Month: December 2020
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Police power
Legislative authority granted to law enforcement officials and others to protect the health and welfare of the people through the use of punitive measures. The authority of government to restrict the rights of individuals to protect the health and welfare of the public. In the health care context, police power may be invoked by public…
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Polarization
The process by which attitudes or feelings become more extreme, positive attitudes becoming more favorable, negative attitudes becoming even less favorable. A condition in a ray of fight in which vibrations occur in only one plane. When a dielectric material is subjected to an electric field, it undergoes a displacement of bound charges.
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Polarity
Positions at the opposite ends of a continuum. Negative pole or positive pole of an electric current.
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Polar bodies
In female animals, the smaller cells produced at meiosis that do not develop into ova.
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Poison
Any substance that is toxic. A substance which can kill or harm body tissues if eaten or drunk. Substance that when inhaled, ingested, or absorbed impairs health or causes death. Any substance that irritates, damages, or impairs the activity of the body’s tissues. In large enough doses almost any substance acts as a poison, but…
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Point tenderness
An area of tenderness limited to 2- 3 cm in diameter. It can be identified through pain with gentle pressure can be located in any place of the body as it is usually associated with acute inflammation, as in peritonitis, or disruption of tissue, as in a fracture.
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Point source of pollution
Water pollutants from a specific and known source.
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Point scale
In intelligence testing, a test in which credit is given directly in terms of the number of items passed, age scale.
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Point prevalence study
Cross-sectional method.
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Poikilothermophytic
Descriptive of organisms that lack a means of maintaining their cytoplasmic temperature at a constant level, homoiothermophytic.