27-letter words containing a, l, p, n, c
- netware link state protocol — (networking, protocol) (NLSP) A companion protocol to IPX for exchange of routing information in a Novell network. NLSP supersedes Novell's RIP.
- network application support — (networking) (NAS) DEC's approach to applications integration across a distributed multivendor environment.
- neurolinguistic programming — a therapy designed to alter behaviour by reprogramming unconscious patterns of thought
- pelvic inflammatory disease — an inflammation of the female pelvic organs, most commonly the fallopian tubes, usually as a result of bacterial infection. Abbreviation: PID.
- peripheral technology group — (company) A national and international distributor of IBM PC-to-Unix and Internet connectivity products. They cater for resellers, dealers and VARs and are one of the top Seagate and Micropolis distributors in the US. Address: Eden Prairie, MN, USA (a suburb of Minneapolis). Eden Prairie ("Silicon Prairie") is the home of Digi International, Ontrack, Open Systems, LaserMaster, Best Buy, and others.
- personal accident insurance — accident which covers personal accidents
- physiological salt solution — isotonic sodium chloride solution.
- plain old telephone service — (communications) (POTS) The traditional voice service provided by phone companies, especially when opposed to data services. Note that the acronym POTS is sometimes expanded as "Plain Old Telephone System" in which sense it is synonymous to Public Switched Telephone Network but used somewhat derogatively.
- polyalphabetic substitution — a system of substitution that mixes together a number of cipher alphabets in a cryptogram so that each plaintext letter is represented by a cipher that repeatedly changes.
- portable scheme interpreter — (PSI) A portable scheme interpreter by Ozan Yigit <[email protected]>, David Keldsen and Pontus Hedman that includes a simple DAG compiler and a virtual machine. It can be used as an integrated extension interpreter in other systems and allows easy addition of new primitives. There are some unique debugging and tracing facilities. Acceptable performance results from a fairly straight-forward implementation. Continuations are fully and portably supported and perform well. PSI is based on the simple compilers and virtual machine in Kent Dbyvig's thesis. The pre-release version conforms to R4RS with a number of useful extensions.
- press complaints commission — an independent body which has the job of investigating complaints from the public against newspapers for what they have published
- prince albert national park — a national park in W Canada, in central Saskatchewan. 1869 sq. mi.
- product liability insurance — Product liability insurance is insurance for a producer or supplier of goods against injury to third parties or loss of or damage to their property that is caused by a fault in the goods.
- protestant episcopal church — Episcopal Church in America.
- provisional driving licence — a temporary driving licence issued to learner drivers
- public broadcasting service — a network of independent, noncommercial television stations that operate with public and government funding instead of with revenues from advertising. Abbreviation: PBS.
- public service broadcasting — publicly-funded broadcasting
- public works administration — the U.S. federal agency (1933–44) that instituted and administered projects for the construction of public works. Abbreviation: PWA, P.W.A.
- publius-licinius-valerianus — (Publius Licinius Valerianus) died a.d. c260, Roman emperor 253–60.
- respiratory syncytial virus — a myxovirus causing infections of the nose and throat, esp in young children. It is thought to be involved in some cot deaths
- rockwell protocol interface — (RPI) A cost-cutting feature of some modems allowing data compression and error correction (e.g. ITU-T V.42bis, V.42) to be provided in software instead of hardware. Usually an RPI modem comes with RPI-aware software (e.g. the low-end RPI models of Supra come with the COMit which supports RPI, providing MNP 2,4,5,7, V.42 and V.42bis). RPI is not supported by many commercial packages nor by current releases of popular shareware communication programs (Telix v3.22 and Telemate v4.12). ProComm Plus for Windows 2.0 will support RPI. Currently Rockwell produce two classes of RPI chip set. The original is capable of 2400 bit/s data, 9600 bit/s class 1-only fax. The newer one is capable of 14400 bit/s data/fax. Currently there are no RPI chipset from Rockwell supporting speeds higher than 14400 bit/s.
- rough endoplasmic reticulum — a network of tubular membranes within the cytoplasm of the cell, occurring either with a smooth surface (smooth endoplasmic reticulum) or studded with ribosomes (rough endoplasmic reticulum) involved in the transport of materials.
- serial peripheral interface — (communications, hardware) (SPI) A serial interface in which a master device supplies clock pulses to exchanges data serially with a slave over two data wires (Master-Slave and Slave-Master). This term probably originated with Motorola in about 1979 with their first all-in-one microcontroller.
- session initiation protocol — (protocol) (SIP) A very simple text-based application-layer control protocol. It creates, modifies, and terminates sessions with one or more participants. Such sessions include Internet telephony and multimedia conferences. It is described in RFC 2543.
- spa and wellness facilities — In a hotel, the spa and wellness facilities are where people go to exercise and have special treatments in order to improve their health.
- statistical process control — Statistical process control is a method used for maintaining quality in a manufacturing process by measuring characteristics of a product and using deviations from the ideal to adjust the process.
- stock market closing report — a summary of the prices of stocks and shares at the end of trading including information about their gains or losses over the trading period
- synchronous optical network — (networking) (SONET) A broadband networking standard based on point-to-point optical fibre networks. SONET will provide a high-bandwidth "pipe" to support ATM-based services. The SONET standard will establish a digital hierarchical network with a consistent worldwide transport scheme. SONET has been designed to take advantage of fibre, in contrast to the plain old telephone system which was designed for copper wires. SONET carries circuit-switched data in frames at speeds in multiples of 51.84 megabits per second (Mbps) up to 48 * 51.84 Mbps = 2.488 gigabits per second. Since SONET uses multiple channels to transmit data, each SONET frame can be considered to be a two-dimensional table of bytes that is 9 rows high and 90 columns deep. For every OC-n level, SONET can transmit n number of frames at a given time. Groups of frames are called superframes. SONET is the American version of SDH.
- tandem application language — Transaction Application Language
- telephone answering machine — answering machine.
- to cast pearls before swine — If you say that someone is casting pearls before swine, you mean that they are wasting their time by offering something that is helpful or valuable to someone who does not appreciate or understand it.
- trichlorophenoxyacetic acid — an insoluble crystalline solid; 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid. It is a plant hormone and is used as a weedkiller. Formula: C8H5Cl3O3
- universal computer protocol — (communications, protocol) An earlier form of External Machine Interface (EMI).
- vice-presidential candidate — a candidate for the position of a person who ranks immediately below the chief executive or head of state of a republic, esp of the US
- western digital corporation — (company) A company founded in 1970 as a specialised semiconductor manufacturer, which today manufactures and sells microcomputer products including small form factor hard disk drives for personal computers, integrated circuits and circuit boards for graphics, storage, communications, battery management, and logic functions.