Glossary
Terms starting with D
303 definitions · page 4 of 6.
- DISCOUNT POINT
- A unit of measurement used for various loan charges; one point equals 1 percent of the amount of the loan.
- discrete generations
- Generations that have no overlapping reproduction. All reproduction takes place between individuals in the same generation.
- disjunct motion
- Melodic motion by a leap rather than by a step.
- DISPATCH
- The operating control of an integrated electric system to: Assign generation to specific generating plants and other sources of supply to effect the most reliable and economical supply as the total of the significant area loads rises or falls. Control…
- dispersive replication
- Disproved model of DNA synthesis suggesting more-or-less random interspersion of parental and new segments in daughter DNA molecules. A postulated mode of DNA replication combining aspects of conservative and semiconservative replication; known to be…
- Disqualification
- A horse is removed from the place he finished and placed lower. For example, a horse may finish first, but interfere with another runner, impeding his chances to win the race. The interfering horse will be "taken down" and placed lower in the order of finish.
- disruptive selection
- A type of selection that removes individuals from the centre of a phenotypic distribution and thus causes the distribution to become bimodal.
- DISSOLVED GAS
- Natural gas that can be developed for commercial use, and which is found mixed with oil in naturally occurring underground formations.
- dissonance
- Intervals or chords that sound impure, harsh, or unstable.
- DISTRIBUTED GENERATION
- A distributed generation system involves small amounts of generation located on a utility's distribution system for the purpose of meeting local (substation level) peak loads and/or displacing the need to build additional (or upgrade) local distribution lines.
- DISTRIBUTION
- The delivery of electricity to the retail customer's home or business through low voltage distribution lines.
- distribution function
- A graph of some precise quantitative measure of a character against its frequency of occurrence.
- DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM (Electric utility)
- The substations, transformers and lines that convey electricity from high-power transmission lines to ultimate consumers. See GRID.
- DISTRIBUTION UTILITY (Disco)
- The regulated electric utility entity that constructs and maintains the distribution wires connecting the transmission grid to the final customer. The Disco can also perform other services such as aggregating customers, purchasing power supply and…
- Diversity Country
- A country that has low rates of immigration to the United States. Natives of a diversity country can enter in the diversity visa program. A low rate of immigration is fewer than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the past five years.
- Diversity Job Seekers
- Minority groups whom, because of their affiliation, are often put at a disadvantage when seeking employment. Sometimes also known as 'Minority Job Seekers'
- Diversity Visa Program
- The Department of State has an annual lottery for immigration to the United States. Up to 55,000 immigrants can enter the United States each year.
- DIVESTITURE
- The stripping off of one utility function from the others by selling (spinning-off) or in some other way changing the ownership of the assets related to that function. Most commonly associated with spinning-off generation assets so they are no longer owned…
- DIVIDENDS
- Money returned to policyholders from an insurance company’s earnings. Considered a partial premium refund rather than a taxable distribution, reflecting the difference between the premium charged and actual losses. Many life insurance policies and some…
- Dmoz
- The Open Directory Project. The largest human edited directory on the web.
- DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
- An antiparallel double helix of nucleotides (having deoxyribose as their sugars) linked by phosphodiester (sugar-phosphate) bonds to adjacent nucleotides in the same chain and by hydrogen bonds to complementary nucleotides in the opposite chain. The…
- DNA clone
- A section of DNA that has been inserted into a vector molecule, such as a plasmid or a phage chromosome, and then replicated to form many identical copies. See also clone
- DNA fingerprint
- The largely individual-specific autoradiographic banding pattern produced when DNA is digested with a restriction endonuclease that cuts outside a family of VNTRs, and a Southern blot of the electrophoretic gel is probed with a VNTR-specific probe.
- DNA glycosylase
- endonuclease initiating excision repair at various damaged or improper bases in DNA.
- DNA gyrase
- A topoisomerase that relieves supercoiling in DNA by creating a transient break in the double helix.
- DNA ligase
- An enzyme that closes nicks or discontinuities in one strand of double-stranded DNA by creating an ester bond between adjacent 3' OH and 5' PO4 ends on the same strand.
- DNA marker
- Any unique DNA sequence which can be used in hybridization, PCR or restriction mapping experiments to identify that sequence. See expressed sequence tag and sequence tagged site.
- DNA polymerase
- An enzyme that can synthesize new DNA strands using a DNA template; several such enzymes exist. One of several classes of enzymes that polymerize DNA nucleotides using single or double-stranded DNA as a template
- DNA-DNA hybridization
- When DNA is heated to denaturation temperatures to form single strands and then cooled double helices will re-form (renaturation) at regions of sequence complementarity. This technique is useful for determining sequence similarity among DNAs of different…
- DNA-RNA hybridization
- When a mixture of DNA and RNA is heated to denaturation temperatures to form single strands and then cooled RNA can hybridize (form a double helix) with DNA that has a complementary nucleotide sequence. Useful for determining relationships between DNAs and…
- dnase(deoxyribonuclease)
- An enzyme that degrades DNA to nucleotides.
