consisting of multitracked and studio-enhanced live, mostly improvisational, rock and electronic soundscapes, 2/3 of which had never been heard before. Announcing further details on 28 October, the album was released on 22 January 2016 on Vinyl and CD formats via newly formed, London-based label House of Mythology. The basis for the album – which the band worked on under the moniker "12" – arrives from recordings made at twelve different live shows that Ulver performed in February 2014, in which the band played a set improvisatory "free rock" performances. Band member Daniel O'Sullivan took the multitrack recordings, sculpting and editing hours of material in his North London home, before Anders Møller, Kristoffer Rygg and Tore Ylwizaker got involved, completing the recordings at Subsonic Society and Oak Hill Studios, Oslo.


title: Ulver

text: In 2016, the band composed the score for the Canadian drama film "Riverhead". In October, a new studio album, "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" was announced to be released on 7 April as well as a performance at the 2017 edition of Roadburn Festival. A string of festival dates were subsequently added. The album showed the band switching directions in terms of musical stylisms once again, focusing on a sound that was described by AllMusic critic Thom Jurek as "drenched in moody '80s synth pop." On 11 November 2017, Ulver released "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi", a 3-track EP with two songs taken from "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" recording sessions, and a Frankie Goes to Hollywood cover, "The Power of Love".


title: Ulver

text: On 1 March, Ulver shared a short excerpt of music, titled "Blood, Fire, Woods, Diamonds", on their Facebook page. Two days later, they announced a new live album, titled "Drone Activity", consisting of four new pieces of live music edited in studio following a process reminiscent of the one used of "ATGCLVLSSCAP". On 4 April, the band shared a second excerpt from the album, titled "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea". The album was released on 11 May 2019.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver announced their plans for 2020 through Norwegian publication "Ballade" on 17 October 2019: "Ulver is working on a new album, planned to be released in 2020. (...) The Norwegian cult band is also preparing a retrospective book about the band's history through the 1990s and up until today." A European tour was scheduled for May 2020, however, it was postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, "Flowers of Evil" was announced and was released on 28 August through House of Mythology. The singles "Russian Doll", "Little Boy" and "Nostalgia" were released in advance. On the same day, "Wolves Evolve: The Ulver Story", a limited edition book written by Tore Engelsen Espedal, Phil Alexander, Nile Bowie and Torolf Kroglund and detailing the band's history was released as well.


title: Ulver

text: Ulver released their thirteenth album "Scary Muzak" on October 31, 2021. Five of the twelve total out of the twelve songs on "Scary Muzak" are covers from the soundtrack to John Carpenter's 1978 "Halloween".


title: Ulver

text: On 30 May 2009 Ulver performed live for the first time in 15 years, at Maihaugsalen (part of Maihaugen) in Lillehammer, Norway. The concert was a part of the Norwegian Festival of Literature. The three band members were accompanied by guest musicians: Lars Pedersen (aka When) on drums, Daniel O'Sullivan (also in Æthenor, Guapo, Mothlite) on guitar and bass, Pamelia Kurstin playing Theremin and Ole Aleksander Halstensgård (from Paperboys).


title: Ulver

text: Subsequently, the only live appearances outside Norway were held at the Brutal Assault Festival in the Czech Republic on 7 August and at the Gagarin205 club in Athens, Greece (16 November). More festival appearances in Norway were announced: "Øyafestivalen" at Middelalderparken, Oslo (11 August), "Møllafestivalen" in Gjerstad (14 August), "Pstereo '09" at Marinen, Trondheim (21 August) and London's Queen Elizabeth Hall (9 October).


title: Ulver

text: On 31 July 2010 Ulver performed live at the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet with Christian Fennesz and the performance artist Ian Johnstone.


title: Ulver

text: From 22 March 2011 to 21 April, Ulver played in several European countries to support their 2011 album "Wars of the Roses". On this tour they performed said album in its entirety, and also added some abstract/improvised passages. Zweizz supported these shows.


title: Ulver

text: Following its original performance at Tromsø Kulturhus in Tromsø, Norway, with Tromsø Chamber Orchestra, on 21 September 2012, Ulver have performed "Messe I.X–VI.X" in its entirety a further three times: On 20 May 2013 at Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Leipzig, Germany with the Stüba Philharmonie, Volkspalast and on 16 November 2013 at Teatro Regio, Parma, Italy with the MG_INC Orchestra and at the Dark MOFO festival, 17 June 2017, in Hobart, Australia, the orchestras being conducted by composer Martin Romberg.


title: Ulver

text: In the wake of the release of "The Assassination of Julius Caesar", Ulver played a few concerts in Europe, and gave their first two shows in Australia. In November, they toured Europe, playing their last album in its entirety, only adding a few songs from their "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi" EP released shortly before the beginning of the tour. Stian Westerhus was their opening act, promoting its solo album Amputation, and supporting Ulver on stage as a guitarist during some songs he played on the last Ulver's release.


title: Ulver

text: On 21 and 22 March 2019, Ulver played at Irving Plaza in New York City, their first North American shows ever. It was described by "Kerrang!" as "New York's ultimate goth night". A return to the United States was cancelled when Ulver announced that pre-sale tickets were "too modest" up against the "big risk" of touring with their production in the US.


