| pest | A general term for organisms (rats, insects, etc.) which may cause illness or damage or consume food crops and other materials important to humans. (09 Oct 1997) |
|---|---|
| pest control | The reduction or regulation of the population of noxious, destructive, or dangerous insects or other animals. (12 Dec 1998) |
| pest control, biological | The use of biological mechanisms, usually involving living organisms such as bacteria, for the reduction or regulation of the population of noxious, destructive, or dangerous pests. Environmental concerns have focused attention on natural forms of disease control as potentially safe and effective alternatives to chemical pesticides. This has led to increased efforts to develop control strategies that rely on natural predators and parasites or that involve genetically engineered microbial pest control agents. (12 Dec 1998) |
| PEST sequence | Amino acid motif that is thought to target cytoplasmic proteins for rapid proteolytic degradation. (18 Nov 1997) |
| swine pest | An acute, highly contagious disease affecting swine of all ages and caused by the hog cholera virus. It has a sudden onset with high morbidity and mortality. (12 Dec 1998) |
| fowl pest | Infection of domestic and wild fowl and other birds with influenza a virus, avian. (12 Dec 1998) |
| adaptor hypothesis | A hypothesis, proposed by F.H.C. Crick, that an adaptor molecule must be present between the information-containing DNA and the protein being synthesised. (05 Mar 2000) |
| altered self hypothesis | The hypothesis that the T-cell receptor in MHC mediated phenomena recognises a syngeneic MHC Class I or Class II molecule after modification by a virus or certain chemicals. See: MHC restriction. (18 Nov 1997) |
| alternative hypothesis | In Neyman-Pearson testing of a hypothesis, the hypothesis or family of hypotheses about the numerical value of a parameter if and only if the null hypothesis is rejected as untenable. (05 Mar 2000) |
| autocrine hypothesis | That tumour cells containing viral oncogenes may have encoded a growth factor, normally produced by other cell types, and thereby produce the factor autonomously, leading to uncontrolled proliferation. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Avogadro's hypothesis | <physics> The hypothesis that equal volumes of two different gases at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of molecules. (02 Jan 1998) |
| Bayesian hypothesis | An array of surmised values of a parameter to be severally explored in the light of a current set of data, with logical symmetry being preserved among all. The merits of each hypothesis entertained are based on quantity, the prior probability. The probability of the data conditional on the hypothesis is computed as the conditional probability for each; the product of the two for each hypothesis is the joint probability, and the ratio of each joint probability to the sum of all the joint probabilities is the posterior probability for that hypothesis. Unlike the Neyman-Pearson test of hypotheses, the answer is a statement about the hypothesis, not about the sample conditional on the hypothesis. No hypothesis is preferred or prevails by default. The procedure may be applied recursively any number of times, as the data becomes available. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Makeham's hypothesis | A development of Gompertz' hypothesis as to the force of mortality following some mathematical law. Makeham assumed that death was the consequence of two generally coexisting causes: 1) chance; 2) a deterioration or increased inability to withstand destruction. The first of these is constant, the second is an increasing geometrical progression. (05 Mar 2000) |
| gate-control hypothesis | A theory to explain the mechanism of pain; small fibre afferent stimuli, particularly pain, entering the substantia gelatinosa can be modulated by large fibre afferent stimuli and descending spinal pathways so that their transmission to ascending spinal pathways is blocked (gated). Synonym: gate-control hypothesis. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Gompertz' hypothesis | A theory that the force of mortality increases in geometrical progression, being based on the assumption that the average exhaustion of a person's power to avoid death is such that at the end of equal infinitely small intervals of time he loses equal proportions of the power to oppose destruction which he had at the commencement of each of these intervals. (05 Mar 2000) |