ExpertGlossary terms starting with O

1,317 terms

  1. opioid growth factor (OH-pee-OYD grohth FAK-ter) A substance made by the body and in the laboratory. It is being studied in the treatment of cancer.
  2. OPK A set of tools, documentation, and samples that enable OEMs to preinstall Windows efficiently on new computers according to the terms of the OEM Licensing…
  3. OPLA Office of Patent Legal Administration
  4. OPLAN Operation Plan.
  5. OPM Office of Personnel Management - an agency of the U. S. Government
  6. OPNAV Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
  7. OPNAVINST Chief of Naval Operations Instruction.
  8. OPNS Operations.
  9. OPO Optical Parametric Oscillation.
  10. OPORD Operation Order.
  11. OPP Other Physical Principles.
  12. opportunistic infection An infection caused by an organism that does not normally cause disease. Opportunistic infections occur in people with weakened immune systems.
  13. Opportunistic Infection (OI) or Opportunistic Condition An infection or cancer that occurs in persons with weak immune systems due to HIV, cancer, or immunosuppressive drugs such as corticosteroids or…
  14. Opportunity cost The cost of passing up on investment in favor of another.
  15. Opposition A procedure available in most countries (but not the U.S.) whereby a third party may request that a patent not issue or that an issued patent be…
  16. opposition proceeding a proceeding before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in which the plaintiff seeks to prevent the issuance of a registration of a mark.
  17. OPR Formerly, Office of Public Records; now known as Public Records Division (PRD)
  18. oprelvekin (oh-PREL-vuh-KIN) A drug used to increase the number of blood cells, especially platelets, in some cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.
  19. OPS Operations.
  20. OPSDEPS Service Operations Deputies.
  21. OPSEC Operations Security.
  22. OPSMOD Operations Module.
  23. OpsWorks A deployment service that allows DevOps to model and manage anything from load balancers to databases.
  24. OPT-80 A substance being studied in the treatment of diarrhea caused by infection with Clostridium difficile (a type of bacteria that can grow without oxygen) in…
  25. Opt-In Giving your credit card company or bank permission to include you in a particular service.
  26. Opt-out Declining a particular service offered by your bank.
  27. OPTEC Operational Test and Evaluation Command, Alexandria, VA. (U.S. Army)
  28. OPTEMPO Operating Tempo.
  29. OPTEVFOR Operational Test and Evaluation Force. (U.S. Navy)
  30. Optic Cobra CENTCOM Joint TMD Warfighter Exercise.
  31. Optic Needle EUCOM Joint TMD Warfighter Exercise.
  32. optic nerve The nerve that carries messages from the retina to the brain.
  33. optic pathway glioma (...glee-OH-muh) A rare, slow-growing tumor that usually forms in the optic nerve, optic chiasm, or optic tract.
  34. Optical Airborne Measurement Program (OAMP) A program involving an aircraft-mounted research platform to conduct surveillance experiments that can be used to design future defensive systems.
  35. optical amplifier See fiber amplifier, optical repeater.
  36. optical attenuator In optical communications, a device used to reduce the power level of an optical signal.
  37. optical axis Of a refractive or reflective optical element, the straight line that is coincident with the axis of symmetry of the surfaces.
  38. optical beamsplitter See beamsplitter.
  39. optical cable See fiber optic cable.
  40. optical cable assembly See cable assembly.
  41. optical carrier level 1 (OC-1) The optical signal that results from an optical conversion of an synchronous transport signal 1 (STS-1 signal).
  42. optical cavity A region bounded by two or more mirrors that are aligned to provide multiple reflections of lightwaves.
  43. optical character reader (OCR) A device used for optical character recognition.
  44. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Optical character recognition is a technology which takes data from a paper document and turns it editable text data. The document is first scanned.
  45. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) The automatic recognition and interpretation of text.
  46. Optical Coating Layers of materials that alter/protect the physical/electronic properties of the material to which they are applied.
  47. optical conductor Deprecated synonym for optical fiber.
  48. optical connector A demountable device for attaching a cabled or uncabled optical fiber to another, or to an active device such as a transmitter.
  49. optical coupler See directional coupler, star coupler, T-coupler.
  50. optical density (OD) For a given wavelength, an expression of the transmittance of an optical element.
  51. optical depth A measure of how much light airborne particles, whether aersols, cloud droplets, or ice particles, prevent from passing through a column of atmosphere.
  52. optical detector A transducer that generates an output signal when irradiated with optical energy.
  53. Optical Discs Computer media similar to a compact disc that cannot be rewritten. An optical drive uses a laser to read the stored data.