title: Exelon

text: Exelon Corporation is an American Fortune 100 energy company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and incorporated in Pennsylvania. It generates revenues of approximately $33.5 billion and employs approximately 33,400 people. Exelon is the largest electric parent company in the United States by revenue, the largest regulated electric utility in the United States with approximately 10 million customers, and was formerly the largest operator of nuclear power plants in the United States and the largest non-governmental operator of nuclear power plants in the world until the generation sources were spun off into an independent company, Constellation Energy, in 2022.


title: Exelon

text: Exelon was created in October 2000 by the merger of PECO Energy Company of Philadelphia and Unicom Corp of Chicago, which owned Commonwealth Edison. Exelon operates regulated utilities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Washington, DC. In October 2009, Exelon had full or majority ownership of 23 nuclear reactors in 14 nuclear power plants. Exelon has operations and business activities in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Canada, and was formerly the largest competitive U.S. power generator with approximately 35,500 megawatts of owned capacity until the 2022 company separation. Exelon merged with Constellation Energy in March 2012 and acquired Pepco Holdings in March 2016. Exelon consists of six regulated utilities, Commonwealth Edison (Illinois), PECO Energy Company (Pennsylvania), Baltimore Gas and Electric (Maryland), Delmarva Power & Light (Delaware and Maryland), Atlantic City Electric (New Jersey), and Potomac Electric Power Company (Washington, DC and Maryland).


title: Exelon

text: Exelon Corporation was created as the result of a merger between PECO Energy Company and the Unicom Corporation in October 2000. Unicom was based in Chicago and the city became the home of the new entity. The merger was overseen by the CEO of Unicom, John Rowe who joined the corporation in 1998 and went on to lead the newly-formed Exelon until 2012, becoming the nation's longest-serving utility executive.


title: Exelon

text: Under Rowe, Exelon explored a number of mergers and acquisitions. On June 30, 2005, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the merger of Exelon and Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., a New Jersey utility. Under this merger, Exelon would have become the largest utility in the United States. The two companies later broke off the agreement due to pressure put on the NJ Board of Public Utilities by public interest groups, including New Jersey Citizen Action. The merger sat pending in front of the NJBPU for nineteen months before Exelon concluded that they were fighting a losing battle. On April 28, 2011, Exelon announced a merger with Constellation Energy for $7.9 billion with the combined company owning more than 34 gigawatts of power generation (55 percent nuclear, 24 percent natural gas, 8 percent renewable including hydro, 7 percent oil and 6 percent coal). The merger was completed on March 12, 2012.


title: Exelon

text: In 2012, when announcing the cancellation of new nuclear construction for Victoria County Station, Texas, Exelon stated that economic and market conditions, especially low natural gas prices, made the "construction of new merchant nuclear power plants in competitive markets uneconomical now and for the foreseeable future".


title: Exelon

text: In 2008, Christopher Crane was named CEO following Rowe's retirement and the completion of the merger with Constellation Energy. Exelon announced the proposed purchase of Pepco Holdings, Inc on April 30, 2014, for $6.8 billion in an all-cash transaction. The merger was rejected by the District of Columbia Public Service Commission in August 2015, though it was approved by other federal and state regulators. The companies appealed the decision. On March 23, 2016, the merger was approved by the Washington DC Public Service Commission, under a revised set of terms. The merger was completed later that day making Exelon the largest regulated utility in the United States by customer count and total revenue.


title: Exelon

text: On February 2, 2022, Exelon completed the separation of its energy generation business to Constellation Energy.


title: Exelon

text: PECO Energy, one of Exelon's local power companies, has been involved in two controversies with activists. In the 1970s, activists delayed the opening of nuclear power plants. In 2015, Earth Quaker Action Team began a campaign to pressure PECO to expand the solar power it purchases, and to purchase it locally to create jobs.


title: Exelon

text: Exelon's merger with Pepco faced stiff opposition from community groups and the D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.


title: Exelon

text: For the fiscal year 2017, Exelon reported earnings of US$3.770 billion, with an annual revenue of US$33.531 billion, an increase of 6.9% over the previous fiscal cycle. Exelon's shares traded at over $35 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$42.1 billion in October 2018. Exelon ranked No. 92 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.


title: Exelon

text: Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) is a regulated utility located in Maryland with 1.25 million+ electric customers and 650,000+ natural gas customers. It was previously the leading subsidiary of Constellation Energy Group until Constellation was acquired by Exelon in 2012. As part of the deal, Exelon split off BGE from Constellation's nonregulated energy supply business, and placed BGE under the umbrella of its regulated utilities.


title: Exelon

text: Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) is regulated utility located in Illinois with 4 million electric customers.


title: Exelon

text: Delmarva Power is a regulated utility located in Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland with 515,000 electric customers over 5,000 square miles of service territory. They provide natural gas to 130,000 customers in northern Delaware.


title: Exelon

text: Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) is regulated utility located in eastern Pennsylvania with 1.6 million electric customers and more than 500,000 natural gas customers.


title: Exelon

text: Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) is a regulated utility in Washington, D.C. that serves 842,000 electric customers in the district and parts of Maryland.


title: Exelon

text: Exelon Transmission Company is specifically focused on the development of power transmission lines—specifically the RITELine project which involves work in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.


