ExpertGlossary terms starting with R

2,379 terms

Retaliation Retaliation includes intimidating, threatening, restraining, coercing, blacklisting, discharging, or discriminating in any other manner against a worker…
retch (RECH) The action of the stomach and esophagus to try to vomit (eject some or all of the contents of the stomach).
Retensioning The process where a tape is unspooled onto a take-up reel and then rewound at a controlled tension and speed.
retention to keep and maintain a record for its useful life. See short-term retention; long-term retention; mid-term retention; and permanent retention.
retention period Generally speaking, the precinct election records must be preserved by the authority to whom they are distributed: (1) in an election involving a federal…
retention program A system established and maintained to define retention periods for records in an organization
retention schedule See Records Retention Schedule.
reticulocyte A slightly immature red blood cell.
Retin-A A topical preparation of tretinoin that is used to treat acne. Tretinoin is a form of vitamin A.
Retin-A-Micro A topical preparation of tretinoin that is used to treat acne. Tretinoin is a form of vitamin A.
retina (RET-ih-nuh) The light-sensitive layers of nerve tissue at the back of the eye that receive images and sends them as electric signals through the optic…
Retinal damage Damage to photoreceptor cells of the retina. One mechanism for such damage is exposure to bright light that triggers chemical reactions in the tissues…
Retinal Hemorrhage Abnormal bleeding of the blood vessels in the retina, the membrane in the back of the eye.
retinoblastoma (REH-tih-noh-blas-TOH-muh) Cancer that forms in the tissues of the retina (the light-sensitive layers of nerve tissue at the back of the eye).
Retinoic acid (REH-tih-NOH-ik A-sid) A form of vitamin A that is made by the body, and can also be made in the laboratory.
retinoid Vitamin A or a vitamin A-like compound.
retinol (REH-tih-nol) An active form of vitamin A found in animal foods such as liver, whole eggs, and whole milk. Also called vitamin A.
retinopathy See diabetic eye disease.
retinyl palmitate A drug that is being studied in the prevention of cancer. It belongs to the family of drugs called retinoids.
Retirement Accounts An account that helps you plan for your retirement. It is also the best way to save for tomorrow.
Retirement Annuity A monthly annuity payable to a member or his designated beneficiary. Retirement Systems This is the informal name used by the South Carolina Retirement…
Retirement Benefit (Pension) A payment or series of payments made to you after you retire from work. Generally, the amount of your income from a pension or retirement account…
Retractable Awning An awning attached to a frame which allows it to be extended out or folded or rolled back tight against the building façade
retransmission buffer Storage in the signaling link control for signal units that have been transmitted but not yet positively acknowledged. [T1.226-1992]
retrieval The process of locating and withdrawing a record from a filing system or records center The action of accessing information from stored data on a computer…
retrieval (of documentary material) The process of locating material, getting material from storage and preparing them for presentation or output.
retrieval ratio time required to locate a record, which is determined by dividing the total minutes used to retrieve items by the total number of requests
retrieval service In interactive telecommunications, a service allowing access to and retrieval of stored information, e.g., the information within a database.
retro-element Any of the integrated retrovirus es or the transposable elements that resemble them.
Retrofit The process of modifying a building's structure.
Retrofit Action Action taken to modify in-service equipment.
Retrofitting The application of conservation, efficiency, or renewable energy technologies to existing structures.
Retrograde Orbit An orbit having inclination of 0 to 90 degrees (See Prograde Orbit).
Retrogression (or Retrograde Motion) - Movement of a weather system in a direction opposite to that of the basic flow in which it is embedded, usually referring to a…
retromolar trigone (reh-troh-MOH-ler TRY-gone) The small area behind the wisdom teeth.
retroperitoneal (REH-troh-PAYR-ih-toh-NEE-ul) Having to do with the area outside or behind the peritoneum (the tissue that lines the abdominal wall and covers most of the…
retroposon A transposable element that moves via reverse transcription but lacks the long terminal repeat sequences necessary for autonomous transposition.
retropubic prostatectomy (reh-troh-PYOO-bik PROS-tuh-TEK-toh-mee) Surgery to remove the prostate through an incision made in the wall of the abdomen.
Retrospective Looking back at events that have already taken place.
retrospective cohort study A research study in which the medical records of groups of individuals who are alike in many ways but differ by a certain characteristic (for example…
retrospective study A study that compares two groups of people: those with the disease or condition under study (cases) and a very similar group of people who do not have the…
Retroviral infection The presence of retroviral vectors, such as some viruses, which use their recombinant DNA to insert their genetic material into the chromosomes of the…
retroviral vector RNA from a virus that is used to insert genetic material into cells.
retroviral vectors Gene transfer systems based on viruses that have RNA as their genetic material.
retrovirus (REH-troh-VY-rus) A type of virus that has RNA instead of DNA as its genetic material.
Return Your return is the profit or loss you have on your investments, including income and change in value.
Return Air Air that is returned to a heating or cooling appliance from a heated or cooled space.
Return Duct The central heating or cooling system contains a fan that gets its air supply through these ducts, which ideally should be installed in every room of the…
Return Flow Drainage water from irrigated farmlands that re-enters the water system to be used further downstream.
Return Item A negotiable instrument—principally a check—that has been sent to one bank for collection and payment and is returned unpaid by the sending bank.
return loss The ratio, at the junction of a transmission line and a terminating impedance or other discontinuity, of the amplitude of the reflected wave to the…
return material authorization (RMA) Paperwork for returning a product to the manufacturer.
