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acronym

  IANA : Internet Assigned Numbers Authority : an organization that oversees IP address, Top-level domain (ccTLD) and Internet protocol code point allocations.

Latin                    abbreviation

  ibid. : ibidem : in the same place

Latin                    abbreviation

  id. : idem : the same
    identical : the same, exactly alike.
    idiom : a phrase that must be taken as a hole because it usually has a meaning that is not clear or does not follow from the meaning and the arrangement of the individual words in the phrase, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use; e.g., change of heart (a great alteration in one's attitude or feelings), take in stride (to meet happenings without too much surprise; accept good or bad luck and go on), kick the bucket (to die).

Latin                    abbreviation

  i.e. : id est : that is

acronym

 

IEF : Index of Economic Freedom : published from 1995 jointly by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, this influential index have tracked the march of economic freedom around the world. The Index covers 10 freedoms – from property rights to entrepreneurship – in 161 countries. For the first time, the 2007 edition also analyzes regions to showcase the freest economies in every part of the world.

The ten economic freedoms: (1) business freedom, (2) trade freedom, (3 )fiscal freedom, (4) freedom from government, (5) monetary freedom, (6) investment freedom, (7) financial freedom, (8) property rights, (9) freedom from corruption, and (10) labor freedom; for the methodology of their indexing see    http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/downloads.cfm#chap3

    illuminant : that which illuminates or affords light; example: the candle was formerly the chief illuminant.
    image (picture, graphic) : an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject, usually a physical object or a person; may be two-dimensional (e.g. a photograph) or three dimensional (e.g. a statue); in the broader sense any two-dimensional figure or illustration, e.g. a map or a graph, when synonyms picture and graphic are used more often.

computing & web

  image, binary : a raster image that has only two possible values for each pixel. raster image

computing & web

  image, digital : a set of digital data composing an image either of picture smallest visual elements, pixels (raster image) or of simple geometrical forms (vector image) or both.

computing & web

  image, raster : also called bitmap image or bitmapped image : a digital image composed as a finite set of digital values representing picture elements, called pixels, and stored in computer memory as a raster map, a two-dimensional array of small integers; compare with  vector image where data set represent simple geometrical forms. Each pixel of an image is typically associated to a specific 'position' in some 2D region, and has a value consisting of one or more quantities related to that position. Digital images are usually classified according to the number and nature of those quantities, e.g. binary (bilevel), grayscale, or color. The quality of a raster image is determined by the total number of pixels (resolution), and the amount of information in each pixel (often called color depth). The color of each pixel is individually defined; RGB images, for instance, consist of pixels defined by three bytes: one byte each for red, green and blue.

computing & web

  image, vector : a digital image composed of simple geometrical forms (objects) such as points, lines, curves, and polygons; the data set of a vector image consists of mathematical formulas defining these geometrical forms; compare with  raster image  where data set is a representation of a collection of pixels (or dots, in printing). The main advantage of a vector image is that the parameters of objects can be geometrically modified; this means that moving, scaling, rotating, mirroring, stretching, skewing, filling etc. does not degrade the quality of a drawing, which is essential in computer graphical modeling. For example, in computer fonts, such as True Type, each letter is created from Bézier curves which allow well defined resizing.

NOTE: the vector image preceded the raster image, as from 1950's to 80's an electron beam of the CRT display monitor was tracing out the shapes required, line segment by line segment, with the rest of the screen remaining black; however, today's monitors and printers compose raster images and translate vector representations of an image to a raster format.

economics & business acronym

  IMF : International Monetary Fund : the international organization entrusted with overseeing the global financial system by monitoring foreign exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering technical and financial assistance. The IMF describes itself as: "an organization of 184 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty".

Internet lingo

  IMHO : in my humble opinion
    immigration : in-migration; moving to or settling in another country or geographical region; an immigrant is someone who intends to reside permanently, and not a casual visitor or traveler.

Internet lingo

  IMO : in my opinion

botany & gardening

  imparipinnate (oddly pinnate) : a pinnate with an odd (single) terminal leaflet.
    imperial units (of measurement) : the units of the British Imperial system, adopted by Parliament in 1828. The basic units of the system are the foot, the avoirdupois pound, and the pint. In Canada, the term ‘imperial’ is used frequently (e.g. ‘Imperial gallon’) to distinguish the British Imperial units from the corresponding US units.

adj.

  incipient  : in its early stages; in the first stages of existence, as in 'the incipient stage of a fever'; beginning; commencing; 

botany & gardening

  incised : with sharp angles between the lobes, as an incised leaf or petal; cut sharply or irregularly.

economics & business

  income : a flow of money, goods or services to any economic agent or unit; such flows can take a variety of forms: labor yields wages, capital yields interest, land yields rent, entrepreneurship yields profit. The concept of income extends more widely than a cash receipt: a person who lives in his own house effectively derives an income in the form of housing consumption worth the rental values of his property.

