Organic

Organic may refer to:

Chemistry

Farming, certification and products

Organic unit

An organic unit is a military unit that is a permanent part of a larger unit and (usually) provides some specialized capability to that parent unit. For instance, the US Marine Corps incorporates its own aviation units (distinct from the US Air Force and US Navy) that provide it with fire support, electronic warfare, and transport.

At a lower level of organization, infantry units commonly incorporate organic armour or artillery units to improve their combined arms capability. Organic assets are closely integrated into their parent unit's command structure and their personnel are familiar with other personnel in the parent unit, improving coordination and responsiveness and making the parent unit more self-sufficient.

However, over-emphasis of organic assets can create wasteful redundancy. For instance, an infantry unit assigned to urban peacekeeping duties might have little use for its organic artillery, while another unit deployed elsewhere might have less artillery support than it required. The question of how much to emphasise the use of organic assets, as opposed to coordination with separate units ('joint organization') is a subject of debate and heavily dependent on questions of command and control.

Organic wine

Organic wine is wine made from grapes grown in accordance with principles of organic farming, which typically excludes the use of artificial chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.

The consumption of organic wine grew at a rate of 3.7 percent over the year ending September 19, 2009, out-pacing growth in the consumption of non-organic wine which grew 2% during a similar period. There are an estimated 1500-2000 organic wine producers globally, including negociant labels, with more than 885 of these organic domaines in France alone.

The legal definition of organic wine varies from country to country. The primary difference in the way that organic wine is defined relates to the use (or non use) of preservatives during the wine-making process.

Production and preservatives

Wine production comprises two main phases - that which takes place in the vineyard (i.e. grape growing) and that which takes place in the winery (i.e. fermentation of the grapes into wine, bottling etc.). The baseline definition of organic wine as "wine made with grapes farmed organically", deals only with the first phase (grape growing). There are numerous potential inputs which can be made during the second phase of production in order to ferment and preserve the wine. The most universal wine preservative is sulphur dioxide. The issue of wine preservation is central to the discussion of how organic wine is defined.

Banu Abs

The Banu Abs (Arabic: بنو عبس‎, lit. "sons of ʿAbs") are an ancient Bedouin tribe from central Arabia. They form a branch of the Ghatafan tribes. They still inhabit the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. Of the earliest stories concerning this tribe was the famous classical love and war story of Antar and Abla.

Genealogy

The Banu Abs are of the Northern Arabized Arabs, meaning they descend from Adnan. The Banu Abs descend from Abs ibn Bughaydh ibn Raith ibn Ghatafan ibn Sa'd ibn Qais Ailan ibn Mudar ibn Nizar ibn Ma'ad ibn Adnan. They are related to numerous other Arabian tribes, being distant cousins of the Quraysh, Banu Tamim, and Banu Kinanah. The Banu Thibyaan and Mutayr are also descended from Ghatafan. The large and prestigious Banu Rasheed is descended from the Banu Abs; the great-grandfather of the Banu Rasheed is Rasheed al Zaul of the Banu Abs tribe.

History

Absolute value

In mathematics, the absolute value or modulus |x| of a real number x is the non-negative value of x without regard to its sign. Namely, |x| = x for a positive x, |x| = −x for a negative x (in which case −x is positive), and |0| = 0. For example, the absolute value of 3 is 3, and the absolute value of −3 is also 3. The absolute value of a number may be thought of as its distance from zero.

Generalisations of the absolute value for real numbers occur in a wide variety of mathematical settings. For example, an absolute value is also defined for the complex numbers, the quaternions, ordered rings, fields and vector spaces. The absolute value is closely related to the notions of magnitude, distance, and norm in various mathematical and physical contexts.

Terminology and notation

In 1806, Jean-Robert Argand introduced the term module, meaning unit of measure in French, specifically for the complex absolute value, and it was borrowed into English in 1866 as the Latin equivalent modulus. The term absolute value has been used in this sense from at least 1806 in French and 1857 in English. The notation |x|, with a vertical bar on each side, was introduced by Karl Weierstrass in 1841. Other names for absolute value include numerical value and magnitude.

ABS

ABS or abs may refer to:

Science and technology

Music and media