All articles starting with S
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Special Frontier Force
Special Frontier Force (SFF), also Establishment 22 or Vikas battalions, is India's covert Tibetan-recruited paramilitary unit raised 14 November 1962 under the Cabinet Secretariat and R&AW for operations against China, first used in the 1971 Bangladesh war.
Special Higher Police
The Special Higher Police, known as Tokkō, was Japan's prewar and wartime political police, active from 1911 until dissolution by Allied occupation orders in October 1945.
Special Immigration Appeals Commission
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) is a UK tribunal under the 1997 Act hearing appeals against national security immigration and citizenship decisions, using special advocates and closed material, with further appeals on points of law to the Court of Appeal or Court of Session.
Special interest (autism)
A special interest, also known as a restricted or circumscribed interest, is an intense, highly focused interest found in an estimated 75 to 95 percent of autistic people.
Special K
Special K is a Kellogg breakfast cereal brand behind the Special K Challenge, a two-week diet replacing two daily meals with cereal and milk, claiming six pounds lost; studies show short-term loss averaging about 3.5 pounds, but experts call it unsustainable.
Special library
A special library serves a particular subject, format, or clientele inside a parent organization that funds it, including law, medical, corporate, government, and prison libraries.
Special linear group
The special linear group, written SLn, is the group of n by n matrices with determinant 1 over a ring or field, also called the unimodular group.
Special linear Lie algebra
The special linear Lie algebra slₙ consists of n×n matrices with trace zero under the commutator bracket, and is the Lie algebra of the special linear group of determinant-1 matrices.
Special Marriage Act, 1954
Special Marriage Act, 1954 (विशेष विवाह अधिनियम, 1954): India's secular civil-marriage statute, enacted 9 October 1954 replacing the 1872 Act. Key facts: open to any citizen regardless of religion without conversion; Section 4 conditions (21/18 ages, monogamy); 30-day public notice under Sections 5-7; succession under Indian Succession Act 1925 unless both parties are Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, or Jain.
Special mission unit
Special mission unit (SMU): US military designation for the most classified special operations subcomponents, conducting counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and high-value target raids, distinct from broader SOF, with limited external oversight.
Special moment-resisting frame
A special moment-resisting frame, or SMF, is a highly ductile seismic force-resisting system of rigidly joined beams and columns, permitted in high seismic design categories.
Special Naval Landing Forces
The Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF, Tokubetsu Rikusentai) were Imperial Japanese Navy ground units formed in the late 1920s, used for amphibious landings and garrison duty until 1945.
Special needs
Special needs is a euphemism for disability, common in education and speech but rejected by UN guidance, APA and ASHA style guides, and many disabled people; a 530-person study found it reads more negatively than disability.
Special Night Squads
Special Night Squads (פלגות הלילה המיוחדות, SNS): British-Jewish counterinsurgency unit formed in June 1938 by Orde Wingate in Mandate Palestine; fought Arab rebels in Galilee at night, trained Haganah fighters like Moshe Dayan, disbanded 1939.
Special Olympics
Special Olympics: global sports organization founded 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, first Games at Chicago's Soldier Field; year-round training and competition in 30+ Olympic-type sports for over 5 million athletes with intellectual disabilities in 170+ countries; distinct from the Paralympics.
Special Olympics Great Britain
Special Olympics Great Britain (Special Olympics GB), founded 1978 by Chris Maloney as Special Olympics UK, is a charity providing year-round sport for people with intellectual disabilities: 95 clubs, 27 sports, 6,500 athletes, 3,500 volunteers, Tier 3 governance.
Special Olympics World Games
Special Olympics World Games: biennial summer and winter multi-sport competition for athletes with intellectual disabilities, first held July 20, 1968 at Soldier Field, Chicago; Berlin 2023 drew nearly 7,000 athletes from 176 nations, Santiago 2027 is next.
Special operations
Special operations are small-scale, unconventional military activities by specially selected forces (SOF). Covers missions, US SOCOM oversight and acquisitions, training accidents, and drone-driven changes in Ukraine.
Special Operations Center "South" (Центр спеціальних операцій «Південь») (Ukraine)
Special Operations Center "South" (Центр спеціальних операцій «Південь»), formally the 73rd Naval Special Operations Center named after Antin Holovaty, is the maritime component of Ukraine's Special Operations Forces, formed 1 October 2003, specializing in maritime reconnaissance, underwater demolition, and raids behind enemy lines.
Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive (SOE), British organization formed in 1940 (June or July) to conduct sabotage, subversion, and resistance support in enemy-occupied territory in World War II; nicknamed Churchill's Secret Army, based at Baker Street, London.
Special Operations Forces (Belarus)
Special Operations Forces of Belarus (Сілы спецыяльных аперацый): branch-level command created 1 August 2007 from the Mobile Forces, comprising the 5th Spetsnaz, 38th Air Assault, and 103rd Airborne brigades, about 6,100 troops, integrated with Russia's forces.
Special Operations Forces (Russia)
Special Operations Forces (SSO/KSSO), Russia's dedicated military special-operations branch announced in March 2013, distinct from the older GRU spetsnaz brigades; origins in the 46 special-purpose companies of 1950.
Special Operations Forces (Ukraine)
Special Operations Forces of Ukraine (SSO, ССО) are the Armed Forces' separate special operations branch since 2016, covering special-purpose units, resistance, and psychological operations, NATO-standard trained, commanded by Brigadier General Oleksandr Trepak.
Special OPS
Special OPS is an Indian Hindi espionage thriller web series created by Neeraj Pandey, starring Kay Kay Menon as RAW officer Himmat Singh in a 19-year manhunt; streamed on Hotstar/JioHotstar since 2020, distinct from Special Ops: Lioness and Special Ops: True.
Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story
Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story is a 2021 Hindi espionage thriller, a four-episode Disney+ Hotstar spin-off of Special Ops by Neeraj Pandey, telling Himmat Singh's (Kay Kay Menon) 2001–2003 backstory, neither prequel nor sequel.
Special Ops: Lioness
Special Ops: Lioness (Lioness from season 2) is a Taylor Sheridan Paramount+ spy thriller premiered July 23, 2023, starring Zoe Saldaña as CIA officer Joe and Laysla De Oliveira as Marine Cruz Manuelos, loosely based on the real Iraq War Team Lioness program.
Special orthogonal group
The special orthogonal group SO(n) is the subgroup of the orthogonal group O(n) with determinant 1, the orientation-preserving rotations of Euclidean space: SO(3) the rotations of three-dimensional space.
SPECIAL OTHERS
SPECIAL OTHERS (スペシャルアザース) is a four-piece Japanese instrumental jam band formed in Yokohama in 1995 by high school classmates, with a major debut in 2006.
Special Panels for Serious Crimes (East Timor)
Special Panels for Serious Crimes: hybrid UNTAET panels at Dili District Court (2000–2005) that tried 1999 East Timor violence cases with one Timorese and two international judges.
Special Period
The Special Period (Spanish: Período Especial) was an extended economic crisis in Cuba from 1990-1991, after Soviet subsidies collapsed, with severe shortages and partial recovery from the mid-1990s.