gardening

  indehiscent : not dehiscent; not opening in a definite manner at maturity (when ripe) to release seeds.

economics & business

  index number : a weighted average of a number of statistical observations of some economic attribute, as a percentage of a similar weighted average calculated for the attribute at an earlier, or base, period; typical economic attributes for which index numbers are calculated are prices and production, the most familiar being the cost-of-living index.

weighted average

meteorology

  Indian summer : an unseasonably warm period near the middle of autumn, usually following a substantial period of cool weather.

economics & business

  inflation : persistent increases in the general level of prices; it can be seen as a devaluing of the worth of money. A crucial feature of inflation is that price rises are sustained; a once-only increase in the rate of value-added tax will immediately put up prices, but this does not represent inflation, unless there are repercussions on prices in periods after the direct effects.

value-added tax

botany & gardening

  inflorescence : the arrangement of a cluster of flowers borne on the same stalk; the arrangement of flowers on the axis of the stalk.
    information : a data selection with the embeded criteria of selection. Data by themselves may have no meaning, and only when interpreted by a set of epistemological criteria (some kind of data processing pattern)  data may take on meaning and become information. People and computers can find patterns in data to perceive information, and information can be used to enhance data processing and human knowledge.

data

epistemology

botany & gardening

  infructescence : the fruiting stage of an inflorescence; in some plants the structure that holds the flowers together persists until the fruit is formed, resulting in a fruiting structure corresponding to inflorescence.

economics & business

  insolvency : the state of a firm when its liabilities, excluding equity capital, exceed its assets; a less stringent definition would be that a firm is insolvent if it is unable to meet its obligations when due for payment.

assets

liabilities

economics & business

  interest : a charge made for the use of borrowed money, levied as a percentage of the amount of the debt; more generally: a right, privilege or share in something, as in common grazing land.

money

debt

physical quantity     symbol: U

  internal energy  : the total of the kinetic and potential energies of the atoms or molecules within a system.
    International System of Units (SI) : A system of measurement units in which the basic quantities are length, time, mass, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, luminous intensity, and abundance; corresponding basic units are meter (m), second (s), kilogram (kg), ampere (A), kelvin (K), candela (cd), and mole (mol). It has been given official status and recommended for universal use by the General Conference on Weights and Measures (1960, 1971).

botany & gardening

  internode : the part of a stem between two successive nodes or knots from which the leaves arise.

economics

  invisible : a term used to describe those items such as financial services, included in the current balance of payments accounts, as distinct from physically visible imports and exports of goods. Invisibles account for about 25% of total international trade and are increasing at a faster rate than visible merchandise. Invisible trade is, however, generally less free from protectionism than visible trade.

botany & gardening

  involucre :a ring of small leaves or bracts, at the base of a flower, flower cluster, or fruit; involucres often resemble calyxes and are found in all composite plants; surrounding several flowers, e.g. the green parts around a dandelion.

computers & web       acronym

  IP : Internet Protocol : the protocol responsible for routing data through many networks, including the Internet. IP adds source and destination addresses to small "packets" of data and sends them out on the network. IP is a connectionless protocol, which means that sending computers do not have to establish connections with receiving computers in the manner of telephone calls. This allows routers to change paths in the middle of forwarding a set of packets if the original path becomes blocked, because the packets do not have to arrive in order or at the same time.

linguistics: phonetics  acronym

IPA : International Phonetic Alphabet : The IPA was first published in 1888 by the Association Phonétique Internationale (International Phonetic Association), a group of French language teachers founded by Paul Passy. The aim of the organization was to devise a system for transcribing the sounds of speech which was independent of any particular language and applicable to all languages. A phonetic script for English created in 1847 by Isaac Pitman and Henry Ellis was used a a model for the IPA.

The current version of the IPA was published in 1993 and updated in 1996. Uses:  in dictionaries to indicate the pronunciation of words; as a basis for creating new writing systems for previously unwritten languages; to transcribe the sounds of languages which are written with non-latin alphabets.

meteorology

  iridescence : brilliant spots or borders of colors in clouds, usually red and green, caused by diffraction of light by small cloud particles. The phenomenon is usually observed in thin cirrus clouds within about 30° of the sun and is characterized by bands of color in the cloud that contour the cloud edges.

acronym

  ISO : International Organization for Standardization : an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from national standards bodies. Founded on Feb. 23, 1947, the organization produces world-wide industrial and commercial standards, the so-called ISO standards. While ISO defines itself as a non-governmental organization, in practice it acts as a consortium with strong links to governments to propagate its standards into law through treaties and national standards. There are currently (fall 2006) 157 members, each of them representing one country.

meteorology

  isobar : a line of equal barometric pressure on a weather map.

isomorphism : a state (or a quality) of being identical or similar in form, shape, or structure; example: crystalline forms of similar composition.

acronym

ISS : International Space Station : 
 
 

UPDATED : 2007-05-12

WEBSITE  EDITOR : Krešimir J. Adamić