SBF Glossary: SD to SDVMA

S.D.

Salutem Dicit. Latin which means (in a ``dynamic'' rather than literal translation), `sends greetings.' The word salus means `health, welfare, safety,' and occurred in various expressions of good wishes on meeting (and also on parting). It became associated with greeting, hence the verb salutare (`to greet') and the nouns salutatio (`greeting') and salutator (`visitor').

The phrase salutem dicit became sufficiently standard that the abbreviation S.D. was used formulaically at the beginnings of letters (in the preserved letters of Cicero and Pliny, for example). Here salus occurs in the accusative form salutem, indicating that it is the direct object of the verb dicit (meaning `says' in this instance). So you can think of salutem dicit as meaning ``says `[good] health' '' or ``says hi.'' Sometimes S.D. was shortened to S., and the word ``dicit'' was understood. I suppose one could imagine that S. stood for the verb salutat (`greets'), but apparently S.D. was sufficiently standard that S. was regarded as a shortened form of it.

One instance in a modern language, of a similar verb that may be elided and understood, is sprechen (`speak'). In the phrase ich kann Deutsch sprechen (`I can speak German') is colloquially truncated to ich kann Deutsch (`I can German'). This pattern occurs in a few other expressions, such as ich will ins Kino [gehen] (`I want [to go] to the movie theater'), but which elisions are conventional and which weird is something you'll have to ask a native speaker (or maybe google) about.

Today this S.D. (or S.) occurs primarily in college diplomas, if there. The form S.P.D. also occurs: Salutem Plurimam Dicit. This is normally translated `sends many greetings.' This is a good place to point out that salutem is a singular form, and is treated a mass (a/k/a uncountable) noun; plurimus means `much' in this context.

SD

Send Data. A standard light on external modems. Flashes during send. Cf. RD.

SD

Shine-Dalgarno. A specific recognition sequence in messenger RNA (mRNA), five to ten bases long, which does not code for protein but which aligns with a complementary Anti-Shine-Dalgarno site on ribosomal RNA to align the start codon on the mRNA with a p-site on the ribosome.

SD

Social Drinker. Personals ad abbreviation, as in ``SWM NS SD. Likes romantic walks on the beach.'' I am willing to confess here that I've read singles ads for many years. Reportedly, I've even replied to one or two. I make this personal revelation so that you can appreciate the significance when I tell you that I have never seen a personals ad with a self description of ``heavy drinker.'' It does not happen. Some people have claimed that they could have guessed this fact independently, but there's no substitute for empirical study.

SD

South Dakota. USPS abbreviation.

The Villanova Center for Information Law and Policy serves a page of South Dakota state government links. USACityLink.com has a page with some city and town links for the state.

SD

Standing Document.

SD

Structured Design. Ostensibly, guidance in writing code, er, executing a software engineering task. Top-down technique.

.sd

(Domain code for) Sudan. Gee, this entry looks rather devoid of resources. For now, at least, the etymology of the country name is at sudan.

SD

Sustainable Development.

SD

Syntactic Description.

SD

Systems Development.

SDA

SErial DAta line. Cf. I²C.

S.D.A.

Servicemens' Dependents' Allo{wance|tment}[s]. Official US term. Cf. SDA.

SDA

Seventh-Day Adventist. This abbreviation turns out to be much more common than 7DA.

SDA

Singapore Dental Association. Smile!

S.D.A.

Soldiers' Dependents' Allowance[s]. British and Irish official term dating from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, in instances I've seen. Not infrequently given with dependants misspelling. The abbreviation was at least used during WWII. Cf. SDA.

SDA

Student Developmental Associates, Inc.. See SDTLA below.

SDAA

Saskatchewan Dental Assistants' Association. Here's an excerpt of their humor:

``FILLING IN 4 YOU'': DENTAL PLACEMENT SERVICE
FOR SASKATOON, NOW EXPANDING INTO REGINA

I guess Regina must have a crown. Don't gag!

S.D.A.A.

(US) Servicemens' Dependents' Allowance Act.

SDAB, S-DAB

Satellite-Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).

Here's a report on ``Worldspace'' apparently appropriately targeted to the parts of the world with fewest CD-players per capita. Here's a trial in Australia.

SDAM

Seventh-Day Adventist[s'] Mission.

Yeah, yeah -- everybody's got a mission. But the SDA's get an entry for theirs because the stretch of acronyms beginning in SD was threadbare. See the bit on Kellogg for more on one SDAM.

SDAT

Senile Dementia of Alzheimer's Type. That's the usual DAT.

SDB

Safe-Deposit Box. There's no truth to the rumor that this is called a ``Safety'' Deposit Box.

