automaton, any of various mechanical objects that are relatively self-operating after they have been set in motion. The term automaton is also applied to a class of electromechanical devices—either theoretical or real—that transform information from one form into another on the basis of

automata theory, body of physical and logical principles underlying the operation of any electromechanical device (an automaton) that converts information from one form into another according to a definite procedure. Real or hypothetical automata of varying complexity have become indispensable

automation: Automated assembly: Automated assembly machines have been developed that operate in a manner similar to machining transfer lines, with the difference being that assembly operations, instead of machining, are performed at the workstations. A typical assembly machine consists of several stations, each equipped with a supply of…

money: Electronic money: The automated clearinghouse (ACH) is the third alternative means of making deposits and paying bills. ACH networks transfer existing deposit balances, avoid the use of checks, and speed payments and settlement. In addition, many large payments (such as those to settle securities or foreign exchange transactions…

defibrillation: Types of defibrillation devices: The two major types are automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). AEDs are used in emergency situations involving cardiac arrest. They are portable and often can be found in places where large numbers of people circulate, such as airports. Immediate emergency response that enables early defibrillation…

dactyloscopy: …countries use such systems, called automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS), to search rapidly through millions of digitized fingerprint records. Fingerprints recognized by AFIS are examined by a fingerprint analyst before a positive identification or match is made.

mass transit: New technology: …term automated guideway transit (AGT) is sometimes applied. AGT systems have been built to provide circulation in downtown areas (e.g., Detroit, Michigan, and Miami, Florida, both in the United States) and on a dispersed American college campus (West Virginia University, at Morgantown). The vehicles commonly have rubber tires and…

money: Electronic money: …currency from their accounts using automated teller machines (ATMs). In this way an ATM withdrawal works like a debit card. ATMs also allow users to deposit checks into their accounts or repay bank loans. While they do not replace the assets used as money, ATMs make money more readily available…

Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), uncrewed European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that carried supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2008 to 2014. The first ATV, Jules Verne, named after the French author, was launched on March 9, 2008. The ATV was the largest spacecraft the ESA

autonomous vehicle, automobile that employs driver assistance technologies to remove the need for a human operator. There are six stages of automation in automobiles, ranging from fully unassisted manual driving at stage 0 to fully automated self-driving cars at stage 5. Though the terms

attention: Memory and habituation: Automatic attention makes fewer demands but is relatively inflexible, as it cannot cope with the unexpected. The focal and automatic modes may be illustrated by a driving example: a new driver has to attend to gear shifting in a focal way (actively thinking about it),…

Filene’s: …Filene’s became famous for its Automatic Bargain Basement. This unique basement store was opened in 1909, selling “distress merchandise” (damaged, outdated, or unpopular items) at bargain prices, as did many other stores’ basements, but at Filene’s the prices were plainly marked and were automatically reduced by a set percentage after…

railroad: Automatic body tilting: The permissible maximum speed of a passenger train through curves is the level beyond which a railroad considers passengers will suffer unacceptable centrifugal force; the limit beyond which derailment becomes a risk is considerably higher. On a line built for exclusive use…

Alan Turing: Computer designer: His design for the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) was the first complete specification of an electronic stored-program all-purpose digital computer. Had Turing’s ACE been built as he planned, it would have had vastly more memory than any of the other early computers, as well as being faster. However, his…

attention: Memory and habituation: By contrast, automatic detection, or automatic processing, operates in long-term memory and is dependent upon extensive learning. It comes into operation without active control or attention by the individual, it is difficult to alter or suppress, and it is virtually unaffected by load.

radar: Interference: …not as easily ignored by automatic detection and tracking systems, however, and so some method is usually needed to recognize and remove interference pulses before they enter the automatic detector and tracker of a radar.

