| Alkaline Soil |
Soil that contains a higher concentration of mineral salt than natural acid. |
| Alley |
A lane behind a row of buildings or between two rows of buildings. |
| All Inclusive Incumbrance |
aka wraparound mortgage |
| Book Entry |
The nonphysical record of ownership, custody, and transfer of securities through electronic means. The system for settlement, delivery, and custody of uncertificated securities. |
| Book Entry Securities |
Stocks, bonds, other securities, and some certificates of deposit that are purchased, sold, and held with only manual or computer accounting entries rather than transfers of physical certificates to evidence the transfer. Typically, instead of a physical certificate or instrument, buyers only receive receipts or confirmations as evidence of their ownership. |
| Book Value |
A calculation done by dividing equity of common shares, as listed in the equity section of the balance sheet, by the number of shares of common stock outstanding. |
| Case Study |
A case study uses real scenarios that focus on a specific issue(s). It looks deeply at a specific issue, drawing conclusions only about that issue and only in that specific context. |
| Casual Dress |
Refers to attire such as jeans, casual slacks, t-shirts, sport and polo shirts and other apparel used for leisure. |
| Casual Employment |
The practice of hiring employees on an as-needed basis, either as a replacement for permanent full-time employees who are out on short- and long-term absences or to meet employer’s additional staffing needs during peak business periods. |
| Defeasance |
a clause in a mortgage that gives the borrower the right to prepay a commercial mortgage by purchasing US Treasuries in an escrow account to pay off ongoing debt service. |
| Default |
Failure to meet the terms of a credit agreement. |
| Default Rate |
An alternative higher rate of interest or a premium specified in a loan document to be added to the contractual rate of interest that can be charged by the lender if the borrower is in default. |
| Employer |
An individual or company that pays people to work for them. Employers are obligated to withhold income taxes and social security taxes from the compensation of employees. |
| Employer-assisted Housing |
Programs which help employees purchase homes through special plans developed with lenders. |
| Employment Contract |
A document evidencing formal employment between employer and employee or between principal and agent. In the real estate business this generally takes the form of a listing agreement or management agreement. |
| Future Medicals |
Employers are typically responsible for payment of medical expenses associated with their employees’ on-the-job injuries. Medical benefits are often lifetime benefits (i.e., employers are generally on the hook for future meds for the injured employee’s lifetime as long as the medical expenses are related to the underlying job injury). In some states, the employee’s right to future meds can be terminated when the employee and employer agree to the terms and a judge or appropriate administrative authority approves the agreement. |
| Frontal Bone |
The part of the skull that forms the forehead. |
| Facial Palsy |
The inability to move the muscles of the face, usually on only one side, caused by inflammation of a nerve. Also known as Bell’s palsy. |
| Group Art Unit |
(may be abbreviated "AU," "GAU" or "Grp Art Unit" on Office correspondence) - a working unit responsible for a cluster of related patent art. Staffed by one supervisory patent examiner (SPE) and a number of patent examiners who determine patentability on applications for a patent. Group Art Units are identified by a four digit number, i.e., 1642. |
| Garnishee |
An insurance company, bank, employer or others upon whom a judgment creditor has placed a Writ of Garnishment because that person or entity holds assets due the original debtor. |
| Garnishment |
A proceeding whereby a debtor's money, or other property, which is under the control of another is given to a third person to whom the debtor owes a debt. In family law this often applies to child support or alimony. One spouse may have their wages garnished to assure that a debt to the other spouse is paid. |
| Home Warranty Insurance Policy |
An insurance policy that insures against plumbing, electrical, heating, and major appliance problems for the term of the policy. |
| Homogeneous |
Composed of parts all of the same kind or of the same kind or nature; essentially alike. |
| Hopper Window |
A window that contains a single sash that tilts inward. |
| Impairment Rating (ir) |
An IR (sometimes called a physical impairment rating) is a medical assessment of a claimant’s injury represented by a percentage value. A physician may assign an IR to the body as a whole or to a specific body part. The rating may then be used to calculate the workers’ comp benefits owed to a claimant. Impairment ratings are particularly important in determining permanent partial disability benefits. |
| Interstate Rating |
