A measure of the soil’s ability to hold positively charged ions. The clay mineral and organic matter components of soil have negatively charged sites on their surfaces which adsorb and hold positively charged ions (cations). This electrical charge is critical to the supply of nutrients to plants because many nutrients (e.g. Mg, K and Ca) exist as cations. (FAO and WHO. 2023. Code of practice for the prevention and reduction of cadmium contamination in cocoa beans. Codex Code of Practice No. CXC 81-2022. Codex Alimentarius Commission. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc5333en)
Products that may be used as replacement for fresh eggs in recipes or as a food (e.g. omelette). They are produced from fresh eggs by either (i) mixing and purifying the whole egg; or (ii) separating the egg white and yolk, and then mixing and purifying each separately. The purified whole egg, white or yolk is then further processed to produce liquid, frozen or dried eggs. (FAO & WHO. 2023. General Standard for Food Additives. Codex Standard, No. CXS 192-1995. Rome. https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius)
Drought stress is a multidimensional stress and causes changes in the physiological, morphological, biochemical, and molecular traits in plants. Many plants have improved their resistance mechanisms to tolerate drought stress, but these mechanisms are varied and depend on the plant species. (Adapted from Salehi-Lisar, S.Y., Bakhshayeshan-Agdam, H. (2016). Drought Stress in Plants: Causes, Consequences, and Tolerance. In: Hossain, M., Wani, S., Bhattacharjee, S., Burritt, D., Tran, LS. (eds) Drought Stress Tolerance in Plants, Vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28899-4_1 + AGROVOC Team)
Germplasm characterization is the description of germplasm, the genetic material of any organism. In plants, it determines the expression of highly heritable characters ranging from morphological, physiological or agronomical features to seed proteins and oil or molecular markers. (Adapted from FAO. 2014. Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rev. ed. Rome. https://www.fao.org/3/i3704e/i3704e.pdf)
The points along the food supply chain where food losses have the highest magnitude, the greatest impact on food security and the largest economic dimensions. (FAO, 2017. Food Loss and Waste Measurement Linked to the Food Loss Analysis
Methodology https://www.fao.org/3/nc358en/nc358en.pdf)
A botanist is a scientist who specialies in botany, the branch of natural science and biology studying plants. (Adapted from Wikipedia. 2025. Botany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botany)
Syndemic: the concentration and deleterious interaction of two or more diseases or other health conditions in a population, especially as a consequence of social conditions that promote disease clustering. (Merrill Singer, PhD, University of Connecticut)
Civil strife does not mean an armed strife because civil, by definition, implies peaceful means, and is contrary to a military strife or armed conflict.
An ignition system generates a spark or heats an electrode to a high temperature to ignite a fuel-air mixture in spark ignition internal combustion engines, oil-fired and gas-fired boilers, rocket engines, etc. The widest application for spark ignition internal combustion engines is in petrol (gasoline) road vehicles such as cars and motorcycles. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignition_system)
Gall: Mycelium white, generally dense, felt-like, amphigenous, persistent; partly internal. Conidia single. The first conidium formed is lanceolate-cylindrical, later ones are elliptic. Conidiophores long and thin. (Plant Parasites of Europe. 2022. Leveillula lactucarum. https://bladmineerders.nl/parasites/fungi/)
The primordial kidney that develops from the intermediate mesoderm in the embryos of vertebrates, and is succeeded by the mesonephros. Pronephros appears in vertebrates only as a transitory structure during early development, and only remnants of the pronephros remain as the anterior-most part of the fish kidney that is known as the head kidney. (National Library of Medicine, 2024. MeSH. Pronephros https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/68060910 and David O. Norris PhD, James A. Carr PhD, in Vertebrate Endocrinology (Sixth Edition), 2021)
Social distancing, or physical distancing is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures taken to prevent the spread of a contagious disease by maintaining a physical distance between people and reducing the number of times people come into close contact with each other. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_distancing)
Note
Measures can include working from home, closing offices and schools, canceling events, and avoiding public transportation.
Customary law: law consisting of customs that are accepted as legal requirements or obligatory rules of conduct; practices and beliefs that are so vital and intrinsic a part of a social and economic system that they are treated as if they were laws. (Black’s Law Dictionary)
Toxicity tests are an attempt to measure toxicity in a sample by analyzing the results that the exposure produces on standard test organisms. (Dan Kroll,
Chapter 15 - Monitoring for Terrorist-Related Contamination,
Editor(s): Satinder Ahuja,
Handbook of Water Purity and Quality,
Academic Press,
2009,
Pages 343-377,
ISBN 9780123741929,
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-374192-9.00015-7)
Sequential sampling is a statistical procedure whose characteristic feature is that sample size is not fixed in advance. Instead, you make observations or measurements one at a time, and after each observation you ask the accumulated data whether or not a conclusion can be reached. (Krebs, C.J. 2014. Ecological Methodology, 3rd ed. (in prep). Chapter 9 Sequential Sampling. https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/downloads/krebs_chapter_09_2017.pdf)
The record derives from WCSP which reports it as an accepted name (record 300446) with original publication details: Palestine J. Bot., Jerusalem Ser. 1: 363 1939. (http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-300446)