title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield campus is approximately north of central London and adjacent to the village of Cranfield, Bedfordshire. The nearest large towns are Milton Keynes and Bedford, the centres of which are both about away. Cambridge is about east.


title: Cranfield University

text: Shrivenham is about west of London, adjacent to Shrivenham village, from the centre of the nearest town, Swindon, and around from Oxford.


title: Cranfield University

text: The Cranfield campus sits within the Cambridge – Milton Keynes – Oxford corridor where there are plans to link these cities and stimulate economic growth. There is also a proposal for a rapid transit system between (an expanding) Milton Keynes and the campus, although this is still at an early concept stage.


title: Cranfield University

text: There are a number of companies located on the Cranfield University Technology Park ranging from large international companies to small start-ups. Major companies on the park include:


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield University is the academic partner in project with Milton Keynes Council to establish a new university, code-named MK:U, in nearby Milton Keynes. The plan anticipates opening by 2023, with a campus in Central Milton Keynes. In January 2019, the partners announced an international competition to design a new campus near the Central railway station. In May 2019, Santander Bank announced a 'seed funding' grant of £30 million to help with building and initial running costs. On 4 July 2019, the shortlisted proposals for the campus were announced. On 30 July 2019, the evaluation panel announced that Hopkins Architects had produced the winning design.


title: Cranfield University

text: The university's motto, "post nubes lux", means 'after clouds light'. It is depicted on the university coat of arms which was introduced when the university was awarded its royal charter.


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield University's specialist areas of focus, or Cranfield themes, aims to bring a range of academic disciplines together in order to tackle the grand challenges facing the world within a range of industrial and commercial sectors. These are Water, Agrifood, Energy and Power, Aerospace, Manufacturing, Transport Systems, Defence and Security and Business/Management.


title: Cranfield University

text: Within Cranfield University's postgraduate environment, the academic disciplines work closely together, blending as they do in the commercial world and industry to deliver real world solutions.


title: Cranfield University

text: As an exclusively postgraduate university, Cranfield University is excluded from the "Times Higher Education World University Rankings", "The Times" World Rankings, The Complete University Guide and "The Guardian", which focuses on helping prospective undergraduate students to compare universities. As the university is postgraduate, direct comparison with undergraduate institutions is difficult. Some key facts and figures are:


title: Cranfield University

text: In 2015/16, 49% of Cranfield University's students were from the United Kingdom, 25% from Europe and 26% from the rest of the world. Cranfield University's student to staff ratio is 5:1, second among all UK universities.


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield University has links with business, industry and governments. Cranfield University has mutually beneficial relationships with nearly 1,500 organisations around the world including small owner-managed SMEs to large multinational conglomerates; British and international universities, non-government organisations and governments. Some of Cranfield's close partnerships include Airbus, Rolls-Royce Group, Grant Thornton, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Ford, BP, British Airways, PWC, Jacobs, Metro Bank, L'Oréal, Royal Dutch Shell, Jaguar Land Rover, Oracle Corporation, PepsiCo, Unilever, to name just a few.


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield University has links with more than 130 universities in the Americas, Asia and Oceania, Europe, Middle East and Africa. The university collaborates with the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) on SUSS's BEng Aerospace Systems.


title: Cranfield University

text: The IMRC – Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre at Cranfield University is a project funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) undertaking research that addresses issues identified in the UK government's High Value Manufacturing strategy.


title: Cranfield University

text: Facilities at the Cranfield University campus include a sports centre, which incorporates a fitness centre and aerobics studio, playing fields, sports pitches and several tennis courts. On campus there are two small shops, one run by the CSA and one by Budgens. There are a limited range of eateries open during mealtimes, two Costa Coffee outlets, and one bar, also run by the CSA, which is open intermittently Monday to Friday.


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield Students Association (CSA) is the students' union and runs the main student bar, cafe and shop on the Cranfield campus. It is based in building 114 close to the centre of the campus.


title: Cranfield University

text: The CSA is run by a team of elected students and supported by a small team of staff. The aim of the CSA is to support and represent Cranfield University students, promote student welfare and organise social, cultural and sporting activities.


title: Cranfield University

text: At the Cranfield University campus there are a wide range of accommodation options for full-time students, from halls of residence to shared houses, apartments for couples and houses for families.


title: Cranfield University

text: For part-time students, there are two options available – the 186-room Cranfield Management Development Centre and the 114-room Mitchell Hall, both of which are situated on campus.


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield University has a number of notable academic staff and alumni, including politicians, business people, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, authors, and TV personalities.


title: Cranfield University

text: Cranfield University is in the top 1% of institutions in the world for alumni who hold CEO positions at the world's top companies according to the Centre for World University Rankings, 2017.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: Lion City Sailors Football Club, commonly referred to as The Sailors or LCS, is a Singaporean professional football club competing in the Singapore Premier League, the top tier of the Singapore football league system. Since the 2021 season, the team have played their home games at Jalan Besar Stadium.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: LCS is one of the most successful football clubs in Singapore, with its club owner being Forrest Li, who also owns Sea Ltd.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: In 2021, the club smashed the league transfer history with a record S$3 million signing of Diego Lopes.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: The Police Sports Association was founded in 1945 to organize football activities for the Singapore Police Force. It sent two teams to compete in the Singapore Amateur Football Association League in the 1950s and 1960s, but neither team won any trophies. Under coach Choo Seng Quee, Police SA won the inaugural President's Cup in 1968, then reached and lost the next two finals.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: When the S.League was formed in 1996, the club was known as the Police Football Club. The following year, its name was changed to Home United to reflect the fact that the team represented not only the Singapore Police Force, but also other HomeTeam departments of the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs such as the Singapore Civil Defence Force and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: Home United was two-time S.League winners and holders of a record six Singapore Cup trophies. It was the first club to achieve the S.League and Singapore Cup double in 2003.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: On 14 February 2020, the club was privatised for the first time in its history, when Singaporean billionaire Forrest Li announced that he had purchased a 100% stake in the club. Home United Football Club was officially renamed as Lion City Sailors Football Club and its signature red colour was replaced with white and blue. LCS' main aim following its rebranding was to boost professionalism in Singaporean football, with becoming a Southeast Asian super club its long-term goal. The new name, Sailors, was a homage to the country's maritime heritage.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: On 21 January 2021, the club created history by smashing the Singapore Premier League transfer-fee record with the signing of midfielder Diego Lopes from Portuguese top-flight side Rio Ave for 1.8 million euros on a three-year deal.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: On 18 April 2022, the club defeated K League 1 club Daegu FC 3–0 in the 2022 AFC Champions League, their first AFC Champions League win since their rebranding.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: In February 2013, Home United opened and operated a football academy, Home United FC Youth Football Academy (HYFA). HYFA comprises ten futsal courts, two full-size football pitches, an events plaza, staff offices, meeting rooms and a Sports Performance Centre.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: In June 2020, the launch of the new Lion City Sailors Football Academy was announced, along with further plans on youth development and its investments. It was given a one-star rating by the Asian Football Confederation.


title: Lion City Sailors FC

text: On 24 April 2021, the Lion City Sailors announced the construction of a new training facility that will be home to both the Sailors and the LCS Football Academy. The facility is planned to be completed in April 2022.


title: Call centre

text: A call centre (Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American spelling; see spelling differences) is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. An inbound call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product or service support or information enquiries from consumers. Outbound call centres are usually operated for sales purposes such as telemarketing, for solicitation of charitable or political donations, debt collection, market research, emergency notifications, and urgent/critical needs blood banks. A contact centre is a further extension to call centres telephony based capabilities, administers centralised handling of individual communications, including letters, faxes, live support software, social media, instant message, and email.


title: Call centre

text: A call center was previously seen to be an open workspace for call center agents, with workstations that include a computer and display for each agent and connected to an inbound/outbound call management system, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centers, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputer/servers and LANs.


title: Call centre

text: The contact center is a central point from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centers, valuable information can be routed to the appropriate people or systems, contacts can be tracked and data may be gathered. It is generally a part of the company's customer relationship management infrastructure. The majority of large companies use contact centers as a means of managing their customer interactions. These centers can be operated by either an in-house department responsible or outsourcing customer interaction to a third-party agency (known as Outsourcing Call Centres).


title: Call centre

text: Answering services, as known in the 1960s through the 1980s, earlier and slightly later, involved a business that specifically provided the service. Primarily by the use of an off-premises extension (OPX) for each subscribing business, connected at a switchboard at the answering service business, the answering service would answer the otherwise unattended phones of the subscribing businesses with a live operator. The live operator could take messages or relay information, doing so with greater human interactivity than a mechanical answering machine. Although undoubtedly more costly (the human service, the cost of setting up and paying the phone company for the OPX on a monthly basis), it had the advantage of being more ready to respond to the unique needs of after-hours callers. The answering service operators also had the option of calling the client and alerting them to, particularly important calls.