SDB

Small-Diameter Bomb. Like the GBU-39.

SDB

Society for Developmental Biology. ``The purpose of the Society for Developmental Biology is to further the study of development in all organisms and at all levels, to represent and promote communication among students of development, and to promote the field of developmental biology.''

SDB's official publication is Developmental Biology (online access free to SDB members). Their website provides links to Current Topics in Developmental Biology (CTDB), but that seems to be an independent journal owned by the publisher (Elsevier).

An SDB member in the news in late 2008 was Prof. Martin Chalfie of the Columbia University Department of Biological Sciences. He shared that year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura (of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole) and Roger Y. Tsien of (UCSD) for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (GFP). That's a camera-friendly Nobel if there ever was one.

SDCA

SD, CA. I.e., San Diego, California. I had to chase down twelve other SDCA's before I figured this out.

SDCA

San Diego Catalina Association.

``We are a fun-loving sail group, with over 60 boating families and other associates.''

SDCA

Scottish Deerhound Club of America.

``Perhaps the simplest way to convey the spirit that drives our activities is to quote from the SDCA Constitution.'' Perhaps so.

SDCA

Scottish Dyers and Cleaners' Association. As of 2003, I see little evidence that this organization is still in existence. It was still known around 1950 or so. How time flies.

SDCA

Seventh Day Christian Assembly. This doesn't seem to be affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventists, but I'm not sure. The web site is part of a C.O.G. webring.

I'm sympathetic to all these church groups, but the problem is that there just aren't enough Sundays in a life to check them all out to decide who has the one true faith.

This SDCA sponsors a radio broadcast by Ronald L. Dart. Mommas, just to be on the safe side, I recommend that you not use both an initial L and ``Ron'' in your babies' names.

SDCA

Seymour District Cricket Ass. Could be ``Ass'' is an abbreviation itself. SDCA is part of Cricket Victoria, which is part of Cricket Australia.

SDCA

Short Distance Charging Area. Term used for telephone toll rates in India, referring to the area between ``local'' and ``long-distance''.

SDCA

Sleep Disorder Centers of Alabama.

Hey! Cut out the racket! Thou shalt let thy neighbor sleep unmolested.

If you're reading this much after August 2003, I hope the allusion is obscure.

SDCA

South Dakota Cattlemen's Association. ``Working to advance the interests of South Dakota Cattlemen through the representation and promotion of the beef industry.''

SDCA

South Dakota Chess Association.

SDCA

South Dakota Chiropractors' Association. There's a great image on the home page. You can see the back of the head and torso of a guy lying in the top of a stocks, and a guy in a white lab coat is giving him a funny massage. A halo of white ripples emanates from the place where the man in white is pressing. In the background, a young woman in a long skirt holds a manila folder and grins at the scene.

SDCA

South Dakota Counseling Association. A branch of the ACA.

``[A] partnership of associations representing professional counselors who enhance human development by providing benefits, products, and services to expand professional knowledge and expertise; to promote recognition of counselors to the public and media; and to represent member's interests before federal, state, and local government. SDCA represents nearly 550 professional counselors in the counseling profession and related fields of interest.''

SDCA

``Standardize, Do, Check, Action.'' The anal-retentive ``refinement'' of PDCA. Don't they teach parts of speech any more? Time to get back to basics; start at the Deming wheel.

SDCA

The State Data Center on Aging. A unit within the Florida Policy Exchange Center on Aging (FPECA).

SDCA

Super Division Club Association. A FUFA affiliate. No website, no clubs, no idea what happened to the bus.

SDD

Systems Development and Demonstration.

SDDI

SONY Digital Data Interface.

SDDI

Shielded twisted-pair Digital Data Interface. Same as CDDI, q.v.

SDDS

Inside the ticket booth, she gives me a precociously hard stare and answers immediately: ``SONY Dynamic Digital Sound.'' Her chewing gum resumes its cyclic deformations -- a chaotic mixing behavior. Our communication is over. I do not ask for an explication of `dynamic.'

Matinee is only $3.75, all movies, at the mumble mall.

SDEPT

Selective Distortionless Enhancement by Polarization Transfer (DEPT). NMRtian.

SDF

Sales Disclosure Form. Some governmental thing.

SDF

Secondary Distribution Frame.

SDF

Self-Defense Forces. The Japanese Military. (The army is Japan's GSDF.) Under the constitution imposed by George MacArthur, Japan maintains military forces explicitly for self-defense only.

In the post-WWII era, a majority of Japanese have adopted some kind of pacifist position. Like Germany, Japan has been reluctant to become involved in military action beyond its own borders. On the other hand there is also a powerful minority in Japan that wants to see the standing of Japan's military rehabilitated.

