A general term for the complete loss of the ability to hear from both ears. (MeSH. 2024. Deafness. https://meshb-prev.nlm.nih.gov/record/ui?ui=D003638)
An agricultural start-up is a company in the agricultural sector which is in the first stages of operations. Agricultural start-ups focus on several types of customers, but most recent start-ups focus on helping producers improve efficiency and management. (AGROVOC Team; Grant, Marta; and Zhang, Wendong. 2019. Entrepreneurs and Start-ups in the Agricultural Industry. Journal of ASFMRA)
An amount of money borrowed by one party from another. Many corporations and individuals use debt as a method of making large purchases that they would not be able to afford under normal circumstances. A debt arrangement gives the borrowing party permission to borrow money on the condition that it must pay back the sum at a later date, usually with interest. (USAID. 2020. White paper #2: Innovative finance taxonomy in USAID language. Washington, DC.)
Marine ecologists are scientists who study living things in the ocean and how they interact with their environment. (Adapted from Geoscience Australia, 2023 Marine ecology https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/marine-ecology)
Dispersion or distribution of functions and powers from a central authority to a local authority or community (UNESCO Thesaurus, 2019. Decentralization http://vocabularies.unesco.org/thesaurus/concept4877)
Deciduous seasonal forests (DSFs) occur in regions of accentuated climatic seasonality, with a marked dry season, and are generally associated with rocky limestone outcrops. Because of these stressful conditions, the plants growing there show extraordinary adaptations to survive; among them are high wood density, smaller leaf size, and deciduousness. (Ludmila Aglai Silva, Fernando Valladares, Raquel Benavides, Omar Flores, Anne Priscila Dias Gonzaga, Functional Diversity and Assembly Rules of Two Deciduous Seasonal Forests in Southeastern Brazil, Forest Science, Volume 67, Issue 5, October 2021, Pages 514–524, https://doi.org/10.1093/forsci/fxab027)
In the Northern Hemisphere deciduous forest types are often referred to as "Deciduous Summer Forests" and typically have a 5-6 month growing season that may range from between 150 to 200 days. There is extensive plant diversity in the deciduous forest dominated by broadleaf deciduous hardwood trees such as oak, hickory, maple, ash, beech and others. (Alberta: Naturally! 2001. Glossary for the Nature of Alberta.
https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/abnature/glossary.htm)
Noroviruses are small, 27 to 32 nm diameter, structured RNA viruses which have been implicated as the most common cause of nonbacterial gastroenteritis outbreaks. (They were formerly called Small Round Structured Viruses [SRSVs] and Norwalk-like viruses [NLVs]). (Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, FAO, 2014)
