Research glossary
Terms used across the research pages.
These terms are collected from the glossary on each program page: 107 terms from 29 program pages. The definitions are shown exactly as each program page words them, and nothing is added here.
Where more than one page defines the same term, each page's definition is listed separately under the term, with a link back to that page. Numbers in square brackets, such as [1], refer to the numbered sources at the foot of the page named under that definition. The research A–Z index lists the programs themselves.
No glossary term matches that filter.
A
- Accelerometer
A sensor that measures acceleration, used in wearables to infer movement and activity.
From: Kinesiology
- AI-enabled device
A medical device that includes software functions using artificial intelligence.
From: Medicine
- Algorithm
A precise, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem.
From: Computer Science
- Argo float
A robotic instrument that drifts with ocean currents and cycles between the surface and mid-depth.
From: Ocean Science
- Atrial fibrillation
An irregular heart rhythm originating in the upper chambers of the heart.
From: Physiology
B
- Balancing authority
An organisation responsible for matching electricity supply and demand in a region.
From: Energy
- Benchmark
A reference dataset used to compare methods fairly.
From: Chemistry
A fixed set of tasks and answers used to compare systems.
- BIDS
Brain Imaging Data Structure, a standard way of naming and arranging neuroimaging files.
From: Neuroscience
- Biobank
A large collection of biological samples and linked data from volunteers, kept for research.
From: Genetics
- Biogeochemical
Relating to the chemical and biological processes of the ocean.
From: Ocean Science
- Birth cohort study
A study that follows children born in a given period over many years.
From: Sociology
- Brain-wide association study
A study linking differences in brain structure or function across people to differences in cognition or mental health.
From: Neuroscience
C
- CARE Principles
Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics, a framework for Indigenous data governance.
From: Anthropology
- CASP
Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction, a community experiment that tests prediction methods blind.
From: Biology
- Catalogue
A table of earthquakes with times, locations and sizes.
From: Geology
- Causal inference
Methods for estimating the effect of one factor on an outcome rather than just their association.
From: Economics
- Cognitive architecture
A formal theory of the mind's overall structure, implemented as a runnable program.
From: Cognitive Sciences
- Completeness and reliability
The fraction of real planets found, and the fraction of candidates that are real.
From: Outer Space
- Computational model
A theory written precisely enough to be run, so that its predictions can be compared with data.
From: Cognitive Sciences
- Computational social science
The use of computational methods on digital data to study human behaviour and social structure.
From: Sociology
- Connectome
A map of the connections between neurons in a brain or brain region.
From: Neuroscience
- Convex hull
In this context, the boundary of energetic stability against competing compounds.
From: Materials Science
- Credibility revolution
The shift in empirical microeconomics toward research design as the main source of credible evidence.
From: Economics
D
- Datasheet
A document describing how a dataset was made, what it contains and how it should be used.
From: Data Science
- Density functional theory
A quantum-mechanical method for calculating the electronic structure of molecules and solids.
From: Chemistry
A quantum-mechanical method for calculating the properties of materials.
From: Materials Science
- Differential privacy
A formal guarantee that an analysis reveals little about any single individual.
From: Data Science
- Dynamics
The forces and torques that produce movement, such as those generated by muscles.
From: Kinesiology
E
- Electrocardiogram (ECG)
A recording of the heart's electrical activity.
From: Physiology
- Entscheidungsproblem
The 'decision problem' in logic, asking for a general method to decide whether a statement is provable.
From: Computer Science
- Ethnography
Research based on sustained, close observation of how people live, speak and make meaning.
From: Anthropology
- Exome
The protein-coding portion of the genome.
From: Genetics
- External validation
Testing a prediction model on data from a different place or time than the data used to build it.
From: Medicine
F
- FAIR data
Data that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.
From: Data Science
- FAIR Principles
Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable: guidelines for scientific data management.
From: Anthropology
- False positive
A detection that the model reports but that is not an archaeological feature.