motion-picture technology: Dialogue: …has largely been replaced by automatic dialogue replacement (ADR). Picture and sound are interlocked on machines that can run forward or backward. In the 1980s digitalized systems were developed that could, with imperceptible changes in pitch, stretch or shrink the replacement dialogue to match the waveforms in the original for…

radio direction finder, radio receiver and directional antenna system used to determine the direction of the source of a signal. It most often refers to a device used to check the position of a ship or aircraft, although it may also direct a craft’s course or be used for military or investigative

automatism, technique first used by Surrealist painters and poets to express the creative force of the unconscious in art. In the 1920s the Surrealist poets André Breton, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, Louis Aragon, and Philippe Soupault tried writing in a hypnotic or trancelike state, recording their

automation: Modern developments: …be used as components in automatic feedback control systems. These devices include highly sensitive electromechanical probes, scanning laser beams, electrical field techniques, and machine vision. Some of these sensor systems require computer technology for their implementation. Machine vision, for example, requires the processing of enormous amounts of data that can…

photoengraving: Camera and darkroom equipment: …supplanted by the use of automatic film-processing machines. Derived from equipment originally designed for processing of motion-picture film or photostat prints, these consist of belt- or roller-driven apparatus that carries the film through developer, fixing, and washing solutions, and, in most cases, through a drier, permitting delivery of a processed,…

television: Controls: …touch-button control that sets the fine tuning and also adjusts the hue, saturation, contrast, and brightness to preset ranges. These automatic adjustments override the settings of the corresponding separate controls, which then function over narrow ranges only. Such refinements permit reception of acceptable quality by viewers who might otherwise be…

R.E.M.: …making balladic albums such as Automatic for the People (1992) and rowdier, noisier collections such as Monster (1994).

television: Basic receiver circuits: …by a process known as automatic gain control, in accordance with the strength of the signal, full amplification being accorded to a weak signal and less to a strong signal. After passage through the intermediate amplifiers, the sound and picture carriers and their side bands reach a relatively fixed level…

robot: Industrial robots: Such machines, dubbed AGVs (Automatic Guided Vehicles), commonly navigate by following signal-emitting wires entrenched in concrete floors. In the 1980s AGVs acquired microprocessor controllers that allowed more complex behaviours than those afforded by simple electronic controls. In the 1990s a new navigation method became popular for use in…

television: Controls: …a system known as “automatic hue control.” In this system, the viewer makes an initial manual adjustment of the hue control to produce the preferred flesh tones. Thereafter, the hue control circuit automatically maintains the preselected ratio of the primary colours corresponding to the viewer’s choice. Thus, the most…

musical instrument: Automatic instruments: Water power, clockwork, steam, and electricity have all been used at various times to power musical instruments, enabling them to produce sound automatically. Examples include church bells, automatic organs, musical clocks, automatic pianos and harpsichords, music boxes, calliopes, and even automatic orchestras. Most…

textile: Modern looms: Automatically replenished flat, or automatic, looms are the most important class of modern loom, available for a very wide range of fabrics. In virtually all such looms, the shuttle is replenished by automatically replacing the exhausted bobbin with a full one. In principle they are thus the same as…

Otto Graham was an American collegiate and professional gridiron football player and coach best remembered as the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns during a 10-year period in which they won 105 games, lost 17, and tied 5 in regular-season play and won 7 of 10 championship games. Graham was an

automatic picture transmission station, in meteorology, any of several hundred installations, located in most of the countries of the world, that can receive and display the weather-forecasting data that is continuously transmitted by orbiting artificial satellites launched by the United States.

automatic pilot, device for controlling an aircraft or other vehicle without constant human intervention. The earliest automatic pilots could do no more than maintain an aircraft in straight and level flight by controlling pitch, yaw, and roll movements; and they are still used most often to

map: Automation in mapping: …in the difficult area of automatic plotting. Instruments now available can automatically scan a stereo model and generate approximate profiles from which contours may be interpolated. Some steps, however, must be closely monitored or else performed completely by the operator. Contouring interpolated from a profile scan is inferior to an…

attention: Memory and habituation: By contrast, automatic detection, or automatic processing, operates in long-term memory and is dependent upon extensive learning. It comes into operation without active control or attention by the individual, it is difficult to alter or suppress, and it is virtually unaffected by load.

