THE WHATIS.COM WORD-OF-THE-DAY January 24, 2003 half-life
______________ TODAY'S SPONSOR: Free CRM whitepapers Download the key papers you need today to make better-informed decisions. Targeted categories include: Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, CRM Technology, Customer Service and Implementation, Integration and Business Processes. Click here to access the free SearchCRM.com white papers section. http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/whitepapers3/0,,sid11,00.html ______________ TODAY'S WORD: half-life See our complete definition with hyperlinks at http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci876031,00.html In science, a half-life (also, as a noun, spelled "half life") is the amount of time it takes for half of a substance or entity to undergo some specified process. For example, the half-life of a radioactive substance is the amount of time it takes for half of its atoms to decay, and the half-life of a drug is the amount of time it takes before half of the active elements are either eliminated or broken down by the body. Depending on the particular substance involved, a half-life may be significantly shorter or longer than half of the substance's full period of activity. The concept of a half-life has been adopted by fields outside of science, such as marketing and finance. In marketing, half-life is a formula for estimating the total responses to be expected from a direct marketing campaign. The half-life of a catalog is the day when half of the consumer responses to the mailing have been received. Sears Canada studied the history of their sales data and found that their catalogs reached their half-life 20 days after being mailed, although the life of the catalog was actually several months. Knowing when a direct marketing campaign reaches the half-life point allows marketers to adapt more quickly to consumer demand. In finance, the half-life of a mortgage is the date when half of the principal amount has been paid. Because of the way that interest is pro-rated (as a proportion of the total, paid more towards the first part of the life of the mortgage), the mortgage half-life date is generally more distant than the chronological half-way point in the total life of the mortgage. ______________________ SELECTED LINKS: The Database Marketing Institute explains "The Uses of the Half Life Day." http://www.dbmarketing.com/articles/Art128.htm Kent Rohrbach explains how half-life projecting can be helpful in determining future mailing schedules. http://www.lwra.com/newsletters/yes_03_98/mailing.html Great Moments in Science explores the meaning of half-life. http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/gmis9826.htm ______________________ QUIZ #35 | Common Vulnerabilities (NEW!) Take our quiz to test your knowledge about common security vulnerabilities and learn how to defend your organization against them with the resources we've collected. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci875285,00.html _____________________ WHATIS.COM POLL | How do you stay on top? 57% of the readers who responded to our last poll said they hadn't been sent for any IT training in 2002. We'd like to know: How do you stay on top of what's new in your area of IT? http://www.whatis.com/poll ______________________ REAL LIFE CHALLENGE | Upgrade to Win2k server or wait for .NET? Ned is an IT manager in a Windows NT environment with a couple of hundred workstations and several servers. Ned's CEO wants him to determine whether it would be better for the company upgrade to a Windows 2000 server, or wait until the Windows .NET server (now called Microsoft Windows Server 2003) comes out. 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