Capital punishmentCapital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution.
Optimal stoppingIn mathematics, the theory of optimal stopping or early stopping is concerned with the problem of choosing a time to take a particular action, in order to maximise an expected reward or minimise an expected cost. Optimal stopping problems can be found in areas of statistics, economics, and mathematical finance (related to the pricing of American options). A key example of an optimal stopping problem is the secretary problem. Optimal stopping problems can often be written in the form of a Bellman equation, and are therefore often solved using dynamic programming.
Robust regressionIn robust statistics, robust regression seeks to overcome some limitations of traditional regression analysis. A regression analysis models the relationship between one or more independent variables and a dependent variable. Standard types of regression, such as ordinary least squares, have favourable properties if their underlying assumptions are true, but can give misleading results otherwise (i.e. are not robust to assumption violations).
ParameterA parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when identifying the system, or when evaluating its performance, status, condition, etc. Parameter has more specific meanings within various disciplines, including mathematics, computer programming, engineering, statistics, logic, linguistics, and electronic musical composition.
Statistical parameterIn statistics, as opposed to its general use in mathematics, a parameter is any measured quantity of a statistical population that summarises or describes an aspect of the population, such as a mean or a standard deviation. If a population exactly follows a known and defined distribution, for example the normal distribution, then a small set of parameters can be measured which completely describes the population, and can be considered to define a probability distribution for the purposes of extracting samples from this population.
Scale parameterIn probability theory and statistics, a scale parameter is a special kind of numerical parameter of a parametric family of probability distributions. The larger the scale parameter, the more spread out the distribution. If a family of probability distributions is such that there is a parameter s (and other parameters θ) for which the cumulative distribution function satisfies then s is called a scale parameter, since its value determines the "scale" or statistical dispersion of the probability distribution.
X-ray tubeAn X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that converts electrical input power into X-rays. The availability of this controllable source of X-rays created the field of radiography, the imaging of partly opaque objects with penetrating radiation. In contrast to other sources of ionizing radiation, X-rays are only produced as long as the X-ray tube is energized. X-ray tubes are also used in CT scanners, airport luggage scanners, X-ray crystallography, material and structure analysis, and for industrial inspection.
Scattering parametersScattering parameters or S-parameters (the elements of a scattering matrix or S-matrix) describe the electrical behavior of linear electrical networks when undergoing various steady state stimuli by electrical signals. The parameters are useful for several branches of electrical engineering, including electronics, communication systems design, and especially for microwave engineering. The S-parameters are members of a family of similar parameters, other examples being: Y-parameters, Z-parameters, H-parameters, T-parameters or ABCD-parameters.
Comma-separated valuesComma-separated values (CSV) is a format that uses commas to separate values. A CSV file stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain text, where each line of the file typically represents one data record. Each record consists of the same number of fields, and these are separated by commas in the CSV file. If the field delimiter itself may appear within a field, fields can be surrounded with quotation marks . The CSV file format is one type of delimiter-separated file format.
PNGPortable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced pɪŋ , colloquially pronounced ˌpiːɛnˈdʒiː ) is a raster-graphics file that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)—unofficially, the initials PNG stood for the recursive acronym "PNG's not GIF". PNG supports palette-based images (with palettes of 24-bit RGB or 32-bit RGBA colors), grayscale images (with or without an alpha channel for transparency), and full-color non-palette-based RGB or RGBA images.
RecyclingRecycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling).