29-letter words containing a, c, t, u, l
- optimal flexible architecture — (database) (OFA) Recommendations for logical and physical allocation of database files to disks. The OFA principles can be summarised as: isolate redo, rollback, temp, data and index files as much as possible. OFA can be combined with SAME (Stripe And Mirror Everything).
- quantum-dot cellular automata — (electronics, computing) (QCA) Quantum logic circuits created by orientating pairs of quantum cells so that their relative positions determine their affect on each other. This is functionally analogous but structurally different from how individual gates in integrated circuits are combined to create logical and memory circuitry. The advantages of quantum-dot cellular automata over conventional circuitry are extremely small size/high density, low power requirements, and potentially high processing speeds. Disadvantages (in 2000) are difficulty of fabrication and low yield. See also: quantum cell wire.
- real-time structured analysis — (programming) (RTSA) Any version of structured analysis capable of modelling real-time aspects of software.
- resource reservation protocol — (protocol) (RSVP) A protocol that supports quality of service.
- roll out the red carpet (for) — to welcome and entertain in a grand and impressive style
- royal canadian mounted police — Canadian police on horseback
- saint andrews static language — St Andrews Static Language
- scanning tunneling microscope — a device that uses a moving needle and the tunnel effect to generate a maplike image of the atomic surface structure of matter, thereby achieving even greater magnification than the scanning electron microscope.
- secure file transfer protocol — SSH File Transfer Protocol
- shell-and-tube heat exchanger — A shell-and-tube heat exchanger is a type of heat exchanger that consists of a cylinder carrying one fluid, with some smaller cylinders inside it carrying another fluid.
- suppressed carrier modulation — an amplitude-modulated wave in which only the sidebands are transmitted, the carrier being removed
- surgical specialist registrar — a hospital doctor senior to a house officer but junior to a consultant, specializing in surgery
- symbolic automatic integrator — (mathematics, tool) (SAINT) A symbolic mathematics program written in Lisp by J. Slagle at MIT in 1961.
- synchronous data link control — (communications) (SDLC) An IBM protocol. A discipline conforming to subsets of the ADCCP of ANSI and the HDLC of the International Organization for Standardization. SDLC manages synchronous, code-transparent, bit-serial communication which can be duplex or half-duplex; switched or non-switched; point-to-point, multipoint, or loop. Compare Binary Synchronous Communication.
- synchronous digital hierarchy — (communications, standard) (SDH) An international digital telecommunications network hierarchy which standardises transmission around the bit rate of 51.84 megabits per second, which is also called STS-1. Multiples of this bit rate comprise higher bit rate streams. Thus STS-3 is 3 times STS-1, STS-12 is 12 times STS-1, and so on. STS-3 is the lowest bit rate expected to carry ATM traffic, and is also referred to as STM-1 (Synchronous Transport Module-Level 1). The SDH specifies how payload data is framed and transported synchronously across optical fibre transmission links without requiring all the links and nodes to have the same synchronized clock for data transmission and recovery (i.e. both the clock frequency and phase are allowed to have variations, or be plesiochronous). SDH offers several advantages over the current multiplexing technology, which is known as Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy. Where PDH lacks built-in facilities for automatic management and routing, and locks users into proprietary methods, SDH can improve network reliability and performance, offers much greater flexibility and lower operating and maintenance costs, and provides for a faster provision of new services. Under SDH, incoming traffic is synchronized and enhanced with network management bits before being multiplexed into the STM-1 fixed rate frame. The fundamental clock frequency around which the SDH or SONET framing is done is 8 KHz or 125 microseconds. SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) is the American version of SDH.
- the royal ulster constabulary — (formerly) the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001, superseded by the Police Service of Northern Ireland
- to have your back to the wall — If you have your back to the wall, you are in a very difficult situation and can see no way out of it.
- to laugh someone out of court — If you laugh someone out of court, you say that their opinions or ideas are so ridiculous that they are not worth considering.
- to let the cat out of the bag — If you let the cat out of the bag, you tell people about something that was being kept secret. You often do this by mistake.
- universal resource identifier — (web) (URI, originally "UDI" in some WWW documents) The generic set of all names and addresses which are short strings which refer to objects (typically on the Internet). The most common kinds of URI are URLs and relative URLs. URIs are defined in RFC 1630.
- until one is blue in the face — to the utmost degree; indefinitely
- virtual storage access method — (database) (VSAM) An IBM disk file storage scheme first used in S/370 and virtual storage. VSAM comprises three access methods: Keyed Sequenced Data Set (KSDS), Relative Record Data Set (RRDS), and Entry Sequenced Data Set (ESDS). Both IMS/DB and DB2 are implemented on top of VSAM and use its underlying data structures.
- visual basic for applications — (programming) (VBA) Microsoft's common language for manipulating components of its Microsoft Office suite. It is used as the macro language for these applications and is the primary means of customising and extending them. A VBA program operates on objects representing the application and the entities it manipulates, e.g. a spreadsheet or a range of cells in Microsoft Excel.
- you can't hear yourself think — If you say that you can't hear yourself think, you are complaining and emphasizing that there is a lot of noise, and that it is disturbing you or preventing you from doing something.