[kon-suh
n-treyt] 
verb, -trat⋅ed, -trat⋅ing, noun | 1. | to bring or draw to a common center or point of union; converge; direct toward one point; focus: to concentrate one's attention on a problem; to concentrate the rays of the sun with a lens. |
| 2. | to put or bring into a single place, group, etc.: The nation's wealth had been concentrated in a few families. |
| 3. | to intensify; make denser, stronger, or purer, esp. by the removal or reduction of liquid: to concentrate fruit juice; to concentrate a sauce by boiling it down. |
| 4. | Mining. to separate (metal or ore) from rock, sand, etc., so as to improve the quality of the valuable portion. |
| 5. | to bring all efforts, faculties, activities, etc., to bear on one thing or activity (often fol. by on or upon): to concentrate on solving a problem. |
| 6. | to come to or toward a common center; converge; collect: The population concentrated in one part of the city. |
| 7. | to become more intense, stronger, or purer. |
| 8. | a concentrated form of something; a product of concentration: a juice concentrate. |
[kon-suhn-trey-tiv, kuhn-sen-truh-] , adjective | con·cen·trate (kŏn'sən-trāt') v. con·cen·trat·ed, con·cen·trat·ing, con·cen·trates v. tr.
[From concenter.] con'cen·tra'tive adj., con'cen·tra'tive·ly adv., con'cen·tra'tor n. |
concentrator communications
A device that combines the data streams from many simultaneously active inputs into one shared channel in such a way that the streams can be separated after transmission. The concentrator's output bandwidth must be at least as great as the total bandwidth of all simultaneously active inputs. A concentrator is one kind of multiplexing device.
For example, a concentrator may be used to connect 24 2400 bps TTYs to a host via a 57600 bps channel.
(2000-03-01)