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18-letter words containing a, l, g

  • asbestos longjohns — (humour)   Notional garments donned by Usenet posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit flamage. This is the most common of the asbestos coinages. Also "asbestos underwear", "asbestos overcoat", etc.
  • assignment problem — (mathematics, algorithm)   (Or "linear assignment") Any problem involving minimising the sum of C(a, b) over a set P of pairs (a, b) where a is an element of some set A and b is an element of set B, and C is some function, under constraints such as "each element of A must appear exactly once in P" or similarly for B, or both. For example, the a's could be workers and the b's projects. The problem is "linear" because the "cost function" C() depends only on the particular pairing (a, b) and is independent of all other pairings.
  • astrological chart — map of constellations at certain time
  • asynchronous logic — (architecture)   A data-driven circuit design technique where, instead of the components sharing a common clock and exchanging data on clock edges, data is passed on as soon as it is available. This removes the need to distribute a common clock signal throughout the circuit with acceptable clock skew. It also helps to reduce power dissipation in CMOS circuits because gates only switch when they are doing useful work rather than on every clock edge. There are many kinds of asynchronous logic. Data signals may use either "dual rail encoding" or "data bundling". Each dual rail encoded Boolean is implemented as two wires. This allows the value and the timing information to be communicated for each data bit. Bundled data has one wire for each data bit and another for timing. Level sensitive circuits typically represent a logic one by a high voltage and a logic zero by a low voltage whereas transition signalling uses a change in the signal level to convey information. A speed independent design is tolerant to variations in gate speeds but not to propagation delays in wires; a delay insensitive circuit is tolerant to variations in wire delays as well. The purest form of circuit is delay-insensitive and uses dual-rail encoding with transition signalling. A transition on one wire indicates the arrival of a zero, a transition on the other the arrival of a one. The levels on the wires are of no significance. Such an approach enables the design of fully delay-insensitive circuits and automatic layout as the delays introduced by the layout compiler can't affect the functionality (only the performance). Level sensitive designs can use simpler, stateless logic gates but require a "return to zero" phase in each transition.
  • augmented interval — an interval that is a half step greater than the corresponding major or perfect interval
  • autobiographically — In a autobiographical manner.
  • auxiliary language — a language, as Esperanto, Swahili, or English, used for intercommunication by speakers of various other languages.
  • awnless bromegrass — Hungarian bromegrass.
  • axiological ethics — the branch of ethics dealing primarily with the relative goodness or value of the motives and end of any action.
  • balanced computing — (jargon)   Matching computer tools to job activities so that the computer system structure parallels the organisation structure and work functions. Both personal computers and employees operate in a decentralised environment with monitoring of achievement of management objectives from centralised corporate systems.
  • ballistocardiogram — a tracing made by a ballistocardiograph
  • band-tailed pigeon — a wild pigeon, Columba fasciata, of western North America, having a gray band on its tail.
  • barrow's goldeneye — See under goldeneye (def 1).
  • bartholin's glands — two small reddish-yellow glands, one on each side of the vaginal orifice, that secrete a mucous lubricating substance during sexual stimulation in females
  • basal conglomerate — a conglomerate deposited on an erosion surface and constituting the bottom layer of a stratigraphic series.
  • battleground-state — a state of the U.S. in which the Democratic and Republican candidates both have a good chance of winning and that is considered key to the outcome of a presidential election: the swing states of Ohio and Indiana.
  • bel and the dragon — a book of the Apocrypha that is included as chapter 14 of Daniel in the Douay Bible.
  • bellingshausen sea — an area of the S Pacific Ocean off the coast of Antarctica
  • biological control — the control of destructive organisms by the use of other organisms, such as the natural predators of the pests
  • biological parents — the biological mother and father of a child
  • biological therapy — biotherapy
  • biological warfare — the use of living organisms or their toxic products to induce death or incapacity in humans and animals and damage to plant crops, etc
  • biomedical package — (language, library, statistics)   (BMDP) A statistical language and library of over forty statistical routines developed in 1961 at UCLA, Health Sciences Computing Facility under Dr. Wilford Dixon. BMDP was first implemented in Fortran for the IBM 7090. Tapes of the original source were distributed for free all over the world. BMDP is the second iteration of the original BIMED programs. It was developed at UCLA Health Sciences Computing facility, with NIH funding. The "P" in BMDP originally stood for "parameter" but was later changed to "package". BMDP used keyword parameters to defined what was to be done rather than the fixed card format used by original BIMED programs. BMDP supports many statistical funtions: simple data description, survival analysis, ANOVA, multivariate analyses, regression analysis, and time series analysis. BMDP Professional combines the full suite of BMDP Classic (Dynamic) release 7.0 with the BMDP New System 2.0 Windows front-end.
