24-letter words containing a, l, o, n
- emotional roller coaster — a situation or experience that alternates between making you feel excited, exhilarated, or happy and making you feel sad, disappointed, or desperate
- endotracheal anaesthesia — a method of administering gaseous anaesthetics to animals through a tube inserted into the trachea
- environmental assessment — a formal assessment of the impact a project will have on the environment
- environmental management — controlled and planned management of the environment
- environmentally friendly — that has no or the least possible impact on the environment
- equivalence partitioning — equivalence class partitioning
- ethyl-para-aminobenzoate — benzocaine
- 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
- face as long as a fiddle — a dismal or gloomy facial expression
- family income supplement — a benefit formerly paid to low-income families
- federal power commission — FPC.
- federal trade commission — FTC.
- ferdinand lewis alcindor — (Ferdinand) Lew(is, Jr.) original name of Abdul-Jabbar.
- fight or flight reaction — the response of the sympathetic nervous system to a stressful event, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.
- fight-or-flight reaction — the response of the sympathetic nervous system to a stressful event, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.
- floating decimal (point) — a decimal (point) whose position is not fixed
- floating point underflow — underflow
- floating-point specratio — SPECfp92
- flue gas desulfurization — Flue gas desulfurization is the removal of pollutants containing sulfur from flue gas.
- follow someone's example — If you follow someone's example, you behave in the same way as they did in the past, or in a similar way, especially because you admire them.
- footloose and fancy-free — If you describe someone as footloose and fancy-free, you mean that they are not married or in a similar relationship, and you therefore consider them to have very few responsibilities or commitments.
- 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.
- frequent-flyer programme — a plan or system under which frequent flyers earn rewards for being regular customers
- functional specification — (programming, project) A description of what a system (e.g. a piece of software) does or should do (but not how it should do it). The functional specification is one of the inputs to the design process. See IEEE/ANSI Std. 610.12-1990.
- general of the air force — the highest ranking officer in the U.S. Air Force.
- general protection fault — General Protection Failure
- general purpose language — (GPL) An ALGOL 60 variant with user-definable types and operators.
- geographical determinism — the theory that human activity is determined by geographical conditions
- get hot under the collar — If someone gets hot under the collar about something, they get very annoyed, angry, or excited about it.
- global network navigator — (GNN) A collection of free services provided by O'Reilly & Associates. The Whole Internet Catalog describes the most useful Net resources and services with live links to those resources. The GNN Business Pages list companies on the Internet. The Internet Help Desk provides help in starting Internetq exploration. NetNews is a weekly publication that reports on the news of the Internet, with weekly articles on Internet trends and special events, sports, weather, and comics. There are also pages aobut travel and personal finance. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Telephone: (800) 998 9938 (USA), +1 (707) 829 0515 (outside USA).
- glycogen storage disease — any of several inherited disorders of glycogen metabolism that result in excess accumulation of glycogen in various organs of the body.
- greater london authority — local government body of UK capital
- 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.
- have carnal knowledge of — to have sexual intercourse with
- have sth up one's sleeve — If you have something up your sleeve, you have an idea or plan which you have not told anyone about. You can also say that someone has an ace, card, or trick up their sleeve.
- head and shoulders above — vastly superior to
- heart is a lonely hunter — a novel (1940) by Carson McCullers.
- hit the nail on the head — a slender, typically rod-shaped rigid piece of metal, usually in any of numerous standard lengths from a fraction of an inch to several inches and having one end pointed and the other enlarged and flattened, for hammering into or through wood, other building materials, etc., as used in building, in fastening, or in holding separate pieces together.
- homolographic projection — an equal-area projection in which the proportion between regions of unequal area is correctly shown.
- human potential movement — a movement in psychology that includes group therapy, encounter therapy, primal therapy, etc., is based mainly on Freudian and Gestalt psychology, and is aimed at self-realization
- hydrochlorofluorocarbons — Plural form of hydrochlorofluorocarbon.
- hyperbetalipoproteinemia — An abnormally high level of betalipoprotein in the blood.
- immunofluorescence assay — a diagnostic blood test using the technique of immunofluorescence. Abbreviation: IFA.
- implicit differentiation — a method of finding the derivative of an implicit function by taking the derivative of each term with respect to the independent variable while keeping the derivative of the dependent variable with respect to the independent variable in symbolic form and then solving for that derivative.
- in someone's black books — out of favour with someone
- in words of one syllable — simply; bluntly