title: Call centre

text: The origins of call centers date back to the 1960s with the UK-based Birmingham Press and Mail, which installed Private Automated Business Exchanges (PABX) to have rows of agents handling customer contacts. By 1973, call centers received mainstream attention after Rockwell International patented its Galaxy Automatic Call Distributor (GACD) for a telephone booking system as well as the popularization of telephone headsets as seen on televised NASA Mission Control Center events.


title: Call centre

text: During the late 1970s, call center technology expanded to include telephone sales, airline reservations, and banking systems. The term "call center" was first published and recognised by the "Oxford English Dictionary" in 1983. The 1980s experienced the development of toll-free telephone numbers to increase the efficiency of agents and overall call volume. Call centers increased with the deregulation of long-distance calling and growth in information-dependent industries.


title: Call centre

text: As call centres expanded, unionisation occurred in North America to gain members including the Communications Workers of America and the United Steelworkers. In Australia, the National Union of Workers represents unionised workers; their activities form part of the Australian labour movement. In Europe, Uni Global Union of Switzerland is involved in assisting unionisation in this realm and in Germany Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft represents call centre workers.


title: Call centre

text: During the 1990s, call centres expanded internationally and developed into two additional subsets of communication, contact centres, and outsourced bureau centres. A contact centre is defined as a coordinated system of people, processes, technologies, and strategies that provides access to information, resources, and expertise, through appropriate channels of communication, enabling interactions that create value for the customer and organization. In contrast to in-house management, outsourced bureau contact centres are a model of contact centre that provide services on a "pay per use" model. The overheads of the contact centre are shared by many clients, thereby supporting a very cost effective model, especially for low volumes of calls. The modern contact centre includes automated call blending of inbound and outbound calls as well as predictive dialing capabilities dramatically increasing agents productivity. Latest implementations with more complex systems, require highly skilled operational and management staff that can use multichannel online and offline tools to improve customer interactions.


title: Call centre

text: Call centre technologies include: speech recognition software which allowed Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems to handle first levels of customer support, text mining, natural language processing to allow better customer handling, agent training via interactive scripting and automatic mining using best practices from past interactions, support automation and many other technologies to improve agent productivity and customer satisfaction. Automatic lead selection or lead steering is also intended to improve efficiencies, both for inbound and outbound campaigns. This allows inbound calls to be directly routed to the appropriate agent for the task, whilst minimising wait times and long lists of irrelevant options for people calling in.


title: Call centre

text: For outbound calls, lead selection allows management to designate what type of leads go to which agent based on factors including skill, socioeconomic factors, past performance, and percentage likelihood of closing a sale per lead.


title: Call centre

text: The universal queue standardises the processing of communications across multiple technologies such as fax, phone, and email. The virtual queue provides callers with an alternative to waiting on hold when no agents are available to handle inbound call demand.


title: Call centre

text: Historically, call centres have been built on Private branch exchange (PBX) equipment owned, hosted, and maintained by the call centre operator. The PBX can provide functions such as automatic call distribution, interactive voice response, and skills-based routing.


title: Call centre

text: In a virtual call centre model, the call centre operator (business) pays a monthly or annual fee to a vendor that hosts the call centre telephony and data equipment in their own facility, cloud-based. In this model, the operator does not own, operate or host the equipment on which the call centre runs. Agents connect to the vendor's equipment through traditional PSTN telephone lines, or over voice over IP. Calls to and from prospects or contacts originate from or terminate at the vendor's data centre, rather than at the call centre operator's premises. The vendor's telephony equipment (at times data servers) then connects the calls to the call centre operator's agents.


title: Call centre

text: Virtual call centre technology allows people to work from home or any other location instead of in a traditional, centralised, call centre location, which increasingly allows people 'on the go' or with physical or other disabilities to work from desired locations - i.e. not leaving their house. The only required equipment is Internet access, a workstation, and a softphone. If the virtual call centre software utilizes webRTC, a softphone is not required to dial. The companies are preferring Virtual Call Centre services due to cost advantage. Companies can start their call centre business immediately without installing the basic infrastructure like Dialer, ACD and IVRS.


title: Call centre

text: Virtual call centres became increasingly used after the COVID-19 pandemic restricted businesses from operating with large groups of people working in close proximity.


title: Call centre

text: Through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs), hosted and on-demand call centres that are built on cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platforms can integrate their functionality with cloud-based applications for customer relationship management (CRM), lead management and more.


title: Call centre

text: Developers use APIs to enhance cloud-based call centre platform functionality—including Computer telephony integration (CTI) APIs which provide basic telephony controls and sophisticated call handling from a separate application, and configuration APIs which enable graphical user interface (GUI) controls of administrative functions.


title: Call centre

text: Call centres that use cloud computing use software that Gartner refers to as "Contact Center as a Solution" (or CCaaS, for short) that Gartner defines as "a software as a service (SaaS)-based application that enables customer service organizations to manage multichannel customer interactions holistically in terms of both customer experience and employee experience".


title: Call centre

text: Outsourced call centres are often located in developing countries, where wages are significantly lower. These include the call centre industries in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and India.


title: Call centre

text: Companies that regularly utilise outsourced contact centre services include British Sky Broadcasting and Orange in the telecommunications industry, Adidas in the sports and leisure sector, Audi in car manufacturing and charities such as the RSPCA.


title: Call centre

text: The healthcare industry has used outbound call centre programmes for years to help manage billing, collections, and patient communication. The inbound call centre is a new and increasingly popular service for many types of healthcare facilities, including large hospitals. Inbound call centres can be outsourced or managed in-house.


title: Call centre

text: These healthcare call centres are designed to help streamline communications, enhance patient retention and satisfaction, reduce expenses and improve operational efficiencies.


title: Call centre

text: Many large hospitality companies such as the Hilton Hotels Corporation and Marriott International make use of call centres to manage reservations. These are known in the industry as "central reservations offices". Staff members at these call centres take calls from clients wishing to make reservations or other inquiries via a public number, usually a 1-800 number. These centres may operate as many as 24 hours per day, seven days a week, depending on the call volume the chain receives.


title: Call centre

text: Queueing theory is a branch of mathematics in which models of service systems have been developed. A call centre can be seen as a queueing network and results from queueing theory such as the probability an arriving customer needs to wait before starting service useful for provisioning capacity. (Erlang's C formula is such a result for an M/M/c queue and approximations exist for an M/G/k queue.) Statistical analysis of call centre data has suggested arrivals are governed by an inhomogeneous Poisson process and jobs have a log-normal service time distribution. Simulation algorithms are increasingly being used to model call arrival, queueing and service levels.


title: Call centre

text: Call centre operations have been supported by mathematical models beyond queueing, with operations research, which considers a wide range of optimisation problems seeking to reduce waiting times while keeping server utilisation and therefore efficiency high.


title: Call centre

text: Call centres have received criticism for low pay rates and restrictive working practices for employees, which have been deemed as a dehumanising environment. Other research illustrates how call centre workers develop ways to counter or resist this environment by integrating local cultural sensibilities or embracing a vision of a new life. Most call centres provide electronic reports that outline performance metrics, quarterly highlights and other information about the calls made and received. This has the benefit of helping the company to plan the workload and time of its employees. However, it has also been argued that such close monitoring breaches the human right to privacy.


title: Call centre

text: Complaints are often logged by callers who find the staff do not have enough skill or authority to resolve problems, as well as appearing apathetic. These concerns are due to a business process that exhibits levels of variability because the experience a customer gets and results a company achieves on a given call are dependent upon the quality of the agent. Call centres are beginning to address this by using agent-assisted automation to standardise the process all agents use. However, more popular alternatives are using personality and skill based approaches. The various challenges encountered by call operators are discussed by several authors.


title: Call centre

text: Indian call centres have been the focus of several documentary films, the 2004 film "Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: The Other Side of Outsourcing", the 2005 films "John and Jane", "Nalini by Day, Nancy by Night", and "1-800-India: Importing a White-Collar Economy", and the 2006 film "Bombay Calling", among others. An Indian call centre is also the subject of the 2006 film "Outsourced" and a key location in the 2008 film, "Slumdog Millionaire". The 2014 BBC fly on the wall documentary series "The Call Centre" gave an often distorted although humorous view of life in a Welsh call centre.


title: Field army

text: A field army (or numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Likewise, air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces, and within a navy the comparable notion is that of a fleet. A field army is composed of 300,000 to 600,000 troops.


title: Field army

text: Specific field armies are usually named or numbered to distinguish them from "army" in the sense of an entire national land military force. In English, the typical orthographic style for writing out the names field armies is word numbers, such as "First Army"; whereas corps are usually distinguished by Roman numerals (e.g. I Corps) and subordinate formations with ordinal numbers (e.g. 1st Division). A field army may be given a geographical name in addition to or as an alternative to a numerical name, such as the British Army of the Rhine, Army of the Potomac, Army of the Niemen or Aegean Army (also known as the Fourth Army).


title: Field army

text: The Roman army was among the first to feature a formal field army, in the sense of a very large, combined arms formation, namely the "sacer comitatus", which may be translated literally as "sacred escort". The term is derived from their being commanded by Roman emperors (who were regarded as sacred), when they acted as field commanders. While the Roman "comitatensis" (plural: "comitatenses") is sometimes translated as "field army", it may also be translated as the more generic "field force" or "mobile force" (as opposed to "limitanei" or garrison units).