In 2001, Junichiro Koizumi almost single-handedly saved the fortunes of his LDP by campaigning on a promise to clean up corruption and secrecy in government. Once elected, he reneged as quickly as possible and negotiated (with LDP party factions) his own survival as PM. An interesting aspect of his political maneuvering after the election was the number of big symbolic crumbs he threw to the factions one would call militarist, if the word were not too strong for the time being.

In the aftermath of its Iraq conquest in 2003, the US urged Japan to contribute personnel to the reconstruction effort. SDF personnel are being deployed in non-combat capacities. This got done partly on the basis of arguments that the reconstruction effort is not a combat situation. A small 1000-person advance team of the GSDF left for Iraq on January 19, 2004. In a joint appearance on a Fuji TV show the day before their departure, the secretaries general of the LDP and New Komeito (their coalition partner) announced that the SDF mission would not be abandoned if Japanese troops are injured or even killed by terrorists there. Really! What commitment! The special reasoning required for this conclusion was explained by New Komeito's Sec.-Gen. Tetsuzo Fuyushiba: ``Terrorist attacks are not recognized as an act of combat'' (Japan Today translation).

SDF

SubDistribution Frame.

SDFL

Schottky Diode Field-Effect Transistor (FET) Logic. [D-MESFET logic family.]

SDG

Scan Display Generator.

SDG

Simulated Data Generator.

SDG

Situation Display Generator.

SDG

Software Development Group.

SDG

Spin-Dependent (charge-carrier) Generation. Effect complementary to SDR. See, for example, Brian Henderson, Michael Pepper, and R. L. Vranch: ``Spin-dependent and localisation effects at Si/SiO₂ device interfaces,'' Semiconductor Science and Technology, 4, 1045-1060 (December 1989).

SDG

System Development Group.

SdH

Shubnikov-de Haas. de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) oscillations in conductivity. See the end of the He entry for a bit on Shubnikov.

SDH

Succinic DeHydrogenase. An enzyme used as a stain to detect mitochondrial proliferation in muscle fibers. The most sensitive and specific stain for this purpose.

SDH

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy. Cf. SONET.

SDHPT

State Department of Highways and Public Transportation.

SDHS

Society of Dance History Scholars, founded 1979. A constituent society of the ACLS since 1996. ACLS has an overview.

SDHT

Selectively Doped Heterostructure Transistor. Yet another name for a HEMT. I suppose that use of this acronym, like use of any of the others, tells something about your country of origin, but I don't know what.

SDHT

SDH Transceiver. Or SDH/sonet Transceiver.

SDI

Serial Data Input.

SDI

Single-Document Interface. (MS Windows term.) Distinguished not only from MDI but also from the simpler dialog-box interface.

SDI

Strategic Defence Institute.

SDI

Strategic Defense Initiative. Derided as ``Star Wars.'' Long-time USSR ambassador to the US Anatoly Dobrynin published his memoirs in 1995, and gave some grudging credit there to SDI, and more generally to Ronald Reagan's personality, as having contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. (He argues, however, as most analysts now seem to do, that the fall of the Soviet Union was a historical inevitability, fore-ordained by the idealistic rigidity of the Communist leadership. I would not deny this, but if I could have perceived the imminent manifestation of the historical inevitability in 1988, I could have made my fortune in bets. Death is a historical inevitability generally. What is in question is the timing.)

SDI

Steel Door Institute. Will they recycle iron curtains?

SDIO

Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.

SDIS

Switched Digital Integrated Service.

SDK

Software Develop{ment|er's} Kit.

SDL

Specification and Design Language. Defined by the ITU-T for unambiguously describing the behavior of telecommunication systems. FOLDOC has information and references.

SDL

Shared Dataspace Language.

SDLC

Synchronous Data Link Control. An IBM computer networking protocol for Systems Network Architecture. FOLDOC has a densely hyperlinked entry.

Rhymes with SCLC.

SDL/GR

Specification and Design Language (SDL) Graphic Representation.

SDLP

Social Democratic and Labor Party. Until the elections of November 2003, this was the largest nationalist political party, and the second-largest political party, in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Fein had 18 seats. In December 1998, SDLP leader John Hume was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with UUP leader (and Northern Ireland First Minister) David Trimble. Not surprisingly, in the next Assembly elections, his party switched places with its main nationalist political opposition. Following the Nov. 26 elections, Sinn Fein has 24 seats and is the largest nationalist party (third-largest overall) in the Assembly; SDLP has 18 seats. What is Sinn Féin? Well, if you know where to put the accent, I imagine you already have a pretty good idea. But see the IRA entry.

