text:
LPGA

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite women professional golfers from around the world.

Organization and history
Other "LPGAs" exist in other countries, each with a geographical designation in its name, but the U.S. organization is the first, largest, and most prestigious. The LPGA is also an organization for female club and teaching professionals. This is different from the PGA Tour, which runs the main professional tours in the U.S. and, since 1968, has been independent of the club and teaching professionals' organization, the PGA of America.

The LPGA also administers an annual qualifying school similar to that conducted by the PGA Tour. Depending on a golfer's finish in the final qualifying tournament, she may receive full or partial playing privileges on the LPGA Tour. In addition to the main LPGA Tour, the LPGA also owns and operates the Epson Tour, formerly the Futures Tour, the official developmental tour of the LPGA. Top finishers at the end of each season on that tour receive playing privileges on the main LPGA Tour for the following year.

The LPGA is the oldest continuing women's professional sports organization in the United States. It succeeded the WPGA (Women's Professional Golf Association), which was founded in 1944 but stopped its limited tour after the 1948 season and officially ceased operations in December 1949. The WPGA was founded by Ellen Griffin, Betty Hicks, and Hope Seignious.

The LPGA was founded in 1950 at Rolling Hills Country Club in Wichita, Kansas. Its 13 founders were: Alice Bauer, Patty Berg, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Marlene Hagge, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Betty Jameson, Sally Sessions, Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork, Louise Suggs, and Babe Zaharias. Patty Berg was its first president. The founders were elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame as a group in 2023 though six had already been inducted individually.

The first LPGA tournament was the 1950 Tampa Women's Open, held at Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in Tampa, Florida. Ironically, the winner was amateur Polly Riley, who beat the stellar field of professional founders.

In 1956, the LPGA hosted its first tournament outside the United States at the Havana Open in Havana, Cuba.

In 1996, Muffin Spencer-Devlin became the first LPGA player to come out as gay.

In 2001, Jane Blalock's JBC Marketing established the Women's Senior Golf Tour, now called the Legends Tour, for women professionals aged 45 and older. This is affiliated with the LPGA, but is not owned by the LPGA.

Since 2006, the LPGA has played a season-ending championship tournament.

Michael Whan became the eighth commissioner of the LPGA in October 2009, succeeding the ousted Carolyn Bivens. Whan is a former marketing executive in the sporting goods industry.

After a lawsuit filed by golfer Lana Lawless, the rules were changed in 2010 to allow transgender competitors. In 2013, trans woman Bobbi Lancaster faced local scorn for attempting playing in Arizona's Cactus Tour and attempting to qualify in the LPGA Qualifying Tournament.

In 2018, the LPGA acquired an amateur golf association, the Executive Women's Golf Association (EWGA), and expanded its emphasis to include amateur golfers in the U.S. and North America. Initially called the LPGA Women Who Play, the amateur organization was rebranded as the LPGA Amateur Golf Association. The LPGA Amateur Golf Association has member-operated chapters throughout North America and the Caribbean.

Prize money and tournaments
In 2010, total official prize money on the LPGA Tour was $41.4 million, a decrease of over $6 million from 2009. In 2010 there were 24 official tournaments, down from 28 in 2009 and 34 in 2008. Despite the loss in total tournaments, the number of tournaments hosted outside of the United States in 2010 stayed the same, as all four lost tournaments had been hosted in the United States. By 2016, the number of tournaments had risen to 33 with a record-high total prize money in excess of $63 million. In 2019, a new record was set with total prize money amounting to $70.5 million (a rise of over $5 million in one year).

International presence
In its first four decades, the LPGA Tour was dominated by American players. Sandra Post of Canada became the first player living outside the United States to gain an LPGA tour card in 1968. The non-U.S. contingent is now very large. The last time an American player topped the money list was in 2014 (Stacy Lewis), the last time an American led the tour in tournaments won was in 2020 (Danielle Kang), and from 2000 through 2009, non-Americans won 31 of 40 major championships.

Particularly, one of the notable trends seen in the early 21st century in the LPGA is the rise and dominance of Korean golfers. Se Ri Pak's early success in the LPGA sparked the boom in Korean women golfers on the LPGA Tour. In 2009, there were 122 non-Americans from 27 countries on the tour, including 47 from South Korea, 14 from Sweden, 10 from Australia, eight from the United Kingdom (four from England, three from Scotland and one from Wales), seven from Canada, five from Taiwan, and four from Japan.

LPGA Tour tournaments
As a United States-based tour, most of the LPGA Tour's events are held in the United States. In 1956, the LPGA hosted its first tournament outside the United States at the Havana Open in Havana, Cuba. In 2020, fourteen tournaments are held outside of the United States, seven events in Asia, four in Europe, two events in Australia, and one in Canada.

Five of the tournaments held outside North America are co-sanctioned with other professional tours. The Ladies European Tour co-sanctions the Women's British Open, The Evian Championship in France, and the Women's Australian Open (also co-sanctioned with the ALPG Tour). The other two co-sanctioned events—the BMW Ladies Championship (LPGA of Korea Tour) and Toto Japan Classic (LPGA of Japan Tour)—are held during the tour's autumn swing to Asia.

LPGA majors
The LPGA's annual major championships are:
 * Chevron Championship
 * U.S. Women's Open
 * Women's PGA Championship
 * Women's British Open
 * The Evian Championship

Source:

LPGA Playoffs
Since 2006, the LPGA has played a season-ending championship tournament. Through the 2008 season, it was known as the LPGA Playoffs at The ADT; in 2009 and 2010, it was known as the LPGA Tour Championship; and in 2011, the event became the CME Group Titleholders, held in November.

From 2006 through 2008 the LPGA schedule was divided into two halves, with 15 players from each half qualifying for the Championship based on their performance. Two wild-card selections were also included for a final field of 21 players. The winner of the LPGA Tour Championship, which features three days of "playoffs" plus the final championship round, earns $1 million.

In 2009, the Tour Championship field was increased to 120 players, with entry open to all Tour members in the top 120 on the money list as of three weeks prior to the start of the tournament. The total purse was $1.5 million with $225,000 going to the winner.

The CME Group Titleholders, which resurrects the name of a former LPGA major championship (the Titleholders Championship), was first played in 2011. From 2011 to 2013, its field was made up of three qualifiers from each official tour event during the season, specifically the top three finishers not previously qualified. Beginning in 2014, the field will be determined by a season-long points race. The winner of the points race will receive a $1 million bonus.

Historical tour schedules and results

 * Official tournaments are tournaments in which earnings and scores are credited to the players' official LPGA record.

Hall of Fame
The LPGA established the Hall of Fame of Women's Golf in 1951, with four charter members: Patty Berg, Betty Jameson, Louise Suggs, and Babe Zaharias. After being inactive for several years, the Hall of Fame moved in 1967 to its first physical premises, in Augusta, Georgia, and was renamed the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame. In 1998 it merged into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

LPGA Tour awards
The LPGA Tour presents several annual awards. Three are awarded in competitive contests, based on scoring over the course of the year.
 * The Player of the Year is awarded based on a formula in which points are awarded for top-10 finishes and are doubled at the LPGA's five major championships. The points system is: 30 points for first; 12 points for second; nine points for third; seven points for fourth; six points for fifth; five points for sixth; four points for seventh; three points for eighth; two points for ninth and one point for 10th.
 * The Vare Trophy, named for Glenna Collett-Vare, is given to the player with the lowest scoring average for the season.
 * The Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year Award is awarded to the first-year player on the LPGA Tour who scores the highest in a points competition in which points are awarded based on a player's finish in an event. The points system is: 150 points for first; 80 points for second; 75 points for third; 70 points for fourth; and 65 points for fifth. After fifth place, points are awarded in decrements of three, beginning at sixth place with 62 points. Points are doubled in the major events and at the season-ending Tour Championship. Rookies who make the cut in an event and finish below 41st each receive five points. The award is named after Louise Suggs, one of the founders of the LPGA.

American golfer Nancy Lopez, in 1978, is the only player to win all three awards in the same season. Lopez was also the Tour's top money earner that season.

Leading money winners by year
1 The five players with three titles in 1988 were Juli Inkster, Rosie Jones, Betsy King, Nancy Lopez, and Ayako Okamoto.

Leading career money winners
The table below shows the top-10 career money leaders on the LPGA Tour (from the start of their rookie seasons) as of June 23, 2024.

