24-letter words containing a, e, r, i, u
- consultant paediatrician — a paediatrician who has attained the rank of consultant
- cooperative credit union — a cooperative group that makes loans to its members at low rates of interest.
- cooperative multitasking — (parallel, operating system) A form of multitasking where it is the responsibility of the currently running task to give up the processor to allow other tasks to run. This contrasts with pre-emptive multitasking where the task scheduler periodically suspends the running task and restarts another. Cooperative multitasking requires the programmer to place calls at suitable points in his code to allow his task to be descheduled which is not always easy if there is no obvious top-level main loop or some routines run for a long time. If a task does not allow itself to be descheduled all other tasks on the system will appear to "freeze" and will not respond to user action. The advantage of cooperative multitasking is that the programmer knows where the program will be descheduled and can make sure that this will not cause unwanted interaction with other processes. Under pre-emptive multitasking, the scheduler must ensure that sufficient state for each process is saved and restored that they will not interfere. Thus cooperative multitasking can have lower overheads than pre-emptive multitasking because of the greater control it offers over when a task may be descheduled. Cooperative multitasking is used in RISC OS, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh System 7.
- curiosity killed the cat — You say 'Curiosity killed the cat' in order to tell someone that they should not try to find out about something which does not concern them.
- dead white european male — a man whose importance and talents may have been exaggerated because he belonged to a historically dominant gender and ethnic group
- definite relative clause — a relative clause with a definite relative pronoun as subordinating word, as that they said in We heard the things that they said.
- destructive distillation — the decomposition of a complex substance, such as wood or coal, by heating it in the absence of air and collecting the volatile products
- dictionary and thesaurus — a dictionary that includes a separate section listing terms with synonyms and antonyms. An online reference site, such as Reference.com, provides immediate electronic access to several dictionaries and a thesaurus as well as to other reference sources.
- dionysius the areopagite — 1st century a.d, Athenian scholar: converted to Christianity by Saint Paul c50.
- display screen equipment — Visual Display Unit
- disturbance of the peace — a malicious and willful intrusion on the peace and quiet of a community or neighbourhood
- domestic relations court — in some states, a court with jurisdiction over matters involving relations within the family or household, as between husband and wife or parent and child
- domestic-relations court — court of domestic relations.
- dynamic adaptive routing — Automatic rerouting of traffic based on analysis of current network conditions. This does not include routing decisions based on predefined information.
- ecole normale superieure — (body) (ENS) A higher education and research institution in Paris, France.
- electromagnetic spectrum — the complete range of electromagnetic radiation from the longest radio waves (wavelength 105 metres) to the shortest gamma radiation (wavelength 10–13 metre)
- electronic configuration — the arrangement of electrons in the orbitals of an atom or molecule
- equivalence partitioning — equivalence class partitioning
- european investment bank — a financial institution of the European Union which is based in Luxembourg and which provides loans, especially to the less economically developed countries of the EU
- evolutionary computation — Computer-based problem solving systems that use computational models of evolutionary processes as the key elements in design and implementation. A number of evolutionary computational models have been proposed, including evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms, the evolution strategy, evolutionary programming, and artificial life.
- evolutionary programming — (EP) A stochastic optimisation strategy originally conceived by Lawrence J. Fogel in 1960. An initially random population of individuals (trial solutions) is created. Mutations are then applied to each individual to create new individuals. Mutations vary in the severity of their effect on the behaviour of the individual. The new individuals are then compared in a "tournament" to select which should survive to form the new population. EP is similar to a genetic algorithm, but models only the behavioural linkage between parents and their offspring, rather than seeking to emulate specific genetic operators from nature such as the encoding of behaviour in a genome and recombination by genetic crossover. EP is also similar to an evolution strategy (ES) although the two approaches developed independently. In EP, selection is by comparison with a randomly chosen set of other individuals whereas ES typically uses deterministic selection in which the worst individuals are purged from the population.
- exponential distribution — a continuous single-parameter distribution used esp when making statements about the length of life of certain materials or waiting times between randomly occurring events. Its density function is p(x) = λe–λx for positive λ and nonnegative x, and it is a special case of the gamma distribution
- failure-directed testing — (programming) (Or "heuristics testing") Software testing based on the knowledge of the types of errors made in the past that are likely for the system under test.
- floating point underflow — underflow
- flue gas desulfurization — Flue gas desulfurization is the removal of pollutants containing sulfur from flue gas.
