14-letter words containing b, a, n, g, l, d
- lambda lifting — A program transformation to remove free variables. An expression containing a free variable is replaced by a function applied to that variable. E.g. f x = g 3 where g y = y + x x is a free variable of g so it is added as an extra argument: f x = g 3 x where g y x = y + x Functions like this with no free variables are known as supercombinators and are traditionally given upper-case names beginning with "$". This transformation tends to produce many supercombinators of the form f x = g x which can be eliminated by eta reduction and substitution. Changing the order of the parameters may also allow more optimisations. References to global (top-level) constants and functions are not transformed to function parameters though they are technically free variables. A closely related technique is closure conversion. See also Full laziness.
- landing beacon — a radio transmitter that emits a landing beam
- living bandage — a method of treating severe burns or other skin injuries in which cultured cells grown from a sample of the patient's own skin are applied to the wound in order to stimulate new cell growth and avoid problems of graft rejection
- load balancing — (operating system, parallel) Techniques which aim to spread tasks among the processors in a parallel processor to avoid some processors being idle while others have tasks queueing for execution. Load balancing may be performed either by heavily loaded processors (with many tasks in their queues) sending tasks to other processors; by idle processors requesting work from others; by some centralised task distribution mechanism; or some combination of these. Some systems allow tasks to be moved after they have started executing ("task migration") others do not. It is important that the overhead of executing the load balancing algorithm does not contribute significantly to the overall processing or communications load. Distributed scheduling algorithms may be static, dynamic or preemptive. Static algorithms allocate processes to processors at run time while taking no account of current network load. Dynamic algorithms are more flexible, though more computationally expensive, and give some consideration to the network load before allocating the new process to a processor. Preemptive algorithms are more expensive and flexible still, and may migrate running processes from one host to another if deemed beneficial. Research to date indicates that dynamic algorithms yield significant performance benefits, but that further (though lesser) gains may be had through the addition of process migration facilities.
- moulding board — a board on which dough is kneaded
- natural bridge — a natural limestone bridge in western Virginia. 215 feet (66 meters) high; 90 feet (27 meters) span.
- needle bearing — an antifriction roller bearing in which long rollers of very small diameter fill the race without a cage to provide spacers between them
- planning board — development group
- plotting board — Navigation. a transparent table on a ship, used as a plotting sheet.
- ragnar lodbrok — a possibly historical Danish king of the 9th century, the subject of an Old Icelandic saga and of accounts in the Danish history by Saxo Grammaticus: also associated with the story of Sigurd and the Volsungs.
- roller bandage — a long bandage rolled into a cylinder
- scribbling pad — a notebook or sketchbook
- spiral binding — a binding, as for a notebook or booklet, in which the pages are fastened together by a spiral of wire or plastic that coils through a series of holes punched along one side of each page and the front and back covers.
- yard-long bean — asparagus bean.