William T. Powers
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William T. Powers
William T. Powers (August 29, 1926 – May 24, 2013) was a medical physicist and an independent scholar of experimental and theoretical psychology who developed the perceptual control theory (PCT) model of behavior as the control of perception. He was the son of the well-known cement scientist and economist Treval Clifford Powers. PCT demonstrates that rather than controlling their behavioral outputs, living things control their perceptual inputs, and explains how they vary their behavior as the means of affecting inputs to their sense organs. Living control systems differ from those specified by Engineering control theory (a thermostat is a simple example), for which the reference value (setpoint) for control is specified outside the system by what is called the controller, whereas in living systems the reference variable for each feedback control loop in a control hierarchy is generated within the system, usually as a function of error output from a higher-level system or syst ...
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Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Fernald LD (2008)''Psychology: Six perspectives'' (pp.12–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. Ψ (''psi''), the first letter of the Greek word ''psyche'' from which the term psychology is derived (see below), is commonly associated with the science. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psyc ...
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Perceptual Control Theory
Perceptual control theory (PCT) is a model of behavior based on the properties of negative feedback control loops. A control loop maintains a sensed variable at or near a reference value by means of the effects of its outputs upon that variable, as mediated by physical properties of the environment. In engineering control theory, reference values are set by a user outside the system. An example is a thermostat. In a living organism, reference values for controlled perceptual variables are endogenously maintained. Biological homeostasis and reflexes are simple, low-level examples. The discovery of mathematical principles of control introduced a way to model a negative feedback loop closed through the environment (circular causation), which spawned perceptual control theory. It differs fundamentally from theories of behaviorism and cognitive psychology which model stimuli as causes of behavior (linear causation). PCT research is published in experimental psychology, neuroscience, ethol ...
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Treval Clifford Powers
Treval Clifford Powers (1900-1977) was a 20th-century materials scientist considered "the father of the modern science of cement-based materials." He made contributions to the understanding of the structure of fresh and hardened cement paste and achieved fundamental results on concrete rheology, workability, consistency, durability, shrinkage and swelling, creep, and resistance of concrete to frost, sulfates and abrasion. He was the father of systems theory pioneer William T. Powers. Born on February 8, 1900, in Palouse, Washington, Powers studied chemistry at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, a small private college founded in 1846. From 1930 until his retirement in 1965 he conducted research at the famouPCA (Portland Cement Association)Laboratories (located initially in Chicago and later in Skokie, Illinois Skokie (; formerly Niles Center) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, neighboring the City of Chicago's northern border. Its population, acc ...
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Arizona Daily Star
The ''Arizona Daily Star'' is the major morning daily newspaper that serves Tucson and surrounding districts of southern Arizona in the United States. History L. C. Hughes was the Arizona Territory governor and founder of the ''Arizona Star'', in 1877. The first issue was published on March 29, 1877. The newspaper became the ''Arizona Daily Star'' in June 1879. The paper was purchased by Pulitzer in 1971; Lee Enterprises bought Pulitzer in 2005. Awards In 1981, ''Star'' reporters Clark Hallas and Robert B. Lowe won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting for their stories about recruiting violations by University of Arizona football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ... coach, Tony Mason. References External links * * ''Arizona Daily ...
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Control Theory
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a desired state, while minimizing any ''delay'', ''overshoot'', or ''steady-state error'' and ensuring a level of control stability; often with the aim to achieve a degree of optimality. To do this, a controller with the requisite corrective behavior is required. This controller monitors the controlled process variable (PV), and compares it with the reference or set point (SP). The difference between actual and desired value of the process variable, called the ''error'' signal, or SP-PV error, is applied as feedback to generate a control action to bring the controlled process variable to the same value as the set point. Other aspects which are also studied are controllability and observability. Control theory is used in control system eng ...
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Controller (control Theory)
Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a desired state, while minimizing any ''delay'', ''overshoot'', or ''steady-state error'' and ensuring a level of control stability; often with the aim to achieve a degree of optimality. To do this, a controller with the requisite corrective behavior is required. This controller monitors the controlled process variable (PV), and compares it with the reference or set point (SP). The difference between actual and desired value of the process variable, called the ''error'' signal, or SP-PV error, is applied as feedback to generate a control action to bring the controlled process variable to the same value as the set point. Other aspects which are also studied are controllability and observability. Control theory is used in control system eng ...
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Feedback
Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems: History Self-regulating mechanisms have existed since antiquity, and the idea of feedback had started to enter economic theory in Britain by the 18th century, but it was not at that time recognized as a universal abstraction and so did not have a name. The first ever known artificial feedback device was a float valve, for maintaining water at a constant level, invented in 270 BC in Alexandria, Egypt. This device illustrated the principle of feedback: a low water level opens the valve, the rising water then provides feedback into the system, closing the valve when the required level is reached. This then reoccurs in a circular fashion as the water level fluctuates. Centrifugal governors were ...
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Scientology
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It has been variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious movement. The most recent published census data indicate that there were about 25,000 followers in the United States (in 2008); around 1,800 followers in England (2021); 1,400 in Canada (2021); and about 1,600 in Australia (2016). Hubbard initially developed a set of ideas that he called Dianetics, which he represented as a form of therapy. This he promoted through various publications, as well as through the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation that he established in 1950. The foundation went bankrupt, and Hubbard lost the rights to his book ''Dianetics'' in 1952. He then recharacterized the subject as a religion and renamed it Scientology, retaining the terminology, doctrines, and the practice of "auditing". By 1954 he had regained the rights to Dianetics and retained both subjects under t ...
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1926 Births
Events January * January 3 – Theodoros Pangalos (general), Theodoros Pangalos declares himself dictator in Greece. * January 8 **Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud is crowned King of Kingdom of Hejaz, Hejaz. ** Bảo Đại, Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thuy ascends the throne, the last monarch of Vietnam. * January 12 – Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll premiere their radio program ''Sam 'n' Henry'', in which the two white performers portray two black characters from Harlem looking to strike it rich in the big city (it is a precursor to Gosden and Correll's more popular later program, ''Amos 'n' Andy''). * January 16 – A BBC comic radio play broadcast by Ronald Knox, about a workers' revolution, causes a panic in London. * January 21 – The Belgian Parliament accepts the Locarno Treaties. * January 26 – Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates a mechanical television system at his London laboratory for members of the Royal Institution and a report ...
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Systems Psychologists
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning. Systems are the subjects of study of systems theory and other systems sciences. Systems have several common properties and characteristics, including structure, function(s), behavior and interconnectivity. Etymology The term ''system'' comes from the Latin word ''systēma'', in turn from Greek ''systēma'': "whole concept made of several parts or members, system", literary "composition"."σύστημα"
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''

2013 Deaths
This is a list of deaths of notable people, organised by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked here. 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 See also * Lists of deaths by day The following pages, corresponding to the Gregorian calendar, list the historical events, births, deaths, and holidays and observances of the specified day of the year: Footnotes See also * Leap year * List of calendars * List of non-standard ... * Deaths by year {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ...
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