W. Ross Ashby
W. Ross Ashby (6 September 1903 – 15 November 1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things. His first name was not used: he was known as Ross Ashby. His two books, ''Design for a Brain'' and ''An Introduction to Cybernetics'', introduced exact and logical thinking into the brand new discipline of cybernetics and were highly influential. These "missionary works" along with his technical contributions made Ashby "the major theoretician of cybernetics after Norbert Wiener , Wiener". Biography William Ross Ashby was born in 1903 in London, where his father was working at an advertising agency.Biography of W. Ross Ashby The W. Ross Ashby Digital Archive, 2008. From 1921 he studied at Sidney Sussex Coll ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Self-organization
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly random fluctuations, amplified by positive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized, distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically robust and able to survive or self-repair substantial perturbation. Chaos theory discusses self-organization in terms of islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability. Self-organization occurs in many physical, chemical, biological, robotic, and cognitive systems. Examples of self-organization include crystallization, thermal convection of fluids, chemical oscillation, animal swarming, neural circuits, and black markets. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Burden Neurological Institute
__NOTOC__ Stoke Park Hospital, was a large hospital for the mental handicapped, closed circa 1997, situated on the north-east edge of Bristol, England, just within South Gloucestershire. Most patients were long-term residents, both adults and children of all ages. A school was on-site. Prior to 1950, it was known as the Stoke Park Colony, which was founded in 1909. The Burden Neurological Institute, opened in 1939, was co-located at the hospital, and outlasted the hospital on the site to 2000. The associated Burden Neurological Hospital was formed in 1969. The Institute later operated at Frenchay Hospital as a charity, and later as a research grant giving trust. History In 1902 the Rev. Harold Nelson Burden, chaplain at Horfield Prison, and Katharine his wife founded the ''National Institutions for Persons Requiring Care and Control'' to care for mentally disabled children and adults. Following the passing of the Children Act 1908, which allowed "feeble-minded children" to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of the border with Wales. Including suburban areas, Gloucester has a population of around 132,000. It is a port, linked via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to the Severn Estuary. Gloucester was founded by the Romans and became an important city and '' colony'' in AD 97 under Emperor Nerva as '' Colonia Glevum Nervensis''. It was granted its first charter in 1155 by Henry II. In 1216, Henry III, aged only nine years, was crowned with a gilded iron ring in the Chapter House of Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester's significance in the Middle Ages is underlined by the fact that it had a number of monastic establishments, including: St Peter's Abbey founded in 679 (later Gloucester Cathedral), the nearby St Oswald's Priory, Glo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barnwood House Hospital
Barnwood House Hospital was a private mental hospital in Barnwood, Gloucester, England. It was founded by the Gloucester Asylum Trust in 1860 as Barnwood House Institution and later became known as Barnwood House Hospital.Gloucester: Hospitals ''A History of the County of Gloucestershire'': volume 4: The City of Gloucester (1988), pp. 269-275. The hospital catered for well-to-do patients, with reduced terms for those in financial difficulties. It was popular with the military and clergy, and once counted an Archbishop amongst its patients. During the late nineteenth century Barnwood House flourished under superintendent Frederick Needham, making a healthy profit and receiving praise from the Commissioners in Lunacy. Even the sewerage system was held up as a model of good asylum practice. After the World ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps and Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps form the Army Medical Services. History Origins Medical services in the British armed services date from the formation of the Standing Regular Army after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Prior to this, from as early as the 13th century there are records of surgeons and physicians being appointed by the English army to attend in times of war; but this was the first time a career was provided for a Medical Officer (MO), both in peacetime and in war. For much of the next two hundred years, army medical provision was mostly arranged on a regimental basis, with each battalion arranging its own hospital facilities and medical supplies. An element of oversight was provided by the appointment ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Northampton
Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; it had a population of 212,100 in its previous local authority in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census (225,100 as of 2018 estimates). In its urban area, which includes Boughton, Northamptonshire, Boughton and Moulton, Northamptonshire, Moulton, it had a population of 215,963 as of 2011. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, Roman conquest of Britain, Romans and Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxons. In the Middle Ages, the town rose to national significance with the establishment of Northampton Castle, an occasional royal residence which regularly hosted the Parliament of England. Medieval Northampton had many churches, monasteries and the University of Northampton (thirteenth century), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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St Andrew's Hospital
St Andrews Hospital is a mental health facility in Northampton, England. It is managed by St Andrew's Healthcare. History Formation The facility was founded by public subscription for "private and pauper lunatics" and opened as the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum on 1 August 1838. Thomas Octavius Prichard was appointed as the hospital’s first medical superintendent: he was one of the pioneers of "moral management", the humane treatment of the mentally ill. The chapel was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and opened in 1863. It became St Andrew's Hospital for Mental Diseases in the 1930s and elected to remain a charity rather than joining the National Health Service in 1948. Controversies ''Dispatches'' exposure In 2017, Channel 4 '' Dispatches'' aired ''Under Lock and Key'', which highlighted that people with learning disabilities and autism were being kept in secure hospitals, in concerning conditions. The show detailed the experiences of several former patients at ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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London County Council
London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council. The LCC was the largest, most significant and most ambitious English municipal authority of its day. History By the 19th century, the City of London Corporation covered only a small fraction of metropolitan London. From 1855, the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) had certain powers across the metropolis, but it was appointed rather than elected. Many powers remained in the hands of traditional bodies such as parishes and the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. The creation of the LCC in 1889, as part of the Local Government Act 1888, was forced by a succession of scandals involving the MBW, and was also prompted by a general desire to create a competent government fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife of Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, and named after its foundress. It was from its inception an avowedly Protestant foundation;Sidney Sussex College website; history "some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance of good learninge". In her will, Lady Frances Sidney left the sum of £5,000 together with some plate to found a new College at Cambridge University "to be called the Lady Frances Sidney Sussex College". Her executors [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Advertising Agency
An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally independent of the client; it may be an internal department or agency that provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services, or an outside firm. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies promotions for its clients, which may include sales as well. Typical ad agency clients include businesses and corporations, non-profit organizations and private agencies. Agencies may be hired to produce television advertisements, radio advertisements, online advertising, out-of-home advertising, mobile marketing, and AR advertising, as part of an advertising campaign. History The first acknowledged advertising agency was William Taylor in 1786. Another early agency, started by J ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic processes, stochastic and mathematical Noise (signal processing), noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is considered the originator of cybernetics, the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines, with implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the organization of society. Norbert Wiener is credited as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms, that could possibly be simulated by machines and was an important early step towards the development of modern artificial intelligence. Biography Youth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |