23-letter words containing a, u, r, o
- concertgebouw orchestra — an Amsterdam orchestra, established in 1888, that has been independent of the Concertgebouw hall since World War II
- concrete data structure — (theory) (CDS) A model of programming language terms developed in the context of constructing fully abstract semantics for sequential languages. A CDS is a 4-tuple (C,V,E,|-) where C is a cell, V is a value, E is an event and |- is an "enabling relation". An event is a cell and a value. A cell C is "enabled" by a set of events S if S |- C. A state is a set of events which are consistent in that the values they give for any cell are all equal. Every cell in a state is enabled.
- conjunctive normal form — (logic) (CNF) A logical formula consisting of a conjunction of disjunctions of terms where no disjunction contains a conjunction. Such a formula might also be described as a product of sums. E.g. the CNF of (A and B) or C is (A or C) and (B or C). Contrast Disjunctive Normal Form.
- conservative evaluation — (programming) Under this parallel evaluation strategy, no evaluation is started unless it is known to be needed. The opposite of conservative evaluation is speculative evaluation.
- constitutional monarchy — a monarchy governed according to a constitution that limits and defines the powers of the sovereign
- consultant psychiatrist — a psychiatrist who has attained the rank of consultant
- corporate restructuring — a change in the business strategy of an organization resulting in diversification, closing parts of the business, etc, to increase its long-term profitability
- correlative conjunction — either member of a matched pair of words, of which the second is a coordinating conjunction, as either … or, neither … nor, both … and, or not only … but.
- corridor of uncertainty — an area of a wicket just outside a batsman's off stump, so located that the batsman will have difficulty in deciding whether or not to play a ball bowled into it
- court of first instance — a court in which legal proceedings are begun or first heard
- creative writing course — a course in which people are taught creative writing skills
- criminal records bureau — (in England and Wales) a service offering employers and voluntary organizations access to police, health, and education records
- critique of pure reason — a philosophical work (1781) by Immanuel Kant.
- current-cost accounting — a method of accounting that values assets at their current replacement cost rather than their original cost
- cut sb's umbilical cord — If you say that one person, organization, or country has cut its umbilical cord with another, you mean that they have done something that makes them more independent.
- dark-field illumination — illumination of the field of a microscope from the side so that the specimen is viewed against a dark background
- department of education — the department of the U.S. federal government that administers federal programs dealing with education: created in 1979, largely by transfer from part of the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Abbreviation: ED.
- deterministic automaton — (theory) A finite-state automaton in which the overall course of the computation is completely determined by the program, the starting state, and the initial inputs. The class of problems solvable by such automata is the class P (see polynomial-time algorithm).
- dichlorodifluoromethane — a colourless nonflammable gas easily liquefied by pressure: used as a propellant in aerosols and fire extinguishers and as a refrigerant. Formula: CCl2F2
- dictionary of computing — Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
- digital subscriber loop — Digital Subscriber Line
- dionysius of alexandria — ("the Great") a.d. c190–265, patriarch of Alexandria 247?–265?.
- discontinuous variation — variation in phenotypic traits in which types are grouped into discrete categories with few or no intermediate phenotypes. Compare continuous variation.
- 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).
- drummond of hawthornden — William. 1585–1649, Scottish poet, historian, and royalist pamphleteer
- dual sensory impairment — the condition of being affected by sight and hearing loss
- earthquake-proof design — Earthquake-proof design is design which will not be badly damaged by earthquakes or tsunamis.
- eastern orthodox church — Orthodox Church (def 1).
- eating your own dogfood — eating one's own dogfood
- education correspondent — a journalist who reports news in the field of education or teaching
- electronic surveillance — use of electronic devices to spy, observe
- 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
- european monetary union — the agreement between members of the European Union to establish a common currency. The current participating members are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- fifth marquis lansdowne — Henry Charles Keith, 5th Marquis of Lansdowne, Lansdowne, 5th Marquis of.
- fish in troubled waters — any of various cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates, having gills, commonly fins, and typically an elongated body covered with scales.
- 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).
- 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
- 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).
- friction reducing agent — A friction reducing agent is an additive used to reduce friction exerted downhole on tools and pipes.
- 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
- 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.
- 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
- gamma-aminobutyric acid — GABA.
- garbage in, garbage out — (humour) (GIGO) /gi:'goh/ Wilf Hey's maxim expressing the fact that computers, unlike humans, will unquestioningly process nonsensical input data and produce nonsensical output. Of course a properly written program will reject input data that is obviously erroneous but such checking is not always easy to specify and is tedious to write. GIGO is usually said in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't "do the right thing" when given imperfect input or otherwise mistreated in some way. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. The expansion "Garbage In, Gospel Out" is an ironic comment on the tendency to put excessive trust in "computerised" data.