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25-letter words containing a, m, i, l

  • frame relay access device — (communications)   (FRAD) Hardware and software that turns packets from TCP, SNA, IPX, etc into frames that can be sent over a Frame Relay wide area network. FRADs are a hot topic in data comms because companies like Netlink, Motorola, Stratacom are making lots of money out of them.
  • fully lazy lambda lifting — John Hughes's optimisation of lambda lifting to give full laziness. Maximal free expressions are shared to minimise the amount of recalculation. Each inner sub-expression is replaced by a function of its maximal free expressions (expressions not containing any bound variable) applied to those expressions. E.g. f = \ x . (\ y . (+) (sqrt x) y) ((+) (sqrt x)) is a maximal free expression in (\ y . (+) (sqrt x) y) so this inner abstraction is replaced with (\ g . \ y . g y) ((+) (sqrt x)) Now, if a partial application of f is shared, the result of evaluating (sqrt x) will also be shared rather than re-evaluated on each application of f. As Chin notes, the same benefit could be achieved without introducing the new higher-order function, g, if we just extracted out (sqrt x). This is similar to the code motion optimisation in procedural languages where constant expressions are moved outside a loop or procedure.
  • general recursion theorem — (mathematics)   Cantor's theorem, originally stated for ordinals, which extends inductive proof to recursive construction. The proof is by pasting together "attempts" (partial solutions).
  • genetically modified food — a food that contains ingredients made from genetically modified plants or animals
  • global positioning system — GPS (def 1).
  • graham's law of diffusion — the principle that at a given temperature and pressure the rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its density.
  • hailsham of st marylebone — Baron, title of Quintin (McGarel) Hogg (ˈkwɪntɪn). 1907–2001, British Conservative politician; Lord Chancellor (1970–74; 1979–87). He renounced his viscountcy in 1963 when he made an unsuccessful bid for the Conservative Party leadership; he became a life peer in 1970
  • harris semiconductor ltd. — (company)   Address: Riverside Way, Camberley, Surrey, CU15 3YQ, UK. Telephone: +44 (1276) 686 886. Fax: +44 (1276) 682 323.
  • honi soit qui mal y pense — shamed be he who thinks evil of it: the motto of the Order of the Garter
  • human embryonic stem cell — a stem cell obtained from the blastocyst of a human embryo
  • immediate-release coating — An immediate-release coating is a tablet coating that breaks down immediately in the body.
  • immigration border patrol — (in the US) a law enforcement agency responsible for issues regarding border laws and immigration
  • in (or out of) mothballs — put into (or taken from) a condition of being stored or in reserve
  • in the palm of one's hand — If you have someone or something in the palm of your hand, you have control over them.
  • initial microprogram load — (operating system)   (IML) Loading microcode into microcode memory.
  • instrumental conditioning — conditioning (def 1).
  • intermittent claudication — pain and cramp in the calf muscles, aggravated by walking and caused by an insufficient supply of blood
  • international atomic time — a system of measuring time based on atomic clocks that measure the second as the basic unit of time in the International System of Units (SI). Abbreviation: IAT.
  • international match point — a unit of scoring in contract bridge tournaments held in Europe. Abbreviation: IMP.
  • it's not simply/just that — You use it in expressions such as it's not that or it's not simply that when you are giving a reason for something and are suggesting that there are several other reasons.
  • jean-maurice-Émile baudot — (person)   (1845-1903) The inventor of the Baudot code. Baudot joined the French Post & Telegraph Administration in 1869 as a telegraph operator. In his own time he developed a code for sending several messages at once. In 1874 Baudot patented his first printing telegraph where signals were translated onto paper tape. The Baudot code was adopted first in France and then by other nations for and transmissions. The unit of transmission speed, baud, is named after him.
  • joint technical committee — (standard, body)   (JTC) A standards body straddling ISO and IEC.
  • leaf distribution limited — A UK connectivity software supplier which also provides SERVELAN, a country-wide Internet access service. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Address: 7 Elmwood, Chineham Business Park, Crockford Lane, BASINGSTOKE RG24 0WG. Telephone: +44 (1256) 707 777. Fax: +44 (1256) 707 555.
  • les demoiselles d'avignon — a painting (1907) by Pablo Picasso.
  • letters of administration — a formal document nominating a specified person to take over, administer, and dispose of an estate when there is no executor to carry out the testator's will
  • limited liability company — a company which operates with limited liability
  • limited-slip differential — an automotive differential that can transfer power from a wheel that has lost traction to one that has not.
  • lowest common denominator — least common denominator.
  • marcus aurelius antoninus — Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius.
  • marcus-valerius-martialis — (Marcus Valerius Martialis) a.d. 43?–104? Roman epigrammatist, born in Spain.