An experience modification factor that applies across more than one state. Interstate ratings are calculated by NCCI for employers whose past workers compensation insurance policies show payroll in more than one state. Most, but not all states, participate in the interstate rating system. A few states, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, do not participate in interstate rating, but instead continue to calculate separate experience ratings for employers who operate in their jurisdictions, even if those employers also qualify for interstate rating. Those employers thus have one experience modifier applying to their operations in most states but a separate modifier calculated by the stand-alone state rating bureau. The separate stand-alone mod would apply only to workers compensation insurance premiums developed for the employer’s operations in that stand-alone state. |
| Intracranial Pressure (icp) |
The measurable pressure inside the cranium and brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Elevated ICP is associated with severe brain damage, and if prolonged, may be fatal. Measured from a needle in millimeters of mercury. |
| Justifiable Homicide |
The killing of another in self-defense when faced with the danger of death or serious bodily injury |
| Juvenile |
A person subject to juvenile court proceedings because a statutorily defined event or condition caused by or affecting that person was alleged to have occurred while his or her age was below the statutorily specified age limit of original jurisdiction of a juvenile court. |
| Juvenile Court |
A court that has, as all or part of its authority, original jurisdiction over matters concerning people statutorily defined as juveniles. |
| Kinship Adoption |
Describes a legal process in which the child is adopted by a relative, and usually involves a less stringent process to complete the adoption (not to be confused with informal family care). |
| Key Contributor Plan |
Is a performance-based incentive program created for the sole purpose of attracting, motivating and retaining key individuals or small groups. (Pierson and Williams, 1994) |
| Key Rate Duration |
A measure of duration that calculates effective or empirical duration by changing the market rate for one specific maturity point on the yield curve while holding all other variables constant. May be done as part of a series of calculations that separately and sequentially vary the yields for two or more maturity points on the yield curve. Sets of partial durations for multiple points on the same yield curve will sum to a value that is usually close to the overall effective duration. Also known as reshaping duration. Key rate duration is the most common type of partial duration and those terms are often used as synonyms. |
| Lifetime Reserve Days (medicare) |
Sixty days that Medicare will pay for when you are in a hospital for more than 90 days. These 60 reserve days can be used only once during your lifetime. For each lifetime reserve day, Medicare pays all covered costs except for a daily coinsurance ($406 in 2002). |
| Limiting Charge |
In the Original Medicare Plan, the highest amount of money you can be charged for a covered service by doctors and other health care suppliers who don?t accept assignment. The limiting charge is 15% over Medicare?s approved amount. The limiting charge only applies to certain services and doesn?t apply to supplies or equipment. |
| Line Item |
Service or item specific detail of claim. |
| Market |
A place where goods can be bought and sold and a price established |
| Marketability |
The ability to sell or lease a property quickly. Marketability deals with the appeal and demand for a property, good, or service. |
| Market Area |
A geographical area in which supply and demand operate to influence the course of industrial and commercial activities, for example, a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). |
| Notional Amount |
The principal amount or face value of a derivative. Defined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in FAS 133 as the number of currency units, shares, bushels, pounds or other units specified in a derivatives contract. The notional amount is used to calculate the payments that are exchanged by the counterparties in the transaction. Market participants refer to notional principal because, unlike bonds or other conventional credit instruments, these types of derivatives do not involve an exchange of principal. Rather, the parties state the principal amount only as a basis for calculating the sizes of the interest related payments that they exchange. In this application, principal is only a reference point or idea - hence the term. Also called the notional principal balance. |
| Negative Amortization |
Mortgage loans in which the initial payments are less than required to properly pay off the loan balance. The remainder of the payment normally due is added back into the loan contract, to be paid at a future time. In many cases the balance due on a mortgage of this type, actually grows instead of decreasing as it would in a normally amortized mortgage. |
| Not Automatically Protected |
