helpdesk

A helpdesk is an information and assistance resource that troubleshoots problems with computers or similar products. Corporations often provide helpdesk support to their customers via a toll-free number, website and/or e-mail. There are also in-house helpdesks geared toward providing the same kind of help for employees only. Some schools offer classes in which they perform similar tasks as a helpdesk. In the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, within companies adhering to ISO/IEC 20000 or seeking to implement IT Service Management best practice, a HelpDesk may offer a wider range of user centric services and be part of a larger Service Desk.

Informatics

Informatics is the science of information, the practice of information processing, and the engineering of information systems. Informatics studies the structure, algorithms, behavior, and interactions of natural and artificial systems that store, process, access and communicate information. It also develops its own conceptual and theoretical foundations and utilizes foundations developed in other fields. Since the advent of computers, individuals and organizations increasingly process information digitally. This has led to the study of informatics that had computational, cognitive and social aspects, including study of the social impact of information technologies.

In some situations, information science and informatics are used interchangeably. However, some consider information science to be a subarea of the more general field of informatics.

Used as a compound, in conjunction with the name of a discipline, as in medical informatics, bioinformatics, etc., it denotes the specialization of informatics to the management and processing of data, information and knowledge in the named discipline, and the incorporation of informatic concepts and theories to enrich the other discipline; it has a similar relationship to library science.

Pigasus

A pigasus is a flying pig.

abstemious

Marked by, or spent in, abstinence; as, an abstemious life.

pedomorphosis

In developmental biology, pedomorphosis (also spelled paedomorphosis) or juvenification is a phenotypic and/or genotypic change in which the adults of a species retain traits previously seen only in juveniles. Peramorphosis is change in the reverse direction. Pedomorphosis was first proposed by Walter Garstang in 1922. The underlying mechanisms for this include heterochrony.

Kratocracy

Kratocracy, from (Gr. krateros, strong), is according to Montague, government by those who are strong enough to seize power through force or cunning. The term was also used by Kropotkin in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, but is now rarely seen.

It is technically the most basic type of governing body, proven to have gone back right to the original human Tribes. It is from this simple philosophy of Authority of the fittest that other forms of government have stemmed.

Epilimnion

Epilimnion is the top-most layer in a thermally stratified lake, occurring above the deeper hypolimnion. It is warmer and typically has a higher pH and dissolved oxygen concentration than the hypolimnion. Being exposed at the surface, it typically becomes turbulently mixed as a result of surface wind-mixing. It is also free to exchange dissolved gases (ie O₂ and CO₂) with the atmosphere. Because this layer receives the most light it contains the most phytoplankton. As they grow and reproduce they absorb nutrients from the water, when they die they sink into the hypolimnion resulting in the epilimnion becoming depleted of nutrients.

bulker

A bulk carrier, bulk freighter, or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal, ore, and cement in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have fueled the development of these ships, causing them to grow in size and sophistication. Today's bulkers are specially designed to maximize capacity, safety, efficiency, and to be able to withstand the rigors of their work.

Acanthonotozomellidae

Acanthonotozomellidae is a family of Amphipoda. A new species was recently discovered deep in Drake Passage, with small teeth covering its body.

Truecolor

Truecolor is a method of representing and storing graphical image information (especially in computer processing) in an RGB color space such that a very large number of colors, shades, and hues can be displayed in an image, such as in high quality photographic images or complex graphics. Usually, truecolor is defined to mean at least 256 shades of red, green, and blue, for a total of at least 16,777,216 color variations. Equivalently, truecolor can refer to an RGB display mode that does not need a color look-up table (CLUT).

Parseval

The name Parseval, from August von Parseval, was used between 1909 and 1919 to denote 22 airships built by the Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft (LFG) following his design. Later several airships were built following the Parseval-Naatz design.

Earlier, the airships were written of using the masculine form. That is, in German, "der Parseval" was written, similar to der Zeppelin.

Mesolithic

The Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age.

The word "Mesolithic" is derived from the Greek words mesos, meaning "middle", and lithos, meaning "stone".

galvanism

In biology, galvanism is the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current. In physics and chemistry, it is the induction of electrical current from a chemical reaction, typically between two chemicals with differing electronegativites.

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints. A hagiography, from Greek (h)ağios (ἅγιος, "holy" or "saint") and graphē (γραφή, "writing"), refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically the biographies of ecclesiastical and secular leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common.

barbican

A barbican (from medieval Latin barbecana, "outer fortification of a city or castle," a general Romanic word, perhaps from Arabic or Persian cf. bab-khanah "gate-house" and "towered gateway" or from the mediaeval English burgh-kenning ) is a fortified outpost or gateway, such as an outer defense to a city or castle, or any tower situated over a gate or bridge which was used for defensive purposes. Usually barbicans were situated outside the main line of defences and connected to the city walls with a walled road called the neck.

agog

agog

1. In a state of high anticipation or interest.
2. Highly excited. Anxious, eager, impatient.

isopycnal

An isopycnal is a surface of constant potential density of water. In the ocean, as the depth increases, so too does the density. Varying degrees of salinity and temperature act to modify the density of water, and the denser water always lies below the less dense water. Because of the action of winds and currents, isopycnals are not always level.