telecommunication: Channel encoding: …of error control is called automatic repeat request (ARQ). In this method redundant bits are added to the transmitted information and are used by the receiver to detect errors. The receiver then signals a request for a repeat transmission. Generally, the number of extra bits needed simply to detect an…

automatic rifle, rifle that utilizes either its recoil or a portion of the gas propelling the projectile to eject the spent cartridge case, load a new cartridge, and cock the weapon to fire again. Automatic rifles should not be confused with semiautomatic rifles, as the latter fire only one shot at

Nils Dalén: …for his invention of the automatic sun valve, or Solventil, which regulates a gaslight source by the action of sunlight, turning it off at dawn and on at dusk or at other periods of darkness. It rapidly came into worldwide use for buoys and unmanned lighthouses.

telephone: Electromechanical switching: The idea of automatic switching appeared as early as 1879, and the first fully automatic switch to achieve commercial success was invented in 1889 by Almon B. Strowger, the owner of an undertaking business in Kansas City, Missouri. The Strowger switch consisted of essentially two parts: an array…

rocket and missile system: Matador and other programs: However, in 1954 an automatic terrain recognition and guidance (Atran) system was added (and the missile system was subsequently designated Mace). Atran, which used radar map-matching for both en-route and terminal guidance, represented a major breakthrough in accuracy, a problem long associated with cruise missiles. The low availability of…

railroad: Automated systems: A refinement, generally known as automatic train protection (ATP), has been developed since World War II to provide continuous control of train speed. It has been applied principally to busy urban commuter and rapid-transit routes and to European and Japanese intercity high-speed routes. A display in the cab reproduces either…

automatic transmission, arrangement of gears, brakes, clutches, a fluid drive, and governing devices that automatically changes the speed ratio between the engine and the wheels of an automobile. Since its introduction in 1939, the fully automatic transmission has become optional or standard

vending machine, coin-actuated machine through which various goods may be retailed. Vending machines should not be confused with coin-operated amusement games or music machines. The first known commercial use of vending machines came early in the 18th century in England, where coin-actuated “honour

automatic writing, in spiritualism, writing produced involuntarily when the subject’s attention is ostensibly directed elsewhere. The phenomenon may occur when the subject is in an alert waking state or in a hypnotic trance, usually during a séance. What is produced may be unrelated words,

automation: Development of robotics: …to the development of the APT (Automatically Programmed Tools) language for programming machine tools.

textile: Modern looms: Automatically replenished flat, or automatic, looms are the most important class of modern loom, available for a very wide range of fabrics. In virtually all such looms, the shuttle is replenished by automatically replacing the exhausted bobbin with a full one. In principle they are thus the same as…

automation, application of machines to tasks once performed by human beings or, increasingly, to tasks that would otherwise be impossible. Although the term mechanization is often used to refer to the simple replacement of human labour by machines, automation generally implies the integration of

automatism, in spiritualism, the spontaneous performance of certain physical acts without the conscious control of the agent. In automatism a message is purportedly conveyed, usually through a spiritualist medium speaking in a trance during a séance (French: “sitting”), through automatic writing or

automatism, technique first used by Surrealist painters and poets to express the creative force of the unconscious in art. In the 1920s the Surrealist poets André Breton, Paul Éluard, Robert Desnos, Louis Aragon, and Philippe Soupault tried writing in a hypnotic or trancelike state, recording their

crime: Intention: …of involuntary conduct known as automatism, a state in which the conscious mind does not control bodily movements—such as during sleepwalking—thus rendering an individual unaccountable for even serious consequences.

