| policy making | The decision process by which individuals, groups or institutions establish policies pertaining to plans, programs or procedures. (12 Dec 1998) |
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| decision making | The process of making a selective intellectual judgment when presented with several complex alternatives consisting of several variables, and usually defining a course of action or an idea. (12 Dec 1998) |
| decision making, computer-assisted | Use of an interactive computer system designed to assist the physician or other health professional in choosing between certain relationships or variables for the purpose of making a diagnostic or therapeutic decision. (12 Dec 1998) |
| decision making, organizational | The process by which decisions are made in an institution or other organization. (12 Dec 1998) |
| direct method for making inlays | In dentistry, an inlay technique in which the wax pattern is made directly in the prepared cavity in the tooth. Synonym: direct technique. (05 Mar 2000) |
| trail making test | The subject's ability to connect 25 numbered and lettered circles in sequence in a specific length of time. A score of 12 or below is suggestive of organic brain damage. (12 Dec 1998) |
| anaesthesia machine | Equipment used for inhalation anaesthesia, including flowmeters, vaporisers, and sources of compressed gases, but not including the anaesthetic circuit or mechanisms for elimination of carbon dioxide. (05 Mar 2000) |
| burring machine | A machine for cleansing wool of burs, seeds, and other substances. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| machine | 1. In general, any combination of bodies so connected that their relative motions are constrained, and by means of which force and motion may be transmitted and modified, as a screw and its nut, or a lever arranged to turn about a fulcrum or a pulley about its pivot, etc.; especially, a construction, more or less complex, consisting of a combination of moving parts, or simple mechanical elements, as wheels, levers, cams, etc, with their supports and connecting framework, calculated to constitute a prime mover, or to receive force and motion from a prime mover or from another machine, and transmit, modify, and apply them to the production of some desired mechanical effect or work, as weaving by a loom, or the excitation of electricity by an electrical machine. The term machine is most commonly applied to such pieces of mechanism as are used in the industrial arts, for mechanically shaping, dressing, and combining materials for various purposes, as in the manufacture of cloth, etc. Where the effect is chemical, or other than mechanical, the contrivance is usually denominated an apparatus, not a machine; as, a bleaching apparatus. Many large, powerful, or specially important pieces of mechanism are called engines; as, a steam engine, fire engine, graduating engine, etc. Although there is no well-settled distinction between the terms engine and machine among practical men, there is a tendency to restrict the application of the former to contrivances in which the operating part is not distinct from the motor. 2. Any mechanical contrivance, as the wooden horse with which the Greeks entered Troy; a coach; a bicycle. 3. A person who acts mechanically or at will of another. 4. A combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use; as, the social machine. "The whole machine of government ought not to bear upon the people with a weight so heavy and oppressive." (Landor) 5. A political organization arranged and controlled by one or more leaders for selfish, private or partisan ends. 6. Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit. Elementary machine, a name sometimes given to one of the simple mechanical powers. See Mechanical. Infernal machine. See Infernal. Machine gun.See Gun. Machine screw, a screw or bolt adapted for screwing into metal, in distinction from one which is designed especially to be screwed into wood. Machine shop, a workshop where machines are made, or where metal is shaped by cutting, filing, turning, etc. Machine tool, a machine for cutting or shaping wood, metal, etc, by means of a tool; especially, a machine, as a lathe, planer, drilling machine, etc, designed for a more or less general use in a machine shop, in distinction from a machine for producing a special article as in manufacturing. Machine twist, silken thread especially adapted for use in a sewing machine. Machine work, work done by a machine, in contradistinction to that done by hand labour. Origin: F, fr. L. Machina machine, engine, device, trick, Gr, from means, expedient. Cf. Mechanic. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| machine, heart-lung | A machine that does the work both of the heart (pump blood) and the lungs (oxygenate the blood). Used, for example, in open heart surgery. Blood returning to the heart is diverted through the machine before returning it to the arterial circulation. Also called a pump-oxygenator. (12 Dec 1998) |
| machine learning | This is the study of how to create computers that will learn from experience and modify their activity based on that learning (as opposed to traditional computers whose activity will not change unless the programmer explicitly changes it). This discipline is a sub-set of Artificial Intelligence. (09 Oct 1997) |
| panoramic rotating machine | An X-ray machine using a reciprocating motion of the tube and extraoral film to produce a radiograph of all the teeth and surrounding structures. (05 Mar 2000) |
| gene machine | A computerised device for synthesizing genes by combining nucleotides (bases) in a specified order. (14 Nov 1997) |
| man-machine systems | A system in which the functions of the man and the machine are interrelated and necessary for the operation of the system. (12 Dec 1998) |
| gramme machine | <physics> A kind of dynamo-electric machine; so named from its French inventor, M. Gramme. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |