ExpertGlossary terms starting with B

2,026 terms

Bunchgrass A grass having a bunched growth form and lacking rhizomes.
bundle A group of related modules on "CPAN". (Also, sometimes refers to a group of command-line switches grouped into one "switch cluster".)
bundling A commonly used term for creating an Amazon Machine Image. It specifically refers to creating Amazon S3-backed AMIs.
Bunker Adjustment Factor (BAF) A charge sometimes added to steamship freight rates; justified by higher fuel costs.
Bunker fuel Fuel supplied to ships and aircraft for international transportation, irrespective of the flag of the carrier, consisting primarily of residual and…
Buoy weather station Buoy weather station A buoy, either fixed or floating, which carries instruments for sensing various meteorological elements and for transmitting the data…
Buoyancy The tendency of a body to float or to rise when submerged in a fluid; the power of a fluid to exert an upward force on a body placed in it.
buoyant density The intrinsic density which a molecule, virus or sub-cellular particle has when suspended in an aqueous solution of a salt, such as CsCl, or a sugar, such…
bupivacaine (byoo-PIV-uh-kane) A drug used to relieve pain by blocking signals at nerve endings.
bupivacaine hydrochloride (byoo-PIV-uh-kane HY-droh-KLOR-ide) A drug used to relieve pain by blocking signals at nerve endings.
Buprenorphine A mixed opiate agonist/antagonist medication approved by the FDA in October 2002 for the treatment of opioid addiction (e.g., heroin).
bupropion (byoo-PRO-pee-ON) A substance that is used to treat depression, and to help people quit smoking. It belongs to the family of drugs called antidepressants.
BUR Bottom-Up Review.
Burden In blasting, the distance between the free face and the first row of holes or the distance between rows of holes parallel to the face.
Burden of proof In the law of evidence, the necessity or duty of affirmatively proving a fact or facts in dispute on an issue raised between the parties in a lawsuit.
burdock A plant whose seeds and root have been used in some cultures to treat certain medical problems. It may have antioxidant effects.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) A federal law enforcement agency that investigates cases involving alleged violations of federal gun laws, arson, illegal use of explosives, and illegal…
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) The Bureau of Indian Affairs' mission is to enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect…
Bureau of Land Management An agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior that is responsible for managing public lands.
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) The Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, administers 264 million acres of America's public lands, located…
Bureau of Prisons Responsible for operating and developing correctional institutions for federal criminal defendants who are ordered into the custody of the Attorney…
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR, Reclamation, BOR) The mission of the Bureau of Reclamation is to manage, develop, and protect water and related resources in an environmentally and economically sound…
buried cable See direct-buried cable.
buried plant See direct-buried cable.
Burkitt leukemia (BER-kit loo-KEE-mee-uh) A rare, fast-growing type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many white blood cells called B lymphocytes form in the blood…
Burkitt lymphoma (BER-kit lim-FOH-muh) An aggressive (fast-growing) type of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma that occurs most often in children and young adults.
Burn Slang for making (burning) a CD-ROM copy of data, whether it is music, software, or other data.
Burn Card The first card of a new deck after the shuffle and cut. The card is discarded and placed on the bottom of the deck.
Burn Cards Remove cards from the top of the deck and place them in the discard tray after a shuffle and cut.
Burn Rate The monthly rate at which a contractors funds are expended during the period of the contract.
Burn-Through Range The distance at which specific radar can discern targets through the external interference being received.
Burner Capacity The maximum heat output (in Btu per hour) released by a burner with a stable flame and satisfactory combustion.
Burning Point The temperature at which a material ignites.
Burnout The point in time or in the missile trajectory when combustion of fuels in the rocket engine is terminated by other than programmed cutoff.
burr hole A small opening in the skull made with a surgical drill.
Burrow A hole made by an animal, usually for shelter or to move through by digging.
bursitis (ber-SY-tis) Inflammation (swelling, pain, and warmth) of a bursa. A bursa is a flat, fluid-filled sac found between a bone and a tendon or muscle.
Burst In solar-terrestrial terms, a transient enhancement of the solar radio emission, usually associated with an active region or flare.
burst isochronous Deprecated synonym for isochronous burst transmission.
burst switching In a packet-switched network, a switching capability in which each network switch extracts routing instructions from an incoming packet header to…
burst transmission Transmission that combines a very high data signaling rate with very short transmission times. 2.
BURT Bug Reporting Tool. The internal system used by Network Appliance for tracking bugs in NetApp products as well as requests for enhancements or new…
Bus A parallel circuit that connects the major components of a computer, allowing the transfer of electric impulses from one connected component to any other.
Bus (buswork) A conductor, or group of conductors, that serve as a common connection for two or more electrical circuits.
Bus (electrical) An electrical conductor that serves as a common connection for two or more electrical circuits; may be in the form of rigid bars or stranded conductors or…
Bus Deployment Phase That portion of a missile flight during which multiple warheads are deployed on different paths to different targets (also referred to as the post-boost…
bus interface unit (BIU) See network interface device.
Bus Mastering The ability to process SCSI commands on the SCSI card due to its built-in processor without using the system's CPU.
bus network See network topology.
bus topology See network topology.
