Glossary of the key notions in Bionics and beyond

Dystonia → ~ is a movement disorder in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements. They are involuntary and sometimes painful, may affect a single muscle; a group of muscles such as those in the arms, legs, or neck; or the entire body.

8. E

Eccentric contraction → The force generated is not enough to beat the external load or material features of the muscle. Muscle fibers lengthen as they contract. (elongates while being under tension due to an opposing force)

Eccentricity → The center-to-focus/center-to-vertex ratio in a conic section.

ECG (Electrocardiograph) → ~ a noninvasive procedure for detecting and recording the electrical activity of the heart in order to discover heart problems.

Edge cell → The outermost boundary cells

Edge detection → The image processing task, when the edges of the picture should be found

Edgegray template → A and B operators for detecting edges on a gray scaled image

Editing (Levenshtein)distance → Minimum number of editing operations (insert, delete, substitute) needed to transform one sequence into the other

EEG spike → Pathological EEG wave with sharp spike like form. Characteristic in interictal epileptic EEG.

EEG spindles → Regular sinus like EEG rhythm with first increasing then decreasing amplitude. The “sleep spindle” has a frequency between 12-14 Hz.

Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) → It is the amount of power that a theoretical isotropic antenna would emit to produce the peak power density observed in the direction of maximum antenna gain.

Effective mass → The ~ of a semiconductor is obtained by fitting the actual E-k diagram around the conduction band minimum or the valence band maximum by a paraboloid.

Efferent → Neurons that carry signals away from the central nervous system; pathway carrying the output of a brain region

Efficacy → In pharmacology, ~, refers to the maximum response achievable from a drug (often described by the parameter ‘Emax’).

Eigenfunction → Eigenvector of a linear transformation between special linear spaces, namely in a function space (here the “vectors” are functions)

Eigenvalue → This is a (real or complex) number, associated to a linear transformation. It is a proportionality factor, it shows the ratio of an eigenvector and its image in a given linear transformation. In practice, we say, that it belongs to a matrix, because each linear transformation can be represented by a matrix (so, implicitly it always belongs to a transformation)

Eigenvalue decomposition → A matrix factorization procedure where the resulting factors are: the left hand side matrix has the basis of the eigenvectors in its columns, the middle is a diagonal matrix with the corresponding eigenvalues, the right matrix is the inverse of the most left. (It is also called as matrix diagonalization, in which the diagonal matrix is expressed by the others mentioned above)

Eigenvector → An ~ of a linear transformation (represented by its matrix) is a nonzero vector that, if the transformation is applied to that ~ it remains proportional to itself.

Einstein → Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who discovered the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. (1921 Nobel Prize “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”).

Einstein relation → According to the relation the mobility of charges in an ionic solution or semiconductor is equal to the magnitude of the charge times the diffusion coefficient divided by the product of the Boltzmann constant and the absolute temperature.

Elaboration → First step of synthesis to generic gate description.

Elasticity → The physical property of a material that returns to its original shape after the external force that made it deform is removed

Electorlyte → Solution of electrically charged particles.

Electric acoustic stimulation → ~ (EAS) is the use of a cochlear implant and a traditional hearing aid together in the same ear. The traditionl hearing aid acoustically amplifies the low frequencies, while the cochlear implant electrically stimulates the cochlea at the middle and high frequencies. The inner ear processes the acoustic and electric stimuli simultaneously.

Electric charge → It is a basic physical property of matter which causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two negatively charged objects. Positively charged objects and negatively charged objects experience an attractive force. (unit: coulomb, C, ampere-hour, Ah).

Electric device → It means the physical object in the laboratory or in the factory

Electric field → An ~ surrounds electrically charged particles and time-varying magnetic fields. This ~ exerts a force on other electrically charged objects. The ~ is a vector field (N C⁻¹ or V m⁻¹, kg·m·s⁻³·A⁻¹). The strength or magnitude of the field at a given point is defined as the force that would be exerted on a positive test charge of 1 coulomb placed at that point; the direction of the field is given by the direction of that force.

Electric stimulation → ~ is a method to make the nerve cells fire action potentials using current injection.