Active players on the Tour are shown in bold.

title: LPGA


text:
Talk:LPGA

Untitled
I wanted to put a list of all the players. I wasn't sure if I should put everybody? Most would be dead links anyways, but is that okay to have tons of dead links? dgrant — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dgrant (talk • contribs) 15:37, 23 January 2003 (UTC)

 * Sure as far as I'm concerned. However, it would be much more important to state clearly in the very first sentence of the article what kind of organisation LPGA is: National? International? Any reader who, like myself, has not got the foggiest notion about golf, will have difficulty understanding the basics of this text! Please clarify a few things. |l'KF'l| 17:56, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

 * Although both are headquartered in Florida, the LPGA is not affiliated with the PGA TOUR. The LPGA sanctions women's professional golf tournaments, primarily in the United States, but elsewhere in the world as well (non-US events are typically co-sanctioned with the local women's golfing organization, for example the Ladies European Tour). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.38.32.14 (talk) 20:23, 22 December 2004 (UTC)

Tournament table redesign
I redesigned the Tournament Table to change it from an HTML format to Wikitable format. I"ve been meaning to do this since I made the table back in February. At the same time, I adjusted some Tournament names to match the official names listed on [lpga.com]. The only difference is that I dropped all of the "presented by Coca-Cola/Pepsi/Lincoln Mercury," etc. title portons.  These added sponsor mentions wreack havoc with the grid and I think as long as we're consistent with the naming convention, we're good to go.  Sponsors are mentioned when they are included elsehwere in the title, for example "Sybase Classic" (but not "Sybase Classic Presented by Lincoln Mercury").   I haven't put in the color coding for ADT categories yet.  If people want this, we/you can do it.  I'm not sure how useful or attractive it was. Crunch 17:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I have restored the brackets so that this table is consistent with those for other tours. I don't mind whether the colors are there or not, but if you do restore them, maybe pastel shades would be a better choice. Golfcam 23:55, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I think it looks terrible on the tables for the other tours, as do their HTML tables. I put it back. Why copy a bad thing? Crunch 19:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I have restored the standard version. I agree with Golfcam, and as no one has ever amended any of the other tables, you appear to be in a minority of one Crunch. The gray just looks odd and disconcerting, more like an annotation than data, but I instinctively know what the numbers in brackets mean. Please concede gracefully to avoid wasting more time. Scranchuse 18:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the command to "concede." Way to win friends on Wikipedia! I think putting everything in one color with endless "brackets" or parentheses as they're known in America, adds clutter and confusion.  The number of total tournaments won is hardly an important number and putting it in gray sets it aside from the other more important information. This is kind of a basic element of design.  Also, putting it in gray takes away the need for the parentheses. You just have the number.  By the way, there is no 'standard." However, not worth the fight.  Crunch 23:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

 * There is a standard - every other tour is done the same way. These numbers are really useful context as not everyone is an expert on the players. It's a good piece of added value that lists in the media don't give you, and it shows that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not just a results service. It looks better with brackets. It's the natural way to present this king of info, eg someone has just started adding notes on the number of PGA Tournaments players won each year in just this way. You may think your way is better, but the truth is that it is worse. Golfcam 02:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

 * There is no "truth," just your opinion and mine. We'll give it some time and eventually someone else may come along and redesign the entire table. Deal with it. Crunch 07:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

2007 Schedule
I replaced the 2006 schedule with the 2007 schedule and moved the 2006 LPGA Tour to its own article. I also added a new section to this article that summarizes historical tour stats. It might be good to have a Wikipedia infobox for this but I don't have the skills. I left the categories: points, global group, winner, etc. for the 2007 schedule, although I'm not sure if the designation "points" is still being applied. Maybe someone knows more than me. The official LPGA schedule only shows winner events and unofficial events. Is it possible that the LPGA is still figuring this out? Crunch 21:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The LPGA announced the new system today and I've updated the information accordingly. Crunch 01:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect claim re: LPGA tournaments outside North America
"Four of the tournaments held outside North America are co-sanctioned with other professional tours." At least one more exists but does not appear in the list - the Australian Open (Feb 2013) occurs in Australia and is co-sanctioned with the European and Australian tours. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Ladies_European_Tour for verification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.60.91.148 (talk) 04:59, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

 * Section updated. Tewapack (talk) 06:31, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Why no 2015 Tour results section?
Why was the 2015 Tour results section removed? I understand that it also exists at 2015 LPGA Tour with more detail. Why was the shorter version removed from this article? If the decision is to include none of the 2015-specific information from this article, then the 2015 Money List leaders table should also be moved to 2015 LPGA Tour. --Crunch (talk) 22:58, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

 * The tables that were here and at year specific were different from 2011 to 2013 with the Titleholders qualifiers. Without that difference, there is no reason to maintain two identical tables. I think the money list should be moved to the 2015 article as well. Tewapack (talk) 02:10, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

 * I concur with Tewapack. They should be in the 2015 article....William 10:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on LPGA. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070927205545/http://www.thegolfchannel.com/core.aspx?page=17104&dv=3092752&select=2069 to http://www.thegolfchannel.com/core.aspx?page=17104&dv=3092752&select=2069

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at Sourcecheck).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:38, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Founding date
While the LPGA web site reports that it was founded in 1950 with 13 players the book has: "It seemed clear to Zaharias, as well as to her husband, her agent, and Patty Berg, another woman pro, that women needed a golf association dedicated to developing the professional tour.

In order to set up tournaments that offered prizes, “we needed money, of course,” said Corcoran. Zaharias and her colleagues convinced the president of Wilson Sporting Goods to put up $15,000 in prize money if the association got off the ground. In January 1949 the Zahariases, Fred Corcoran, and Patty Berg met in Miami, Florida, and formed the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), with Patty Berg as its first president. A new era in women’s golf had dawned.

In the first year of its existence, the LPGA had only 6 members and sponsored just 9 tournaments offering a meager total of $15,000 in prize money. But as its founders had expected, the association grew rapidly. Now that there was a formal governing body working to promote professional women’s golf, more and more women players became interested in turning pro. Scores of new members flocked to the LPGA and corporate sponsors contributed thousands of dollars in prize money, so that by 1953 women professionals could compete in more than 20 tournaments and win prizes from a pool totaling $225,000.

Babe Zaharias was the star of the professional circuit. Between 1949 and 1952, she won more tournaments and ..."

The New York Times supports a 1949 starting date though later in the year:
 * September 14, 1949 - "PRO GROUP FORMED FOR WOMEN'S GOLF; Organization to Conduct Open Tourney Sept. 22-25 -- Miss Berg Elected President" Formation of a Ladies' Professional Golf Association of America, with Miss Patty Berg as its first president, was announced yesterday by Fred Corcoran, former tournament director of the Men's P. G. A.
 * April 13, 1950 - "BAUER SISTERS JOIN RANKS OF PRO GOLF; GOLFING SISTERS ENTER PROFESSIONAL FOLD" The Bauer sisters, Marlene and Alice, announced yesterday that they would no longer play amateur golf. Instead they have decided to join the professional tournament group. Today the LPGA lists Alice Bauer and Marlene Bauer Hagge as being one of the 13 founding members.

I did not update the article to note a 1949 starting date as some research is needed to discover the list of tournaments and to document who the first six players were. We know they included Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Patty Berg but who were the other four? The book about Zaharias I cited above mentions Peggy Kirk Bell as participating in the early years but she joined the LPGA in 1950 and also is not listed among the LPGA's 13 founders. --Marc Kupper|talk 10:05, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:LPGA


text:
Laboratory

A laboratory (colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratories are found in a variety of settings such as schools, universities, privately owned research institutions, corporate research and testing facilities, government regulatory and forensic investigation centers, physicians' offices, clinics, hospitals, regional and national referral centers, and even occasionally personal residences.

Overview
The organisation and contents of laboratories are determined by the differing requirements of the specialists working within. A physics laboratory might contain a particle accelerator or vacuum chamber, while a metallurgy laboratory could have apparatus for casting or refining metals or for testing their strength. A chemist or biologist might use a wet laboratory, while a psychologist's laboratory might be a room with one-way mirrors and hidden cameras in which to observe behavior. In some laboratories, such as those commonly used by computer scientists, computers (sometimes supercomputers) are used for either simulations or the analysis of data. Scientists in other fields will still use other types of laboratories. Engineers use laboratories as well to design, build, and test technological devices.

Scientific laboratories can be found as research room and learning spaces in schools and universities, industry, government, or military facilities, and even aboard ships and spacecraft.

Despite the underlying notion of the lab as a confined space for experts, the term "laboratory" is also increasingly applied to workshop spaces such as Living Labs, Fab Labs, or Hackerspaces, in which people meet to work on societal problems or make prototypes, working collaboratively or sharing resources. This development is inspired by new, participatory approaches to science and innovation and relies on user-centred design methods and concepts like Open innovation or User innovation,. One distinctive feature of work in Open Labs is the phenomenon of translation, driven by the different backgrounds and levels of expertise of the people involved.

History
Early instances of "laboratories" recorded in English involved alchemy and the preparation of medicines.

The emergence of Big Science during World War II increased the size of laboratories and scientific equipment, introducing particle accelerators and similar devices.

The early laboratories
The earliest laboratory according to the present evidence is a home laboratory of Pythagoras of Samos, the well-known Greek philosopher and scientist. This laboratory was created when Pythagoras conducted an experiment about tones of sound and vibration of string.

In the painting of Louis Pasteur by Albert Edelfelt in 1885, Louis Pasteur is shown comparing a note in his left hand with a bottle filled with a solid in his right hand, and not wearing any personal protective equipment.