Busbar The power conduit of an electric power plant; the starting point of the electric transmission system.
Busbar Cost The cost of producing electricity up to the point of the power plant busbar.
buserelin An anticancer drug that belongs to the family of drugs called gonadotropin-releasing hormones.
Bush, Vannevar WWII scientist who wrote a seminal research paper on the concepts of hypertext and a memory extension device titled As We May Think.
business A continuous and regular activity that has income or profit as its primary purpose.
Business and Economic Development Economic activities or employment. For example, resources describing labor, revenue, commerce, industry, and specialized incentive areas.
business and industrial development corporation A business and industrial development corporation is one form of organization for lenders participating in the loan guarantee programs of the federal…
business archives accumulated records of a company maintained and preserved for their enduring value to document the history of that company See also archives.
Business bankruptcy A proceeding under the Bankruptcy Code filed by a business entity.
business continuity An organization's ability to continue to operate in the event of a disaster or disruption See also disaster recovery plan.
Business Continuity Plan (BCP) The documentation of a predetermined set of instructions or procedures that describe how an organizations business functions will be sustained during and…
Business current transfer payments (net) Net payments by businesses to persons, government, and the rest of the world for which no current services are performed.
Business current transfer payments to government (net) Consists of payments to the Federal government in the form of premiums for deposit insurance, fees for regulatory and inspection activities, and fines…
Business current transfer payments to persons (net) Consists of net insurance settlements and income payments by businesses to persons for which no current services are performed.
Business current transfer payments to the rest of the world (net) Net insurance settlements paid to the rest of the world as policyholders. Excludes taxes paid by domestic corporations to foreign governments.
Business Day Any day on which offices of a bank are open to the public for carrying on substantially all of the bank's business.
Business Impact Analysis (BIA) An analysis of an information technology (IT) systems requirements, processes, and interdependencies used to characterize system contingency requirements…
business incubator A program that assists entrepreneurs to develop a business. The primary features are flexible and affordable space, access to shared office services…
business logic The code that implements the functionality of an application. In the Enterprise JavaBeans architecture, this logic is implemented by the methods of an…
business method A method of an enterprise bean that implements the business logic or rules of an application.
business opportunity The sale or lease of products, equipment, supplies or services to enable a person to start his or her own business.
Business Process Outsourcing Business process outsourcing occurs when an organization turns over the management of a business function, such as accounts payable, purchasing, payroll…
Business Recovery Service Service provided by a vendor to host the backup systems needed to run mission critical applications following a disaster.
Business Recovery-Resumption Plan (BRP) The documentation of a predetermined set of instructions or procedures that describe how business processes will be restored after a significant…
Business sector All corporate and noncorporate private entities organized for profit and certain other entities that are treated as businesses in the national income and…
Business, professional, and technical services transactions See Business, professional, and technical services transactions (BPT)
Business, professional, and technical services transactions (BPT) Transactions covering a wide range of private services sold to or purchased from foreigners, such as advertising, telecommunications, computer and data…
Business.com A well trusted directory of business websites and information. Business.com is also a large pay per click arbitrage player. See also: Business.com
buspirone (byoo-SPY-rone) A drug that is used to treat certain anxiety disorders. It belongs to the family of drugs called antianxiety agents.
Bust To get a total greater than 21. Automatically a loss.
Bust/Break To exceed the total of twenty-one.
busulfan An anticancer drug that belongs to the family of drugs called alkylating agents.
busy back Deprecated term. See busy signal.
busy hour In a communications system, the sliding 60-minute period during which occurs the maximum total traffic load in a given 24-hour period.
busy season During a 1-year cycle, the period of 3 consecutive months having the highest busy hour traffic.
busy signal In telephony, an audible or visual signal that indicates that no transmission path to the called number is available. Synonym busy tone. 2.
busy test In telephony, a test made to determine whether certain facilities, such as a subscriber line or a central office trunk, are available for use.
busy tone Synonym busy signal.
busy verification In a public switched telephone network, a network-provided service feature that permits an attendant to verify the busy or idle state of station lines and…
Butane A gas derived from natural gas. Used as a component of gasoline. Used in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic and industrial applications.
Butanol or butyl alcohol An alcohol with the chemical formula CH3(CH2)3OH. It is formed during anaerobic fermentation using bacteria to convert the sugars to butanol and carbon…
buthionine sulfoximine A drug that may help prevent resistance to some anticancer drugs.
Butt joint (open joint) In pipe, flat ends that meet but do not overlap.
Butt log The log taken from the base of a tree; often slightly irregular.
Butterfly valve A valve designed for quick closure that consists of a circular leaf, slightly convex in form, mounted on a transverse shaft carried by two bearings.
Button A white acrylic disk that indicates the (nominal) dealer. Also used to refer to the player on the button. Example: "Oh, the button raised."
button bar In the Notes client, the bar that displays actions as buttons. Actions let users click to accomplish tasks, from mimicking the Notes menus to tasks…
Buttress See "Berm".
Buttress Dam A dam consisting of a watertight upstream part (such as a concrete sloping slab) supported at intervals on the downstream side by a series of buttresses…
Buy (1) As in "buy the pot." To bluff, hoping to "buy" the pot without being called. (2) As in "buy the button.