TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you are given a question and a context passage. You have to answer the question based on the given passage.
PROBLEM: What controlling entity might the low countries been afraid of?, Context: In 1579 a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II.

SOLUTION: provinces from Philip II

PROBLEM: What did his thinking conflict with?, Context: In the early 11th century, the Muslim physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen or Alhazen) discussed space perception and its epistemological implications in his Book of Optics (1021), he also rejected Aristotle's definition of topos (Physics IV) by way of geometric demonstrations and defined place as a mathematical spatial extension. His experimental proof of the intromission model of vision led to changes in the understanding of the visual perception of space, contrary to the previous emission theory of vision supported by Euclid and Ptolemy. In "tying the visual perception of space to prior bodily experience, Alhacen unequivocally rejected the intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore, the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions of distance and size for correlation, sight can tell us next to nothing about such things."

SOLUTION: Aristotle's definition of topos

PROBLEM: how could the first individual creature be described?, Context: The oldest known fossil among the Eutheria ("true beasts") is the small shrewlike Juramaia sinensis, or "Jurassic mother from China", dated to 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic. A later eutherian, Eomaia, dated to 125 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous, possessed some features in common with the marsupials but not with the placentals, evidence that these features were present in the last common ancestor of the two groups but were later lost in the placental lineage. In particular:

SOLUTION:
small shrewlike