title: Field army

text: In some armed forces, an "army" is or has been equivalent to a corps-level unit. Prior to 1945, this was the case with a "gun" (軍; "army") within the Imperial Japanese Army, for which the formation equivalent in size to a field army was an "area army" (方面軍; "hōmen-gun"). In the Soviet Red Army and the Soviet Air Forces, an army was subordinate in wartime to a front (an equivalent of army group). It contained at least three to five divisions along with artillery, air defense, reconnaissance and other supporting units. It could be classified as either a combined arms army (CAA) or tank army (TA); and while both were combined arms formations, the former contained a larger number of motorized rifle divisions while the later contained a larger number of tank divisions. In peacetime, a Soviet army was usually subordinate to a military district.


title: Field army

text: Modern field armies are large formations which vary significantly between armed forces in size, composition, and scope of responsibility. For instance, within NATO a field army is composed of a headquarters, and usually controls at least two corps, beneath which are a variable number of divisions. A battle is influenced at the field army level by transferring divisions and reinforcements from one corps to another to increase the pressure on the enemy at a critical point. NATO armies are commanded by a general or lieutenant general.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: Cathy McGowan (born 1943) is a British broadcaster and journalist, best known as presenter of the 1960s pop music television show "Ready Steady Go!"


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: "Ready Steady Go!" (RSG) was first broadcast in August 1963, coinciding with the rise of the Beatles in Britain and internationally. As one historian of television reflected in the 1970s, "the revolution had the greatest possible effect on television ... and hindsight commentators were to see the year (1963) as a line of demarcation drawn between one kind of Britain and another".


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: With its slogan, "the weekend starts here", "RSG" was shown on Fridays from 6 to 7 pm. Its original presenter Keith Fordyce (1928–2011), a stalwart of the BBC Light Programme and Radio Luxembourg, was joined in 1964 by McGowan and Michael Aldred. McGowan, recruited as an advisor from 600 applicants, had been in the fashion department of "Woman's Own". She is said to have secured the role in a "run off" with journalist Anne Nightingale, later a Radio 1 disc jockey, by answering "fashion" to a question from Elkan Allan (1922–2006), RSG's executive producer and head of entertainment at Rediffusion, as to whether sex, music or fashion was most important to teenagers.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: McGowan seemed in tune with the times, "the girl of the day", according to Eric Burdon of the Animals – and, through her fashion sense, acquired the nickname, "Queen of the Mods". (This term has been applied to others, such as Dusty Springfield and, in New Zealand, Dinah Lee.) Much of her appeal lay in the fact that she was the age of RSG's viewers: young women regarded her as a role model, while men were attracted by her looks. Anna Wintour, future editor of American "Vogue", was, according to her biographer Jerry Oppenheimer, among teenagers whom the show introduced to fashion. Another, Lesley Hornby, who became better known as Twiggy, regarded McGowan as her heroine: "I'd sit and drool over her clothes. She was a heroine to us because she was one of us".


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: A similar empathy extended to the artists that McGowan interviewed. Donovan, launched in 1965 by his appearances on "RSG", recalled McGowan as the "young Mary Quant-look hostess" (Quant being the leading British proponent of the mini-skirt, which McGowan helped popularise), with whom he developed an "easy-going" style of on-screen conversation. In the words of Dominic Sandbrook, a social historian:


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: The show's most celebrated presenter, McGowan was the same age as the national audience; she wore all the latest trendy shifts and mini-dresses; and she spoke with an earnest, ceaseless barrage of teenage slang, praising whatever was 'fab' or 'smashing', and damning all that was 'square' or 'out'. 'The atmosphere', one observer wrote later, 'was that of a King's Road party where the performers themselves had only just chanced to drop by'.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: McGowan was an early patron of Biba, whose first store opened in September 1964, and had her own fashion range at British Home Stores. She endorsed a portable make-up set known as "Cathy's Survival Kit". Barbara Hulanicki, who founded Biba, observed that "the girls aped Cathy's long hair and eye-covering fringe and soon their little faces were growing heavy with stage make-up". Julia Baird, half-sister of John Lennon of the Beatles, recalled how, despite wearing black eye make-up, black polo necks and dyed black jeans "à la Cathy McGowan", she was unable to convince doormen at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles came to prominence, that she was over 18, the age for admission. It has been claimed that the formation in 1966 of a British Society for the Preservation of the Miniskirt was prompted by McGowan's indicating that she would wear a long skirt on "RSG".


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: After Fordyce's departure in March 1965, McGowan continued to present RSG until it ended on 23 December 1966. In 1965 a decision that artists should perform live gave it immediacy that its BBC rival, "Top of the Pops" (1964–2006), never acquired; indeed, the latter retained a Mancunian model, Samantha Juste – in television, McGowan's rival – as its "disc girl" until 1967. Although RSG's momentum had begun to flag, its impact on music and, through McGowan, on the "swinging" '60s more generally was widely acknowledged. As Sandbrook put it, "Thanks to the enthusiastic salesmanship of McGowan and her fellow presenters, the emerging youth culture that had once been confined to the capital [London] or to the great cities could now be seen and copied almost immediately from Cornwall to the Highlands". The musician and jazz critic George Melly thought "RSG" "made pop music work on a truly national scale ... It was almost possible to feel a tremour of pubescent excitement from Land's End to John O'Groats".


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: McGowan, who was a 5 ft 4½in (1.64m) brunette, modelled and also presented a show on Radio Luxembourg.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: Once RSG had ended, McGowan's star began to wane. By way of illustration, "The Sunday Times", previewed an exhibition 40 years later of photographs by Patrick Lichfield who described "Queen"s use of his shots in 1967:


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: [Lichfield] was ... a great one for persuading people to join in, even if the outcome was not always the one they expected. In the 1960s he took a series of group portraits for "Queen" magazine supposedly documenting the movers and shakers of the time – except that some, such as Jonathan Aitken and Cathy McGowan, were deemed not to be "in", and were labelled as "out" in the magazine. But Lichfield, with his impeccable manners, refused to upset his subjects by letting them know that in advance.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: However, in 1978, McGowan was the subject of a tribute: the song "Ready Steady Go" by the English band Generation X contained the line "I'm in love with Cathy McGowan." The single hit no. 47 on the UK charts. The social historian Alwyn W. Turner has cited the band's "hymning" of McGowan as an example of punk's indebtedness to mod culture. She was also prominently seen in the video for the 1978 Elton John hit "Part-Time Love", having known John since the 1960s when, as Reg Dwight, he had been a member of Bluesology, the backing band for Long John Baldry.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: McGowan continued in journalism and broadcasting. She was a board member of London's Capital Radio when it was launched in 1973. In the late 1980s she worked for the BBC's "Newsroom South East", specialising in entertainment. She interviewed celebrities, including some she had known in the 1960s and others such as singer Michael Ball, who became her partner, and Deborah Harry, lead singer of Blondie, whom she described as the most beautiful woman she had met. McGowan hosted the Brit Awards in 1990. In 1991, McGowan co-hosted with Alexei Sayle and Jonathan Ross a show by British comedians to mark the 30th anniversary of Amnesty International.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: In 1970, McGowan married actor Hywel Bennett. They had a daughter, Emma. The marriage was dissolved in 1988 and, since the early 1990s, she has been the partner of Michael Ball. Ball is godfather to McGowan's grandson, Connor Bennett.


title: Cathy McGowan (presenter)

text: McGowan's brother John McGowan was a disc jockey in 1965 on King Radio, a pirate radio station broadcasting from a fort in the Thames Estuary.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory first developed by the German-born Italian sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book "Political Parties". It asserts that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an "iron law" within any democratic organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of the organization.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Michels's theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Using anecdotes from political parties and trade unions struggling to operate democratically to build his argument in 1911, Michels addressed the application of this law to representative democracy, and stated: "Who says organization, says oligarchy." He went on to state that "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy."


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: According to Michels, all organizations eventually come to be run by a "leadership class", who often function as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons or political strategists for the organization. Far from being "servants of the masses", Michels argues this "leadership class", rather than the organization's membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization's power structures. By controlling who has access to information, those in power can centralize their power successfully, often with little accountability, due to the apathy, indifference and non-participation most rank-and-file members have in relation to their organization's decision-making processes. Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountable are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made 'democratically' by members.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable. Later Michels migrated to Italy and joined Benito Mussolini Fascist Party, as he believed this was the next legitimate step of modern societies. The thesis became popular once more in post-war America with the publication of "" (1956) and during the red scare brought about by McCarthyism.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: In 1911 Robert Michels argued that paradoxically the socialist parties of Europe, despite their democratic ideology and provisions for mass participation, seemed to be dominated by their leaders just like traditional conservative parties. Michels' conclusion was that the problem lay in the very nature of organizations. The more liberal and democratic modern era allowed the formation of organizations with innovative and revolutionary goals, but as such organizations become more complex, they became less and less democratic and revolutionary. Michels formulated the "iron law of oligarchy": "Who says organization, says oligarchy."


