Where does firing collide?

The generation of a nerve impulse: a brief, all-or-nothing electrical spike that a neuron sends down its axon, with the number of spikes per second carrying the message. Adrian's 1926 The impulses produced by sensory nerve endings recorded these impulses one at a time and showed that a stronger stimulus makes a sensory fibre fire more often rather than more strongly, which established the rate of firing as the code the nervous system uses. The referent is an electrical event in living nervous tissue, counted as spikes per second, and it has nothing to do with heating clay in a kiln or ending a person's employment.[1]

Unit

A single nerve impulse (spike), scaled as a firing rate in spikes per second

Recovery means

After each spike the membrane briefly cannot fire again during the refractory period before it resets

Measured by

Recorded by electrodes as extracellular spikes or intracellular potentials and summarised as a firing rate

The involuntary termination of a worker by an employer, together with the money and legal burden the employer bears to carry it out, which economists call the firing cost. Lazear's 1990 Job security provisions and employment modelled how mandated severance and dismissal restrictions act as a firing cost that can lower both hiring and employment. The referent is an economic and legal event between an employer and an employee, measured in wages, severance, and separation rates, and it shares only the word with a nerve impulse or the baking of clay.[2]

Unit

One involuntary separation of a worker, with the firing cost scaled in money per dismissal

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Estimated from separation and dismissal rates, severance payments, and the legal cost of terminating employment