(1) The availability of resources such as variables and objects within various parts of a program. In traditional procedural programming, scope is either global or local; however, scopes can be nested. (2) In AppleScript, the range over which AppleScript recognizes a variable or property, which determines where else in a script you may refer to that variable or property. (3) In Core Audio, a programmatic context within an audio unit. Unlike the general computer science notion of scopes, however, audio unit scopes cannot be nested. Each scope is a discrete context. You use scopes when writing code that sets or retrieves values of parameters or properties. Compare element. See also parameter, property.