title: Exelon

text: Exelon's political action committee (PAC) is EXELONPAC. Since divesting from coal, the company is better positioned than many of its competitors to benefit from carbon pricing under a cap and trade plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. "[Former] Exelon CEO John Rowe is a vociferous and longtime advocate of climate change legislation. In 2009, "Forbes" reported that if the Waxman-Markey climate legislation became law, 'the present value of Exelon's earnings stream would increase by $14 a share, or 28%.'" Exelon also disclosed multiple contributions to political nonprofit organizations, the largest of which was $290,000 given to the American Energy Alliance – a 501(c)(4) nonprofit with ties to the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and led by former Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle.


title: Exelon

text: In 2005, Exelon was required to pay a $602,000 fine for exceeding the permitted sulfur dioxide emission limit from April to October 2004 at its Cromby Generating Station in Chester County, Pennsylvania.


title: Exelon

text: Exelon and Illinois state officials waited for four years until 2006 before disclosing that Exelon's Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station, a nuclear plant 60 miles southwest of Chicago, had spilled millions of gallons of water containing tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, multiple times over a decade. Exelon officials eventually apologized and said the risks from the leak were "minimal", with tritium levels in surrounding wells all found to be below regulatory limits.


title: Exelon

text: In 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced its plan for a $65,000 fine against Exelon for permitting its contracted security guards that were guarding its Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station, a two-reactor nuclear plant located in Delta, Pennsylvania, to sleep on the job. The incidents did not come to light until a videotape of the security guards was leaked to news media. As a result, Exelon terminated the security contract of the Wackenhut security firm that had been involved and now operates its own in-house nuclear security force.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Euthanasia is currently illegal in all 50 states of the United States. Assisted suicide is legal in 10 jurisdictions in the US: Washington, D.C. and the states of California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington. Its status is disputed in Montana, though currently authorized per the Montana Supreme Court's ruling in "Baxter v. Montana" that "nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes [indicates] that physician aid in dying is against public policy."


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: When discussing end-of-life care and palliation that may result in patient death, there are a number of words that are often used interchangeably. However, many of these terms are specific and distinct and have different legality in a number of states.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Voluntary active euthanasia is the form of assisted death most commonly referenced when someone uses the term "euthanasia". In voluntary active euthanasia, a physician directly administers lethal medication to a consenting patient who wishes to die. In the United States, this is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Passive euthanasia is when a physician withholds or withdraws life-sustaining treatment, to allow the patient to die. The term "voluntary passive euthanasia" is no longer used.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Non-voluntary euthanasia refers to the act of a physician ending a patient's life without the patient's direct consent, usually when the patient is comatose/unconscious, close to death, and unable to provide consent. Non-voluntary euthanasia is currently illegal everywhere in the world. (Non-voluntary euthanasia differs from capital punishment)


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Involuntary euthanasia specifically applies when a patient's consent is not obtained prior to their medically assisted death - even if they could have provided consent. Either the patient did not consent or was not asked for consent. Involuntary euthanasia is currently illegal everywhere in the world.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Physician-assisted dying is when a physician provides the necessary information or means (e.g. a prescription medication which can be obtained by the patient at an outpatient pharmacy) to enable the patient to perform the life-ending act by themselves.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: MAID is an umbrella term which refers to both voluntary euthanasia and to physician assisted dying and does not distinguish one from the other. It includes any form of medically assisted death, regardless of who directly causes the death.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Debates about the ethics of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide date from ancient Greece and Rome. After the development of ether, physicians began advocating the use of anesthetics to relieve the pain of death. In 1870, Samuel Williams first proposed using anesthetics and morphine to intentionally end a patient's life. Over the next 35 years, debates about euthanasia raged in the United States which resulted in an Ohio bill to legalize euthanasia in 1906, a bill that was ultimately defeated.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Euthanasia advocacy in the U.S. peaked again during the 1930s and diminished significantly during and after World War II. Euthanasia efforts were revived during the 1960s and 1970s, under the right-to-die rubric, physician assisted death in liberal bioethics, and through advance directives and do not resuscitate orders.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Several major court cases advanced the legal rights of patients, or their guardians, to withdraw medical support with the expected outcome of death. These include the Karen Ann Quinlan case (1976), Brophy and Nancy Cruzan cases. More recent years have seen policies fine-tuned and re-stated, as with "Washington v. Glucksberg" (1997) and the Terri Schiavo case. The numerous legislative rulings and legal precedents that were brought about in the wake of the Quinlan case had their ethical foundation in the famous 1983 report completed by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine, under the title "Deciding to Forgo Life-Sustaining Treatment." The Commission sustained in its findings that it was morally acceptable to give up a life-supporting therapy and that withholding or withdrawing such a therapy is the same thing from an ethical stand-point, while artificial feeding and other life-supporting therapy are of the same importance for the patients and doctors. Before this report, to withdraw a medical therapy was regarded as much more serious decision than not to start a therapy at all, while artificial feeding was viewed as a special treatment. By 1990, barely a decade and a half after the New Jersey Supreme Court’s historic decision, patients were well aware that they could decline any form of medical therapy if they simply choose to do that either directly or by expressing their wish via appointed representative.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In a 2004 article in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Brown University historian Jacob M. Appel documented extensive political debate over legislation to legalize physician-assisted suicide in both Iowa and Ohio in 1906. The driving force behind this movement was social activist Anna S. Hall. Canadian historian Ian Dowbiggin's 2003 book, "A Merciful End", revealed the role that leading public figures, including Clarence Darrow and Jack London, played in advocating for the legalization of euthanasia.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In the 1983 case of "Barber v. Superior Court", two physicians had honored a family's request to withdraw both respirator and intravenous feeding and hydration tubes from a comatose patient. The physicians were charged with murder, despite the fact that they were doing what the family wanted. The court held that all charges should be dropped because the treatments had all been ineffective and burdensome. Withdrawal of treatment, even if life-ending, is morally and legally permitted and is considered passive euthanasia. Competent patients or their surrogates can decide to withdraw treatments, usually after the treatments are found ineffective, painful, or burdensome.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: The California End of Life Option Act from 2016 provides a procedure for assisted suicide of a terminally ill adult. After meeting several requirements, a physician may prescribe the terminally ill adult an "aid-in-dying drug".