Researching in teams started in the 19th century, and many new kinds of equipment were developed in the 20th century.

A 16th century underground alchemical laboratory was accidentally discovered in the year 2002. Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor was believed to be the owner. The laboratory is called Speculum Alchemiae and is preserved as a museum in Prague.

Techniques
Laboratory techniques are the set of procedures used on natural sciences such as chemistry, biology, physics to conduct an experiment; while some of them involve the use of complex laboratory equipment from laboratory glassware to electrical devices, and others require more specific or expensive supplies.

Equipment and supplies
Laboratory equipment refers to the various tools and equipment used by scientists working in a laboratory. Laboratory equipment is generally used to either perform an experiment or to take measurements and gather data. Larger or more sophisticated equipment is generally called a scientific instrument.

The classical equipment includes tools such as Bunsen burners and microscopes as well as specialty equipment such as operant conditioning chambers, spectrophotometers and calorimeters.

Chemical laboratories

 * laboratory glassware such as the beaker or reagent bottle
 * Analytical devices as HPLC or spectrophotometers

Molecular biology laboratories/Life science laboratories

 * Autoclave
 * Microscope
 * Centrifuges
 * Shakers & mixers
 * Pipette
 * Thermal cyclers (PCR)
 * Photometer
 * Refrigerators and Freezers
 * Universal testing machine
 * ULT Freezers
 * Incubators
 * Bioreactor
 * Biological safety cabinets
 * Sequencing instruments
 * Fume hoods
 * Environmental chamber
 * Humidifier
 * Weighing scale
 * Reagents (supply)
 * Pipettes tips (supply)
 * Polymer (supply) consumables for small volumes (μL and mL scale), mainly sterile

Specialized types
The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories. These notably include:

 * Film laboratory or Darkroom
 * Clandestine lab for the production of illegal drugs
 * Computer lab
 * Crime lab used to process crime scene evidence
 * Language laboratory
 * Medical laboratory (involves handling of chemical compounds)
 * Public health laboratory
 * Industrial laboratory
 * Cleanroom

Safety

In many laboratories, hazards are present. Laboratory hazards might include poisons; infectious agents; flammable, explosive, or radioactive materials; moving machinery; extreme temperatures; lasers, strong magnetic fields or high voltage. Therefore, safety precautions are vitally important. Rules exist to minimize the individual's risk, and safety equipment is used to protect the lab users from injury or to assist in responding to an emergency.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States, recognizing the unique characteristics of the laboratory workplace, has tailored a standard for occupational exposure to hazardous chemicals in laboratories. This standard is often referred to as the "Laboratory Standard". Under this standard, a laboratory is required to produce a Chemical Hygiene Plan (CHP) which addresses the specific hazards found in its location, and its approach to them.

In determining the proper Chemical Hygiene Plan for a particular business or laboratory, it is necessary to understand the requirements of the standard, evaluation of the current safety, health and environmental practices and assessment of the hazards. The CHP must be reviewed annually. Many schools and businesses employ safety, health, and environmental specialists, such as a Chemical Hygiene Officer (CHO) to develop, manage, and evaluate their CHP. Additionally, third party review is also used to provide an objective "outside view" which provides a fresh look at areas and problems that may be taken for granted or overlooked due to habit.

Inspections and audits like also be conducted on a regular basis to assess hazards due to chemical handling and storage, electrical equipment, biohazards, hazardous waste management, chemical waste, housekeeping and emergency preparedness, radiation safety, ventilation as well as respiratory testing and indoor air quality. An important element of such audits is the review of regulatory compliance and the training of individuals who have access to or work in the laboratory. Training is critical to the ongoing safe operation of the laboratory facility. Educators, staff and management must be engaged in working to reduce the likelihood of accidents, injuries and potential litigation. Efforts are made to ensure laboratory safety videos are both relevant and engaging.

Sustainability
The effects of climate change are becoming more of a concern for organizations, and mitigation strategies are being sought by the research community. While many laboratories are used to perform research to find innovative solutions to this global challenge, sustainable working practices in the labs are also contributing factors towards a greener environment. Many labs are already trying to minimize their environmental impact by reducing energy consumption, recycling, and implementing waste sorting processes to ensure correct disposal.

Best practice
Research labs featuring energy-intensive equipment, use up to three to five times more energy per square meter than office areas.

Fume hoods
Presumably the major contributor to this high energy consumption are fume hoods. Significant impact can be achieved by keeping the opening height as low as possible when working and keeping them closed when not in use. One possibility to help with this, could be to install automatic systems, which close the hoods after an inactivity period of a certain length and turn off the lights as well. So the flow can be regulated better and is not unnecessarily kept at a very high level.

Freezers
Normally, ULT freezers are kept at −80 °C. One such device can consume up to the same amount of energy as a single-family household (25 kWh/day). Increasing the temperature to −70 °C makes it possible to use 40% less energy and still keep most samples safely stored.

Air condensers
Minimizing the consumption of water can be achieved by changing from water-cooled condensers (Dimroth condenser) to air-cooled condensers (Vigreux column), which take advantage of the large surface area to cool.

Laboratory electronics
The use of ovens is very helpful to dry glassware, but those installations can consume a lot of energy. Employing timers to regulate their use during nights and weekends, can reduce their impact on energy consumption enormously.

Waste sorting and disposal
The disposal of chemically/biologically contaminated waste requires a lot of energy. Regular waste however requires much less energy or can even be recycled to some degree. Not every object in a lab is contaminated, but often ends up in the contaminated waste, driving up energy costs for waste disposal. A good sorting and recycling system for non contaminated lab waste will allow lab users to act sustainably and correctly dispose of waste.

Networks
As of 2021, there are numerous laboratories currently dedicating time and resources to move towards more sustainable lab practices at their facilities, e.g. MIT and the university of Edingburgh. Furthermore, several networks have emerged such as Green Your Lab, Towards greener research, the UK-based network LEAN, the Max-Planck-Sustainability network, and national platforms such as green labs austria and green labs NL. More university independent efforts and resources include the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework, the think-tank labos1point5 and the non-profit organisation my green lab.

Organization
Organization of laboratories is an area of focus in sociology. Scientists consider how their work should be organized, which could be based on themes, teams, projects or fields of expertise. Work is divided, not only between different jobs of the laboratory such as the researchers, engineers and technicians, but also in terms of autonomy (should the work be individual or in groups). For example, one research group has a schedule where they conduct research on their own topic of interest for one day of the week, but for the rest they work on a given group project. Finance management is yet another organizational issue.

The laboratory itself is a historically dated organizational model. It came about due to the observation that the quality of work of researchers who collaborate is overall greater than a researcher working in isolation. From the 1950s, the laboratory has evolved from being an educational tool used by teachers to attract the top students into research, into an organizational model allowing a high level of scientific productivity.

Some forms of organization in laboratories include:

 * Their size: Varies from a handful of researches to several hundred.
 * The division of labor: "Occurs between designers and operatives; researchers, engineers, and technicians; theoreticians and experimenters; senior researchers, junior researchers and students; those who publish, those who sign the publications and the others; and between specialities."
 * The coordination mechanisms: Which includes the formalization of objectives and tasks; the standardization of procedures (protocols, project management, quality management, knowledge management), the validation of publications and cross-cutting activities (number and type of seminars).

There are three main factors that contribute to the organizational form of a laboratory :

 * The educational background of the researchers and their socialization process.
 * The intellectual process involved in their work, including the type of investigation and equipment they use.
 * The laboratory's history.

Other forms of organization include social organization.

Social organization
A study by Richard H.R. Harper, involving two laboratories, will help elucidate the concept of social organization in laboratories. The main subject of the study revolved around the relationship between the staff of a laboratory (researchers, administrators, receptionists, technicians, etc.) and their Locator. A Locator is an employee of a Laboratory who is in charge of knowing where each member of the laboratory currently is, based on a unique signal emitted from the badge of each staff member. The study describes social relationships among different classes of jobs, such as the relationship between researchers and the Locator. It does not describe the social relationship between employees within a class, such as the relationship between researchers.

Through ethnographic studies, one finding is that, among the personnel, each class (researchers, administrators...) has a different degree of entitlement, which varies per laboratory. Entitlement can be both formal or informal (meaning it is not enforced), but each class is aware and conforms to its existence. The degree of entitlement, which is also referred to as a staff's rights, affects social interaction between staff. By looking at the various interactions among staff members, we can determine their social position in the organization. As an example, administrators, in one lab of the study, do not have the right to ask the Locator where the researchers currently are, as they are not entitled to such information. On the other hand, researchers do have access to this type of information. So a consequence of this social hierarchy is that the Locator discloses various degrees of information, based on the staff member and their rights. The Locator does not want to disclose information that could jeopardize his relationship with the members of staff. The Locator adheres to the rights of each class.

