Glossary

Plain-English definitions for every acronym + technical term that appears in the wizard, results page, evidence collector, Loan Pack PDFs, or Verification & Validation doc.

AACE 18R-97: Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering's cost-estimate-classification recommended practice. Class 5 → 1 maps to project maturity (5 = concept, 1 = bid-ready) with accuracy ranges and minimum contingency floors. Frontier's TEA PDF declares its AACE class up front.
ADC (Apparent Digestibility Coefficient): Fraction of a nutrient absorbed by the fish vs the fraction excreted. ADC_N, ADC_P, ADC_DM appear throughout the bioenergetics math.
ADM1: Anaerobic Digestion Model No. 1 — a 34-state kinetic ODE framework for biogas reactors. Frontier ships a simplified BMP-based variant; full ADM1 is left as future work.
Allocation (LCA): How shared emissions get split between coupled products (fish + plants in aquaponics). Frontier defaults to economic allocation; mass allocation is a toggle.
BAPS: Baseline Aquaponics Production Systems — the coupling layer (Lobanov 2025) that sizes fish biomass to plant N demand.
Bates stamping: Sequential page numbering applied to evidence appendices in the Loan Pack PDFs (e.g. "E-0001", "E-0002"). Lets a loan officer cite a specific page in their underwriting notes.
Benchmark residuals: Per-scenario differences vs published reference windows (CapEx intensity, energy intensity, fish:plant ratio, min DSCR). Rendered in §7 of the V&V PDF with ±1 / ±2 colour coding.
Blue water footprint: Withdrawals from surface or groundwater (excludes rain). Reported in L per kg sellable produce.
BMP: Biochemical Methane Potential — m³ CH₄ per tonne VS. Determines biogas yield in the ADM submodel.
CapEx grant: One-off subsidy reducing total investment, expressed as a % of CapEx and capped at a maximum €. Common form of public support in EU member states.
CapEx scale exponent: Power-law exponent that relates equipment cost to scale. Frontier uses 0.75 (greenhouse + RAS) and 0.6 (AD).
CHP: Combined Heat & Power — biogas engine producing both electricity and useful heat. Heat offsets greenhouse / RAS thermal demand before surplus is sold.
Convergence (Saltelli): Diagnostic that running-p50 of the NPV samples stabilises before the Monte Carlo finishes. Frontier records checkpoints at 30 evenly-spaced iterations and renders them in V&V §7.
Coupled vs Decoupled aquaponics: Coupled = one water loop linking fish + plants; fish sized to plant N demand. Decoupled = independent loops with optional N transfer; both subsystems scale to their own targets.
Cover Memo: 2–3 page loan-officer brief at the front of the LoanPack.zip: ask, sources & uses, headline KPIs, top three risks, document index with bates ranges, reviewer instructions.
Cradle-to-farm-gate: LCA system boundary covering everything from raw material extraction up to the produce leaving the farm. Excludes processing, distribution, retail, consumption.
DLI: Daily Light Integral — μmol photons / m² / day. Drives supplemental lighting demand in CEA.
Dressing yield: Sellable mass after gutting (gilled + gutted, head-on), as a fraction of live weight. ~0.85 for tilapia.
DSCR: Debt Service Coverage Ratio = Cash Available for Debt Service / Debt Service. Banks typically require ≥ 1.20×. Frontier emits per-year DSCR plus a min/avg roll-up and flags covenant breaches.
EAFRD: European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. Measure 4.1 funds on-farm investment; Frontier's EU loan-pack templates reference it.
Economic allocation: Splits shared emissions between fish and plants by revenue share. Default in Frontier — favoured by ISO 14044 when prices reflect product value.
Effective FCR: Feed Conversion Ratio derived from the bioenergetics simulation — kg feed per kg live-weight gain. Lower is better.
EIB Vademecum: European Investment Bank's project-appraisal handbook. Frontier's EU TEA template structure references its sections.
EU ETS: EU Emissions Trading System. €/t CO₂-eq allowance price used in Frontier's policy engine to credit biogas vs grid electricity.
Evidence Collector: Frontier's in-app form set + file uploader for sponsor PFS, vendor quotes, LOIs, site control, permits, insurance, CVs, food-safety SOPs, and use-of-proceeds. All flow into bates-stamped PDF appendices.
Feed-in tariff (FIT): Regulated €/MWh top-up paid for renewable electricity exported to the grid. EEG (DE), CRE (FR), SDE++ (NL).
Fillet yield: Skinless fillet mass as a fraction of live weight. ~0.34 for tilapia (FAO 2018), ~0.49 for rainbow trout (Birolo 2020).
FSMA 204: FDA Food Safety Modernization Act Rule 204 — additional traceability for high-risk foods, effective 2026-01-20. Aquaculture + leafy greens fall under it. Production Plan PDF includes a traceability SOP section per FSMA 204.
