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22-letter words containing a, l, i, s, d, c

  • liquid crystal display — (hardware)   (LCD) An electro-optical device used to display digits, characters or images, commonly used in digital watches, calculators, and portable computers. The heart of the liquid crystal display is a piece of liquid crystal material placed between a pair of transparent electrodes. The liquid crystal changes the phase of the light passing through it and this phase change can be controlled by the voltage applied between the electrodes. If such a unit is placed between a pair of plane polariser plates then light can pass through it only if the correct voltage is applied. Liquid crystal displays are formed by integrating a number of such cells, or more usually, by using a single liquid crystal plate and a pattern of electrodes. The simplest kind of liquid crystal displays, those used in digital watches and calculators, contain a common electrode plane covering one side and a pattern of electrodes on the other. These electrodes can be individually controlled to produce the appropriate display. Computer displays, however, require far too many pixels (typically between 50,000 and several millions) to make this scheme, in particular its wiring, feasible. The electrodes are therefore replaced by a number of row electrodes on one side and column electrodes on the other. By applying voltage to one row and several columns the pixels at the intersections are set. The pixels being set one row after the other, in passive matrix displays the number of rows is limited by the ratio of the setting and fading times. In the setup described above (known as "twisted nematic") the number of rows is limited to about 20. Using an alternative "supertwisted nematic" setup VGA quality displays (480 rows) can be easily built. As of 1995 most notebook computers used this technique. Fading can be slowed by putting an active element, such as a transistor, on the top of each pixel. This "remembers" the setting of that pixel. These active matrix displays are of much better quality (as good as CRTs) but are much more expensive than the passive matrix displays. LCDs are slimmer, lighter and consume less power than the previous dominant display type, the cathode ray tube, hence their importance for portable computers.
  • lord justice of appeal — an ordinary judge of the Court of Appeal
  • lunar excursion module — lunar module. Abbreviation: LEM.
  • middle atlantic states — the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey
  • middle-distance runner — someone who runs races of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres
  • molecular distillation — a vacuum distillation in which the molecules of the distillate reach the condenser before colliding with one another.
  • national semiconductor — (company)   A semiconductor manufacturer, responsible for the SC/MP, National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000 series of microprocessors.
  • nodal switching system — (NSS) Main routing nodes in the NSFnet backbone.
  • nominal semidestructor — (abuse)   Slang for "National Semiconductor", found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed a series of microprocessors including the National Semiconductor 16000 and National Semiconductor 32000. At one point early in the great microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors.
  • object-oriented pascal — Object Pascal
  • paroxysmal tachycardia — tachycardia that begins and subsides suddenly.
  • pizza delivery service — a service whereby a pizza restaurant delivers pizzas to customers who order by telephone
  • planck's radiation law — the law that energy associated with electromagnetic radiation, as light, is composed of discrete quanta of energy, each quantum equal to Planck's constant times the corresponding frequency of the radiation: the fundamental law of quantum mechanics.
  • plastic pin grid array — (hardware, processor)   (PPGA) The package used for certain Intel Celeron processors. PPGA processors fit into Socket 370 motherboard sockets. The Plastic Pin Grid Array packaging is similar to that used on Pentium processors. The silicon core is covered by a heat slug that faces down toward the motherboard. The Celeron 300A to the 533 use a PPGA package. The Celeron 566 onward use a FC-PGA package. Celeron processors are also available in Slot 1 SEPP packaging.
  • play one's cards right — a usually rectangular piece of stiff paper, thin pasteboard, or plastic for various uses, as to write information on or printed as a means of identifying the holder: a 3″ × 5″ file card; a membership card.
  • poor richard's almanac — an almanac (1732–58) written and published by Benjamin Franklin.
  • prince edward islander — a native or inhabitant of Prince Edward Island
  • prince of wales island — the largest island in the Alexander Archipelago, in SE Alaska. 1500 sq. mi. (3990 sq. km).