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: From 1 January 2020, Maine becomes the 8th US state to legalize assisted dying. In June 2019, the Maine Legislature by a very close vote passed a bill to legalize assisted dying. The Governor of Maine signed the bill into law within the same month.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In the United States legal and ethical debates about euthanasia became more prominent in the Karen Ann Quinlan case who went into a coma after allegedly mixing tranquilizers with alcohol, surviving biologically for 9 years in a "persistent vegetative state" even after the New Jersey Supreme Court approval to remove her from a respirator. This case caused a widespread public concern about "lives not worth living" and the possibility of at least voluntary euthanasia if it could be ascertained that the patient would not have wanted to live in this condition. In April 2019, New Jersey became the 7th US state to allow assisted dying after the Governor of New Jersey signed the bill into law and went into effect since August 1, 2019.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In 1999, the state of Texas passed the Advance Directives Act. Under the law, in some situations, Texas hospitals and physicians have the right to withdraw life support measures, such as mechanical respiration, from terminally ill patients when such treatment is considered to be both futile and inappropriate. This is sometimes referred to as "passive euthanasia".


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In 2005, a six-month-old infant, Sun Hudson, with a uniformly fatal disease thanatophoric dysplasia, was the first patient in which "a United States court has allowed life-sustaining treatment to be withdrawn from a pediatric patient over the objections of the child's parent".


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Currently, euthanasia is illegal in Massachusetts. According to Ch. 201D §12 Massachusetts states that "Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to constitute, condone, authorize, or approve suicide or mercy killing or to permit any affirmative or deliberate act to end one's own life other than to permit the natural process of dying". Even though euthanasia as well as physician assisted suicide is not legal in Massachusetts, the Supreme court ruled in 1997 to not allow euthanasia or physician assisted suicide, but to give the freedom to the patient to refuse life supporting medical care by making these two laws different from one another. So now although there is no euthanasia in Massachusetts, one is allowed to refuse artificial life support measures.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Attempts to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide resulted in ballot initiatives and legislation bills within the United States in the last 20 years. For example, Washington voters saw Ballot Initiative 119 in 1991, California placed Proposition 161 on the ballot in 1992, and Michigan included Proposal B in their ballot in 1998.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In the U.S., there is a wide range of public opinion about euthanasia and the right-to-die movement in the United States.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Since 1947, Gallup polling has regularly asked thousands of American citizens: “When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?” to gauge public opinion on euthanasia. The question leaves unclear the diagnosis, age, or background of the patient and the legality of the situation. However, the question does clarify that the euthanasia is, in this case, voluntary. Support for euthanasia has increased from 37% in 1947 to a peak of 75% in 2005; however, support fell back to 64% in 2012. Gallup also uses a different phrasing to capture opinions of physician-assisted suicide instead of euthanasia by using terms like "severe pain, suicide, legalization." However, in these scenarios, support falls by roughly 10-15% showing that support for euthanasia is higher than support for physician-assisted suicide among the general population. This is an interesting discrepancy as there are no states in which voluntary euthanasia is legal, but at least 5 in which physician-assisted suicide is legal.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: A recent review studied surveys, interviews, and death certificates from 1947-2016 to gain insight into physician opinions on both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. In the U.S., less than 20% of physicians reported any patients asking for assistance with euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide; 5% or fewer reported agreeing to assist patients with euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide requests. In Oregon and Washington state, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, less than 1% of physicians prescribe medications for physician-assisted death each year. In other countries, these percentages were much higher - for example, 60% of Dutch physicians have prescribed medication for physician-assisted suicide; in the Netherlands and Belgium, over half of doctors reported patient requests for aid in dying. The study found a large percentage of these requests to be associated with cancer and to be for patients who were "older, white, and well-educated".


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Opinions among physicians are harder to elucidate and have much smaller sample sizes than for the general public, and therefore may not be as accurate. Physicians surveyed were less likely to support either physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia than the public. Unlike the public opinion, physicians were more comfortable with physician-assisted suicide than euthanasia. In other countries where both are legal, namely Belgium and the Netherlands, physicians are much more supportive with a roughly 85% support rate.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In various studies from the 1990s, previously surveyed religious groups reported that religiosity (i.e., self-evaluation and frequency of worship service attendance) correlated to opinions on euthanasia. Individuals who attended church regularly and more frequently and considered themselves more religious were found to be more opposed to euthanasia than to those who had a lower level of religiosity. However, this study represents decades old data that is not confirmed by newer sources.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: In more recent studies, a gap is exposed in the meaning of the word "religion" and how it relates to individual views on euthanasia. Evidently, there are vast differences between religious observers between and within religious sects. The deep differences among different religions, especially those religions not prevalent in the Western world, have been ill-accounted for in the vast majority of studies attempting to link euthanasia and religious views. Future research needs to better elucidate which religious views they correlate to views on euthanasia, with less emphasis on which religion/sect a person "belongs" to, as this may lead to clearer correlation between which beliefs are more or less likely to influence opinions on euthanasia.


