23-letter words containing a, l, o, c
- discrimination learning — a learning process in which an organism learns to react differently to different stimuli
- dishonourable discharge — dismissal from the US armed forces by a court martial as a result of serious misconduct
- disjunctive normal form — (DNF) A logical formula consisting of a disjunction of conjunctions where no conjunction contains a disjunction. E.g. the DNF of (A or B) and C is (A and C) or (B and C).
- dissociate oneself from — to deny or repudiate any connection with
- dollar (cost) averaging — see average (sense 11)
- duplication of the cube — the insoluble problem of constructing a cube having twice the volume of a given cube, using only a ruler and compass.
- electroencephalographer — A specialist in electroencephalography.
- electroencephalographic — Of or pertaining to electroencephalography or electroencephalographs.
- electron spin resonance — a technique for investigating paramagnetic substances by subjecting them to high-frequency radiation in a strong magnetic field. Changes in the spin of unpaired electrons cause radiation to be absorbed at certain frequencies
- electronic file cabinet — a device, controlled by software, for the storage and retrieval of information
- electronic mail address — (messaging) (Usually "e-mail address") The string used to specify the source or destination of an electronic mail message. E.g. "[email protected]". The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the Internet. X.400 was once used in Europe and Canada. UUCP-style (bang path) addresses or other kinds of source route became virtually extinct in the 1990s. In the example above, "john" is the local part which is the name of a mailbox on the destination computer. If the sender and recipient use the same computer, or the same LAN, for electronic mail then the local part is usually all that is required. If they use different computers, e.g. they work at different companies or use different Internet service providers, then the "host part", e.g. "sales.acme.com" must be appended after an "@". This usually takes the form of a fully qualified domain name or, within a large organisation, it may be just the hostname part, e.g. "sales". The destination computer named by the host part is usually a server of some kind rather than an individual's workstation or PC. The user's mail is stored on the server and read later via client mail software running on the user's computer. Large organisations, such as universities will often set up a global alias directory which maps a simple user name such as "jsmith" to an address which contains more information such as "[email protected]". This hides the detailed knowledge of where the message will be delivered from the sender, making it much easier to redirect mail if a user leaves or moves to a different department for example.
- electronic surveillance — use of electronic devices to spy, observe
- electrophotographically — In an electrophotographic manner; by means of electrophotography.
- electrostatic discharge — (hardware, testing) (ESD) One kind of test that hardware usually has to pass to prove it is suitable for sale and use. The hardware must still work after is has been subjected to some level of electrostatic discharge. Some organisations have their own ESD requirements which hardware must meet before it will be considered for purchase. Different countries have different legal regulations about levels of ESD. See also Radio Frequency Interference, Electromagnetic Compatibility.
- electrostatic generator — any device for producing a high voltage by building up a charge of static electricity
- electroweak interaction — a type of fundamental interaction combining both the electromagnetic interaction and the weak interaction
- encapsulated postscript — (EPS) An extension of the PostScript graphics file format developed by Adobe Systems. EPS is used for PostScript graphics files that are to be incorporated into other documents. An EPS file includes pragmas (special PostScript comments) giving information such as the bounding box, page number and fonts used. On some computers, EPS files include a low resolution version of the PostScript image. On the Macintosh this is in PICT format, while on the IBM PC it is in TIFF or Microsoft Windows metafile format.
- entrance qualifications — academic requirements
- equivalent focal length — the ratio of the size of an image of a small distant object near the optical axis to the angular distance of the object in radians
- execute channel program — (operating system) (EXCP) An IBM system for low-level file access, where the programmer is completely responsible for providing a list of device-specific "channel comands" to be executed by I/O channels, control units and/or devices. The operating system will simply check the "CCW" chains for security purposes (access invalid memory or outside of file extents) and then schedule them for execution.
- experimental psychology — the scientific study of the individual behaviour of man and other animals, esp of perception, learning, memory, motor skills, and thinking
- extracorporeal dialysis — the filtering of circulating blood through a semipermeable membrane in an apparatus
- fall flat on one's face — to fail, esp in a ridiculous or humiliating manner
- 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.
- fendalton shopping cart — a four-wheel drive recreational vehicle
- 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.
- field effect transistor — a transistor in which the output current is varied by varying the value of an electric field within a region of the device. Abbreviation: FET.
- field-effect transistor — a transistor in which the output current is varied by varying the value of an electric field within a region of the device. Abbreviation: FET.
- firing on all cylinders — working or performing at full capability
- first earl of leicester — Robert, 1st Earl of Leicester, 1532?–88, British statesman and favorite of Queen Elizabeth.
- floating-point specrate — SPECrate_fp92
- flow-matic or flowmatic — (Originally B-0) Possibly the first English-like DP language. Developed at Remington Rand in 1958 for the UNIVAC I.
- 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).
- forest tent caterpillar — any of the larvae of several moths of the genus Malacosoma, which feed on the leaves of orchard and shade trees and live colonially in a tentlike silken web.
- 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
- fractional distillation — the separation of volatile components of different boiling points in a mixture by the gradual increase of temperature and the separate collection of each component.
- 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).
- free on-line dictionary — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- 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
- friedel-crafts reaction — a reaction for the synthesis of hydrocarbons and ketones by the alkylation or acylation of an aromatic compound in the presence of a catalyst, typically anhydrous aluminum chloride.
- 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.
- grant-maintained school — a school funded directly by central government
- have tickets on oneself — to be conceited
- heterogeneous catalysis — Heterogeneous catalysis is catalysis in which the catalyst does not take part in the reaction that it increases.
- hexagonal cross-section — If a kelly has a hexagonal cross-section, it has a surface area with six equal sides, when looked at as if has been sliced through.