Saturday, April 30, 2011

Red eye

Red eye, black eye, and dead eye are variants of fortified coffee drinks in which espresso is combined with normal drip coffee.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Battenberg


Battenberg cake (sometimes spelt battenburg cake) is a light sponge cake which, when cut in cross section, displays a distinctive two-by-two check pattern alternately coloured pink and yellow.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Lu


Lu is a Tibetan style of folk music of a cappella songs, which are distinctively high in pitch with glottal vibrations.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

hulk


A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Although sometimes used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, the term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging and/or internal equipment removed, retaining only its flotational qualities. The term "hulk" can also be used to refer to an abandoned wreck or shell.

Originally, a hulk (sometimes spelled "holk") was a type of medieval sea craft somewhat similar to a cog and a technological precedent of the carrack and caravel.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Sic


Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus", "so", "as such", or "in such a manner". In writing, it is placed within the quoted material, in square brackets – or outside it, in regular parentheses – and usually italicized – [sic] – to indicate that an incorrect or unusual spelling, phrase, punctuation, and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim from the quoted original and is not a transcription error.

It had a long vowel in Latin (sīc), meaning that it was pronounced like the English word "seek" (IPA /'sik/); however, it is normally anglicised to /'sɪk/ (like the English word "sick").

Friday, April 22, 2011

Dal

Dal is a preparation of pulses (dried beans, lentils etc.) which have been stripped of their outer hulls and split.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

cancelbot


A cancelbot is an automated or semi-automated process for sending out third-party cancel messages over Usenet, commonly as a stopgap measure to combat spam.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Spandrel


A spandrel is the space between two arches or between an arch and a rectangular enclosure.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

postvention

A postvention is an intervention conducted after a suicide, largely taking the form of support for the bereaved (family, friends, professionals and peers). Family and friends of the suicide victim may be at increased risk of suicide themselves.

The aim is to support and debrief those affected; and reduce the possibility of suicide contagion. Interventions recognize that those bereaved by suicide may be vulnerable to suicidal behaviour themselves and may develop complicated grief reactions.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Nazoraioi

Nazoraioi (Ναζωραιοι) were mentioned by Theodoretus as Jews who believed that the Jewish messiah was nothing more nor less than a Tzadik.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Doggerland


Doggerland is a name given by archaeologists and geologists to the former landmass in the southern North Sea that connected the island of Great Britain to mainland Europe during and after the last Ice Age. Geological surveys have suggested that Doggerland was a large area of dry land that stretched from Britain's east coast across to the present coast of the Netherlands and the western coasts of Germany and Denmark. The land was likely a rich habitat with human habitation in the Mesolithic period.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Metadata

Metadata is "data about data", of any sort in any media. Metadata is text, voice, or image that describes what the audience wants or needs to see or experience. The audience could be a person, group, or software program. Metadata is important because it aids in clarifying and finding the actual data.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

pseudocount

A pseudocount is a count added to observed data in order to change the probability in a model of those data, which is known not to be zero, to being negligible rather than being zero.

In any observed data set or sample there is the possibility, especially with low-probability events and/or small data sets, of a possible event not occurring. Its observed frequency is therefore 0, implying a probability of 0. This is an oversimplification and is often unhelpful, particularly in probability-based machine learning techniques such as artificial neural networks and hidden Markov models. By artificially adjusting the probability of rare (but not impossible) events so those probabilities are not exactly zero, we avoid the zero-frequency problem.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Pinking shears


Pinking shears are scissors, the blades of which are sawtoothed instead of straight. Pinking shears leave a zigzag pattern instead of a straight edge.

Pinking shears have a utilitarian function for cutting woven cloth. Cloth edges that are unfinished will easily fray, the weave becoming undone and threads pulling out easily. The sawtooth pattern does not prevent the fraying but limits the length of the frayed thread and thus minimizes damage.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Karōshi

Karōshi (過労死 karōshi), which can be translated literally from Japanese as "death from overwork", is occupational sudden death. Although this category has a significant count, Japan is one of the few countries that reports it in the statistics as a separate category. The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress.

Monday, April 11, 2011

apéritif


An apéritif (also spelled aperitif) is an alcoholic drink that is usually served to stimulate the appetite before a meal, contrasting with digestifs, which are served after meals.

Apéritifs are commonly served with something small to eat, such as crackers, cheese, pâté, olives, and various kinds of finger food.

This French word is derived from the Latin verb aperire, which means “to open.”

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Farl


A farl (reduced form of the Scots fardel) is a term used in Northern Ireland and Scotland for some roughly triangular flat breads and cakes, traditionally made by cutting a round into four pieces.

In Northern Ireland it generally refers to soda bread and potato bread or cakes (potato farls). While soda bread can be made like normal breads, it is made into farls for use in the Ulster fry. A farl is a flat piece of bread about 3/4 inch thick with a rough quarter circle shape.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Hame

Hames, a pair of curved metal (or sometimes wooden) pieces lying on the horse collar of a horse harness, taking the pull from the traces

Friday, April 8, 2011

shebeen


A shebeen (Irish: sibín) was originally an illicit bar or club where excisable alcoholic beverages were sold without a licence.

The term has spread far from its origins in Ireland, to Scotland, Canada, the United States, England, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

In modern South Africa, many "shebeens" are now fully legal.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Telemedicine


Telemedicine is a rapidly developing application of clinical medicine where medical information is transferred through the phone or the Internet and sometimes other networks for the purpose of consulting, and sometimes remote medical procedures or examinations.

Telemedicine may be as simple as two health professionals discussing a case over the telephone, or as complex as using satellite technology and video-conferencing equipment to conduct a real-time consultation between medical specialists in two different countries. Telemedicine generally refers to the use of communications and information technologies for the delivery of clinical care.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Gametogenesis

Gametogenesis is a process by which diploid or haploid precursor cells undergo cell division and differentiation to form mature haploid gametes.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

jib

A jib (also spelled jibb) is a triangular staysail set ahead of the foremast of a sailing boat. Its tack is fixed to the bowsprit, to the bow, or to the deck between the bowsprit and the foremost mast. Jibs and spinnakers are the two main types of headsails on a modern boat.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Asphaltenes

Asphaltenes are molecular substances that are found in crude oil, along with resins, aromatic hydrocarbons, and alkanes (i.e., saturated hydrocarbons). The word "asphaltene" was coined by Boussingault in 1837 when he noticed that the distillation residue of some bitumens had asphalt-like properties. Asphaltenes in the form of distillation products from oil refineries are used as "tar-mats" on roads.

Friday, April 1, 2011

lordosis

  Lordosis is historically defined as an abnormal inward curvature of the lumbar spine.