- free software foundation — (body) (FSF) An organisation devoted to the creation and dissemination of free software, i.e. software that is free from licensing fees or restrictions on use. The Foundation's main work is supporting the GNU project, started by Richard Stallman (RMS), partly to proselytise for his position that information is community property and all software source should be shared. The GNU project has developed the GNU Emacs editor and a C compiler, gcc, replacements for many Unix utilities and many other tools. A complete Unix-like operating system (HURD) is in the works (April 1994). Software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, which also provides a good summary of the Foundation's goals and principles. The Free Software Foundation raises most of its funds from distributing its software, although it is a charity rather than a company. Although the software is freely available (e.g. by FTP - see below) users are encouraged to support the work of the FSF by paying for their distribution service or by making donations. One of the slogans of the FSF is "Help stamp out software hoarding!" This remains controversial because authors want to own, assign and sell the results of their labour. However, many hackers who disagree with RMS have nevertheless cooperated to produce large amounts of high-quality software for free redistribution under the Free Software Foundation's imprimatur. See copyleft, General Public Virus, GNU archive site. Unofficial WWW pages: PDX, DeLorie. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Address: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Telephone: +1 (617) 876 3296.
- french equatorial africa — a former federation of French territories in central Africa, including Chad, Gabon, Middle Congo (now People's Republic of the Congo), and Ubangi-Shari (now Central African Republic): each became independent in 1960.
- general protection fault — General Protection Failure
- give hostages to fortune — to place oneself in a position in which misfortune may strike through the loss of what one values most
- gottfried von strassburg — early 13th-century German poet; author of the incomplete epic Tristan and Isolde, the version of the legend that served as the basis of Wagner's opera
- graduated pension scheme — (between 1961 and 1975) an earnings-related pension scheme which was based on the amount of an employee's National Insurance contributions
- grand unification theory — a possible future quantum field theory that would encompass both the electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics. Abbreviation: GUT.
- graphical user interface — a software interface designed to standardize and simplify the use of computer programs, as by using a mouse to manipulate text and images on a display screen featuring icons, windows, and menus.
- greater london authority — local government body of UK capital
- greenhouse gas emissions — gases given off that damage ozone layer
- ground-fault interrupter — a circuit breaker that senses currents caused by ground faults and quickly shuts off power before damage can occur to generating equipment.
- guaranteed annual income — Also called guaranteed income. compensation provided by the government to any family or individual whose annual income falls below a specified level.
- gulf cooperation council — an association of Persian Gulf nations formed for the purpose of collective defense against aggression. Abbreviation: GCC.
- hardware circular buffer — (programming, hardware) digital signal processors which support hardware circular buffers automatically generate and increment pointers for memory accesses which wrap to the beginning of the buffer when its end is reached, thus saving the time and instructions otherwise needed to ensure that the address pointer stays within the boundary of the buffer, and speeding the execution of repetitive DSP algorithms.
- heart is a lonely hunter — a novel (1940) by Carson McCullers.
- high performance routing — (networking) (HPR) Routing designed to work in conjunction with APPN Intermediate Session Routing (ISR) network nodes. HPR nodes perform many of the same functions as ISR nodes. For example, HPR nodes use the same method of calculating routes based on the Topology Routing Service database and class of service tables. HPR nodes also supports such APPN features as connection networks and support for parallel transmission groups (TGs). In the HPR architecture, both partner nodes must support HPR for RTP connections to take place between the nodes. If one node supports HPR and the partner node does not, then the link will support ISR functionality only.
- hoop-petticoat narcissus — petticoat narcissus.
- house of representatives — the lower legislative branch in many national and state bicameral governing bodies, as in the United States, Mexico, and Japan.
- human-computer interface — (software, hardware) (HCI) Any software or hardware that allows a user to interact with a computer. Examples are WIMP, command-line interpreter, or virtual reality. See also Human-Computer Interaction.
- ichthyophthirius-disease — ich.
- immunofluorescence assay — a diagnostic blood test using the technique of immunofluorescence. Abbreviation: IFA.
- industrial correspondent — a journalist who specializes in reporting the industrial news
- information architecture — the design and organization of an online resource, usually with regard to usability.
- information superhighway — internet
- instructional technology — (education) Design, development, use, management and evaluation of process and resources for learning. Instructional technology aims to promote the application of validated, practical procedures in the design and delivery of instruction. It is often defined either in terms of media and other technology used (e.g. audiovisual media and equipment and computers), or in terms of a systematic process which encompasses instructional design, development, delivery and evaluation.