  • medical officer of health — a person appointed by a local or national authority to be in charge of its health policy
  • melanesian pidgin english — Neo-Melanesian.
  • metal oxide semiconductor — a three-layer sandwich of a metal, an insulator (usually an oxide of the substrate), and a semiconductor substrate, used in integrated circuits. Abbreviation: MOS.
  • metal-free phthalocyanine — phthalocyanine (def 1).
  • methylrosaniline chloride — gentian violet.
  • metropolitan area network — (MAN) A data network intended to serve an area the size of a large city. Such networks are being implemented by innovative techniques, such as running optical fibre through subway tunnels. A popular example of a MAN is SMDS. See also Local Area Network, Wide Area Network.
  • miguel hidalgo y costilla — Miguel [mee-gel] /miˈgɛl/ (Show IPA), 1753–1811, Mexican priest, patriot, and revolutionist.
  • minimal brain dysfunction — (no longer in technical use) attention deficit disorder.
  • mount kenya national park — a national park in Kenya, located in the regions of Mount Kenya that are above 3200 m (10 500 ft); now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the park covers 1420 sq km (548 sq miles)
  • mpc level 1 specification — (multimedia)   The original Multimedia Personal Computer specification. Minimum requirements are a 16 MHz 386SX with 2 megabytes of RAM, a 30 MB hard disk drive, and a CD-ROM drive with a sustained data transfer rate of 150 KB/s at no more than 40% of CPU bandwidth and reading at least 16 KB blocks. The maximum average seek time is 1 second and the Mean Time Between Failure 10000 hours. Capability Mode 1. The computer must have 8-bit digital sound and an 8-note synthesizer with MIDI playback. Sample rates of 22.05 and 11.025 kHz must be supported by no more than 10% of CPU bandwidth, preferably 44.1 kHz at no more than 15% of CPU bandwidth. The synthesizer must support multi-voice, multi-timbral generation of six simultaneous melody notes and two simultaneous percussive notes with internal mixing capabilities to combine input from three sources and present the output as a stereo, line-level audio signal at the back panel. The video display must have a resolution of at least 640 x 480 in 16 colours. MIDI, I/O, and joystick ports must be previded. Compare MPC Level 2 Specification.
  • mpc level 2 specification — (multimedia)   An improved version of the MPC Level 1 Specification for Multimedia Personal Computers. Minimum requirements are a 25 Mhz 486SX with 4 MB of RAM and a 160 MB hard disk drive. The CD-ROM drive must support a sustained data transfer rate of 300 KB/s using at most 60% of CPU bandwidth on 16 KB minimum block read size. Its average seek time must be 400 milliseconds maximum. Capability Mode 1, Mode 2 form 1, Mode 2 form 2, Multisession. It must be CD-ROM XA-ready. The computer must have 16-bit digital sound, an 8-note synthesizer, and MIDI playback. A sample rate of 44.1 kHz must be available on stereo channels with more than 15% of CPU bandwidth. A video display with a resolution of 640 x 480 in 65,536 colours, and MIDI, I/O, and joystick ports must be provided.
  • multi-scene control board — preset board.
  • multinational corporation — international business
  • my favourite toy language — (jargon, language)   (MFTL) Describes a talk on a programming language design that is heavy on syntax (with lots of BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics (e.g. type systems), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see content-free). More broadly applied to talks - even when the topic is not a programming language --- in which the subject matter is gone into in unnecessary and meticulous detail at the sacrifice of any conceptual content. "Well, it was a typical MFTL talk". 2. A language about which the developers are passionate (often to the point of prosyletic zeal) but no one else cares about. Applied to the language by those outside the originating group. "He cornered me about type resolution in his MFTL." The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is usually to write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design away from contamination by lesser languages by writing a compiler for it in itself. Thus, the standard put-down question at an MFTL talk is "Has it been used for anything besides its own compiler?". On the other hand, a language that *cannot* be used to write its own compiler is beneath contempt. See break-even point, toolsmith.
  • national advanced systems — (company)   (NAS) A company, previously known as ITEL, that made IBM plug-compatible hardware and was bought by Hitachi.
  • national insurance number — a number allocated to UK citizens so that they can pay national insurance
  • national unity government — a government formed by a coalition of parties, esp in time of national emergency
  • non-algorithmic procedure — heuristic
  • normal equivalent deviate — a value x such that the integral of a normal curve over all those values of the independent variable less than x is equal to the given probability.
  • object relational mapping — (programming, database)   (ORM) The software development activity that defines a correspondence between objects in a program and rows in a database table. Atomic object properties correspond to columns in the table, non-atomic data types and relations between objects are represented as foreign keys referring to other tables. An object persistence mechanism is responsible for maintaining the correspondence between objects and the database contents at run-time.
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