Canada: Visual arts: …group in Montreal known as Les Automatistes dominated the Canadian art scene in the 1940s, with members such as Jean-Paul Riopelle and Fernand Leduc gaining prominence. In reaction to that movement, Montreal artists such as Guido Molinari and Claude Tonsignant in the mid-1950s freed contemporary painting from its Surrealist style…

automaton, any of various mechanical objects that are relatively self-operating after they have been set in motion. The term automaton is also applied to a class of electromechanical devices—either theoretical or real—that transform information from one form into another on the basis of

saturniid moth: Major species: The io moth (Automeris io) is characterized by yellow males and red-brown females, and both sexes have a large, dark eyespot on each hindwing. The bright green caterpillars are 5–8 cm (2–3 inches) in length and have red and white stripes running along the sides of…

mimicry: Automimicry: The phenomenon of automimicry involves the advantage gained by some members of a species from its resemblance to others of the same species. Males of many bees and wasps, although defenseless, are protected from predators by their resemblance to females that are equipped with…

An automobile is a usually four-wheeled vehicle designed primarily for passenger transportation and commonly propelled by an internal-combustion engine using a volatile fuel. (Read Henry Ford’s 1926 Britannica essay on mass production.) The modern automobile is a complex technical system employing

automobile club: …Royal Automobile Club (RAC) and Automobile Association (AA) pioneered nationwide patrols, first by bicycle and later on motorbikes. The first roadside telephone box for motorist assistance was installed by the RAC in 1919. After World War II, insurance companies, oil companies, and national retailers formed auto clubs. Clubs were also…

battery: Storage batteries: In contrast to primary cells, which are discharged once and then discarded, storage batteries can be supplied with direct current (DC) of the correct polarity and recharged to or near their original energy content and power capability—i.e., they can repeatedly store electrical energy.…

automobile club, an organization of automobile owners. Begun as social clubs in which persons with an interest in motoring and motor racing could meet, such clubs later also developed into service organizations that provided members with emergency road service, assistance with planning trips and

automobile club: …first automobile club was the Automobile Club de France, formed in 1895 in Paris. Similar groups soon appeared in Great Britain and Belgium, and reciprocal arrangements between the French and British clubs were established by 1898. National clubs were formed in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland by 1900. The American Automobile…

automobile club: The Automobile Club of Switzerland, for example, developed a form, the triptyque, that exempted motorists from paying customs duties on their autos when crossing national borders. Britain’s Royal Automobile Club (RAC) and Automobile Association (AA) pioneered nationwide patrols, first by bicycle and later on motorbikes. The…

automobile racing: American, European, and international racing: …racing are members of the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States-FIA, basically an advisory and liaison organization.

Fernando Arrabal: 1966; Automobile Graveyard), a parody of the Christ story. The characters in his plays are frequently childlike but seldom innocent; they are prostitutes, murderers, and torturers.

automotive industry, all those companies and activities involved in the manufacture of motor vehicles, including most components, such as engines and bodies, but excluding tires, batteries, and fuel. The industry’s principal products are passenger automobiles and light trucks, including pickups,

motor vehicle insurance, a contract by which the insurer assumes the risk of any loss the owner or operator of a car may incur through damage to property or persons as the result of an accident. There are many specific forms of motor vehicle insurance, varying not only in the kinds of risk that

automobile racing, professional and amateur automobile sport practiced throughout the world in a variety of forms on roads, tracks, or closed circuits. It includes Grand Prix racing, speedway racing, stock-car racing, sports-car racing, drag racing, midget-car racing, and karting, as well as hill

igneous rock: Fabric: …faces can be described as euhedral or panidiomorphic (fully crystal-faced), subhedral or hypidiomorphic (partly faced), or anhedral or allotriomorphic (no external crystal faces). Quite apart from the presence or absence of crystal faces, the shape, or habit, of individual mineral grains is described by such terms as equant, tabular, platy,…

number game: Number patterns and curiosities: An automorphic number is an integer whose square ends with the given integer, as (25)2 = 625, and (76)2 = 5776. Strobogrammatic numbers read the same after having been rotated through 180°; e.g., 69, 96, 1001.

automorphism, in mathematics, a correspondence that associates to every element in a set a unique element of the set (perhaps itself) and for which there is a companion correspondence, known as its inverse, such that one followed by the other produces the identity correspondence (i); i.e., the

automotive ceramics, advanced ceramic materials that are made into components for automobiles. Examples include spark plug insulators, catalysts and catalyst supports for emission control devices, and sensors of various kinds. This article briefly describes two important automotive applications of

