(n.) An instrument by means of which the bolt of a lock is shot or drawn; usually, a removable metal instrument fitted to the mechanism of a particular lock and operated by turning in its place.
(n.) An instrument which is turned like a key in fastening or adjusting any mechanism; as, a watch key; a bed key, etc.
(n.) That part of an instrument or machine which serves as the means of operating it; as, a telegraph key; the keys of a pianoforte, or of a typewriter.
(n.) A position or condition which affords entrance, control, pr possession, etc.; as, the key of a line of defense; the key of a country; the key of a political situation. Hence, that which serves to unlock, open, discover, or solve something unknown or difficult; as, the key to a riddle; the key to a problem.
(n.) That part of a mechanism which serves to lock up, make fast, or adjust to position.
(n.) A piece of wood used as a wedge.
(n.) The last board of a floor when laid down.
(n.) A keystone.
(n.) That part of the plastering which is forced through between the laths and holds the rest in place.
(n.) A wedge to unite two or more pieces, or adjust their relative position; a cotter; a forelock.
(n.) A bar, pin or wedge, to secure a crank, pulley, coupling, etc., upon a shaft, and prevent relative turning; sometimes holding by friction alone, but more frequently by its resistance to shearing, being usually embedded partly in the shaft and partly in the crank, pulley, etc.
(n.) An indehiscent, one-seeded fruit furnished with a wing, as the fruit of the ash and maple; a samara; -- called also key fruit.
(n.) A family of tones whose regular members are called diatonic tones, and named key tone (or tonic) or one (or eight), mediant or three, dominant or five, subdominant or four, submediant or six, supertonic or two, and subtonic or seven. Chromatic tones are temporary members of a key, under such names as " sharp four," "flat seven," etc. Scales and tunes of every variety are made from the tones of a key.
(n.) The fundamental tone of a movement to which its modulations are referred, and with which it generally begins and ends; keynote.
(n.) Fig: The general pitch or tone of a sentence or utterance.
(v. t.) To fasten or secure firmly; to fasten or tighten with keys or wedges.
Example Sentences:
(1) Community involvement is a key element of the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach, and thus an essential topic on a course for managers of Primary Health Care programmes.
(2) A key way of regaining public trust will be reforming the system of remuneration as agreed by the G20.
(3) Instead, the White House opted for a low-key approach, publishing a blogpost profiling Trinace Edwards, a brain-tumour victim who recently discovered she was eligible for Medicaid coverage.
(4) The presence of a few key residues in the amino-terminal alpha-helix of each ligand is sufficient to confer specificity to the interaction.
(5) The key warning from the Fed chair A summary of Bernanke's hearing Earlier... MPs in London quizzed the Bank of England on Libor.
(6) "Seller reports are key to identifying bad buyers and ridding them from our marketplace," says eBay.
(7) It is suggested that the low-density lipoprotein receptors in human fetal liver may play a key role in the regulation of the serum cholesterol levels during gestation.
(8) A key component of a career program should be recognition of a nurse's needs and the program should be evaluated to determine if these needs are met.
(9) As novel antibody therapeutics are developed for different malignancies and require evaluation with cells previously uncharacterized as antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) targets, efficient description of key parameters of the assay system expedites the preclinical assessment.
(10) Meanwhile, Hunt has been accused of backtracking on a key recommendation in the official report into Mid Staffs.
(11) The safe motherhood initiative demands an intersectoral, collaborative approach to gynecology, family planning, and child health in which midwifery is the key element.
(12) Acetylcholinesterase is a key enzyme in cholinergic neurotransmission for hydrolyzing acetylcholine and has been shown to possess arylacylamidase activity in addition to esterase activity.
(13) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
(14) Four goals, four assists, and constant movement have been a key part of the team’s success.
(15) Mechanosensitive ion channels may play a key role in transducing vascular smooth muscle (VSM) stretch into active force development.
(16) But Abaaoud, the man thought to be a key planner for the group behind the Paris attacks, boasted to a niece that he had brought around 90 militants back to Europe with him.
