Technology and the built world

PROFINET

PROFINET, short for PROcess FIeld NETwork, is an Industrial Ethernet standard for real-time communication between controllers and devices in automation, maintained by PROFIBUS & PROFINET International.

Prognoz

Prognoz (Прогноз, "Forecast") was a series of twelve Soviet scientific satellites launched between 1972 and 1996 to study solar activity, solar flares, and the Earth's magnetosphere.

Program counter

The program counter, also known as the instruction pointer, is a processor register that holds the address of the next instruction; branches and jumps change it.

Program database

A program database (PDB) is a file produced by a compiler or linker that records debug information, letting tools such as debuggers map machine addresses back to source lines and names.

Program of Thoughts

Program of Thoughts is a prompting technique for large language models where reasoning is expressed as an executable Python program run by an external interpreter, introduced in 2022 by Wenhu Chen and colleagues.

Program slicing

Program slicing is a software engineering technique that extracts the statements affecting a variable's value at a program point, used mainly for debugging and testing.

Program synthesis

Program synthesis is the task of automatically finding a program that satisfies a user's intent given as a specification, long called the holy grail of computer science.

Program transformation

Program transformation is the systematic rewriting of a program, or its internal representation, into another form while preserving behavior, used for compiler optimization, refactoring, translation, and verification.

Program-aided language models

Program-aided language models (PAL) is a prompting method, introduced by Luyu Gao and colleagues in 2022, in which a language model writes a program that a Python interpreter executes.

Programa Brasileiro de Etiquetagem

The Programa Brasileiro de Etiquetagem (PBE), Brazil's national energy efficiency labeling program, has been run by Inmetro since 1984, rating products from class A to G.

Programmable digital coding metasurface

A programmable digital coding metasurface is an engineered electromagnetic surface whose unit cells switch between digital states, letting an FPGA reconfigure its beams in real time.

Programmable logic controller

A programmable logic controller, or PLC, is a ruggedized industrial computer that automates machines by running user-written programs. It began with the Modicon 084 in 1968.

Programmable logic device

A programmable logic device (PLD) is an integrated circuit whose digital logic is configured by the user after manufacture, covering SPLDs, CPLDs, and field-programmable gate arrays.

Programmable mechanical metamaterial

A programmable mechanical metamaterial is an engineered material whose mechanical properties, such as stiffness and damping, can be controlled through its structure or external stimuli.

Programmable metamaterial

A programmable metamaterial is an artificial material whose electromagnetic, mechanical, acoustic, or thermal behavior can be switched in real time by digital control signals, so one object serves many functions.

Programmable nonlinear mechanical metamaterials

Programmable nonlinear mechanical metamaterials are architected materials whose nonlinear, amplitude-dependent responses can be tuned after manufacture through geometry, magnetic actuation, multi-material printing, or embedded resonators.

Programmable reconfigurable mechanical metamaterials

Programmable reconfigurable mechanical metamaterials are architected materials whose stiffness, shape, damping, and Poisson's ratio can be changed on demand, with applications in robotics, morphing structures, and adaptive protection.

Programmable shape-morphing mechanical metamaterial

A programmable shape-morphing mechanical metamaterial is an architected material whose designed unit cells let it morph into different shapes on demand, using heat, light, or magnetic actuation.

Programmable swelling hydrogels

Programmable swelling hydrogels are water-swollen crosslinked polymer networks whose swelling is engineered in space and time, changing shape or function reversibly on demand for soft robotics, tissue engineering, and drug delivery.

Programmed Data Processor

Programmed Data Processor (PDP) is the name Digital Equipment Corporation gave its line of interactive, transistorized computers, from the 1960 PDP-1 through the best-selling PDP-8 and 16-bit PDP-11.

Programmer

A programmer, also called a computer programmer, is a person who writes, modifies, and tests the code and scripts that allow computer applications to run.

Programming by demonstration

Programming by demonstration is a technique in which a system watches a user perform task examples and infers a generalized program or policy, rather than being programmed explicitly.

Programming language

A programming language is a formal language for communicating algorithms to people and machines, ranging from general-purpose languages like C, Java, and Python to special-purpose notations like SQL and HTML.

Programming paradigm

A programming paradigm is a fundamental style for writing computer programs, with imperative paradigms like procedural and object-oriented and declarative ones like functional and logic.

Programming tool

A programming tool, or development tool, is software developers use to create, examine, maintain, or support other software, such as compilers, debuggers, and version control systems.

Progress (spacecraft)

Progress (Прогресс) is an uncrewed Russian cargo spacecraft, derived from the Soyuz crew vehicle, that has delivered propellant, water, and dry cargo to space stations since 1978, burning up on reentry after each mission.

Progress (Прогресс) (spacecraft)

Progress (Прогресс) is a Russian robotic cargo spacecraft, an unpiloted Soyuz derivative first launched in 1978 that delivers supplies, propellant, and water to space stations including the ISS.

Progress M

Progress M (Прогресс-М) was a Soviet and Russian cargo spacecraft, the second generation of the Progress resupply vehicle, which flew from 1989 to the 2000s to deliver supplies to Mir and the International Space Station.

Progress M1-5 (Прогресс М1-5)

Progress M1-5 (Прогресс М1-5) was a Russian Progress M1 cargo spacecraft launched in January 2001 to deorbit the fifteen-year-old Mir space station, which reentered over the South Pacific in March 2001.