Electrical double layer → A structure that appears on the surface of an object when it is placed into a liquid. The double layer refers to two parallel layers of charge surrounding the object. The first layer, the surface charge (either positive or negative), comprises ions adsorbed directly onto the object due to chemical interactions. The second layer is composed of ions attracted to the surface charge via the coulomb force. This second layer is loosely associated with the object, because it is made of free ions which move in the fluid under the influence of electric attraction and thermal motion rather than being firmly anchored. It is thus called the diffuse layer.

Electrical impedance → ~, or simply impedance, describes a measure of opposition to alternating current (AC). Impedance is defined as the frequency domain ratio of the voltage to the current.In other words, it is the voltage–current ratio for a single complex exponential at a particular frequency ω. In general, impedance will be a complex number, with the same units as resistance.

Electrical muscle stimulation → Muscle contractions effected by electric impulses. Electrodes are commonly placed: on the skin just above the muscle to be stimulated. The impulses generate action potential (AP) coming from the central nervous system (CNS) causing the muscles to contract.

Electrical potential → The ~, Φ, is the amount of electrical work that must be performed to move one unit positive charge from a location where the ~ is zero to where the ~ is Φ.

Electrical stimulation → ~ is one of the most effective method used in medical rehabilitation which purpose is to stimulate tissues effected by different diseases

Electricity → ~ is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. The Greek ήλεκτρον meaning amber (hardened plant resin), because static electricity effects were produced classically by rubbing amber.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) → Electrical activity of the heart.

Electrocardiograph(ECG) → ~ a noninvasive procedure for detecting and recording the electrical activity of the heart in order to discover heart problems.

Electrochemical potential → Thermodynamic measure that combines the concepts of energy stored in the form of chemical potential and electrostatics.

Electrocorticogram (ECoG) → Electrical activity of the brain measured on the surface of the cortex.

Electrocyclic reaction → ~ is a molecular rearrangement that involves the formation of a σ-bond between the termini of a fully conjugated, linear π-electron system (or a linear fragment of a π-electron system). In this process, the number of π-bonds decreases by one (or the reverse of the process).

Electrode → The conductor through which electric current can leave or enter a nonmetallic part of a circuit.

Electrode potential → The potential difference relative to the standard hydrogen electrode.

Electrodermal activity (EDA) → A change in the ability of the skin to conduct electricity.

Electrode-tissue connection → ~ is formed by the electrode, i. e. an electron conductor and an electrolyte i. e. an ionic conductor.

Electrodynamics → ~ (electromagnetism) is a branch of physics that studies consequences of the electromagnetic forces between electric charges and currents.

Electroencephalography (EEG) → ~ is the technique to record and interpret bioelectrical activity of the brain by electrodes placed on the human scalp. In the everyday practice EEG is used as a more general term for any form of recording of brain electrical activity.

Electrogenic transport → A transport is defined as electrogenic if during the transport process there is a net charge movement. As a consequence of it a current is generated

Electrolyte → Solutions where there are ions that can move around freely and carry charge

Electromagnetic interaction → ~ is interaction between charged particles arising from their electric and magnetic fields; its strength is about 100 times weaker than the strong interaction, and 10⁴⁰ times stronger than gravity.

Electromagnetic vector fields → The most common description of the electromagnetic field to use two three-dimensional vector fields called the electric field and the magnetic field. These vector fields each have a value defined at every point of space and time and are thus often regarded as functions of the space and time coordinates.

Electromigration → Where the current density is high, the metal wire becomes thinner, resulting in even higher density, and finally breaks.

Electromyogram (EMG) → The ~ is the recording of electrical activity from the muscles using either surface or needle electrodes.

Electromyography (EMG) → ~ is a field of electrophysiology that deals with the techniques and interpretation of electromyographic tests. EMG also includes conduction studies and reflex studies.

Electron → The ~ is a subatomic particle carrying a negative electric charge. It has no known components or substructure. Therefore, the ~ is generally believed to be an elementary particle.

Electron configuration → The arrangement or distribution of electrons of a given atom (or molecule) between orbitals

Electron transport chain → A sequence of electron-carrying proteins that transfers electrons from respiratory substrates to molecular oxygen in aerobic cells

Electronegativity → ~ is the concept introduced by L. Pauling as the power of an atom to attract electrons to itself. There are several definitions of this quantity. According to Mulliken it is the average of the ionization energy and electron affinity of an atom, but more frequently a relative scale due to Pauling is used where dimensionless relative ~ differences are defined on the basis of bond dissociation energies.