SDL/PR

Specification and Design Language (SDL) Phrase Representation.

SDLTS, S-DLTS

Scanning DLTS.

SDL 92

Object-Oriented (OO) version of ITU-T Specification and Design Language (SDL).

SDM

Schematic Data Model.

SDM

Services Documentaires Multimédia.

SDMBIM

Sensor-Driven, Model-Based Integrated Manufacturing.

SDMS

Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers.

SDN

Software-Defined Network.

SDNA

South Dakota Newspaper Association.

Sdn. Bhd., Sdn Bhd

Sendirian Berhad. Malaysian corporation of some sort.

SDP

Social-Democratic Party. To disambiguate, the SDP of Japan has been called the Japan Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party of Japan in English.

SDR

Special Drawing Right.

SDR

Spin-Dependent (charge-carrier) Recombination. Typically a fractional effect on the order of 10^-4. First reported in Si surfaces by D. J. Lepine, Phys. Rev. B, 6, 436 (1972). Observations in Si pn junctions: I. Solomon, Solid State Communications, 20, 215 (1976). In Si device pn junctions: D. Kaplan and M. Pepper, Solid State Communications, 34, 803 (1980).

Effect is complementary to SDG, q.v.

SDR

Spin Dipole Resonance. A giant resonance in atomic nuclei.

SDR

Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

SDRAM

Synchronous DRAM. Explanation here.

SDS

Schema Definition Set. In Portable Common Tool Environment (PCTE).

SDS

Social Development Service. Singapore's government-run match-making service. They're on the internet too, now. Censored, of course.

SDS

Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate. An ionic surfactant. It can modify the rate and phase of crystal growth nucleated by a surface, for an example, but its most common application is as a detergent, under the name of sodium lauryl sulfate (q.v.), which I suppose sounds less `chemical.' Another application is SDS-PAGE.

SDS

Striped Domain Structure.

SDS

Students for a Democratic Society. Founded at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

SDS

Surface Discharge Spectroscopy.

SDS

Switched Data Service.

SDSC

San Diego Supercomputer Center. One of the four NSF supercomputing centers (the others are CTC, NCSA, and PSC).

SDSC

(ANSI) Standards and Data Services Committee.

SDSU

San Diego State University. I've been there. It's not so much more urban than UCSD, it just doesn't have a lot of trees. Bring your dark glasses.

SDSM&T

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

SDS-PAGE

Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) PolyAcrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (PAGE). It's explained here.

SDT,

Sigma Delta Theta. An African-American Sorority.

SDTI

Student Developmental Task Inventory. Created (apparently) Prince, J. S., Miller, T. K., & Winston, R. B., Jr. (1974). Superseded by their SDTI-II.

SDTI-II

Student Developmental Task Inventory-II. Created (apparently) by Roger B. Winston, Jr., Ted K. Miller, and J.S. Prince (1977). An improvement on their SDTI and obsoleted by their SDTLI, which was in turn superseded by their SDTLA. I guess this must be progress.

SDTLA

Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Assessment. ``It represents a sample of behavior and reports about feelings and attitudes that are indicative of students who have satisfactorily achieved certain developmental tasks common to young adult college students between the ages of 17 and 24 [sometimes the range is stated as between 17 and 25].'' You might as well be warned that they describe the test in high-flown abstractions and in terms of its formal structure, so don't expect to have any idea of what the test is like. Oh wait -- ``The assessment procedure is based on concepts and principles of human development [ah -- as opposed to assessment tools that are based on eating cheese], specifically that of developmental task achievement that typically occurs within the college setting.'' I'm waiting to find out if developmental task achievement is a concept or a principle. I'll be sure to get back to this!

The product was authored by Roger B. Winston, Jr., Ted K. Miller, and Diane L. Cooper (1999). These individuals appear to constitute ``Student Development Associates, Inc.'' (SDA). In fact, R.B.W. is president of SDA.

The SDTLA is a revision of the Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Inventory (SDTLI) ``is grounded in the theoretical approach described by Chickering and Reisser (1993) in Education and Identity (2nd ed.).'' I hope that this theoretical approach is not overthrown in ``(3rd ed.).''

According to the authors, the ``SDTLI [developed in part by R.B.W. and T.K.M.] has been useful in working with students individually, for assessing student needs in program development, for teaching in orientation courses, and for conducting outcomes assessments. We believe that the SDTLA is an even better assessment instrument.''

SDTLI

Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Inventory. Created (apparently) by Winston, R. B., Jr., Miller, T. K., & Prince, J. S. (1987). An improvement on their SDTI-II. Since obsoleted by the brand spanking new SDTLA.

SDTV