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: He later became an important ideologue of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, teaching economics at the University of Perugia.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Michels stressed several factors that underlie the iron law of oligarchy. Darcy K. Leach summarized them briefly as: "Bureaucracy happens. If bureaucracy happens, power rises. Power corrupts." Any large organization, Michels pointed out, has to create a bureaucracy in order to maintain its efficiency as it becomes larger—many decisions have to be made daily that cannot be made by large numbers of disorganized people. For the organization to function effectively, centralization has to occur and power will end up in the hands of a few. Those few—the oligarchy—will use all means necessary to preserve and further increase their power.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: According to Michels, this process is further compounded as delegation is necessary in any large organization, as thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—of members cannot make decisions via participatory democracy. This has to date been dictated by the lack of technological means for large numbers of people to meet and debate, and also by matters related to crowd psychology, as Michels argued that people feel a need to be led. Delegation, however, leads to specialization—to the development of knowledge bases, skills and resources among a leadership—which further alienates the leadership from the rank and file and entrenches the leadership in office. Michels also argued that for leaders in organizations, "The desire to dominate ... is universal. These are elementary psychological facts." Thus, they were prone to seek power and dominance.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Bureaucratization and specialization are the driving processes behind the iron law. They result in the rise of a group of professional administrators in a hierarchical organization, which in turn leads to the rationalization and routinization of authority and decision-making, a process described first and perhaps best by Max Weber, later by John Kenneth Galbraith, and to a lesser and more cynical extent by the Peter principle.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Bureaucracy by design leads to centralization of power by the leaders. Leaders also have control over sanctions and rewards. They tend to promote those who share their opinions, which inevitably leads to self-perpetuating oligarchy. People achieve leadership positions because they have above-average political skill (see Charismatic authority). As they advance in their careers, their power and prestige increases. Leaders control the information that flows down the channels of communication, censoring what they do not want the rank-and-file to know. Leaders will also dedicate significant resources to persuade the rank-and-file of the rightness of their views. This is compatible with most societies: people are taught to obey those in positions of authority. Therefore, the rank and file show little initiative, and wait for the leaders to exercise their judgment and issue directives to follow.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to "social viscosity" in a large-scale organization. According to the "iron law", democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: One of the best known exceptions to the iron law of oligarchy is the now defunct International Typographical Union, described by Seymour Martin Lipset in his 1956 book, "Union Democracy". Lipset suggests a number of factors that existed in the ITU that are allegedly responsible for countering this tendency toward bureaucratic oligarchy. The first and perhaps most important has to do with the way the union was founded. Unlike many other unions (e.g., the CIO's United Steel Workers of America (USWA), and numerous other craft unions) which were organized from the top down, the ITU had a number of large, strong, local unions who valued their autonomy, which existed long before the international was formed. This local autonomy was strengthened by the economy of the printing industry which operated in largely local and regional markets, with little competition from other geographical areas. Large locals continued to jealously guard this autonomy against encroachments by international officers. Second, the existence of factions helped place a check on the oligarchic tendencies that existed at the national headquarters. Leaders that are unchecked tend to develop larger salaries and more sumptuous lifestyles, making them unwilling to go back to their previous jobs. But with a powerful out faction ready to expose profligacy, no leaders dared take overly generous personal remuneration. These two factors were compelling in the ITU case.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Lipset and his collaborators also cite a number of other factors which are specific to craft unions in general and the printing crafts in particular, including the homogeneity of the membership, with respect to their work and lifestyles, their identification with their craft, their more middle class lifestyle and pay. For this latter point he draws upon Aristotle who argued that a democratic polity was most likely where there was a large, stable middle class, and the extremes of wealth and poverty were not great. Finally, the authors note the irregular work hours which led shopmates to spend more of their leisure time together. These latter factors are less persuasive, since they do not apply to many industrial forms of organization, where the greatest amount of trade union democracy has developed in recent times.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Titus Gregory uses Michels "iron law" to describe how the democratic centralist structure of the Canadian Federation of Students, consisting of individual student unions, encourages oligarchy.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Titus Gregory argues that university students' unions today "exhibit both oligarchical and democratic tendencies". Unlike trade unions they have an ideologically diverse membership, and frequently have competitive democratic elections covered by independent campus media who guard their independence. These factors are strongly democratizing influences, creating conditions similar to those described by Lipset about the ITU. However, Gregory argues student unions can also be highly undemocratic and oligarchical as a result of the transient membership of the students involved. Every year between one quarter and one half of the membership turns over, and Gregory argues this creates a situation where elected student leaders become dependent on student union staff for institutional memory and guidance. Since many students' unions extract compulsory fees from their transient membership, and many smaller colleges and/or commuter campus can extract this money with little accountability, oligarchical behaviour becomes encouraged. For example, Gregory points out how often student union election rules "operate under tyrannical rules and regulations" that are used frequently by those in power to disqualify or exclude would-be election challengers. Gregory concludes that students' unions can "resist the iron law of oligarchy" if they have "an engaged student community", an "independent student media", a "strong tradition of freedom of information", and an "unbiased elections authority" capable of administrating elections fairly.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Jonathan Fox's 1992 study focuses on how participatory subgroups within a membership organization can generate a degree of countervailing power that can at least temporarily mitigate the "iron law of oligarchy."


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: Research by Bradi Heaberlin and Simon DeDeo has found that the evolution of Wikipedia's network of norms over time is consistent with the iron law of oligarchy. Their quantitative analysis is based on data-mining over a decade of article and user information. It shows the emergence of an oligarchy derived from competencies in five significant "clusters": administration, article quality, collaboration, formatting, and content policy. Heaberlin and DeDeo note, "The encyclopedia's core norms address universal principles, such as neutrality, verifiability, civility, and consensus. The ambiguity and interpretability of these abstract concepts may drive them to decouple from each other over time."


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: In his book , published in 1943 (first edition in German) with a second edition in 1947 (in German), Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a representative democracy in order to remain stable, unaffected by Michels' iron law of oligarchy:


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: In 1954, Maurice Duverger expressed general agreement with Michels's thesis. In a 1953 study, C. W. Cassinelli argued that Michels's main thesis has "a high degree of general credibility", but argued that the statement of the theory was "inadequate" and that Michels's evidence for the theory was "inconclusive". In a 1966 article, political scientist Dankwart Rustow described Michels's thesis as "a brilliantly fallacious argument "a fortiori"". Rustow stated that the experience of the social democratic parties of Europe could not be generalized for other political parties. Josiah Ober argues in "Democracy and Knowledge" that the experience of ancient Athens shows Michels's argument does not hold true; Athens was a large participatory democracy, yet it outperformed its hierarchical rivals.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: According to a 2000 article, "To the extent that contemporary scholars ask at all about social movement organizations, they tend to reinforce Michels’s claim that bureaucratized, established organizations are more conservative in goals and tactics, though usually without explicitly engaging the iron law debate." The study however found that the iron law was malleable, and that established labor unions could under certain circumstances revitalize and experience radical change in line with its members' desires.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: According to a 2005 study, "Despite almost a century of scholarly debate on this question ... there is still no consensus about whether and under what conditions Michels’s claim holds true." One criticism is that power does not necessarily corrupt the leadership of organizations, and that the structure of organizations can check leaders. Another criticism is that Michels does not outline the conditions under which his thesis could be falsified nor a clear definition of what constitutes oligarchy.


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: The method that Michels uses has sometimes been characterized as a "crucial" or "least likely" case study, because he chose a case (the German Social Democratic Party) that is least likely to support his theory (because the German Social Democratic Party was an institution that had a democratic process and ideology).


title: Iron law of oligarchy

text: The iron law of oligarchy is similar to the concept in "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", a fictional book in the dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1984) by George Orwell, who had authored a review of James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution several years earlier. that fictional book begins:


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Kathryn Valentine (born January 7, 1959) is an American musician who is the bassist for the pop punk band the Go-Go's. She has maintained a career in music through songwriting, recording, performing and touring as well as additional academic and creative pursuits. Valentine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October 2021 as a member of The Go-Go's.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Valentine was born on January 7, 1959, in Austin, Texas, an only child who was raised by her single mother, an English expatriate. In 9th grade she began playing guitar after she moved from public school to an alternative school called Greenbriar. In 1973, while visiting England with her mother, she happened to see Suzi Quatro on "Top Of The Pops", and said it "blew her mind". It had never occurred to her that a woman could be a rock star.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: She returned to Austin, got an electric guitar and amp, and began looking for bandmates. She credits the Austin, Texas music scene for her diverse musical roots, in particular Jimmie Vaughan and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, as well as Texas icon Doug Sahm who let her onstage to sit in with his band on the Chuck Berry song "Little Queenie".