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: Arguments for euthanasia are varied and include a diverse array of opinions. Commonly cited reasons for euthanasia include:


title: Euthanasia in the United States

text: There are varied arguments for not using euthanasia in a public health care setting as well. Commonly cited reasons for not advocating for euthanasia include:


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: On its own, circumstantial evidence allows for more than one explanation. Different pieces of circumstantial evidence may be required, so that each corroborates the conclusions drawn from the others. Together, they may more strongly support one particular inference over another. An explanation involving circumstantial evidence becomes more likely once alternative explanations have been ruled out.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Circumstantial evidence allows a trier of fact to infer that a fact exists. In criminal law, the inference is made by the trier of fact to support the truth of an assertion (of guilt or absence of guilt).


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Reasonable doubt is tied into circumstantial evidence as that evidence relies on inference. It was put in place because the circumstantial evidence may not be enough to convict someone fairly. Reasonable doubt is described as the highest standard of proof used in court and means that a juror can find the defendant guilty of the crime to a moral certainty. Even when circumstantial evidence is not sufficient to convict or acquit, it can contribute to other decisions made about the case.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Testimony can be direct evidence or it can be circumstantial. For example, a witness saying that she saw a defendant stab a victim is providing direct evidence. By contrast, a witness saying that she saw a defendant enter a house, heard screaming, and saw the defendant leave with a bloody knife is circumstantial evidence. It is the need for inference, and not the obviousness of the fact inferred, that determines whether evidence is circumstantial.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Forensic evidence supplied by an expert witness is usually treated as circumstantial evidence. For example, a forensic scientist or forensic engineer may provide results of tests indicating that bullets were fired from a defendant's gun, or that a car was traveling over the speed limit, but not necessarily that the defendant fired the gun or was driving the car.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Circumstantial evidence is used in civil courts to establish or refute liability. It is usually the most common form of evidence, for example in product liability cases and road traffic accidents. Forensic analysis of skid marks can frequently allow a reconstruction of the accident. By measuring the length of such marks and using dynamic analysis of the car and road conditions at the time of the accident, it may be found that a driver underestimated his or her speed.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Circumstantial evidence is used in criminal courts to establish guilt or innocence through reasoning.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: With obvious exceptions (immature, incompetent, or mentally ill individuals), most criminals try to avoid generating direct evidence. Hence, the prosecution usually must resort to circumstantial evidence to prove the existence of "mens rea", or intent.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: One example of circumstantial evidence is the behavior of a person around the time of an alleged offense. In the case of someone charged with theft of money, were the suspect seen in a shopping spree purchasing expensive items shortly after the time of the alleged theft, the spree might prove to be circumstantial evidence of the individual's guilt.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Other examples of circumstantial evidence are fingerprint analysis, blood analysis or DNA analysis of the evidence found at the scene of a crime. These types of evidence may strongly point to a certain conclusion when taken into consideration with other facts—but if not directly witnessed by someone when the crime was committed, they are still considered circumstantial. However, when proved by expert witnesses, they are usually sufficient to decide a case, especially in the absence of any direct evidence. Owing to subsequent developments in forensic methods, old undecided cases (or cold cases) are frequently resolved.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: A popular misconception is that circumstantial evidence is less valid or less important than direct evidence, which is popularly assumed to be the most powerful, but this is not the case. Many successful criminal prosecutions rely largely or entirely on circumstantial evidence, and civil charges are frequently based on circumstantial or indirect evidence. Indeed, the common metaphor for the strongest possible evidence in any case—the "smoking gun"—is an example of proof based on circumstantial evidence. Similarly, fingerprint evidence, videotapes, sound recordings, photographs, and many other examples of physical evidence that support the drawing of an inference, i.e., circumstantial evidence, are considered very strong possible evidence.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: In practice, circumstantial evidence can have an advantage over direct evidence in that it can come from multiple sources that check and reinforce each other. Eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate at times, and many persons have been convicted on the basis of perjured or otherwise mistaken testimony. Thus, strong circumstantial evidence can provide a more reliable basis for a verdict. Circumstantial evidence normally requires a witness, such as the police officer who found the evidence, or an expert who examined it, to lay the foundation for its admission. This witness, sometimes known as the sponsor or the authenticating witness, is giving direct (eyewitness) testimony, and could present credibility problems in the same way that any eyewitness does.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Eyewitness testimony is frequently unreliable, or subject to conflict or outright fabrication. For example, the RMS "Titanic" sank in the presence of approximately 700 witnesses. For many years, there was vigorous debate on whether the ship broke into two before sinking. It was not until the ship was found, in September 1985, that the truth was known.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: However, there is often more than one logical conclusion naturally inferred from the same set of circumstances. In cases where one conclusion implies a defendant's guilt and another his innocence, the "benefit of the doubt" principle would apply. Indeed, if the circumstantial evidence suggests a possibility of innocence, the prosecution has the burden of disproving that possibility.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: Much of the evidence against convicted American terrorist Timothy McVeigh was circumstantial. Speaking about McVeigh's trial, Robert Precht said, "the prosecution's use of indirect evidence is no cause for worry". McVeigh was sentenced to death and subsequently executed by the US federal government, while his accomplice was sentenced to serve consecutive federal life sentences. The 2004 murder trial of Scott Peterson was another high-profile conviction based heavily on circumstantial evidence, leading to Peterson's being sentenced to death (he was subsequently spared the gallows and currently awaits re-sentencing). Another case that relied on circumstantial evidence was that of Nelson Serrano, who received four death sentences for four first-degree murders. The 2015 murder trial of Ivan Chan Man-sum from Hong Kong was a conviction based "solely" on circumstantial evidence without finding the body of his murdered girlfriend. Chan was consequently sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: In Singapore, law student Sunny Ang was sentenced to death in 1965 solely based on circumstantial evidence when he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend during a scuba diving trip near Sisters' Islands on 27 August 1963. The victim, Jenny Cheok, was murdered for her insurance money, which amounted to $450,000. Her body has never been found. The additional absence of Cheok's body made Ang's conviction one of the landmark verdicts in Singapore, where it involved a murder conviction without a body.


