Crossword clues for artifact
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Artifact \Ar"ti*fact\, n. [L. ars, artis, art + facere, factum, to make.]
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(Arch[ae]ol.) A product of human workmanship; -- applied esp. to the simpler products of aboriginal art as distinguished from natural objects.
Syn: artefact.
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Any product of human workmanship; -- applied both to objects made for practical purposes as well as works of art. It is contrasted to natural object, i.e. anything produced by natural forces without the intervention of man.
Syn: artefact.
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(Biol.) A structure or appearance in protoplasm due to death, method of preparation of specimens, or the use of reagents, and not present during life.
Syn: artefact.
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(Technology) an object, oservation, phenomenon, or result arising from hidden or unexpected causes extraneous to the subject of a study, and therefore spurious and having potential to lead one to an erroneous conclusion, or to invalidate the study. In experimental science, artifacts may arise due to inadvertant contamination of equipment, faulty experimental design or faulty analysis, or unexpected effects of agencies not known to affect the system under study.
Syn: artefact.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1821, artefact, "anything made by human art," from Italian artefatto, from Latin arte "by skill" (ablative of ars "art;" see art (n.)) + factum "thing made," from facere "to make, do" (see factitious). The spelling with -i- is by 1884, by influence of the Latin stem. Archaeological application dates from 1890.
Wiktionary
n. 1 An object made or shaped by human hand. 2 (context archaeology English) An object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, of archaeological or historical interest, especially such an object found at an archaeological excavation. 3 Something viewed as a product of human conception or agency rather than an inherent element. 4 A structure or finding in an experiment or investigation that is not a true feature of the object under observation, but is a result of external action, the test arrangement, or an experimental error. 5 (cx biology English) A structure or appearance in protoplasm due to death, method of preparation of specimens, or the use of reagents, and not present during life. 6 An object made or shaped by some agent or intelligence, not necessarily of direct human origin. 7 (context computing English) A perceptible distortion that appears in a digital image, audio or video file as a result of applying a lossy compression algorithm.
WordNet
n. a man-made object taken as a whole [syn: artefact] [ant: natural object]
Wikipedia
Artifact (US), artefact or related terms may refer to:
An artifact or artefact (from Latin phrase arte factum~ars skill + facere to make) is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest". "Artifact" is the only spelling in American English, whilst "artefact" is generally preferred elsewhere (see spelling differences).
In archaeology, however, the word has become a term of particular nuance and is defined as: an object recovered by archaeological endeavor, which may have a cultural interest. However, modern archaeologists take care to distinguish material culture from ethnicity, which is often more complex, as expressed by Carol Kramer in the dictum "pots are not people".
Examples include stone tools, pottery vessels, metal objects such as weapons, and items of personal adornment such as buttons, jewelry and clothing. Bones that show signs of human modification are also examples. Natural objects, such as fire cracked rocks from a hearth or plant material used for food, are classified by archeologists as ecofacts rather than as artifacts.
In natural science and signal processing, an artifact is any error in the perception or representation of any information introduced by the involved equipment or technique(s).
Artifact is the sixth studio album by The Electric Prunes, released in 2002. It was their first studio album since 1969. The album is said to be the "real third" album by the band since past developments did not include material by the actual group. Sleeve notes state it "was the album we never got to make". This album is a return to most of the band's original sixties lineup.
An artifact is one of many kinds of tangible by-products produced during the development of software. Some artifacts (e.g., use cases, class diagrams, and other Unified Modeling Language (UML) models, requirements and design documents) help describe the function, architecture, and design of software. Other artifacts are concerned with the process of development itself—such as project plans, business cases, and risk assessments.
The term artifact in connection with software development is largely associated with specific development methods or processes e.g., Unified Process. This usage of the term may have originated with those methods.
Build tools often refer to source code compiled for testing as an artifact, because the executable is necessary to carrying out the testing plan. Without the executable to test, the testing plan artifact is limited to non-execution based testing. In non-execution based testing, the artifacts are the walkthroughs, inspections and correctness proofs. On the other hand, execution based testing requires at minimum two artifacts: a test suite and the executable. An artifact occasionally may be used to refer to the released code (in the case of a code library) or released executable (in the case of a program) produced but the more common usage is in referring to the byproducts of software development rather than the product itself. Open source code libraries often contain a testing harness to allow contributors to ensure their changes do not cause regression bugs in the code library.
Much of what are considered artifacts is software documentation.
In end-user development an artifact is either an application or a complex data object that is created by an end-user without the need to know a general programming language. Artifacts describe automated behavior or control sequences, such as database requests or grammar rules, or user-generated content.