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 1975, on a subsequent family visit to London with her mother, she answered an ad in "Melody Maker" and joined the fledgling Girlschool. She missed a gig due to illness and was replaced by Kelly Johnson, with whom she would later work. Inspired by the punk scene and bands like the Ramones and Blondie, Valentine returned to Austin and formed the punk band the Violators, alongside Carla Olson, Jesse Sublett and Marilyn Dean. The band played at Raul's, Austin's first punk club, in February 1978.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In late 1978, aged 19, Valentine moved to Los Angeles and co-founded the Textones with Carla Olson. The Textones released two singles, including an unreleased Tom Petty song, before Valentine left the band in 1980. During her time in the Textones, Phil Seymour recorded "We Don't Get Along", a song she'd written. The Go-Go's would later record this song as well as other songs she'd written during the Textones period, such as "Vacation" and "Can't Stop The World".


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Valentine was asked to play bass, an instrument that she had not played extensively, as a substitute for the Go-Go's bass player Margot Olavarria, who had been ill and the band decided needed to be replaced. She says she learned their songs over four days and rehearsed with them twice before hitting the stage on New Year's Eve 1980 at Whisky a Go Go. Valentine was asked to remain as a permanent member shortly thereafter. The Go-Go's were signed to I.R.S. Records in March 1981. "Can't Stop the World" was recorded for the Go-Go's debut album, "Beauty and the Beat".


title: Kathy Valentine

text: The second album featured Valentine's previous Textones song "Vacation" as the title track and first single, after re-working the arrangement with Go-Gos' guitarist Charlotte Caffey. On the Go-Gos' third LP, "Talk Show", Valentine also co-wrote with Caffey the hit single "Head over Heels," and played lead guitar on several songs, including the single "Turn To You", album cuts "You Thought", "Beneath The Blue Sky", and "Good For Gone".


title: Kathy Valentine

text: The band struggled with internal difficulties during the recording of "Talk Show", and tried to stay together after the departure of rhythm guitarist Jane Wiedlin. Valentine moved to lead guitar duties, and Paula Jean Brown was hired to play bass. The Go-Go's broke up in May 1985.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: After the break up, Valentine said that she felt lost and that her identity had become absorbed into being a Go-Go. Returning to her rock roots, she formed the World's Cutest Killers, a line up she thought would be successful, featuring former Girlschool guitarist Kelly Johnson, her old friend Jesse Sublett on bass, drummer (future A&R man) Craig Aaronson, and keyboardist Jebin Bruni. The group attracted the attention of producer Mike Chapman and recorded demos, which were scrapped, and the band split up. Several other bands and line ups went nowhere, and Valentine returned to school. In 1990, the Go-Go's reunited for concerts and a CD of greatest hits, but split again soon after.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 1992, Valentine began her longest collaboration and partnership with singer and bassist Dominique Davalos. They formed the BlueBonnets, a blues-based group. With high-profile guests sitting in with the band, club goers lining up to see them, and performances at celebrity wedding receptions and parties, record company scouts took notice but the band went through line up changes — many fans thought the addition of Pinky Turzo on lead vocals was the group's pinnacle, although attempts to capture the magic in the studio proved fruitless — and eventually morphed into the Valentine/Davalos band The Delphines early in 1995.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: The Go-Go's began working together again, with Valentine co-writing "The Whole World Lost Its Head" on "Return To The Valley of The Go-Go's", a song which became the band's highest charting U.K. single. The band released a new CD "God Bless The Go-Go's" in 2001, toured extensively for many years, and appeared in a popular DVD live concert, "The Go-Go's Live In Central Park". Determined not to let the Go-Go's define her this time around, Valentine kept The Delphines going, and the band released two albums, "The Delphines" (1996) and "Cosmic Speed" (2001).


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 2005, Valentine released a solo recording, "Light Years", that she co-produced, wrote, arranged and performed the guitar and vocal tracks. "Light Years" featured musician friends, including Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley, Guns and Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, Lenny Kravitz, guitarist Craig Ross, and drummers Clem Burke and Pete Thomas. She began the record while pregnant in 2002 and wrote several songs with then husband, attorney and musician Steven Weisburd.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 2006, Valentine returned to her hometown to reside. She has been featured on the cover of the Fall 2010 issue of "Texas Music", a February 2007 issue of the "Austin Chronicle", and the February 2009 issue of "Austin Woman".


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In March 2014, at South by Southwest she was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame by members of Blondie (Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Clem Burke). She and Davalos re-formed The BlueBonnets with a Texas line up, including Austin guitarist Eve Monsees.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: The band has released two albums, "Boom Boom Boom Boom" (2010) and "Play Loud" (2014), and were invited to open for The Waterboys American tour in Spring 2015. Their third album, "Tonewrecker", was released on April 1, 2017. Valentine and Davalos also perform in the band "Lady Band Johnson" with front man Johnny Goudie.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: On March 21, 2016, The Go-Go's announced plans for a farewell tour. However Valentine would not be part of the lineup.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: A number of her songs were featured in the 2018 debut of the Broadway musical, "Head Over Heels", with a story suggested by Philip Sidney's "Arcadia" set to the songs of the Go-Go's and Belinda Carlisle. As a result, Valentine rejoined the band to perform their first show together as a quintet in six years at New York's Bowery Ballroom on January 31, 2018. In February 2018, posts on the group's official Facebook page confirmed that Valentine had rejoined the band. A summer tour is planned for 2020.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: The original version of her Textones song, "Vacation", is the theme song of the Starz cable series "Hightown" which debuted May 2020, and was renewed for a second season.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 2020 the group announced an 11-date reunion tour however the tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2021, The Go-Go's announced plans for a 2022 UK tour with Billy Idol that would start in June 2022.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Valentine and The Go-Go's were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on October 30, 2021. The group celebrated their induction with a special show at the Whisky a Go Go in December 2021. The group however were forced to cancel other West Coast dates scheduled for early January 2022 due to a COVID-19 case involving someone with the tour.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: While working to complete her inter-disciplinary degree in English and Fine Arts, Valentine has also begun taking writing jobs and public speaking engagements. She was the keynote speaker at The American Heart Association's Go Red For Women annual event, and for the MEOW Conference, where she also presented a Valor Award to her early inspiration Suzi Quatro.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 2014, Rainbow Light Nutritional Systems presented Valentine as part of its Game Changers promotional campaign.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: In 2013, she put together an all-female, all-star band for the Experience Music Project's Women Who Rock Exhibit.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Valentine recruited underground influential musicians and Seattle-based singers to front the band and was musical director. She has also been hired to write music reviews for The Talkhouse, an online site devoted to music and music lovers. In 2016, Valentine was the featured speaker at Kids In A New Groove annual fundraiser. The same year, Valentine signed with U.T. Press to write a memoir.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: The original Textones version of Valentine's song "Vacation" is the theme song of the Starz series "Hightown".


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Valentine's memoir, "All I Ever Wanted", was published by the University of Texas Press in March, 2020. The book has received universal praise and was #1 on Amazon's Rock Biography chart.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: A broken wrist led to her being replaced on a 2012 summer tour. On March 8, 2013, the Go-Go's official website said "irreconcilable differences" had led to her departure. On May 24, 2013, she sued her former bandmates for "breach of fiduciary duty and abuse of control...in an attempt to deprive [her] of her position and interest in the group, including her right to receive her full 20% share of the benefits and revenues generated by the group's substantial reputation, fame, and goodwill." In early 2014, the lawsuit that Valentine brought against her former bandmates was settled out of court. Valentine rejoined the Go-Go's in 2018 and toured with them in summer 2018.