Return On Average Common Equity Net income available to common stockholders, as a percentage of average common stockholder equity.
Return on equity Return on equity (ROE) measures how much a company earns within a specific period in relation to the amount that's invested in its common stock.
Return on investment Your return on investment (ROI) is the profit you make on the sale of a security or other asset divided by the amount of your investment, expressed as an…
Return on investment (ROI) The interest rate at which the net present value of a project is zero. Multiple values are possible.
Return on Investments (ROI) In general, a concept used in business planning to determine the profit earned in relation to the value of the capital required to prduce the profit.
Return premium The premium returned to an insured for canceling or amending a policy.
return statement A statement used to terminate the execution of a method. A method with void return type may only have return statements of the following form return; A…
Return Stroke An electrical discharge that propagates upward along a lightning channel from the ground to the cloud.
Return Supervision Signaling which responds to an incoming request for service or change of status.
return type The declared type of a method, appearing immediately before the method name, such as void in public static void main(String[] args) or Point[] in public…
return value The value of the expression used in a return statement.
Return-flow system (reuse system) A system of pipelines or ditches to collect and convey surface or subsurface runoff from an irrigated field for reuse.
return-to-zero (RZ) A digital code having two information states, e.g., "0" and "1" or "mark" and "yyspace", in which code the signal returns to a rest state during a portion…
Returned payment This is a payment that you make to us that is not honored by your financial institution.
Returning Residents Lawful permanent residents who want to return to the United States after staying abroad more than one year or beyond the expiration of their re-entry…
Reuse The reclamation of water diverted from a municipal or industrial wastewater conveyance system.
Revalidation or Renewal of a Visa Nonimmigrant visa applicants who currently have a visa, and are seeking renewal or revalidation of their visa for future travel to the U.S.
Reveal The side of an opening for a door or window between the frame and the outer surface of a wall, showing the wall’s thickness.
Revenue Revenue is the money you collect for providing a product or service. Revenue is different from earnings, which is what's left of your revenue after…
Revenue bond Revenue bonds are municipal bonds issued to finance public projects, such as airports and roadways.
revenue tariff A tax on imported goods levied primarily to generate revenue for the federal government.
reversal transfer Transfer of a culture from a callus-supporting medium to a shoot-inducing medium.
Reverse An action of a higher court in setting aside or revoking a lower court decision.
Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) A way of converting Ethernet addresses to IP addresses.
Reverse annuity A type of mortgage, designed for elderly homeowners with substantial equity, by which a lender periodically (monthly, for example) pays an amount to the…
reverse annuity mortgage A type of mortgage loan in which the lender makes periodic payments to the borrower. The borrower's equity in the home is used as security for the loan.
Reverse Engineering The process of analyzing a system to identify its intricacies and their interrelationships, and create depictions of the system in another form or at a…
Reverse genetics Using linkage analysis and polymorphic markers to isolate a disease gene in the absence of a known metabolic defect, then using the DNA sequence of the…
Reverse Index An index of keywords which stores records of matching documents that contain those keywords.
Reverse Martingale Betting System when using the Martingale betting system in reveres by doubling up after each win and not after loss.
Reverse merger In a reverse merger, a privately held company purchases a publicly held company and, as part of the new entity, becomes public without an initial public…
Reverse Mortgage A reverse mortgage is a special home loan product that allows a homeowner aged 62 or older the ability to access the equity that has accumulated in their…
Reverse Mortgage (HECM) The reverse mortgage is used by senior homeowners age 62 and older to convert the equity in their home into monthly streams of income and/or a line of…
reverse mutation See: reversion.
reverse proxy A specific deployment of a proxy server as a front-end accelerator between the origin servers and the incoming user connections.
reverse proxy server A reverse proxy server is similar to a regular proxy server used for outbound network traffic except that it relays connection requests for inbound…
Reverse Repurchase Agreement A customer sells a group of securities to a broker-dealer under the provision that the customer will buy them back by a predetermined date for a specific…
Reverse stock split If a company's stock is trading at a low price, the company may decide to reduce the number of existing shares and increase their price by consolidating…
Reverse Thermosiphoning When heat seeks to flow from a warm area (e.g., heated space) to a cooler area, such as a solar air collector at night without a reverse flow damper.
Reverse transcriptase An enzyme that uses an RNA molecule as a template for the synthesis of a complementary DNA strand. Synonym: RNA -dependent DNA polymerase.
Reverse transcriptase (RNA-dependent DNA polymerase) An enzyme isolated from retrovirus-infected cells that synthesizes a complementary (c)DNA strand from an RNA template.
Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) A laboratory technique that can detect and quantify the amount of HIV (viral load) in a person's blood or lymph nodes.
reverse transcription (ree-VERS tran-SKRIP-shun) In biology, the process in cells by which an enzyme makes a copy of DNA from RNA.
reverse-battery signaling Loop signaling in which battery and ground are reversed on the tip and ring of the loop to give an "off-hook" signal when the call receiver answers.
Reversible Alteration An alteration in which the altered feature can be readily returned to its appearance prior to the alteration.
Reversible error A procedural error during a trial or hearing sufficiently harmful to justify reversing the judgment of a lower court.
reversible public key cryptography An asymmetric cryptographic algorithm whereby (a) messages encrypted using the public key can only be decrypted by using the private key, and (b) data…
Reversing Valve A component of a heat pump that reverses the refrigerant's direction of flow, allowing the heat pump to switch from cooling to heating or heating to…