Questions on Lagging & Leading Strands and DNA Ligase?

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1)  Okazaki Fragment = Lagging strand?  Sort of yes, sort of no.  The lagging strand is the one that is being needing to be built in the opposite direction of an opening replication fork.  The lagging strand will be composed of one or more Okazaki Fragments.  So, it's better to say Okazaki Fragments are what make up the lagging strand.2.  Fragments are used to refer to short sections of DNA, while strand is used to refer to ONE side of a DNA molecule/double helix.  This helps expand what I was saying in #1- in building the new lagging strand (using one side of the original DNA molecule as a guide), you wind up with short double helical sections or fragments.3. Leading strands never "bump" into each other so they don't need to be joined together.  Lagging strand okazaki fragments do wind up running into the primer/beginning of the opposite fork's leading strand, where yes, ligase joins them together (so the fragment is now simply an extension of the leading strand)