Pentalobe

Pentalobe:

A fastener interface with five rounded lobes.

Epistemology

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:

• What is knowledge?
• How is knowledge acquired?
• How do we know what we know?

Propædia

The one-volume Propædia is the first of three parts of the 15th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, the other two being the 12-volume Micropædia and the 17-volume Macropædia. The Propædia is intended as a topical organization of the Britannica's contents, complementary to the alphabetical organization of the other two parts. Introduced in 1974 with the 15th edition, the Propædia and Micropædia were intended to replace the Index of the 14th edition; however, after widespread criticism, the Britannica restored the Index as a two-volume set in 1985. The core of the Propædia is its Outline of Knowledge, which seeks to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge; however, the Propædia also has several appendices listing the staff members, advisors and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica.

Coverb

Coverb is a term in theoretical linguistics most often applied in languages with serial verb construction, but also for complex predicates consisting of two verbs with one of them being an auxiliary verb contributing different kinds of information like modality, direction or aktionsart. It fulfills a similar function as adpositions would in many Indo-European languages like Dutch or Russian. Coverbs exist in a number of east and south-east Asian languages (e.g. Chinese), as well as west African languages (e.g. Yoruba).

Coverbs are differentiated from converbs, which are non-finite verb forms used to express subordination.

*Editor's note: I have no idea what any of this means.

Womyn

Womyn is one of a number of alternative spellings of the word "women" used by some feminist writers. There are many alternative spellings, including "wimmin", "womban" and "wom!n". Writers who use the alternative spellings see them as an expression of female independence and a repudiation of traditions that define females by reference to a male norm.

Precarity

Precarity is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term has been specifically applied to either intermittent work or, more generally, a confluence of intermittent work and precarious existence.

Britpop

Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. The movement developed as a reaction against various musical and cultural trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the grunge phenomenon from the United States. In the wake of the musical invasion into the United Kingdom of American grunge bands, new British groups such as Suede and Blur launched the movement by positioning themselves as opposing musical forces, referencing British guitar music of the past and writing about uniquely British topics and concerns. These bands were soon joined by others including Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, Sleeper and Elastica.

Adhocracy

Adhocracy is a type of organization that operates in opposite fashion to a bureaucracy. The term was first popularized in 1970 by Alvin Toffler, and has since become often used in the theory of management of organizations (particularly online organizations), further developed by academics such as Henry Mintzberg.

palimpsest

palimpsest (plural palimpsests)

1. A manuscript or document that has been erased or scraped clean, for reuse of the paper, parchment, vellum, or other medium on which it was written. Many historical texts have been recovered using ultraviolet light and other technologies to read the erased writing.

Praxis

Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted or practiced, embodied and/or realized. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. This has been a popular topic in the field of philosophy, as Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and many others, have written about this topic. It has meaning in political, educational, and spiritual realms.

Counoise

Counoise is a dark-skinned wine grape grown primarily in the Rhône valley region of France. Counoise adds a peppery note and good acidity to a blended red wine, but does not have much depth of colour or tannin. There were 638 hectares (1,580 acres) of Counoise in France in 2000.

Counoise is one of the grapes allowed into the blend of Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine. In 2004 only 0.5% of the appellation's surface was planted with Counoise. Some producer which favour the variety use about 5% of it in their blends, and account for most of the plantations. One such producer is Château de Beaucastel, which is noted for using all the 13 allowed varieties.

Loc. cit.

Loc. cit. (Latin, short for loco citato, meaning "in the place cited") is a footnote or endnote term used to repeat the title and page number for a given author. Loc. cit. is used in place of ibid. when the reference is not only to the work immediately preceding, but also refers to the same page. Loc. cit. is also used instead of op. cit. when reference is made to a work previously cited and to the same page in that work. As such, loc. cit. is never followed by volume or page numbers.

Jejemon

Jejemon (Tagalog pronunciation: [ˈdʒɛdʒɛmon]) is a pop culture phenomenon in the Philippines. According to the Urban Dictionary a Jejemon is a person "who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility." The Philippine Daily Inquirer describes Jejemons as a "new breed of hipster who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own sub-culture and fashion."

Raggare

Raggare (a Swedish word roughly corresponding to the English term "pick-up artist", i.e., a person seeking sexual contact with someone) is a subculture found mostly in Sweden and parts of Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Austria. Raggare are closely related to the greaser subculture and are known for their love of hot rod cars and 1950s American pop culture.