Social hierarchy is also related to attitudes towards technologies. This was inferred based on the attitude of various jobs towards their lab badge. Their attitude depended on how that job viewed their badge from a standpoint of utility, (how is the badge useful for my job) morality (what are my morals on privacy, as it relates to being tracked by this badge) and relations (how will I be seen by others if I refuse to wear this badge). For example, a receptionist would view the badge as useful, as it would help them locate members of staff during the day. Illustrating relations, researchers would also wear their badge due to informal pressures, such as not wanting to look like a spoil-sport, or not wanting to draw attention to themselves.

Another finding is the resistance to change in a social organization. Staff members feel ill at ease when changing patterns of entitlement, obligation, respect, informal and formal hierarchy, and more.

In summary, differences in attitude among members of the laboratory are explained by social organization: A person's attitudes are intimately related to the role they have in an organization. This hierarchy helps understand information distribution, control, and attitudes towards technologies in the laboratory.

title: Laboratory


text:
Paul Graham (programmer)

Paul Graham (born November 13, 1964) is an English-American computer scientist, writer, entrepreneur and investor. His work has included the programming language Arc, the startup Viaweb (later renamed Yahoo! Store), co-founding the startup accelerator and seed capital firm Y Combinator, his essays, and Hacker News.

He is the author of the computer programming books On Lisp, ANSI Common Lisp, and Hackers & Painters. Technology journalist Steven Levy has described Graham as a "hacker philosopher".

Graham was born in England, where he and his family have maintained a permanent residence since 2016. He is also a citizen of the United States, where he attended all of his schooling and lived for 48 years prior to returning to England.

Education and early life
Graham and his family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1968, where he later attended Gateway High School. Graham gained interest in science and mathematics from his father who was a nuclear physicist.

Graham received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in philosophy from Cornell University in 1986. He then received a Master of Science in 1988, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990, both in computer science from Harvard University.

Graham has also studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Career
In 1996, Graham and Robert Morris founded Viaweb and recruited Trevor Blackwell shortly after. They believed that Viaweb was the first application service provider. Graham received a patent for webapps based on his work at Viaweb. Viaweb's software, written mostly in Common Lisp, allowed users to make their own Internet stores. In the summer of 1998, after Jerry Yang received a strong recommendation from Ali Partovi, Viaweb was sold to Yahoo! for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock, valued at $49.6 million. After the acquisition, the product became Yahoo! Store.

Graham later gained notice for his essays, which he posts on his personal website. Essay subjects range from Beating the Averages, which compares Lisp to other programming languages and introduced the hypothetical programming language Blub, to Why Nerds are Unpopular, a discussion of nerd life in high school. A collection of his essays has been published as Hackers & Painters by O'Reilly Media, which includes a discussion of the growth of Viaweb and the advantages of Lisp to program it.

In 2001, Graham announced that he was working on a new dialect of Lisp named Arc. It was released on 29 January 2008. Over the years since, he has written several essays describing features or goals of the language, and some internal projects at Y Combinator have been written in Arc, including the Hacker News web forum and news aggregator program.

In 2005, after giving a talk at the Harvard Computer Society later published as How to Start a Startup, Graham along with Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris started Y Combinator to provide seed funding to startups, particularly those started by younger, more technically oriented founders. Y Combinator has invested in more than 1300 startups, including Reddit, Twitch (formerly Justin.tv), Xobni, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe.

BusinessWeek included Paul Graham in the 2008 edition of its annual feature, The 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

In response to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Graham announced in late 2011 that no representatives of any company supporting it would be invited to Y Combinator's Demo Day events.

In February 2014, Graham stepped down from his day-to-day role at Y Combinator.

In October 2019, Graham announced a specification for another new dialect of Lisp, written in itself, named Bel.

Graham's hierarchy of disagreement
Graham proposed a disagreement hierarchy in a 2008 essay How to Disagree, putting types of argument into a seven-point hierarchy and observing that "If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier." Graham also suggested that the hierarchy can be thought of as a pyramid, as the highest forms of disagreement are rarer.

Following this hierarchy, Graham notes that articulate forms of name-calling (e.g., "The author is a self-important dilettante") are no different from crude insults. When in disagreement people often become more animated and engaged, and this leads to them becoming angry. At the lower levels, the attacks are directed against the person, which can be hateful. Higher levels of argument are directed against the idea, which is easier to recognize and accept. When people argue at the higher levels, the exchange of viewpoint is more informative and helpful.

The Blub paradox
Graham considers the hierarchy of programming languages with the example of Blub, a hypothetically average language "right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. It is not the most powerful language, but it is more powerful than Cobol or machine language." It was used by Graham to illustrate a comparison, beyond Turing completeness, of programming language power, and more specifically to illustrate the difficulty of comparing a programming language one knows to one that one does not."...These studies would like to formally prove that a certain language is more or less expressive than another language. Determining such a relation between languages objectively rather than subjectively seems to be somewhat problematic, a phenomenon that Paul Graham has discussed in 'The Blub Paradox'."

Graham considers a hypothetical Blub programmer. When the programmer looks down the "power continuum", they consider the lower languages to be less powerful because they miss some feature that a Blub programmer is used to. But when they look up, they fail to realize that they are looking up: they merely see "weird languages" with unnecessary features and assumes they are equivalent in power, but with "other hairy stuff thrown in as well". When Graham considers the point of view of a programmer using a language higher than Blub, he describes that programmer as looking down on Blub and noting its "missing" features from the point of view of the higher language.

Graham describes this as the Blub paradox and concludes that "By induction, the only programmers in a position to see all the differences in power between the various languages are those who understand the most powerful one."

The concept has been cited by programmers such as Joel Spolsky.

Personal life
In 2008, Graham married Jessica Livingston. They have two children, and have been living in England since 2016.

title: Paul Graham (programmer)


text:
Automation

Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefit of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision.

Automation includes the use of various equipment and control systems such as machinery, processes in factories, boilers, and heat-treating ovens, switching on telephone networks, steering, stabilization of ships, aircraft and other applications and vehicles with reduced human intervention. Examples range from a household thermostat controlling a boiler to a large industrial control system with tens of thousands of input measurements and output control signals. Automation has also found a home in the banking industry. It can range from simple on-off control to multi-variable high-level algorithms in terms of control complexity.

In the simplest type of an automatic control loop, a controller compares a measured value of a process with a desired set value and processes the resulting error signal to change some input to the process, in such a way that the process stays at its set point despite disturbances. This closed-loop control is an application of negative feedback to a system. The mathematical basis of control theory was begun in the 18th century and advanced rapidly in the 20th. The term automation, inspired by the earlier word automatic (coming from automaton), was not widely used before 1947, when Ford established an automation department. It was during this time that the industry was rapidly adopting feedback controllers, which were introduced in the 1930s.

The World Bank's World Development Report of 2019 shows evidence that the new industries and jobs in the technology sector outweigh the economic effects of workers being displaced by automation. Job losses and downward mobility blamed on automation have been cited as one of many factors in the resurgence of nationalist, protectionist and populist politics in the US, UK and France, among other countries since the 2010s.

Early history

It was a preoccupation of the Greeks and Arabs (in the period between about 300 BC and about 1200 AD) to keep accurate track of time. In Ptolemaic Egypt, about 270 BC, Ctesibius described a float regulator for a water clock, a device not unlike the ball and cock in a modern flush toilet. This was the earliest feedback-controlled mechanism. The appearance of the mechanical clock in the 14th century made the water clock and its feedback control system obsolete.

The Persian Banū Mūsā brothers, in their Book of Ingenious Devices (850 AD), described a number of automatic controls. Two-step level controls for fluids, a form of discontinuous variable structure controls, were developed by the Banu Musa brothers. They also described a feedback controller. The design of feedback control systems up through the Industrial Revolution was by trial-and-error, together with a great deal of engineering intuition. It was not until the mid-19th century that the stability of feedback control systems was analyzed using mathematics, the formal language of automatic control theory.

The centrifugal governor was invented by Christiaan Huygens in the seventeenth century, and used to adjust the gap between millstones.

Industrial Revolution in Western Europe

The introduction of prime movers, or self-driven machines advanced grain mills, furnaces, boilers, and the steam engine created a new requirement for automatic control systems including temperature regulators (invented in 1624; see Cornelius Drebbel), pressure regulators (1681), float regulators (1700) and speed control devices. Another control mechanism was used to tent the sails of windmills. It was patented by Edmund Lee in 1745. Also in 1745, Jacques de Vaucanson invented the first automated loom. Around 1800, Joseph Marie Jacquard created a punch-card system to program looms.

In 1771 Richard Arkwright invented the first fully automated spinning mill driven by water power, known at the time as the water frame. An automatic flour mill was developed by Oliver Evans in 1785, making it the first completely automated industrial process.

A centrifugal governor was used by Mr. Bunce of England in 1784 as part of a model steam crane. The centrifugal governor was adopted by James Watt for use on a steam engine in 1788 after Watt's partner Boulton saw one at a flour mill Boulton & Watt were building. The governor could not actually hold a set speed; the engine would assume a new constant speed in response to load changes. The governor was able to handle smaller variations such as those caused by fluctuating heat load to the boiler. Also, there was a tendency for oscillation whenever there was a speed change. As a consequence, engines equipped with this governor were not suitable for operations requiring constant speed, such as cotton spinning.

