In 1973 sociologist Mark Granovetter showed how the loose acquaintances, or "weak ties", in our social network exert a disproportionate influence over our behaviour and choices.
What those early craftsmen had found by trial and error was that under pressure a pagoda's loose stack of floors could be made to slither to and fro independent of one another.
The tunnel adverse geological faults include faultage, low strength, geological formation and development of loose, non-rock clay, high stress formation and water-rich strata.
In contrast, the roots of grasses and other small plants may help to hold loose soil fragments together, thereby helping to prevent erosion by the wind.
WS-BA support in WebSphere Application Server enables Web services on disparate systems to coordinate activities that are more loosely coupled than atomic transactions.