title: Circumstantial evidence

text: A famous aphorism on the probity of circumstantial evidence was penned by Henry David Thoreau: "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."


title: Reliance Power

text: Reliance Power Limited (R-Power), formerly Reliance Energy Generation Limited (REGL) is a part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. It was established to develop, construct, operate and maintain power projects in the Indian and international markets. Reliance Infrastructure, an Indian private sector power utility company and the Reliance ADA Group promote Reliance Power. The present CEO of Reliance Power is K. Raja Gopal since 2 May 2018.


title: Reliance Power

text: The company is the sole distributor of electricity to consumers in the suburbs of Mumbai. but in 2017 they sold Mumbai operation to Adani Power. It also runs power generation, transmission and distribution businesses in other parts of Maharashtra, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. With its subsidiaries, it is developing 13 medium and large-sized power projects with a combined planned installed capacity of 33,480 MW.


title: Reliance Power

text: Reliance Natural Resources merged with Reliance Power in 2010, shortly after its initial public offering. As of March 2018, Reliance Power has 50 subsidiaries. In Fortune India 500 list of 2019, R-Power was ranked as the 176th largest corporation in India with 9th rank in 'Power sector' category.


title: Reliance Power

text: The company was incorporated on 17 January 1995 as Bawana Power Private Limited and changed its name to Reliance Delhi Power Private Limited in February 1995. Its name was changed to Reliance Energy Generation Limited in March 2004, and finally to Reliance Power Limited in July 2007.


title: Reliance Power

text: The company website identifies project sites broadly to be located in western India (12,220 MW), northern India (9,080 MW) and northeastern India (4,220 MW) and southern India (4,000 MW). They include six coal-fired projects (14,620 MW) to be fuelled by reserves from captive mines and supplies from India and abroad, two gas-fired projects (10,280 MW) to be fuelled primarily by reserves from the Krishna Godavari basin (the "KG Basin") off the east coast of India, and four hydroelectric projects (3,300 MW), three of them in Arunachal Pradesh and one in Uttarakhand.


title: Reliance Power

text: There is only one operational Renewable Energy (RE) project. All the rest are pending at various stages; some may have been shelved formally or informally. The projects are:


title: Reliance Power

text: Anil Dhirubhai Ambani placed a single order for $8.3 billion with Shanghai Electric Group Company (SEC) for buying 36 coal-fired thermal power generation units, spare parts, and related services over a 10-year period.


title: Reliance Power

text: Reliance Power Ltd. signed an agreement with the US Export-Import Bank in 2010 for a $5 billion loan to finance power projects. The loan will finance 900 megawatts of renewable technologies such as solar and wind energy, as well as up to 8000 MW of gas-based power generation technology, the Indian company said in a statement. This $5 billion agreement is in addition to the $917 million already approved by the Ex-Im Bank for Reliance Power's coal-fired power plant at Sasan in central India.


title: Reliance Power

text: The agreement will allow Reliance Power access products and services at competitive rates and help create manufacturing and services jobs in the US. The loan will also enable quicker access to the bank's long-term dollar loans. Reliance Power signed a pact with the US's General Electric Co. (GE) worth 100 billion ($2.2 billion) to implement a 2400 MW power plant. The plant will be located in the southern Indian town of Samalkot and the pact was signed during the visit of President Barack Obama.


title: Reliance Power

text: In 2007, Reliance Power issued a red herring stating an intention to go public with an IPO. The proposed IPO was to fund the development of its six power projects across the country whose completion dates are scheduled from December 2009 to March 2014. The Securities and Exchange Board of India, the organisation which regulates activity in the Indian stock market, placed some restrictions based on a complaint about the formulation of the IPO. The complaint also resulted in a public interest litigation being filed against the company. However, the Supreme Court of India passed a ruling that the IPO would go ahead even if any order is passed by any Indian court against the venture.