  • public domain software — public domain
  • reproductive isolation — the conditions, as physiological or behavioral differences or geographical barriers, that prevent potentially interbreeding populations from cross-fertilization.
  • respond to a complaint — If you respond to a complaint, you answer a customer who expressed their dissatisfaction with something.
  • round-table discussion — a discussion held at a meeting of parties or people on equal terms
  • rural delivery service — mail delivery operated primarily to deliver and collect mail in rural communities with no other convenient postal facilities.
  • rural district council — (in England and Wales from 1888 to 1974 and Northern Ireland from 1898 to 1973) a group of people elected to govern a rural division of a county
  • saddleback caterpillar — a moth larva, Sibine stimulea, of the southeastern U.S, having a brown and green, saddlelike marking on its back and poisonous spines.
  • sail close to the wind — air in natural motion, as that moving horizontally at any velocity along the earth's surface: A gentle wind blew through the valley. High winds were forecast.
  • santiago de compostela — a city in and the capital of Chile, in the central part.
  • satellite broadcasting — the transmission of television or radio programmes from an artificial satellite at a power suitable for direct reception in the home
  • saturday night special — a cheap, small-caliber handgun that is easily obtainable and concealable.
  • saturday-night special — a cheap, small-caliber handgun that is easily obtainable and concealable.
  • save the children fund — a development agency which raises money for deprived children around the world
  • scandinavian peninsula — large peninsula in N Europe, consisting of Norway & Sweden
  • school medical officer — a doctor who is based in a school and is responsible for the health of schoolchildren
  • second vatican council — the twenty-first Roman Catholic ecumenical council (1962–65) convened by Pope John XXIII. Its 16 documents redefined the nature of the church, gave bishops greater influence in church affairs, and increased lay participation in liturgy.
  • secondary articulation — coarticulation (def 2).
  • secondary-articulation — concomitance of articulation, as in fro, ostensibly a succession of three discrete sounds but physically a single articulation (f-) blending into a coarticulation (-fr-), which blends into an articulation (-r-), which blends into a coarticulation (-ro-), which blends into an articulation (-o).
  • serial presence detect — presence detect
  • simultaneous broadcast — a programme, etc, broadcast simultaneously on radio and television
  • sleeping accommodation — place where people can sleep
  • social differentiation — the distinction made between social groups and persons on the basis of biological, physiological, and sociocultural factors, as sex, age, or ethnicity, resulting in the assignment of roles and status within a society.
  • social disorganization — disruption or breakdown of the structure of social relations and values resulting in the loss of social controls over individual and group behavior, the development of social isolation and conflict, and a sense of estrangement or alienation from the mainstream of one's culture; the condition or state of anomie.
  • south sandwich islands — a group of volcanic islands, administered by England, in the South Atlantic Ocean: part of the Falkland Islands dependency. 120 sq. mi. (310 sq. km).
  • special delivery stamp — a stamp of special design, having a value indicating an extra fee in addition to the regular postage, and affixed to an item of mail to ensure its special delivery.
  • special drawing rights — the reserve assets of the International Monetary Fund on which member nations may draw in proportion to their contribution to the Fund
  • split-dollar insurance — life insurance in which someone helps pay the premiums for another, as when an employer contributes to the premiums of an employee's policy.
  • statistical dependence — a condition in which two random variables are not independent. X and Y are positively dependent if the conditional probability, P(X|Y), of X given Y is greater than the probability, P(X), of X, or equivalently if P(X&Y) > P(X).P(Y). They are negatively dependent if the inequalities are reversed
  • stratford de redcliffe — 1st Viscount (Stratford Canning) 1786–1880, English diplomat.
  • supreme judicial court — (often initial capital letters) the highest court in some states, as Massachusetts and Maine.
  • ten-spined stickleback — a small teleost fish, Gasterosteus pungitius, of the family Gasterosteidae, of rivers and coastal regions, having ten spines along the back and occurring in cold and temperate northern regions
  • the medical profession — the occupation of working as a doctor of medicine
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