Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Due Process:
A portfolio of enforceable rights
in legislative, regulatory, and adjudicatory venues
intended to achieve fundamental fairness, justice,
and liberty for individuals and corporations of
democratic processes.
Ex Ante:
Activity or analysis taken before an
action is effected or its effects are measureable.
Excessive variety:
extensive heterogeneity
in goods or services beyond some theoretical
maximum necessary to reasonably satisfy demand.
Network Effects/Network Externality:
Im-
pact of economies of scale in markets connecting
nodes by links in which all participants experience
an increase in value for the goods or services of that
network as the number of participants increases.
Standardization:
A process in which technical
specifications are set, created or developed such
that a sufficient commonality in design elements
enables compatible or compliant products or
processes.
Standards Development Activities (SDA)
or Standards Setting Activities (SSA):
Activi-
ties in which contributions, meetings, and other
interactions comprise the selection or design of
standards, usually conducted in a standards de-
velopment organization SDA).
Standards Development Organization
(SDO, SDO body) or Standards-Setting Or-
ganization (SSO):
A venue or organization that
hosts the development or setting of standards.
Switching Costs:
Characteristic of lock-in that
barriers to change; a hypothetical cost erecting a
barrier to exit that an individual or organization
would face in shifting suppliers, processes, sys-
tems, or equipment. Switching costs are composed
of breach of contract damages, acquisition costs
for new equipment, costs of abandoning unused
service life in existing equipment or software,
costs of retraining, and opportunity cost risks of
unsuccessful transitions.
Voluntary Consensus Standards (VCSs):
Type of standard developed in standards develop-
ment organizations (SDO) typically in private-
sector venues or consortia but not conducted
through government regulatory agencies.
