Technology glossary

Closed-Loop Stimulation

A system that measures a biological signal and automatically adjusts stimulation in response.

Cloud Account Takeover(ATO)

Unauthorized control of an online service account after credentials, authentication tokens or active sessions are stolen or abused. The attacker may then access email, files, contacts and connected services under the victim's identity.

Cloud Condensation Nuclei

A tiny airborne particle around which water vapor condenses to form a cloud droplet, a key factor in how many clouds form and how reflective they become.

Coastal Exposure Mapping

Mapping places and assets that may be exposed to flooding, erosion or sea-level rise.

Cockpit Access Control

The physical and procedural system that limits entry to an aircraft flight deck. It can include reinforced doors, access codes, crew verification, denial controls and emergency procedures, while still allowing authorised help when pilots need it.

Coding Agent

An AI system that can inspect code, make changes, run tools, and complete software-development tasks with limited human direction.

Coercivity

The strength of the reverse magnetic field needed to reduce a magnetized material's magnetization to zero. Low coercivity is desirable in motor cores and transformers that repeatedly reverse their magnetic state.

Cold Start

A GNSS cold start occurs when a receiver begins without current satellite orbit, time or approximate-position information and must acquire what it needs from satellite broadcasts. This usually makes the first position fix slower than a warm or assisted start.

Collaborative Combat Aircraft

A planned class of uncrewed US Air Force aircraft designed to fly alongside crewed fighter jets and support them in combat missions.

Collaborative Decision Making in Aviation(CDM)

A process in which air traffic authorities, airlines, airports and other operators share timely information and coordinate operational decisions. The aim is to improve traffic predictability and choose responses to congestion or disruption using a common view of conditions.

Collagen

A structural protein that provides strength and organization to skin, bone, tendons, and many other tissues.

Collecting Society

An organization that manages copyrights or related rights on behalf of many creators and publishers. It can license uses, collect royalties, distribute payments and enforce represented rights, reducing the need for each user to negotiate separately with every rights holder.

Command-and-Control Server(C2)

Infrastructure used by an attacker to send instructions to compromised devices, receive stolen information, update malicious software or coordinate an intrusion.

Commissioning Phase

The period after launch when engineers deploy, cool, calibrate and test a spacecraft and its instruments before routine science operations. Successful launch does not guarantee successful commissioning because many systems must work together in their operating environment.

Companion diagnostic

A regulated medical test used to determine whether a patient is likely to benefit from, or can safely receive, a particular medicine. The test and treatment are linked through the medicine's approved labeling.

Competitive Integrity

The condition in which a competition is conducted under fair, consistently enforced rules and its outcome is not distorted by cheating, manipulation, undisclosed assistance, or unequal access to prohibited advantages.

Complete Switching

Replacing combustible cigarettes entirely with another nicotine product during a defined study period, rather than using both products together.

Computable General Equilibrium Model(CGE)

An economy-wide mathematical model that represents interactions among industries, consumers, governments, trade, prices and resource constraints. Analysts use it to estimate how a policy or productivity change in one sector propagates through markets and affects production, demand and emissions.

Computer Security Incident Response Team(CSIRT)

A specialist organization that coordinates the handling of cybersecurity incidents, including analysis, information sharing and support for mitigation. Under the EU reporting process, a designated national CSIRT receives and distributes relevant product-security notifications.

Congeneric Solvent

A solvent molecule selected from a group of compounds that share a closely related chemical structure. Comparing congeneric solvents helps researchers isolate how a specific change, such as molecular size, affects transport, stability or reactivity.

Connected Ball

A sports ball fitted with embedded sensors that transmit motion data for officiating, performance analysis, or broadcast systems.

Consent Judgment

A court order that formalizes an agreement between parties and makes its obligations judicially enforceable without a trial verdict.

Content Moderation

The policies, people and technical systems an online service uses to review, restrict, label or remove user-generated material that violates its rules or applicable law.

Content Provenance

A record of where a piece of digital content came from and how it changed. Provenance can include the capturing device, creator, editing steps, timestamps and cryptographic credentials, helping people assess authenticity without relying only on visual inspection.

Content validity

Content validity describes how well the items in an assessment cover the concept the assessment is intended to measure. Experts commonly judge whether each item is relevant, clear and sufficiently representative. Strong content validity supports the design of a tool, but does not by itself prove that its scores predict real-world outcomes.

Context Window

The maximum amount of information a language model can consider at one time when processing or generating a response. It typically includes the prompt, conversation history, supplied documents, and generated tokens, and is measured in tokens rather than words.

Continual Learning

A method that lets a model learn from a sequence of new tasks or data while trying to preserve useful knowledge acquired earlier.

Continuing Resolution

A temporary US law that keeps some or all federal agencies funded when regular annual appropriations have not been completed. It usually extends existing funding rates for a limited period and may include special provisions. A continuing resolution prevents an immediate funding lapse but does not replace the final budget decisions Congress still must make.

Continuous Employee Vetting

Ongoing review of authorized personnel for new risk indicators after initial hiring and security clearance.

Contrail Avoidance

An operational strategy that changes an aircraft’s altitude or route to avoid atmospheric zones where strongly warming contrails are likely to form. Its net benefit depends on forecast accuracy, execution rate and any additional fuel burned.