(17) Key therapeutic questions are whether beta-lactams can safely replace aminoglycosides for the treatment of gram-negative pneumonia, and whether monotherapy or aminoglycoside and beta-lactam combination antibiotic treatment is superior.
(18) Teaching procedures then establish and build these key components to fluency.
(19) Doubts about Hinkley Point have deepened after a detailed report by HSBC’s energy analysts described eight key challenges to the project, which will be built by the state-backed French firm EDF and be part-financed by investment from China .
(20) The Lords will vote on three key amendments: • To exclude child benefit from the cap calculation (this would roughly halve the number of households affected).
Modulate
Definition:
(v. t.) To form, as sound, to a certain key, or to a certain portion.
(v. t.) To vary or inflect in a natural, customary, or musical manner; as, the organs of speech modulate the voice in reading or speaking.
(v. i.) To pass from one key into another.
Example Sentences:
(1) The variation in thickness of the LLFL may modulate the species causing damage to the cells below it.
(2) These included bringing in the A* grade, reducing the number of modules from six to four, and a greater attempt to assess the whole course at the end.
(3) The vascular endothelium is capable of regulating tissue perfusion by the release of endothelium-derived relaxing factor to modulate vasomotor tone of the resistance vasculature.
(4) Quantitative determinations indicate that the amount of PBG-D mRNA is modulated both by the erythroid nature of the tissue and by cell proliferation, probably at the transcriptional level.
(5) Gel filtration of the 40,000 rpm supernatant fraction of a homogenate of rat cerebral cortex on a Sepharose 6B column yielded two fractions: fraction II with the "Ca(2+) plus Mg(2+)-dependent" phosphodiesterase activity and fraction III containing its modulator.
(6) This modulation results from repetitive, alternating bursts of excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials, which are caused at least in part by synaptic feedback to the command neurons from identified classes of neurons in the feeding network.
(7) Modulation of the voltage-gated K+ conductance in T-lymphocytes by substance P was examined.
(8) Thus, human bronchial epithelial cells can express the IL-8 gene, with expression in response to the inflammatory mediator TNF regulated mainly at the transcriptional level, and with elements within the 5'-flanking region of the gene that are directly or indirectly modulated by the TNF signal.
(9) This study examines the role of sex hormones in modulating the expression of autoimmunity in NZB x NZW F1 mice.
(10) More needs to be known about the direct and indirect modulation of cytokine production by cyclosporin A in connective tissues, in order to understand its potential value in clinical disorders.
(11) We suggest that neuronal PACAP may serve to modulate motor activity and secretion in the lower esophageal sphincter region.
(12) Furthermore, modulation of the assay by prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) was used to increase its sensitivity.
(13) Masking experiments are demonstrated for electrical frequency-modulated tone bursts from 1,000 to 10,000 cps and from 10,000 to 1,000 cps with superimposed clicks.
(14) From these results, BM-Eo are naive and seem to be a good indicator for eosinophilotaxis and its modulation.
(15) Administration of modulators in combinations of threes resulted in still further reduction of tumor incidences to 22.2% (SS + MC + AA), 19.2% (SS + MC + RA), 16% (MC + AA + RA) and 23.1% (AA + RA + SS).
(16) These findings suggest that activation of protein kinase C may act as a feedback inhibitor to modulate ligand-mediated increases in [Ca2+]i.
(17) These studies demonstrate that vWF interaction with GP Ib may be modulated by botrocetin binding to a discontinuous site located within residues 539-643.
(18) This contrasts sharply with the reduction in both the frequency and surface area of sensory neuron active zones that accompanies long-term habituation, and suggests that modulation of active zone number and size may be an anatomical correlate that lies in the long-term domain.
(19) Thus, it appears that the modulation of the phosphorylation of these cytosolic proteins represents an essential step in the regulation of T lymphocyte activation.
(20) Energy conformational calculations on these compounds were also carried out using the empirical energy program called MOLMEC, in order to better understand how the 4-R substituents modulate receptor binding affinities and efficacies.