Radioresistance

Radioresistance is the property of organisms which are capable of living in environments with very high levels of ionizing radiation.

Radioresistance is surprisingly high in many organisms, in contrast to previously held views. For example, the study of environment, animals and plants around the Chernobyl accident area has revealed an unexpected survival of many species, despite the high radiation levels. A Brazilian study in a hill in the state of Minas Gerais which has high natural radiation levels from uranium deposits, has also shown many radioresistant insects, worms and plants.

Radiation can also help some plants to become more adapted to their environment by increasing the growth rate of the seeds. This helps them germinate faster.

hyperthermophile

A hyperthermophile is an organism that thrives in extremely hot environments— from 60 degrees C (140 degrees F) upwards. An optimal temperature for the existence of Hyperthermophiles are above 80°C (176°F). Hyperthermophiles are a subset of extremophiles, micro-organisms within the domain Archaea, although some bacteria are able to tolerate temperatures of around 100°C (212°F), too. Many hyperthermophiles are also able to withstand other environmental extremes such as high acidity or radiation levels.

Halocline

In oceanography, a halocline is a strong, vertical salinity gradient. Because salinity (in concert with temperature) affects the density of seawater, it can play a role in its vertical stratification. Increasing salinity by one kg/m³ results in an increase of seawater density of around 0.7 kg/m³.

Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis (from the Greek: ἀναδίπλωσις, anadíplōsis, "a doubling, folding up") is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.

Permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies. It was first developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture.

Hexspeak

Hexspeak was created by programmers who wanted a magic number, a clear and unique identifier with which to mark memory or data. Using hexadecimal notation, which includes the digits 0123456789ABCDEF, it is possible to create small words with the digit "0" representing the letter "O", "1" representing the letter "I", and "5" representing "S".

Zill

Zills, also zils or finger cymbals, (from Turkish zil, "cymbals") are tiny metallic cymbals used in belly dancing and similar performances.^[2] They are called sājāt (صاجات) in Arabic. They are similar to Tibetan tingsha bells.

Gulet

A Gulet is a traditional design of a two-masted wooden sailing vessel from the south-west coast of Turkey, although similar vessels can be found all around the eastern Mediterranean. Today this type of vessel, varying in size from 14 to 35 metres, is now very popular for tourist charters although, for considerations of crew economy, diesel power is now almost universally used and many are not properly rigged for sailing.

Capslockingly

Capslockingly: a superlative used to mean that a clause is good enough to be typed out entirely in capitals.

autocatalysis

A single chemical reaction is said to have undergone autocatalysis, or be autocatalytic, if the reaction product is itself the catalyst for that reaction.

A set of chemical reactions can be said to be "collectively autocatalytic" if a number of those reactions produce, as reaction products, catalysts for enough of the other reactions that the entire set of chemical reactions is self sustaining given an input of energy and food molecules (see autocatalytic set).

Parageography

Parageography is the study of places that exist only in the imagination.

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ecozone

An ecozone or biogeographic realm is the largest scale biogeographic division of the earth's surface based on the historic and evolutionary distribution patterns of plants and animals. Ecozones represent large areas of the earth's surface where plants and animals developed in relative isolation over long periods of time, and are separated from one another by geologic features, such as oceans, broad deserts, or high mountain ranges, that formed barriers to plant and animal migration. Ecozones correspond to the floristic kingdoms of botany or zoogeographic regions of mammal zoology. Simply they are a definition of the plants and animals in a region further divided by the land form region. (Example the taiga ecozone in Canada is divided into the taiga plains, and taiga shield.)

Biogeography

Biogeography is the study of the distribution of biodiversity over space and time. It aims to reveal where organisms live, and at what abundance.

Biogeography does more than ask Which species? and Where. It also asks Why? and what is sometimes more crucial, Why not?.

The patterns of species distribution at this level can usually be explained through a combination of historical factors such as speciation, extinction, continental drift, glaciation (and associated variations in sea level, river routes, and so on), and river capture, in combination with the area and isolation of landmasses (geographic constraints) and available energy supplies.

Bioregionalism

Bioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system based on naturally-defined areas called bioregions, or ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics. Bioregionalism stresses that the determination of a bioregion is also a cultural phenomenon, and emphasizes local populations, knowledge, and solutions.