Several improvements to the governor, plus improvements to valve cut-off timing on the steam engine, made the engine suitable for most industrial uses before the end of the 19th century. Advances in the steam engine stayed well ahead of science, both thermodynamics and control theory. The governor received relatively little scientific attention until James Clerk Maxwell published a paper that established the beginning of a theoretical basis for understanding control theory.

20th century
Relay logic was introduced with factory electrification, which underwent rapid adaption from 1900 through the 1920s. Central electric power stations were also undergoing rapid growth and the operation of new high-pressure boilers, steam turbines and electrical substations created a large demand for instruments and controls. Central control rooms became common in the 1920s, but as late as the early 1930s, most process controls were on-off. Operators typically monitored charts drawn by recorders that plotted data from instruments. To make corrections, operators manually opened or closed valves or turned switches on or off. Control rooms also used color-coded lights to send signals to workers in the plant to manually make certain changes.

The development of the electronic amplifier during the 1920s, which was important for long-distance telephony, required a higher signal-to-noise ratio, which was solved by negative feedback noise cancellation. This and other telephony applications contributed to the control theory. In the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician Irmgard Flügge-Lotz developed the theory of discontinuous automatic controls, which found military applications during the Second World War to fire control systems and aircraft navigation systems.

Controllers, which were able to make calculated changes in response to deviations from a set point rather than on-off control, began being introduced in the 1930s. Controllers allowed manufacturing to continue showing productivity gains to offset the declining influence of factory electrification.

Factory productivity was greatly increased by electrification in the 1920s. U.S. manufacturing productivity growth fell from 5.2%/yr 1919–29 to 2.76%/yr 1929–41. Alexander Field notes that spending on non-medical instruments increased significantly from 1929 to 1933 and remained strong thereafter.

The First and Second World Wars saw major advancements in the field of mass communication and signal processing. Other key advances in automatic controls include differential equations, stability theory and system theory (1938), frequency domain analysis (1940), ship control (1950), and stochastic analysis (1941).

Starting in 1958, various systems based on solid-state digital logic modules for hard-wired programmed logic controllers (the predecessors of programmable logic controllers [PLC]) emerged to replace electro-mechanical relay logic in industrial control systems for process control and automation, including early Telefunken/AEG Logistat, Siemens Simatic, Philips/Mullard/ Norbit, BBC Sigmatronic, ACEC Logacec,  Estacord, Krone Mibakron, Bistat, Datapac, Norlog, SSR, or Procontic systems.

In 1959 Texaco's Port Arthur Refinery became the first chemical plant to use digital control. Conversion of factories to digital control began to spread rapidly in the 1970s as the price of computer hardware fell.

Significant applications
The automatic telephone switchboard was introduced in 1892 along with dial telephones. By 1929, 31.9% of the Bell system was automatic. Automatic telephone switching originally used vacuum tube amplifiers and electro-mechanical switches, which consumed a large amount of electricity. Call volume eventually grew so fast that it was feared the telephone system would consume all electricity production, prompting Bell Labs to begin research on the transistor.

The logic performed by telephone switching relays was the inspiration for the digital computer. The first commercially successful glass bottle-blowing machine was an automatic model introduced in 1905. The machine, operated by a two-man crew working 12-hour shifts, could produce 17,280 bottles in 24 hours, compared to 2,880 bottles made by a crew of six men and boys working in a shop for a day. The cost of making bottles by machine was 10 to 12 cents per gross compared to $1.80 per gross by the manual glassblowers and helpers.

Sectional electric drives were developed using control theory. Sectional electric drives are used on different sections of a machine where a precise differential must be maintained between the sections. In steel rolling, the metal elongates as it passes through pairs of rollers, which must run at successively faster speeds. In paper making paper, the sheet shrinks as it passes around steam-heated drying arranged in groups, which must run at successively slower speeds. The first application of a sectional electric drive was on a paper machine in 1919. One of the most important developments in the steel industry during the 20th century was continuous wide strip rolling, developed by Armco in 1928. Before automation, many chemicals were made in batches. In 1930, with the widespread use of instruments and the emerging use of controllers, the founder of Dow Chemical Co. was advocating continuous production.

Self-acting machine tools that displaced hand dexterity so they could be operated by boys and unskilled laborers were developed by James Nasmyth in the 1840s. Machine tools were automated with Numerical control (NC) using punched paper tape in the 1950s. This soon evolved into computerized numerical control (CNC).

Today extensive automation is practiced in practically every type of manufacturing and assembly process. Some of the larger processes include electrical power generation, oil refining, chemicals, steel mills, plastics, cement plants, fertilizer plants, pulp and paper mills, automobile and truck assembly, aircraft production, glass manufacturing, natural gas separation plants, food and beverage processing, canning and bottling and manufacture of various kinds of parts. Robots are especially useful in hazardous applications like automobile spray painting. Robots are also used to assemble electronic circuit boards. Automotive welding is done with robots and automatic welders are used in applications like pipelines.

Space/computer age
With the advent of the space age in 1957, controls design, particularly in the United States, turned away from the frequency-domain techniques of classical control theory and backed into the differential equation techniques of the late 19th century, which were couched in the time domain. During the 1940s and 1950s, German mathematician Irmgard Flugge-Lotz developed the theory of discontinuous automatic control, which became widely used in hysteresis control systems such as navigation systems, fire-control systems, and electronics. Through Flugge-Lotz and others, the modern era saw time-domain design for nonlinear systems (1961), navigation (1960), optimal control and estimation theory (1962), nonlinear control theory (1969), digital control and filtering theory (1974), and the personal computer (1983).

Advantages, disadvantages, and limitations
Perhaps the most cited advantage of automation in industry is that it is associated with faster production and cheaper labor costs. Another benefit could be that it replaces hard, physical, or monotonous work. Additionally, tasks that take place in hazardous environments or that are otherwise beyond human capabilities can be done by machines, as machines can operate even under extreme temperatures or in atmospheres that are radioactive or toxic. They can also be maintained with simple quality checks. However, at the time being, not all tasks can be automated, and some tasks are more expensive to automate than others. Initial costs of installing the machinery in factory settings are high, and failure to maintain a system could result in the loss of the product itself.

Moreover, some studies seem to indicate that industrial automation could impose ill effects beyond operational concerns, including worker displacement due to systemic loss of employment and compounded environmental damage; however, these findings are both convoluted and controversial in nature, and could potentially be circumvented.

The main advantages of automation are:
 * Increased throughput or productivity
 * Improved quality
 * Increased predictability
 * Improved robustness (consistency), of processes or product
 * Increased consistency of output
 * Reduced direct human labor costs and expenses
 * Reduced cycle time
 * Increased accuracy
 * Relieving humans of monotonously repetitive work
 * Required work in development, deployment, maintenance, and operation of automated processes — often structured as "jobs"
 * Increased human freedom to do other things

Automation primarily describes machines replacing human action, but it is also loosely associated with mechanization, machines replacing human labor. Coupled with mechanization, extending human capabilities in terms of size, strength, speed, endurance, visual range & acuity, hearing frequency & precision, electromagnetic sensing & effecting, etc., advantages include:
 * Relieving humans of dangerous work stresses and occupational injuries (e.g., fewer strained backs from lifting heavy objects)
 * Removing humans from dangerous environments (e.g. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, underwater, etc.)

The main disadvantages of automation are:
 * High initial cost
 * Faster production without human intervention can mean faster unchecked production of defects where automated processes are defective.
 * Scaled-up capacities can mean scaled-up problems when systems fail — releasing dangerous toxins, forces, energies, etc., at scaled-up rates.
 * Human adaptiveness is often poorly understood by automation initiators. It is often difficult to anticipate every contingency and develop fully preplanned automated responses for every situation. The discoveries inherent in automating processes can require unanticipated iterations to resolve, causing unanticipated costs and delays.
 * People anticipating employment income may be seriously disrupted by others deploying automation where no similar income is readily available.

Paradox of automation
The paradox of automation says that the more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the human contribution of the operators. Humans are less involved, but their involvement becomes more critical. Lisanne Bainbridge, a cognitive psychologist, identified these issues notably in her widely cited paper "Ironies of Automation." If an automated system has an error, it will multiply that error until it is fixed or shut down. This is where human operators come in. A fatal example of this was Air France Flight 447, where a failure of automation put the pilots into a manual situation they were not prepared for.

Limitations

 * Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.
 * Many operations using automation have large amounts of invested capital and produce high volumes of products, making malfunctions extremely costly and potentially hazardous. Therefore, some personnel is needed to ensure that the entire system functions properly and that safety and product quality are maintained.
 * As a process becomes increasingly automated, there is less and less labor to be saved or quality improvement to be gained. This is an example of both diminishing returns and the logistic function.
 * As more and more processes become automated, there are fewer remaining non-automated processes. This is an example of the exhaustion of opportunities. New technological paradigms may, however, set new limits that surpass the previous limits.