Artifacts vary in their maintainability. Maintainability is primarily affected by the role the artifact fulfills. The role can be either practical or symbolic. In the earliest stages of software development, artifacts may be created by the design team to serve a symbolic role to show the project sponsor how serious the contractor is about meeting the project's needs. Symbolic artifacts often convey information poorly, but are impressive-looking. Symbolic artifacts are sometimes referred to in the information architecture industry as Illuminated Scrolls, because the decorations do nothing to enhance understanding. Generally speaking, Illuminated Scrolls are also considered unmaintainable due to the diligence it requires to preserve the symbolic quality. For this reason, once Illuminated Scrolls are shown to the project sponsor and approved, they are replaced by artifacts which serve a practical role. Practical artifacts usually need to be maintained throughout the project lifecycle, and, as such, are generally highly maintainable.
Artifacts are significant from a project management perspective as deliverables. The deliverables of a software project are likely to be the same as its artifacts with the addition of the software itself.
The sense of artifacts as byproducts is similar to the use of the term artifact in science to refer to something that arises from the process in hand rather than the issue itself, i.e., a result of interest that stems from the means rather than the end.
To collect, organize and manage artifacts, a Software development folder may be utilized.
An artifact (in the UML) is the specification of a physical piece of information that is used or produced by a software development process, or by deployment and operation of a system.
Examples of artifacts include model files, source files, scripts, and binary executable files, a table in a database system, a development deliverable, or a word-processing document, a mail message.
Artifacts are the physical entities that are deployed on Nodes (ie. Devices and Execution Environments). Other UML elements such as classes and components are first manifested into artifacts and instances of these artifacts are then deployed. Artifacts can also be composed of other artifacts.
Artifact is a 2012 American documentary film. It was directed by Jared Leto under the pseudonym of Bartholomew Cubbins, and produced by Leto and Emma Ludbrook. Artifact chronicles the modern music business as it charts the legal dispute between Leto's rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars and record label EMI, which filed a $30 million breach of contract lawsuit against them in 2008, after the band tried to exit its contract over a royalties dispute. Thirty Seconds to Mars is shown working with producer Flood to create the 2009 album This Is War, meeting with lawyers between recording sessions.
Artifact had its world premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival where it received the People's Choice Award for Best Documentary. Critics praised the examination of the state of the modern music industry and its focus on the relationship between artists and record companies. The film received a limited theatrical release beginning November 23, 2013, before being released digitally on December 3, 2013.
Usage examples of "artifact".
Sranc, Bashrags, Dragons, all the abominations of the Inchoroi, are artifacts of the Tekne, the Old Science, created long, long ago, when the Nonmen still ruled Earwa.
Archimages have included shielding aborigines who were in danger of being exterminated by hostile humans, and collecting and disposing of dangerous or inappropriate artifacts of the Vanished Ones that turned up in the ancient ruined cities.
Perhaps the best view of all, however, is that after the early settlers of Eastern Polynesia were released from the conservative influence of Western Polynesian technology, they tanged some of their adzes and made other innovations in their artifacts.
Frik Van Alman would be more upset about not regaining the artifact than he would ever have been about losing the oil rig.
It was obvious that Amaryllis was, in her own way, as alien to him as the ancient artifacts.
His bold cheekbones, aggressive nose, and strong jaw were as exotic, compelling, and mysterious to Amaryllis as the alien artifacts themselves.
Apparently having lost sight of Madison Sheffield, Amaryllis came down off her toes and turned back to the array of artifacts in the display case.
The first set consists of reports of anomalously old artifacts and human skeletal remains, most of which were discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Here, in a vast old abandoned death house, replete with many strange vaulted chambers connected by dark and crumbling passageways winding convolutedly like so many intestines deep into the bowels of the earth, down ever downward, into small niche-pocked vaults filled with damp worm-eaten caskets, many askew and half-opened crypts of the long dead, urns of dust, and the scattered bones of dogs and man, here, chose Zulkeh to rest and ponder his wealth of artifacts and relics, his scrolls and tablets, his talismans and tomes, the fruit gathered of his many journeys.
They stuffed one member, Pinky, into a tiny hole in a cargo hold on the stern, then took turns bagging the portholes, moonshine jugs, dishes, and other artifacts Pinky extracted.
Big in vision, a worldlet hilled and begrown with strangeness, loomed the black hole artifact.
Encircled by a gold bezel, suspended from a gold chain, was a fragment of the artifact.
Contrary to the public image of the biker, his interests range from motorcycles to ancient Mexican artifacts, wines, expensive cars and rattlesnakes.
The Sage had sent them there to find a druid named the Silent One, who was to guide them to the city of Bodach, where they were to seek an ancient artifact known as the Breastplate of Argentum.
There was no direct way to associate such a massive objectsome thirty paces highwith a single rock layer, but it was made out of the same blue stuff as the original six-fingered artifact, and that had been excavated from the layer immediateh below the Bookmark layer, so it seemed likely this vast structure dated from the same period.