title: Reliance Power

text: The IPO opened on 15 January 2008 and attracted $27.5 billion of bids on the first day, equivalent to 10.5 times the stock on offer, thereby creating India's IPO record. The upper cut off price for the bid was ₹ 450 A media report pointed out that, if the company's stock price were to cross ₹650–700, Anil Ambani would go past L. N. Mittal to become the richest Indian. "It is a reflection of world community in the future of India... Investors seem to be confident in the future of Indian economy," Indian Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram told the media about the IPO.


title: Reliance Power

text: Reliance Power debuted on the stock markets on 11 February 2008. However, the markets were still reeling after the January 2008 stock market volatility, and concerns over speculation that the issue was overpriced sent the stock plummeting soon after its listing. At the end of the first day, the stock traded at a value that was 17 percent lower than its issue price of ₹450. Investors who were betting on the stock reaching 1.5 or even twice its issue price lost a fortune in the process. On 25 February, in an effort to mitigate investor losses, Reliance Power decided to issue 3 bonus shares for every 5 shares held.


title: Reliance Power

text: On 2 February 2011, United Nations registered Reliance Power's Sasan Power Plant to be eligible for earning carbon credits followed by Krishnapatanm Ultra Mega Power Project and Tilaiya Ultra Mega Power Projects.


title: Reliance Power

text: United Nations issues carbon credits to companies that employ advanced technologies in reducing carbon emission.


title: Reliance Power

text: These carbon credits can then be sold to those companies that are emitting more than their statutory emission.


title: Religious studies

text: Religious studies, also known as the study of religion, is an academic field devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.


title: Religious studies

text: While theology attempts to understand the transcendent or supernatural according to traditional religious accounts, religious studies takes a more scientific and objective approach independent of any particular religious viewpoint. Religious studies thus draws upon multiple academic disciplines and methodologies including anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and history of religion.


title: Religious studies

text: Religious studies originated in the nineteenth century, when scholarly and historical analysis of the Bible had flourished, and Hindu and Buddhist texts were first being translated into European languages. Early influential scholars included Friedrich Max Müller in England and Cornelius P. Tiele in the Netherlands. Today religious studies is practiced by scholars worldwide. In its early years, it was known as "comparative religion" or the science of religion and, in the US, there are those who today also know the field as the History of religion (associated with methodological traditions traced to the University of Chicago in general, and in particular Mircea Eliade, from the late 1950s through to the late 1980s).


title: Religious studies

text: The religious studies scholar Walter Capps described the purpose of the discipline as to provide "training and practice ... in directing and conducting inquiry regarding the subject of religion". At the same time, Capps stated that its other purpose was to use "prescribed modes and techniques of inquiry to make the subject of religion intelligible."


title: Religious studies

text: Religious studies scholar Robert A. Segal characterised the discipline as "a subject matter" that is "open to many approaches", and thus it "does not require either a distinctive method or a distinctive explanation to be worthy of disciplinary status."


title: Religious studies

text: Different scholars operating in the field have different interests and intentions; some for instance seek to defend religion, while others seek to explain it away, and others wish to use religion as an example with which to prove a theory of their own. Some scholars of religious studies are interested in primarily studying the religion to which they belong.


title: Religious studies

text: Scholars of religion have argued that a study of the subject is useful for individuals because it will provide them with knowledge that is pertinent in inter-personal and professional contexts within an increasingly globalised world. It has also been argued that studying religion is useful in appreciating and understanding sectarian tensions and religious violence.


title: Religious studies

text: The term "religion" originated from the Latin noun "religio", that was nominalized from one of three verbs: "relegere" (to turn to constantly/observe conscientiously); "religare" (to bind oneself [back]); and "reeligere" (to choose again). Because of these three different potential meanings, an etymological analysis alone does not resolve the ambiguity of defining religion, since each verb points to a different understanding of what religion is. During the Medieval Period, the term "religious" was used as a noun to describe someone who had joined a monastic order (a "religious").


title: Religious studies

text: Throughout the history of religious studies, there have been many attempts to define the term "religion". Many of these have been "monothetic", seeking to determine a key, essential element which all religions share, which can be used to define "religion" as a category, and which must be necessary in order for something to be classified as a "religion". There are two forms of monothetic definition; the first are "substantive", seeking to identify a specific core as being at the heart of religion, such as a belief in a God or gods, or an emphasis on power. The second are "functional", seeking to define "religion" in terms of what it does for humans, for instance defining it by the argument that it exists to assuage fear of death, unite a community, or reinforce the control of one group over another. Other forms of definition are "polythetic", producing a list of characteristics that are common to religion. In this definition there is no one characteristic that need to be common in every form of religion.


title: Religious studies

text: Causing further complications is the fact that there are various secular world views, such as nationalism and Marxism, which bear many of the same characteristics that are commonly associated with religion, but which rarely consider themselves to be religious.


title: Religious studies

text: Conversely, other scholars of religious studies have argued that the discipline should reject the term "religion" altogether and cease trying to define it. In this perspective, "religion" is argued to be a Western concept that has been forced upon other cultures in an act of intellectual imperialism. According to scholar of religion Russell T. McCutcheon, "many of the peoples that we study by means of this category have no equivalent term or concept at all". There is, for instance, no word for "religion" in languages like Sanskrit.


title: Religious studies

text: Before religious studies became a field in its own right, flourishing in the United States in the late 1960s, several key intellectual figures explored religion from a variety of perspectives. One of these figures was the famous pragmatist William James. His 1902 Gifford lectures and book "The Varieties of Religious Experience" examined religion from a psychological-philosophical perspective and is still influential today. His essay "The Will to Believe" defends the rationality of faith.


