Statistical Terms Glossary

To assist the members and associate members of ESCAP through strengthening their capabilities to develop and manage national innovation systems; develop, transfer, adapt and apply technology; improve the terms of transfer of technology; and identify and promote the development and transfer of technologies relevant to the region.

A form of Digital Subscriber Line in which the bandwidth available for downstream connection is significantly larger then for upstream. Although designed to minimise the effect of crosstalk between the upstream and downstream channels this setup is well suited for web browsing and client-server applications as well as for some emerging applications such as video on demand.

If you split the distribution in half at its mean (or median), then the distribution of values on the two sides of this central point would not be the same (i.e., not symmetrical) and the distribution would be considered "skewed."

A protocol for the transmission of a variety of digital signals using uniform 53 byte cells.

A process for verifying the correctness of a piece of data.

The process where one entity verifies another entity's claim to holding a specific digital identity. The function that the middle "A" in AAA actually refers to is "access control", i.e. the granting or refusing of privileges to an entity for accessing specific services. accounting refers to the tracking of the consumption of network resources by users. This information may be used for management, planning, billing, or other purposes.

A computerized system designed by the UNCTAD to administer a countries' customs.

A computerized telecommunications device that provides the clients of a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a public space without the need for a cashier, human clerk or bank teller

Automatically switching to a different, redundant system upon failure or abnormal termination of the currently active system. Failover can be applied to a cluster of servers, to network or storage components or any other set of redundant devices that must provide high availability because down-time would be expensive or inconvenient. It may be implemented in hardware, software or a combination.

Converts spoken words to text. Speech recognition is a broad term which means it can recognize almost anybody's speech - such as a call-centre system designed to recognize many voices. Voice recognition is a system trained to a particular user, where it recognizes their speech based on their unique vocal sound.

An economic policy or program that increases or decreases automatically to offset the current economic trend without government assistance.

Sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.

Is the long-term ratio of the actual RF channel operation time to scheduled RF channel operation time (expressed as a per cent value) and is based on a bit error rate (BER) assumption.

A calculation often used to determine the overall value of an application. It is also used to rate particular customers, especially in the wireless space, by comparing someone's account to the overall average.

BITS provides leadership in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) by developing and promoting professional development. By endorsing, reviewing developing, information, quality standards, practices, research, and certification within a professional framework.

BIS strives to serve the community of Bahrain by spreading awareness on the benefits of Internet and ICT. BIS also strives to engage in ICT Development toward eBahrain.

The bandwidth is the band over which the communication system can be used without modification to the antenna or its tuning. Antennas can be categorized as narrow-band (e.g. dipole or Yagi) or broadband (log-periodic or vertical half-rhombic) - we could delete this portion.

In the area of wireless computer networking, a base station is a radio receiver/transmitter that serves as the hub of the local wireless network, and may also be the gateway between a wired network and the wireless network. It typically consists of a low-power transmitter and wireless router

Is the section of a traditional cellular telephone network which is responsible for handling traffic and signalling between a mobile phone and the network switching subsystem. The BSS carries out transcoding of speech channels, allocation of radio channels to mobile phones, paging, quality management of transmission and reception over the air interface and many other tasks related to the radio network.

The part of the system software of the IBM PC and compatibles that provides the lowest level interface to peripheral devices and controls the first stage of the bootstrap process, including installing the operating system. The BIOS is stored in ROM, or equivalent, in every PC. Its main task is to load and execute the operating system which is usually stored on the computer's hard disk, but may be loaded from CD-ROM or floppy disk at install time.

An Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) configuration defined in the physical layer standard I.430 produced by the ITU. It is one of two configurations for use in the access network, the other being primary rate interface. The BRI configuration provides two 64 kbit/s "bearer" channels (B channels) and one 16 kbit/s "Delta" channel (D channel). The B channels are used for voice or user data, and the D channel is used for any combination of: data, control/signalling and X.25 packet networking. The two B channels can be bonded together giving a total data rate of 128 kbit/s. BRI is the kind of ISDN interface most likely to be found in residential service

Entering a group of source documents into the computer

An operating mode in which a program requires no input from the user apart from the initial command which actually starts the program. The information necessary for the operation of a program in this mode must be gleaned from an initialisation file which contains all the commands to perform in a specified order

The most commonly used Domain Name System (DNS) server on the Internet. BIND was originally created by four graduate students at the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and was first released with 4.3BSD.

A technique, method, process, activity, incentive, or reward that is believed to be more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications. Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people

Refers to the base-two number system. The system contains only two numbers, 0 and 1. In computer-like circuits, the presence of a voltage, current or other such signal indicates a "1" whereas the absence of the same signal indicates "0".

Bi-level image.