Current limitations
Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language comprehension, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems (but see Watson computer). Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where the automation of industrial tasks is possible. Therefore, algorithmic management as the digital rationalization of human labor instead of its substitution has emerged as an alternative technological strategy. Overcoming these obstacles is a theorized path to post-scarcity economics.

Societal impact and unemployment
Increased automation often causes workers to feel anxious about losing their jobs as technology renders their skills or experience unnecessary. Early in the Industrial Revolution, when inventions like the steam engine were making some job categories expendable, workers forcefully resisted these changes. Luddites, for instance, were English textile workers who protested the introduction of weaving machines by destroying them. More recently, some residents of Chandler, Arizona, have slashed tires and pelted rocks at self-driving car, in protest over the cars' perceived threat to human safety and job prospects.

The relative anxiety about automation reflected in opinion polls seems to correlate closely with the strength of organized labor in that region or nation. For example, while a study by the Pew Research Center indicated that 72% of Americans are worried about increasing automation in the workplace, 80% of Swedes see automation and artificial intelligence (AI) as a good thing, due to the country's still-powerful unions and a more robust national safety net.

In the U.S., 47% of all current jobs have the potential to be fully automated by 2033, according to the research of experts Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne. Furthermore, wages and educational attainment appear to be strongly negatively correlated with an occupation's risk of being automated. Even highly skilled professional jobs like a lawyer, doctor, engineer, journalist are at risk of automation.

Prospects are particularly bleak for occupations that do not presently require a university degree, such as truck driving. Even in high-tech corridors like Silicon Valley, concern is spreading about a future in which a sizable percentage of adults have little chance of sustaining gainful employment. "In The Second Machine Age, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue that "...there's never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education, because these people can use technology to create and capture value. However, there's never been a worse time to be a worker with only 'ordinary' skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate." As the example of Sweden suggests, however, the transition to a more automated future need not inspire panic, if there is sufficient political will to promote the retraining of workers whose positions are being rendered obsolete.

According to a 2020 study in the Journal of Political Economy, automation has robust negative effects on employment and wages: "One more robot per thousand workers reduces the employment-to-population ratio by 0.2 percentage points and wages by 0.42%."

Research by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of the Oxford Martin School argued that employees engaged in "tasks following well-defined procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated algorithms" are at risk of displacement, and 47% of jobs in the US were at risk. The study, released as a working paper in 2013 and published in 2017, predicted that automation would put low-paid physical occupations most at risk, by surveying a group of colleagues on their opinions. However, according to a study published in McKinsey Quarterly in 2015 the impact of computerization in most cases is not the replacement of employees but the automation of portions of the tasks they perform. The methodology of the McKinsey study has been heavily criticized for being intransparent and relying on subjective assessments. The methodology of Frey and Osborne has been subjected to criticism, as lacking evidence, historical awareness, or credible methodology. Additionally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that across the 21 OECD countries, 9% of jobs are automatable.

The Obama administration pointed out that every 3 months "about 6 percent of jobs in the economy are destroyed by shrinking or closing businesses, while a slightly larger percentage of jobs are added." A recent MIT economics study of automation in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007 found that there may be a negative impact on employment and wages when robots are introduced to an industry. When one robot is added per one thousand workers, the employment to population ratio decreases between 0.18 and 0.34 percentages and wages are reduced by 0.25–0.5 percentage points. During the time period studied, the US did not have many robots in the economy which restricts the impact of automation. However, automation is expected to triple (conservative estimate) or quadruple (a generous estimate) leading these numbers to become substantially higher.

Based on a formula by Gilles Saint-Paul, an economist at Toulouse 1 University, the demand for unskilled human capital declines at a slower rate than the demand for skilled human capital increases. In the long run and for society as a whole it has led to cheaper products, lower average work hours, and new industries forming (i.e., robotics industries, computer industries, design industries). These new industries provide many high salary skill-based jobs to the economy. By 2030, between 3 and 14 percent of the global workforce will be forced to switch job categories due to automation eliminating jobs in an entire sector. While the number of jobs lost to automation is often offset by jobs gained from technological advances, the same type of job loss is not the same one replaced and that leading to increasing unemployment in the lower-middle class. This occurs largely in the US and developed countries where technological advances contribute to higher demand for highly skilled labor but demand for middle-wage labor continues to fall. Economists call this trend "income polarization" where unskilled labor wages are driven down and skilled labor is driven up and it is predicted to continue in developed economies.

Unemployment is becoming a problem in the U.S. due to the exponential growth rate of automation and technology. According to Kim, Kim, and Lee (2017:1), "[a] seminal study by Frey and Osborne in 2013 predicted that 47% of the 702 examined occupations in the U.S. faced a high risk of decreased employment rate within the next 10–25 years as a result of computerization." As many jobs are becoming obsolete, which is causing job displacement, one possible solution would be for the government to assist with a universal basic income (UBI) program. UBI would be a guaranteed, non-taxed income of around 1000 dollars per month, paid to all U.S. citizens over the age of 21. UBI would help those who are displaced take on jobs that pay less money and still afford to get by. It would also give those that are employed with jobs that are likely to be replaced by automation and technology extra money to spend on education and training on new demanding employment skills. UBI, however, should be seen as a short-term solution as it doesn't fully address the issue of income inequality which will be exacerbated by job displacement.

Lights-out manufacturing
Lights-out manufacturing is a production system with no human workers, to eliminate labor costs.

Lights out manufacturing grew in popularity in the U.S. when General Motors in 1982 implemented humans "hands-off" manufacturing to "replace risk-averse bureaucracy with automation and robots". However, the factory never reached full "lights out" status.

The expansion of lights out manufacturing requires:
 * Reliability of equipment
 * Long-term mechanic capabilities
 * Planned preventive maintenance
 * Commitment from the staff

Health and environment
The costs of automation to the environment are different depending on the technology, product or engine automated. There are automated engines that consume more energy resources from the Earth in comparison with previous engines and vice versa. Hazardous operations, such as oil refining, the manufacturing of industrial chemicals, and all forms of metal working, were always early contenders for automation.

The automation of vehicles could prove to have a substantial impact on the environment, although the nature of this impact could be beneficial or harmful depending on several factors. Because automated vehicles are much less likely to get into accidents compared to human-driven vehicles, some precautions built into current models (such as anti-lock brakes or laminated glass) would not be required for self-driving versions. Removal of these safety features reduces the weight of the vehicle, and coupled with more precise acceleration and braking, as well as fuel-efficient route mapping, can increase fuel economy and reduce emissions. Despite this, some researchers theorize that an increase in the production of self-driving cars could lead to a boom in vehicle ownership and usage, which could potentially negate any environmental benefits of self-driving cars if they are used more frequently.

Automation of homes and home appliances is also thought to impact the environment. A study of energy consumption of automated homes in Finland showed that smart homes could reduce energy consumption by monitoring levels of consumption in different areas of the home and adjusting consumption to reduce energy leaks (e.g. automatically reducing consumption during the nighttime when activity is low). This study, along with others, indicated that the smart home's ability to monitor and adjust consumption levels would reduce unnecessary energy usage. However, some research suggests that smart homes might not be as efficient as non-automated homes. A more recent study has indicated that, while monitoring and adjusting consumption levels do decrease unnecessary energy use, this process requires monitoring systems that also consume an amount of energy. The energy required to run these systems sometimes negates their benefits, resulting in little to no ecological benefit.

Convertibility and turnaround time
Another major shift in automation is the increased demand for flexibility and convertibility in manufacturing processes. Manufacturers are increasingly demanding the ability to easily switch from manufacturing Product A to manufacturing Product B without having to completely rebuild the production lines. Flexibility and distributed processes have led to the introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles with Natural Features Navigation.

Digital electronics helped too. Former analog-based instrumentation was replaced by digital equivalents which can be more accurate and flexible, and offer greater scope for more sophisticated configuration, parametrization, and operation. This was accompanied by the fieldbus revolution which provided a networked (i.e. a single cable) means of communicating between control systems and field-level instrumentation, eliminating hard-wiring.

Discrete manufacturing plants adopted these technologies fast. The more conservative process industries with their longer plant life cycles have been slower to adopt and analog-based measurement and control still dominate. The growing use of Industrial Ethernet on the factory floor is pushing these trends still further, enabling manufacturing plants to be integrated more tightly within the enterprise, via the internet if necessary. Global competition has also increased demand for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.

Automation tools
Engineers can now have numerical control over automated devices. The result has been a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Computer-aided technologies (or CAx) now serve as the basis for mathematical and organizational tools used to create complex systems. Notable examples of CAx include computer-aided design (CAD software) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM software). The improved design, analysis, and manufacture of products enabled by CAx has been beneficial for industry.

Information technology, together with industrial machinery and processes, can assist in the design, implementation, and monitoring of control systems. One example of an industrial control system is a programmable logic controller (PLC). PLCs are specialized hardened computers which are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events.

Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers. Service personnel who monitor and control through HMIs can be called by different names. In the industrial process and manufacturing environments, they are called operators or something similar. In boiler houses and central utility departments, they are called stationary engineers.

Different types of automation tools exist:
 * ANN – Artificial neural network
 * DCS – Distributed control system
 * HMI – Human machine interface
 * RPA – Robotic process automation
 * SCADA – Supervisory control and data acquisition
 * PLC – Programmable logic controller
 * Instrumentation
 * Motion control
 * Robotics

Host simulation software (HSS) is a commonly used testing tool that is used to test the equipment software. HSS is used to test equipment performance concerning factory automation standards (timeouts, response time, processing time).

Cognitive automation
Cognitive automation, as a subset of AI, is an emerging genus of automation enabled by cognitive computing. Its primary concern is the automation of clerical tasks and workflows that consist of structuring unstructured data. Cognitive automation relies on multiple disciplines: natural language processing, real-time computing, machine learning algorithms, big data analytics, and evidence-based learning.

According to Deloitte, cognitive automation enables the replication of human tasks and judgment "at rapid speeds and considerable scale." Such tasks include:
 * Document redaction
 * Data extraction and document synthesis / reporting
 * Contract management
 * Natural language search
 * Customer, employee, and stakeholder onboarding
 * Manual activities and verifications
 * Follow-up and email communications

CAD AI
Artificially intelligent computer-aided design (CAD) can use text-to-3D, image-to-3D, and video-to-3D to automate in 3D modeling. Ai CAD libraries could also be developed using linked open data of schematics and diagrams. Ai CAD assistants are used as tools to help streamline workflow.

Automated power production
Technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable energy sources—together with smart grids, micro-grids, battery storage—can automate power production.

Agricultural production
Many agricultural operations are automated with machinery and equipment to improve their diagnosis, decision-making and/or performing. Agricultural automation can relieve the drudgery of agricultural work, improve the timeliness and precision of agricultural operations, raise productivity and resource-use efficiency, build resilience, and improve food quality and safety. Increased productivity can free up labour, allowing agricultural households to spend more time elsewhere.

The technological evolution in agriculture has resulted in progressive shifts to digital equipment and robotics. Motorized mechanization using engine power automates the performance of agricultural operations such as ploughing and milking. With digital automation technologies, it also becomes possible to automate diagnosis and decision-making of agricultural operations. For example, autonomous crop robots can harvest and seed crops, while drones can gather information to help automate input application. Precision agriculture often employs such automation technologies

Motorized mechanization has generally increased in recent years. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where the adoption of motorized mechanization has stalled over the past decades.

Automation technologies are increasingly used for managing livestock, though evidence on adoption is lacking. Global automatic milking system sales have increased over recent years, but adoption is likely mostly in Northern Europe, and likely almost absent in low- and middle-income countries. Automated feeding machines for both cows and poultry also exist, but data and evidence regarding their adoption trends and drivers is likewise scarce.

Retail
Many supermarkets and even smaller stores are rapidly introducing self-checkout systems reducing the need for employing checkout workers. In the U.S., the retail industry employs 15.9 million people as of 2017 (around 1 in 9 Americans in the workforce). Globally, an estimated 192 million workers could be affected by automation according to research by Eurasia Group. Online shopping could be considered a form of automated retail as the payment and checkout are through an automated online transaction processing system, with the share of online retail accounting jumping from 5.1% in 2011 to 8.3% in 2016. However, two-thirds of books, music, and films are now purchased online. In addition, automation and online shopping could reduce demands for shopping malls, and retail property, which in the United States is currently estimated to account for 31% of all commercial property or around 7 e9ft2. Amazon has gained much of the growth in recent years for online shopping, accounting for half of the growth in online retail in 2016. Other forms of automation can also be an integral part of online shopping, for example, the deployment of automated warehouse robotics such as that applied by Amazon using Kiva Systems.

Food and drink
The food retail industry has started to apply automation to the ordering process; McDonald's has introduced touch screen ordering and payment systems in many of its restaurants, reducing the need for as many cashier employees. The University of Texas at Austin has introduced fully automated cafe retail locations. Some Cafes and restaurants have utilized mobile and tablet "apps" to make the ordering process more efficient by customers ordering and paying on their device. Some restaurants have automated food delivery to tables of customers using a Conveyor belt system. The use of robots is sometimes employed to replace waiting staff.

Construction
Automation in construction is the combination of methods, processes, and systems that allow for greater machine autonomy in construction activities. Construction automation may have multiple goals, including but not limited to, reducing jobsite injuries, decreasing activity completion times, and assisting with quality control and quality assurance.

Mining
Automated mining involves the removal of human labor from the mining process. The mining industry is currently in the transition towards automation. Currently, it can still require a large amount of human capital, particularly in the third world where labor costs are low so there is less incentive for increasing efficiency through automation.

Video surveillance
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started the research and development of automated visual surveillance and monitoring (VSAM) program, between 1997 and 1999, and airborne video surveillance (AVS) programs, from 1998 to 2002. Currently, there is a major effort underway in the vision community to develop a fully-automated tracking surveillance system. Automated video surveillance monitors people and vehicles in real-time within a busy environment. Existing automated surveillance systems are based on the environment they are primarily designed to observe, i.e., indoor, outdoor or airborne, the number of sensors that the automated system can handle and the mobility of sensors, i.e., stationary camera vs. mobile camera. The purpose of a surveillance system is to record properties and trajectories of objects in a given area, generate warnings or notify the designated authorities in case of occurrence of particular events.

Highway systems
As demands for safety and mobility have grown and technological possibilities have multiplied, interest in automation has grown. Seeking to accelerate the development and introduction of fully automated vehicles and highways, the U.S. Congress authorized more than $650 million over six years for intelligent transport systems (ITS) and demonstration projects in the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). Congress legislated in ISTEA that: "[T]he Secretary of Transportation shall develop an automated highway and vehicle prototype from which future fully automated intelligent vehicle-highway systems can be developed. Such development shall include research in human factors to ensure the success of the man-machine relationship. The goal of this program is to have the first fully automated highway roadway or an automated test track in operation by 1997. This system shall accommodate the installation of equipment in new and existing motor vehicles."Full automation commonly defined as requiring no control or very limited control by the driver; such automation would be accomplished through a combination of sensor, computer, and communications systems in vehicles and along the roadway. Fully automated driving would, in theory, allow closer vehicle spacing and higher speeds, which could enhance traffic capacity in places where additional road building is physically impossible, politically unacceptable, or prohibitively expensive. Automated controls also might enhance road safety by reducing the opportunity for driver error, which causes a large share of motor vehicle crashes. Other potential benefits include improved air quality (as a result of more-efficient traffic flows), increased fuel economy, and spin-off technologies generated during research and development related to automated highway systems.

Waste management
Automated waste collection trucks prevent the need for as many workers as well as easing the level of labor required to provide the service.

Business process
Business process automation (BPA) is the technology-enabled automation of complex business processes. It can help to streamline a business for simplicity, achieve digital transformation, increase service quality, improve service delivery or contain costs. BPA consists of integrating applications, restructuring labor resources and using software applications throughout the organization. Robotic process automation (RPA; or RPAAI for self-guided RPA 2.0) is an emerging field within BPA and uses AI. BPAs can be implemented in a number of business areas including marketing, sales and workflow.

Home
Home automation (also called domotics) designates an emerging practice of increased automation of household appliances and features in residential dwellings, particularly through electronic means that allow for things impracticable, overly expensive or simply not possible in recent past decades. The rise in the usage of home automation solutions has taken a turn reflecting the increased dependency of people on such automation solutions. However, the increased comfort that gets added through these automation solutions is remarkable.

Laboratory

Automation is essential for many scientific and clinical applications. Therefore, automation has been extensively employed in laboratories. From as early as 1980 fully automated laboratories have already been working. However, automation has not become widespread in laboratories due to its high cost. This may change with the ability of integrating low-cost devices with standard laboratory equipment. Autosamplers are common devices used in laboratory automation.

Logistics automation
Logistics automation is the application of computer software or automated machinery to improve the efficiency of logistics operations. Typically this refers to operations within a warehouse or distribution center, with broader tasks undertaken by supply chain engineering systems and enterprise resource planning systems.

Industrial automation
Industrial automation deals primarily with the automation of manufacturing, quality control, and material handling processes. General-purpose controllers for industrial processes include programmable logic controllers, stand-alone I/O modules, and computers. Industrial automation is to replace the human action and manual command-response activities with the use of mechanized equipment and logical programming commands. One trend is increased use of machine vision to provide automatic inspection and robot guidance functions, another is a continuing increase in the use of robots. Industrial automation is simply required in industries.