title: Kathy Valentine

text: Valentine is divorced from Steven Weisburd, with whom she has a daughter. Valentine and Weisburd were partners in The Townsend, a bar and performance venue in downtown Austin from 2016 to 2020.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester ( ) is a town in the unitary authority of Medway, in Kent, England. It is at the lowest bridging point of the River Medway, about from London. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rainham, Strood and Gillingham. Rochester was a city until losing its status as one in 1998 following the forming of Medway and failing to protect its status as a city. There have been ongoing campaigns to reinstate the city status for Rochester.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester was for many years a favourite of Charles Dickens, who owned nearby Gads Hill Place, Higham, basing many of his novels on the area. The Diocese of Rochester, the second oldest in England, is centred on Rochester Cathedral and was responsible for founding a school, now "The King's School", in 604 AD, which is recognised as the second oldest continuously running school in the world. Rochester Castle, built by Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, has one of the best-preserved keeps in either England or France. During the First Barons' War (1215–1217) in King John's reign, baronial forces captured the castle from Archbishop Stephen Langton and held it against the king, who then besieged it.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: As well as the historic centre, the suburbs of Borstal and The Delce are also part of Rochester, forming part of the Medway Towns urban area with a population of about 250,000.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The Romano-British name for Rochester was Durobrivae, later Durobrivis c. 730 and Dorobrevis in 844. The two commonly cited origins of this name are that it either came from "stronghold by the bridge(s)" or is the latinisation of the British word "Dourbruf" meaning "swiftstream". Durobrivis was pronounced 'Robrivis. Later, the word "cæster" (=castle, from Latin "castrum") was added to the name, and the city was called "Robrivis Cæster". Bede mentions the city in c. 730 and calls it "Hrofes cæster", mistaking its meaning as Hrofi's fortified camp. From this came c. 730 Hrofæscæstre, 811 Hrofescester, 1086 Rovescester, 1610 Rochester. The Latinised adjective 'Roffensis' refers to Rochester.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Neolithic remains have been found in the vicinity of Rochester; over time, it has been variously occupied by Celts, Romans, Jutes and/or Saxons. During the Celtic period, it was one of the two administrative centres of the Cantiaci tribe. During the Roman conquest of Britain, a decisive battle was fought at the Medway somewhere near Rochester. The first bridge was subsequently constructed early in the Roman period. During the later Roman period, the settlement was walled in stone. King Æthelberht of Kent (560–616) established a legal system which has been preserved in the 12th-century "Textus Roffensis". In AD 604, the bishopric and cathedral were founded. During this period, from the recall of the legions until the Norman conquest, Rochester was sacked at least twice and besieged on another occasion.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The medieval period saw the building of the current cathedral (1080–1130, 1227 and 1343), the building of two castles and the establishment of a significant town. Rochester Castle saw action in the sieges of 1215 and 1264. Rochester's basic street plan was set out, constrained by the river, Watling Street, Rochester Priory and Rochester Castle.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester has produced two martyrs: St John Fisher, executed by Henry VIII for refusing to sanction the divorce of Catherine of Aragon; and Bishop Nicholas Ridley, executed by Queen Mary for being an English Reformation protestant.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester has for centuries been of great strategic importance through its position near the confluence of the Thames and the Medway. Rochester Castle was built to guard the river crossing. In 1667, the city was raided by the Dutch fleet as part of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Dutch, commanded by Admiral de Ruijter, broke through the chain at Upnor and sailed to Rochester Bridge capturing part of the English fleet and burning it.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The Royal Navy Dockyard's establishment at Chatham witnessed the beginning of the Royal Navy's long period of supremacy. The town, as part of Medway, is surrounded by two circles of fortresses; the inner line built during the Napoleonic wars consists of Fort Clarence, Fort Pitt, Fort Amherst and Fort Gillingham. The outer line of Palmerston Forts was built during the 1860s in light of the report by the Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom and consists of Fort Borstal, Fort Bridgewood, Fort Luton, and the Twydall Redoubts, with two additional forts on islands in the Medway, namely Fort Hoo and Fort Darnet.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: During the First World War the Short Brothers' aircraft manufacturing company developed the first plane to launch a torpedo, the Short Admiralty Type 184, at its seaplane factory on the River Medway not far from Rochester Castle. In the intervening period between the 20th century World Wars the company established a world-wide reputation as a constructor of flying boats with aircraft such as the Singapore, Empire 'C'-Class and Sunderland. During the Second World War, Shorts also designed and manufactured the first four-engined bomber, the Stirling.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The UK's decline in naval power and shipbuilding competitiveness led to the government decommissioning the RN Shipyard at Chatham in 1984, which led to the subsequent demise of much local maritime industry. Rochester and its neighbouring communities were hit hard by this and have experienced a painful adjustment to a post-industrial economy, with much social deprivation and unemployment resulting. On the closure of Chatham Dockyard the area experienced an unprecedented surge in unemployment to 24%; this had dropped to 2.4% of the local population by 2014.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester was recognised as a City from 1211 to 1998. The City of Rochester's ancient status was unique, as it had no formal council or Charter Trustees nor a Mayor, instead having the office of Admiral of the River Medway, whose incumbent acted as "de facto" civic leader.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Since Norman times Rochester had always governed land on the other side of the Medway in Strood, which was known as "Strood Intra"; before 1835 it was about wide and stretched to Gun Lane. In the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act the boundaries were extended to include more of Strood and Frindsbury, and part of Chatham known as "Chatham Intra".


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Like many of the medieval towns of England, Rochester had civic Freemen whose historic duties and rights were abolished by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. However, the "Guild of Free Fishers and Dredgers" continues to the present day and retains rights, duties and responsibilities on the Medway, between Sheerness and Hawkwood Stone. This ancient corporate body convenes at the Admiralty Court whose Jury of Freemen is responsible for the conservancy of the River as enshrined in current legislation. The City Freedom can be obtained by residents after serving a period of "servitude", i.e. apprenticeship (traditionally seven years), before admission as a Freeman. The annual ceremonial Beating of the Bounds by the River Medway takes place after the Admiralty Court, usually on the first Saturday of July.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: There were three medieval parishes: St Nicholas', St Margaret's and St Clement's. St Clement's was in Horsewash Lane until the last vicar died in 1538 when it was joined with St Nicholas' parish; the church's last remaining foundations were finally removed when the railway was being constructed in the 1850s. St Nicholas' Church was built in 1421 beside the cathedral to serve as a parish church for the citizens of Rochester. The ancient cathedral included the Benedictine monastic priory of St Andrew with greater status than the local parishes. Rochester's pre-1537 diocese, under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, covered a vast area extending into East Anglia and included all of Essex.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: As a result of the restructuring of the Church during the Reformation the cathedral was reconsecrated as the "Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary" without parochial responsibilities, being a diocesan church. In the 19th century the parish of St Peter's was created to serve the burgeoning city with the new church being consecrated in 1859. Following demographic shifts, St Peter's and St Margaret's were recombined as a joint benefice in 1953 with the parish of St Nicholas with St Clement being absorbed in 1971. The combined parish is now the "Parish of St Peter with St Margaret", centred at the new (1973) Parish Centre in The Delce (St Peter's) with St Margaret's remaining as a chapel-of-ease. Old St Peter's was demolished in 1974, while St Nicholas' Church has been converted into the diocesan offices but remains consecrated. Continued expansion south has led to the creation of an additional more recent parish of St Justus (1956) covering The Tideway estate and surrounding area.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: A church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin at Eastgate, which was of Anglo-Saxon foundation, is understood to have constituted a parish until the Middle Ages, but few records survive.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: On 1 April 1974, the City Council was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972, and the territory was merged with the District of Medway, Borough of Chatham and most of Strood Rural District, including the parishes of Cuxton, Halling and Cliffe, and the Hoo Peninsula, to form a new a local government district called the Borough of Medway, within the county of Kent. Medway Borough Council applied to inherit Rochester's city status, but this was refused; instead letters patent were granted constituting the area of the former Rochester local government district to be the City of Rochester, to "perpetuate the ancient name" and to recall "the long history and proud heritage of the said City". The Home Office said that the city status may be extended to the entire borough if it had "Rochester" in its name, so in 1979, Medway Borough Council renamed the borough to the Borough of Rochester-upon-Medway, and in 1982, Rochester's city status was transferred to the entire borough by letters patent, with the district being called the City of Rochester-upon-Medway. The Admiral of the River Medway was "ex-officio" Mayor of Rochester and this dignity transferred to the Mayor of Medway when that unitary authority was created, along with the Admiralty Court for the River which constitutes a committee of the Council.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: On 1 April 1998, the existing local government districts of Rochester-upon-Medway and Gillingham were abolished and became the new unitary authority of Medway. The Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions informed the city council that since it was the local government district that officially held City status under the 1982 Letters Patent, the council would need to appoint charter trustees to preserve its city status. However, no trustees were appointed and the city status was therefore lost when Rochester-upon-Medway was abolished as a local government district. The incoming Medway Council apparently only became aware of this when, in 2002, it was advised that Rochester was not on the Lord Chancellor's Office's list of cities.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: In 2010, Medway Council started to refer to the "City of Medway" in promotional material, but it was rebuked and instructed not to do so in future by the Advertising Standards Authority. Subsequently, Medway Council has applied for City status for Medway as a whole, rather than merely for Rochester. Medway applied unsuccessfully for City status in 2000 and 2002 and again in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Year of 2012. Any future bid to regain formal City status has been recommended to be made under the aegis of Rochester-upon-Medway.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The 2011 definition of Rochester includes Strood to the northwest and is defined as an urban subdivision with a 2011 population of 62,982. Strood makes up the majority of Rochester's population on the west bank of the river, making the town of Rochester itself on the east bank actually smaller and less populated than its neighbouring town; should the two towns ever separate Strood would be the larger of the two.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester lies within the area, known to geologists, as the London Basin. The low-lying Hoo peninsula to the north of the town consists of London Clay, and the alluvium brought down by the two rivers—the Thames and the Medway—whose confluence is in this area. The land rises from the river, and being on the dip slope of the North Downs, this consists of chalk surmounted by the Blackheath Beds of sand and gravel.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: As a human settlement, Rochester became established as the lowest river crossing of the River Medway, well before the arrival of the Romans.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: It is a focal point between two routes, being part of the main route connecting London with the Continent and the north-south routes following the course of the Medway connecting Maidstone and the Weald of Kent with the Thames and the North Sea. The Thames Marshes were an important source of salt. Rochester's roads follow north Kent's valleys and ridges of steep-sided chalk bournes. There are four ways out of town to the south: up Star Hill, via The Delce, along the Maidstone Road or through Borstal. The town is inextricably linked with the neighbouring Medway Towns but separated from Maidstone by a protective ridge known as the Downs, a designated area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: At its most limited geographical size, Rochester is defined as the market town within the city walls, now associated with the historic medieval city. However, Rochester historically also included the ancient wards of Strood Intra on the river's west bank, and Chatham Intra as well as the three old parishes on the Medway's east bank.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester has an oceanic climate similar to much of southern England, being accorded Köppen Climate Classification-subtype of "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate).