There are several types of Federal benefits that are not automatically protected under 31CFR 212: Federal benefits received by check rather than direct deposit; Federal benefits received more than two months before the bank received the garnishment order or Federal benefits that were transferred to another bank account. The benefits may be exempt from garnishment but you will have to alert the court or creditor. |
| Oed |
Abbreviation for Office of Enrollment and Discipline |
| Og |
Abbreviation for Official Gazette |
| Ogc |
Abbreviation for Office of General Counsel |
| Preventive Services |
Health care to keep you healthy or to prevent illness (for example, Pap tests, pelvic exams, flu shots, and screening mammograms). |
| Palliative Care |
Care provided primarily to relieve symptoms of a disease or condition rather than for curative purposes. |
| Personal Hearing |
A meeting, similar to an interview, between an appellant and a VA official who will decide an appellant's case, during which testimony and other evidence supporting the case will be presented. There are two types of personal hearings: local office hearings (also called regional office hearings or hearing officer hearings) and BVA hearings. |
| Quid Pro Quo |
A Latin phrase meaning "something for something." Quid pro quo is a type of sexual harassment in which the harasser asks for a sexual favor in return for providing an employment benefit, such as a raise, continued employment, or other favorable treatment. |
| Quotas |
For affirmative action purposes, an absolute requirement that an employer hire a certain number of or percentage of employees from a specified group, without regard to the availability of qualified candidates or the presence of more qualified members of other groups. |
| Quality Assurance/quality Control |
A system of procedures, checks, audits, and corrective actions to ensure that all technical, operational, monitoring, and reporting activities are of the highest achievable quality. |
| Reasonable Assurance |
A high degree of confidence by an individual, entity, or application that received data should be treated as valid and unaltered. |
| Representative Payee |
If you receive Social Security benefits or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and become unable to handle your own financial affairs, we (after a careful investigation) appoint a relative, a friend, or an interested party to handle your Social Security matters. Representative payees are required to maintain complete accounting records and periodically provide reports to Social Security. |
| Reserve Duty |
Less-than-full-time service performed by servicemen and women of the National Guard and the reserve components of the Armed Forces in support of full-time (active duty) military units. Reserve duty typically consists of training, maintaining skills and equipment, and keeping in touch with superiors in case of activation or recall to active duty. Some reservists are more likely than others to be activated or recalled to active duty, particularly Guardsmen and women who can be activated by their states’ governors and who have increasingly served extended tours of duties overseas since the events of September 11, 2001. Other reservists may be recalled to service if their particular skills or training are in short supply in the active duty military, or during periods of great need demanding full mobilization. |
| Spread Lock |
A contract that guarantees the ability to enter into an interest rate swap at a predetermined rate above some benchmark rate. |
| Stay |
A order of the court whereby some action is forbidden until some event occurs or until the court lifts its order. |
| Step Ups |
A form of callable security for which the coupon rate increases if the security is not called. |
| Title Xviii (t Xviii, T-18) |
Medicare program. Benefits for hospital insurance and supplementary medical insurance are authorized under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act |
| Title Xix (t Xix, T-19) |
Medicaid Program. |
| Trait |
A vocationally relevant attribute or characteristic which permits a person to properly perform a work activity. Traits are relevant whether learned or innate. Traits are not skills. A musician requires both a good sense of pitch and fine finger dexterity (traits) to play a piece of music by ear without error (skill); a lab researcher may require acute vision (trait) to identify a particular bacteria found in a culture (skill); a machinist must rely on perception of size and shape (trait) to cut material within certain tolerances (skill). |
| Unsecured Loan |
A loan based upon a consumer's promise to repay, not on pledged collateral. |
| Unused Credit |
Available credit |
| Usage Ratio |
The proportion (percentage) of the credit limit or loan amount that is being used. This is a percentage calculated by dividing the balance by the credit limit (or original loan amount for installment accounts). Also known as BTL, usage ratio, utilization ratio. |
| Vacancy Allowance |