- DNS
- Domain Name System. Internet service that maps Internet domains into corresponding IP addresses. DNS database is distributed and replicated among many DNS servers, so when you change your domain's IP address, the changes take a while to propagate.
- Dobsonian telescope
- a telescope with a simple but stable altazimuth mount that rotates easily
- docking protein
- Responsible for attaching (docking) a ribosome to a membrane by interacting with a signal particle attached to a ribosome destined to be membrane bound.
- Documentarily Qualified
- Refers to an immigrant visa applicant who has: 1) returned Form DS 2001 (from the Instruction Package) to visa-issuing post (or in some cases, to the National Visa Center), OR 2) informed post in another way that he/she has all the documents for his/her…
- Dogs
- Plastic traffic cones placed a certain distance out from the rail during workouts so that the area will be protected from wearing out.
- DOL
- See Department of Labor .
- Dolby® B & C Noise Reduction
- Two systems of noise/hiss reduction invented by Ray Dolby. The systems work by boosting high frequencies during recording (also called encoding) and attenuating the frequencies during playback (also called decoding).
- Dolby® HX Pro Headroom Extension System
- Improves recording performance on tapes by preventing large high frequency signals from overloading the tape. A tape recorded with the HX Pro System can be played on any other cassette deck and still retain the benefits of HX Pro.
- Dolby® Pro Logic® (DPL)
- A processing mode for A/V components and the current standard for handling surround sound soundtracks in a home theatre system. Signal steering and delay are crucial for DPL performance.
- Dolby® Pro-Logic® Surround Sound
- Creates a very realistic soundfield. There are four components: front left channel, front centre channel, front right channel and rear channel. The front centre channel contains mostly dialogue and centre sound effects. The front left and right speakers…
- Dolby® Surround Pro Logic®
- Soundtrack is 4 channels of audio information - left, centre, right and surround matrix, encoded into 2 audio tracks. These 2 tracks are then carried on stereo program sources such as videotapes and TV broadcasts into the home, where they can be decoded to…
- Dolby® Surround Pro Logic® II
- An improved matrix decoding technology that provides better spatiality and directionality on Dolby Surround program material, providing a convincing three-dimensional soundfield on conventional stereo music surroundings.
- dolman sleeve
- Cut as an extension of the bodice, the dolman sleeve is designed without a socket for the shoulder, creating a deep, wide armhole that reaches from the waist to a narrowed wrist. Also called a batwing sleeve.
- Domain name
- location of an entity on the Internet.
- Domain name
- Domain name is an easy-to-remember address that can be translated by DNS into server's IP address. Domain names are hierarchical. Domain's suffix indicates which TLD (top level domain) it belongs to, for example .com, .gov, .org, .net, or .jp. Recently ICANN…
- DOMESTIC INSURANCE COMPANY
- Term used by a state to refer to any company incorporated there.
- Domicile
- Place where a person has his or her principal residence. The person must intend to keep that residence for the foreseeable future. The sponsor of an immigrant must have domicile in the United States before the visa can be issued. This generally means that…
- dominance variance
- Genetic variance at a single locus attributable to dominance of one allele over another.
- dominant
- (1) The fifth degree of the diatonic scale. (2) the triad built on this degree; (3) the key oriented around this degree.
- dominant
- An allele that determines phenotype even when heterozygous. Also the trait controlled by that allele.
- dominant allele
- An allele that expresses its phenotypic effect even when heterozygous with a recessive allele; thus if A is dominant over a, then AA and Aa have the same phenotype.
- dominant phenotype
- The phenotype of a genotype containing the dominant allele; the parental phenotype that is expressed in a heterozygote.
- dominant seventh chord
- A dominant triad with an added seventh degree-for example, G-B-D-F. dotted rhythm The alternation of LONG and short notes, named after the notation used to record them.
- DOMINANT TENEMENT
- A property that includes in its ownership the appurtenant right to use an easement over another person's property for a specific purpose.
- Domino Effect
- There are five key phases within any good job search. If one of these is ignored, the chances are higher for the job search to be unsuccessful. The five phases are: Marketing Preparation Cover Letter Resume Interviewing Skills Follow-up
- Dong Quai
- Traditional Chinese herb used to treat menopausal symptoms and menstrual irregularity.
- Doorway domain
- a domain used specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main domain.
- Doorway page
- a page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content.
- Doppler effect
- the change in wavelength of radiation coming from a source that’s moving toward or away from an observer; produces either a blueshift or redshift