Electroneurogram (ENG) → Summated action poentials of a nerve trunk

Electroneutral transport → The transport cycle does not result in net charge transfer

Electronic simulators → Simulators that use mathematical models to emulate the behavior of electronic device or circuits built from devices

Electron-multiplier → An ~ is a vacuum-tube structure that multiplies incident charges in a process called secondary emission.

Electronnegativity → A measure of the ability of an atom to attract the bonding electrons to itself in a covalent bond.

Electrooculogram (EOG) → Measure of eletrical signals created by the movement of the eyes.

Electrooculography (EOG) → ~ is a technique for measuring the resting potential of the retina. The resulting signal is called the electrooculogram. The main applications are in B691ophthalmological diagnosis and in recording eye mo+B697vements.

Electrophilic (electrophile) → An electrophile (or ~ reagent) is a reagent that forms a bond to its reaction partner (the nucleophile) by accepting both bonding electrons from that reaction partner. An ‘~ substitution reaction ‘ is a heterolytic reaction in which the reagent supplying the entering group acts as an electrophile.

Electrophysiology → The study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electric current on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart. In neuroscience, it includes measurements of the electrical activity of neurons, and particularly action potential activity.

Electroretinogram (ERG) → Electrical activity of the retina.

Electroscope → The ~ is an electrical measuring instrument, which can detect the presence and the magnitude of electric charges. The first apparatus called versorium was invented by William Gilbert. Classical types of the device are the pith-ball and the gold-leaf electroscope.

Electrostatic attraction → The force of attraction between two electrically opposite charged popint like bodies is directly proportional to the strength of the electrical charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. It holds the matter together.

Electrostatics → ~ is the branch of science that deals with the phenomena arising from stationary or slow-moving electric charges.

Electrotherapy → ~ is the use of electricity as a medical treatment. Also called “electromagnetic therapy”

Electrotonic distance → Measure of the strength of electric interaction between two points in a cable; denoted by X. Relation to the steady-state space constant: X=x/λ, where x is physical distance along the cable. In common words: distance “in units of lambda”.

Elementary particle → An ~ or fundamental particle is a particle believed not to have substructure; that is, it is believed not to be made up of smaller particles. If an ~ truly has no substructure, then it is one of the basic building blocks of the universe from which all other particles are made. In the Standard Model, the quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons as well as their antiparticles are elementary particles.

Elementary reaction → An ~ is a single step in a more complex kinetic scheme, i.e. a chemical reaction in which there are no intermediates and occurs through a single transition state.

Elimination reaction → In an ~ two groups (called eliminands) are lost most often from two different centres with concomitant formation of an unsaturation in the molecule (double bond, triple bond) or formation of a new ring. If the groups are lost from a single centre the resulting product is a carbene or a ‘carbene analogue’. The reverse of elimination is an addition reaction or transformation.

ELVIS system → The graphical development environment of the ELVIS system connects the pre-made virtual instrument interface to the proper functionality of the data acquisition device and the real connections of the testboard.

EM waves → Electromagnetic waves are important in energy transporting in the world around us. Electromagnetic radiation is a form of energy exhibiting wave-like behavior as it travels through space, it has both electric and magnetic field components, which oscillate in phase perpendicular to each other and perpendicular to the direction of energy propagation.

EMG (Electromyography) → A technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles.(see electromyography)

Emitter → Another name for the cathode which emits electrons through thermionic emission (in vacuum tube technology) or field electron emission, or emits ions from a solid surface.

Empirical error → The difference of the desired and actual output of a given FFNN instance for the items of the training set.

Empty set → The empty set has no element. In math it is denoted by Ø or { } However in a technical context, it can also be denoted by 0.

Enamines (alkenylamines) → Alkenylamines; by usage the term refers specifically to vinylic amines, which have the structure R2NCR=CR2.

Enantiomers → Compounds with the same constitution and being nonsuperimposable mirror-images of each other.

Enantiotopic group → ~ is a substitution with a new achiral group gives a pair of enantiomers.

Encoding → The procedure when a unit of information is assigned to a group of bits is called encoding.

Encounters → Packets of collisions in a solution.

Endogenous component → Longer latency component of the ERP that are detemined mainly by the relevance of the stimulus in the given situation.

End-point enzyme assay → A procedure to measure the generated product (or consumed substrate) at a single time point following inhibition of the progress of reaction

Enentiomeric excess (ee.; optical purity) → ~ (ee.) or optical purity is the excess of one enantiomer over the other in a mixture of the two.