A desirable level of vacancy that is known to facilitate transactions and turnover in a housing market (for example, a vacancy rate that allows the market to operate smoothly and efficiently by enhancing household mobility); an index used for estimating housing demand. |
| Vacancy Rate |
The percentage of the total supply of units or space of a specific commercial type that is vacant and available for occupancy at a particular point in time within a given market. |
| Value |
The measure of the monetary equivalent of a property. The four essential elements of value are utility, scarcity, demand and transferability. Cost does not equal value nor does equity. |
| War Clause |
A clause in an insurance contract relieving the insurer of liability, or reducing its liability, for specified loss caused by war. |
| Warranty |
A statement made by the applicant which becomes a condition of issuance of the contract. Strictly speaking, a false warranty voids the policy even if it is not material. In practice, U.S. courts are inclined to be lenient towards a policyholder who has made a false warranty which does not materially affect the risk, but British courts still insist upon the truth of warranties. |
| Water Soluable Chemicals |
Chemicals that are capable of being dissolved in some solvent. Chemicals that are water soluble may contaminate water supplies through spills or landfill leaks. |
| X12n/tg2/wg5 |
The Health Care Claims Status Work Group (WG5) of the Health Care Task Group (TG2) of the Insurance Subcommittee (N) of X12. This group maintains the X12 276 Health Care Claims Status Inquiry and the X12 277 Health Care Claim Status Response transactions. |
| X12n/tg2/wg9 |
The Health Care Patient Information Work Group (WG9) of the Health Care Task Group (TG2) of the Insurance Subcommittee (N) of X12. This group maintains the X12 275 Patient Information transaction. |
| X12n/tg3 |
The Business Transaction Coordination and Modeling Task Group (TG3) of the Insurance Subcommittee (N) of X12. TG3 maintains the X12N Business and Data Models and the HIPAA Data Dictionary. This was formerly X12N/TG2/WG11. |
| Yield To Call (ytc) |
The annual percentage yield of a security calculated using the yield-to-maturity formula but with the assumption that the security is called on the first call date or on the first par call date. |
| Yield To Maturity (ytm) |
concepts used to determine the rate of return an investor will receive if a long–term, interest–bearing investment such as a bond, is held to its maturity date. It takes into account purchase price, redemption value, time to maturity, coupon yield and the time between interest payments. Recognizing time value of money, it is the discount rate at which the present value of all future payments would equal the present price of the bond (also referred to as "internal rate of return"). It is implicitly assumed that coupons are reinvested at the YTM rate. YTM can be approximated using a bond value table (also referred to as a "bond yield table") or can be determined using a programmable calculator equipped for bond mathematics calculations. |
| Ytm |
An acronym for Yield to Maturity |
| Zoning |
The laws that state how a private user, business, or other entity may use land, including the type and size of buildings or houses that will be allowed on certain lots. Zoning laws are organized by geographic boundaries and may dictate where single-family or multi-family residential, certain categories of business, and/or agriculture may exist in relationship to each other within city limits. Zoning may also address the number of parking spots needed, how close buildings can be to each other or the street, and how much landscaping must be present in certain areas. Zoning is usually controlled (and created) by city or county governments. These governmental entities may grant zoning variances (e.g. allowing fewer parking spaces, or allowing a building to be built closer to the road, etc.) because of a hardship the zoning law causes to the property owner. |
| Zoning |
The laws that state how a private user, business, or other entity may use land, including the type and size of buildings or houses that will be allowed on certain lots. Zoning laws are organized by geographic boundaries and may dictate where single-family or multi-family residential, certain categories of business, and/or agriculture may exist in relationship to each other within city limits. Zoning may also address the number of parking spots needed, how close buildings can be to each other or the street, and how much landscaping must be present in certain areas. Zoning is usually controlled (and created) by city or county governments. These governmental entities may grant zoning variances (e.g. allowing fewer parking spaces, or allowing a building to be built closer to the road, etc.) because of a hardship the zoning law causes to the property owner. |
| Zoning |
local laws established to control the uses of land within a particular area. Zoning laws are used to separate residential land from areas of non-residential use, such as industry or businesses. Zoning ordinances include many provisions governing such things as type of structure, setbacks, lot size, and uses of a building. |