title: Rochester, Kent

text: On 10 August 2003, neighbouring Gravesend recorded one of the highest temperatures since meteorological records began in the United Kingdom, with a reading of 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit), only beaten by Brogdale, near Faversham, to the ESE. The weather station at Brogdale is run by a volunteer, only reporting its data once a month, whereas Gravesend, which has an official Met Office site at the PLA pilot station, reports data hourly.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Being near the mouth of the Thames Estuary with the North Sea, Rochester is relatively close to continental Europe and enjoys a somewhat less temperate climate than other parts of Kent and most of East Anglia. It is therefore less cloudy, drier and less prone to Atlantic depressions with their associated wind and rain than western regions of Britain, as well as being hotter in summer and colder in winter. Rochester city centre's micro-climate is more accurately reflected by these officially recorded figures than by readings taken at Rochester Airport.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: North and North West Kent continue to record higher temperatures in summer, sometimes being the hottest area of the country, "eg." on the warmest day of 2011, when temperatures reached 33.1 degrees. Additionally, it holds at least two records for the year 2010, of 30.9 °C and 31.7 °C. Another record was set during England's Indian summer of 2011 with 29.9 °C, the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK for October.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester comprises numerous important historic buildings, the most prominent of which are the Guildhall, the Corn Exchange, Restoration House, Eastgate House, as well as Rochester Castle and Rochester Cathedral. Many of the town centre's old buildings date from as early as the 14th century up to the 18th century. The chapel of St Bartholomew's Hospital dates from the ancient priory hospital's foundation in 1078.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: In the 21st century the Riverside area north of the railway line has been redeveloped to provide new housing and a primary school.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Thomas Aveling started a small business in 1850 producing and repairing agricultural plant equipment. In 1861 this became the firm of Aveling and Porter, which was to become the largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery and steam rollers in the country. Aveling was elected Admiral of the River Medway (i.e. Mayor of Rochester) for 1869-70.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Since 1980 the city has seen the revival of the historic Rochester Jack-in-the-Green May Day dancing chimney sweeps tradition, which had died out in the early 1900s. Though not unique to Rochester (similar sweeps' gatherings were held across southern England, including in Bristol, Deptford, Whitstable and Hastings), its revival was directly inspired by Dickens' description of the celebration in "Sketches by Boz".


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The festival has since grown from a small gathering of local Morris dance sides to one of the largest in the world. The festival begins with the "Awakening of Jack-in-the-Green" ceremony, and continues in Rochester High Street over the May Bank Holiday weekend.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: There are numerous other festivals in Rochester apart from the Sweeps Festival. The association with Dickens is the theme for Rochester's two Dickens Festivals held annually in June and December. The Medway Fuse Festival usually arranges performances in Rochester and the latest festival to take shape is the Rochester Literature Festival, the brainchild of three local writers.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: A new public library was built alongside the Adult Education Centre, Eastgate. This enabled the registry office to move from Maidstone Road, Chatham into the Corn Exchange on Rochester High Street (where the library was formerly housed). As mentioned in a report presented to Medway Council's "Community Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee" on 28 March 2006, the new library opened in late summer (2006).


title: Rochester, Kent

text: A new Huguenot Museum, which includes items from the collections of the French Hospital, was opened in Rochester on 13 May 2015, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and individual donations.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: There is a small amateur theatre, Medway Little Theatre, on St Margaret's Banks, Rochester High Street (the part of the High Street that continues from Star Hill towards Chatham) and just opposite the former railway station. Converted from a building which in its almost 200-year history had been, amongst other things, a wine merchants, warehouse and printing works the theatre's first season was in 1958. Since then hundreds of plays have been presented ranging from Shakespeare to Ayckbourn, modern classics to timeless farces along with many plays presented for the first time in the Medway Towns and, indeed, Kent. Medway Little Theatre also has a thriving youth company and a children's workshop for younger people. Every summer the Duncan Rand One-Act Play Festival (named after one of Medway Little Theatre's founders) attracts groups from far and wide.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Local newspapers for Rochester include the "Medway Messenger", published by the KM Group, and free papers.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The local commercial radio station for Rochester is KMFM Medway, owned by the KM Group. Medway is also served by community radio station Radio Sunlight which is now an online service. The area also receives broadcasts from county-wide stations BBC Radio Kent, Heart and Gold, as well as from various Essex and Greater London radio stations.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester is part of the ITV Meridian and BBC South East area, receiving television signals from the Bluebell Hill transmitter on the crest of the North Downs to the SE, supplemented by a low power relay transmitter in central Chatham.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Football is played with many teams competing in Saturday and Sunday leagues. The local football club is Rochester United F.C. Rochester F.C. was its old football club but has been defunct for many decades. Rugby is also played; Medway R.F.C. play their matches at Priestfields and "Old Williamsonians" is associated with Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Holcombe Hockey Club enter teams in both the Men's and Women's England Hockey Leagues. Speedway was staged on a track adjacent to City Way that opened in 1932. Proposals for a revival in the early 1970s did not materialise and the "Rochester Bombers" became the Romford Bombers.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Sailing and rowing are also popular on the River Medway with respective clubs being based in Rochester.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The 1959 James Bond novel "Goldfinger" describes Bond driving along the A2 through the Medway Towns from Strood to Chatham. Of interest is the mention of "inevitable traffic jams" on the Strood side of Rochester Bridge, the novel being written some years prior to the construction of the M2 motorway Medway bypass.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester is the setting of the controversial 1965 Peter Watkins television film "The War Game", which depicts the town's destruction by a nuclear missile. The opening sequence was shot in Chatham Town Hall, but the credits particularly thank the people of Dover, Gravesend and Tonbridge.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The 2011 adventure film "Ironclad" is based upon the 1215 siege of Rochester Castle. There are however areas where the plot differs from accepted historical narrative.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: A scene in the 2001 film "Last Orders", starring Bob Hoskins and Tom Courtenay, was filmed in Rochester High Street.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The historic city was for many years the favourite of Charles Dickens, who lived within the diocese at nearby Gads Hill Place, Higham, many of his novels being based on the area. Descriptions of the town appear in "Pickwick Papers", "Great Expectations" and (lightly fictionalised as "Cloisterham") in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". Elements of two houses in Rochester, Satis House and Restoration House, are used for Miss Havisham's house in "Great Expectations", Satis House.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The actress Dame Sybil Thorndike and her brother Russell were brought up in Minor Canon Row adjacent to the cathedral; the daughter of a canon of Rochester Cathedral, she was educated at Rochester Grammar School for Girls. A local doctors' practice, local dental practice and a hall at Rochester Grammar School are all named after her.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Sir Peter Buck was Admiral of the Medway in the 17th century; knighted in 1603 he and Bishop Barlow hosted King James, the Stuart royal family and the King of Denmark in 1606. A civil servant to The Royal Dockyard and Lord High Admiral, Buck lived at Eastgate House, Rochester.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Major-General Denis Redman, a World War II veteran, was born and raised in Rochester and later became a founder member of REME, head of his Corps and a Major-General in the British Army.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The model and actress Kelly Brook went to Delce Junior School in Rochester and later the Thomas Aveling School (formerly Warren Wood Girls School).