Energy → ~ is a quantity that is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems. Since work is defined as a force, acting through a distance (a length of space), ~ is always equivalent to the ability to exert pulls or pushes against the basic forces of nature, along a path of a certain length (Greek: ένέργεια ~ activity, operation).

Energy (discrete time) → The sum of the square of the absolute values in the signal

Energy dissipation → Dissipation performance is the heat energy generated in a unit of time, this should bediverted to avoid overheating.

Energy gap → The ~ or band gap, is an energy range in a solid where no electron states can exist. In the electronic band structure of solids, the band gap generally refers to the energy difference (in eV) between the top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band in insulators and semiconductors. This is equivalent to the energy required to free an outer shell electron from its orbit about the nucleus to become a mobile charge carrier, able to move freely within the solid material. Conductors either have very small band gaps or none, because the valence and conduction bands overlap.

Energy harvesting → ~ is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power), captured, and stored.

Energy quantization → A quantum is the smallest bit of electromagnetic radiation that can be emitted. It is a photon of light or small “packet” of electromagnetic radiation. As the frequency of radiation increases, its energy increases by the increment “h·Δν”. The energy is not continuous, it is quantized – only certain energies are allowed.

Energy scavenging techniques → It is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic energy), captured, and stored for use by low power wireless electronic devices in an effort to make the wireless nodes and resulting wireless sensor networks indefinitely self-sustaining

Energy signal → A signal if it has a finite “energy”

Enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) → A mutant version of the green fluorescent protein, which exhibits a brighter green fluorescence (when exposed to blue light) than the wild type protein.

Enterohepatic recycling → the process of secretion of a metabolite (e.g. bile acid) produced by the liver into the bile followed by absorption in the intestine and transport back to the liver for reutilization

Enthalpy → It is a state function. Formally, H=U+pV, where H is the enthalpy, U is the internal energy, p is the pressure and V is the volume.

Entorhinal cortex (EC) → The ~ is located in the medial temporal lobe and functions as a hub in a widespread network for memory and navigation. The EC is the main interface between the hippocampus and neocortex.

Entrant (signal) → A signal is ~ if it only has 0 values for time instants less then 0.

Entropy (statistical mechanics) → The ~ of a macrostate is S=-k_B∑p_ilnp_i, where kB is the Boltzmann constant and pi is the probability of a given microstate. In the special case, where microstates are equally probable, the ~ is given by the Boltzmann equation, S=kB·lnW where the W is the density of states of the macrostate.

Entropy (thermodynamics) → A state function. The change of the ~ is dS=δq/T, where dS is the differential of ~, δq is the heat and T is the temperature.

Envelope extraction → The temporal envelope of wideband signals, such as the sound waves, can be extracted using rectification followed by a low-pass filter with a cutoff frequency around 200 Hz.

Environment → In a particular study everything which does not belong to the system is the part of the ~.

Enzyme → Enzymes are catalysts of biochemical reactions. Enzymes are proteins often connected with a non-protein molecule which helps the ~ to function.

EOG (Electrooculography) → ~ is a technique for measuring the resting potential of the retina. The resulting signal is called the electrooculogram. The main applications are in B691ophthalmological diagnosis and in recording eye mo+B697vements.

Epileptogenic zone → An area in the brain, the stimulation of which provokes seizures.

Epimysium → ~ is a layer of connective tissue which ensheaths the entire muscle. It is composed of dense irregular connective tissue.

Epiretinal → A approach to threat the eye over the macula, close to the ganglion cells.

Epoxy compounds → In ~ an oxygen atom is directly attached to two adjacent or non-adjacent carbon atoms of a carbon chain or ring system; thus they are cyclic ethers. The term epoxides represents a subclass of ~ containing a saturated three-membered cyclic ether; thus oxirane derivatives.

Equalization → Cancelling the interferences and noise with linear filter

Equidistance → The distance euquals between two arbitrary middle point of step

Equilibrium → The word ~ means a state of balance. In an equilibrium state, there are no unbalanced potentials (or driving forces) within the system. A system that is in ~ experiences no observable changes when it is isolated from its surroundings.

Equilibrium point → The solutions of the equation (system) of the linear resistive network are the equilibrium points of the network (operation points).