What is "k-factor"

K-factor or K factor may refer to:

• K-factor (actuarial)
• K-factor (aerospace)
• K-factor (centrifugation)
• K factor (crude oil refining)
• K-factor (fire protection)
• k-factor (graph theory)
• K-factor (marketing)
• K-factor (Rate_of_heat_flow)
• K-factor (sheet metal)
• K factor (traffic engineering)
• k, the product of the six factor formula of nuclear engineering
• Elo rating system
• K-Factor, a producer/remixer based in Washington, DC
• The K Factor, a fictional TV show from British television show Harry Hill's TV Burp spoofing the X Factor
• A K-factor is used to calculate when heating oil must be delivered

In telecommunications:

• In Cisco VoIP deployments, K-factors contain records of call quality metrics
• In tropospheric radio propagation, the ratio of the effective Earth radius to the actual Earth radius
• In Rician fading, the ratio between the power in the direct path and the power in scattered paths
• A correction factor used in ionospheric radio propagation that is applied in calculations related to curved layers, and is a function of distance and the real height of ionospheric reflection

In telecommunications, K-factor may refer to:

• In tropospheric radio propagation, the ratio of the effective Earth radius to the actual Earth radius
• In Rician fading, the ratio between the power in the direct path and the power in scattered paths
• A correction factor used in ionospheric radio propagation that is applied in calculations related to curved layers, and is a function of distance and the real height of ionospheric reflection

In fire protection engineering, the K-factor formula is used to calculate the discharge rate from a nozzle. Nozzles can be fire sprinklers or water mist nozzles, hose reel nozzles, water monitors and deluge fire system nozzles.

K-Factors calculated in Metric units;

The flow rate of a nozzle is given by $q = K\sqrt p$, where q is the flow rate in litres per minute (LPM), p is the pressure at the nozzle in Bar and K is the K-factor is given in units of $LPM/\sqrt\text{bar}$.

K-Factors have also been calculated and published in English units of PSI and GPM.

Care should be exercised not to intermix K-factors from Metric and English units as the resulting factors are not equivalent or interchangeable.

In actuarial work relating to US GAAP accounting principles, the term K-factor refers to the ratio of the present value of deferrable expenses to the present value of estimated gross profits at issue. It is an important measurement used to manage the deferrals allowed in insurance accounting.

Category:Actuarial science Category:Financial ratios

For aircraft fuel flow meters, K-factor refers to the number of pulses expected for every one volumetric unit of fluid passing through a given flow meter, and is usually encountered when dealing with pulse signals. Pressure and temperature sensors providing pulses can be used to determine mass flow, with division of the pulses by the K-factor, or multiplication with the inverse of the K-factor providing factored totalization, and rate indication. Furthermore, by dividing the pulse rate by the K-Factor, the volumetric throughput per unit time of the rate of flow can be determined.

In viral marketing, the K-factor can be used to describe the growth rate of websites, apps, or a customer base. The formula is roughly as follows:

i = number of invites sent by each customer
(e.g. if each new customer invites five friends, i = 5)

c = percent conversion of each invite
(e.g. if one in five invitees convert to new users, c = .2)

k = i * c

This usage is borrowed from the medical field of epidemiology in which a virus having a k-factor of 1 is in a "steady" state of neither growth nor decline, while a k-factor greater than 1 indicates exponential growth and a k-factor less than 1 indicates exponential decline. The k-factor in this context is itself a product of the rates of distribution and infection for an app (or virus). "Distribution" (i) measures the average number of people a host will contact while still infectious, and "infection" (c) measures how likely an average person is to also become infected after contact with a viral host.

In Cisco Voice over IP deployments, the K-Factor is a Cisco proprietary method of reporting endpoint mean opinion scores. K-factor records contain the following metrics:

K-factor metrics

Field

Display

Description

CCR

Cum Conceal Ratio

Cumulative Conceal Ratio represents the cumulative ratio of concealment time over speech time that is observed after starting a call

ICR

Interval Conceal Ratio

Interval Conceal Ratio represents an interval-based average concealment rate that is the ratio of concealment time over speech time for the last 3 seconds of active speech

ICRmx

Max Conceal Ratio

Interval Conceal Ratio Max represents the maximum concealment ratio that is observed during the call

CS

Conceal Secs

Conceal Secs represents the time during which some concealment is observed during a call

SCS

Severely Conceal Secs

Severely Conceal Secs represents the time during which a significant amount of concealment is observed

MLQK

MOS LQK

MOS Listening Quality K-factor provides an estimate of the MOS score of the last 8 seconds of speech on the reception signal path

MLQKmn

Min MOS LQK

MOS Listening Quality K-factor Min represents the minimum score that is observed since the beginning of a call and represents the worst sounding 8-second interval

MLQKmx

Max MOS LQK

MOS Listening Quality K-factor Max represents the maximum score that is observed since the beginning of a call and represents the best sounding 8-second interval

MLQKav

Avg MOS LQK

MOS Listening Quality K-factor Avg represents the running average of scores that are observed since the beginning of a call