title: Religious studies

text: Max Weber studied religion from an economic perspective in "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1904-1905), his most famous work. As a major figure in sociology, he has no doubt influenced later sociologists of religion.


title: Religious studies

text: Émile Durkheim also holds continuing influence as one of the fathers of sociology. He explored Protestant and Catholic attitudes and doctrines regarding suicide in his work "Suicide". In 1912, he published his most memorable work on religion, "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life".


title: Religious studies

text: Interest in the general study of religion dates back to at least Hecataeus of Miletus ( BCE – c. 476 BCE) and Herodotus (c. 484 BCE – 425 BCE). Later, during the Middle Ages, Islamic scholars such as Ibn Hazm (d. 1064 CE) studied Persian, Jewish, Christian, and Indian religions, among others. The first history of religion was the "Treatise on the Religious and Philosophical Sects" (1127 CE), written by the Muslim scholar Muhammad al-Shahrastani. Peter the Venerable, also working in the twelfth century, studied Islam and made possible a Latin translation of the Qur'an.


title: Religious studies

text: Notwithstanding the long interest in the study of religion, the academic discipline Religious Studies is relatively new. Dr. Christopher Partridge notes that the "first professorships were established as recently as the final quarter of the nineteenth century."


title: Religious studies

text: In the nineteenth century, the study of religion was done through the eyes of science. Max Müller was the first Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford University, a chair created especially for him. In his "Introduction to the Science of Religion" (1873) he wrote that it is "the duty of those who have devoted their life to the study of the principal religions of the world in their original documents, and who value and reverence it in whatever form it may present itself, to take possession of this new territory in the name of true science."


title: Religious studies

text: Many of the key scholars who helped to establish the study of religion did not regard themselves as scholars of religious studies, but rather as theologians, philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and historians.


title: Religious studies

text: Partridge writes that "by the second half of the twentieth century the study of religion had emerged as a prominent and important field of academic enquiry." He cites the growing distrust of the empiricism of the nineteenth century and the growing interest in non-Christian religions and spirituality coupled with convergence of the work of social scientists and that of scholars of religion as factors involved in the rise of Religious Studies.


title: Religious studies

text: One of the earliest academic institutions where Religious Studies was presented as a distinct subject was University College Ibadan, now the University of Ibadan, where Geoffrey Parrinder was appointed as lecturer in Religious Studies in 1949.


title: Religious studies

text: In the 1960s and 1970s, the term "religious studies" became common and interest in the field increased. New departments were founded and influential journals of religious studies were initiated (for example, "Religious Studies and Religion"). In the forward to "Approaches to the Study of Religion", Ninian Smart wrote that "in the English-speaking world [religious studies] basically dates from the 1960s, although before then there were such fields as 'the comparative study of religion', the 'history of religion', the 'sociology of religion' and so on ..."


title: Religious studies

text: In the 1980s, in both Britain and America, "the decrease in student applications and diminishing resources in the 1980s led to cut backs affecting religious studies departments." (Partridge) Later in the decade, religious studies began to pick up as a result of integrating religious studies with other disciplines and forming programs of study that mixed the discipline with more utilitarian study.


title: Religious studies

text: Philosophy of religion uses philosophical tools to evaluate religious claims and doctrines. Western philosophy has traditionally been employed by English speaking scholars. (Some other cultures have their own philosophical traditions including Indian, Muslim, and Jewish.) Common issues considered by the (Western) philosophy of religion are the existence of God, belief and rationality, cosmology, and logical inferences of logical consistency from sacred texts.


title: Religious studies

text: Although philosophy has long been used in evaluation of religious claims ("e.g." Augustine and Pelagius's debate concerning original sin), the rise of scholasticism in the eleventh century, which represented "the search for order in intellectual life" (Russell, 170), more fully integrated the Western philosophical tradition (with the introduction of translations of Aristotle) in religious study.


title: Religious studies

text: There is some amount of overlap between subcategories of religious studies and the discipline itself. Religious studies seeks to study religious phenomena as a whole, rather than be limited to the approaches of its subcategories.


title: Religious studies

text: The anthropology of religion is principally concerned with the common basic human needs that religion fulfills.


title: Religious studies

text: The cultural anthropology of religion is principally concerned with the cultural aspects of religion. Of primary concern to the cultural anthropologist of religions are rituals, beliefs, religious art, and practices of piety.


title: Religious studies

text: Gallup surveys have found that the world's poorest countries may be the most religious. Of those countries with average per-capita incomes under $2000, 95% reported that religion played an important role in their daily lives. This is contrasted by the average of 47% from the richest countries, with incomes over $25000 (with the United States breaking the trend by reporting at 65%).


title: Religious studies

text: Social scientists have suggested that religion plays a functional role (helping people cope) in poorer nations.


title: Religious studies

text: The New York Times offers a graphic illustrating the correlation (not necessarily causation) between religion and poverty.


title: Religious studies

text: The geography of religion is principally concerned with the spatial elements of religious practice and embodiment. In the 1960s and 1970s, geographers of religion such as Wilbur Zelinsky and David Sopher were mostly associated with the "Berkeley school" of cultural geography and focused mostly on the cultural imprints of religion on the landscape.