From: Archaeology
A signal that looks like a planet but has another cause.
From: Outer Space
A statistically significant result for an effect that does not exist.
From: Psychology
- fMRI
Functional magnetic resonance imaging, which tracks changes linked to brain activity.
From: Neuroscience
- Force field
A simplified model that estimates forces between atoms cheaply.
From: Chemistry
- Formal competence
Knowledge of a language's rules and patterns.
From: Linguistics
- Formal specification
A description of what a system must do, written in a precise mathematical notation.
From: Formal Methods
- Functional competence
Understanding and using language in the world.
From: Linguistics
H
- Hallucination
Text produced by a language model that is not consistent with the facts, here including legal facts.
From: Law
Generated text that is unfaithful to the source or to the facts.
- Heart rate variability
The variation in time between consecutive heartbeats.
From: Physiology
- Heterogeneous treatment effect
An effect of an intervention that differs across groups or individuals.
From: Economics
- High-risk AI system
A category defined in Article 6 of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, with further listing in its annexes.
From: Law
- High-throughput
Automated and repeated at large scale.
From: Materials Science
I
- Indigenous data sovereignty
The principle that Indigenous peoples hold rights and authority over data about their communities, lands and knowledge.
From: Anthropology
- Inductive problem
A problem of drawing general conclusions from limited evidence, such as learning a word's meaning from a few examples.
From: Cognitive Sciences
- Interpretable model
A model whose decision process a person can follow directly.
From: Machine Intelligence
K
- Kinematics
The description of motion itself, such as joint angles and speeds, without reference to the forces involved.
From: Kinesiology
L
- Language documentation
The collection and preservation of primary records of a language, such as recordings with transcriptions and translations.
From: Linguistics
- Language model
A system that predicts likely text, trained on large amounts of writing.
- Lidar
Light detection and ranging: airborne laser scanning that measures ground surface and structures in three dimensions.
From: Archaeology
- Light curve
A record of a star's brightness over time.
From: Outer Space
- Load
The demand for electricity at a given time.
From: Energy
- Logical qubit
A more reliable qubit encoded across many physical qubits using error correction.
From: Quantum Computing
- Luminosity
In collider physics, a measure of how many collisions an accelerator delivers.
From: Physics
M
- Machine learning
Methods by which computers improve at a task automatically through experience.
From: Machine Intelligence
- Matched filter
A detection method that compares data with expected signal shapes.
From: Physics
- Missense variant
A DNA change that swaps one amino acid in a protein for another.
From: Genetics
- Mixed reality
A broad term for experiences that blend real and virtual content, with AR as one part of it.
From: Augmented Reality
- Model card
A short document that reports what a model was built for and how it behaves.
From: Machine Intelligence
- Model checking
Automatic exploration of every state a model of a system can reach, to see whether a property is ever broken.
From: Formal Methods
N
- Neural network
A model built from layers of simple connected units whose strengths are adjusted during training.
From: Machine Intelligence
- NISQ (Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum)
Preskill's term for today's devices: tens to hundreds of qubits, with noise that limits what they can do [2].
From: Quantum Computing
- Nuisance parameter
A quantity that must be estimated along the way but is not the one of interest.
From: Economics
O
- Ocean heat content
The amount of heat stored in the ocean.
From: Ocean Science
- Optical see-through display
A display through which the user sees the real world directly, with graphics added optically.
From: Augmented Reality
P
- Partial differential equation
An equation describing how a quantity changes across space and time, common in physics.
From: Physics
- Phase picking
Marking when each type of seismic wave, such as P or S, arrives at a sensor.
From: Geology
- Photoplethysmography (PPG)
An optical method that senses changes in blood volume under the skin, used for heart rate in many wearables.
From: Physiology
- Photovoltaic (PV)
A technology that converts sunlight to electricity.
From: Energy
- Polygenic risk score
A number that combines the small effects of many genetic variants into one estimate of inherited tendency toward a trait.