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Medway council run a selective system of education, similar to other local authorities in Kent, but call their secondary modern schools "secondary schools". Almost all secondary schools in Rochester have opted for academy status.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: In 1701, Sir Joseph Williamson left a bequest to establish the Mathematical School, a boys' grammar school, also referred to either as "Rochester Math" or "The Math School". Unlike earlier educational foundations, such as The King's School, it was not tied to a religious establishment, but was opened for practical instruction of boys in navigation and mathematics.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: The University for the Creative Arts, formerly the Kent Institute of Art & Design, is located on the boundary of Rochester with Chatham.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester is on the A2, which crosses the Medway at Rochester Bridge – the route roughly follows the ancient road known as Watling Street, first paved by the Romans, but used by earlier Britons for centuries before the Roman invasion. Nowadays vehicular traffic is largely diverted onto the nearby M2 motorway.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Bus services are operated by Arriva Southern Counties, which took over the locally owned Maidstone & District bus company in the 1990s. Other local bus companies including Nu-Venture provide certain services, some contracted from the local council.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester railway station is on the Chatham Main Line and the North Kent Line. Strood railway station is on the North Kent Line and the Medway Valley Line; it links to the HS1 high speed line at Ebbsfleet International giving a running time of 30 minutes into St Pancras. All services are provided by Southeastern.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: Rochester Airport began in September 1933 when Rochester City Council purchased some land as the site for a municipal airport. One month later the aircraft manufacturers Short Brothers leased the land for test flying. By 1934–5 Short Brothers had taken over the site, and moved in some of their personnel from the existing seaplane works. The inaugural flight into Rochester was from Gravesend, John Parker flying the Short Brothers Short Scion G-ACJI.


title: Rochester, Kent

text: In 1979 the lease reverted to the City Council. After giving thorough consideration to closing the airport, GEC (then comprising Marconi and instrument makers Elliot Automation) decided to take over management of the airport. It maintained two grass landing strips while releasing some land for light industrial expansion.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: A repetitive strain injury (RSI) is an injury to part of the musculoskeletal or nervous system caused by repetitive use, vibrations, compression or long periods in a fixed position. Other common names include repetitive stress disorders, cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs), and overuse syndrome.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Some examples of symptoms experienced by patients with RSI are aching, pulsing pain, tingling and extremity weakness, initially presenting with intermittent discomfort and then with a higher degree of frequency.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Repetitive strain injury (RSI) and associative trauma orders are umbrella terms used to refer to several discrete conditions that can be associated with repetitive tasks, forceful exertions, vibrations, mechanical compression, sustained or awkward positions, or repetitive eccentric contractions. The exact terminology is controversial, but the terms now used by the United States Department of Labor and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and work-related muscular skeletal disorders (WMDs).


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Examples of conditions that may sometimes be attributed to such causes include tendinosis (or less often tendinitis), carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, De Quervain syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome, intersection syndrome, golfer's elbow (medial epicondylitis), tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis), trigger finger (so-called stenosing tenosynovitis), radial tunnel syndrome, ulnar tunnel syndrome, and focal dystonia.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: A general worldwide increase since the 1970s in RSIs of the arms, hands, neck, and shoulder has been attributed to the widespread use in the workplace of keyboard entry devices, such as typewriters and computers, which require long periods of repetitive motions in a fixed posture. Extreme temperatures have also been reported as risk factor for RSI.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Workers in certain fields are at risk of repetitive strains. Most occupational injuries are musculoskeletal disorders, and many of these are caused by cumulative trauma rather than a single event. Miners and poultry workers, for example, must make repeated motions which can cause tendon, muscular, and skeletal injuries. Jobs that involve repeated motion patterns or prolonged posture within a work cycle, or both, may be repetitive. Young athletes are predisposed to RSIs due to an underdeveloped musculoskeletal system.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Factors such as personality differences to work-place organization problems. Certain workers may negatively perceive their work organization due to excessive work rate, long work hours, limited job control, and low social support. Previous studies shown elevated urinary catecholamines (stress-related chemicals) in workers with RSI. Pain related to RSI may evolve into chronic pain syndrome particularly for workers who do not have supports from co-workers and supervisors.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Age and gender are important risk factors for RSIs. The risk of RSI increases with age. Women are more likely affected than men because of their smaller frame, lower muscle mass and strength, and due to endocrine influences. In addition, lifestyle choices such as smoking and alcohol consumption are recognizable risk factors for RSI. Recent scientific findings indicate that obesity and diabetes may predispose an individual to RSIs by creating a chronic low grade inflammatory response that prevents the body from effectively healing damaged tissues.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: RSIs are assessed using a number of objective clinical measures. These include effort-based tests such as grip and pinch strength, diagnostic tests such as Finkelstein's test for De Quervain's tendinitis, Phalen's contortion, Tinel's percussion for carpal tunnel syndrome, and nerve conduction velocity tests that show nerve compression in the wrist. Various imaging techniques can also be used to show nerve compression such as x-ray for the wrist, and MRI for the thoracic outlet and cervico-brachial areas. Utilization of routine imaging  is useful in early detection and treatment of overuse injuries in at risk populations, which is important in preventing long term adverse effects.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: There are no quick fixes for RSI. Early diagnosis is critical to limiting damage. For Upper Limb Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), Occupational Therapists create interventions that include education to facilitate ergonomics. This will minimize the possibility of an upper limb strain injury by learning the correct approach during facilitating functional task movements. The RICE treatment is used as the first treatment for many muscle strains, ligament sprains, or other bruises and injuries. RICE is used immediately after an injury happens and for the first 24 to 48 hours after the injury. These modalities can help reduce the swelling and pain. Commonly prescribed treatments for early-stage RSIs include analgesics, myofeedback, biofeedback, physical therapy, relaxation, and ultrasound therapy. Low-grade RSIs can sometimes resolve themselves if treatments begin shortly after the onset of symptoms. However, some RSIs may require more aggressive intervention including surgery and can persist for years.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Although there are no "quick fixes" for RSI, there are effective approaches to its treatment and prevention. One is that of ergonomics, the changing of one's environment (especially workplace equipment) to minimize repetitive strain.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: General exercise has been shown to decrease the risk of developing RSI. Doctors sometimes recommend that those with RSI engage in specific strengthening exercises, for example to improve sitting posture, reduce excessive kyphosis, and potentially thoracic outlet syndrome. Modifications of posture and arm use are often recommended.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Although seemingly a modern phenomenon, RSIs have long been documented in the medical literature. In 1700, the Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini first described RSI in more than 20 categories of industrial workers in Italy, including musicians and clerks. Carpal tunnel syndrome was first identified by the British surgeon James Paget in 1854. The April 1875 issue of "The Graphic" describes "telegraphic paralysis."


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: The Swiss surgeon Fritz de Quervain first identified De Quervain's tendinitis in Swiss factory workers in 1895. The French neurologist Jules Tinel (1879–1952) developed his percussion test for compression of the median nerve in 1900. The American surgeon George Phalen improved the understanding of the aetiology of carpal tunnel syndrome with his clinical experience of several hundred patients during the 1950s and 1960s.


title: Repetitive strain injury

text: Specific sources of discomfort have been popularly referred to by terms such as Blackberry thumb, PlayStation thumb, Rubik's wrist or "cuber's thumb", stylus finger, and raver's wrist, and Emacs pinky.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: The Improved Outer Tactical Vest (IOTV) is an enhanced version of, and a replacement for, the older Outer Tactical Vest (OTV) variant of the Interceptor Body Armor, as fielded by the United States Army. The IOTV is compatible with the Deltoid and Axillary Protector System (DAPS) components, ESAPI (Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert), Enhanced Side Ballistic Inserts (ESBI), as well as the OTV's groin protector. It has a flame-resistant stand-alone shirt known as the Army Combat Shirt designed specifically for use with the IOTV.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: The OTV design was considered insufficient and lacking in certain areas, which led to the IOTV's development and fielding. The IOTV is currently produced by Point Blank Body Armor, BAE Systems, KDH Defense Systems, Protective Products Enterprises, UNICOR and Creative Apparel Associates.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: The IOTV first saw action in combat with U.S. Army ground combat units in from mid-2007 onward and currently remains the standard body armor type used by regular U.S. Army ground combat units overseas, although the new Modular Scalable Vest is set to replace it in the coming years.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: While the Interceptor Body Armor and the Outer Tactical Vest were considered fairly effective, questions were raised over whether or not they were the best possible armor solution for soldiers of the United States Military. This debate was heightened by controversy over Dragon Skin, produced by the now defunct Pinnacle Armor. Various claims surfaced that Dragon Skin was more effective at protecting soldiers than the then standard issue Interceptor body armor system, with independent studies and reports seeming to back these claims, eventually leading to multiple congressional members asking for further evaluation. In response, the military made public testing that showed widespread failures in the testing of the Dragon Skin armor. Ultimately, Dragon Skin never saw widespread adoption, and many of the perceived shortfalls of the Outer Tactical Vest such as standard of protection or modularity were addressed in the new Improved Outer Tactical Vest and E-SAPI plates.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: A size Medium IOTV weighs , less than a Medium OTV vest, while providing more coverage. However, a fully equipped IOTV, complete with all its components (soft armor panel inserts, four ballistic plate inserts (front and back plates and two side plates), collar, and groin protectors) still weighs , with a Large IOTV weighing about . The functionality of the enhanced side ballistic inserts, which provide coverage under the arms and down the sides of the torso, is built into the IOTV.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: The IOTV provides the ability to don the vest in two ways. The first is to simply place the vest over the head and pull down, and the second is to remove fasteners on the wearer's left shoulder, sliding into the vest to the right. To complete the procedure for both methods the wearer then lifts up the front panel of the vest and fastens the waistband, which takes the weight of the vest off the shoulders somewhat, and then fastens the side protection modules.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: A key design feature for the IOTV is that the entire armor system is able to be released with the pull of a hidden lanyard. The armor then falls apart into its component pieces, providing a means for escape in case the wearer falls into water or becomes trapped in a hazardous environment. The hidden release lanyard also allows medical personnel easier access to a casualty, which was one concern that was not addressed with the old Interceptor armor.


title: Improved Outer Tactical Vest

text: It also features a grid of PALS webbing on the front, back, and sides for the attachment of modular pouches and accessories such as neck and throat protection, groin protection, or deltoid protection.