Aflockalypse

Aflockalypse: A term coined to denote mass die-offs of birds in late 2010.

vomitorium

A vomitorium (plural: vomitoria, slang: vom) is a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which crowds can exit at the end of a performance

lithopedion

A lithopedion or stone baby, is a rare phenomenon which occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during an abdominal pregnancy, is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calcifies on the outside, shielding the mother's body from the dead tissue of the baby and preventing infection. Lithopedia may occur from 14 weeks gestation to full term. It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades, and it is often not until a patient is examined for other conditions or a proper examination is conducted that includes an X-ray, that a stone baby is found. The oldest reported case is that of a 94 year old woman, whose lithopedion has been present for upwards of 60 years.

Bitumen

Bitumen is a mixture of organic liquids that are highly viscous, black, sticky, entirely soluble in carbon disulfide, and composed primarily of highly condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Naturally occurring or crude bitumen is a sticky, tar-like form of petroleum that is so thick and heavy that it must be heated or diluted before it will flow. At room temperature, it has a consistency much like cold molasses.^[1] Refined bitumen is the residual (bottom) fraction obtained by fractional distillation of crude oil. It is the heaviest fraction and the one with the highest boiling point, boiling at 525 °C (977 °F).

compiler

A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.

Stuckism

Stuckism is an international art movement that was founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. The first group of thirteen British artists has since expanded, as of September 2010, to 209 groups in 48 countries.

The Stuckists have staged shows and gained media attention for outspoken comments and demonstrations, particularly outside Tate Britain against the Turner Prize, sometimes dressed in clown costumes. They have also stated their opposition to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists. After exhibiting mainly in small galleries in Shoreditch, London, they were given their first show in a major public museum in 2004, the Walker Art Gallery, as part of the Liverpool Biennial.

Neko

A catgirl is a female with cat ears, a cat tail, or other feline characteristics on an otherwise human body. Catgirls may be found in Japanese anime and manga where they are more commonly referred to as Neko (猫, literally cat) or Nekomimi (猫耳, literally cat ear(s)), in cosplay activities both in Japan and around the world, in video games, and in online virtual world communities such as the Nekos of Second Life

Sabrage

Sabrage is a technique for opening a champagne bottle with a sabre, used for ceremonial occasions. The saber is slid along the body of the bottle toward the neck. The force of the blade hitting the lip breaks the glass to separate the collar from the neck of the bottle. The cork and collar remain together after separating from the neck.

This technique became popular in France when the army of Napoleon visited many of the aristocratic domains. It was just after the French Revolution and the saber was the weapon of choice of Napoleon's fearsome cavalry (the Hussars). Napoleon's spectacular victories across all Europe gave them plenty of reason to celebrate. During these parties the cavalry would open the Champagne with their sabers. Napoleon probably encouraged this and is known to have said: "Champagne! In victory one deserves it; in defeat one needs it."

Transureteroureterostomy

Transureteroureterostomy (TUU) is a urinary reconstruction technique that is used to join one ureter to the other across the midline

ISOFIX

ISOFIX is the international standard for attachment points for child safety seats in passenger cars. A similar system is also known as LATCH ("Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children") in the United States and LUAS ("Lower Universal Anchorage System") or Canfix in Canada

Devanagari

Devanagari, also called Nagari (Nāgarī, the name of its parent writing system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, does not have distinct letter cases, and is recognizable (along with closely related scripts like that of Bengali) by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together.

Romusha

Romusha (労務者, Rōmusha^?, "laborer") were forced laborers during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between four and 10 million romusha were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java, meaning that there was a death rate of 80%.

Bundestag

The Bundestag (Federal Diet) is the lower unicameral house of the parliament of Germany, established by the German Grundgesetz of 1949 as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag.

fibroblast

A fibroblast is a type of cell that synthesizes the extracellular matrix and collagen, the structural framework (stroma) for animal tissues, and plays a critical role in wound healing. Fibroblasts are the most common cells of connective tissue in animals.

Lutein

Lutein (pronounced /ˈluːti.ɨn/ or /ˈluːtiːn/, from Latin luteus meaning "yellow") is a xanthophyll and one of 600 known naturally-occurring carotenoids. Found in green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale, lutein is employed by organisms as an antioxidant and for blue light absorption. Lutein is also found in egg yolks, animal fats, and the retina (zeaxanthin predominates at the macula lutea while lutein predominates elsewhere in the retina).

Swaging

Swaging (pronunciation note below) is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using a die or dies, into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process; however, it is sometimes done as a hot working process.

The term swage can apply to the process of swaging (verb), or to a die or tool used for swaging (noun).

mandrel

A mandrel is a steel rod or linked ball inserted into the tube while it is being bent to give the tube extra support to reduce wrinkling and breaking the tube during this process.