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23-letter words containing a, c, o, l, u

  • fall through the cracks — to break without complete separation of parts; become fissured: The plate cracked when I dropped it, but it was still usable.
  • ferric ammonium oxalate — a green, crystalline, water-soluble, synthetically produced powder, (NH 4) 3 Fe(C 2 O 4) 3 ⋅3H 2 O, used chiefly in the manufacture of blueprint paper.
  • fluorochlorohydrocarbon — (organic chemistry) Any compound formally derived from a hydrocarbon by replacing some hydrogen atoms with fluorine and some with chlorine (at least one being retained).
  • four colour map theorem — (mathematics, application)   (Or "four colour theorem") The theorem stating that if the plane is divided into connected regions which are to be coloured so that no two adjacent regions have the same colour (as when colouring countries on a map of the world), it is never necessary to use more than four colours. The proof, due to Appel and Haken, attained notoriety by using a computer to check tens of thousands of cases and is thus not humanly checkable, even in principle. Some thought that this brought the philosophical status of the proof into doubt. There are now rumours of a simpler proof, not requiring the use of a computer. See also chromatic number
  • fraunhofer gesellschaft — (company)   (FhG, FhG IIS, Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen) A german company, named after the physicist. IIS is Integrated Circuit Institute. FhG are known for their research on audio compression, especially MPEG-1 Layer-3 (MP3).
  • frictional unemployment — those people who are in the process of moving from one job to another and who therefore appear in the unemployment statistics collected at any given time
  • fully associative cache — (memory management)   A type of cache in which data from any address can be stored in any cache location. The whole address must be used as the tag (the value that identifies a block of data in the cache). All tags must be compared simultaneously (associatively) with the requested address and if one matches then its associated data is accessed. This requires an associative memory to hold the tags which makes this form of cache more expensive. It does however solve the problem of contention for cache locations (cache conflict) since a block need only be flushed when the whole cache is full and then the block to flush can be selected in a more efficient way. The alternatives are direct mapped cache or set associative cache.
  • function graph language — (language)   (FGL) The machine language for the AMPS (Applicative Multi-Processing System) proposed by Robert Keller, Gary Lindstrom and Suhas Patil at the University of Utah.
  • function point analysis — (programming)   (FPA) A standard metric for the relative size and complexity of a software system, originally developed by Alan Albrecht of IBM in the late 1970s. Functon points (FPs) can be used to estimate the relative size and complexity of software in the early stages of development - analysis and design. The size is determined by identifying the components of the system as seen by the end-user: the inputs, outputs, inquiries, interfaces to other systems, and logical internal files. The components are classified as simple, average, or complex. All of these values are then scored and the total is expressed in Unadjusted FPs (UFPs). Complexity factors described by 14 general systems characteristics, such as reusability, performance, and complexity of processing can be used to weight the UFP. Factors are also weighted on a scale of 0 - not present, 1 - minor influence, to 5 - strong influence. The result of these computations is a number that correlates to system size. Although the FP metric doesn't correspond to any actual physical attribute of a software system (such as lines of code or the number of subroutines) it is useful as a relative measure for comparing projects, measuring productivity, and estimating the amount a development effort and time needed for a project. See also International Function Point Users Group.
  • functional requirements — (specification)   What a system should be able to do, the functions it should perform. This term is used at both the user requirements analysis and software requirements specifications phases in the software life-cycle. An example of a non-functional requirement is an initialisation sequence incorporated into the software that is specific to a given customer.
  • fundamental interaction — any of the four basic interactions that occur in nature: the gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak interactions
  • grand duchess charlotte — Grand Duchess (Charlotte Aldegonde Elise Marie Wilhelmine) 1896–1985, sovereign of Luxembourg 1919–64.
  • heterogeneous catalysis — Heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis in which the catalyst does not take part in the reaction that it increases.
  • human leukocyte antigen — HLA.
  • hydrochlorofluorocarbon — Any of a class of inert compounds of carbon, hydrogen, hydrocarbons, chlorine, and fluorine, used in place of chlorofluorocarbons as being somewhat less destructive to the ozone layer.
