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  • Set sensitivity

    In mechanical ventilation, the inspiratory pressure at which the patient’s respiratory effort triggers a breath from the ventilator.  

  • Limited data set

    Minimally identifying information about a patient’s medical care (e.g., dates of admission and discharge from hospital; the patient’s dates of birth, death, and age; and the zip code in which the patient resides). Under regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), data that reveal more about a patient (e.g., name, address, social…

  • Servomechanism

    In biology and physiology, a control mechanism that operates by negative or positive feedback. For example, when in the normal person the blood glucose level rises, the pancreas responds by releasing insulin, which enables the glucose to be metabolized. The level of other hormones is also regulated by this mechanism.  

  • Service animal

    Any animal (often a dog) specially trained to assist a person who is blind, deaf, or in some manner  disabled. Also called an assistance animal.  

  • Serve

    To deliver a legal document to a person named in it. This is done formally to comply with due process of law.  

  • Serum-fast

    Capable of resisting the antibodies present in serum.  

  • Serum bank

    A laboratory or storage facility where samples of serum are kept, typically at subfreezing temperatures, for their future value in the retrospective study of important or emerging diseases. The JANUS serum bank, in Norway, has one of the largest and best organized national collections of stored serum; its specimens have been used primarily in studies…

  • Pregnant mare’s serum

    Serum derived from the blood of pregnant mares; source of hormones, especially gonadotropins.  

  • Polyvalent serum

    Serum containing antibodies to several antigens.  

  • Grouping serum

    A serum used for determining the blood group to which unknown cells belong. The grouping serums commonly used are human serums secured from donors and rabbit antiserums prepared commercially.  

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