| adaptive behaviour | Any behaviour that enables an organism to adjust to a particular situation or environment. (05 Mar 2000) |
|---|---|
| adaptive behaviour scales | A behavioural assessment device to quantify the levels of skills of mentally retarded and developmentally delayed individuals in interacting with the environment; consists of three developmentally related factors: 1) personal self-sufficiency, e.g., eating, dressing; 2) community self-sufficiency, e.g., shopping, communicating; 3) personal and social responsibility, e.g., use of leisure time, job performance. See: intelligence. (05 Mar 2000) |
| adaptive enzyme | Inducible enzyme, an enzyme that can be detected in a growing culture of a microorganism, after the addition of a particular substance (inducer) to the culture medium, but was not detectable prior to the addition and can act on the inducer. A prototype is the beta-galactosidase of Escherichia coli, synthesised upon the addition of various galactosides, whether or not these are good substrates. Compare: constitutive enzyme. Synonym: adaptive enzyme. (05 Mar 2000) |
| adaptive hypertrophy | Thickening of the walls of a hollow organ, like the urinary bladder, when there is obstruction to outflow. (05 Mar 2000) |
| adaptive management | A continuing process of action-based planning, monitoring, researching, evaluating, and adjusting with the objective of improving implementation and achieving the goals of the selected alternative. (05 Dec 1998) |
| adaptive management area | Landscape units designated for development and testing of technical and social approaches to achieving desired ecological, economic, and other social objectives. (05 Dec 1998) |
| adaptive radiation | <chemistry> The evolution of new speciesor sub-species to fill unoccupied ecological niches. (06 May 1997) |
| acquired character | A character developed in a plant or animal as a result of environmental influences during the individual's life. (05 Mar 2000) |
| recessive character | An inherited character determined by an allele in homozygous state only. See: dominance of traits. (05 Mar 2000) |
| mendelian character | An inherited character under the control of a single locus (although perhaps modified by genes at other loci). (05 Mar 2000) |
| character | In current usage, approximately equivalent to personality. The sum of the relatively fixed personality traits and habitual modes of response of an individual. (12 Dec 1998) |
| character analysis | Analysis of the defenses and personality traits that characterise an individual. (05 Mar 2000) |
| character armor | A habitual pattern of organised defenses against anxiety. (05 Mar 2000) |
| character disorder | A term referring to a group of behavioural disorder's, now replaced by a more general term, personality disorder, of which character disorder's are now a subclass. (05 Mar 2000) |
| character neurosis | A subclass of personality disorders. (05 Mar 2000) |