SAE number: Society of Automotive Engineers. The numbers for crankcase lubricants range from 5 to 50, for transmission and axle lubricants they range from 75 to 250; the lower the number, the more readily the oil flows. The suffix W indicates that the oil is suitable for…

automotive industry, all those companies and activities involved in the manufacture of motor vehicles, including most components, such as engines and bodies, but excluding tires, batteries, and fuel. The industry’s principal products are passenger automobiles and light trucks, including pickups,

motor vehicle insurance, a contract by which the insurer assumes the risk of any loss the owner or operator of a car may incur through damage to property or persons as the result of an accident. There are many specific forms of motor vehicle insurance, varying not only in the kinds of risk that

operations research: Model construction: …the cars stopping at urban automotive service stations located at intersections of two streets revealed that almost all came from four of the 16 possible routes through the intersection (four ways of entering times four ways of leaving). Examination of the percentage of cars in each route that stopped for…

human nervous system: The autonomic nervous system: …collections of nerve cells called autonomic ganglia. Parasympathetic ganglia tend to lie close to or within the organs or tissues that their neurons innervate, whereas sympathetic ganglia are located at more distant sites from their target organs. Both systems have associated sensory fibers that send feedback into the central nervous…

autonomic nervous system, in vertebrates, the part of the nervous system that controls and regulates the internal organs without any conscious recognition or effort by the organism. The autonomic nervous system comprises two antagonistic sets of nerves, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous

autonomous vehicle, automobile that employs driver assistance technologies to remove the need for a human operator. There are six stages of automation in automobiles, ranging from fully unassisted manual driving at stage 0 to fully automated self-driving cars at stage 5. Though the terms

Eastern Orthodoxy: The norm of church organization: There are also “autonomous” churches (retaining a token canonical dependence upon a mother see) in Crete, Finland, and Japan. The first nine autocephalous churches are headed by “patriarchs,” the others by archbishops or metropolitans. These titles are strictly honorary.

ASMR, tingling sensation typically felt on the scalp and throughout the head, neck, spine, and limbs, triggered by certain visual, auditory, or touch stimuli. The length of the sensation varies from person to person but may last 30 minutes or longer. Researchers estimate that approximately 20

autonomous vehicle, automobile that employs driver assistance technologies to remove the need for a human operator. There are six stages of automation in automobiles, ranging from fully unassisted manual driving at stage 0 to fully automated self-driving cars at stage 5. Though the terms

improvised explosive device: Components: …two basic categories: command-initiated and autonomously initiated. Command-initiated IEDs are detonated through human interaction with the triggering mechanism. Typically, a receiver on the explosive triggers detonation when an electronic impulse is sent over a wire circuit or via wireless signal. Common examples of command initiators are cell phones, pagers, cordless…

autonomy, in Western ethics and political philosophy, the state or condition of self-governance, or leading one’s life according to reasons, values, or desires that are authentically one’s own. Although autonomy is an ancient notion (the term is derived from the ancient Greek words autos, meaning

Nicaragua: Languages: …constitution and the Atlantic Coast Autonomy Law enacted the same year, Miskito, Sumo, Rama, and Creole English have equal status with Spanish. On the west coast, indigenous languages have disappeared, even though their influence remains in place-names and many nouns in Nicaraguan Spanish.

Samuel Holdheim: …die Autonomie der Rabbinen (“The Autonomy of the Rabbis”). In this work he concluded that Jewish marriage and divorce laws were obsolete because they represented the national aspect of Judaism (no longer valid) as against its enduring religious aspect. Such laws, he held, should be superseded by the laws of…

Puerto Rico: Movements toward self-government: …movement, and in 1897 the Autonomy Party was formed in Puerto Rico through cooperation with the Liberal Party in Spain. The new autonomous government was parliamentary in form but was overseen by the governor-general as a representative of the Spanish king, who remained empowered to disband the insular parliament and…

