The slot is a term used in American football to describe the position of a receiver. A wide receiver who catches passes in the slot is able to gain 8-15 yards before being tackled. A good slot receiver can make defenders miss by turning in towards the middle of the field. The slot receiver is a key part of the offense because they can catch passes that are too high for the TE and too low for the WR.
The slot also refers to the holder in which a coin is inserted to activate the machine. Slot machines are usually located in a separate area of the casino called a “saloon”. They can be operated with either cash or, in ticket-in, ticket-out machines, with paper tickets with barcodes. Several different types of symbols can be found on a slot machine, and each has a unique theme and payout. It is recommended that players always read the pay table before playing a slot game.
A specialized type of table slot, the periodic slot, is designed to hold data that repeats over some period. For example, a set of monthly evaporation coefficients for a reservoir could be stored in this type of slot. It is possible to specify both the data and a timeseries (1 Hour, 1 Day, etc). The periodic slot can also handle irregular timeseries. Column headers can be text or numeric, and the slots can be configured to Lookup, Interpolate, or both.
Other slot types are scalar and series. A scalar slot is used to store a single piece of numeric data that will not vary with time. The scalar value can be computed from a user-defined arithmetic expression, and may include numbers from other slots as variables. The scalar slot can be displayed in either decimal or hexadecimal format. The hexadecimal display is recommended for use with large amounts of data because it allows for faster scrolling. The hexadecimal format is also useful when using this slot in scripts.
If the scalar is configured to compare, the display precision and convergence values are used when comparing two numbers. For instance, if two numbers appear the same on the screen, they are considered to be equal regardless of their internal display precision or convergence values. Similarly, if the scalar is configured to compare, and the user selects one of the number rows, and then edits the other number, the new number will be set to the value that was edited.
During model initialization, most slot data is inserted into the library tables. When the model is run, each row in the library table is mapped to a slot on the display. A series of slots is created for each duration specified in the input file, and these slots are referred to collectively as the series slot data. The series slot is initially created with only one timestep to minimize model file size. However, the user can modify this to any desired length at any point during the modeling process by using the dialog.