  • immunological tolerance — the absence of antibody production in response to the presence of antigens, usually as a result of previous exposure to the antigens
  • incontestability clause — a clause in a life-insurance or health-insurance policy stating that the insurer cannot contest the policy after a stated period of time.
  • industrial psychologist — a person who studies human behaviour and cognitive processes in relation to the working environment
  • initial public offering — An initial public offering is the first offering of stock when a company goes public.
  • internal reconstruction — the hypothetical reconstruction of an earlier stage of a language or of some part of it, as its phonology, by deductions from irregularities in its present structure, as the reconstruction of a stage in English when certain instances of r were related to s in a systematic way by comparing the pair was:were to other pairs, as lose:forlorn.
  • juan rodriguez cabrillo — Juan Rodríguez [rod-ree-ges] /rɒdˈri gɛs/ (Show IPA), (Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho) 1499?–1543, Spanish explorer, born in Portugal: discovered California.
  • largemouth (black) bass — a black bass (Micropterus salmoides) found in warm, sluggish waters
  • laughlin air force base — U.S. Air Force installation in SW Texas, SE of Del Rio.
  • locally euclidean space — a topological space in which each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open set in a Euclidean space of specified dimension.
  • lossy audio compression — (audio, compression)   Any audio compression algorithm which does not retain every bit of data but only reproduces a signal that sounds more or less like the original. Examples are MP1, MP2, MP3, AAC.
  • lymphoblastic leukaemia — a severe blood disorder in which abnormal leukocytes are identified as immature forms of lymphocytes
  • made out of whole cloth — completely fictitious or false; made up
  • micro assembly language — (language)   (MAL) A microprogramming language with high-level syntax, used in the reference below. See also Mic-1, Mac-1.
  • micropachycephalosaurus — A very small pachycephalosaurid, ornithischian dinosaur of the genus Micropachycephalosaurus.
  • multimedia compact disc — (storage)   (MMCD) A CD-ROM standard for storing 4.7 GB of data including video. MMCD is being developed by a large numer of computer manufacturers and is expected to be shipped in late 1996 or early 1997. Initially it will be aimed at the consumer market, then perhaps in CD-ROM format for computers, and maybe later on erasble CD.
  • national safety council — a non profit organization that promotes and ensures health and safety standards
  • nondisclosure agreement — a legal contract in which one or more parties agree to keep information, as a trade secret, confidential and protected for a specific amount of time. Abbreviation: NDA.
  • nonverbal communication — gesture and facial expression
  • north ossetian republic — a constituent republic of S Russia, on the N slopes of the central Caucasus Mountains. Capital: Vladikavkaz. Pop: 709 900 (2002). Area: about 8000 sq km (3088 sq miles)
  • not a hair out of place — If you say that someone has not a hair out of place, you are emphasizing that they are extremely smart and neatly dressed.
  • occupational psychology — the study of human behaviour at work, including ergonomics, selection procedures, and the effects of stress
  • ordinary life insurance — life insurance with premiums paid throughout the lifetime of the insured.
  • out of a clear blue sky — the region of the clouds or the upper air; the upper atmosphere of the earth: airplanes in the sky; cloudy skies.
  • parasexual reproduction — reproduction by recombination of genes from genetically dissimilar nuclei within binucleate or multinucleate cells, as in filamentous fungi.
  • peroxymonosulfuric acid — persulfuric acid (def 1).
  • pharmaceuticals company — a company specialising in developing and marketing pharmaceuticals
  • photoelectric magnitude — the magnitude of a star determined using a photometer plus a filter to select light or other radiation of the desired wavelength
  • plain old documentation — (text)   (pod, occasionally "POD") A simple markup language used to embed documentation, literate programming-style, in Perl programs. Pod readers and converters are part of the standard Perl distribution and the documentation provided with Perl is all in pod format.
  • precautionary principle — the precept that an action should not be taken if the consequences are uncertain and potentially dangerous
  • price escalation clause — a clause in a contract allowing the seller to raise prices if the cost of inputs increases
  • probabilistic automaton — nondeterministic automaton
  • professional misconduct — a violation of the rules or boundaries set by the governing body of a profession
  • profit and loss account — income account (def 2).
  • public-key cryptography — public-key encryption
  • publicly-quoted company — a company whose shares are traded on a stock exchange
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