29-letter words containing a, l, u, n, i
- longitudinal redundancy check — (storage, communications) (LRC, Block Redundancy Check) An error checking method that generates a longitudinal parity byte from a specified string or block of bytes on a longitudinal track. The longitudinal parity byte is created by placing individual bytes of a string in a two-dimensional array and performing a Vertical Redundancy Check vertically and horizontally on the array, creating an extra byte. This is an improvement over the VRC because it will catch two errors in the individual characters of the string, beyond the odd errors.
- lotus development corporation — (company) A software company who produced Lotus 1-2-3, the Symphony spreadsheet and Lotus Notes for the IBM PC. Disliked by the League for Programming Freedom on account of their lawsuits. Quarterly sales $224M, profits $10M (Aug 1994). Telephone: +1 (617) 225 1284.
- make hay while the sun shines — grass, clover, alfalfa, etc., cut and dried for use as forage.
- maximum likelihood estimation — a method of estimating population characteristics from a sample by choosing the values of the parameters that will maximize the probability of getting the particular sample actually obtained from the population.
- mechanical equivalent of heat — (in any system of physical units) the number of units of work or energy equal to one unit of heat, as 4.1858 joules, which equals one small calorie.
- mecklenburg-western pomerania — a state in NE Germany. 8842 sq. mi. (22,900 sq. km). Capital: Schwerin.
- modified frequency modulation — (storage) (MFM, Modified FM, or sometimes "Multiple Frequency Modulation") A modification to the original frequency modulation scheme for encoding data on magnetic disks. MFM allows more than 1 symbol per flux transition (up to 3), giving greater density of data. It is used with a data rate of between 250-500 kbit/s on industry standard 3.5" and 5.25" low and high density diskettes, and up to 5 Mbit/s on ST-506 hard disks. Except for 1.44 MB floppy disks, this encoding is obsolete. Other data encoding schemes include GCR, FM, RLL. See also: PRML.
- mordovian autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 9843 sq. mi. (25,493 sq. km). Capital: Saransk.
- more trouble than it is worth — If you say that someone or something is more trouble than they are worth, you mean that they cause you a lot of problems or take a lot of time and effort and you do not achieve or gain very much in return.
- multics relational data store — (database) (MRDS) The first commercial relational database, implemented as part of Multics by Jim Weeldreyer and Oris Friesen of Honeywell Phoenix in about 1977. MRDS included a report writer called LINUS written by Jim Falksen.
- multimedia messaging services — (messaging) (MMS) A feature of some mobile telephones that allows them to send messages including text, sound, images and video.
- multiple personality disorder — psychiatric illness: split personality
- multiprotocol label switching — (networking) (MPLS) A packet switching protocol developed by the IETF. Initially developed to improve switching speed, other benefits are now seen as being more important. MPLS adds a 32-bit label to each packet to improve network efficiency and to enable routers to direct packets along predefined routes in accordance with the required quality of service. The label is added when the packet enters the MPLS network, and is based on an analysis of the packet header. The label contains information on the route along which the packet may travel, and the forwarding equivalence class (FEC) of the packet. Packets with the same FEC are routed through the network in the same way. Routers make forwarding decisions based purely on the contents of the label. This simplifies the work done by the router, leading to an increase in speed. At each router, the label is replaced with a new label, which tells the next router how to forward the packet. The label is removed when the packet leaves the MPLS network. Modern ASIC-based routers can look up routes fast enough to make the speed increase less important. However, MPLS still has some benefits. The use of FECs allows QoS levels to be guaranteed, and MPLS allows IP tunnels to be created through a network, so that VPNs can be implemented without encryption.
- non-uniform rational b spline — (graphics, mathematics) (nurbs) A common term in Mechanical CAD. The NURBS has excellent continuity characteristics which make it useful for creating accurate models in 3D geometry generation and computer modelling.
- nuclear regulatory commission — an independent agency, created in 1975, that licenses and regulates the nonmilitary use of nuclear energy. Abbreviation: NRC.
- partial differential equation — a differential equation containing partial derivatives.
- real-time structured analysis — (programming) (RTSA) Any version of structured analysis capable of modelling real-time aspects of software.
- resource reservation protocol — (protocol) (RSVP) A protocol that supports quality of service.