  54. optical disk A digital data storage technology that uses optical media to store information.
  55. optical dispersion See dispersion.
  56. optical fiber A filament of transparent dielectric material, usually glass or plastic, and usually circular in cross section, that guides light.
  57. optical fiber cable See fiber optic cable.
  58. optical fiber coating See primary coating.
  59. optical fiber jacket See sheath.
  60. optical fiber link See fiber optic link.
  61. optical fiber nuclear hardening Design allowances made to prevent or ameliorate the effects of gamma or high-energy neutron radiation or bombardment, that causes some optical fibers to…
  62. optical fiber transfer function See transfer function.
  63. optical fiber waveguide See optical fiber.
  64. optical fiber, conductive See OFC.
  65. optical fiber, conductive, plenum See OFCP.
  66. optical fiber, conductive, riser See OFCR.
  67. optical fiber, nonconductive See OFN.
  68. optical fiber, nonconductive, plenum See OFNP.
  69. optical fiber, nonconductive, riser See OFNR.
  70. optical filter In the optical regime, an element that selectively transmits or blocks a range of wavelengths, polarizations, etc., or selectively displaces a beam, e.g.
  71. optical heterodyning See optical mixing.
  72. optical interconnection In an integrated circuit or electronic module, the use of opto-electronic devices to make or facilitate connections, in lieu of a direct connection…
  73. optical interface In a fiber optic communications link, a point at which an optical signal is passed from one equipment or medium to another without conversion to an…
  74. optical isolator A device that uses a short optical transmission path to accomplish electrical isolation between elements of a circuit.
  75. Optical Jukebox See Jukebox.
  76. optical junction Any physical interface in a fiber optic system. Note: Source to fiber, fiber to fiber, fiber to detector, beam to prism (or lens), fiber to lens, lens to…
  77. optical line code Sequences of optical pulses suitably structured to permit information transfer over an optical link.
  78. optical line pair 1. In optical measurements or specifications, a pair of usually straight contiguous stripes of equal width and having a defined degree of contrast, and…
  79. optical link An optical transmission channel, including any repeaters or regenerative repeaters, designed to connect two electronic or opto-electronic communications…
  80. optical mixing Optical beating, i.e., the mixing, i.e., heterodyning, of two lightwaves (incoming signal and local oscillator) in a nonlinear device to produce a beat…
  81. optical modulator Any device used to modify any characteristic of an optical signal (lightwave) for the purpose of conveying information.
  82. optical multiplexing See wavelength-division multiplexing.
  83. optical network unit (ONU) A network element that is part of a fiber-in-the-loop system interfacing the customer analog access cables and the fiber facilities. [T1.508-1998]
  84. optical path length In a medium of constant refractive index, n, the product of the geometric distance and the refractive index. 2.
  85. optical path power penalty The extra optical power required to account for degradations due to reflections, intersymbol interference, and mode partition noise. [T1.646-1995]
  86. optical power See radiant power.
  87. optical power budget In a fiber-optic communication link, the allocation of available optical power (launched into a given fiber by a given source) among various…
  88. optical power margin In an optical communications link, the difference between (a) the optical power that is launched by a given transmitter into the fiber, less transmission…
  89. Optical Processing A type of analog processing, in which the behavior of light beams, passed through optical systems, is used in problem solving.
  90. optical receiver A device that detects an optical signal, converts it to an electrical signal, and processes the electrical signal as required for further use.
  91. optical regenerator See optical repeater.
  92. optical repeater In an optical communication system, an optoelectronic device or module that receives an optical signal, amplifies it (or, in the case of a digital signal…
  93. optical return loss (ORL) The ratio (in dB) of optical power arriving at the interface (P1) to the optical power reflected back from the same interface (P2). [T1.106-1988]
  94. Optical Scan Ballot A ballot designed to be used in a voting system that uses an optical scanner to read the marked ballots, which are made of paper and marked by using an…
  95. optical scanner An input device that scans paper or another medium to a digital image (e.g., TIFF and EPS) that can be stored, displayed, and manipulated on a computer
  96. optical section The part of the physical plant consisting of the fiber-optic cabling and connectors interconnected to provide the transport function between two adjacent…
  97. optical source In optical communications, a device that converts an electrical signal into an optical signal.
  98. optical spectrum By custom and practice, the electromagnetic spectrum between the wavelengths of the vacuum ultraviolet at 0.001 m and the far infrared at 100 m.
  99. optical splitter See directional coupler.
  100. optical switch A switch that enables signals in optical fibers or integrated optical circuits (IOCs) to be selectively switched from one circuit to another.