  • black-necked grebe — a small grebe, Podiceps nigricollis, found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America
  • blackwater rafting — the sport of riding through underground caves on a large rubber tube
  • blissful ignorance — unawareness or inexperience of something unpleasant
  • blocking capacitor — a capacitor that blocks the passage of direct current but allows alternating current to pass
  • bloggs family, the — An imaginary family consisting of Fred and Mary Bloggs and their children. Used as a standard example in knowledge representation to show the difference between extensional and intensional objects. For example, every occurrence of "Fred Bloggs" is the same unique person, whereas occurrences of "person" may refer to different people. Members of the Bloggs family have been known to pop up in bizarre places such as the DEC Telephone Directory. Compare Mbogo, Dr. Fred.
  • borosilicate glass — any of a range of heat- and chemical-resistant glasses, such as Pyrex, prepared by fusing together boron(III) oxide, silicon dioxide, and, usually, a metal oxide
  • breast enlargement — a surgical procedure to increase the size of a woman's breasts
  • bring-and-buy sale — A bring-and-buy sale is an informal sale to raise money for a charity or other organization. People who come to the sale bring things to be sold and buy things that other people have brought.
  • building materials — materials such as bricks, cement, timber, etc
  • calling convention — (programming)   The arrangement of arguments for a procedure or function call. Different programming languages may require arguments to be pushed onto a stack or entered in registers in left-to-right or right-to left order, and either the caller or the callee can be responsible for removing the arguments. The calling convention also determines if a variable number of arguments is allowed.
  • carboxyhaemoglobin — haemoglobin coordinated with carbon monoxide, formed as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. As carbon monoxide is bound in preference to oxygen, tissues are deprived of oxygen
  • cartilaginous fish — any fish of the class Chondrichthyes, including the sharks, skates, and rays, having a skeleton composed entirely of cartilage
  • cassius (longinus) — (Gaius)died 42 b.c.; Rom. general & conspirator against Caesar
  • catalogue raisonne — a descriptive catalogue, esp one covering works of art in an exhibition or collection
  • catalytic cracking — a method used in the petroleum industry for the cracking of petroleum by catalysis
  • catapult launching — the fact of launching aircraft into the air by a device installed in warships
  • categorial grammar — a theory that characterizes syntactic categories in terms of functions between classes of expressions. The basic classes are names (N) and sentences (S). Intransitive verbs are symbols for functions which take a name and yield a sentence (written S/N), adverbs form compound verbs from verbs (for example, run fast) and so are (S/N)/(S/N), etc
  • cauliflower fungus — a large edible white to yellowish cauliflowerlike mushroom, Sparassis radicata, widely distributed in North America.
  • ceiling decoration — a plaster moulding for the centre of a ceiling; other decoration, such as coving
  • celestial guidance — the guidance of a spacecraft or missile by reference to the position of one or more celestial bodies
  • celestial marriage — the rite or state of marriage, performed in a Mormon temple by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and believed to continue beyond death.
  • central government — the government of a state or country
  • centrifugal clutch — an automatic clutch in which the friction surfaces are engaged by weighted levers acting under centrifugal force at a certain speed of rotation
  • cervical screening — a screening for cervical cancer
  • chagos archipelago — group of islands in the Indian Ocean 1,180 mi (1,899 km) northeast of Mauritius, comprising the British Indian Ocean Territory: chief island, Diego Garcia
  • chandelier earring — one of a pair of long and ornate earrings that dangle from the earlobes, usually dropping from more than one level.
  • character-building — improving certain good or useful traits in a person's character, esp self-reliance, endurance, and courage
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