Canada: Domestic policies: The Canada–United States Automotive Products Agreement (Autopact), concluded in 1965, finally began to pay dividends as U.S.-owned carmakers built new assembly plants in Ontario and Quebec. Tens of thousands of new jobs were created in the automobile and auto parts industries, and Toronto quickly passed Montreal…

autophagy, the degradation of worn, abnormal, or malfunctioning cellular components that takes place within organelles known as lysosomes. Autophagy serves housekeeping functions, enabling the breakdown and recycling of cellular materials, and helps balance energy demands during periods of stress.

autophagy, the degradation of worn, abnormal, or malfunctioning cellular components that takes place within organelles known as lysosomes. Autophagy serves housekeeping functions, enabling the breakdown and recycling of cellular materials, and helps balance energy demands during periods of stress.

musical instrument: Classification of instruments: …named his four main classes autophones, or instruments made of a sonorous material that vibrates to produce sound (e.g., bells, rattles); membranophones, in which a stretched skin is caused to vibrate (e.g., drums); aerophones, in which the sound is produced by a vibrating column of air (wind instruments); and chordophones,…

automatic pilot, device for controlling an aircraft or other vehicle without constant human intervention. The earliest automatic pilots could do no more than maintain an aircraft in straight and level flight by controlling pitch, yaw, and roll movements; and they are still used most often to

Caracas: Transportation: …facilitated by a system of autopistas, multilane divided highways extending east–west through the valley and connecting the city with interior locations. Railroads, which once provided Caracas with vital links to the sea and to interior valleys, have been abandoned in favour of highway transportation.

life: Autopoietic: A newer definition of life revolves around the idea of autopoiesis. This idea was put forth by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela and emphasizes the peculiar closure of living systems, which are alive and maintain themselves metabolically whether they succeed in reproduction or…

evolution: Polyploidy: …are two kinds of polyploids—autopolyploids, which derive from a single species, and allopolyploids, which stem from a combination of chromosome sets from different species. Allopolyploid plant species are much more numerous than autopolyploids.

ammonia: Physical properties of ammonia: Ammonia also self-ionizes, although less so than does water. 2NH3 ⇌ NH4+ + NH2−

acid–base reaction: Acid–base equilibria: …equation, Ks is termed the ion product or the autoprotolysis constant of the solvent. The concentrations are usually expressed in moles per litre, a mole being the molecular weight of the compound in grams. Since a solvent that is a good proton donor is normally a poor proton acceptor, and…

autopsy, dissection and examination of a dead body and its organs and structures. An autopsy may be performed to determine the cause of death, to observe the effects of disease, and to establish the evolution and mechanisms of disease processes. The word autopsy is derived from the Greek autopsia,

morphology: Chemical techniques: …extended by the techniques of autoradiography and histochemistry. In the former, a tissue is supplied with a radioactive substance and allowed to utilize it for an appropriate period of time, after which the tissue is prepared and placed in contact with a special photographic emulsion. Silver grains in the emulsion…

nervous system: Acetylcholine: These receptors are called autoreceptors, and they probably regulate the release of neurotransmitter at the terminal.

natural gas: Transport: Modern liquefaction plants employ autorefrigerated cascade cycles, in which the gas is stripped of carbon dioxide, dried, and then subjected to a series of compression-expansion steps during which it is cooled to liquefaction temperature (approximately −160 °C [−260 °F]). The compression power requirement is usually supplied by consuming a…

Robert F. Engle: Inherent in Engle’s autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (known as ARCH) model was the concept that, while most volatility is embedded in random error, its variance depends on previously realized random errors, with large errors being followed by large errors and small by small. This contrasted with earlier models wherein…

statistics: Time series and forecasting: …methods of forecasting are the Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and econometric models.

renal system: Factors that affect renal flow: …is commonly referred to as autoregulation.

Kitano Takeshi: …with the ultraviolent Autoreiji (Outrage). The sequels Autoreiji Biyondo (Beyond Outrage) and Autoreiji Saishusho (Outrage Coda) appeared in 2012 and 2017, respectively.