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24-letter words containing a, c, i, s

  • recursive descent parser — (grammar)   A "top-down" parser built from a set of mutually-recursive procedures or a non-recursive equivalent where each such procedure usually implements one of the productions of the grammar. Thus the structure of the resulting program closely mirrors that of the grammar it recognises.
  • referential transparency — (programming)   An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
  • relative record data set — (database)   (RRDS) One of the access methods used by IBM's VSAM.
  • renewable term insurance — Renewable term insurance is term life insurance that may be renewed for another period without the policyholder needing to provide further evidence of their insurability.
  • representative democracy — a person or thing that represents another or others.
  • republic of south africa — Republic of, a country in S Africa; member of the Commonwealth of Nations until 1961. 472,000 sq. mi. (1,222,480 sq. km). Capitals: Pretoria and Cape Town.
  • resale price maintenance — the practice by which a manufacturer establishes a fixed or minimum price for the resale of a brand product by retailers or other distributors
  • responsibility allowance — payment made to somebody who has special responsibilities
  • robot exclusion standard — standard for robot exclusion
  • rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
  • san francisco de macoris — a city in the N Dominican Republic.
  • scalable vector graphics — (graphics, web)   A W3C standard for vector graphics, based on XML.
  • schizoaffective disorder — a psychotic disorder in which symptoms of schizophrenia and affective disorder occur simultaneously.
  • scholastic aptitude test — a standard assessment test for entry into college in the United States
  • scottish country dancing — a type of Scottish folk dancing, including reels, jigs, and strathspeys, in which couples are arranged in sets and perform a series of movements, esp facing one another in a line
  • senegambia confederation — an economic and political union (1982–89) between Senegal and The Gambia
  • sequentially compact set — a set in which every sequence has a subsequence that converges to a point of the set.
  • serial interface adaptor — (SIA) The Ethernet driver chip used on a Filtabyte Ethernet card.
  • shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
  • sic transit gloria mundi — thus passes the glory of the world
  • single connection attach — (hardware)   (SCA, "Single Connector Attachment") A non-standard type of SCSI connector, used mostly by OEMs, which carries both power and data on one 80-pin connector. SCA SCSI drives tend to be cheaper but use with standard SCSI cables requires an adaptor and external termination.
  • single european currency — the official currency, also known as the Euro, of some of the members of the European Union
  • single premium insurance — Single premium insurance is insurance where all the premium is paid at once, in one payment.
  • six nations championship — the annual competition involving national sides representing England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. Until the admission of Italy in 2000, it was known as the Five Nations Championship
  • skeleton in the cupboard — a scandalous fact or event in the past that is kept secret
  • socialist workers' party — one of the biggest extreme left wing parties in Britain
  • south equatorial current — an ocean current, flowing westward, found near the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
  • special checking account — a checking account that requires no minimum balance but in which a small charge is made for each check issued or drawn and for monthly maintenance.
  • special development area — an area earmarked for special development by the government
  • stab someone in the back — If you say that someone has stabbed you in the back, you mean that they have done something very harmful to you when you thought that you could trust them. You can refer to an action of this kind as a stab in the back.
  • statistical independence — the condition or state of events or values of being statistically independent.
  • stereographic projection — a one-to-one correspondence between the points on a sphere and the extended complex plane where the north pole on the sphere corresponds to the point at infinity of the plane.
  • stratificational grammar — a grammar based upon the theory that language is made up of successive strata that are interconnected by established rules.
  • stratified charge engine — an internal-combustion engine in which a small charge of a rich fuel mixture is ignited first and used to improve combustion of a larger charge of a lean fuel mixture.
  • structural functionalism — functionalism (def 3).
  • subordinate con-junction — a conjunction introducing a subordinate clause, as when in They were glad when I finished.
  • supportive psychotherapy — a type of psychotherapy that seeks to reduce psychological conflict and strengthen a patient's defenses through the use of various techniques, as reassurance, suggestion, counseling, and reeducation.
  • synchronous graphics ram — Synchronous Graphics Random Access Memory
  • telephony user interface — (communications)   (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
  • telescope user interface — (hardware, interface)   (TUI) A remote control interface for a telescope.
  • the last of the mohicans — a historical novel (1826) by James Fenimore Cooper.
  • the least i could/can do — You use expressions like 'that's the least that I can do' to mean that you are very willing to do it, or to acknowledge someone's thanks.
  • the official secrets act — an act of Parliament that covers the protection of information relating to state security
  • the second international — an international association of socialist parties and trade unions that began in Paris in 1889 and collapsed during World War I. The right-wing elements reassembled at Berne in 1919
  • the wars of the diadochi — a series of conflicts between 321 and 281 bc, fought by six Macedonian generals who, after the death of Alexander the Great, desired control of his empire
  • the whole shooting match — everything; the whole lot
  • thompson sub-machine-gun — a .45 calibre sub-machine-gun
  • three-spined stickleback — a small teleost fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, of the family Gasterosteidae, of rivers and coastal regions, having three spines along the back and occurring in cold and temperate northern regions
  • to pick someone's brains — If you pick someone's brains, you ask them to help you with a problem because they know more about the subject than you.
  • to play your cards right — If you say that someone will achieve success if they play their cards right, you mean that they will achieve success if they act skilfully and use the advantages that they have.
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