ExpertGlossary terms starting with T

2,409 terms

Theater The geographical area outside the continental United States for which a commander of a unified or specified command has been assigned.
Theater Attack Attack on a geographical area outside the continental United States.
Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) System The aggregate TMD C3I and TBMD forces that, in total, provide defense against ballistic missile attacks within an overseas theater of operations.
Theater High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) A ground-based, air transportable interceptor system that will provide wide area defense capability by intercepting longer-range missiles at higher…
Theater Missile (TM) A theater missile (TM) is a ballistic missile (BM), cruise missile (CM), or air- tosurface guided missile (ASM) whose target is within a theater or which…
Theater Missile Defense (TMD) OBSOLETE. The strategies and tactics employed to defend a geographical area outside the continental United States against attack from short-range…
Theater Missile Defense Council (TMDC) A consultative body for considering TMD family of systems planning and programming issues; chaired by an Assistant to the MDA Deputy for Acquisition/TMD…
Theater Missile Defense Ground- Based Radar (TMD-GBR) A ground-based, air transportable sensor that provides search, tracking and discrimination capabilities for the THAAD interceptor system.
Theater Missile Defense Initiative (TMDI) An initiative under which all DoD theater and tactical missile defense activities are carried out.
THEL Tactical High Energy Laser.
thematic data See descriptive data.
Theme A user-defined perspective on a coverage, grid, tin or image geographic data set specified, if applicable, by a coverage name and feature class or data…
theme extraction A type of concept extraction that automatically recognizes significant vocabulary items in text documents to extract the theme or topic of a document.
Theme tour A tour that’s designed around a concept of specific interest to the tour takers, such as history or sports.
Theodolite An instrument used in surveying to measure horizontal and vertical angles with a small telescope that can move in the horizontal and vertical planes.
theophylline A drug used to improve breathing in people who are short of breath. It belongs to the family of drugs called bronchodilators or respiratory smooth muscle…
Theorem an idea accepted or proposed as demonstrable truth; often as part of a general theory.
Theory most logical explanation of an event that occurs in nature.
Theraloc (THAYR-uh-lok) A monoclonal antibody being studied in the treatment of some types of cancer.
therapeutic (THAYR-uh-PYOO-tik) Having to do with treating disease and helping healing take place.
therapeutic agent A compound used for the treatment of a disease or for improving the well-being of an organism. Synonyms: pharmaceutical agent, drug.
therapeutic angiotensin-(1-7) (THAYR-uh-PYOO-tik AN-jee-oh-TEN-sin ...) A substance being studied in the treatment of several types of cancer.
Therapeutic Biological Product A therapeutic biological product is a protein derived from living material (such as cells or tissues) used to treat or cure disease.
Therapeutic cloning The potential use of stem cells to grow, in vitro, tissue or organs for use in transplantation.
Therapeutic Equivalence (TE) Drug products classified as therapeutically equivalent can be substituted with the full expectation that the substituted product will produce the same…
Therapeutic Equivalence (TE) Codes The coding system for therapeutic equivalence evaluations allows users to determine whether FDA has evaluated a particular approved product as…
therapy (THAYR-uh-pee) Treatment.
Therapy for Management (Regimen of Therapy) The treatment of disease by various methods. The key to treating and managing diabetes is controlling the blood glucose concentration…
Therm A unit of heat containing 100,000 British thermal units (Btu).
Thermal A relatively small-scale, rising air current produced when the Earth's surface is heated.
thermal ablation A procedure using heat to remove tissue or a part of the body, or destroy its function.
Thermal Balance Point The point or outdoor temperature where the heating capacity of a heat pump matches the heating requirements of a building.
Thermal barrier A boundary to heat flow. i.e. insulation
Thermal Belt A zone of high nighttime temperatures (and relatively low humidities) that is often experienced within a narrow altitude range on valley sidewalls…
Thermal Capacitance The ability of a material to absorb and store heat for use later.
Thermal cover Vegetative condition, generally with greater than 70% canopy closure and 40 feet in height, that can significantly ameliorate weather effects such as…
Thermal Efficiency A measure of the efficiency of converting a fuel to energy and useful work; useful work and energy output divided by higher heating value of input fuel…
Thermal Energy The energy developed through the use of heat energy.
Thermal Energy Storage The storage of heat energy during power provider off-peak times at night, for use during the next day without incurring daytime peak electric rates.
Thermal Envelope Houses An architectural design (also known as the double envelope house), sometimes called a "house-within-a-house," that employs a double envelope with a…
thermal gel gradient electrophoresis (Abbreviation: TGGE). A method for separating DNA fragments according to their mobility under increasingly denaturing conditions imposed by heat.
Thermal High Area of high pressure that is shallow in vertical extent and produced primarily by cold surface temperatures.
Thermal Imagery Imagery produced by sensing and recording the thermal energy emitted or reflected from the objects, which are imaged.
Thermal inertia The amount of heat energy that must be present in, preserved, or added to a system (in this case, a CSP facility) before it can function as designed.
Thermal Kill The destruction of a target by heating it, using directed energy, to the degree that structural components fail.
Thermal Low Area of low pressure that is shallow in vertical extent and produced primarily by warm surface temperatures.
Thermal Management Technologies/techniques associated with the control and management of thermal energy, its generation, dissipation, and recovery.
Thermal Mass Materials that store heat.
thermal noise The noise generated by thermal agitation of electrons in a conductor. The noise power, P, in watts, is given by P = kTf, where k is Boltzmann's constant…
Thermal Radiation Electromagnetic radiation emitted (in two pulses from a nuclear air burst) from the fireball as a consequence of its very high temperature; it consists…
Thermal Resistance (R-Value) This designates the resistance of a material to heat conduction. The greater the R-value the larger the number.
Thermal resource A facility that produces electricity by using a heat engine to power an electric generator.
Thermal sand Sand used to dissipate heat away from buried electrical cables.
thermal shock Exposure to reduced or increased temperature for a significant period.
Thermal Storage Walls (Masonry or Water) A thermal storage wall is a south-facing wall that is glazed on the outside. Solar heat strikes the glazing and is absorbed into the wall, which conducts…
Thermal stratification The formation of layers of different temperatures in bodies of water. See stratification.
Thermal water A water body (usually a spring or its outflow) that is produced by geothermally heated groundwater.
Thermal Wind It is a theoretical wind that blows parallel to the thickness lines, for the layer considered, analogous to how the geostrophic wind blows parallel to the…
Thermal X-Rays The electromagnetic radiation, mainly in the soft (low energy) x-ray region, emitted by the nuclear weapon residue by virtue of its extremely high…
Thermal-electric powerplant A generating plant which uses heat to create steam driven electricity. Such plants may burn coal, gas, oil, wood, waste; or use nuclear, solar, and…
Thermally Driven Circulation A diurnally reversing closed cellular wind current resulting from horizontal temperature contrasts caused by different rates of heating or cooling over…
Thermistor A resistor whose resistance changes with temperature. Because of the known dependence of resistance on temperature, the resistor can be used as a…
Thermochemical Heat and pressure-based chemical reactions that produce energy. Through gasification (heating biomass by partial oxidation to produce synthesis gas) and…
thermochemical conversion The use of heat to change substances chemically to produce energy products.
Thermochemical conversion process Chemical reactions employing heat to produce fuels.
Thermocline A distinct layer of water where rising warm and sinking cold water meet but do not mix.
Thermocouple A device consisting of two dissimilar conductors with their ends connected together.
Thermodynamic Chart A chart containing contours of pressure, temperature, moisture, and potential temperature, all drawn relative to each other such that basic thermodynamic…
Thermodynamic Cycle An idealized process in which a working fluid (water, air, ammonia, etc) successively changes its state (from a liquid to a gas and back to a liquid) for…
Thermodynamic Diagram Used interchangably with Thermodynamic Chart; a chart containing contours of pressure, temperature, moisture, and potential temperature, all drawn…
thermodynamic temperature A measure, in kelvins (K), proportional to the thermal energy of a given body at equilibrium.
Thermodynamics A study of the transformation of energy from one form to another, and its practical application. (see Law(s) of Thermodynamics above).
Thermoelectric (power) water use Water used in generating electricity with steam-driven turbine generators. Power plants that burn coal and oil are examples of thermoelectric-power…
Thermoelectric Conversion The conversion of heat into electricity by the use of thermocouples.
Thermograph An instrument that measures and records air temperature.
Thermography (ther-MAH-gruh-fee) In medicine, a procedure in which a heat-sensing infrared camera is used to record the surface heat produced by different parts of the…
Thermohaline Circulation Large-scale density-driven circulation in the ocean, caused by differences in temperature and salinity.
thermohaline circulation (THC) density-driven circulation system in the world's oceans. In the Atlantic, warm water flows northward in the surface ocean, loses heat to the overlying…
thermolabile Not resistant to heat, often in the context of a molecule which is unstable upon heating. Opposite: thermostable.
Thermometer An instrument for measuring air temperature.
thermophile An organism which is adapted to high temperatures, such as in hot springs and geysers, smoker vents on the sea floor, and domestic hot water pipes.
Thermophotovoltaic Cell A device where sunlight concentrated onto a absorber heats it to a high temperature, and the thermal radiation emitted by the absorber is used as the…
Thermopile A large number of thermocouples connected in series.
thermosensitivity Loss of biological activity of a molecule at high temperature.
Thermosiphon The natural, convective movement of air or water due to differences in temperature.
Thermosiphon System This passive solar hot water system consists relies on warm water rising, a phenomenon known as natural convection, to circulate water through the…
Thermosphere The atmospheric shell extending from the top of the mesosphere to outer space. It is a region of more or less steadily increasing temperature with height…
thermostable A molecule which retains its biological activity at some specified higher temperature. Opposite: thermolabile.
Thermostat A device used to control temperatures; used to control the operation of heating and cooling devices by turning the device on or off when a specified…
thermotherapy (THER-moh-THAYR-uh-pee) Treatment of disease using heat.
Thesaurus A thesaurus stores synonyms and related words. This allows a search engine to map city planning to land use, for example, and show the relevant pages even…
Theta-e (or Equivalent Potential Temperature) - The temperature a parcel of air would have if a) it was lifted until it became saturated, b) all water vapor was…
Theta-e Ridge An axis of relatively high values of theta-e. Severe weather and excessive rainfall often occur near or just upstream from a theta-e ridge.
THETAE Abbreviation for Theta-e; the temperature a parcel of air would have if a) it was lifted until it became saturated, b) all water vapor was condensed out…
THF Abbreviation for tremendously high frequency. See electromagnetic spectrum.
Thiazolidinediones A class of antidiabetes drugs that enhances the activity of insulin.
Thick arch dam An arch dam with a base thickness to structural height ratio of 0.3 or greater (previously defined as 0.5 or greater).
Thickness or width of dam The thickness or width of a dam as measured horizontally between the upstream and downstream faces and normal to the axis or centerline crest of the dam.
Thiessen polygons Polygons whose boundaries define the area that is closest to each point relative to all other points. Thiessen polygons are generated from a set of points.
thiethylperazine (thy-EH-thul-PAYR-uh-zeen) A drug used to prevent or reduce nausea and vomiting. It belongs to the families of drugs called antiemetics and phenothiazines.