Industrial Automation and Industry 4.0
The rise of industrial automation is directly tied to the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", which is better known now as Industry 4.0. Originating from Germany, Industry 4.0 encompasses numerous devices, concepts, and machines, as well as the advancement of the industrial internet of things (IIoT). An "Internet of Things is a seamless integration of diverse physical objects in the Internet through a virtual representation." These new revolutionary advancements have drawn attention to the world of automation in an entirely new light and shown ways for it to grow to increase productivity and efficiency in machinery and manufacturing facilities. Industry 4.0 works with the IIoT and software/hardware to connect in a way that (through communication technologies) add enhancements and improve manufacturing processes. Being able to create smarter, safer, and more advanced manufacturing is now possible with these new technologies. It opens up a manufacturing platform that is more reliable, consistent, and efficient than before. Implementation of systems such as SCADA is an example of software that takes place in Industrial Automation today. SCADA is a supervisory data collection software, just one of the many used in Industrial Automation. Industry 4.0 vastly covers many areas in manufacturing and will continue to do so as time goes on.

Industrial robotics
Industrial robotics is a sub-branch in industrial automation that aids in various manufacturing processes. Such manufacturing processes include machining, welding, painting, assembling and material handling to name a few. Industrial robots use various mechanical, electrical as well as software systems to allow for high precision, accuracy and speed that far exceed any human performance. The birth of industrial robots came shortly after World War II as the U.S. saw the need for a quicker way to produce industrial and consumer goods. Servos, digital logic and solid-state electronics allowed engineers to build better and faster systems and over time these systems were improved and revised to the point where a single robot is capable of running 24 hours a day with little or no maintenance. In 1997, there were 700,000 industrial robots in use, the number has risen to 1.8M in 2017 In recent years, AI with robotics is also used in creating an automatic labeling solution, using robotic arms as the automatic label applicator, and AI for learning and detecting the products to be labelled.

Programmable Logic Controllers
Industrial automation incorporates programmable logic controllers in the manufacturing process. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) use a processing system which allows for variation of controls of inputs and outputs using simple programming. PLCs make use of programmable memory, storing instructions and functions like logic, sequencing, timing, counting, etc. Using a logic-based language, a PLC can receive a variety of inputs and return a variety of logical outputs, the input devices being sensors and output devices being motors, valves, etc. PLCs are similar to computers, however, while computers are optimized for calculations, PLCs are optimized for control tasks and use in industrial environments. They are built so that only basic logic-based programming knowledge is needed and to handle vibrations, high temperatures, humidity, and noise. The greatest advantage PLCs offer is their flexibility. With the same basic controllers, a PLC can operate a range of different control systems. PLCs make it unnecessary to rewire a system to change the control system. This flexibility leads to a cost-effective system for complex and varied control systems.

PLCs can range from small "building brick" devices with tens of I/O in a housing integral with the processor, to large rack-mounted modular devices with a count of thousands of I/O, and which are often networked to other PLC and SCADA systems.

They can be designed for multiple arrangements of digital and analog inputs and outputs (I/O), extended temperature ranges, immunity to electrical noise, and resistance to vibration and impact. Programs to control machine operation are typically stored in battery-backed-up or non-volatile memory.

It was from the automotive industry in the United States that the PLC was born. Before the PLC, control, sequencing, and safety interlock logic for manufacturing automobiles was mainly composed of relays, cam timers, drum sequencers, and dedicated closed-loop controllers. Since these could number in the hundreds or even thousands, the process for updating such facilities for the yearly model change-over was very time-consuming and expensive, as electricians needed to individually rewire the relays to change their operational characteristics.

When digital computers became available, being general-purpose programmable devices, they were soon applied to control sequential and combinatorial logic in industrial processes. However, these early computers required specialist programmers and stringent operating environmental control for temperature, cleanliness, and power quality. To meet these challenges, the PLC was developed with several key attributes. It would tolerate the shop-floor environment, it would support discrete (bit-form) input and output in an easily extensible manner, it would not require years of training to use, and it would permit its operation to be monitored. Since many industrial processes have timescales easily addressed by millisecond response times, modern (fast, small, reliable) electronics greatly facilitate building reliable controllers, and performance could be traded off for reliability.

Agent-assisted automation
Agent-assisted automation refers to automation used by call center agents to handle customer inquiries. The key benefit of agent-assisted automation is compliance and error-proofing. Agents are sometimes not fully trained or they forget or ignore key steps in the process. The use of automation ensures that what is supposed to happen on the call actually does, every time. There are two basic types: desktop automation and automated voice solutions.

Discrete control (on/off)
One of the simplest types of control is on-off control. An example is a thermostat used on household appliances which either open or close an electrical contact. (Thermostats were originally developed as true feedback-control mechanisms rather than the on-off common household appliance thermostat.)

Sequence control, in which a programmed sequence of discrete operations is performed, often based on system logic that involves system states. An elevator control system is an example of sequence control.

PID controller

A proportional–integral–derivative controller (PID controller) is a control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems.

In a PID loop, the controller continuously calculates an error value $$e(t)$$ as the difference between a desired setpoint and a measured process variable and applies a correction based on proportional, integral, and derivative terms, respectively (sometimes denoted P, I, and D) which give their name to the controller type.

The theoretical understanding and application date from the 1920s, and they are implemented in nearly all analog control systems; originally in mechanical controllers, and then using discrete electronics and latterly in industrial process computers.

Sequential control and logical sequence or system state control
Sequential control may be either to a fixed sequence or to a logical one that will perform different actions depending on various system states. An example of an adjustable but otherwise fixed sequence is a timer on a lawn sprinkler.

States refer to the various conditions that can occur in a use or sequence scenario of the system. An example is an elevator, which uses logic based on the system state to perform certain actions in response to its state and operator input. For example, if the operator presses the floor n button, the system will respond depending on whether the elevator is stopped or moving, going up or down, or if the door is open or closed, and other conditions.

Early development of sequential control was relay logic, by which electrical relays engage electrical contacts which either start or interrupt power to a device. Relays were first used in telegraph networks before being developed for controlling other devices, such as when starting and stopping industrial-sized electric motors or opening and closing solenoid valves. Using relays for control purposes allowed event-driven control, where actions could be triggered out of sequence, in response to external events. These were more flexible in their response than the rigid single-sequence cam timers. More complicated examples involved maintaining safe sequences for devices such as swing bridge controls, where a lock bolt needed to be disengaged before the bridge could be moved, and the lock bolt could not be released until the safety gates had already been closed.

The total number of relays and cam timers can number into the hundreds or even thousands in some factories. Early programming techniques and languages were needed to make such systems manageable, one of the first being ladder logic, where diagrams of the interconnected relays resembled the rungs of a ladder. Special computers called programmable logic controllers were later designed to replace these collections of hardware with a single, more easily re-programmed unit.

In a typical hard-wired motor start and stop circuit (called a control circuit) a motor is started by pushing a "Start" or "Run" button that activates a pair of electrical relays. The "lock-in" relay locks in contacts that keep the control circuit energized when the push-button is released. (The start button is a normally open contact and the stop button is a normally closed contact.) Another relay energizes a switch that powers the device that throws the motor starter switch (three sets of contacts for three-phase industrial power) in the main power circuit. Large motors use high voltage and experience high in-rush current, making speed important in making and breaking contact. This can be dangerous for personnel and property with manual switches. The "lock-in" contacts in the start circuit and the main power contacts for the motor are held engaged by their respective electromagnets until a "stop" or "off" button is pressed, which de-energizes the lock in relay. Commonly interlocks are added to a control circuit. Suppose that the motor in the example is powering machinery that has a critical need for lubrication. In this case, an interlock could be added to ensure that the oil pump is running before the motor starts. Timers, limit switches, and electric eyes are other common elements in control circuits.

Solenoid valves are widely used on compressed air or hydraulic fluid for powering actuators on mechanical components. While motors are used to supply continuous rotary motion, actuators are typically a better choice for intermittently creating a limited range of movement for a mechanical component, such as moving various mechanical arms, opening or closing valves, raising heavy press-rolls, applying pressure to presses.

Computer control
Computers can perform both sequential control and feedback control, and typically a single computer will do both in an industrial application. Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are a type of special-purpose microprocessor that replaced many hardware components such as timers and drum sequencers used in relay logic–type systems. General-purpose process control computers have increasingly replaced stand-alone controllers, with a single computer able to perform the operations of hundreds of controllers. Process control computers can process data from a network of PLCs, instruments, and controllers to implement typical (such as PID) control of many individual variables or, in some cases, to implement complex control algorithms using multiple inputs and mathematical manipulations. They can also analyze data and create real-time graphical displays for operators and run reports for operators, engineers, and management.

Control of an automated teller machine (ATM) is an example of an interactive process in which a computer will perform a logic-derived response to a user selection based on information retrieved from a networked database. The ATM process has similarities with other online transaction processes. The different logical responses are called scenarios. Such processes are typically designed with the aid of use cases and flowcharts, which guide the writing of the software code. The earliest feedback control mechanism was the water clock invented by Greek engineer Ctesibius (285–222 BC).

title: Automation