From: Genetics
- Polynomial time
A running time that grows as a fixed power of the input size, usually seen as efficient.
From: Computer Science
- Pose estimation
Computer vision methods that locate a person's body parts in images or video.
From: Kinesiology
- Post-quantum cryptography
Encryption that runs on ordinary computers but is designed to withstand quantum attack.
From: Quantum Computing
- Potential-energy surface
The energy of a molecule or material as a function of where its atoms are.
From: Chemistry
- Predetermined change control plan
A plan, reviewed with the original submission, describing changes a manufacturer intends to make to an AI device later.
From: Medicine
- Preregistration
Recording the research question and analysis plan before outcomes are observed.
From: Psychology
- Profile
A set of measurements taken at different depths at one place and time.
From: Ocean Science
- Proof assistant
A program that checks a proof step by step and refuses to accept any step that does not follow from the rules.
From: Formal Methods
- Protein structure
The three-dimensional arrangement of the atoms in a protein, which is closely tied to what the protein does.
From: Biology
- Proteome
The full set of proteins an organism can make.
From: Biology
Q
- Qubit
The basic unit of quantum information, the quantum counterpart of a bit.
From: Computer Science
The basic unit of quantum information. Unlike a classical bit, it can be in a combination of 0 and 1 until measured.
From: Quantum Computing
R
- Random forest
A machine-learning method that combines many decision trees to make a prediction.
From: Agriculture
- Reanalysis
A consistent reconstruction of past weather from observations and models.
From: Energy
- Registration
Aligning virtual objects with the real world so they appear to sit in the correct place [1].
From: Augmented Reality
- Remote sensing
Gathering information about land or crops from a distance, usually by satellite or aircraft.
From: Agriculture
Gathering information about the Earth's surface from aircraft, satellites or drones.
From: Archaeology
- Replication
Repeating a study to see whether its result holds again.
From: Cognitive Sciences
Repeating a study's procedure with new data to see whether the original result appears again.
From: Psychology
- Reproducibility
The ability of others to rerun an analysis from the same data and code and obtain the same result.
From: Archaeology
The ability of others to obtain the same results from the same data and code.
From: Data Science
- Retrieval-augmented generation
A technique in which a model draws on retrieved documents when producing an answer.
From: Law
S
- Seismogram
A recording of ground motion at one seismometer.
From: Geology
- Single-cell transcriptomics
Measuring which genes are active in each individual cell rather than in a tissue sample as a whole.
From: Biology
- SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping)
Building a map of an unknown space while working out where the device is inside it [4].
From: Augmented Reality
- Smallholder
A farmer working a small plot, often with limited access to inputs and records.
From: Agriculture
- SMT solver
A tool that decides whether a set of logical conditions can all be true at once.
From: Formal Methods
- Surrogate model
A fast learned model standing in for a slow calculation.
From: Materials Science
T
- Template matching
Detecting small earthquakes by comparing recordings to known events.
From: Geology
- Total product life cycle
The whole span of a device's existence, from design through use and updates.
From: Medicine
- Transcription bottleneck
The shortage of skilled time to transcribe recorded speech, which limits documentation of endangered languages.
From: Linguistics
- Transformer
A neural network design that processes text using attention rather than step-by-step recurrence.
- Transit
A planet passing in front of its star, briefly dimming it.
From: Outer Space
V
- Voluntary framework
Guidance organisations may adopt, without it being a legal requirement by itself.
From: Law
W
- Wave function
The mathematical description of a quantum system's state.
From: Physics
- WEIRD samples
Participants from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies.
From: Psychology
- Word embedding
A representation of words as points in a numerical space, so that relationships between meanings can be measured.
From: Sociology
Y
- Yield
The amount of crop harvested per unit of land.
From: Agriculture
Z
- Zero-shot
Asking a language model to perform a task without giving it task-specific training examples.
From: Sociology