GHI: Global Horizontal Irradiance — solar energy hitting a horizontal surface, kWh/m²/day. Drives greenhouse passive heating + lighting offset.
GWP100: Global Warming Potential over 100 years, kg CO₂-equivalent. Frontier uses IPCC AR6 values via the ReCiPe2016 midpoint method.
HACCP: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. Food-safety framework Frontier's evidence collector categorises SOPs against (with GMP, biosecurity, traceability).
HeE: Heat for energy of fasting metabolism. Maintenance energy in Bureau's bioenergetics equations. Tilapia: ~36 × BW^0.80 kJ/fish/day.
HiE: Heat increment of feeding — energy wasted as heat during digestion. Tilapia: 0.45 × (RE + HeE). Salmonids: 0.17. Mis-assigning this is one of the errata items.
Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT): Days the substrate spends in the digester. Drives digester volume + cost.
IAEM: Integrated Aquaponic Economics Model. The cash-flow / NPV / IRR layer in NEEMO; emits a return_details dict that downstream finance + ramp helpers consume verbatim.
Incentives engine: Per-jurisdiction scalar adjusters: feed-in tariffs, capex grants, production tax credits, carbon credits. Each rule cites its statute + effective date.
Investment Capital: €/kg-yr (or €/kg LWG) coefficient for buying the production equipment. Scaled by economy-of-scale exponent before output.
IRR: Internal Rate of Return — the discount rate that makes NPV = 0. Frontier returns NaN when no valid solution exists.
LCA: Life-Cycle Assessment. Frontier's v1 covers three indicators (GWP100, blue water, land) cradle-to-farm-gate, ReCiPe2016 midpoint.
LLCR: Loan Life Coverage Ratio = NPV of cash flows over the remaining loan life / outstanding debt. Project-finance covenant metric alongside DSCR.
LoanPack.zip: Single bundle of the five submission PDFs (Cover + TEA + Production + Financial + V&V) plus manifest.json with per-doc sha256 + bates ranges + jurisdiction + generated_at.
LOI (Letter of Intent): Offtake counterparty's intent to buy at a stated $/kg, volume, and term. Frontier captures it in the evidence collector with a binding flag; binding LOIs surface as price chips in the wizard's site step.
LWG: Live Weight Gain — annual fish biomass produced before processing. Used as the basis for energy / water / labor coefficients.
MACRS: Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System. US tax depreciation method. Frontier's neemo-tax package maps each asset class (Land 0yr / Site civil 15yr / Buildings 39yr / Equipment 7yr / AD 7yr) to its MACRS recovery period + convention.
Monte Carlo: Frontier samples every uncertain parameter from a triangular distribution n=5,000+ times and computes the probability of positive NPV. Runs in an RQ worker with SSE-streamed progress.
NLCD: National Land Cover Database (USGS). Parcel-level land-use classification CEA Site Scout uses for site screening; Frontier doesn't currently overlay it.
NPV: Net Present Value — discounted sum of annual cash flows minus initial investment. Frontier's headline financial number.
NUE: Nitrogen Use Efficiency — fraction of feed N recovered in fish + plant biomass. NEEMO peaks at 93.9% at the balanced fish:plant ratio.
OpEx: Operating Expenditure — feed, energy, labor, fertilizer, etc. The denominator of profitability.
P(NPV>0): Probability the scenario produces a positive NPV across all Monte Carlo draws. Frontier's headline 'should I invest?' number.
PFS (Personal Financial Statement): SBA Form 413 — sponsor's net worth and contingent liabilities. Frontier collects it via a structured form so the Financial Plan PDF can cite it without OCR-ing a scan.
Photoperiod: Hours of light per day plants get. Indoor target is typically 14-16h; supplemental lighting fills the gap when daylight is shorter.
PLCR: Project Life Coverage Ratio = NPV of cash flows over the full project life / outstanding debt. Slightly more lenient than LLCR; both appear in the Financial Plan PDF.
Processing Efficiency Filleted: NEEMO's name for processing LOSS fraction (not yield). `fish_fillet = lwg × (1 − PEF)`. Confusing — would be clearer as `Processing Loss Filleted`.
Production Tax Credit: €/MWh credit on energy produced (rather than exported). DK biogas subsidy is one example.
Q-Q plot: Quantile-Quantile plot comparing NPV-sample quantiles to a reference normal distribution. Rendered in V&V §7 to show whether MC output is approximately normal.
Ramp-up: Logistic commissioning curve (k=6 default) applied to revenue + variable COGS in Year 1 and Year 2; fixed cost runs at full from Year 1. Models biofilter maturation + learning curve.