- royal canadian mounted police — Canadian police on horseback
- run something up the flagpole — to pursue a tentative course of action in order to gauge the reaction it receives
- saint andrews static language — St Andrews Static Language
- scanning tunneling microscope — a device that uses a moving needle and the tunnel effect to generate a maplike image of the atomic surface structure of matter, thereby achieving even greater magnification than the scanning electron microscope.
- secure file transfer protocol — SSH File Transfer Protocol
- sexually transmitted diseases — any disease characteristically transmitted by sexual contact, as gonorrhea, syphilis, genital herpes, and chlamydia. Abbreviation: STD.
- small business administration — a federal agency, created in 1953, that grants or guarantees long-term loans to small businesses. Abbreviation: SBA, S.B.A.
- suppressed carrier modulation — an amplitude-modulated wave in which only the sidebands are transmitted, the carrier being removed
- symbolic automatic integrator — (mathematics, tool) (SAINT) A symbolic mathematics program written in Lisp by J. Slagle at MIT in 1961.
- synchronous data link control — (communications) (SDLC) An IBM protocol. A discipline conforming to subsets of the ADCCP of ANSI and the HDLC of the International Organization for Standardization. SDLC manages synchronous, code-transparent, bit-serial communication which can be duplex or half-duplex; switched or non-switched; point-to-point, multipoint, or loop. Compare Binary Synchronous Communication.
- synchronous digital hierarchy — (communications, standard) (SDH) An international digital telecommunications network hierarchy which standardises transmission around the bit rate of 51.84 megabits per second, which is also called STS-1. Multiples of this bit rate comprise higher bit rate streams. Thus STS-3 is 3 times STS-1, STS-12 is 12 times STS-1, and so on. STS-3 is the lowest bit rate expected to carry ATM traffic, and is also referred to as STM-1 (Synchronous Transport Module-Level 1). The SDH specifies how payload data is framed and transported synchronously across optical fibre transmission links without requiring all the links and nodes to have the same synchronized clock for data transmission and recovery (i.e. both the clock frequency and phase are allowed to have variations, or be plesiochronous). SDH offers several advantages over the current multiplexing technology, which is known as Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy. Where PDH lacks built-in facilities for automatic management and routing, and locks users into proprietary methods, SDH can improve network reliability and performance, offers much greater flexibility and lower operating and maintenance costs, and provides for a faster provision of new services. Under SDH, incoming traffic is synchronized and enhanced with network management bits before being multiplexed into the STM-1 fixed rate frame. The fundamental clock frequency around which the SDH or SONET framing is done is 8 KHz or 125 microseconds. SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) is the American version of SDH.
- translation look-aside buffer — (storage, architecture) (TLB) A table used in a virtual memory system, that lists the physical address page number associated with each virtual address page number. A TLB is used in conjunction with a cache whose tags are based on virtual addresses. The virtual address is presented simultaneously to the TLB and to the cache so that cache access and the virtual-to-physical address translation can proceed in parallel (the translation is done "on the side"). If the requested address is not cached then the physical address is used to locate the data in main memory. The alternative would be to place the translation table between the cache and main memory so that it will only be activated once there was a cache miss.
- universal resource identifier — (web) (URI, originally "UDI" in some WWW documents) The generic set of all names and addresses which are short strings which refer to objects (typically on the Internet). The most common kinds of URI are URLs and relative URLs. URIs are defined in RFC 1630.
- until one is blue in the face — to the utmost degree; indefinitely
- visual basic for applications — (programming) (VBA) Microsoft's common language for manipulating components of its Microsoft Office suite. It is used as the macro language for these applications and is the primary means of customising and extending them. A VBA program operates on objects representing the application and the entities it manipulates, e.g. a spreadsheet or a range of cells in Microsoft Excel.
- windows hardware quality labs — (body, standard) (WHQL) A Microsoft body that produces and supports the Microsoft Hardware Compatibility Test kit for current Microsoft operating systems. Products are tested with the kit to ensure that they meet Microsoft standards for compatibility with Windows and to qualify to use the "Designed for Microsoft Windows" logos.
- you can't hear yourself think — If you say that you can't hear yourself think, you are complaining and emphasizing that there is a lot of noise, and that it is disturbing you or preventing you from doing something.