RAS: Recirculating Aquaculture System — fish tanks with mechanical/biological filtration recycling 95-99% of the water.
Readiness check: GET endpoint that runs Frontier's 18-rule validator without rendering a PDF. Each failed rule has a fix_route pointing back to the form that owns the missing data. Surfaces as a clickable card list on the loan-pack page.
ReCiPe2016: Midpoint LCA characterisation method. Frontier uses it for GWP100, freshwater eutrophication, and land use.
Reference scale: 150,000 kg/yr — the annual crop production at which CapEx coefficients are calibrated. Larger facilities scale sub-linearly (^0.75).
Reproducibility hash: SHA-256 of the scenario input JSON, embedded in V&V §6 alongside a rerun command. Lets a reviewer re-derive every number in the pack from a fresh CLI checkout.
Risk register: 8–12 row table in the TEA PDF synthesised from MC drivers + biological + market + project-sector defaults. Likelihood × impact mapping; reviewer-editable.
Salvage value: Recoverable building + equipment value at the terminal year. Frontier uses 10% (building) + 5% (equipment).
SBA SOP 50-10: Small Business Administration Standard Operating Procedure 50-10 — the lending playbook 7(a) and 504 deals are underwritten against. Frontier's US Financial Plan template references its DSCR thresholds + collateral requirements.
SCB / SSB: Statistics Sweden / Statistics Norway. Sources for Nordic labor + utility cost defaults.
Scenario: One Frontier.Design unit of work — a specific facility + crop + scale + economics + AD config. Saved inside a project; can be cloned, compared, or re-run.
Site control: Evidence of the sponsor's right to the parcel: deed / lease / option to lease / option to purchase / ground lease. Required for SBA submissions; captured in evidence collector with parcel ID, area, term, rent, zoning.
Solid waste fraction: Fraction of feed dry matter that ends up in fish faeces. Drives the sludge production volume that feeds the AD model.
Stocking density: kg fish per m³ tank water at harvest. Tilapia commercial RAS typically 50-100 kg/m³.
Stress tests (bank): Four standard shocks applied to financials_extended: interest rate +200 bps, revenue −20%, OPEX +15%, energy +30%. Each emits a stressed DSCR / NPV / breach summary.
Strict mode: Loan-pack render flag. When ON, any blocking validation failure (e.g. no site control, no insurance program) refuses to publish the PDF set. When OFF, validators surface as warnings only.
Target ratio: NO₃⁻ to other-nutrient ratio in hydroponic nutrient solutions. Frontier uses crop-group-specific targets from horticultural references.
Tax adapter (TaxAdapter Protocol): Pluggable interface in neemo.finance. Open packages/neemo ships FlatRateTaxAdapter; proprietary packages/neemo-tax ships MacrsTaxAdapter (US) + EUDepreciationAdapter (per-country).
TGC: Thermal-unit Growth Coefficient — linearises fish growth as a function of body weight^(1/3). Bureau 1998 Eq. 3.
Tissue composition method: Plant N demand = annual_crop_kg × dry-matter fraction × N_Assimilation_Plants. Frontier's default — replaces the published version that omitted the DM fraction and produced fish_lwg > plant_kg for leafy systems.
Tornado chart: Driver-ranked sensitivity bar chart. Each bar shows the NPV range across the input's p10 → p90 sweep. Top of the chart = most-impactful driver.
Triangular distribution: Continuous distribution with min, mode, max — Frontier's default Monte Carlo sampler. Used because most parameter literature gives a range + central value.
Use of Proceeds (UoP): Lender-side categorisation of how the loan ask gets spent (Land / Site civil / Buildings / Equipment / AD / Soft costs / Working capital / Contingency). Frontier reconciles UoP totals against NEEMO's CAPEX with a > 2% Δ banner.
Validation framework: Schema-driven runner (packages/neemo/validation.py + validation_cases.yaml) that asserts model output stays within published acceptance windows for measured systems (UVI BAPS, Avgoustaki & Xydis 2020). Outliers are tagged with case notes.
Verification & Validation (V&V) PDF: Per-scenario standalone proof-of-math doc. Renders submodel equations, citation provenance, test catalogue, MC convergence + Q-Q + benchmark residuals, finance-vs-IAEM reconciliation, reproducibility hash + rerun command. Also ships as the 6th doc in LoanPack.zip.
Volatile Solids (VS): Organic fraction of total solids, expressed as % TS. The substrate that microbes actually digest in an AD reactor.
Water inlet temperature: Mains / well water entering the RAS, in °C. Drives heating demand for warm-water species (tilapia 28°C target) at high latitudes.
Zoning (site control): Local land-use designation (agricultural / industrial / commercial / mixed). Captured per-parcel in the site-control evidence record; flagged for review when CEA isn't a permitted use.